in my eyes. “Oh, shit!”
Jaxtyn sits up abruptly, his arms like steel bands bringing me with him. “We have to go back.”
We’re already phasing back into the cell as I question him, “Wait … why? What happened …?”
Kissing me firmly on the lips, he pulls us both up in one fluid motion, gesturing to the naked Humans. “The people … we were treating them with the vibrational accelerator and phasing them out when the Taxin caught us in the green light. You know the D-freeze they called it?”
I’m nodding as he gestures to the humans at the wall to come to him. To my surprise, they both come willingly, and he motions for me to follow his example. “We have to get them out.”
Purlogh skids to a halt outside the bars of the cage. “Jaxtyn! You’ve got Zoey then?”
He’s gone already while Jaxtyn stares at where he just was with a puzzled expression. “Purlogh?”
“It’s a long story,” I assure him. Taking a step closer to the Human woman who looks dead on her feet, I wrap my hands around her neck. “Let’s finish this.”
Following Jaxtyn’s lead, we do.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
- Jaxtyn
“Dad, this is the bathroom …”
Zoey’s voice fades as she gives her father the tour of the tiny dwelling he’ll be living in on New Earth. It’s what the Quasar species dubbed the planet in this dimension, and since the Humans being transported over are moving into the same area, it stuck. The facility we’re setting Zoey’s father up in is just one step up from a hospital but much nicer.
It’s been a day since Purlogh and Zoey rescued us from the Taxin holding area. Except for the humans we dropped off, I haven’t been here or had much of a chance to look around the planet. I’m pleasantly surprised to see most of it is very similar to Earth. The small town where we ended up dropping our caged survivors took them in as refugees.
“No, you’re going to love it here, though. See … Janet is here. You know Janet. She’s going to take you to eat.”
Most of the mumbling from her father is hard for my translator to understand. Zoey’s father also has dementia, so much of what he says makes no sense. Right now, he’s discussing getting a pink kitten, but Zoey’s smiling and thanking Janet as she follows them out the door and into the hall.
When we took down the Taxin labs and holding cells in the lower levels of the secret military base in Yosemite, we realized just how widespread and advanced they were becoming with their dimension piercing technology. Fortunately, it was dependent upon glass bulbs which we were able to destroy, shutting down anymore nightmares like what we endured when they captured me with the Pinner.
Stepping outside the door, I watch Zoey help her father settle into a chair in the communal eating area just down the wide corridor. She’s so beautiful, even with the dark circles under her eyes from the aggressive schedule we’ve had. This is the last thing we need to do before we can go back and sleep in our dimension.
Zoey catches sight of me and waves as she settles into a chair next to her father as he eats. We were fortunate to stumble upon the Taxin’s main developmental site. If it weren’t for the doctor abducting us, it’s hard to say how long it’d have taken for the Sovereignty to act on Trus and Jen’s submitted logs and information about what happened to them there.
Again, trying to follow protocol almost got us all killed. Once we took down the immediate Taxin threat in the facility, we cleared out the dwelling we were assigned on base, including all those people we took out of the holding cells. By then, Payak had been in communication with the Ashen, who were willing to help by taking everyone to the new dimension. Although they still wouldn’t interfere themselves! Something about an agreed upon mandate with the Coalition? Since the Coalition is the ultimate ruling party for all the advanced species, with layers upon layers of laws—including the ones that protect us as mates—we have to defer.
When Teresa and Jade discussed it, they alluded to it being similar to squatting laws on Earth. The Taxin have been living here so long that even though they weren’t originally from the planet Earth, they still have the same rights and claims to the planet as Humans. The Ashen pointed out that most species don’t originate