Do Or Die [Nuworld 4] (41 page)

Another scream escaped her when the large dark figure walked straight through

her and toward the house.

“Shit! Oh shit!” Meah froze for a moment as her heart stopped and she started

gasping for air in attempt to make it pump again. She turned around quickly and ran

after the man. “Hey, who are you? How did you do that?”

Fear was replaced with curiosity as she hurried in through the back door of the

house after the man. She literally ran to keep up with his long strides. They were up the

stairs and down a wide hallway before the man turned to enter one of the rooms and

Meah saw his face.

“Lord Darius!” she gasped and clasped her hands to her mouth. “Dog-woman,

where am I? What have you done?”

It occurred to her that she was talking to herself when she reached the doorway and

looked into the landlink room. Lord Darius stood mere feet away from her, and he was

barking at the man who sat in front of the landlink.

“How many are there? How come we’re just now noticing them?”

“Quit your yelling and I’ll know here in a second, I will.”

Who would talk to Lord Darius like that? The man was no bigger than Andru but

he was thicker, darker, more intimidating. Whoever it was seemed completely unaware

or undaunted by the menacing man standing right behind him.

“There they are. I’d say about three hours away at the rate they’re traveling. Darius,

it looks like there’s a lot of them.”

Darius ran his hand through his hair. “It was a trap. It was a fucking trap. I can’t

believe we didn’t see it. Contact Tara!”

The man at the landlink punched keys on his keyboard and then adjusted his comm

on his ear. “I can’t reach them. They’ve gone too far north.”

“Too far north?” Meah repeated out loud. Neither man heard her. “How could we

be too far north? We’re well within range of communication.”

The man at the landlink stood up and Meah suddenly felt like a small child next to

the two men. The second man was as large as Lord Darius, and he looked a lot like the

lord. Oh Crator, this was Lord Darius’ brother, Torgo. She’d read he’d started using

Runner landlinks when he had barely fourteen winters and took to them like a natural.

He’d written many programs and improved on many existing Runner programs. It was

amazing how much Andru looked just like his papa and uncle. Bryon blood was

dominating. Would her child look like this?

“We only have the bare necessities of an army here. Organize them and call up

troops from Taratown. We need to stop them before they get anywhere near the clan

site. Contact Jolee and have her prepare defenses.”

“I hate to say this, but I am picking up another army as well. They’re coming from

the northeast. Brother, we don’t have the manpower to stop an attack like this.” Torgo

blew out a breath and ran his hand through his hair. He looked racked with fear.

Darius continued to bark out orders on his comm as he turned and walked back out

the door. This time when he walked right through her she jumped to the side and went

right through the wall.

Meah found herself in a dark room and she spun around quickly. It was a bedroom,

but there was no one in it. Moonlight streamed across the wooden floor and barely

touched a large four-poster bed. A patchwork quilt was tucked neatly across it and fell

to the floor on either side. She walked to the door and took in the contents of the room.

There was a large bureau with a dresser next to it. A handful of pictures stood in frames

and she bent down to look at them. They were pictures of Ana at different ages and

there were two of Ana and Andru. She spun around quickly and took in everything

with a glance. She was in Andru’s room. Quickly, she reached for the doorknob to run

from the room but her hand went right through the door. Damn it! She ran through the

wall and got the hell out of that bedroom.

She was halfway down the stairs before she had a conscious thought. “Where is

everybody?” she called out to the silence of the house. “Dog-woman, what’s going on

here?”

No one responded. Meah continued down the stairs and did her best to tie her hair

in a large knot to keep it out of her face. She stopped for a minute in the dining room

trying to remember how she got back out of the house. Then voices sounded and she

hurried into the next room…the kitchen.

“I swear by it, his lordship is more put out than I’ve ever seen him, he is.” A large

woman hurried back and forth stuffing wrapped sandwiches into travel bags. “It don’t

look good, that’s to be sure.”

Another woman, more stout than large, leaned against the wall bouncing a small

baby in her arms. It was Darien. She walked over to look at the baby who stared past

her with deep, gray eyes. The back door opened and twin boys, both covered with

bouncing curly locks, ran into the room followed by an almost gaunt young woman

holding the hand of a younger boy while he sucked his thumb.

“Lady Syra told me to bring the youngens over here, she did. Are we going to be

attacked? Lord Darius and Lord Torgo are out there yelling all sorts of terrible things.”

The gaunt woman sounded incredibly distraught and the child whose hand she held

finally squealed from her tight grasp.

“Calm yourself down, Fina.” Fulga walked over and lifted the small child from her

arms. His hair curled as much as his brother’s but seemed to have a hint of copper

running through it. “We’ve got to keep our heads level now, we do. One never knows

when his lordship will come storming in here, no. Let’s get the babies upstairs and set

up the old wing as a nursery for the time being.”

Meah didn’t want to listen to any more talk on settling in children. She bounded for

the back door, unnecessarily side-stepping the twins. The second she was outside, Lord

Darius’ booming voice filled the night air.

“Who the hell is Roman?”

Meah’s foot hit the ground and she just about tripped over her bed. How did she

get back in her tent? Meah scrambled up onto her small cot and shoved covers around

her precariously. What just happened? Was that a dream? She shivered as a cold north

wind challenged the tarp over her tent. It was pitch-black even after her eyes had

adjusted to the night. Meah sat there, breathing heavily, staring wildly at the sparse

contents of her cloth room.

It was when she leaned forward and rubbed her legs that she realized she wore

pants. She felt her hair. It was tied in a loose knot at the base of her neck. Had she

dressed herself while dreaming and adjusted her hair as well? It had been so vivid, so

real, except for the fact that she could walk through things. And how could she dream

about people she’d never met and know what they looked like? Or was that what they

really looked like?

The information she’d heard in her dream—or was it something else—was

incredibly disturbing. Meah reached over to the side of her cot and felt around in the

darkness until she found her comm.

“Ana.” Her voice sounded too loud in the silence of the night. There was no

response. Ana had shut off her comm for some reason. Maybe some people do other

things in the middle of the night instead of having fanatical dreams. She got off the cot

and noticed her boots were wet with dew. How could they be if she’d been asleep in her

cot this whole time? It was clear now that she hadn’t been dreaming.

Grabbing one of the blankets off her cot, she wrapped it around her shoulders and

ran out into the cold night air. Meah hurried through the scattered tents and guessed by

the look of the stars and the lopsided moon that it was over halfway through the night.

Her teeth started chattering and she wasn’t sure if it was from the chill of the night or

the adrenaline of her misadventure.

Meah reached the Gothman campsite and watched the guards on duty warily as

she studied the gliders parked in front of each tent. She hunted for Ana and Gilroy’s

gliders, or Tara’s glider. It was just her luck, she’d find Andru’s tent first. But then she

noticed Ana’s glider. She approached the large tent and noticed several other large tents

secured around some of the trees nearby.

She walked up to the opening of the tent and was about to whisper Ana’s name

when she heard something. Double damn! No wonder Ana didn’t answer her comm.

Her friend wasn’t asleep in her tent, but she was in there. And from the sounds of

things, Meah hoped she was in there with Gilroy. She walked away from the tent

quickly.

“Hey lass, what you doing wandering around out here?” A gruff voice spoke

quietly from behind her and she turned around letting out a light yelp.

“I’m not wandering around,” she blurted out. “I’m just looking for…I mean…”

“Ah, looking for a warm place to put that little body of yours, are you?” The large

man grinned and she could see several black holes where teeth once were.

“I am not looking for a warm place,” she said so defiantly that the guard started to

laugh.

“Of course not, I understand how it is.” He reached out and grabbed her blanket

and she held onto it dearly from the inside, allowing the guard to drag her several feet.

“What’s going on here?”

Meah jumped and turned to see Andru staring at her with an incredibly amused

look on his face.

Chapter Twenty-Three

“Tell me you got lost trying to find my tent, and you’ll make me the happiest man

on Nuworld.”

Meah struggled to regain her composure and let go of the blanket without thinking.

Andru stood less than ten feet from her in loosely tied bed-pants and no shirt. His

broad muscular chest was covered with dark golden curly hair that narrowed to a thin

line at his taut stomach and disappeared into his pants. She wouldn’t think about those

pants. It was easier to focus on the ground but then she noticed he was barefoot.

The guard stepped backwards holding a limp blanket. She didn’t realize she still

wore her black, sleeveless nightshirt over her leather pants until she noticed Andru

looking down her body.

“She’s with me, Borg.” Andru waved the guard away and the man gently tossed

the blanket toward her then turned and disappeared among the tents.

Meah reached down to grab her blanket but a large hand beat her to it while

another hand took her by the arm and escorted her to his tent. Andru let go of her once

they were in his tent but she didn’t turn to face him while he tied the knots on the tent