It looked a bit like she’d fallen on Poseidon’s trident and accidentally pushed it into her chest. She couldn’t see it without a mirror but she felt some sort of metal band wrapped around her rib cage from front-to-back… and well… it was vibrating too.
Wanting to stop the pain any way she could, Sugar pulled her nearly destroyed shirt together and clenched it closed with her fist. Once all the trident was covered, the vibration immediately stopped, as did the incredible pain in her head. Whatever it was, it didn't like the light.
“What the ever-loving fuck happened in there?” Sugar demanded as a fresh panic of biblical proportions swept over her. She turned and glared behind her.
Holding her mangled shirt closed with one hand, Sugar ran all the way back to her rented vehicle, her anxiety growing with every footfall on the ground. It was only when she was driving back to her motel that she realized she’d just run the four-hour hike to the car in a little over thirty minutes without ever once getting tired or winded.
“I’m officially changing careers. Screw having freaking adventures,” Sugar declared. A golden vibrating metal parasite was now taking up residence in her chest.
The science fiction stories she’d loved all her life had never come close to shit like this in reality. However, memories of every horror movie she’d ever watched were now playing non-stop in her mind.
She couldn’t recall anything about what had happened in the cave before she got knocked out, but for damn sure, she’d found something while in there.
Or something had found her.
Now what was it intending to do with her?
3
In Axel of Rodu’s Catskill Mountain lair…
Like most felines he’d come across on the planet, Axel liked being where he wanted to be and only when he wanted to be there. After trying many places to live in his six hundred years of life, this private sanctuary hidden deep in a forest was the only location where he’d ever felt truly at peace with himself.
His current residence wasn’t his favorite jungle vacation spot or the desert lands his feline mother favored. The mountain base hideout he called home in the Catskill Mountains of New York was evergreen and blessedly free of most creatures he didn’t want to see.
“Max, fetch,” Axel demanded in a loud voice, throwing a limb he’d broken off of a nearby fallen tree.
When the wolf didn’t run as instructed, Axel looked down at the creature who huffed indignantly at his feet.
“We had a deal, Maxwell,” Axel said, pointing at where the stick had landed. “Do you want me to send you back to your pack and let them carry out your punishment? You know that staying here means you agree to be my pet for the duration.”
The unhappy wolf whined, hung his head, and stared at the ground. When his head lifted, the creature sent back a reply.
You may consider yourself a cat, Axel, but I do not consider myself a dog.
“The full moon arrives Thursday, Max. Fetch the stick for me like a good wolf, and perhaps I will allow you to shift to human then—for a few hours at least.”
The wolf’s head came up swiftly. Max took off running to where the stick had landed. Axel snorted as his reluctant detainee sent him a disgusted look before snatching up the piece of wood in his mouth.
Max started back toward him, glaring his wolf eyes, then suddenly dropped the stick and ran off with a whimper.
“Maxwell! We weren’t finished. Get back here with that stick,” Axel shouted.
“Axel, stop yelling at that poor creature you’re tormenting. Is that any way for a Lyran prince to act?”
Axel swung and stared at the ascended Lyran feline standing behind him. Great. How long had she been watching?
“Queen Nyomi,” he said, dropping to one knee and bowing his head. He knew he was in more trouble when she sighed loudly.
“Thirty hours of childbirth to bring you into this life and all I get from my son is normal deference? I get that from everyone. Stand up and hug me, Axel. Prove I chose your Earthling father well.”
Axel rose and started toward her only to be stopped by a raised hand and twitching ears. “Not in your purely human form while we’re talking business. I can only handle your father in that condition.”
“Right,” Axel said automatically, shifting his human skin until his face more closely resembled hers. Now they both looked like they belonged to the feline branch of the Lyran race they were descended from. At his mother’s approving nod, Axel moved forward and embraced the female who’d given birth to him. “I am glad to see you, Mother. It’s been nearly a year since you visited me.”
“Yes, it’s been too long,” Nyomi agreed solemnly, hugging her eldest child of Rodu tightly before pushing him away. “I’ve been swamped with royal duties while you’ve been amusing yourself here in your lair. I wish this was a purely social visit, but I came today because I have another little matter I need you to take care of for me.”
“Another little matter?” Axel repeated the request with a snort, releasing her arms to laugh. “Your little matters are never little, Mother. I almost got decapitated solving your little matter last time.”
“I admit I underestimated Lord Garmin’s viciousness, but I could not allow my favorite human to be killed while regenerating. Your father helped me bring a true Lyran prince to this barbaric, ungrateful world. Of all the humans walking his planet, your father deserves as many lives as my people can give him.”
Axel inclined his head once. “I honor the human male who helped create me which is precisely why I ended Lord Garmin’s life.”
Nyomi purred in pleasure. “Yes, my son is the most feared creature on both our planets…” She stopped and made a face. “Or at least you were until recently.”
Axel lifted a brow. “That’s an extraordinarily strange comment even for you, my queen. You made sure no one was trained better than me. Who is deadlier?”
Nyomi looked off, her small ears twitching again. “No one intentionally, but I think someone has found one of Athena the Ancient’s sentient blades.”
“Sentient blades?” Axel repeated in surprise. “Most believe they are a myth, especially the sentient part. You’re talking about advanced artificial intelligence. My sister’s advances in that area exceed any Earth human’s or Lyran’s. Not even Gina of Rodu has found a way to make that work. ”
Nyomi shook her regal head. “The sentient blades are not a myth, Axel. I don’t know how well your teachers covered those artifacts in your Ancient Earth History classes, but the blades are weapons from a time on Earth before the feline Lyran Guardians arrived. Lyran records show evidence of some very sophisticated weaponry being developed long before Earth’s current history began being recorded.”
Axel nodded that he heard. “As I recall, Athena’s blades were developed for warriors. Why would one of them want to join with a mere archaeologist?”
Nyomi’s mouth lifted on one corner. “It’s true that Lyran records say the blades were only sentient after they were joined with the highest and noblest of warriors. However, Earth legends of the blades are not so clear on the matter. Maybe Athena’s creation was desperate to be joined to a host after twenty thousand years of dormancy.”