Parallel Seduction (10 page)

Male, tall, bulky,
she noted, giving a small nod of greeting. Her heartbeat sped up slightly, as it did whenever she encountered someone new in this unfamiliar place. Only this time, the tempo of her heart hit overdrive when the stranger cried out sharply; it was a quick, jolting sound of pain, stopping him in his tracks. She took a brisk step forward, relying on her FBI training. Whatever was happening here, she had to seize control of the situation. Perhaps this Refarian feared humans.

"What's wrong?" she blurted, almost reaching him. "Tell me what's happened."

He staggered backward from her. So she took yet another step or two. "Please. Just tell me what's wrong, sir."

"Hope," the stranger whispered on a strangled cry. "My
gods.
Hope."

This time she was the one who took a step back. She'd never met this man before in her life, at least, best that she could tell. More than that, two glowing spheres had appeared where his eyes should be. His eyes were blazing like pure fire.

"H-how do you know me?" she managed to stammer, arrested by his fiercely radiant eyes. They shone more brightly than anything else in the corridor. "And your eyes. What's the deal with your eyes?"

The orange-red glow ceased as quickly as it had begun. "You're Hope Harper—aren't you?" His voice was raw as sandpaper. "It has to be you."

"Yes, I'm Hope," she told him cautiously, regaining her equilibrium. She took a tentative step closer. He seemed to have braced himself against the wall, hands beside him as if in recoil. "I'm not going to hurt you," she ventured softly. She'd had plenty of experiences trying to soothe wary subjects as an FBI linguist. "I'm here as a friend."

"I know exactly who you are." He moaned softly, seeming to shake his head. "My gods, what has fate done to me?"

She pulled back, blinking up at him. "I'm sorry."

"I know you, Hope Lee Harper. Every scar, every freckle and mole on your body. I know you, all of you. That's what I'm saying."

She hated her middle name; nobody ever learned that her silly mother had named her, in a backward kind of way, after Harper Lee. The other things he could claim, but not her middle name, which was a well-guarded secret. Then she thought of the moon-shaped scar on her inner thigh that she'd gotten surfing years earlier. You wouldn't see it unless you discovered a lot more private places than she let most people examine … apart from a lover.

"What scars?" she demanded, planting a hand on her hip.

"Surfing scar, interior right thigh."

"Shit."

"It's like I said," he explained quickly, glancing about them with a nervous-seeming gesture. "I've known you for a long time."

"But I've never met you!" she finally shouted, flinging her hands into the air. "I just don't understand this"—she waved between them—"this reaction. I don't get it. I don't know
you
at all."

"But I know you very, very well, sweetheart."

She was about to insist that he not call her sweetheart ever again, when he truly shocked her down to the marrow of her bones. He stepped toward her, pulling her right into his massive, brawny arms, until her face met nothing but thick wool and a tree-trunk chest. "My love, my heart," the giant whispered, pressing his face against the top of her head.

What the hell?
Panicked and squirming, she managed to escape out of his bearlike grasp, but she stumbled, finding herself back against a wall as he towered over her. Terrified, she glanced down the hall, calculating just how far away the elevator might be. If she ran, she'd probably fall. She could hear blood rushing in her ears, her own staggered breaths, yet all she could do was brace herself against the wall. Without her eyesight, she was at the stranger's mercy.

The man took several steps toward her, whispering her name over and over. And his eyes had begun to fill with that light again—that eerie, translucent light. "Who are you?" she demanded.

In one graceful movement he had hold of her once more, crushing her within his arms. As he buried his head atop hers, pressing his face into her hair, she was shocked to feel dampness. The brute of a man was crying.

"I'm someone you cared for. Once." His voice was raw with powerful emotion.

"No, no. I mean, what's your name?" she asked impatiently. "Please, you owe me that much."

Without releasing her, both arms wrapped around her in a powerful embrace, he said, "I knew you. In a future time, one that I've come from, I knew you very well until—"

"Wait, hold up! You came here from the future?" Her thoughts reeled with all that she'd been told about the Refarians' mastery over the time-space continuum, their intimate knowledge of using the weapon they called the mitres, and how it could be utilized to journey backward—and presumably forward—in time.

He seemed to catch himself, releasing his hold upon her as if awakening from a trance. "Forgive me," he replied stiffly. "I used the mitres and traveled back into this time. I thought … I'd never see you again. That's what I meant. Just that I knew you once, Hope."

Funny, but it wasn't the words
future time
that made her mouth go dry and unexpected tears well within her eyes; it was something strange about him having "known her." The past tense of his statement. She'd seen enough about what the Refarians were capable of, and had already learned about their travels from the future via the mitres. That part she got. But why would he speak of her as if she were dead?

"Knew
me?" she whispered. "As in, past tense?"

At first he said nothing, but there was a strange pall between them that Hope could sense very clearly. Certain things were obvious whether your eyes worked well or not.

"We … were … friends. Close friends."

"Then tell me your name."

"I'm Jakob Tierny." He stuck a hand out to her, taking hold of hers before she could stop him; he had large, muscular palms, calloused and hard. But there was something surprisingly gentle in the way he grasped her, finally letting go as if he hated to lose their physical connection.

"Jakob Tierny," she repeated numbly. The name was so familiar … she couldn't quite place how she knew it, and yet she did.

"Yes, that's my name."

"So you came here from the future?" She was stalling, trying to figure out why she already knew him when she was certain they'd never met before. "You came from when? Precisely when?"

He blew out a sigh, pushing off from the wall, and glanced around them. "I've got to get moving," he told her. "I'm in a real mess here."

"A mess? That sounds like, oh, I don't know … you forgot to make your bed. You got caught in traffic. But if you're a time traveler—"

"I'm in trouble, Hope. Please. I need your help."

"Why would I help you? Just because you know my name? Because you can describe my scar?" She wanted to add,
And I'm supposed to be with Scott
—
he's the man I share a future with,
but she didn't. She wanted to protect Scott, keep him out of this situation.

"Because one time, somewhere, in a war not of your choosing," he whispered meaningfully, taking hold of both her arms, "you loved me with everything inside yourself. That's why. And if you can't hear the truth in those words … if you don't know I'm telling you what deep down you already know, well, then that love meant
medshki."

Something in her heart twisted, nearly breaking in two. "That's not fair."

"I never said it was. Nothing between us has ever been fair." His voice was filled with pain and emotion as he moved past her. "I'll leave you here. Get running again." Then he turned toward her once more, his footsteps silencing, and she knew he was studying her face, probably memorizing it.

Jakob Tierny, Jakob Tierny
—
how do I know your name?
She took two steps forward, trying to hold on to him for just one more minute. "Where are you running? Who are you running from?" It wasn't just his words about their future; as insane as it was, her feelings for this stranger were powerful. Enough that she could hardly breathe, the emotions were that overwhelming and intense.

"I don't have allies here. I thought … well, I'd hoped that I would." He released a bone-weary sigh. "I was wrong on that count."

And for some reason, she thought of Scott in her arms, shot and dying back on the airfield at Warren. How he'd risked everything for her, a virtual stranger, to save her life, and what it had cost him. Certain things were just karma: going on instincts, trusting strangers, helping someone who was in danger. Scott had acted on those impulses with her, and now she had the same kind of irrational need to help this Jakob Tierny.

Another voice shouted her down, flashing images of Scott's bleeding, torn legs. She'd come so close to losing him on the base, and now that she'd found him, she didn't want to be the one who did the dying.

"Give me one totally compelling reason to help you," she practically whimpered, feeling life and death and eternity hang oddly in the balance between them. "Something other than you being trapped in this time."

He backed farther down the hall, still facing her. "Because I'm on the right side of things, Hope." He took another step away from her. "That's the way you've always lived, and I do, too."

She shuddered. Those were the exact words Anna had used about Scott, and that she herself had used with her own brother Chris. "These people," she argued, waving her arm in a circle, "they're on the right side, too."

Just then, she swore she heard Scott whisper in her head,
Trust him. You need to trust this man.

And that was when it hit her, with the full weight of a rolling avalanche. She'd dreamed about Jakob just last night. He'd been in the tent when she was pregnant, about to go into labor. And it had been Scott himself, right within that dream, who had begged her to trust this man.

Pressing her eyes closed, she steadied herself against the corridor wall. "These people are fighting a war that's right, and that I've witnessed firsthand. A war I believe in."

"Yes. Yes, that's true," he agreed solemnly. "And I love many of the people in this compound, but they don't know me yet."

"Because you're from the future and they haven't met you," she said, realization dawning.

"Precisely."

Scott's dream words drummed through her consciousness, nearly driving her to her knees.
Trust Jakob Tierny,
he'd warned in the dream.
Go with him when he appears.

It was exactly like before, when Scott had communicated with her during her dream back at Warren, warning her about the attack and getting the USAF to trust him. Now he'd warned her again, a second time. She glanced first one way, then the other along the corridor, her heart hammering wildly in her chest. Such a split-second choice, so hard to make. But she'd followed Scott's dreamlike urgings before, and his warnings had been dead-on.

Suddenly Jake made a strangled sound. "Gods! He's almost here!" He began to run, and in that moment Hope made her second, purely gut-instinct decision of the week, just like when she hopped on Scott's transport. She began to run blindly toward the alien. "Wait!" she shouted, and he stopped. "I'm coming, too!"

"Why?" His breathing was heavy, and she knew his heart had to be racing as frantically as her own.

"Because I believe you, Jake," she said softly.

"I didn't tell you I go by Jake." There was a smile in his voice when he reached for her.

She clasped his hand hard and replied, "I know you didn't. But I knew. Somehow, I did know that's what your name really was."

Together, as one, they began to sprint. She moved her feet fast, because there was something else she'd figured out.

Jake Tierny was running for his life.

S
he wasn't supposed to be
here; it was too soon for her to be in their midst. More than that, she was dead. She'd
been
dead for years, just like his heart had been since the day he'd encountered the terrible, soul-rending truth of her fate. He wasn't sure his heart had ever really started beating again after that day.

Get it together, Tierny. You've just pulled her into this mess, so you sure as hell better protect her.

He led her by the hand down a side corridor, one that he knew from personal experience had an emergency exit shaft. She held tightly to him, stumbling a few times, but he didn't hesitate in his freight-train momentum. She'd slowed him down drastically in his escape, but how, by heaven, could he possibly have left her behind? He'd never been able to leave her, not once in their years together. In the end, she'd been the one who left
him
, but not because she wanted to. She would have stayed with him forever if she'd had any choice.

But she hadn't been given a choice, and he'd be damned if he'd do the leaving now.

"Where are we going?" She panted as he tugged her into a small cleft in the hallway, one created by a stack of supply boxes. Drawing her up next to him, he studied the empty corridor, sniffed the air. Dillon was right on his tail. "Come on, Hope," he urged, taking the lead again. "We're almost where we're going."

"Why am I doing this?" she lamented, keeping up with him despite how much smaller her natural strides were.

"Because you trust me," he called over his shoulder, yanking her toward the shaft opening.

"Like I trust my eyes," she shot back sarcastically.

"Because I need you, then." He let her hand drop and took hold of the hatch. It wouldn't budge; he reached for the pulse pistol holstered along his hip, using it to blast open the doorway, and she yelped in surprise. "Sorry," he apologized gruffly as a waft of glacial cold blew past their faces.

"I do have a soft spot for lost causes," she admitted with a laugh, squinting at the darkness.

Yeah,
he wanted to say,
you always did.

"It's your last chance." He turned and gripped her by the shoulders. "You can stay now, and it's okay."

She stared up into his face, her unfocused gray eyes searching for something—the truth, a glimmer as to who he really was. Emotion choked at his throat; he'd never thought to look into this pair of lovely, haunted eyes again.

"Jake, you'd do better without me," she told him.

He shook his head, but then realizing she probably couldn't see, whispered, "I was never better without you. I know that much after all these years."

She nodded, closing her eyes for a split second, and then, as if letting go of her own will, said, "I'm ready."

T
hey pushed through the
opening, Jake hoisting himself up and out first; it was an emergency panel, not a door, and Hope felt him tugging her by the arm. "Reach for me," he urged, and she considered running from him this one last time.

He was right. If she wanted to abandon this flight of his, now was the moment, but the utterly inexplicable thing was that she
did
trust him. That same baffling trust she'd felt for Scott back at Warren. It was an instinct she'd begun to rely on much more than her failing eyesight. This man, whoever he really was, needed her help; whatever paltry, pitiful help an almost blind woman could offer, that was. He clearly didn't consider her a liability. She'd felt set on the shelf for so long, it was exhilarating to imagine being an active part of this time-crossed crisis. But it was more than that, too; something in
this
stranger's heartfelt emotions when he'd found her in the hallway had nearly broken her heart. She believed every word he'd spoken. Maybe it was remembering Scott's dream warning; maybe it was something much more. Either way, it wasn't every day you got to learn about a future world where you were quite clearly … dead.

Lifting both hands toward
him,
she
allowed him to pull
her into the frigid night outside.

D
illon materialized in the
hallway toward the medical complex, disoriented for half a heartbeat, until he noticed the freezing whoosh of outside air filtering into the corridor. With a few limping steps he found the source: an emergency hatch had been blown open. He stood gaping up at it, and engaged his senses, gazing into the dark night, the sparkling canopy of stars visible through the aperture, and beyond into the ether about them. The Antousian was moving fast, but not as fast as he should be. Any one of his formless brethren—the thought made him ill—could easily have made it much farther than this by now. Unless something, or someone, had been slowing him down.

Scott looked deep into the situation, swung his gaze first in one direction, then another, and what he saw inside his mind was enough to practically drive him to his knees. The intruder had taken Hope as a captive. He felt his eyes burn hard within his head, as if they might explode, his visions causing a sharp pain to pull wildly at his mind.

Hope! Not you, not you!
He blinked, trying to make out what had happened here before he went any farther, but was unable to receive any more details to the vision. Taking hold of the ledge above him, he swung upward, out into the snowy landscape right above. His right leg gave a spasm of pain as it caught against the jagged edge, and before he could process what had happened, he'd collapsed back down inside the main hallway, falling at least four feet.
It
was all he
could do
to choke back the scream of agony
that
filled his throat.

He lay gasping on the floor, holding his thigh and feeling sticky warmth soak the leg of his pants. He'd ripped the stitches open, he realized
with
another gasp of pain, biting the inside of his lip. He had to shape-shift again, or he'd never stay on their tail. Behind him he heard booted footsteps running, the squadron of soldiers having caught up with his shapeless movements. Leaning against the wall, he gripped at his bleeding leg and began to calculate a strategy. He needed someone who could move with him, someone who could cover the distance as quickly and silently as he. For all the shape-shifters in their midst, very few were capable of that kind of Changing.

The world around him blackened for a moment, wooziness swimming over him, but he forced himself to stay conscious. He had to push through this for Hope's sake; she was innocent, and yet the worst kind of
killer had
abducted her. Clasping at his leg, he worked to stand again, but doubled over as needles of pain
exploded
throughout his body.

The troops closed in behind him, and he heard
Anna
call out to him, "Sir, are you all right?"

He nodded, pressing his eyes shut as he gripped his leg. Tightening his jaw, he ground out, "Lieutenant Draeus, have them follow outside."

Anna dropped beside him, waving the soldiers onward. One by one, they pulled themselves up through the open hatch. "Sir, what happened? Did he fire his weapon?"

"Previous injury," he managed as Anna examined his bloody pants leg.

"Checking out of the hospital was utter stupidity.
I'm pretty sure I already said that."

He shook his head adamantly. "If I hadn't been up there, I couldn't have tracked him this far."

"No, but we would have."

"Not as fast."

"They'll catch up with him," she argued, stripping out of her jacket. With a loud rip, she tore off the sleeve and made a tourniquet for his leg. Only then did he release that his injury was more serious than a simple matter of ripped stitches. No wonder the blood kept seeping into his pants, soaking the material. "This will have to do until we get you back to the med area," Anna said, tying off the bandage.

"Not going back," he told her through gritted teeth.

"Sir!" she cried in wide-eyed disbelief, rocking back on her heels. "Really, sir, at some point you have to listen to the advice of those around you."

Seizing her by the forearms, he stared into her eyes. "He has Hope, Anna. He took her."

Anna glanced upward at the gaping hole where, until moments earlier, the hatch had been, and gave a light, disbelieving shake of her head. "No way. I'm sure she's just down—"

"I'm a gazer And I
saw
what he did. The damn
vlksai
took her with him." His grip on her arms tightened; he didn't realize how much so until she winced. Releasing her, he whispered, "Anna, please don't try to stop me. I have to follow him."

"You're seriously injured, sir," she argued, but her firm tone was a faltering one. "I can't support this. Our king would have my neck if I didn't hold you here."

"I will go with or without your support, Lieutenant, and I'm going right now." He searched her face, pleading with her visually. "But I'd rather have you come along, because you're the only shape-shifter I can think of besides myself who can actually traverse wherever this bastard's going to lead us. I mean, there's no telling where he might abandon Hope, and she'll be vulnerable."

Anna's naturally fair face seemed to blanch; they both knew that Hope, despite her tenacious, fighting spirit, would be helpless in the backcountry without her eyesight. If a predator didn't get her, then the elements would. She nodded briskly. "If he dumped her out there at night, she'd be left exposed."

"I can't lose her, Anna."
Not with what I already feel for her,
he wanted to add, but kept his emotions inside. This had to be a military decision, even if he was making a personal appeal to his fellow soldier.

She folded both arms over her chest, letting her gaze slide up and down him where he'd crumpled against the wall. "So, this is a great plan, sir, except that from what I can see, you're about a heartbeat away from passing out cold."

"My
body
is, true," he countered rationally. The woman knew what his other form was, and what he was truly capable of, yet clearly he had to remind her. "But I can assume a ghost state. I can go anywhere that way." She shuddered visibly as the honest fact of what he truly was hit her dead-on. They all forgot the truth of his hybrid nature, every last one of them—sometimes even himself.

"So you'll make your Change," she answered for him, "and continue tracking the intruder just like you tracked him down here?"

He nodded, tightening the tourniquet on his thigh. Once again, bright spots filled his eyes, and he leaned into the wall behind him for support. "That's … the plan."

"What happens when you can't hold your Changed form because you're weak as a newborn? What then? You resume your physical body and pass out cold somewhere? Find yourself frozen solid on some ranch or the side of a road?" Her black eyes narrowed to slits, and color infused her face. "I still don't see how I can support this. At the very least I should tell our commander."

He grasped her arm again. "No, Anna! No. He'll stop me—he will order me not to go. And this isn't just about Hope; I may care for her, but you know it's about more than her. This man put a gun to Jared's temple. He penetrated our compound, got past all our defenses. He's got to be stopped so it doesn't happen again."

"He's fleeing," she argued, prying his fingers loose from her arm pointedly. "Sir, the danger to our king has passed."

Closing his eyes, Scott truly wondered if he could make it without her. He could Change, certainly, but he might not get very far. Anna's tracking skills and ability to shadow him in her own Changed form were critical. The soldiers outside would only make it so far, and sure, they might find Hope, but it was doubtful they'd catch this enemy.

"I could order you to accompany me," he reminded her.

She cocked her head with a look that said she knew he was tossing her a load of
medshki.

"You've ripped out your stitches, sir, and done worse damage than that, from what I can tell." She glanced down at his blood-soaked pants. "That's just the beginning. If this lasts very long, you might wind up in really bad shape. Unable to walk again. Or worse."

He lifted his chin proudly. "A risk I am more than willing to take for my king."

"And for Ms. Harper."

"That too." His eyes drifted shut and he tried steadying himself against the wall, but it was a losing proposition. Nothing like the truth driving itself home with the forceful power of a sledgehammer.

He heard Anna sigh deeply, and when he opened his eyes again she was on her feet, extending a hand to him. "Go ahead, sir. Make your Change, and so will I. In fact"—she laughed aloud, cocking an eyebrow in challenge—"I'll be really curious to see if you even have the strength to shift at all, much less make it out of this corridor."

Leaning into her, he managed to get on his feet—just barely. With a silent nod between them, they each Changed at the same precise moment. He into a shapeless, formless ball of ether, one that was capable of passing through walls and water and energy itself. She, his dear lieutenant and friend, into a graceful night bird. Moving into the darkened woods outside, Scott led the way, doing the one thing he'd always sworn he wouldn't.