Chapter Eighteen

The first thing Jake thought, as soon as they grabbed him, was that he and the others had come into this place completely unprepared. As battle hardened as his team was, as many times as they'd gone up against these same enemies, they damned sure should have known better. But it had all happened so quickly, he tried to tell himself; still, that was no excuse. All the planning and preparation they'd done amounted to meshdki now that they were in the thick of things.

He and Jared had been walking along, trying to blend into the crowd while they searched for Shelby, when for the first time he noticed a barricaded back stairwell shrouded in darkness. He turned to look back at Jared, who just then was being approached by a tall, curvy brunette. Only this wasn't the Jared that the vlksai would know, at least by sight, because for this mission he'd adopted the form of a rugged blond ski bum. I'll leave him to deal with that situation, Jake thought to himself as the woman leaned toward Jared's ear, shouting to be heard over the loud music.

Jake slipped across the dance floor to the back stairwell that had caught his eye. The steps led upward to a balcony where partygoers stood surveying the scene below, but what interested him more was the flight that led downward, a dark, cavernous space filtered with shadowed light.

After climbing over the barrier, he crept carefully down the steps and through a door that opened onto a hallway made of jagged stones. Their surface was illuminated by a dim light that seemed to be coming from farther along, around another corner. He inched forward, the noise from the dance floor pounding above and behind him, but when he stopped to peer down that next hallway, his breath caught in his lungs.

It wasn't just the fact that the man ten ketros away looked just like him, only younger—or that he'd finally found the prey he'd been hunting for five years now—it was the dungeon like room he was coming out of. The walls were bordello red, and an array of barbed whips and chains dangled from above like some grotesque type of curtain.

With a sick, helpless feeling, Jake realized that he hadn't seen Shelby in more than thirty minutes.  It was all he could do not to lunge at the human and choke the very life from his lungs—for a second time—but he forced himself to remain hidden, knowing that Shelby's life depended on it.

Down the hall, the human looked first one way, then the other, before entering another room. Jake stole along the passageway to the dungeon and gently pushed the door open. Past the torture implements hanging from the ceiling, he could see a large padded table on which a woman struggled, the shiny blonde of her hair painfully familiar.

Catching sight of him, Shelby struggled against her restraints, a mixture of relief and despair in her vulnerable eyes. "Watch out!" she whispered hoarsely, just loud enough to be heard over the throbbing bass notes from above. "He'll be back any second."

"I know," Jake answered, stepping toward her. "I just wanted to make sure you're okay—now I'm gonna go get help."

"Jakob," she told him with a faint moan, "be careful. Please. Look after yourself."

"I'm going to look after you, Shell. I'm getting you out of this hellhole."

When he turned around, all his plans faded to nothing as he found himself staring at half a dozen burly guys in security T-shirts. Not human, not by a long shot, even though they occupied that form. The Antousian scent wafting off the gathered men was downright sickening. Well, well, well, he thought. So the stakes just got a hell of a lot higher. His finger twitching against his hip, he felt the hard outline of his luminator.

"So," the tallest one of the group said as he stepped forward, chest thrust out for maximum intimidation, "mind telling us how you got in here, Mr. …?"

Jake tried to force a laugh. "Hey, it's me—Tierny."

"Oh, yeah … Jake," the tall one replied, looking around at his men with a sneer—clearly he was their leader. "Funny how you not only managed to change clothes, but you even aged at least five or ten years since we saw you a few minutes ago." Now he stared at Jake with a menacing expression. "But that's not the main reason we know you're lying."

Jake said nothing. The vlksai stepped in close about him.

"You don't want to know how?" the leader asked. "Well, I'm gonna tell you anyway. It's because the stench"—to emphasize that word, one of the Antousians landed a punch against Jake's stomach—"on you isn't"—and now another one, who'd somehow managed to get behind him, hit him over the head with a hard object—"strong enough."

It took four of them to pin him down in the hallway, but eventually they did. The leader stood by, looking almost amused, as Jake struggled with them. "Come on, now; don't fight it," he said in a soothing voice. "Ease up, man. Just let yourself go."

"Okay," Jake responded, gasping for air. But a second later, he shoved his elbow into the ribs of the nearest one, dropped low, and punched another in the gut. He was just about to turn his attention to the rest of the vlksai when several of them jumped on him at once and grappled him face-first to the floor. Jake cried out, a muffled sound against the slick concrete beneath him, and found himself pinned by something heavy. Must have been one of the freaks who'd jumped him, he thought.

"What the fuck?" he tried to protest, but with another jerking movement, they had him on his side.

Someone shoved his shirtsleeve up his arm, and from the side of his eye he caught the metallic glint of a hypodermic. Shit, they're gonna inject me, but he hardly had time to process the thought before a sharp prickle of pain shot down his forearm and his mind suddenly grew numb and hazy.

"What in hell," he tried, but the words felt gauzy—sounded gauzy. A rending pain shot through the whole of his body, accompanied by severe muscle spasms up and down his backbone.

"No!" He slapped both palms against the floor, arching in protest. "In All's name … no!"

But there would be no stopping it. A deeply primitive sensation rang through his core as bone and sinew stretched, as skin yielded to hide. His clothing, suddenly far too small, pulled and tore to shreds. Ropes of muscle tugged against enlarged bones, his jaw lengthened, and all the while he screamed. Screamed and screamed, making his agony known. Not just because of the physical onslaught, the horrific transformation—but out of sheer terror at what they were forcing him to become. Screaming and screaming, the pain almost too much, at last he fell still against the warehouse floor, monstrously big and large eyed.

He lay naked, surrounded by his own kind, who cackled and mocked him. "So you're a human, are you?" one of them taunted with a kick at his side. "We can smell our own kind from a mile away. There's no use impersonating what you most clearly are not."

"I have nothing in common with you. The only thing that we share," he gasped, struggling to get the words out, "is DNA. That's it."

"Welcome to our world, brother," another one chanted from the veiled darkness. "Welcome. Welcome."

His mind was fogged over, his body at war with itself as he struggled to his knees, tatters of his clothing falling to the floor around his utterly naked body. "Why?' he tried asking, horrified by the garbled, mangled sound of the human words passing over his Antousian vocal cords. Vaguely he wondered if Shelby could hear him from the room where she lay captive, and he shuddered at the thought. "Why did … you … do this?"

"Why?" another faceless enemy taunted from above him. "Pretty simple, Antousian brother. Because you can't leave this warehouse if you can't show your face." Jake managed to rise and turn sideways enough to see the gathered men through first one eye, then the other.

He shook his head, trying to clear it. "What do you … mean?" They'd injected him with a form inhibitor, quite obviously. A drug that forced him into his most base and natural body. But how long would the effects of the drug last?

As though reading his mind, the leader said, "You won't be able to change back." For emphasis, he kicked Jake's ribs, driving him face-first to the floor once again. "You can't so much as take one step into the human world without being seen for what you are—what you clearly refuse to believe you are—an Antousian, just like us. You have 'alien' stamped all over your body and your face."

"You don't know anything about me," Jake said with a groan.

The leader dropped to his haunches beside him, his menacing black eyes like pinpricks of malevolence. "We know you're aligned with our enemies. That's enough right now."

"Can't … keep me this way." Jake grasped at the floor, sucking burning breaths into his four lungs. "Not … possible."

"We can hold you in this form for the rest of your life if we see fit," the leader taunted. "You're ours now, brother."

Though Jake didn't know it, Jared had disengaged himself from the lovely brunette, found his way down the stairs, and located the dungeon. Not that any of that did much good, Jared thought to himself as he watched in horror while his friend, now held captive in his Antousian form, struggled against a bunch of vlksai gathered around him.

There wasn't time to go for reinforcements; he had to act now—and fast. Crouching low against the turn in the hallway where he'd been concealing himself, he reached inward and allowed his internal energy to overtake him with an aggressive sweep. He became the powerful, surging being that he always held at arm's length, and in an instant swirled into a blaze of murderous energy.

They would not take his friend and comrade; nor would they capture Shelby Tyler, not if he had anything to say about the matter. Shooting down the hallway, he spun and gyrated, taking out at least two of the Antousians who stood in his way. Can … eliminate … them.

But as a sickening crack resounded against his glowing core, he knew these Antousians had arrived prepared. From seemingly nowhere, they struck him, again and again. Their power tethers spun through the air, pursuing him like horrible, flaming blue lassos. With a roar, he flung his energized self down the corridor, ricocheting off the far wall, and in the process grazed two Antousian soldiers, both of whom collapsed to the floor in agony.

He thought of Kelsey and Erica, remembered all the reasons he had to escape—his enemies couldn't capture him, not this time. And he thought of his oldest and dearest friend, collapsed against the concrete floor, a man who had already lived enough torment to last too many lifetimes.

Still the blue lassoing lights kept circling him, slapping off of his surging power. With a terrible wave of despair, he felt his own energy dim, grow weaker. All the intensity of his energized body wasn't going to be nearly enough to withstand the relentless onslaught. The bands encircled him, spinning faster and faster, and with stinging welts, the Antousians' energy whips made contact with him. Lethal talons seared his natural D'Aravnian form, punishing him, whipping him to shreds.

Kelsey … Erica, he thought, taking a driving lunge at the soldier who held the largest whip. Home … them.

The Antousians pressed inward, cornering him, beating him, over and over again, with their powerful, flaming whips. He struggled, expanded, but felt his energy growing dimmer. He would never make it out of this battle, he realized with a hopeless, grief-stricken spasm. Right then, an electric blue power grid began rotating in the middle of the air, and he could no longer move. He was trapped on all sides, frozen, left undulating midair in soundless captivity. He sensed more than saw what happened next.

From the ceiling, six clear sheets of material—like giant Plexiglas shields—descended, rotating mechanically until they centered in upon the power grid where he was held churning in midair. First one transparent wall came toward him, then another, then the final four until they joined and he hung captured and suspended within the narrow glass prison like a butterfly in a jar.

In that moment, J'Areshkadau B'net D'Aravni, king of Refaria, knew he was at the mercy of his enemies.

A creeping, itching heat smoked across Jared's belly; when he woke, he smelled it, like singed wool pulled over his eyes. At first, he had no memory of what had brought him here, just the thin awareness that he wasn't in his Refarian form—he was natural. All natural. He moved to stretch but met opposition. Feeling drugged, he tried again, opening himself so that he might see where he was. Something off … natural form wrong. Again he met the opposition of a hard, flat surface. Panicked, he came fully alert, opening his mind and senses full throttle.

Pressing up against a barrier of sorts, he realized once again that he had been closed in, glass all around him. His entire being was under their control, held prisoner by the familiar swirling helix of an Antousian power grid. Pressing hard against the flat surface, he tried to make out his surroundings.

Kelsha! he cried out across their bond, knowing that it would be nearly impossible to make a connection from so many miles away. Thinking hard, he grappled for words. Even his native tongue seemed lost at the bottom of a thick bog. He'd been in this form too long—by now, it had to have been hours since his Change—and clearly he'd become pure energy. In the process, he'd lost everything that came with having a material form—even the capacity for language.

Kelshaaaaaaa! he cried again, slingshotting the word toward his wife. As if in reaction, the boundaries of his confinement tightened about him—he sensed them contracting, their tension painful to him. He spun within his glass prison, rotating so he could gaze upward, then around.

His energy escalated; in Kelsey's fragile condition, she could not tolerate his capture. There would be no one to save her, no one to protect her. She'd have to lead their people alone … raise Erica alone.

Fear began to choke him, and he pressed harder to reach her through their bond, trying to find words—in any language—that she might recognize. But all he could speak was her name.

Trying to calm himself, he focused in, stilled. Forced himself to seek her with his energy and his heart. Finally, he found her, and she was sleeping lightly. He felt her heartbeat thudding out a very slow rhythm. Her belly—what did he sense there? Erica, was Erica okay? Panic tried to close in, but he shoved it aside, honing his sensory experience.

There, he had it! She glowed. Her abdomen, full with their baby, radiated pure energy. His energy—Arganate. This could not be! Kelsey could not survive the baby's changed state! The little one, what was she doing to her human mother?

They had him right where they wanted him; his enemies knew what they were doing. They'd left him vulnerable in the worst possible way: tethered, trapped, and unable to communicate with his human mate when she was at her most delicate stage.

"J'Areshkadau, wake," came the dull voice of his captor. "Time to work, J'Areshkadau."

He stirred, feeling the drugs seep through his energized system. They spoke in some universal language, one he could understand. Not Refarian, not English.…

"Do you understand, J'Areshkadau?"

Mind Talk. That's what the voice used. Preverbal, it was the only thing he could possibly grasp after so many hours in Form.

He spoke back to the voice: "Yes."

"You miss your physical body?"

He refused to answer, sliding toward the bottom of his prison.

"We're told the D'Aravni relishes his natural form. Yet you seem quite vexed," the voice said.

So much power, banking all through his synapses, his cordoned stretches of energy—yet to be incapable of flexing it, it was maddening.

"Maddening, yes."

The Voice had heard. He had not mind-spoken, yet the Voice knew. He vowed to silence himself.

"Wife?" he managed, unable to hold back the question.

"She lives, D'Aravni."

He stifled a cry of relief.

"She still carries your child as well. For now."

Gods, they know about Erica!

From seemingly nowhere, an Antousian soldier appeared. Dressed in full battle gear, he bore the unmistakable air of authority that identified him as a high officer. Circling the glass containment unit, he studied Jared as he would an animal. "We will be transporting you back to Refaria, rebel," the man said coldly.

The words came through to Jared, but the other man was speaking in ordinary language; clearly someone was translating the officer's thoughts into Mind Talk. Jared felt around the room and sensed a faceless Antousian intuitive in the corner.

"Raedus wishes to study you," the officer continued, "like the shameful creature that you are, alien."

Were they on a transport now? Or in a bunker somewhere on Earth?

"The child will be studied also," his captor continued.

Jared held on to the hope that they were lying, but his fury had to have some release, and he slammed against the glass in protest.

"And why would you think you could take a human as mate?" the officer laughed, tapping the power grid with his fingertips and sending a shock wave through Jared's whole body. "That kind of interspecies lust is shameful. Utterly disgraceful. When we are finished, your bedmate will be given to one of our own officers as a reward."

Jared reached desperately for Kelsey.

"Don't feel for her," the man instructed, staring in at him like he was a wild gnantsa on public display. "She doesn't belong to you now."

Bond! Bond! There, he'd managed to lay hold of one very important word. But, he thought dimly, if he had it in his mind, then.…

"The bond is broken," the Antousian said, his eyes growing large. "Do you understand, J'Areshkadau? Broken? You understand this word?"

Jared swelled, his energy roiling high, wide, deep. In answer, the containment system closed in on him, smothering all his power with a single, excruciating blast. No, he moaned. No! No.… But then all his facility with communication—in Refarian, in English, even Mind Talk—all of it fizzled to nothing as he pictured his wife and baby ripped right out of his arms and handed over to his enemies.

In the background noise of his brain, he heard more Mind Talk but found he could no longer focus on it. Not with the Image there. Over and over he saw the murderous Antousians raping Kelsey and taking his baby, gods knew where. They must have implanted this image in his mind, because it came through so clearly. And it was having the effect they wanted: Panting, he rolled onto his side, weeping inside his soul.

Harsh words that he couldn't understand flew past him—these Antousians were angry at him. They wanted something, a performance of sorts, but knew they could not get it out of him today. Jared slid to the bottom of the glass cage, feeling his energy grow dangerously cool.

Shelby lay strapped on the table, straining to listen for any hint of sound out in the hallway. Where was Jake? She didn't even want to ask the question for fear of what she knew might be the answer.

From what she could hear, it sounded like someone had gotten into a horrific struggle out in the hallway. After that, there was a long period of agonizing silence, broken finally—she'd already begun to lose track of time here in Tierny's dungeon—by a massive blast. A blast so powerful she could feel the heat from it in here as if a giant searchlight was trained on her face from three feet away.

That was when she knew it for sure: Not only was Jared there, but he'd Changed into his natural form.

And then, just like before, a long silence. Wait, she thought. Something was wrong—something else. And then it hit her: the silence. The music had stopped, and that meant … well, that probably meant that the dance club had closed up. Hours had passed since they'd taken her, but that wasn't her first thought upon processing this information. If everyone else is gone, she thought to herself with a shudder.…

She couldn't bear to think of what they might be doing to Jake—from what she'd been able to hear in the hallway, they'd captured him in a vicious manner. And her king … she kept offering prayers for his safety, blabbering aloud in her native Refarian, begging that All would watch over both men.

In the painful, endless stretch of time that she'd been captive, one thing had become vividly clear to her heart: She had fallen in love with Jake Tierny. Her Jake, not the horrible, murderous one who had awful plans for her body. Shuddering, her eyes drifted shut. At least Chris Harper was still out there somewhere—she only hoped he hadn't been taken prisoner. It had been freakishly easy for the Antousians to overrun them, almost as if the raid had been a trap—which made no sense because Thea's spy had been totally reliable, rock solid. Whoever the Antousian woman was, she'd already helped free Scott and Hope back in December, so why would she have now been setting them up?

A cranking steel sound jarred her, and with a struggling glance over her shoulder she saw the human Jake returning, still clutching that velvet leash of his with a greedy look of expectation. Like hell was she letting him get a piece of her, she thought, bracing for combat as soon as he sprang her free from the restraints once again.

"So did I miss anything?" Jake drawled, slapping the leash in the palm of his hand.

Twisting her right hand, the one closest to him, she managed to give him the finger—and didn't give a crap when the reflexive binding reacted by crushing against her bones.

Tierny laughed. "Well, well, well. You've got more spirit than most of the girls I bring down here. Then again, you are alien, so that would explain it, I guess."

"How did you wind up with the Antousians?" she demanded.

He held up a palm, silencing her. "The questions are for me to ask. But first, we're going to take a little trip, you and me." He fastened the leash against her collar once again, and her hands and feet were instantly freed. She tried lifting her leg to kick him as she'd done earlier, but after being bound for so long, her whole body had gone prickly and numb. She was just too weak.

"Get up," he told her, yanking on the leash hard, driving her up against his chest.

"Give me a damned minute," she spat back at him, trying to settle her hands against the table. "You've kept me pinned down so long, I can't sit up right."

With a rough gesture—with hands so painfully familiar, yet all wrong—he lifted her to the floor. "Here. Walk with me," he told her, wrapping the velvet cord about his hand in a loop, giving him more control over her.

It was all she could do to follow him, her stiletto boots stumbling and dragging in the wake of his long strides.

I'm glad Scott killed you in the future, she thought. And if I have my way about it, we'll both kill you this time around.

He nearly dragged her toward the far end of the stone corridor, then around a bend, and at that point she glimpsed a large steel door. It reminded her of a submarine hatch or some sort of bunker. Maybe the whole place down here was far more than the basement of a warehouse, she suddenly thought. What if the seemingly innocent structure up above actually perched atop one of the Antousians' own bases, much like Jared's lodge capped off all of Base Ten?

Jake halted, yanking her flush against his side. She trembled, desperately wanting to shove out of his grasp—he had the same bulk, the same build and height as the man she loved, and yet everything about him revolted her completely.

He punched a code into a panel on the wall, shoving her head down cruelly before he did so. He kept her held by the nape of her neck, pinned against his hip, until a beeping noise sounded, and the armored door before them swung open.

With a pinching gesture, he dragged her back upright. "Come on," he told her with a gruff shove. "Get in there."

Shelby blinked at the bright lights on the other side of the door, a contrast to the darkly lit hallway. As grimy and dank as her cell had been, this room nearly sparkled. At the far side was a chrome desk, an array of computers—a whole bank of electronics, in fact—and other monitoring devices. A man with dark hair sat on the other side of the desk, his back to them as he studied some sort of screen.

"I've got her, boss," Jake told the man. "Take a look. Think you'll be impressed."

With a quick sniff, Shelby tried to scent the leader, to determine whether he was alien or human, but came up blank. Odd, usually she could get a reading right away.

But then he slowly rotated in his shiny metal chair, still keeping his gaze on the monitor. "So, looks like my boy's brought us another fine young woman," the man said, at last fixing her with his brown-eyed gaze. When he did, Shelby actually swayed on her feet so badly that Tierny gave the leash a jerk to punish her.

"Stop that!" the alien on the other side of the desk roared. "Release her right now, Tierny."

"But—"

He rose to his feet, sweeping past the desk. "I said release her," he repeated much more softly, his shocked gaze riveted on her face.

Dully she was aware of being unfastened, of Tierny's leash falling with a thud to the floor. Of time itself grinding down, then speeding up.

"You must have drugged me," was all she could think to say, giving her head a little clearing shake.

"No," he half whispered, then addressed Tierny: "Get the hell out of here. I need to talk to Shelby."

"You know this nank?" Tierny stepped backward in surprise.

The man looked him up and down. "Just get out."

With a shuffling movement, the human was gone, leaving her to stare up into a pair of eyes that she'd never thought to see again. It wasn't possible; he couldn't be here. She'd watched him die; he'd been inside the Texas facility when it exploded.…

"Nate?" she whispered uncertainly, feeling the floor grow unstable beneath her feet.