Chapter Eleven

Kelsey Bennett. The intruder had called her Kelsey Bennett. Her mind whirled—why would he call her by Jared's last name? They weren't married yet; besides, she'd never seen the man before in her life. He had no way of knowing everything that had changed between Jared and her tonight in his chambers.

The intruder studied her, taking a step closer, an expression of mingled hatred and fascination on his dark features. Kelsey fumbled to grab a bath towel from beside the sink, bunching it in front of herself protectively, but then it slipped, revealing the soft curve of her breasts before she could secure it again.

In reaction, the man arched an eyebrow suggestively, but made no comment.

A silvery scar divided the black hairs of that right eyebrow, creating a sharp furrow before the mark sliced upward across his forehead, vanishing somewhere in the black, wavy hair atop his head. That scar had to be important—she knew it, though the reason why seemed to float just beyond her grasp.

"To think that Jared couldn't protect you," he observed in a hushed voice—a threatening one. Had Jared tried to stop this invader on his way into the bedroom suite? Was Jared out in the hall, hurt? "To have failed you, of all people, sweet Kelsey." He shook his head, clucking his tongue. "The man always lacked wisdom, but this? It surprises even me."

"Let me out!" she cried, giving him a serious shove in the chest, but he didn't even budge at the impact of her frame against his. He released a low chuckle, but that was all. She had to get past this guy, whoever he was, and into the bedroom. Again, she lunged at him, but this time he caught her wrist in midair, and the towel gave a small lurch, dropping low. He gazed downward, a lustful expression on his face as he examined her.

"Stop it," she spat. The adrenaline was rushing so furiously throughout her body, she felt light-headed and dizzy.

"You don't like that?" he asked, clearly enjoying this game with her.

Grabbing a hairbrush from the counter, she hurled it at him, but he easily deflected her makeshift weapon with his forearm.

"Kelsey Bennett, I'm not going anywhere," he said, releasing a throaty laugh at her expense. "Not with a show like this to enjoy. You always were quite the spitfire, and I admire that in a woman."

Once more, she searched past him, wishing Jared would return. Was he injured? She tried feeling for him within their new bond, but only emptiness echoed back across their separation.

She turned on their enemy. "What have you done to him?" she demanded. "Tell me where Jared is."

The man said nothing, but took a step closer. He possessed a panther-like grace, giving the impression not of movement but rather of a kind of fluidity—and this despite his towering height. He was Jared's size, perhaps even taller, with the same exquisite dark eyes and rich-colored skin. Gauging by those looks, he had to be Refarian—at least based on what little she already knew of that species' coloring: few of their kind seemed to be fair-skinned or light-haired.

"What do you want?" she demanded, rising to her nearly six feet of height and staring him in the eye.

The man did not reply, but instead acted as if he had all the time in the world, his sinister gaze roving the length of her barely concealed form as he circled inward upon her. First he studied her legs, and then his look drifted toward her hips, the hooded eyes seeming to register every detail. His gaze trawled even farther upward, lingering. Invading. Provoking. Still he said nothing.

"You have no right to be here!" she said firmly, working to seize control of their interaction.

"On the contrary," he purred, leaning languorously against the marble countertop. "I have every right. In fact, I'm more than a little entitled, my dear."

"Jared will be back any minute," she told him, trying to sound forceful, but her words only came out raspy and shrill. The stranger smiled, a smug look coming over his features as she wrestled to readjust the towel.

He folded powerful arms across his chest. "Don't bother with that on my account," he offered, again lifting one eyebrow tauntingly. "Besides, my business isn't with Jared."

"Who are you?" she tried again, feeling her hands tremble as she clutched the towel close.

"You may call me Marco," he drawled, "though I'm surprised you don't know me." He studied her, shady eyes narrowing.

"I've never seen you before in my life."

"Well, Kelsey Bennett." He shook his head, releasing a slow, rumbling laugh. "It's been far too long for me." He gave her one last appraising look. "Far, far too long. But trust me; I'm more than pleased to see you again."

From the bottom of the stairs Scott heard his commander cry out, a pained, raw sound, the sort he rarely heard from Jared—or indeed from any other soldier outside of the battlefield. Springing to his feet, he hit the comm button on his forearm, signaling the highest distress code among their ranks. "Jared!" he shouted, and another wounded howl of agony rang from the steps below. Scott stumbled, taking the steps three at a time until he tumbled to the bottom, and there in front of his king's bedroom, forearms braced against the door frame, Jared Bennett stood bathed in the clean blue light of an energy field.

"Commander!" Scott cried again, pulling up fast. His gaze darted to the bedroom's interior, but he could see nothing. He looked back at Jared, who appeared uninjured. "What's happened? What's going on here?"

"They have her," Jared rasped, his voice eerie in its quiet. He stood dangerously close to the undulating energy field, attempting to look past it into the room. "I can't see anything. But they have her; I feel it"

"We have to get you to safety, Commander." Any of their enemies might be here, but that blue swirling helix was the telltale sign of only one: the Antousians. "Sir!" Scott barked again, wrestling with Jared, who shrugged him off as he would a small insect.

Scott did not back down. "We must secure you," he demanded, but Jared wouldn't budge, instead moving even closer against the undulating bands of energy. "You are in danger, my lord!" Scott shouted at his friend, but Jared seemed to be in a kind of shock, entranced almost.

"They took her," Jared repeated, his voice a dull whisper. "My mate—they have her."

"Sir, please," Scott begged, wrestling with Jared. "She may still be inside. We must get you to safety. Your protection, sir, is paramount. You know the protocols for this."

Jared turned to him, and for a long moment their eyes locked, silent intention passing between them. Scott knew what would happen next, felt it ripple across the surface of his perception before Jared actually made his move.

Jared glanced away from him, and then with a seamless, fluid gesture, shifted form, converting to pure energy. Scott took a staggering step backward, Jared's heat almost singeing him before he had time to process his king's powerful change.

Jared's fierce form rose toward the ceiling, expanding, towering, filling the area outside the bedroom doorway. A loud roaring sound—like a freight train speeding toward them—hummed through the air as Jared hurled himself at the banded doorway, blue sparks shattering in a bright arc. On the stairs, Scott heard the approaching thunder of footsteps, and quickly recognized his comrades' voices in the din of soldiers' cries: Anna, Anika, Thea, others. Still facing the doorway, he lifted one hand to halt them as they arrived, and they lined up just behind him.

Scott's own weapon was cocked and ready, and he knew that the soldiers behind him were heavily armed as well. All watched and waited, breath held, as over and over Jared launched his energized form against the power grid. Scott felt his friend's pain shooting through the air around them. Smelled the blistering sparks of the Antousian bands, sizzling off of Jared's own power—which had to hurt, no matter how much energy was building within Jared's D'Aravnian body at the moment.

A secondary unit of soldiers came pounding down the steps. "There's nothing, Lieutenant Dillon," the lead officer reported from behind him. "No sign of unauthorized entry in the compound, sir."

How could Antousian forces have broken into Jared's quarters, the most secure place in the whole compound, without being detected? Antousians were plenty skilled at subterfuge, but there were too many intuitives in this cabin who would have sensed them. Besides, no one would've gotten past Scott's own sensory perceptions. He could sniff out any Antousian within half a mile of them; at least something good had come of his barbaric mixed heritage.

Jared released a high-pitched wail as he flung himself yet again at the barrier, this time twining his energy with that of the Antousian force field, pressing, pulsing, joining his blazing swath of power with that of his enemies. Just behind Scott, he heard Thea gasp, whispering Jared's name in a stricken voice. She of all people knew what this desperate bid to dissolve the field was costing their king. In front of them all, Jared's magnificent golden power battled with the blue of the swirling helix, nestling in, burrowing—becoming one with the gyrating power source.

Scott had watched Jared destroy enemy armies in this blazing form, moving over them like a hushed kiss, taking their life that easily. But when raw energy met another kind of equally raw energy—well, that was another story altogether. Scott swallowed hard, unexpected fear seizing him. For a moment, the familiar color of Jared's power faded, matching that of the Antousian bands of blue energy.

"We have to stop him," Thea hissed, low enough that others wouldn't hear, but perceptible to Scott's heightened hearing.

"What's he trying to do?" Scott's eyes never left his king.

"The ultimate takedown." Her tone was quiet as death itself. "He's trying to rupture the field with his own power. He's using his body—his energized form—as a weapon against their weapon."

Scott felt his stomach roil with nausea. It was one thing for Jared to battle enemy combatants in his fiery form, quite another to depersonalize himself this way. To become a tool of warfare locking against another weapon, as if he were no more than an energy source at his true core. As if he weren't a man, a lover, a best friend…a king.

Scott began to shake, and had to battle the tremors that seized him. "Is it even possible for him to succeed?"

"Maybe," Thea said. "I'm not sure. But we can't wait to find out, Scott. We've got to stop him. Now."

Scott watched the dynamic surge of energy in the doorway brighten unexpectedly, Jared's gold becoming infused with Antousian blue. The man was losing more of himself with every moment. Losing Jared, losing their commander….

"And if we don't?" He thought of his king's stubborn willfulness, how he never backed down from any fight. "If we can't make Jared desist?"

"Then this battle," Thea said slowly, "will kill him. And fast."

Kelsey heard noises, sounds of scuffling from the hallway. Shouts. Then a roaring that she recognized as coming from some sort of weaponry: something meant to blast open an entry to Jared's room.

"You won't be able to fight them all off!" she insisted, pressing against the bathroom door, but she needn't have struggled so much. This time, Marco let her slip past him and into the main bedroom.

"Try if you want to," he called out after her, "but they won't hear you."

She fled toward the hallway door. She had to get to Jared. But as she reached the doorway, bands of flashing energy circled in a serpentine pattern within its frame. She could not see past the barricade into the hallway, and it gave off visible sparks even without her touching it. Grabbing her jacket, she hurled it against the force field to test it. The smell of melting nylon filled the air as the garment sizzled, then disintegrated in a blackened heap on the floor. Behind her, Marco ambled into the room with the same kind of relaxed cowboy's pace she'd observed earlier. He seemed to feel no fear or need to rush, and clearly he wanted her to know it.

"We're locked within a suspended dimensional zone," he explained matter-of-factly. "Not a soul can hear you, Kelsey."

"Jared!" she screamed, trying to reach him through the shimmering blue boundary.

"I wouldn't touch that if I were you," Marco cautioned. "Not if you want to live."

"I'm in here, Jared!" she shouted across the barricade, pacing back and forth in front of the doorway.

"I repeat: No one can hear you," Marco said in annoyance, stepping right behind her. "Well, except me. You and I are alone together, tripping along, just the two of us." He reached out a hand, touching a loose lock of her curls, rubbing it between his fingertips.

She rounded on him. "Tell me what that means," she insisted, out of breath. "What is this dimensional thing you keep talking about?"

He let his hand drop away and shrugged. "An in-between place." Glancing past her at the undulating blue helix, he added, "You have the Antousians to thank for that device."

"Are you Antousian?"

He snorted, sauntering past her. "I'll choose not to take that as an insult."

"Then you're working for someone else?" She could hear a loud keening sound on the other side of the barricade.

"I'm an independent."

"You have to work for someone." She spun to face him. "I know that much."

He tossed her clothes across the room with a rough gesture that sent them sprawling at her feet. "Get dressed. Now."

"Are we going somewhere?" She glanced significantly at the doorway. "You may have me imprisoned here, but there's not exactly any way out, either."

"I'll be utilizing inter-dimensional space to transport you where I want to go," he said. "Don't worry; Jared will never see us leave."

Dazed, she slipped to the hardwood floor and stared into Jared's hearth. Only a while earlier, they had been making love, right here on these same pillows. Feeling violated, frightened, she ached for Jared. What if they'd come this far together, only to lose each other so soon?

Her body felt cold and numb, and she began to shake all over. Beside her, Marco knelt, pressing her clothes into her hands. Strangely, his expression had softened, grown less caustic—he actually assumed a surprisingly soft tone and said, "If you dress, Kelsey, you will feel better."

"Don't tell me what will make me feel better!" she snapped, turning from him to stare into the fire. She could hear his footsteps recede, and when she was certain he was no longer watching, she began putting on her clothes.

My mate . . . Enemy has mate. The thought drove Jared, propelled him into the energy field, forced him hard, hard, hard into the helix. She might be on the other side! She might be just beyond his grasp. His body stung from the sharp pelts of the enemy's energy, but he was stronger. Had to be stronger. Had to reach Kelsey. Behind him, he sensed others. Ahead of him—on the other side of the barricade—he sensed something too. Mate?

Battling, he spun open their bond, grasping for her. Not recognize energy form. That thought crystallized. More alien now. Alien to Kelsey. No: Can't feel mate either. No mate.

Bond?

There should be her voice in his head; he should feel it. With a humming shout, he burrowed deeper, chanting her name. Simple, pure, purposed.

Kelsey! Kelsey! Kelsey!

Must reach. Kelsey. Mate!

Kelsey knelt in front of the fire and listened to the snapping sizzle as something—perhaps rifle fire?—made contact with the Antousian barricade. There was a popping, hissing sound each time it tried to penetrate.

Behind her, Marco paced. "Are you dressed yet?" He sounded annoyed; whatever Jared's soldiers were trying to do, he clearly didn't like it.

"Are you in a hurry?"

"He will never break through." For the first time since Marco's arrival, she glimpsed a slip in the man's relaxed confidence. "It's not possible, not even for him."

She spun to face him. "What makes you think that's Jared firing the weapon?"

Marco glared down at her, a cruel sneer turning his lips upward. "You don't know your own husband very well, do you?"

Husband. There it was again, Marco's belief that she and Jared were married. "Why do you think he's my husband?"

"Don't try to lie to me!" he snapped.

She blinked back at him, her whole body trembling with fear. "I don't know where you got your information," she said, hearing the sounds beyond the doorway intensify, as though her would-be rescuers had grown more determined. If she could just stall this Marco, then maybe Jared and his soldiers would break through in time. "But it's not correct."

"You are Kelsey Bennett. Wife of the leader of the rebellion. I know you very well, my dear."

"Nothing you've said since you got here makes any sense."

Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out a small object and tossed it toward her. It clattered at her feet with a tinkling sound. A worn, golden wedding band gleamed in the firelight. "Take it" He grunted with a nod. "It's yours." This seemed to amuse him to no end, and he even repeated it to himself, under his breath, with a dull laugh: "It's yours."

Retrieving the ring from the floor, she drew it into the palm of her hand. "This could be anyone's," she said, feeling confused, but also registering a sharp pang of recognition. She'd seen this ring before, known it. Jared's words from earlier in the bathtub came back to her: Time folding inward on itself. Like this Marco's scar, how she'd known it, too.

"Look inside," he said. "There's an inscription." She lifted the ring up to the light, and saw the glinting contours of etched characters: a date—three months in the future. And there was an inscription: sonnet 29:13–14. The very one Jared had whispered in her ear tonight as they gave themselves to each other for the first time and joined as lifemates.

Speechless, Kelsey closed her fingers around the ring, holding it against her chest like a treasure. She didn't understand its meaning, although she had an idea of it, and yet she knew that nothing could mean more to her at this moment. "How did you get this?" she asked, feeling all the color drain from her face. "How come you have it, not me?"

"Time, my darling," he said with a soft chuckle. "Time. And right now, we have all we need, thanks to this device." He produced a small handheld instrument—razor-thin and smaller than a computer jump drive.

"You tell me what this means!" She gestured with the wedding band.

"Put it on your hand," he ordered. "We're leaving."

Beyond the perimeter, what could only be described as a supernatural hum intensified, causing the hairs on her neck to stand on end. "Your damn husband is making headway." Marco nodded toward the door before yanking her to her feet and spinning her hard against his chest. "And that won't do. So we are leaving. Now."

A doorway opened at that moment; not the physical one to the room, but from somewhere else, another dimension. Kelsey felt heavy, impossibly heavy, and light splintered into prismatic shards in every direction. Although the wedding band was already priceless to her—she didn't need anyone to confirm its significance—she allowed it to clatter to the floor of Jared's room. As it fell, a chiming tink-tink resonated in the air, the sound itself forming a giant glowing oval around them, expanding with all the power of a mushroom cloud until the bright door in front of them opened. Like Alice with her Mad Hatter, the two of them went tumbling through it.

Scott watched, horror-stricken as Jared's pulsing energy swirled in union with the Antousian helix, seeming to fuse with it. To meld with it on some very core level. But that couldn't be right—could it? Was that even possible for Jared in his energized form? Scott had watched Jared take many risks over the years, but never anything as bold and dangerous as this attempt to break through the field. The king obviously loved his human mate with a mystic kind of depth—if Scott had doubted that fact before now, he'd never doubt it again.

Thea took a step forward. "I'll join my power with his," she offered, dropping her pulse rifle to the floor. "See if that will be enough to break through that grid."

"Get through to him, Thea," Scott warned, their eyes locking briefly. She gave a comprehending nod and took several more steps toward their king. Jared would have noticed her if he'd pried himself loose from his struggle long enough, but he remained locked into the helix, battling to pierce the damn thing.

Still in her physical form, Thea moved still nearer to their commander, and spoke to him in clipped, urgent Refarian. Then, just as Jared had, in the whirling flash of a moment she transformed into her flaming, natural form. Scott's forearm came up to shield his eyes as others around him did the same. It was too much, all that naked power, bright before their eyes.

Bowing his head, Scott listened and waited, rolling out his sensory skills: his scenting, his awareness, his hearing. Every one of his gifts opened to its fullest extent: all except his gazing, since he had to keep his eyes shut. He sensed the danger in the battle that Jared and Thea were waging, felt Jared growing weaker with every passing second. He could hear bits of communication between the two of them, preverbal and fragmented, as it always was for them in their energized forms. They argued; Thea begged him to cease; he shouted something back that was primal and plain, understood by only the two of them.

The atmosphere in the hallway rippled like a slow, brooding wave rolling over the air, and grew instantly hotter, singeing Scott's sweater sleeve. Then everything closed up, suddenly cooling by many degrees, and the Antousian barricade dissolved. With a heavy, painful thud, Jared morphed back into his physical form and collapsed in a heap before them all, gasping, naked. His robe had vanished, probably consumed in his Change.

Beside him, Thea sat panting. She'd morphed back into her uniform, but then again, she hadn't expended nearly the amount of energy that Jared just had.

Sprawled facedown on the floor, Jared sucked in gulps of air, his naked body still glowing and gleaming with sweat. Scott got a good look at his friend's back, at the long battle scar that ran from the upper left shoulder all the way to the lower back, and at the other smaller scars snaking across his torso. The full extent of their leader's battle marks always unsettled him, reminding him as it did of every skirmish they'd fought together. From beside him, Anika rushed forward protectively, producing a jacket. Dropping to the floor, she swept it over their leader's backside. "Here, my lord," she whispered, covering him. He collapsed, face-first, onto the pine floor in a spasm of coughing.

"We have to get him into the bunker," Scott ordered, coming back to the moment. "The Antousians could still be here." Sweeping past him, a team of soldiers took Jared's quarters, weapons raised.

"They're gone." Jared panted, weakly raising his head until his eyes locked with Scott's. "They took her."

"She could still be inside," Anika soothed, touching his shoulder. "Let our team look."

Jared roared, his gaze sweeping the group of them still gathered there. "They have taken her! I felt it the moment the barrier dissolved." He struggled to sit up, but in another spasm of coughing he pitched forward until his forehead came to rest against the floor. "They have taken my mate," he whispered in a hoarse voice. "How did they know about her? How?"

It was Thea who sought to comfort him. "Jared, we will find her," she said, her voice calm as she crawled closer to him, but Jared appeared almost crazed, eyeing her with a maniacal stare.

Scott knelt low, taking Jared's arm. "I'm getting you into the bunker."

Jared shook him off. "No!" he thundered, but Scott wouldn't yield, and wrestled Jared to his feet. Complaining the entire time, Jared struggled with him, battling him—as if he, Scott, were one of the invaders. Finally, with Thea's and Anika's help, they forced open the door to the bunker in the hallway outside Jared's quarters, a panic room they'd installed for security breaches just like this one.

As the group of them shoved him inside, Jared lunged like a wild-eyed beast, forearms lifting, wrestling toward the hallway. Finally, in an act of pure desperation, Scott slugged his king across the face hard, sending Jared sprawling against a high shelf of munitions crates that rattled with the sheer impact of Jared's muscular, solid frame.

Jared gaped back at him, eyes widening. "You struck me," he said, rubbing his jaw in disbelief.

Anika secured the bunker door behind them, and turned to face them both. Only the three of them stood in the darkened room, surrounded by shelves bristling with weaponry and four-foot thick walls that separated their leader from the potential danger lurking somewhere outside. Anika assumed a guard position in front of the door, hands behind her back. At the moment, Scott knew she answered to him, not to their flailing king.

Jared raised his own hand, ready to battle Scott, but in his weakened condition Scott easily overpowered him, slamming him hard against the bunker wall.

"J'Areshkadau!" Scott shouted, employing Jared's most personal Refarian name. "J'Areshkadau," he repeated, breathless as he stared his friend down. "You are out of your mind."

Jared's lungs sucked at air, his bare chest rising and falling, a sweaty sheen gleaming on his naked body. "You have never once struck me." As he blinked back at Scott, he seemed dazed, shocked. This recent battle had left him depleted not just of energy, but also bereft of a sense of the physical here and now. Scott had seen this before in the man: keeping his natural, energized form robbed him of something . . . tangible. He became like the energy itself, and returning to the material realm after a long time in his Change left him confused and disoriented.

Jared glanced around them, blinking. "My lord," Scott said, softening his tone, "security has been compromised." He kept Jared pinned against the wall, one forearm positioned squarely under his chin. "You are not in body armor. Your mate is taken—from your own bedroom. Don't you see that the Antousians wanted you, too? That they came for you? If you won't think of your safety, sir, then we have to."

Jared stared up at the ceiling, wrestling for breath, but said nothing. "Here," Scott said after it became obvious his commander would no longer resist, "take my clothes."

He shrugged out of his sweater, tossing it to Jared, but it dropped to the floor. The air about them shimmered as Jared shifted until he stood in full battle gear, body-armored to the hilt.

"This should meet your approval," Jared answered, his voice numb.

Scott gave a nod, taking a step apart from his king. "It's safer."

Jared glanced to Anika as if seeking help, then looked back at Scott. "I mated with her, and then they just... took her," he whispered, tears glinting in his eyes. Scott felt his own eyes sting: never, not in all the years he'd known and followed this man, had Scott ever seen him cry, yet now the brightness of unshed tears filled Jared's dark eyes. "I left her unprotected," he repeated. "And they took her."

"We will get her back," Scott vowed with a vigorous nod. "We will search until we do. Starting tonight"

"She knows nothing of this war, nothing of my enemies." Jared dropped his head into his palms. "My God, what have I done to her?"

Scott braced a hand against Jared's shoulder but said nothing. Yet in his deepest heart, he prayed that Jared had retrieved the mitres data in the midst of his union with the human woman. He prayed it not just for Kelsey's benefit, but for all their sakes.