Everyone's attention was on Dalf, their expressions proclaiming that they'd seen the dead rise. He studied the small group, trying to gauge their willingness to take him home and decided they were his best choice.
His only choice.
Chapter 19
Dalf.
Alive.
Healed.
For a moment, Raine stared, transfixed as she watched the dolphman running toward her, an expression of sheer bliss on his scarless face. She pushed away from Preston and Shay, who still seemed to be rooted to the dock. Her spine ached, but she stood straight and opened her arms wide to embrace the wonderful dream.
Dalf squealed with delight and hit her hard. The wind was knocked out of her as she pitched backward, landing against Preston and Shay. Dalf's slender arms wrapped around her in suffocating bands. A whistle of delight shrieked directly into her ear, just as everyone began to fall backward. Something hit the deck with the sound of a melon breaking. Raine hit the lumpy ground, hard. Someone screamed. Dalf’s cry ended in a puff, as he landed on top of, driving the air out of her lungs.
She blacked out.
As she revived, hard restraints still encircled her waist. Dalf blubbered against her cheek and it seemed that everyone around her was either bawling or hysterical. She eased Dalf’s arms loose, then rolled to her side and disentangled her aching leg from Preston. Beyond his shoulder, dragons danced among the clouds, their heat creating a rainbow of colors in the fluffy mist.
This was a very odd dream.
Dalf clung to her, as if he couldn’t stand to be separated. The shrieks and screams from Annya and Coral were a perfect accompaniment to this bizarre vision. Preston appeared dazed, while Brock and Reed knelt next to Shay, his fingers feeling for a pulse. When Reed sat back on his heels, his hands in a helpless gesture, grief etched Brock’s features.
Raine shook her head to clear her sight, but everyone was still there and the dragons still cavorted in the clouds.
Impossible. Dragons never entered Kalamar’s atmosphere, it was too humid.
Preston had said, ‘Forget him. He's already gone.’ She knew he meant that he’d given into his fear of being discovered and had Dalf recycled. If she was seeing Dalf alive and well, perhaps she was dead, too. Perhaps they all were dead. Even, the warrior, who was standing behind Dalf, his posture protective, yet uncertain, looked perfectly healed. That, too, was impossible.
The only possibility was that the Guerreterre, who'd watched her save the warrior had somehow rescued and healed him and for some reason they’d saved and healed Dalf, too.
The intent to save and heal would explain why the shadow warrior she’d sensed following her had not attacked her, but that would make everything she had ever heard about Guerreterre and their culture a lie.
Despite aching temples, she tried to focus on the timeline. She'd been called back for extra duty, leaving the warrior alone when the mooncalves swarmed. She gritted her teeth. Had the entire mess that ended with the destruction of CRU-18 been a distraction to cover his rescue?
Why would they save Dalf, much less keep him?
Or maybe they were both dead. If so, why was she with Preston in the after life?
This was too unreal for explanation, but it felt good to hold Dalf’s slick, sea salt embedded body, and hear him muttering intelligible sounds, instead of screaming with fear-based rage.
Even if Dalf had somehow been miraculously healed, this restricted area was the last place he’d come.
A warm breeze caressed her cheek.
“Mudder, you help Yulder ovum. I promised.” A tiny bit of oxygen made it into her lungs. Hand trembling, she touched Dalf’s sleek back. She knew she should be thrilled to hear his voice, after so many months, but why couldn’t he pronounce T’s?
The deep ocean scent of his skin mixed with salty shallows and heavy water. “Yulder?” She should be happy for this opportunity to touch him, but somehow this glimpse of the boy he should have been choked her with tears.
“Friend. He say dragons ruin world. Soon all wader like Doom Sea.”
She closed her eyes tight against the threatening tears. Weren’t things supposed to be perfect in the after life? Weren’t they supposed to make sense? She caressed Dalf’s sleek, scarless face. He felt completely healed. She opened her eyes. He looked whole, too.
Why was the warrior watching her as if everything depended upon her? He monitored her hands as if he wished they were moving over him. Heat surged through her and her hands stilled. She blinked away the thought, but the warrior was still there, large as life and desirable as freedom. Dalf burrowed tighter. She looked away from the mesmerizing warrior. Preston stared slack-jawed from Shay, who was lying motionless on the dock, to Dalf, to the warrior and back again, his expression looking as helpless and dumbstruck as she felt.
Why was she dreaming of Dalf as he should have been? Why was Annya weeping on Coral’s shoulder? Why was Shay lying motionless as death, while Preston, Brock and Reed sat beside her doing nothing? The Guerreterran knelt and tenderly touched Shay’s neck and closed his eyes. Preston raised his head, stared dumbfounded, then roared with rage and threw a punch at the warrior.
A near-by siren emitted a mind-numbing shriek. The tableau before her halted in mid-motion, except for the dragons, which had left their cloud games and were flying toward them.
Suddenly, everyone was running toward Command Headquarters’ entrance. Brock picked up Shay and raced toward the mob. As the mob all tried to fit through the entrance at the same time, shoulders and bellies jammed and the throng became a heaving, vicious mass of terror.
Brock’s steps faltered.
Annya looked like the only calm person as she surveyed the area. She grabbed Preston’s wrist. “This way!” She dragged Preston toward the building’s shaded wall. Reed clutched Frazier’s shoulder for support and lurched after them. Coral trailed her husband.
Dalf looked over his shoulder, screamed and fled.
The warrior looked at the herd of dragons, then grabbed her waist, tossed her over his shoulder and sprinted after everyone.
As if by magic, a slab of wall opened beneath Annya’s palm. Dalf was the first one inside the building’s dubious safety. The warrior’s ground-eating pace halted a step inside the doorway. She slid to the ground while he stared at the walls as if he’d never seen a formed building before.
His attention was so complete, that if his protective arm had not been around her, she would have thought he’d forgotten her.
Brock brushed past them, Shay cradled in his arms, as if she was a sleeping babe instead of – Raine looked away and swallowed. She should never have been so judgmental.
Never would have been so judgmental, if she’d known how much Brock obviously cared.
Never would have been so judgmental if she’d know how little time any of them had.
She felt tears welling and averted her gaze. Preston was glaring at the warrior. Fists clenched he took a step forward, as if he wanted to commit murder. She stiffened and tilted her head up, but the warrior’s attention was on Shay. Preston paused uncertainly.
Heat gushed through the open door. She looked out. The sky was golden with dragons, but now, instead of charging straight at the building, they were aimlessly soaring in circles over the misty waves. Raine shivered. The warrior hugged her closer. One mooncalf, wings spread wide, dipped low and swooped toward them.
Annya’s palm hit a depression in the wall and the gap closed. “Let’s get below the waterline.”
The warrior readjusted his hold, cradling her as Brock did Shay. With long, purposeful strides, Annya led them to another hidden door.
“You know this building,” Raine said.
Annya snorted. “I should.” For a moment, there was only the sound of metal clanking with each footfall as she led them down a long winding staircase. With each step, the air seemed to grow more stagnant and cold. “Before all the problems, I was training to oversee eepyllihg production. Then, Marsha was se
nt here and started telling father stories. Soon after that, Latawba was attacked and we all basically became prisoners at The Pinnacle.” Antagonism tinged her tone.
“Nowhere is safe from the dragons.” The warrior’s base tones rumbled against her ear.
“Or from Guerreterre,” Preston snarled.
Annya paused and looked back. “Don’t tell me you believe Marsha's stories!”
Preston frowned. “Don’t you?” Doubt filled his voice.
Annya shrugged. “I guess that it was lucky for her that she was spending the year with us.”
“No one could have survived the solar flare,” the warrior said.
“What flare?” Annya asked.
“The one that burned Latawba. That is what you speak of, is it not?”
“Guerreterre’s Shadow Warriors attacked my uncle’s world. Where did you hear that it was a solar phenomena?”
“He’s a Guerreterran,” Preston growled.
Dalf’s jaw flopped open. Frazier squealed with alarm. Startled, Annya stared at the warrior’s face, then with a chuckle, she shook her head. “Good one, Doc.” Dalf gave Preston a disgusted look.
“You don’t believe me.” Her brother looked astonished.
With a laugh, Annya shook her head and continued down the endless stairs. Raine gazed at her back for several steps, then looked up at the one person who had refused to leave her behind on the dock. What had Annya seen in him that made her think he was other than what he was?
The flight of steps finally ended at a door. When Annya wrenched the handle, it swung outward amid a chorus of wailing hinges. She stepped into the darkness with confidence. With a sweep of her hand, the lights came on. Ornate tapestries covered the walls with a vibrant pictorial history of how dragons had brought change to the frozen world, starting with the exploding sun, through how the fragment had been caught in Kalamar’s orbit. Other tapestries showed the world changing from ice to water. And others showed the various stages of technology of eepyllihg production, which had brought not only heat, but unimaginable wealth. As Annya and Brock walked across the room the sound of their steps were lost in the thick, plush carpet.
The warrior stepped into the room and looked around with interest. Preston, Coral and Reed crowded the doorway, their expressions stunned.
“Well, are you coming or not?” Annya asked.
Pace hesitant, Coral entered the opulent room. When Preston and Reed entered, Dalf and Frazier squealed in amazement, then reverently closed the door behind themselves. Though the side facing the stairway had been worn metal, the interior was of costly wood, which had been carved and polished until it was a valuable work of art.
“Whose home is this?” Reed asked.
“No one’s,” Annya said. “It’s just a place my family keeps in case of emergency and I figure that the situation above got as close to that as it can get.”
Reed stared at the deep, soft crimson cushions, which sprinkled the golden carpet. Coral gripped his hand, as if she couldn’t believe what she was seeing.
Neither could Raine. The lavish room made her bubble home look like the recycled refuse that it was, but the comparison between this hidden place and the dank dungeon-like place where Reed and Coral had been hiding was beyond words. If Annya knew about this sanctuary, why hadn’t she let Coral and Reed D'nor hide here? Raine’s molars ground together so tightly that her jaw ached. She looked away from Annya, who obviously didn’t care about how old bones could ache in the damp and stared at a wall-hanging, which depicted the first Vole d’Laire using the power of the dragons to nudge Vilecom into orbit around the ice-covered world.
Preston sidled by the warrior and went to Brock, who looked too dazed to think. He gently helped him to lay Shay on a cushion. Her blue-black hair cascaded over the crimson cloth like a dark halo. As if no longer able to stand without her in his arms, Brock knelt next to her and wept. Tears clogged Raine’s throat, too. The warrior seemed to sense her despair and placed her next to her sister. Preston got out of striking distance and kept a distrustful eye on the warrior.
Dalf crowded past the warrior and snuggled next to her. She hugged him with one arm and caressed Shay’s cold cheek with the other. He twittered softly, as he shared her grief. Raine lost her fight for dignity and began crying. He embraced her. “I sorry for you, Mudder.”
Sorry for her? Shay was the dead one. And Brock was the one whose world seemed to have ended. Shay had been right, he truly loved her. To have someone care for you like that was a miracle.
A touch, warm and gentle as a summer shower moved down her spine. It stopped at the small of her back. The heat expanded until it encompassed her and soothing sensations rippled through her core. At last, the strange dream was over and a new one had begun.
Chapter 20
Thunder tried not to jolt the woman, who was his key to returning home, as he allowed his healing touch to melt into her. He closed his eyes, senses stretched to discover her injuries. The cartilage and ribs were easily mended, but it was time consuming. The fractured jawbone had begun healing wrong, so it was trickier. Her legs had suffered the worst damage, but for some reason, no healing had begun. As he tried to reconstruct her torn thigh muscle, a torn tendon whipped free from his will. He grasped it, again, but it snapped free a second time.
He focused on inner peace before he tried a third time.
Gradually, an intense heat of affection suffused his being. He greeted Kazza, grateful that the great cat had come. He joined his power with the Kazza's, his fatigue falling away. The tendon slithered into place and adhered to its torn end. The abused cells were restored and the poisons in her system were nullified.
“Hurry home.” Kazza’s plea rumbled through his conscious. “Time is short.”
Thunder shuddered awake, only to realize that the floor was shaking. He opened his eyes to darkness populated by the ghostly shapes of dragons and far away worlds.
ooo
Raine gasped as icy water replaced the loving heat. Spirit, she was still in the impossible room and the warrior was looking at her as if she was the most important person in the world. A wall-rattling discharge shook the darkened room; more water spurted into her face. She rolled aside and faced a glowing dragon wearing an ancient reclamation array.
Someone screamed. Dalf wailed.
“What was that?” Preston screamed.
“The defense blaster.” Annya sounded worried.
“Will you take me home?” The warrior’s soft, tender voice presented a bizarre contrast to the wet chaos surrounding them.
“Because time is short?” Raine asked, then frowned, wondering where that question had come from.
Abruptly, the room ceased shaking and the lights turned on. She swiped water out of her eyes and blinked at the lingering phosphorescent glow of the dragon on the tapestry. Slowly, she turned to the warrior and silently dared him to explain the insistent, large and impossibly furry thing she had sensed humming inside her. When he didn’t speak, she demanded, “What did you do to me?”
“If you hurt her, I’ll murder you,” Preston blustered.
The warrior glanced at her brother as if he was as insignificant as a grain of rice, then turned to her. “I need you. You are the only one who can help me.”
What a ludicrous statement. “You don’t need me. You need my ship.”
He put his palms upward in a curiously helpless gesture. “I would not know what to do.”
“And I can’t even walk.” She raised her injured leg, as she made the statement, then when there was no pain, she ripped aside the tattered fabric of her uniform to display undamaged flesh. Her jaw dropped.
He raised a curiously sensual brow, daring her to deny the cure. Raine shook her head, as she tried to clear it of this bizarre dream. Dalf cuddled against her side in an effort to sooth her. She looked from his healed face to the warrior’s perfect abs. This was impossible, but real. “You’re a murderer,” she whispered.
Confusion marred his handsome
features. “I am a healer. I only kill when there is no other choice.”
His attire branded him as a mass murderer, but his actions identified him as a miracle worker. She waved her hands with perplexity.
Annya cleared her throat, then apparently not knowing what to say, remained quiet.
“Colonel Atano-“ Raine pinched her healed leg and then touched Dalf’s face. The warrior/physician tilted his head to the side, waiting for her to continue. “Your uniform-“ A drop of water fell.
Annya looked at the ceiling above them. “This bunker was designed to withstand everything, even global annihilation,” she shook her head, “but our own defenses are ruining it.” She turned to the warrior/physician. “You aren’t from Guerreterre, as the doctor claims.” He shook his head. “Then where?”
“Chatterre.”
Annya frowned. “Do we ship eepyhillg there?”
“I do not know this word.” The building shuddered and groaned, then everything was quiet. Gooseflesh rippled over her skin as she looked around the ornate room and wondered what bothered her. She glanced around. Water was oozing into the room around the door jam and the door seemed to be bowing into the chamber. She gulped. This room would be her final resting place. A lump formed in her throat.
“Chatterre?” Annya asked. “Where is that?”
He looked stupefied, then pointed past her shoulder to a tapestry, which depicted a crimson comet flying away from a molten-red asteroid field. If she ignored the colors, it did appear to be where she had found him.
Coral clasped her hands and stared at the warrior, as if she was looking at a god. “The Ancient sorcerers wore the feathers of the bird of glory in their hair to mark them.” A trembling finger rose to hover a foot away from one of his thin, intricate braids, with its cluster of tiny feathers. “It was said that they all died for their irreverence and disbelief in science.”
“We’ve always known some survived,” Reed said, as he put a supportive arm around his wife. “The Vole d’Laire line has always had a similar, but lesser ability. This helped them hold the seat of power for centuries.”
Thunder Moon: Book 2 of the Chatterre Trilogy (Chatterre Triology) Page 21
