Ultimate Passage: New Beginnings: Box Set ( Books 1-4) (22 page)

All he needed to do was get to the back way into the tunnel, then he’d follow it to Lesser League. No one ever loitered in that tunnel. It was too dreary, too dark, and too full of dark memories, like a gallows walk.

A
wet
, cool cloth covered Marissa’s forehead and shrouded her eyes. That wasn’t the act of an enemy. Her mind wasn’t fuzzy. She had full realization of where she was, that she was on Kormia. Her last memory was a struggle with that bastard Talik. She’d gotten a few good hits in, but then he’d clocked her. And now—

She wanted to open her eyes to see who was helping her, but if it was an Asazi, then what? With the exception of Finn, Kal, and Nevim, she had no Asazi allies. And yet, someone was being kind. She raised her hand slowly, pushed the washcloth up higher on her forehead, off her eyes, and opened her lids.

An Asazi woman, her skin a soft, peaceful green denoting her serenity, sat on a stool nearby, eyes focused on Marissa. There was no hostility in her gaze.

Marissa contemplated talking to her, wondering if that would bring on a phase of unfriendliness. “Do you speak English?” She prayed that when Finn had told her they learned English on Kormia, he meant all of them did.

“I do.” The woman’s voice was calm. She was young, a little younger than Marissa. Her clothing was a peach-hued filmy fabric that draped over her flesh, but didn’t obscure a view of her body. Her nudity beneath the barely-there clothing did not seem to embarrass her. She sat straight, her breasts thrust forward, nipples erect and dark brown. A fuzzy patch was visible where her legs met. Marissa averted her eyes to keep from embarrassing the young woman, though she doubted she could. This was only her second experience with an Asazi woman. The first one had involved that woman named Alithera, who’d been wearing an Asazi soldier’s uniform. She’d been quite sexless, unlike this one, who exuded sexuality.

Marissa tried to reconcile the young woman’s attire with what she remembered Finn had told her about Asazi—that they didn’t do sexuality. That they weren’t motivated by sex. So the way this Asazi maiden was dressed seemed a contradiction, one that puzzled Marissa.

She surveyed the room. The walls were of a gray stone, but it was refined and smoothed. Wooden shelves held decorative items on display that were carved of wood and bone. There was fabric and some type of soft mattress beneath her. It didn’t seem to be a prison and it was far plusher than the Asazi settlement she’d been in when she’d first arrived. “Where am I?”

“You are a guest of Saraz.”

A new name. “Who is that?”

“I am Saraz.” A voice came from a doorway she hadn’t noticed before. Maybe the door had been closed. “I knew you would come.” The voice had an odd quality to it, almost as if it echoed and bounced off the walls, but in a subtle way, one that didn’t offend the senses.

Marissa studied the man who belonged to the voice. The first thing that struck her was that he was definitely not Asazi. But he also wasn’t human, even though he had human characteristics. “Are you Kormic?” The words slipped out before her damned filter could stop her.

The Asazi woman sucked in a breath as soon as Marissa had asked her question. The man considered Marissa, studying her as if she’d lost her mind, then he laughed. His laugh reverberated around the stone-walled room.

“You have never seen a Kormic, have you?” he asked. He glanced at the woman and waved his hand.

She slipped behind him and left the room, flowing fabric billowing gracefully behind her.

Marissa shook her head. She never had seen a Kormic, and Finn had not described one to her. It had never seemed important while they were on Earth, immersed in their own lives, far from Kormia and all of this.

“If you had, you wouldn’t ask that question.” He was attired in a gray, shimmering robe-like outfit. It reminded her of what sheiks wore, except it didn’t cover his head. He was bareheaded, with hair that fell below his shoulders in a thick black sheet.

The next thing she wanted to say was that she could tell he wasn’t human, but that didn’t seem to be a wise tactic. Of course he wasn’t human; he had grayish-black skin that glistened and shimmered, scales seeming to move on their own. He did have that in common with the Asazi, as their skin resembled scales at times, except that his scales were definite and overlapped, though not as tiny as Finn’s. His eye shape was normal, his irises round, of a pale, iridescent lime color, the pupils a black vertical slit. Though they were emotionless, the black line in the midst of the pale green made his eyes menacing. His lips were full and sensual, a direct contradiction to his cold eyes, and his jaw line was strong and defined.

This man was eerie, but had an underlying undeniable sexuality that brimmed over. Looking into his eyes was mesmerizing. She thought of a cobra and a snake charmer, but which was he? A combination of both, she decided. A barely elevated ridge down the center of his forehead went all the way to his nose, subtle, but prominent.

Then something hit her, and she didn’t know why she hadn’t keyed in on it before, unless it was because she had been so busy staring at him.
Or because he’s hypnotizing you,
the voice said. Yeah, right. She didn’t believe in that crap. But she should have clued into that before, when he’d first said that he known she’d come.
Dammit.

She pulled herself out of the funnel cloud of thoughts he’d stirred up in her mind. “What do you mean, you knew I would come?”

He smiled, revealing perfectly white, perfectly human teeth, in a face that was far from completely human, but too sexy to resist.

Sexy? Resist? Had she really thought that?
He’s putting thoughts in my head. He must be.

“Yes, I knew you would come. Your arrival was prophesied. You are Carrier.”

Carrier? Of what? Was there some sort of disease that she carried that she’d bring to these people—creatures—society? “I’m what?”

“You are with child, are you not?”

She scoffed. “Should it surprise me that you know that? It seems every Asazi I’ve run across knows.”

He raised a dark eyebrow, a stark slash on his gray skin. “I do not talk to the Asazi.”

“The woman who was just here,” Marissa countered. “She’s Asazi.”

He shrugged. “She is different.”

Boy, is she ever, with that outfit.
“How can she be different? She looks the same, she has the same skin. How is she different?”

“She does not interact with the Asazi. She is one of mine now.”

“One of your what?”

“One of mine.” He stepped closer, and his nostrils flared.

Marissa slid back, but she was already almost against the wall behind her. It felt like she was going around and around with him, and getting nowhere. “I need to get back to...” What would she call it? “The place where I was.”

“You seem to have been through quite a bit. First let us take care of you, make you better.”

“I’m quite fine.” Marissa swung her legs over the side of the comfortable bed and sprang to her feet—but when she landed on her feet, she immediately collapsed to the floor, landing first on her knees, and then on her palms. Her legs had completely given out on her. Fury at her helplessness mushroomed, threatening to spill out in a scream of pure rage.

She gained control of herself, somewhat. Through a clenched jaw, she asked, “What the hell just happened?”

“Maybe you are not accustomed to the specifics on Kormia? Could it be gravity? Some other kind of force?” Saraz’s tone was innocent, devoid of answers.

Yeah, his tone was too innocent. Way too innocent to buy that act.
“That can’t be. I’ve been here for...” How long had she been here? How long had she been unconscious? “Probably at least a day, I think. It would have happened sooner, wouldn’t it?”

Saraz’s eyes narrowed, ominous black and lime. He snapped his fingers. Two Asazi women ran into the room, both young, and like the other woman, both wearing attire more revealing than not. Loose, diaphanous fabric flowed with every step, clinging to their legs and their bare breasts. Their skin had a light green tinge, and their nipples beneath the opaque fabric were a shade of dark rose, prominent against their green skin. Marissa couldn’t help staring. She wanted to ask why they were dressed like concubine girls from an Arabian harem, but for a change her filter seemed to act before her mouth.

Saraz folded his arms across a broad chest. “Our guest has fallen. She is in need of assistance.” His tone was commandeering; he truly was more sheik than extraterrestrial.

Guest?
She didn’t feel like a guest, especially since she did not want to be here. She took the proffered hands of the young Asazi maidens. They weren’t far from her own age, but their bearing was one of naiveté. They half-carried Marissa and her weak legs to the bed.

“Thank you,” Marissa muttered. “I think I need a doctor.”

“We have no doctors here, Carrier,” one of the maidens responded in a low voice.

Marissa looked at Saraz for confirmation, not sure why she’d trust him to affirm that, or even tell the truth. Yet he nodded, as if it was fact indeed.

What if one of them became sick? Then what? “And if you need a doctor?”

“Why would we?” the other young woman asked.

Marissa was stumped. What kind of place was this where they had no doctors? “If you are attacked by the Kormic?”

The women looked at one another, small smiles playing on their lips, as though they were enjoying a secret. They glanced at Saraz; the same mystical smile was on his face. Then both of the women laughed, a soft, tinkling sound of merriment.

“What’s so funny?” Marissa seethed.

She had to get the hell out of here and find Finn, and ultimately get herself back to Earth, away from this hostile place and these two airheads who thought she was making jokes.

“We are not worried about attack from anyone. Saraz will protect us.”

“Great.” Just great. Now what? She had a pair of useless legs, and Finn was who-knew-where.

Marissa looked at Saraz. “What’s up with this Carrier stuff?”

“You carry Bearer.”

Okay, first she was Carrier, now her baby was Bearer? And none of that meant a thing to her. Maybe she should have asked Finn more about Asazi mythology and history. Then again, he wasn’t much of a believer. “My baby is Bearer? What’s that mean?”

“It is written about in the Sacred Writings,” one of the women answered.

Again, Marissa looked to Saraz for affirmation, though she still had no idea why she would seek his confirmation on any matter.

Saraz nodded.

She sighed. She didn’t even want to ask. She didn’t care. She didn’t want to be here long enough to find out. “I just want to get back home.”

“First.” Saraz put a finger up. “Tell me what a human woman is doing on Kormia with an Asazi TripTip weapon.”

TripTip weapon? That had to be the blade that Nevim had given her. “My—” What was Finn? A boyfriend? Ugh. Was she supposed to call Nevim her boyfriend’s uncle? Was Finn even her boyfriend? They’d never even talked about things like that. She and Finn lived day to day, never thinking or making plans or labeling their relationship. They simply enjoyed each other—and that had a lot of feelings involved. “The uncle of my baby’s father gave it to me.” Gosh, that family line sounded like something from daytime talk shows where they were trying to establish paternity.

“Why did the Asazi banish you without a trial?”

“If you don’t keep up with Asazi, then how do you know that?”

“You would not have been in Midland if you had not been banished. None go there by choice. You left the security of the Asazi for Midland. It had to be because you were banished. So what crime did you commit?” He was talking to her in the simplest of terms, and repeating concepts as if she were a stupid child.

Marissa gritted her teeth at Saraz’s condescending manner and contemplated the idea of lying to him, but she didn’t think she’d get away with that any more than she had anything else since she’d arrived on this godforsaken planet, so why bother? “I killed an Asazi soldier. On Earth. I really thought I was in danger. But they don’t believe in guilty until proven innocent and stuff like that. So they brought me here and then they threw me out.” That summed it up nicely. Now she needed some information herself. “How far are we from where you found me?”

“In terms of distance? Not far. Although it’s almost impossible to reach the spot we found you without the right escort.”

“Why?”

Again with the raised brow. “Roving Kormic, jungle cats, hostile Asazi. Many things would kill you.”

Marissa rubbed her head. This was getting her nowhere. “Who are you? I mean, exactly?”

“I’m Saraz. I am the author of the Sacred Writings. I am god. I am deity. I am forsaken, and unforgiven. I am to live here until I can return to my home.”

Holy shit. What had she stepped into? An alien with a god complex. Un-freaking-believably great. Not! “Look, I don’t know about this god bullshit, but I want to go home. Before I go home, I want to find Finn. That’s it.”

She paused. Froze. Something was happening.

A low drone reverberated throughout her torso the way it did when she was stopped at stoplights in Houston and someone in the car next to her was playing a bass beat that thrummed in her body.

Saraz shook as if he were on a vibrating machine, emitting a low hum. It was like a cat’s purr, but different, lower, deeper. It made her body quiver as if she sitting were on a washing machine that was spinning laundry after the rinse cycle.

His skin turned a darker gray color and undulated. He expanded, shifting, changing, his image shimmering. Marissa backed up, as close to the wall as she could, scooching as much as possible with her virtually useless legs. His robe fell away, revealing a set of wings that had a hook on top, midway between the shoulder and the tip, like a bat’s, but with scales instead of the thin, leathery skin of a bat’s wings. The two maidens fell onto their knees, supplicating, praying, muttering something in another language. Saraz emitted a low roar, then on two legs he approached Marissa.

Marissa tried to keep from trembling, at least where he could see it. What the hell was this creature?

He sat on the bed next to her, and as much as she wanted to fear him, his raw sexuality drew her to him. Not in a way that she wanted, but in a way that seemed uncontrollable, irresistible.