Ultimate Passage: New Beginnings: Box Set ( Books 1-4) (53 page)

T
hane and Ali
were lying on the couch, snuggled in the afterglow. When he raised his head, she looked into his eyes.

“What is it?” she asked him, concerned with the intent look on his face.

“I hear someone. Get dressed, wait in the bedroom.” With that, he scooped her off of him and gently nudged her toward a door before handing Ali her clothes.

She waited behind the door, reminded of earlier when Thane had killed the other Dumarian. She hoped there would be no more of that, but looked around the room for a weapon, if she needed to help him.

She almost laughed at herself for that one. As tall and as muscular and formidable as Thane was, there was no reason to think she could be of assistance to him at all.

The door opened suddenly.

Ali jumped back, scared.

“Thane,” she whispered. “You scared me.”

“Come out, I want you to meet my best friend. Zale, this is Ali.”

She studied the new arrival, who in return studied her.

“Stop sizing each other up.” Thane laughed.

“She’s Asazi.” Zale nodded, as if that answered a question. He put a hand out. “Thane must be very taken with you. To risk so much.”

Ali frowned. That wasn’t exactly the friendliest of greetings. Then again, maybe she shouldn’t be surprised, all things considered.

Zale looked away from her, turned toward Thane. “Brohm is missing. He told others he was coming to see you.”

“He’s dead.” Thane breathed out a deep exhale. “He was going to hurt Ali.”

“How did he die?” Zale studied Thane’s face.

“I had to.” Thane began to pace the room.

“You can’t stay here now. If you are found, and you are together, you will be signing her death certificate.”

“I’m not leaving her.”

“I’m not going anywhere without him,” Ali announced.

Zale ran his fingers through hair that resembled Thane’s way too much. “He will be facing death, if his deeds become known.”

“I am already facing death.” Thane avoided looking at Ali.

“How so?” Zale asked the question that Ali wanted to.

“I was a death-dealer before. I have memories, though they are foggy. I have enemies from those days. I had to kill one already, though I don’t remember my enemies. Maybe you’re right. Maybe I shouldn’t be in her life.”

“The hell you say.” Ali stomped her foot, furious at him for making unilateral decisions. “Memories? Death-dealer? Enemies?”

T
hane sighed
. It was time to let it out. “I have some of my memories of those days.”

“What? That’s not possible.” Zale shook his head. “The compelling is not supposed to fail.”

“And yet it did.”

“What are you talking about?” Ali’s face was a mask of confusion.

Thane summed it up for her as succinctly and as thoroughly as he could.

“So, we really have no memories of our prior lives and jobs when we are placed on Earth,” Thane said.

“And you were… a death-dealer?” Ali’s voice was a whisper. “A trained killer?”

Thane nodded. “And it seems as though those skills are second nature to me now, and I am able to avail myself of them as needed.”

Zale was shaking his head.

He looked down, toying with a figurine on the coffee table.

“You’re not safe anywhere on Earth, then. Not really. Are you?” Ali put her hand on his, stopping him from turning the little statue over and over.

“No. I do not know who my enemies are because my people stole my memories.”

“We gave them the right to do that. That is the nature of being a Brethren assigned to a foreign planet,” Zale said. “It keeps old prejudices and bigotry away and allows us to do our jobs fairly.”

“There is still so much I don’t know,” Ali said. “I don’t understand how the Kormic and Saraz fit into this, and how you fit with them.”

Thane took a few more moments to bring her up to speed.

“Saraz broke the tenets of the Brethren when he procreated with a human. He created the Asazi. Or so we thought.”

Zale broke in. “What do you mean… or so we thought?”

“So you put us and him on Kormia? With those Kormic creatures? Kormic are our enemies. We are always in a battle with them.”

“Untrue.” Thane shook his head sadly. “There was no one on that planet before Saraz and the Asazi.”

“Then what?” Ali said.

“First go back to the ‘we thought’ part,” Zale said.

“Brohm confided to me before he died that the Asazi were his. That the human was his woman and Saraz stole her. And the Kormic are the result of the curse he put on the Asazi. They would create monsters.”

“Brohm actually said that?” Zale looked from Thane to Ali, then back.

“As he was dying.”

“Can we return to the topic at hand? Your lives?”

Thane looked at his best friend. “If we can’t stay on Earth, then what?”

“Finn’s cousin Kal. He can get us back to Kormia,” Ali suggested.

“You will be taken by your people, who believe in Saraz’s crazy prophecy,” Thane said. “No. Absolutely not.”

“It’s better than seeing you dead,” Ali said.

“I have a suggestion.” Zale turned from the window. “I will open a portal for you.”

“Do you know what you are suggesting? What you are risking? If they find out you helped me…”

“I know you are the best friend I’ve ever had.” He glanced at Ali, then turned back to Thane. “The risk is mine to take.”

“Throw a portal,” Thane said.

“Wait a second,” Ali protested. “We will end up just anywhere? Farlands? Midland?” She looked from one man to the other.

“The Elders will take care of us,” Thane reassured her.

“I’m not putting my life in the hands of the Kormic.”

“And putting your life in the hands of your people is much better?” Zale’s sarcasm was palpable.

Thane gave him a look, then turned to Ali. “You’re putting your life in
my
hands. As I would put mine in yours.”

Ali nodded.

“Put the portal up on Kormia, in the Farlands. Coordinates are 46XTKCL2 by 351TK236 by 41228APKTX.”

“What kind of coordinates are those? And shouldn’t it be x by y? Not x by y by z?”

“How experienced are you in the skill of creating portals on other planets?” Thane smiled at her indulgently.

“Point taken. No experience in that.”

“It will put us at the spot where the Elders and I meet,” Thane explained.

Ali drew a deep, ragged breath.

“Don’t worry.” Thane took her hand. “Ready?” he asked Zale.

Zale nodded.

Ali squeezed his fingers.

T
hane hugged Zale
. “I’ll see you.”

“Go back to your home in Argentina. Else they’ll come looking for you. I’ll put a portal up there so we can visit. If I don’t reach out, you do so.”

Ali choked back her tears at their parting words.

Zale crossed his arms over his wide chest, his lips moving silently. A force of energy pushed at Ali, knocking her back toward the wall. Thane rushed forward, catching her before she crashed into the drywall.

“Sorry,” he whispered in her ear. “I forgot that happens when others are around and not braced.”

A portal opened, larger than a door, a shimmering image of energy. On the other side, through the glistening sheer curtain of light, she could see an orange, hazy horizon.

“Kormia.” she pointed. “The Farlands.” It was true. Thane and his kind could open up portals to Kormia.

“You could bring all my people over with these, couldn’t you?”

“The people who would sacrifice you to Saraz?” Thane reminded her.

She sobered immediately. He was right. There was nothing for her with the Asazi people. She would have to find new people. But the Kormic were not the answer.

“Ready?” He took her hand and stepped forward.

“Ready.”

They stepped through the portal. Ali glanced behind her at the vision, at Zale on the other side.

Thane turned around too, nodding to Zale. Zale nodded back, and the portal closed, drawing to a point.

Ali looked around. They were really back on Kormia. The orange and tan colors that prevailed in the Farlands were brilliant. In the distance, a tall mountain range spanned the entire horizon, reminding her that this area was as unyielding and as impenetrable as always. Outcropping rocks and boulders, a ground mostly barren of greenery, save an occasional stubborn and stunted weed.

Sporadic trees with a few runt-sized leaves persevered, defying the harsh environment.

She rubbed her eyes. She was surely seeing things. She had to be.

Six figures approached, rising over a hill, seemingly.

She yanked on Thane’s sleeve. “Look. Oh, by the curses, it’s the Kormic.”

Thane took her hand, stilling her motions. “The Elders. They are my friends. Do not fret.”

Ali stepped closer to Thane without taking her eyes off the approaching tall figures. They were covered from head to toe, their garments crimson and plush. When they were two yards away, they stopped, in sync, without so much as saying a word.

She tried to swallow the lump of fear in her throat, but it was persistent.

“Thane,” The Elders said.

Except they didn’t just speak. They spoke in her head. She wanted to ask Thane about this but couldn’t. She was too afraid of drawing attention to herself.

“You had someone open a portal for you?”

“Yes, Elders. I cannot return to Earth. Not anytime soon. I have… problems there.”

The Elders’ faces were covered by the hoods of their cloaks. “You have brought someone with you.” The timbre of their voices was otherworldly. “She is Asazi. Though she is in human form.”

Ali gasped. How in the name of curses did they know this?

“Yes. She is one of the Asazi.” Thane looked at Ali. “Elders, do you mind… your faces, the hoods, could you remove them?”

The Elders nodded and took hold of their hoods with long fingers, pushing them down and back, away from their faces.

Ali fought and won the battle not to gasp again, but barely. This was the first time she’d seen a Kormic up close.

The spikes on their heads were foreign, as were the other Kormic features, but that which struck her the most was their eyes. They were clouded over with a pure white substance.

“Ali,” Thane began. “These are the Elders. We have been working together since I was assigned. I trust them.”

The Elders nodded. “You need a place to stay, Brethren Thane?”

“I am Thane, simply Thane, no longer of the Brethren. Yes. We have had to run away from Earth. I will catch you up on what I have learned of Saraz and one of our senior Brethren, called Brohm.”

“Let us go,” the Elders proclaimed. They raised their hoods and turned away, beginning a trek up a rocky hill.

Thane tugged on Ali’s hand. “Here we go.”

They picked their way up a path strewn with rocks, careful not to trip and tumble backward. Fifteen yards up, Ali saw the opening to a large cave. She thought she saw movement within.

“Did you see that? There’s something in the cave,” she told Thane.

“Could be their Gostracks.”

Ali had heard stories of their protective Gostrack mounts. She’d even seen a picture of them. Tall and two-legged, they resembled large birds with clunky thighs that ended with their spindly legs and clawed hooves.

She shuddered and questioned the wisdom of her decision. Either Thane felt the shudder or he sensed her apprehension, because he tightened his grip on her hand, looked at her from his spot on the path.

“Don’t worry,” Thane said.

“They were talking in my head,” she whispered.

“That is something they can do. It eases the need to translate.”

“I speak their language. The military. It’s part of our training. To know the enemy’s language.”

He paused mid-step. “You were in the military?”

“There’s so much I haven’t been able to share.” She looked forward to telling him about.

Her mother!

“Thane. My mother—she’s still with the Asazi.”

“Do you think she’d want to join us?”

Ali shrugged. That was a good question. “Maybe. I’m all she has. If we could ask her?”

“We should.”

They arrived at the bottom of the hill.

Several Gostracks with half-helmets on their heads, beaks augmented with metal guards, made their way out of the cave, led by a Kormic man and—

What was that?

“Asazi!” Ali breathed out. “She is an Asazi woman.” She studied the attractive redhead.

The woman walked up, her gaze focused on the Elders. Then she noticed Thane.

The redhead’s face changed. Surprise set in. Then hate.

“Saraz.” She spit the word out and pointed at Thane. She approached slowly. A look of confusion began to make her way across her face. “He is not Saraz,” she said in Kormic. “But he looks like him. Do you know who that is?” She turned to the thickly muscled Kormic man at her side.

He put his arm around her. “Invited by the Elders. We will find out soon enough.”

The Elders drew to a stop in front of the Kormic man and the Asazi woman. “Taya. Barz. We have guests.”

The redhead’s face was serious. “I’m Taya. This is my mate, Barz. Welcome.” She turned her crystalline green-eyed gaze onto Thane. “You. Who are you, one that looks like Saraz?”

“You know Saraz?” Thane asked.

“I was his concubine—captive. For a while.”

“He is the same race as I. Nothing more,” Thane assured her.

Taya turned her focus toward Ali. “You are Asazi. Why are you in human form?”

“Show her who you are.” the Brethren said in Ali’s mind.

“Go ahead,” Thane told her. “Show her. We will not live secret lives anymore. It’s okay.”

Ali morphed into her Asazi skin.

“Welcome.” She thrust forward and hugged Ali. Then she drew back slowly.

She’d felt Ali’s wings.

“You… No… It can’t be. The prophecy. It can’t be true.”

“It isn’t.” Ali reached for her hand. “It is not true. I can’t explain why I am the way I am, but I have nothing to do with a prophecy. Nothing.”

“But… I don’t understand.” Taya turned to the Elders for guidance.

“Like you, Ali will be one of us now. To be treated and revered as all Kormic are.”

Taya nodded, stepped forward and hugged Ali again, careful not to touch her wings, but still hesitant.

“Let us get on our mounts. We will celebrate our guests, the newest citizens in our town.”