Chapter 10

Opening my eyes, I lay there staring at the ceiling. I didn’t know how long I’d slept, but I had. This wasn’t all in my head. I’d decided. There was no way I could dream up how good soaking in the tub had felt. I’d never actually seen one of those deep tubs with the fancy feet either, so I couldn’t have imagined it. Or this bed. I most definitely could not dream how comfortable this bed was. Realizing that helped me to understand that there was no way I could come up with the people I’d met in the past day. Even the deepest recesses of my mind didn’t have images of giant men.

The ceiling was covered in an ornate pattern. There wasn’t a single stain or crack. Why would someone make a ceiling that fancy? I turned just my head and looked around the room, then back to the ceiling. I supposed it was so one could lay here and look at it.

Lifting my arm, I studied the red rubber band around my wrist. An inhibitor to block skills. Skills. I still wasn’t willing to label my curse as a skill. These people had given me the option to hear people’s thoughts or not. I couldn’t even picture what my life would have been like if I’d had this all my life. The last three, since I’d been out of the asylum, the minds of crazy people hadn’t been as hard, but being able to walk into a crowd while having this would have made things easier. I lowered my arm. Then again if I hadn’t had this skill I wouldn’t be as good with the bow or knives and I valued the ability to defend myself—or others as it turns out.

Something vibrating on the bedside table had me jumping out of the bed. I scrambled up and stared at it. The phone. They’d given me a phone. Leaning over it I looked down at the screen. It was lit up and said Daxx. I had no idea how to answer it. Picking it up, I then noticed it gave me two options a green circle and red one. Shrugging, I put my finger on the green one and swiped it like Alona had done with the faces yesterday.

“Hello?”

“Hey. Good. You’re up.”

It was Daxx. I nodded, then remembered she couldn’t see me. “Yes.”

“Did you get any sleep?”

I looked at the bed. The blankets were still mostly tucked in, as if I hadn’t moved the entire time. “I think so.”

“Great. Grab some clothes from the closet and get dressed, I’ll be there shortly.”

The phone went silent in my ear. I lowered it and looked down. I’d just talked on a phone. Rolling my eyes, I set it back on the table. So maybe in today’s world that wasn’t a big deal, but it was a first for me.

I looked down at what I was wearing. It was similar to the two-piece outfits I’d worn in the asylum, except it was new, soft and not grey. I lifted my arm and sniffed the sleeve. Okay, it smelled nothing like what I used to wear.

I went over to the closet and stood there looking at the clothes. Mitz had said they were mine. There was no way I could fit this in my bag when I left. I bit my lip. I was going to fit as much as possible though.

Kneeling, I opened my bag and took out my bow and quiver and looked in the bag. Maybe I could get another bag from Mitz? Looking back at the clothes, I sighed. How was I going to pick? They were all brand new—I’d checked after my bath. None of them smelled of anything but that new material smell. Yes, it was weird that I knew something like that, but in my entire life the closest I’d ever been to new clothes was smelling them in the stores as I walked through, wishing I could buy some.

Okay, figure out what you’re wearing now and then the rest later. I nodded. As far as avoiding thinking about the day before, I was doing a good job of it so far. At some point it would sink in and then things would get unpredictable. More than once I was consumed with anxiety as I replayed my breakdown last night. It was surprising they hadn’t tossed me to the curb after that. If there was even a curb that was. I still had no idea where we were. Alterealm told me nothing other than it was a place that no one knew about—yet here I was.

~

I stood in my door holding my bag, now much heavier than it had been, when Daxx came down the hallway.

She waved a hand. “Wasn’t sure if porting in front of you would bring on another incident like last night.”

I cringed. “I can’t say for sure what will, or won’t, cause that.”

She stopped in front of me. “I understand. When I first arrived here, I thought I was in limbo between life and death.” Daxx smirked when I gave her a startled look. “Long story.” She looked at my bag. “You won’t need that. We’re going to the women’s cave, where we all hang out male free.” She nodded.

“Cave?”

“No. It’s a room. The guys named it women’s cave.” She rolled her eyes. “It’s more like our combined office.”

“Oh.” I set my bag down and looked at it. “Just leave it here?”

“Yeah, we’ll be back later.” She motioned inside the room. “Just thought we could fill in a few blanks for you.”

I pushed the bag away from the door with my foot, then stepped out and closed it. “Am I going to be able to deal with the information?” I gave her a nervous look. “My freak out scale is on a hairpin trigger now.”

She chuckled. “I understand that.” She held out her hand. “I have to port us there, it’s a long ride from here to the there.”

“It’s not in the palace?”

Daxx shook her head. “No. Actually some of us have just started moving back in here, so all the offices and important spaces like the practice room are still down below.”

I nodded. “Okay.” I blew out a breath. “I’m not fond of this porting.”

“No one ever is at the start.” She took my hand, then stood there. “Full disclosure. The lower chambers are underground, but you’ve been there.”

I pulled my hand back. “I have?”

“The cells, Victor’s office…”

“Those are underground?” I clasped my hands together.

“Yeah. Have been for,” she waved her hand, “hundreds of years. If you are uncomfortable, I’ll get you outside, deal?”

I inhaled slowly. I’d already been in the cells and hallway. It hadn’t seemed like it was underground, except for no windows, which now made perfect sense. “Deal.”

Just like that I was standing in a hallway. I took a deep breath and blew it out slowly. “This porting thing is just…”

“I agree.”

I turned to see Bethany standing in the room beside us.

She smiled. “If being in a room without windows gets to you, tell us, before you…”

“Go into meltdown.” Autumn finished for her.

I stepped into the room. It was huge, not office like at all. Not that I’d been in a lot of offices, but they usually didn’t house what this room did. There was a sitting area—that was bigger than my apartment, if I still had one. A group of desks and chairs were near the center. Two fridges, one filled with wine I could see through the glass. There was a stereo and large television. I didn’t know what the one corner was, covered in what looked like the same stuff the cubes were, but the far end of the room had a large target, complete with knives sticking out of it. Strangest office ever.

“Welcome to our girl space.” Paisley said looking up from her phone.

Alona gave me a wave from the one of the loveseats. “This is where you will find us,” she frowned and looked at Daxx, “we should get her a porter that takes her from the palace to here at least.”

Daxx nodded. “I already asked Troy.”

“Makes sense, now that we are splitting our time between the two areas.” Autumn waved a bottle of water around, “this room isn’t bad, but I prefer the guards’ training yard.” She shrugged, “more air and sunlight there.”

“You just like it because you get to help train them now.” Bethany said going to a small fridge.

“That too.” Autumn waved to the fridge. “Help yourself. We bypassed the long-drawn-out breakfast to come and talk to you.”

Before I could move, Mitz rushed past me carrying a large tray. “Here you are, loves.” She went and put it on the table surrounded by the loveseats. Straightening, she gave me a smile. “There’s chocolate milk in the fridge.”

“You could join us, Mitz.” Autumn perched on the arm of one of the loveseats. “Take a break?” She cocked her head to the side. “Do you ever take breaks?”

Mitz gave her an affectionate look. “I had far too many years of doldrums, don’t you worry, I’m absolutely animated now that my boys have found all of you.”

I stood there and watched as she gave each woman a loving appraisal, then she turned to me. “If you require anything, let me know.” She smiled at me and the tender look in her eyes made a lump appear in my throat.

I cleared my throat. “Th-thank you.” I offered her what I hoped was a genuine smile.

“Absolutely animated.” She turned and was gone from the room faster than anyone could speak.

“She makes me tired.” Daxx said, going over to a coffee machine.

“Mmhmm.” Alona replied.

Crissy jumped up from an empty corner and came over and looked at the tray. “I think Mitz is wonderful.”

“She is.” Paisley came over and sat down, then patted the cushion beside her.

I glanced at the fridge and my feet were moving toward it before I decided I wanted that chocolate milk. “How does she know what I like?” I mused as I opened the door and saw three cartons of milk.

“We have no idea.” Alona answered. “She knew my favorite type of wine.”

“What I eat or don’t.” Autumn chimed in.

“It’s the same for all of us.” Crissy said. “No one else understood three pieces of toast like she does.”

I went over and picked up an empty glass, planning to just take that much, but ended up filling it and taking the whole carton with me. Setting it on the table, I sat on the edge of a loveseat. After a small taste, I looked around at the women. “I’m so far out of my comfort zone right now.”

“We’ve all been where you are.” Bethany told me with an understanding look.

I took a moment to study each of them. I couldn’t see how they could understand how I was feeling. How could they know all the emotions and turmoil inside me that went with sitting down in a normal atmosphere with people like this—for the first time in my life? I opened my mouth to tell them when Bethany held up her hand.

“Would you like to hear our stories of arriving at Alterealm or get to the need-to-know facts first?”

I took another sip of my milk. I really loved this milk.

“She needs to know we understand.” Autumn nodded. “After hearing how we ended up here,” she grinned, “you’ll feel like your story is boring.” Smirking she glanced at Paisley, “well except for the arrow in Raf’s ass part.”

I was willing to listen to anything they had to say, as long as it didn’t dwell on the fact that I’d shot a prince in the tush.

Daxx sat there looking into her cup. “I was chasing a bail jumper and the next thing I know I’m sitting on dusty orange ground.” She raised her eyebrows, “nothing as far as I can see but orange dusty, nothingness.” She took a small sip. “I thought I was in limbo waiting to die. Then Quinton, who didn’t look like he does now, came along.” She shook her head, “he’s talking about mages and night walkers and I’m thinking please let me wake up now.” Daxx sat back, “It gets more complicated from there, but when they told me another realm, it strangely felt right.” She chuckled, “after waking up with a tattoo in the middle of my back one day, anything was possible.”

Crissy nodded. “I saw the tattoo before I met her.”

“It does fit pieces together, doesn’t it?” Alona said quietly. “You need to understand a few small details before I tell you my story.”

I looked slowly from the excited Crissy to Alona. “Details?”

She gave me a soft look. “Yes. To start with people from here live longer than normal.”

I poured a little more to the milk into my glass, buying my brain a few seconds to process. I didn’t want to have another episode in front of these people. Too many and they’d write me off and put me in another facility, or worse. I took a deep breath and let it out slowly, trying not to think of what worse could be. “Oh?” I finally said when I noticed they were watching me with wary looks. “How much longer?” I held the glass tightly between my hands, trying not to give into the nervous urge to trace the guard on my hand.

Alona looked at Crissy. “Victor is five hundred?”

Crissy nodded, again excitedly. “Soon he will be five hundred and one.”

“They better not have a ball for birthdays.” Daxx mumbled.

I looked down slowly and watched the milk in my glass. Five hundred. That was—I didn’t know how I felt about that.

“Kara?”

I looked over at Paisley.

“Are you all right?”

“I don’t think I’ve ever been all right.” I rolled my eyes at her. “I have trouble distinguishing between what’s happening and what is from my head.” I looked at Alona, “When you said longer, I was thinking one hundred…five hundred, that’s—” I turned to Crissy. “How old are you?” She looked around eighteen.

She looked from me to Alona, then to Daxx. “I’m twenty-five.” She frowned. “I don’t know how long I’ll live now though.” She smiled and lifted her left arm, “with this.”

I looked at her tattooed arm, not even sure if I wanted to know what that meant. One bizarre thing at a time. Minimal words I told my mouth. Curbing my habit of blurting out my sardonic opinion was in my best interest. Saying what I thought wasn’t going to buy me any favors here. I needed to focus on something else for a moment. Get some questions that wouldn’t leave me alone. “Having heard your thoughts, I have to ask, how do you cope with that?” I bit my lip, hoping that didn’t come off as rude as it sounded out loud.

She sighed. “I don’t know, I just do.” Giving Daxx a nervous look, she slid from the arm of the loveseat to sit on it. Mostly. She still looked like she was going to spring off it. “I see things.” Crissy tapped the side of her head. “In my head.” Pointing to the corner with the plastic walls, “I write most of it down.” Shaking her head, she moved off the seat and squatted beside the loveseat. “It’s never-ending pieces popping into my head.” She nodded and looked at me.

“She has hundreds of visions a day.” Daxx explained. “and more than once she’s saved our butts by giving us forewarning going into something.”

“Yeah if I can figure them out.” Leaning forward, she took a piece of fruit off the tray and put it in her mouth.

“You figure out enough.” Paisley said with a gentle look.

“Not to mention you have a photographic memory on top of that. We never have look up anything on the internet anymore.” Bethany said giving her a big smile.

Eyebrows raised, I looked at Crissy. “That explains so much.”

Alona chuckled. “Probably felt like you were hit by a truck when her thoughts were popped into your head.”

I nodded.

“Her emotions are just as rapid.” Alona said.

“I’m getting better, with the walls so I don’t affect you, Alona.” She frowned, then turned to me. “I don’t know if I can pause the images when I’m near you though.”

I lifted the hand with the red cuff on it. “With this you won’t have to.”

Tilting her head she studied me. “You really don’t want to have an ability, do you?”

I shook my head. “Helping last night is the first time I’ve used it,” I rolled my eyes, “except to get me out of that asylum.”

“I’m glad you got out.” She nodded, then took another piece of fruit. Getting up, she went over to the corner and started bouncing a rubber ball against the wall.

“It helps her process the visions.” Alona said in a hushed voice.

“I wish her luck with that.” Taking a sip, I flicked my gaze from woman to woman.

“I’ll go next.” Autumn said quickly. “I’m the most recent addition to Alterealm.” She grinned. “Before this I lived in the back of a gym.”

I’d heard of worse things. “It’s out of the weather.”

“Right.” She sobered. “Joe’s Bronze Ring, you may have heard of it.”

“I know where it is. I don’t go in places with mostly men though.”

Alona gasped. “I just realized you’d hear their thoughts. You poor woman.”

I made one of those noises that was like an exclamation mark, because that’s all I had to say on the thoughts of men.

Autumn gave her head a shake. “I used to think my story was bad, but what your family did to you is worse.”

“Your family was like mine?” Was it possible that there were other parents out there that just dropped off their children and never returned?

Autumn shrugged. “Wouldn’t know. As far back as I can remember is when I was six. I was alone on the streets then.” She gave her head a slight shake. “But I’m here now.”

“How did you end up on the streets at six?” I leaned forward. How could another human to someone so young?”

“No idea.” She smiled at Paisley, “but thanks to lab geeks, I have a blood sister.”

I looked at Paisley, then back to her. I knew my mouth was wide open. “You’re sisters?”

She nodded.

“And you found out here?” I paused before I said it out loud. Once the words came out, there was no going back. “In another realm?”

“Yes.” Paisley laughed, “and we have more relatives here than we know what to do with.”

I sat back. “How did you end up going from a gym to here?”

Autumn looked angry for a moment. I was afraid I’d overstepped somehow. It was one of my skills, saying the wrong thing.

“The bastards got me.” She said quietly. “Drugged me during my morning run.”

“Which, uh, slags are that? I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but there are a lot of them out there.”

“The ones taking women.” Bethany said.

Autumn nodded. “Same ones you were following. They shackled me, brought me here to Alterealm,” she snorted, “they learned the hard way to never try that again.”

“She kicked their asses, even in chains.” Daxx said with a big grin.

My jaw dropped again. “Why-why are they collecting up women? Human trafficking?”

Daxx shook her head. “Worse.”

I frowned, “Worse?”

“They’re breeding people to men with Alterealm blood.” Daxx informed me.

“Holy mother of pearl!” I covered my mouth. “Who-why? Is there a female shortage over here?” My FOS stared to escalate rapidly.

“No.” Paisley moved over closer and put her hand on my arm. “No, there isn’t. It’s nothing like that.”

“It’s that Hubert douche we mentioned yesterday. He’s totally insane and wants to take over Alterealm and start his own following.” Autumn said in a low tone.

“And many more horrific things.” Alona added.

Holding my hand over my erratic heart, I blew out a breath and looked to Autumn. “I’m so glad you got away.”

Autumn nodded and looked at Paisley. “We both did.”

My head snapped to look at Paisley. “They had you too?”

She nodded slowly, the expression on her face changing to a more somber look. “I woke up on an island filled with the lunatics.”

“An island?” My eyes felt like they couldn’t be opened any further.

“Which we shut down.” Daxx told me.

“Oh. Oh good.” I swallowed the tightness in my throat and took another deep breath.

“Some don’t get away.” Bethany said quietly.

I looked around. “You got those girls from the apartment.”

“We’ve gotten many from places they were stashed all over the city.” Alona said. “But sadly, we’re not in time for some.”

“What-what…”

“Emil’s daughter was also taken.” Paisley interrupted. “She’s pregnant.”

I jumped up and paced to the other side of the room. Stopping I stared a wall with a map on it, not really seeing, just trying to process.

“Kara.” Alona was beside me. “We’re not telling this to upset you.”

I glanced at her. “It’s hard to unhear that.” I took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. I’d been on the other end of being forced to do something. No choice in the direction of your life. Most of the time I avoided getting in the middle of things, or tried to. Sometimes I couldn’t go the other way, no matter how much I told my legs to run. But this—this happening to women was… I looked at the floor, even with my vast knowledge of words, I didn’t have one that adequately described how wrong and awful this was. “Can-can I help find the rest?” I looked back to her, then turned and watched the other women watching me. “I can-can do something. Listen to thoughts or even stick arrows in people, I don’t like to harm others, but some…”

“Have it coming.” Autumn finished.

I nodded.

Alona put her hand on my arm. “Let’s finish talking and then we’ll figure out how your useful skills can be put to use.”

I nodded briskly. Never in my life did I think I’d want to use my curse. I started to walk back. “Is Emil’s daughter all right? I mean…”

Autumn was kneeling on the couch watching me. “She’s coming to terms with things. She’s going to have the baby and come over here and live in the palace.”

I went around the loveseat and sat back down. “A guarded palace will be good.” Picking up my glass, I took a sip. My mind was churning with what they’d told me. I didn’t know this woman, but she must be incredibly strong.

“You good?”

I looked at Autumn. “I don’t think I will recover from knowing that.”

She gave me a hard look. “Good. Retribution is a great motivator.”

“I don’t know about retribution, but I understand being made to do things you don’t want or deserve, and these women are worse off than I was, so I have to do whatever I can.”

Autumn nodded slowly, I could tell she was feeling what I was saying by the look on her face.

Taking a jagged breath, I looked at Paisley. “How did you get away? Did you have to fight them too?”

Crissy came back over, a puzzled look on her face and sat on the floor beside the loveseat.

Paisley grinned at me. “No. I jumped off a cliff into the water. Arius pulled me out.”

“I saw her.” Crissy said. “I was afraid she’d drown.”

“You guys were there?”

Daxx shook her head. “Crissy had a vision of Paisley in the water and told us. They got there in time.”

I held my breath for a moment as I processed that. Exhaling all at once, I stared at Paisley. She only nodded. Turning, I gave Crissy an appraising look. “You see things in advance?”

With her excited expression she nodded, then she frowned. “I just wished they came with instructions to put together.”

“I don’t envy you.”

She shrugged. “It’s just me. I don’t know what to do without it.”

Everyone turned to look at Bethany.

“Oh,” she smiled, “my turn.” She bit her lip and gave me a look I didn’t understand. “My story is,” She winced, “very different than the others.”

Alona laughed. “Just a bit. I can still see you threatening Victor and calling Raf Tarzan.”

Beth’s face flushed. “Hindsight, huh?” She took a deep breath then looked to me. “I’m a witch,” she held up her hand and red sparks came off it. “I use magic.” She closed her hand and they were gone. “My best friend got mixed up with Hubert’s mages and ended up being put in the cells here.” She paused and watched me.

If she was waiting to see if she had my attention—what else would hold it after her saying that? I nodded, just in case she needed some visual cue.

“So,” she said softly, “I was told by one of Hubert’s idiot mages that the royals,” she motioned to the other women, “would trade someone to get my friend back.”

I nodded again, more than intrigued.

“I mesmerized Leone from a distance…”

I frowned.

“I got inside his mind,” she said quickly, “and talked to him non-stop. Then I lead him to a house in this realm.” She looked sad for a moment. “It was a trap. They warded, a spell of sorts, the house so he couldn’t leave.”

My eyebrows went up. There was such a thing?

“Then I realized after talking to him that I was so far on the wrong side of all of this—but it was too late. So, I wandered around Alterealm’s,” she sighed, “endless fields to get help.”

“That’s when she ended up in the cells.” Autumn nodded.

“Yes,” she rolled her eyes. “Trying to get through to you guys was not easy.”

Daxx snorted. “Getting anything through the men’s heads is a hard task.”

I looked back at Beth. “Clearly you’re forgiven.”

She brushed the hair back from her face. “It was a bit bumpy for a while, but yes.”

I put my hand against my cheek and looked at her for a moment. Dropping my hand, I picked up my glass. “I feel a bit better about shooting Rafael now.”

“I’m just happy you’re on our side.” Daxx said as she got up and went toward the coffee brewer. “When I thought Willis Hubert’s men were using bows and arrows, I was ready to go buy a gun.”

Paisley nodded. “It was frightening until we realized you weren’t.”

“I wasn’t very calm myself.” I took the last sip of the milk, then debated if I wanted to fill the glass again. Deciding not, I picked up the carton and went over to the fridge and put it in. I wasn’t ready to sit back down but went and stood near them. “How did you end up here, Crissy?”

I wasn’t sure I could handle much more but asked despite my better judgement.

Crissy smiled and looked at Daxx.

“I brought her.” Daxx said. “We’ve known each other for a while. We knew she’d be okay here, because she could see mages and through their magic.”

I started tracing the leather on my hand without looking down at them. “See them?”

“Their eyes.” Alona replied.

“Oh.” I frowned. I’d seen their eyes too, I thought. “So-so something like that makes a difference?”

Alona nodded. “Yes. Most cannot. Although we are starting to piece together that all of us,” she motioned to the others, “have at least one parent with Alterealm genes.”

It took my brain as few moments to put that together. “You think,” I looked at my hand for a second as I continued tracing the finger guard. “You think one of mine did too?”

She nodded. “There’s a strong possibility.”

“Oh.” I sat on the arm of the loveseat. “Does that mean I’ll live longer or,” I looked around at the others briefly, “what does that mean?”

“Do your eyes change color?” Alona asked with a serious look on her face.

I shook my head. “Not that I know of.”

“Then it more than likely is just in your DNA, nothing more.” She smiled. “Which is a good prelude to my story. My father was from here, my mother from our side.” She sat there looking at me for a few moments. “I am much older than I appear to be,” she smirked, “at least I hope so.”

I studied her for a moment, she didn’t look older than thirty. Actually, if I didn’t take into account her eyes, which showed a longer history then the rest of her, her appearance wasn’t much older than mine. “You don’t look much older than I am, or how old I think I am.”

Alona smiled. “Bless you.” Her expression sobered. “I’m ninety-eight.”

The room was silent. All the women were looking at me as I digested that number. Victor was five hundred, Alona was ninety-eight. I cleared my throat. “You look great.” Was the first thing my mouth thought to say.

“Thank you.” She leaned forward and set her cup on the table. “This is the part where I put your internal freak out meter to the test.”

Again, complete silence. I wasn’t sure if warning me was good. Just the thought of my FOS climbing, accelerated my heart rate and had it climbing. I blew out a short breath and gave her a quick nod. Better to get it over fast, I thought. I held my hands clasped tightly together in my lap.

“You’ve seen the mages with their glowing purple eyes.”

I nodded, feeling like I was vibrating with nervous energy.

“Well in this realm, there are other colors eyes can change to.” She was speaking slowly in a soothing tone.

I didn’t feel soothed in the slightest. I felt anxious.

“Talk fast or she’s going to have a meltdown before you get to the rest.” Autumn said quickly.

With a slight nod, Alona looked at me, her eyes locked on mine. “Other than the magic users, the color of the eyes denotes a variance of how one sustains life.”

Her wording was not making my FOS go down.

Alona glanced to the floor briefly then looked back at me. “Mine are red.”

Her eyes were red. Not blood shot red, not tinged red, but glowing, bright blood red. I straightened and then froze, just looking at her eyes. With jerky movements I looked to the other women, their eyes hadn’t changed, then snapped my head back to Alona. Still red. “And-and,” I swallowed the lump in my throat, “and you sustain life how?”

“Mmm,” she held my look, “that’s the part that will set off your built-in panic meter.” She whispered.

I held my breath, not moving at all as she opened her mouth far enough, I could see tips of fangs. Fangs. A fang is a long, pointed tooth. In mammals, a fang is a modified maxillary tooth, used for biting and tearing flesh… Now was not the time to recite definitions from dictionaries I told my brain. Tearing flesh. My brain reiterated. “Uh…” I stood up and backed up a few feet.

“It’s not as you think.” Alona said.

I frowned, her eyes were no longer red. “I think,” I swallowed, trying cue my mouth to secrete saliva. “I think fangs are a modified maxillary tooth, used for biting and tearing flesh.” I nodded quickly.

“Yes.” Crissy jumped up. “In mammals that is what they are for.” She nodded. “Alona isn’t an animal that needs to hunt prey to survive.” Her expression was one of excitement again. “I looked it up.” She grinned. “I like fangs. I wanted to know how they just appeared.” Crissy’s expression grew somber, “and the anatomy of Alona’s and all the other essence feeders isn’t anything like an animals’ fang…”

I couldn’t process what she was saying. “Essence feeder.” I whispered. “The man that was taking women was an emotion feeder.” My mind was scrolling through words quickly. “I only know two definitions of feeder.” I looked at Alona, “and you are not a container filled with food.”

“Tell that to her mate.” Daxx snorted, then shook her head quickly. “Sorry.” She lifted her hands. “It’s the hardest thing to understand over here,” she grimaced, “maybe not the hardest, but…”

“Definitely the most bizarre.” Paisley finished for her. “When Arius showed me his fangs, I thought…”

“Vampire.” Beth nodded.

I backed up another foot, trying not to give into the fear that was building up inside me. “Your,” I looked from Paisley to Beth, “husbands have fangs?”

Beth nodded. Paisley as well.

“All of the guys do except Chase.” Autumn said nonchalantly.

My head snapped back to Alona.

She shrugged. “It’s true. Chase’s eyes go yellow. He’s an emotion feeder.”

In a blur I turned and walked toward the corner with the target. Every word they’d said since I’d stepped into this room started flashing through my mind. It was so much, too much to deal with. Because finding out that Alterealm was a real place wasn’t bad enough, now I had to cope with—my mind stopped. An image frozen in it like someone had taken a snapshot of it. I turned slowly and looked at the anxious women behind me. “Are there green eyes? Bright not-natural green?”

Daxx frowned. “Yes.”

I put my hand on my forehead. “I thought it was the drugs. When I kept seeing them, I thought it was because of the wacked up meds they were pumping into me.” I shrugged, “they didn’t help with hearing thoughts, but sometimes they made me hallucinate…”

“Someone in the asylum had green eyes?” Autumn stood up.

I nodded. “Yes. What does that mean?”

“It means they were locked up with a smorgasbord.” Daxx said sounding appalled.

“What?” I hugged my waist, feeling dizzy and nauseous suddenly.

“Green means they are life suckers.” Autumn said. “If they touch someone…”

Eyes huge I covered my mouth with both hands. More than once people collapsed, that had seemed perfectly normal—well as normal as some in that intuition could be. I dropped down to squat and hugged my knees.

“Kara?”

I shook my head, not able to say anything just yet. This was all real. This had been real when I’d thought people locked up me with complete lunatics…and they’d only wanted to go home.

Bethany came over and sat beside me on the floor. She didn’t try to touch me. I appreciated that she recognized that it would send me over the edge.

“It seems you’ve been exposed to Alterealm long before you came here.” She said quietly.

“I thought-it was all so,” I took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, “how could I know it was all real?”

“You couldn’t.” She leaned over her legs so she could look into my eyes. “There’s no way you could have known.”

I held her dark eyes. “I thought they were all insane.”

A look of compassion appeared on her face. “Some may have been.”

“I wanted out,” I whispered, “and they just wanted to come home.”

She nodded, “maybe the guys can look into that place and see if some are still there.”

I let out a shaky breath. “I can’t go back.”

“You don’t have to.” Daxx came over and held her hand out to me.

I looked at it for a moment and then took it and let her help me to my feet.

She titled her head, an apprehensive look on her face. “This is not the way we pictured this talk going.”

Releasing her hand, I nodded slowly. “I just feel like I’ve been whacked upside the head with all of this.”

“You need to eat something to level out your blood sugar.” Paisley suggested, “I think the speed your heart was going probably depleted any energy stores you had.”

I gave her a skeptical look. “That’s putting it mildly.”

“Come sit.” Alona patted the cushion beside her. With a sigh, she turned toward the door. “You may as well come in Chase, your hovering in the hall is starting to grate on my nerves.”

Chase leaned around the doorframe and smiled at her. “I intended to, beloved,” he waved his hand around, “but it seemed an inopportune moment to barge in.” He inclined his head to me.

Taking a deep breath, I went over and sat down again. Paisley handed me a small plate with fruit on it.

“Is there a reason…” Daxx was interrupted when her phone rang. She answered it. “Still in the girls cave…” She frowned, “about?” She nodded. “I’ll tell the others.” She tucked the phone back in her pocket. “We are to go to the dining room. Its urgent.”

Everyone turned and looked at Chase. He gave them a slight shrug. “Don’t ask me, I was lurking here.”

Autumn turned to me. “You okay being underground a bit longer?”

I paused holding a piece of fruit in front of my mouth. I’d been so agog with everything they were telling me I’d forgotten I was underground. I set the fruit back on the plate. “It doesn’t feel like underground.”

She gave me an abrupt nod, then motioned to the door. “You can come with us then.”