I agree. An echo of her voice from the dream. She had a terrible suspicion the unfamiliar bedroom and those two words were connected.
Her clothes were gone. She wore only underwear and a giant T-shirt, three sizes too big.
A pair of carefully folded jeans lay on a chair next to the bed. Her jeans, the ones she had worn on the field trip. Karina pulled them on. She had to find Emily.
The door swung open with ease and she found herself in a hallway. To the left, the hallway ended in a stairway leading up. To her right, a pool of electric light brightened the wooden floor and the rust-colored rug. Quiet voices carried on a soft discussion.
She followed the voices and stepped into a kitchen, blinking against the light. Three men sat at the round table in the center. They turned to look at her. The one sitting farthest from her wore the unearthly face of the man from her dream. His name surfaced from the depths of her memory. Arthur.
I agree.
Arthur nodded to her. “Ah. You’re up. Why don’t you sit down with us? Henry, please get a chair for Lady Karina.” His soft, intimate voice caressed her almost like a touch. It should’ve been soothing. Instead her insides clenched into a tight knot.
A tall man with a shy smile rose and held a chair out for her. So oddly domestic, all three drinking tea. Nobody was startled by her appearance. Clearly she was expected.
Karina sat. “Thank you.” The automatic response rolled from her lips before she even realized it.
“You’re welcome,” Arthur said. He leaned back with a quiet elegance, artfully posed without putting any effort into it. His hair was soft, black, and brushed back from his perfectly sculpted face. His eyebrows were equally black and so were his eyelashes, long and soft like velvet. They framed big eyes, crystalline blue, distant, and cold. Angelic, she thought. He looked like an angel, not a plump cherub, but an angel who roamed freely in the sky, possessed of heart-wrenching beauty and terrible power, an angel who had stared into the bottomless blue for so long that his eyes had absorbed its color.
“Would you like some tea?” Arthur asked.
“Children . . . ?”
“Safe,” he said and she believed the sincerity of his words even though she had no reason to do so.
Arthur rose, took a small blue mug from the shelf behind him, and poured steaming tea into it from a large kettle on the stove. He set the cup in front of her. “Please drink. It will steady your nerves.”
Karina looked at the cup.
He drank from his own cup and smiled in encouragement.
She picked up the cup and took a sip. Green tea. Odd taste, slightly sour.
Maybe she was still dreaming. The whole scene had that slightly absurd wrongness found only in dreams.
Karina looked about the table. The man who had offered her the chair, Henry, sat to her right. He was tall and whipcord lean. His face, serious with somber intelligence, lacked Arthur’s magnetism, but its sharp angles drew her all the same. His tawny hair was cut close to the scalp, but still showed a trace of a curl. His green eyes regarded her and she read pity in their depths.
The man on her left was model pretty. Strong masculine jaw, deep, dark blue eyes, high cheekbones, a mane of golden wavy hair dripping down to below his waist, hiding half of his face . . . His eyes flashed with wild humor. He gave her a wink, grinned, exposing even white teeth, and tossed his hair back. An ugly scar ripped his left cheek, almost as if something had taken a bite out of him and his flesh hadn’t healed right. She fought an urge to look away. He reached for her hand . . .
“Daniel.” Arthur’s voice gained a slight edge. “That’s extremely unwise.”
Daniel sat back.
“Just because she didn’t scream when she saw your face doesn’t mean you get to touch.” Henry refilled his cup.
“Please forgive Daniel. He doesn’t mean to be rude. He’s just forbidden to speak for the time being. Your tea is getting cold,” Arthur said.
“He tends to cause problems when he speaks,” Henry said.
Daniel gave her a smoldering smile.
She faced Arthur. “What did I agree to?”
Arthur sighed. “I see.”
Henry leaned forward. “Perhaps we should mend this.”
“Yes. The sooner, the better. Lucas might return and that would make things considerably more complicated.”
Daniel laughed softly. If wolves could laugh, they would sound just like him.
Henry held out his hand. “It’s easier if you hold on to me.”
Karina hesitated.
“You do want to remember, don’t you?” Arthur asked.
She put her hand into Henry’s. His long warm fingers closed about hers. The world tore in two and she was back on the landing of the fire escape at the not-motel, cradling Emily. Her whole body burned with a terrible ache.
Arthur leaned his head to the side, looked at them for a moment, and plucked Emily from her arms.
“No!” Karina struggled to hold on, but her hands had lost all strength.
Emily didn’t kick. Didn’t scream. Her face was completely blank, as if she had turned into a doll. Arthur turned and handed her to someone behind him on the stairs.
“Emily!” Karina tried to crawl after her but her body refused to obey.
Arthur touched the hem of her black top and edged it upward. His fingers touched her stomach. Pain pierced her and she cried out.
“Ah. Now see, this isn’t good.” Arthur shook his head mournfully. “All of this must seem terribly confusing to you and our time is short, so I will keep the explanations simple. This is the house where monsters live. We are the killers of monsters. I suppose that also makes us monsters simply by necessity. I don’t know why you’re here. It’s probably a pure coincidence. An unlucky roll of the dice. You and your children were caught in the cross fire. One of the monsters poisoned you with her throat dart. The wound is fatal. You’re dying.”
Fear shot down Karina’s spine in an icy rush. She didn’t think she could have gotten more scared, but his tone, that patient, pleasant, even tone, as if he were discussing lunch, terrified her. It’s not a dream, she realized. It’s happening. It’s happening to me right now. God, please let Emily be okay. Please. I’ll do anything.
“I can smell your fear,” Arthur said. “It rolls off your skin. A better man would feel discomfort at your pain. But I’m not a good man. I feel nothing for you. We rarely have to deal with innocent bystanders and when we do, we strive to send them back unharmed, not out of some altruistic impulse, but because we dislike attention. If you hadn’t been injured, Henry here would wipe your memory and the five of you would go merrily on your way. As it is, however, you will be dead in the next thirty minutes.”
The words refused to leave her mouth. Karina strained and forced them out. “Why are you telling me this?”
His ice-cold smile made her heart jump. “I’m talking to you because I’m about to offer you a deal. You have something we want, my lady. Your body has a genetic predisposition toward producing certain hormones one of us desperately needs. Your subspecies isn’t unique, but it’s rare enough to make you valuable. I suspect that’s also how you were able to find this place, and that’s why the yadovita, the redheaded woman, took the time to poison you instead of defending herself from us. Listen carefully, my lady, because I won’t repeat myself.”
She stared at him, committing each word to memory.
“The creature behind you requires your blood. He will feed on you. His venom will counteract the poison that’s killing your body. In return, he will consume the chemicals your body will produce. You will give yourself to the House of Daryon. You will let the beast feed on you. You will live in quarters of our choosing. You can never leave. You can have no contact with the outside world. For your agreement to this, we will spare your life and the lives of the children.”
The thing on the windowsill let out a low whine of anticipation. That . . . that beast would feed on her. Forever. Oh, dear God. I can’t
do it . . . I can’t . . .
Arthur leaned forward, his face showing no emotion beyond the pleasant, calm composure. “Consider carefully before you answer. I don’t offer this deal to you because I like you or because I’m moved by some noble emotion. I do it because we need you. What I propose won’t be pleasant for you. You won’t enjoy it. In fact, many would say you’re better off dying now.”
Fog gathered on the edge of her mind, threatening to smother her. Karina clawed at reality, trying to remain conscious.
“My daughter . . .”
The beast growled on the windowsill.
“He guarantees her safety,” Arthur said.
“The children . . . will be returned to their families?”
“Yes.”
“I agree.”
A gentle hand seized her mind and pulled her back through time and space to the reality of the round table and the hot tea mug in her hand. She looked at Arthur.
“My daughter, Emily?”
He didn’t answer.
“You promised me the children would be returned to their families. Her father is dead. I’m the only family Emily has. Where is she?”
He smiled, a flat curving of lips without any emotion. “She’s at the main house for the time being.”
No, she wasn’t, Karina realized. He was lying. “I want my daughter. We made a deal. Bring me my daughter, or I am leaving.”
Daniel rocked back on his chair and laughed. A door slammed. Footsteps echoed through the house. “Cooperate with Lucas and your daughter will be brought to you,” Arthur said.
A man walked into the kitchen. Tall, corded with muscle that bulged his T-shirt, he dwarfed the doorway. He wasn’t just large, he was massive and wrapped in menace, as if he were a whirlwind of violence, barely contained in the shell of his body. Black hair fell on his hard, aggressive face in long strands. He glanced at her, his eyes green and merciless. She met his gaze and gulped. It was like looking into the eyes of a tiger. His stare promised death.
Recognition sparked in his green irises and flared into rage.
He lunged forward, inhumanly quick, and hit the table with his palm. She jerked back.
“Get your hands off of her!” His voice rippled with a snarl.
Henry raised his hands in the air. The man grasped the chair, Henry still on it, and tossed it aside. Steely fingers grabbed her elbow and pulled her up. He swiped her off the floor with ridiculous ease, locking her in the crook of his arm, and snapped like a rabid dog, “Mine!”
“We have no intention of taking her from you.” Arthur sipped his tea.
“Don’t any of you fuckers touch her!”
She flailed in his arms, trying to break free, but it was like trying to push back a semi.
“You must forgive Lucas,” Arthur told her. “He tends to be overprotective of his food.”
A familiar scent of heated metal invaded her nostrils. Panic squirmed through her. She fought harder, but her feet kicked only air. He carried her away out of the kitchen back to the bedroom where she had awakened.
CHAPTER 2
Lucas dropped her on the bed and went to lock the door. “Stay away from Arthur. He’s a sick fuck.”
He turned and strode toward her, enormous, overwhelming in his sheer size. Karina shrank back until her spine hit the wall.
He looked her over, a long, lingering stare that made her want to cover herself, frowned and ducked into a doorway on the left. Water gushed. Lucas reappeared with a tall glass of water and handed it to her. “Drink this. It will help.”
She drank.
He sat on a chair across from her and pulled off his socks. Only now she noticed that he wasn’t wearing any shoes. He balled the socks into a clump and tossed them into the room where he’d gotten the water, then shrugged off his T-shirt. Karina’s breath caught in her throat. Faded ragged scars crisscrossed his massive back. His legs were long, his waist narrow in comparison to his vast shoulders. His lines were almost perfect. As he squared his shoulders, muscles rolled under his skin, forming hard ridges. He didn’t move—he stalked and prowled, like a huge predatory animal, menace cascading from him in waves along with his hot metallic scent.
Her memory thrust Jonathan before her. Her husband had been handsome and well built, an average-sized man. Lucas could’ve snapped him in half and wouldn’t have given it a second thought. He’d just toss the broken body aside and continue on his way. She had no chance. In a physical fight, Lucas would destroy her.
“Drink,” he said.
Karina forced some more water down. Her throat had gone dry and she drank again. Suddenly Lucas gathered himself. His gaze fixed on the door. His body tensed, his expression alert. His feet gripped the bare floorboards, his legs bent lightly, as he readied to launch himself into a leap. Muscles bunched and knotted across his shoulders and back. His arms lifted slightly, spread wide, the fingers of his big hands like talons, ready to grasp and crush. His eyes ignited with a hot, hungry fire. Poised like this, he was barely human.
Someone’s knuckles rapped on the door.
“What?” Lucas growled.
“Do you want the sedative?” Henry’s voice asked.
Lucas glanced at her and asked quietly, “Do you want to be drugged?”
“No.”
“She said no,” he snarled.
The footsteps retreated. Lucas eased, relaxing slowly, muscle by muscle. He glanced at her with his light green eyes and she shrank from his gaze.
“How much did they tell you?” he asked.
“I know what I agreed to.” She hesitated. “Are you . . . ?”
“I am.”
She tried to reconcile the beast and the man, and couldn’t. That dark, grotesque creature was huge, twice as big as Lucas. A horrible meld of ape, dog, bear—Karina struggled for a comparison, a point of reference, and could find none. Her memory was fuzzy. She remembered fangs and baleful eyes, and massive shoulders sheathed in dark fur. How was it possible? Her mind refused to admit that thing existed. But her body felt Lucas near and knew the beast was real.
She had to have an explanation. Anything at all. “Are you a vampire?” she asked.
“No.”
“What are you?”
He sighed. “There’s no myth or legend or cute explanation. People here call those like me Demons. It’s just a name, nothing religious attached to it. You might also hear people call me Subspecies 30. The rest is complicated.” He took her half-empty glass and went to top it off. “I don’t actually need your blood to sustain me. I require the endocrine hormones your body will secrete in response to my bite.”
“For what?”
“To counteract the effects of my venom. It hurts me.”
He handed her the full glass, rubbed his hand across the back of his neck, and held the palm to her face. The odor of hot metal hit her nostrils and she drew back.
“That smell means I’m hungry for you.”
He was too close. The cup trembled in Karina’s fingers. God, she was scared. It took all of her will not to scream and run. “Will it hurt?”
“Yes. It’s not like vampire movies, where the vampire bites the woman and she moans softly and comes all over herself. There’s no rapture involved. No climax. Just me chewing on you.”
He took her by the chin, lifting her face, and peered into her eyes. Karina pulled back. He leaned closer. She tried to scramble away, but he grasped her shoulder, keeping her still. His lips touched her forehead. “Fever.” Lucas grimaced. “Your eyes are still bloodshot.”
His presence pressed on her like a physical burden. Karina closed her eyes. She sat there, world shut out, and pretended that everything would be okay even if every instinct assured her it wouldn’t. She had to survive and adapt. She had to do whatever was necessary to get her daughter back.
When she opened her eyelids, he waited for her with a synthetic cord in his hands. She hadn’t heard him move.
“To keep you still.” He moved toward her, uncoiling the cord.
No. Lying there tied up and completely helpless while he drank her blood would be too much. “That’s okay,” she said quickly. “I won’t change my mind.”
Lucas kept coming.
“I won’t change my mind.” Desperation put steel into her voice. “I’ve agreed to this to save my daughter. They’ll let me see her after you feed. I won’t run or fight.”
He halted.
“Arthur said I would stay here for as long as I live. That means you have to feed frequently. Might as well start it right.”
Lucas gripped the rope. His biceps bulged. He snapped the rope apart. Karina winced. “If you’re trying to intimidate me, it’s too late. I’m already as scared as I’m going to get.”
“I’m not trying to scare you.” He rolled the section of the rope into a tight wad, wrapped the end about it several times, tied it, and dropped it in her lap. “To bite down. In case it gets too rough.”
She picked it up.
Lucas sat next to her. “Arthur isn’t in charge of your daughter. I am. I guaranteed her safety. Both of you belong to me.”
Lucas leaned to look into her face. She expected rage, hunger, some violent emotion, but instead she saw only steady calm.
“I promise you that no matter what happens between you and me, your daughter will be safe. I will never use her against you. Everyone is afraid of me, and she will never be bullied or mistreated.”
Karina stared at him in surprise.
“You wanted to start this right,” he said. “We can do that. Let’s be honest. The bitch in the hotel poisoned you. Technically she infected you with a virus that secretes a toxin into your bloodstream. To counteract the virus, you need my venom. I’ve already bitten you once but it will take several feedings before you’re in the clear.”
“You’ve bitten me?”
“Left thigh,” he said. “I was in the attack variant at the time, and biting you anywhere else would’ve caused too much damage.”
She grabbed at her leg, trying to feel the wound through the fabric of the jeans.
“It was a very quick bite,” he said. “To keep you from dying. This will be worse.”
Alphas - Origins Page 2