“Hadley, I—” Whatever Hadrian had been about to say was left unsaid as a sharp, blinding pain pierced her body. She screamed and he pulled her closer. All the pleasure of the earlier moment disappeared.
Feeling Hadrian’s body tense, she suspected he was feeling the same agony she was. Had to give the man credit, he didn’t utter a sound of protest.
He spoke through gritted teeth. “I’d like to tell you it will be over soon but it won’t.”
She wanted to laugh. In the brief time she’d known him, no one had ever been blunter with her than Hadrian.
She couldn’t see anything. Pressed up against Hadrian’s shoulder, she couldn’t even see the white of his shirt. It was as if they existed in a state of nothingness…with the exception of pain. Somehow the sting that consumed her had become palpable, a living, breathing thing that existed as much as she and Hadrian did. “What’s happening?”
“I’m not sure of the science of it.” Hadrian’s voice shook.
“Then give me the unscientific explanation.”
She needed to hear him—anything to ground her so she didn’t give into the urge simply to become part of the endless ache. A voice she’d never heard before but that now existed as clearly as her inner monologue told her that she must not give in to the pain. If she did so, she might never come back, never return to herself.
Listen to me, Hadley. It is virtually impossible to get your attention when you’re awake. But pay attention. Do not lose yourself to this.
She knew that voice. It was the giant squid from her dreams. Oh god, now she was dreaming while she was awake. Unless, of course, she’d lost consciousness and just wasn’t aware of it—which was entirely possible.
“What you’re feeling…well, part of what we’re both experiencing is the fact that we’re dragging twelve souls behind us. We are essentially acting like a magnet and pulling them along the path with us.”
Hadley, so caught up in the voices she heard in her head, had all but forgotten that she’d asked Hadrian to explain to her what was happening.
“Everyone but Jeremiah.” She didn’t need to ask that as a question. As much as she didn’t understand everything that had transpired, she understood that Jeremiah had insisted on staying behind in Hadrian’s place.
“It’s so bizarre. I keep thinking it should feel as if we’re flying. But it doesn’t. It feels as if we’re not moving at all, as if we’re suspended in midair and just surrounded by nothing but emptiness and pain.”
Hadrian shook his head and Hadley stared into the green depths.
His eyes changed.
They still looked green like the ocean, but it wasn’t any sea she’d seen before. The best description she could give of them was aquamarine. It was as if the word had been invented to describe Hadrian’s eyes. Still aware of the pain around her, she found some peace in the closeness she shared with Hadrian and the mystique of his newly colored irises.
“That’s an excellent description. Every transfer feels like this. It’s why I’ve never understood why the royal family sends their children out to do it as part of their becoming full-fledged adults.”
She wanted to sigh and cuddle into his embrace, but that would be ridiculous given the circumstances. She’d all but assaulted him twice with her affection, he’d taken her once, and he hadn’t said word one about it—she wouldn’t do it again unless he did it first.
“How can I understand you when you speak, if you’re from a different plane of existence?”
He raised a brown eyebrow as he looked at her. The shade of his hair had changed as well. What had seemed the darkest brown she’d ever seen now held shades of auburn and gold. She wondered remotely whether her appearance had altered as well.
“I’ve been speaking English.”
Hadley sighed. Once again he hadn’t followed her line of thinking. No one ever did, and her imaginary friend the giant squid had told her there was a good reason for that, but she’d be damned if she knew what it was. Or why she was listening to a manifestation from her dreams.
“I know you’re speaking English. Did you have to learn it when you first arrived two centuries ago?”
The thought of trying to learn the dialects and languages of an entirely different world made her stomach twist. Thinking it might be a bad idea to vomit, she tried to swallow her fear. But the sourness remained despite her best efforts.
“I found that I could understand everything being said to me when we came over. I’m not sure why that was, but it was true for all of us. We’ll have to see what happens with you when we get there. They’ll know what to do with you in Astor.” He looked left and right and his hair came loose from its ponytail. She wished she could reach up and stroke it. “Okay, Hadley. We’re going down.”
As if his words made it happen, Hadley felt herself fall like a wingless bird. She looked down and saw that the ground was rapidly approaching. They were like a missile and their destination was the land below them. Unless something got in their way, they would plummet toward the ground until they hit.
“Hadrian, you do remember that I can die?”
He nodded. “I know, and I can die here. But neither one of us is going to do that right now.”
Hadley’s temper flared and her cheeks heated. How the hell could he be so sure? At the speed they were falling, they were going to hit hard. And his bones might be built to withstand such a thing, but hers weren’t made to be smashed like a bug on a windshield. She heard herself start to scream and closed her eyes as she prepared to feel all her molecules collide in a fatal smash.
She landed softly on her rear end, Hadrian’s arms still around her. Opening one eye first, she dared to glance around to see where she was. Hadrian released her gently and she opened the other eye.
They were in some kind of field, a grassy one. But it didn’t look or feel like any grass she’d ever seen before, being orange. Neither the corn stalks nor the dead fields she’d sometimes seen on her travels had looked like this. She shook her head. Truly, she didn’t care. Everything could be completely different for all it mattered. They hadn’t gone splat on the ground. How was that even possible?
She whirled around, intending to ask Hadrian that very question, but stopped short. He was standing, his hands at his sides. He stared off in the distance at a purple mountain range covered in what she hoped was snow, as it was white. It would be nice to have some things the same. His expression was passive. He neither smiled nor frowned. But his eyes, which she had spent so much time examining in the last few moments, glistened with what she could only guess were unshed tears.
She swallowed and tried to remain perfectly still. This man, whom she hardly knew but with whom she was already fascinated, more than any other being she’d ever come across, had been away from his home for two centuries in an attempt to protect her mother. Hadley looked down at the ground. Would she ever see her home again?
Turning as quietly as she could, she walked to the lake that lay five feet away from where they’d landed. The water looked the same, just a deeper blue. Running a hand through her hair, she gasped. Who the hell was that?
She bent over closer to get a better look. Her hair, still red and wavy, looked golden instead of its usual carroty appearance. Freckles no longer marred her nose and her skin had taken on a creamy hue she’d only seen on Barbie dolls she’d been given as a child.
She looked down. Oh wow, her breasts were huge.
“What are you staring at?”
Hadley jumped at the sound of Hadrian’s voice and her cheeks warmed. Had he seen her staring at her own boobs?
“I can’t get over the change in my appearance.”
Hadrian moved to the left as he examined her. “What are you talking about? You look exactly the same as you always did.”
Great, so he thought she looked awful. It was obviously too much to hope that she might be attractive to him.
A loud boom sounded behind them and they swung around, Hadrian shoving her behind hi
m.
“Stone?” Hadrian stepped forward as more booms made the ground ring.
Stone jumped to his feet, as unaffected by the landing as they had been. “Hadrian, Lady Hadley, are you both well?”
Hadley shrugged. She had no idea whether she was well or not. But she supposed she was about to find out.
Chapter Six
Hadrian did a quick head count. All his men were accounted for and they stood up as if nothing had happened. He needed to say something to them about this significant moment. They were back home for the first time in more years than he cared to count, but they had left the princess and half their entourage behind. This should have all but physically destroyed them, but it hadn’t, and that bothered Hadrian more than he cared to admit.
Why were they still all functioning this far from the princess’ presence? Their oaths should have made it next to impossible to leave her without pain.
Water splashing in the lake behind him broke into his preoccupation. He turned around to look at what was happening. Hadley sucked in her breath and Hadrian suppressed a smile. There were some things here that would be completely new, awe-inspiring to her, just as he had felt when he’d first arrived in her dimension.
A crocodile climbed from the bank of the lake and stood on two feet. The bracelet attached to his front left leg identified him as a messenger. Hadrian nodded. So their reemergence had not gone unnoticed.
“You are sent the warmest greetings from the royal family, Prince Hadrian. They have long awaited your arrival. Although they are most disappointed to see that you do not have the princess with you, they are gratified to see you have the Lady Hadley.”
“Hadrian?” Hadley’s voice shook, which tore at his insides, and he placed a hand on her arm to pull her close.
It had been so long since he’d addressed anyone of importance, and speaking to the crocodile was the equivalent of speaking to the king himself. “I am surprised, master crocodile, to hear that the royal family knows of our struggles, as we’ve felt all but alone on Earth for some time now. I have returned with Hadley for many reasons. Please assure them I have every intention of going back to retrieve the princess once a plan can be worked out for her safe recovery.”
The green-skinned crocodile dropped to four legs, swung toward the water and slipped beneath the surface with barely a ripple.
Hadley’s eyes were huge as she addressed Hadrian. “Can all animals speak here?”
“The royal family has long been able to control and connect with the animals. It only spoke to me because one of them told it to. If I were to run into the croc on the road, it wouldn’t act any differently toward me than it would in your dimension.”
Hadrian turned to his men. “While it is good to be back, it is clear we will have to make our way straight to Astor.”
His men nodded, which gave him no little amount of relief. When he’d assumed they would all be half-dead upon arrival due to the absence of the princess, he’d known he could count on them to go to Astor. But now, when they all seemed relatively intact, he’d worried that they would immediately wish to return to their homes and families.
Strangely enough, Hadrian didn’t feel the urge to go home either. His eyes flew to the back of Hadley’s golden-red hair. She was walking a distance away, arms crossed in front of her as she studied the ground. Resisting the urge to follow in her wake, because if he did he might drag her to the side and fuck her until she couldn’t see straight, he turned to his men instead. Why were they not all half-dead?
He could still remember the day, over two centuries ago, when he’d sworn the oath to keep Zamara safe. They all had. That very oath should have made it impossible for them to leave her without almost dying. He’d seen members of his people shrivel into nothing more than stumps for the betrayal of an oath. Yet here he stood as if nothing had gone wrong and Zamara stood next to him.
“We’ve left the princess behind and while the physical manifestations we all anticipated have not happened, I hope you will join me in vowing today not to let this be the end. We will recover the princess and our men who are losing themselves in that place, and return here together. We have a day’s journey ahead of us and already the sun is setting. So let’s make our way in the direction of my parents’ home and spend the night there.”
Stone stepped forward. “Lady Hadley, might I assist you on the road? It is a treacherous journey and I wouldn’t want you to get hurt.”
She smiled briefly before the show of happiness wobbled and disappeared as she stepped forward. Inside, Hadrian fumed. No one should be helping her with anything but him. He’d gone and gotten her and he’d brought her here. She was his to protect. But he didn’t dare to interfere in his men’s relationship with her. Yelling at Jeremiah was one thing, hollering at the others something quite different. Until they deposited her at Astor for the royal family to either cure or let die, he needed them all to care what happened to her.
The thought of her dying made him want to roar. He had to set that aside. Somehow.
Trying not to visibly flinch when she took Stone’s hand, Hadrian marched ahead of the group, hoping his mother wouldn’t care that he’d arrived home with twelve hungry men and a soon-to-be dead member of the royal family.
Of course the king of the guard might end Hadrian’s life as well for leaving Princess Zamara behind. But he wouldn’t blame the guard king for that. He just hoped that whoever they sent to replace him did a better job than he had of retrieving her. He should never have been sent out as prince of guards two centuries ago. He’d not been ready for the task.
“Hadrian.” Hadley’s voice stopped him mid-stride.
“Hadley?”
He’d noticed that the others had started calling her Lady Hadley. He couldn’t bring himself to do that. Maybe he never would. He understood intellectually that she was the daughter of the princess, but to him she might always be entirely Pettigrew’s creation. A hot version. But a creation. Not a princess.
“I’ve been asking Stone here some questions but he and the other men are reluctant to answer any without your permission. Do they have it?”
Stone and the others answering her questions. He wanted to scream out a denial that no, it wasn’t okay. Anything she needed to know, he would tell her. But that was ridiculous and she certainly didn’t belong to him. He should be relieved that she didn’t.
He cleared his throat. “Perhaps it would be better if I answered your questions.”
Damn it. Sooner or later he’d have to learn control around this woman, and he wasn’t going to dwell on the reasons why he seemed unable to do so.
“All right. So I’ll walk with you.” Was he imagining that her face had brightened when she’d said that? She looked at Stone and graced him with a smile Hadrian wished she’d given to him. All dimples and pure white teeth. He sighed and hoped no one had noticed his reaction.
When she reached him, he took her hand. Stone had been right—the roads were treacherous. Much worse than he remembered them. Huge potholes the size of small cars back on Earth lined the street and tree branches crisscrossed everywhere, making it easy, especially in the dark, to take a fatal fall.
“So is this a pre-technological society? Where are all the cars and modes of transportation?”
That had not been what he’d expected her to ask. He grinned, unable to squelch the urge. Her strange thought processes had started to amuse him. If there was one thing he could count on with her, it was that he never knew exactly what she was thinking or what was about to come out of her mouth.
She shook off his grip and put her hands on her hips as she glared at him. “I can tell you’re laughing at me inside, Hadrian. I don’t see what’s funny. It’s a perfectly legitimate question.”
He nodded. “It is a valid question. But it wasn’t one of the ones I expected you to ask. There are a million things happening to you and you’re wondering about cars.”
“Someday I’ll meet someone who thinks like I do.”
He laughed, hard, and was shocked by it. “And then heavens help us all.” Trying to recover his senses, he forced himself to get serious and less jovial. It must be that he was finally home. “We are a post-technological society.”
She shook her head, her eyes narrowing. He reached out and touched the side of her eye. Her skin felt soft under his rough fingers. “Sorry, you had a leaf on you.” Inwardly he chided himself for being a liar.
“By post-technological you mean that you once had technology and now you have abandoned it? Why on earth would you do that?”
“Why on earth indeed?”
She giggled. “I guess I’m going to have to get used to not saying that anymore. What is this place called?”
Hadrian looked up at the sky. The sun would go down momentarily and then he’d get to see the stars the way he’d dreamed of them for the last two centuries. “Our main capital is called Astor. We will arrive tomorrow. There is some advanced electrical equipment there. Some things you’ll be familiar with, some things you will not. We call this dimension Haven.”
“Haven, okay.” She nodded as if she understood that information. “So I’ll have to say why on Haven would you want to do that?”
“Exactly.”
“So here on Haven, let me get this straight, you’ve moved past technology?”
Hadrian shrugged. “I don’t mean to sound dismissive or uninterested in this but it all happened before I was born, centuries prior to my being even a glimmer in anyone’s eye.”
“But surely you must have heard stories. There was a time when you used cars, boats, buses, whatever, and now you don’t.”
“We found that we could do most of the things computers did for us better by using our own brains. It just took tapping into our untouched potential. Children are instructed differently now. They discovered that by teaching both the physical and the metaphysical, it awakened something inside us. There stopped being a reason to get to places so fast. It was better, healthier, to walk when we could. In the event that something needs to be immediately transported, we do have a system for that. Or at least we did. Two centuries…a lot can change, even here.”