Crystal Warrior: Through All Eternity (Atlantean Crystal Saga Book 1)

by YatesNZ, Jen

‘I wouldn't know. I'm not really familiar with the weather patterns here.’

  ‘What's the climate like in New Zealand?’ he asked, leaning one elbow on the rail and inching his body closer.

  Easing back a little, Georgina said, ‘Temperate. Cold, wet winters. Hot, humid summers. That's in the north where I come from. In the south they have snow in winter.’

  Aware there was a chill in her voice and feeling ashamed for her scant politeness she forced herself to offer more information than she felt inclined.

  As if she'd not just breathed enough ice to grow icicles on his chin he treated her to the full potency of his slow, charismatic smile, and said, ‘Hot and humid, huh? I have this theory that people tend to be like the climates that nurture them.’ He stopped and allowed his gaze to roam in a leisurely caress from her eyes to her knees and back up again, then suggested in husky tones, ‘I'm at a bit of a loose end. You look like you might be too. Care to test my theory?’

  For an instant it felt as if her own face froze then fury rushed through her veins melting her body into action.

  ‘No thanks.’ Turning abruptly and aware as she did so that he reached for her, she hurried back through the lounge and down the corridor to Fran's room. How had she let that happen and what the hell was it about her that made him think she'd be interested? What had made Gavin Warner decide to seduce her? What had told him he could? What was it that men saw in her that spelt the word ‘whore’?

  By the time she stopped outside Fran's room her blood was frothing and she knew she wouldn't make any kind of sense in a confrontation with Fran in this state. With her hand on the door she took several deep breaths and tried to re-conjure the vision of Phryne that had come to her while talking to Gould.

  Phryne. Fran.

  As dear and familiar to her as her own self. All that was light and bright, out-going and fearless, self-assured and talented, dynamic and resourceful.

  Generous and loving. Yet she could be demanding and selfish, blithely expecting her wishes would be met.

  All their life Fran had led, demanded, commanded. As naturally as she, Georgina, had followed, acquiesced, merged—seeking to atone for a sin many lifetimes old.

  ‘The debt's paid,’ she muttered, ‘with interest added.’

  As the words were spoken she had the sense of a shadow lifting from around her, of the sun emerging from behind a cloud even though she stood in a windowless corridor. Closing her eyes, she gave herself permission to savor the moment, then pushed the door open.

  Fran was in the act of swinging her long legs off the bed, as her sister entered.

  ‘Where the hell have you been?’ she demanded.

  Georgina stopped, brows riding high on her forehead. The old Fran had never been rude. It was a derangement caused by the dematerialization and her inability to come to terms with the fact she was bald and probably always would be. Georgina knew that, but the unloving greeting rasped across her heart—a heart newly aware of its anger and pain, and tore at her soul that had just discovered the nature of its shackles and the key to unlock them.

  ‘Snuggling up to Gould,’ she snapped and had the satisfaction of seeing two bright spots of color stain her sister's pale cheeks.

  ‘He's supposed to be resting.’

  ‘You can snuggle and rest at the same time.’

  Georgina came to the foot of the bed and glared at her twin. For a moment green gaze held gold then Fran muttered, ‘You know, don't you?’

  Georgina nodded.

  The color came and went in Fran's cheeks then her eyes narrowed.

  ‘Did Gould tell you?’

  ‘No. Merryn did before I came to—help look for you.’

  ‘You've known all along?’

  ‘Yep.’

  Fran sank back against the pillows, her chin jutting with belligerence.

  ‘So why are you angry now when you weren't before? Did Gould give you the brush-off?’

  ‘No—he—didn't—and if there's any brushing-off to be done, I'll be doing it.’ There was nothing wrong with her pride apparently. ‘As to why now, I've only just discovered I'm angry, like so bloody angry I threw up. You wanna know why I'm angry? I'm angry because I never went with Torr when he asked me to—back in August!’

  There was a voice somewhere in the back of her mind that said that was bitchy and she wasn't usually bitchy but she was listening to the louder voice over-riding it which pointed out how bitchy she felt and how good it was to say how she felt.

  ‘What do you mean, Torr asked you to go with him in August?’ Fran cried, her eyes storming and her hands grasping chunks of bedding and screwing it into knots. ‘He was engaged to me back in August!’

  ‘So right! And when Gould began consoling you he was living with me! The difference is I cared enough about my relationship with each of you not to do something every particle of my being longed to do. I sent Torr away.’

  ‘What are you trying to say, Georgina?’

  ‘I'm saying I'm pissed off you didn't care enough about me to give me the same consideration. I'm saying I'm pissed off that I wasted eight months of my life for someone who doesn't give a damn!’

  Suddenly Fran was up on her knees and gripping the end of the bed with her face thrust only inches from Georgina's.

  ‘I can't see what you're so pissed about,’ she shouted. ‘By your own admission you didn't want Gould even back in August. You're just being a bloody dog in a manger! At least I knew what I wanted and had the gumption to go out and get it while you were doing your typical ‘hide in the corner’ act. Just like you've always done. No wonder Gould was so blown away by my knowing what I wanted and being able to verbalize it. He probably had to guess what you were thinking all the time. You're just a pathetic inarticulate, George. ‘

  ‘Not any more! I've just discovered how good it feels to tell someone exactly what I feel about them. You missed the whole point in your usual selfish rush to see things only from your own point of view. I'm hurt because you didn't give me the consideration I gave you.’

  ‘Well I don't see there was anything to consider! All I know is, I love Gould in a way you never could. It's like I've always loved him and he me. If it's an apology you're after, George, you're wasting your time. I'll never apologize for loving Gould, to you or anyone! So there!’

  Little flecks of foam were gathering in the corners of her mouth and her eyes were becoming wilder and almost colorless. A terrible desire had arisen in Georgina to slap her sister's face, exactly as Phryne had slapped Gynevra in that other lifetime. It was only the realization that Fran was far from her normal self that kept her hands still.

  ‘I don’t want your apology,’ she ground out through gritted teeth. ‘I'm just doing you the courtesy of letting you know that I know so we can get on with our lives.’

  For a moment Fran held her gaze with a manic glare then in a change as swift as the turning of a page she fell back on the bed with a shout of laughter.

  ‘You're priceless, George, absolutely priceless! You wouldn't know how to get on with life if you were ordered to! I don't know what the hell Gould saw in you in the first place. You are so opposite it's ludicrous. He's a man who likes to LIVE! And I'm a woman who can match him in that. What did you ever match him in? Tell me that?’

  She'd leapt to her knees again. Her eyes were shining strangely, like cat's eyes in the dark and her hands were beginning to tremble. Georgina had never felt such fury towards her sister. If she held her own hands out they'd probably be trembling also. She had no words to answer Fran and that made her madder still. With a hiss of fury she turned and thrust the swinging doors open. There was a terrible whack of solid door against something only slightly less solid, a muffled cry followed by the dull thud of a heavy body falling.

  Georgina wrenched the doors back into the room.

  ‘Oh my God!’ she whispered, not wanting to believe the heap of man slumped on the floor was Torr. He'd fallen like a rag doll against the opposite wall, his legs splayed across th
e floor, his chin on his chest and his eyes closed.

  ‘Torr? Torr!’

  He couldn't be unconscious! Could he? Oh my God! Now what? Didn't they throw water on people to bring them round? She dashed back to the basin in Fran's room and filled a paper cup with water.

  ‘What is it? What did you hit? You're always so clumsy,’ Fran fretted.

  Georgina ignored her and ran back into the corridor and dumped the contents of the cup over Torr's head.

  ‘Damn! You'll pay for that!’ he growled, leaping to his feet and fixing her with eyes suspiciously bright and alert.

  Dr. Raymond and two nurses were hurrying down the hall.

  ‘I'm sorry—I didn't see you—I didn't think—,’ Georgina stuttered helplessly.

  Fran began screaming from the doorway as the doctor and nurses reached them.

  ‘I'm fine,’ Torr averred, waving them into the room. Then grabbing Georgina's hand, he said, ‘Now let's get out of here.’

  ‘You’re wet!’

  ‘I’ll dry!’

  He towed her along the hall, not that she had any choice but to follow. His grip brought to mind the honed strength of a warrior lord, and that thought on top of the emotional trauma of the last few minutes turned her brain into a sludge pool with no hope of sending resistance messages to her feet. An empty lift stood open, and he hauled her into it, pressing the button. The moment the door closed he swung about and caging her against the wall with his body, covered her mouth with his.

  Centuries, millennia, spun away with the touch, the scent, the taste of him. The wall at her back could have been the great fir tree on the hillside above Heceuda Castle, the man who held her, a King who'd waited long enough for her to heal after she'd almost given her life to save his ship, his life and that of his men; a man who'd kidnapped her to gainsay a prophecy that would forever have kept her from him.

  As they'd both known it would, the world in whatever millennium, ceased to be. Their bodies segued into one another with the drag and force of magnets. She'd waited so long for this moment.

  ‘Excuse me, are you going down again, sir?’

  Slowly Torr lifted his head and stared at a young woman carrying a delicate bunch of roses who was waiting to step into the lift.

  ‘Where are we?’ he rasped.

  ‘The roof,’ she answered, her dark eyes dancing with laughter.

  ‘The roof?’ Georgina echoed, peeling her body off the wall.

  A slow smile lit Torr's eyes as he looked from Georgina back to the woman.

  ‘Yeah, now I remember. We’re getting off here. Sorry. We sort of got carried away. I've been waiting a long time for that kiss.’

  Grabbing the door to prevent it closing, he gripped Georgina's hand with the other and hauled her out of the lift.

  ‘Like thousands of years,’ he muttered for her ears only, as he towed her up a short flight of steps. ‘C'mon, we've got a chopper waiting!’

  ‘A chopper?’

  ‘You’re starting to sound like a parrot, Golden One.’

  Georgina dug in her heels and slammed her body back against the cold concrete wall. They were one step below a glass door through which she could already snatch magical glimpses of vistas along the Florida coast. None of it registered. Lifting her chin, she glared directly into the glowing green of his eyes.

  ‘You’re kidnapping me—again!’ she accused.

  A slow dark smile birthed deep in his eyes and his mouth slanted in exactly the same wry twist Taur had used when he was planning something particularly devilish. Before she’d halfway dealt with that crazy thought, he said, ‘Yeah. I like the way he went about things. It worked for him. Why not for me?’

  Georgina snapped her head back to glower at him.

  ‘He had the philosophy of a—a tyrant, a dictator, a—’

  ‘—a King who took his role very seriously; who took his love for you very seriously!’

  ‘I’m not Gynevra! You’re not Taur!’

  She was having enough trouble as it was separating herself from that ancient incarnation without him confusing her still more.

  ‘But we are, Gina. Don’t you see?’ He pressed his hands against the wall, one either side of her head, and gazed solemnly into her eyes. ‘We could never have re-lived that lifetime if it had not been such a strong part of our soul memories. We carry all that Taur and Gynevra were in who Torr and Gina are today. Can you separate yourself from her in your mind? Can you deny all that knowledge you now carry that was learnt in her lifetime? Even our names carry the same vibration, the same essence of the names they carried in Atlantis. We are them. They are us. Can you forget? Any of it? Do you want to?’

  Georgina dropped her head back against the wall and closed her eyes against the pain that strangled her heart to the point she could scarcely breathe.

  ‘I wish I could forget the ending—the children—having to leave you—’

  Torr’s arms came around her then and they clung to one another, hearts beating as one in grief until the distinctive ‘whap-whap’ of a helicopter reminded them where they were.

  ‘You’re not going to leave me this time round, Gina. I won’t let you,’ he growled against her hair. Then reaching down for her hand he began tugging her up the last step to the door.

  Georgina held her ground and tugged back, until he turned to look at her.

  Holding his gaze until their minds were totally attuned, she projected, ‘I will not leave you again. I come willingly to wherever you plan to take me. I love you.—I know that now. As Georgina and Torr we barely know one another but as Gynevra and Taur our love has transcended millennia. I have scarcely grasped the wonder of it but I definitely intend to accept it and embrace it with everything that I am.’

  When he tugged on her hand again she stepped up into his arms and drew his head down to hers for the kiss to seal her declaration.

  ‘Have you considered the children might be waiting too?’

  Slowly Georgina drew back until she was able see the dawn of joy in her eyes reflected in his.

  The door at Torr’s back was pulled open and a carefully neutral male voice queried, ‘You the party for Serenity Island?’

  Torr turned to give him a bemused nod and the pilot grinned openly.

  ‘Serenity is perfect for what you guys obviously have in mind—much better than a draughty stairwell. Can you hang out till I get you there? Only takes twenty minutes!’

  ‘I guess,’ Torr grinned back, then slanted his gaze back to Georgina.

  ‘We’ve only been waiting untold millennia! What’s another twenty minutes?’

  Tucking her smile into his heart, he told the pilot, ‘Lead the way, mate.’

  Belted into their seats behind the pilot, Georgina was finally able to consider the nature of the new energies and feelings surging through her. The most amazing was the sense of lightness that pervaded her whole being. She felt so unlike the Georgina she’d been before Fran had brought her fiancé home to meet the family—kind of like a familiar stranger. Smiling wryly at her crazy thoughts, she turned to Torr and asked, ‘Serenity Island?’

  He just laughed, the golden lights dancing in his eyes with wicked intent and said no more until they were in the air.

  They were both gazing down at the receding coastline from their respective windows when Georgina felt a strange prickling at the top of her head, warmth trickling through her being and Torr’s voice in her head.

  ‘Being able to communicate with you like this is amazing—and very convenient!’

  She felt his smile! ‘Why? What do you want to say that the pilot shouldn’t hear?’ Though her eyes were still trained on the vista beneath the chopper she saw none of it.

  ‘We’ll save that for later—I want to explain about Serenity. It belongs to a group of Brits, one of them being my old Oxford buddy. I knew he had shares in an island out here and—anyway, I rang him and he pulled a few strings and we have it for a week.’

  ‘A week? Everyone will worry if we just di
sappear for a week!’

  ‘I rang Ellen; Told Dr. Raymond and the Commander at SAR. That covers it, I think. This is our time.’

  ‘What about clothes?’

  ‘We won’t need them.’

  At last Georgina turned to face Torr. Her hand slid into his and for several seconds they just smiled at one another. Then they sat, hands entwined, gazing out onto the sparkling sea beneath which lay embedded in every particle of sand the energy imprint of a great land once known as Atlantis.

  ‘Serenity.’ The pilot spoke above the noise of the rotors, and looming directly in front of them was a rocky island rising to a single peak in an otherwise empty ocean.

  Standing at the edge of the landing pad with a hamper of supplies and a sack of clean linen at their feet while the chopper whapped back towards the mainland, they surveyed their surroundings. A rough, narrow track led from the pad down a steep rocky incline to the beach. To their right a crystalline stream cascaded in leaps and falls from some hidden spring higher up the hillside, rushing on a precipitate journey to the ocean. To their left another rough path climbed upwards through fantastic rocky outcrops to a building perched on a small plateau about fifty meters above.

  ‘A temple?’ Georgina asked.

  Torr shook his head.

  ‘Looks like a Greek temple but actually it’s the house. Jonathan says it’s pretty basic but has everything needed for survival. He says it’s the place they come to get away from the trappings of modern society. The only concession they make is gas for cooking. There’s no power and very little accessible firewood. At least we won’t have to rub sticks together to make fire before we can eat.’

  Georgina stood perfectly still for a moment, closed her eyes, and allowed her skin to absorb the incredible energy that was Serenity. Until this moment she hadn’t realized how desperately she needed it.

  ‘Serenity,’ she murmured. ‘Perfect.’

  Picking up the hamper and the linen sack, Torr led the way up the path to the building on the plateau, leaving Georgina empty-handed and grinning at the rippling muscles of his back beneath the linen of his shirt as she followed. Me man, you woman! That hadn’t changed in however many millennia it was since Atlantis!