Desired By The Archangel: Book Two (Angel Paranormal Romance) (Braving Darkness 8) (6 page)

“We’ll need all the groups involved,” Michael said. “The ascension requires a large number of minds.”

“But we can’t contact them since the attack, and we’re trapped inside this mountain,” Circe said, standing near the caved-in entrance of the cavern.

“Witches are telepathic. You must contact the others that way. Any means of communication available, use it.”

“But our group hasn’t even broken through yet,” Magda protested, following Michael as the entire population of the mountain filed toward the meditation room for the second time since the attack. “They don’t even want to do this now. Most of these people are terrified and tired.”

“This is the most important thing that we do right now,” Michael told her as they entered the room. “The children will help them.”

“What do you mean? The babies?” Magda asked.

“Yes. The hybrid babies. You already know they are gifted. It is time we acknowledge that and utilize their gifts.”

Magda watched him in dread as he walked to the center of the room. The last thing she wanted was for the shifters to have another reason to fear the babies.

“People of New San Diego. I know you are tired, but we are very close. You all know, I was a member of The Council of the Seventh House. I gave Cassie her great powers and have helped Magda learn to use hers. I have been watching humanity for thousands upon thousands of years and my greatest hope is to help you throw off the chains the Anu have around your necks.

“The children born from the girls who had been inside the domes are human/Anu hybrids. These children have capacities with the fourth dimension beyond anything the average human could imagine. I know that it is frightening and strange, but I ask that you recognize these special children for what they are and allow them to help catalyze this group into ascension.”

“Why would we trust these bastard children to help us?” an angry mountain lion shifter asked.

“The Anu exist in the third and fourth dimensions simultaneously. But because of their intense negativity, they cannot move further. They needed you and the hybrid children to give them that power. But these children are loved by human mothers. They are essentially human beings. They are as human as any one of you.” He looked around the room, giving them all knowing looks. The fact was that few of the members of New San Diego were truly human anymore. Only the kids who had been kept in the domes had that distinction.

“Now, please, bring the children to the front and place them in these chairs.” Michael hit a panel on the floor with his foot and a circle of small chairs rose from the floor, surrounding the place where Circe, Cassie, and Magda usually sat.

The mothers brought their children to the center of the room and placed them in the small chairs, taking a seat right in front of them. Michael stepped back and Circe took over.

“Witches, please reach out to all connected covens and communicate we are about to begin our meditation. The rest of the shifters’ groups know our schedules, so we can hope they are with us. We are ready to begin.”

The three women sat at the center of the room with the babies in a semicircle around them. The lights on the walls began to buzz and zoom as if they had been powered up in a way Magda had never seen before.

Cassie led the group in their breathing exercises and they slowly, collectively began to move into deep meditation. Magda found herself in a field of wild flowers with an immense blue sky shining overhead.

She could feel the minds of the others in the room with her physical body, but could not yet see them in the astral realm, the fourth dimension. She continued to focus, knowing there was a great deal of intention supporting them at that very moment in time.

Suddenly, figures began to pop into the field where she stood. At first it was just Cassie and Circe, then a few of the shifters, followed by dozens more. Circe’s coven, several of Rafe’s old pack mates, the dome kids, the moms. Then the rest of the shifters popped in. Shifters Magda had never met before popped in. The field was flooded with minds. Finally, she saw the babies pop in. They had been lagging behind, helping the other minds ascend before them.

Magda was filled with a flood of glee that she had never experienced before. It was like pure bliss topped with ice cream and orgasms. She felt as if she was flying through the air but was still standing on the ground. The people around her were hugging and kissing, full of smiles. Singing broke out among the group. Magda had never felt so at one with everyone and everything ever before.

“The virus is ready,” Rafe said. “You just have to access it in your mind.”

“How?”

“However you did it before,” he said.

“Okay. I’ll try,” Magda said, taking a seat in the terminal chair. Ever since the group had ascended, everyone was on high alert. They completed the virus in less than twenty-four hours and had Magda in the terminal chair less than an hour later.

When she woke up inside The Program, she hurried from her starting room and into the bank of computers she’d downloaded the Anu data into before. This time, when she came to the access point, she pressed her finger to the computer the way she had in the Anu ship. In an instant, she felt the information uploading into her mind.

Once it was finished, she concentrated and felt herself moving out of the virtual computer room and into the upper atmosphere. She had to get the virus into the Anu ship so that the rest of her people could attack.

Floating in the starry sky, she could see the Anu armada orbiting her planet. Slowly, she swam through space toward the largest ship, the one she'd been in before. A sense of dread overtook her and she almost turned back.

Inside her mind, she could hear Michael's voice. "I'm right here. I will come if you need me." That gave her the confidence to keep going.

When she reached the side of the Anu ship, she took a deep breath and passed through the outer walls and into the interior. This time she was in a strange chamber where long tubes filled with liquid held suspended life forms. There seemed to be all manner of creatures and plants inside the cells.

From what she understood, the Anu had been at their breeding programs for quite some time. Millions of years. They had enslaved multitudes of races on thousands of planets in the past. It was time that they were stopped.

Allowing the Anu to continue with their experimentation on living beings was unconscionable and she didn't understand why the Council allowed them to continue at all. There were things that she didn't comprehend at her level of consciousness, but she believed she knew the difference between right and wrong. What the Anu did was definitely wrong.

As she walked through the laboratory chamber, she heard noise coming from the hallway. The Anu could see her in her astral form, even if they were in physical bodies, because they existed in both dimensions simultaneously. She had to hide. Floating behind one of the cells, she squeezed into an impossibly small crevice her physical body would never fit into.

The beings came into the room. Anu. Their seven-foot-tall frames, elongated skulls, and long slender fingers frightened her. She'd heard the stories from girls who remembered what had been done to them in the breeding room. Not everyone remembered, but some of them did, and it had left them scarred.

The Anu scientists walked past each cell, inspecting them and reading the output from the internal sensors. Magda squeezed back as they approached and slipped through the wall into the next chamber. Luckily, this room was empty. It seemed to be some kind of Anu bedroom.

She had to find her way back to the Anu mainframe to inject the virus. Wondering around the ship like this was not safe. She searched her mind, trying to access the data she'd downloaded before. Where was the mainframe? She'd found it so easily the first time.

Scanning her mind, she couldn't come up with the files. Where had they gone?
Crap
. Had she transferred them completely into Emilia's computer? Or was she just not able to find them in the clutter of her own mind.

"Michael," she called out to him through time and space. "I can't find the mainframe."

"It is at the center of the ship," she heard him say. "You must be careful. If they find you, even in astral form, they can jail you."

"Now you tell me," she muttered.

She closed her eyes and willed herself to appear near the mainframe of the ship's computer. Nothing happened. She was going to have to find it by herself. At least she had some general direction to go. She just had to keep heading toward the center of the ship and she'd find it.
No problem.

Moving toward the next wall, she took a deep breath, and pressed through. She opened her senses to check if there was anyone in the next room. She heard voices, heartbeats, breath.
Can't go that way.

Instead, she continued through the walls, moving through metal and wire between the ship's rooms. When an astral hand pushed through the wall and grabbed her arm, she was taken by surprise. It yanked her through the wall and brought her into the light of the room. Words filtered into her mind.

"Human. What are you doing?"

"She is a threat," another one said. "Take her to the holding cell."

"Wait," she cried out. But it was no use. They didn't listen to her and didn't care. Part of her was terrified they would rape her, even out of her body. They dragged her astral form through the ship and threw her weightless body into a dark black room. When the door closed behind her, she was left in darkness.

Magda tried to move through the wall, but couldn't. She was trapped. "Michael," she screamed, but she heard no reply. Was she cut off from communication as well? Her weightless body sunk to the floor as if in a puddle where she wept and shivered.

Wholly unheroic. She admonished herself through her tears. She'd had a full kundalini awakening, yet she was still overcome by fear and doubt when confronted with a challenge.

Rising, she brushed herself off mentally and resolved to find her way out of this. Whether Michael could hear her or not. She felt along the walls, ceiling, and floor with her astral hands, looking for some kind of crack, some way out. She couldn't find anything but the seam where the door closed. Focusing on that, she tried to press her astral body through.

A moment later, the door pushed open and she tumbled out and smacked into another astral body. Expecting to find an Anu standing before her, she was surprised when it was Michael.

"Come," he said, taking her hand. “We haven't much time."

"Michael. I'm so relieved to see you."

"I wanted to avoid getting involved at this level, but I won't let you be imprisoned. Not even for a short period. Come."

He took her hand and in the blink of an eye, they were standing before the mainframe of the Anu's shipboard computer. "Do it now," he said. A team of Anu engineers came toward them, their long fingers grasping at Michael and Magda. Michael put up his hands and they all stopped, as if blocked by an invisible force field.

"Hurry, I can't do this forever."

Magda looked at the brightly lit computer terminal and tried to figure out how to get the virus into the thing. She found what looked like a touch pad and pressed her palm to it. In a
whoosh
, she could feel the virus uploading into the Anu system. It took less than fifteen seconds.

As soon as the last bit of data transferred to the ship, the lights started to blink on and off. On the screen that showed the collection of ships, the lights of the other ships in the armada began to blink out, one after the other.

Michael let down the force field and took Magda's hand. Before she could respond, she was awake, sitting in the terminal chair back inside the mountain.

She blinked as everyone looked at her with expectation in their eyes. "Did it work?" Rafe asked. 

"Yes," she croaked. 

"Someone get her some water," Rafe commanded. Xavier handed her a glass of water a moment later. She chugged it down, looking around for Michael. He sat across the room, smiling at her.

"What now?" Xavier asked.

"They will be defenseless for the next six hours at least. Now is the time to launch the attack. Everyone has to get back to the meditation room."
 

The group hurried to the meditation room. Michael gave them instructions on how to fight in the fourth dimension. They had to imagine any kind of weapon in their mind and then use it against the Anu ships.

Cassie, Circe, and Magda guided the group into a deep meditative state, bringing their level of mind into the astral realm, the fourth dimension. Magda found herself floating in space with several hundred awestruck shifters, human kids, and witches. They faced the Anu ships in the distance.

The group was as one in mind, speaking to each other wordlessly. All at once, they constructed a massive vessel, equipped with powerful laser guns. The group shot at the Anu ships. One after another. The smaller vessels began to fall out of the sky.

Suddenly, half the group's ship fell away. "What's happening?" Magda shouted. They were so close. So very close.

"The Anu are attacking on Earth. Their smaller fighter jets are not on the same system as the spaceships. People are falling out of the meditation," Michael said. "I will rest no more. I love this race, and I will help you."

In the blink of an eye, thousands upon thousands of shifters and humans floated in space around the Anu ships. They took one look at their oppressor's vessels and mutually created their own armada.

Laser beam blasts shot out from every side. Ship after Anu ship fell out of the sky, but it wasn't enough. Groups continued to fall out of the human armada. The Anu on Earth were launching a full-scale attack.

Magda heard a massive boom and snapped out of meditation. All around, dust fell from the ceiling and the ground shook. The Anu must be blasting the mountain. She tried to get herself back into her meditative state, but she couldn't. She refused to distract Michael. Not that she could anyway. Michael was a highly evolved being. Far more evolved than the Anu even. He must have brought a much larger population into the fourth dimension. How he was able to do that, she didn't know.

All of a sudden, she was back in space, her consciousness creating the ship blasting away at the Anu. But the Anu would not be defeated so easily. She could see them powering back up in the distance. They shot back at the Earthlings' ships.

The Earth armada disappeared, not existing on a physical level. The Anu shot her group's ship and she felt the hot blast burn through her mind. They returned fire on the largest ship, barely making a dent.

Out of nowhere, a massive white ship, blazing with light, appeared in the middle of the battle. With one blast of light, the entire Anu armada disappeared into thin air. Magda was so stunned, she snapped out of meditation and awoke in the meditation room.

Everyone else was looking back at her, blinking in shock.

"What happened?" she asked aloud. The sound of her own voice seemed unfamiliar and strange.

"It was The Council of the Seventh House. They finally came to your aid," Michael said, standing.

He slowly walked out of the meditation room through the rubble of the mountain as everyone followed behind him. He came to stand before the blocked exit. Rocks flew away from the entrance as if flung backward. Light streamed through the opening until the entrance was clear.

On the other side, there stood a group of exquisitely beautiful beings, dressed in white, shining like the light of the sun. "You changed your mind?" Michael asked.

"They have proven themselves worthy. With the aid of their guardian perhaps, but you have proved they are ready to ascend and that they do not agree to subjugation. We will not allow the Anu on this planet from this point forth."

"The Anu are manipulative. They work around the prime directive to get their way. We can no longer allow them to do this."

"We have come to agree, Michael. We want to offer you back your place on the Council. We need a mind like yours which is ready to see things differently. Even to break rules when need be."

Michael looked down at Magda, light in his eyes. Her heart fluttered. Would he leave her?

"I have come to realize that my place is here on Earth. I will remain and help humanity build a better future,” he said, putting his arm around Magda.

"Very well. Now that Earth has come of age and is ready to become part of the Federation, we will be available to help you at any time."

The Council blinked out of sight. Everyone was silent for a moment before the entire population of the mountain erupted in a mighty cheer. Michael turned to Magda and took her in his arms.

"We did it," she whispered in his ear. "We really did it."

"This is the dawn of a new day, my love. The future holds the most brilliant of possibilities and we will help Earth grow into its full potential. You and I will oversee this world for millennia, side by side."

"Millennia?" she asked. She was eighteen but she knew she would die within the next hundred years.

"As my beloved mate, you will take on my life span. We will work together to ensure the development of your home. Generations will stretch out before us and our own children will grow to help us in this task. Your race will become one of the greats and will someday sit on the Council as well."

"Oh, Michael," she said between kisses. "I can't wait."

***

Thank you for reading Desired By The Archangel (Book Two). I hope you enjoyed the Braving Darkness Series. Find more books Scarlett Grove on
Amazon.com

Join my
newsletter
and get updates on new releases and a free Urban Fantasy/ Paranormal Romance full length novel. Come by and visit my website at
www.scarlettgrove.com

I'd love to hear from you. Contact me at
[email protected]

Stay in touch on Facebook at
ScarlettGrove

Get updates on Twitter at
https://twitter.com/Scarlett_Grove

Mystic Harbor

Unbearably Stranded

Her Two Alphas

Cat Scratch Fever

His Lion Blood

Braving Darkness Series

Marked By The Alpha Wolf (Book One) Braving Darkness 1
Available Now

Marked By The Alpha Wolf (Book Two) Braving Darkness 2
Available Now

Marked By The Alpha Wolf (Book Three) Braving Darkness 3
Available Now

Touched By The Dragon Lord (Book One) Braving Darkness
4
Available Now

Touched By The Dragon Lord (Book Two) Braving Darkness 5
Available Now

Touched By The Dragon Lord (Book Three) Braving Darkness 6
Available Now

Desired By The Archangel (Book One) Braving Darkness 7
Available Now

Desired By The Archangel (Book Two) Braving Darkness 8
Available Now