by I. T. Lucas
“What about Julian?”
Syssi shook her head. “He’s too young and inexperienced. I don’t know about you, but as much as I like the guy, I wouldn’t entrust something like this to the hands of a doctor who didn’t even finish his internship.” Not to mention that she would feel very awkward with the handsome young doctor who looked a lot like her husband.
Kian raked his fingers through his hair. “So what are you suggesting? I assume that you have a plan.”
“Not really. I’m willing to be the first test subject and start taking fertility drugs. Maybe that would be enough, and no further research would be needed. If that doesn’t work, we can try in vitro fertilization. That should work for sure.”
As she’d expected, Kian didn’t like her idea at all. “No way. You’re not subjecting yourself to anything before it’s thoroughly researched. Are you out of your mind? What if the drugs cause irreversible damage and you wouldn’t be able to conceive at all?”
A shiver ran down Syssi’s spine. Was that even possible? The truth was that she didn’t know enough. No one did. Immortal bodies functioned differently, and until research was done on them, it wouldn’t be prudent to take risks. It was like taking shots in the dark and hoping no one would get hurt.
“Then what do we do? Just wait?”
“Why not? Let nature do her thing.”
Syssi pulled her hand out of Kian’s and crossed her arms over her chest. “I don’t want to wait. And it’s not only because I’m impatient for a child. If the clan is to survive, it needs to grow at a faster pace.”
That was the backup argument she’d prepared in case Kian wasn’t willing to risk her health. As a leader, this was a consideration he couldn’t dismiss out of hand.
But her husband wasn’t a fool. Wagging a finger at her, he smirked. “Good one, Syssi. How long did it take you to come up with this argument?”
She lifted her chin. “Not long. It crosses my mind every time I walk by that empty playground.”
That had gotten rid of the smirk pretty quick. “As I see it, we have two options. One is do nothing and let nature take her course like we’ve always done. The second one is to start serious research. But since Bridget is busy with running our humanitarian undertaking and Julian is not experienced enough, we need someone else to do it.”
“Like who?”
“We have two more medical doctors in the other clan locations. Merlin in Scotland and Rebecca in Alaska.”
“Merlin? Like in Arthurian Merlin?”
Kian chuckled. “No, he is not the legendary one. His mom liked the name.”
“I can just imagine how much he got teased about it.”
“He did. But instead of getting annoyed, he grew a long beard.”
“That’s funny. Is he any good?”
Kian shrugged. “He is older than Bridget, but just like her he stays on top of the most recent developments in the medical field.”
“What about Rebecca?”
“Rebecca was a nurse for a long time before becoming a doctor. She has a lot of experience both with humans and immortals. Either one of them is capable of doing the research. The question is which one would agree to actually do it. That’s a major undertaking. I’ll make the calls tomorrow.”
Was he the best or what? As always, all she had to do was ask, and Kian would jump through hoops to fulfill her every wish.
Syssi got up, sat in Kian’s lap, and wrapped her arms around his neck. “I love you to pieces. Thank you for being you.”
He arched a brow. “Meaning?”
“Meaning that I can always count on you to do your best to get me what I want. Even when you’re not too enthusiastic about it.”
“You don’t ask for much. So when you do, I’m glad for the opportunity to finally give you something.”
Syssi chuckled. “Poor baby. I know I’m a problematic wife. I don’t like expensive gifts or fancy clothes. But I think this research is going to compensate for all of that. It’s going to be costly. I would assume that a lot of expensive equipment is needed. Can we even afford it? I know that money is tight.”
“Don’t worry about it. We’ll find the funds for that.”
Syssi lowered her eyes. “We can sell the jewelry you bought for me. I think that alone could fund the research.”
“Not going to happen.”
“Why? You said it was an investment, and that we could sell it if we needed the money.”
“I meant in case of an emergency, and funding research doesn’t qualify as such.”
“But…”
Kian put a finger on her lips to shush her. “This is not up for discussion.”
Syssi swallowed the rest of her argument. As it was, she’d already achieved more than she’d expected. A smart woman knew when to quit.
“Okay.”
41
Kian
“That’s it?” Kian frowned. “No more arguments? That was way too easy.”
Syssi leaned up and kissed him lightly on the lips. “You married a very sensible woman. I’m always willing to compromise. Besides, you’re right. The jewels should be saved for a real emergency. A last resort kind of thing.”
“I’m indeed a lucky man.” He pushed up to his feet with his treasure in his arms. “How about we give making a baby the natural way another try?”
Syssi chuckled. “We’ve been giving it a twice and thrice and sometimes more tries a day for a long time.”
He kissed her nose and kept walking. “True, but you see, it’s not entirely up to us. The Fates decide the right time for adding that special life-giving spark, and we can never know when that is.”
“You and your Fates. They are just a trio of capricious ladies.”
Kian sat on the bed and hugged Syssi closer to him. “Whenever I mention the Fates, I have the same image pop into my head.”
“What is it?”
“Do you remember when you took me to the retirement home? You were supposed to read to your nana’s friends.”
“How can I forget. The nasty old crones had me read a racy romance novel in front of you and Brundar. I almost died from embarrassment even though you saved me and did the reading for me. Just listening to you read it was mortifying.”
“Yeah. I remember you turning redder than a beet. But I also remember falling a little more for you in that room.”
“Why?” She narrowed her eyes at him. “Do you like seeing me squirm?”
“That too.” He kissed her forehead. “You look adorable when you blush. But I also liked that you kept on listening despite how uncomfortable it made you, and that you didn’t try to stop me. You’re not a quitter. That is one of the many things that I love about you.”
His compliments seemed to mollify Syssi. “And I love that you notice every little thing about me and find a reason to love it.” She put her head on his chest.
He breathed easier when she did that. The closeness, the trust, it was like a soothing balm on his frayed nerves. “Anyway, in my mind, these three old ladies helped us get closer, and when I think of the Fates, their smug wrinkled faces pop into my head. I remember thinking that they looked as if they’d won a bet or something.”
“Yeah, me too. But I thought they were so smug because they got you to read aloud that incredibly embarrassing book.”
Kian waggled his brows. “A very arousing story about vampires if I remember correctly. It got you all hot and bothered.”
“Oh, shit.” Syssi slapped her forehead. “You smelled my arousal, didn’t you?”
“Yep.”
“No wonder you looked just as smug as them.”
“I was in no better state. They got us both exactly where they wanted us.”
Syssi’s brows dipped in a frown. “Hmm, maybe you’re on to something. Not long after that most memorable visit, the three of them moved to Florida. The pretext was finding a retirement home closer to Leonora’s granddaughter. But when I tried to contact them at the place they’d mentioned, no one ha
d heard of them. I thought that maybe I didn’t remember the name right, and I called a bunch of others with similar names, but they weren’t there either.”
“There you go.” He waved a hand. “A mystery.”
Syssi smirked. “If they are indeed the three fabled Fates in disguise, maybe I should resume the search, find them, and ask them to give us a baby.”
“Or we can give the natural way another try.”
“We can do both.”
“Always the voice of reason. Tomorrow, I’ll contact Turner and ask him to look for your missing ladies. But right now, I want to make love to my wife.”
She scrunched her nose. “Maybe you shouldn’t.”
“Make love to my wife?”
“No, have Turner look for them. What if one of them died? They were so old. So it’s not a remote possibility. I’d rather not know.”
“As you wish. When you decide you want to find them, tell me, and I’ll ask Turner to do his thing.”
“Okay.”
He loved that word coming out of her luscious lips. Usually, it meant that fun times in bed were about to start.
“How about you get naked and put on that jewelry we were talking about?”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “I would rather you undress me first and then put those jewels on me yourself.”
That was even better. “I like the way you think.”
42
Ruth
Phone clutched in her hand, Ruth sat on the couch and waited for Nick’s call. It had been three days since he’d left for Rio, and she was missing him something fierce.
He called her twice a day every day, once in the morning before leaving his hotel room, and once at night when he returned. The problem was that unless he stayed up late to call her, they couldn’t talk long because of the four-hour difference between Rio and Los Angeles. Ruth’s workday ended at seven in the evening, and she usually got home half an hour later, which meant that Nick had to wait until twelve-thirty at night Rio time to call her at home.
It was seven forty-two.
Did something happen to make him late? Or had he simply fallen asleep?
Should she call him instead of waiting for his call?
Before leaving, Nick had told her that while working he left his personal phone at the hotel. In case Ruth needed to get in touch with him urgently, she was to call Eva. He wasn’t allowed to give out his work number to anyone other than his team members, but his boss could reach him in case of an emergency.
Ruth glanced at the phone for the hundredth time, then shook her head and put it down on the coffee table. She was being silly, getting all worked up over a twelve-minute delay.
Instead of acting like the mature partner in their relationship, she was turning into a lovesick teenager who couldn’t live without her boyfriend for more than a day.
Was it Nick’s influence? Was his youth rubbing off on her?
Ruth smiled.
In some ways, Nick acted even younger than his twenty-two years, and in some ways, he acted way older.
She loved the polarity.
His youthful exuberance was contagious. Ruth couldn’t remember ever being as happy as she was with Nick. Not only was he sharing with her his innocence and the discovery of all the wonders of intimacy, but he was also giving her a second chance at a complete do-over of her own messed-up youth.
Despite Nick being just as socially inept as her, he didn’t feel awkward around people or shy away from them. His attitude was basically; so what?
And how liberating was that?
He’d shown her that it was possible to have a full life, despite what she considered a disability.
Ruth wasn’t there yet, but she was working on adopting Nick’s attitude. She was finding out that it was okay to be around people and not say much, or anything at all. Most people were forgiving and accepting of her and her limitations.
And those who weren’t?
Screw them, as Nick loved to say. Judgmental assholes weren’t worth an iota of her mental energy.
In Ruth’s opinion, that attitude of ‘so what’ was very grown up. In fact, most humans didn’t achieve that wisdom until old age. On top of that, Nick’s maturity was evident in how hard-working and responsible he was.
He was also highly intelligent.
Unlike many others of his generation, Nick wasn’t a follower. He formed his opinions after researching the facts instead of parroting meaningless slogans. Just because everyone else around him accepted something one idiot or another had spewed as immutable truths, didn’t mean that they were.
Maybe it was the flip side of social ineptitude. Followers weren’t contrary, they didn’t voice opposing views, they said amen, and by doing so became part of the herd instead of looking on from the sidelines.
If this was indeed so, Ruth was grateful for her nonconformity. She’d rather be true to herself and retain her independent thinking than sacrifice it in order to belong. Not that this was the only way one could do that. She knew enough people who could combine independent thinking with easy socializing, but that required skills neither she nor Nick had.
When her phone finally rang, it was seven fifty-five.
“Hi, Nick. Did you fall asleep?”
“No, I was reading on the crapper and lost track of time.”
Ruth laughed. “T.M.I., I could’ve done without that mental image. What were you reading?”
“A book about the plasticity of the mind. Did you know that the number of connections in our brains can double in just one hour of repeated stimulation?”
“No, I didn’t. What does it mean?”
“It means that the brain rewires itself according to its activity in real time. What you think about the most is what it creates more neural pathways for, and therefore what it becomes better at. So if you spend your entire day solving math problems, your brain becomes more adept at math, and if you spend the entire day thinking about me, you become horny.”
That was Nick to a tee. Perhaps other women would have found his comment crass, or immature, but Ruth found it not only funny but also true.
“I was thinking about you the entire day, and I have to admit that I was somewhat perturbed.”
“Perturbed? That doesn't sound sexy.”
Smirking, Ruth switched the phone to her other ear. “How about hot and bothered?”
“That’s better. Where are you now?”
“On the couch in the living room.”
“Are you comfortable getting naked there?”
“I’ve done it before.”
“True, but that was while Mr. Big Schlong and I were distracting you.
Ruth laughed. “Would you stop calling him that?”
“What do you want me to call him?”
“The Professor.”
“Fine. But I don’t want to talk about him. I want to talk about you in the nude.”
“Oh, yeah? And what exactly should I be doing in the nude?”
“Get naked, and I’ll tell you.”
This should be interesting. But he was right about her not being comfortable doing so in the middle of her living room. It wouldn’t feel private even if she closed all the drapes and locked the door.
“Give me a moment, I’m going to my bedroom.”
Ruth regretted the choice of words as soon as she’d said them. It should have been their bedroom, not hers. But there was one huge obstacle to her asking Nick to move in with her.
He was a human, and she was an immortal.
Ever since she started working at the café, Ruth had become quite adept at hiding her immortal tells, and she was confident in her ability to hide them from Nick. But what happened if he wasn’t a Dormant? How the hell was she going to erase herself from his memories?
What if he were an immune?
She would have to disappear, which meant giving up her house, moving into the village, and managing the café over there.
But none of that would be as difficult as trying to f
orget Nick. How would she go on without him?
Oh, dear merciful Fates!
This was it. This was the certainty she’d been looking for.
Nick was her one.
If she had doubts before they were all gone now.
“Ruthie? Are you there?”
“Yeah, I’m here. I zoned out for a moment. Give me another minute.”
“No problem. Just so you know, I'm naked in bed, and my schlong is pointing at the ceiling just from imagining you getting undressed. Can you narrate while you do it?”
It might be a bit embarrassing, but describing her striptease might divert her thoughts from her newfound revelations and put her in the right mood for their nightly naughty phone time.
“I’m putting you on speaker.”
“Are you sure about that? What if anyone overhears us?”
Ruth smiled. “So what?”
“That’s my girl.”
43
Anandur
As Anandur took his seat in the war room, also known as Kian’s office in the underground, he was all hyped up about the opportunity to kick some Doomers’ asses. Tonight's mission was exactly the type of distraction he needed.
Hopefully, the lack of sleep wasn’t going to affect his alertness.
After the double explosions Wonder had detonated under his feet last night, he’d spent the rest of it seething with anger and punching his pillow into submission.
The thing hadn’t survived, and the first thing he had done this morning was to order a new one. Tiny feathers were still floating all around his bedroom because he hadn’t had time to vacuum the suckers.
“What’s with you?” Brundar asked as he sat next to him. “Your frown could give Bhathian’s a run for its money.”
“I had a fight with my pillow last night.”
Brundar lifted a brow. “Who won?”
“The pillow lost. Services are being held tomorrow after we come back from the mission.”
“My condolences.” Brundar dipped his head.
Since Callie, Brundar was developing a sense of humor, which was absolutely awesome. Finally, after centuries of trying to get a rise out of his brother, Brundar was picking up the banter Anandur was throwing his way.