The Realm

AMY

“Pick up the damned phone, Izzy!” Amy yelled as she shifted gears. The roar of the engine almost drowned out the sound of the phone going to voicemail, yet again.

Shit, what if it’s Peter? Maybe he’s figured out where she’s hiding.

She cursed her lack of progress on tracking Peter down. She made an oath she would catch the guy after what he did to her friend.

She’d never found Peter particularly clever, yet he must have planned to leave Izzy, squirreled some assets and cash away.

Most people couldn’t just disappear. They needed credit cards and phones and social security numbers. It’s hard to vanish, yet he managed it somehow. She felt sure he’d run.

Ever since Izzy saved her life responding to an armed robbery call that went bad, the two were inseparable. She loved Izzy like a sister, and the boys like they were her own nephews.

If anything has happened to her, I’ll kill him, I’ll fucking kill him.

She gritted her teeth and flicked her long black hair out of her eyes as the lights above changed to amber, and gunned her Mustang through the intersection, calculating how long it would take her to get there.

She’d planned to go back up this evening, taking some time off to look after Izzy, and drive overnight, but the DA wanted a last-minute meeting in his office to discuss new evidence about the still unidentified Doctor Ripper.

The biggest case she’d ever worked, one she couldn’t miss, even though her friend needed her more than ever. She just felt lucky that the call from Izzy came through as she walked back to her car after meeting with the DA.

I’m not going to be there in time to make a difference. I have to call in local support.

She pulled over next to a set of strip shops, just outside a dirty-looking laundromat, and pulled her phone out of the dash holder.

As quickly as she could, she found the number for the local Canadian Mounties near Izzy’s cabin on the lake outside Silverton and dialed.

“Silverton office, Mandy speaking. How can I direct your call?”

“Mandy, my name is Detective Amy Costello of the Vancouver Violent Crimes unit. I need to speak to your captain, NOW!”

The tone of the call being placed on hold gave Amy the opportunity to stick her phone back in the hands-free kit and gun the engine into the evening traffic, skidding the back tires on the icy road.

“This is Captain Roy, Canadian Mounted Police, can I help?”

The friendly male tone over the speakers made Amy’s eyes roll.

“I need you to get a unit up to the Martin Cabin, about five miles outside of Silverton. You have a B&E in progress. Assume whoever is there is armed and dangerous.

“The victim is a VIP to the Violent Crimes unit in Vancouver.” Using her unit like that would get her into trouble, but it would also get the troopers moving faster.

“Oh, I’m sorry there, eh. We won’t be able to reach that part of the mountain for a good few hours yet. Some trees blew over in a storm and are blocking the road up to those cabins.

“My guys are working as fast as they can, but with the freezing temperatures, it’s slowing the work down.”

Amy slammed her hand on the wheel. “Then get some guys out on snow bikes, or a helicopter if you have to! Do something!”

“Easy there, Detective Costello. The Silverton police department is only three troopers, eh, and they are all out on calls. I will send them up there as soon as they can get through.”

She sucked in a calming breath of the chilly air and let it out slowly. “Fine, just get someone up there as soon as you can.” She stabbed at the red phone on her steering wheel to end the call and shook her head.

Fucking Mounties.

She shifted the car into gear and kicked her foot down as the empty country road opened up ahead.

She dialed Izzy again. “Pick up, Iz,” she said, hearing the worry in her tone. The call again went to voicemail.

“Come on, Izzy! Pick up, dammit!”

She ended the voicemail and pushed her silver sports car as fast as she could responsibly go on the icy, snow-covered road.

Why isn’t she answering? What the hell is going on?

As the road stretched out in the headlights, Amy thought back to the first day they met. A break-in, two houses away from where Izzy and the kids lived.

She went in the front and her partner went round the back, but the perp climbed out a side window and into Izzy’s yard.

Amy followed him, and when she jumped the wall into her garden, she came face to face with a revolver. Her own sidearm holstered, she did not have time to protect herself.

Her life flashed before her eyes. Tasteless, bland coffee at the station with her boring peers. Too much of that.

In that moment, she remembered the coffee, not her few years of military service after high school, or even her messed up family.

The thought that no one would miss her echoed through her mind as she stared at the steel-gray barrel.

She didn’t see Izzy until the petite brunette woman swung a two-by-four across the back of his head that flattened the little tweaker like a bug in an instant.

And being a paramedic, she knew just how hard to hit the little bastard without crushing his skull like a peanut.

By the time he came around, Amy had her cuffs on him and stood embracing the woman who’d saved her life, trying not to cry.

In that moment, their friendship stronger than sisterhood emerged, and the feisty dark-haired woman and her boys meant more to her than she could admit, even to herself.

If it’s Peter…Oh God, didn’t he do enough to her?

Even the memory of seeing her in that hospital bed made her fists clench on the steering wheel.

Her beautiful friend, with the smile that lit a room and made everyone around her feel better, lying amid tubes and machinery like a broken porcelain doll, her face swollen beyond recognition.

I’m coming, Iz. Just hang in there.

ISABELLE

The shock of the kiss froze Izzy in place, but as Mikhlas moved his lips against hers, her body reacted.

One side of her mind told her this guy was about to get a fist in the face, and the other told her to shut the hell up.

Like something meant to be, two puzzle pieces fitting together, and something she’d waited for her whole life. It made no sense. It was crazy and…incredible. Warm and hypnotic.

So hypnotic that when the second man cleared his throat, and Mikhlas stepped back, she simply stood there trying to catch her breath instead of smacking him across the face.

“Not without my permission,” she whispered unheard as Mikhlas licked his lips with a devilish grin, flashing his perfect teeth.

“Prime, did you receive the sample?” he said. Mikhlas nodded his head as if listening to someone. His smile widened, and his attention returned to Izzy.

He bowed to her, actually bowed like some kind of knight before speaking and gesturing to the sofa. “Please, sit. I will explain everything to you.”

Mikhlas waited for her as she still reeled from the kiss. What was that? What the fuck is going on?

Mikhlas reached out to her, but even though her hand twitched, and she wanted to reach forth and take his large warm one, she shook her head a little and stepped to the couch on her own.

Get a grip, you idiot. It was just a kiss. As she stepped past him, she caught a stronger whiff of citrus and cinnamon, like a heady intoxicating liqueur.

She didn’t stop, although she wanted to. If she lingered, he might get another crazy idea, like that kiss. That...incredible kiss. ~Stop it, Izzy~! ~Crazy person, remember~.

When she stepped toward the leather sofa, the other man lay on the floor, stretched out beside the fire. One long arm reached out and snagged a cushion off her father’s chair to prop under his head.

Izzy limped to the other end of the couch and lowered herself gingerly into her father’s old chair.

A pained whimper escaped her lips, and when she peered up, two sets of red eyes glared back at her. How are they doing that? ~Are those contacts?~ ~Is this a game to freak me out? Because it’s working~.

“I’m listening,” she said to Mikhlas.

“What would you like to know?” Mikhlas asked. Izzy raised her eyebrows. Is he serious?

Why did you kiss me like that? she thought. But she couldn’t ask him ~that~. “We can start with what the hell you’re doing here.”

“We are here to take you back with us,” Mikhlas said.

“What does that mean?” she asked, folding her hands around her phone, “Take me where?”

“To the Realm.”

“And where is that?”

“Very far from here,” the guy on the ground mumbled.

“You said you would tell me everything. So far, you’re just dodging all my questions.”

“Perhaps you should ask different questions.”

“Watch yourself, Silian!” Mikhlas said in a warning tone before turning back to Izzy.

“I want the truth or I’m calling the police,” she said, hoping her voice sounded authoritative and confident and knowing she failed.

“You said your friend is a police officer, and that she is on her way here,” Mikhlas reminded her, his eyebrows raised.

“Yeah, she is, and she’s going to be here soon, so start talking.”

Mikhlas perched on the chair in front of her.

“Very well. As I told you before, we are from the Royal Defense Fleet,” Mikhlas said, brushing some speck of dust off his leg.

“A vast army tasked with the protection of the Realm. We are from a galaxy billions of light-years away.”

Izzy closed her eyes and shook her head.

Delusional and crazy, great. Careful, Iz. One wrong word could send them over the edge.

“I know you do not believe me, and I understand. I will prove it to you in the morning.”

“Please, just leave me alone,” Izzy whispered.

“We cannot do that,” Silian said from the floor. “We are sworn by loyalty and duty to the Crown to stand by your side until we return to the Realm with you.”

She didn’t believe a word they said, but the only way out of this mess could be through it. “Why?”

“Because you are the chosen queen,” the man on the floor said. He turned to her, his blue eyes gleaming in the dim light of the fire.

“Of course. Well, as your queen, I command you to leave,” she said. This is ridiculous.

Mikhlas grinned. “You are not the queen yet. Only once you ascend will you be crowned. Then you may command us to do whatever you wish.”

Izzy sighed, and with too much sarcasm she said, “So, you want to take me away…? To the Realm…? In a galaxy far, far away?”

“Yes, but you must first be healed,” Mikhlas dropped his gaze to her leg and his eyes changed again to that deep red.

“How are you doing that with your eyes?” she asked.

Mikhlas turned his face away. “Forgive me. I don’t mean to unsettle you. I do not have control over it. The change is linked to the three primary states of mind, anger, sadness, and calm.

“As the level of an emotional biochemical rises in our blood, our eyes react to it. It is nothing you should fear,” Mikhlas explained.

Izzy let it all sink in for a moment. “What are you?” she asked but wasn’t sure she wanted to hear the answer.

“We are not from your world, but we are men just the same.”

“If you’re not from here, how can you speak English?” She hoped to catch them in a lie.

“We have…translators in the language center of our brain. Millions of nanites translate everything we hear and change our speech patterns to match. To me, you are speaking my language.”

She shook her head. Does he think I will believe any of this?

Izzy wasn’t a conspiracy nut, and she understood that humans may not be the only ones out there, but these two looked far too much like normal guys to be aliens, despite their size and freaky eyes.

“Let me guess, you have teleporters, and laser guns too?”

“We prefer not to use such weapons. We fight with blades,” Silian said from the ground.

“Blades. Like knives?” She swallowed. Perfect. Two crazy strangers in the house that liked to chop things into pieces.

“Not knives. Blades,” Mikhlas said. As Izzy watched, a fine mist of silver clouded around his leg and a shining blade swirled into existence on the side of his black pants.

Mikhlas grabbed the handle and spun the sword around. He stopped it for her to look at. The long, thick blade curved upward with four sharp teeth at the tip.

Her heart jumped at the sight of this stranger in her home, holding a sword that could cut her in half with one swing.

Wait. What did I just see, and what is he going to do with that thing?

He held it out for a few seconds for her to examine, and then pressed the blade to the side of his leg, where it melted into the fabric of his clothing.

Izzy relaxed now that the weapon had disappeared, but her mind still felt clouded with confusion at its appearance.

“What the hell was that?”

“Standard combat blade.”

“No, not that. How did it just appear on your leg?”

“Prime morphed it for me,” he said.

“Uh-huh, and what’s a prime?”

“Not what, who. She is a self-conscious extension of the Alpha Primordial Sentinel Being.”

“Wow, okay, I’m sorry I asked,” Izzy said, leaning her head back onto the headrest and closing her eyes.

She felt Mikhlas move off the seat. “I can see you do not believe anything I have told you. For now, believe this. You have nothing to fear from Silian and me.”

“We will not hurt you, and we would give our lives to protect you. Rest. Heal. Everything will be clear in the morning.”

Izzy kept her eyes closed as she spoke. “This is a dream. It must be.”

She lifted her head to look at Mikhlas, but the space he occupied moments ago appeared empty. The floor by the fire, the leather chair in front of her, empty.

Where the hell did they go? And how did they disappear so quietly?

Her phone, still gripped firmly in her hand, erupted with an endless stream of pings. She unlocked the screen to find nineteen missed calls, seven voicemails, and twenty-two texts, all from Amy.

Shit. How did I not hear all that?

She hit the call button and waited.

“Izzy, tell me you are all right,” Amy’s panicked voice rushed through.

Izzy scanned the cabin around her, “Yeah, I’m fine.”

“What the hell happened?”

“I don’t know,” Izzy said. She could hear her own honest confusion.

“You said there was someone in your house,” Amy replied. “I heard you talking to some guy before the line went dead.”

“Yeah, they’re gone now,” Izzy said.

“They? More than one. Not Peter?”

“Yeah, two of them, but they…they just disappeared.”

“Disappeared? You mean they left?”

“I think so…,” Izzy said.

“Iz, what’s going on?”

“I…I don’t know.”

“Listen, I’m on my way. I should be there later tonight if the Mounties have cleared the road. Stay put and answer your damn phone when I call!” Amy said, and the line went dead.

As Izzy sat in the chair and let her mind work, she wondered for a moment if she hadn’t taken too many pills that afternoon.

What those two strange men had said to her still left her reeling, and the sudden and unexpected kiss pissed her off. I should have smacked him in the face.

But her fingers gently ran over her lips as she remembered the incredible feeling of it. How right it felt.

Logic told her that no one gets away with pulling a move like that, but something inside her screamed for him to come back.

To be close to him again. To feel his lips on hers and the gentle strength of him. The moment he touched her, her mind sprung open, and like waking from a dream, it felt as though this was how the Universe wanted it to be.

“What the fuck is wrong with me?” Izzy mumbled to the empty room. “He’s crazy. They have to be crazy!”

He might be crazy, but damn, he’s hot.

His straight and powerful face, shaded in stubble with his thick black hair cut short, just wouldn’t leave her mind. Those eyes, so beautiful, so blue, like a tropical ocean or clear sky.

The way his hand moved to the back of her neck when he kissed her, and how he licked his lips after the kiss as if savoring the taste of her sent a shiver through her.

She didn’t understand what the hell they wanted, or where they disappeared to for that matter, but his touch made her think of reckless and dangerously impulsive possibilities.