Crystal Tomb (Starfire Angels: Dark Angel Chronicles Book 3) (34 page)

{"I know too little of his condition.
If we lose this one, we start over."}

And this man refused to cooperate in
any way. He would take his knowledge to the grave to protect the
others conspiring with him to keep the secret of the Eye. Nakor
Surik's torture had gone too far.

He had to make a choice.

{"If the Inari can heal him, we might
have a chance,"} Lorel said.

Damn her insistence. His
spikes shifted along his neck and he forced himself to calm control
again. The idea of losing the Inari meant the loss of his chance to
take control from the Nakor. The loss of the human might be as bad,
if the Inari knew nothing about the Eye and the monolith said
nothing about the
D'Nuvar.

Nakor Surik might have failed them
chasing after shadow assumptions.

Rikku
Ronur Kalas would steal the honor for saving the human and the
possibility of reclaiming a shard of the crystal.

{"His heart stopped!"}

Damn.

Kalas whirled, his weapon gripped
securely. They had one chance now. "Move, Inari." With his free
hand, he motioned the guards to surround them. "Hurry."

In an act that went against every
fiber of his body, Kalas turned his back and raced ahead through
the corridors, trusting the guards to keep up and keep their
attention on the prisoner. He led them to the door of the room
where the human was held and shoved it open.

"Torres!" Elis hurried past him into
the dim room to where Lorel knelt over the body of the human lying
unconscious on the floor. There, he fell to his knees and placed
his hands over the human, black wings lifting from his
back.

The marks glowed but Kalas restrained
himself from firing. At the lifting of weapons beside him, he put
out a hand. Not yet. The Inari aimed his hands at the human, not
them, and this was supposed to be another of his abilities because
of the symbiosis, according to what Lorel had said. Apparently
she'd talked to him more than they knew. How much had she told
him?

After several seconds, the glow of the
Inari's hands subsided and he fell back, a hand to his head. "It's
all I can do."

Lorel pressed a finger to the human's
neck. "He's alive." In a moment that returned Kalas's uneasy
feeling stirring about the xenobiologist, she smiled at the Inari.
"Thank you."

In the dim light, Inari eyes went
cold. "Don't. I didn't do this for you." His words lashed with
bitterness.

Kalas caressed the trigger of his
weapon with his finger.

Lorel said nothing, but looked up at
him.

The Inari's wings lifted and tightened
to his back, which straightened. He stared at one of the human's
hands, which he had turned over. A few seconds later, he set it
down gently, and fixed a dark glower on Lorel.

Kalas lifted his weapon a second
before the Inari stood and whirled, and stumbled from
weakness.

"You!" Elis growled the words through
clenched teeth, black wings rising with the anger in his posture,
but he stopped short at the threat of the weapon aimed at
him.

"Where's the Eye?" Kalas
demanded.

Nothing, but shadows shifted along
those cheeks and those eyes narrowed in a defiant look. He knew
something.

"Tell me." The trigger would be easy
to pull and end his frustrations, but it would gain him nothing
except the satisfaction of killing one more.

Elis's lips pressed
together.

An alarm rang out, startling him. No.
Not now. He was so close to learning what the Inari knew, but he
would be needed if this was a real emergency.

{"Stay with them."} The guards stepped
into the room and he closed the door behind him. He would never let
the Inari go now or risk his death. Elis was the key to finding the
crystal and gaining dominance. No more Nakor.

No more Inari.

When All Hell Breaks Loose

Black spots smoked on the cement
behind her.

Raea caught her breath. That was
close. Way too close.

They'd found the place easy enough.
The vision had shown her the reverse route she'd taken to lead them
to the metal dome in the fenced hill by what appeared to be a small
house but had actually been access with a stairway. Nare had been
able to manipulate the locks through the Starfire energy, similar
to how Elis had described hacking the school computer to get into
Pallin's records. One day Raea would learn that trick, but not
today.

The trouble came with the first shots
after they opened the door. Nare had taken out the Risaal guard but
not before he'd apparently contacted the others with a
warning.

They'd barely ducked around the corner
when the Risaal fired from somewhere ahead. Their camouflage
abilities made it impossible to separate them from the
background.

"You weren't kidding!" Nare blinked,
holding her hand with the crystal clutched to her chest and her
other out and glowing in readiness. They hadn't taken the time to
wrap the shard for wearing.

"Ready?"

Nare opened her hand briefly and
glanced at the shard in her palm. A second later, she closed her
fingers and nodded.

The resonance warmed through Raea,
igniting the Starburst marks on her hands. She whirled around the
corner, releasing the energy in a wide spray, her wings tight to
her back. No Risaal could have been missed.

But it wasn't enough to stop a shot
from one of their attackers. Luckily, it went too high, missing her
head by more than a foot.

She disrupted the resonance as Nare
joined her, and together they sprinted through the corridor, past
two hideous bodies smoking on the ground. Raea didn't recognize
where they were. She hadn't been down that part in their escape. At
a cross corridor, they hesitated.

"Which way?"

Good question. Raea poked her head
around a corner, her heart racing with the wish that they could
hide from both directions. Nare pressed to the wall next to her
rather than taking up position on the other side to defend her
back. Hadn't she watched any movies? The bad guys always came from
the back when the good guys weren't looking.

"Full spray both directions on my
mark." Nare might not know much about fighting, but Raea couldn't
have done this alone.

"Now!" The resonance burning through
her with a thought, Raea jumped into the corridor and dropped to
one knee while Nare whirled to face behind them. The spray of
energy from her hands washed over the corridor ahead but nothing
moved.

Sweat beaded on her forehead, but the
instant disruption of the resonance left her chilled. The doors
spaced along the corridor looked familiar. "This way." At least she
hoped that was the right way. Both directions looked the
same.

* * *

{"…Two Inari females."}

Kalas froze in the
corridor, Lorel catching up behind him, apparently having left the
Inari with the guards.
Two
females? He must have heard wrong. {"Please repeat
that last."}

{"We're being attacked by two Inari
females, one of them resembling the one known as Raea."}

Raea. She was back! The only thing
that could have made it better was if three of their soldiers had
survived their encounters. Why had they returned? Was it for her
mate, or something else?

There was a way to gain
answers.

{"Pull back to the central chamber. Do
not kill them. We need Raea alive."}

{"What about the other
one?"}

What about her? She might
prove useful, but she didn't possess the shard of the
D'Nuvar
. {"Injure only.
Keep them from escaping. Order all to pull back. Lure them into the
chamber."} There, they would trap the Inari.

He turned, intending to order her back
to the male to incapacitate him.

Nothing but empty corridor. Where had
she gone?

She should have waited for his
orders.

It could wait. He had no intention of
releasing that over the link and risking Nakor Surik
knowing.

The guards would keep Elis from
escaping, killing him if necessary.

Kalas hurried to the control room to
await the arrival of his captives. Soon, he would have his
answers.

* * *

Elis glanced up at his guards, but
they had disappeared into the background, except for their weapons.
He'd never have a chance to escape, even if he had one less guard
because of the alarm.

Maybe he could get his hands into
position, but he'd have only one shot to hit both at once, and then
they might still get him in the split second it took to aim and
release the energy.

There would be others, busy or not,
outside that door. He'd have to be quick.

Not going to work, especially while he
was less than full strength. And he couldn't leave Torres. The man
needed nourishment and medical treatment. The Risaal had physically
abused him; it showed in the scabs on his face and hands and the
tears in his clothing. The healing had helped, but the body needed
more; the Starfire energy repaired not replenished. For that, the
man would have to eat and drink.

Think.
Elis would have to take out the guards, carry Torres,
and
defend against other
Risaal in the corridors. He was in no condition to accomplish all
that. Still, one way or another, he had to get the protector
somewhere safe, where the Risaal would never find him and the
secret of the Eye. He didn't even know where to take Torres, except
to where the Eye was hidden.

Not possible. He couldn't fly that
far, especially with the ache in his chest and extra weight to
carry. He needed help. He needed Raea.

Raea…
A pang of desire choked him. It seemed forever since he'd seen
her, much less held her, inhaled her, felt her body against his.
She was in him, a part of him so profound he couldn't breathe
without her.

He had to stop the Risaal from
capturing her again. He had to protect her.

First, he had to escape that
room.

That meant taking out the guards.
While he disdained killing, he had no time to figure out how to
incapacitate them. Too low and they'd have a chance to fire back.
He'd have to act fast.

Elis took a deep breath and let it out
slowly, balling his hands before him. He'd only get one chance;
this had to count for everything.

The door clicked and opened, revealing
a third Risaal.

Crystal fire!

A weapon flashed and a body
crumpled.

A section of the wall
moved—

Elis fired a blast from the
resonance.

The second guard thumped to the
floor.

The Risaal in the doorway lowered
their weapon as spikes ran up her body into the figure of a
woman.

That meant nothing. Any of them could
take any form.

But she hadn't fired on him. She had
fired on one of his guards. Only one Risaal had helped
him.

"Dar Lorel?"

"Hurry. Your mate
returned."

Raea! His heart thumped against his
chest and his wings lifted. She'd returned for him. He had to reach
her, but he couldn't leave Torres. The man had endured too much,
and his family would be worried.

"What about him?" He knelt at the
man's side as Dar Lorel joined him.

"Leave him to me." She hoisted the man
over her shoulders as if no more than a sack of flour, but he'd
witnessed the incredible strength of the Risaal before. "I'll get
him to safety. You save your mate and her shard." A spark ignited
in those cold Risaal eyes. "Leave the others to me."

A chill passed through him at the
implications. She couldn't.

She would. She had told him she would
destroy the base and all within.

"This is my chance. Go."

Despite his objections to her plan, he
knew no way to stop her. Besides, Raea searched for him. The sooner
they reunited, the sooner they could return Torres to his home and
rescue the Starfire within the monolith.

* * *

This was almost too easy. Where were
all the guards? The complex couldn't be that big. Had she
overestimated the number of Risaal there? Or had they gone looking
for her again, leaving so few behind to guard the place?

Raea inched her head around the corner
and stared through the open door to the chamber with the monolith.
Uneasiness crept up her spine and settled in like a snake waiting
to strike. Although they didn't see any Risaal, that didn't mean
they weren't there.

["I don't like this,"] Nare
whispered.

Was she reading Raea's
mind?

Neither of them might like the
situation, but they had to try. The monolith and the Starfire
within it awaited them.