She sees me. I open my arms to her. Now she will run across the fields of grain in what seems to be slow motion. We will be reunited in…
“MONSTER!” She screams, spinning on her heel to flee from me.
“No! Tres! It’s me! I’ve come back for you!” I roar the words after her, but they only make her scream more loudly. It is not hard for my powerful scythkin frame to overhaul this human and in a matter of yards, I swing her off her feet. I try to embrace her, but she is flailing and wriggling and screaming so loudly my ears ring.
“Shhh. Tres. It’s me.”
“LET ME GO! LET ME GO!”
I have a sudden flash of clarity in which I realize the woman in my arms is not her. She doesn’t even look like Tres. Whatever my idiot broodkin pumped into me has been clouding my judgement, imposing my desires on the world. The woman I have in my arms does not have a mane of fiery red hair. She is blonde, and she is terrified. She’s bleeding because I have grabbed her too roughly. I drop her and watch her run like a wounded animal back toward the low huts which line the riverbank.
Chapter Eight
Tres
I feel Vulcan.
He’s close.
We’ve not been separated. Not properly. I don’t think it is possible for us to be taken apart. I am certain that there is some part of him in me, and some part of me in him that will never allow us to be anything other than together.
I was told my death would be the end, but it was not even close to the beginning. I know more about myself now than I ever did in life. I know that I have powers I could always have used, if only I knew they existed.
“What are you doing, princess?”
I bristle. I hate it when Lykar calls me that. I hate it when he speaks to me at all. He has not allowed me out of this cave room since I arrived. He has made me prisoner, while telling me how free and powerful I am. He insists he will free me just as soon as I behave, but I have no intention of behaving for him, not ever.
“I was talking to Vulcan.”
He smirks at me and shakes his head.
“Your song may reach between the realms,” he admits. "But that alien will never penetrate this place.”
“You don't know what he will do,” I say.
“I know males are faithless and feckless…”
“You were," I say. “You abandoned my mother and me, but Vulcan is not like that. He would never leave me. He saved my life more than once. You ruined it.”
“You are going to have to learn to speak to me more respectfully if you’d ever like to leave this chamber,” Lykar drawls. “The king will not tolerate being spoken to this way.”
I curl my upper lip in disdain. I do not like being Lykar’s captive any more than I liked being Trelok’s sacrifice, but I know this will come to an end. Vulcan is coming for me. Somehow he will use all the technology he has, his talking rocks, his flying ships, his science, all of which can reach across time and space.
“He’s coming for me,” I tell Lykar. “I think he’s already back on Earth.”
Lykar rolls his eyes at me. “He could be crawling out of my anus at this very moment, and he would not be able to come for you. He doesn’t belong in this realm. He is a creature of another realm. It is better to forget him.”
“I’ll never forget him. He is my mate. I am his.”
“No. You are mine.”
“How could I possibly be yours? I barely know you.”
“But you have my blood in your veins. Or you did, when you were alive. You know, as soon as you calm down and accept your afterlife, you will enjoy it. You have rank down here, Tres. You are my daughter. That means something. It means you have respect. It means you can create your own offspring, if you find another of our kind you can relate to in that way. You have an entire after life waiting for you, Tres, just as soon as you leave the memory of the old one behind.”
“I want to be with Vulcan.”
“Ridiculous,” he laughs. “He’s barely sentient. Just a brutal monster killing and breeding, like so many others. You might have thought you were in love with him, but he was never capable of loving you.”
I felt loved. When I was in Vulcan’s arms, it felt as though nothing could touch me. But death claimed me anyway, so perhaps it was all a stupid human illusion, as Lykar says. It still feels real, inside whatever I have left of my heart.
“I want to go to him. He came back for me. I can feel him above.”