"No, I didn't," Ero protested, "I didn't know anything about Earth other than that you were there. None of us had ever been there. In fact, none of us had ever been in a spaceship. I was so worried about not ever seeing you again that it didn't really matter to me that I was going to a completely different planet that I didn't know what it looked like or how I would make my way around. I hadn’t met too many humans in my life, and most of the ones that I had were not exactly pleasant."
"Were you scared?"
Ero thought about the question carefully. He didn't really know how to answer. He was being totally honest when he said that it didn't matter to him when he climbed on that ship that he was going all the way to Earth to find her, but when he thought back on it he knew that it wasn't so much that it didn't frighten him, but that it didn't matter to him that he was frightened. It had been his fault that Zuri had left Uoria only twenty-four hours after she had arrived with the intention of being the first professor to come to the planet to be a part of the exchange program the king, Creia, had planned with the university on Earth. He had hurt her so badly with a comment that he made about her to the other warriors that she had left, even after they had bonded for the first time. It was his responsibility to go after her and convince her that he loved her and needed her to come back to Uoria with him to be his mate. It still seemed like an unimaginable gift that she actually had.
"I know that you don’t want me to go, but isn't this exactly what you wanted to do when you came here?" he asked.
Zuri gave a huff as if he had put voice to something that she had been trying to avoid.
"I don't think that's really applicable."
Ero laughed.
"Really?" he said, tickling her playfully, "You don't think it's the same thing that you wanted to know everything you could about the Denynso and to teach us about humans so you came to be a part of the exchange program? Actually, you know what? You're right. It's not the same. You came all the way from another planet to find out more about Uoria and the Denynso. I'm just leaving the compound."
"It's not the same thing. There have been scientists coming to Uoria to study for years. I at least had some kind of idea of what I was getting myself into when I came here. I knew I was coming to a specific compound to interact with a certain species. I definitely didn't have all of the information or know exactly what the Denynso were like, but at least I had a few reference points. You have absolutely no clue what you are walking into. You are literally just going out and wandering around on a planet that not a single member of your kind has ever walked around on, essentially just hoping that whatever you find is not going to kill you. I’m sorry if I don't find that terribly comforting."
Ero lifted up on his elbow and gazed down into Zuri's face. Her thick blond hair rippled around her lovely, round face, still flushed, and her bare shoulders. Large blue eyes gazed up at him and he had to take a moment just to look at her. His mate was truly the most beautiful woman he had ever seen and part of him still couldn't believe that she was really his.
"This is something that I have to do, my love."
"But why?"
"Well, not only is it my responsibility and my duty as a warrior of the Denynso, but I have been thinking a lot about the future and what it might hold for us. I don't want to get to that point knowing that I didn't do absolutely everything that I could to make sure that our future is safe and happy as possible."
"What point?" Zuri asked.
Her voice had become soft and when he looked into her eyes he knew that she knew what he was thinking about, but needed to hear him say it. Ero rested his hand on Zuri's stomach and rubbed it gently, looking down to watch his palm follow the curves of her belly and the swell of her hipbones.
"When we will have a little one of our own. Seeing Pyra and Eden get ready for their baby has made me think about how wonderful it would be to see you carrying our child, and to get to be a father. I didn’t have a chance to have a good relationship with my father growing up to really make any memories with him, and I know that I want to be able to do that for someone."
Even though his parents had died when Ero was very young, talking about them and the relationship with them that he had missed out on throughout his life brought the same deep sadness that it always had. He had always been the orphan of the Denynso, but also the smallest among the warriors. These factors had combined to give him a bitter, angry attitude and a propensity for distrust and violence as he got older. The other warriors had never missed the opportunity to tease and bully him about his size, and it was this bullying that had pushed him to the cruel comments he had made about Zuri. It had been the horrible moment when he realized what he did to her that it finally occurred to him truly how deeply the teasing had impacted him. When he saw the painful look in her eyes he saw all of the hurt that he had experienced and knew that he had just done the exact same thing to her that the warriors had done to him all those years.
Zuri let out a long breath and rested her hand over Ero's on her stomach.
"I've been thinking about that, too," she admitted.
Ero grinned and rolled over onto her, capturing her mouth with his and exploring her with his tongue. He pressed into her, hoping that he would be able to memorize the feeling of every inch of her body beneath him when he was away and lonely for her.
"Let's get started now," he growled into her ear and Zuri laughed.
Ero felt her hands pushing on his shoulders and he complied with the pressure, letting her ease her back onto his side on the bed.
"Hold on there," she said, rolling out from under the blankets, "Let me give you this first."
Ero groaned in protest as she got out of bed, but let himself enjoy watching her naked form wiggling its way across the room to the desk against the wall. He let out a grunt of appreciation when she bent over to look in the drawer and Zuri glanced over her shoulder at him. She smiled before straightening and making her way back over to the bed so that she could hand him what looked like a large book.
"What's this?"
"It's a field journal. I brought it with me from the university and I want you to bring it with you on your trip. I planned on recording all of my observations about the Denynso in it so that I could present them to the university board when I went back. "
"We're just like big giant specimens to you, aren't we?" Ero teased.
"Yes. You're my favorite, though."
Zuri leaned over and kissed him. Ero tossed the journal over to the bedside table. He was happy that he would have it with him when he left the compound and needed to feel her with him, but in that moment she was there, close enough for him to touch and kiss, and he was going to take absolute advantage of it.
Chapter Three
Eden ran her hand down the back of Pyra's head, stroking the long white hair that he usually wore in the customary Mohawk of the Denynso men but was now laying soft. His breath tickled on her bare skin as he whispered to her belly, but it was so sweet that she didn't want to giggle and stop him before he was finished. He was explaining to their baby why he had to leave and that he was going to get back as soon as he could.
"I just want you to be safe," he whispered, running his hand along the side of her belly as he spoke, "and that means I have to go out there and find out if there are any scary things that I will have to fight off for you. I don't want you to worry about me. You just stay in there and concentrate on getting all big and strong. I'll be just fine and when you're ready, you'll come out and we'll run and play and I'll teach you how to climb a tree."
Eden laughed then and her enormous mate looked up at her.
"What?"
"I don't think that climbing a tree is something that will happen directly after birth." She stopped, realizing that there were still many things that no one knew about her pregnancy or the baby that she was carrying, "Right? I mean, this will be a baby, right? Like a small baby. Not a toddler that will be able to get up and walk around right after birth?"
Pyra returned her laugh and stroked her belly again.
"I don't think so, Babe. I, for one, have never actually seen one, but I'm fairly certain that Denynso babies are small and baby-like. I don't think walking around is a thing for a couple of years, but that doesn’t mean that I can't start planning now."
He leaned down and kissed the swell of her belly, closing his eyes briefly. Eden could feel his hand pressing more firmly into her skin as if he were trying to get close enough to the baby to touch it even through her body.
"You can plan anything you want. He's going to be yours."
Pyra sat up sharply and looked directly into her face.
"He?" he asked.
Eden immediately regretted what she had said. She had been so careful not to say that, but now there was no way that she could just scoop the words out of the air and put them back into her mouth. He had already heard them.
"I don't know for sure," Eden said cautiously, drawing out each of her words as carefully as she could to make sure that Pyra heard her and understood what she was saying. She didn't want him to get his hopes up when she wasn't entirely sure that she believed it herself, "The midwives don't have any way of knowing what the baby is."
"Then why did you say 'he'?"
Eden sighed. She wasn't sure how her mate was going to respond to her little experiment with Loralia a few days before. It wasn't the custom of the Denynso to try to find out what a baby was before it was born, but when the strange and mysterious creature who had come from the mirrored realm beneath the compound told her that she could tell her what her baby was going to be, Eden's curiosity had simply been too much for her and she couldn't say no.
"When the girls and I went over to Bannack's house the other night to meet with Loralia, she was telling us about her kind. She was fascinated by my belly and she asked if I knew if the baby was a boy or a girl. I told her that the midwives didn't have any way of finding that out, but I mentioned that if I was going through my pregnancy on Earth, my doctors would be able to tell me what it was."
"They could?" he asked, seeming both fascinated and a bit upset that this was not something that was available on his planet.
"Yes. So she told me that she would be able to tell me."
Eden thought about the gorgeous and completely unexpected woman that was Loralia. The very last of her kind, she had been living in the hidden realm under the compound her entire life, but had been alone for many years. When the young, impulsive warrior Bannack brought her up into the compound it had been the first time that she had ever been above the surface of the ground. Though she hadn't had the opportunity to spend much time with her, Eden had felt a connection with this misunderstood creature, and was thrilled that she and Bannack were now mated.
Pyra had been staring at her expectantly, but Eden was still unsure whether she wanted to tell him what Loralia had said.
"And?" Pyra said, widening his eyes like he was trying to encourage her forward, "What exactly did she say?"
He looked so excited that Eden couldn't help but smile.
"She put her mirror against my belly and told me that the baby is a boy."
Pyra looked delighted and he bounded to the head of the bed to gather Eden in a tight hug.
"A boy? Really?"
"Yes. She said he will be a strong warrior just like you."
"I'm so excited," he said, rubbing her belly again, "I mean, I would have loved a daughter, too, but having a son…"
His voice trailed off as if the emotion he was feeling was just too much to try to condense into words. Eden felt a surge of pride at that moment that was difficult to explain. She loved that she was carrying her mate's baby, and that she had the privilege of being the mother to the first of the new generation of Denynso, but watching Pyra at that moment as he slithered back down the bed and rested his mouth to her belly again, it all felt even more meaningful. Giving Pyra a son felt like the most important, precious, and valuable thing that she had ever done, and she felt so blessed to be able to do it, even if she was still somewhat fearful of the unknown about her pregnancy.
"My son," Pyra whispered against her skin, "My boy. Your Papa loves you, little one."
Eden reached carefully under her pillow, trying not to disturb Pyra as he continued to whisper to the baby, and took out the braided ribbon chain she had been keeping there. On it was a pendant cast from iron that looked like a hand cradling a heart in its palm. A smaller heart in the center of the larger heart featured an inlay of copper so that it stood out against the other pieces.
"I want you to bring this with you," she said to Pyra and he sat up, looking from her face to the pendant in her hand, "I designed it a couple of weeks after I found out I was pregnant. Jem," she paused and choked back the painful emotion that suddenly tightened in her throat at the mention of the warrior who had died in the recent battle with the Klimnu, "crafted it for me."
A brilliant blacksmith, Jem had taken her vision for the pendant that would represent Pyra holding her and their baby and crafted it into something so beautiful it had taken her breath away when she saw it. She had intended to give it to Pyra when the baby was born, but now that he was leaving with the other warriors, she wanted him to take it with him so that he could have them close to him even while he was far away.
Pyra took the pendant from her hand and ran his massive fingers along the design.
"Thank you," he said softly, "I can't tell you how much I am going to miss you. I feel like I'm not going to be able to breathe without you."
"I'm going to miss you, too," Eden said, "I can't bear the thought of sleeping in this big bed without you. I'm going to be alone more nights with you gone on this journey than I was when I first got here before we bonded."
The mention of their first bonding brought a flash of heat to her cheeks. That had been such a tumultuous, emotional time, but as Pyra lifted up to lie down beside her and pull Eden in against her so that he could cradle her in his arms, she knew that she would never trade a single second of it.
Chapter Four
Leia's hand clutched at the sheets beside her, her knuckles clenching so hard into the fabric that they whitened as she pulled it away from the mattress. Her eyes closed as her head dropped back against the pillow and her back arched up off of the bed. Gyyx flattened one massive hand into the middle of her chest and pressed her back down, holding her against the mattress with just enough pressure that she could feel his dominance. This sent even more of a shiver of excitement and arousal through her and she couldn't hold back the cry of pleasure as her mate flicked his tongue through her hot, wet folds again.
Gyyx had spread her thighs against the bed and pushed them up so that she was fully open to him, making her totally vulnerable to his touch. He pushed them up a little higher now, using the very tip of his tongue to concentrate fast, intense strokes directly on the pearl of hypersensitive flesh just at her peak. The sensation rolled through her like thunder, sending nearly overwhelming ripples of pleasure all the way along her body. Leia writhed against the bed, but Gyyx was far larger and far stronger than she was, and the pressure of his hands ensured that she would stay exactly where he wanted her for as long as he wanted her to stay there.
Of course, there was nowhere else that she would want to be in that moment. She reveled in being at her mate's mercy and in the way that he could so masterfully manipulate her body to create feelings within her that she had never experienced before.
Just as Leia felt like she was going to lose all control, Gyyx pulled his tongue away from her body and pressed a series of soft kisses along the inside of her thigh. He was allowing her to cool, to come down from the spiraling heights of pleasure he was sending her into so that he could just bring her right back there again. It was delicious, delirious torture.
She felt him guide her legs down and his hand slide from her chest down to one of her hands so that he could ease her up to a sitting position. As he did this, Gyyx came around to her side, changing positions with her so that he lay with his head on the pillow and guided her to kneel in between his slightly spread legs. Leia bit down on her bottom lip as the position brought her right into view of his powerful erection. Her mouth watered as she looked at it and she couldn't resist running her tongue from its base to the tip. There was already a crystalline drop of fluid collected there and she licked it up, allowing the tip of her tongue to dip inside just briefly.
Gripping the base of his cock in one hand, Leia traced the edge of the crown with her tongue, pausing for a moment to concentrate her licks on the bundle of nerves on the underside of the head just as he had concentrated on her. As Gyyx began to groan beneath her, Leia started to stroke with the hand that was holding him, gliding her palm and fingers along his hard, thick length as she continued to memorize his ridges and veins with the tip of her tongue. The taste of his body made her shiver, making her want him even more.
Suddenly Gyyx sat up and grabbed Leia by her upper arms, turning her and laying her down on her stomach so that she faced the foot of the bed. He climbed over her, balancing on his hands and the balls of his feet so that he didn't press too much of his tremendous body down on her tiny frame, and she felt his erection gliding along her thighs as he rolled his hips to stroke against her without entering her. Leia whimpered and lifted her hips, displaying herself to encourage him to fulfill the ache within her that he had created with the skilled ministrations of his tongue.
Gyyx complied suddenly, pushing deeply inside her in one hard thrust that elicited a scream of pleasure from deep in Leia's chest. The warrior growled and lay forward so that Leia could feel his body full enveloping hers. It was a primal, comforting feeling that encouraged her to lift her hips and grind them into him. His hands came up under her, cupping at the front of her throat in another show of dominance that made Leia feel so close to the edge that two more hard thrusts sent her body shuddering through an intense orgasm that left her gasping for breath.
Her climax did nothing to slow Gyyx. Instead, he tightened his grip around her throat so that her back arched slightly and pulled up onto his knees for better leverage so that he could slam in her with such speed and depth that each stroke was almost painful. That fine line between pain and pleasure, however, is what drove Leia crazy and she let the sounds pour out of her, panting, gasping, and crying out as she gave her body over to Gyyx in the hopes that he would still be able to feel her when he was gone.
Suddenly she felt his entire body tense and heard him let out a strangled moan as his cock pulsed wildly within her. He stayed buried deeply inside her as the tremors continued to flow through him, spilling hot streams that she could feel filling her. Finally he lowered his hands from her throat to her chest and carefully rolled them over to their sides, remaining inside her as he curled around her.
Even though she would have liked him to, Gyyx never let himself collapse down on top of Leia. She was so small and delicate-looking, particularly compared to him, that he was always convinced he would crush her if he let himself rest on top of her completely. Instead, he curved around her, cradling her body close to his so that she was surrounded by his warmth and the intoxicating smell of his skin.
His lips touched her neck and traveled up, following the curve of her jaw until he reached her ear.
"I love you," he breathed, pulling her a little closer to his chest and stomach.
"I love you, too," she said back, kissing the arm that was draped tightly around her.
Leia couldn't help but smile as she allowed herself to drift away on the waves of pleasure still rolling through her. It had taken so much to convince Gyyx that he was not going to break her if he made love to her the way that she wanted him to, but now that they had bonded, he had stepped into the dominant, aggressive role that drove her wild and brought out every primal instinct within her. She loved his strength and his power, and the way he knew how to use them to give her such incredible pleasure. She felt fully and completely safe with him, which made it even better when he exerted himself so strongly.
When their bodies had relaxed and cooled, she carefully extracted herself from his arms and walked over to the large black artist's bag she had propped against the wall. Reaching inside the main pocket, she withdrew what looked like a small scroll. She brought it over to the bed and climbed under the covers to meet his body where he had also cuddled down into the bed.
"This is for you to bring with you so that you can look at it and think of me whenever you're lonely."
Gyyx took the scroll from her and unrolled it carefully. She heard him let out a sigh as he saw the picture.
"This is beautiful, Leia," he said, turning to kiss her tenderly, "Thank you."
"I wanted to frame it for you, but then I figured that you probably weren't going to have the space in your bag to bring along a framed picture, and even if you did, you weren't really going to be able to find a place to hang it while you were traveling around." She looked down at the picture and reached over to run her fingers along the pencil and acrylic sketch. "This is the sunrise that I saw the first morning that I knew you. I remember it being the most beautiful sunrise I had ever seen, and I know that that’s because it was the first one I had ever seen now that I knew you existed in the world."
Gyyx tucked his hand around her face and stared into her eyes. She saw intense emotion there, and she knew that he was worried about her. Them coming together was a difficult and nearly tragic experience that neither of them liked to talk about very much, but both knew was something that was lingering right around them. They had found each other only because the Klimnu had high-jacked the university shuttle she had ridden from Earth, kidnapped her, and help her captive, torturing and tormenting her, for 57 days in a dark, dank prison on the other side of the compound, in one of the areas so close to the edge of their territory that many barely considered it the compound and others would never even venture. This is what compelled him more than anything to join up with the other warriors in order to go out onto the planet and find out what other creatures Uoria might harbor.
"I will think about you every single minute while I'm gone," he said.
"No, you won't," Leia said, kissing the tip of his nose, '"and that's perfectly fine. There are a lot of other things that you will need to focus your attention on. What matters is that you know I'm thinking about you, too, and when you look at the drawing I want you to know that I love you and can't wait to have you home."
Chapter Five
Elianna buried her head against Ciyrs's shoulder and held him tightly around his neck as he continued to rock her hips against his. She cradled him inside her body, enveloping him as though protecting him in the most powerful way she knew how. His skin was slick and warm with sweat and she felt it mix with her own as they both came down from their climaxes, maintaining the link between their bodies and allowing their breath to stream and blend between them as they preserved these last precious moments in each other's arms.
She kissed the side of his neck and let out a long sigh that seemed to pull with it all of the emotion that she had experienced since coming to Uoria. It had been like nothing she had imagined. When she left Earth to come to this strange and barely-known planet it was with the intention of helping humans learn more about Uoria and the Denynso. As a journalist she planned on writing a series of reports that would help to illuminate this species as the people of Earth got accustomed to the idea that the government and the academic sector were planning on not only making direct contact with the species, but cooperating with them. Knowing the reputation of the Denynso as the most powerful and skilled warriors in the galaxy, the goal was to bring some of them to Earth to fight and to train armies, while also allowing humans to go to Uoria to share parts of the Earth culture and visit the planet as tourists.
Elianna had had her own thoughts about these plans, but she had primarily kept them to herself. She wanted to remain as objective as possible, just as her career demanded, and that meant not contemplating a future in which the inhabitants of this far-away planet showed up on Earth and roamed freely, teaching humans to be even more violent and aggressive than they already were, and in which humans flew off to Uoria on cute little family vacations thinking that they would relax and make some fun memories, when they really had no idea what was awaiting them.
When she arrived, however, Elianna's resistance to other people and pain from abandonment in her past had nearly kept her from accepting Ciyrs as her mate. He had been patient with her, though, guiding her through the difficult and confusing first moments of their connection that would eventually seal them together. Before they could fully mate, however, a member of the Klimnu had masqueraded as Pyra and stolen her, bringing her to a dark, disgusting prison just on the edge of the compound, a place where she would learn that the Denynso never went. There she was tormented and tortured, the only comfort she got came in thinking about Ciyrs and reaching out to him through her mind.
It wasn't until the Denynso came for her that she discovered he had transferred some of his incredible healing power to her, but with the ability to heal came the ability to destroy. As much as she wouldn't want to admit it, she had delighted in the ability to wrap her hand around the bony, slimy neck of the vicious creatures who had made her life a living hell for the entire time that she had been there, and had nearly killed the frail, tiny woman that she had found battered and bloody, crawling through the halls of the prison, and watch them burn.
This had changed her forever. Suddenly life was not about writing articles and bringing back information to the people of Earth so that they could learn more about a planet that would remain a novelty. It became learning about the people that were now her family, giving herself over completely to the man that she loved and who she knew was her lifelong mate, and offering the gifts that she had just discovered to helping heal and protect the Denynso.
Now as she wrapped herself around Ciyrs, reveling in the feeling of the only man who had ever been inside her, she couldn't imagine a single moment of her life without him or without Uoria. She felt more at home and at peace here than she ever had on Earth, and it was as if his presence and the abundant, never-ending love that he gave to her had soothed all of the pain and emptiness she had suffered throughout her life. The thought that he was leaving with the warriors to explore the planet was gut-wrenching and she didn't want to think about it. She wanted to continue to hold him and let him protect her in his massive arms, ignoring the eventuality, and pushing back that moment when he would have to say goodbye.
Suddenly the first rays of sunlight started trickling through the slight gap between the curtains over their bedroom window and she knew that she couldn't put it off any longer. Her mate, the healer of the clan, was a vital component of this mission and he would still need to gather all of his supplies so that he could meet with the warriors at the main hall to be ready to leave after breakfast.
She climbed off of him slowly, savoring the feeling of his body stroking against hers as it left her, and crossed to the bureau on the far wall to pull out a dress that she dropped over her head. Out of a small drawer in the bottom of the piece of furniture she pulled a book tied with a green ribbon. When she turned back around Ciyrs was tying the strings at the front of his pants. She waited while he put on the rest of his clothing, and then stepped forward to hand the book to him.
"I brought this notebook with me from Earth. It was supposed to be where I was going to make my notes for my articles, but after I met you, I realized that I was never going to go back there so I didn't need to write them. Instead, you gave me the confidence to do something that I had never told anyone that I wanted to do, but that I had been dreaming of for my entire life."
Cirys untied the ribbon and lifted the hard front cover of the notebook. She watched him read the first few lines of her neat, precise handwriting and then look up at her.
"What is this?"
"I wrote a book. It's not quite finished yet, but I want you to bring it with you and read it. You'll be the very first person to read anything that I've written other than articles, and you can help me decide how to end it."
Ciyrs gathered Elianna into his arms and hugged her close to him. She breathed in the smell of his body and listened to the rhythm of his heart, wanting to internalize that sound so that she could replay it in her mind whenever she thought of him while he was gone.
"I will be thinking about you every day. I'll get home as soon as I can."
"I know you will."
As Ciyrs released her, she glanced down at the bed. It was going to be next to impossible to sleep without him beside her. The bed looked so big, empty, and cold already and she dreaded nightfall when she would have to climb in and try to will herself to sleep alone.
"Come to the shop and help me pack up the healing ointments and other supplies?" he asked.
Elianna nodded and let him take her hand, intertwining their fingers as he led her out of their house and through the compound toward the building that held his shop and clinic. This was where they healed the sick and injured, and where they had worked with Ty's brilliant mate Samira to create powerful healing ointments that had gotten them through the last battles with the Klimnu. She knew that the bottles and tubes that he packed in his large bag would be integral to the trip, but she didn't want to think of the suffering that they would end.
As they packed his supplies and checked the list of items that he had made the day before, Elianna could hear the compound outside coming to life as the Denynso started heading for the meeting hall to eat breakfast and say final goodbyes to the men.
Chapter Six
"I can't believe that I just found you, and now I have to leave you."
Bannack tightened his hands around Loralia's and stared into her still-startling lavender eyes. He had spent only three days with her, and one of them had been spent trying to find her so that he could apologize and convince her to come back with him. Now he was going to be walking away from her, leaving her in a strange place that she didn't know so that he could explore the rest of the planet for an indeterminate amount of time. Though it had been his idea in the first place for the warriors to go outside of the compound and explore Uoria to find out what other types of species existed beyond their boundaries, now that he was only minutes away from leaving, it made his stomach feel sick.
"Everything is going to be fine," Loralia soothed him, stroking the tip of his nose with hers, "You are going to go and discover amazing new things, and I will be here getting used to my new home. The women have been very kind to me and I'm sure that they will continue to do everything that they can to make me feel welcome and to help me assimilate to life up here."
His mate was truly incredible and Bannack couldn't help but stare at her in amazement. This creature, the last of her kind, had not only lived completely on her own without any contact from other species for years after her family and friends died from a mysterious plague that had spared only her for reasons that even she didn't understand, but had also left the only home that she had ever known in order to come above ground and be his mate among a strange species and in a world that she had never experienced. He might be a warrior, but Loralia by far had more courage than he ever would.
"I just feel horrible for even suggesting that we go do this so soon after meeting you."
Loralia shook her head.
"This is something that needs to be done. If it wasn't for the bravery and curiosity of the Denynso, the Klimnu never would have been eliminated, and you never would have found me."
"Well," Bannack said, squirming a little against the bench, "technically it wasn't the bravery and curiosity of the Denynso. It was the bravery and curiosity of the human women. They're the ones that went down into the tunnel after we found it, and they're the ones that went back and figured out that the Klimnu were using the mirrored realm to get to us. We just kind of went along with it."
Loralia laughed and Bannack felt his heart soar. He had struggled to think that he was ever going to find a mate, and then when he found her, he had fought even harder against himself, trying to tell himself that he was not the type of person that could mate with a species that was not his own. Of course, that was just his own fear and questions about himself talking and quickly the other warriors and their human mates showed him how wrong he was. He would never be able to thank them enough for pushing him to listen to what was truly in his heart and not what was going through his mind.
"I love you, Bannack," Loralia said, "and when you leave here, you will carry my love with you. But I also want you to bring this."
She reached into the small pouch that she wore on one hip and withdrew what looked like a slightly larger version of the compact that she wore around her neck and that held the mirrors she used to manipulate the space around her. It hung from a chain that looked like it was made of a long braid of her hair. Bannack took the compact into his palm and stared down at it. It didn't shimmer like hers did, but looked heavy and dark like the deeply scrolled metal hadn't been touched in many years.
"This compact," she said, touching it gently with her fingertips, "was my father's. He was an incredible man, and so are you. My hair connects this compact to mine. If you need me, just open the compact and reflect the braid in the top mirror for a few seconds. Mine will let me know that you're calling for me, and when I open my compact I will be able to see anything reflected in yours, and you will be able to see anything reflected in mine."
This was the most amazing gift Bannack could have imagined. He had been struggling knowing that unlike the other warriors and their mates, he was not able to connect with Loralia through her mind and communicate with her through their thoughts. It had made him feel like they weren't as tightly linked as the others, though he knew that he loved her with the same intensity as the other men loved their women. This compact, something that she had treasured for so long, was not just a reminder of her for when they were apart, but also a tangible way for him to connect with her in a manner that was completely unique to them.
"Good morning, everyone."
The deep sound of King Creia's voice brought the attention of everyone in the hall toward the platform where the king and his queen, Theia, stood. They looked out over the clan gathered in the meeting hall with the fondness and pride of parents overlooking their children. Several of the warriors were, in fact, their children, but even those who were not theirs by blood were adored by the kind and caring king and queen.
"This morning is very special for all of us, Creia continued. Today is the first day of a time of discovery that will change the future for every one of us. Through their selflessness, courage, and determination, our warriors and healer will do what no other Denynso has ever been able to do; learn what exists beyond our compound boundaries and what it means for our clan. The journey may be long and difficult, but I have absolute faith and confidence in each one of them that they will be successful and make us all even more proud of them, and of our kind, than we already are. I want each of them to know that our thoughts are with them and that we will all be eagerly awaiting their return. For now, everyone enjoy breakfast and spend some time together. They depart in one hour."
Creia nodded and stepped back, walking down off of the platform with Theia so that they could go to their nearby table and eat. The meeting hall cooks had placed trays overflowing with food into the centers of the long tables and everyone was starting to eat, but Bannack didn't have much of an appetite. He was too busy regretting everything that he had done and said in the first day that he knew Loralia. Though she had forgiven him without question, he felt like he was never going to be able to let go of those lost moments with her.
"Don't hate yourself, Bannack," Loralia said.
Though she couldn't read his thoughts the way that the other mates could read the thoughts of their Denynso men, Loralia was able to perceive the feelings and emotions of the people around her, making it possible for her to always know what he was going through.
"I lost so much time with you."
"It was only a day, Bannack, and every moment that you suffer with that is another moment that you are taking from us. Stop thinking about what has already happened and can never be redone, and think about what has yet to happen and what could be. I love you. Nothing is going to change that."
"I love you, too," Bannack said, leaning forward to kiss her.
As she gazed back at him he realized that everything she had said she meant with her whole heart. For the first time, he let himself let go of what had happened and gave himself over completely to the powerful, consuming love that he felt for her.
Chapter Seven
The compound felt eerily quiet without the men. Loralia and the human women stood in the center of the compound long after the warriors had marched out of sight, disappearing into the darkness of the forest that bordered that edge of the compound. The Denynso women and the monarchs had walked away, returning to their daily activities, within just a few moments of the last man marching out of sight, but the humans and Loralia couldn't seem to pull themselves away from where they stood. These had been the spots where they were standing when their mates had given them their final kisses goodbye and stroked their faces, imparting their warmth and expressing their love even without words. They didn't want to move and break the beautiful, precious space they had created with their men.
Finally Samira sighed.
"I don’t think that standing here is going to make any difference, guys. They aren't coming back today."
There was a brief pause and then the rest of the women started laughing, happily breaking the painful tension that they had all been feeling. They needed that moment, that first second that forced them to have a thought that wasn't their mates' voices and the touch of their skin. None of them wanted to do it. They all would much rather continue feeling their men close to them, but they had no idea how long it would be before the men would be back and if they didn’t push themselves out of that frame of mind, they would all just allow themselves to waste away. They knew that they wouldn't be able to get through this on their own. It would take the strength of all of them to support each other and take care of the compound while their mates were gone.
"Loralia," Eden said and Loralia turned to her, "I haven't had a chance to tell you that I'm really happy that things worked out for you and Bannack."
"Thank you, Eden."
"I am, too," Zuri offered, "I heard what happened between you two and I wanted to tell you that you aren't alone."
"What do you mean?"
"I know it can feel like him being resistant to accepting you as his mate was him rejecting you, and that that can be really hurtful. I just don't want you to think that things were so easy for the rest of us."
Loralia looked at each of the women. She wasn't sure how to feel about the conversation. She had just that morning told Bannack that he needed to let go of what had happened between them at the beginning of their relationship and let them move forward into the future together, but at the same time she found it comforting to hear that these women had also coped with challenges when they were finding their way with their mates in the Denynso compound.
"It wasn't?"
"We should have told you that when we first came to see you that first night you were on the compound. It probably would have made things much easier for you," Zuri said, "The truth is that finding a mate is something that the Denynso men look forward to their entire lives, but it can be a really scary and uncomfortable experience for them. They can get really violent and aggressive, even more so than usual, and they feel like they can't get their minds straight. That's really hard for all of them, but sometimes they have a lot of their own issues to work through, too."
"I wasn't exactly the most pleasant person in the world, especially to Pyra, and basically told him that I didn't like him and didn't want anything to do with him," said Eden, giving a short laugh and looking down at her hand stroking across her belly.
"I was a virgin who was terrified of Ciyrs and had a really difficult time trusting him," Elianna offered, "and when I was kidnapped by the Klimnu, he had to deal with knowing that I was being tortured and not being able to find me."
"I had been held by the Klimnu for almost two months and tortured, and was in a coma when they brought me back to the compound," Leia said, her voice sounding strong even though it was still difficult for her to talk about her ordeal in the prison, "Gyyx spent days with me and he finally had to…" she hesitated, "excite me to get me to wake up. Even then he was terrified to touch me because I'm so small and he didn't want to hurt me."
"Ty resisted how he felt about me as hard as he could because he thought I was too young for him. I came here with Zuri when she came back to Uoria and Ty was my guide and protector. I had to force him to acknowledge that we were meant to be together."
Loralia nodded, appreciating how these women were opening up to her and feeling more confident in her new place in the compound. She turned to Zuri, the final woman in the group to tell her story. Zuri looked slightly startled as if she had forgotten that she hadn't told about her early days with her mate.
"Oh," she said, "Ero thought I was fat."
The women laughed and together they started walking back toward the houses. Loralia was processing the connection that she was feeling to these women, trying to remember what it was like to have friends to spend time with and people to rely on. She had spent so much time alone that she was finding it harder than she would have imagined just relaxing in their company and enjoying having the friendship. She knew it would take time for her to really feel like she was a part of them, but she had already begun to feel a strong loyalty to the Denynso and was looking forward to spending more time with these women.
Chapter Eight
The acrid smell of the burned building still lingered in the air even though it had been weeks since the fire had burned the Klimnu prison to the ground. An impending storm threatening the sky had made the air feel wet and heavy, seeming to magnify the strong smell of the burned prison.
The Denynso men trudged toward the prison, all of them feeling reluctant to go back to this far corner of the compound, a site that held so many horrific memories for all of them. This had been the site of a brutal battle with the Klimnu, a clash that started when one of the creatures came into the compound disguised as Pyra and kidnapped Elianna, holding her in the prison and torturing her because they knew that her pain would radiate out to her mate, luring the rest of the Denynso to the prison so that they could attack.
The Klimnu hadn't been prepared for the fury that the warriors held that night, or the power and intensity that their actions had inspired in their healer, Ciyrs. Between the two of them, Ciyrs and Elianna had laid waste to more of the slimy creatures than a few of the warriors combined. They had hoped that it would be the end of the conflict, but, of course, it wasn't. Now as they stood only a few yards away from the black, sooty remnants of the prison, each lost in their own thoughts, it was as if they were walking into that battle again.
Bannack felt his muscles tightening as if preparing him in case he needed to attack. Around him the raindrops started to fall, cooling his skin but increasing the solemn, eerie feeling around the prison.
"Come on," he said, starting to walk toward the rubble again, "we're almost to the boundary of the compound."
They all walked toward the prison, going at an angle so that they walked around the perimeter.
"Wait," Pyra said suddenly, "What's that?"
Bannack followed the direction where he was pointing. He saw that the several rainstorms that had occurred over the weeks since their battle with the Klimnu had washed away enough of the ashes to reveal what looked like the edges of a trapdoor in the foundation. Pyra climbed into the remnants of the prison and toward the trapdoor. Bannack followed, watching carefully where he stepped to avoid stepping on something that might injure him if it suddenly gave way, broke, or splintered upwards.
By the time he had gotten to the edge of the trapdoor, Pyra was already on his knees digging with his fingers around the edge.
"Help me," he grunted.
Bannack reached forward to pull on the edge of the door. The heat from the fire seemed to have melted some of the metal, but after a few minutes of pulling, the weakened door broke and the two warriors were able to toss the pieces of door away. They stared down into what looked like a black abyss. It was so dark that they couldn't see the ground and there was no way of determining how far the fall would be between the door and the floor.
"Does anyone have a light?" Pyra asked.
Ty reached into his bag and withdrew a stick loaded with a solar power cell. Bannack took it and activated it so that it sent a wash of light down into the hole. Even with the light there wasn’t anything to see. Pyra took his bag off of his shoulders and handed it to Bannack, then jumped down through the trapdoor.
"What the hell do you think you're doing?" Ero yelled, dropping to his knees beside the open trapdoor and staring down into the darkness.
Bannack swept the light back and forth until it fell on Pyra, crouched on a dark stone floor at least twenty feet down.
"It's a trapdoor," Pyra said, "It had to be close enough to the floor to let people actually get down here. Come on. Jump down."
Bannack went first, followed close by Ero. They stepped out of the way so that most of the other warriors could follow. A few had pulled out their own lights and soon there was enough illumination that they were able to see they were in some kind of dungeon.
"Well, it was close enough that we could get down, but that doesn't make any sense for the Klimnu. They're not anywhere near as big as we are. How would they get down here without breaking themselves?"
Pyra gazed up at the open trapdoor like he was pondering what Ty had just asked.
"I'm not sure. Anyway, let's look around. I didn't even know this place was here when we were here."
The group split off so that they could explore the dungeon more efficiently, breaking up so that everyone had a light with them. They had been exploring the dark, damp hallways for nearly an hour when Ty discovered a door on an otherwise blank wall. Unlike the other doors that looked like they had once belonged to cells, this door was solid. He stepped back and directed a hard kick into the middle of the door, causing it to splinter.
Pushing aside the broken pieces of door, Ty stepped inside the small room and shined his light around. It looked like an office; a large desk on one wall, rows of bookshelves on another, and the back corner filled with what looked like stacks of drawers. Ty approached the drawers cautiously and pulled one open. It was filled with folders of documents and he pulled several out so that he could spread them across the surface of the desk.
"Hey, Pyra," he yelled a few minutes later after going through a few pages of the documents he had found in the folders.
Pyra stepped into the room and shined the light he had borrowed from another warrior after giving Ty back his on the desk.
"What did you find?"
"What do you know about this prison?" Ty asked, flipping through the fragile, aged pages of a book that looked ancient in his hands.
"Not much. I didn't even know it was here until the Klimnu attacked. I'm guessing that they built it so long ago that no one remembers it."
"I don't think they built it at all."
"What do you mean?"
"Look at this."
Pyra came around the side of the desk and Ty turned the book to show him what he was reading.
"Holy shit."
"I know."
"What's going on?" Ero asked, coming into the small room.
"This prison wasn't built by the Klimnu," Pyra told him.
"What do you mean?"
"Ty just found all of these books and papers. It looks like the Klimnu were just about as gracious with this prison as they were with the realm under the compound. Apparently this prison has been here for hundreds of years, which means that it was built before the Denynso were living on the compound."
"How could we not know that?"
"I don't know. Creia said that our kind has never made contact with other species except in battle. If it was there when the Denynso settled the compound, they either didn't notice it, or the species that built it was already gone by the time they came."
"How is that even possible?" Ero asked.
"I don't know."
"Look at this."
Pyra had pulled another, smaller book out from the stack of papers that Ty had taken out of the drawer and held it open to the other warriors. It looked almost like a military log, but was more extensive, like the person keeping it was both tracking the events and journaling about them as his way to express his thoughts and emotions.
"This says that the species that built this prison built it during a war with another species that they had been in conflict with for years. They used this prison to hold people who they captured during battle, but the other species found out and infiltrated the prison, freeing all of the captives and killing many of the Covra."
"The Covra?"
"That's what it says. I've never heard of that species before."
"What happened after that battle?"
"This says that the Covra knew that they weren't strong enough to fight off the rest of what they call the Light Ones, so they locked them."
Pyra stopped and looked up at the other men, a confused look on his face.
"Locked them?" Ty asked.
Pyra turned the page and read for a few seconds before looking up at them again.
"It says that the Covra can lock an entire area in place. It's like the whole place is frozen in time. They at once exist and don't. Time passes around them, but it doesn't impact them. They locked the entire kingdom of the Light Ones in that moment and never made any plans to release them."
Pyra met eyes with Ty, and then with Ero.
"What if they're still there?"
Chapter Nine
"What do you mean?" Ero asked.
"There's a map right here that shows where everything was when this all happened." He pointed at a large area outlined toward the upper corner of the map. "What if the kingdom is still there and the Light Ones are still stuck there, just like they have been since the Covra locked them?"
Silence fell in the room as the three men pondered what Pyra had just said. It was almost unfathomable that what that journal said could be true. After what they had all seen Loralia achieve with her mirrors, they were far more willing to accept that there were things that existed right on their own planet that they didn't understand, and species that could accomplish truly astounding things. The idea that one of these creatures could literally stop time for an entire other species, and that that frozen kingdom could still be persisting in its fully locked state just as it had been for years was too much for any of them to wrap their minds around.
"Pyra?"
The voice of another of the warriors made them all turn to the door to the office. Lynx stood there, leaning into the room with the glow from the light in his hand directed at the floor.
"What is it, Lynx?" Pyra asked.
There really isn't much down here. A bunch of cells. A couple of old chains."
"Tell the men to find a way to get back up out of the trapdoor and gather up outside. Our little adventure here is taking a detour."
"Where are we going?"
"Back in time, it looks like."
Twenty minutes later the men had managed to find a nearly rusted-out metal ladder that looked like it was once attached to the bottom of the trapdoor so it could be used to climb in and out of the dungeon and had gathered right outside in the soft rain. Though the fact that the Klimnu had not actually built the prison originally explained why the structure was built as it was, the existence of the ladder seemed to make the dungeon make more sense.
Pyra gave them a brief overview of what they had found out in the office in the dungeon and told them that they were going to follow that map and see what they could find in the place that marked where the kingdom of the Light Ones at least once stood. Lynx watched him push the stack of papers and books he had carried out of the dungeon into the bag that he had returned to his hip and headed out toward the furthest boundary of the compound, past the wastelands and toward the complete unknown.
The rain intensified as they walked, starting to beat down on them in stinging streams that hurt as they bit into Lynx's exposed skin. It was that fearsome type of rain that made you want to stay inside, drink something hot, and wait until it was over. The men didn't have that option, now. They had committed themselves to this mission, and now it seemed to be taking on even more meaning that it had when they had first started. When he first agreed to go along with them to explore Uoria, Lynx never would have imagined that they would be gone from their homes for only a few hours and already have learned of two species that they didn't know existed up until that point, but also a whole history of the planet and their own compound that none of them had known.
Though he hated himself for thinking it, and wouldn't ever have admitted it in those first few hours, Lynx was starting to change his perception of Creia. Like the other warriors, he had been raised believing that this man was the most powerful and wise of all of the Denynso. Part of a bloodline known for their extraordinary longevity, he had ruled for many decades and had faced many of the earliest battles and conflicts in the ranks of the warriors. It had been Creia who had shown the strength and courage to banish the Klimnu because of their greedy, vicious ways rather than letting them intimidate him into helping them. With all of this history and knowledge, however, he somehow hadn't known about the mirrored realm that existed just beneath the compound he had called home his entire life, or about the prison in the wastelands.
At least, he told them that he didn't know. The longer that they walked, the more footsteps that they put between the area of the compound that they knew and themselves, the more Lynx wondered how honest Creia had really been with them. Was it possible that he had known about the prison and the apparently brutal, drawn-out conflict that had existed there so long ago? Had he been completely honest with them when he told them that their kind had not made contact with others outside of the battles waged on the soil of their own compound?
Lynx felt painfully guilty for even entertaining those thoughts for a second. As a Denynso warrior, it was his responsibility and birthright to honor, respect, and obey Creia without question. He was meant to follow him and do as he ordered no matter what. The thought of questioning him for even a second would be something that the other warriors, or the king himself, would never have tolerated.
The young warrior was so lost in his own thoughts that he didn't notice the rest of the warriors had stopped and he ran directly into Gyyx's back. The larger, older warriors turned and glared at him, but turned back to face ahead of him without saying anything. Lynx stepped around to stand beside Gyyx and looked to where Pyra was standing several feet in front of the rest of them. A tall wall of weathered, ancient rocks stood just in front of him. It was the far boundary of the Denynso compound, laid by the very hands of the first of the clan. They had built in there to protect all who lived within it, intending, as the warriors had all been taught from the time that they were little children, that none would ever come inside the boundary to take the compound from them, no species not welcomed by the Denynso would come within the space without quick and brutal retribution, and that none of their kind would ever step beyond it.
They were prepared now to break free of those restraints; to be the first to go past the boundary and take back the freedom of existence on the entirety of the planet of Uoria.
Chapter Ten
"This is your last chance, men," Pyra said, his voice rumbling through the silence that had formed around them, "Once we go over this wall, we are out of the compound and facing things that none of us know or understand. There will be no turning back. If you aren't ready to do this, tell us now and you can go back. Think very hard about your decision, because it is one of the most important that you will ever make."
Pyra's glowing orange eyes burned into each of the men, giving them time to think about the implications of moving beyond that boundary and walking out onto the rest of the planet. Though they were feared throughout the galaxy, each of them was very aware that the compound had protected them, had guarded them. When they went beyond that wall, there was nothing left to surround them and keep them safe. Of course, that wall had also failed them when it came to keeping the Klimnu from attacking and tormenting them. It hadn't been enough to prevent the betrayal of the traitor Ullie, and it hadn't guarded them from the work of the flight attendant who had cooperated with him and the slimy, disgusting Klimnu to nearly spell the end of the Denynso.
Lynx could feel that the rest of the warriors around him felt the same way. They could no longer put their total blind trust and confidence in that wall. It was time that they took responsibility for themselves.
When none of the men told him that they wanted to turn back, Pyra nodded at them, his face not smiling but carrying an expression that offered a hint of strength and pride. He tilted his head back to evaluate the wall and then reached onto the side of his bag to untie a grappling hook. The other men followed suit, taking their hooks from their bags and preparing the ropes. A few moments later the Denynso stood in a long line in front of the wall.
At Pyra's command, they swung their hooks over the top of the wall and waited until they felt them catch in the stones on the other side. Moving in the perfect, nearly choreographed rhythm they had trained into their ranks, the men used the pressure of the hooks and the strength of the ropes to steady them as they climbed up the wall.
Lynx stopped when he reached the top of the wall and gazed out over the land that lay on the other side. It looked much like the far areas of the compound where there were no buildings or roads, but somehow despite its similarities, it still seemed sparser and unwelcoming.
Not wanting to be the last to be off the wall, Lynx dropped down on the other side of the wall and went through the same procedure as all of the other men, recoiling their hooks and attaching them back to their bags for use the next time that they may need them. Pyra didn't say another word, but waited until all of the men had come over the wall, and then started further along the open field. Lynx could see his gaze focused intensely on the stands of trees that dotted the field and the tall, coarse grass to either side of them. It was as though their leader were on edge with every footstep, just waiting for something to come out at them.
Pyra consulted the map in the book in his hand every few minutes, occasionally calling back to the rest of the men about which direction they needed to go, or about how far he thought it would be. Lynx followed silently, preferring to keep himself vigilant about what may be lurking at any corner rather than responding when any of the men spoke.
They had been walking for what felt like hours when Pyra suddenly slowed and all of the men followed his gaze to a towering, ivy-covered stone archway a few yards ahead of them. A worn, crumbling stone wall very similar to the one that they had crossed to leave the compound but older and of darker-colored rocks stretched out to either side of the archway and Lynx could see that it, too, had been taken over by the plants of the area that seemed to be trying to reclaim that space.
"This is it," Pyra said almost under his breath, "I can't believe it's actually here."
The men stood in stunned silence for several long seconds, not entirely sure of what they should do from there. They had come this far looking for the kingdom to see if it actually existed, and now that they had found that it did, and that it was still there, they didn't know what to do next.
"Are we going inside?" Ero asked.
Lynx watched Pyra nod.
"The only way to find out if all of this about the Covra and the Light Ones is real is to go in there and see if we find a kingdom that has been locked in time."
"How do we know that if it is all real, that we will be able to go in there at all, or that if we can, that we won't get locked too?" Ty asked.
"We don't," Pyra responded simply, "We don't know any of that. We can't just walk away from it, though. The whole point of us leaving the compound was to find out what else existed on this planet. Well, this is what else exists here. We can't stop now. We have to keep going and find out exactly what happened in there, and what is still happening, whether that means that all of the stuff in these books was just a bunch of made-up stories and that is an abandoned archway to an empty kingdom that no one has lived in for centuries, or that it is all absolutely true and waiting right inside there is an entire species that hasn't changed in longer than any of us have been alive."
"What if something does happen to us, though?" asked one of the warriors from the back of the group, "What about Eden and the baby?"
Pyra's eyes flashed at the mention of his mate and their unborn child and Lynx saw his back straighten and his shoulders square forcefully.
"My mate trusts me. She put her faith in me to find out more about Uoria so that I will be able to protect her and our baby well into the future. As for the baby, my child will know that I didn't stop at anything to make sure that my family was safe, and that I never cowered away from a challenge or a risk. I never want to look my baby in the eye and know that I didn't do absolutely everything that I could to complete my goal out here."
"And if we do find the so-called Light Ones in there," Ciyrs interjected, "there is a possibility that we could help them. They might not have to be locked forever."
As if this conversation propelled him, Pyra suddenly took off running, closing the space between himself and the archway in a matter of seconds. Ero, Ty, Gyyx, and Ciyrs followed closely after. That is when Lynx started running. Closing his eyes briefly against the fear that had settled into his stomach, he pushed himself to run as fast and as hard as he could, crossing through the archway mere seconds after Pyra had disappeared beneath the stone.
As soon as he passed through the archway, Lynx slowed and stopped. He looked up and for a moment he was afraid that Ero had been right and that they had all been locked right along with the kingdom and the Light Ones within it. Soon, though, he realized that he could think and move and he took a few more steps into the kingdom, gazing around with a sense of absolute awe. It was as if he had stepped into a painting.
Chapter Eleven
The kingdom somewhat resembled their compound, with what looked like rows of houses along a main road and a larger building positioned in the distance. Everything seemed more tightly positioned than the compound, however, and there was a greater sense of formality. Rather than the soft dirt that covered the roads in the Denynso compound, the roads here were covered in broken rocks that had been smoothed around the edges to fit in close together. The houses looked larger and more elaborate, too, with strange design elements that Lynx didn't understand.
What was undoubtedly the most fascinating part of the kingdom that they now wandered into, however, was the people. All around them were still, silent people, their bodies shaped into the postures of normal life, but none of them moved or breathed. It truly looked like they had been stopped, crystallized into a single second of their existence, and had not moved since.
"Everyone spread out," Pyra said evenly, slipping the book that held the map to the kingdom into his bag so that his hands were free, "Explore as much of the area as you can, but make sure that you keep contact with at least one other of us. We don't need anybody getting lost."
At that command, the men slowly dissipated, wandering in their own direction further into the kingdom as if each of them were drawn toward a certain place. It was unnerving to see the people scattered through the space, their eyes open but unseeing, their bodies primed for action but unable to move. There was a large garden in the center of the houses and Lynx saw several people in it, tending to crops that were still perfect after all this time. One woman leaned over, her hand just cupped around a vegetable she intended to pick while a man nearby rested with his arms crossed on top of a tall gardening implement. Lynx sighed, musing that that man could not have imagined how long his break was actually going to be when he stopped his work on that fateful day.
To one side Lynx could see a small group of children playing, locked in their laughter and joy, and he had to turn away. It was too painful to see the innocence of little ones stolen from them because of a war between adults, a conflict that they would never understand.
Turning his back toward the children, Lynx walked toward one of the houses. It drew him in in a way that the others didn't, and he felt compelled to go inside. He called out to Ty who he saw walking along at the end of the street, letting him know that he was going inside the house so that someone knew where he was should the rest of the men decide to leave the kingdom before he got out of the house, or if there was something inside that might threaten him.
He didn't expect the door to open as easily beneath his hand as it did. When it opened fully, he stepped inside the cool, airy house and looked around. Just as the outsides of the homes were more complex in their design than the Denynso homes back on the compound, they were more complex on the inside as well. Multiple rooms stretched out from the front entryway, and a set of stairs headed up to another floor. He followed his instincts and let them pull him to the stairs, keeping him focused on the landing above him as he climbed them.
At the top of the stairs Lynx let the strange, tight feeling in his belly guide him toward a room at the center of the hallway. The door was partially open and when he pushed it the rest of the way open, he felt his heart constrict.
It was a bedroom with pale yellow walls, airy white curtains on the window, and a large canopy bed tucked in one corner. On that bed lay the most beautiful woman that Lynx had ever seen, and as soon as his eyes rested on the long strands of coppery hair spread across the pillow, her pale, delicate face, and full, pink lips, he felt everything inside him unravel as an overwhelming sense of love, desire, and the need to protect her took over.
Lynx walked cautiously to the side of the bed and gazed down at her face, so perfect and calm in the sleep in which she had been locked. It made no sense, but he felt completely and inarguably in love with her, the same intense, immediate feeling of soul-wrenching attraction and need that the other men had described when talking about meeting their mates. This was a woman who had lived generations before he was even born, and yet Lynx felt inextricably connected to her, as if all this time she had been lying here sleeping, waiting for him to come find her.
Something on the nightstand beside her bed caught Lynx's eye and he picked up a silver-framed picture that looked like a younger version of the woman in the bed standing with two older people in front of a large house that resembled the houses along the main street, but much larger. Lynx flipped the frame over in his hand and released the brackets that held the picture in place. When the backing came off of the frame, he rested it carefully on the nightstand and took the picture out so that he could look at the back.
Visit to the homeland
Earth
Rain, 22 years
Lynx gasped as he realized what the inscription meant. These were not some strange, unknown species that they had never encountered. These were creatures with whom the Denynso were becoming quite familiar.
The Light Ones were humans.
Taking the picture with the intention of showing it to Pyra, Lynx took a final look at the beautiful woman, whose name he could only guess to be Rain, and then turned to the door to leave. Before he could take another step, however, a series of deathly sharp black spikes came around the doorframe, cutting into the wall as they gripped into it to pull massive black bodies like gruesome spiders into the room and toward Lynx.
(To be continued in Part IV…)
Book 4 – The Alien’s Love
Chapter One
Lynx's mind was spinning. He didn't know what to think or how to react. He could hear the walls cracking and tearing as the massive creatures pulled themselves into the room, following each other so closely that they filled the doorway and crawled over one another grotesquely as if they couldn't wait to get to him. Lynx could only relate them to the spiders that Zuri had shown them pictures of while she was describing Earth and some of the types of life that lived there, but these were far beyond the small, scurrying bugs that she had shown them. Even the largest of those were miniscule compared to the gleaming creatures and their sharp, spiked legs that dug into the walls and ceiling as they crawled into the room.
As they moved toward him, Lynx stepped closer to the bed where Rain, the human, lay frozen in her calm, sleeping state. He had to protect her. He knew that this beautiful, delicate-looking woman, this lovely human that at once baffled and intrigued him, was meant to be his mate. It didn't matter to him that she was from a species that was not meant to have even visited Uoria before they started to arrive at the Denynso compound to research and learn, and even then were supposed to have been limited just to their area of the planet. It didn't even bother him that she had been lying here, frozen in her sleep, for longer than he had been alive. It was confounding and beyond his realm of comprehension, but at that moment the only thing that mattered to the warrior was making sure that the woman that lay in front of him was safe from these fearsome creatures crawling toward him.
There were seven of them now, leaving deep gouges in their wake as they moved across the walls and ceiling. He had seen gouges like that in the lower portion of the house when he had first arrived, but he had thought nothing of them. He had been far more concerned with the fact that in their desire to explore the planet of Uoria and discover what types of beings might share it with them, the group of Denynso men had found that there had been a long-running feud between two species that ended in one of them, the Covra, locking the beings they knew as the Light Ones, and that Lynx now knew were humans, in time, and that they were then roaming through that locked kingdom discovering everything that had stopped in the span of a breath, decades before.
Now what he worried about was Rain and how he would protect her. She couldn't move. As far as he knew, she had no awareness of what was going on around her. It was his responsibility to ensure that she was safe and that these creatures didn't harm her. He could continue to process the fact that she was human later. Right now he had to think quickly and get rid of these monsters.
Lynx stepped back toward the window that overlooked the street and could hear muffled screaming coming from the rest of the settlement. The creatures seemed to have found the rest of the Denynso men. Like the others, Lynx rarely carried weapons. They preferred to fight with their bare hands. And like the others, occasionally he carried a dagger that he had crafted himself. This dagger, however, he had left tucked in the bag he had been carrying as they walked from the compound, and he had dropped that bag to the floor near the door to the room.
He heard another scream from one of the buildings across the street and the frantic sound mobilized him. Lynx took a long stride across the room and dove toward his bag. He could feel something sharp grazing his back as he grabbed onto the bag and pulled it up against his chest. A fearsome hissing sound above him told him that he had angered the creatures, and he felt the sharp, piercing feeling in his back intensify.
Lynx reached into his bag and pulled out his dagger. In one fast movement he rolled over onto his back and slashed at one of the creatures. The tip of his dagger bit through the leg that was digging into his back and vibrantly green blood splattered down on him as the leg splintered off of the rest of the creature's body and skittered across the floor. The injured creature let out a horrific screeching sound and pulled back away from him, but even as Lynx saw the gleaming black thing withdrawing away from him, he watched as the open wound in the leg healed itself over and the limb started growing back.
Out of the corner of his eye Lynx saw one of the larger creatures climbing over the smaller one above his head, moving toward Rain where she lay on the bed. Lynx tightened his grip on the dagger and scurried backwards across the floor toward the edge of the bed. The large creature came toward him and he slashed at it with his dagger. Since he had watched the other creature heal itself so quickly, he didn't know how the larger one would react to his threats, but it was all he could do.
The creature took another step toward Rain and the fury built inside Lynx with an intensity that he had never experienced. He pulled himself up higher and changed his grip on his dagger so that it was pointing directly at the bulbous black eye at the front of the rounded body. He could see the reflection of his blade in the surface of the eye and as he leaned toward the creature, it stepped back. Lynx took another step forward and lay a protective hand on Rain's leg.
As soon as his hand touched her, Lynx felt his entire body tingle and saw a flash of bright, vibrant light. The room around him disappeared in the light and then reappeared, but it looked different. Sunlight, the type of dark, rich light that came with a late afternoon, made the room appear to glow. Out of the corner of his eye Lynx saw movement and he turned. Against the wall stood a vanity table with a large, curved mirror and at the table sat Rain.
Chapter Two
Lynx started to reach toward Rain, and saw her look up into the mirror as if she could sense his presence. In the reflection in the mirror he could see just how beautiful she was, the sparkling blue of her eyes like nothing he had ever seen. As she looked into the glass, however, he realized that she wasn't looking at him, but something over her shoulder. He hadn't noticed anything, so he continued to watch.
Rain drew a brush through her long hair and then settled it onto the surface of the vanity table. She stood, the thin fabric of her nightgown skimming the curves of her body and brushing against the floor as she walked the few steps to the bed and slipped beneath the covers. Just as she settled her head onto the pillow and her body relaxed, he saw one of the massive black creatures climb out from under the bed. Lynx screamed, but it didn't do any good. The creature lifted one sharply pointed leg, the tip glinting even more gruesomely in the sunlight, and plunged it into Rain's stomach.
As suddenly and inexplicably as the vision had appeared, the room around him seemed to melt and Lynx found himself standing back where he had been. It must have lasted only a few seconds, but Lynx felt like it had changed him completely. Something like that had never happened to him before. He wasn't even entirely sure what had happened, but those few moments had confirmed to him that these spider-like monsters were the Covra.
"Why?" he screamed at the one closest to him, and he saw it recoil as if it wasn't accustomed to hearing a spoken voice.
Lynx slashed at it with his dagger and the creature stepped backwards. He lunged forward and drove the tip of the blade toward the Covra's eye. It scurried backwards more quickly and Lynx rushed around the edge of the bed. The few moments of seeing Rain awake and vital had infuriated him to a level that was almost blinding, and he roared as he went after the Covra.
The louder he got, and the harder he slashed toward their eyes, the faster the creatures scurried toward the door.
"Lynx!"
Lynx heard Pyra's voice shouting up to him from the lower floor of the house. The deep sound of the lead warrior was encouraging. He knew that Pyra had survived and that he was not alone. A moment later Lynx heard Pyra's footsteps pounding up the stairs toward him, accompanied by another set. The horrific screeching of the Covra filled the space as Pyra and Bannack came into the room slashing at them with their own daggers. Green blood splattered the room and pieces of the creatures littered the floor.
"Their eyes!" Lynx shouted.
Pyra and Bannack turned their hands on the handles of their daggers, creating a tighter grip that allowed them to direct the carefully honed tips toward the rounded black domes of the Covra's eyes. The three warriors held their blades out toward the spider-like creatures, and for a moment they seemed to be retreating. As the room fell silent, however, the Covra's splintered limbs and the pieces of their round bodies that had fallen away under the edges of the Denynso's blades grew back and the monsters started to advance toward them again.
"Where are the other men?" Lynx demanded.
"They are fighting others of these creatures throughout the rest of the settlement," Pyra told him.
Lynx noticed that the Covra had stilled when they started speaking, and on instinct, he started again.
"These are the Covra," he told Pyra, pushing forward slightly with his blade held toward the eye of the closest creature.
"The Covra?" Pyra asked.
"Yes. The creatures that we read about in the prison in the compound. The ones that built the prison and locked this settlement."
"How could these things build a prison?" Pyra asked.
"I don't know, but they did, and now they are back here."
The men had managed to force the Covra back toward the door and they were scurrying away from them now, running along the walls and ceiling until they disappeared into other rooms and out of windows. Them being out of sight did not provide any relief for Lynx. He knew they were there, he knew now that they existed still and that they could appear out of seemingly nowhere. He didn't know how they had managed to make them retreat, and it was not comforting to him that he didn't know when they might return or how they could make them leave again.
The screams and hisses from outside had faded away as the Covra in the house disappeared and soon they were replaced by the shouts and frantic yells of the other Denynso. Pyra and Bannack started to run down the stairs toward the door to the house, but Lynx hesitated. He didn't want to leave Rain behind. Now that he knew that the Covra could return at any time, he felt like she was vulnerable. He rushed back into the room and knelt down beside the bed.
A moment later Pyra came back into the room.
"Lynx, come on. We have to find the other men. What are you doing?"
"I can't leave her," he said, gazing down at Rain.
"What do you mean you can't leave her?"
"This woman is supposed to be my mate."
He glanced up at Pyra and saw the look of confusion and shock cross his face. Finding their mate was something that the Denynso men waited for their entire lives. Unlike other species who may be able to mate with any number of others, the Denynso had one single mate. This was the only woman that existed in the entire universe who they could create a bond with, and the only one who they ever would create a bond with. They would look for that one woman throughout their entire lives, and when they found her, they immediately knew. After that, the bond was for life. This was something that they all knew from a very young age, and it took on even more serious meaning for Lynx now that he realized his mate was someone who may never again open her eyes.
"Lynx, this woman is locked in time. She has been here since long before you were even born, and she may be here on into eternity. You are just reacting to everything that's going on."
"No," Lynx said, feeling the defensive aggression building inside him, "Rain is my mate. She has been waiting for me for her entire life, and for mine."
"Rain?" Bannack asked, stepping into the room behind Pyra.
Lynx realized that the others didn't have any idea what he had discovered about these people, the Light Ones as the Covra had called them, and he debated with himself whether he should tell them. He worried that if he let them know that he knew they were human, they would not be as inclined to help them. Even though several of the Denynso, Pyra included, had mated with humans, there was still deep-seated controversy about how much interaction and connection the two species should have. The thought that they had been living on the planet all along, and that Creia had either not known about them or had been lying to them, could cause them even more difficulty than they were already facing.
Not telling them what he had seen, however, didn't seem like an option.
"I saw her," he said carefully.
"What do you mean?" Pyra asked.
"When the Covra were in here, I touched her, and I could see what I think were the last few seconds before she was locked."
"What did you see, Lynx?" Pyra demanded.
The force behind the words made Lynx feel even more defensive and he straightened his spine, pressing his chest toward the larger, older warrior. Suddenly Pyra's eyes widened.
"Lynx, you're bleeding," he said.
Lynx looked down and saw trails of his own blood sliding down his arm and dripping onto the floor beneath his feet.
Chapter Three
"There's something wrong."
Elianna jumped up from the chair where she had been sitting and rushed across the room to Eden. She dropped down onto her knees next to her and rested her hands on the other woman's rounded belly.
"There's something wrong with the baby?" she asked frantically.
There was still so much that they didn't understand about Eden's pregnancy and every tiny twinge or moment of worry could bring panic to the other women. This was the first pregnancy for this generation of the Denynso, and even though Eden had technically become one of their kind when Ciyrs had saved her from near death, there was much of her that was still humanlike and no one knew how much of her pregnancy would resemble each of the species.
"No," Eden said, rubbing her belly as if to calm herself and the baby resting inside, "There's something wrong with Pyra."
Elianna's eyes widened and Eden could see the fear in them.
"What? What's happening?"
"I don't know," Eden said, straightening in her seat. "I can't communicate with him."
She concentrated hard on her mate, trying to make the connection that would allow them to speak to each other through their thoughts. It was a precious gift that the Denynso enjoyed with their mates, something that allowed them to connect in a way that was far deeper and more meaningful than the connection that they had with any of the others of their kind. She had learned, though, that this connection was not something that was always available. She couldn’t just glance into Pyra's mind whenever she wanted to. If he was concentrating too hard on something else, or purposely did not want her to be able to see into his thoughts, she would not be able to. She knew the same went for her, but she rarely closed him out. The fact that she could sense that there was something wrong with him but was unable to decipher exactly what it was, or to communicate with him, frightened her.
"Try Ciyrs," Elianna said.
Eden looked into her friend's eyes. She could see the lingering pain there that the small woman always tried to conceal, but occasionally made itself sharp and inescapably known.
"You can't get to him?" Eden asked.
Elianna shook her head.
"Try him, please."
This was another of the extraordinary things about Eden that made her stand apart from the other mates of the Denynso despite them all being quite close. She was not only the first of the human women to come to the planet and find her mate in one of the tremendous warriors who guarded the compound and waged war against other species throughout the galaxy. She was the first to find herself pregnant with the child of one of the warriors. And she was the only human that the Denynso healer Ciyrs had brought back from the brink of death after a gruesome encounter with one of the Klimnu. It was during that interaction that she had been turned into one of them, and in turn she had formed a link with Ciyrs that was just like the one she had with Pyra.
It was the only such link that existed in the Denynso. Usually only the men and their mates formed the link that allowed them to speak through their thoughts and feel each other's emotions. Eden and the healer, however, had created that link and still maintained it. Their bond was nothing like hers with Pyra, or his with Elianna. It was not romantic, but rather she saw him as her most treasured friend, like a brother that she had never had during her time on Earth. The link had extended to her and Elianna, but they rarely used it. The fact that she and Ciyrs were connected in such as way was already difficult for their mates, even though both Pyra and Elianna had expressed time and time again that they understood that they didn't represent a threat to their bonds. Out of respect for their mates, however, Eden and Ciyrs agreed to stay away from each other's thoughts as much as possible, only entering them in times of emergency.
Ciyrs?
Eden sent out the call to Ciyrs, barely breathing as she waited for him to respond.
Please, Ciyrs, talk to me. Elianna says that she can't get to you, and I can't get to Pyra. I know that there's something wrong. Talk to me.
She got no response and the fear that had been building inside her sharpened to an almost painful edge. She hadn't wanted Pyra and the other men to go out into the rest of the planet to explore. The battles with the Klimnu were still so fresh and raw in their minds, and the death of Jem was still so painful. The thought of them leaving the compound, venturing outside of the boundaries for the first time of any of their kind, was terrifying to her, especially as she moved further along in her pregnancy. She was so scared that something was going to happen to them and that she would be without Pyra, a thought that made her feel empty and hollow inside. She had left everything that she had ever known on Earth to stay on Uoria to be with him, something that she would do again in a second if she had to make the choice, but the thought of losing him was far more difficult and painful than walking away from anything she had known in her life before him.
"They've only been gone a day," Eden said, trying both to convince herself and Elianna that everything was fine, "What possibly could have happened to them? They are probably just sleeping."
Even as the words came out of her mouth, though, she knew that she didn't believe them. She had reached out to both Pyra and Ciyrs when they were sleeping before and they had woken up immediately. She had learned to enter their thoughts carefully enough that she would be able to tell if they were dreaming, something she did with tremendous caution after some of the dreams that she had stumbled into when connecting with Ciyrs, and she knew that as forcefully as she had just tried to connect with both men, they would have woken up.
"Where are the others?" Elianna asked, "Maybe they can get to their mates."
"Zuri said that she, Leia, and Samira would be down by the water. They've decided to do more of their research while the men are gone."
"They aren't going back to Earth, are they?"
"Not for any longer than Samira and Ty's wedding," Eden paused, not wanting to say out loud what the worrisome little voice in the back of her mind was saying, questioning whether that wedding would ever actually come to pass. "But I think that it distracts them. Their whole lives on Earth were the university and their teaching or studies. Maybe it helps them not think about their mates."
The two women had started out of the house toward the water and Eden could feel Elianna staring at her as they walked.
"Do you ever miss your work?" Elianna asked.
Her voice was low, as if she was trying to keep what she had said just between her and Eden, though the compound was nearly deserted now that the men were gone. The human mates still had little to no contact with the Denynso women, except for the midwives, and for the most part the five of them existed on their own.
"No," Eden said honestly, "That job, as proud as I was of it, was awful. My boss was… horrible."
She realized as she said this that she had never really told the other women how she had made her way into the Denynso compound. As the first to become a part of the clan, she had watched the other women join them one by one, but she hadn't really opened up to them about her experiences before she made the decision to stay with Pyra.
"What happened?" Elianna asked.
Eden sighed. She had wanted to leave her past behind her, to keep it firmly on Earth so that she didn't have to deal with it any longer, but she knew that it wouldn't help her to pretend like none of it had ever happened.
"My boss, Ryan, was not a nice person. He wanted what he wanted and he was going to get it, or make everybody's life miserable. I wouldn't date him, so he decided to send me on what he thought was a death mission."
"What?" Elianna sounded horrified.
"Yeah. A bit of an overreaction if you ask me, but that's what he decided to do. He knew that the Denynso had very strict rules about human visitors, particularly scientists, and he sent me here with the specific instructions to go against those rules."
"What did he want you to do?"
"He wanted me to bring back a sample of Denynso warrior blood so that he could analyze it and find out what makes them so powerful. Of course, that is the most serious rule that the Denynso have. To Ryan, either I would be successful and he would be able to get to the source of the Denynso power and possibly create his own race of superior warriors through genetic engineering on Earth, or I would get caught and they would kill me. Either way, he would get something that he wanted; success and fame, or revenge."
"Where is he now?" Elianna asked.
Eden glanced over at her. She honestly hadn't thought about him in the months that she had spent on Uoria. It was as if he didn't exist anymore.
"You know, I have no idea. It's possible that the research lab thinks that I'm dead and they've brought him up on endangerment and espionage charges."
The thought delighted Eden on a level that she didn't necessarily want to admit to anyone, and it made her feel a little less awful about herself when Elianna laughed.
"That would serve him right," she said.
Eden laughed.
"It would. I'm sure that he would absolutely love a few decades in one of the prison tech camps."
The thought of Ryan chained to one of the expansive computers in the technology prison camps, forced to work from morning until night working systems so basic they would drive him mad, was enough to assuage all of the anger she had for him, and she found herself smiling as they walked on toward the pond at the far end of the compound.
Her smile faded, however, when she saw Loralia running toward them, her long braid bouncing on her back as she rushed down the dirt road, her compact held tightly in her hand. Suddenly Eden remembered why they were walking toward the water and all of the fear and heartache came rushing back.
Chapter Four
Pyra held Lynx down on the floor, pushing his arms down against the wood with nearly all of his strength. Even though the younger warrior was smaller, the ferocity that was suddenly pouring out of him was making it more difficult than Pyra would have imagined for him to control his thrashing. As soon as he had mentioned the blood dripping from Lynx's back, the other warrior had seemed to snap, suddenly becoming aggressive and violent toward him and Bannack. He was hissing in a way that was almost like the Covra, and no matter how loudly Pyra shouted his name, he stared back at him through eyes that looked dark and unrecognizable, as if they were not registering the meaning of the word.
Behind him Bannack gripped a silver compact in his hand and stared into it. The compact looked like a larger, heavier version of the one that Loralia carried and Pyra wondered what Bannack could possibly be doing with it as he struggled to not only fight off Lynx's violent reaction, but to understand what was causing it.
"Loralia!" Bannack suddenly gasped.
"Bannack?" Loralia's voice came into the room and Pyra shot a shocked look at Bannack, "What's wrong?"
"Something's happening to Lynx," Bannack said into the compact, "We don't know what's going on."
"What happened?"
"I can't get into the whole story right now, but he's been injured and now he seems like he's completely out of his mind. He's fighting Pyra and we can't get him to calm down. He looks like he's trying to kill him."
"Show him to me."
Pyra forced his knee into Lynx's chest to give him more control over him and watched as Bannack came closer and held the compact at an angle as if reflecting Lynx in the mirror.
"What are you doing?" Pyra asked.
"If anyone would be able to figure out what's going on with him, it's going to be Loralia."
"How was he injured?" Loralia asked through the compact.
Her voice sounded slightly strained, as if she knew something but didn't want to actually say it until she knew for sure that she was right.
"We encountered another species…"
"The Covra," Loralia said before Bannack could even continue his sentence.
"Yes," Bannack said, "You've heard of them?"
"Yes. A long time ago. I didn't know that they still existed. You need to get Lynx to Ciyrs as fast as you possibly can."
"What's wrong with him?"
"He's been infected by the Covra. They are fairly weak creatures. They have their talons, but their greatest form of defense is infecting those they are fighting. If they can get their venom into another creature, that creature forgets what it is and tries to kill anything near it. The effect lasts until the venom is removed, or the infected creature is destroyed."
"I don't understand. If they can turn whatever they get near into killing machines, how are they weak? Why aren't they able to just destroy whatever comes their way?"
"They used to, and then other species realized that it takes many, many years for them to reproduce, and that they have a very specific vulnerability. They were once feared more than anything on this planet, but several generations ago they came in contact with an enemy that took that power from them. They found that vulnerability and were able to stave them off."
"The Light Ones," Bannack said.
"I don't know," Loralia admitted, "I only know what my grandfather told me. He said that their numbers were greatly diminished and that they had to wait for the next generation to be born before they would be able to fight again. They haven't been heard from since."
"You don't know what their vulnerability is?"
"No, but you need to get Lynx help now. The longer you wait, the harder it will be for Ciyrs to remove the venom. If you wait too long, Lynx will kill until he is killed."
"Thank you," Bannack said, "I love you."
Pyra watched him snap the compact closed and look down at him. His arm muscles were starting to burn from forcing Lynx to stay in place on the floor and he was pushing down into his chest with his knee so hard that he worried he was going to break his ribs.
"How are we going to get him to Ciyrs?" Pyra asked, "If I let up even a little, he's going to get off this floor and that dagger is far too close to him for my comfort if Loralia is right about him being infected."
"You're going to have to hold him while I go find Ciyrs. Where did you last see him?"
"He went into a building down the street. I don't know where he is now."
Bannack looped the braid of Loralia's hair that held the compact back over his neck and ran out of the room. Pyra listened to his footsteps pounding down the stairs and fade as they left the house. He could only hope that he was able to find the healer in time to save Lynx. He didn't want them to lose one of their men on the first day of a trip that he was supposed to be leading.
The blood was rushing through his veins so hard that Bannack could hear it in his ears as he ran out of the house and back out onto the dusty street. He could hear the voices of the other men coming from the buildings and down the street, and he struggled to decipher Ciyrs's among them. He had heard the guilt and worry in Pyra's voice, but he felt like he was the one that should feel guilty. It was him that had first pointed out that the Denynso knew almost nothing about the planet that their kind had always called home, and that by never leaving their compound they had made it so that none of them knew what types of creatures might exist beyond it. It had been him that had first suggested that they should go out and explore. Pyra might feel like as the leader of the Denynso warriors, it was his fault if anything went wrong, but Bannack knew that if he didn't find Ciyrs in time, he was responsible for whatever horrors followed with Lynx.
Bannack saw Ty coming down the street toward him and Bannack ran for him, reaching out and grabbing the other man's shoulders as soon as he was close enough.
"Have you seen Ciyrs?" he demanded.
"What?" Ty asked, "What's wrong?"
"Have you seen Ciyrs?" Bannack asked again, staring intensely into the baker's eyes. "Lynx is injured and needs him now."
Worry rolled over Ty's eyes and he shook his head.
"I haven't seen him."
Bannack let go of him and continued down the street. Around him he saw the other warriors streaming out of the buildings and coming onto the street from other areas of the settlement. Many of them had the vibrant green blood of the Covra streaked across their skin or soaked into their clothing. They all had confused, horrified expressions on their faces that told him that they were just as stunned by what had just happened as he was.
"What the hell were those things?" someone asked from one side.
"Did you see their legs grow back?" another voice asked.
"Where did they go?"
Bannack continued to run down the street, his heart pounding so hard that he could feel it in his throat and he felt like he was going to get sick. This isn't what he had in mind when he suggested that they go out onto Uoria and discover what was waiting outside their compound walls. When he first mentioned it, it was motivated by his painful emotional response to Jem's death and the fear that came from the fact that he died in a place that none of them even knew existed. When he went to Pyra and told him that he wanted to go with them, it wasn't truly out of a deep need to understand what was on the rest of the planet, but out of fear of his feelings for Loralia and his desire to escape from her. Through his haste and selfishness he had put the warriors in more danger than they had ever been in.
With their other enemies, they had known what they were facing. They knew what the creatures were and how they could defeat them. Right up until they were in the mirror realm coming up against the Klimnu for the final time, they were always on their home ground, comfortable and secure in knowing where they were and the resources that they could use to fight. Now they were somewhere they had never been, surrounded by unfamiliar landscape and facing enemies that they didn't know and didn't understand. The Covra were gone for then, but they could show back up at any moment, and without even knowing what their vulnerabilities were, the Denynso had little chance of defeating them.
Chapter Five
Loralia looked at each of the women, gauging their reactions to the conversation she had just had with Bannack. As soon as he had begun to contact her, she had sought out the other women, feeling that if something had gone wrong on the quest with one of their mates, they deserved to know as soon as she found out. She was beginning to know and trust these women, and she didn't want to do anything that might hurt them in any way, or cause them to distrust her as the others had when they first encountered her, and that included keeping anything that she knew about the men or their quest from them for even a moment.
Eden looked back at her with one hand over her mouth, the other cupped around the front of her belly in the protective stance that she assumed most of the time. Zuri looked dumbstruck, looking up at them from where she knelt by the side of the water just as she had been when Loralia, Eden, and Elianna rushed up to her after Loralia found the other two women nearly at the pond. Elianna was trembling, one hand gripping Leia's hand beside her as if seeking out the support of the tiny woman.
None of them said anything for several long seconds. Loralia didn't push them and she avoided reflecting their feelings, not wanting to delve into the private moments that each of them were having. She didn't know what they were thinking or what they were feeling, but she was quickly learning that the human women were not as open to having their emotions explored as her kind was. She was trying to learn to rely not on her ability to decipher the feelings and emotions of those she encountered, but rather their words and actions when she wanted to interact with them.
"Be honest with us, Loralia," Leia said carefully, "How much danger are they actually in?"
Loralia wasn't sure how she was supposed to respond to that question. The truth was that she had told Bannack everything that she knew about the Covra. The fearsome creatures were something that the older ones of her kind had told stories about when she was younger. Her grandfather was known for weaving elaborate tales in the tradition of Loralia's kind, meant to both frighten the young ones in the delightful way that they enjoyed, and to teach them about the history of the planet. Many of these stories had long since left Loralia's memory, but the ones about the Covra had always lingered with her. Something about creatures that were so different from them and fought in such a vicious manner had deeply bothered Loralia, and she had never forgotten what her grandfather had said about them.
"I wish that there was more that I could tell you," she said, "but what you heard me tell Bannack is everything that I know about the Covra. I don't know what species they encountered that finally found their vulnerability, or what that vulnerability may be. All I know is that Ciyrs doesn't have a lot of time to get the venom out of Lynx before it will be too late."
"Will he kill Pyra if he gets away from him?" Eden asked.
Her voice was low and soft, but controlled. It was the voice of a woman fighting to maintain her composure, refusing to allow herself to give into the emotions that were threatening her so that she was as calm and even as possible to ensure she didn't miss any critical information about the mate for whom she lived and breathed. Loralia wanted to comfort her, but she couldn't lie to her.
"Yes," she replied.
Eden looked like she had been struck. She stepped back slightly, shaking her head as if she could make the situation go away by denying what Loralia had just told her.
"Ciyrs will get to him," Elianna said confidently, "He will. And he will get the venom out and heal him. He is the best healer that has ever been, and he brought all of his ointments and supplies with him. There is nothing that they could encounter that Ciyrs would not be able to heal."
Loralia nodded, allowing Elianna's words to comfort her. She longed for the ability to communicate with Bannack through her mind the way that the other women could communicate with their mates. Though they had not been able to connect with them that day, they knew that at some point soon they would be able to reach out with their minds and feel what their mates were feeling, know what they were thinking, and send their own thoughts to them. She only had her compact and the shared link that it created with Bannack. Though she was incredibly grateful for that, it was one of the things that made her feel separated from the other women. They had been truly welcoming to her since she had made the decision to join the compound with Bannack, but Loralia still felt like they existed in two entities; the five of them and her. Though they were getting closer and the human women were doing what they could to make her feel like a true part of the clan, there was still enough space between them that Loralia felt like she was looking into their experiences rather than truly being a part of them.
"Is there anything we can do?" Zuri asked, standing up and brushing the dirt off of her knees.
"All that we can do is wait to hear from them again and hope that the next time that we do it will be with good news about Lynx," Loralia said.
Eden shook her head.
"No. That's not enough. I can't just sit around and hope that Ciyrs gets to Lynx and gets the venom out of him before he tires Pyra out and kills him."
"What do you want to do?" Leia asked.
"We have to go talk to Creia. He might not know much about the rest of Uoria, but he knows more than the rest of the Denynso, and far more than us. Maybe if we tell him what the men told us and what Loralia knows, he will be able to tell us more and we can piece it all together."
There was a moment of unspoken agreement amongst the women and they all started toward the meeting hall together, hoping that when they arrived the king would be able to tell them something that could ease their fears and help them to feel more comfortable with the men being gone for longer.
They expected that Creia and his queen Theia would be in either their sitting room where they held formal meetings or in their living quarters when they arrived, but when the women got to the meeting hall fifteen minutes later, they found the king and queen standing on the front steps as if waiting for them.
"Oh! Hello, ladies," Creia said happily, holding out his hands in greeting, "I just sent Zsilvia to find you."
"Is everything alright, sir?" Zuri asked.
"Of course!" Creia said, "I just wanted to make sure that you are ready for the arrival of the new teacher."
Loralia glanced over at the other women and saw them all exchanging quizzical looks.
"New teacher?" Zuri asked.
Loralia had learned a little about the university exchange program that had brought Zuri, Elianna, Samira, and Leia to Uoria, and she had assumed that even though the women had decided to make the planet their home rather than returning to Earth at the end of what had been intended to be a few months' stay, that the program would continue. From the way that the human women were reacting, however, it didn't seem that they knew anything about this new teacher.
"I didn't know that the university was sending any other teachers," Samira said, looking at Zuri, who shook her head as she continued to stare at Creia.
"Neither did I. The plan was that I would be the first professor to come and then when I returned and shared my research with the rest of the university, we would plan for more teachers to come here and students from the compound to go to Earth."
"We received communication from the university a couple of weeks ago saying that they were sending another professor to join you," Creia said. "I told you about it that day."
His voice had lost some of the jovial happiness that it had had as they approached and Loralia felt herself fall back into her protective default of reflecting the emotions of the king so that she could prepare herself for what may be happening. The man felt frustrated, but also slightly confused, as if he wasn't entirely sure about what he was saying. He seemed to be thinking through the situation, going back through the memory that he thought he had of telling Zuri about the impending arrival of the new professor, and finally settling on disappointment.
"I'm sorry," Zuri said, "I really don't remember."
"Zuri, of all people I would think you understand the importance of this program to Uoria and to the Denynso. I know that your path changed when you came here and you have decided to stay with us, and of course we are all delighted that you have found your home and your mate among our people, but that means that in order for the program to continue and our hopes of cooperation with the humans of Earth to come to reality, we have to have another professor come."
Beside Loralia, Zuri felt stung and embarrassed. Loralia looked at her and saw the blonde woman nodding, her pale cheeks suddenly aflame with color.
"Of course," she said in a voice that sounded somewhat defeated.
"Good. Please do what you need to do to ensure there is a cabin prepared for the shuttle arrival. With the men gone, I am having Zsilvia act as escort and guide, so if possible find a home that is close to hers."
The king turned away and went back into the meeting hall, leaving the women looking up at Theia.
"You will have to forgive my mate," she said soothingly, "He feels anxious with the warriors gone. He wants you to make sure everything is ready because he trusts you. He trusts you more than he does any of the Denynso women, and that is saying a lot."
She said this with a type of conspiratorial note in her voice that made the five human women more at ease, but Loralia could still feel a sense of guarded worry coming off of Zuri.
"I really don't remember him mentioning another professor to me," Zuri said.
"To be honest, Zuri," Theia said, "He might not have. With all of the chaos that has been going on around here, he might have only thought that he mentioned it to you because he intended to. If it helps at all, I was there when he communicated with the university and they said that this professor is very excited to join you and be a part of the program."
The Denynso queen smiled kindly at the women and then turned to join her mate in the meeting hall. Zuri turned to the other women, shaking her head.
"I really don't remember anything about this new professor," she said.
"Neither do I," Samira agreed.
"Is that a problem?" Loralia asked, venturing to join the conversation that she had been trying to follow but didn't quite understand.
"We found out that a human flight attendant who had been on every shuttle from Earth had been helping the Klimnu and was instrumental in them being able to take over your mirror realm. If it hadn't been for her, none of us would have gone through the things that we did at the hands of the Klimnu. The only one of us who they didn't attack is Samira, and that's only because she came here just before the final battle. If they had had the opportunity, they would have tried to get her, too. It makes it very difficult for us to trust."
She hadn't meant to, but Loralia felt herself take a step back from the rest of the women. Eden held up a hand as if to stop her.
"She didn't mean…" she started.
Loralia shook her head.
"No, it's alright. After everything that all of you have gone through, I don't expect you to trust me immediately."
She turned to walk away from them, wanting to be back in the little house that she shared with Bannack, when she heard Zuri's voice again.
"We really are happy to have you here, Loralia. I hope you know that."
Loralia nodded, but continued on her way back home.
Chapter Six
Bannack was nearly at the end of the main street of the locked settlement when the door to a building beside him opened and Ciyrs stepped out. He was so relieved that for a moment he wasn't even able to move, but when the healer started in the opposite direction, Bannack reached out and grabbed ahold of his shirt.
"Come on," he said, starting to pull him down the street back toward the house where Pyra and Lynx were.
"What's wrong?" Ciyrs asked.
"Lynx has been injured. We need to get there as fast as we can. I'll explain on the way."
Apparently understanding the urgency of the situation, Ciyrs started running beside Bannack, weaving in and out of the other warriors and the people locked in time as they made their way back down the street. Many of them shouted after them, but they didn't pause. As they ran, Bannack explained as concisely as he could what had happened to Lynx and what Loralia had told them about the venom. He was relieved that the healer had his bag still strapped across him and was already digging through its contents by the time they reached the front door to the house.
Bannack could hear Pyra and Lynx still struggling on the floor above them and despite the ferocity of the sounds, he was relieved because it meant that the huge lead warrior had managed to maintain control over Lynx and the infected man had not broken free and killed him. As long as they could hear the grunting and thrashing, he knew that they still had time.
They climbed the stairs two at a time, and when they entered the bedroom, Ciyrs dropped his bag to the floor. He held a strange-looking contraption in one hand.
"Where was he injured?" he asked.
Pyra's eyes snapped up to him as if he hadn't even noticed that the other men had come into the room.
"His back. I don't know how bad it is."
"Bannack says that it took several minutes for the reaction to start."
Pyra let out a loud grunt and forced Lynx back down onto the ground. By now both men had bloody gashes in their arms and Pyra had blood streaming down his face from where Lynx had apparently reared up and broken his nose.
"Yes. He didn't start acting like this until the Covra were already gone and I pointed out that he was bleeding."
"Hopefully that means that they didn't get too much venom in him and that I'll be able to get it out easily."
"Have you ever heard of this before?" Bannack asked from the doorway.
"No, but I've dealt with other venomous creatures. I'll do the best I can. Pyra, when you feel like you have enough control, flip him over onto his belly. Bannack, come around the side and as soon as he's over, grab onto one of his arms and help Pyra hold him. This is going to be painful, so make sure you are holding him down hard enough and expect some screaming."
He said it all with such calmness that Bannack almost thought that Ciyrs was joking, but when he looked at him, he could see the intensity in the healer's eyes and he knew that he was absolutely serious. Bannack hurried around to Lynx's other side, poised to help Pyra hold him down. A moment later Pyra released the hold that he had on Lynx with his knee in his chest and let go of one of his arms so that he could flip the man over onto his belly. Lynx thrashed, nearly forcing Pyra back, but Bannack grabbed hold of him and together they were able to fight him back to the ground.
They held him in place long enough for Ciyrs to press the contraption to the long gash down Lynx's back and start turning the handle at the top. Lynx let out a primal scream and his entire body tensed. Ciyrs turned the handle faster, seeming to intensify the drawing of the venom the more the warrior responded. Finally Lynx's body relaxed and he seemed to collapse onto the floor. Bannack could see his eyelids fluttering over his closed eyes and hear his labored breath, but his body didn't move even as he and Pyra started to ease their grip on him.
"You can let go," Ciyrs told them, seeming to notice how cautiously and reluctantly the two men were releasing their hold on Lynx, "He's going to be asleep for a good while. I'm going to have to heal him up now, and all of that takes a lot out of you." Ciyrs gestured for his bag and Pyra handed it to him, "Where do you want me to take him? He's going to have to have somewhere to lie down."
Bannack watched as Ciyrs started pulling bandages and healing ointments out of his bag and setting them on the floor beside Lynx's prone figure.
"Here," Pyra finally said.
Bannack and Ciyrs both look up at him sharply.
"Here?" Ciyrs asked, "Why?"
Pyra gestured at the bed against the wall, the one with the woman that Bannack had completely forgotten even existed. It looked even stranger now to see her lying there, not reacting in any way to everything that had just happened around her.
"He says that she is his mate."
"But she's…"Ciyrs started to protest and Pyra held up a hand to stop him.
"I'm well aware," Pyra said, his voice sounding tired as if the fight with Lynx had taken everything out of him physically and emotionally, "but it is none of my business who he thinks is his mate. We all know what it's like when we first found our mate. It might not have been the easiest thing in the world, and it might not have made terribly much sense at the time, but we knew. Even those of us who tried to deny it," he shot a glare at Bannack, who tried to pretend he didn't see it, "and if being with Eden and watching all of you find your mates has taught me anything, it is that we never know what's going to happen. If he thinks that this woman is supposed to be his mate, I think that he should be here with her. If nothing else, make him more comfortable so he heals better."
Bannack and Ciyrs nodded, and Bannack could only imagine that the healer was thinking back, just as he was, about when he found his own mate. It wasn't an easy process, and one that changed his life from the very first moment that it started. As hard as he had tried to deny his immediate and intense love for Loralia from the first time that he saw her, he had felt the changes that came over him even before he had laid eyes on her. The intensity, aggression, and anger that had coursed through him had been like nothing he had ever experienced, and though he was able to explain those feelings away as being a part of his reaction to the impending battle, he had not been able to give the same explanation to the overwhelming arousal that had come over him as he approached the underground mirror realm and did not ease until he had finally accepted his love for Loralia and completed his bond with her.
If Lynx had experienced anything like Bannack had when he first met Loralia when he saw Rain, he could only imagine how difficult it was to compound that with not knowing if he would ever see her alive, and then to be infected by the Covra. Being near Rain was the best thing for him as he went through his challenging recovery.
"If the two of you could step back a little," Ciyrs said, holding his hands out to guide Bannack and Pyra back away from Lynx, "I'm going to heal him now."
Bannack and Pyra followed the instruction, taking a few steps back away from Lynx so that Ciyrs could kneel closer to Lynx's prone form. He was not breathing as hard now and his eyes had started to settle, but Bannack knew that wouldn't last. Ciyrs could heal virtually any injury or illness if he got to it fast enough, but the process was neither simple nor pleasant most of the time. The healer pulled Lynx's tattered and bloodied shirt off and tossed it aside before positioning him so that his back was fully accessible.
Ciyrs rubbed his hands together and took a breath before placing them over the gash on Lynx's back. A faint glow appeared under his palms and a moment later Lynx let out a low groan. His body writhed and Bannack could see his hips rise up slightly. It was one of the uncomfortable reactions to the healing process, an unexplained level of arousal that was nearly as sudden and intense as the reaction that came from being close to meeting their mate. This reaction was the primary reason that the warriors preferred to be alone when they were getting healed, and why, even though Ciyrs had been able to transfer some of his impressive healing abilities to his mate when he first healed her, he didn't like it when Elianna healed the men.
After a few minutes of Ciyrs keeping his hands over the gash in Lynx's back, he pulled them away and checked the injury again. Reaching back into his bag, the healer withdrew several bottles and a handful of long bandages. Bannack watched him coat the gash with several thick layers of ointments and ground plants and then look up at Pyra.
"Help me sit him up so that I can bandage him."
Pyra crouched down beside Lynx and propped him up, helping Ciyrs stabilize him as he wrapped the bandages tightly around his body. When he was fully bandaged, the three men lifted Lynx off of the floor and carefully placed him on the bed beside the woman locking in her sleeping state. Though there was enough room on the large bed to place him so that he wasn't touching her, Pyra tucked him under the covers and moved Lynx's hand so that it rested against Rain's arm. Bannack was glad to see this simple gesture. Even though neither of them were conscious, maybe the physical contact would provide some level of comfort and peace.
Chapter Seven
Lynx bit down into his bottom lip, withholding a groan as he tried to control himself. He could feel the softness of Rain's mouth making a slow, torturous path down his chest from the soft dip between his collarbones. She followed the touch of her lips with the gentle, almost imperceptible glide of her tongue. When her mouth reached his belly, she let her tongue dip into his navel, and the feeling sent a shiver through his body.
He had never had a craving like he did at that moment, but he didn't want to rush the delicious feelings so he gripped the sheets beside him and squeezed his eyes closed to keep himself from taking her head in his hands and pushing it down.
As if she could sense his need, Rain traced her mouth down the rest of his belly at a slightly faster speed, occasionally following the slick of her tongue with the nip of her teeth against his skin. Finally he could feel her hot, moist breath ripple along the length of his erection and just that one simple sensation caused him to arch his back off of the bed. She waited until he relaxed again to let her tongue trace along him, pausing to concentrate for a few delirious seconds on the sensitive bundle of nerves tucked just under the head before parting her lips further and taking him fully into her mouth.
The feeling nearly overwhelmed him and Lynx continued to struggle to control himself. He wanted to sit up, grab Rain, throw her down, and mate with her until he could no longer move, but at the same time he was reluctant to give up the incredible sensations she was creating inside him and also didn't want to frighten or upset her. It was a delicate balance, at once wanting to take complete control and having enough trust in her to give himself over to her. The combination of the relinquishing control and the hot, intense feeling of her mouth along his cock was something that Lynx had never experienced, but his body moved and reacted on instinct, his hips slowly and subtly rolling to push himself deeper along her tongue to encourage her to suck him harder.
Finally he couldn't control himself anymore and he lifted his hands from the bed, gripping her shoulder with one and burying the other into her hair so that he could guide her into a faster, deeper rhythm. Part of him worried that he had gone too far, that he had exerted too much aggression and dominance over her, but Rain seemed to enjoy it, letting out a soft moan and relaxing her mouth to welcome the thrusts of his hips. As she lowered her body to accept him deeper, Lynx felt her nipples graze against the skin of his thighs and his arousal threatened to topple over.
He pulled her back so that he withdrew from her mouth and took her by her upper arms. Coming up off of the bed, Lynx turned Rain so that he could lower her down onto the bed with her head resting on the pillows where he had just been lying. Her body stretched out beneath him and the impossible, crystal blue of her eyes stared up at him with such openness and trust that he felt his emotions swell almost painfully in his chest. The urgency dissipated as a need to savor and cherish her took over. Lynx lowered his head and touched a kiss to her throat and then another to the soft dip between her collarbones where he could feel her fast heartbeat pounding up at him from beneath her skin.
There was a need for her inside him, something that he could never have explained or even understood before that moment, and he sought to fulfill it completely. His hands stroked down her body, dipping into her curves and memorizing the soft swells of her hips, breasts, and belly. His tongue slid out from between his lips to run a long, slow lick from the valley between her breasts up to the tip of her chin. Her skin tasted warm and salty, her breath rang in his ears, and he could feel her body trembling beneath him. He wanted to experience her with every sense and meld with her into one existence.
Lifting up again to stare into her eyes, Lynx eased himself over her and settled his hips between her thighs. Her long, smooth arms wrapped around his neck and he felt her draw her knees up as if welcoming him into her body. He took a long breath and began to push his hips forward, but just before he sank into her, his eyes snapped open and the entire beautiful image dissolved around him.
Deep, radiating pain in his back overtook the pleasure her mouth had given him, and cold sheets replaced her trembling body. Lynx sat up sharply and gasped at the pain that intensified in his back. His hand came to his chest and he felt the rough bandages. Suddenly things started coming back to him. He remembered the fight with the Covra and the pain of his injuries. He remembered watching Bannack and Pyra fight alongside him. Then he remembered the sudden, all-consuming feeling of hatred and aggression toward the two men. He could feel only the need to destroy them, and then there was blackness.
Lynx dug the heels of his hands into his eyes, rubbing at them to try to clear his mind. He was aware of the feeling of a mattress beneath him and a thick blanket covering from his hips over his legs. His upper body was bare except for the bandages and the cool air of the room sent a chill across his skin. When he pulled his hands away from his eyes he could briefly only see bright colored sparks dancing in the darkness, and then they faded into hazy vision. The room around him was dark, but light from outside came in through the window, allowing him to see what was around him. He glanced down and saw Rain lying beside him, her position unchanged since when he first saw her. Having her so close to him was comforting and he ventured to run his fingers down the curve of her cheek.
As soon as his fingers touched her, Lynx experienced the same sudden flash of vision that he had had the first time he touched her, giving him the same glimpse into the last few seconds of her being awake before the Covra had come out and locked her right there in her bed. Something about the vision struck him strangely this time that hadn't occurred to him the first time. He touched her again, letting himself experience those moments again, and came out of them wondering why she had crawled into bed when the sun was still up and the room was filled with the rich light of late afternoon.
Suddenly he realized that he didn't know where Pyra, Bannack, or any of the other men were. He needed to know what had happened between the moment when he was overcome by the desire to kill them and when he awoke beside Rain. The vivid, intense dream about Rain repeating torturously in his mind, Lynx carefully climbed out of the bed and left the room.
Feeling on edge and worrying that the Covra would suddenly appear again, Lynx took a few steps down the hallway before he heard Pyra's voice from downstairs. He was speaking in a hushed tone, but even speaking as quietly as he could, Pyra wasn't able to keep his voice much lower than what many people would consider a normal conversational tone, and Lynx moved toward it feeling comforted that he didn't feel the compulsion to attack his friend.
"Lynx!" Ciyrs said when Lynx turned the corner from the stairwell into a large open room toward the back of the house.
He didn't remember when the clan's healer had arrived at the house, but he was relieved to see him. He wasn't sure what had happened to him or what exactly Ciyrs had done to ensure that he woke up out of it feeling relatively normal, but he was incredibly relieved that he had been there. From what he could remember feeling in the moments before everything went black, it was very possible that he might not have survived the incident had his friends not acted quickly to ensure that he did.
"It's good to see you up and about, buddy," Pyra said from a couch near a fireplace on the back wall.
"How long have I been out?" Lynx asked, settling gingerly onto another couch beside Bannack.
"A while. Are you feeling alright?" Bannack answered.
"Other than the horrible stabbing pain through my back and being confused as all hell, I think I'm doing fine. Tell me what happened."
As Lynx listened to Pyra and Bannack recount their battle in the bedroom against the Covra and then his sudden descent into a murderous rampage and then Ciyrs's healing, Lynx found his mind continuing to wander back to Rain. He couldn't keep this thoughts off of her, from the look of her lying there locked in her sleep in the bed, to the dream he had had about her as he lay beside her after being healed. As his mind flashed back and forth between the images, something that Pyra said snapped him back into the conversation.
"What?" he asked.
Pyra looked at him quizzically.
"What?"
"What did you just say?"
"I was just saying that you said something about their eyes and then the creatures started leaving, but we didn't know why."
"She didn't see them, so she couldn't fight them," Lynx muttered.
"What are you talking about?" Pyra asked, but Lynx was already on his feet.
"Where are all of the others?"
"They are in the other houses. We decided to stay here for the night before we keep going in the morning so that you could rest."
Lynx was shaking his head and starting for the door before the others could even get up to follow him.
"No. We aren't leaving here until we figure out what's going on, and I think I can help us do that. I need to find Ero."
Chapter Eight
Lynx ignored the mutters and the shouted questions when he ran into the main room of the third house down from where he had awoken and rushed directly to Ero where he crouched in front of the fire, prodding at the glowing embers with a sharpened iron rod. The night outside was dramatically colder than the day had been and Lynx could still feel the sting of the air on his skin as he grabbed hold of Ero's back.
"Ero, I need you to come with me."
"Seriously, Lynx? You scared the shit out of me. I could have fallen into the damn fire." He glared at Lynx for a moment before his expression suddenly changed to one of shock, "Lynx! Are you OK? We've all been sitting around scared you weren't going to wake up."
"I'm fine. I need you to do me a favor."
"What do you need?"
"Remember how you were telling me that Zuri sent her journal with you?"
"Yeah, I have it in my bag upstairs."
"Could you get it and come with me?"
Without asking for an explanation, Ero rushed out of the room and Lynx heard his footsteps go up the stairs and down the hall. He could only assume that the house was laid out in essentially the same way as the one where he had been and that Ero was headed to one of the row of bedrooms on the upper floor. A few seconds later he heard the footsteps approaching again and Ero appeared back in the living room gripping the journal and a pencil.
"What do you need me to do?"
A few of the other men in the room had stepped slightly toward him as if waiting for him to include them in what he was saying to Ero, and Lynx turned to them.
"I need everyone to bring their torches and their light sticks. Anything they have that glows."
Lynx waited while the men gathered their light sources from the supplies that they had brought and then led them out onto the street. The warriors who had taken up residence in two other houses along the street came out to meet them, but Lynx told them that they could go back inside and rest. He needed the light, but he didn't need that big of an audience. The men he had already gathered would be enough for what he needed to do.
"What are you doing, Lynx?" Pyra asked as he caught up with Lynx walking toward the front of the compound.
"We need to know what happened to the people here."
"We already know what happened. They got locked by the Covra."
"Right, but there has to be at least one person who fought. One of the Light Ones had to have tried to fight back when they were locking everyone throughout the settlement. We need to find him and see what he did."
"You've lost me."
Lynx stopped in the middle of the road and turned to look directly into Pyra's face so he could make sure that the larger warrior was listening to him and would follow him.
"I told you that I could see the last few seconds of Rain's life." He felt strangled by the words that he had just said. He didn't want to think that it was true. "The last few seconds before the Covra locked her," he amended, "What if she's not the only one who I can do that with? If there's something about me that lets me see that for all of the locked people, we can piece together exactly what happened."
"It might not work that way," Bannack said.
"Ty can move things with his mind. Ero is impossibly fast. Ciyrs can heal. If they can do those things, why is it so hard to believe that I might have something like that, too? If there is even a chance, we have to try."
"He's right," Pyra said, looking out over the men who had gathered, torches glowing with the flames that they had picked up from the fireplaces and solar-powered light sticks adding their illumination to the pool of light that surrounded them, "This is why we came out here. We want to know what else is out here, and this is part of it. We have to find out what happened."
Lynx led the men to the front of the settlement, wanting to keep what would likely prove to be a long and exhausting search through every street and building as organized as possible. They gathered at the front gate and he turned to the rest of the men.
"We'll start here and head down the main street first. I'm guessing that's where most of the people will be. We'll work our way down, going into all of the buildings, and then we'll figure out where to go from there."
As one of the youngest and least experienced warriors, it felt strange to be taking charge in this way, but Lynx knew that he was the only one among them that had the ability to learn what he could about their last moments, and possibly discover how they would be able to reverse the lock and free the entire settlement from the imprisonment they had been suffering unknowingly for so many years.
In the darkness, the unmoving forms of the locked people looked disturbing and Lynx felt himself recoiling from them even as he approached the first person, a man who was frozen mid-step toward the main street. A few of the warriors held up their lights to illuminate the man's face and Lynx could see that his expression didn't seem frightened or anxious, more like he was just walking toward the settlement and was locked without him ever knowing what was happening, just like it was with Rain.
Lynx stepped up to the man cautiously and stared at him for a few seconds, questioning for a moment if he really wanted to do this. It was one thing to look into the last few moments of consciousness for the woman who he knew to be his mate, but this man was a complete stranger, someone who carried no connection for Lynx, and he didn't know if he wanted to go so far as to delve into the privacy of what happened to him right up until he was locked. He knew that he had to do it, though, if the Denynso were ever going to accomplish what they set out to do, and if he was ever going to have a chance to release Rain and be with her in reality.
Apologizing to the unknown man in his mind, Lynx reached out with both hands and rested his palms on the man's arm. Immediately he got the same sensation that he had when he first touched Rain. The world around him seemed to brighten and fade at the same time, and suddenly he was standing not under the cloak of night and the glow of the torches, but in the thick sunlight pouring like amber out of the sky. It was the same late afternoon sunlight he had seen coming through the window of Rain's bedroom in his vision of her last few seconds, and something pulled at his heart as he realized in the seconds that he was experiencing with this man, Rain was down in the main street in her home, brushing through her hair, and readying to climb into bed where she would lie for decades. He wanted so desperately to break away from where he was standing and run down to her house, to fight the Covra that were going to climb out from under her bed, and to protect her from her fate. Something told him, however, that he couldn't do that. He was stuck right there, unable to control himself in the space or anything that was going on around him.
To his side he watched as the man who he had just touched walk from the gate leading into the settlement. He walked calmly with the casual gait of someone who didn't have anything troublesome on his mind. He certainly didn't look like someone who was on guard or worried about an impending battle. The man took several long strides and then Lynx saw one of the Covra scurry through the gate and lash out at the man, digging the end of his sharpened leg into the man's back just as he had done to Rain's stomach. Without even so much as a groan, the man stopped, his foot not quite touching the ground and his eyes still cast down as they opened after blinking. It happened so quickly and then the Covra was gone, rushing down toward the settlement as Lynx saw others starting to climb through windows and across roofs. He couldn't figure out where they were coming from, but they were swarming the settlement at an incredible rate, and none of the Light Ones, the humans whose existence on the planet had either been forgotten or covered up in the generations since this moment, seemed to notice that they were there.
Several hours later Lynx took a long breath and approached the final person standing on the second street they had explored. Ero stood beside him, the journal in his hands already halfway full of the notes that he wrote down each time that Lynx came out of his vision. They had started the exploration with enthusiasm, talking and sharing ideas as they moved their way along the main street. After more than a dozen people and little information, though, their talk had started to fade. Now Lynx only talked when something extraordinary happened in one of his visions, which meant that for the most part they were walking along in silence.
As he looked at this next person, a woman who seemed locked in the stance of suddenly turning and looking over her shoulder at something, Lynx thought he heard a rustling in one of the buildings to his side. They had just been in that building, however, so he turned back to the woman.
"This has to be it for the night," Pyra said, "We need to sleep. We can keep going as soon as we wake up in the morning."
Lynx gave a defeated sigh and started to lift his hand toward the woman. He heard the rustling sound again and he noticed that the other warriors seemed to be looking around like they heard it, too. It fell silent again and Lynx reached toward the woman. Just as he started to touch her, he could see the first spiked leg of a Covra coming around the edge of the front doorway to the building beside them. Before he could say anything, his palm touched the woman's arm and he disappeared into the vision of her last moments.
The woman was walking away from him and he could see the shadow of a Covra behind her. It was another moment, one like he had had dozens of times since he started looking into these moments, when he wanted so badly to be able to call out to the person, to warn her of what was coming.
Suddenly, almost as if she could hear the screaming in his head, the woman whirled around and confronted the creature. Her eyes flashed as she swung her arm around, bringing a blade up around her and driving it deeply into the eye of the creature. The Covra let out a horrific sound that was between a hiss and a scream, and reared back, pulling its pointed legs up as if ready to strike, and then suddenly collapsing and dissolving into a slick pool of vibrant green blood that seemed to soak down into the ground almost instantly. From one side another of the creatures approached the woman and she shouted. It stumbled back at the sound of her voice and instead of running, she advanced toward it, continuing to yell as she slashed at the creature with her blade. She caught that one in the eye as well, and Lynx watched it recoil and dissolve just as the first.
He was beginning to feel hope when he heard a scratching sound from behind the woman. She turned, glancing over her shoulder, and in an instant before she could even react, a Covra buried its leg into her, locking her in place.
As the vision disappeared around him, Lynx felt himself knocked to the ground. For a moment he had a sense of panic that the Covra had gotten to him again, but he could feel the weight of something massive on top of him and knew that another of the warriors had tackled him to the ground. He heard shouts and felt the weight lifted away from him so that he could roll over and look up to get his bearings about what was happening around him.
The small group of warriors that had come along with him seemed locked in a battle. Three Covra hissed and scurried around them while Ty and an older warrior named Vax growled and rushed toward the other warriors. Lynx knew that they had been infected and that they needed to get rid of the Covra that were there so that they could get these two back to the house for treatment.
"It is their eyes!" Lynx yelled and noticed that the Covra recoiled as if they could understand what he was saying, "Get them in the eyes!"
"Lynx, Bannack, go after the Covra," Pyra commanded, "Ero, Gyyx, Ciyrs, help me."
The warriors split off to follow their orders without question. Out of the corner of his eye Lynx could see Pyra pull off his shirt and the other men follow suit. They tore the garments into long strips and wound them around their hands, tightening the fabric so that it was taut between their grip. Pyra surged forward toward Ty, slamming his shoulder into his belly to flatten him onto the ground. The sudden movement took the infected warrior off guard, causing him to pause for a moment as he tried to catch his breath and get his bearings.
Pyra took advantage of this momentary pause to flip Ty over onto his stomach and use the strips of fabric from his shirt to bind Ty's wrists together. Ero and Gyyx copied his movements on Vax, looping the fabric around his wrists to bind them together and then pulling them back as Pyra did with Ty to attach them to his ankles.
As they did this, Lynx and Bannack advanced toward the Covra. For the first few steps, the creatures seemed to be retreating, then they paused in the still, angry silence of the night air and started rushing toward the two warriors, their hissing sound seeming to rattle through their bodies as they came toward them with their gruesome legs creating deep rivets in the ground and gouges in the side of the building.
Lynx pulled back his blade and brought it over his head with all of the force that he could gather. The Covra in front of him tried to move out of his way, but was blocked by the one standing beside him. The tip of Lynx's blade dug deeply into the creature's eye and he watched it split before the Covra pulled away from him, stumbled back, and dissolved into the ground just as the ones in his vision had. Beside him, Bannack mimicked his action, destroying the Covra in front of him. The final one started scrambling up the wall of the building, and Lynx jumped onto a barrel positioned beside one of the windows and leapt up so that he crossed the path of the Covra, planting a kick in the middle of its body before it could disappear onto the roof. Its body tumbled to the ground beside Bannack, who immediately turned and drove his blade down into the bulbous, gleaming eye.
Chapter Nine
"Bannack, you need to slow down."
Loralia held the compact as steady as she could as she rushed across the compound, struggling to decipher the words that Bannack was yelling at her through the glass.
"We figured out that they can only be killed through their eyes," he repeated.
"Their eyes?"
"Yes. Lynx thought that all along, but we spent all night…never mind. I'll explain it all later."
"Are the rest of the men alright?"
"Ciyrs is healing Ty and Vax right now. I think that he got to them in time and that they will be fine. Right now we need to figure out how to get rid of the rest of the Covra. We destroyed those three, but there have to be more. We can't risk them coming out and infecting more of us. If one of them got Ciyrs, there would be nothing that anyone could do."
"Do you know how to lure them to you?" Loralia asked.
"No. They just show up. Do you remember anything else that your grandfather used to say about the Covra? Anything about when they would come or how you could get them to come out?"
Loralia scoured her mind, trying to recall everything that her grandfather had said, every story that he had told about the creatures and how enemies defeated them. The ground pounded beneath her feet as she ran toward the forest.
"Silence," she said, suddenly remembering one of the stories as she dropped down onto the ground and moved aside a section of moss to reveal the hole leading down into her mirror realm.
"Silence?" Bannack asked.
"Yes. One of the stories that my grandfather used to tell was about how the greatest enemies of the Covra had a power that would weaken the creatures and was the only thing that could reverse their greatest defense, and that silence was their comfort and their joy."
"What was the greatest defense?"
"He never said."
Bannack didn't respond and Loralia dropped down through the hole into the home that she had had her entire life before she met Bannack and agreed to go above ground to be his mate.
"Locking them," Bannack said a moment later, sounding as if he was speaking more to himself than to her.
"Locking?" she asked.
Loralia listened while Bannack told him about the warriors visiting the prison that they had thought belonged to the Klimnu but they discovered actually belonged to the Covra, and how they found out about the kingdom that the Covra had locked. He detailed the Light Ones and how they appeared to be frozen in place in the same breath that they had been drawing when the Covra attacked them. As she listened, Loralia tried to understand what he was telling her, and what she might be able to do to help him. She had gone to the mirror realm to surround herself in what was familiar, hoping that it would help her to think clearly. She could feel that her mate was frightened and upset, and she wanted to do anything that she could to help him.
She moved deeper into the caverns, exploring the chambers and venturing into areas that she hadn't visited in quite some time. Suddenly she saw something that made her heart pound faster and a smile come to her lips for the first time since the day that Bannack left.
"Do you remember what I told you about the compact?" she asked, looking into the mirror at him.
Bannack nodded.
"Whatever reflects in your mirror, reflects in mine."
"Yes. And do you remember what happens when something reflects in my bottom mirror from the top?"
"It becomes real."
Loralia nodded and looked back across the cavern.
Bannack crouched down behind the barrel he had pulled into the middle of the street and glanced over at Lynx who sat beside him. The others had remained in the buildings on either side of the street, poised beside the windows and doors to watch what was happening, but staying out of sight.
"Are you sure that this is going to work?" Lynx whispered.
"It has to," Bannack answered. "In order for it to, though, you have to believe that it will. Loralia can only make this happen if you completely believe that it is going to work the way that she intends it to. If you don't, it won't exist, do you understand?" Lynx nodded and Bannack nodded back at him, "Good. Now we have to be completely silent."
The two warriors fell silent and Bannack glanced down at the compact in his hand. Loralia's face gazed up at him from the glass, her beautiful lavender eyes calm and focused. Nervousness flooded through Bannack, but he knew that he had to steady himself so that he could do his part of Loralia's plan properly. After several minutes of waiting, he heard the rustling sound that told him the Covra were approaching. The sound seemed louder and deeper than it had before and Bannack knew that meant there were more of the creatures this time as if they had sent more to seek revenge on those who had destroyed three of their number just hours before.
"They're coming," Bannack mouthed to Loralia, not making a sound.
Loralia nodded. Bannack lifted up slightly so that he could look over the barrel and watch the Covra approaching.
"Patient," Loralia mouthed to him.
Bannack watched until they were close enough that they would be able to see him clearly and then stood, pulling Lynx up with him so that they were standing in the middle of the street, open to the swarm of creatures approaching. He could feel Lynx tense beside him, but Bannack stood steady. Lynx adjusted his grip on the blade beside him. It was meant as both a ruse and a backup plan just in case Loralia's idea fell through. They waited for a few more tense seconds, the time seeming to drag past as they allowed the creatures to get dangerously closer. Bannack's heart pounded in his chest and his head felt like it was swimming. If this didn't work, the entirety of the group could be killed, many by each other's hands.
In an instant, the plan mobilized around him. The Covra climbing along the outside walls of the buildings got close to the windows and doors, and the warriors inside started to shout. As they yelled, the creatures paused and started to retreat from the sound. They started moving backwards back down the street, but several of the warriors streamed out of the building and made a line across the street, blocking them with a wall of sound. The creatures turned and started scurrying more quickly toward Bannack and Lynx, unable to go anywhere else.
"Are you ready?" Bannack asked, looking down at Loralia.
"Just hold your compact so that the bottom mirror is straight upright and the top mirror is tilted toward it. Go!"
Bannack turned the compact in his hand and held it as Loralia instructed. There was a moment when nothing happened and he felt his stomach turn, but he closed his eyes and forced himself to believe with every bit of his existence that she would create exactly what she intended to. His eyes still closed, Bannack suddenly heard the hissing, screeching sound of the Covra dying. He opened his eyes and found himself staring at a massive slab of brown and grey rock.
After several long seconds the screaming stopped and a chilling quiet settled over the street. Finally it broke with the sound of Loralia laughing.
"We might not be able to communicate with our thoughts, my love, but how many of the other warriors can do that?"
Bannack could hear the other warriors cheering and shouting, but it took a few moments before he was able to get his thoughts together enough to walk around the stone slab toward the cheering. When he did he saw the green blood of the Covra soaking into the dirt of the road, dripping from the rock spikes protruding from the front of the slab.
"What is that?" he asked.
"The floor of one of the caverns," Loralia told him, "I used to play on them when I was younger. I remembered how sharp they were."
"You are incredible."
"No, darling, you are."
"What, now? Is this thing just going to stay here?"
"If you think that it is part of settlement now, then it is. If not, when you close the compact, it will disappear."
"Then it will stay, forever a reminder of what destroyed the Covra."
Suddenly Loralia's eyes grew dark.
"This isn't the end, Bannack," she said solemnly.
The words hit him and the sound of the celebrating warriors seemed to fade.
"What do you mean?"
"I can still feel them. They're angry, Bannack. There's more to come. You need to save the Light Ones or very soon they will be lost forever."
(To be continued in Part II…)
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