The Hard Way (Box Set) (8 page)

Climbing wasn’t easy, and Glimmer seemed to almost walk through the roots, knowing where to place her hand or foot next. But slowly, I managed to make the muscles of my arms strain and pull me upward until I felt a gap where the stone wall should be.

“This is it,” Glimmer whispered as she disappeared into the hole. “Come on!”

Saying nothing, I forced my way through the crevasse, reminded sickly of the abyss I was sure to plummet through if we didn’t retrieve those letters, and soon.

It took mere seconds to pull myself through the damp, warm place, and soon the heat of the waning sun caressed my face.

“How much time do I have left?” I wondered out loud as I stared at the sky, watching the deepening blues and purples as the sun began its descent.

“About six hours, and then you go back where you come from.”

Glimmer didn’t know about the restrictions or the letters, or had paid no attention to what I had told Glow. Or just didn’t believe me. I bet she thought I sent Luster out on a feminine whim.

Again, I was silent as we began our journey through the forest.

“Where are the Titans?” I asked. “What do they look like?”

“No one knows,” she said, sidestepping over a few fallen branches and piles of leaves.

“Then how can we find them?” I realized that as we walked, we were getting closer and closer to the area where the tree line ended.

“I’ll think of something.” Glimmer pushed aside a young leafy branch from a low-hanging tree.

“What?” I questioned, feeling like an idiot, yet still following her.

I narrowed my eyes and glared at her as the branch swung back, striking me a stinging blow to the chest. “
Oof
!” That would leave a welt.

“You have to watch what you are doing,” she sniffed at me as she moved on. “And stop making so much noise. I want to surprise them and not have them surprise us.”

“I’ll ‘noise’ her,” I mumbled, rubbing my chest. “Right on top of her blue head!”

For a short time, we marched onward, Glimmer flinging bits of earth at me and me doing my best to dodge them while resisting the urge to kill her.

By her actions, I knew that she had to want Luster. Too bad! He was mine, and I was not going to give him up to a spoiled little girl. But my animosity made the trip easier. I used my anger toward her to keep moving through the strange and foreign land that my home had once resembled.

Finally, we reached the sandy hillside where Luster, Glow, and I had come under attack from the Titans. The falling sun cast shadows across the land. All was quiet, and that worried me.

“Where are the animal sounds?” I whispered. I had become so used to the sounds of birds and other small animals that I instantly noticed their silence.

“Hush!” she hissed.

“But…”

“They are near.”

Deciding it was prudent to listen to her, for now, I held my voice and waited.

We didn’t have to wait long.

There was a gravelly sound, like metal on stone, and then deep voices. She pointed to the right, toward open land.

I gasped, trying to make sense of what my eyes were seeing. This couldn’t be right!

I half rose to my feet, stopping only when Glimmer’s hand latched onto my arm.

“This can’t be right!” I whispered. “No!”

But the truth was right before my eyes. I knew what the Titans were.

“This is not right!” I breathed. “This is impossible!”

The Titans! They were wearing…

“Get out there!”

Before I could gather my wits, Glimmer shoved me out into the open.

Stunned, I froze while the two men, dressed in tunics, the familiar, male style of tunic, turned in my direction.

Like a specimen caught in the high beam light of a microscope, I froze. The two men turned to me and one of them smiled.

“Get her!” one shouted, and my feet finally decided to take action.

I turned away from the two and looked over my shoulder. Glimmer, that traitor, was behind me, and the Titans were blocking the only way out.

Almost screaming with frustration, I tried to dart past them. Remembering some old forgotten footage of some game played with a pig-skinned ball, I rushed the men, hoping to force a break in their dual barrier.

It worked. For a minute, anyway. Then they both dove at me, driving me to the hard unforgiving ground.

“Get off!” I bellowed, but my answer was a sharp prick in the neck, and then the world began to swirl in a mass of pretty colors.

“Why?” I whispered. The edges of my vision began to darken and my throat refused to work.

But I didn’t know if I was asking Glimmer why she had done it, why the men were dressed in clothes from my world, or why my life had to be so damned hard.

* * *

I woke with my hands tied above me and a dull ache in my head.

No, I was awakened. Voices had pulled me back from the black void, and now my mind struggled to sort out what was being said.

“I brought her, as promised,” Glimmer was saying. “Now release my man!”

“We did have a deal,” a man said. “So I guess it would be fair of me to actually own up to what I said.” Another male voice chuckled, and the first one went on. “Okay, your man may go free, but it doesn’t matter. It’s only a matter of time before we have all of you… abominations back where you belong.”

I had no idea how long I had been out, but it seemed that someone else had been doing a bit of thinking while I had been trying to hatch a plan of my own. Glimmer, blue hair and all, was proving to be more cunning than any Thinker I had ever heard of.

I slammed my eyes shut as I heard footsteps approaching me.

“Where are they?” Glimmer sounded nervous. Good to be nervous when you made plans with the devil.

“Let them go!” I heard someone call. “Because of this one, we will have the whole lot soon enough!”

Then I heard a voice that I’d thought I would never hear again.

“Glimmer!” he called, then I heard the sound of rushed footsteps. “What did you do?”

“I had to do it!” I heard her say. “The trees told me what happened, how you were ambushed. Then they told me of the ultimatum. Her for you! What else could I do? Without you, the resistance is at an end!”

“But at what cost, Glimmer! What is the cost?”

“I had to!” she cried desperately. “For our
future
, for our
child
.”

That brought my eyes open. Glimmer was pregnant?

“Oh, I see you are awake,” a voice said, and I knew that I had given away my opportunity to gather more information. “Did the happy reunion wake you? We must teach them to be silent.”

I glared at the man in the tunic as he continued to examine me.

“What kind of creature are you? You don’t look like the others. You look… strange.”

Well, you ain’t no picnic yourself
, I thought. But I only snorted and turned my head so that I could see the two people lost in each other.

Glow wore a shocked expression on his face. He stared at Glimmer, who had tears running down her blue-tinted cheeks. So that was who Glimmer was in love with, and apparently the feelings were returned.

A baby,
I thought
. Was there any justice in the world when a blue-haired idiot like Glimmer got to be reunited with her love and have a baby
? Probably not. Suddenly, the gods testing Luster was not such a farfetched idea after all.

“Jealous?” the guard asked, and I had to turn again to look at his ugly face. “No matter, you will soon be reunited with that freak of yours. We have been waiting a long time for this.”

“Sinopee,” Glow said, his voice raspy. “We will succeed.” He had Glimmer under one arm, placing her body behind his as he stared at me, helplessness in his eyes.

“I had to!” Glimmer tried to explain, her body shaking with sobs that she tried to hold in. “I had to! We are going to have a baby! I just had to save him!”

I understood, but I was still pissed. I looked at her and then at Glow, then made a gesture I was extremely proud of.

I wiggled my wrists until I could get my right hand forward, and I shot her the bird. Immature, I know, but my head was aching, my arms were going numb, and I was
trapped with no way of saving my man
!

All things considered, I was pretty eloquent.

Glow snickered and Glimmer gasped, but then Glow turned and pulled her out of the clearing. Almost instantly, it seemed that they disappeared into the growing shadows.

And the shadows were, indeed, growing. The sun had set while I was out and torches were now lighting the area. The day, and my time, were almost up.

They carried me over bare ground and soft grass. It seemed like hours they carried me, but never complained about the distance or the journey. As they trudged along, I sat in a cage, my hands tied above me, as I swung in rhythm to their walking.

It was a good time to think.

Part one of my original plan was in effect. Now I had to quickly come up with part two.

The sound of raised voices knocked me out of my reverie. I sat straighter, paying attention now, as I was taken to a huge building hidden in some trees.

Camouflage! That was how the Titans survived, but it was also how the rebels had outsmarted them for years. As we drew closer, I saw several more men and women, all dressed in tunics and carrying, of all things, lab equipment.

One woman held a radiation guide and another had a doctor’s kit. Several carried small weapons strapped to their belts, the source of the Titan lightning. They were using laser guns, the very same guns that had been outlawed several years ago.

It seemed that I was not the first of my world to invade this paradise! Like the serpents, they despoiled paradise and it seemed they were determined to make a mark here.

“Very interesting,” said a man in front of me, drawing my attention. “She is not like the others. The board will be intrigued.”

The board? What the hell was going on?

Before I could formulate a response, I was carried into a large building and my cage placed beside a large examining table. More people swarmed into the room and I found myself pulled from my cage, hands still bound, and placed on the table.

I tried to struggle free, but before I could even move, hands strapped both legs down to the table, and my arms above my head. I gasped as fingers peeled my eyelids back and a bright light shone in.

“
Hey
!” I protested, but the person spoke out loud to the room at large.

“Brown eyes. This is a variant. Must be a genetic throw back.”

“Throw back?
Ouch
!” A syringe plunged into my arm, drawing blood.

“No phosphorescence in the skin. Plain brown. Possibly lacking in the mutated traits and heightened abilities?”

“Are you sure that this is his mate?” This voice boomed from behind me. I twisted to get a good look, but I could only move a few inches. I saw the hem of another tunic. The voice spoke with authority.

“The other would not lie. She wanted her mate back too badly. You know that the control alteration malfunctioned. Instead of making them easier to control, it made them more aggressive. The only good thing about that little mistake is that we can use it against them if we can catch one of a matched pair.”

“What is going on?” I finally managed. What were they talking about? Mutations and alterations? Who were these people?

“I suppose we should show the male that we have his mate. That may make him speak up about where he found the box and the words for the voice command.”

Voice command?

I struggled to look around, to see who these people were, but I had no luck. All my wiggling did was earn me extra-tight restraints and more attention.

“Run the DNA tests,” the large voice mused. “That will show us where we stand. If this creature is a throw back, we may have a weapon against the fugitives.”

Fugitives?

“Ah, good! Bring him over.”

Him? Then I felt his presence. They were bringing me my Lust!

“Luster!” I gasped, sensing his presence ever stronger as he drew closer. They turned the table, and then I could see him. My Luster.

He was strapped to a large, square frame on wheels, hanging from his arms, his hands encased in some material, his ankles lashed to the sides. He was completely naked and hung limply, but his eyes, when he raised his head, were full of defiance and anger.

“Now, Luster, will you cooperate? We have your mate and you know that we take no pity on those who defy us.”

“She is not my mate,” he said, his eyes warning me before he dropped his head again.

At first my stomach plunged into my feet as I took in his words, then my mind began to work. Of course he would deny me. If he reacted in any way, it would prove that I was his mate and they would have power over us both.

“Why do I not believe that?” the voice said.

“Maybe because not only do you lack magic,” Luster sneered, “you lack eyesight as well. I have no mate. You knew that when you had my people imprisoned. The same holds true this day.”

“Luster,” laughed the man. “You were always the clever one, more Thinker than the rest. But I believe science will prevail.”

“Damn your science!” he snarled.

“Very good, Luster. Damn us all. But I know something that you do not. When in the presence of your true mate, you will have an incredible urge to bond. All I have to do is leave you in the room and your body will tell me the truth.”

Damn! That was why Glow had been sporting a very good hard-on when he’d returned from the shadows after warning Glimmer! His body hadn’t been reacting to the erotic things that Lust and I were doing. He had been in contact with his mate.

As I stared wordlessly at Lust, I knew we were in deep trouble. There was no way to keep his body from reacting.

“Put them in the cage.”

“
No
!” I screamed as I was wheeled into another room. I could hear the wheels of Luster’s frame following.

One of the men released the bindings on my ankles, then the ones holding my wrists above my head. I heard Luster grunt and knew that they had let him off the platform. Then I heard the rapid retreat of footsteps and the closing of a door. We were alone, yet being observed.