Viper (Second Wave Book 1) (17 page)

She was having a really hard time
wrapping her mind around everything that she had learned so far. Surprisingly,
she believed the alien thing with a lot less doubts than she did the
reincarnation thing with Viper. Dreams and memories or not, it just seemed so
unreal to her. Like Jax, she just needed a few days away to get her head
screwed on right again.

Lara grabbed Jax’s closed ice cream
container and put it back in the freezer before flopping back down on the her
loveseat. Grabbing a pillow close to her chest, she sighed heavily as she
stared at the ceiling.

Jax turned her head and watched
Lara for a moment, feeling sorry for her. She had a hard enough time with just
Reven hounding her heels, poor Lara had all three of the brothers and for some
strange reason, Ratoka as well.

Glancing down at the floor near
Lara’s feet, there was even Dog’ee who was following her around, Jax thought
with a smile at the adorable cat. She couldn’t imagine the stress Lara would be
feeling after all she’d learned today. It was a lot to take in.

“How are you doing? Mental wise I
mean. I can’t imagine what it’s like from your point of view. As weird as it
was, at least I grew up around this kind of craziness with the other hybrids
working with Banatar. This has to be a major damn shock to you.” Jax said,
trying to determine if Lara was all right or if she needed to see Amun for some
help dealing with things.

Lara thought about Jax’s question
for a minute and the first thing that popped in her mind was how strange she
had started to feel in the forest when she met Viper. How could she explain
that it felt like ants were crawling across her brain without sounding crazy?

“Yeah, I’m ok. I just hate that we
have to hide out here only to have to deal with them again in the morning. Just
when I think I have something figured out, they start talking about something
else that throws me back into confusion.”

“It’d be nice to wrap my head
around what I know right now, before piling more on me. It’s a little
overwhelming.” Lara sighed heavily, feeling bad for laying that on Jax.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t complain.
You guys are the reason I’m alive. A little bit of confusion and irritation is
nothing compared to the finality of death.” Lara added, hoping she didn’t make
Jax feel that she was ungrateful for all they had done for her.

“Girl, don’t even think about what
could have happened. And trust me, you are handling things really great. Not
many people could hold themselves together after finding out they were a mate
to an alien species.” Jax said with sympathy.

Lara laughed for a second. “The
talking cats were the nail in the coffin for me. I swear I thought I was insane
or in an alternate world.” Jax giggled.

“They are a little odd at first
aren’t they?” Jax asked, causing Lara to giggle.

“A little? And Traze!! Oh my God, I
can’t believe I shot that poor kid! Did you see what he turned into? How many
of them can do that?” Lara asked, sitting up with nervous energy and curiosity.

Jax grunted at the thought of the
man-child before sitting up. “He’s a unique one isn’t he? Can’t help but to
like the kid though. Anyway, as far as we know Grai and his brothers are the
only surviving Relian’s that can still shift form. There may be a handful of
others on their home world though.”

“You haven’t met Koda yet, he’s
their middle brother and stays on the ship most of the time. He’s the quiet
one. Grai’s… well he’s something else. Incredibly smart and the nicest guy
there is, but don’t ever be his enemy. We’re all really damn grateful the guy
is on our side because I’m not sure we’d stand much of a chance against him.”
Jax said, thinking of what he’d done in front of their faces for years without
them even knowing it.

“He is really intimidating. But he
seems like a nice guy.” Lara said diplomatically since she didn’t know the man
well enough to form an opinion yet.

“You just need a chance to hang
with us for a while to give you a breather from the testosterone of Viper and
his brothers, so you can think more clearly and learn more about us.” Jax said,
realizing after she said it that it was perfect

“What do you think about a couple
of days on a training mission with your new team? Far away from here, with no
one to tell Viper and crew where you are?” Jax asked with a wicked smile on her
face.

Lara gave Jax a beaming smile. “Can
we do that? Just get in your car and go? Won’t they follow? Won’t someone tell
them?” Lara asked, afraid to get her hopes up.

Jax laughed at Lara’s excitement
and making up her mind, she sent a call through the Shengari’.

“No one will tell if Grai and our
team are the only ones who know. And trust me, Grai won’t tell them.” Jax said
with more confidence than she felt as she waited for Grai to get back with her.

Moments later, Jax got the response
she was looking for and grinned at Lara.

“Get your stuff, we’re outta here!”
Jax said, her own excitement showing as she jumped up from the loveseat and
headed into her room to pack her gear.

Lara followed without hesitation
and started packing the items they had just bought earlier into a bag Jax
handed her. 

Chapter Sixteen

Lara stretched slowly and breathed
deeply of the crisp, clean air. She rolled out of bed and faced a yawning Jax.
“Good morning.” She muttered before heading to the bathroom they were sharing
with the other four women.  

They’d left for the Canadian
wilderness within hours of leaving the store. Jax hadn’t been kidding when she
said she had the perfect place to get some peace from the Tezarian brothers.
She’d ordered all team members to keep their location secret, only Grai knew
where they were going, and he had given his word not to tell anyone.

It hadn’t all been just fun though,
Jax had worked them hard for the first two days that they had been there. Since
they had to head back tomorrow, they were going to have an easy day today of
Jax and Lara going through tracking skills with the team and the cats.

Unfortunately, Grai could only give
them three days before he said Reven and Viper would mutiny, so they would have
to leave in the morning. Lara would be sad to go; this had become her new
favorite place.

Lara turned to her ever-present companion
and said, “Shower, Dog’ee” and waited until the cat left the room before
grabbing a quick shower. She was toweling her hair when Jax came into the
shower room and stepped into another stall, turning the water on full blast.  

“I hate that we have to leave
tomorrow. It’s been so damn peaceful here. I talked to my friends in Dillon,
and they say Reven and Viper are spitting fire at everyone, so we don’t have a
choice.” Lara grinned along with Jax at the latter news.

Lara had learned so much from Jax
and her team over the last two days. Not the least of which was that Jax could
communicate with animals. When she spoke about her friends in Dillon that she
had spying on Viper and Reven, she meant the birds, squirrels, cats, hell
anything furry, flying or crawling in the area was a personal spy for the
woman. Lara would give her right arm for a talent like that.

“It’s too bad we can’t stay; this place
is the best.” Lara said, brushing out her damp hair.

She’d been a little doubtful about
the place when they first arrived. An old children’s camp, deep in the Canadian
wilderness didn’t seem like the best of places for training. But she’d been wrong;
it was perfect.

The gorgeous surroundings of the
pristine forest, were the perfect place for mountain terrain training, tracking
and learning the assembling and disassembling of traps. The three bunkhouses
provided them with decent beds, hot water and real toilets and showers.

There was a main cabin that housed
the kitchen, dining room and a massive entertainment area with a big-screen TV and
game console. It was a great way to end a hard day by hanging out with the
other team members, cooking dinner together and feeling that sense of
camaraderie that she’d missed since she left Afghanistan.

“I love it here. It’s quiet and
Reven isn’t here.” Jax said with a dramatic sigh of relief. Lara just giggled
at her.  

Lara had quickly learned that as
much as Jax liked Reven, she disliked him just as strongly. Their personalities
had been clashing since the moment they met. They were the perfect example of
why Lara thought this mate business was a bunch of crap.

For reasons, she didn’t understand,
Lara never told Jax about her being some reincarnation of Viper’s ex-mate.
There was just no way that she said it in her head that made her want to say it
out loud. To anyone. It always sounded like she was a few bullets shy of a full
mag.

Even stranger was the fact that
Dog’ee hadn’t mentioned it either. That cat didn’t care to share your most
embarrassing moments with everyone in hearing distance, but he never said a
word about her being Nara or having known Viper and his brothers in the past.

Every time she thought about asking
him about it when they were alone, his constant chatter had always left her
forgetting. He kind of had that effect on everyone, she’d noticed. Even the
other cats seemed to be a little taken aback by her energetic and young friend.

There were a total of four cats
with them. Dog’ee and two of the other cats had collars which she’d discovered
were how the animals could talk. The Valendrans had some women who were hybrids
of the first Valendran crash survivors and humans, who had some pretty unusual
abilities.

Jax could talk to animals in her mind,
and they actually listened to her. There were psychics, healers, fire starters,
crafters and other crazy shit she’d never heard of before. It was the crafters that
had pulled the materials from the earth to form the collars for the cats that
enabled them to speak.

Damn, she thought; she felt like a
lunatic just thinking about it all. She’d found pretty quickly though, that the
best way to keep her mind occupied was to try to sort it all out. It kept her
from wondering about Viper and his brothers.  

Lara wasn’t sure what she hated
more, the fact that she actually seemed to miss them and worry for them, or
that they had been right. Being around the Tezarian’s, hybrids and Valendrans
had felt like coming home for her, and she didn’t want to leave.

She rubbed the thick gold and
silver bracelet that one of the team members had made for her their first night
at the camp. Bree was also a crafter and had shown her how she used her gift by
creating the bracelet for her.  

At the time, Bree said that she
didn’t control what was made or why it was made, but that all items always
served another purpose for the wearer. Lara didn’t understand what she’d meant
by that, but she’d been thinking about it a lot ever since.

It started the first night, with
the crazier than normal dreams. It was as if her past life, from her earliest
memories forward, were playing in her dreams at night like a movie.  

Everything felt so real in the
dreams, the scents, the sounds, the scenery, even her feelings were so vibrant
and alive that it stayed with her when she awakened. Unfortunately, almost all of
her memories revolved around Viper, his brothers and her own brother, Jacordan.

The more that she dreamt of
Jacordan, the more she was convinced that he had been John in this life. It was
no crazier than the fact that she finally believed she was Kinara fle’ te’
Brondle. House of Stealth. It made sense to her now that she remembered how it
was. On Tezaria.

Viper and his family were of the
House of Death, fle’ te’ Trugh. The line of beast that ran through their family
was uniquely talented in different forms of death. Killing things. The brothers
could use just about anything to kill. She had memories of watching Drago take
one of their playing balls and using it to cut the head off of a target.

Jacordan and she, being of the
House of Stealth, were adept at sneaking, hiding and surprising their enemy. It
explained why she, and John had been so good in the mountains of Afghanistan;
it had been their element. Even without her beast, Roniq, somehow she and John remembered
the skills from the past.  

Even out here, with all these
uniquely talented aliens, she was still able to sneak up behind them.
Yesterday, she’d gotten behind Jax and had her gun in her spine before the
woman realized she was even there. It had been the talk of the camp all night.
Lara had been really glad that Jax had not only taken it really well; she bragged
about how well Lara had done it.   

“Get your head out of the cloud's
girl! We need breakfast then I want us in the forest by seven.” Jax said,
pulling Lara out of her own thoughts.

Lara sighed when she realized she’d
been drying the same patch of hair while she’d been deep in thought. She
quickly re-wet the now frizzy patch and combed it out before getting dressed as
Bree headed into the shower.

“Last day girls! Let’s make it
good!” Bree said whooping as she turned the cold water on full blast.

Lara grinned and shook her head as
Bree shrieked when the icy water hit her body. Bree was definitely their
morning person; she thought heading out of the bathroom where Dog’ee was
waiting for her.

“We need to speak. Privately.” The
cat said with uncharacteristic seriousness. Her curiosity piqued, Lara
hurriedly put on her boots and headed outside with Dog’ee right on her heels.

Lara headed deep into the woods to
make sure that the others, with their beast hearing wouldn’t hear whatever was
so important to Dog’ee. She had a few questions of her own that she wanted
answers to as well. Feeling like they had gone far enough, Lara stopped and
turned to Dog’ee. He looked worried; Lara thought.

“You take bracelet off. You’re
remembering too fast and it too dangerous.” Dog’ee said, surprising Lara.

“What do you mean? How can memories
be dangerous? And what would the bracelet have to do with it?” Lara asked, not
willing to tell Dog’ee that she also thought the bracelet was helping her to
remember.

“I don’t know how it works. I know
what I see. You see the memories at night. It’s too much too fast. Human brain
can’t take too much too fast.” Dog’ee said, laying a comforting paw on the toe
of her boot.

Lara shook her head, thinking about
it, but not really believing it, so she was already trying to disprove the cat.
She woke up with a vicious headache this morning though. One that was still
throbbing even after she’d taken three ibuprofen when she’d brushed her teeth.

Lara shook herself again and looked
at Dog’ee. “Ok, so what’s the worst that could happen if I remember too
quickly?” She asked, still doubtful that memories could harm anyone.  

“Your brain get too hot, and you
die.” Dog’ee said so simply it took Lara a second to register what he said.

“You’re kidding right?” Lara said
with a sarcastic snort.

“No, you die. You take it off now.”
Dog’ee said, stamping his paw on her boot in his typical dramatic fashion.

Lara moved her boot back from his paw,
so he couldn’t stomp on her again, before replying. “No. I don’t believe that
memories can kill me. Besides, I’m just now getting to the good part. I finally
became a teenager, and I want to see what happens… at the end.”

“You fool! You die at the end!”
Dog’ee said poofing out his fur in anger before shaking himself back to his
sleek self.

“Seriously! The damn memory can’t
kill me again! Besides, you’re the one snooping in my damn dreams at night,
wake me the hell up before I die!” Lara said huffily, crossing her arms over
her chest.

“It not that simple! You take it off,
and we talk to Ratoka tomorrow!” Dog’ee said, spreading his feet out wide, his
claws digging into the ground. Lara could tell his temper was rising along with
her own, but she didn’t care; she wasn’t going to take crazy orders from an
equally cat.

“I don’t need some old monk-like
dude to tell me that memories are just that, memories. Besides, we’ll be there tomorrow,
and I seriously doubt we’re going to speed things up enough in one night to get
to the end. It’s taken two nights to hit puberty!” Lara said, her frustration
mounting the more they talked about it.

For some reason, she really wanted
to remember it all before they got back tomorrow. She just felt like she should
be alone when she got to the end. It was weird. Lara knew that. However, so was
everything else that had happened since she’d met Viper, she thought staring
down at Dog’ee.

“Yo Lara! You out here?”

Lara and Dog’ee both turned to the
sound of Bree’s voice. Dog’ee growled and looked back at Lara. “Take it off!”

“Oh fuck this.” Lara muttered
quietly before raising her voice to shout back at Bree. “I’m coming.” With one
last look at Dog’ee, Lara turned and stomped back through the woods to the
camp.  

She wasn’t even sure if he had
followed until she reached the main cabin and headed to get some breakfast. She
saw him out of the corner of her eye, sitting by the door and staring at her.
Yeah, cause that’s not creepy at all she thought, shaking off the shiver that
ran down her spine.

Lara wasn’t stupid; she knew
something was kind of ‘off’ today. Besides the headache, she felt jittery, like
she’d had too much coffee, even though she was getting her first cup now. She
sighed heavily as she took a seat near Jax at one of the tables.

There were a few times in her life
when she’d had the same feeling. None of them good times. Maybe Dog’ee was right,
and she should take off the bracelet for now; she wondered, fingering it under
the table.

“Oh please tell me you aren’t
sitting there pining for your caveman. Tell me you aren’t that far gone yet!”
Jax teased her in a whisper. Which of course had been pointless around the
beast bonded who heard it anyway and laughed.

“No! I was definitely not here, but
I wasn’t with him!” Lara said, laughing with the others.

“You ok? You look like you didn’t
sleep well.” Jax asked, staring hard at Lara’s face.

Lara was surprised. “I’ve slept
great since we got here.”

Jax just shrugged. “You have some
dark circles going on under those eyes.”

“Hmmm.” Lara said, dismissing it.
Dark circles weren’t exactly apocalyptic in her book, and they certainly didn’t
mean the cat was right.