by Smith, S. E.
“What are you doing there? I want to get this over with,” Zoran growled out. “Abby and Zohar will be waiting dinner if we don’t get this over with soon.”
Ha’ven rolled his eyes. “As usual, I see you are your typically pleasant self,” he drawled out as he stepped out of the alcove first.
“Shut up, Ha’ven,” Zoran retorted. “Creon should have let me burn your ass. I don’t know why he likes to hang with you and that fur ball so much.”
“Maybe because we don’t have a stick up our asses like you?” Ha’ven couldn’t help the taunt about how uptight Zoran usually was about everything.
“One of these days, pretty boy, you won’t have your fancy technology to hide behind,” Zoran snapped but the amused gleam in his eye took the bite out of his words.
Ha’ven chuckled. “Never. It is as much a part of me as your dragon and symbiot are of you.” He didn’t add it was more than technology that protected him.
“Greetings, Lady Ariel, Lady Reykill,” Adalard spoke up as he came in the room behind his brother. “May I say you both look as enchanting as ever. I see Bahadur has not been able to entice you away from the huge ass dragon who has claimed you, Lady Ariel.”
Mandra’s dark growl rippled through the air as he pulled Ariel closer to his hard body. His eyes darted past Ha’ven and Adalard to Creon. He watched his little brother shake his head showing that Bahadur was not there. He released the breath he had drawn in.
“You are going to need a new general if that bastard doesn’t stop sending her gifts. I’m going to cut him into little pieces and send him back to his home world in a very small box,” Mandra growled in a deep voice.
Morian’s and Ariel’s laughter filled the room as the men began competing to discover the best way to kill Bahadur. Even Ha’ven couldn’t resist adding a few suggestions. Things did not calm back down until a strange male quietly entered the room. Ha’ven’s eyes swept over Paul Grove as he entered. A ripple of unease brushed over Ha’ven as he realized that this male had in a matter of seconds taken note of everything in the room and he had no doubt that the male would be a deadly opponent if confronted. The male’s gaze settled on Morian Reykill who flushed a delicate pink before she and Ariel quietly excused themselves.
“Paul,” Zoran called out from where he had taken a seat at the head of the large rosewood table. “I would like to introduce you to some of the most experienced and deadly warriors in the known galaxies.”
Ha’ven rolled his eyes at Zoran’s introduction. “Don’t forget the best looking,” Ha’ven drawled out.
That comment started the group of men going again. Ha’ven sat back, a small grin curving his lips as he listened to the jokes, rude comments and watched the even ruder gestures being exchanged. This was good. It built a comradeship between the warriors that would make them stronger.
You fought harder for those you trusted and respected, he thought as he watched Calo, one of Creon’s fierce warriors, throw a small knife at his younger brother who caught it with ease. Things didn’t calm down again until Creon erupted in impatience.
“Enough!” Creon impatiently growled out. “Adalard, if you aren’t careful you are going to end up with another scar to match the one on your face. Let’s get back to business,” he said in exasperation as he glared at the men sitting around the large table. “The babies didn’t sleep well last night,” he added sheepishly as he sat back in his seat.
“Mine never do,” Trelon Reykill groaned out, running his hands through his tousled hair. “They escaped again last night. They are up to something new. I just know it.”
“This is why I never want to find a mate. It turns a man….” Ha’ven muttered in a low voice.
“…. Into a man,” Paul said standing up.
Ha’ven raised his eyebrow at Paul’s interruption but listened silently as the male continued to outline what had happened and the plans to finally trap and kill Raffvin Reykill. He leaned forward listening intently. There was something about the male that was… strange. He looked at Adalard who returned his glance with a small nod. Ha’ven focused inward, pulling on the power inside him and muttered a small meditation chant under his breath to help him focus the power.
Everything in the room faded as power pulsed out from his body to the other male. A golden glow formed around the male, casting him in a mist of the shimmering color. Within seconds, Ha’ven was focused back on the room and staring at the male with a combination of mild shock and curiosity. This was a very powerful male who had been touched by the Goddess herself.
Ha’ven shook his head to clear the vision as another large male suddenly entered the room. A grin broke across his face as he recognized the short dark hair, equally dark scowl and vivid spots showing under the black vest the male wore. Intense eyes narrowed on Paul Grove before the Sarafin King opened his mouth and put his foot in it as usual.
“Who are you?” Vox asked, sniffing loudly. “You look and smell human but there is another smell on you.”
Ha’ven chuckled as a chorus of smothered chortles met his statement. The huge cat-shifter had a habit of saying what was on his mind and it almost always ended in either a riot or trouble of some type. It took another ten minutes before the human was finally able to calm everyone down again.
Yes, if I have to go into battle I can think of no one else I would want by my side than the men in this room, Ha’ven thought as he flexed his fist to keep the power that he had drawn from building even further.
Chapter 4
“Do you want something to eat?” A soft, concerned voice asked.
Emma didn’t respond. She wasn’t even sure she could if she wanted to. It had been so long since she had used her voice. It didn’t change the fact that she didn’t want to answer. It took too much effort and would make her accept where she was and what had happened to her.
Instead, she sat curled up in the chair by the window looking out over the clear sky waiting for darkness to fall again. She liked the darkness. It didn’t bring scary nightmares or horrible monsters. No, the light did that. In the dark, she was invisible, hidden from the sight of everyone and everything. In the dark she was… safe. Or at least as safe as she would ever be.
Emma heard Sara sigh when she received no response. She really didn’t know why Sara kept trying to bring her back to life. She didn’t want to live, not any more. There was nothing to live for. She had lost everything that had ever mattered to her.
“You have to eat, sweetheart,” Sara said kneeling in front of Emma and cupping one of her slender hands. “You are losing way too much weight. The food is delicious. We can go for a walk through the garden afterwards. There are so many interesting and unusual plants here I swear it will take me the rest of my life to discover them all. If we were back home…”
Sara’s voice faded when she felt the faint tremble in the hand she was holding. A knock on the door had her releasing Emma’s hand as she stood up to answer it. Emma immediately tucked her hands under the light cover that had been carefully tucked around her. She heard a quiet conversation before another figure came into the living quarters they had been given.
Valdier… Emma thought. What a strange name. It goes well with the strange creatures that live here. So different from Earth. I wonder how my mother is doing, she wondered distractedly. I wonder if she misses me.
“Emma, Abby is here to see you,” Sara said softly. “She brought Zohar as well. Isn’t he adorable?”
Emma didn’t turn to look at those who came into the room. That took too much effort, as well. She knew the other woman was from Earth. She had been by every day to see how she was doing. Recently, she began bringing other women from Earth as well. The one called Cara was funny. Emma liked it when she came. Even though she didn’t let the others know it, she thought the young woman’s love for life was fascinating to watch.
“Hi Emma, how are you doing today?” Abby asked gently as she came over to sit on the floor near the window.
The infant
she had in her lap immediately leaned forward and tried to squirm away from her. Emma watched as he finally succeeded and immediately made a beeline for her. Abby started to stop him but appeared to decide to let him explore. Emma’s eyes reluctantly lowered until she was staring into a pair of very curious golden eyes.
Gold eyes, Emma thought as she pulled further away into herself. Aliens, another world. So far from home. So very far from home, she thought sadly as she closed her eyes to block out everything.
*.*.*
Several months earlier:
“Momma, I’m going to South America,” Emma said excitedly as she walked into the cheerfully decorated room where her mother spent her days. “I’ve been accepted by the Reaching Kids through Music troupe. All those years of you and Poppa working with me has paid off.”
The woman sitting at the window turned and smiled as Emma entered. She was dressed in the pretty new pastel dress that Emma had purchased for her the week before. She stood up and held out her hands to take the flowers Emma was holding.
“Are those for me?” Alice Watson asked with a smile. “Thank you so much, dear. Do I know you?”
Emma sighed as she handed the flowers to her mother who immediately took them over to the vase on the small side table and began changing out the wilted ones with the fresh ones. Today was going to be another heartbreaker. The advanced stage of Alzheimer’s made her daily visits more and more difficult to deal with. Her mother very seldom remembered who she was from one minute to the next, much less one day to the next.
Her parents had been older when she was born. Her father had been a singer while her mother had been a dance instructor who began her career as a ballerina before becoming a choreographer. Emma’s world had revolved around her parents as much as theirs had revolved around her.
They had been her best friends as well as her mentors. There had always been music and laughter in their home. She had helped her mother in the dance studio and played the piano and other instruments while singing along with her father. Her world had crashed around her when her happy imaginative father died of a sudden heart attack when she was eighteen. Two years later, her mother had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. The disease had progressed until Emma was no longer able to take care of her mother by herself anymore. Fortunately, her parents had been financially well off and Emma was able to find a private nursing home specializing in patients like her mom.
“It’s me, Momma, Emma… your daughter. I’m going to Colombia, Brazil, Argentina and Costa Rica. I’m going to teach kids how to dance and sing, just like you and Poppa taught me,” Emma replied picking up her mom’s hairbrush and walking over to her. She gently led her over to the chair near the window. “I… I won’t be gone long,” she said as she began brushing her mother’s long, silver hair. “I haven’t done anything since you came here a few months ago and I thought it would be good for me to, you know… get out and maybe see the world a little bit.”
“That’s nice, dear,” Alice said as she ran her withered fingers over the petals of a pink rose. “I like pink. It is my favorite color. What was your name again, dear?”
Emma bit her lower lip to keep the pain in her heart at bay. “Emma, Momma,” she replied as she laid the brush down and divided her mother’s hair into three parts so she could braid it.
“That’s a pretty name,” Alice said as she leaned back in the chair. “I knew a girl named Emma once. She was a dancer with the Rockettes.”
Tears burned Emma’s eyes. “I know. You named me after her,” Emma said quietly. “You said she could dance on a cloud she was so light on her feet.”
Alice’s soft chuckle echoed in the quiet room. “She was amazing.”
Emma listened as her mother talked about things she had heard a million times growing up. They went for a walk around the gardens and Emma took her to the recreation room where she played the piano for her mother and sung the songs she had grown up singing, silently hoping that the music would wake her mother up and help her remember who she was.
She stayed for over four hours, helping her mother with her bath and into her nightgown. She fed her dinner before helping her into bed for the night. She leaned over, brushing a soft strand of silver hair away from the lined face before giving the wrinkled cheek a light kiss. Straightening up, she smiled down at the innocent look in her mom’s cloudy eyes before she walked toward the door.
“Honey,” Alice’s tired voice called out as Emma opened the door to her room.
“Yes, Momma?” Emma asked, holding tightly onto the door.
“I… I wish I had a daughter like you,” Alice said quietly. “You are a good girl. One day you will sing a song and a wonderful man is going to hear and come snatch you up. You just wait. My darling husband did that. He heard me sing and said I opened his heart. I was his nightingale,” she murmured before her voice faded as she fell into a sleep filled with wonderful dancers and a tall, lanky man who swept her off her feet.
Emma stood at the door to the room for several long minutes gazing at the relaxed face of her mother. A single tear coursed down her pale cheek as she remembered the love her parents shared. She could only hope she could overcome her shyness long enough to meet the man who would fill her life the way her father had filled her mother’s life.
“I know, Momma,” Emma said as she brushed the tear away. “He loved you so much you could dance across the clouds and never touch the ground. I love you, Momma. Sweet dreams.”
*.*.*
She had left for Colombia three days later for a two month tour. The performing troupe had signed a contract for a twelve city tour to promote the arts. When they had reached Florencia, Colombia, a month into the tour Emma thought she had a chance of breaking through the overwhelming shyness she had suffered from her whole life. That was one reason she had loved her parents so much… with them she didn’t have to look for friends outside of her home.
Working with the children in the different cities helped her realize they weren’t the only ones benefitting from the workshops that were sponsored by the Performing Arts Company that was hosting the Reaching Kids through Music program. It had been the day before they were to leave to travel to Brazil that she and Betsy, another girl from the troupe, were kidnapped from out front of the small hotel they had been staying at as they returned from dinner at a restaurant across the street. Two other members of the troupe had tried unsuccessfully to help them. Emma could still hear the gunshots and see the blood as the two men were gunned down.
Emma’s mind closed in on itself as she fought to bury the rest of the memories of what happened. She had tried to protect Betsy but things became foggy after her head had been slammed into the stone wall of the small cell they had been tossed in. She could do nothing but watch helplessly as Betsy was brutally murdered in front of her. She could still hear the beautiful girl’s anguished screams as she died.
*.*.*
Emma jerked, her eyes opening wide in terror when she felt a hand against her cheek. Her mouth opened to scream but nothing came out. It was as if her vocal cords were frozen and couldn’t move any more. Her unfocused eyes finally cleared and she found herself staring into Sara’s warm brown eyes.
“We are going to a dinner tonight,” she said quietly. “I think it would be good for you to go. You have hardly been out of our rooms at all.”
Emma wanted to protest that she didn’t want to be around anyone else. She was happy staying in the rooms. Besides, she did get out… frequently. She waited until after Sara was asleep before she slipped outside into the gardens.
She had learned how to avoid the dragon-men who guarded the area. She became one with the shadows. She moved safely under the cover of darkness with nothing but the stars to light her way. She loved slipping down to the edge of the garden where a low wall ran along the cliffs leading down to the ocean far below. The stars caused the water to sparkled like diamonds on a clear night and she could almost imagine dancing among them.
The flowers that Sar
a loved so much opened at night and glowed with hundreds of different colors. If she touched them, they would close up. They reminded her of herself, opening when they thought they were alone and safe and closing when others came close. She would sometimes sit among them and gently touch them just so she could watch them open again. A part of her hoped that she would one day be able to have the courage to open up again.
Most of all, she loved the solitude and silence of the darkness. She pulled it to her like a cloak, hugging it tightly around her. She could look out on the world and no one could look back.
“Sara,” Abby started to say as she rose and scooped up Zohar who had crawled off to hide under the low table. “Do you think…?”
Sara glanced at Abby. “It will be good for her. She needs to get out more,” she responded quietly.
Abby looked at Emma’s calm, blank features. She nodded in silent understanding. “I’ll send the seamstress to you. She will make a special outfit for you both. We have several guests from other worlds. It… it might be safer if you both remained inside for the next several days. Zoran has asked me to tell you that you won’t be allowed outside until a certain situation has been resolved.”
Sara frowned in concern at Abby. “Are we in danger?” She asked tersely.
Abby sighed and looked at Emma who remained unchanged. “No, not directly but the men are very protective.”
Abby’s voice dropped as she fought with whether to tell the two women what was happening. With a sigh, she realized they deserved to know. Abby quickly explained the situation with Raffvin and what had happened to date. She went on to explain that a plan had been set into motion that would eliminate the threat to all of them once and for all.
“Jaguin and Gunner will be remaining close to protect you both,” Abby continued. “I have to go get Zohar down for a nap,” she said before she grimaced as he began fussing and pulling at her top. “And feed him.”
Sara nodded and walked with her to the door. She brushed her fingers down Zohar’s cheek as he whimpered. Her eyes softened for a moment before she turned and opened the door.
