Rion (8 page)

One moment she was standing inside Stonehenge’s vault, the next she’d arrived in a blinding burst of light. The air seemed
too thin. Although it was crisp and clean, she couldn’t suck enough oxygen into her lungs. Had they made it to Tor?

Could she find a lever to pull to send her back home?

The metal platform they stood on vaguely resembled Stonehenge, but the proportions were wrong, the materials peculiar. Instead
of a huge ring of rocks, she and Rion stood surrounded by glowing green granite.

She didn’t see a control panel. Or a lever.

They’d landed on a platform inside a busy bronzed metal dome where people in unusual styles of clothing strode by. Many wore
makeup that covered half their faces. Men and women had skin that was neon pink, sparkling silver, gold, or blue, their hair
wired with blinking crystals that changed color, too.

She’d landed in a bizarre dream—only she was fully awake. This couldn’t be happening. But it was. She was far from home. And
it was all Rion’s fault.

“Why did you kidnap me?” She kept her tone low but couldn’t control the edge of anger.

“I need your help.”

“You could have asked.”

“You would have said no. And if you’d known how badly I needed you, you’d never have gone on a date with me—not to Stonehenge.”

Now she knew why he’d suddenly started treating her differently. To set her up. The bastard had flirted with her, kissed her,
given her a spectacular orgasm… all to lure her out to Stonehenge so he could kidnap her.

Damn it. She’d thought she’d finally found a man she could trust, a gallant knight. But he’d been deluding her from the start.

“Look, I’m sorry I brought you here against your will. But I have to save my people.” Rion’s tone pleaded for her understanding.
She wasn’t in a forgiving mood and said nothing, so he continued, “In my flashes, the conditions on Honor are brutal. Men
are whipped until they can’t work. They kill women and children.” His face hardened. “I know taking you was wrong, but I’d
do anything to save my people.”

Was he feeding her another story? More lies? She spoke between teeth gritted with anger and embarrassment over how foolish
she’d been. “What exactly do you want from me?”

“Once we get to my world, I need you to send telepathic messages to Honor’s dragonshapers. Help me organize a revolt.”

A revolt? “That sounds dangerous.”

“I’ll protect you.”

Like she could believe a word he said after he’d lied to her? Kidnapped her? She snorted. “I’m not interested. Send me home.”

Rion pressed a microchip into her forearm.

She jerked back too late. The device had already sunk painlessly through her skin. Although it didn’t sting, she frowned and
rubbed the spot. “What did you do to me?”

“I placed a subcutaneous translator under your skin. Now you’ll understand any language. And when you speak English, others
will understand you.”

“You could have asked first,” she muttered, a chill icing her blood.

The public square was unfamiliar territory, but Marisa had traveled to many different countries on Earth. Humanity had basic
needs. People required food, shelter, transportation. Most civilized societies had police or the equivalent.

When a group of people surged past, she pointed. “Hey, that man’s waving to you. Is he your contact, Phen?”

When Rion turned to look, she slipped into the group of people passing by. Within moments, the crowd swallowed her. Her nerves
yelled at her to run. But blending in was the best way to hide. So she kept walking at the same pace, but at the first opportunity
to change direction, she slipped into a new group.

Behind her, she heard shouting and footsteps slapping the pavement. Had Rion called her name? She couldn’t be certain, but
she didn’t dare turn back and look.

Pulse racing, Marisa kept walking, feeling as if she were being chased through a nightmare. Overhead traffic vehicles looked
as if they were about to crash but never did. Kids pulled behind them shiny red balls on leashes, which could have been toys,
pets, computers, or a place to store their personal belongings. She had no idea.

When a hand clamped onto her shoulder, her knees went weak. She turned to see not Rion, but a man wearing an official-looking
gray uniform with piping on the collar. A black helmet with blue Plexiglas hid his face. Metal plates protected his chest.
Between the chrome baton that hung from the holster at his hip, the knife strapped to his sleeve, and the throwing stars at
his belt, he looked dangerous, deadly.

“Come with me.” His voice, rough and mechanical, shot a shiver of fear down her back. Had she fled from a kidnapper to someone
even worse?

“What do you want?” She tried to step away, but he kept a firm grip on her shoulder.

The crowd around them parted and kept swarming, paying no attention.

“You have broken many laws.”

“I have?” She glanced anxiously from the official to the crowd. Even if she could break his grasp, he might shoot her before
she could hide.

He ticked off regulations. “Landing without a permit or a license. Failure to pass through customs or decontamination. Trespassing.
Evading Enforcers.”

“I can explain.” She wished she could stop the dread rolling through her. Would he believe her if she said that this wasn’t
her world? That she didn’t belong here? While she had no knowledge of Tor’s legal system or the consequences of breaking so
many laws, her arrest seemed imminent.

She should flee.

As if sensing her rising panic, the Enforcer gripped her shoulder harder. “Let’s go.”

“Where?”

He didn’t answer. He simply marched her down the sidewalk. All around her, life went on. No one stared. No one shot her a
sympathetic glance.

Foreign smells hit her in a mélange of spicy perfumes, citrus fruits, cleaners, antiseptics, paint, and industrial fumes making
her gut clench. Meat and vegetables, speared on shish kebabs and fried in oil, had a sugary-sweet aroma that made her stomach
roil.

Oh… my… God.
She’d never felt so completely alone in her life. She had no friends or family here. She didn’t even know where this Enforcer
was taking her.

“How long before I can explain to someone in authority what happened?”

“There’s nothing to explain. You broke the law. You are guilty. According to law 154 of the broken stone, the sentence is
death.”

“Death?” This Enforcer was dragging her to her execution? Her mind reeled. “You don’t understand. I was forced to come here.”

“You broke the law. You will be punished.”

“But I had no choice. I was brought to Tor against my will. Surely there are exceptions?”

“None.” The Enforcer’s fingers tightened into an iron lock on her shoulder.

Marisa began to shake with fear. She’d been in tough spots before. Covering a war in the Mideast, she’d once been caught behind
enemy lines. This was worse. Her government wouldn’t be demanding her release. No one besides Lucan even knew she was gone,
and although she’d gotten off one last telepathic message to him, even if he’d heard her, she hadn’t had the chance to tell
him where Rion had taken her.

She was going to die. Alone. On an alien world. And no one would ever know what had happened to her.

W
HERE THE HELL
was Marisa? Rion searched the crowd but she’d disappeared. A bit of movement snagged his attention. There. She’d tried to
blend into the crowd but her Earth clothing gave her away. Already an Enforcer had found her. With a leap off the platform
he followed. He’d promised to protect her, but he hadn’t known he’d have to protect her from herself. He’d expected her to
be furious that he’d tricked her. He’d anticipated that she wouldn’t easily accept her new circumstances. But he’d never expected
her to flee. Not from him.

Yes, in his flash, he’d seen her shot. At the time, he’d assumed she’d died in a gunfight, not execution-style.

If the Enforcer shot her… Sweet Goddess. Rion wouldn’t let that happen. He had to save her.

Rion peered through the crowd at the Enforcer marching Marisa to her death.

Shifting position, he followed closely. Enforcers always worked in pairs. Another one had to be nearby. But if he could take
out this Enforcer in one blow, before he could radio his partner for help, before he could hurt Marisa, he might be able to
rescue her.

Damn it. He shouldn’t have been so careless.

Her ploy had taken him totally by surprise. And her actions scared the life out of him. Who would have thought she’d make
such a bold move when she didn’t know the terrain, or the laws or the customs? She’d never even set foot off Earth. For her
to boldly take off on her own… amazed him.

But she was Lucan’s twin. And her life in danger had Rion on edge. Not only because she was his best friend’s sister. Not
only because of her telepathic talents. Above that, she was Marisa. If anything happened to her… it would affect him in ways
he couldn’t explain.

She would not pay for his mistake. Every cell in his body focused on getting her back.

When the crowd thickened, Rion closed the distance, sneaking up behind the Enforcer and Marisa. Protected by helmet and body
armor, the Enforcer had few vulnerable areas exposed.

Rion struck hard and fast, slashing his knife into the neck, slicing the carotid artery. Hands going to his bloody neck, the
Enforcer released Marisa. She immediately jerked away.

Her face was dirty, a new smudge on her cheek. Yet Rion had seen that smudge before. From somewhere the Enforcer’s partner
fired two shots.
Bang. Bang.
There was a pause. Another shot.

The exact same smudge and weapon pattern from his flash. Marisa was about to take a fatal bullet.

As the crowd screamed, ducked, and panicked, Rion dived and tackled Marisa, and they rolled, knocking into people who were
trying to scramble out of the line of fire. Rion used their momentum to keep rolling. They ended up behind a garbage bin.

“You found me?” Marisa wiped her hair out of her eyes, which speared him with defiance. “Of course you found me. You need
me.”

“There’s no time to talk.” Rion grabbed her hand. “Come on. More Enforcers are on the way.”

R
ION POINTED OUT
a group of Enforcers headed in their direction. “Keep your head down. By now, they know what you look like.”

“They do?”

“They took our pictures the moment we arrived on the platform. By now, every Enforcer in the city must be looking for us.”

The Enforcers’ deliberate march through the parting crowd and toward them made Marisa’s mouth go dry with fear. Police in
any country looked much the same, but the difference here was that the populace practically tripped over themselves to avoid
their own Enforcers.

Something swooped at her. She staggered, and a small projectile whizzed by her ear. “What was that?”

“Tracers. If one of them tags us, it’ll make it easy for the Enforcers to keep tabs on us.”

She caught a flash of wings. Between Rion’s kidnapping and the Enforcer’s capture, she’d forgotten that Cael’s owl had also
flown through the portal.

“We have to move out. Now.” Rion placed his arm over her shoulder to steady her. “They have the exits covered.” He urged her
forward, and she didn’t pull away.

Rion might have forced her here against her will, but it was in his best interests to keep her alive. Going it alone had almost
gotten her killed.

“If Merlin hadn’t flown right at me, the tracer would have gotten me.” She craned her head back and searched for Merlin but
didn’t see him among the monorail vehicles that swished in and out of the terminal. Overhead, more moving cars traveled through
the air and disappeared into tunnels. She saw no tracks, no wings, and wondered how the moving trains stayed aloft. The immense
geodesic dome had several windows. Outside, the sky was blue, a deeper blue than on Earth, and wisps of silver clouds floated
by. But Merlin had vanished. “Where did he go?”

“Someplace safe, I hope.”

From his tone, she knew she and Rion were far from safe. She glanced back longingly but could no longer see the platform with
the transporter.

With eyes sharp and wary, Rion glanced over his shoulder at the Enforcers hunting through the crowds for them. Together he
and Marisa dodged into thick foot traffic, and he pulled her with him behind a food station, where they merged with a group
of singing youngsters.

Rion took a right, then a left, leading her past stores and fruit stands, then maneuvered them onto a moving walkway. They
stood between a janitor pushing what looked like a phone booth full of cleaning supplies and two men who had to be over seven
feet tall.

“Where are we going?” she asked.

“To meet my contact.”

“To get the charges dropped?”

“To hide us until we can leave for Honor.” He steered her around a copper-colored puddle on the pavement. But it couldn’t
rain inside this building, could it?

She needed to focus. On the important things. “I want to go home.”

He raked a hand through his hair, face weary. “I’m sorry I had to drag you into this. But if you help me, I’ll make sure—”

“I don’t make bargains with kidnappers,” she snapped.

Rion glanced over his shoulder. “Keep your voice down.”

She spotted a large squad of Enforcers coming toward them and jerked her thumb. “They’ve already spotted us.”

“Come on.” Rion dragged her to the side of the moving walkway. He leaped onto the railing and hauled her up beside him. She
looked down. They were balanced ten stories above another level. Below, the people were tiny. The ground was steel or concrete.
Whatever. It was hard.

“Trust me.” Rion squeezed her hand and yanked her over the edge.

She would have screamed. But her vocal cords froze. Automatic reflexes kicked in, and she tried to dragonshape. But the morphing
didn’t happen. She remained fully human, with no wings to stop her fall. Her stomach swooped up into her throat. Her hair
whipped back from her face, and her eyes watered, giving her a blurred view… of death. She squeezed her eyes closed, all the
while thinking,
No, no, no
. This couldn’t be happening.