by ammyford1
I heard the sound of footsteps coming from the corridor. One set clicked with the distinctive sound of heels as they struck the marble floor.
“Miss Talina, my Lord,” Sulaan said, entering the room and introducing the visitor.
Bloody hell! That was all I needed. I braced myself as I was about to meet Ahran’s fiancé.
She was tall, and even taller in a very high pair of expensive looking cream heels. She was catwalk slim, with long, glossy, jet black hair and an olive complexion. She was immaculately turned out in dark camel coloured trousers and a cream, sleeveless linen blouse. Her make-up was flawless like it had been applied by a celebrity make-up artist and she was gorgeous in a glamorous, Hollywood kind of way. I could have happily punched her in the face.
“Talina, what a surprise!” The King said. It was with a certain sense of satisfaction that I noticed his jaw muscle flex with tension. He didn’t seem overly pleased by her impromptu visit.
“My Lord,” she responded and walked over to air kiss both his cheeks. “Forgive my intrusion but Ahran called me to say he would be going away, I was in the area visiting one of my clients and thought it would be easier if I came here to see him before he went.”
“No need to explain, it’s nice to see you, although I am afraid we are all beside ourselves with worry,” Leylana said as she stood up and gave Talina a hug.
“I am sorry to hear about your grandson. I am sure he will be fine. Ahran will find him in no time.” I knew that she had meant to sound reassuring but to my ears she sounded infuriatingly flippant. I disliked her immediately, although, to be fair, the woman had stood little chance of winning my friendship simply by virtue of who she was. I watched her with morbid fascination as she made her way over to Ahran and kissed him on the lips, which I thought was entirely inappropriate considering the company. I could feel myself bristling. So far she had completely ignored me.
“Darling, do you think you will be away long?” She asked as if he was going away on some business trip. She seemed completely oblivious to the lack of compassion she was showing.
“I’ve no idea how long it will take, we are all hoping it won’t be too long for everyone’s sake.”
The King interrupted. “Talina, this is Sophie McAllister, our grandson’s Aunt.”
I stood up and reluctantly offered my hand. You never had a cattle prod to hand when you needed one. “Hello, pleased to meet you,” I said without feeling.
Unsurprisingly, Talina gave me a limp handshake.
“I am desperately sorry to hear about your nephew, you must be distraught.” Did she sound disingenuous just to my ears? What the hell did Ahran see in her? Apart from her phenomenal good looks.
“Yes,” I replied. “Although I’ll be happy when Ahran and I can get on and begin our search.” For some reason I wanted her to know that I would be accompanying him.
“You are going with Ahran?” She raised a perfectly shaped eyebrow.
“Yes, I can’t stay behind and do nothing,” I replied.
“No, quite right, I would feel exactly the same,” she said distractedly.
“Where do you think you will head first Ahran?” Leylana asked.
“Well, we’ll head towards Chancuna, there is a known portal there which they may have used. We might be able to pick up a lead.
The King spoke to Sulaan and once again left to carry out the King’s instructions.
I caught Talina glaring at me. Clearly the thought of me spending time with her fiancé did not sit well with her.
“Do you have to go so soon?” she asked as she rested a hand on Ahran’s shoulder. She was like a female cat rubbing her scent over her mate and I had to look away.
“The sooner we leave the better,” he responded, seemingly oblivious to her disapproval of me accompanying him.
“Make sure you keep me informed won’t you?” she said with a pout.
Ugh! The woman was infuriating.
“I’ll walk you to your car,” Ahran said.
He obviously wanted to say his goodbyes in private.
“Yes of course.” She sounded a little disgruntled at being dismissed so quickly.
“Goodbye Sophie, it was nice meeting you, I know that Ahran will do his best to find your nephew.” She offered me her limp hand again. I shook it noticing her perfectly manicured nails. I bet she hadn’t done a day’s work in her life! I thought about what my hands achieved in a day and knew that a French manicure wouldn’t last five minutes.
“Goodbye, Talina.” I tried to not sound relieved that she was leaving.
I turned away from the sight of Ahran’s hand at the small of her back as they left the room.
The King was back on the phone and Leylana was listening intently to the conversation. I couldn’t understand what was being discussed but I wasn’t cheered by the expression on his face.
“Is it bad news?” I asked, as he hung up.
“One moment,” he said raising his finger. He dialled his phone and briefly spoke again.
“There appears to have been portal activity just after Toby went missing at the furthest perimeter of Bazeera’s territory. The region they are in, if indeed they are still there, is hostile, and mostly tropical, it isn’t the easiest terrain to navigate around.”
It sounded rather daunting. “How far away is it?”
The King thought about this for a moment. “About 150,000 kilometres.”
I had no concept of how far this was but I was pretty sure it was a long way.
“Can we travel there through a portal?” Surely with Ramian technology it wouldn’t take that long.
“Unfortunately not, portal travel is only possible between universes and not within a universe, our atmosphere is too dense.”
“Forgive my ignorance but can’t we just go back to Earth and re-enter through the portal that Bazeera’s men took Toby through?”
“If only it was that simple,” the King replied. “I strongly suspect Bazeera has closed that gateway by now and I cannot open a portal that is not in my territory.”
The few rays of hope I had felt earlier started to fade.
“So how will we get there? Surely it will take forever.”
“Well, you will have to fly to Zanzin and then take the train to either Borlaan or Histra, these areas are remote and there are no connecting flights.”
Ahran returned from seeing Talina off and caught the last part of what the King had just said.
“So they’ve taken him to the other side of Morana.” He didn’t sound at all pleased to hear this.
“I am afraid so, but then Bazeera wasn’t going to make it easy for us,” the King said with a degree of resignation.
“No, I suppose not. Well, in that case we better start our journey. We’ll head to the airport.” He turned towards me “Are you sure you want to do this Sophie?” Ahran asked, clearly hoping that I was having second thoughts. “It’s going to be a long and gruelling journey across some hostile territory.” He was trying his damnedest to put me off.
“Never been surer,” I said, trying to sound more upbeat than I felt.
We all stood up to say our goodbyes. Leylana hugged me tightly. “The very best of luck and please be careful,” she said as she pulled away still holding my arms. She gave me another quick hug. The King came over and put his hand on my shoulder.
“Goodbye my dear. All my best agents are out there looking for him and it should only be a matter of time before Toby is found.”
I hoped more than anything he was right. And as if the situation wasn’t bad enough, meeting Talina had added to my woes. I knew my hopes of her being a plain homely type had been wishful thinking. She turned out to be everything I feared, stunning and predatory. I resolved to myself that whilst this situation had thrown Ahran and myself together I was going to have to rein in my attraction for him. I had to focus on the job of finding Toby and once he was safe we would get the hell out of here.
Sulaan came back into the drawing room and handed
me back the photo of Katie and Toby. I felt sure that Katie would be doing exactly what I was about to do had she been here.
“Ready?” Ahran asked.
“As I’ll ever be,” I replied. He looked disappointed with my answer.
“One of my cars is ready to take you to the airport,” the King said. “Try to keep in touch when you can.” He clapped Ahran on the back.
“Good luck,” Leylana said as she hugged me and Ahran again, her eyes watering once more.
Sulaan handed Ahran a wallet of documents and we made our way to the front of the palace where a car was waiting for us. It was unlike any car I had ever seen. It was silver with darkened windows and hovered about a foot off the ground. The passenger doors came out from the sides and slid back in one smooth motion as we approached. Ahran motioned for me to get in whilst he put the bags into the boot. I noticed that the car didn’t move or sink as we got in. Ahran spoke. The doors shut and the vehicle obediently moved silently across the terrace and out through the wooden gates. I grabbed Ahran’s arm involuntarily. It was the strangest feeling knowing that nobody was actually driving the car.
Ahran’s expression softened for the first time in the last hour.
“You’ll get used to it.”
“But there isn’t anyone at the controls. What about other traffic? And what happens if someone steps out in front of it?”
“It has an extremely intelligent sensor and anticipatory system, these things just don’t crash.”
I thought about the car crash that had killed my sister and wondered how long it would be before this kind of vehicle existed on Earth and how many lives it would save.
“When is our flight?”
“In about an hour and a half.”
“Doesn’t the King have his own plane?”
“He does, but it’s not big enough for the distance we’ve got to fly, it’s a long way even by Ramian standards. You can still change your mind Sophie.”
I turned and faced him squarely. “Look, I know you don’t want me with you, you’ve made your feelings perfectly clear. But I can’t stay behind, please understand that, so if we could just strike an amicable truce it will make it much easier for the both of us.”
Ahran sighed and looked out the window before turning back to me.
“You’re right I don’t want you with me.”
That hurt.
“It’s not safe. But my biggest fear is I don’t trust myself around you,” he said wearily.
My eyes snapped up to his.
“I want to kiss you again and see if it is as good as I remember,” he confessed.
I drew in a shaky breath, his blue eyes were working their magic and it was a struggle to look away.
I was in trouble. I willed my brain to think rationally. “Well…we both know that what happened this morning was a mistake. We are adults and I’m sure we can restrain ourselves so that we can see this through without doing anything we would both regret.” I congratulated myself. I sounded convincing even though every cell in my body strained towards him to see if what he was wondering was indeed true.
“I wish I could be so certain.”
He was looking at my lips as if they were some kind of exquisite delicacy willing him to take a wickedly forbidden taste.
How was I going to stay away from him knowing that he wanted to kiss me as much as I wanted him to? So much for trying to keep my distance. I figured that being in the intimate confines of a car was a situation that needed to be avoided. The charge that hummed between us when we were this close was too difficult to resist.
He muttered something to himself in Ramian and looked away. Even though I didn’t understand what he’d said it was obvious that for some unfathomable reason I affected him. On the one hand, it was exhilarating, but on the other, it filled me with utter dismay. The last few moments had just made this trip so much more dangerous and I contemplated whether I should turn back and let him go on his own after all.
Chapter 12
We came to a halt outside the airport.
“Come on, I need to get something to eat.” His mood had chilled a few degrees.
The air was hot and dry when we got out of the car and I wished I’d worn something cooler, my jeans were clinging uncomfortably to my legs.
“How long is the flight?” I asked, feeling awkward after what had just happened between us.
“About 5 hours,” he replied, slinging a bag over each shoulder.
“I can take my bag.” If I wanted him to take me seriously I needed to show him I was up to this. He hesitated and shrugged as he handed it to me.
We made our way into the huge airport terminal.
“I don’t have a passport or anything,” I said struggling to keep up with his pace.
His face was expressionless. He had returned to being Mr Broody and it irritated me.
“You don’t need one. Halsan has cleared you to travel,” he said in a clipped voice.
It was busy inside the terminal. People were going about their business in the usual way. The only difference I could see between Ramians and humans, was that Ramians were taller, other than that I could have been in any international airport on Earth. I was also relieved to see that not every woman in Ramia was a goddess. I thanked the Lord for small mercies.
The girl at the check in desk fumbled her way through our bag check-in clearly flustered by Ahran. I watched her sympathetically. I understood how difficult it was to concentrate in his presence. When she had checked in our bags and they had been sucked up a chute behind her, she passed a scanner over the back of Ahran’s neck and handed the paperwork back to him smiling shyly, her neck and cheeks flushed. Poor girl. Can you imagine the effect his kiss has on you?
Ahran took the papers and put them in his shirt pocket.
“Why did that girl scan the back of your neck?” I asked as we walked away from the desk.
“She was scanning my chip, the paperwork is for you.”
I laughed. “What? You’re chipped?!”
Ahran failed to see what was so funny. “Yes, we are chipped at birth. We don’t have passports here our ID information is in the chip that’s inserted into the back of our necks just after we are born.”
“We only chip our pets at home,” I laughed again at how ridiculous it sounded.
“We have no issues about identifying people here and it does away with the need for passports or ID,” he said matter of factly.
I dwelled on this for a moment, maybe it wasn’t as ridiculous as it sounded.
We went through a full body scanner and then we were free to enter the main concourse. I spied some clothes outlets on the far side. I really needed something cooler to wear.
“Have we got time for me to buy some lighter clothes,” I asked.
Ahran checked his watch. “Yes, you can do that whilst I get us something to eat. I’ll meet you under that screen,” he said, indicating towards an information screen near one of the shops.
“Okay, I’ll see you in a bit.” Suddenly I realised I had nothing to buy them with.
“Ahran!” I called after him and he turned around.
“I’ve got no money.” I gave an apologetic shrug.
He raised an eyebrow as he took a card out of his wallet.
“Just hand this to the shop assistant.”
“Thanks, I’ll pay you back,” I said sheepishly.
“Forget it.”
I felt uncomfortable being indebted to him but what choice did I have?
I made my way to the first of the shops and started looking through the rails. There were a couple of skirts and a pair of shorts that I thought might do. I draped them over my arm and began to make my way to the changing cubicles. For some reason, I felt like I was being watched. I entered one of the cubicles and peered through the gap at the edge of the curtain to see if my hunch was correct. I noticed a man with close cropped hair and dark clothes hovering near a waste bin. He glanced my way before slipping away and joining the throng of
travellers. This wouldn’t usually have been an extraordinary sight in a busy airport but something about him struck me as odd, he was kind of aloof and in my experience most people in an airport had a purpose. I shook my head. Maybe I was just imagining it.
I hurriedly tried the skirts and shorts on. They were fine. I grabbed a pair of sandals as I made my way to the desk to pay. My eyes scanned the people around to see if I could see the guy in the dark clothes again.
Were we being followed? The thought made my skin prickle. I glanced over to the information board. There was no sign of Ahran. I handed the woman the card he had given me and once my purchase was complete, I went and stood by the screen as we had arranged. Suddenly, everyone in the immediate vicinity began to look suspicious. The minutes ticked by and still no sign of Ahran. I could feel the adrenaline starting to pump. What if he’d decided to go on his own after all?
And then I spotted him walking towards me with two baguettes in one hand and a couple of drinks in the other, his long legs eating up the ground as he approached me. My breath caught in my throat at the sight of him.
“I was beginning to wonder where you were,” I said. Why did I sound like I had just walked up a flight of stairs? I chose not to tell him that I thought he’d deserted me.
“It took a while to be served. Shall we go over there and eat?” he said, pointing towards a pleasant seating area where real trees grew up through gaps in the marble floor.
We sat down and when I was confident no one could eavesdrop I leant across the table towards him. “I think we are being followed,” I whispered.
“Hmm, I know,” he replied taking a mouthful of his baguette.
“What do you mean you know? Why didn’t you tell me?” I forgot to whisper and Ahran shot me a warning look.
“Because I didn’t want to frighten you,” he said quietly. “I noticed them both when we were at the check-in desk.” I had to strain to hear what he said. He seemed to forget that I had to rely on my inferior hearing. “There are two of them?” I squeaked in horror.
