Mick (The A'rouk Brothers Book 1) (2 page)

There were bags under her eyes, and her body was gaunt even though Brook tried to stuff her with food. The last couple of weeks had taken its toll on her, and it was only in her dreams that she experienced occasional relief. She quickly ran a comb through her red hair and opened the door, taking the back stairwell down. It was closer to the kitchen.

“Ash made us a big breakfast today.” Brook’s smile was fake. She was worried and trying not to show it.

Jaz eyed the food knowing she wouldn’t be eating. Today was the day her handlers would come. They would stand before her and demand that she turn herself over. That she go willingly to a death she didn’t deserve.

She walked all the way into the kitchen and sat at the island. The walls were painted a sky blue. Brook had a thing for blue; it was the color that went first when she started going blind. Not being able to see the sky had killed her a little more inside each day. Now there were random bits of blue all over her house.

The kitchen was retro though Brook told Jaz to her it was ultra-modern. Brook’s mate, Ash, was one of the Created that lived on the earth. The Created were a group of aliens that came from a different planet to make Earth home. Ash could be mistaken for a human if you ignored his height and the muscles he sported along with his red eyes. According to him, what you saw on the outside was nothing compared to what was on the inside. One of the things that was different was Ash couldn’t eat synthetic food. It was all the rage right now. According to the nutritionists, it was super healthy, good for the body, didn’t pack on extra unwanted calories so you could eat as much of it as you wanted. It also had the added benefit of coming from the food processors totally cooked so you didn’t have to learn that useless skill.

Ash cooked from scratch, which was why he had this retro kitchen. Jaz had to admit nothing coming out of a processor could stand up to the dishes he made using real ingredients. If she wasn’t about to die, she’d be stuffing her face this very moment. The thought of looming death was enough to destroy her appetite.

“Jaz,” Brook said softly. She could hear the tears she was holding back in her voice. If she broke down, so would Jaz.

“Please, Brook, I can’t eat anything right now. I just want to sit here with you and Ash while you eat.”

Brook nodded and went to give her a brief hug before she sat back down. Ash came over to sit by his mate although neither ate; they just pushed the food around on their plates.

Jaz was pretending this was a normal day. That there would be lunch and dinner and Brook would put her hand on her hip and lecture Jaz to eat like she was a child. She was pretending she would go to sleep tonight and wake up tomorrow.

A scream caught in her throat, but she swallowed it down because she wouldn’t wake up tomorrow. Today was her last day alive. She should be running but she knew the truth, there was a tracker embedded in her bone. One that even modern technology couldn’t remove. There was nowhere to go.

She looked up to see silent tears trickling down Brook’s face. Well, hell…that said it all.

*~*~*~*

When Mick opened his eyes, the first thing he noticed was the yellow walls. Then it dawned on him he was no longer chained. He tried to move, and his body caught fire. He felt around for obvious bruising and found none, but tell that to his back which disagreed. Pain shot up his back like the executioner had taken stakes and hammered them down his spine, smashing each bone into a thousand pieces. Every move he made increased the pain. He turned his head to the left not sure living was worth the pain he was enduring. His brother was standing there; he could hear the faint sound of his breathing.

“I can hear you.”

“I want you to hear me,” Damon replied.

They were killers, each of the six brothers. Bred to kill right down to their DNA, they never forgot what they were. After coming to Earth and finding it to be such a soft planet they could have relaxed, let down their guard, but they chose not to. Those instincts were what kept them alive over the centuries.

“What am I doing in here?” Mick was in Damon’s house in his medical wing. Just a look at the walls was all he needed to know that. Damon copied this wing from the design of the spaceship they came over in; the only thing he changed was the color of the walls. Damon had never understood why the walls had to be white if you were sick.

“You should be grateful you’re here.”

He was right, Mick should be grateful, but it didn’t answer his question. He stared at Damon saying nothing until Damon sighed a signal that he was going to give in.

“Dante brought you here. He said you passed the first test, but there were many more to come. What do you remember?”

“I was on the hell planet. The fire…” His eyes clouded as the vivid memory of being burned over and over again made his legs ache. He sat up to examine them. They were fine, but the pain in them still lingered.

“They beat me, Damon. There was an executioner, he was determined to end my life and steal my soul.” Mick’s voice was low, the anguish of what he went through there too horrifying for anyone to hear.

Damon reached down and grabbed his shoulder before he finally pulled him into a hug and held on tight. He could have lost his brother.

“They wanted me to give her to them.” His voice was stark when those words came out.

Damon didn’t have to ask who as he eased back. The Darkness would only want two things from Mick, his mate, and his soul. Jaz was as good as dead if he turned her over to them. As for Mick, the moment they had his mate they would own his soul. He would spend the rest of eternity in their clutches. Damon shivered. The Created, the original Created had been cursed to a fate worse than death.

Damon thought of Mick’s mate. She was a clone destined to die at the hands of the humans, and now she had The Darkness coming for her. He wondered if Mick realized her death may be inevitable.

“How did you survive?” Damon wanted to ask Dante when he brought Mick in, but the look on his brother’s face told him it wasn’t the time for questions. Besides, Damon gave a smile and a rueful shake to his head. Dante only answered questions when he felt like it.

“I don’t know. It’s hazy. Every time I try to think about it, I feel like my head is spinning. I know Dante was there. How did he get there? I don’t know. How did he manage to enter that realm? I don’t know. Trying to figure it out is frustrating.”

“Then focus on what matters.”

Mick locked his gaze on Damon, wondering what mattered.

“You escaped the hell planet and made it back to your body in one piece. Do you know how many other beings have done that?”

Mick shook his head, a brief feeling of hope lighting up his heart.

“Only a handful have escaped.”

“How many have defeated The Darkness completely?”

“None.”

That brief feeling of hope died a nasty death. Three of his brothers came in to check on him. That meant they were all there except for Dante, the oldest.

There were six of the A’rouk brothers in total. Neither of them looked alike which never bothered them. You wouldn’t know they were related unless their height gave them away, it was the only thing they had in common. They all stood at six-five. The Scientists that created them wanted them tall but not that tall since the Scientists themselves were all under six feet.

Mick was the second brother. He had blue eyes and brown hair. Julian, the third brother, possessed black hair and green eyes. The fourth brother was Lucca. Mick turned to look at him; he was whispering something in Damon’s ear making him laugh. Lucca had blond hair and blue eyes. They always teased him about how well he fit into the human culture.

Damon was the physician of the family; he was also the fifth brother. He had flame red hair with black streaks running through it. As far as his eyes, they didn’t fit that well into the human culture so he kept them hidden. His last brother, his baby brother who was no baby, was Raphael. He had silver hair, not white, not gray, but a silver that captivated anyone who looked upon him. So none of them looked alike, but if you messed with one, then you should know one of the others would be placing a knife in your rib cage if you were lucky. The unlucky ended up with five knives in their rib cage because yeah, the brothers sometimes believed in overkill.

They congratulated him for surviving The Darkness as well as having met his mate.

Mick was non-committal when it came to escaping The Darkness; it was hard for him to believe he did it on his own. He was thankful to whomever decided to pair him with his mate. Now if only he could see her in the flesh.

His last brother entered the room. Dante. He was the oldest Created, period. There was no one older and maybe no one more powerful than him. Of that, the brothers weren’t sure.

His oldest brother stood as tall as the rest of them and possessed dark hair. Mick always stopped short of calling it black, because there was a depth of color and a gloss that defied the word black. His brother’s eyes changed with his mood so to give them a color would be impossible.

Dante possessed one thing that set him apart from his brothers. It was a scar on his cheek. Somedays it was there and you could see it, other days it was like it didn’t exist. The scar changed shape, and size at what seemed like a whim, and it was the one thing Dante never acknowledged. Mick had learned a long time ago not to ask about it.

He walked through the room hugging his brothers, patting them on the back, giving them encouragement and strength that only the eldest could give. He leaned over the bed and pulled Mick into his arms. His body, the one he was sure wouldn’t move for days, began to heal in his brothers embrace until the breath he hadn’t realized he was holding was released.

Dante stepped back and looked at his brothers, his expression indicating he was deep in thought.

“Clear the room,” he finally said.

He needed to talk to Mick. His life, his future was at stake.

Mick sat up on the bed looking at the tattered clothes that covered his body. The whip may not have physically touched him, but his clothes suffered from it. His body remembered the torture also until Dante healed him. He stood up on slightly shaking legs allowing his body to recall what it was like to be whole.

He felt himself growing stronger the longer he stood. There were days he forgot the healing power that flowed through Dante. His brother never tapped into it unless it was needed urgently. The fact that he healed Mick in such a dramatic fashion made him nervous.

“You should clean yourself and change now.”

Mick agreed, no sense in arguing with his brother. He imagined himself clean and dressed. His body felt refreshed while his outfit changed. He was wearing a pair of black pants that clung to him with little dagger like details on them. His shirt was a blue tee covered in mesh. It was the replica of an outfit he had in his closet and would allow him to blend in with the humans on the planet if he needed.

“Walk with me.” Dante began to move as his body disappeared a little at a time leaving just enough of a trail for Mick to follow. They ended up several hundred feet over the Earth. Much lower than where they lived in the air.

The Earth had changed after the alien-human wars. Now, only the poor lived on the surface. Men found a way to live in the sky and felt they were superior when they could afford to do this. The A’rouks had lived in the air since they first came to Earth. They kept that small fact to themselves. Their level was higher than any of the humans dared to travel without a special invitation from one of them.

Mick looked down to see an area he knew intimately. Ash lived there. They were half-brothers although they rarely used the term. Ash’s five brothers and their families were doing a walk about the galaxy, so Mick and his brothers had been keeping an eye on the male, not that he needed it. They simply watched out for each other. Every one of the Created had the same female DNA in their bodies. He often wondered if his mother knew she would be the mother of a whole new race before they killed her. He liked to think she did and that she died knowing they would live.

The Created were born in groups of six. Each received a different mixture of male DNA. Each brother had a different set of abilities based on the abilities of the males they called fathers. Damon speculated that they had a minimum of six fathers, all of whom died so they could donate their DNA to the cause. When Mick did the math on how many unsuspecting males had been killed by the Scientists, it made him want revenge.

He looked down again; something about the house was bothering him.

“Are you back with me?” Dante asked.

Had he gone off on a tangent? He would have to be careful since he didn’t know if this was a side effect of being tortured by The Darkness or what happened to his kind as they aged.

“I’m back.”

“Your time spent with The Darkness was longer than you realize.”

“How long?”

“Months.”

His heart seized. Jaz had a termination order on her life, if he had been away for months, then she was dead.

Dante reached out and caught him before he could make his way to Ash’s house.

“She’s still alive.”

How? He couldn’t make his lips work as his body was trying to sag in relief.

“Let’s call it a simple manipulation of time. The Darkness cheated so I repaid the favor.”

“I need to go to her.”

“I know. Today is her last day, she either lives or dies.” Dante faded away leaving him to digest his last words.

*~*~*~*

The knock at the door made her heart leap into her throat. Jaz knew who was at the door from the growl that came from Ash’s lips. They were sitting in the living room trying to pretend everything was normal. Brook was showing her pictures of gowns. Ash was sitting behind them taking it all in.

Now it was all over. Jaz looked around the living room one more time memorizing the details. This was one of the smallest rooms in Ash’s house. He filled it with three large loveseats as well as several single arm chairs. She’d raised her eyebrows when he called the room small. He simply grinned and said he came from a big family and then his sisters started having children.