Charged - Book One (23 page)

KYE WOKE ME around seven-thirty and the coffee was
already made. The feeling of her was gone, so I closed my eyes and
reached for her emotionally and it was like a wall was up. I was
unable to find her, even though she was in the room with me. She
let out a light laugh.

“Later,” she said, smiling.

“I don’t know if you can digest this,” she said,
handing me the coffee as I sat up in the bed, “so be careful. It
will cause a lot of pain if you ingest something that isn’t
compatible with your body. Take small sips at first.”

She seemed in a hurry to get out of the room, but she
still leaned over and kissed my lips lightly.

“Everything okay?” I said.

“Danel just woke up.”

This explained everything for me, but I was curious
why I didn’t feel him. I didn’t want to reach out to him and I was
assuming that their bond was closer than I wanted it to be. I
wondered if she knew where he was at every moment and if he knew
the same about her.

I knew Danel would pissed. He was always pissed off
about something, but I couldn’t stop staring at Kye. With my new
eyes, she was absolutely stunning. Her translucent silvery skin now
had a blue hue to it, or rather I could see the blue and green hues
in it now. I grabbed her gently and pulled her down on top of me
and she acquiesced.

“Tell me now: do you want to be with him?”

“No.” There was no hesitation in her answer. Her
answer was definite, but she was clearly not telling me
something.

She gave me a smile, kissed my neck and left with no
further explanation. I jumped out of the bed with a renewed energy,
consumed two pounds of alien vegetables in the fridge and tried the
strong black coffee. It smelt great and went down smoothly. Maybe I
could consume both foods. I would have to look into this further.
Suddenly, I could feel Danel. He was moving this way towards my
suite and he wasn’t hiding his emotions.

“You don’t know what you’re doing,” hesaid, coming
right through the door.

I stood up just to intimidate him. I hovered over him
at least six inches taller.

“Jealous?” I said, grinning ear to ear. He knew that
Kye was with me all night. I wondered for a second if it kept him
up and the thought pleased me even more.

He stood there looking up at me, shocked at my
growth. Apparently, he wasn’t keeping an eye on me like Kye was.
Nope, he wasn’t; he was hoping I would die. I could feel this. I
could feel his utter disdain for me.

Politely, I motioned for him to sit down with me. To
show him that even a Neanderthal, as he would say, could be
civilized.

He sat down first, then I sat down, sipping my
coffee. I could feel Ben’s emotions inside of me, more compassion
for the very thing that considered killing me and then begged me to
try and save his people. Emotionally, Danel was unstable. I
couldn’t really blame him, could I? I was about to take his
companion away, someone who had been there for him for the last
ninety-seven years since his wife had died. I had no doubts he was
attached to Kye and if he broke the rules to make her, he would
break the rules to keep her, too.

“She doesn’t want to be with you. She’s not your
captive anymore,” I said. Yes, I was calm, but my words were like
knives. I could’ve chosen a nicer way to say this, but he had
already put a gun in my face, so why bother?

“She was never meant to be a captive!” he snarled at
me. It was obvious he was not used to people talking to him this
way.

Meant to be
. The confirmation that she was in
some way a prisoner stung me and I let my anger slide across my
face, hiding nothing, but I kept my voice calm.

“You considered killing me. Is it because I would
take her away?”

“Check your own memories! Your people slaughtered
mine!”

“Not my people. That was five thousand years
ago.”

“Ben, I know you’re in there and why did you do
this—”

“My name is Lewis!” I said, interrupting him. For a
second, I thought he’d lost his mind, like Ben was just going to
take over my body and start talking to him. Then I realized that I
didn’t know if that was possible, so I tried to stay calm. At the
very least, he was trying to overwhelm me with past memories and I
wasn’t going to let him control the situation. Ben’s memories
pressed forward in my head, along with his emotions. I could feel
his compassion for this thing in front of me. Suddenly, I felt an
overwhelming urge to comfort him, but I didn’t. I was almost
disgusted at the thought. Successfully, I shoved it all aside.

I saw others crowding around the door that Danel had
left open. Most of them were curious and wanted to see what was
impossible, what had never happened before. They wanted to see me.
I went over politely and motioned for them to give us a minute and
closed the door softly. Even though I knew they felt everything we
were feeling, or could if they wanted to. I tried to shut my
emotions off for a moment. But before I could turn around, he was
violently throwing me against the wall. He had me pinned. He was
much stronger than I anticipated. He had his right arm jammed under
my neck and his full weight behind it. I just looked down at him
and smiled to toy with him and then I gave him a hard push across
the room.

I didn’t use all my strength. Even though he had
considered killing me in the control room when he had my gun
pointed in my face. I still didn’t want to kill him. I wanted to
hurt him, but not kill him.

“You think you can just come down here and take
over!” he yelled, getting up off the floor.

“You think I asked for this? You could’ve warned
me!”

Now my anger was consuming me and he was coming back
for more. He grabbed me by the shoulder and threw me sideways onto
the coffee table, which smashed into pieces. Unfortunately for him,
he let me get back up. I charged at him, grabbing him by the waist
and attempted to squeeze the life out of him while he swung
repeatedly at my head, causing no real damage. I squeezed his sides
tighter and tighter until he stopped swinging. I could feel the
panic rising in him. He was strong, but old. Stamina had left him
long ago. After a few moments, I let him drop to the ground and
stood over him. He sat there, gasping for air like I’d crushed
something.

“Are we done?” I said, calmness returned to my
voice.

“She won’t be with you.”

“She doesn’t love you,” I said.

“You have no idea what you’re saying. She needs
me.”

He let a grimace slide across his face and the
confidence in his statement alarmed me a little. I thought about
what he could possibly be holding over her. Maybe he could order
her to be terminated, like Ben did the others. I didn’t know at
this point, but I could sense affirmation in him. After he gained
some composure he stood up glaring at me like this was my plan all
along. And I did plan to take Kye away from him and he wasn’t going
to change that.

“You lied to us. And don’t think for one moment that
I didn’t see you hesitate in the control room. You kept Kye from
telling Aaron and me about those things. And you really hoped that
absorbing Ben would kill me. Gee, Danel, who should really be
pissed, here?” I said glaring at him. “I can feel all of your
feelings; don’t bother denying it.”

“You brought the device back,” he said.

“Inadvertently. Everything
you
did was on
purpose.” And this was the sad truth.

After Aaron came rushing through the door, Danel got
up and left, shaking his head. But it wasn’t defeat that filled
Danel. I could feel everything about him and everything in the
aliens beyond the door. But I felt something else from Danel: it
was despair. Not just for himself, but for Kye and me. So I let him
leave. Now I was more than confused.

“Wow,” Aaron said, looking up at me.

“I’m still me, Aaron.”

“By the looks of this place, I’d say yes, you are and
you still have a temper, too.”

“I just want Kye and me to be together.”

“Well, good thing you took your time easing into the
situation.”

“He attacked me, Aaron!”

He took a deep breath. As the others waited patiently
outside the door, wondering what would happen next, I felt all of
their confusion. Why was Danel so angry with me? Why would he
attack me? Why had I changed when so many others had died? I tried
to stay with Aaron in the moment, but their emotions were
overwhelming.

“Lewis, they have lost half their people on this
ship, including two elders. They may be a little out of sorts right
now and you’re not making it any easier.”

“One of those creatures almost killed me. If only you
knew what I knew. They didn’t come here to take their ship. That
was a lie. They came here for revenge and the elders know why.”

Aaron looked shocked and frustrated. Suddenly, I felt
foolish. I was acting like this was all about me. I didn’t even ask
about Jessica. Quickly, I changed gears.

“How is Jessica?”

His expression changed and softened a little.

“She’s okay. But she lost two sisters, three
brothers, her father. Lew, there’s only two elders left on this
station. The others outside your door are from Station Ten. The
only elders left from this ship are Danel and a female named Alma,
who is dying.”

This struck me in a place so deep I almost fell over.
Alma, my lifemate, my wife, the mother of my children. Ben was now
present in a way I’d never felt him before. I grabbed the chair and
almost collapsed into it.

“Where is she?”

CHAPTER 43

THE AGONY WAS UNBEARABLE. My heart was broken in a
way I’d never felt before for a female who I’d never known. But in
my mind I knew her better than anyone else in my life. All of Ben’s
memories were rushing over me. Even though he hadn’t controlled my
body so far, he was wreaking havoc on my emotions.

The others surrounding the door had backed up a few
paces, as if I’d dragged them straight into my heart to feel all of
my pain. Two actually left the hallway, walking swiftly in any
direction away from me and my feelings. Kye was reaching out to me;
I caused her alarm with my pain and she was drawing closer and
closer to me in a rushed, panicked manner.

“Lew, you okay?” Aaron now looked alarmed and sat
next to me as I put my face in my hands and tried to ignore Ben’s
grief. I was unsuccessful again and tears began welling up in my
eyes. I needed to get mad, I thought, to make this go away. I was
unable to decipher which emotions were mine. I tried to sift
through them and separate them, but nothing helped; the agony felt
exactly like when I found Mother. My heart felt like it had been
ripped from my chest and they weren’t even my memories. The grief
was agonizing and I couldn’t move.

Then a violent pain shot across my forehead and
focused behind my eyes, like my own brain was stabbing them from
within. I stopped fighting the emotions, but it didn’t make the
pain go away. I grabbed my head, grunting in pain and I could hear
Aaron asking me what was wrong, but I couldn’t respond. All the
muscles in my body contracted with pain, making it impossible to
breathe anything but short, rapid breaths and I felt my body hunch
over and fall to the ground.

Ben’s memories pushed forward and I could remember
the agreement that he had made with Danel. Danel would absorb Ben’s
essence if anything happened to him, or Ben would absorb Danel. It
was the only way because Alma was sick, too sick to survive a
merge. And I robbed Danel of this, of his duty.

Suddenly, something brushed up against my emotions
aggressively, which shocked my whole body. It was Kye. The soft
humming that was there last night was now like some invisible force
lifting me off the ground and then dropping me. Then the pain
stopped, but I could feel it starting to creep slowly back in. I
tried to slow my breathing and curled into a ball on the floor,
preparing for the next wave of pain that was growing more intense
in my head.

Kye rushed up to me and put her hands on my temples
and shushed me to be quiet. Slowly, a low orange glow radiated from
her hands. I couldn’t see anything but the orange light inside of
my head. When the knife-like pain finally dissipated, the glow left
and Kye was staring me in the face.

“Are you okay?”

“Yes, I think so.” My vision started clearing and I
sat up gradually.

“What happened?”

“I don’t know. There was this pain in my head, like
both my eyes had been torn out. I was trying to control what I was
feeling. I mean, what Ben was feeling.”

“You’re fighting it too much. Separation from elders’
emotions can’t be fast.”

“I thought I was the only one who survived?”

“You are… the only human, yes.”

“Then how do you know this?”

“It’s what happens every time they made a companion
for the elders. I have felt exactly what you’re feeling.”

“I thought they couldn’t merge unless they were
dying.”

“It’s different. With a companion, they merge with us
mentally. It feels as if your mind is going to explode.”

“Then why do it, if they’re not dying?” I was totally
confused now.

“So we love them. So we don’t reject them. So we are
loyal.”

This was not the response I was expecting and I grew
mad at Danel again.

“This was a long time ago, Lewis. Things have changed
now and in the end, it was to their own demise. It cost them a lot
more than you know. And maybe they can force our love for them, but
they can’t control our love for others.”

I searched Ben’s memories. There were genetic
experiments and large numbers of females dying that were somehow
connected to their hybrids. Something had gone wrong, but I pushed
them out of my mind quickly. I didn’t want the pain to return.