Calm Before the Storm (11 page)

She watched as Tyr fell backward, his
attempt to close the distance between them foiled by the restraints. His hands
moved over hers and again Irina caught a glimpse of the expression she had seen
on his face when they had merely brushed lips at the police station. It was one
of shock. She sucked in some air, trying to compose herself and noticing that
he was breathing just as heavily. She knew he was trying to give her
reassurance when he clasped her hands tighter. Their eyes locked together as
the helicopter began a sudden descent. “I think we’ve arrived,” he said cutting
the connection. The air lay cold on her flesh as he withdrew and Irina could
only lament the loss of his heat.

Leaning back, Tyr let go of her hand and
pulled away, his heart pounding. What this woman did to him! He needed to play
it cool with her, keep some distance until this situation was resolved and
Melanie and Delora were safe. But every time he was near her it was as if some
positive-negative force of attraction was exerting a pressure that was
impossible to break. Struggling to find words, he was saved moments later by
the door opening and Tyr was surprised to see Jaro Rodach standing outside.

“Long time no see,” Jaro quipped as he
motioned them out. Behind him stood a group of four heavily armed guards and
Tyr swore he could see the glint of that same yellow in their eyes. More of
those Discordant aliens, he thought, wondering if Jaro was also one of them. It
was hard to tell, their Earthani form indistinguishable from that of real
humans.

“Twice in two days. This is becoming a
habit—can’t keep away from me, can you Rodach? Didn’t realize you loved me so
much.” Tyr smirked inwardly as Rodach scowled in annoyance.

“Just biding my time for that rematch,” he
growled back.

The helicopter had landed on the lawn in
front of a large imposing manor house. Tyr moved his arm to guide Irina toward
the entrance. Rodach pulled her aside and pushed her toward two of the guards.
“She goes with them,” he said, motioning Tyr onward with his gun.

Tyr stood his ground as Irina’s eyes
widened in fear. “Boss says to take care of her boys,” shouted Rodach as they
ushered her away. “Show her a good time!”

Tyr lunged toward Irina. “Godammit!” he
shouted. “You better leave her alone!”
So much for appearing unconcerned
.
The remaining guards held him back but Tyr continued to struggle against them.

“Cool it, Bellor!” shouted Rodach when Tyr
continued to resist. Tyr had no thought of complying, all his focus on
protecting Irina. Rodach watched him a moment, giving a small shrug before
smashing his gun down heavily against Tyr’s head. “I’ve wanted to do that for a
while now. Thanks for giving me an excuse,” he said coolly.

“Tyr!” Irina’s screams piercing his heart,
Tyr’s body sagged from the heavy blow, his vision blurring as the guards
dragged her away from him.

Fear snaked around his chest when Rodach
raked his eyes up and down Irina’s trembling frame. “She’s a bit skinny, lads,”
Rodach said before following them, “but I guess beggars can’t be choosers.”
Another savage blow to his head and this time Tyr lost consciousness.

Tyr awoke slowly, head aching as if crushed
by a ten-ton bus. There was blood on his temple but all in all it could have
been worse. Luckily he had always been a quick healer. Shaking off the
grogginess, he took in his surroundings. They had thrown him into a small cell.
Good going, Tyr, from one jail to another.

His next thought was Irina. If they hurt
her, he would split them open and fry their intestines while they were still
conscious. Especially Rodach’s. He would have the addition of having his
testicles boiled. The whole lot would look good stuffed into his mouth.
Ketchup,
anyone?

The burning need to find her as quickly as
possible overtook other more vengeful thoughts. Think. Abrasax had made it
clear what he wanted him to do and Irina was an integral part of the plan, but
his minions were not party to that information and Tyr did not trust them with
her for one minute longer than necessary. He had to make sure she was safe.

Tyr carefully considered his options,
knowing he might end up having to seriously injure or even kill some of the
guards in order to escape, but he guessed Abrasax would see that as collateral
damage. He clenched his teeth in determination, he would do that and more to
protect Irina and it wouldn’t be the first time.

She was right in some respects—he was a
killer—he couldn’t deny it. His life on the streets had been a chaos of kill or
be killed, constant battles for survival. He remembered his first lesson, not
long after he had been abandoned. Having fallen in with a group of boys in a
similar situation to himself, he had ended up as part of a gang run by a
nefarious individual called Valac, a particularly nasty character, rather like
a Fagin but much less charming. He ruled them with a rod of iron and if they
ignored his instructions, they starved. The memory of his first encounter with
the man resurfaced, flooding his brain with unwanted images he had tried so
hard to forget.

Valac held out the bread toward him. As
Tyr went to take it, Valac drew his hand back quickly, a twisted sneer on his
face. “I don’t tolerate layabouts here,” he said. “You need to fight for what
you want. Are you hungry, boy?”

Tyr nodded, his solemn eyes wistfully
staring at the crusts as if they were a three-course banquet. His stomach
gurgled. Saliva in his mouth.

“If you want it, boy…then go get it.”
Valac tossed the mangy scraps into the center of the road. Tyr gazed hungrily
at the bread and dived toward it. At the same time another twenty similar boys
charged into the same space. Grabbing. Clawing. Hunger gnawed at his insides as
he punched and kicked to get to the moldy prize. Tyr managed to grab a handful
and even though it was stale forced it into his mouth nearly gagging. It was
the first food he’d had since his uncle had abandoned him in the cinema two
nights ago.

Valac repeated the process a number of
times, all the while laughing and cursing those who were left empty-handed. Tyr
managed to snatch something every time and wolfed it down hungrily, unwilling
to share. A number of boys failed to reach any food. A six-year-old whose name
he didn’t know died that night of starvation.

Tyr had always felt as if he had killed
the boy personally and had cried for him that night and many nights after. But
it had taught him a lesson that he would never forget. He had always fought as
hard as he could after that. Life on the streets was a relentless constant
struggle, a series of battles you had to win to survive. And to survive, you
had to be willing to do anything.

Thoughts scrambling back to the present and
his current predicament, Tyr knew for sure he would do whatever it took to get
Irina out and protect her. His eyes focused on the small space. Bare cell.
Locked door. No weapon. He didn’t know how many guards were outside or where he
was in relation to Irina, but his overwhelming instinct was to battle, to get
to her before the bastards hurt her.
They may already have
. He felt a
panic in his gut, a burning he’d never experienced before. Fuck! This wasn’t
good. She was scrambling his brain so he could hardly breathe, let alone think!

Okay, classic escape move number one. Maybe
these Discordant characters were dumb. He would have to take a chance. Tyr began
shouting at the top of his voice. “Hey, you fuckers! Let me out before I rip
this place to shreds! Where’s Rodach? You bastard, get down here!” Some
rattling of the door and a continuous stream of kicks against the wood. It
didn’t take long before Tyr heard footsteps heading his direction, just one
set.
Oh Lucky day! They really are dumb.

The door opened and the guard paused
outside, but on seeing an empty room, entered looking quickly left and right,
gun held in front. Tyr leapt down from above, where he had been spread-eagle
against the ceiling to grab the guard in headlock between his muscular thighs.
He twisted his legs as he jumped and hearing the crack of a broken neck grabbed
the gun from the fallen guard.
So far, so good.

No other footsteps approached, so Tyr took
his time at the unmanned guard station to arm himself with a number of weapons
left carelessly in the open.
A couple of blades, a handgun and a
semiautomatic, oh, and a couple of hand grenades, how very handy!

He grabbed some ammo as well. Some movement
caught his attention and he turned to see surveillance monitors on the opposite
wall.
Bingo!
His heart breathed a sigh of relief. There was Irina,
pacing up and down in what looked like a bedroom. She looked unharmed but
extremely pissed off.

There also appeared to be a thermal map
layout of the manor on the computer screen, which showed a single figure pacing
in an upper story bedroom and multiple figures dotted around the interior.
Full
house!
He mentally photographed the plans and the spots of heat, noting
their whereabouts and began moving stealthily out of the corridor and toward
Irina.

* * * * *

Merak arrived at Cassi’s apartment the next
morning. There had been no sight of or sound from Irina overnight but he
brought news. “Sibyl finally managed to get a fix. Irina seems to be on the
move and as there are two Esseni signatures, I suspect she’s with Bellor,” he
said, his gray eyes filled with worry. “They appear to be heading southwest
toward Cornwall. The nearest starportal currently is Stonehenge. If we dispatch
some Eunomi warriors directly from Lyra we might be able to intercept them.”

“There might not be enough time,” said
Cassi thoughtfully. “I heard from Leo that our old ‘friend’ Aamon Abrasax
visited Bellor the day before the escape. It looks like the Discordants
definitely know about Bellor and it turns out that Abrasax has a holding in the
gym Bellor trained in. My guess is that he has been under their surveillance
for a while and they were grooming him. Either way we’ve just hit mission
critical. We can’t afford to waste any more time in getting them back and not just
for Irina’s sake.”

Merak nodded in agreement. “You head out
west and I’ll contact the council. Doesn’t Lucius have a sports car you can
borrow?”

“Yes,
Luc does,”
interrupted the man
in question, as he emerged from the kitchen, a look of interest and concern on
his face. “Is Irina in some kind of danger?”

Cassi glanced at Merak wondering how he
would take this new development. “How much did you hear, Luc?” she asked with a
sigh of resignation.

“Enough to know that Irina is involved and
to be confused by a bunch of weird words you’re using. Starportals, Eunomi,
Discordants. It all sounds a shade on the insane side of crazy!”

Cassi turned to Merak thoughtfully. “You
know, now might be the right time to let Luc in on a few things, like the fact
that he is also an Esseni, plus his sports car is a stick shift and I really
suck at driving a manual.”

Merak looked extremely unhappy but Luc’s
blue eyes sparkled with curiosity. “Well that’s another word I don’t
understand. What’s an Esseni and why am I one?” Reluctantly, Merak shrugged.
“It’s a long story Luc,” he said, “but I suppose if you are willing to take
Cassi on a road trip, we can provide you with some answers to your questions.”

Cassi headed toward the door. “Grab your
car keys, Luc! Take me for the ride of your life and I’ll tell you why you are
one of the most important beings in the universe.”

Tyr had managed to evade the guards and was
on the landing close to the room where Irina was being kept. He hid in the
shadows as a guard exited one of the other rooms and took up position outside
Irina’s door. Tyr needed to knock him out without alerting any of the others.
He decided on the old “chuck something to make a distraction, thereby forcing
the guard to turn his back” ruse.

Grenade at the double. Without pulling the
pin of course.

It worked like a charm and having
asphyxiated the guy into unconsciousness, he made a dash for the door.
Surprisingly it wasn’t locked. He entered slowly, head first, not wanting to
startle Irina.

Wham! A heavy weight came crashing down on
his skull. He staggered under the blow, his legs nearly giving way.

“Oh my god! I’m so sorry! I thought you
were one of them!” Irina’s voice washed over him as he tried to regain his
balance.

“Glad to see you can take care of
yourself,” he said, rubbing his head to check for blood. “However, three
crushing blows to my head in one day, not my idea of fun!”

“Here sit down,” soothed Irina. “Don’t be
such a big baby. I didn’t hit you that hard. If I had you’d be unconscious.”

Big baby! Did she really just call me
that?
“What did you hit me with anyway?” Tyr asked,
finding a lump.

“Er…a candlestick.” She scrunched up her
nose, looking sheepish.

“Great,” he said, “I’m in the middle of a
game of Clue. Miss Dove, in the bedroom, with the candlestick.”

“Well don’t be grumpy with me,” she huffed.
“That’s what happens when you sneak into a person’s room, especially if they
are being held prisoner against their will. Plus, I thought it was those creepy
guards coming back to…you know…they had really weird yellow eyes.” She
shuddered now, and it was clear the adrenaline that had taken over earlier was
receding to leave her shivering.

Tyr regained his balance and hugged her to
his chest, wrapping strong arms around her trembling frame. “It’s okay,” he
shushed, his voice full of concern. “I’m here now and I’m going to get you
out.”

Irina melted into the warmth of Tyr’s arms,
laying her head against the solidity of a comfortingly hard-muscled chest. A
tremor ran through her bones, heat and scent invading her senses, the wild
masculine smell of him, autumn leaves and rain wrapping around her, a caress on
bare skin. She had been so scared when they dragged her away, horrified and
confused by their treatment of Tyr. Why would Abrasax allow his men to hurt
Tyr? Nothing made sense except the tangled threads she could feel weaving their
way around them, trying to forge a connection that refused to break. She pushed
away, unsteadily. It wouldn’t do to get too close. There were just too many
unanswered questions surrounding this man and until they were answered she
needed to keep him at arm’s length.

“Irina, we need to go,” he said, ushering
her toward the French doors. “There’s a balcony we can climb down.”

“I thought you were on side with Abrasax. Why
are you leaving?” She eyed him suspiciously.

“I told you I was just playing along, and
I’m not willing to see you hurt,” he said. “Abrasax told me some really crazy
shit and I think you’re part of it too. He also said that your boss Merak is
involved, so I figure we go to him and get his side of the story.”

Now Irina was even more confused. What
could Merak possibly have to do with this situation? Instead of dwelling on it
too hard—there would be time for that later—she decided to focus on the here
and now.

“Okay, but the door to the balcony is
locked,” she pointed out, twisting the handle.

“No problem, little dove, I happen to be an
expert lock picker.”

“Why am I not surprised?” retorted Irina.

“You’ll soon find out I’m an expert at a
lot of things,” replied Tyr winking, as the door clicked open. Stupid
butterflies took flight in her chest again as she fought to supress memories of
the expertise she already knew he held in the field of kissing. Her heart
fluttered wildly, images of the heated kiss in the helicopter swamping her
beleaguered brain.
Is he flirting with me? OMG, he’s so hot when he smiles
like that!

Squashing thoughts of his smiles and kisses
into a ball she could throw away, Irina found the way down to be quite easy,
almost too easy, the balcony having a convenient creeper of strong ivy they
were both able to climb down without any bother. It was dark, but Tyr told her
he had noted the position of a garage when he had perused the layout earlier,
so he headed in that direction with Irina following at his heels. The garage
was free of any guards and inside they had their pick of cars. Tyr went for an
old Audi while Irina headed for a shiny Aston Martin.

“Seriously, Tyr, the Aston’s way faster,”
she said, surprised that he hadn’t chosen the more expensive car. “Yes, but
it’s more noticeable, guzzles gas and I know how to start the Audi, so get in.”

Practical and resourceful. Seriously, who
was this man?

Irina slid into the passenger seat as Tyr
fiddled with the electrical system and the Audi burst into life. The grin he
directed at her next was that of a schoolboy getting away with murder, his
rugged smile accentuating the masculine beauty of his strong jaw, obsidian dark
eyes sparkling with the stars of a night sky. Irina felt those splintered connecting
threads winding back around, fusing together again as the ball bounced back.
“Another one of your many skills, I see,” said Irina drily, trying to ignore
the ball but catching it anyway. “You really are a jack-of-all-trades.”

“You had to be, where I come from,” said
Tyr. She was surprised to hear the note of bitterness in his tone, her heart
depressing as she watched the lazy grin disappear, his mouth becoming hard. It
reminded her how little she really knew about him and his past.

Unfortunately as he spoke, an alarm
sounded, probably triggered by the heat of the Audi’s engine switching on,
Irina guessed. “Hang on!” shouted Tyr, shifting the car into gear and slamming
his foot on the accelerator. The car screeched to life as two large guards
raced toward them from the direction of the house. Heart jumping in her throat,
Irina watched their speeding bodies mutate, gasping in disbelief when they
suddenly expanded in size, muscled flesh turning gray, eyes flashing yellow.
Huge claws emerged from their fingers as one tried grabbing at the side of the
car to wrench the door open, the other crashed onto the bonnet, using his claws
to dig in and hold on. What could she do but scream?

Tyr swerved and handbrake-turned the car,
wheeling around in a circle. The creature at Irina’s side bounced off the door
as the car turned but the one on the bonnet dug in harder. They could both see
Rodach in the mirrors running toward them from behind and gaining on them. He
was fast. He was also bellowing in rage at the “imbecile fuckers” who were
letting them escape. The alien creature in front of him punched his way through
the glass aiming at Tyr’s throat. Tyr ducked to the side and gawped at her in
surprise when Irina, instead of cowering in her seat, grabbed the semiautomatic
rifle and used it to batter the creature’s claws.

“Get. Off. Him. You bully!” she shrieked,
adrenaline replacing her momentary fear. With one last smash, their assailant’s
claws flew open in pain and he slid off the front of the car, which jerked over
him as if going over a speed bump at full throttle.

“Ooops!” remarked Tyr coolly, as he finally
brought the swerving car under control, “I hope I haven’t knackered the
suspension.” He turned and gave her an approving look. “Thanks for the assist
by the way. You ever play baseball? You’ve definitely got a great swing action
there.”

Irina panted as she tried to catch her
breath. “I’m certainly getting a lot of practice since meeting you,” she said,
turning to face him. “Would you mind telling me what the hell’s going on and
what was that…that…thing? And by the way—your driving sucks!” Swinging her head
toward the window, she folded her arms in disgust. Tyr reached out a hand to
clasp one of hers, bringing it to his lips, black eyes dancing with fire.
Irina’s blood heated at the warmth of his lips on her skin.

“I love the way your eyes sparkle when
you’re angry,” said Tyr. Somehow only he could say something that corny and
still make her smile. He was staring at her mouth as if he wanted to devour
her, and the knowledge that she wanted him to kiss her again hit her with a
blinding clarity. She quelled her disappointment when he turned away and
continued driving at breakneck speed. “Once we’re clear of the bastards, I’ll
do my best to explain what little I know,” he told her. “As soon as we can,
we’ll ditch this car, grab another and get to your friends Cassi and Merak.”