Page 6 of The Erion Triad

Kyel still had to do something about the abnormal clouds that had burst from nowhere and hovered over the tower. He called Tann over from where he stood just outside the door. Tann hurried over to him. The look on his face mirrored the horror he also felt. Tann wasn’t just a guard, he was also a childhood friend. They spent many an hour in the training ground honing and bettering their craft.

“Gather your top guards and survey the clouds that hang over the tower,” Kyel said.

“Retrieve the crystal and take it to the laboratory. I want Erix to test it. Whatever you do, don’t touch it.”

Tann’s brows scrunched. “Don’t touch it?”

Tann had personally put the crystal in its place in the Tower and knew it could be touched—under normal circumstances.

“It had some inner power that was unleashed the moment our mate touched it and we don’t know why. It could hurt you too. At the moment, treat it as though it is dangerous.”

Tann turned a horrified look to Lucie’s unmoving figure inside the chamber. “At once.”

He wasted no time and disappeared from the room, taking a contingent of trusted guards with him. As Tann left, their fathers and mother rushed into the room, clothes askew, hair ruffled, wearing expressions of concern. Their mother went directly to Kyel and his brothers. Her gaze landed on the mist-filled chamber and she halted, visibly pale. Swallowing hard, she straightened her shoulders, looking about the room. “What happened?”

She was always calm against turmoil, displaying feminine strength that shone through again and again. Their fathers grouped around the mother, their keen eyes taking in everything.

“She touched the crystal, and this is what it did to her,” Kyel said.

His mother turned to Erix. “Do you have any idea what is wrong with my daughter?’

She had accepted Lucie the moment Kyel and his brothers had arrived from her rescue. Once they’d told her they’d found their mate, it was cause for celebration.

Lucie had no idea what that meant for their Homeland, underplaying the significance of it even through the public and private celebrations. She was shy, not used to attention. None of them had wanted to cause her more anguish than she’d already suffered and so hadn’t pushed her. Anger thrummed through his system. If he could have killed those scaled ones ten times over for her, he would.

Erix peered at her. His face was tight as he levelled a weighted look between all of them. “I’m afraid it’s not good.”

Chapter Three

Zaen

Zaen stood rooted to the spot as a wave of heat engulfed his body. “What do you mean ‘it’s not good’? Tell me exactly what is happening to her!”

His fist clenched, ready to hit something, but what could he lash out at that would make an ounce of difference? Anger and helplessness were not a good combination.

Erix held his gaze. “Her body is shutting down.”

Kyel let out a roar that shook the walls. Kira gasped and Juliran ploughed the fingers of both hands though his hair.

“Scan her again. It has to be wrong,” Zaen said. His hands clenched into useless fists. He wanted to pound into... something, but that wouldn’t help Lucie at all. Being helpless didn’t sit well with him, but until they worked out what had happened, he just had to deal with it as best he could, which included keeping a tight rein on his reaction.

“I’ve done it five times already,” Erix said.

Once was enough. Their machines were the best and didn’t miss anything. That Erix had scanned her five times showed how worried he was.

Zaen clenched his teeth so tightly his jaw ached. They couldn’t lose Lucie now. Not when they’d just found her. She was the one person he never thought they would ever meet. They’d accepted their fate, knowing they would die old, unmated men when the miracle had happened. It couldn’t possibly be ripped away. Not now when they had so much to live for.

“There has to be a way,” he said.

Erix shook his head. His mouth tipped down at the edges. “There’s something blocking her mind. It’s leaching the energy from her body. There’s a whole lot of activity right in the center of her brain, but as we speak, the walls surrounding that energy are getting thicker. The thicker the walls get, the more her body will struggle. Eventually her heart will just… forget to beat.”

“If she hadn’t touched the crystal, she’d still be awake,” Juliran said.

Kyel stopped his pacing. “As soon as she touched that damned thing, it was like a light flicked off inside her. One moment she was there, and the next—gone.”

Zaen stopped pacing, deep in thought. The crystal had lit up again at the same time the clouds appeared from nowhere. “What was it the Ozar said? About an entity from another dimension trying to get into ours?”

Kyel’s stare was direct. “It feeds off the electro-magnetic power of the human female mind. Erix, take a reading of her brain.”

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