Fallen Star (3 page)

“Not by us,” Lor assured. “We’re not sure
when or why the renegades went out on their own, but they broke
every rule in the program by doing so.”

“What program? This is the first I’ve heard
about any of this. Does Morgan know?”

Lor hesitated, likely debating how much to
explain. “We’ve only just confirmed the connection, so I haven’t
shared the details with Morgan.”

“I’ll fill her in. Tell me what you were
talking about.”

It was an order and Odintar watched Lor
closely, waiting for him to object. Master-level Mages didn’t
respond well to orders.

Rather than refuse, Lor tensed, paused for a
moment then complied. It was obvious Lor intended to build a solid
alliance with these humans. It was likely Odintar would have no
choice but to do the same.

“As a result of the Great Conflict,” Lor
began, “the gender ratio on Ontariese is disproportionately
male.”

“I’m aware, but I thought the ratio had
improved in recent years. The Great Conflict ended over a hundred
years ago.”

“We’ve made significant strides, but the
problem lingers.”

Frustrated by Lor’s generalization, Odintar
took over. If they were going to fill Elias in, then fill him in.
This didn’t need to be a two-hour conversation. “Thirty years ago
the Ontarian Joint Council reluctantly agreed to let carefully
screened Ontarian men recruit human females as life mates. Each man
had to establish a connection with the female before he revealed
anything about his origins.”

“Were the females told once the ‘connection’
was made?” Elias narrowed his eyes, obviously uncomfortable with
the implications.

“Of course they were told,” Lor
stressed.

“Full disclosure was supposed to take place
before the relationship became intimate, but many of the men found
it easier to convince their female to leave their homeworld after
they were lovers,” Odintar elaborated.

“The women were taken back to Ontariese?”
Elias still looked annoyed.

Odintar nodded. “Risk of discovery was too
great if the couple remained on Earth.”

“What happened to the women who refused to
leave but had already been told about Ontariese?” Annoyance
hardened to disapproval as Elias waited for the answer.

Lor remained silent, so Odintar continued.
“The men were careful not to leave anything that could substantiate
the story. Even if the women told others that they had been dating
an alien, who would believe them?”

Elias looked at him, a bit of the anger
easing from his expression. “And these twelve renegades came to
Earth as part of this program?”

After another nod, Odintar explained, “They
called themselves the Dirty Dozen. At first their supervisor
thought they’d found females who didn’t want to leave Earth because
they’d disabled their tracker chips and gone off the grid. It
wasn’t until stories about their antics began to circulate that he
asked for help retrieving them.”

“You said they were on their own for three
years. How did they elude capture for so long?”

“The details aren’t important,” Odintar
dismissed impatiently. He’d led the retrieval team and the entire
mission had been a disaster. There was no reason to dredge up all
that pain. “Numerous mistakes were made that allowed them to
operate for much too long. It’s history and it can’t be undone. All
that matters now is that we’re dealing with the fallout of their
misbehavior.”

Elias accepted the statement with a stiff
nod. “How do you know any of the females listed in the notebook are
the result of the renegades?”

“A DNA test identified Tori and Angie’s
father as one of the renegades,” Lor answered.

“They’re the only two we’ve been able to
confirm,” Blayne added, “but it’s a logical assumption that the
majority of these females have latent abilities.”

“What happened to the renegades?”

“They were rounded up and returned to
Ontariese,” Odintar obliged even though he’d tried to end the
topic.

“Their leader is believed to be dead,”
Blayne countered. “But there is a small possibility he’s still out
there.”

“Which brings us back to the present,” Lor
concluded. “Jillian is scheduled to be discharged from the hospital
tomorrow. We need to decide what to do with her.”

Jillian. Odintar sighed. He’d spent way too
much time in the past two weeks thinking about the unfortunate
human. He’d been sent to guard her after Angie’s vision identified
Jillian as Nazerel’s next target. Not wanting to upset her or
explain his presence in her room, Odintar had remained shielded
from view during his twelve-day vigil. He’d watched her interact
with visitors and medical personnel, putting on a brave façade for
their benefit. Yet when she was alone, or thought she was alone,
anguish and hopelessness pulsed from her in tangible waves. Her
vulnerability incited his protectiveness. He wanted to comfort and
heal her, help her rediscover her purpose in life.

“It’s pretty obvious Nazerel is waiting for
her to recover before he makes his move,” Blayne pointed out.
“Shouldn’t we leave well enough alone?”

“There’s another option,” Odintar struggled
to keep his tone light, yet his pulse thudded through his veins. “I
could heal her and equip her for the battle to come. She doesn’t
need to remain helpless.” Three sets of eyes focused squarely on
him. Elias looked doubtful, Blayne amused, and Lor thoughtful.
Their reactions were so in character that it made Odintar smile.
“We know she’s in Nazerel’s sights, which means ignorance isn’t an
option. And if she knows about us, there’s no reason to subject her
to any more human healing.” He let sarcasm emphasize the last
word.

“Were you able to sense what her abilities
are?” Lor asked, his brows still drawn together.

He shook his head. “She’s very guarded. I
was afraid she’d feel a scan powerful enough to penetrate her
mental shields.”

Lor rubbed his chin and stared past Odintar,
obviously lost in thought. “If only you could restore her health
without Nazerel realizing what you’d done.” His turquoise gaze
returned to Odintar’s face as he added, “It would make one hell of
a surprise if he came to collect a wounded kitten and found a
lioness in her place.”

“You could use the safe house,” Elias
suggested. “It would be a great trial run.”

Lor shook his head, but the gears were
obviously still turning inside his mind. “It would still look
suspicious if she just disappeared.”

“We could hire someone who could pass for
Jillian,” Blayne offered. “A leggy blonde shouldn’t be too hard to
find in a town full of showgirls.”

“What if Nazerel snatches the double?” Elias
looked less enthusiastic about the concept than the others.

“It would only take me a day or two to heal
Jillian and another few to unleash her abilities. She would still
need training, but if we leave her at the mercy of human medicine
it will be months before she’ll be able to walk again, much less
defend herself.”

Blayne nodded then reinforced Odintar’s
position. “The double will be safe as long as Nazerel thinks she’s
still helpless. Shadow Assassins have to take on a worthy opponent
or there is no satisfaction in the victory.”

“A double will only work from a distance,”
Lor mused without dismissing the idea entirely. “If Nazerel or one
of his men scans the double, they’d easily detect the
difference.”

“Even if they discovered the switch, it
would be unlikely they’d harm the double. An ungifted human isn’t a
worthy opponent and any action they take at this point risks us
finding them.”

Odintar had no idea why Blayne was helping
him sell the idea, but he was grateful for the backup. Besides, the
suggestions sounded less desperate coming from Blayne.

Lor went back to rubbing his chin as he
mulled over the possibilities. “The Shadow Assassins have been
laying low since our raid on the motel. It’s almost as if they’re
hoping we’ll forget about them.”

“Or they’re waiting for reinforcements.”
Elias shifted his gaze from one Mystic to the others, his hazel
eyes narrowed and assessing. “Morgan is starting to wonder if
they’re preparing to leave Las Vegas.”

“We need to draw them out,” Lor concluded.
“A miraculously restored Jillian could be the perfect ploy.”

“Jillian will have to be told the truth if
you intend to heal her, but what do we tell the double?” Elias
asked. “She has to be aware that there’s significant danger, yet we
can’t tell her the truth.”

The tension in Odintar’s chest increased as
they moved closer to a viable plan. He wasn’t sure why Jillian had
affected him so deeply, but he couldn’t shake the longing. He
wanted to help her, no, he
needed
to help her, to see hope
reignite within her eyes. “We tell the double that Jillian is being
stalked by an obsessed fan. She’s at a serious disadvantage because
of her injury, so we’re hiring a double to take her place. The
double will only be pretending to be hurt, and she’ll be heavily
guarded, so she’ll be in far less danger than Jillian.”

“Simple, clean and close enough to the truth
to be believable.” Lor nodded. “I like it.”

“We can have Tori drive the double to
Jillian’s apartment while Angie brings Jillian to you,” Blayne
suggested. “Jillian will accept the truth more easily from someone
she knows.”

“You’ll need to teleport in with Jillian,”
Elias told Odintar. “Even with a decoy, we can’t risk leading the
Shadow Assassins to the safe house.”

Odintar nodded, no longer able to conceal
his smile. “Not a problem. I’ll work out the details with Angie.
Expect us tomorrow afternoon.”

Jillian rested her hand on the hinged brace
confining her right leg and stared out the car window. “Are you
sure you know where you’re going? This is one screwy way to get to
my apartment.” She didn’t want to sound ungrateful, but she was
anxious to get home and drug herself into oblivion. She’d grown
accustomed to the pain in the three weeks since her accident. The
throbbing never went away completely, but most of the time she
could simply ignore it. The pain meds gave her a few hours of peace
from the gaping emptiness that had become her future.

“I have an errand to run first. Hope that’s
okay. It shouldn’t take too long.”

The tension in Angie’s voice made Jillian
turn her head. Angie stared straight ahead, both hands firmly
gripping the steering wheel. “It’s fine. I appreciate the ride. It
would have cost half a week’s salary to take a cab and who knows
when I’ll see another paycheck.”

Angie glanced at her and smiled, but the
smile didn’t reach her eyes. “Isn’t the show covering your
expenses? It’s the least they can do, if you ask me. They’re damn
lucky you don’t sue them.”

The thought had crossed her mind more than
once, but everyone involved had followed safety procedures. It
would have felt better if she had someone to blame, but the show
hadn’t been negligent. A rope snapped and a section of scenery
toppled. She’d just been standing in the wrong place at the wrong
time.

“Worker’s Comp is coving the medical bills.
I was told there will be some sort of stipend to compensate for
lost wages, but it only runs the length of my existing contract and
I was about to renew. So I have five weeks to find a new job and I
won’t even be off crutches that soon.” Actually she had five weeks
to find a new occupation and dancing was all she knew.

“This has to be so frustrating for you,”
Angie’s voice turned soft and sad. “But I might be able to offer a
glimmer of hope.”

Unable to stomach another pitying look,
Jillian turned back to the window. They were traveling southeast on
I-95, heading out of town. Where the hell was this errand taking
them? She shifted position as the discomfort in her leg became more
persistent.

“I’m going to tell you a story,” Angie began
a few minutes later. “You’ll probably think I’m nuts until Odintar
heals your leg, but everything I’m about to say is true.”

“Until who does what to my leg?” She turned
back around. Was Angie trying to be funny? She was failing
miserably.

“Blayne and Lor aren’t from another country.
They’re from a planet called Ontariese.”

Jillian laughed as their images popped into
her mind. One blond, one dark-haired, each compelling in his own
way. She’d been surprised when Tori strolled into her hospital room
with Lor, then a few days later Angie showed up with a new
boyfriend as well. Jillian had thought it odd, yet wished them
well. The sisters had survived years of tragedy and uncertainty. It
was time for a little happiness. “They’re both attractive, I’ll
admit, but they looked pretty human to me.”

“They’ve made adjustments to their
appearances so they don’t draw too much attention. Aren’t you
curious why they’re here?”

Another chuckle escaped as Jillian looked at
Angie. “Because Earth girls are easy?” Jillian spent more time with
Tori than Angie. Still, she knew Angie well enough to anticipate
outlandish behavior. This seemed bizarre, even for Angie.

“They’re chasing a group of fugitives called
Shadow Assassins.”

“Wow. That sounds ominous. Hope they catch
them soon.”

“I know you don’t believe me, but you will.
So pay attention.”

Semi-amused by Angie’s strange attempt to
cheer her up, Jillian pivoted toward her and said, “Go on. I’m
listening.”

“The leader of the Shadow Assassins is
called Nazerel and he’s targeted you. It’s likely he would have
captured you by now if it weren’t for your accident. Shadow
Assassins are all about the hunt. No prize is worth having if they
don’t have to work for it.”

Rather than laugh off the twisting tale,
Jillian just nodded. Angie’s imagination was impressive.

“Still, Nazerel won’t be put off forever. He
wants you and he will come for you as soon as you’re stronger.”