Tangled Shadows (13 page)

Gradually, she became aware of Galen in her head. He worried about her, worried that she’d disconnected completely from reality, but it hadn’t been a conscious choice.

Her orgasm had pushed her further than she’d ever been and floating made it possible for her to bear the sensations.

Galen’s hard cock was still deeply imbedded in her. He’d pulled her forward so she now rested on his chest, her ass in the air. Nikolai had removed the wand and himself.

His presence no longer loomed behind her.

Before she finished the thought and worry could enter her mind, Nikolai’s sexy heat caressed her back again. Galen tightened his embrace.

Brooke realized why when Nikolai inserted the bottle of lubricant into her anus and squeezed. He must have warmed the gel, because it felt warm and relaxing, not cold and functional. She knew she should be worried about what was happening, but her mind still drifted in space and Galen’s arms kept her safe.

Nikolai’s cock caressed the crease between her cheeks. His heat in comparison to the room’s cooler temperature incited her. Brooke hadn’t thought she’d be able to feel arousal for the next century, but Nikolai’s movements, combined with his Vampire aura heightened the sensations.

“Push out,” he demanded.

Brooke obeyed and dug her nails into Galen’s shoulders once again. Nikolai’s thick length pushed past her only partly relaxed sphincter. It hurt, but the feeling of Nikolai pushing through the resistance and deep into her was indescribable.

Both men remained still, Galen pressed to her chest and Nikolai curled around her back.

“How are you doing?” Nikolai asked. Brooke got a sense of how much the question cost him.

That’s when she realized she felt both men. They had established the link. And she’d reconnected to her body. Brooke cleared her throat. “Why don’t you look for yourself?”

Nikolai chuckled, the movement caused by his laughter making Galen and Brooke moan in pleasure.

Brooke gently twisted her hips.

Both men tensed and groaned. “If you want us to concentrate on the barrier in your mind and not leave this party prematurely,” Nikolai grumbled, “you better stay very still.”

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She snorted. “You guys are big. I’m trying to get a bit more comfortable.” Galen bit her in the sensitive spot between neck and shoulder. “If we have to suffer, you can suffer right along with us.”

Brooke grumbled a little. “Can you see it?”

Instead of an answer Nikolai showed her.

She’d had no idea what she’d thought the blockage in her mind would look like, but she’d never anticipated anything as impossible as this.

There was no way in the galaxy they could untangle it.

89

Nikolai experienced Brooke’s shock at the sight of the barrier.

Her mind resembled a space ship with the majority of it in perfect working order.

Brooke could walk her ship, dip in an out of cabins, labs and cargo halls containing her memories, examine her experiences and knowledge without a hitch, and access the bridge to make choices and decisions. There was the point of that impossibly tall synth-steel door, but it wasn’t the issue right now.

No, the biggest concern was the huge, pulsing, tangled web that sat in front of a small, disused cabin. It was as if endless strings of different colored energy lines had become ensnarled. Unlike a snarl of cables or yarn, this web constantly changed. The colors ranged from the darkest black through gray and muddy brown to an off-white that reminded him of pus.

“Charming comparison,” Brooke said.

She stood next to him, studying the tangle.

If Nikolai thought he’d identified one energy line as Vampire, it shifted length and color and became Naema. His gaze met Galen’s, who’d appeared on Brooke’s other side.

Brooke slapped both of them on the chest. “Stop trying to protect me. It’s a little hard to keep a secret when we’re in each others’ heads.”

“You’re right,” Galen agreed. He looked at Brooke. “It’s going to be difficult. We both need to find a strand, stop it from changing and follow it back to the source. At the source we have to cut the line and unravel this mess.” Brooke frowned. “What do you mean, follow it to the source?” She must have seen the answer because she paled and grabbed their hands. “You’re going inside that?” Galen released her hand and framed her face. “Everything will be fine. We can do this.”

Brooke shook off his hands and took a step back. “Stop trying to pacify me like I’m a little girl. Treat me like I’m a capable person.” For a moment the image of the three of them standing in front of the web flickered.

They were back in their separate bodies on board of the
Mercy
.

Brooke’s frustration had destabilized the connection.

Nikolai grabbed her hands, clinging to the wavering link. “You’re right. This is just Galen’s way. He meant no disrespect. It’s one of his faults to want to make everything seem good.”

Brooke studied him and his mind. She relaxed and the link stabilized again.

90

“It’s going to be tough to hold on to the strand we need,” Nikolai began, “while keeping the others from burning us.” He leaned forward and kissed her. “We can do it and, even more important, we want to do it.”

Brooke rubbed her hands across her face. She exhaled loudly and turned to them.

“Is there anything I can do?”

Nikolai smiled. “Can you see the green and blue light connecting Galen and me to you?”

Brooke looked around. Her eyes widened. She hadn’t seen the threads of light linking them together, green between her and Galen and blue between her and Nikolai.

She stroked her fingers across the line.

Nikolai froze. It felt as if she sucked his cock. He hadn’t realized the level of sensitivity the link had. He filed that thought away for later.

“Hold on to them,” Galen said.

She frowned.

“You’ll be able to pull us out if we’re in trouble,” Nikolai finished the explanation.

She didn’t say anything, but curled the lines of light around her hands.

Nikolai nearly dropped to his knees.

Brooke’s brows shot up. “This has unexplored potential.” Galen laughed. “It does indeed, though I’m not sure right now is the best time to experiment.”

Her smile dropped. “No, I guess not.”

Galen stole a quick kiss and stepped up to the tangle, close enough to touch. He raised a protective shield. Nikolai mirrored his lover’s movement, but also sent Brooke a quick wink. “We’ll play with this some more once we’re back.” She pressed both lines. “We will.”

Nikolai turned to the snarl and tried to identify a strand of Vampire energy. After minutes of tense waiting he grabbed a line of pure black, pushed his Vampire power into it to stop it from shifting and hung on. He felt Galen do the same with a strand of Naema energy. Together they stepped inside the writhing mass.

Galen clung to his line of pus-white while struggling to keep the protective shield between himself and the rest of the power. As if sensing an intruder, the cables had grown frenzied, battering against his guard, trying to stop any progress.

He’d lost sight of Nikolai. Only their mental connection told him his lover battled the same problems. The resistance became worse and worse the closer they made it to the center.

More than once Galen thought he’d be unable to hold the shield. He couldn’t imagine why somebody from his race would have turned traitor and collaborated with Ferals.

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He needed to find out who it was. Right now he only knew the traitor was male.

Unfortunately, the Naema line he’d grabbed carried nothing familiar. Attempting to find this Naema’s signature would be like trying to identify a specific star in the night sky with the naked eye.

Galen pushed the thought aside and concentrated on his shield. Sweat ran down the side of his face and pooled in his lower back. His arms ached as if he’d been lifting an impossible weight for hours, rather than clinging to a wildly bucking rope of power.

Brooke squeezed the connection between them and strength flooded him. Galen froze for a moment. She fed him power through their link. Nikolai had received some as well, making it a little easier to battle through the last few feet.

Everything fell silent. No more battering against his shield, the line lay still in his hand.

They’d reached the eye of the storm, the center of the tangle.

Galen lowered his shield with care. Nikolai followed.

They stood in an endless, white room. Galen could see no walls or doors, only a white floor and ceiling. Nothing else.

“What do we do now?” he asked Nikolai.

His friend shrugged and studied their surroundings. “I’d expected to find something, anything.” He held up his limp black cable. It hung a couple of feet in the air and disappeared out of sight into the endless room.

If they attempted to follow the cable to its source, the encircling web would spring back to life and most likely stun them severely, if not kill them outright.

He couldn’t see his connection to Brooke. “Can you see your link to Brooke?” His friend twisted with the same panic he had building in his gut.

“No.” Nikolai dropped to his knees and patted the floor.

Galen realized the floor was covered in a layer of white fog, fog so thick it had looked as if he’d stood on solid ground. As soon as the discovery hit, his feet dropped through the fog onto a sandy, boggy ground.

Darkness spread across the room, the lights dimming. Galen caught Nikolai’s gaze.

This couldn’t be good.

“What the Jade is going on here?” Nikolai cursed. “This resembles nothing we’d anticipated.”

Galen agreed. “It’s as if we’re being duped, like all this is some sort of elaborate camouflage to protect the source.”

Nikolai growled. “How do we break it?”

“I’m not quite sure, but let’s try usual glamour breakers first, before we worry about doing something exotic.”

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Nikolai nodded. Galen ran through his repertoire of illusion-breaking spells and fired a couple at the walls. The darkening white walls flickered and the colored energy from the tangle became visible for a moment.

Nikolai muttered under his breath and slung an incantation at the fake walls. A loud bang sounded and the wall flickered again.

“Together,” Galen said.

They stood back-to-back and flung spells at the illusion. Galen pushed as much power as he could into the act while keeping some of his strength in reserve.

They had no idea what would come next.

This time a loud crack sounded and the fake walls disappeared. As expected, they stood in the center of the writhing mass. Both still held on to the original line, no longer limp in their hands but under tension and connected to the boggy ground they stood on, covered by fog.

Nikolai pulled out a knife and tried to saw through his cable. The blade turned hot and melted on the spot. “Metaphorical knives it is.” Galen pulled up his line and studied it in more detail. It still looked disgusting, but it no longer pulsed. He tugged and followed it until it disappeared in the white fog. He waved to disperse the barrier.

Jackpot.

Four thick power strands came out of the ground like roots. Galen held the pus-white one, Nikolai gripped the black one. The last two strands of power were gray and muddy brown. They followed along the ground and disappeared into the web, the first two ran through their hands before hitting the tangle.

“Any suggestions?” Galen asked.

“Cutting didn’t work. What about using opposites?” Galen’s brows shot up. “Interesting concept. We have to decipher the original intention first.”

Nikolai shrugged. “Ferals have a limited emotional palette. There aren’t that many choices. The Naema could throw a wrench in the game, he’s the unpredictable part.” Galen rested a hand on his shoulder. Together they studied the dark black strand Nikolai held, sharing their thoughts. “Big surprise there, anger and hate,” Nikolai said.

Galen raced through his memories, back to the day Nikolai and he’d realized the connection between them. They’d met in a bar and had taken a shine to each other the minute their eyes met. Galen had had only a handful of encounters with men, usually more drawn to women, but Nikolai had captured his attention.

They’d shared a couple of drinks, the sexual tension growing until neither man wanted to resist any longer. Nikolai had taken control, taking Galen on a journey like nothing he’d ever experienced.

The next morning they’d split with a kiss and a wave, not expecting to see each other ever again.

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Nikolai cupped Galen’s nape. “What a joke,” he said. “Within hours of separating from you I’d turned so hard, I could’ve used my cock as a hammer. Nobody but you would do.”

Galen kissed him. “I’m so very glad it was me.”

Nikolai understood he had found his lifemate, the other part of his soul, torn asunder at the beginning of time, and he’d gone on the hunt. Galen had been highly aroused as well, but Naemas had nothing comparable, so he’d suffered and continued on his journey.

A day and a half later, he decided that he couldn’t stand it anymore and turned around. It took them three days to find each other. After satisfying the physical need for another three days, Nikolai had explained the connection.

Sex established the bond, but both sides had to make a conscious decision to mate otherwise the union would fade.

Galen hadn’t thought twice, despite only knowing Nikolai for such a short time.

The Vampire complemented him in so many ways. The thought of letting go had hurt like hell. There had never been a question on Nikolai’s side. Finding a lifemate was a once in a lifetime chance at happiness.

Their mating that night, the confirmation of their link, would be something neither man would ever forget.

Nikolai grabbed Galen around the neck and pulled him close for a mind-bending kiss. The strand dissolved. Taking his time, he dusted off his hand once he finished the kiss.

He bent down and picked up the muddy-brown strand. This one vibrated slightly between his fingers. He met Galen’s gaze. “Rage?” Galen tightened his grip on Nikolai’s shoulder and grimaced. “I believe that would be too close to anger, which we’ve already had. What about hunger? Ferals always crave blood.”

Nikolai shook his head and added a second hand to the strand. “Greed.” The strand’s vibrations increased.

Galen didn’t have to go far, remembering the morning after they’d spent the first night with Brooke. She’d filled the gap both of them had carried in their hearts. For one brief moment, before the problems began, they’d been fulfilled and content.

They thrust the memory into the strand and it dissolved to dust.

Next came the gray. Nikolai picked it up and got only a faint impression. Galen gripped the strand next to Nikolai.

A jolt shot through them, but it was too vague to give more information.

“It doesn’t feel pure Vampire,” Nikolai said.

“Nor only Naema,” Galen replied.

Nikolai’s lips tightened. “They combined powers, but I’m still not sure what emotion they trapped here.”

94

A lighting strike shot through Galen.

Brooke.

There was still a barrier between her and them, which stopped free-flowing mental communication, but she could read some of their emotions through the link.

“What is it, baby?”

She struggled, but he got one word. “Traitor.”

Nikolai nodded. “He betrayed everybody, not just Naemas, but Vampires and humans as well. If the Ferals start another war, nobody will be safe.”