Page 9

Spar and Scar

Spar moved through the swamp, closing in on Scarlett, his little angelic prey.

For three days, he’d kept his distance. Three days he’d ignored the way his instincts had sharpened, changed, and evolved in regard to her. He told himself he could let her go. She wanted to be married to a dumb robot, fine. Do it. Be his fucking guest.

And then, he took that bat-bite.

The day after, she called. He had to fake an illness when the sound of her voice nearly gave him a fucking orgasm. Told her to call later.

She did. He avoided it.

She called again. He avoided it.

She came over because she’s a fucking angel. And in his new hyper awareness, he saw his suspicions about her were a thousand percent accurate. She fucking liked him. She wanted him. And that blood-boiling, cock-jerking revelation had required him to send her away. Pissed that he had to. Pissed that she committed herself to that cyborg.

He’d been an outright asshole to her and vowed to explain himself the second he had his shit together, but that never happened and maybe never would where she was concerned. And the second he’d heard she’d taken her saintly ass into the swamp alone to check on families, his commitment to doing the right thing blew apart with his anger.

His boots crushed damp leaves as he approached, spotting her on the porch of Mr. Lemaire’s small wooden house.

She knocked softly, calling out a greeting. Her scent hit him first. It was always the first thing now. Linen. Rain. Something softer. Something he shouldn’t have been able to track—but could.

Her shoulders were straight, hands steady. Aware. Almost like she was practicing what he’d taught her. He’d taught her never to go into the swamp alone too and yet, here she was.

Spar exhaled through his anger, his body already thrumming with tension as he moved toward her.

When he reached the bottom of the steps, she turned and stiffened with a gasp.

“What the hell are you doing out here?” he demanded.

Her shock snapped into insta-fury. “Who do you think you are? You are not my boss!”

“I’m one of the Twelve, therefore I have jurisdiction over you.”

Her jaw dropped. “Bologna! I don’t remember seeing or hearing that anywhere and I have all the rules.”

“Well, you just heard it from me.”

“Well, you don’t count. I’m not even in your hatchery.”

“It’s hatch , sister,” he corrected. “And we’re under wartime law and that means any of the Twelve have a right to…” The hell was he arguing with her for. He stormed up the porch and threw her gasping little ass over his shoulder. “Not explaining myself to a sassy nun.”

She beat on his back and screamed, “Help! Somebody help me!” while he headed for his boat. “Get your hands off of me! I will file a complaint! This is assault!”

“You hit like a little girl,” he muttered.

“I am a girl! And you’re a bully ! I will report this!”

“You do that, and I’ll report that you’re no longer fit to be a wife for your precious robot.”

She stopped struggling for a breath then her legs, fists, and mouth exploded. “What in the h-e double hockey sticks are you talking about? I’m fit for anything I want to be fit for.”

“You can’t marry anybody or anything if you’re lusting after another man. In our swamps, that’s the same as adultery. So you’re already divorced before you ever got married, little sister .”

She screamed and growled, banging her fists on his back while kicking her legs. “I am pure before the lord, you… you fork-tongued, dog of perdition !”

He brought his palm down hard on her ass and she jolted. “That’s for coming into the swamps alone.” He spanked her again and she shrieked. “That’s for making me come get you.” He spanked her a third time and she gasped with a half-pissed scream. “That’s for being a sinner.” He popped her ass once more, his cock in on the discipline now. “And that’s for all the work I’m going to have to do just to train you properly . And one more.” He made the last one count, getting a good shriek. “That’s for having such a spankable cute ass.”

He made it to his boat and dropped her in it only to have her scramble over to the motor while he unmoored. He shook his head and jumped in as she yanked and yanked on the pull-cord.

He grabbed her by the waist and sat her on the seat. “Stay put,” he ordered right in her furious face.

He turned and started the boat, getting a two-handed shove on his rear that knocked her back. He spun in time to catch her from falling out of the boat and sat her down again, his face inches from hers. “I guess you like those spankings and want more?”

Her angry breaths hit his face as he stared into those clear gray-green eyes, ready to take a lot more out of her. She stuck her tongue at him real hard as he guided the boat toward his place and he laughed at the cute assault.

No words were spoken the whole way back other than her retaliatory war plans she brewed right in front of him with her pretty pissed off face.

“Keep that look, little sister. You’re going to need that anger for your next lesson.”

The crack in her fury was nearly audible. “What are you talking about, I thought you can’t do lessons with a rebellious, adulterating, robot marrying nun!”

He grinned at the tree line. “Did you think the lovely red marks on your ass are for decoration? That’s called discipline. A punishment.” He leveled a look at her. “Those wash away sins and allow you a clean slate.” He gave her a wink. “Now you’re ready for dirtying again.”

“You will take me home,” she ordered. “I have… chores!”

“You have lessons with me. And you’re behind.”

“Well, I don’t want to do lessons with you!”

“Well, that’s too bad,” he shot right back. “Because we made a deal, and I intend to stick to my side even if you renege. Like a sinner .”

She shot a finger at him, eyes slit, jaw hard. “You’re the sinner! I know you faked your sickness,” she seethed. “And I am marrying a robot even if I lust after a thousand men.”

“And I’ll surely let you if you can survive my lessons without lusting to have me the whole time.”

Her jaw dropped like an anchor, and he raised his brows, hoping she denied it. “Oh, you bring your lessons Mister, and I will pass them, every last one of them with flyin’ colors.”

“Good,” he said lightly, so very ready to get her on the mat.

****

8-Bit adjusted his headset, fingers flying across the keyboard as he monitored the Dream Bridge interface. Another night, another cycle. Another round of excuses to Cat. He hadn’t been home in two days. He had all the reasons required—too much work to monitor, too much unfinished. All true and all lies. He was an expert at lying and telling the truth in the same breath. A honed craft from an early age he’d learned in survival.

She knew he could work from home, could’ve gone back, could’ve been with her. Even if she didn’t say it. But he didn’t trust himself anymore.

His phone buzzed and his pulse jumped in his chest then dropped to his cock at seeing it was her. 8-Bit exhaled and answered. “Yeah?”

Fuck, he sounded like a fucking prick.

“Hey!” she gushed, her fake, happy tone crushing his ribs.

He forced himself to breathe through it. “What’s up?” he barely managed back.

“Are you… meeting with Skul today?”

8-Bit stilled at the hope in those words. “Yeah,” he said. “Why?”

“Oh,” she hurried lightly with a pause. “I was thinking I could… make something.”

His stomach tightened as guilt twisted the knife. She was trying to bring him home. Everything in him knew what was coming if he kept hiding. “We’re meeting at the Hack House.”

He grabbed his fidget spinner and went to town on it as she gave a casual “Oh,” loaded with more, barely contained disappointment.

The sudden urge to change his mind hit him. Then he remembered Skul’s condition. “I don’t think Skul’s fit for being around women.”

He stood when his fidgeting needs spread to his legs. “Why?” she wondered.

“The bat bite,” he said, pacing and eyeing the screens, looking for a reason to end the fucking call.

She groaned. “Crap. Right. The whole… hyperdrive sex thing.”

“Yeah.” His tone went flat. “That.”

“Well,” she barely muttered, “maybe you should get one.”

His legs suddenly quit working. “What?”

“God, I’m joking,” she hurried with a low piece of a laugh. “Obviously.”

He pressed his fingers into his eyeballs. “Yeah, well. Don’t.” He shook his head at the bite in his tone.

She barely hesitated. “It was just a joke.”

He ran a hand down his face, back to pacing. “I’m the last person who needs my sick perversions tripled.”

Silence.

“You really believe that, don’t you?” she whispered, not hiding her uselessness.

His jaw locked and began ticking.

“You know… I can’t… help you. If you don’t let me.”

The odd warning in her tone brought a surge of dread that froze him. This was it. Fuck, he would lose her.

“I can’t…” she barely whispered. “I miss you, Ethan.”

Her words punched the wind from him. “Cat—"

“I know it’s not work,” she said, barely above a whisper. “I know it’s not stress.”

He couldn’t even answer her. Couldn’t fucking breathe.

“I know you want things that… you think I can’t give you.”

His grip tightened on his self-control. “I’m keeping my distance to protect you,” he said, adding another excuse to his mountain of lies.

“I talked to Big G,” she blurted suddenly.

His brain short-circuited, bringing his legs to a sharp halt.

“What?”

She hesitated too long.

“What about?”

“Never mind,” she hurried on a shaky whisper. “It’s not important.”

8-Bit forced his pulse down with a slow exhale. “You need to tell me, Cat,” he warned softly, his panic spiraling. “Was AL involved?” Because if he was…

“I… I don’t want to talk about it while you’re mad.”

“Cat,” he forced, carefully. “I’m not mad. I’m just worried.”

She gave a dry, half laugh with her, “Really.”

“What did you talk to Big G about,” he demanded, the screens all around him turning into a blur in his rising panic.

“About us, ” she shot out, her anger barely bridled, making him sick.

He suddenly paced like a caged animal in the middle of a forest fire, only the fire was inside him and if he breathed the wrong way he’d crack open the vault and give in to every goddamn thing he’d been holding back.

“I asked Big G if he would teach me,” she blurted.

The words hit him like a bullet to his chest. The world tilted. “Teach you,” he barely breathed as the fire raged closer.

Her silence was its own confirmation.

“Teach you what, Cat?” he forced out.

“To… to be what you need,” she quipped, crying.

His stomach fucking dropped with an oh fuck . “No,” he breathed, his head beginning to shake faster.

“No?” she returned through barely contained sobs. “I’m afraid you don’t get to tell me no, Ethan.”

“The hell I don’t,” he said, his control snapping. “You have no idea what you’re asking, you have no idea who they are in the dungeon.”

“What?” she shot back, confused and pissed now.

His other phone rang. The fucking secure line.

He hurried to it. “Hold on,” he ordered her, yanking the headset off and answering it. “Talk.”

“Something’s wrong,” a low voice said, striking panic in him.

“Rukem?”

“Yes,” he mumbled, sounding disoriented as 8-Bit’s grip tightened on the phone.

“What,” he hurried. “Eveque?”

“No,” he said, his breaths uneven. “I woke up in the bridge.”

8-Bit was confused. “When? Just now?”

“Yes,” he said, clearer. “I sleepwalked again. Into the dreamscape.” His voice had turned to icy steel. “There were… people. Running. Hiding.”

The hairs on 8-Bit’s arms lifted.

“Men, women, children. Desperate. Like… something was after them.”

The bridge alarms suddenly filled the Hack House, jerking 8-Bit to the screen. “Oh shit,” he muttered, hurrying to it.

“What’s wrong?” Rukem demanded as red lights flared across the entire map beyond the dream bridge.

“Beacons are going off everywhere.”

“What beacons?”

“The fucking dream bridge. Too many, too fast.” 8-Bit sat at the keyboard, typing like hell to pull up the data streams.

“I’m coming,” Rukem said.

“This can’t be real,” 8-Bit muttered, looking for signs of a glitch or error.

“Pray it isn’t,” Rukem muttered darkly before hanging up.

****

“Maybe you should prepare me,” Beth said, fighting the unexplainable fear as they neared the Chaos Pillar’s Stronghold in the small stealth jet.

Sinrik sat across from her and swiped the screen of the device in his hands and handed it to her.

“Holy moly,” Beth whispered, looking at the image. “It looks literally carved into the mountain.”

“It is,” he said. “And that arching entry can fit a four-story building.

“And that bridge of steps. What’s beneath it?”

“A thousand-foot drop.”

“Oh God,” she barely breathed, her fears growing as she stared at the sand-colored structure. “And they…live here?”

“Yes.” He moved to the seat next to her, bringing his cologne into her immediate airspace. The urge to get away from it hit her like a reflex as he pointed to the device. “The archway leads to the main hall which holds the four chaos thrones. This is where we will meet them. Any who visit, meet them there and from that, they decide if we’re welcomed to stay or leave.”

“Stay?” she wondered.

“Visit. For however long they want to tolerate you. Or you them.”

“How often do… people visit?”

“I would imagine not many and not often.”

“Do you have to like…apply at a website?”

His deep chuckle created jitters in her stomach as she braced to feel stupid. “They have no website, no digital anything anywhere other than the one that allows me to communicate on occasion. Thanks to their apprentices, otherwise I would be flying out here just to speak to them. Which I wouldn’t.”

She regarded his severe profile, his focus sharp as he studied the pad. “Sounds like they need you more than you need them?”

“You could say that.” He presented her the tablet, turning it slightly so she could see.

The image on the screen displayed a dimly lit room, simple yet functional. A sturdy wooden bed with a thick, well-worn quilt sat in one corner, opposite a small, iron-banded chest. A basin and pitcher rested on a heavy stone counter, illuminated by the soft glow of an old-fashioned lantern. The walls were made of dark, aged wood, giving the space a rustic, almost timeless quality. As he swiped through more images, she caught glimpses of other rooms—each similarly sparse but well-kept, with a quiet, almost monastic stillness to them.

“They have running water? Plumbing?”

“Thank God, yes,” he said, lips twitching slightly at the question. “Although it’s hardly modern. But it works.”

He gestured to one of the images, where a small alcove was visible, partially concealed by a heavy curtain. “Water comes from a well-fed system, stored in overhead cisterns. Gravity keeps it flowing, but it’s slow. The sinks and baths drain through stone channels leading to a filtration bed outside.”

She leaned in, studying the layout with new appreciation. “So, no hot water on demand?”

“Not unless you count heating it over a fire,” he admitted. “But the pipes stay warm enough in the deeper chambers, so it’s not as bad as it sounds.”

She traced a finger along the screen, absorbing the ingenuity behind it all. Even with its outdated methods, the place was self-sustaining—functional in ways modern convenience had long forgotten.

An image of a beautiful lagoon brought her gasp. “Where is that?”

“On the back side of the mountain.”

“Is it…in the mountain? I can’t tell.”

“It is. And that opening to the sky above here is where the water feeds into it,” he pointed.

“It’s so…unbelievably beautiful. How deep is it?”

“The surface is beautiful. But what’s beneath it…”

She glanced at him then back at the tablet when he showed her. Instant terror struck her at the sight of the literally black hole that seemed too perfect in the stone surface. “What… is that?” she wondered quietly.

“They call it many things. The Maw of Unmaking, consuming all things, even reality itself. Or the Hollow Vein, a lifeless artery running through the world, carrying something…unseen,” he muttered in a spooky tone. “And The Unscripted Rift. Beyond time, beyond prophecy. A rip in the fabric of fate.”

That grin from earlier grew as he watched repulsion overtake her face. “And this is…under this… place?”

He nodded. “And if we’re welcomed, I may be able to give you a private tour.”

His grin bloomed into a full-blown smile and even laugh. “Your face.”

She looked at the image, shaking her head. “That is terrifying. So what is it really?”

“It’s a geological, gravitational, and possibly quantum anomaly. However, no explanation fully accounts for its unnatural effects.”

“My God,” she muttered, remembering. “Null Zones and debunked Hollow Earth hypothesis.”

He quirked a curious brow at her.

She cast a glance at him. “I… have a degree in spatial engineering and remember encountering those terms in texts.”

“You have a degree in spatial engineering?”

She leaned back, getting a good look at his shocked expression, considering how to handle the insult. “I do,” was all she said, looking back at the image with renewed interest now. “What unnatural effects have been observed?”

“Well, similar to real-world gravity holes in Earth’s crust, objects and even light itself bends near it, creating distortions. Anyone who enters, experiences time dilation or disappears entirely.”

She smirked at the outrageous idea, getting his chuckle.

“Then there’s the Quantum Rift theory—a tear in spacetime where laws of physics no longer apply. Could be linked to dark matter, explaining why its interior remains invisible and instruments fail, energy signatures vanish, like they’re absorbed.”

She drew back again, regarding him with guarded interest. “How do you know so much about this stuff?”

He hesitated, his eyes locking on hers for too many seconds. She forced herself to hold his gaze, feeling his answer would be worth the challenge. “Subterranean Penetration,” he murmured secretively. “It's on my bucket list,” he added in a whisper.

She didn’t need to have an exact definition before her face figured out what it meant, bringing his boyish grin back. She wasn’t sure what unnerved her more, how he looked with any sort of smile or that he would consider diving in that hellacious hell hole.

Her pulse suddenly spiked as she snapped at look to him. “You’re not talking about doing that here and now , I hope.”

He laughed, enjoying her utter horror. “Nah,” he said a little too casually, setting his device on the table. “Maybe just a midnight swim.” He angled mischievous eyes over his shoulder at her. “Could be fun?”

Her full-on horror-gawk made him laugh.

“No?” he checked, sitting back with his huge grin.

“Not. In. A. Million. Years,” she guaranteed, getting his outright laugh.

“You’re having fun,” she observed, impressed. “When’s the last time that happened?”

“Oh, I’m always having fun, Swampy,” he assured, his tone nearly playful.

“How about you get back to what I’m supposed to do exactly when we get there. Besides make sure we’re not welcome to stay overnight.”

“Oh, come on,” he challenged and pled in the same breath. “You don’t want to miss spending the night in the Stronghold, trust me.”

“Trust you,” she marveled, aiming her shock at him. “I may not know you well, but I know mischief when I see it. You’re the exact kind of person I wouldn’t trust in a place sitting on top of the devil’s poop chute with the endless horror names.”

His booming laugh shot out, startling and astonishing her. He went on with it and she was sure it was an anomaly, one she didn’t want to interrupt.

She sat back, waiting for him to recover and when he finally did, it was to announce, “And we’re here.”

Panic grabbed her and she leaned her head, peering out the window.

“Wrong window,” he said, pointing to the ones across from her.

She hurried to the other side.

Her gasp flew out when the ancient wonder appeared, more massive than she’d imagined. “It’s even bigger!” she marveled, unable to deny the giddy excitement of visiting such a wonder. Beth stared at the massive structure, her stomach tightening at the sheer size of it. “How have I never heard of this place? Something this big—someone would have mapped it, documented it, written about it.”

Sinrik joined her at the window, looking out with her. “They have. It just never stays.” She regarded him as he peered out.

“Any digital records of this place—maps, satellite images, even written reports—corrupt over time.”

“How?” she wondered, perplexed to heck.

He looked at her, and she drew back a few inches from his gaze, too intense, too close. “A combination of natural and engineered interference,” he began. “The abyss beneath the mountain has a gravitational effect similar to the Bermuda Triangle. It distorts navigation and erases electronic data.

“So… even if someone did find it, they wouldn’t be able to get back?”

“Not without the right coordinates. And that’s where it gets fun. They’re always shifting. And if you do somehow find them, one degree off, and you’ll never see this place.”

How the heck? “Then how are we able to get here?”

He gave a secret grin. “The Pillars send out a type of pulse that momentarily disrupts the distortion field, allowing our instruments to lock onto a single, unchanging coordinate.”

Beth got back to gawking at the monstrosity, realizing the plane had landed. “Wow,” she breathed. “We are definitely not in Kansas anymore.”

“No, Swampy, we are not.”