Blue Abyss: Timewalker Chronicles, Book 3 (The Timewalker Chronicles) Read Free

contained his identification, ship logs, and mission information, including the name the Dark One used on Earth. Thank the gods some unknown instinct had kept him from divulging that name to his evil twin. This copy of the ship’s data log documented the battle, his crash, the deaths of his men, and all of Ryu’s machinations for his people to see. Proof. Even if he didn’t make it, once his family retrieved the data, justice would be served and his men would be avenged. Raiden’s human king could seek the Queen’s justice, death by Angel’s Fire. His great nephew was not Immortal, but the human king on Itara held much political power. The Itarans, the true Immortals, numbered fewer than ten thousand. The human population neared a billion.
    If his king demanded justice, he would get it. The Queen would not want to deal with human riots or a war on her home world, not when the death of a single, half-blood traitor would stop it.
    Despite the bone-grinding pain of his left shoulder wound, he winced as the microbots that held the crystal together burrowed under the skin just behind his ear. They found his skull and attached themselves to the bone with microscopic drill hooks. No one was getting that data crystal off him without the proper codes, even if they removed his head. The bots could function for centuries, first off his body heat, then by breaking down his tissue. Decomposition would supply them with all the power they’d need.
    Done. He hid Gerrick’s precious soul stone in his quarters and then used the walls for support as he forced his legs to carry him to the stasis chamber. He’d thrown everything he had at the Triscani ship that attacked them in Earth’s low orbit, but the scaly bastards had taken them by surprise. He’d lost the battle and run the ship out of power during the fight. He had to shut everything down. Everything.
    He passed the healer’s room and swore an oath to avenge his men…even if he had to come back as a phantom to see it done.
    Raiden gritted his teeth and swallowed the rage and pain threatening to choke him. Emotion was a luxury he couldn’t afford right now. When Ryu was dead, when the Triscani sabotaging this planet were all dead, when he’d kept his promise to Gerrick and delivered the stone to the Dark One, then he would grieve. Until then, his friends would be the fire in his gut that kept him moving, that kept him alive, that kept him fighting.
    The empty bed in the stasis chamber looked cold, hard, and uninviting, but Raiden lay down with nothing but hope and his precious knives for company. He ordered the ship to shut down all systems but two, this chamber and the beacon. Someone would find him. They had to. He couldn’t afford to think otherwise.
    Yes, they’d find him. Then he’d be freed. He’d heal. He’d keep his vow to Gerrick, and he’d hunt the bastard betrayers down one by one.
    The clear cover lowered and sealed him inside with a popping noise. The beat of his heart slowed to a barely perceptible rhythm. Thoughts became like slow-moving slugs in his mind and cold numbness flooded his system. The injection ports tunneled beneath his collar bone to pump necessary chemicals and nutrients into his body as he slept, their normally sharp bite no more than a mild nuisance to his senses. The lights in the room outside his chamber flickered off. Raiden lay in complete darkness, fighting the pull of oblivion, knowing this might be his final moment, his final decision.
    Two Earthen years.
    Someone would find him…or he’d die.
    So be it.

Chapter One
    Present Day.
    Challenger Bank, Northern Tip of the Bermuda Triangle, fifty meters below the water’s surface…
    Something urged her on, called to her…something she couldn’t explain and had given up fighting. Lust? Love? A dark dream? A two-year double date with bat-shit crazy and stone-cold obsession?
    Did it matter anymore, what she called him? She didn’t know his name. Might never know his name.
    Marina