Mikal (Second Wave Book 3) (2 page)

It didn’t surprise Mikal though. The things he’d seen in the man’s mind were horrifying. Child rape and human trafficking. Drugs, murders, theft . . . nothing about the man had been worth saving. Mikal was more surprised that the man had lived that long without being killed.

Mikal propped him up against the wall, posing his body in a casual way so his loving mother wouldn’t realize the pain he’d suffered as Mikal had tried to destroy the evil within him. The humans would only find a massive brain aneurysm to explain the thug’s death and the mess made in his brain, so Mikal had no worry about being blamed for it.

Straightening himself, he walked out of the alley and headed to the motel as if nothing had interrupted him. Mikal always found himself feeling more pain for the animal’s family than he did for the person he killed. It was hard to feel sorry for someone when you felt the pain and terror they inflicted on their victims and the joy and rush they got from doing it.

In his 150 years, Mikal had learned one thing: once a human had gone too far, done too much, allowed too much evil into their soul, there was no saving them. The only thing he could do was try to purge them of the evil in the same way he would destroy a rogue beast in a member of the beast species.

In a lot of cases, the anomaly in the human was destroyed, and they were able to turn their lives around. In some cases, like the thug in the alley, the evil within was far too pervasive to be destroyed without a fight-a fight that Mikal always won. The family lost a loved one, but society could sleep better.

This was Mikal’s life. His destiny. What he was born to do. Not only as a Dranovian, but the other half of him—whatever it was—demanded it as well. Even his father had failed to identify the other half of his DNA. Until that night, Mikal thought he was alone, an anomaly not so different from those afflicted with evil or rogue beasts.

His father had always told him and his brothers they had a gift. That only those that were the strongest of body, mind, and character were chosen to be Dranovian. But he wasn’t only Dranovian. He was something else too and now he knew there were others, others in labs somewhere. And one scared and hunted female somewhere in this city. He had people somewhere. And Mikal was determined to find them, starting with the beautiful female.

*****

Alpha Two shivered in fear, terrified that the beautiful, dark male would find her again at any minute. She’d never seen a male version like him before, and she was a little unsure as to what to think. The only male she’d ever known was Alpha One, but he didn’t have such beautiful midnight skin like the stranger.

The male was just as tall and large as Alpha One–at least six foot five. His white eyes were the same has her own, as was the shimmer in his skin. Even his energy resonated with hers the same way it did around Alpha One and her sisters. The only difference between the stranger and Alpha One was the color of his skin, his gleaming bald head and the small, white soul patch beneath his full lips.

It only confirmed her fears that there were males being held separately from the females, and they must be training them the same way they were the females. Two wanted to cry at the thought that there were more of her people being treated as she and her sisters were.

I don’t have time to cry
, she thought as she straightened her spine and stood from behind the abandoned barn she’d gone to when she’d fled. She’d waited to see if he had followed, and when he hadn’t, it was time for her to go before he found her.

She was determined to do exactly what she said she would. Two was going to free her sisters and kill everyone who’d created them and tortured them. Alpha Two launched herself into the wind and headed into the closest city. She found an old, but clean looking motel near the edge of town and reformed her body by the dumpster behind it.

With a shake of her head, she changed her hair to a dark brown color and lengthened it until it fell past her shoulders. Two touched her pants, and the color shimmered into a dark gray, her shirt to navy. It was all she could do to change her appearance, but it usually worked well enough to disguise her from a distance. But that was with humans. She’d never had to hide from one of her own before and wasn’t sure if she could.

Refusing to think of him, Two took her sunglasses from her backpack, put them on, and headed to the motel’s office. Her eyes were the only thing that she couldn’t change the color of, so she kept her head down and rang the night bell. Two smiled at the elderly human male when he opened the sliding window.

“Can I help you?” the older man asked kindly.

“I need a room. For at least a week, maybe longer,” Alpha Two said as she pulled out a wad of cash.

It had taken her years of stealing from her mission money allotment to save what she had. Two had given up eating or purchasing anything for herself in order to save for the day she escaped. She’d also taken money from her targets. She wasn’t proud of it, but she did what it would take to free her sisters.

“Do you have a smoking or non-smoking preference?” the man asked, eying her curiously.

Two smiled at the kind man, feeling his concern for her in his energy as she sifted him.

“Smoking, please. I always get nervous on these business trips and end up smoking like a chimney,” she said with a laugh as she lied casually-the way she was taught.

People always assumed the reason she wore sunglasses at night was to hide a black eye or signs of abuse. The lie enabled the old man to stop feeling concerned for her and concentrate on business. She didn’t want the human paying attention to her.

“OK, how about a king size bed, smoking room that overlooks the pool?” he asked with a denture filled smile.

“That would be great,” Two said with a genuine grin at the kind man.

She signed the paperwork and the receipt with the name on the identification she’d purchased when she’d been on a mission last year. Like everything else she’d acquired on her missions, she’d had it hidden while she’d gone back to the labs, back to the abuse, back to her sisters.

Two looked up and took the key from the older man’s hand and immediately felt the darkness in his energy. Not from evil, but from disease. He was dying. She quickly finished sifting his energy and discovered that he was a good man, a kind man who had been concerned for her because he regularly gave free rooms to battered women trying to flee abusive situations.

With a last smile at him, she threw a bolt of energy at old man that made his knees weak, and he slumped into the chair behind the desk, completely unaware of why he suddenly felt so weak. The man wouldn’t realize until the morning how much better he would feel, the energy working to help heal the worst of his health problems.

Two quickly found her room and went inside. She stood in the center and placed her palms together in front of her chest. She sent her energy around her in a circle, checking her perimeter to ensure she was safe—at least for the moment.

With a heavy sigh, she sat cross-legged in the center of the bed and pulled her backpack to her. Two pulled out her laptop and pushed through the rubber-banded wads of money to find the burner cell phone she’d purchased.

She opened her laptop, and although she was tempted to look up Mikal, she knew better. His name was most likely flagged, and they’d be on her in minutes. Two had learned enough to understand how things worked with the people who had created her and her sisters. How far their reach was and how easy it was for them to do whatever they wanted to do without anyone to stop them.

In that aspect
, she thought,
they are god-like
.

They were above human law and they owned just about everything and everybody in one way or another. She couldn’t go to the news. None of them cared about the truth any longer; they were only interested in whoever paid them the most to lie. She couldn’t go to the government. Any government. They were a part of it. No one else could stand with her without being destroyed. She was alone.

This time she didn’t have her sisters speaking to her in her mind as they comforted one another and learned of their powers. Powers that they refused to reveal to the doctors and the commanders who came to see them, who made them perform like trained animals before determining what mission she would go on and who was ready to start mission training.

Alpha Two laid back on the bed and stared at the ceiling, her mind trying to process all the thoughts and feelings running wildly through her. Her thoughts kept returning to the handsome, midnight-colored man she’d seen.

She couldn’t figure out why he hadn’t tried to kill her. He had every chance to shoot her or drug her, yet he’d only watched her. Two couldn’t figure out why. If he went back to his handlers and told them that he’d seen her but hadn’t fired, he would be punished—if not killed—depending on how many mission failures he had.

Why would he take that chance? Why did he keep asking for my name?
He had to know it was me, Alpha Two. How many more of our people could go missing at the same time? He had to know it was me. And that I’d escaped.

She didn’t believe that any others had escaped, but she also didn’t know that males were being kept elsewhere until she’d seen the dark stranger. She hadn’t even known that their people could have that beautiful shade of midnight skin.

Two crinkled her nose, the smoke smell bothering her heightened senses. The only reason she’d chosen a smoking room was because it would disguise her scent from the dogs the handlers liked to release to track them. She’d learned that by accident when she’d come back from a mission where the target had been a chain smoker. She’d reeked of smoke, and the dogs never even noticed her.

Two knew the odds were pretty slim that they’d found out about the identity she’d gotten on her own, or even where she was since she was only using cash. Still, she was nervous and afraid—not of what they’d do to her if they found her, but of failure. She was terrified of failing her sisters the way Alpha One had been terrified of failing her.

Two pushed the negative thoughts aside, unable to afford to waste time and energy on them. She sat up and pulled her laptop towards her, putting her plans in motion. She knew there wasn’t much time before they either moved or killed her sisters, and she wasn’t about to leave them there for a second longer than they had to be.

The god killer has a lot of work to do
, she thought with a sigh.

Chapter Two

Alpha Two looked around the mist-shrouded forest with trepidation, wondering how she’d gotten there and who was stalking her in the fog. She crouched low and pulled out her haladie as she sent her senses out in a perimeter around her.

She heard a whisper of sound and spun around, watching as the mist formed into the large, midnight-skinned man she’d seen earlier. With a gasp, she growled low as he looked at her with wide eyes.

“Where are we?” Mikal asked, reaching up a hand to feel the thick mist around them.

Two looked at him with suspicion, not believing for a moment that he hadn’t orchestrated the meeting.

“You know damn well where we are! You brought us here!” she accused angrily.

Mikal was taken aback, but he had no idea if what she said was true. He held his hands out in front of him, trying to show that he meant her no harm.

“I have no idea if I did or not. If I did, I honestly don’t know how. Please, just explain to me how I did this?” he asked, curious to know how he put them in the forest.

Two snorted her disbelief, but when Mikal continued to look around in amazement, she began to doubt that he did know.

“How can you not know? What did they create you with?” she asked bluntly.

Mikal sighed and took a big chance on moving a few steps forward and sitting down on a large flat rock in front of her.

“I’m telling you the truth; if I came from a lab, I have no memory of it. My adoptive father found me somewhere around my second or third year and raised me as his son in the regular human world. Do you know what I am?” he asked, allowing his desperation to know to bleed through his energy.

Alpha Two sighed and put away her weapons.

They won’t do any good here in this realm anyway
, she thought. She folded her arms across her chest and studied him for a moment.

“Persisting in this tactic when I already know that it is a ruse is self-defeating. Are you a defect?” she asked.

Mikal was startled by the question. A defect? Were there such things among his people?

“Why would you think me a defect?” he asked.

Two sighed and rubbed her hands over her face in frustration. She had two choices: she could pretend to go along with his game or she could try and awaken herself from the realm. Taking a deep breath, Two attempted to center her energy the way Alpha One had taught her.

Moments later she heard a shout, and it startled her out of her concentration.

“Wait!” Mikal yelled out when he saw her body start to shimmer and disappear.

“Wait . . . please. How do I get out of here? Just tell me that,” he said, desperate for her to stay. And to know how to get out of here.

Alpha Two felt like growling and stomping her feet. She could try to leave the realm again, but she knew he would keep interrupting her.

Maybe, I’m going about this wrong. Maybe if I play along I can learn what he is up to and where the males are being kept
, she thought.

Two narrowed her eyes at him and sifted his energy, feeling nothing but curiosity and a desperate edge to him. Figuring he must be damn good at pretending, she cleared her throat.

“You’re in the dream realm. You leave the same way that you entered,” she said, trying to keep the sarcasm out of her voice.

Mikal shook his head, not understanding what she meant.

“I don’t know how I got here. I’ve never been here before,” he said, running his hands through the mist on the ground near the rock where she sat.

Two snorted.

“You have never dreamt before? You’re a terrible liar, and you’re making it difficult to entertain this idiocy,” Two said with a frown.

Mikal rubbed his hands over his bald head and closed his eyes, before snorting.

“Yeah, you’d think if I was lying, I’d come up with something better, huh? And no, I’ve never dreamt before. I am part what you are, but also part something else. I assumed it was one of the two that kept me from dreaming. Why would I start dreaming now? Are you really here? Or are you part of the dream?” he asked, curious why his mind would create her for his very first dream.

Two could feel the wonder and excitement in him and knew that the intensity of the emotion could not be faked. It was her turn to be curious.

“You really have never been here before?” she asked.

Mikal shook his head and looked around at the darkness and mist surrounding them.

“No. I figured a dream would look a little more . . . friendly. Not quite so creepy and imposing. Is it always like this?” he asked, hoping her question meant she was starting to believe him.

Two laughed out loud, and when he looked at her curiously it made her laugh even harder. After a few moments when he still stared at her, Two stopped laughing and cleared her throat.

“I found it funny because you are the one who created this place. You made it creepy and imposing. You can also change it,” she said, wondering if there was anything he would admit to knowing.

“How the hell did I do this?” Mikal asked in surprise as he looked around again.

Two considered being sarcastic again, but she knew that would get her nowhere, and she decided not to waste her time.

“You enter the realm by concentrating on entering it. You must have fallen asleep thinking of me in order to bring me here. Why is that?” she asked, hoping that by giving him information, he would be inclined to share as well.

She wasn’t about to admit she’d been thinking of him as she’d fallen asleep as well, or she wouldn’t be here. That was how she and her sisters did it.

Mikal chuckled.

“That’s it? Just think about entering the dream realm and I’m there? How is that possible? And the reason I was thinking of you is because I was telling you the truth. You are the first I have ever seen that is like me,” he admitted, allowing her to feel the honesty in his words and energy.

Alpha Two sighed.

I don’t care how well he can manipulate his energy, I don’t believe him
, she thought. But she was determined to learn something from him.

“Find the strand of energy that is lit up in your mind right now, feel it, and learn its color. The next time you want to enter the dream realm, remember the color and the feel of the energy, create the scenery of the realm and believe yourself in it, and you will enter. You do the reverse to leave,” she said, watching him pretend to do as she said.

Mikal grinned broadly. She was right, he could easily feel the realm’s energy in his mind and see the dark purple color of it.

“That’s amazing! How do I know the color and feel of the real world?” he asked.

Alpha Two cocked her head to the side and rested her arms on her knees.

“Think of someone or something that you know very well in the real world and concentrate on the color and feel of the energy. Your mind should be able to conjure the memory in your mind. Where do you live?” she asked.

Mikal did as she suggested and was surprised that he’d never known that he could do this. That he’d never even accidently discovered it amazed him, and he wondered if meeting and being near her energy set off dormant abilities.

Mikal smiled broadly at her, grateful that she’d relented and helped him learn something. He drew his knees up and mimicked her pose. Considering that she wasn’t telling him anything and was obviously running from something, his curiosity could not interfere with his responsibility to his people.

As much as he wanted to tell her everything about him, he would not say anything that could endanger anyone else. For that reason, he intended to be just as vague as she was until he could figure out if she could be trusted.

“I live in a regular human home. Right now, I share several places with my adoptive brothers and sister. When I get tired of being surrounded by them, I have a place in the mountains that I go to in order to be alone. What is your name?” Mikal asked, hoping she’d finally tell him.

Two knew that he couldn’t be telling the truth. There was no way their captors would allow any of them to live like normal humans without being enslaved. What he spoke of was nothing more than a fantasy that she and all of her sisters had.

Obviously, the males among them felt as they did and had the same fantasy. Or it was a lie and he was trying to find out if she and her sisters were speaking of such things so he could turn them in to the doctors and commanders. 

Two shook her head, refusing to fall for his story.

“You have a creative mind, but I’m not enough of a fool to believe you. Why don’t you tell me something that is true?” she suggested, doubting he would.

Mikal sighed and rubbed a hand over his face.

“We are at an impasse. I can’t prove to you the truth if you refuse to try and trust me. And I can’t find out the truth of who I am without you believing me. I can’t win . . . What can I do to earn your trust?” he asked, trying to quell his frustration.

Alpha Two thought about it for a moment and realized that it wouldn’t matter what he did or said, she wouldn’t believe him. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to believe in the fantasy he was telling her—it was that she couldn’t afford to believe it only to find out it was a lie. Her sisters were depending on her, and it was them she forced herself to think of.

With a heavy sigh, she gave the beautiful man a sad look.

“Nothing. I need to go. If I see you in the real world, I will kill you or die trying. I won’t be taken back alive,” she said before she disappeared.

Mikal cursed and jumped to his feet, looking around the misty darkness for her.

“Damn it!” he roared, kicking at some dry leaves at his feet.

Finally he calmed down and concentrated on his father, finding the color of the strand and the energy.

He awakened with a start in his motel room.

Mikal swung his legs over the side of the bed and sent his energy out around him, wondering if the female was close by. Finding no danger or the woman, he lay back down on the bed and clasped his hands behind his head.

Normally, he would have immediately contacted his father so Grai could help him figure out what was going on. But with Koda missing, Mikal didn’t feel right about bothering his father with this when he really didn’t have enough information to even tell him.

He’d told his brothers that he was going to be delayed by a few days while he checked out a lead in the area, and he knew if he mentioned something to them, he’d be swimming in siblings before he could blink. The female was paranoid enough without having his well-meaning family smothering her. And him.

There was one person he could talk to though, and he immediately checked the time. He had no sooner done that when he felt the niggling in his mind that told him his baby brother was opening his energy to him.

With a mental leap, Mikal jumped through the yellow haze of energy in his mind and stood facing the golden, winged warrior that was his brother, Tristan.

“Brother!” Tristan said as he grabbed Mikal into a strong hug.

Mikal hugged Tristan just as tightly before pulling back and smiling at the warrior.

“I have met one of my kind,” Mikal said.

Tristan grinned broadly and squeezed Mikal’s shoulders in affection and happiness.

“I knew one day you would find what you were looking for. You have so many questions, but I cannot answer them,” Tristan said, sending his brother energy.

Mikal sighed and nodded. He knew it wouldn’t be that easy. If he had been meant to know easily, Mikal knew he would have figured it out by now.

“I know that, brother. I would not expect you to ruin the surprise for me,” Mikal teased. It wasn’t why he’d come.

Tristan waved his hand and the golden cocoon they were in changed to a frozen mountaintop in Alaska. Next he manifested a comfortable looking leather couch.

“I know. You were ever the one to look for the hard way to do things,” Tristan said, pulling Mikal down to sit beside him on the couch. 

With a chuckle and shake of his head at his brother’s powers, Mikal leaned his head back and took a deep breath of the frigid air around them.

“I think the female is in great danger, but I can’t get her to trust me enough to even tell me her name. She may come from a place like the one they may be holding Koda in. I also learned that there is a dream realm that I can enter,” Mikal said with a half-smile.

Tristan chuckled and patted Mikal on his shoulder.

“Brother, we’ve been speaking in a dream realm together since I was a year old. We share a strand of energy from a realm the others do not have access too,” Tristan explained.

Mikal looked around in surprise.

“Why did you never tell me this was a dream realm?” he asked.

Tristan laughed.

“Didn’t we just discuss your enjoyment of doing things the hard way? Besides, you weren’t ready. Now, you are ready,” he said with a smile.

Mikal shook his head and playfully punched his brother in the arm.

“Light-bringer my ass. More like pain in the ass,” Mikal teased in the easy brotherly friendship they’d shared since Tristan’s birth.