Chapter 37

The banging on her door aroused Catia.

Groggily she got up off the cold floor and made her way to the door. She wasn’t sure how long she had lain there but suspected it had been for several hours as she was chilled.

“What is wrong?” she asked as the door opened to let in a near-hysterical Hadi.

“Catia, they are gone. All of the boxes are gone. We don’t know when they disappeared, but one of the mages said the cavern was empty when she walked past. Boyd is going to be so upset. What are we going to do?” she wailed.

Catia ignored her flapping friend as she made her way to her chair and sat down gingerly. Her head still throbbed in pain. She put her elbows on the desk and her head in her hands.

After a few moments, Catia looked up and said, “He has them. He took them all because he worked out what we had planned.”

“Oh, dear!” Hadi expelled as she plopped into the other chair with a pensive look as her body sagged.

Reviving, she said quickly, “Is he really angry at us? I thought we explained, and he was happy with the new plan. I prefer the new plan. I didn’t really like the idea of slaves. That is so tacky, and I thought we had progressed beyond that sort of nonsense as a people.”

Catia looked at her oldest friend and complained, “You spent too much time with him. He is rubbing off on you.”

Hadi rubbed her belly and giggled. “No, he rubbed all of me. It was so good, and he is a very interesting and thorough lover. I carry his child,” she beamed.

“Oh, my goodness, you are as bad as Julia and Julius. They think the sun shines out of that bastard’s arse too,” Catia grouched.

She then rubbed her head when a spike of pain shot through it. She had to take several deep breaths to get control of herself. Her entity was not pleased with her at all.

Hadi frowned at her friend, “So why are you mad at Boyd? I can only guess something bad happened for him to take the others away from us.”

“Yes, Patrina’s family fucked up. He has also been to visit Adelia. You know how she hates me. Plus, he has now taken all of the other wizard’s boxes.”

“Oh, OH! ALL?” Hadi voice going up an octave as she said each word.

“Yes. And I now believe that he can claim the big one. He will be my new boss, not my apprentice.”

Hadi started giggling and hugging herself in glee. She hiccupped, snorted and giggled some more before finally getting control of herself.

“That is just priceless,” Hadi said and giggled again. “Therians being ruled by an all-male Wizard King, priceless!”

“Laugh it up. Just imagine how the Queen and the Senate and the other nobles will react when they find out. And it gets worse, he talked with Adelia, so you know what that means.”

Hadi thought about that the implications and then said with amazement, “She made him her heir. So, he has control of a town with an impenetrable shield to take his people to. Oh my, that will piss off lots of people.”

“Then the big-hearted bastard tells me he can fix us,” Catia grumbled.

Hadi sat up, “He can? He will be a King and very powerful. I’ve read a lot about what a Queen Wizard can do, but I didn’t think they could do something like that.”

“He wants all of the magical people to meet in the crystal cavern in a week at midday. He is going to use us and the crystals to do the spell to change us.”

“Well, just tell the Queen that we have come up with a better solution and get those people here.”

“Hadi, it won’t work. You know what happened when I tried to do it to Daniel. He is stuck as a male and is now infertile.”

“Yes, but you are not a King, and you are underestimating Boyd. If he says it can be done, then it can,” Hadi said with complete conviction.

Catia rubbed her temples, “Do what you must, Hadi. I have a splitting headache and need to go and lie down.”

Hadi looked at her friend with speculation. Her friend was brilliant, but she could suffer from tunnel vision and narrow-mindedness at times. She didn’t handle things going wrong or against her decisions very well.

Hadi was well aware that Catia was a product of her upbringing and even looked down on her at times. Her family was very different to Catia’s. Her mother was a more live and let live personality.

Catia’s mother had been a right bitch. She had ruled as Queen for near on fifty years before her death. It always surprised Hadi that Catia had even befriended her at times.

Hadi knew that Catia was in for some rough times unless she adjusted her attitude. Maybe she just needed Boyd to screw her. Hadi didn’t regret one minute that she had spent with him. It even ticked her that she was carrying a child of a Wizard King.

Hadi quietly left the room, shutting the door behind her.

Boyd had blinked back to the workroom under Adelia’s house after he left Catia.

He opened the large sack he had made from his toga using magic. He then placed the magical boxes on a bench. He chuckled as he did because he loved using the dimensional storage spaces.

He now had to work out how to get the stasis boxes here. He wondered if he could put them all into a bigger box. After all, the box only provided the shell to contain and access to the dimensional space.

He then worried about what would happen to the people if they were inside two stasis fields. What happened if you opened a box with a field while inside another dimensional space.

He needed to know before he collected the containers. He let out his senses and detected a mouse in the next cavern. Using his magic to move quietly, he sneaked into the cavern and stunned the mouse.

Back in the workroom, he searched in a drawer and found a small pencil style box with a sliding lid. He doubled the space inside of it and then put the mouse in it. He checked the mouse was okay and grinned as it squeaked and wobbled around inside the new space.