{Little Rock | September 2005}

“Does your King know how much time you spend with me?” Kyle brushed a strand of hair from Colita’s face. In these dreams, the black pyre blazed away and soaked her blond waves with perspiration. Or maybe the exertion left her tousled after the fact. JBF hair.

Her eyes, as blue as the sky, hardened. “That’s none of your business, and you are none of his. I am my own.”

Kyle captured her chin, roughly, and melded their lips together. He didn’t give a shit if Nox knew about their time together. She played a long game, and he enjoyed the ride until now. He wanted to know her angle for tonight’s fervent session. Six months since their last roll in the hay, and she visited him out of nowhere. Suspicious as hell.

Breaking away first, Kyle cut to the shit. “Four years we’ve been playing at this, woman. The foreplay is out of the way. Now, let’s get to the main event.”

Colita gave him the same wicked smile she reserved for going down on him. Usually, he enjoyed seeing it. At the moment, it unnerved him.

“Your leader will die.”

Kyle rolled his eyes. “This again? Look, I know Nox is planning an invasion soon, but Rayne won’t die—”

“No. Not then. My master has no desire to kill her. Quite the opposite. We need her alive. She dies later. Alone and afraid.”

Those three words resonated in his memory. In Devis’ memory. A nightmare he barely recalled, but the voice who spoke the words sounded different. More familiar. “Alone and afraid.”

Unable to grasp it, he growled, “The fuck she will. We’ll protect her.” He stood and ignored how much she admired him.

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Colita followed him onto her feet. Now he struggled not to admire her. Short in stature for an Icarus, all her feminine curves called to him with a siren’s song. He carried on an affair with an ancient alien goddess for years. And now he learned why. “That fire never lies.” She pointed to the pyre. “It holds visions of potential futures. All but one of Rayne’s futures end the same. Look into it.”

He did. The black light bounced and danced, eerie and flowing. In the flames, he watched Rayne die alone and afraid. Billions of times.

Kyle’s hands shook when the light set him free. “I’ll save her.” He meant it.

Colita nodded. “You will. It doesn’t show the entire path, but your interference brings about her only surviving future.”

“I’ll stay by her side. I’ll protect her. Whatever it takes.”

“You’ll be her savior.”

{August 2006}

Kyle startled awake. Not in his own bed. No. He laid on the same hard black stone he woke up on the last… He didn’t know how long. He lost count at thirteen days. A strange rustling woke him.

“Colita lied to you.”

He jumped away, slamming his bare back to the wall, and scanned the gloomy chamber. Near his cell, Korac perched like a vulture atop a chair. He flexed his shoulders, and the pinions of his black wings rustled. The man’s pale, almost colorless eyes followed Kyle with a predator’s reflexes. He soaked in the Icarus’ words.

Cinder’s water hydrated him enough to keep him from perishing, but his throat ached from dryness. He croaked, “Never trust a woman that hot willing to bang a sixteen-year-old Earthling.” After he caught the twitch of a smirk from Korac, he pushed, “But enlighten me.”

“There are no futures where Rayne survives. She dies that way. End of story.”

“You don’t know her.”

The Icarean General tilted his head. The entire effect avian in nature.

“She will defy all possibility because that’s who she is.”

Korac walked off the back of the chair and onto thin air. “I am to execute you the day after tomorrow.”

A change of subject. Interesting. “Rayne will save me.”

The blond man chuckled deep in his chest. “Even if she were to wake, you think she’d reward your treachery with a rescue? After everything that happened to her since you delivered her into our custody? Unlikely. Maybe you need to watch it again.”

Kyle collapsed onto his knees, too hungry and exhausted to resist anymore. “I’ll never unsee it. Never forget it. But I know her. She’ll save me if only to kill me herself.”

Korac scanned him once over. “Elden, help you.”