by I. T. Lucas
The impossible implications finally sank in. “Are pure-bloods gods?”
“Maybe. I don’t know what you mean by gods. Are they just the original immortals? What’s the difference between them and the half-breeds they created with humans?”
“The gods were a race of very powerful beings. Aside from immortality, they could manipulate human minds to a much greater extent than we can, and they had complete control over them.”
“What can the immortals do? And how are they different from their ancestors?”
“Gods could affect the minds of thousands of humans at once, and they could also manipulate the minds of immortals. Most immortals can enter the mind of just one human at a time, and they can’t do that to other immortals. What powers do your pure-bloods possess?”
Instead of answering, Emmett turned the engine on and eased out of the parking lot. “Let me see if I understood what you’ve told me. If you father a child with a human, that child doesn’t possess godly genes and can’t be turned into an immortal. Correct?”
“Yes.”
“But if Eleanor has a child with a human, her child will have the godly genes and at puberty will turn immortal. Correct?”
That wasn’t true for the girls who turned immortal as toddlers, but Peter didn’t want to mention Annani and her sanctuary. Focusing his thoughts just on the boys, he nodded.
“What about Eleanor? She wasn’t born into your tribe. How did you find her? And how did you know that she was a Dormant?”
“She worked for the government. Her job was to recruit people with paranormal talents into a special program.”
52
Bowen
“All done.” Shirley leaned back. “Poor Margaret. She’s fallen asleep.”
Forgetting the helmet was in the way, Bowen reached with his hand to run it over the back of his neck. “That’s good, right?”
“It’s the morphine.” Shirley eyed him quizzically as she pulled another vial out of her bag. “Your paramedic should have them, but if he doesn’t come back by the time the shot I gave her tapers off, you can give her this.”
Apparently firefighters had medical training, and his ignorance was making Shirley suspicious. He needed to get out of there.
“I need to go back. Can you stay here with her?”
She glanced in the direction of the idle fire engine. “How are they going to put the fire out, spit on it?”
He chuckled. “We practice spitting every day. There is another fire engine with more firefighters at the back of the property.”
“Oh.” She closed her bag. “I might be needed elsewhere. Perhaps there are more injuries.”
Reaching into her head, he thralled her to forget that he hadn’t known what to do and to think that everything was taken care of and she needed to stay with Margaret.
The nurse blinked a couple of times before shaking her head. “On second thought, I’ll stay here.”
“Thank you. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
Taking one more look at Margaret, Bowen took off. When her face wasn’t contorted in pain, she was indeed quite pretty, but Anastasia was right about her being too thin. He didn’t know much about human physiology, but perhaps her bones were brittle because she was malnourished.
She also looked familiar, but that was probably because he had created a mental picture of her from Anastasia’s description. Except, he had done her a disservice. She was much more attractive in person, even when in pain and barely coherent.
Then again, he had a soft spot for damsels in distress, and Margaret was the definition of one, and not only because of the injury she’d suffered. She was fragile, maybe even a little broken, and she needed someone strong to protect her, take care of her, feed her.
Bowen chuckled to himself. He was well aware of what his friends called his savior complex. Except, he didn’t think of it as a complex, which implied something negative, he thought of it as a virtue. There was nothing wrong with wanting to take care of fragile females, provided that they needed and wanted his care. He’d never made a pest of himself, and he never would.
So what if he was attracted to those who needed a strong man to lean on? What was wrong with that? He was strong, and he was generous, and there were enough women out there who appreciated that.
To each his or her own.
Taping on his earpiece, he activated it. “Was Peter found?”
“No,” Magnus answered. “We have to assume that he was taken as well. We are at the leader’s cottage, ready to blast our way in.”
“I’m on my way.”
Going through the deserted lodge, he headed for the office wing. They had all gone over the place’s layout during the one-hour flight. William had pulled out the original building plans, which had been digitized at some point and uploaded into the county’s records.
The doors had been left open, and he encountered no humans. Was that Yamanu’s work? After creating the illusion of explosions and fires, he could have easily controlled the minds of all the human inhabitants of Safe Haven, and thralled them to stay out on the front lawn.
Finding Emmett’s office with no difficulty, Bowen opened the back door and stepped out into the leader’s private yard.
“Where is everyone?” he asked Elliot, who was standing next to the cottage’s front door.
“They are in the living room. Magnus was waiting for you to get here before detonating the explosives.”
“I’m going in.”
With Robbie handling the humans up front, Yamanu on the illusions, and Elliot standing guard outside the cottage, only he, Magnus, and Jay were left to take down the cult leader and whoever he had with him.
They didn’t know what waited for them in the basement. Emmett could be holding Eleanor by the throat and pointing a gun at her head. He could also have with him several sycophants holding machine guns.
They were all wearing Kevlar vests under their firefighters' getups, and the helmets provided some protection as well, but their faces were exposed, and a bullet through the eye could be deadly even to an immortal.
As he entered the room, Magnus nodded at him. “Ready?”
“Blow it.”
Magnus lifted the detonator and pressed the button.
53
Peter
Emmett didn’t interrupt Peter as he told him an abbreviated version of Eleanor’s story, waiting until the end to ask his questions.
“You said that Greggory, the fellow who activated her dormant genes, belongs to a different group of immortals that Eleanor was spying on.”
“He does.”
“Where did you find those other immortals?”
“In the Bay Area.” Peter decided to elaborate in his own way, so Emmett wouldn’t ask him questions that he didn’t want to answer. “We were given a tip, and since the head of their community and ours are cousins, they negotiated a treaty. Together we are stronger than apart.”
“Does Greggory belong to Eleanor now? Or does he still belong to his former mistress?”
Was he asking about a previous lover?
“What do you mean by a former mistress?”
“The head of his tribe. The one who is related to your leader.”
Peter hadn’t mentioned Kalugal or Kian by name, only referring to them as leaders, and Emmett had apparently assumed that Greggory’s leader was a woman.
“The boss is a dude. And yes, Greggory still answers to him, but he is in a relationship with Eleanor. One does not negate the other.”
“I see.” Emmett nodded. “Your society is patriarchal, which makes sense. Since your males have fangs and the females don’t, and there is no gender disparity, you govern yourselves like the humans.”
“We are not a patriarchy. The head of our clan is a female.”
Emmett cast him a sidelong glance. “So it is a matriarchy.”
“It’s not that either. Our leaders are chosen based on their ability, not their gender.” It wasn’t a lie, but it wasn’t the en
tire truth either.
Annani’s children ruled the clan, so it was kind of a monarchy, but they were also the most capable. Apparently, Emmett’s compulsion lost some of its potency with time, and Peter was finding himself able to jump through loopholes again.
“My people are matriarchal out of necessity,” Emmett said. “For every four males, only one female is born.”
Peter was stunned that Emmett had volunteered the information without him having to ask. “How does that work? Does each female have four mates?”
“We don’t have family units like humans. We are a tribe, and the females choose who they want to breed with.”
Peter chuckled. “Now I understand where your free love and no relationships idea came from. You based it on your original society.”
“With one big difference.” Emmett smiled. “I was the ultimate ruler, and I chose the females. Not the other way around.” His smile faltered. “I had a sweet arrangement, with females worshiping me and fighting for the privilege of sharing my bed. You and Eleanor ruined it for me.”
“How old are you, Emmett?” Peter asked to change the subject, not really expecting an answer.
“I’m seventy-eight. How old are you?”
That was very young for an immortal.
“Older than you, which surprises me because I thought that you were much older. I’m one hundred and eighty-three. But that is still considered young in immortal terms.”
“How long do your people live on average?”
Peter shrugged. “Unless we are killed, we can live indefinitely. What about you?”
“I don’t know. The pure-bloods can live for a very long time, maybe for a thousand years or more, but no one knows how long the half-breeds will live. Since we are half-human, I think that it’s probably going to be half of that.” He slanted a glance at Peter. “By your own admission, your blood is very diluted. Are you sure that you are going to live forever?”
“Maybe not. You raised a valid point.”
The oldest immortal was Wonder, but she had spent most of that time frozen in stasis, and she was also quite pure-blooded compared to him. Alena was next, at over two thousand years old, but she was Annani’s direct descendant and therefore as pure-blooded as an immortal got. What if the rest of them were not going to live that long? Should he worry?
Wouldn’t Bridget or Merlin know?
But what if they knew and weren’t sharing?
“We are similar, but not the same,” Emmett said. “We must have shared ancestors, though. Except, yours arrived thousands of years ago, and mine only recently.”
Peter’s curiosity ratcheted into the stratosphere. “Where from?”
“I have no idea. Do you?”
“I don’t, but you should. You are first-generation, and your father is a pure-blood, which means that he is an original settler. He must know where he came from.”
Emmett shook his head. “The pure-bloods keep to themselves, and they don’t share information with us. We are considered lesser beings.”
“Ouch. That’s harsh.”
“What about you? Are you given the same status as the pure-bloods or even the first-generation immortals?”
“Not really.”
“That’s what I thought.” Emmett turned to look at the road stretching ahead of them.
The first-generation immortals were Annani’s children, and they were the clan royalty. But then Annani was the only so-called pure-blood and the founder of the clan, so it made sense that she was its head and that her children ruled it for her. Also, Kian and Sari did not act like monarchs. Every major decision had to be approved by the entire clan, some with a majority vote, and some with a unanimous vote.
They also didn’t keep secrets from the rest of the clan.
Or did they?
54
Eleanor
Eleanor’s growling stomach was the only indicator that long hours had passed since Emmett had taken Peter. After he’d bitten her again, she had blacked out, and after waking up, she’d immediately gone to the bathroom and called Peter’s name, but as she had expected there had been no response.
Emmett had taken Peter, and he had left her locked in the room with no food. At least she could drink water from the faucet.
He was unhinged, but he didn’t strike her as a cruel man. Emmett wouldn’t have wanted her to starve to death. If he left her like that, he must have expected her to be rescued soon.
The foot she’d hurt while trying to break the door no longer hurt, and she contemplated giving it another try. Then again, only fools kept repeating the same mistakes while expecting different results.
Sitting on the bed, she glared at the door. Perhaps if she stared at it long enough, she would bore a hole through it with her eyes. Regrettably, her only superpower was compulsion, and the door couldn’t care less.
When an explosion shook the bed, Eleanor jumped up and rushed to the door.
The cavalry had arrived.
“I’m in here!” She banged on it. “Can you hear me?”
A moment later, she heard the rush of footsteps, and then someone banged on the other side of the door. “Eleanor? Are you in there?”
Magnus’s voice had never sounded sweeter to her. “Yes. Emmett took Peter and ran off.”
“Stand back. I’m going to kick it down.”
“Yes, sir!” She rushed to the back of the room.
The door burst open, and Magnus came in. “Are you okay?”
“Yes. Emmett took Peter. You need to go after him.”
“When did he leave?”
She shook her head. “Hours ago. I tried to convince him to take me instead, but he wanted Peter because he could compel him to cooperate, and he wanted to learn about us. You have to catch him.” She followed Magnus out of the room.
The other doors were all open, and then Bowen and Jay walked out of one of the bedrooms.
“There is no one here.” Bowen took his earpiece out. “I guess we no longer need these.”
“Emmett took Peter,” Magnus said.
“We heard.” Bowen looked at her. “Tell us what happened.”
She swallowed, not really wanting to tell them about the biting, but she had no choice. “Emmett is an immortal, but he’s different than us. He bit me, and he sucked my blood, but I don’t know if it’s a fetish or something that’s part of his culture. Anyway, he’s stronger than any immortal I ever sparred with, and I couldn’t fight him off or pry his hands off me. He didn’t know that there were other immortals out there. I tried to give him evasive answers, but he will get Peter to tell him everything he wants to know. You have to catch him.”
“We will.” Magnus motioned for them to follow him out. “We need to find out the make and model of the vehicle he used, and if we can get the license plate number, it would be even better. Do you know who might have that information?”
She pushed nervous fingers through her messy hair. “I know a guy that works in the office, but any of the members should know who is in charge in Emmett’s absence. They are easy to spot. Everyone who wears white and pastels.”
As they headed up the stairs, Magnus wrapped his arm around her shoulders. “Are you really okay?” he asked quietly.
“Emmett didn’t rape me if that’s what you are asking, but he bit me without my permission.” The first time. The second time she’d been shamefully all for it.
“That’s bad, but I don’t have to kill him for it. Our males do it all the time.”
“Yeah, but they do that after they get consent for sex. He went straight for my neck. No preamble.”
It wasn’t entirely true, but she wasn’t going to admit to her inappropriate attraction to the guy. Besides, he might have been throwing off some alien pheromones that had messed with her hormones.
“Then I should kill him.”
She sighed. “Thank you, but you shouldn’t. Emmett was under the impression that I wanted to have sex with him. I asked for an audience, and it was very clear to e
veryone involved what that was about. I also implied my interest when we talked. I didn’t plan on going through with it, but I was faking it to find out what he did to the women.”
“You shouldn’t have done it.” Magnus squeezed her shoulder. “I’m just glad that you weren’t harmed.”
“Because of me, he has Peter.”
“Did you tell Emmett about him?”
She narrowed her eyes at Magnus. “How can you even think that? Of course not. Peter decided to play the hero and rescue me.”
“He was instructed to wait for backup, and he didn’t. This is on him, not you.”
When they stepped outside the cottage, Eleanor crossed her arms over her chest. It was cold, and she only had a thin sweater on. “Where is everyone?”
“Yamanu created an illusion of fire. We had everyone evacuated to the front lawn.”
That explained the firefighters' outfits.
She waved a hand over Magnus’s getup. “Turner arranged for this?”
“Who else? We got on the plane less than an hour after Peter called, and when we landed a couple of hours later, a fire engine and an ambulance were waiting for us at the airport.”
“The guy is unbelievable.”
“Indeed.”
55
Peter
As Emmett pulled into a Starbucks parking lot, Peter’s sour mood got a little boost of positivity. “A venti cappuccino is just what the doctor ordered.”
Emmett’s remarks were getting to him, making him reexamine his beliefs about the way the clan governed itself. Peter had never given much thought to the fact that Annani’s children were the clan’s aristocracy, and he had taken their leadership as a given.
At least no distinction was made between members of subsequent generations. A second-generation immortal was treated the same as a fortieth-generation one like himself.
Emmett didn’t look amused as he turned to him. “Don’t move, don’t talk, and don’t look at anyone other than me.”