Ultimate Passage: New Beginnings: Box Set ( Books 1-4) (45 page)

A
li’s phone vibrated
. She stretched, enjoying the warmth of the sun on her limbs. She unfurled her wings to let the sun caress them, and then looked at the screen. It was Antoinette. Toni, as she preferred to be called. One of her friends. She pressed on the screen to accept the call.

“Ali, we’re going out tonight. You’re off. You’re going.”

That was so typical Toni, telling people what they would do without asking. Toni’s invitations were always phrased as demands. No one minded, because they always enjoyed whatever she had planned.

“Where am I going?”

“The Other Side.” Toni had been talking about going to The Other Side since Ali had met her. She said it was an all-costume kind of place, body paint, exotic, anything went. “Look it up so you can see how to dress.”

“What time?”

“We’ll pick you up at ten.”

After hanging up, Ali took a second to put The Other Side into the browser on her cell phone.

It was a club. Of course, where else would Toni be inviting her? She scrolled through the pages. There was a recurring thing she noticed in all the pictures on the site. It looked like one big a masquerade party. As if the whole club was a masquerade.

She noticed some text at the bottom. Zooming in on it, she read, “Dress code: Formal, fetish, or fantasy.” She tapped through the pictures again. Fairies, animals, body paint, pirates, Vikings, French maids… looked like any costume was acceptable.

She looked down at her skin, shimmering a darker green now. She curled her wings forward, almost embracing herself, and touched her wing tips. She’d fit right in.

And she would be in her own skin.

Ali was born Alithera Grazentiva on another planet, a little more than two of Earth’s decades ago.

Ali was Asazi.

A fact she was still trying fiercely to erase. She stretched, basking the late-morning sun that came through the blinds in her one-bedroom apartment in the American city of Los Angeles in a sunny state named California. This escaped Asazi had found more than refuge on Earth. In her mind, she’d found home.

To Ali’s mind, the only thing she needed to fear was her own kind finding her. Particularly since she was linked to their prophecy about the savior.

In the few months she’d been on Earth, she’d learned everything she could about humans and, specifically, American society, assimilating rather well, she thought.

She embraced appearing as a human now, having left being one of the Asazi far behind, and she would never return to her planet of Kormia.

It wasn’t difficult learning the American ways and languages. Asazi were taught much about Earth in preparation for what they hoped was an inevitable population migration to Earth, long ago their home planet.

Ali had the papers to work, drive, and live in America, thanks to her luck in eavesdropping on a fellow Asazi who’d come to Earth. Though he didn’t know it, she’d overheard Kal talking about the contact information of people who could help her get identification papers.

They were good fake IDs, since they’d enabled her to get a job and begin a new life. There was not much that concerned Ali anymore. She felt comfortably sure that no Asazi were hunting her. She trusted Finn to keep her secret.

She studied her Asazi skin in the subdued morning light. It shimmered a pretty green color, showcasing her happiness. She’d hated her Asazi skin for so long, hated that it would change color with every emotion that passed through her, making it difficult to have a private thought or even to lie, if she were so inclined.

The wings… those were worse. Her hate for them infused her with the energy to escape her home planet and all of the Asazi. If it weren’t for the cursed wings, she wouldn’t have had to leave Kormia.

Asazi women didn’t have wings. They weren’t supposed to. Only the males had wings, and they were born with them.

Except for Ali.

The holiest of prophecies for the Asazi people was that a winged woman would be the mother of their savior.

The Asazi prayed to the god Saraz, the one behind the prophecy that the savior would be the son of a winged Asazi woman and Saraz himself.

For the first twelve years of Ali’s life, all was normal. She played with her friends and was secure in her future. In typical fashion, she had an arranged marriage to an Asazi man named Finn. They were promised at the age of two.

Ali and Finn grew up as the best of friends.

Then puberty hit, and everything fell apart for Ali. When Ali went through puberty, breasts weren’t the only thing that popped out. Her wings sprouted. She went to her mother, crying about the pain in her back, and let her mother look. Her mother saw the wings and cried. From that day on, her mother had bound Ali’s wings, making sure they were hidden.

But still, she felt confident after she and Finn had wed and she told him her secret, Finn would keep her secret safe. She’d be able to have a normal life, children, and a loving husband. She’d never have to reveal that she was a winged freak.

That changed the day Finn told her he was breaking the Binding, and nullifying the betrothal. At first, Ali believed that she’d escaped discovery completely and could live the rest of her life as a spinster, without having to divulge her secret.

Then she heard a rumor from her cousins that her uncles were trying to arrange a new Binding for her. Since she was fatherless, and this was customary amongst the Asazi people, she couldn’t refuse.

She had no interest in being a part of the prophecy of a god she didn’t believe in. There was no such thing as a god, no such thing as Saraz. Ali and her mother managed to hide her wings for a decade, and would have done so longer, but an imminent arranged marriage would have ended it.

The charade would have been up the moment the groom saw her wings. He would have revealed her secret.

That’s when Ali made the decision to leave; she’d just had to wait for the opportunity.

When she saw Finn’s cousin Kal preparing to travel to Earth, she knew what she had to do. She broke Asazi law and left Kormia without permission. Ali stowed away on a transport bound for Earth.

She’d never regretted that decision. She regretted several things in her life, but leaving Kormia was not one of them.

She’d found employment, learning quickly that working in bars enabled her to keep a low profile, make cash, and didn’t raise eyebrows when she quit and moved on. She’d worked in bars in Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico, finally settling in Los Angeles. If things didn’t work out here, her next place to check out would be Las Vegas. But thus far, she’d enjoyed her stay in LA. Something about the name of the city, Los Angeles. The Angels. Angels had wings, and symbolically, it appealed to Ali. For now.

She’d assimilated to the American culture rapidly, embracing all parts of it, enjoying it fully. The only thing that was difficult to enjoy, and more so than she would have thought, was sex. She couldn’t have sex without her wings unfurling. As soon as she came close to an orgasm, her ability to remain in her human form vanished. Her skin began its shimmering, her wings unfurled, glorious in their diaphanous display.

She masturbated in front of the mirror several times, just to watch her wings unfurl. She would never be able to climax with a human. The thing she could never forget when she’d come to Earth, before leaving the Asazi compound, was not to let the humans know the Asazi existed. If they found out, they’d put her deep underground in a laboratory. She believed that now, having seen countless shows on their television networks about aliens. She knew that’s what she was to them. An alien. Ugh. She hated that word.

She’d never had sex or even masturbated on Kormia. Asazi had no sex drive. Not on Kormia. When she’d arrived in America, things went haywire. Her sexual desires were off the charts, but other than one sexual experience with Finn, she’d remained untouched. Ali could not afford to be discovered; not on Kormia, and not on Earth, either.

No sex meant she could have no relationships—at least not the kind that would lead to sex. So she had friendships, and if she needed sexual release, she self-satisfied.

Ali sighed, remembering her first and only experience. One she regretted. She should not have seduced Finn. He was in love with another woman, and seducing him while he was asleep left Ali feeling ashamed. She’d violated their friendship when she did that. No amount of sexual curiosity or desire justified what she’d done to him. And she had been a bitch to his woman, Marissa.

She pushed the memories away. They were easier to deal with by not thinking about them.

T
hane would have said
thank god the meeting was over, because he was tired of Asia, mountaintops, and Himalayan tea, but he didn’t believe in god. Not the kind of god that humans did. He wondered if
he
would be considered a god by humans still. Centuries ago, the American natives used to think so. Humans were more sophisticated now in terms of technology, and far less believing in terms of faith.

“I’m ready to get the hell out of Burma.” Thane took off the customary Brethren robes they all wore to the meetings.

“It’s Myanmar, now,” Zale said.

“Who cares? I don’t know how many times I have to keep relearning the new names for old countries. Enough already.” Thane hung the robe in the tiny closet in the room he was assigned to use every time they returned. The room was smaller than the smallest bathroom in Thane’s Los Angeles penthouse apartment. “And Brohm’s fixation with Himalayan tea… really? When does he want to join us in this century? Anyway, no matter what he does or thinks, none of us are going to think the way he does. I’m not interested in emulating his ways.” Thane cocked a brow at Zale. “Are you?”

“Why would I be?” Zale folded his arms over his chest, his shoulders broad, his dark scales shimmering. Beneath the robe, Zale’s wings moved, making waves in the fabric.

Zale was there to say goodbye. With the meeting over, all of the Brethren would be flying out, taking wing toward their respective countries. Thane was ready to leave Brohm’s home behind.

“He still creeps me out.” Zale kept his voice low.

Thane didn’t need Zale to tell him who “he” was. Brohm. Most senior of the Brethren. “Keep your voice down,” Thane advised. If Zale pissed Brohm off, who knew what repercussions Brohm would wreak on him? “I can’t imagine tolerating these meetings without you. Still coming for a visit next month?”

Zale’s territory was down south. Way south. Argentina. “Looking forward to it. Your grasp on the American idioms and slangs is impressive.” He cast an envious glance at Thane. “I’d be open to a reassignment.”

“You’re just jealous because I have Los Angeles.” Thane laughed, though he knew better. Zale enjoyed his retreat in Argentina. Zale didn’t mind humans, but he didn’t necessarily seek out their company.

“I’m out.” Thane opened the window and looked out over the forested greenery below, thousands of feet to the gorge that was thickly treed.

The monastery was built into the mountain’s unclimbable face, clinging to the rocky, tree-covered surface like a cat clings to a tree’s bark as it scales higher, defying gravity and the odds of falling into the deep gorges below. Brohm had selected his home well. Visitors would have a hard time coming here. As would enemies. Unless they were winged, Thane noted, spreading his own hooked black wings, fully converted to his saural form.

The sun had set, dusk was on its way out, giving him the dimness he’d need to fly over the gorge and the villages, skirting mountaintops and freezing until he finally reach the hotel in Mumbai. Then he could get on a flight and head home to Los Angeles. Flying halfway around the world sucked.

H
e’d just flown in
, still in his saural form, at home in his luxurious penthouse apartment, comfortable and warm, Thane looked in the mirror, converting, his bones narrowing, his scales receding behind human epidermis. His wings folded and slid under the skin. He studied his human form.

“Handsome devil.” He adjusted his tie, smiled at his reflection, then quickly sobered as the age-old questions came back to him.
Was
he a devil? Was he a demon? Was he an angel? He had no memory of ever being anything but a death-dealer, and then a Brethren.

When he’d asked Zale about it, Zale said he had no memories of home either.

All Dumarians located on Earth had been compelled to forget their pasts before being initiated as Brethren. Something went wrong with Thane, though, because he remembered being a death-dealer. He’d never shared his memories with anyone, not even Zale. When Thane asked Zale if he remembered anything from his days prior, Zale said he remembered nothing. So Thane kept his secret.

But Thane had questions, and he felt sure that Brohm had the answers, but something about Brohm made Thane suspicious. He wasn’t going to go to Brohm for answers. He didn’t trust him.

“Fuck it,” Thane commented to his reflection. “Fuck it.” He’d become quite accustomed to the American slang and ways. Too accustomed, if he were to tell the truth. He enjoyed this time better than he’d enjoyed any other. He fit in comfortably, more than any other location in any other century.

He was meeting some of his human friends at The Other Side. With The Other Side’s rigid dress code—fetish, fantasy, or formal—Thane could enter without converting and fit right in. Or he could wear a business suit, specially provided by Zale’s favorite Italian tailor.

The fetish part wasn’t necessarily Thane’s flavor, though he did enjoy the view when the ladies paraded their attire and accessories, particularly if the attire was body paint.

I
t was
after midnight when Thane went to the rooftop of his apartment building, converted into his saural form and took off toward The Other Side.

Cab? Who needs a cab when you have wings?

Fifteen minutes later, he alit on the rooftop of a building not far from The Other Side, converted into his human skin, and adjusted his suit with its customized slits for his wings. He took the stairs to the elevator on the fourteenth floor, then the elevator the rest of the way down. A block later, he encountered the crowd that composed the line waiting to get into The Other Side. The clubbers wore body paint, some in the forms of animals, some as painted-on lingerie. In addition to those in body paint, there were a few furries, some elves, a sexy wicked witch. Many of the men wore suits, though a few opted for Viking attire, barbarian loin cloths, and even firefighter gear.

Within moments, he was in front of The Other Side. The bouncer waved Thane in, without checking his ID and indifferent to the fact that the line outside stretched around the block. Thane was VIP. He should be; he was friends with the managers, Brad and Calder.

What neither Brad nor Calder knew: The Other Side was owned by Thane.

The club wasn’t too packed, even though the law would allow more. They didn’t like patrons to have to elbow each other, crush props, or rub off body paint.

Thane made his way toward Brad and Calder’s reserved table. One of the waitresses saw him, waved then approached. Heather… that’s what he thought her name was. Maybe. Hell, he wasn’t sure, it could be Hannah. She was in body paint, and that was it. Her entire body painted a rich, vivid orange with black stripes. A set of tiger ears perched on top of her head. The staff had the option to wear any of the dress code.

The waitress leaned in and kissed him on the cheek, her paint-covered breast landing on his arm.

“Hey.” Her voice was high-pitched and grating. “The usual?”

He nodded. Alcohol had no effect on his system. Some sort of immunity. It was the same for all the Brethren. It was no different than drinking water. He joined Brad and Calder. They were surrounded by the usual groupies, regular club girls looking for free drinks, bartering sex for alcohol and a good time.