Bruins Peak Bears- Complete Series, page 163
part #1 of Bruins Peak Bears Series
He showed her to the lean-to attached to the back of Noah Black’s house. She suppressed a sob when he opened the door on the gloom inside. He had to force her through the door. “This way.”
Her breath wheezed faster and shorter through her nose. Cold sweat dampened her palm in his hand. He hated to do this to her. Only the knowledge of what waited for them downstairs kept him moving forward.
He opened the grain bin and peered down into the vacuum. May whimpered in sheer terror. Arryn swung his leg over the side and stepped onto the first stair. May didn’t move. “Come on. This way.”
She still didn’t move. She couldn’t. Dread and despair rooted her to the spot. He couldn’t wait any longer. He picked her up and lifted her into the bin. He kept his arms strapped around her waist and marched her bodily down the stairs. He pulled the lid closed behind him, and darkness closed over their heads.
Chapter 17
Lights winked out of the dark the farther down the stairs they climbed. May couldn’t breathe. Only Arryn’s strength induced her to walk down those stairs. When they got to the bottom, she stared around her in disbelief. Silent trains wheeshed along the huge platform. Lights glowed everywhere, and dark-skinned people hurried this way and that.
Arryn dragged her down the platform, but when the train door opened in front of them, he had to carry her onto the train. No force on God’s green Earth would get her to step through that door. As soon as he set her down, the doors whisked closed and the train started to move.
No matter how fantastic the sights, she could not get her mind to comprehend what she was seeing. People stepped into telephone booths and vanished in a shower of sparkles. Space vehicles floated between the buildings. People chatted and gestured on the sidewalks the same way they did in any other city.
The train stopped in a huge open square. Electric lights made the place as bright as day, and grassy lawns spread out between the buildings. May might as well have been outside on a clear summer’s evening.
When Arryn took her hand this time, she managed to exit the train on her own feet. He stopped to smile at her. “This is Arion, May. This is the secret I couldn’t tell you. You had to come back to Renegade Ridge with me of your own free will. You had to accept me as your mate, even thinking I was just a dirt-poor country boy. You had to accept the NightShade as your own people before I could tell you.”
She swept the surroundings with wide eyes. “Are all these people…are they all NightShade?”
“Yes, they are. There are millions of people down here, and we have technology beyond anything the humans ever dreamed of. We have computers. We have a network of computers like your internet, but much more advanced. We have teleportation devices and universities and hospitals and everything.”
She stared up at him. “Are you…?”
He took a step closer to kiss her. “I love you, May. I wanted so much to tell you. You’re going to be happy here. You’ll make friends. You can study. You can choose what work you want to do. You’ll live the life of your dreams, if only you’ll let me give it to you.”
She burst out laughing. Her eyes glistened with happy tears, and all the oppressive dread and depression lifted off her. “Oh, yes! Oh, thank you! I never wanted anything else.”
He hugged her and kissed her. “Come on. We’re going home now. Just wait until you see it.”
He entered the nearest building, and they rode an elevator to the third floor. May peered over a balcony at hundreds of people streaming in and out through the front doors. Arryn talked to a man behind a desk. The man handed him a metal card.
“I’ve got the key,” Arryn told her when he came back. “It’s not far away.”
May glanced over her shoulder. “Who was that man?”
“He’s a clerk with the labor pool. This building houses the whole labor pool committee. They assign people jobs, or they can give approval if someone knows what kind of work he wants to do.”
“What did you have to talk to him about?”
Arryn held up the card. “I just registered us with the central computer system. He gave me the key to our apartment. That’s how it works when a new couple gets married. You log your names with the committee, and they give you a place to live.”
She blinked. “Did you have to do that your whole life? Did you have to inform them every time you want to do something?”
“It’s not like that. I never registered with them before because I lived on the surface all my life. Now I’m married. It’s like this for everybody. They keep track of who lives where, how many people live in each apartment and their ages. That’s how they know how much food and other resources everybody should get.”
“It sounds complicated.”
Arryn laughed. “It is. It’s mind-boggling.”
He took her back outside. They crossed the great square to another building, and he conducted her so far up into the air she lost track of where they were. Enormous windows overlooked the whole teeming city. May would never have believed a city this big could exist buried under Renegade Ridge.
Arryn slotted his card key into a door, and the lock gave way. He held the door open for her, and she stepped into her own apartment. Little did she know, she would spend the next thirty years of her life in that apartment. She would give birth to her children there. She would celebrate and grieve and tend to the thousand minute details of living her life.
She never beheld any house or apartment so luxurious in her life, not even on TV or on the internet. A crystal chandelier hung over a sunken living room, but she didn’t see any kitchen. Computer screens peeked out of almost every wall.
Leather couches stood in a circle around a glass table. Fruit and flowers sat in a bowl and shone in the golden light. Glistening metal and glass brightened every surface. Floor to ceiling windows across the living room gave a stunning view of the city where lights sparkled out of the dark. The electric lights hanging everywhere dimmed with the onset of night.
Hovercraft and trains slithered through the streets. They flowed along arteries between the buildings. They never slept. People still moved and worked and lived out there. May wasn’t alone in this apartment. She would never be alone again.
Arryn came up behind her. He wrapped his arms around her waist and hugged her from behind. “Do you want to see your room?”
She shook her head. “It’s so amazing. All this time, you never told me.”
“I couldn’t. I wanted to, but we’re all sworn to keep the secret. You have to keep the secret, too. You have to guard it with your life. Can you do that?”
“Of course. I’ll do anything for this.”
“Once you’ve lived here a while, it won’t be a secret anymore. It’s only people like Ash and June who have to worry about someone finding out.”
“How can they live on the surface when they could live like this?”
“They prefer it that way. June never wanted to live downstairs. She and Ash want to make their lives in the open air, and I don’t blame them.”
“Then why are we here? Why did you bring me here?”
He turned her around to face him. “I couldn’t ask you to live like that. I couldn’t ask you to suffer for my sake. Besides, I want to be here. Something changed for me. This is my world now, and I’m going to make it great.”
He kissed her and left her alone. She couldn’t stop staring out those windows until a door clicking shut attracted her attention from behind. Arryn entered from another room and she almost had a heart attack. He wore a tailored grey suit and calf-skin boots. His dark skin set off his shirt collar, and gold cuff links decorated his sleeves. She barely recognized him.
In front of her eyes, he touched a screen set into the wall. It flickered awake, and he danced his fingers over the surface. He did something to it, and when he glanced her way, calm, confident power radiated out of him.
He owned this world. He moved through it on a magic carpet of power, money, and influence. Something happened to him on Bruins’ Peak, all right. This is my world now, and I’m going to make it great. He said it, and it became true. He became an Alpha male. He dominated this world the same way he dominated any world he chose to enter. This city spread its arms to receive him. He would take it by storm. He would control it and mold it to his whims.
Now she was the poor, ignorant country cousin. She had some transforming of her own to do if she expected to fit into this new world. She never gave much thought to her life. She helped her mother. She learned her lessons. She enjoyed herself the way most Bruin kids did.
She couldn’t relax her life away anymore. She had to learn and grow and find her passion. She had to contribute her talents and her time and her strength to make this city great. She was NightShade. She would work and become part of this world, these people.
He came toward her. Even the way he looked at her changed when he put on those clothes. He made her into a new person. She was his mate, his other half. They would rise to dominate together. They would complement each other and control their world for the benefit of all NightShade. They would forge a bond between Renegade Ridge and Bruins’ Peak to make everybody stronger. Nothing stopped her now from seizing the life of her dreams.
He didn’t have to ask. He took her hand and led her into her new bedroom. A silken coverlet covered the bed, and piles of cream-white pillows mounded at its head. Mirrors along one wall reflected the rest of the room. The luxury and comfort of Arion enfolded her. The living room light blinked off behind them, and the bedroom light brightened of its own accord. So many mysteries about this world remained for her to discover.
Arryn sat down on the bed and pulled her between his knees. Even that simple movement struck her as so different from the same thing he did in Briar’s old room back home. He wasn’t the same person. Neither was she. They couldn’t touch each other the same way. They were married. They were mated for life.
He compressed her legs in his chiseled arms. He rocked her on her feet. He was master and conqueror. He belonged to this world more than any other. What torture he must have endured, living on the surface all these years, never achieving his true potential, never rising to the challenges set out for him. How did he stand it?
Then again, how did she live the same unfulfilled life back home? How did she waste so many years doing nothing when she could have been here? She had to meet him. She had to love him and accept him as a country bumpkin before she could meet her own destiny.
Her flesh melted against him, and she let him draw her down on the bed. The mattress welcomed them into its tender cushioned surface. No hardship or want could touch her here. Loneliness and deprivation and conflict did not exist in this shining city under the mountain.
His lips descended over her mouth, and he sucked the sighs of ecstasy from her soul. Only he could give her this contentment, this completion. Gratitude and adoration from him flooded her heart. She could never pay him back for this if she lived a thousand years. She could only hitch her wagon to his rising star and ride into the bright distance. He would take her where she needed to go.
Magnetic power filled her every pore. It seeped into her skin through his suit. It infused the whole apartment with his presence. Her body rose to greet his desires. Her heart and soul sang in glorious delight.
He worked his hips between her legs, and the light faded overhead. Did these NightShade program their computers even to detect when the apartment’s inhabitants most wanted darkness to hide their intimacy? Did the computers read the NightShade’s thoughts?
She didn’t have to think about any of that right now. At this moment, heavenly perfection embraced her from every side. She settled onto that magical bed with the man of her dreams. A mystical world of happiness and promise spread all around her as far the mind could stretch, and she belonged here. She belonged here so perfectly, she almost pitied the poor souls she left behind at home.
******The End.
Book 14: Eden
Sarah J. Stone
Chapter 1
Luna Black fell on her mother’s neck and burst into tears. “I don’t want to go.”
Her mother Amelia wiped tears off her cheeks and hugged the girl. “You have to go. It’s not safe for you here anymore.”
Luna buried her eyes against her mother’s shirt. Behind her back, Amelia held out her hand to her other daughter, Eden. Eden swallowed down the lump in her throat. She tried not to cry, but the tears wouldn’t stay back. One overflowed and skated down her cheek. “It’ll be all right, Mommy. We’ll be all right downstairs.”
Amelia pursed her lips and nodded. Their father Noah crossed the room and tried to pry Luna out of her mother’s arms. “Come on, honey. It’s time to go. You’ll miss your train.”
Luna covered her face and sobbed. “Why do we have to go? Why can’t we stay up here with you?”
“You know why,” Noah replied. “We already lost Abel. We can’t run the risk of losing you two on top of that. That would break our hearts.”
“What if Abel comes back?” Eden asked. “We could just stay a little while longer. He might turn up.”
Noah shook his head. “He might never come back. None of us knows for sure. He came back battered and beaten from Midnight Moraine. He packed his things and left with no explanation. We couldn’t live with ourselves if something like that happened to you girls. The only safe place for you is downstairs. You’ll be safe there with your grandparents. No one will bother you.”
“But we haven’t even had time to say goodbye to anyone,” Luna wailed. “We can’t just vanish off the Ridge.”
“You can, and you will,” Noah boomed. “Give me a kiss, Eden. You don’t want to leave your grandparents waiting.”
Eden kissed and hugged her father. She refused to fall apart right now, even though she felt the same way Luna did. Parting from the only family she ever knew hurt worse than anything. She might never see her parents again. They would vanish out of her life the way her brother Abel did.
Eden and Noah had to drag Luna out of the house. She bawled and howled. She didn’t want to go. She clung to her mother, and her shoulders shook with sobs. Eden hated to look at her. Luna’s outburst only made this harder for everyone.
Eden refused to glance around her at Renegade Ridge. The sun glittered off the granite spires behind her. The birds chirped in the trees. The sky rang clear and blue overhead. No one ever saw a more perfect summer day on the Ridge, but Eden couldn’t enjoy it.
If she stopped for one instant to think about what she was doing, she would never be able to go through with it. Maybe that’s the mistake Luna made—she thought. She thought about the friends she left behind, the families scattered down the ridge in rough, handmade houses like her own. She thought about all the hardship and work she put into this life.
Now all of that was gone. She would never haul water from the spring in heavy wooden buckets slopping against her bare legs. She would never boil the clothes on the stove and beat them with a wooden paddle. She would never burn her arms and fingers starting the fire on frosty winter mornings.
Eden didn’t think. She couldn’t. Someone had to hold it together long enough to get Luna downstairs. If she thought for a fraction of an instant, she might realize how much she loved this life. She might realize the beauty, the togetherness of family and the closeness of good neighbors made the hardship and sacrifice well worthwhile.
Noah hauled Luna around behind the house and threw open the door to a crude lean-to attached to the back wall. He pushed Luna into the dark and opened a wooden grain bin set in a corner. He peered down into the gloom.
“You better get going,” he murmured. “I’m trusting you to take care of your sister, Eden. You make sure she gets on the train.”
“Don’t worry, Daddy. I’m sure she’ll be fine once we get downstairs. The sooner we go, the sooner she’ll come out of this.”
Noah nodded, but no one could say anything more over Luna’s blubbering. Eden stepped into the grain bin and descended the stone stairs a few steps. Noah put his arms around Luna. “I love you, girl. Don’t forget me.”
“Oh, Daddy,” she moaned.
Instead of letting her go, he picked her up in his arms. He lifted her feet over the bin and set her on the first stairs. Eden caught hold of her and guided her down into the dark. Luna’s sobs echoed off the stone walls, but Eden didn’t stop pulling her forward and down.
The bin lid closed behind them, and the blackness blocked out Eden’s eyes. She rested her other hand against the wall to show her the way. As she suspected, Luna followed more willingly the farther they went. A few more steps, and a faint glow illuminated the pit.
As soon as the light appeared, the tension in Luna’s arm slackened. She drew near Eden so Eden didn’t have to pull her along. She let go of Luna’s hand, and the sisters dropped into the ground side by side.
In a few minutes, the light spread all around them. Floating orbs bobbed overhead, and a gentle breeze wafted the smell of cherry blossoms into their faces. The light got stronger until they could make out tall buildings all around them.
Eden pressed on. The stairs ended, and she walked down a long stone platform extending into the distance. A huge stone structure stood to one side, and dozens of doors opened onto the platform. Lights winked in the windows rising higher than the eye could see.
They walked a long way down that platform before they got anywhere near the building. A vehicle soared over their heads. Air rushing off its wings tossed their clothes around, but the craft made no noise. It landed on the platform near them, and half a dozen people got out. They paid no attention to the girls, but rushed headlong into the building.
No sooner had the craft lifted off the ground once more than another vehicle streaked along the platform to their right. It whizzed over the ground on a cushion of air. It, too, made no noise. It slithered to a stop next to the building.
Dozens of doors opened in the side of the train, and people streamed out of it heading every which way. No one acknowledged the girls. As soon as they rush diminished, the doors opened in the building’s side. Even more people flooded out. They boarded the train, the doors closed, and the vehicle streaked away out of sight.
