by Rena Marks
And no one but Alannah noticed anything wrong.
As soon as they entered the building, her mother turned to her. “This is your sisters’ turn to shine. Don’t play the victim and make it all about you.”
Make it all about her? Despite the fact she was trapped here to avoid a hit on her life? Despite everything she’d agreed to please her mother, despite never being able to?
Something must have showed on her face because her mother leaned in with narrowed eyes. “You will announce tonight that you wish to return to Lord Wilson now that this little misunderstanding is cleared up. He’ll be able to get you a lawyer to clear up the drug charges. Because if you don’t, I’ll be forced to mend the relationship by announcing he and Ana have fallen in love after she soothed him during your betrayal.”
“Ana? Why would you do that? She’s too soft to deal with him and his mother.”
“Please.” Her mother clucked her tongue. “Ana’s certainly used to strong mothers.”
“You don’t understand. His mother is evil. She’ll hate her daughter-in-law.” Alannah had known this and had no qualms about it.
“No. Lady Nolan just hated you.” Her mother swept from the car, leaving her to follow. Alannah followed her inside, standing a half step behind her as she swirled into the party like the belle of the ball.
For some reason, her mother wanted to force her to return to Iota Nine. She was even willing to throw Ana to the mercy of the Nolan family. But was she bluffing? Surely she wouldn’t subject one of her own favorite daughters to the wretched family. She must be trying to make Alannah feel guilty.
Her mother made a big production of heading toward a wall that housed chairs, plopping down to prove she had no intentions of enjoying the party. Alannah joined her sisters and Vien and Potierre. She tried to have fun, but her mood was more somber that it had been before the confrontation with mother.
Less than an hour later, her mother was beginning to frown impatiently already. If she wore a wristwatch, she’d be looking at it every few minutes. She sat back against the wall, away from the ongoing crowd of Xeno Sapiens who’d just wanted to introduce themselves to her sisters and talk for a few minutes. Vien and Potierre surrounded the three of them protectively, as if they were chaperones instead of sponsors. It was adorable, really. If only Kieran were here instead of mother, it would be perfect.
From her position, her mother glared. Alannah was sure she was escalating because she hadn’t stopped the party to announce she would be returning with the others at the end of the festivity.
From across the way, Dr. Robyn zeroed in on her mother sitting alone. She strode that way.
“My lady,” Robyn said clearly, taking a seat along the wall next to their mother. “Your daughters are magnificent. You must be proud to have such beautiful offspring.”
Alannah thought so, too. She’d come to grips with her hair and eye color now. Robyn and Amanda had been right. It wasn’t as atrocious as she’d been conditioned to believe. And though Ana and Danielle had flinched that first day, it was just earlier that Danielle had her finger curling into a lock as they were talking.
“Yes, thank you. But then again, Danielle and Ana could wear a sack and their impeccable bloodlines would still show through.” Her mother’s voice rang deliberately loud as she excluded her.
Alannah’s cheeks flamed. It felt like everyone’s eyes settled on her. She tried to laugh. “I’m your child, too, mother. Perhaps not as pretty, but I’m still here.”
“Yes, mother,” Danielle said. “Do apologize.”
“Alannah is every bit as pretty,” Ana said.
Her mother’s eyes shot daggers at her sisters. “My child?” her mother spat as she lost all patience and stood suddenly. “Do you have something to announce, Alannah?”
“No. I do not.”
“So be it.” Her mother’s voice rang out as she looked around the room. “She is not my child. Look at the differences between the three of you.”
The room quieted.
Ana gasped. “Mother!”
“Mother,” her mother whined, mimicking Ana’s shocked tone. “Oh, please. Haven’t I been through enough? Do I really need to continue to pretend when it’s obvious now she’ll never be willing to leave this place?”
“Pretend what?” Alannah’s voice was a whisper but with the shocked silence in the room, it really didn’t need to be any louder. Even the music sounded distant.
For a brief moment, she automatically reached out to feel Kieran’s mind but then shut it down. She had to let him deal with his own demons instead of always depending on him to be there for hers. Not to mention, she didn’t really want him to witness her humiliation because whatever was coming, it was going to be good. She felt it in her bones.
“You are not mine. Your mother was the reason why you have that atrocious hair.” Her lips moved, but Alannah couldn’t make sense of the words she was saying.
She wasn’t her mother?
Next to her Ana reached for her hand while her mother spat more appalling words. “Ana, let go of her! Remember your manners. I swear it’s like you and Danielle became different people when we entered these gates.”
Ana didn’t let go of her hand. Instead she squeezed it.
“Why shouldn’t my sister touch me? There are no Iota Nine eyes here to watch that she’s going against the cultural norm,” Alannah said.
“How dare you drag your sister down? Your father doted on you. I, however, do not need to.” Their mother clamped her mouth closed, her lips a thin sneer on her bitter face.
“Whatever are you talking about?” Danielle whispered. She was the only reason why mother chose to answer.
“You want the whole sordid story? Fine. It was when your father began working for a new company. The money was excellent so I encouraged it. But he had to travel a lot to Epsilon Five.” She gave a delicate shudder. “I chose to stay home with the two girls, of course. I couldn’t have my precious daughters around all of those lower class citizens. Oliver met someone, a co-worker he’d been assigned to. He became secretive with their missions. I didn’t care. I suspected they were more than co-workers, but I could take discreet lovers of my own. In any case, his mistress was killed a year later. I don’t know how but I know it was during some experiments they conducted. And when Oliver came home, grim-faced and grieving, he brought me…you. As if you were some sort of prize. An ugly duckling not fit for Iota Nine. You should have been left on Epsilon Five where you belonged.”
Someone gasped.
Her eyes snapped hatred at Alannah. “My own children were three and just barely four and here was an infant with similar features. The only difference was you were bald—as ugly as a rat. I had to keep you indoors because of your dreadful eye color. Our entire lives changed upon your arrival. And worse? Your hair finally started to grow in and it wasn’t normal. I demanded Oliver do something about your hideous coloring that showed proof of his philandering. He agreed.”
“Those sessions made her sick,” Ana said. “And the later sessions when we grew older were even worse.”
“What did I care?” Cynthia spat. “It’s not like we could get a license. The entire world would know she was a throwback. They would wonder which side the genetic material came from. I could never sully my own children’s reputation with the rumors that their genes might not be perfect and I could hardly explain that my husband was stupid enough to get his lower-class mistress pregnant.”
“Why would you keep us secluded on Iota Nine?” Danielle whispered. “Filter the live-feeds? None of us knew of any of the outside world. Not even this.” She swept her arm about the room. “The discovery of a new species is huge news.”
“That is why I kept you secluded!” Her mother hissed. “This type of atrocity is the kind of excitement your father craved. I wouldn’t be surprised if he would have volunteered to come here and work.” She shuddered. “He and his whore. He swore they were going to change the world but the higher-ups didn’t w
ant that. They wanted the two of them to stick to the program. Oliver never said so, but I think his mistress was killed to keep him in line. And that threat over his daughter is what kept him in line in our household. He learned fast. He never even flinched when I demanded he increase the prescription amounts because Alannah was becoming comfortable with the dosage and was displaying appalling new abilities. She was too young to speak completely but was uttering complete sentences her sisters would normally use while the other two giggled at the things she’d say. I couldn’t have her influencing my own daughters and Oliver knew from dealing with his work what increased amounts of his own concoction would work to keep her secluded in her suite until she could get over such alarming mental issues.”
“What kind of shop of horrors did they work for?” Ana asked.
“Isn’t it obvious?” Robyn’s voice was hard. “Crested Utilitarian Laboratories. The creators of the Xeno Sapiens. Lady Cynthia has always known about a new breed of species—even before they arrived.”
Cynthia’s head swiveled to her. “Yes. Upon Epsilon Five, where he met his mistress. So his bastard child shouldn’t even have a title behind her name. She should be lucky I gave her that.”
No one pointed out to the embittered woman that her husband was a Lord and by every right, Alannah should be titled through her biological father.
“Our father had a hand in all of this?” Alannah asked, her stomach sick that he’d experimented on people.
“Please. Your father wasn’t some sort of all-creator. Back then, they were simply cloned organs, grown in warm bodies that would never rise. The beginning experiments. The organ donors. He worked in the department of brain development. Empty bodies were simply incubators for body parts back then.”
“Do you know exactly what your husband was working on?” Dr. Amanda asked.
Cynthia shrugged delicately. “Some sort of idiocy. I believe the experiments took a toll on his mental health eventually. Perhaps he was experimenting on himself. He thought he could enable a feature of the brain to move things with the mind or at least communicate without words.” Her eyes narrowed on Alannah’s pale face. “He failed. He never could figure it out. He was demoted at work.”
“It was real. Alannah used to talk to us in our minds,” Danielle whispered. “That was when Alannah became bedridden for a whole year and kept in seclusion. And we stopped playing with her. When she recovered, things were changed. She’d forgotten about the mental whisperings or she couldn’t do them anymore. We went to school and she was homeschooled. She was trained as a servant,” she spat, glaring at her mother.
Alannah spoke. “And my sisters were trained to treat me as such.”
Ana turned to her. “Alannah, I’m sorry.”
“Hush. It’s not your fault. You were children, too.”
“No matter what I did, she was a taint on our household. When Oliver died, I realized I was making it too difficult. I didn’t have to keep you around. I sold you to Lord Nolan at sixteen years of age. I held you in my household in order to send you to school for a degree in business and management, the arrangement agreed to between him and me. Besides which, it would have been scandalous to send you off before you were eighteen and I couldn’t have people talk. But as soon as you graduated, you were off,” her mother sneered.
“You sold her?” Danielle gasped. “I thought you supplied him with a dowry?”
“Oh, please. I would have supplied him if the fool had known how to bargain. I was more than eager to get rid of her. But when I had a chance to not only save myself money and make a bundle, too? What was I to do? The only thing she had was something he happened to want. Her virginity.”
The entire room stayed frozen in disbelief at the cruelty.
“What? You act as though I didn’t do you a favor. I bargained for a marriage at the end of three years. I didn’t want you back after his obsession waned. You certainly wouldn’t have wanted to come back.”
Calmly, Lady Holland retrieved her kika from the reticule draped across her shoulder and attached it to her face. “And now, I assume this dreadful party has gone on long enough? Is it time to return us to our own city?”
“Yes, thank you for the eye-opening honesty, but I think you’ve overstayed your welcome,” Robyn said. “Jason’s team will escort you.”
“I’m not going,” Ana said resolutely, her tone much firmer than it had ever been.
“What?” Lady Holland said. The sneer was gone from her voice, replaced by simple shock. Ana’s tone was that different.
Everyone’s eyes were glued to the scene—even Alannah’s.
“I much prefer to stay here. To get to know my sister as a sibling should.”
“Siblings! By the grace of God, that was just chance…”
“I choose to stay also,” Danielle said. To everyone’s surprise, she slipped her hand into Potierre’s lobster claw, which he brought up gently to his forearm, covering her hand with his other as he looked into her eyes.
Whoa. Alannah hadn’t expected that.
“Are you insane? You cannot possibly be entertaining the idea to be with freaks,” mother—no, Lady Holland spat out.
“My lady, your manners please,” Vien said, moving closer next to Ana. “Lady Ana, will you do me the honor?” He gave a small bow.
She threw her arms around him, totally unprecedented for a lady of Iota Nine. All three of his eyes closed when she pressed her mouth to his for a kiss.
Lady Holland looked as if she might pass out. Her face was pinched and white.
“Unfortunately, Vien and Potierre cannot sponsor another as they’re sponsoring Lady Alannah right now,” Robyn said mildly. “Unless someone else would come forward to take her off their hands?”
She looked around the room.
Alannah’s stomach clenched. All her life, she’d been kicked aside for her sisters. And even though she knew no one here meant her any harm, it was happening again. What would happen if no one came forward?
“I will take her.”
From the shadows, Kieran stepped forward, dressed in a dark blue velvet coat with actual coattails. He looked like a medieval prince, especially with his jet black hair brushed up into a thick, spiky mess and shining clean.
Alannah stepped forward, and then paused. Everyone was staring at him like they’d never seen him before. Surely Amanda had said he used to have this form and only she had seen his wolf form. What were they so surprised over?
“If she will have me, I will sponsor Alannah and that will leave room for Vien and Potierre to sponsor her sisters.”
“Kieran!” She breathed.
“Is that your dog?” Her mother gasped. “How can that be?”
Her mother was dragged away even as she kissed him. Before she reached the door, Alannah pulled away from him to call out. “Mother!”
The shuffling at the door stopped as the two Xeno Sapien men halted.
“Do try to maintain a friendship with Lady Nolan. You’ll get along great. One of you sold your daughter’s virginity—and the other wanted to purify her line by breeding within the family. I’m not sure which of you is the better woman.” She turned her back to her mother.
Kieran’s arms held her tight. His beard had been trimmed to a heavy stubble. She ran her fingers along his jaw.
“You came for me.”
“I had a moment of stupidity that I wasn’t good enough for you. But I can’t stay away. I realized I love you, too, and I should have told you. I want to sponsor you. And someday, I want to be your mate.”
Her heart hardened. She’d seen his rejection once before because he thought he wasn’t good enough for her. He had no idea it was she who wasn’t good enough for him.
“I can’t give you that. No more than I could give it to Vien and Potierre. If you wish to sponsor me, it has to be with no strings attached.”
His amber eyes stared into hers, as if searching for what he would never find. A dark secret she’d buried deep within the recesses of her
mind. She made sure her walls were intact. He’d never uncover it.
He nodded slowly. “Okay. I’ll take your offer. Sponsorship only. Nothing else until you’re ready.” He cupped the side of her face with his hand.
He wasn’t hearing her. But it was all right for now because for another time frame, she’d be safe. She’d get to know her sisters, and she’d be safe.
Everyone in the room began whispering as they stared into each other’s eyes. They pulled away from each other just as Robyn spoke.
“Lady Holland is safely off the premises. She is putting up such a fuss that Jason and Shawn have decided to take her to the airport where she can catch her own flight back to Iota Nine.”
Danielle giggled as if imagining her mother purchasing a travel suit in order to board.
Then again, she might be giggling because she was enclosed in Potierre’s arms.
“The plan to obtain your mother’s DNA worked like a charm. We found out the last piece of the puzzle we were missing. I know the three of you were upset that your father helped to create the Xeno Sapiens and those creators were atrocious people. You can’t help but worry that your father was that way, also. But normally, someone who is titled who takes a field of scientist chooses to keep his or her own name to bring honor to the family. Which is why nothing turned up in his background checks. We assumed Holland was your father’s name, but it isn’t. He chose to take your mother’s name. Leo—my artificial intelligence—has been doing some digging and we came up with your father’s birth name. Lord Oliver Matthews. He worked for Crested Ute Laboratories a quarter of a century ago. His associate was Jolie Buchanan of Epsilon Five. She was a brilliant neuroscientist. Records show she succumbed to an accidental gas leak in her apartment, which makes no sense if she and your father were having an affair. They were either together in her apartment or his, in either case she would never have been alone. I’m assuming the records were changed and she was murdered to keep him in line with the Xeno Sapien project. There are no records of a child. I’m assuming your father had something to do with fixing that.”