by Jana Leigh
When Rosul developed a new weapon, Casius was ready to train the men and make sure they knew how to use them. He was relentless. It was going to be fun watching the big man try to deal with his female mate. All of the woman seemed independent. It would be fun to see how all of the men would respond to having women in Meridian City. Since men lived here there were no hair salons or spas.
No, the city held houses, thirty-one of them right now, and nine other buildings. There was the training facility that held all of the exercise equipment. Then there was the Dining Hall, built with a state of the art kitchen; Warrior Killen took it upon himself to take a chef’s class on the surface. He and his mate, Priw, were the cooks. They were in charge of that building, and everyone let them when they tasted their food, it was amazing.
They had a construction building, where they held materials to expand if needed, they also held all of the extra furniture they made and collected over the years. Several men were in charge of that. Then there was the financial building, where they held their money and gold. All of the men could live a very comfortable life if they had to on the surface. Then there was the clothing storage, which held all of the different clothing they had worn over the years, in addition to clothes in all the current styles.
There was the technology building, which was split in two, one side worked on weapons while the other worked on communication and computers. They were always busy discovering new ways to use the power they were able to harness. This led to the next building, which held the medical floor and offices for all the men. Then in the basement was their power source, what they had brought from their home planet, which allowed all of this to be possible. The source was never ending, it was found on their home planet and was tied to the water, and the Warriors had harnessed all of it. When the planet was in danger, their King ordered the source to be split and put on each ship. It was contained in a large metal container, which they could tap into easily. Xander was assured when they spilt the source that it would still be strong, and he had been right.
When they first landed on this planet, they conserved their energy, since they didn’t know for sure. Nevertheless, as the years went on and the source never wavered, Xander ordered it to be used more. They discovered that when they did use it, the source could reproduce the energy, which they took. Rosul could explain it, but after he got past the first sentence most of their eyes glazed over. What it boiled down to was that Rosul adapted the power source to this water to make it work, somehow they pulled the elements from the water, and it was added to the source. The Hopis would never have been able to figure this out, which was why they were still looking.
Finally, there was the King’s Palace. Xander had protested when the men began to build the huge house. However, they insisted on making sure their customs were upheld. The King and his mates on their home planet lived in a palace large enough for all the population to congregate. Since they were a diminished number of people, the palace was smaller. However, it would still hold all of them when they had a party, or celebration.
In the smaller but still rather large home that was just outside the Palace was meant for the leader of the security and head Warrior. That was Casius—he was the lead Warrior. Xander turned to his trusted friend and frowned at the seriousness of his expression.
“Yes, Casius,” Xander said and waited.
“What if they don’t want to stay, I mean down here. If we tell them what we are, then they could demand to leave and tell everyone where we are. We can’t allow that,” Casius said.
Xander frowned at him and shook his head. “If they are part Meridian, then they will feel the mating pull. We will have to convince them. They are our female mates, Cas—we never thought we would find them. We can’t just let them go.”
Cash, Rosul, and Des nodded as Xander was talking. Casius looked at his friends and then shook his head. “So, I would suggest that we lay it all out then. We have to give them all the facts and then we will see.”
“Cool. Then tag you are it,” Xander laughed at his friend who unfortunately, for him, spoke up.
“Wait, what?” Casius said and looked at his friends who were grinning at him. “Shit.”
***
Alex woke up again and this time it was easier to open her eyes. The nurse had given them something to sleep. She looked over and her friends were both waking up as well. Good, they were alone now and could talk. Something about this place did not ring true to her. She wasn’t sure what kind of town Meridian City was, but it certainly was different from any she had been in. They called their leader a King? What was up with that? In addition, so far the only nurse they had seen was Sage, no change of shift, no candy strippers. Just weird.
“Alex?” Gabby whispered, Alex turned and saw both of her friends were now sitting on the sides of their beds.
Alex grimaced when she saw the damage the storm had done to them. Shit, this sucked; all of them in one way or another were injured to the point that leaving this place today was out of the question. Alex would not put her friends in danger if they just had to put up with a little weirdness. She just needed a cell phone to call someone at the marina to notify them where they were so her father didn’t start a full out search for her.
“Yeah, I am up,” Alex said and pushed the button on the bed and made it rise, so she was sitting up. Alex felt her shoulder move and she groaned in pain. Shit, the nurse said she had dislocated and torn muscles. She was going to have to wait and see if she needed surgery. They would let her know today.
“You okay?” Sam asked quietly as not to make the nurse come back in.
“Sore, you?” Alex asked her two friends.
“Uhhhh, huge leg cast!” Sam said and pointed to the large cast on her leg, she had broken her femur, and it sucked.
“Yeah, sorry,” Alex muttered and then looked at Gabby who had a smaller cast on her foot since she broke her ankle.
“We are a sorry sight, I don’t think we have a choice,” Sam said and Alex looked miserable, her friends were right, they were going to have to stick this out. It was funny how they were on the same page; it just went to show you how close the three of them were.
“We just need to get a phone, we have to call the marina, or they will be sending out a search party soon. I would also like to know how big that damn storm turned out to be!” Alex whispered loudly.
“Well, do you have any suggestions on how to get the hell out of this mess?” Sam asked.
“Not really,” Alex said and bit her lip, “I think we are gonna have to wait and see what happens. Shit, have you ever seen so many hot men all in one place? And they are so tall. I bet they would tower over us.”
All three women were tall, and when they went on dates, they had to wear flat shoes because most of the time, they either looked their dates in the eyes, or they were taller than they were. In the past, they all commented on the fact that men didn’t really like taller women, it must be a superiority thing, they thought.
“I know, hell, Casius looks at me and I practically have an orgasm right there. What the hell is going on?” Gabby whispered.
None of them spoke for a while, each of them thinking about the men they were so drawn toward. Alex was freaking out a little by the fact that two men were so attractive to her, and they seemed to be friends. She would love to take one of them for a tumble in the sheets, but by the looks of it, that would never happen. She would never upset or come between friends.
“Where do you think we are at?” Gabby asked.
“Not sure, I was out the whole way here. I am not even sure how the hell they found us. I mean there was no one around us when we went over,” Alex said and then Sam laughed.
“No, there was a man swimming in the ocean,” Sam said smiling.
Gabby and Alex looked at each other and shook their head. “You were hallucinating,” Alex said laughing.
“I don’t know.” Sam frowned and looked around at her friends and said quietly, “I swear, he looked like the on
e you were talking to, Alex. I think his name was Des.”
“How could you see that?” Gabby teased.
“Because it was the last thing I saw before the wave hit. The man was riding the wave. He looked like he was having fun. That is what caught my attention. I am sure he was in the water. Are you sure there wasn’t another boat around? Maybe they were scuba diving or something. I don’t know. I just know I saw him,” Sam said in frustration.
“Regardless, we need to figure out what we have to do to get out of here, or get a phone,” Alex said with sympathy, she knew her friend thought she saw something.
***
“There you go, they have already set the tone,” Des said and pushed him toward the doorway they had been standing next to listening to their mates. All five of them had listened, and with a deep breath, Casius glared at them and walked into the room.
Xander and the others followed with smirks on their face. This would be entertaining to see the larger, hard Warrior try to explain this. Xander and Des knew they were going to have to jump in and save the poor guy, but they were going to make him start this at least. He needed to get used to speaking to people in complete sentences.
“Ladies,” Casius said slowly, then looked over his shoulder, and glared at all of the men when they smirked.
Alex and her friends turned and looked at the men with wary expressions. Xander wanted to sigh, it was going to take a lot of explaining for them to understand they had a new life now, at least he hoped so. Alex could always deny the bond, it would suck, but it could happen. Xander stood taller and thought, that was never going to happen, Alex was theirs, and the sooner she figured that out, the better for her.
The men all went to their mates and stood or sat beside them. Casius looked down at his mate and tried to smile. He probably looked like a scary dipshit, but he couldn’t help that.
“What do we have to talk about?” Alex said smartly and looked up at the men with a hint of defiance.
Casius cleared his throat and said, “Well, we are here to answer your questions the best we can.”
“Oh really? Then where are we?” Gabby asked.
“You are in Meridian City, we are approximately five miles below the surface of the water, and about three hundred miles southwest of the southern tip of the United States,” Casius said clearly and slowly.
Alex and the girls were silent for a moment before one of them—no one was sure who—began to laugh. Casius frowned and looked at his friends and shrugged his shoulders, none of the men understood why they were laughing until Alex spoke up.
“Okay, real funny, guys, now seriously, where are we. I am not getting the vibe from all of you that you are killers or kidnappers, so what’s the deal?” Alex asked, wiping the tears from her eyes.
“Ma’am, I really hate to disappoint you, but what I am saying is the truth. We are underwater, now, as I was saying. We are the Meridian. Our people came here when your planet was developing, after ours was destroyed. We live underwater because on our home planet, that is all there was. Our planet, Meridian, its surface was only water. We lived similar to this underwater there; however, we had a lot more sophisticated things, unlike now, where we are reliant on humans,” Casius said and looked at the women who were staring at him with their mouths open.
“We came here because your water was the closest to our planet, we need it to survive. Over time we found that we could help with your development, which we did and we have been able to advance more over the last few years,” Casius said and then went on to explain their history. The women never said a word while he was talking.
Xander and Des watched Alex as the story unfolded. She looked curious and not scared, which gave them hope. Sage stepped into the room behind them quietly, held a folder, and waited patiently for Casius to get to the part where he told them about their blood.
They agreed to give the women the basics. Where they came from, why, and how. They would all explain the present and the future to them. “So you see, the Hopis have been hunting us for all these years, so we stay hidden under the water. They have been unable to detect us. If we singularly go to the surface, we use our source of power for all of our technology, so they are looking for the large power trace, but we have been able to hide it from them, Cash and Rosul developed a cloaking field to help. We have never had any hope that we would find our female mate, but here you are.”
There was silence when he finished. The women looked at each other with a stunned expression. Des smiled, this was good, they were thinking. His hopes were dashed when Alex finally spoke.
“Are you out of your fucking mind? Did you really think we would believe that line of bullshit? Now, tell us where we are or things are gonna get nasty. I am serious,” she yelled and her friends nodded and looked indignant.
Xander stepped up, looked at the women, and said softly, “Casius speaks only the truth. I assure you that we are what we say. We are not keeping you here against your will; however, we really hope you will give us a chance to talk and explain a few things before you demand to leave.”
Alex looked up at him and scoffed, “Right? You are the King? Well, King of this Freak Circus, we are demanding to be taken to a real hospital, right now.”
Sage held up his hand and said, “Wait, we have more to discuss.”
“No, we really don’t,” Alex said and folded her arms across her chest. “Not until you either prove what you are saying is true or you let us make a call.”
Xander sighed and then shook his head as he saw the three women looking at each other smugly. Xander looked at Sage and nodded.
The man walked over to the far wall of the room. It was covered with what looked like a white wall. The tech guys developed this wall; they could change it from the wall to a realistic picture of the surface, with the sun shining in the window. It was calibrated with the rotation of the earth so when the dial was adjusted to the surface setting, it was real time, they could watch the sun rising and setting, see the birds flying, whatever. It could also be changed to see directly out into the city and from where they were sitting, it would show most of the town and the large barrier between them and the ocean. The view was spectacular. You could see the fish swimming around and the foliage, it was peaceful and dark, but the lights from the city allowed them to see out.
Sage looked over his shoulder and Xander nodded. The women looked curiously as he first hit the surface view. The storm still raged above, and the waves were huge. It had been a day since they had brought the girls down, but they could still see the remnants of the boat they were sailing. Des and Xander turned when Alex gasped at the sight, recognizing her own boat.
“What the hell?” Alex muttered and then Sage switched the view to the city. It was a darker view, but the lights from the source lit up the city like a beacon.
Sage backed up and they all watched as the girls struggled to see out the window. Sage brought wheelchairs for all of them and they helped the women into the seats then placed them right in front of the ceiling to floor window so they could look out.
Once again, there was silence. The men looked at each other grimacing and when Gabby started to speak the men held their breath.
“Oh shit, Alex, Sam, look at that,” she said and pointed to where the barrier between the ocean and the city was. The men leaned over and looked up. There was a large whale resting on the top. It was beautiful.
“This has to be a trick, how the heck did we get this far underwater, I mean look at the ground, parts of it are sand. There is no way, we would have died, no one can come down this far,” Alex whispered.
“Maybe we are dead,” Sam said and shrugged. “Or drugged and we are sharing a hallucination.”
“Great, those are our two choices?” Alex said and sucked in a trembling breath. What she was seeing did not make sense, nothing was.
“What are these buildings?’’ Gabby whispered and Casius started to point and explain what each were. The women were silent and listened. When he wa
s finished, they turned around.
“How did you get all this stuff down here?” Gabby asked smugly. “I mean you want us to believe we are five miles under the surface of the ocean, which is impossible by the way. Plus, you want us to believe you are an alien race who came here hundreds of years ago when your planet was destroyed.”
Alex took over, “And you want us to believe you can just go up anytime you want, bring back down all of this stuff with you, all with no one noticing. We are supposed to believe you have been waiting for a woman to be mates with two of you at the same time. Are you crazy?”
“Are we talking like ‘hey man you are crazy’ or like ‘you need to be evaluated and put in a mental institution?’” Des said smiling with amusement at the women.
Xander turned and slapped him on the back of the head; sometimes his sense of humor left a lot to be desired. Xander loved him but damn, this was not the time to be funny.
