Silver Storm: Timewalker Chronicles, Book 2 (25 page)

Sarah had been the cause of the Crux, in the moment he’d called out to her, she’d fought herself, debated giving herself to him, giving him the storm.

But it was over now. They’d won a temporary victory in what appeared to be a global war. He had no idea what would happen next, but whatever did, he’d be by Sarah’s side.

The child Sarah had found was a not a Timewalker, her light was different but no less bright. Still, the Timewalkers fought for her. He’d let her see the courage Sarah displayed while fighting for her survival, for the survival of millions, and hoped the child would rise to the occasion. She had, but that didn’t mean she could come out of hiding. She was still small. Still young. And they had no idea who she was or how to find her. So, he had to scare her a little. And that meant letting her see the monsters that waited for her so she’d stop trying to get out of the cage.

“Stop scaring her.”

“She needs to be scared. Otherwise she’ll do something foolish.”

“Like what?”

“Oh, I don’t know.” He kissed her temple. “Like throw lightning bolts at aliens from the top of tall buildings?”

“Hmm. Sounds like my kind of girl.”

Tim laughed and turned Sarah, and her smart mouth, to face him. “Exactly what I’m afraid of.”

Sarah smiled and reached for him, wrapped her arm around his head, around his Mark, and pulled his lips to hers. He kissed her tenderly, grateful for the love that hummed between them in a current more electric and powerful than anything else in the universe.

“We made it.” Tears slid down her cheeks and dripped onto his arm, which she was currently using as a pillow.

“We made it.”

“Are you dead?”

“Yes. Katie and Molly took care of it. I didn’t ask where they got the bodies, but the police will find Tim Tucker and an unknown female burned to cinders at the top of the Hancock Observatory, presumably hit by lightning during a freak storm.”

“Nice way to go.”

“I thought so.”

Sarah pushed him onto his back and curled into his side like a sleepy kitten. He couldn’t blame her, he still felt like he’d been run over by a half mile of back-to-back semitrucks.

“Now to the beach?”

“To the beach, a little cottage and a dive-shop owned by Mr. and Mrs. Davis.”

“That will be nice. I love the beach.”

He pulled her tightly against his side and reached into his duffel bag. When he had what he needed, he pulled Sarah’s hand up to his chest and slid his grandmother’s diamond-and-emerald engagement ring onto her finger.

“Mrs. Davis, will you marry me?”

Sarah froze, then rose onto one elbow to kiss him until he was out of breath and desperate to hear her answer. Her mission was over. She had control of her power without touching him now. She didn’t need him anymore, not even to protect the child. He could and would help her with that from afar if he had to, and she would know that. The child knew it and had maintained her connection to them both.

The thought of Sarah out there alone, making her way in the world without him, cut him deeply inside where no one could see him bleed. “I love you, Sarah. Say yes.”

Sarah slid the ring all the way down her finger and made a fist to keep it there. “I love you, and your scars, and your freaky math brain.”

“Is that a yes?”

“Yes.” She kissed his forehead. “Yes.” Her lips grazed his cheek.

“Definitely, yes.” Soft feminine lips covered his with a promise he’d never once thought he’d find in a woman’s kiss…forever.

And with a Timewalker, no telling just how long that might be.

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Thank you for spending part of your valuable time reading my book. If you enjoyed it, won’t you please take a moment to leave me a review at your favorite retailer? Your recommendation to a friend is the biggest compliment and gift an author can hope for.

Thank you very much!

Michele Callahan

Read on for an excerpt of

Blue Abyss, Timewalker Chronicles, Book 3

The Timewalker Chronicles
:

RED NIGHT

SILVER STORM (Book 2)

BLUE ABYSS (Book 3)

BLACK GATE (Book 4)

CHIMERA BORN (Book 4.5)

WHITE FIRE (Book 5)

Coming Soon – Chimera’s Kiss

The Ozera Wars: (Erotic Space Opera)

ROGUE’S DESTINY (Book 1)

QUEEN’S DESTINY (Book 2)

WARRIOR’S DESTINY (Book 3)

The DESTINY Trilogy (Omnibus Books 1-3)

Coming Soon – Hunter’s Destiny

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Timewalker Chronicles, Book 3:

BLUE ABYSS

by Michele Callahan

Copyright 2014 by Michele Callahan

All Rights Reserved

Prologue

Two Years Ago
…

Raiden Tzachar staggered into the tiny healer’s room on his ship and took a seat beside the only occupied healing bed. The traitor had escaped him and even now raced for the surface of Earth. Blood soaked Raiden’s back from a dagger wound in his shoulder and poison burned through every cell, devouring him from the inside out.

The long, soft bed where his second-in-command, his brother by choice, lay dying was no longer a healing bed, it was soon to be an open grave. Gerrick’s normally pristine uniform lay sticky and stiff with blood. The substance still flowed freely from the wound in Gerrick’s thigh. Ignoring the pain from his own mortal wound, Raiden laid his hand on Gerrick’s shoulder so the giant of a man would know that he’d returned. His entire crew had perished today, but none of his men died alone.

“Gerrick. I’m here.” Raiden squeezed Gerrick’s shoulder tightly, unable to completely rein in his rage.

“Did you kill him?” Gerrick uttered the question through lips stained by poison. Gerrick’s eyes flashed open for a blink, then the faint light of the chamber assaulted his friend’s overly sensitized pupils which were stained an inhuman chalky blue by the Triscani toxin. The traitor, his own brother, had injected the poison into every single member of the crew. The sight brought an ache to Raiden’s chest that had nothing to do with the wound in his shoulder. A flood of memories hurtled to the front of Raiden’s mind, but he ruthlessly shoved every one of them aside. Now was not the time.

Raiden grimaced and did the one thing he could to bless his honorable friend with a peaceful death. He held up hands stained red with his own life’s blood…and lied. “Yes. Gutted him with my blades, brother.”

Gerrick visually inspected Raiden’s hands and actually smiled. “Good. Good.” That smile was a miracle in itself if the fire in his own veins was any indication of what Gerrick suffered. The wounded soldier attempted to roll onto his side, to move his arms, but only managed to twitch a couple of fingers. Gerrick’s arm muscles were paralyzed. Soon, his diaphragm would be as well. Then he’d stop breathing.

Death would be a blessing. Triscani poison was an excruciating end. If not for Raiden’s Immortal mother, whoever she might be, he’d be dead as well. Hell, he would’ve been dead an hour ago, just as that bastard brother of his had planned. His friend had no such luck. Gerrick was more than three-quarters human.

Gerrick closed his eyes. “The soul stone around my neck. Take it. Keep it safe.”

“What are you talking about?” Raiden rose and struggled to reach his bloody palm beneath the neck of Gerrick’s uniform. His fingers grazed a chain and he tugged, shocked to discover a swirling black stone dangling at its end.

“Where did you get this?” Fire rose from his gut, anger and fear mixing in a churn of pain up his throat. A soul stone was a small piece of stone taken from the material that created the Gates between worlds, a small piece of the Gate itself. Extremely rare. Very dangerous. These stones were used by the healers of old to trap enemies, make mortals Immortal, and to drain Immortals of their power.

The Immortals on Itara feared the stones. To be caught carrying one was an instant death sentence. A half-breed like himself could live thousands of years off one Immortal soul trapped in a stone. They could also be used to record memories or knowledge to pass along to another, but, according to the books on Itaran Lore, doing so usually led to the death or loss of sanity of the person who donated the knowledge. The few stones known to exist were held by the Mater Mortis and the Queen’s inner circle. Viciously guarded.

To the Immortal race on Itara, the stones were a powerful and indestructible threat.

Gerrick opened his eyes once more, and the unholy blue made his words even more ominous. “Lose it, and we lose the war. It must be presented to The Lost One. It must be given to him. He’s here. On Earth.”

Raiden removed the stone from Gerrick’s neck and studied it. Assuming he could even find the lost king, the bastard would most likely kill him the second he saw the stone. And despite what Gerrick claimed, this stone did not belong to the Lost One. Gerrick wouldn’t sense what his mother’s Itaran blood allowed him to know. The stone did not house a piece of the Lost One’s soul, or any other Itaran’s. But it did hold something… “It’s not his soul stone, Gerrick. It sings of Earth. No Itaran created such a stone and no Itaran’s soul is held within it. Where did you get this? Who gave it to you?”

Gerrick tried to laugh, but his lungs were filling with fluid and it came out gargled. “Poor Little Prince. Didn’t know I had a secret.” He smiled and turned his head so he could see the stone dangling from the chain held in Raiden’s grip. “Protect it with your life. It must be returned to the king.”

“How am I supposed to find him? He’s been missing for centuries.” Raiden clenched the stone tightly in his fist. The Lost King was a mystery even the Immortals had been unable to solve. At the time of the Crux, the King had been turned to ash with his Queen. And before that? In the alternative timeline no one else on Raiden’s crew seemed to remember? He’d disappeared years before the final battle. None who remembered either version of the timeline could explain what had happened to him, or to their people. In all their missions to Earth, and all their battles, he’d never heard even a hint or rumor of the Lost King. Not once.

“Keep it safe. Return it.”

“But…?” By the gods, how was he going to find the Lost One, the True King? He could blend in with Earth’s human population. He knew several languages and had gathered intel on the Itaran Triads here many times, making sure they weren’t in contact with the Triscani, or helping any more of those bastards escape their prison dimension. It wasn’t like he could waltz into one of the Triad leader’s homes and ask. They’d kill an Itaran on sight, even half-bloods. Any Itaran blood was a threat to their power.

No, Earth wasn’t involved in this war between the Immortals and the Triscani. The unsuspecting humans weren’t fighting it, they were just unlucky enough to live on the battle zone.

Gerrick’s grin faded and his legs twitched, the muscles fibers finally dying. He had moments, no longer.

“Tell me what to do? Where to go? How do I find him?”

“I don’t know. She didn’t tell me.” Gerrick shuddered.

“Who?”

“The Seer.” Gerrick choked and fought to draw air into his lungs. “Don’t die. She’ll come for you.”

“Who, Gerrick? Who will come for me? The Seer?” When had Gerrick spoken to a Seer? As far as he knew, Gerrick had never set foot in the Itaran Temples, let alone spoken to the most powerful Immortals on their world.

“Mark you.”

Raiden’s breathe froze in his lungs. Shock turned the fire in his veins to ice. There were no more Marked, no Timewalkers left alive. They’d all vanished from his world at the Crux. That was the reason the Itaran Queen had sent him to Earth in the first place, to track any Descendants, and capture them for her to control. The evil bitch wanted him to capture innocent humans and help her to detain and weaponize them. She’d said it was for the greater good, promised him she’d end the war.

He’d almost believed her, until she’d stuck a piece of her evil inside him so she could keep track of him. Hunt him. Drive him insane from the inside out…