17. Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Seventeen

A melia started shaking and her eyes rolled up into her head. Zylar threw the shuttle into an orbital rotation that would keep them safe and away from the pull of the Earth.

"Amelia!" He undid the straps and moved her back to the passenger section of the shuttle. He shook her, desperation moving through his body.

"Calm down," he muttered to himself. Deep, slow breaths came from him as he laid Amelia down to check her over. A light glowed from his hands as he moved them over her, starting with her feet. When he got to her head, the white light coming from his hands turned black. His healing light turned around, trying to attack him.

The sudden attack sent him flying across the shuttle into the wall. Zylar closed his hands as his body shook. White light crawled over him until it got to his hands, fighting against the blackness trying to overtake his body. Zylar rolled back and forth as the fight between his healing power and the evil black power that came from a very strong Tan-ge grew stronger.

He arched in the air as he was thrown again. His white light surged up to put out the dark gray evil light. The gray light rallied, knocking the white light back.

Shit, hell, damnation, and then Zylar threw a few Diza curses in there to make sure he had all of his bases covered. He'd never had a problem fighting and defeating a Tang-ge even one this strong. This nameless male was using the connection he had with Amelia against Zylar, making him stronger. He was draining Amelia and using her as a battery to defeat Zylar.

He had to stop that now.

It took all his coordination and strength to flip to his back. His hands were all but useless for this intense battle going on for his life or for who would control him. Using his feet, he scooted himself back to where Amelia was lying on the floor. When he was close enough to focus, he realized she was dying. Her heart was slowing down as his sped up in panic. His emotions of fear of her dying and that he wouldn't get to her in time were bleeding into the room. There was also anger that, after all the Tan-ge had done, there was no remorse in them. They attacked the mates that the goddess had given the Diza as if they wanted to destroy any remnant of the Diza in the universe.

Faster, he needed to get to his mate at this very minute. It took strength he didn't have to spare to lift his trembling arm and place his hand covered with the gray miasma of evil in Amelia's hand.

That's when he felt it. The evil darkness had battered the thin shields Amelia raised until they were torn apart, leaving a gaping wound in her emotional core. It was using that to drain his mate and kill Zylar.

His eyes closed. He wasn't into pain as punishment, but his mate was too far gone to talk to. If he did nothing, they both died. There would come a day…" He shoved his thoughts of revenge and the ultimate showdown away. He'd plot that later.

Now he had a mate to save.

He placed his hands flat against the floor, forcing more of the evil grayness up his arms while pushing himself to sit. He would never treat his mate like she was unloved. Zylar pulled her onto his lap regretful that he had to touch her with hands polluted with the grayness of darkness, but there was no other way.

His fingers fumbled as he lifted his mate's miniskirt. This was why human males loved them. Easy access. The round brown globes of his mate's ass lay before him in perfect symmetry, but they weren't vibrant it looked like every sign of life was being pulled out of her.

He traced her thong before he smacked her ass. The grayness covering his hands got darker, taking on a looming presence that sent a shard of fear through him. He smacked her again on the ass. This time it was harder. She'd be red before he was done with her.

"Come back to me, mate. It will take both of us to defeat this brex'nar (bastard)."

He spanked her repeatedly, desperation fueling his movements when she lay still as if she were dead. He raised his hand but stopped as a moan of distress came from her lips.

"Amelia!" He leaned over her, pressing his chest to her back. "Don't talk, my little lotus flower. I need you to concentrate on the sound of my voice and do what I tell you." He cast around for a way to instruct her when she was awake to understand.

His hand went to her ass, caressing it, and then he bent at an awkward angle and kissed it. Amelia gave a small gasp, and he rejoiced. His mate was with him. He could feel the connection between them even with the Tan-ge trying to tear it apart. They were stronger together than they would ever be apart.

"I'm going to spank you; between every smack, I'm going to caress your ass and kiss where I spanked. This way, you'll know that it is me and that you're loved. While I'm doing that, you're going to weave a stronger shield. It won't be the best, strongest, or prettiest. Right now, we want him out. Your shield and my abilities will drive him away. Do you understand?"

Her head jerked before flopping back down, giving him the only indication that she could. His hand came down on her ass. He flinched at the sound of the smack echoing through the cabin of the shuttle. He caressed her ass and then kissed it. When he spanked her a second time, the sound was louder, reverberating as if he had hurt her.

"It's just my imagination," he mouthed the words. Then he spanked her again and the sound of it almost cleaved him in half. It was a fight to caress her ass and kiss where he spanked. It was also a revelation that opened his understanding. The Tan-ge was inducing and pushing these feelings that made it seem like he was hurting and abusing his mate.

The unknown and unnamed Tan-ge wanted Amelia dead sooner than later, and he was pushing for it. Why? What did he want to hide?

Amelia choked, struggling to breathe. Zylar no longer wondered about the Tan-ge; his mate's life was on the line.

He spanked her hard and fast. "Work with me, love, he demanded." He could hear his voice, but it was also in her head and sent back to him. They were one, growing closer together every minute of each day. His heart pounded at the revelation that he loved his little prickly lotus flower. He should call her a rose because she came with thorns.

"Fight love, it's you and me together. It's us against the world and only together can we overcome it. If you want every human on the planet and that includes your family to bow down and kiss your feet, I'll make it happen. Anything for my mate, but you have to fight. Together we can defeat the Tan-ge."

He heard a soft chuckle come from her. Zylar was amazed she could make a sound with the attack they were under. Then he saw it. Amelia was trying to build a shield; except she didn't know how. They were going to have to do this together. Not once in any of the sacred scrolls he read had a healer, and his mate built a shield together. His planet had never experienced a time like this, so that made sense.

"We'll do this together, love." He was going to come up with thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of names to call her. That would always remind her of the love he had for her. Did she love him? His best guess was no, not right now. He'd wait. She was worth waiting for.

Zylar maneuvered Amelia and himself until he was lying next to her on the shuttle floor with her on top of him. With one hand, he stroked her poor abused ass. With the other, he guided her head to his. He took her lips, kissing her with a silent promise in the kiss that he would always place her life above his.

His soul met hers, watching as she tried to build a shield, only for it to collapse repeatedly.

"Why are we here?"

"Welcome." He could hear the smile in her voice laced with frustration.

"Shields," she gave him shield 101. "Can be built in two places. One is the mind, the other is the soul. The mind is the most fragile of the shields. It has nothing to power it but the strength of the body. We know the body is easy to defeat. There is illness and general wear and tear and that's without getting into a physical confrontation. I believe my shields were initially formed in my mind. It was like I was walking around with a blinking neon sign that said abuse me."

He watched as she attempted to build another shield and it broke apart between her hands.

"I think you're being too literal. Right, I've never built a shield before, but I deal with power every day. When I first learned to channel my healing abilities, Zalla, the healer I was studying under, said I would feel the greatest concentration of my healing power in my hands. I would stare at them, willing them to light up. To prove to the world that I was a healer and not a fake born as a royal. Nothing I did worked. One day, Zalla said I could stare at my hands forever and nothing would happen. This wasn't an instance of mind over matter. If I wanted my healing ability to happen, then I had to be willing to open myself to it, to become one and then it would flood my body charging me with its essence until the only other place for it to go was my hands."

He stopped to mourn his teacher. He was fated to his mate. When she died, he followed her quickly, as if there couldn't be one without the other. Zalla was a great healer, and many have said he should have fought harder to stay with them. Now that Zylar was mated to Amelia, he couldn't think of a place he wouldn't follow her to. How could Zalla, who had been mated for thousands of years, not follow his love into the next adventure of life?

Amelia dropped her fragile shield.

"That makes sense." Amelia dropped the shield, not sorry to see it dissipate into nothingness. She turned her attention to the kiss Zylar was planting on her. She loved his lips. They were the quintessential silk over steel that she always dreamed about as a teen. She sank into his kiss, forgetting about building shields. When she felt pressure at the base of her spine, she thought it was an orgasm coming for her out of the blue. Then it spread through her body. There was a tingling in her hands and feet. Her limbs felt numb while also feeling on fire. This wasn't like any orgasm she'd ever felt before.

When black-hot power coalesced in her soul, her body arched and trembled with the strength of it.

"Why is my power brown?" She watched it with wide eyes as a shield emerged that was greater than anything she could have made on her own.

"Why should your powers, abilities, and essence be anything other than what you are?"

Just like that woman, she was validated. Not because some man said you are, thus you are. Nope, that wasn't it.Someone had taken the time to remind her in a world that would undermine her, that her power came from inside and it was just as glorious as she was on the outside.

The Tan-ge sent his final battler strike and her soul shield, a magnificent bronze in color, rose to meet it. She used her shield to send it back to him.

"I'm coming for you," Amelia screamed. "You can hide, but I will find you. Please hide while I seek. You're a dead male walking."