Tagan's Child (17 page)

The King looked
at Ahran. “She has a right to take her part in the search, she will
be safer with you than with anyone.”

Ahran stood up
and walked over to the window with his back to us as he ran his
hand over his hair in frustration.

Frustrated or
not I was damned if I was going to stay behind. “I could be of some
help,” I said, trying to keep the pleading edge out of my
voice.

Ahran turned
around to face me. “You could get us both killed,” he said
uncharitably.

I raised my
chin stubbornly and suppressed the feelings of inferiority I felt
next to these powerful superhumans. “I will do whatever it
takes.”

Ahran gave a
humourless laugh. From the moment we had first met I had got the
distinct impression he didn’t have a very high opinion of my kind,
it had been alright to kiss me when the mood had suited him, but it
was clear that in this situation, he saw me as a liability.

“Ahran,” the
King said in conciliation, “think of it this way, Toby is in a
strange new world and is no doubt scared out of his wits, Sophie
will be the first person he will want to see when he is rescued and
you are the only person I would trust to take care of her.”

I liked that he
seemed certain Toby would be found and I could have hugged him for
supporting me. I held my breath as I waited for Ahran’s response.
After what seemed like an eternity he raised his hands in a gesture
of defeat. “If you insist my Lord.” He couldn’t say no to the King
but if the look on his face was anything to go by, he was
furious.

I breathed a
sigh of relief and tried to catch his eye to express my gratitude
but he refused to look in my direction.

A young man
came in with a tray of tea and laid it out on the coffee table. I
had never needed a cup of tea more than I needed one now. After
serving the King and Queen the servant handed me a steaming cup.
“Thank you,” I said gratefully. I brought it to my lips. Its aroma
was nothing like I was used to, it smelt creamy and spicy. I took a
sip. It was sweet and sickly and made me want to heave.

I heard the
sound of footsteps coming from the corridor. One set clicked with
the distinctive sound of heels as they struck the marble floor.

“Miss Talina,
my Lord,” Sulaan said, entering the room and introducing the
visitor.

Bloody hell!
That was all I needed. I braced myself as I was about to meet
Ahran’s fiancé.

She was tall,
and even taller in a very high pair of expensive looking cream
heels. She was catwalk slim, with long, glossy, jet black hair and
an olive complexion. She was immaculately turned out in dark camel
coloured trousers and a cream, sleeveless linen blouse. Her make-up
was flawless like it had been applied by a celebrity make-up artist
and she was gorgeous in a glamorous, Hollywood kind of way. I could
have happily punched her in the face.

“Talina, what a
surprise!” The King said. It was with a certain sense of
satisfaction that I noticed his jaw muscle flex with tension. He
didn’t seem overly pleased by her impromptu visit.

“My Lord,” she
responded and walked over to air kiss both his cheeks. “Forgive my
intrusion but Ahran called me to say he would be going away, I was
in the area visiting one of my clients and thought it would be
easier if I came here to see him before he went.”

“No need to
explain, it’s nice to see you, although I am afraid we are all
beside ourselves with worry,” Leylana said as she stood up and gave
Talina a hug.

“I am sorry to
hear about your grandson. I am sure he will be fine. Ahran will
find him in no time.” I knew that she had meant to sound reassuring
but to my ears she sounded infuriatingly flippant. I disliked her
immediately, although, to be fair, the woman had stood little
chance of winning my friendship simply by virtue of who she was. I
watched her with morbid fascination as she made her way over to
Ahran and kissed him on the lips, which I thought was entirely
inappropriate considering the company. I could feel myself
bristling. So far she had completely ignored me.

“Darling, do
you think you will be away long?” She asked as if he was going away
on some business trip. She seemed completely oblivious to the lack
of compassion she was showing.

“I’ve no idea
how long it will take, we are all hoping it won’t be too long for
everyone’s sake.”

The King
interrupted. “Talina, this is Sophie McAllister, our grandson’s
Aunt.”

I stood up and
reluctantly offered my hand. You never had a cattle prod to hand
when you needed one. “Hello, pleased to meet you,” I said without
feeling.

Unsurprisingly,
Talina gave me a limp handshake.

“I am
desperately sorry to hear about your nephew, you must be
distraught.” Did she sound disingenuous just to my ears? What the
hell did Ahran see in her? Apart from her phenomenal good
looks.

“Yes,” I
replied. “Although I’ll be happy when Ahran and I can get on and
begin our search.” For some reason I wanted her to know that I
would be accompanying him.

“You are going
with Ahran?” She raised a perfectly shaped eyebrow.

“Yes, I can’t
stay behind and do nothing,” I replied.

“No, quite
right, I would feel exactly the same,” she said distractedly.

“Where do you
think you will head first Ahran?” Leylana asked.

“Well, we’ll
head towards Chancuna, there is a known portal there which they may
have used. We might be able to pick up a lead.

The King spoke
to Sulaan and once again left to carry out the King’s
instructions.

I caught Talina
glaring at me. Clearly the thought of me spending time with her
fiancé did not sit well with her.

“Do you have to
go so soon?” she asked as she rested a hand on Ahran’s shoulder.
She was like a female cat rubbing her scent over her mate and I had
to look away.

“The sooner we
leave the better,” he responded, seemingly oblivious to her
disapproval of me accompanying him.

“Make sure you
keep me informed won’t you?” she said with a pout.

Ugh! The woman
was infuriating.

“I’ll walk you
to your car,” Ahran said.

He obviously
wanted to say his goodbyes in private.

“Yes of
course.” She sounded a little disgruntled at being dismissed so
quickly.

“Goodbye
Sophie, it was nice meeting you, I know that Ahran will do his best
to find your nephew.” She offered me her limp hand again. I shook
it noticing her perfectly manicured nails. I bet she hadn’t done a
day’s work in her life! I thought about what my hands achieved in a
day and knew that a French manicure wouldn’t last five minutes.

“Goodbye,
Talina.” I tried to not sound relieved that she was leaving.

I turned away
from the sight of Ahran’s hand at the small of her back as they
left the room.

The King was
back on the phone and Leylana was listening intently to the
conversation. I couldn’t understand what was being discussed but I
wasn’t cheered by the expression on his face.

“Is it bad
news?” I asked, as he hung up.

“One moment,”
he said raising his finger. He dialled his phone and briefly spoke
again.

“There appears
to have been portal activity just after Toby went missing at the
furthest perimeter of Bazeera’s territory. The region they are in,
if indeed they are still there, is hostile, and mostly tropical, it
isn’t the easiest terrain to navigate around.”

It sounded
rather daunting. “How far away is it?”

The King
thought about this for a moment. “About 150,000 kilometres.”

I had no
concept of how far this was but I was pretty sure it was a long
way.

“Can we travel
there through a portal?” Surely with Ramian technology it wouldn’t
take that long.

“Unfortunately
not, portal travel is only possible between universes and not
within a universe, our atmosphere is too dense.”

“Forgive my
ignorance but can’t we just go back to Earth and re-enter through
the portal that Bazeera’s men took Toby through?”

“If only it was
that simple,” the King replied. “I strongly suspect Bazeera has
closed that gateway by now and I cannot open a portal that is not
in my territory.”

The few rays of
hope I had felt earlier started to fade.

“So how will we
get there? Surely it will take forever.”

“Well, you will
have to fly to Zanzin and then take the train to either Borlaan or
Histra, these areas are remote and there are no connecting
flights.”

Ahran returned
from seeing Talina off and caught the last part of what the King
had just said.

“So they’ve
taken him to the other side of Morana.” He didn’t sound at all
pleased to hear this.

“I am afraid
so, but then Bazeera wasn’t going to make it easy for us,” the King
said with a degree of resignation.

“No, I suppose
not. Well, in that case we better start our journey. We’ll head to
the airport.” He turned towards me “Are you sure you want to do
this Sophie?” Ahran asked, clearly hoping that I was having second
thoughts. “It’s going to be a long and gruelling journey across
some hostile territory.” He was trying his damnedest to put me
off.

“Never been
surer,” I said, trying to sound more upbeat than I felt.

We all stood up
to say our goodbyes. Leylana hugged me tightly. “The very best of
luck and please be careful,” she said as she pulled away still
holding my arms. She gave me another quick hug. The King came over
and put his hand on my shoulder.

“Goodbye my
dear. All my best agents are out there looking for him and it
should only be a matter of time before Toby is found.”

I hoped more
than anything he was right. And as if the situation wasn’t bad
enough, meeting Talina had added to my woes. I knew my hopes of her
being a plain homely type had been wishful thinking. She turned out
to be everything I feared, stunning and predatory. I resolved to
myself that whilst this situation had thrown Ahran and myself
together I was going to have to rein in my attraction for him. I
had to focus on the job of finding Toby and once he was safe we
would get the hell out of here.

Sulaan came
back into the drawing room and handed me back the photo of Katie
and Toby. I felt sure that Katie would be doing exactly what I was
about to do had she been here.

“Ready?” Ahran
asked.

“As I’ll ever
be,” I replied. He looked disappointed with my answer.

“One of my cars
is ready to take you to the airport,” the King said. “Try to keep
in touch when you can.” He clapped Ahran on the back.

“Good luck,”
Leylana said as she hugged me and Ahran again, her eyes watering
once more.

Sulaan handed
Ahran a wallet of documents and we made our way to the front of the
palace where a car was waiting for us. It was unlike any car I had
ever seen. It was silver with darkened windows and hovered about a
foot off the ground. The passenger doors came out from the sides
and slid back in one smooth motion as we approached. Ahran motioned
for me to get in whilst he put the bags into the boot. I noticed
that the car didn’t move or sink as we got in. Ahran spoke. The
doors shut and the vehicle obediently moved silently across the
terrace and out through the wooden gates. I grabbed Ahran’s arm
involuntarily. It was the strangest feeling knowing that nobody was
actually driving the car.

Ahran’s
expression softened for the first time in the last hour.

“You’ll get
used to it.”

“But there
isn’t anyone at the controls. What about other traffic? And what
happens if someone steps out in front of it?”

“It has an
extremely intelligent sensor and anticipatory system, these things
just don’t crash.”

I thought about
the car crash that had killed my sister and wondered how long it
would be before this kind of vehicle existed on Earth and how many
lives it would save.

“When is our
flight?”

“In about an
hour and a half.”

“Doesn’t the
King have his own plane?”

“He does, but
it’s not big enough for the distance we’ve got to fly, it’s a long
way even by Ramian standards. You can still change your mind
Sophie.”

I turned and
faced him squarely. “Look, I know you don’t want me with you,
you’ve made your feelings perfectly clear. But I can’t stay behind,
please understand that, so if we could just strike an amicable
truce it will make it much easier for the both of us.”

Ahran sighed
and looked out the window before turning back to me.

“You’re right I
don’t want you with me.”

That hurt.

“It’s not safe.
But my biggest fear is I don’t trust myself around you,” he said
wearily.

My eyes snapped
up to his.

“I want to kiss
you again and see if it is as good as I remember,” he
confessed.

I drew in a
shaky breath, his blue eyes were working their magic and it was a
struggle to look away.

I was in
trouble. I willed my brain to think rationally. “Well…we both know
that what happened this morning was a mistake. We are adults and
I’m sure we can restrain ourselves so that we can see this through
without doing anything we would both regret.” I congratulated
myself. I sounded convincing even though every cell in my body
strained towards him to see if what he was wondering was indeed
true.

“I wish I could
be so certain.”

He was looking
at my lips as if they were some kind of exquisite delicacy willing
him to take a wickedly forbidden taste.

How was I going
to stay away from him knowing that he wanted to kiss me as much as
I wanted him to? So much for trying to keep my distance. I figured
that being in the intimate confines of a car was a situation that
needed to be avoided. The charge that hummed between us when we
were this close was too difficult to resist.