True Traitor (First Wave Book 7)

by Mikayla Lane

  He turned to the woman as True reached her and they threw their arms around each other, dissolving into tears and high-pitched words that had Leif zoning out for a moment.

  “Leif, she needs a doctor!” True yelled and brought him back to reality.

  Leif hopped out of the vehicle and approached the woman and child slowly, not wanting to frighten the powerful boy. He held his hands up in the air and slowed to a stop a few feet in front of them.

  He turned his attention to the distressed mother.

  “I am Leif, and I don’t want to hurt you. I have a doctor friend who is getting a team and gear together to help you with your baby. If you follow me, I can take you there,” he said, hoping the poor thing would trust him. She didn’t look well and was way too pale.

  He stepped back nervously when the boy left the vehicle and approached him. Determined to not be afraid since he had no intention of harming anyone, Leif stood his ground and was getting ready to kneel in front of the child, when the boy began to glow.

  He shielded his eyes from the blinding light, and when it was gone he faced a man a little bigger and bulkier than he was. With wings, he thought in amazement. How cool is that? This must be what Stephanie saw.

  Leif ignored True’s gasp of surprise, and he looked up into the man’s eyes.

  “Mind reap me, sift my energy, do whatever you have to in order to prove I mean you no harm, but please do it quickly, so we can get your mother medical care,” he said, sounding braver than he felt as he tried to comprehend the power that emanated from the man/boy.

  The winged warrior nodded.

  “I will cause no harm. I see the location in your mind and will divert my father and the others there as well,” Tristan said.

  True looked at the warrior child she adored and tried not to stare.

  “Can’t they track them there? Their Relian blood?” she asked Leif.

  The warrior placed his hand on the wall, and moments later another golden ball appeared. This one broke into several dozen smaller balls that flew down the tunnel walls. He then turned to True and smiled.

  “Do not worry, my cousin, we will be protected from those who do not mean us well,” he said, before turning to Leif. “We will follow you.”

  Before True and Leif’s startled eyes, the golden light flashed and then shrank until nothing remained but a small boy again who got back in the vehicle with his mother and grunted and pointed to Leif.

  Leif smiled and shook his head, charmed by the child, and returned to his ATV. He was surprised when True ran to him and hopped on the back. He’d expected her to stay with the mother and child.

  She gave him a cheeky smile as she nudged him.

  “She wanted to drive. I think she thought my weight would slow us down,” True said by way of excuse.

  Leif hid his own smile, executed a 3-point turn and headed down another tunnel towards the old chamber hall, hoping the warrior was sending everyone going in the right direction. There was no room for mistakes in this.

  He felt True turn her head to look behind them.

  “Are they still there? Is she ok?” he asked.

  True turned back and nodded.

  “She’s still there, but she’s in bad shape. Are you sure we can trust the doctor?” True asked worriedly.

  Leif nodded.

  “Even Lauren wouldn’t harm a pregnant woman and a child. She’d give her life to protect a patient. Your friend is in no danger,” Leif assured her.

  His little firefly may be a little hot to handle, but he couldn’t help but admire her loyalty to her friends and family. It was something they had in common that he hoped they could build on.

  It took at least another 30 minutes to get to the chamber hall, and Leif was a little surprised to see dozens of hybrids already there setting up camp and defenses.

  He drove into the middle of the huge cavern and was relieved to see Lauren and half a dozen medical techs setting up an area in an alcove that could be easily defended.

  True looked around the room in awe, not even noticing the stares of the mountain hybrids as Tricia and Tristan drove in behind them.

  “What is this place?” she asked on a gasp.

  The ceiling of the cavern was difficult to see, but what she could see was really far up. It was shaped almost in a perfect circle and there were stone chairs carved into the floor around the room—enough to hold a hundred people, with several more in the center of the room.

  There were dozens of alcoves carved out of the rock behind the chairs. Most were empty, but some had remnants of what looked like old cushions or pillows within. The most curious part was that the entire cavern was carved out of what looked like crystal. True likened it to one of those geodes that was cracked open, and someone had scraped the floor of spheres to make it flat.

  There were four openings, and from what True could tell of where she thought they were underground each tunnel designated a compass point—north, south, east, and west. From a strategic standpoint, they should be able to easily defend it when Grai and the others got there.

  Leif ignored her question and turned to the pregnant female, who looked several shades whiter than she had when he first met her.

  “Follow me, the doctor is right up ahead,” he said and moved slowly to where Lauren was issuing orders to her team.

  Lauren turned at the sound of the vehicles and gasped at the sight of Tricia. She ran forward and caught Tricia as she hunched over with a terrible contraction.

  “Get over here!” Lauren called to the others, her gift springing to life as she touched the distressed mother. She immediately sent the energy needed to stop the contraction until she could better assess the mother and baby.

  Tristan carefully jumped from the vehicle and approached the team helping his mother. He stayed back until they had her settled on a stretcher next to an alcove and behind a chair. With her situated halfway between two of the tunnels, Tristan nodded approvingly before he moved to stand by his mother.

  Lauren looked down as the child walked up beside her, and she watched as the boy lifted one small hand up to try and touch his mother. All thought of anything other than the welfare of the protective child and his mother fled her mind. With no fear, she leaned down and picked up the small boy in her arms and smiled at him, uncaring of the gasps behind her.

  “Your mommy and your baby sibling will be ok. Why don’t you lay up here with her while we get her comfortable?” she said gently as the little boy gave her a brilliant smile that Lauren swore she could feel reach inside her.

  She gently put him on the bed beside his smiling mother.

  “Thank you,” Tricia said.

  Lauren nodded and smiled back.

  “Let me take a look at your little one and see how it’s doing, ok?” Tricia tried to smile and nodded her head.

  Lauren turned to one of her techs.

  “Find something for the little boy to eat and drink. I could feel his hunger and thirst when I touched him,” she said.

  Lauren was referring to her gift of healing—her ability to use her energy to sift the energy of another and find illness and heal it. She’d felt the child’s intense thirst and hunger immediately, the same way she’d felt the distress of the baby and mother. Her fingers flew across her comm to verify what she’d found in the mother’s energy.

  Lauren pasted on a smile and looked at Tricia.

  “What is your name? I can’t keep calling you patient,” she said, knowing she’d need to develop a connection with the mother if she was going to save her and the baby.

  Tricia tried to smile.

  “I’m Tricia T’Alq. And this is Tristan, my little warrior.”

  Lauren gave the adorable little boy a genuine smile and looked at Tricia.

  “Your little warrior seems to be a very appropriate moniker for him. He’s precious,” Lauren said before she turned serious.

  “Tricia, your labor has progressed too far; it can’t be stopped even if we could because your daughter is
determined to come and help her big brother protect you,” Lauren said with a smile, trying to ease the mother’s fear.

  Tricia sniffed as True and the others waited with bated breath to see if the mother and baby would be all right. Tricia choked on a chuckle.

  “I figured she’d be stubborn—another little one that will be like her father. Is she alright?” Tricia asked, her eyes clouding with tears.

  Lauren took Tricia’s hand and patted it with her other one, sending the worried mother strength and assurance.

  “Tricia, this isn’t optimal because of the stress you are under, but we’re going to get her in this world safely and keep her that way,” Lauren said glancing up at Leif with a hard stare before she spoke to him through the Shengari’.

  “You better damn well keep whatever legend shit is going on away from her and the boy. My gift may be healing, but you don’t want to see what I can do to a body if anyone comes near these two,” she warned.

  Leif nodded his head with a grin, not surprised that the adorable imp of a boy—scary power or not—had wrapped the hard, cold doctor around his little finger already. He pulled True away from the alcove and led her to the center of the room where he called his hybrids to the makeshift table made from the hoods of the vehicles.

  “Are they going to be ok?” the male asked first as he nodded worried towards a heavily panting Tricia.

  Several other questions about the pregnant mother and her remarkable child were asked before Leif whistled to get everyone’s attention.

  “They are fine. For now. We need to keep them that way, so let’s get lookouts in each of the tunnels and some at each entryway inside,” he said, trying to plot a defense of the location.

  True turned at a roar from the west entry, and she shrieked and ran towards Decano with open arms. Leif watched with only a little jealousy as the large man snatched her up in his arms and swung her around while she giggled and hugged him close.

  Leif heard True speak to him, and the man’s smile faded as he looked towards Tricia and set True back on her feet. He nodded at her before running over to check on Tricia while med techs hung sheets around the area to give Tricia some privacy.

  Lauren was amazed as Tristan sat next to his mother, his right hand gesticulating wildly while a golden ball rolled across the room towards them. One second the ball was on the floor and the next, Lauren gasped as the boy caught it in his hand in a shower of golden sparkles.

  She laughed in shock.

  “Wow . . . just wow. That’s really impressive, little warrior,” Lauren said with a big smile as the med techs stared at the incredible boy.

  Tricia beamed.

  “Give him time to get his energy back; he’ll really surprise you then,” she said as she patted his back and encouraged him to eat the snacks they’d given him.

  Lauren went back to redoing the scans that she’d already completed several times, but she still couldn’t figure out what any of it meant. The woman was beast, but not beast. She definitely had the parasite, but it was much different than any parasite she’d ever seen. Unsure if it would impact the mother during birth, she had to ask what the woman was and wasn’t sure how to word it.

  She waited until the Relian hybrid had moved back to True and Leif to set up a defense and Lauren excused her techs, unwilling to allow them to possibly spread unnecessary fear among their people.

  “Tricia, I know this is going to sound bad, but I need to know what you are. Your beast is not . . . what I’m used to . . .” Lauren trailed off, trying not to offend the poor woman.

  Tricia chuckled.

  “I’m what’s called a prime. We’re a few evolutions ahead of the regular beast species, which is why mine permeates into my brain more. We control more power than most hybrids. There’s a long prophecy about it. Tristan is a light bringer. He and the others like him are here to help the humans with the conversion,” Tricia explained, seeing the relief cross the woman’s face.

  Lauren nodded.

  “That actually makes the scans make a whole lot more sense to me. Is there any way that you can let me print your energy? What happens is that you give me permission to pull a piece of your energy. Once I have it, it will give me a full genetic makeup of you. My own energy will be able to follow through the cells of your body and repair any damage that may occur during the birth,” Lauren said, hating the fear she saw in the woman’s eyes.

  Tristan began grunting and rocking back and forth. Lauren reached a hand out to try and comfort him when Tristan snatched it away so fast she never saw his hand move. He touched his mother with his other hand, and a second later there was a golden flash, and Lauren was left gasping for breath.

  Her med techs ran to her when she sat up abruptly and waved them off.

  “He made our minds up for us and made the print,” she said and turned to them with a grin.

  Lauren looked back to Tricia with a smile.

  “If your daughter is as stubborn as your son, you are going to have your hands full,” Lauren teased as she looked at the little boy who was again appearing to ignore them.

  Lauren held Tricia’s hand and allowed her energy to travel the cells in the woman’s body, searching for the small tear she’d seen in the scans. She was getting ready to begin the repairs when she and Tricia both jumped from the roar echoing from across the room.

  Tricia grinned up at Lauren.

  “That would be the man they get their stubbornness from,” she said. Lauren’s eyes widened as Grai thundered towards them.

  Grai reached Tricia’s side at the same time the golden ball launched itself in the air and was caught in a shower of golden sparks by his son. The coordination his son displayed had Grai stop short and stare at him for a moment before he turned his attention back to Tricia.

  Lauren stepped aside as the large, handsome man leaned down and hugged his mate. She could tell they were having a private conversation through the Shengari’ and gave them as much time as she could before she had to interrupt.

  Lauren cleared her throat and waited until Grai’s dark eyes clashed with her own before she spoke.

  “Your mate has a small tear in her uterus that is easily attributed to the physical strain she’s been through, but it has to be repaired before she can continue her labor. If you give me a moment I can fix it, and she should be fine,” Lauren said, hoping the man agreed.

  Lauren would swear he was going to until Tristan grunted loudly and began pushing his father away from his mother. When Grai was standing again, Tristan grunted and pointed at Lauren before grunting and pointing at his mother.

  Tricia smiled and patted her son’s back.

  “He thinks she needs to do this, Grai. Take him over to True so you guys can keep us safe while she does this,” Tricia said, trusting the doctor since her son did.

  Grai looked like he was going to argue, but when Tristan raised both of his arms to be picked up, Grai gave in and picked up his son. He leaned down and kissed his mate’s forehead, promised to be right back, and glared at the female doctor before he headed to see what defenses they had.

  Grai kissed and cuddled his son as he took long strides to where he could see True’s flaming red hair.

  “Daddy is so proud of you, little warrior. I will always be proud of you,” he said, loving the feel of his son’s arms wrapped around his neck.

  Grai towered over the other hybrids gathered around the vehicles and could easily see the map laid out on a hood. He listened to the blond near True speak.

  Leif looked up and nodded at Grai T’Alq, the first Relian/Valendran hybrid he’d ever seen before turning back to the others.

  “They have more coming. I found out several teams have let more cats, hybrids, and a Valendran inside. We have to find the Valendran quickly,” Leif said while another hybrid whistled.

  “What the hell were they thinking?” someone asked while a few others shook their heads.

  Leif sighed.

  “It doesn’t matter at this point. I’ve
got us back on lockdown. We can’t find and protect any more of them until DF gets here,” he said apologetically as he looked up at Grai.

  “Are these little balls safe to be near?” a hybrid yelled from across the room.

  Everyone turned to see the female backed up against one of the tunnel entrances, trying to avoid one of Tristan’s golden balls. Looking around they could see several at each entrance, and those who had seen the precious warrior souls contained in the spheres yelled at once: “Yes!”

  Grai, knowing he wasn’t in command, turned to the mannabe that was.

  “Each of those balls is a light-bringer child like my son. They are here to protect all of us. They should be treated with respect,” Grai said, hoping the man would listen.

  Leif nodded his head, remembering Tristan as the golden warrior, and he sent out a call through the Shengari’ that the golden balls were there to help protect them and that they should be treated with respect. Although Leif could feel the confusion of his brethren, he felt who hadn’t witnessed the marvel of the golden balls accept his orders as well.

  Leif looked up at Grai.

  “Done. Now give us some help setting this place up so we can protect it until the DF gets here,” he said.

  “Who are you?” Grai grinned.

  True was going to warn him to lie, but it was too late. Leif had barely said his own name when Grai’s fist shot out, and he nailed Leif in the mouth.

  Decano—familiar with the name and being thrown from the doorway of True’s room—stalked towards Leif as True jumped in front of him, holding her hands up.

  “Wait! He’s trying to help,” she said as Grai tried to hand Tristan to another one of his men.

  Tristan only gripped his father tighter and grunted loudly. When that didn’t work he screamed and his right hand began weaving symbols in the air. Moments later, there was a golden aura around Leif.

  Leif looked through the barrier with a little worry until True was able to touch him through it. When Decano went to punch him, the golden shield absorbed his fist, and he had to slowly pull it out of the barrier.