Crystal Tomb (Starfire Angels: Dark Angel Chronicles Book 3) by Melanie Nilles Read Free Book Online Page B

more than a microsecond,
strange shapes, some humanoid, which dissolved into the haze of
colors.
    BLENDING. ALWAYS. THEY
CONSUME, GROW, FADE. SHARE.
    Other scenes zipped by as
flashes of light added to the colors.
    ONE CANNOT EXIST WITHOUT
THE OTHER. INSEPARABLE. ETERNAL.
    WHAT IS IT? The question
repeated into a chorus.
    EXPLORE. DISCOVER.
LEARN.
    YES…
    WE GO.
    Lightning flashed and
sizzled around a rip through the light.
    PAIN!
    A chorus of anguish rose
up and the colors bled through the gash until it sealed. Beyond the
haze but seemingly within it, a crystal floated.
    THEY SURVIVE. The thought
echoed through the mass of consciousness with a sense of
satisfaction and relief.
    THAT UNIVERSE IS LOCKED.
WE CANNOT EXIST FREE.
    EXPLORE. OBSERVE.
EXPERIENCE.
    SO BE IT…
    The scene shifted beyond
the haze to a world of magnificent cities and willowy beings of a
roughly humanoid shape which seemed to float over the ground with
the light of their sun shimmering behind them.
    ALWAYS SHIFTING. ENERGY
COMES AND GOES. WE GIVE. WE RECEIVE.
    WHY?
    ETERNAL
CO-EXISTENCE.
    EXISTENCE DIFFERENT BUT
DEPENDENT.
    YES…
    EXPLORE. LEARN…
    A mass of light and pain
sent thoughts shrieking in the moment the universe seemed to
collapse, until one of the willowy beings glided near.
    .
    Voices screamed a pounding
rhythm through Raea's head. Oh, God. Make
it stop. Her stomach twisted and a knot
tightened in her throat. She curled up on her side, aware in that
motion of a hard floor beneath her. She was going to hurl if things
worsened.
    Reality crashed through the intense
emotions of the Starfire entities. Their voices faded to the
background with the clear rush of memories of those last moments
before the blackness.
    Those last moments—the prick and the
chase…
    "Elis!" She opened her eyes to
darkness and twisted to search around her. Damn her head. Even a
slight shift revved up the throbbing a few notches to force her to
lie still. The cold, hard floor caused pressure sores in her
shoulder and hip on the side she laid upon, and the musty smell of
still air enveloped her while she waited for the pain in her head
to fade.
    She lay in a dark room in which the
only light came from a slit at the bottom of a door, or that's what
she assumed it was. "Elis?"
    Crystal fire. Where was he? He better
be all right.
    Where was she ?
    This had to be a dream. Then again, it
was no stranger than the last two months of her life, and she
definitely had not been dreaming. "Elis?"
    Still nothing.
    Raea tried again to sit up, this time
pushing herself more slowly and noticing the tight cuffs on her
wrists limiting her movement.
    In the faint light, she saw only the
outline of solid metal securing her wrists unlike any handcuffs
she'd ever seen.
    She wiggled her wrists and braced the
bar on her knee to pull back. Something squeezed her wrists and she
dropped her knee.
    "Owowowowow!" Damn, it pinched! The
cuffs tightened on her.
    Okay, so not wiggling out of those.
She'd never heard of cuffs that could tighten when one tried to get
out of them, like some high-tech version of a Chinese finger
puzzle. Whoever held her had some fancy gadgetry. Worse, they had
Elis somewhere else.
    She had to find him. If they hurt
him…
    No, she refused to think of that. One
way or another, she would see him again.
    "Hello?" Was anyone near? From the
acoustics, the room was small and probably solid cement, like the
cold floor. "Hello! Is someone listening?"
    Nothing. Not even movement outside the
door.
    Mindful of the cuffs, which had
loosened with the ceasing of her struggles, she pushed herself from
the floor and stood. If the door was there, that meant there had to
be a corridor or room on the other side; she doubted the door went
out into the open.
    A little disoriented by the darkness
but able to measure her closeness by the line of light, she inched
towards the door with her arms out before her. Cold metal greeted
her hands, which fumbled along until she discovered a door