“Eden, we can’t do that.”
“Why?”
“That hybrid was created as a weapon specifically for the purpose of fighting against us. Anything that they say to you is just as dangerous as them fighting against you.”
“How do you know that?” Eden asked, sounding more desperate. “It was lying there dying. It was asking for help.”
“Exactly, Eden,” Pyra said. “It was dying. It was taking the last chance that it had to find a way to hurt you. It couldn’t do it itself, but it could lead you downstairs where others might be waiting.”
“If there were others waiting down there, why didn’t they come up when we were spending the night here? Why didn’t they hear the battle and come reinforce them?”
“I don’t know the military techniques that Ryan has taught them. Just as the Denynso has methods and maneuvers, so do these hybrids. Those that were up in the hallway with us had the commands to go up there and fight us. Those downstairs might have been given orders to stay down there until we got there.”
“These aren’t the Denynso. They have no reason to fight against us except that they were told to. I don’t think it was trying to manipulate me,” Eden protested. “I really don’t, Pyra. It was asking for help. It was desperate. I know that there is something that we need to see downstairs.”
“We aren’t going downstairs,” Pyra said, his voice saying that he intended this to be the final say in the conversation.
The massive Denynso leader started to walk around his mate to go further into the room and check on the wounded, but she wouldn’t let him. Though a fraction of his size, Eden stepped into his path and squared her shoulders at him, commanding his attention and refusing to allow him to simply walk away from her without hearing everything that she had to say to him.
“What if there really are people down there who need our help?” she asked.
“There is no help that we can offer them,” Pyra insisted. “They are an enemy army, whether they are confronting us in battle or lying in wait for us. We are going to stay right here in these emergency chambers where we are safe and have the supplies that we need to get us through. You are going to stay here and take care of the baby.”
Eden straightened even further, her hands seeming to clench slightly at her sides.
“The Klimnu were our enemy, but we helped them when they needed us. The Denynso have no alliance with the Eteri or the Irisa, but we have helped and connected with both.”
“We helped Maxim,” Pyra argued. “He is not Klimnu.”
“There was a time not too long ago when you wouldn’t have argued that,” Eden said. “You were ready to kill him, but you changed your mind.”
“I’m not going to change my mind this time, Eden.”
Eden looked at her mate for a long, scrutinizing moment, and then started untying the sling that she had created for Lysander to hold him tightly to her chest.
“You don’t have to,” she said as she pulled the baby away from her body and started toward one of the other women. “I already have.” She held Lysander out toward the Denynso woman. “Zsilvia, will you please take care of Lysander for me?”
Zsilvia looked slightly startled, but held out her hands to take the baby.
“Yes,” she said.
“Thank you,” Eden said and stalked out of the room.
For a moment, it looked as though Pyra was going to follow her, but then he let out an exasperated sound and whipped around. When he did, his gaze fell on Jacob and he strode toward him aggressively. Jacob stood and faced the warrior, unsure of the intention behind the approach.
“Who are you?” Pyra demanded.
“I’m Jacob,” he answered.
“Who are you?” Pyra asked again, more forcefully this time. “You just showed up here with Jem without any explanation of who you are or where you came from or how you found him.”
Rilex came to Jacob’s side and looked up at Pyra’s face.
“What’s going on here?” Rilex asked protectively.
“You,” Pyra said. “You, too. The two of you, and that woman, showed up here with no explanation.”
“Who are you to ask who we are or our intentions?” Rilex asked.
“I am Pyra, the head of the Denynso, and the leader of this group,” Pyra said angrily.
Jacob felt the muscles throughout his body tighten.
“You may lead the Denynso and even those who have joined you, but we came here on our own volition and without any expectation of loyalty or leadership,” he said.
“Are you rejecting cooperation with us?” Pyra asked, a hint of threat in his voice.
“We are rejecting nothing,” Rilex said. “We came here. We joined you and fought alongside you in a battle that was not our own. But this was not our intention when we came to Earth. It was never in our plan to encounter a battle or to join an army. We aren’t rejecting cooperation with you, but we also don’t owe you anything, particularly a promise of following you as our leader.”
Jacob could hear the bitterness in Rilex’s voice and fully understood its origin. This was a man who had spent years alone, away from everything that he knew and everyone who had meant anything to him. He had been committed to fulfilling the quest of his dearest friend, a man who had died far too young, and had found himself thrust into a world that he didn’t understand when a portal on his planet sent him through time and space to a planet thousands of years ahead and in a different iteration of existence. There was no loyalty for Rilex outside of the loyalty that he still carried for the best friend whose family he had left behind and the mission that he knew was the only thing that would preserve all of reality. To be told that he had to give his allegiance to the leader of a species that he hadn’t even known existed during his life on his own planet and that now he had never encountered went against everything that he believed and offended his very nature.
“Do you have a problem with my leadership?” Pyra asked.
He had taken a step closer to Rilex and squared his chest. His sheer height made it so that unless Rilex was looking directly up it was only the warrior’s chest that he was able to see. This didn’t seem to intimidate Rilex, who simply lifted his gaze further.
“I have no problem with you leading anyone who is willing for you to lead them, but I am not. I have no leader. Not anymore. That doesn’t mean that I’m against you or that I will resist simply for the purpose of resisting, but if I agree not to stand in the way of your leadership for those who have pledged loyalty and allegiance to you, you must agree not to stand in the way of my not being led.”
“If you refuse to be loyal to us and to allow my leadership, how can I know that I can trust you? How do I know that you won’t betray us?”
“I fought alongside you,” Rilex repeated. “Being loyal does not have to mean pledging yourself. To truly trust is to acknowledge that a person has no ties and yet knowing that they will still stand beside you. I am nothing but loyal to Jem, yet he is in no way my leader. I don’t think it’s too much to ask the same of you.”
“Jem was dead,” Pyra said.
There was a sudden wavering in the warrior’s voice, a hint of vulnerability that broke through the strength and aggression that had been in his words. They were startling, uncomfortable words, ones that carried with them far more meaning than they would have if spoken by anyone else. This was not a statement, but a plea, a desperate need for him to understand what was happening. In that moment, Jacob felt like he was beginning to understand Pyra, at least so far as to no longer feel the threat that had been emanating off of him when he first approached. His demeanor had been accusatory, as if he believed that the two men had somehow been responsible for Jem’s disappearance, or even for the war that had just been waged in the hallway. Now, though, Jacob realized that was not the true motivation behind Pyra’s sternness and anger. Instead, the powerful, intense leader was protecting his kind. The thought that one of his warriors, something that he very obviously felt passio
nately about, had gone missing without explanation, apparently dead, was deeply upsetting and he was determined to understand what had happened to him and why.
Deep within himself Jacob knew that he wished there had been someone who had been as committed to finding out what had happened to him when he disappeared. It had been so much like Jem. One moment he was there, under the eyes of many others, and then in an instant he was gone. Unlike Jem, though, Jacob had disappeared along with four other people. It was obvious that the Denynso had been immediately worried about him and devastated by his loss. Even now, so long after it had happened, they were still deeply impacted by it and questioning what had happened in those first few moments after he was gone from their sight. Jacob wondered if there had even been a moment when the people he had left behind worried about him or wondered where he was. Though he had been out of a romantic relationship for a few years when he signed up for that expedition so he didn’t have a partner at home waiting for him like Angela had in her fiancé, he did have friends, a roommate, and parents. They should have known that he wouldn’t just decide to go off on another expedition without letting them know. No matter what the company had said to them or what type of measures they put into place to make it seem like he was still alive and well and just out of regular contact with them, they should have questioned it. He had always been fully devoted to his career and to the work that they were doing in the excavations, but he had never been one to just disconnect from the people he cared about. It wouldn’t be like him to communicate with his family and friends only through letters. They should have known that. They should have questioned what they were being told and what was happening.
Jacob glanced over at Jem where he lay on the mat on the floor, now covered with a blanket as he slept. The people Jem had left behind never stopped thinking about him. He wondered what might have been different if those he had left behind had done the same for him. What might have changed if, even for a moment, they hadn’t believed what the company had told them.
Chapter Three
Jacob rested a hand on Rilex’s back, wanting to both reassure him that he was there and to calm and comfort him. Though the two men were not as close as he and Jem were, Jacob could sense the tension continuing to build within the man and now that he had made a greater connection with Pyra he didn’t want him to let that aggression control him any further. He started to explain the situation to Pyra, but before he was able to get further than opening his mouth to tell him how Galadriel and Vyker had made their way to the planet where they found Jem, Eden rushed back into the room.
“I need you to see something,” she said to Pyra as she came to his side.
Pyra looked down at his mate with an indecipherable expression. There was something there that bordered on anger, but it wasn’t forceful and violent like the anger that the warrior had expressed toward Rilex and Jacob. Instead it was the type of anger that someone experiences when they feel that they have not done what they needed to do to protect someone they love.
“I told you not to go down there,” he said.
“Pyra, I need you to come with me,” Eden said, ignoring his admonition. “I think that I found what the hybrid was telling me to find.”
“I don’t care, Eden,” Pyra said. “I told you not to go down there. I told you that it was too dangerous for you to go down there.”
“Please come with me,” Eden said. “I need you to see this.”
Jacob could see the desperation in her face and felt a pull that told him he needed to know what was happening.
“What did it say to you?” he asked, not wanting them to realize that he had been listening to them when she first came into the room.
Eden looked at him, her eyes narrowing slightly as if she hadn’t fully processed that he was standing there.
“It asked for my help,” she finally responded. “It told me to find them and help them.”
“Who is ‘them’?” Jacob asked.
Eden shook her head.
“I don’t know. I can only guess that it’s more of them, more of the hybrids.”
“Can you show me?” Jacob asked. “Show me who asked you for help?”
He wanted to see the creature that had reached out to Eden. The concept of the hybrids was still something that he didn’t fully understand. He felt like he had been thrown into this reality and that he was trying to learn it, to understand it as it unfolded around him. Eden nodded and started toward the door again. Pyra grabbed her around the wrist to stop her and she turned to look at him, unflinching as she stared up into his face. A moment later he released her and Eden continued out of the emergency chamber and back toward the stairs.
Jacob followed her, listening carefully as they climbed to try to detect any sounds in the hallway above. It was silent, but there was still an eerie, uncomfortable feeling permeating the space around them. He didn’t feel calm or as though they were stepping back into a space that was free from the threat that had been there before. Instead, it felt like the final breaths that had been breathed there were still lingering in the hallway, poisoning the very air.
They made it to the top of the stairs and Eden climbed through the hole in the wall that led into the closet. She had picked up one of the lightsticks from the steps as they climbed and as she pushed open the door to the closet she held the stick ahead of her so that its glow illuminated the space. They stepped cautiously out of the closet and back into the hallway. At first Jacob thought that it looked just as it had when they left after the battle. As Eden stepped further into the hallway, staring at a section of the floor that was empty, he started to notice that there didn’t seem to be as many of the bodies strewn throughout the space as there had been.
“Where did it go?” she muttered.
“What?” Jacob asked.
Eden rushed across the hallway and held the stick up higher to spread more of the light across the hallway floor. Jacob could see streaks of dark fluid in the light, creating a trail that led several feet and then disappeared.
“It was right here,” she said, pointing at the ground. “It was right here. It was lying right there when I was leaving.”
“Are you sure?” Jacob asked.
Eden looked around at the few other bodies that were still lying on the ground. She nodded.
“Yes,” she insisted. “It wasn’t any of these. It was here. Right here.”
Jacob felt a chill run across his skin. She was standing among the dead, seeming unfazed at their presence. He wondered what she had seen, what she had gone through to make it so easy for her to simply overlook the bodies just at her feet.
“Where could it have gone?” Jacob asked. “None of us brought them downstairs. I was one of the last to go through there when I was carrying the winged man to the chamber. I know that I didn’t see anyone picking them up or moving them.”
“Are you sure?” Eden asked. “Are you sure that when you were carrying Azrael downstairs you didn’t see anyone else still up here, or go back upstairs? No one could have moved them?”
“No,” Jacob said. “No one.”
‘I don’t understand,” she said. “It was here. I know it was. It grabbed onto me. It asked me for help.”
“I believe you,” Jacob said. “We need to tell Pyra. Something is happening here and I think we need to figure out what it is.”
Eden nodded and they rushed back through the hole in the wall toward the stairs. Jacob felt relief as he shut the closet door behind them and began down toward the others. When they ran back into the emergency chamber they found Pyra crouched down beside one of the injured warriors. Eden reached down and took his shoulder, pulling on him until he stood and followed them back across the room away from the others. Jacob could tell that she didn’t want those who were injured or who were trying to help them to hear what they were saying.
“Pyra, please. I need you to listen to me. I know that you don’t want to, but you need to. We aren’t on Uoria now. We are on Earth. We are in the la
boratory where I spent my career. I know this place. That makes it my domain and I need you to listen to me.”
Pyra looked at her for a few tense seconds and then nodded.
“Alright, Eden. What is it?”
“The hybrid that asked me for help is gone. Several of them aren’t there anymore.”
“Could it have escaped?” Pyra asked, finally looking as though he were invested in what she was saying.
“No,” Eden said. “It was dying, Pyra. I could feel its hand on me. It was weak. It was barely able to speak. There’s no way that it got up and walked out of that hallway, especially in the time that we’ve been down here. Someone got it. Someone got all of them.”
“What did you want to tell me before you brought Jacob upstairs?” Pyra asked.
“There’s a door,” Eden said. “At the bottom of that set of stairs that we saw. It doesn’t look like it fits with this part of the building. There’s something about it that bothers me. I think that whatever is behind it is extremely important.”
Pyra reached down and lightly stroked her cheek with his knuckles.
“Alright,” he repeated. “Show me.”
Eden started out of the chamber again and Pyra followed. Jacob was close behind. He was a part of this now. He felt drawn to it in an inexplicable way, pulled to whatever was happening and to what it meant for him. They made their way down the stairs, moving deeper into the building than Jacob would have imagined it went. In the back of his mind he remembered the time that he had spent in that building before they left for the excavation. He never would have thought that this crumbling section existed just beneath the polished, sparkling floors of the laboratory. The thought was unnerving and he felt vaguely sick to his stomach as he wondered what might have been happening here when he was in the laboratory.
When they reached the bottom of the stairs Jacob saw a massive door built into the aged wall. Jacob immediately understood what Eden had meant when she said that it didn’t fit with the abandoned part of the building. It was far larger than any of the other doors in the building, but it was also of a completely different design. While the other doors were simple and lightly colored, this door was the color of darkened steel and featured long, narrow bands of metal down the length, thick, rounded bolts bordering each side. It was strangely primitive and yet was obviously several decades newer than the surrounding building, as if part of the wall had been torn away and this door built in its place. There was a lock pad positioned beside the door, much like the others in the newer portion of the building though less complicated.
Jacob & Phaedra's Story (Uoria Mates IV Book 2) Page 2
