Chapter 21 Dom
TWENTY-ONE
DOM
With each step Law-rah takes away from me, her screams intensify, red and purple shards of anger surrounding her.
The human she punched gets up puffing, the younger man and El-len rushing to help him.
Once he's upright, the older man seems to swell. “I'll see you in court, young lady.”
El-len's eyes widen, but the human shuffles away, so she's not in physical danger. She doesn't need me.
Law-rah does.
‘Dom.’ Arik’s mental voice is gray with exhaustion.
I see what he's had to do: Nevare is unconscious in his arms, knocked out by Arik when Law-rah’s fear and pain got too much.
‘She took over.’ I can't believe it. A human commandeered the mind sync.
‘I can believe it,’ Arik says, voice grim. ‘I had to use the failsafe.’
A sedative. My fists clench. As soon as Arik felt Law-rah take over, he removed Nevare so she wouldn't harness his powers accidentally.
‘It’s a disaster,’ I say.
‘A worse disaster would be Nevare destroying something again.’ Arik grunts mentally as his footing slips. My arms reach out in reflex to support Nevare’s slight weight, even though they’re klicks away from me. ‘Ilia is starting to suspect something is amiss.’
‘We have orders for silence.’
‘I am well aware. But this silence might cost us everything.’ Arik's voice turns hard, covering the despair I feel circling his hearts.
The omission sits between us and our leader like a blast door, thick and impenetrable. But he won’t be able to advise us, this is a Parthistock issue.
My gaze slides back to the farmhouse. Law-rah is inside, a storm of feeling, but I know from experience those sharp daggers of rage will turn into horrible black and blue spikes of regret and self loathing.
‘She needs help,’ I say.
‘Nevare needs help,’ Arik snaps back. ‘He needs you, but not like this.’
My stomach twists. I’m failing my purpose. I realize, in the dark corners of my mind, that I’m putting Law-rah first, because she meets my needs.
I’m being unforgivably selfish.
The male humans leave, leaving El-len shaking in the cold. Ilia would want me to ensure his mate was safe and well, so I put my hands over her head to block what I can of the rain.
“Hey there,” she greets me quietly. “I guess you saw all that?”
I nod once. “Law-rah female’s blow was considerable.”
Instead of celebrating, El-len winces like she just heard some of the scrapes of high-pitched feedback from our mind sync. “I really don't know what's going on with her.”
I should stay silent. It's not my place to say anything.
But if it would help Law-rah, then I have to.
Scales squirming, I manage, “She requires assistance.”
El-len heaves a long suffering sigh. “She's always been a control freak, needing things to go a certain way—her way.
But we're her best friends and I had no idea she was this angry about some asshole at her firm.
I mean, I know he must have done something to deserve it, I trust her that much…
but I didn't know. And I don't know what she's thinking now.”
She brushes her fingers through the wet fur of the starhound’s ears. They must be talking in their own private bond, but I can't sense the communication flowing between them any more than they would be able to sense Law-rah's entanglement in the mind sync.
I don't know what my human mistress is thinking either.
While I can sense a seething knot of anger, Law-rah's psychic shield remains firm, as if she's locked herself in a mental room. There are layers of secrets between Law-rah and her contemporaries, and evidently borders she maintains, but I didn’t realize these applied even to her closest confidantes.
No wonder she hates having us in the bastion of her mind.
A pulse of fear lances down the bond. Arik snaps, ‘Dom, ship approaching!’ A beat, and then ‘Ilia's orders are to protect El-len.’
As soon as I get the order, I grab the small human and bundle her under my arms. The starhound barks with surprise but stiffens, nose turned upward into the downpour.
Which halts above us in a wide circle.
“What’s wrong?” El-len peers up from underneath my shoulder.
“Olorian ship.” I scale up hard. Drok na, we need Nevare to sweep their minds and gauge their intentions. They must have their own Apex to zero in on us so quickly.
“Surprise!” A ship uncloaks above us, a shimmering black pearl hovering in the rain, and a magnified high-pitched voice sounds from the ship speakers. “Ciao! It’sa me, Arabella!”
Snorts and snuffles sound over the system as the tiniest human dissolves into laughter.
“Very funny.” Gara’s dry voice rings out, and I nearly yell with surprise. He’s alive? “I’m coming in to land adjacent to the barn, over the garden. Is clearance granted?”
“Yes!” El-len yells, wriggling out of my arms. “A million times yes! Welcome home!”
I follow close on the human’s heels into the garden. Fierce hot jets of air shove us back as the ship auto-lands. I shield El-len, squinting as if I can see through layers of metal to my crew mate and his charge.
When the door shimmers open and Gara steps out, my knees buckle. “You’re alive. Thank the All-Mother.”
“Quite literally.” Gara thumps me on the back, his hits stronger than before. “It’s good to see you.”
“It’s an impossibility to see you.” He’d broken so many laws by returning, and yet here he stands, alive, with not a single scale on his throat out of place.
Arra-bellah bounces out, hale and well. She and El-len embrace, jumping and emitting high shrieks. As they don’t seem distressed, I label these as enjoyment behaviors.
“Well,” Arra-bellah says, bright green eyes fixing on her friend. “What’d I miss?”
The next two Earth weeks, half a human month, are a blur of barn building to distract me from the gaping hole in the mind-sync.
With Arra-bellah back, the plans come like a meteor shower, and Gara helps interpret them and program the lasers and machines we need.
In the evenings he works on the shuttle, changing it with Ilia’s permission into something for his new mate.
I wish them well and throw myself into the work, because the alternative is feeling Law-rah’s pain. She left the farm without a word to me, and all I feel when she thinks of me is simmering recrimination.
She blames me. Perhaps she’s right. I don’t know anymore. All I know is she’s hurting, and she won’t let me help. I’ve failed as a Base.
Finally Ilia and Gara think the work is done and want to show their beloved mates the finished barn. Their auras shimmer with queasy greens and sharp scared blues, so I tear myself away and lay down in the lean-to.
Shade crawls toward me, fronds eagerly lapping up the tension pouring from me.
“Eat well, friend,” I tell them, closing my eyes.
Their tendrils trail across my sweaty forehead as they feast. I only wish it eased the discomfort, but Law-rah’s walls are alternately impenetrable and then break like a dam, washing us with spiky anger and a cold drowning despair.
I have to be ready to block Nevare and Arik from the onslaught, and trudge up against the deluge to reach Law-rah to hold her above the devastation.
It’s draining. Not knowing what to do. The mental distance between me and my wave brothers. The distance between me and Law-rah.
“Law-rah, please.” We can’t exist like this. If I have to beg, I'll do it.
And then I feel it. Her cold, hard decision, as sure as a Selthiastock’s surgical knife.
She’s on her way.
I get up, arms and legs trembling, jittery with Law-rah’s new purpose. What’s she going to do? Whatever it is scares her, but she’s made her mind up.
And she’s coming closer. She’s almost here.
Shade leaps onto my shoulder, no doubt sucking away at the bloom of heat in my chest and the twist of nerves tangling my stomach.
‘Dom?’ Nevare’s grave concern laces the mind-sync. He and Arik are at the lake, swimming with Arture.
I shut him out as much as I can. ‘Stay back! Arik, protect him.’
‘From what?’
‘From me.’ Because I feel I’m on the verge of losing control. I’ve been pushing, enduring, waiting, and now she’s coming, now she’s decided something that will change our fates forever.
And I can’t handle it.
I run through the courtyard into the garden. “Ilia? Gara!” I scream my frustration to the wind.
Gara comes out of the shuttle. He won’t be able to overpower me—no, I don’t want that, that’s Law-rah’s despair talking, we need to find her.
“Where is she?” I bellow.
My shipmate’s green scales glow as if preparing to treat me. It illuminates his tiny mate behind him, Arra-bellah. Law-rah’s friends don’t know how she’s feeling, she’s all alone out there.
I screw my eyes shut, yanking on the bond between us, a wall in the way. ‘Law-rah. Where are you?’
“What’s going on out here?” she says.
It can’t be.
I spin and time seems to slow. There she is, wearing her red weaponized heels, not a single hair out of place, although thinner than ever.
How can she look so composed with all the grief and misery I can sense inside her? It shows in her lack of nutrition, yet she’s pulled the mask on one more time to come here, to confront me. She has incredible strength, but she’s faltering. Breaking.
Unraveling.
All I want to do is run to her, hold her in my arms, get her to smash the wall between us, and let me carry her burden for a while.
So I do.
“Laura!” Arra-bellah hisses from behind Gara. “Get down!”
Gara tries to intercept me but I get there first, chest heaving as if I’ve been buried and I pushed through earth and soil to reach her.
The air whooshes out of my lungs at her stony face. “Law-rah, please.” ‘Let go of your borders. Let me help.’
Law-rah calmly removes her dark tinted spectacles. Her eyes are chips of ice. “Dom, no.” ‘Get away from me.’
But she needs me. This close, I can hear everything. ‘Help me,’ swirls underneath her seething rage.
I grab her upper arm. “Law-rah, please, I—”
She merely glances at my hand, and I flinch back. I touched her against her express spoken wishes.
Law-rah’s face is cold. “No, Dom. I can't do this anymore. We have to break it.”
Break it. Break the mind sync between us. “We’ve been trying, nothing’s working.”
“We haven’t tried…” She takes a deep breath, eyes steely. Whatever she’s about to say is costing her everything. “We haven’t tried asking for help.”