Page 48 of Rifted Hearts
At the same time, the biker/cephalopod wound a tentacle around Remi’s waist and shouted, “No fucking way.”
The female snarled, yanked Remi out of the biker’s suckered grasp, and threw him toward Kaveh.
It happened so fast that Kaveh had Remi in his arms even as his mind panicked, sure his unnatural flames would kill the man he had grown to care about so much. But the summ vanished back into his body, leaving Remi shaking but unhurt. He was dressed in his living leathers, and perhaps the protective organism had prevented any injury.
Kaveh would never have been able to forgive himself if the lack of control over his awful new power had killed Remi.
The three Colony enforcers took advantage of his surprise and bolted, darting out of the punched-out section of wall. The female went first, with the limping male close behind her. The tentacled biker hesitated as he followed them, shooting a last glance back at Remi, perhaps to threaten him one more time.
Kaveh breathed a sigh of relief. The three goons had been scared off and Remi was safe. Releasing his grip around Remi, Kaveh gently turned him around. He had to make sure Remi was okay then get him out of here. The base was far too dangerous.
“Please, Kaveh.” Remi had never sounded so small and miserable. “Don’t hurt me.”
Kaveh pulled back from him, gut clenching. Of course Remi would think the worst. Now he had seen the real Kaveh, the child of monsters who could call up a deadly weapon in his hands. He could have told Remi the truth, but instead had lied, telling him he was as human as anyone else despite his drakone blood. He hadn’t shared the bloodthirsty history of his birth clan, or the new, awful power he could barely control.
“I’d never hurt you.” Kaveh swallowed hard, despair and guilt making him choke out the words. “There are things I should have told you about my background and about the flames, but I didn’t know how to bring it up or make you understand.”
“I’ll find Kat, I promise.” Remi acted as if he hadn’t heard anything Kaveh said, words pouring out of him. “He’s not here, and the twins and Zale don’t have him. I’m sure he’s okay. I can find Lyall and fix this.”
Remi talking about his dog at a time like this didn’t make much sense, and that wasn’t much of a surprise. Hehad suffered a concussion and smoke inhalation, been assaulted by ratkind goons, and then come close to being killed with summ.
Kaveh hated that Remi thought he needed to beg not to be killed or prove himself by trying to help Kat when he wasn’t the one responsible for all of this. “When I saw the ratkind threatening you I was furious, and my control slipped. The power I have is called summ, and it’s unique to my parents’ clan. The Azdaha. That’s what I am.”
Remi stared back at him, not saying anything.
He must have been stunned by Kaveh’s admission. Remi knew a lot about the Riftworld for someone who had grown up in Earth society. Species like phantoms and hellhounds—all of whom presented a threat to humans—were the type of rift people who frightened and fascinated humans. If Remi knew the earth drakones were more dangerous than even those infamous clans, learning the man he had made love to only hours earlier was an Azdaha must have been a shock.
Kaveh needed to clarify the situation’s seriousness without panicking Remi further. Then he had to get him to safety. If Remi never wanted to see Kaveh again after this, that would be what Kaveh deserved. “I know who has Kat, and there’s nothing else you can do to help him right now. He left the base sometime earlier tonight on Pogo.”
Remi still didn’t respond.
“Lyall wasn’t with him,” Kaveh added. “But I’m sure your dog is fine and back at the ranch.” He had deep concerns the fairy hound wasn’t okay at all, with a hellhound and ratkind criminals on the loose, but he didn’t want to share that right now.
“Kat wasn’t with Lyall?” Remi finally spoke, his voicefrantic, and Kaveh cursed himself for bringing the topic of the terrier up at all. “Wait, how do you know all of this?”
“There’s a hive of sparkleflies who live in the base, and they communicated with me right before I found you.” Kaveh glanced around the room, nervous the ratkind might return or, worse, the phantoms he had seen escaping the base might find them. He needed Remi to understand and cooperate, and he wasn’t doing a good job of explaining the situation. “They’re Riftworld insects, a mass hive mind, that the guardians convinced to work here as an early warning system. They don’t think about time the way we do and sometimes show possible futures instead of reality.”
“I know what they are.” Remi took a step back, putting more distance between them. The small gesture shouldn’t have hurt so much, but it did. “They can transmit visual images of what they see like Bug, only telepathically, instead of with a human-tech interface. What did they see?”
“Kat was with a Riftworld species known as a hellhound.” Kaveh waited for more of a reaction from Remi—fear or horror—but Remi took that information almost too calmly. “They’re traditional enemies of the drakones and exceptionally dangerous. I think this one removed something from the base, an object that was keeping the phantoms confined here.”
Remi gave a slow nod then said in a hesitant tone, “Not that it’s a good thing, but if Kat’s with a hellhound, at least he’ll have some protection from the phantoms that have escaped.”
Kaveh’s last hope the information from the sparkleflies was more of a warning than reality faded. “You saw a phantom?”
“One of them had Zale—that’s the guy with the tentacles—and I was trying to convince the other two to tell me whatthey did with Kat.” Remi tapped on the living leathers, and the organism shifted to allow him to peel back the armor from his right leg. His skin was red and raised, with marks from a phantom’s tentacle, which was capable of delivering a killing electric charge to its prey. At Kaveh’s expression of horror, Remi added, “I got away, but the phantom was angry and sent me a mental image of something that looks like a glowing dildo. Is that what you think was stolen?”
Rhys had described the control object, which Kaveh knew only as a critical component of his clan’s ability to confine the phantoms to the base, as an elongated egg. Remi had to be talking about the same item.
If the cordon had been weakened and only a few of the phantoms had escaped, the current crisis was manageable. But if the hellhound had taken the control object, there would be nothing stopping the phantoms from rampaging all over the expanded riftland. Even worse, the hellhound could bring the control object back to their pack, where it could be used against Kaveh’s clan.
This was a nightmare.
“You need to get back to the ranch on Amanita.” Kaveh hated the thought of letting Remi out of his sight, but there were no good options left.
The ride to the ranch would be at night, through what was now a riftland. Remi might encounter any number of dangerous species, not to mention the Colony enforcers and the hellhound. The only place more dangerous was deep inside the base, where Kaveh had to go. Remi had confirmed what the sparkleflies had shown him—at least some of the phantoms had made it out of the core. Kaveh’s presence in the base could no longer make anything worse, and he had to know what had happened.
“If the control object is missing,” Kaveh said, “whoeverstole it could use it against my family. I have to find out if it’s still here. The phantoms are a species incapable of surviving outside a riftland. They might be able to make limited excursions during this rift storm, but the ranch is outside the rift barrier. Hunker down in your cabin, and you should be safe.”
