Chapter Sixteen

The silent transport hovered in midair, a small dark blot against the starry sky above the Refarians' position by Mirror Lake. Unlike the massive battle cruiser, the transport served in critical moments when speed meant everything. Only eighteen minutes had elapsed since Jared first issued his summons to Scott. Now, sheltered behind a massive outcropping of stone and boulder, Jared and his most elite soldiers strategized their best approach toward Mirror Lake and up the steep incline to where the mitres chambers lay hidden deep within a rocky cleft.

A soldier appeared just beside Jared and pressed night-vision glasses into his hands. "Four of them on the ledge, my lord," he said. Jared leaned onto his elbows, feeling his bulletproof vest pull across his shoulders as he snaked on his belly along the cold ground to gain a better view. It was nighttime, so they'd opted for their darker wear, especially since the snow around the lake was still spotty. If it had been the dead of winter, they'd be in their winter whites, but tonight they'd darkened their faces with charcoal, worn their usual black uniforms, and were moving in complete stealth as they formed their position behind the rocks. They looked like a Refarian sniper squad, which, in effect, they were. Once they'd gained a solid fix on the enemy encampments in the area they would begin to take them out, some by teams, some by long-distance weaponry.

This was what they trained for: to overpower their enemies at times of critical warfare. Adrenaline flowed in every soldier present, empowering their minds and bodies, awakening their Refarian senses totally. And while none of them relished being called into action like this, the troops serving him wouldn't be as deadly as they were if they didn't welcome warfare. He'd never forget one dying soldier's last words, years ago back on Refaria. It had been after a blistering battle outside the city, one that had lasted for three solid days weaving in and out of abandoned buildings, and ultimately into a decimated cluster of housing units. By the time the fighting was over, more than eighteen hundred Refarian soldiers had been killed. Jared visited the field hospital, trying to comfort the wounded and critically injured.

One young man on the brink of death had waved him closer, and pulling Jared's ear down to his mouth had whispered, "I never imagined having such a grand time dying, my lord." The young soldier's death less than fifteen minutes later had crystallized something for Jared that day—his people welcomed a fight. They wanted to battle the Antousians who had robbed them, raped them, and seized their world from them. And if it meant dying in service of their king and home, then so be it.

Today was another such day, Jared mused, accepting the night-vision glasses from the young Refarian corporal crouching beside him, waiting for his word—any word—to pass back to Lieutenant Dillon.

Jared settled down on his belly and observed the distant terrain through the field glasses. After a moment, two Antousians stepped into plain view on an exposed portion of trail that led to the mitres, and Jared adjusted his glasses; he wanted to verify that he'd read their energy correctly. Antousians had a noticeably cooler reading than Refarians, showing up a dull blue-green, while Refarians, on the other hand, tended to glow a vivid golden green. The two species' energies registered very differently on the spectrograph, as differently as they did in all other matters, it seemed.

Behind him, Jared sensed two more of his soldiers edging their way toward his position. " Lieutenant Dillon urges us to move in, sir," one of the newly arrived soldiers informed him. "He wants to lead a team in now, sir."

Without lowering the glasses, Jared shook his head in disagreement. It required a soldier's mastery of discipline, but he instructed the men to return to Scott with one directive: "We wait," he said, and prayed that Kelsey had the time they needed to mount a stunning counteroffensive.

Kelsey watched Marco vanish into one of the three dark passageways that led from the mitres' central chamber to God only knew where. She stared after him in shock. He hadn't bound her or tied her head to toe, he had simply left her. Almost as if he wasn't sure what to do with her now that he had her in his alien grip. Well, she decided, it wasn't her job to remind him that she was his captive.

Yet some strange, quiet voice whispered that he still cared for her—and for Jared—despite whatever had gone wrong between them all. If he'd truly been their protector, then surely his current plan contradicted every aspect of his training. Maybe that was the real reason he'd left her here unguarded, she thought with a surge of hope.

She listened to the echo of his retreating footsteps grow softer and softer, and when she could no longer hear them, she leaped to her feet. If he thought she was some kind of weakling who was going to take being kidnapped without a fight, well, this Marco had another thing coming to him. Marco—and Jared—had both said the mitres data was embedded within her mind. This obviously wasn't the moment to put that data to use, even if she knew how, but it certainly meant she had a bargaining chip. Would anyone really want to see her dead if she was the only one with the means to operate this weapons system?

Clasping her hands to her head, she tried to focus: She needed to choose a tunnel, any tunnel that might lead to the exterior. But if there really were a way to escape, would Marco have left her unbound? No time like the present to find out. With nothing whatsoever to go on, she chose the left tunnel and sprinted into the darkness.

Kelsey felt her way along the smooth wall of the passageway, taking stumbling steps. If an opening existed in this dimly lit path she'd chosen, surely she'd find it. But she felt nothing; her hands found nothing. The tunnel seemed to go on and on without end, and the farther she went, the darker it became. A whole lot darker. She'd never before feared the dark, but her heart now slammed so hard she could barely breathe from the impact of it against her ribs. She was terrified, but she swept thoughts of death and torture and time travel out of her mind, forcing everything within herself to focus. And yet step after step continued into the blackness, and it seemed like she would be swallowed up completely by an ocean of nothing.

Jared! she cried out to him, becoming frantic as she swept her hands about the walls in wide circular arcs. Help me! Jared! They had connected earlier, and then Marco had shouted at her and she'd lost that momentary flicker of communication. Still, it had worked before, so maybe they could connect again. She centered her mind, working to access that place where they'd found each other before, and cried out desperately to him again. Jared!

Kelsey, came his answer, quiet and focused somewhere within her. She stopped clawing her way through the inky black chamber.

Where are you? she asked, feeling tears well in her eyes. I'm lost, Jared. I'm here, somewhere . . . the mitres . . .

We're nearby, outside. Tell him nothing. Does he still have you? He was very much in control, and just the sound of that composure stilled her own breathing a little bit.

You're outside here? she asked.

Yes, we're holding a position on the western side of the lake.

Which lake?

Kelsey, you're at Mirror Lake, he told her. That's where the mitres are located, along the shore, up on the cliffs.

So many things came instantly clear with the abruptness of a camera shutter's snap: meeting him fourteen years ago, his crash, the anomalies in the geology of the region, the data that he'd placed in her mind. Everything revolved around Mirror Lake—only it wasn't the lake. That's why you came here, why you were at the lake. She gasped. Because of the mitres.

It's everything to our revolution right now.

And so is the data inside of me, she finished.

Yes.

She couldn't read his voice—and she needed to know his meaning. Had everything between them only been about the mitres technology? She felt a wave of hysterical anguish bubble up within her, as if, in the space of a moment, all the events of the past week were finally overtaking her. How could she even be sure that he loved her, and that it hadn't been only about protecting this place? Maybe that was all it ever had been about, so long ago.

Of course it wasn't just about the mitres, he whispered fiercely.

I know.

Do you? he insisted, sounding almost angry. Because you should know it.

His fury, so pure and intensely focused, had the strange effect of arousing her, even now in the midst of their danger and separation from each other. But she forced all thoughts of his gorgeous Refarian body and their physical needs for each other far from her mind.

Jared, you're in danger. Someone named Veckus—your enemies, they're here. It's not just Marco—

It's all right, love. His voice softened again, growing low. I know.

Marco's not working alone. He's talking about this Veckus and . . . and—

Jared cut her off, obviously sensing her fear. Please, love, I know it's difficult, but try to let me calm you. I can do that, you know, and then I can help you out of there.

I don't under—

Just let me calm you.

And then, like a faint whisper, something of Jared—of his very spirit and essence—breathed across her soul, assuring her, touching her. It was his voice. Maybe. Or it was his song—she wasn't sure. Whatever shimmered through her in that moment, it belonged to Jared and it filled her with a settled peace.

There, he said. Open your eyes now.

She'd braced herself against the chamber wall, pressing her eyes closed while he reached into her core. Now she stood, trembling, her legs weak beneath her, afraid to look around her. But when she dared to open her eyes again, instead of the blackness of the chamber she was met by a golden wavering mist, enveloped by it, really. The entire tunnel filled with a nimbus of light that radiated around her, warming her from without and within, and then there, standing in the very center of the tunnel, was her lifemate. Not physically, of course; he was walking her soul or whatever it was he'd done a while ago. Only the connection with him was manifesting much more strongly this second time around, probably because he was just outside the chamber.

She flung herself into his arms. I knew you'd come.

Even though you begged me not to. He laughed gently, folding her against his muscular, strong chest. It was as if no physical separation existed between them, even though she knew that one did. Selfishly, she wanted to forget that fact, wanted nothing but the safety and strength of her lover's arms, and so she clung to him. He was real; this moment was real. She'd be damned if actual reality would wrench him out of her arms yet again.

I'm going to get you out of here, he reminded her, slowly pulling back to stare into her eyes.

She'd already forgotten how warm his dark eyes were, the almond shape of them, the way they flashed with undeniable energy and heat. Alien eyes. Her mate's eyes. You're beautiful, she breathed—silently, she thought. Until he whispered back: So are you.

You came for me, even though it was the last thing you should've done! she cried, suddenly remembering the truth of their circumstances again.

He glanced around them, running his fingertips along the wall. This isn't the right tunnel, he said, ignoring her protests. It's not the right way to get you out anyway—nor the best way.

You could've done this for me from your camp, she reminded him.

He turned back to her, blessing her with such a loving gaze that she felt the breath leave her lungs. You knew I couldn't leave you here, he said, his voice filled with the same emotion she saw glinting in his dark eyes. Not with all that you mean to me, and not when I'm the one who put you in this situation.

Marco wants you dead, Jared, she reminded him seriously. Please be careful. Please don't put yourself in any more danger than you already have.

But all he said in reply—as vague as he usually was when answering her questions—was, I am protected. Don't worry, sweet human.

But are you in danger?

My whole life I've been in danger. I wouldn't let that keep me from defending my lifemate. He took her by the hand. I'm here to show you how to open the chamber portal, he explained, leading her quickly back down through the dark hallway she'd just traversed. I can't open it for you, not from the outside, but I can show you how to use the codes that are already within your mind.

She ran with him, not bothering to question whether they were walking physically or if he was simply moving within her thoughts, laying out a plan for her escape through their psychic bond. It took only a few seconds to return to the central chamber—a path that had taken her several long minutes to traverse on her own in the darkness.

In the better lighting, the flickering vision of Jared dimmed. Close your eyes again if it will help, he instructed her. Taking her by the shoulders, he pressed her down to a sitting position on the floor. Here, he urged, close your eyes and listen to me. Watch.

Scott leaned against the boulder beside Jared, using his natural Antousian skills at power manipulation to circle his commander with a ring of protection. Jared's eyes were closed, his hands clasped tightly in his lap, and his head lolled back against the boulder as if he were asleep.

Objectively, Scott understood why Jared had chosen to connect with Kelsey in the middle of their recon, and yet subjectively, he felt concerned and protective. Here they were, deep in the backcountry at three a.m., enemies all about them, and their king had chosen to form a spatial bridge with his lifemate. So Scott watched over the man, all his senses opened wide, and prayed that their commander's plan for opening the mitres would work. A mist rolled slowly over the lake, as haunting as a specter in its foggy progression. The full moon sliced through it like a searchlight, and did nothing to ease the creeping apprehension that had settled over Scott's mind.

Thea appeared beside them, crouching low. "Recon located a nest of Antousians on the southern end of the lake." She rattled off coordinates, and then with a curt nod toward their commander asked, "How long will that take?"

"He's getting her to open the chamber," Scott explained in a terse voice. "Talking her through it."

Thea gave a nod of affirmation. "We have to get those codes out."

"She's his lifemate, Thea," Scott said. "You know that. It's not just the data that's important to him."

"You don't have to remind me," she snapped, rocking back on her heels.

"When this night is done, just remember that things have changed," Scott cautioned, knowing that of everyone in the camp, Thea would have the hardest time supporting Jared's choice of a mate. "And be sure your judgment won't get clouded tonight. If you feel that it's compromised—"

She waved him off. "I'm a soldier, first and foremost."

"Good. That's what I wanted to hear," Scott said with a nod, and turned back to his watch over their king.

Veckus himself had come. A surprise, but not wholly unexpected, given the importance of this particular mission, Marco thought, hiking down the back path away from the mitres' entrance. Jared's soldiers would soon be massing at the foot of the trail, laying down an encampment. But they would be far too late. The Antousians had been granted plenty of advance warning to assume their own positions, and this far into the backcountry of Yellowstone—a good twenty-five miles' hike up any of the trails that led here— no rangers would hear their exchange of weaponry. Or the screams of a dying rebel king. That thought caused Marco to shiver, and for a moment he pressed his eyes shut, lifting a dangling birch branch out of his way on the path.

"About time you arrived," came Veckus's familiar rasping voice from out of the darkness. Even though he couldn't see the Antousian warlord, Marco sensed him hovering at the darkened edge of the trail.

"I've had work to do," Marco responded, lifting his chin into the air. This was no time for attitude from his leader, not tonight. He was delivering a prize jewel, the king of Refaria himself—so he'd be damned if Veckus didn't show him a little more respect.

"You arrived almost an hour ago," the alien hissed, reminding Marco of a reptile in his vocalizations. He always reminded Marco of a reptile: a reptile in human form.

The shadows seemed to part, when in reality Veckus only took two steps forward into the clear shaft of moonlight limning the mountainous trail. The blond man sneered at him in greeting; truthfully, it was a delighted smile on the alien's face, but somehow, like all the other expressions he ever assumed, it looked wrong on his humanized face.

"What took you so long, Marco?" The leader spoke in smooth Refarian; he was fluent in the language, which was common for Antousians like Veckus who'd been raised on Refaria.

"I've been with the queen."

This elicited a soft hissing sound from Veckus's lips. Even though he was an Antousian-human hybrid (which meant that his physical form was human), his voice patterns still reflected his natural Antousian genetics. Unlike so many other hybrids like him, Veckus clung to his Antousian heritage, even if he did have to live inside a human body. That's what he and all the other Antousians had done in order to survive the viral plague back home. They'd taken human hosts…or been wiped out.

Veckus hissed again, his eyes narrowing to slits. "Do not refer to the rebel human as queen. Do not show her that honor."

Marco inclined his head respectfully, but inside he wondered why Veckus even bothered. She was the queen—just as Jared was king—and whether Veckus honored the title or not hardly mattered when it came to logistics. Still, the warlord preferred to refer to Jared as "the rebel leader" or even, on his less generous days, as "that rebel idiot".

"I believe we were clear on our mutual objectives," Veckus stated carefully, lifting his chin until he stared Marco in the eye. "Our plan is to lure the rebel leader into the open, and thereby end this insurgence once and for all."

Although Marco's heart rate sped up crazily, he forced himself into a posture of steadiness. "Of course. Our mission has not changed."

"Good. I wouldn't want to think that your Refarian . . .ways"—he spit the word with undisguised distaste—"had somehow obscured your judgment."

"I'll give you Jared Bennett," Marco vowed. And you'll give me a better future.

"Yes, so you will keep the rebel whore inside the mitres until Jared is dead," Veckus said, his mouth pulling into an ugly mockery of a grin. "Then you'll bring her to me."

"What are your intentions for Kelsey?"

"Don't worry about that." Veckus's eyes narrowed, and the telltale odor of deception filled Marco's nostrils.

"You promised she wouldn't be hurt," Marco cautioned, his voice rising slightly. "That she would be freed once Jared was dead."

"You will have her in the end," Veckus promised. "Our plan remains in effect." The odor of betrayal grew rancid about them, the vilest possible stench. This Veckus didn't know all of Marco's myriad intuitive skills. "So are we still agreed?"

"We are agreed," Marco said, and tried to ignore the sickening spasm that his stomach gave when he turned away from the alien.

Bargaining with a devil, never a good idea, he thought furiously, and began his hike back to Kelsey's side.

Marco entered the chamber and found Kelsey deep in a trance again, her hands clasping the coiling unit in the center of the chamber. One instance of connecting with Jared had been bad enough—two were unacceptable. The core energy inside the coil's tubing had already changed color, altering from its cool luminous blue to a bright golden orange. She was powering up the unit—obviously preparing to open a portal.   

"What," he roared, grabbing her by the upper arm, "are you doing?" She kept her hands locked about the cylinder, and so he jerked her harder, sending her sprawling onto the floor of the chamber. The tubing remained a golden-orange hue, indicating that the dimensional space around them was becoming unstable; a portal could be opened, but without her continued interaction with the unit, the energy inside would cool again eventually.

Satisfied that he'd interrupted her in time, he rounded on her. "I trusted you," he hissed as she stirred on the floor beneath him, shaking her head as if in a daze. "I left you here unbound. And this is how you repay me? What did you think to accomplish?"

"I was trying to escape, you imbecile."

He folded his arms across his chest. "I see that my trust was misplaced."

"Don't you dare talk to me about trust," she spit, slowly turning to gaze up at him. "You have violated every one of your vows. You're a stranger to me, and you betrayed us."

There it was again: that gut-wrenching reminder of his treachery, and the beautiful, perfect relationship he had long ago shattered to bits. "I'm sorry," he mumbled before he caught himself.

"Sorry?" She struggled to her knees and speared him with a cold gaze. "You kidnapped me and threatened to hurt us," she countered. "That is not a relationship based on trust. We don't trust you—I could never trust someone like you! You protected us once, and now look at what you've become. You're trying to destroy your own king."

"J'Areshkadau Bnet D'Aravni," he hissed, pronouncing the leader's true Refarian name with slow and acid precision, "is not my king. He has not been my sovereign for more than four years."

"Do they fire protectors?" She sneered. "They what, just rescind your vow? Tell me, Marco, exactly what the Refarians do with the likes of you."

He brushed past her, refusing to succumb to memories and feelings of love that had never died for him, not in all these years. Those eyes. So blue he could spend forever in them, worship her by the simple act of gazing into the most unusual eyes he had ever seen. Not now; it was too late for such wrong, tortured emotions that had led him to such a wrong and dreadful end.

"Exactly as I thought," she said with deadly intensity. "There's no place for you in any dimension. You're a traitor."

"Stop it!" he roared, spinning to face her. He wanted to cover his ears and silence her accusations. He wanted to proclaim his love for her, even after all these years. "Just stop it."

She kept at him, though, accusing, needling, torturing, but somehow he used his power to block the words. Or maybe it was just that the truth of those words was so unbearable he couldn't even process them.

He grasped her by the arm angrily, yanking her to her feet. "You're coming outside with me," he snarled with a glance back at the coiling unit. "The easy way. We'll let the weapon power down." The power still raged orange, indicating the possibility of a time portal opening. He'd deal with that later.

Retrieving the remote unit from his jacket pocket, he depressed a button and the gateway to the chamber's exterior opened. He glimpsed the darkened outside world open before them: the lake below, the rocks, the shards of moonlight reflecting in the creeping mist. A whole new world awaited them all, it seemed.