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She stumbled to her feet and raced into the woods. Weapon? Where’s a weapon? She needed a stick. A rock. Something.

  Thane hurtled through the brush after her. Branches cracked and snapped. Taya dove on a large stick and managed to straighten before he reached her. She whipped around with it, aiming for his head. He blocked it, brushing it aside.

  “This again?” he sneered.

  The stick was too heavy for her to use. It wasn’t like her staff. It took him no time or effort to disarm her. He changed tactics.

  Up until then, he’d defended. Now he attacked.

  Taya managed to partially block his first blow. His fist glanced off her skull and left her ear ringing. They went back and forth with a fury of blows, each met with blocks rendering them ineffective.

  He didn’t strike with full force. He moved with swift accuracy, but his strikes had the relaxed ease of someone sparring or shadow boxing. He toyed with her like a cat facing a bird with a broken wing.

  Grrrr.

  Taya stepped back and slipped. Thane followed her, catching her in the most unladylike position. A smile spread across his face as he looked down at her. She quickly brought her leg up and around his head, slamming his face and smug grin into the snow. As her leg came down, she captured his neck between her legs. She squeezed and watched his face turn red. She squeezed harder. If he didn’t have the neck of a bull, she might have a chance of breaking it.

  He splayed his hand on her stomach and zapped her—the bolt of energy knocked the air from her lungs. Her legs slackened their death grip. Before he attacked again, she shoved him away with her foot on his face. She scrambled to stand and took two steps when a bulldozer slammed into her.

  Thane sent them flying through the air and onto the frozen path. He pinned her to the forest floor.

  “Asshole!” She punched out her arms and thrashed her legs. Cold metal slid around her neck and a link snapped shut.

  She stilled.

  No!

  The prickling sensation returned. The urge to hit a non-existent rewind button overcame her. This couldn’t happen. This wasn’t happening. When would she wake up and find out this had all been an awful dream?

  He locked the slave collar around her neck and leaned over, his breath brushing her cheek. “You’re mine.”

  Chapter Twelve

  Me, Too

  Taya startled awake. A fire crackled in the distance, but sent little warmth to her numb body. With the thin bedroll protecting her from the frozen ground, a threadbare blanket covering her from the chill of the night, and the rattle of the chain binding her hands together and latching her to a nearby tree with her slave collar, her circumstances hadn’t changed…except a dirty hand clamped on her mouth.

  She tensed. The chains clanked.

  “Don’t scream and I won’t hurt you,” a low voice hissed in her ear.

  Her vision adjusted to make out the dark shape cast in shadow from the muted light of the low burning campfire. Bruno, the scout, crouched over her. His rough hand smelled of horse and bark. His other hand shoved her manacled arms over her head and pinned them down to the cold dirt. He let go of her mouth and dragged his hand down her body.

  Her breathing hitched. Her heartbeat thudded. No. Not this. He couldn’t do this. Not here. Not this way. Not this man. No.

  As suddenly as his weight pushed her into the thin bed mat over the frozen dirt, it vanished.

  Bruno’s body disappeared and landed with a thump a few feet away from her.

  Taya sat up and blinked. Her head swam and she panted to catch her breath. Sweat ran down her face.

  Thane stood at the base of her bed roll, statue-still and the air crackled with power around him.

  “You don’t understand.” Bruno scrambled to his feet and scurried over to Thane.

  “Try me.” His expression gave nothing away, but his cold detached voice sent ice down Taya’s back and he wasn’t speaking to her.

  “She looks like them. Like a royal house member.”

  “So?”

  “I’m not like you. A guy like me would never have a chance with a noblewoman.”

  “And this way you can? It didn’t matter that she’s not willing or that I explicitly told everyone to keep their hands off her.”

  “She was into it.”

  Thane narrowed his eyes. “There’s only three reasons that could be true. Either, she planned to seduce you to escape. Or she’s a scared hostage who believed she had no choice because saying no would result in bad things happening, or…” Thane paused to scowl. “Or you’re a piece of shit, too absorbed in your own satisfaction to recognize what no looks like.”

  Thane unsheathed one of his white-glowing swords and in one fluid motion drove the blade forward to skewer Bruno.

  The scout sagged on the blade, his surprised expression illuminated by the blazing weapon. Thane twisted the sword.

  Bruno gurgled.

  Thane turned to the watching men. “I don’t care what or who you think she looks like. If you can’t follow orders, you will die.” He pushed Bruno off the blade with his foot. The body flopped to the ground with a wet thump. Blood dripped from the sword a few feet from her face.

  Thane crouched and used Bruno’s shirt to clean his weapon. He didn’t glance her way once. When he straightened, he sheathed the sword and pointed to the body with his forefinger. “Get rid of this.”

  The men grunted and moved with quick efficiency to follow his order.

  Thane finally turned to her, expression hard. “Are you okay?”

  She hugged her knees to her chest and looked away. “Just peachy. You didn’t have to kill one of your soldier boys on my account.” She said the words, but she meant none of them. She must harbour an evil demon inside because she reveled in the scout’s death. He got what he deserved.

  What concerned her was whether Thane thought this bought him some sort of brownie points or made him think she owed him for his magnanimous efforts. Oh hell, no. This asshole zapped her in the stomach and clamped a slave collar around her neck. Even if he was gloriously beautiful, he’d captured her like some rare stag on a hunt.

  Snow crunched as two of the men walked over, grabbed Bruno’s body and hoisted him off the ground.

  “I didn’t kill him for you.”

  She frowned and turned back.

  His expression had softened, but his eyes still flashed. “The man directly defied an order. If I can’t trust him, he’s of no use.”

  Branches snapped as the other men made their way through the forest to dispose of the body.

  “You could’ve sent him away.” Wait, what? Why suggest alternatives? She didn’t want to owe Thane, but not enough to wish Bruno got a lighter sentence.

  “Perhaps.” He rubbed the platinum stubble on his chin. “But I never liked him. A man who doesn’t hesitate to take advantage of a powerless woman has no honour.”

  If only she could trust all Arkavians to have an honour code.

  “The other men won’t touch you,” Thane continued. “You have my promise on that.”

  Taya pulled the blanket up, the chains latching her to the nearby tree rattled. Her hands shook. Was it the frigid temperature or her nerves? Did it matter?

  Thane studied her for a minute and hesitated. “I’d like you to move closer to the fire. I don’t like how cold you appear.”

  She pursed her lips. It was the middle of winter and they camped in the open on cold ground at the north tip of Vancouver Island. They’d given her only a thin mat and a thinner blanket to curl up with. Of course she was cold. Maybe Arkavians didn’t feel the cold like she did.

  She slipped from the bedding, picked up the materials and waited for Thane to move the chains.

  She had to choose her battles. This was not one of them.

  Besides, the light of the fire might burn away the feel of Bruno’s unwanted hands on her body.

  One Arkavian down…how many more to go?

  Chapter Thirteen

  An Offer You Can’t R
efuse

  Taya stood ankle deep in fresh snow in front of a wave of death-blue crystallized air in the shape of an oval as large as a two-storey house and froze. Sunlight streaked through the forest and made the gate to Arkavia glow. Her spine straightened as if the vertebrae fused together. The air buzzed with magic so potent she tasted metal.

  “I can’t walk through that,” she said.

  Multiple paths led to the small clearing in front of the portal to the alternate realm of Arkavia. Horses and boots had trampled the ground, killing any type of greenery and leaving the exposed dirt to freeze with divest and ripples. Exactly how many supply routes did they have? How far did their influence and power reach?

  “You can and you will,” Thane growled behind her.

  “The death wave looked exactly the same and it annihilated my friends while I watched from the river. This field of magic, or whatever you call it, is lethal to people from Earth.”

  “You see the visible boundary between our realms. Other earthen slaves have passed through unscathed. It’s not lethal. It’s the effect caused by the magic from Arkavia bordering the magic-less atmosphere of Earth, its anathema. This space is like a semipermeable membrane that allows Arkavia’s magic to slowly cross over. When the gate opened, the first wave raced out, obliterating technology to lay a dusting of magic over the entire planet. Now we have this membrane in place to slow the rest of the transition.”

  “That speech did absolutely nothing to assure me of my likely survival.”

  “The magic wave also included a death curse purposefully included to kill earthens and lessen the resistance of our takeover. This portal contains none of that death magic.”

  She glared at him. He spoke about the Earth’s extinction so matter-of-fact. Like his actions were somehow justifiable.

  He returned her glare and waited, giant arms folded over his broad, armoured chest.

  “I’m not going in there,” she repeated.

  “You don’t have a choice.”

  She crossed her arms and mirrored his posture.

  “I will carry you if I have to.”

  “Why not kill me now?” She really needed to think through her responses before speaking.

  Thane sighed and looked at the sky. He dropped his arms and he relaxed into his stance.

  Uh-oh. This couldn’t be good.

  “I don’t wish to kill or harm you.”

  “Then let me go.”

  Thane clenched his jaw, took two giant steps forward and bent to catch her by the middle. When he straightened, he threw her over his shoulder. His gauntlet armoured fingers dug into her thighs. His swords’ hilts stared back at her, tempting and teasing. Her fingers itched to wrap around the smooth leather and yank one from its sheath.

  If you’re going down, go down fighting, her dad’s life motto played in her memory.

  If only her hands weren’t bound. Instead, she flopped uselessly as Thane strode toward the gate. His shoulder dug into her stomach and her face smacked against the cold metal back plate of his black armour. She had a perfect view of his ass. Fitting since he acted like one.

  What did she expect? Preferential treatment for a captive? How was she any different than any of the other slaves brought through this portal?

  Thane walked unhindered through the thick air. The blue haze cleared. The buzzing stopped.

  She wasn’t dead.

  Thane pulled her down from his shoulder and set her on her feet in the snow in front of him. Over his shoulder, the other men walked through the gate leading the horses.

  Cool air brushed her skin. The winter breeze contained exotic scents of Arkavia, smelling of pine, but different, more floral.

  Thane watched her expectantly.

  “I may have overreacted.”

  He raised a dark brow.

  “This isn’t so—“

  Searing hot invisible hands clawed at her body and gripped her head in a vise-like grip. Pain stabbed her skin. She crumpled to the powdered ground as the raw power of Arkavia attacked her and attempted to shred her flesh from her bones. She flailed on the ground, flinging and kicking up snow. As fast as the attack happened, another power, cold and ice-like wrapped around her like a protective salve. The other magic beat at the wall, but the ice magic held, keeping it at bay.

  Someone picked her up and held her to their body. Armour. Metal. Thane. He carried her away from the gate and the world turned black.

  Taya blinked and waited for her fuzzy vision to clear. Tent. Inside. Candlelight. Arkavian air. She took a deep breath of floral forest, fresh dirt and candle wax, and wiggled her toes. They moved. She scraped her tongue with her teeth to rub the stale taste of dirt from her mouth. Ugh. Breath mint, please.

  At least she was alive and well, despite whatever had happened. The now-familiar cold sheath of magic still coated her, holding the volatile energy away.

  Why was she suddenly so aware of magic, power, and energy? Before, the vision of magic alluded her, now she saw the ribbon-like bands and hazy clouds like puffs of smoke all around her in different hues, temperatures and strengths.

  The tent rustled and Thane stepped through the flap. The low murmur of men’s voices and the crackle of a large fire trailed after him. The flap settled back in place and cut off the trickle of sounds from outside, leaving her alone and in silence with a giant, magic wielding alien. His presence shrank the tent even though it could house the mammoth warrior as he stood straight. A cotton shirt stretched over his body. Without his armour, he still managed to loom, intimidating and just as inhuman.

  “You’re awake,” he said.

  “You’re perceptive.”

  He pressed his lips together. Instead of replying, he unbuckled his sword belts.

  Taya’s eyebrows rose. He’d made a pretty speech earlier about not wanting to kill or harm her. What the hell was he doing now?

  The phantom hands of Bruno ran along her skin.

  She shuddered.

  Thane placed his swords against the breastplate sitting upright on its own near the cot. The metal reflected the flickering candlelight. On the other side of the breastplate, two familiar blades rested. Her blades. Hope rose instantaneously and spread through her like a wild brush fire.

  No. She couldn’t hope. It would only hurt more later. She’d never wield those swords again, and the sooner she accepted that cold, hard fact, the less the loss would sting. God, she missed them. She wanted to reach out and wrap her hands around their familiar hilts.

  Thane crouched by the cot. His boots creaked. He reached over and plucked a canteen from the ground and held it out to her. “You need water.”

  She pushed the canteen away from her face. “I need an explanation.”

  Thane sighed, his minty-fresh breath brushing over her.

  Where the heck did he get a mint?

  Focus!

  Thane placed the canteen on the ground beside him. He shifted his weight back on his heels. “You had a reaction to Arkavian magic.”

  “I thought Earth already had a light dusting. Why didn’t I react to that?”

  “I think you did.”

  She blinked.

  “I think you already possessed the innate ability to wield magic. Arkavia is an alternate universe. There are infinite realms, but at one time, we shared an existence until something split our realities and we branched out. You retained the biological ability to access magic from our common ancestors.”

  She blinked again. She wasn’t dumb, but how did this evolution of reality explain what happened? Did this mean she couldn’t refer to Thane as an alien anymore?

  Thane’s expression softened becoming less granite and more human-looking. “Think of your magic as a separate entity, housed inside of you and fast asleep. When the portal opened, it nudged your magic, so it started to wake up, slowly. When we went through the portal, the Arkavian atmosphere violently shook your magic awake.”

  “So now my magic is freaking out?” Could she tell her power to calm the fuck
down?

  “Exactly, and you’re not trained to control it.”

  Taya paused and re-evaluated the giant hulk of muscle beside her. He took all her questions and took the time to explain his answers. He’d saved her from a would-be rapist and placed his protection over her. But he’d also captured her and snapped a slave collar around her neck. “Did you know? About the magic?”

  “I suspected.”

  “How?”

  He grinned, a wicked flash of white teeth. “You could wield the twin blades of House Raiden. Elias could hold them, but struggled to control their magic. His brother didn’t have enough power to touch them. It was a point of contention between the brothers. Elias’ brother hated those swords. They represented his greatest failure.”

  That explained why the leader of the slave procession had left the swords with his dead brother. Not that they would’ve done him any good where he ended up. The sacrifice circle flashed in her memory. She shuddered.

  “Do most of the survivors have magic?” she asked. John didn’t. The blades hurled him through the air when he tried to touch them.

  Thane shrugged. “Your world was devoid of magic prior to us opening the portal gate. That’s why your…technology…” He said the word as if it tasted bad in his mouth. “Reacted so violently against it. Our reality has replaced yours.”

  Did that mean they could rediscover electricity and reinvent technology somehow, or had magic fundamentally changed how things worked at the subatomic level? But wasn’t all life biochemical reactions? How were they still alive? Still breathing? Still functioning? Did magic keep them going somehow? But why would—

  A headache bloomed behind her eyes.

  She might never understand how this technological apocalypse worked and it didn’t really matter, not right now. Understanding wouldn’t change her current circumstances.

  “What are your plans for me?” He certainly didn’t treat her like a slave. She took that as permission not to act like one.

  “I’d like to make you an offer.”

  She sat up and pulled the rough wool sheet with her. Even fully clothed, the cold seeped in.