It seemed as though Fate didn’t like being messed with. She’d done her best to change her Rami’s future, and she’d failed. But she couldn’t afford to indulge herself in regret at the moment. She had to focus on finding her men if they’d also been taken, or finding a way back to them if they hadn’t.

  If they were still alive.

  Her ears went back and she hissed at the errant thought. No, she decided firmly. They couldn’t be dead. She’d know it. Wouldn’t she?

  She thought about the connection that had formed between them during their night of love and passion, and wondered if she could sense them through that while her body was unconscious, and her mind was in Bastet’s form.

  She’d never had such a strong bond with anyone before, so she didn’t know much about them. It was worth a try, anyway. She closed her eyes to help herself concentrate, imagined Wider, Win, and West in her mind, and reached out for them.

  When she actually felt something it startled her so much that her eyes flew open and she hissed. What the kólasi was that?

  She blinked a few times, then settled down again and thought about it. She’d felt…something. It wasn’t her men, though. It was something else. Something strange. But what?

  Having no answer to that question, she calmed herself, closed her eyes, and tried again. This time when she felt the same something, she refused to let herself pull back. She took a few deep mental breaths, then attempted to explore whatever it was she’d found.

  The object was thin and so long that it faded into the distance. It was firm but not hard, cool but not cold. Was it a bond? Their bond? Is that what a bond was supposed to feel like? She had no idea.

  She opened her eyes, huffing softly. Determined to reach her men and nothing else, she closed her eyes yet again and relaxed as much as she could. Then she reached for her men again and, again, she felt something long and thin.

  Remaining calm, she explored the strange cord once more. It still felt firm and cool, maybe a little stiff. There was something familiar about it, too. But what? She stared at it in her mind, looking at it from different angles before realizing that it reminded her of an elastic band stretched to its limits. And with that, she understood.

  It really was the bond between her and the Katre-Laus. She knew it. The moment she acknowledged that to herself, every muscle in her transparent, imaginary cat body went limp with relief. Her Rami were still alive. The cord was their bond, and it was intact. Stretched thin, yes, but still whole.

  Once she pulled herself together a little, she wondered why the connection felt so thin. Distance, maybe? That made sense, and it kindled a little hope, too. If they were far away it could mean that they hadn’t been abducted. And if they were alive and free, maybe Percy was, too.

  She wondered if they would search for her. Yes, was the instant answer. They would spend whatever remained of their lives searching for her. Or for whoever had taken her.

  She sighed inwardly as she turned to look at her body lying still and silent on the thin mattress. Based on what she’d learned from the view screen above her bed, less than two and a half months had passed since the day she’d first met her Rami, and shifted on the skyport.

  Of course, there were no actual dates, so she couldn’t be certain. But that was all the information she had, so she’d work with it. Assuming she was correct, and her guesses regarding how long she’d remained in her alter form on the skyport were correct, she had about three and a half months before her body spontaneously shifted on its own.

  She wondered how Fluffy was doing, and tried to reach for her even though she doubted it would work. She’d never been able to feel her alter form while using astral projection before. After a couple of tries, she admitted that hadn’t changed.

  Her head cocked to one side as she gazed at the tubes and wires connecting her to the panel over the bed. She wondered if the drugs being pumped into her would cause her body to shift sooner than expected, or prevent it altogether.

  The latter, she decided.

  Hibernation kept a body from changing in every way. Her Uncles Tigren had been held in hibernation tanks for seven thousand years. In all that time they hadn’t aged or shifted. Did that mean she still had six months? Or, if it had taken another week since the last time she was out as Bastet, did she have five and a half months?

  She growled silently. Speculating like this wasn’t going to get her anywhere. Not until she had more information, and even then she couldn’t know for certain. All she really knew was that she would die, and that it would happen sometime in the coming months.

  Would the Katre-Laus feel her death? Would they even feel the bond since she was, after all, technically comatose? If not, would they think she was dead even though she wasn’t? If she did die, was the bond strong enough for them to sense her soul departing the plane of the living? If so, would they release their shared soul to follow hers?

  As much as she hoped they wouldn’t, she knew that they would. They’d said they would. They knew she wouldn’t be able to wait for them since they weren’t linked, but they’d still said they would. If they’d said it, they meant it.

  She reached for the bond again, relaxing in the sudden knowledge that if she felt it, they must be able to feel it too since they were far stronger than she was. But would they know she was still alive? Would the existence of the bond be enough to convince them?

  Yes, she decided. If they were dead, she knew in her heart that the bond would no longer exist. Therefore, the opposite must also be true. Comatose wasn’t dead.

  A memory flitted through her mind too quickly for her to grasp. What was it? Something about bonds and…what?

  Riley closed her eyes once more, relaxing her mind as much as she could, hoping the memory would return to her. She knew full well that trying to chase it would get her nowhere. She had to relax and be patient. A minute passed. Then two. She was just about to give up when suddenly, the memory returned in the form of a name. Rayne Dracon.

  She only knew a little about what had happened to Princess Rayne when she was in the hands of the Doftles. Just bits and pieces, really, but one of those bits was Rayne’s efforts to send a call out to her Rami. Since she’d been sent back in time one year by Wolef the golden dragon, it was impossible to know whether or not the Bearen-Hirus had heard her calls in the other time-line.

  All Rayne knew for certain was that she’d never received an answering call from them, nor had she truly expected to. She was very far away from them, they barely knew each other, and they had no bond whatsoever. She’d sent them because it was the only hope she had left.

  The difference between Rayne’s situation and her own was that she did have a bond with her intended Rami. A strong bond.

  Did that mean there was a way to send them a message through the bond? She didn’t really know much about such things, but she didn’t think she could send them words or thoughts. If such a thing were possible, she thought she’d have heard about it. But she had felt the Katre-Lau’s emotions very clearly during the little time they’d had after their bond had formed. Did that mean she could send emotions to them through the bond?

  Deciding that she had nothing to lose by trying, Riley once again closed her eyes. She pictured her last memory of Wilder as he’d broken down the door to the bathroom in response to her screams. The fear and shock in his eyes made her heart hurt, but she forced herself to remember as much detail as she could.

  After a minute she opened her eyes, her tail twitching with annoyance. It wasn’t working. She wasn’t sure exactly how she knew that since she had no real idea how to do what she was attempting, but she did.

  Closing her eyes again she pictured the first time she’d spoken with them, on the concourse in the skyport. Again she tried to put in as many details as she could, while avoiding the anger and accusation that had poured off of Win.

  Her eyes opened and she shook her head. That wasn’t working either, though she wasn’t too surprised. She had been trying to cheat a bit regarding Win’s reaction to her. Why had she never asked anyone how to go about doing this?

  Hissing with frustration, she shook her head once more as if that would help her clear it. Maybe she needed to focus on the intimate time they’d spent together. The things they’d said to her, the way she’d felt when they touched her.

  As she considered that, another idea came to her. This one felt right, somehow. Without letting herself think about it too much, she closed her eyes yet again. She painstakingly built a detailed image of the Katre-Laus in her mind, this time as they’d passed her plate around the table, each selecting the best of each dish for her. When she was sure she had it just right, she began adding more images. Wilder’s expression as he threw his head back in the throes of passion. The gentle touch of West’s hand on her cheek the first time she took him into her throat. The way Win’s eyes darkened when he’d first joined her in the bath.

  When she had clear mental snapshots of the three of them and all that they’d shared together, she allowed the love she felt for them, and her joy in the love she’d felt from them, to build within her mind. Then she reached deep into herself and gently pushed all of it into their bond. She wasn’t even sure how she was doing it, but she kept at it, concentrating as hard as she could for as long as she could until her mind felt clear and calm.

  Opening her eyes, she smiled inwardly. She’d done it. She knew it. Her call to her men had gone out along their bond into the cosmos. She might never know if they received it, but for now, she could do no more.

  The newly familiar sound of deep male voices approaching the door reached her. She rose to her feet, jumped down to the floor, then crossed the narrow aisle to the bed nearest the door. The one the orderly always started with. She jumped up, moved to the head of the bed, and crouched down beneath the dark screen on the wall.

  The voices outside the room ceased and the door slid open. The orderly entered the room and approached the first bed, just as he always did. He quickly checked the tubes and wires, then turned on the screen. A moment later she swore softly when she saw that five days had passed since she’d watched the delivery of the cylinders.

  Rather, she meant to swear. She’d forgotten for a moment that she was in Bastet’s form, so it came out as a low hiss, which startled her a little.

  Astral projection had always taken a great deal of energy for her. Especially when she hadn’t done it for a while. Each time she did it, she gradually became stronger and stronger, so having to rest one day less than the previous time wasn’t unusual.

  But she’d never had to rest so long before. Three days was common. Four a couple of times when she was much younger. But five days? At this rate, it was going to take forever to figure out where she was. Or why. Or anything.

  She followed the orderly from bed to bed, a little distracted as she tried to figure out why she had to rest so long between each time she projected herself, barely checking the numbers on the other screens until he got to her own bed. When she saw herself lying there she sighed, once again reminded of how impossible it was that she was able to project at all under the circumstances. She should be grateful that she’d actually knocked time off of her rest period rather than complain about how long it took.

  She followed the orderly to the last bed and waited for him to turn the view screen on. Her eyes went straight to the place where she knew the number of days would be. It was no surprise to find the number was the same as the others.

  Just before he turned the screen off, Riley noticed something new on it. A white square on the right side near the top with two short lines of red letters and numbers inside of it. That’s all she caught before the screen went dark. She knew with absolute certainty that the white square was new because she’d studied the screens closely the last time she’d awakened.

  Riley hissed in frustration. She’d been complacent, distracted, and careless. Those screens provided her with the only data she had but, assuming she’d seen all she needed to see the first time, she hadn’t bothered to look for anything new.

  She was alone here, wherever here was. She was going to have to rescue herself, if it was even possible, and that meant she needed to start being a lot more careful. She only had about thirty minutes to explore, if that, and she’d already spent a good ten minutes waiting for the orderly. It was past time for her to start making the best of what resources she had.

  Still grumbling to herself, she leapt off the bed, trotted toward the door and, with just a little bit of a flinch, walked through it.

  ***

  A small white cat with a pale blue teardrop on her forehead and turquoise eyes stepped through the third door on her right at the end of the corridor. Keeping close to the wall, she moved with purpose, trotting along quickly and without hesitation.

  She was more than half way up the corridor when the sound of a door sliding open somewhere behind her caused her to instantly freeze. She was certain that no one would be able to see her, but caution was part of her nature. She remained absolutely motionless, not even twitching a whisker as she listened to the heavy footsteps approaching her position.

  Moments later the footsteps passed by her, revealing a bald man wearing a white lab coat. There was something vaguely familiar about him, though she didn’t know why. Nevertheless, her ears flattened against her head and her lip curled up in a silent snarl.

  The man stopped at the same door that the cylinders had gone into. The one she’d intended to bypass in order to search for clues about where she was and why. The door was now closed, and there was a security keypad on the wall beside it that she hadn’t noticed before.

  She watched as the bald man pressed several buttons on the keypad. She couldn’t see which ones, but it hardly mattered. The metallic clunk of a lock disengaging reached her ears just before the door slid open. The man stepped through the doorway and it slid shut behind him.

  The cat continued up the corridor, pausing at the same door. She glanced uncertainly at the double doors which were no longer propped open, then back to the door of the cylinder room, then back again. Making her mind up, she faced the locked door and walked through it.

  Once inside the surprisingly dim room, she moved to the nearest corner where it was darkest. She could hear three humans talking too softly for her to catch their words over the deep hum that filled the room, but she couldn’t see them from her position. What she did see, she didn’t understand.

  The pedestals she’d seen before were still arranged into six precise rows of five, for a total of thirty. There were now electronic panels attached just below the top of each pedestal at a precise angle. From where she sat she could just glimpse a number of different lights and switches on the panels. Directly on top of the pedestals were the cylinders she’d seen before, only now they were all filled with pale blue fluid that seemed to glow with soft light. In fact, the only light in the room came from within those cylinders.

  The cat’s head tilted as she stared at the contents of the cylinder nearest to where she sat. Her first thought was that they were hibernation or stasis tanks, but she quickly discarded the idea because they were much too small for that. After staring for another minute or so, she thought she saw something very tiny suspended inside the tank. It was too tiny for her to see clearly, let alone identify. She was going to have to get closer.

  Stepping out of the shadowy corner the cat approached the first pedestal, then jumped straight up. She landed lightly on the control panel, her tiny transparent paws having no effect on the many buttons and switches that covered it. She moved as close to the tank as she could get without actually touching it with the tip of her nose. For some reason, the idea of sticking her head through the glass and into the blue fluid made her shudder.

  In the center of the tank, suspended in the blue fluid, was a tiny object encased in what appeared be a membranous sack of some sort. Her ears twitched in surprise when she saw that it was pulsing rhythmically. There were a couple of extremely thin lines running from the mysterious object up to the top of the tank where they connected to various ports on the underside of the lid.

  After staring at it long enough to fix it in her mind, the cat leapt down to the floor. She walked along the rows, pausing to look up at each tank and the contents within. She didn’t leap up to examine them closely as she had the first one since they all appeared to be the same.

  She’d reached the next to last tank on the final row when something seemed to tickle her mind. She stopped mid-step and looked up. Seeing no more than she’d seen before, she wondered if the tickle had come from the tank, what was inside the tank, or some other external source.

  She leapt up to the control panel and studied the tiny object inside. It seemed a little bit bigger than the first one she’d looked at, and she thought the rhythmic pulsing was a little stronger, too. She waited a few moments, but the tickling sensation wasn’t repeated. She jumped back down to the floor, suddenly realizing that the two men and one woman she’d heard when she entered were now gone.

  The next time she came in here she would get closer to them so she could listen to their conversation. Hopefully they’d speak Standard, and talk about what they were doing.

  She continued on past the final tank, reaching the door just as her energy ran out. She tensed, her tail twitching with irritation even though she knew there was no point in fighting it. After a moment she just relaxed and allowed herself to be pulled through the door, back down the corridor, and into the room she’d set out from.

  Chapter 13

  Three days later

  West sat in the Shadow’s small cafeteria, staring through the large round porthole as he sipped his coffee. He knew he should go back to his room and try to sleep more, but he wasn’t quite ready for that yet.

  He felt both of his brothers before they entered the cafeteria and sighed softly before refilling his cup from the carafe on the table. Moments later Win and Wilder joined him, each with their own carafes.

  “I was hoping it skipped you two, tonight,” he said by way of welcome.

 

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