Niklosi's Nightmare (First Wave Book 10) (6 page)

BJ sighed in relief as she headed
back into the holding cell area and saw Traze and Nik facing each other as if
they were talking. Only they weren’t saying a word.

“You heard that I’m supposed to
hold you for military authorities. If there was ever a time to talk, it’s now-before
they get here. Are you military? Are you mercenaries?” BJ asked, still hoping
Nik would talk to her.

She knew it was crazy but she could
feel a connection with him. She knew he wanted to talk to her and didn’t
understand what was preventing him from doing so. All she knew for sure was
that her heart didn’t believe he was a bad man, and she had an urge to protect
him—from what she didn’t know, but she had a really bad feeling about the
notice on the computer.

“You want us to talk to someone who
called their momma? Are you fucking serious?” Traze asked throwing his arms out
dramatically.

“Gods damn you, shut up, Traze!”
Nik roared in frustration.

He had way too many people talking
in his head, and he didn’t need Traze and his mouth complicating things
further. It was far too late for lawyers and dealing with it quietly, and as
happy as he was that he’d be out of the cell soon, he was a little surprised to
find that he wanted to learn more about the pretty cop too.

“Traze? Another interesting name,”
BJ noted, bringing Nik from his thoughts.

“Fuck,” Nik whispered.

“And you tell me to shut up!” Traze
growled out as he rounded on Nik.

“Oh, hell! BJ!” Mojo called out.

BJ only had time to turn to the
office door before a beautiful, tall, thin black woman breezed into the holding
cell area carrying two large brown bags.

“Momma! What the hell! You know the
protocol!” BJ grated out from gritted teeth.

Bess Markson, BJ and Mojo’s mother,
stopped just inside the holding cell area and dropped the brown bags the moment
she saw Nik and Traze, the contents bursting across the floor. She clutched her
hands to her chest and took slow, measured steps to Nik’s cell.

“Momma?” BJ asked curiously as her
mother ignored her.

BJ turned when Mojo came in the
room and shrugged her shoulders at his confused look before turning back in
time to see Nik smile and lean towards her mother’s outstretched hands.

“You’re really here,” Bess
whispered as tears sprang into her eyes.

Nik smiled at the energy that enveloped
him the moment the beautiful woman had come into the room. Nik felt a rush the
moment her fingers touched his cheeks. Even Traze was struck silent by the intensity
and power that surrounded them when the elegant woman walked into the room.

“It is good to see one of my mate’s
people. He would have loved to see this day,” Bess whispered in Nik’s mind.

Nik’s eyes widened, and he stared
into the same beautiful hazel eyes that BJ had.

Bess smiled and pulled her hands
from Nik’s face.

“It is our gift to remain
unnoticed. We have no beast marks in our eyes, and our energy remains
completely hidden unless we want others to feel it,” Bess explained at his
unspoken question.

“Momma, what the hell!” BJ ground
out in shock.

Bess turned to her daughter and son
with a beautiful smile.

“Bessemiah, Jeremiah, these are
your father’s people. The Valendrans,” Bess said, leaving the entire room
staring at her with their mouths open.

Unfortunately, Traze was the first
to recover.

“Bessemiah? What the hell kind of horrible
name is that? I thought it was Blow Job,” Traze said.

Everyone watched in shock as Bess
threw her arm out, and Traze was slid across the floor and thrown into the bars
on the opposite side of the cell. He screamed out in anger as he kicked his feet,
and his arms flailed as he tried to break himself of the invisible hold.

“Child, although you cannot hear
your brother at the moment, he’s screaming at you to shut your mouth. I
believe, what is it . . .” Bess paused, her hand still reaching out to keep
Traze pinned against the bars. “Yes, Grai! Grai said he’d not like to see you
shot again for your stupidity. So calm yourself child and try not to make me
change my mind about helping you.”

The moment she finished speaking
Bess lowered her hand and Traze tried to act cool as he shook out his limbs and
flexed his fists to prove he could move again. His face was flamed in
embarrassment.

“How the hell do you know that?
What the hell are hybrids doing in the middle of the inbred capitol of the
country?” Traze asked, a little concerned now.

Bess laughed heartily at Traze, not
putting him at ease at all.  

“You don’t really think that all
those things said about these parts are true do you? What better way to hide
than to make people fear coming near you?” Bess asked with a grin before she
turned to BJ. “Come, honey. Let them out.”

BJ looked at her mother like she’d
lost her mind.

“Momma, how the hell do you know
they’re Valendran? I don’t think we have enough facts to let them go anywhere
yet,” BJ told her mother through their private path on the shengari’.

Bess smiled and hugged BJ and a
still shocked Mojo.

“Children, I told you this day
would come. Your father knew they would return, and he was right. Now, let them
out so we can figure out how to fix the problem with the government coming for them,”
Bess said.

Without another word, Bess walked
out into the office area, leaving BJ and Mojo staring at each other in shock.
They were still standing there when Bess came back in with a dustpan, broom,
paper towels, and cleaner. She set everything down near the dropped bags of
food and flashed her hands at BJ and Mojo.

“Go get the key and let them out.
We need to figure out what we’re going to tell the government when they come
for them and find them gone,” Bess said, then knelt to clean up the mess.

Mojo looked between his mother and
BJ and headed back out into the office. He returned a few seconds later with
the keys to the cells. BJ stood in front of him and held her hands up in the
air.

“Wait a damn minute! I need to know
what the hell is going on before I start letting murderers roam around my
station and my town! Did everyone go insane? Was there something in the damn
water? What the hell, Momma?” BJ yelled out.

“I ain’t going against Momma, and I
want to know about that stone and what other technology they have,” Mojo said
as he easily stepped around her and began opening Nik’s cell.

Bess finished cleaning up the floor
and smiled at her daughter.

“These are our people, and you of
all of us should be as excited as I am. I’ve waited so many years for you to
fall in love and have a family of your own, and now your mate has found you,”
Bess said wistfully before she gently caressed BJ’s cheek then breezed out of
the holding area and into the office.  

BJ stood with her mouth wide open and
her left eye twitching from stress as she looked into both cells at Nik and
Traze. Nik refused to meet her gaze, and Traze waggled his eyebrows at her,
causing her to run into the office after her mother.

“What the hell are you talking
about? Which of them is my mate?” BJ asked, desperately hoping her mother was
lying-praying if it was true it wasn’t Traze.

“Tsk, tsk, child, you should have
spent more time honing your gifts instead of pretending to be normal. The tall,
gorgeous Niklosi is your mate. He reminds me so much of your father,” Bess said
softly as her eyes teared up at the thought of her Jeremiah.

Nik and Traze had just stepped into
the office area, and BJ blushed to her roots as she avoided Nik’s gaze.

“Grai, Traze’s brother and the
leader of the Earth Alliance, is almost here. We can help you cover this up,”
Nik said, keeping his attention on the mother.

He refused to acknowledge any talks
of mates. Period. It didn’t matter how attracted he was to the beautiful cop.
He wasn’t ready for that kind of commitment in his life and wasn’t going to be
pressured into it just because he may have found her.

Since his beast wasn’t freaking out
over the discovery, and he was not suffering any of the effects that his friends
had gone through when finding their mates, he wasn’t the least bit convinced
the attraction he felt for her was anything more than any other human he’d
bedded and left.

“We need to get the phones back
online,” Mojo suggested. “If they’ve been trying to call and can’t get us,
they’re likely to just show up. Especially if they know who these guys are.”

Mojo gestured to Nik and Traze.

“We have a transport craft hovering
above the station. If anything comes near here, we’ll know,” Nik said as he
walked over to the evidence box and began pulling out his weapons.

BJ’s temper flared as the situation
got out of her control, and she whistled loudly to get everyone’s attention.

“Everyone needs a damn time out! I
need to know what the hell is going on! How did your prints get a hit in the
system? What do they know about you? Do they know how to track you?” BJ
demanded, her hands on her hips as she glared at Nik.

“Damn, she’s right. How did they ID
you?” Mojo asked, sinking into his chair.

Niklosi shook his head, wondering
the same thing.

“I don’t have a clue. They
shouldn’t have our prints,” Nik said with a shrug as he looked at Traze.

As frustrated as Nik was with
Traze, he knew the man-child was light years ahead of him on the technology and
information side of things.

Traze rubbed his hands together as
he moved over to the laptop and looked over Mojo’s shoulder.

“Here!” he said after a few seconds,
pointing to the screen. “Your charges state murder, abuse of a corpse, and
tampering with evidence. They know we can dust the corpses of the Relians; they
have to be using them as keywords for their search parameters, and that’s why
the hit.”

Traze turned to Nik.

“My beast is still out from the Taser.
You need to tell Grai so he can get Fiorn’s people on that now,” he warned.

“The Relians are real? That was a
Relian you killed out there? This close to our people?” Mojo asked in awe and
fear.

“Oh my,” Bess whispered as a shiver
of fear ran up her spine. “I’m calling the council.”

BJ was shocked speechless at the
events unfolding around her and immediately opened herself to her gift at the
same time her twin, Mojo did as well.

Chapter
Five

BJ saw the white light in her head
only seconds before she saw Mojo step into the light with his hands
outstretched in front of him. He nodded to her, and his eyes closed in
concentration. BJ opened herself up to the energy and light surrounding them
and allowed the scenes to unfold before her eyes as Mojo watched with her.

Nik looked shocked as BJ and Mojo
appeared to be struck by a seizure. He rushed to BJ’s side to make sure she
wouldn’t fall as her eyes rolled back in her head and her eyelids began to
flutter rapidly.

“What the hell is wrong with them?”
Nik asked their mother, wondering why BJ’s body was completely rigid but she
remained upright.

Traze backed away from Mojo, who
was still in the chair in front of the laptop but appeared to be similarly
afflicted as BJ.

Bess just smiled and fluttered her
elegant hands in front of her.

“They’re using one of their gifts.
We’ll have a plan in a moment,” Bess said with a calmness that Traze and Nik
didn’t feel.

Traze looked over at Nik with
concern as Mojo and BJ continued to show signs of a mutual seizure.

“What is their gift? What are they
doing?” Nik asked, still holding on to BJ even though she remained standing on
her own.

“Ah, my Mojo has his father’s gift
of sight, and my BJ can see an outcome depending on a particular scenario. They
join their energy, putting forth different scenarios of what can happen in the
next 24 hours, and together they can see the future outcome of each scenario,”
Bess said.

Nik was a little unnerved when Bess
walked over to the coffee pot and began making a fresh one without a bit of
concern for her children and their strange behavior. The more he considered her
words, the more confused he became.  

“Wait . . . what? They’re seeing different
futures?” he asked.

“Yes and no,” Bess said as the
coffee began to brew. “They are determining our best course of action through
different future scenarios over the next 24 hours.” 

“So they’re seeing the future?”
Traze reiterated the question since he didn’t think she answered it.

Bess chuckled and began tidying
things around the office as if her adult children weren’t frozen in a seizure
state a few feet from her. It continued to unnerve the hell out of Nik and
Traze.

“Yes, child, they are seeing what
we need to do in order to get out of this alive,” she assured them.

“I’ve never seen a hybrid that
needed another one in order to use a gift,” Traze muttered in confusion, not
believing what was going on around them.

“That isn’t their only gift,” Bess assured
them as she took a package of cookies out of a cabinet. “They can each do that
independently, but the clarity, strength, and accuracy is increased exponentially
when they join their energy.

“My BJ, her other gift is why she
went into law enforcement. She can tell guilt and innocence by someone’s energy
and can hunt the guilty. Now, Mojo, he graduated from that prestigious
institute of technology and is the reason we’re so up to date here. He creates
the most amazing things. I don’t understand most of it, but it’s incredible.”

Bess set a paper plate of cookies
on the desk between Nik and Traze and ignored Traze’s disbelieving gaze as he
looked around the sparse police station.

“Have a cookie while I get you some
coffee,” she said with a smile, ignoring their puzzled looks as she turned back
to the coffee pot.

Traze made a face at Nik and
twirled his finger near the side of his head to tell Nik he thought Bess was
crazy.

“Child, if you do that again I’m
going to break your finger and show you how crazy I am. There is no call for
disrespect,” Bess said, her back still turned to them as she poured coffee into
cups.

Traze put his hand down and looked
at Nik like he wasn’t sure what they were dealing with.

Bess turned around with two
steaming mugs of coffee and handed one to Nik before giving the other to a
hesitant Traze. Nik took a sip while Traze stared down into the cup and
wondered if the crazy woman was trying to poison them.

“That’s wonderful, thank you,” Nik
said, trying not to overreact to what was happening around them. “How did you
know how I take it?”

Bess brought two more filled cups
and set them near Mojo and BJ.

“I can see things from your beast’s
mind. Your memories, your hopes, and fears,” Bess admitted.

Traze paled and almost spilled his
coffee while Bess winked at him and laughed.

“Don’t you worry none, child. I
don’t pry on the important things unless I need the ammunition for a future
fight,” Bess said while Traze paled even further.

Traze nodded and took a gulp of the
hot coffee. He sputtered for a moment and felt the hair on the back of his neck
stand on end when Bess already had an unopened bottle of water for him.

Nik ignored Bess and Traze and
looked over at BJ, still a little unnerved and uncertain about what was
happening to her. He convinced himself that his concern was the same he’d have
for any of his people who appeared the way she and Mojo did right now.

It’s got nothing to do with her
being my potential mate,
Nik told himself.

“Are there more of our people
here?” Nik asked.

“Of course! Not that many, but we
have some. We won’t force any of them to meet you if they don’t want to, but
they will help us,” Bess assured him. “She’s fine; don’t you worry none about
her, BJ and Mojo are very good at what they do.”

Nik pulled his gaze from BJ and
looked into his coffee cup, a little embarrassed at being caught staring at the
beautiful cop again.

He should have noticed the resemblance
between Mojo and BJ the moment he saw them together. They had the high, elegant
cheek bones of their beautiful mother, and her full, pouty lips. Their skin was
lighter than hers—more like his smooth, coffee-with-cream complexion—and they
had the exact same unusual hazel eyes of their mother. They were a beautiful
family.

Bess laughed and brought Nik out of
his thoughts.

“When you decide to face your
destiny on your feet instead allowing fear to keep you on your knees, I will
answer your questions,” Bess told Nik cryptically.

Traze raised an eyebrow at Nik and
made a comical face denoting his curiosity. Nik flipped him off and sipped his
coffee as he went back to staring at the beautiful cop and her brother.

BJ pulled the light around them and
put forth the first scenario and allowed the future scene to unfold before her
and Mojo. While she paid attention to specific details of the event, Mojo would
study a different set of details, giving them more information to share
regarding each event.

When one scene completed, she or
Mojo would put forth another scenario and another vision would unfold in their
minds. The twin siblings then manipulated the possibilities until they finally
shook themselves from the power and blinked at their mother.

“What did you see?” Bess asked as
she handed each of her children a cup of coffee and a cookie.

“We’re going to need everyone,
including them at some point,” Mojo told his mother as he gestured to Nik and
Traze.

BJ took the mug in shaky hands and
shook her head at the cookie her mother tried to hand her.

Bess only smiled at the news.

“It stands to reason that we would
need one another at the crossroad we face. I believe we should wait for Grai
and our council to arrive before discussing our options,” Bess suggested as she
took Nik’s empty cup from his stiff fingers.

Traze was going to ask Nik when
Grai would arrive when Bess turned to him and winked.

“In five more minutes. Six if he
stops to speak with your pilot hovering above us first,” Bess said and chuckled
when Traze turned white.

“She’s fucking creepy!” Traze
whispered loudly to Nik.

“Hey, watch your mouth, that’s my
momma!” Mojo growled at Traze as he sat straighter in his chair.

“If you guys know what’s going to
happen, why the hell didn’t you know we were coming?” Traze countered, not sure
if he believed they were telling the truth about their gift.

He’d seen an awful lot of amazing
talents among the hybrids, but these people were just creepy as hell, and he
wanted to be done and out of there as fast as they could get it done.

“Why?” Mojo asked with a shrug.
“Most of the beauty of life comes from the surprises every day. We only use it
when we need to.”

“It also doesn’t work that way,” BJ
added. “We can’t see everything, and things for personal gain or success won’t
work. We looked at what would save your people and our people, not what would
save us in order to see anything.”

“Wait,” Nik said with a shake of
his head. He was confused. “So you have a plan that will save everyone but the
two of you? How the hell does that help?”

BJ blushed a little at the concern
and vehemence that Nik displayed for her well-being, but mate or not, she had a
job to do, and she would do it. Their community was counting on them.

“We’ll be fine. We can see
ourselves in the scenarios even if we don’t go into it asking what happens to
us. We’ll be right beside you through this; we have to be in order for this to
work,” BJ assured him.

Somehow her assurances didn’t make
Niklosi feel any better about the situation.

Traze’s mouth hung open in shock
when six minutes passed and Grai, Blade, and Tricia rushed into the small
office. Bess winked at him as she stepped forward with her hand outstretched.

“We are honored to meet you, Grai
T’Alq,” Bess said with a nod before turning to Tricia. “Tricia, his mate.
Blade, his . . . brain washing bitch. Your power will not work on my children,
or myself.”

Everyone but Mojo and BJ almost
choked on her words. Blade narrowed his eyes at her behind his sunglasses while
Grai was stunned speechless. Tricia smiled and shook Bess’s hand.

“I doubt that there is any need for
his abilities on the people here, but he will most likely come in handy for the
military that are coming,” Tricia said gently, trying to ease the suddenly
tense situation.

“She’s right, Momma. He’s really
going to come in handy,” BJ assured her mother, hoping to end the anger her
mother felt towards Blade’s initial intentions for being there.

Bess straightened her spine as she
stared intently at Blade.

“We have an understanding, don’t
we, child?” Bess said softly.

Grai and Tricia watched in stunned
silence as the entirety of Bess’s eyes began swirling in hazel colors. There
were no swirls in her irises like with the other beast bonded hybrids; the
entirety of her eyes—including the whites—swirled like hazel storm clouds.
They’d never seen anything like it.

To Grai’s astonishment, Blade
nodded his head rapidly at the tall woman and removed his sunglasses, exposing
his strange, green eyes with amber swirls.

“Yes, ma’am, we have a perfect
understanding,” Blade said with a respectful nod before putting his sunglasses
back on.

Bess’s eyes stopped swirling and
returned to their unusual hazel color, and she turned to Grai and Tricia.

“Our town leaders, the mayor and
district attorney, are coming; they will be here shortly, and BJ and Mojo can
explain our options to you when they get here. Would you like some coffee?”
Bess offered, ignoring their startled glances at one another.

“She’s fucking creepy! The three of
them have to be the inbred branch of hybrids or something!” Traze warned Grai
through the shengari’.

Grai shot his brother a warning
look moments before Traze’s head was thrown forward by a vicious slap.

“What the fuck?” Traze growled as
he whirled around to face who he thought would be a late arriving Lieutenant
David Jacobs. No one was there.

“I warned you to show some
respect,” Bess said, causing Traze to turn to her as he paled. “There’s no
cause to be mean for the sake of it. We don’t cotton to bullies around here. If
you can’t behave on your own, you will be taught respect.”

Grai stormed across the room and
grabbed Traze by the back of his shirt.
“Do not make an already bad decision even worse! Watch your tongue, or I’ll rip
it out myself,” Grai growled.

Grai had no idea what the hell they
were dealing with, but the power he could feel emanating from the strange
family was enough to give them all pause—everyone but his reckless brother. He
had to figure out what was going on before Traze really pissed someone off.

“I got it, I got it. I’m sorry,”
Traze said turning his head to Bess and trying to look contrite.

Bess laughed and waved her hands at
him.

“You just need a little more
growing up, and you’re going to be just fine. Just stop standing in your own
way and learn when to stay silent but vigilant. Now, let’s all get some coffee
and cookies. Irwin and Dennis should be here in three more minutes,” Bess said
as she turned back to the coffee pot.