At once two armed guards appeared, glaring menacingly at Terra.
“Take Mistress Terra back to her ship, which should be in our parking field, Bodikin snapped. “Program the damn thing to take her back where she came from and then leave her. She is not to be admitted to my presence again. Am I understood?”
“Yes, Mistress Bodikin!” the guards chorused as one.
And before Terra could say another word, they had each grabbed her by the arm—one on each side—and were dragging her out of the small portal room and away from her three guys.
“Wait—wait!” Terra cried. “Tem! Rive! V’rone! Help me! Stop them!”
But no matter how much she shouted and thrashed, the three Monstrum didn’t so much as look up at her. The last thing Terra saw was the three of them staring worshipfully at Dahlia like she was a goddess.
Then the guards dragged her around the corner and they were gone.
And there was nothing Terra could do about it.
FORTY-FIVE
“What am I going to do? What am I going to do?”
Terra paced back and forth in the living area of the Monstrum ship. She was rubbing her temples which were throbbing with pent up emotion. Crying wouldn’t do her any good—wouldn’t help her solve this crazy case, she told herself firmly. And yet the tears kept pooling in her eyes and running down her cheeks anyway.
What had happened back at Mistress Bodikin’s villa wasn’t right—she was sure of it! Yes, the Heart-finder had gone off when Dahlia touched it, but something about the whole thing stunk! It was some kind of set-up, Terra was sure of it! But how could she prove it? And even if she could prove it, what could she do about it?
Mistress Bodikin had dozens of guards and servants at her beck and call and Terra had no one. No one except her three Monstrum but now it seemed like V’rone and Tem and Rive had deserted her. It was almost as though the moment the Heart-finder went off, they were drawn to Dahlia like iron filings to a magnet!
“This is what I get,” Terra whispered to herself. “This is what I get for not bonding with them while I had a chance!”
For now that there was no possibility of getting her colony of Monstrum warriors back, she finally understood what she had lost. She had started this journey as a way to mollify the three of them and keep them from bothering her. But in the course of the strange and crazy quest the four of them had been through together, she’d fallen in love with them! Yes, somehow she’d fallen for three separate men and she loved them all equally.
“What an idiot I am!” Terra moaned. Sinking down on the couch, she felt hot tears stinging her eyes. Moments of her time with all three of her guys came back to her in flashes…
Tem’s kindness and consideration and the way he always called her “My Lady”…Rive’s mask of cool logic falling away after she’d brought him out of the spoor-induced darkness. The look in his eyes as he’d told her, “My heart is at your feet—I am yours!” And of course, V’rone—the Brawn of the colony and his brash self-confidence. The way he growled her name and called her “little Terra” and the way he’d risked himself to save her life in the red jungle…
“I love all of them!” Terra sobbed, so heartbroken she couldn’t even try to stop crying at this point. “I love them and I could have bonded with them—maybe that would have kept them from falling under Dahlia’s spell! But now it’s too late. I was a fool and now I’ll never even see them again!”
“I am very glad to hear you admit your mistake, Daughter.”
The voice came suddenly out of nowhere…and yet somehow it was also coming from everywhere at once.
Terra looked around wildly. Was she imagining things? Was her extreme grief causing her to hallucinate disembodied voices now? Was she going crazy??
“Be at ease, child—your mind is intact,” the voice spoke again. It was warm and feminine and filled with power. Just hearing it made Terra feel a little better somehow, as though someone had put a comforting arm around her shoulders and given her a squeeze.
“Er…who are you?” she asked, looking around the small living area, though there didn’t seem to be anyone to see.
“Do you not know me?” the voice asked. “I stood beside you in the chamber of The Watcher and kept your mind from breaking…I sent you a warning in the land of the carnivorous flowers…I kept the predators from taking you and your warriors in the red jungle. But before any of that, I sent you to V’rone and Tem’blx and Rive to be their Queen and the Heart of their colony.”
Suddenly Terra had an idea of who might be speaking to her.