Page 54 of The Erion Triad

Lucie shook her head, shoulders slumping. Her cheeks were pale and the soft skin beneath her eyes looked bruised. Little white tension lines bracketed her mouth. “I don’t know, Evelyn. I really don’t. But you’re connected to your mates and the crystal is connected to this planet. We must try something. If we don’t, then...” She drew a breath and firmed her shoulders. “We have to try anything we can and we’re out of options.”

“Oh, Lucie. I hope you’re right. We can’t have gone through everything we did just to die like this,” Evelyn said.

“Well, I for one, aren’t letting that happen. Almost there,” Riley shouted over the comms.

They had to be quick. He didn’t think Lucie was going to hold out that much longer. The entity had already taken its toll on their precious mate.

Coltan and Ashir appeared behind her and handed Evelyn the Arabis crystal. Juliran had never seen it before. In the past, each Homeland had secreted their crystals away, and because of their infighting, they’d never had cause to share. It was remarkably like their Erion crystal. Although the shape was a little different, it still shone with an inner light and the facets were sleek, smooth and shiny, as though they were related.

Mates. The understanding pulsed though him. Juliran reeled. Were they sentient? A faint feminine chuckle echoed in a distant part of his mind followed by the denser, more masculine energy.

Would this day never stop revealing its surprises?

“Let’s survive it first, brother,” Zaen thought.

“Okay. I’m going to let it think it’s in the tower. It’s the only way I think I can broadcast this thing,” Evelyn said.

“That’s all you can do, Evelyn,” Lucie said, hoping to hell it was right. She desperately hoped that two crystals in their towers, the combined energy field of their human bodies and the strength of the bonds with their mates would be enough to connect all three crystals.

“Riley? You in your tower yet?” Lucie called. A bead of sweat rolled off her forehead and into her eye, yet her grip on the Erion crystal didn’t falter.

There was a smash and Riley shouted over the comms. “Just got ’ere. Good to go, mate.”

“We’re also here,” Riley’s mates shouted.

“Evelyn?” Lucie called.

“We are ready, female,” Paxt said.

“Okay, everyone. Let’s do this. Girls, hold onto your crystals. Males, touch your mates.” Lucie gritted her teeth and closed her eyes.

Juliran sent a prayer to the universe. If there was ever a time for a deity to hear him, it was now. So many lives depended on this shaky little plan to work. It was their one, their only and their last chance. He tightened his hold, bringing his free hand to covers hers, lending them all every ounce of energy that he contained.

Energy thrummed through Juliran, and he threw his head back with the force of it. His teeth clenched and the skin stood out along the stretched tendons of his neck. He arched up onto his toes as electricity scorched through his body, holding every bone, muscle and cell to the ransom of its power.

The solid, masculine energy of his brothers flowed through him, as did his mate’s softer, feminine energy. His awareness expanded, as though every cell in his body flew in all directions. He came out of his body, his consciousness cresting the waves of power that radiated across his planet.

He could feel everything. Was one with everything. He was so much more than the mere consciousness that was contained in his body. He became a part of the blue-green energy of the Erion Homeland. He became a part of the trees, the leaves, the soil, the rocks and the newborn crystals that the ground had given birth to in the wake of the power that scoured over the land.

His consciousness raced across the surface of the ground, to the buildings, the towns, the people. He was filled with the terror, the grief for those lost, the anger that so many had died and the determination to fight this untouchable force. Every thought, action, and deed were soaked into the ground and now became a part of him as he flew.

He reached the distant shores, and then his mind entered the water. The cool liquid suffused through him. The creatures that lived in its liquid depths darted here and there. Even they hadn’t been left untouched by the entity. There was the essence of fear, loss and emptiness.

Up he flew, into the stars and the vast, inky blackness of space, seeking, seeking, seeking until he latched onto the grounding energy of the Arabis crystal. His energy embraced, fused and pulled it back to the surface if the planet where the energy and his essence stretched to the neighboring shores, skimming over the lands of the Arabis and the Ozar, land not breached by Erion feet in centuries.

The Erion crystal’s energy reached for the energy of her mates. Golden waves of the Ozar mixed with magentas of the Arabis and fused with the blue-green of the Erion in a fantastic, mystical spray of multi-color.

Crystals birthed through the soil, glowing and golden in the Ozar Homeland and magenta in the Arabis Homeland. Crystals erupted along the ocean floor, multi-hued with pinks, purples, green, blue, yellow, and orange.

Beyond the birth of multi-colored baby crystals that protected the land came the awareness of the other Quads. The Ozar energy flowed over him and merged with the Arabis, foreign, and yet so much the same. The need to protect their mate, the knowledge that their families were the most precious thing in the world, the love that radiated between them.

No, they were not that different at all, and now they were combined with the need to protect their planet. Protect their Quads. Protect their human mates.

“Look,” Lucie whispered.

That softly spoken word was enough to bring him back to his body where he stood with his hands still linked with his brothers and his mates. He eased his eyes open. Golden waves flowed with magentas and blues around him and across the land. Then spikes of energy reached upwards, slicing through the black clouds and disintegrating them.

The entity howled, screamed, screeched, but it was no match against the combined energies of the Negari Homeworld and the power of love behind it.

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