Everywhere and Nowhere (Safe Haven Book 1) (4 page)

What does that mean? Boxing?”

Her heart pounded. All this sounded too strange to be real, but she’d never known her mother. Some of what he said would make sense based on things she already knew to be odd about her family.

“It means that for the last two and one-half centuries, your father has kept my princess, the woman who I am all but physically unable to abandon, in a drug-induced delirium whereby every thirty or so years she feels compelled to mate with your father and produce heirs.”

“That’s impossible.” Hadley stood and started to pace. “My father builds boats, for god’s sake… Okay, okay, that’s a lie. He builds weapons, I know that, but he’s a human being—he can’t have lived for two hundred and forty years.”

“He can, darling, he can. As long as he is feeding off her energy, living in nearby vicinity to her, he can live endlessly. Just as you, as her daughter, denied of her presence, will die at the age of thirty.”

Why had he told her she’d be dead at thirty? Hadrian shook his head. What good had he thought it would do? She’d kissed him and scrambled his brains. If he could go back in time and undo something, that moment would be the one he would choose.

Yet there was more to say and now that he’d started he couldn’t leave the story untold. “You will be dead because of what your father did to you when you were born. He injects his offspring with a slow-acting toxin that festers and eventually kills you around your thirtieth birthday. If you stayed in your mother’s presence her energy would counter it, keep you alive, but it’s too late for that, unfortunately.” She’d gone so pale he feared she’d faint again.

He really needed to shut up. There was no point in telling Hadley these terrible truths. But to lie to her, not to inform her of everything she should know, felt wrong to him. Hadley was clearly special. She didn’t behave like any Pettigrew he’d ever known, and including her father he had now known nine. Never having met Hailey, he wouldn’t count her, but everything he’d read in her surveillance report said she was more typical of a Pettigrew than Hadley.

Hadley’s hands fisted at her sides. “You’re lying. He loves me. He would never do anything to harm anyone he loved.”

Hadrian nodded. “He does love you. Indeed I would fathom that he loves you very deeply and that is why he is hoping you will live through the toxin. His deepest wish is that one of his children will take after their mother and adapt—alter at the genetic level and become more like one of us than like a human of this dimension. That’s why he takes you from her at birth. Then he thinks he’d have the ultimate weapon—a near godlike creature that can’t be killed and can be used for his own interests.”

He sighed. “We’re not controllable enough, you see. His legion only listens because they still feel loyal to the princess—they could change at any time. You, one of his kin… You would be a whole different matter.”

He’d watched Zacharias do this to his children for eight generations, but never had it bothered him more than it did now to think of Hadley, dead as the others were. She stood before him so vibrant, so present—but in less than a year her candle would be snuffed out and it would be time for Zamara to breed again. Only this time, Hadrian wouldn’t let her. It had been his job for over two hundred years to protect his princess—it was time he found a better way to do it.

Hadley sat down in the chair he’d vacated and held her head in her hands. “Why am I believing any of this?”

“Because you watched me regenerate from dust yesterday and you’re too brilliant not to recognize the truth when you have it laid out in front of you.”

She lifted her head and one lone tear slipped from her left eye. A burning fury spread from Hadrian’s stomach to his entire body. She was crying and it was all his fault. He was the bastard who hadn’t left her alone. She’d been out in the middle of the ocean doing what she loved, completely unaware that in six months she’d be gone, replaced by an infant to try again at a quest for genetic perfection, and he had ripped her from that world into his sick, twisted version of reality. He didn’t know whether he was angrier that she was crying or that she’d soon be dead. He shook his head. There was no time for such thoughts.

He was the worst kind of monster.

Pounding his hand on the bedpost, he gave in to his urge to scream. “Stop crying.”

Anger worked better. He had no outlet for his grief and he’d be damned if he’d back out of what he’d started now. “All of this was done to you when you were too young to do a damn thing about it, so stop sniveling about eventualities you cannot control.”

Hadley’s eyes were wide as she looked up at him. Unlike her sisters, who were long dead and who had the Pettigrew brown eyes, her blue depths reminded him of home.

Refusing to give in to the desire to flinch, he cocked his head to the side and stared her down.

Fuck it
.

Hadrian pulled him against her and ravished her mouth, pushing her up against the bed frame. His hands roamed the front of her body. This woman had a body made for sex. She was his prisoner and he’d promised her she would leave him unmolested.
Shit
. He tweaked her nipple through her shirt and she gasped. He opened his eyes. Passion shone back at him, not fear.

She panted. “Hadrian?”

“Tell me you want me. Tell me you do. I’ll walk away if you don’t. No repercussions. This has to be your idea.”

Without warning, the boat shook violently, sending them both crashing to the floor.

What the hell is going on?
He leaped to his feet only to be sent back to the floor, rolling uncontrollably to the left, and smacked into both Hadley and the wall. Her warm curves were a momentary respite from whatever was happening around them but he had no time to think such thoughts as he pulled her to her feet and braced her against the cabin’s wooden barricade, which separated his quarters from Jeremiah’s.

Acting on instinct, he held her tightly in his arms, determined to protect her from whatever—or whoever—had enough power to nearly capsize his ship. When he’d left Pettigrew’s group, there had only been a few soldiers who could have pulled off such a feat. But they were all changing quickly and he had no idea who had this kind of capability now. One hundred years could change a lot of things. Especially in this dimension.

“Are you hurt?” He could smell the vanilla scent that wafted from her hair even as he contemplated whether it was better to stay in the cabin or make for the deck. Hadley was his first priority but he had no intention of letting his crew die while he hid in his quarters either. They’d all be as pissed as hell at him when they regenerated.

She nodded, indicating that she was fine, but he could feel her shaking in his arms and he was acutely aware of how pale she had suddenly become.

The cabin door swung open and Hadrian leaped forward, dropping Hadley, and allowed himself to deny gravity for a few seconds and float above the floor, a position that would provide a better vantage point for attacking whoever came through. Jeremiah rushed into the room first, followed by three of his crewmen.

Taking a deep breath, Hadrian lowered himself to the floor. “Report.”

Jeremiah laughed, a hard, cold sound. “You have no idea how bad it is out there, my prince. It looks as if he’s sent the entire brigade.”

“Impossible.” Even Pettigrew couldn’t be that stupid. “The only person he’d be killing here would be Hadley.”

“I feared this would happen. She has a twin. Pettigrew must feel it’s better to sacrifice one than risk exposure of his dirty deeds. He’ll just wait and see if Hadley survives.”

Behind him Hadley made a choked sound that resembled the beginnings of a sob.

There was no way in hell he could let this get to hysterics. He turned around, pointing a finger at her. “Get control of yourself, Hadley. Show a little backbone.” Swinging around, he faced his crew again.

Jeremiah’s eyebrows pressed close together, his expression a mixture of horror and disbelief. “She’s going through hell, here—you could show some compassion.”

Rage fumed through Hadrian’s body and it had nothing to do with the attack happening on the deck above them. His ears rang and for a moment a red glow actually filled the room. He slammed his body into Jeremiah’s, forcing him against the wall.

“Don’t you ever tell me how to speak to her.” He tried to take deep breaths but he clenched his teeth together so tightly he could barely open his mouth. “Am I clear?”

Jeremiah’s eyes widened warily. He nodded in compliance. Hadrian was just about to release him when he caught a glimmer in the other man’s eye that he shouldn’t have seen there.

Satisfaction?

Just as suddenly as the first time, the boat shook violently, tipping to the right.

Everyone tumbled to the opposite wall and Hadrian lost all thought of punishing Jeremiah or figuring out what the strange emotion he’d seen meant.

His back stung from where he’d banged against the wall. He struggled to his feet, searching for Hadley. Jeremiah had helped her up.
How dare he touch her?

“My prince, there is no time—we will have to make the transition now.”

Now? Hadrian shook his head. It was too soon. It had been over two hundred years since he’d opened the portal for the princess. It could be very complicated under the best of circumstances, and these were the worst possible conditions.

Not to mention that now they’d arrived at the moment, he didn’t want Hadley to do it. Clarity hit Hadrian like a Mack truck smacking into a brick wall. This entire endeavor had been a big mistake. He couldn’t hurt Hadley in any way. It went against his code of honor, his ethics, not to mention his very DNA, which had been encoded at birth to protect the royal family and everything related to it. Hadley was, morally perverse creation or not, Zamara’s daughter. Even though he’d known all this when they’d been making this plan, he found himself unable to complete it. Damn his conscience.

“Forget it. This was a mistake. I can’t do it.”

Jeremiah’s eyes flared with heated anger. “After all this, everything we’ve done to get here, suddenly you can’t do it?”

“Could you?”

“If I could open the portal, I would. No, my prince, as your second it’s my job to make sure
you
do
your
job. Open the portal.”

“I’ll open it but I’m not pushing her through.” He and his men would all go back in shame and disgrace but he wouldn’t hurt Hadley—he wouldn’t make her go through the conversion.

“Have you forgotten that if she stays here she will die in less than six months?”

Jeremiah’s logic was faulty and Hadrian wasn’t going to fall for it. “She might die in six months over there too.”

“But at home they may be able to save her.”

“If there is the slightest possibility that someone can fix this, then I want to go.”

Hadley’s stern, determined voice startled him and he swung around to look at her. “You don’t have the slightest idea what you are talking about.”

The boat vibrated like a piece of popcorn in a kernel popper. In another moment they might implode. Hadrian couldn’t even be sure exactly what the attack consisted of unless he went up top to look. If he had to guess, he’d say that at least three of Pettigrew’s men were converting themselves into pure energy and striking the ship with the force of lightning. Eventually they’d take too much of a pounding.

Ten of his men rushed through the door. It was a small cabin for so many people and he felt like a squished sardine.

Stone reached him first. “My prince, we’re sinking.”

Glaring at the window showed him the grim truth of the situation. They were, indeed, going down.

Hadley threw her hair over her right shoulder and Hadrian would have sworn a red hue followed in the air behind it. “I know the rest of you can live through anything, but I’ll drown, so let’s do whatever it is we need to do. I can’t give up this opportunity—not just for me, but for Hailey too. She’s my sister. If there is a chance I can save her from whatever was done to us, then I have to do it.”

Hadrian clenched his fists at his side. “I said no.”

“Open the damn portal, Hadrian, or I’ll throw myself overboard and drown, and you’ll be responsible for ending my life instead of potentially saving it.”

Hell, the woman was insufferable. What was he supposed to do? He glared at Jeremiah, who stood stone-faced as if he had nothing to say.

Water rushed through the door. There was no time left to waste. Stone cleared his throat. “We never agreed about who would stay behind to close it.” “I will.” Jeremiah spoke loudly as if he expected no rebuttal.

Hadrian shook his head. “No, I will. I’ll open it, I’ll close it, you’ll take her to Astor and tell the king what happened.”

Nodding, Jeremiah walked forward. “Are all the men wearing the beacons?”

Hadrian had never seen Jeremiah agree to anything so quickly. He raised one eyebrow.

What had prompted him to get so compliant all of a sudden? The boat shook again and Hadrian nearly fell over as he attempted to pull his pocketknife out of his back pocket. He hadn’t been prepared to do this and he was bungling it in the worst possible way.

Hadley’s arms wrapped around his waist, and although he knew she was only trying to steady herself against the shaking of the boat, he couldn’t say he was sorry to have her arms there.

In a few moments he might never see her again. He hadn’t lied when he’d said they couldn’t die here, but they could be contained. Burned into ashes and stored in a small confined place, like an urn or a box, where they didn’t have enough room to reform.

Hadrian could only imagine the pain that would cause. His cells forever trying to reform and never being able to would be eternal agony. Confident that was exactly what Pettigrew and the warriors who refused to end this nightmare would do to him as soon as he’d closed the portal, he would take whatever small pleasure Hadley’s body pressed close to his provided.

His cock hardened and he tried to ignore it. Dimension travel had never made him horny before. It had to be Hadley. Had Pettigrew done something to her to make her so damn attractive? They were in a life-and-death situation.