Earth's New Masters (2 page)

She had a niggling feeling in the back of her mind, but it slipped away and she didn’t pursue it. Her sisters and brothers blocked her from the fallen one, thrusting impaling bracken spikes at her whenever she tried to get close.

She didn’t understand why they behaved this way. Was she being shunned? She tried to push past the blank spot in her memories, but the brackens on the tumblers near her stood out, rattling against each other. Then he was there. He rolled up and placed himself between her and them.

She felt the force of his thoughts, even as he blocked her from the others. She pushed against the boundaries. He pushed back. A high frequency echoed in her mind.

The pain of images and noise brought her to her knees. She clenched her head. The bracken formed a shield around her. The pain made her nauseous. His thoughts burned pathways in her mind unknown before.

Then she heard it. The massive tumultuous voice of the group, more clearly than she had previously. When she awoke, it was a sense of what they felt, a soft wondering, a group remembering. Now it was alive, intense and overwhelming.

He broke through her shell. ”What are you doing? I told you to stay where I left you.”

“I don’t remember.” She looked around at the encroaching tumblers.

He turned his head towards the others. “What do you here?”

“The outsider must die!” They answered as one.

“What outsider? What are they talking about?” She pulled her bracken tighter. Her hands ran through the strands, the weight of the others’ emotions crushing her.

“They’re talking about you.”

She shook her head in denial. “These are my family.” She glanced across the growing crowd.

He turned his back, blocking her from his words as he spoke to the others. She heard faintly before they closed off completely.

“I’m curious. We should study this.”

A vast amount of anger shot across the group. They pushed past him, swarming her. She was defenseless against the spears of bracken piercing her flesh. She wavered in and out of consciousness, but gentle hands clasped her up and pulled her away from the crowd.

“Cease,” a deep rumble plowed through the group, flattening them to the ground. They struggled against his will, finally submitting to the greater mind. She felt all this, barely comprehending the thoughts.

Shura lay bleeding in his arms. Images that she didn’t understand flashed in front of her eyes, imposed over the landscape. They brought feelings she couldn’t quite remember.

She felt him put his shield around her, protecting her from the thoughts of the others, and theirs from her. He curled his bracken around both of them, the defensive spikes out in full. The others backed away rolling into balls and moving off a short distance.

He closed her into a cocoon of thought. She could feel wind and sunshine on her sensitive skin. They lay near a stream. She smiled as she relaxed into the dream he created for her.

She knew it wasn’t real, that they still stood on a dusty plain beside the death that she’d created. Her heart ached. She knew them, knew their memories and the lives they’d lived, the mates they’d chosen. Now they were gone, snuffed out by the thoughtless actions of someone she didn’t know how to comprehend.

He carried her across the ground, encumbered by her and forced to walk on two legs. She knew all this but couldn’t remember how. Her bracken curled around his reflexively, and she couldn’t help but note this pleased him.

She let go and fell into the dream completely.

Shura woke, her bracken limp around her. Light streamed in from the roof of the cavern, and the lap of water could be heard beside her. The pain in her limbs, a dull ache, and she couldn’t see him anywhere around her. The comfort of his shield dissipated. She couldn’t tell if he was as close as he had been, and the distant rumble of the clan touched the edges of her mind. He’d lessened the shield there as well. She still couldn’t hear individual thoughts, but they were there just below the surface of her knowing.

Images flashed in front of her eye again, she shook her head but they persisted, symbols flashed that she didn’t understand. A female tumbler unfurled from the corner and rolled over to her, she was older, wizened, her bracken not as flexible.

“What is that?”

She knew that this one meant her no harm, had healed her in fact, watched over her while He was away. Shura shook her head, her bracken rustling. “I don’t know. Something keeps appearing in my field of vision then disappearing.”

“You are other, it stands to reason. Maybe it is part of your otherness.”

“How am I other? I look as you, I think as you, I remember nothing but the clan, how am I other?”

The old one pushed a memory at her: a creature with no bracken standing at the edge of the forest, the Sun Father glinting off an object in her hand.

She saw the outsider falling to the ground and shifting shape. The noise it made in the quiet of their dance had the whole clan trembling.

It stood over their fallen kin, wearing their skin where it hadn’t before. Then He came forward, pressing at her with his mind, and she struck out at him.

Her mind convulsed around the memories in her head, unable to break the block. The old one stepped back as He burst into the cavern.

“What do you here?” He kneeled beside her. She reached out for him, memories not hers thundering through her mind. She needed him to shield her, wanted him near her. Her body shrieked with pain, her hand pink as she reached for him before losing consciousness.

She didn’t know how much time had passed, only that she lay in his bracken, the branch-like limbs rough against her skin. She rolled over, staring into the face that had affected her so strongly that morning in the clearing. He’d protected her, kept her safe when he didn’t have a reason to. Her mind still heard the thoughts of the clan, still felt their sorrow over what she’d done. But she had her senses back. She knew who she was and what she’d done with her life, and suddenly wasn’t very proud of it.

Her optic implant turned on. She realized it had been doing that on and off through the time she’d spent with the clan. She’d been transmitting images. She should leave, before she did any more damage. This civilization wasn’t ready for what she’d brought on them.

“You’re not going anywhere.”

Her head shot up and she looked him in his marble brown eye. “What?”

“I said you’re not going anywhere.”

His bracken swirled around her as he spoke.

“Why?”

“I couldn’t let you cease to be, to stop the clan from sending you to the Wind Father, I had to claim you.”

She froze. Tender feelings evaporated. Her muscles hardened.

“Claim me?”

She paused, as he pushed the images of everything that meant into her mind. She grinned. Maybe being claimed wasn’t such a bad thing after all.

He’d brought her to the mating cave. He shielded her from the clan. He’d cared for her. She relaxed and his tendrils loosened. She reached up to his face, her fingers hovering inches from his skin. Shura held them there and glared at the soft pink flesh covering them. The implant cackled to life, and they both saw the transmission. Both understood the implications, since she could now remember what was happening. She leapt up and fell back to the ground with a shriek. There was a deep laceration in her leg, transforming hadn’t healed her. He gathered her in his arms and carried her down the slope. She watched the sky, waiting for the ship to appear.

***

 “Put the woman down.”

She felt his denial. He shouted at the men surrounding them. A few clenched their heads and fell to their knees.

“Shura, can you understand me?”

She shook her head. She heard him, but didn’t want to, didn’t want to leave now that she’d finally found a home, found someone who accepted her.

She glared at Tuoint.

“Dart them. We don’t have time for this. We’ll sort it out on Riker.”

***

Shura stared in front of her, deciphering the emotions and images caught in her Bio-network.

Her hand slipped subconsciously to her hair, as if missing a limb.

“What happened down there?” Tuoint looked at her across the table in the darkened room.

“I’ll have to think about it. I’m not sure myself yet. All I know is he saved me, and I don’t have a clue why. I remember getting there and an initial skirmish. The rest feels like a memory, or a lost dream, buried deep.” She stared off into space for a while. “Where is he now?”

“Sedated.”

The scent of fresh air and strong arms holding her, wafted across her memory. She shivered.

“Good.” Tendrils slithered under her skin. Waiting.

About the Author

Adriane Ceallaigh has been writing fiction since her early teens. Her first novel was recently published by Drakken Press. To find out more about her and her work, visit her or email her at:
www.adrianeceallaigh.com

[email protected]

COMING SOON

Ravaged Shadows

Dragon Shadows: Book One