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112 pages

English

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Continue the journey in DARKTIDE.

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Publié par	Distributed by eBookpartnership
Date de parution	01 juillet 2022
Nombre de lectures	1
EAN13	9798612379041
Langue	English
Poids de l'ouvrage	2 Mo

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Copyright © 2020
Hot Pancakes Ltd
www.hotpcakes.com
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
CHAPTER ONE

W e tumbled through flashing, fracturing colors. The force tore at my body, viciously tugging every molecule inside me. I felt as if I were unraveling like a ball of yarn. My hearing bled into my vision, the rushing wind screaming as the searing light grew brighter.
The Gate Maker, Inkarri, and Dorian fell beside me, tumbling through the chaos. The only thing that kept me from panicking was the solid feeling of a hand in mine.
Dorian .
We clung fiercely to one another, a sweet reminder that we were so much stronger without the pain of the curse. The stinging rainbow abruptly darkened, the world whistling shrilly as I struck the ground and sank like a heavy anchor. The Gate Maker panted in exhaustion, but the ground swallowed us in a split second. I sank into darkness and snapped my mouth shut to hold my breath. My fingers found a top layer of arid dirt and grass as I scrabbled for the surface again. Unable to breathe from the pressure on my chest, I started to panic until I burst through the surface with sand in my mouth.
The Gate Maker and Dorian surged from the ground a few feet on either side of me. Dorian dragged Inkarri behind him. Beneath us, the earth gave a terrible shudder. An explosion of energy rocked the dirt as the portal collapsed below us.
I yanked myself out of the sinkhole, feeling sand work its way into my clothing. Grains of sand bit painfully into the raw skin on my hand, a burn from holding Lanzon’s scorching hot stone for too long after it had absorbed an immense amount of magic. The Gate Maker and Dorian had already flopped on their backs, coughing to clear their airways.
We’d made it. My disbelieving eyes found a cloudless blue sky above us. Home . The scorching sun shone down upon us. It was utterly surreal. Everything was clear and bright. None of the landscape in the distance rippled. Nothing threatened to suddenly test my sanity.
Actually, the landscape was almost too bright, too jagged. After only a moment or two, I could barely keep my eyes open, and not because I’d been awake for over twenty-four hours. We had successfully escaped the sanitarium after releasing the captive vampires and hunted down the Gate Maker in the caves without once stopping to rest. I whispered an internal thanks to my body for its strength.
Still, my throat burned from thirst, and a deep hunger gnawed my belly. It had to have been nearly six hours since I drank the last drop of water from my pack’s canteen. I’d been lucky enough to find a hydration tablet and half a protein bar in the bottom of my bag during our ride to the Restless Desert on the skimmer. My head throbbed in unison with my cracked ribs. I’d have to be gentle with my movements. The effects from the vampire blood were long gone.
The Gate Maker let out a weary sigh. I looked over just in time to see his body begin to shrink and wither from his humanoid form to a slender, red-brown snake. The violet eyes turned toward me. He stuck out a forked tongue as he slithered up my arm to drape over my shoulders. I raised my eyebrows in question to Dorian, but he was busy surveying the area. Maybe the Gate Maker preferred a human, after his experience with the Immortal Plane, or it was my sparkling personality and Dorian’s lack of trying to be pleasant. It was growing difficult to think of him as “the Gate Maker.” It felt more dignified than someone currently crawling up my arm deserved, like a title rather than a name. But since he’d refused to share his true name with us, “Gate Maker” was the best I could manage.
“I haven’t done that for more than nine hundred years,” Gate Maker muttered. “I wasn’t able to align our arrival to the surface. Although some of us seem less than bothered.” His tail gestured to Inkarri, who remained unconscious, though Dorian had dragged her free of the sinkhole. Sand clung to the edges of her mouth.
Dorian glanced at the snake irritably. “Yes, I noticed the landing was off.” The exhaustion and frustration radiated off him. “Snakes don’t talk in the Mortal Plane, by the way. You’d better keep quiet if you see any humans.”
Gate Maker said nothing, merely tasting the air with his serpent tongue. It’d be easier if they could play nicely together, but we’d just had a chaotic journey through time and space. I expected more from Dorian, though.
Shielding my eyes, I tried to get a sense of where we had landed. Low hills surrounded us, all of them a similar dry brown with occasional pockets of green. Below us lay a neighborhood of fancy white stucco houses, with aquamarine pools and lush gardens. If there was a drought, the wealthy were oblivious to it. The sight of water made my mouth even drier. From the landscape and architecture, I guessed we were probably somewhere in the southwest.
Someone coughed violently behind me, gagging.
“You,” Inkarri snarled. I turned to see her spit dirt to the ground. She wiped her mouth. “What’s going on?” Her eyes darted from me to Dorian, then to a landscape totally alien to her. She jerked at her bindings and grimaced as she inhaled. Did she feel as discomforted by this place as I had when I first arrived in the Immortal Plane? Gate Maker watched her, his eyes narrowed to slits.
“You’ll regret this,” Inkarri growled, a rattle in her throat. “You’re no match for my father. I’m one of his most valued assets, with years of resources invested in me. He will do anything to get me back, just wait and see.” Her eyes flashed with the same rage I’d seen in Irrikus, except her fury was fiery where he was icy. Her gaze settled on Dorian. “And you, leech -”
“Stop,” I snapped at her. Some restraint, some strand of patience snapped inside me. I’d chosen caution with Inkarri in the Immortal Plane, but the game had changed. “You’re not making the rules anymore; you’re in my world now. I suggest you get used to the idea of being at another’s mercy. My mercy is a better fate than you deserve, but if you prefer death we’d be happy to oblige. Do you understand your situation?”
I glared at her. Fury pricked like hot needles all over my body. The audacity of Inkarri, tied up on the ground, to make demands and threaten us.
“I understand you think you have the upper hand.”
I exhaled slowly. “I would suggest you choose your next words carefully.”
Nobody spoke. Gate Maker remained perfectly still; Dorian stared. Inkarri was blissfully silent, forced to accept powerlessness for possibly the first time in her life.
Finally, Dorian’s lips twitched into a smirk, revealing extended fangs. He was responding to the darkness of Inkarri’s presence but managing well enough for now.
“Lyra’s mercy shouldn’t be pushed,” he said. “I’d be grateful for it, if I were you.” It was nice to have something over a ruler for once. Inkarri could make her choice, but her options were limited.
“You’d better go along quietly with our plans,” I told her. “In the Mortal Plane, we are your only chance of survival. Most of the authorities here have no knowledge of your homeland. They’d take one look at your blue skin and hair and assume you’re insane. Once they realize you’re not, you’ll be referred by the Bureau to some government lab to be studied or dissected.”
Inkarri glowered at the serpent Gate Maker for a moment before her lips curled into a look of disgusted defeat. “Fine,” she said tightly. “I’ll cooperate, but I’m not lying when I say I’m a valuable asset to my father. There will be a time when he requires me again, and he will find a way to get me back. It’s not a matter of if, it’s a matter of when.”
Her tone was haughty, but there was a hollowness to it. Her vibrant skin and hair were seeming to fade now she was disconnected from her home plane. A flicker of fear swam beneath the proud surface of her eyes. Seeing that emotion brought me a momentary burst of pleasure, after seeing Inkarri wield her power so abusively. But… I imagined telling an enemy that my father would rescue me because I was a valuable resource, not because he cared. What a sad life.
Dorian ran his hand through his hair, dislodging dirt and sand. “What’s our next step, Lyra? We’re in your territory.”
Good question. I could barely think straight as I stared down at the luxurious neighborhood. Palm trees waved as if saying hello.
I tried to count the days we’d been gone, but there was no way to tell. The events of our adventure blurred together in my mind. We were all exhausted. There wasn’t much hope of moving on if we couldn’t procure supplies and a place to rest. My eyes swept over Dorian’s face, worn but still handsome despite the sand and dried blood marring his forehead. It broke my heart to see him so drained. It didn’t help that he’d been standing next to Inkarri all this time. I could tell from the way he avoided looking at her that he was starting to struggle. We both knew that he needed to resist. She wouldn’t survive being fed on and we would have brought her all this way for nothing.
We needed to get back to civilization.
I dug through the pack until I found the emergency beacon given to each of us before the mission. I flicked the switch on the bottom and smiled as the rod glowed blue. There was some good news, at least.
“The Bureau facilities will pick up the signal,” I told Dorian when I saw him staring at the beacon. “Pretty impressive for a stick, huh? They can coordinate a rescue once they pinpoint our location.” I flicked my tongue along my dry bottom lip, thinking of water. Hopefully, the Bureau was available to rescue us and wasn’t busy fighting off revenants. We had no idea whether they’d gone to the VAMPS camp or Moab.
I fastened the beacon to a loop on my weapon belt, a gift f