Soul-Bonded to the Alien (8 page)

“You’re alive!” She planted kisses on his brows, cheeks any place she could reach. A lightness she never felt before almost losing him reminded her just how special he was. She kissed him again.

“Are the two of you going to stand around kissing all day or make a plan for your next step?”

“How did you manage to escape?” she asked, ignoring Voyager.

“You did it.”

“Did what?”

“Look up.”

Above their heads the knives were hanging having dropped several feet before being caught in a rough looking material. It wasn’t the smooth clear Plexiglass she wanted, but it was doing the job. She looked into the pit to find a ladder, if she could call it that, leaning against the side. She grimaced when she saw it before looking back at Cal.

“Don’t worry, Sunshine, I’ve climbed things a lot worse than that.”

“I’m not sure I did this.”

“You did it, you were the only one capable of doing it.”

“But I don’t know how I did it.” Was she whining? She hated whiners.

“One step at a time, Paige. You found a way to tap into your talents, right now we celebrate that and keep moving.”

She nodded her head before throwing a glare at Voyager who was standing on unsteady legs.

“You look tired, Voyager, maybe you should go home, get dinner.” She added a smile to take the sting out of the comment. The tension of the last minutes and then the relief were making her unbalanced.

“Are you telling me eating is more important than watching to see how you do in your trials? I’m disappointed in you, Girly.”

“I’m really not that interesting,” she mumbled.

He gave a rusty laugh, “Where to now?”

“Cal?” Paige turned to look at him.

“Pick a direction, Paige. I don’t really think it matters what direction we go in.”

“I say straight ahead then, at least we will be able to back track if we need to.”

They moved on with Paige staying close to Cal. The landscape became bleaker.

“Do you think night is approaching? Do they have night and day in this inner space?”

“Not sure. Voyager, did you hear Paige’s question?”

“I heard her. They have what you need here, nothing more, nothing less.”

“Do you think you could be less vague?” She stopped to glare at him.

“No, Girly, I’m sure I can’t.”

“You might want to stop watching me and try to catch your male.”

Cal was in the claws of the biggest bird she ever saw. It was black with a red beak and yellow beady eyes. Its wings looked like they covered ten feet, she hoped that was her imagination. It was flapping its huge wings trying to lift him, while he twisted and turned, doing his best to break free.

“Cal, I’m coming to help you.”

“Stay away from its beak, Paige, it’s poisonous,” he called down to her.

The bird gave a massive flap of its wings, the wind knocking her off her feet. It rose swiftly in the air taking Cal with it. It flew off into the sun heading for a distant mountain peak.

“Where did the mountain come from?” she asked in a slow measured voice.

“I told you, this place gives you what you need.”

She turned on him. “I didn’t need a huge bird to carry Cal off and I definitely don’t need a long arduous walk to a mountain.”

“Maybe you should find your male and tell him that. He’s the one who brought you here.”

“He’s not my male,” she ground out between her teeth.

“Then why are you here?”

Turning she began stalking across the land thankful the sun wasn’t out making her thirstier than she already was.

“Do you know anything about that bird?”

“It was big?”

“Let me rephrase, do you know anything helpful about that bird?”

“Why didn’t you just say that in the first place? When he gets hungry he’s going to take a big chunk out of your male. That poison he told you about on the beak, it’s going to run through his system in no time and paralyze him. That bird likes his food living when he eats it. Your male will die a slow painful death.”

“His name is Cal, you could use it.”

“I thought you didn’t care about him.”

Clamming up she concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other.

“You know we’re not going to make it at this pace”

She wanted to scream at him, she was biting her tongue to hold back the words, but he was right. The more she walked the further away the mountain got. It made no sense, either she was walking away from it or it was moving away. Either way she wasn’t going to get there in time.

She dropped to the ground panting, she felt like she had been walking for hours. There was a stitch in her side and her legs ached. If she ever got them out of here…she dashed a tear from her eyes…she promised him she would prevail. The most important thing to her was saving him like he tried to save her.

What was it Voyager said? Why was she trying to fight a spiritual battle with physical tools?

When Cal pulled her into her body he didn’t use a long process, one minute she was in her reality, the next she stood in her abdomen. It was even faster when they traveled to her heart. She never physically moved. Cal was actually the one doing the transporting, but why couldn’t she do it. It really would have helped if he told her how he did it.

Standing up, she threw Voyager a frown for good measure and then started to think about how she could transport herself to the top of that mountain. Maybe if she pictured where she wanted to go, except she had no idea what that mountain peak looked like. She tried anyway. Nothing.

Next she went over everything she ever read looking for a clue. Some people claimed they could levitate. Think light thoughts, she told herself. Nothing. Maybe she just needed to find her center.

“Are you going to stand there all day humming, Girly? Or are you going to tap into your talent? It’s getting hot out here.”

“If you’re hot you should leave,” she snapped.

Reaching inside, she wrapped her hands around a glowing light she could see in her mind and looked at the mountain top.

“I was beginning to think you’d never get us here.”

Chapter Ten

Getting to the mountain top may actually have been the easy part. Paige stopped breathing for a moment as she caught sight of Cal trapped in a corner of the bird’s huge nest that was filled with baby birds with poisonous beaks. This bird definitely brought Cal home for dinner and the diners would be its children.

Cal was hopping around avoiding their beaks as the mother blocked any chance he had at freedom. The look on his face was one of terror. Paige felt the grip of desperation clinging to her as she looked around for a weapon.

She ran to pick up the biggest stick she could find in the nest, it was long and thick but she managed to lift it. Swinging at the mother bird, she jumped back ready for it to attack. It never even turned its head. The bird acted like it didn’t even feel the strike. The thought of failing hit her like a tree branch, she had to save him.

Stepping back, she picked up several rocks throwing them trying to redirect the bird’s attention. Sighing, she stopped. Of course it wouldn’t work. She may be stubborn, but she was getting the picture. If she wanted to save him it would come from the inside. Closing her eyes she imagined them on the ground far away from the nest. The light she saw earlier was a little brighter, a bit more tangible; she reached for it hoping that it would take them out of the nest and far enough away to be safe.

Opening her eyes she realized it worked, sort of. She was now standing next to him with several small birds trying to take a bite out of her.

“Paige, can you get us out of here?” Cal dodged another hungry bird.

The look of tiredness on his face had Paige snapping out of fear.

“I’m trying, why don’t you just teleport us?”

“I can’t. My talents are bound up tight. Nothing I do will work while we are here.”

“That’s convenient.” She realized this trial was more about her than Cal. His talents had been refined over many years, it was her talents she needed to develop and learn to use successfully. She was the one who needed to prove herself. She was the unknown entity. The fact that his life, their lives, were in jeopardy and depended solely on her would have been enough to send her off to a dark room.

“What’s not convenient is how aggressive these birds are becoming, soon one or several of them will take a bite out of us and we’ll be done.”

“I’m trying Cal, I think I almost got it.” Sweat dripped from her brow, the jumping around combined with the added weight of needing to save him was tiring her out. Stopping to close her eyes, she bellowed in pain as a beak closed over her leg.

She fell even as Cal caught her. Pain shot through her leg encouraging her to retreat from reality.

“Paige.”

“It bit me Cal, I’m sorry I tried to save us.”

“You saved us, Paige. We’re out of the nest. Not sure where we are but there are no mountain peaks or birds in sight.”

“I’m glad now you can go back and find another mate, somebody who loves you.” Her voice faded away as the poison began to enter her system causing her leg to go numb.

“Hush, Paige. I’m going to enter your body.”

“You can’t do that.”

“Watch me, Sunshine.”

*~*~*~*

Cal laid down next to her knowing that to leave his body unprotected even here was against the rules. He didn’t care and would break as many rules as necessary to save Paige’s life. Slipping out of himself, he entered into her body.

A smaller part of his essence moved inside of her. He set off for her leg bypassing the heart and the venom snake that would gladly love for him to get to close to it. Her body was a mass of reds and blacks showing her response to the bite she suffered. He traveled through her blood stream until he finally reached her injured leg. The poison from the bird was dark and oily as it began to spread.

;“Paige, can you hear me?”

“I hear you. Where are you?” Her voice sounded drowsy to his ears.

“Stay with me, Paige. Talk to me about anything.” He frowned feeling concern pulse through his veins, Paige’s body in here was pure essence, if she died there was no coming back. The weakness of her reply had him on edge.

Turning his attention back to the poison, he generated a fine silk that flowed from his body fighting to get ahead of the poison that was trying to flow down her leg. Carefully he maneuvered the web through the affected areas taking care not to come into contact with any contaminated tissue. He didn’t want to chance spreading the contamination in her body by coming into contact with it.

Getting the web in front of the spreading poison, he built a barrier to keep it from going any further. The silk web acted like a sieve allowing the blood to easily pass through but keeping the poison at bay.

Looking at the wound, he shook his head. Poison was still seeping inside. If it wasn’t stopped she wouldn’t make it. It must be replicating, he needed to cauterize the edges of the wound and destroy the poison around it before he could get rid of what was collecting. He was going to have to hurt her. A deep mournful howl came from his Matra at what he would need to do.

Taking a deep breath, he generated a heat that would take care of the jagged flesh around the bite and hopefully stop the poison from replicating. A beam came from his hand going to the edge of the wound. It hovered not moving.

“Sunshine, this is going to hurt. I need to cauterize the wound, sealing it off from any other attack.”

“Paige, are you listening to me?” Desperation clawed at his chest as he waited for her answer.

“I’m tired, Cal, I just want to sleep.”

“You can’t sleep. Paige, I need you to fight and you can’t do if you’re asleep. I promise when I get you back home, you can sleep as long as you like. Are you listening to me, beautiful?”

“You called me Beautiful.” There was a slight feeling of awe in her voice.

“Because you are, Paige. The minute I saw you I was overwhelmed by your beauty, then I met you. Now I know you’re not just beautiful on the outside, but you’re also beautiful on the inside. Get ready this will hurt.”

He aimed a bright light at her wound watching as the ends sealed and the poison dissipated into noxious fumes. He felt her pain; even though they weren’t yet soul bonded it reverberated through him. He took a deep breath and continued. He had to stop the poison or he would lose her.

Cal listened as Paige’s breath came out in shallow pants with cries of pain accompanying it.

“Did you close the wound?” her voice was low and shaky.

“No, not yet. I need to push the poison out of your system, it would be too deadly to try to diffuse it enough so it could travel through and pass naturally.”

“You make it sound so easy.”

“Hmm, maybe my bedside manner is improving.”

She gave a small chuckle.

“Tell me something I don’t know, Paige.”

He turned his attention back to the poison that was collecting against the web he spun. There was a dark coat of it everywhere it touched. It not only planned to replicate but to leave traces of itself every place it went.

His body began to glow until he was pure light causing the poison to shy away from him. It was a form of darkness that wasn’t able to take the light. Burrowing through it until he came to his web, he turned to find that where he traveled there was not a trace of it. He began to stretch until he covered the web. His essence was thinned putting a strain on his body. If he spread himself too thin, he would find himself evaporating much like steam. He thinned a little more, Paige’s life depended on it.

The poison retreated from him backing up just enough to keep from coming in contact with the light he projected. Slowly he began to advance as the poison retreated. It would take a while, but he would be able to push it out of her body.