He was serious. The thought of him feeding on her, chewing on her, was almost too much to contemplate. “Can we do a blood transfusion instead?”
“No. We’ve tried in the past and failed. There is some sort of relationship between your blood, my venom, and my saliva that we don’t understand. I have to feed on you. You need me to survive and I need you to . . .” He paused. “To counteract my venom.”
He was holding something back, she could feel it.
Lucas’s eyes held no mercy. “I’m a predator and my body knows that you’re my prey. Your fear is exciting. Try not to be so scared. Don’t struggle. The more you flail about and whimper, the more excited I’ll get. If you get me excited enough, I’ll chew up your veins and end up fucking you in a puddle of blood. I take it you don’t want that.”
“No.”
“Then stay calm.” He nodded at the cord in her lap. “You sure you don’t want to be tied?”
“Yes.”
Lucas stretched out on the bed, took her by the waist, and pulled her down, flush against him. They lay together, her butt pressed against his groin, her back tight against his chest. Like two lovers. Jonathan and she used to lie like this after sex. The perversity of it made her shiver.
“Lie still.” His arms pulled her tighter to him. The hard shaft of his erection dug into her butt. She tried to edge away from it.
“Don’t worry. I can’t help it, but I won’t molest you. Unless you start moaning and rubbing your ass against me.”
She stopped moving. The odor of hot copper was overpowering now. Karina cleared her throat. “I feel light-headed.”
“You’re breathing in my scent. Your body’s reacting. It will speed things up.”
That explained the shirt coming off. He wanted no fabric barriers between her and that smell, so it could roll off his skin and take her under. “Do I need to do anything?”
“Just lie there and endure. Your body needs my venom. As I said, I’ve bitten you already to kill the poison, but you got just enough to keep you alive. This will take some time.”
She brushed her hair from her neck, exposing skin. No point in drawing this out.
A low laugh answered her. He spoke into her ear, his breath a warm touch on her skin. “You ever watch hockey?”
“No.”
“The Buffalo Sabres had a goalie—Clint Malarchuk. Steve Tuttle, a guy on another team, was trying to score a goal, and as he charged at the crease, a defenseman grabbed him from behind and swung him up. Tuttle’s skate caught Malarchuk’s neck. A shallow cut, only severed the exterior jugular. Blood sprayed like water from a hose. Covered the whole crease in seconds.”
For some reason she couldn’t understand, his quiet voice steadied her nerves. “Did he survive?”
“He did. Had the skate cut a bit deeper, he would’ve been dead in about two minutes.” He gathered her even tighter against himself. “The neck nuzzling is fun, but the pressure within the jugular would expel your blood so quickly, it would kill you.” His finger traced an outline on the vein on her neck, sending electric shivers along her skin. She wished he hadn’t done that.
“If not the neck, then where?”
“The arm works well.”
“Can you . . . get on with it?”
“Not yet. The longer we wait, the less painful it will be for you.”
His body was hot against hers, his heat seeping into her. His scent enveloped her completely now. Her head spun.
“That’s it,” he prompted. “Go limp. Don’t strain.”
“I’m scared,” she told him.
“I’m sorry.” The undercurrent of violence that permeated everything he said muted slightly.
“What will happen after you feed?”
“You’ll pass out. It’s like giving blood except messier. Your body will go into shock from my venom. If you survive, you’ll get used to the feedings.”
“I might die?”
“Yes.”
“This just gets better and better.”
“Life’s a bitch.”
The room crawled. “I’m not dreaming, am I?”
“If this is your dream, you’re seriously fucked up.”
“Who are you . . . all of you?”
“You ask too many questions.”
He pulled away from her, turned her arm to him, and bit into the soft flesh just above the elbow. Pain lanced through her. Her body tensed in response, but his arms clamped her down and she could barely breathe.
It hurt. It hurt and hurt, but worse than the pain was the awful sensation of his gnawing teeth and the prickly heat squirming its way up her arm. It spread into her shoulder and fanned out, claiming her body. She wanted to break free, to get away, but Lucas held her tight.
“Promise me you will make sure my daughter is safe if I die.”
He didn’t answer.
“Promise me.”
“I promise,” he said.
Karina let herself sink into the pain. Gradually it eased into a steady ache. Her limbs relaxed. She tried to think of something else, anything else, of Emily, of their safe little apartment, of being far away in a different place. But the reality refused to recede. And so she lay there and waited it out, her entire body humming with a distinct unusual pain, until her dizziness blotted out the world and she slipped under.
* * *
Lucas nuzzled her thin neck. Feverish. Not too bad. She was healthy. And clean. The blood work from the main house had shown no abnormalities aside from the poison. That was what donors were. Resilient; resistant to most disease.
And grounded. She didn’t seem like she would snap, but he’d seen enough people break under the weight of the transition to let his guard slip. And then there was her daughter. Children complicated things.
She just lay there and let him feed.
His first donor, Robert Milder, had to be sedated for the feedings. After him, there was Galatea. He had to tie her up. Every time. She had resented her role, loathed being restrained, despised him, and yet pulled him into her bed; and when they fucked, she drained him so completely, he felt blissfully empty, as if he had poured not only his seed, but his pain into her. She took it all and reveled in it, enjoying the power she wielded over him. He wasn’t a fool. He knew she was driven by revenge, but he came back to her again and again, an idiot thirsty for a poisoned spring.
And now he had Karina.
A soothing cold spread through his veins, melting the needles of pain that always prickled him in the aftermath of his transformation from the attack variant. Funny. He had survived for six years on injections, shooting himself up every couple of days, but the synthetic hormones failed to soothe the ache. They managed to dull the pain, yet it had still gnawed at him, until he became convinced it would grind him down to nothing. Karina’s body had barely had a chance to respond to his poison, yet even this tiny dose of the hormones brought relief to him. He had forgotten what it was like not to hurt.
Lucas breathed in her scent. The memory of the chase through the motel danced through his mind. He wanted to chase her again. He felt drunk.
He slipped the narrow strap of the tank top off Karina’s shoulder, baring her left breast. Bigger, fuller, softer than he had expected. He imagined sliding his palm over the mound, brushing the nipple with his thumb. He pictured how her body would tighten in response, how the nipple would feel erect against his fingers.
He slid his fingers under the waistband of her jeans, pulled it up, and looked at the triangle of her white underwear. His cock ached. He wanted to mount her and thrust it inside her.
So what was stopping him?
Lucas slid his hand up, to her slightly rounded stomach, holding her gently, trying to puzzle it out. Had he tied her up before feeding from her, he would’ve fucked her by now, of that he was certain.
Trust, he realized. She’d held up her part of the deal. It had cost her. She’d cried toward the end, once her grip on consciousness slipped—silent tears that left wet tracks on her chee
ks. Her arm would be sore as hell tomorrow. Provided the fever didn’t rise, the poison didn’t kill her, and there was a tomorrow in her future. He wanted her to live, but he had done all he could to help her.
The feeding had cost her, but she lay there and let him do his thing, as she had promised, and she expected him to hold up his end of the bargain. And the bargain didn’t include fucking rights. She’d made that crystal clear.
He tugged her tank top back into place, covering her up, and pulled her to him, sliding his arm over her. She was his. She would take away his pain and he would guard her in return. That was the agreement.
CHAPTER 3
Karina awoke to an empty room. Bright morning light flooded through the open window, drawing a yellow rectangle on the wooden floor. A draft brought an acrid stink of burning bacon.
Emily.
She pushed free of the sheets and almost fell. Her head swam. Slowly, very slowly she slid off the bed and stood upright. Her throat was so dry, it hurt. A full glass of water sat on the bedside table beside a pair of binoculars and a yellow sticky that read “Drink it.” She could practically hear Lucas’s growl.
The memory of his gnawing teeth squirmed through her, dragging nausea in its wake. Karina bent over, gripped the night table to steady herself, and saw a square bandage on her arm. She tugged at it, sending a jolt of pain through her limb. The bandage remained stuck. Karina pulled harder, trying to rip it away as if she could shed the memory of Lucas with it. She struggled with it for a few seconds, pain pounding up her biceps in hot prickly bursts, and finally tore it free.
A big bruise stained the bend of her arm. Dark purple, it sat there like a brand. Lucas’s proof of ownership. Dried blood was caked in the center, where his teeth had mangled her veins.
The price she paid for Emily’s life. And her own. The ache in her arm pushed her to scream at the sheer mind-boggling unfairness of it: at being attacked, kidnapped, hurt, held down by brute force, robbed of her daughter, stripped of her freedom . . . At being plucked from her life. Only a day ago, she felt reasonably safe, secure in the knowledge that she could dial 911 at any moment and bring a police cruiser to her door. She had rights. She had protections. She was a person.
She felt the hot wet tears well in her eyes and clenched her teeth. She had to get a grip. Thinking like a victim would get her nowhere. Yes, it was terrifying. Yes, it hurt. But it didn’t kill her. She was still alive and as long as she breathed, she had to fight for herself and her child. She had to obey and be sweet. She had to ingratiate herself. That was her only chance at survival and escape. Karina dropped the bandage on the night table and drained the glass. It was time to find her daughter.
A harsh screech made her turn to the window. She walked to it, picking up the binoculars off the night table on the way. A wide green expanse spread before her, a wooded slope gently rolling away and down, toward mountains, brown and rust, fading to blue and eventually gray in the distance. A scrub forest hugged the roots of the mountains, dotting the grassy prairie in clumps of green. The wind fanned her face, bringing moisture and the tart fragrance of some unknown flower.
It was the middle of summer in southern Oklahoma and the prairie she’d seen through her windshield the day before had been a brown sea of dried grass. This, this looked like spring after weeks of rains somewhere in the foothills of rugged mountains.
Where the hell was she? Looked like complete wilderness, probably miles from any road, any people. Any help. If she escaped, crossing across rugged country with a six-year-old would be very difficult. She would have to plan well and bring a lot of water.
The brush quaked. A small brown animal burst from the growth. It resembled a dog, or maybe a coyote. It dashed across the grass, zigzagging in sheer panic. It didn’t run like a coyote.
What in the world?
Karina raised the binoculars to her eyes.
The creature wasn’t a dog. If anything it looked like a tiny horse, no more than two feet tall.
The brush shivered and spat three gray shapes onto the grass, one large and two others smaller. They ran upright on a pair of massively muscled legs, their bodies sheathed with gray feathers speckled with spots of black. Long, powerful necks supported heads armed with enormous beaks. The binoculars picked up every detail, from the crests of long feathers on their heads to the tiny vicious eyes.
The horse galloped for its life, veering left. The bird closest to it slid and swung toward the house to right itself. A flash of pale red shot through the empty air, as if the bird had run into an invisible net stretched tight, and the pressure of its body caused the threads to glow. The bird screeched and fell, catapulted back. For a moment it lay on the grass stunned, and then it rolled back to its feet and rejoined the chase.
The small horse was getting tired. It slowed. Foam dripped from its mouth.
The largest bird sprinted. The monstrous beak rose, then came down like an ax, chopping at the horse and knocking it off its feet. The horse rolled in the grass and staggered upright. The three birds danced about it, jabbing and pecking. The horse cried out and fell. Bloody beaks rose again and again . . .
Karina lowered the binoculars.
She didn’t know much about zoology, but she knew enough. They weren’t emus; they weren’t ostriches; no, these were something vicious, something ancient, something that should not exist in Texas or the Ozarks. Or the twenty-first century.
Suddenly she was cold, freezing from head to toe.
A triumphant screech rolled up from the plain.
Karina dropped the binoculars on the side table and slammed the window shut.
* * *
A cloud of oily smoke greeted Karina in the kitchen. By the stove, Henry cursed, slid several charred pieces of bacon out of a pan with a spatula, and deposited them onto a plate. He saw her and waved the spatula around, flinging hot drops of grease onto the table. “Good morning.”
“Good morning,” she answered on autopilot. “I saw . . . birds.”
“Terror birds.” Henry nodded. “Nasty creatures. Don’t worry, there is a large fence around the entire hill. We call it the net—it’s thin wire with a powerful current running through it. You’re completely safe within the vicinity of the house. They won’t come close. Besides, they are mostly cowards. An adult human has nothing to worry about.”
One of those things would kill a child. A vision of a bloody beak coming down like a hatchet flashed before Karina’s eyes. She swallowed. “My daughter?”
The spatula pointed to Henry’s right. “Through that doorway.”
Karina forced herself not to run. She skirted the table and walked through the doorway into a living room. Her heart pounded.
A small shape was curled on the couch, hidden by a green blanket. Karina pulled back the covers. Emily lay on the pillow. Her mouth was open slightly, her eyes closed, her hair a tangled mess.
Karina knelt and hugged her gently. Emily stirred and she put her face to her daughter’s cheek and clenched herself, trying not to cry.
“Daniel brought her early in the morning. Arthur told him he would let him speak in return,” Henry said softly from the doorway. “I’ve wiped her memory of the assault in the motel—it was too traumatic—so she won’t recall anything about the place, and that entire day will be dim for her. There are no long-term effects to memory wipes, but there are some short-term consequences: she will sleep a lot more, she will seem confused, and she might have some anxiety. It should last for about a week. Lucas already called the main house. They have a nice room set up for her.”
Karina turned. “I want her to stay with me.”
Henry looked uncomfortable. “There is a reason why the three of us are separated from the main house.”
“Three? I thought Arthur lived here.”
Henry shook his head. “Arthur stays at the main compound. Of our entire group, Lucas is the most feared, Daniel is the most despised, and I’m the least trusted.” He paused. “This house isn’t the best place for
a child.”
She paused. “Henry, why in the world would anyone not trust you?” Of the four men she’d met so far, Henry seemed the least insane.
He smiled, apologetic, almost vulnerable, and leaned closer. “I can make you forget we ever had this conversation. I can make you forget about Lucas, about the motel, and, if I strain a little, you won’t remember you ever had a daughter.”
She paused. It seemed insane, but no less insane than the idea of a man who turned into a nightmarish beast. “Can you read thoughts?”
“Nobody can read thoughts.” Henry shook his head. “Not even combat-grade operatives like me.”
Combat with whom? Why? He was wording his replies very carefully, thinking about them for a moment before answering. If she pushed him too hard, he would stop talking. “I’m not sure I understand. Do you wipe your enemies’ memories?”
Henry took his glasses off and cleaned the lenses with the corner of Emily’s blanket. Without his glasses, he seemed younger. “The mind doesn’t just store memories. It also governs many functions of the body. I can mentally scout the enemy and tell you their numbers. Obviously the more of them there are, the higher the margin of error is, but typically I’m not off by a significant number. I can find your mind in a crowd of people and attack it, so you’ll think you’re drowning. I can disconnect your brain from the rest of you and starve it of oxygen until you become a vegetable. My subspecies isn’t called Memory Wiper. It’s called Mind Bender.”
For a moment she was more terrified of him than she was of Lucas, and thinking that he might somehow crack her skull open and peer into her brain scared her even more.
Henry glanced at Emily on the couch. “Do you trust me now? Do you want your daughter near me?”
No. She didn’t trust any of them. But the main house, whatever it was, would be full of strangers. The thought of someone full of violent rage, like Lucas, or cold like Arthur, being in charge of Emily without her to shield her daughter made her wince.
Karina clenched her hands. Screaming and hysterics would do her no good. She had to reason with them. She had to be smart. Use logic. “Henry, I’d rather take you and Lucas over a house of people I don’t know. Emily woke up alone, without me. She must’ve been frightened. She’s my daughter, Henry. She’s safest with me, because I’m her mother and I would give my life to keep her from harm.”
Alphas - Origins Page 3