The Unseen
Thea Harrison
From New York Times bestselling author Thea Harrison comes the first in an explosive new quartet of stories set in the Elder Races world…. Dragos and Pia are back by popular vote!
***THIS STORY ENDS IN A CLIFFHANGER***
Saying goodbye to their old life in the Wyr demesne in New York may be hard, but Dragos and Pia are determined to create a new life in the Other land of Rhyacia.
At first, everything seems idyllic. Rhyacia is paradisiacal. Accompanied by old friends and new allies, the future looks safe and bright for Dragos, Pia, and baby Niall.
But strange things are happening beneath the picturesque façade. Items move unaccompanied, buildings collapse without justifiable cause, and even the most Powerful residents of Rhyacia can provide no logical explanation for the events transpiring. Whispered rumors point to something called the unseen.
As Dragos and Pia investigate, they uncover a greater mystery than they could have imagined, and they realize the startling truth…
They’re not alone in Rhyacia. The land Dragos had thought was uninhabited hides many secrets, a shocking history that’s not quite ready to be buried, and something more.
Something ancient, evil, and hungry. Something that wants to consume Dragos and take everything he holds dear.
Something that just may be powerful enough to overcome the dragon…
***This is book 1 in a series of 4 connected novellas. The first three books in this set will end in cliffhangers.***
The Unseen
Thea Harrison
The Unseen
Copyright © 2020 by Teddy Harrison LLC
ISBN 13: 978-1-947046-29-0
EPUB Edition
Cover design by Beti Bup at BetiBup33 Studio Design
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced, scanned or distributed in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
Table of Contents
Cover
About the Book
Title Page
Copyright Page
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Author’s Note
Coming Soon
Look for these titles from Thea Harrison
Chapter One
“What exactly do you pack when you’re leaving Earth for good?” Pia murmured.
She stared at the huge pile of clothes and personal items she had heaped on the king-sized bed she shared with her husband and mate, Dragos Cuelebre, in the house they had built.
When she and Dragos had made the decision to leave the Wyr demesne in New York and move to the Other land of Rhyacia, they had agreed to not pack any household items. Everything they had required to furnish their spacious house in upstate New York would remain intact and ready for any time they might choose to return.
But that didn’t make the impending move simple or easy. Their decision had propelled Pia into an intense buying spree for new household items that they sent into the Other land in regular shipments. Despite Pia’s original intention to focus solely on their new baby Niall, she had been unable to remain detached from the process. This was to be her new home, and she needed to feel comfortable in it. She couldn’t just step back and let someone else create the whole thing for her.
Color schemes had to be decided upon. Bedding, curtains, carpets (all of which meant the number of rooms and room dimensions needed to be decided upon), kitchenware, bath linens, and more—and every decision had to take into account that while Other lands were rife with magic, they existed in different dimensions from Earth and modern technologies such as electricity and gas-run vehicles didn’t work. Goodbye, KitchenAid stand-up mixer and Keurig coffee makers. Hello, manual hand mixers and French press coffee makers.
What items of furniture would they transport, and what could be made on site? Rhyacia was roughly the size of Greenland. Currently it was a vast stretch of undeveloped land that Dragos had discovered and protected long ago in case he might decide to do something with it someday.
His contingency planning had become a reality. Now, the community in Rhyacia was new and growing at an exponential rate, fueled by Wyr who were leaving New York in huge droves as they enthusiastically embraced the new challenge.
Very soon what had once been a vast tract of pristine, undeveloped land would become a nation, and Rhyacia would be self-supporting in every conceivable way, but that hadn’t happened yet. While money was no object in designing their house (a fact that still felt foreign and exotic to Pia), intensive thought and effort had to go into planning every detail, since most of what they wanted and needed had to be shipped in. Massive cargo caravans transporting a wide variety of goods including shelf-stable and freeze-dried food, tents, eco-friendly prefab housing, and other building materials crossed over to the Other land daily.
In the meantime, Dragos had to follow through with his decision to abdicate as Lord of the Wyr in New York—a position he had held for hundreds of years. He had been intensely busy both with building plans for their new house and working with the sentinels in New York to facilitate a transfer of power to Rune, his former First sentinel, who would act as regent until Pia and Dragos’s oldest son Liam decided if he wanted to take over.
Because Dragos was often in New York, many of the household decisions Pia needed him to weigh in on had been made via FaceTime and text. Finally, after two months of intense activity, it was time to pack clothes and toiletries. They would leave for Rhyacia in two days.
Pia regarded the containers of blush, eyeshadow, mascara and lipstick she held in her hands. She wasn’t clear on how rough the living conditions would be in the new settlement. How likely was it that she would want to wear makeup any time soon?
But this move wasn’t exactly like they were traveling to another neighborhood with a strip mall located a few blocks away where she could buy anything she needed. If she didn’t take things now, she wouldn’t have access to anything like it again very easily.
Her gaze traveled to the nearby French doors, propped open to let in a warm afternoon breeze. Eva had taken Pia’s youngest son Niall outside to give her a break so she could get some serious packing done. While Niall was a helpless two-month-old baby in his human form, in his Wyr form he was hell on four hooves…. And he liked to stay in his Wyr form.
Eva had changed into her canine Wyr form as well. She chased Niall’s tiny streamlined bronze form across the freshly mown lawn. When Niall spun and lowered his equine head to point his horn at Eva, Pia laughed under her breath. That little boy loved to stab things. Eva barked at him, and he tore off in a different direction. Eva lunged in pursuit, and they disappeared from Pia’s line of sight.
She loved everything about the scene outside. Her disaster baby; her best friend. Every detail of the landscaping had been a choice she’d helped to make. When she had first met and mated with Dragos, she’d had to learn to love his penthouse in Cuelebre Tower—and she’d succeeded. She’d made a few changes, claimed the kitchen as her own, and lavished all her attention on decorating their first son Liam’s nursery.
This place was different. She and Dragos had chosen everything about it together. She had helped to create this home from the ground up, and she loved every inch of it.
Man, she was going to miss that KitchenAid mixer. Her chest constricted and the peaceful outdoor scene disappeared as her eyes flooded with moisture.
Firm footsteps sounded as Dragos walked up behind her. One massive hand came down to cover both of hers, makeup and all. He said in her ear, “Remember, we agreed. No plastic.”
“I know what we said, but… none at all?” she asked in dismay. She picked up a plastic container of antiperspirant. It was her favorite brand. She’d been using it for forever.
“None.” His tone was final. “We’re not going to create a trash or pollution problem in Rhyacia.”
Tilting one shoulder up, she sighed. “I don’t disagree.”
The heat from his tall, muscular body warming her back and legs eased some of the ache she was feeling. He buried his face in her neck and inhaled. His lips moved against her sensitive skin as he murmured, “Besides, I like the way you smell.”
Mmm, delicious. But she would not give into the temptation to go boneless against him. She still had too many items outstanding on her To-Do list. “Did you ever consider the reason why you might like the way I smell is because of my choice in toiletries?” She pulled out her container of mascara and brandished it in front of his eyes. “I’m so fair, I’m almost an albino. Where do you think my eyelashes come from?”
“I have seen you plenty of times without your makeup, and you’re gorgeous.” He ran his mouth along the line of her jaw. “Unless I miss my guess, you’re not wearing makeup right now.”
“What does that have to do with anything?” she demanded.
He paused, then said cautiously, “This is a female thing, isn’t it?”
To Dragos, the female experience was a vast continent filled with baffling mysteries and countless pitfalls, but at the moment she felt too sad to smile. Resting her cheek against the side of his head, she said, “Yes, this is a female thing.”
“Hm.” He scooped up her makeup and antiperspirant. “I’ll take these.”
“What?” she exclaimed. “Why? We haven’t left for Rhyacia yet.”
“You’ll see.” When she spun on her heel to confront him, he raised one sleek black eyebrow. His brutally handsome features were relaxed in an expression of subtle amusement. “That’s all for now. Carry on.”
Her mouth fell open to argue more, but he had already wheeled away and strode out of their bedroom suite.
“I was going to take a shower with some of that,” she muttered crankily. Then what he had said hit her. She shouted after him, “What do you mean I smell?”
His deep laughter floated up the stairs. A few moments later she heard the distant sound of the front door opening and closing.
“It’s not like any of that was special anyway.” She made a face at the empty doorway and whispered, “Because I’m just a New York girl who likes to shop at Target.”
Without the distraction of Dragos’s intense, vital presence, the ache welled up again. There was no one to watch or question what she did next. Burying her face in her hands, she let the tears come.
After that, time sped up and felt inexorable. Thoughts like, this is the second to last time I’ll be eating toast at this kitchen counter or that’s the last episode of The Bachelor I’ll be watching for a while kept floating through her mind, and she felt close to tears more often than not.
Late in the afternoon the next day, she walked around the corner of the downstairs hallway to find Dragos leaning one shoulder against the doorway to his office. He was dressed simply in a black T-shirt that stretched across his powerful broad chest and faded jeans that had seen better days, one booted foot kicked over the other. His arms were folded, the massive muscles in forearms and biceps delineated under the deep bronze skin.
He looked grim, but when he spoke, his voice was gentle. “When are you going to tell me what’s bothering you?”
She stopped in her tracks, feeling flat-footed. So much for thinking that she had kept her inner upheaval private. She opened and closed her mouth a couple of times before she could say, “I promise I will when I’ve figured out the right words to say.”
His hard, sexy mouth tightened. He didn’t like that—but then, he never liked anything that refused to give him whatever he wanted the moment he demanded it. “Tell me now. I don’t care if you use the wrong words.”
She gave him a wry look. “Only someone who hasn’t heard the wrong words could say that.” At the baffled frustration in his expression, she said more softly, by way of apology, “I thought I was doing a better job of hiding things.”
His frustration melted into anger. “You’re not supposed to hide anything from me,” he growled. Moving away from the doorway, he advanced on her, clamping both hands on her shoulders.
“I wasn’t intentionally hiding things from you,” she said as she looked up into his narrowed gold gaze. Anger sparked. “I’m not deceitful with you, ever. Period.”
The tension in his hands eased. “I know.”
Okay then. That was better.
“I’m working things out in my head,” she told him. “I get to do that, you know. I get to sort through my thoughts and feelings to figure out what I should say, what I want to say, and what is even true about what I’m feeling. And that means I need to understand what I’m feeling before I can talk about it.”
He scrutinized her features, then said grimly, “That sounds like a lot of bullshit and prevarication to me.”
“Does it?” She blinked, more taken aback than ever. “I don’t mean it that way. Dragos, we’ve only been together for a few years, and in that time we’ve gone through a lot of change. A lot. This move is more change, and it’s a whopper. We’re not wrong for deciding to go to Rhyacia, and we shouldn’t back out of the decision, but I also get to feel my feelings over it.” She looked around and felt her face crumple. “I love this house. This is our home, the one we built together. It doesn’t mean I won’t love our new home that we’re also building together. But I don’t love the new one yet.”
Understanding eased his expression. He pulled her into his arms. She rested her cheek against his chest and slid her arms around his waist. He murmured into her hair, “Are we moving too fast? Do you want to take a couple more weeks before we cross over? Or even another month or two?”
Relishing the hard muscle underneath the cotton of his shirt, she shook her head. “No, but thank you for suggesting it. I think I’ll feel better when we’re over there and having our adventure, instead of being here and constantly saying goodbye to everything. At this point, I think it’s just time for us to go.” Then, because she wanted to be scrupulous, she added carefully, “That may not be quite everything I want to say, but it’s the essence of what I’m working on. Since a lot of this was my suggestion, I feel like I should be handling things better than I am. When I figure out anything else that I need to talk about, I’ll tell you. Okay?”
“Fair enough.” His arms tightened before he let her go and stood back. “Come here. I have something for you.”
“You do?” Wiping her face, she followed him into his office, looking around. While Dragos had never been anything less than welcoming and she certainly stepped inside whenever she felt like it, this room was definitely his domain. His personality was stamped all over the elegant, masculine furnishings.
A carved box sat on his desk. Even as her curious gaze fell on it, he scooped it up with one hand and presented it to her.
She gave him a sidelong smile then focused her attention on the box itself. Designed in an art nouveau style, the craftmanship was beautiful. Peacocks and butterflies adorned the top and sides, inlaid with amethyst, blue calcite, labradorite, citrine, and other stones she was unfamiliar with. She held it closer to absorb the details of the intricate, delicate carving. “This is remarkable.”
“It’s a commissioned piece.” A hint of satisfaction entered his deep voice. “Nobody else has anything like this. The designs were created specifically for you. Open it.”
She did and found smalle
r carved pieces inside, each one a delight, the wood polished to a deep golden glow. A familiar scent escaped the box as she had opened it. Comprehension began to dawn.
Exclaiming in delight, she set down the bigger box to pick out one of the smaller pieces inside. It was round and cylindrical, with lapis lazuli inlaid in a swirling pattern like ocean waves. It was shaped remarkably like…
A tube of lipstick?
She pulled off the cap and experimentally tried to twist the base, then watched in disbelief as a fresh, unused piece of her favorite lipstick rose out of the thin golden wood tube.
“You didn’t,” she said.
“Didn’t I?” Smiling, he watched her explore the contents.
Carefully closing the lipstick again and setting it aside, she opened a slender box with a carved orchid on the top, inlaid with mother-of-pearl. Inside was a fresh palette of her favorite eye shadow, accompanied with a small, exquisite wooden application wand tipped with what looked like a small piece of natural sponge.
And then another box, this one with a seashell engraved on top and inlaid with abalone. Inside, she found her favorite blush, with a brush made of wood and sable. In an oval cylinder, inlaid with rose quartz, she found her favorite antiperspirant gel had been injected into the container. There wasn’t a piece of plastic in any of the toiletries in the box.
The thing about feeling your feelings: sometimes they were so huge and complex, you couldn’t figure out how to put words to them.
Lifting her gaze, she met his. Her voice wobbled slightly as she said, “You had someone create these incredible works of art for me, and you made them put makeup from Target in them?”
Beginning to look baffled again, he shrugged. “They’re your favorite, right?”
“Yes,” she whispered, stroking the gorgeous lipstick case.
“I had the artisan create copies of every piece,” he told her. “You can order more of anything, any time you’re ready for it, and he’ll ship a fresh box to you. When you’ve received it, you can send back the used one, and he’ll clean it up and refill it with new cosmetics.” One long finger hooked underneath her chin, and he tilted her face up. “Don’t you like it?”
