Pushing his golden hair away from his face, she lowered her mouth to his and kissed him deeply. She could taste herself on his tongue, copper and musk. “I was meant to be yours, Valen. It’s like I was made for you.”
He sighed, and she shivered as his cool breath blew across her overheated skin. The world spun as he tugged the sheets down the bed and slid beneath them before tucking her under his arm. They lay there, sated and happy. Briar traced Vali, the wolf god, and Valen twirled her hair.
“I think you must have been,” he whispered. It took a moment for Briar’s mind to catch up with his. “Made for me. Your taste, Briar. There’s nothing like it. I can feel it, inside me, pure and bright, like a clear midnight sky in the heart of winter.”
“I’m glad,” she whispered. “What if I was gamey?”
Beneath her cheek, she felt Valen startle. “Gamey?”
“You know.” Briar closed her fist on her chest and propped her chin on it. “Like squirrel.”
Valen laughed, and she giggled. “You most certainly did not taste like a squirrel, and I have eaten many squirrels.”
Briar giggled and lowered her face to his chest again. Her fingers tapped a rhythm on his pec, and she hummed. “Wait.”
Valen stilled, lifting his head to glance down at her. “What?”
Briar drew her eyebrows together as she tried to make out what she thought she was hearing. “Is that Led Zeppelin?”
Valen canted his head, staring sightlessly at the wall. “Yes.” He nodded, slowly. “Yes. I believe it is. Kashmir.”
Briar’s face flushed. She could imagine the purpose the other guys had playing 70’s classic rock. “I guess I wasn’t as quiet as I meant to be.”
“If you had been quiet, little one,” Valen whispered, “I would have been doing something wrong.”
“Oh my gosh!” She buried her face in his chest, covering her hot cheeks with her hand. “How loud was I?”
“Let’s just say…” He pondered his next words as if they were the most important ones he’d ever utter. “I will walk out of this room with my head held high.”
And the truth was, he should. So even though she was a little mortified about how loud she’d been, she snuggled deeper into Valen’s embrace and let the worry go.
Briar sighed, a wave of sleepiness overtaking her. “Do you think you could get them to play Stairway?” she asked.
“I’m sure I could,” he whispered and kissed the top of her head.
She was just drifting off when Valen slammed his fist on the wall behind them and yelled, “Sylvain! Stairway!”
“Fuck you!” Sylvain’s voice filtered through the door and walls.
“No thanks,” Valen murmured, but a second later, the strains of Jimmy Page’s solo came to her.
“Thank you,” she said at a normal volume.
“You’re welcome,” Sylvain yelled, but not angrily, just loud enough she could hear him. With Stairway to Heaven aptly playing the backup to Valen’s heartbeat, Briar fell asleep.
✽✽✽
“Wake up, Briar.” Valen shook her shoulder.
Briar gasped awake. “What?”
“Hudson reminded me to wake you up an hour and a half after you fell asleep,” he whispered before turning them so he could spoon her. Briar yawned and tucked her hands beneath her cheek. She remembered reading a book where the vampires were ice cold. That was not Valen. His body was warm against hers, but then again, he had a heartbeat. Briar turned in his arms so she could curl into his chest.
“Better?” he rumbled.
“Mmhmm.” Her eyelids were heavy as she snuggled closer. His heart thumped against her ear. It was slow, and she began to count the time between each beat. When she reached sixty seconds, she started again. His breathing was also reduced. One breath for every twenty she had, which was roughly a breath a minute.
“What other things do vampires do?” she asked sleepily.
“Hmm?” Valen asked. “I’m not sure I understand.”
“You can’t walk in the sun. What else?” An idea was beginning to form at the edges of her mind. When she’d considered brainwaves and genes, she began to wonder— if she searched, would she find vampiric mutations on other chromosomes? For example, vampires couldn’t walk in the sun. On the same gene which made the thing impossible for her, their chromosomes resembled hers.
“You don’t sleep,” she said as a start.
“We did,” he said. “Before Hudson discovered a way for us to walk in the sun. As the sun rose, we grew more lethargic, until it was nearly impossible to stay awake. If we forced it, we could fall asleep where we stood.”
Narcolepsy. There was a genetic marker for that.
“What else?” she asked and then began to list them, excitement making her squirm. “You need only blood to sustain yourself. You heal quickly. You’re immortal.”
And there was the kicker. As far as Briar was aware, there was no gene for immortality. But there are genes for longevity.
“I need to get up,” she said and pushed back the covers.
“What?” Valen asked. “Why?” Like a flash, he pulled on his clothes.
“I thought of something,” she said, clicking on the light next to the bed. Valen winced, and she made another mental note. Visual acuity. She had to talk to Hudson. Maybe he’d already searched the genome for these things, maybe he hadn’t. Briar tripped putting one foot into her pants, but Valen caught her before she face-planted onto the floor.
“What did you think of?” he asked. “Asher?”
Briar paused as she dragged a t-shirt out of her bureau. She held it in front of her chest. “No.” She should have been thinking about Asher. Should have been contemplating ways to destroy him instead of going gaga over genetics.
“Hey.” Valen took the shirt from her hands and, as if she was a child, slid it over her head and waited for her to thread her arms through the sleeves. “It’s okay.”
“It’s not about Asher, but I should—”
Gently, he folded his hand over her mouth before she could speak again. “No. It’s not on you to solve Asher. We, you and me, and Sylvain and Marcus and Hudson, we will solve the Asher problem. Not you. Not alone. But tell me, what was it that made you jump out of my arms in the middle of the night?”
He smiled at her, and her heart lightened. Briar bit her lip but couldn’t help smiling. “Science.”
“Then let’s tell Hudson and Marcus about your ideas,” he said, reaching past her to open the door. “I’m sure they will be as excited as you are. But I have to say, your enthusiasm is contagious. I want to know what has you popping like water in a kettle.”
Briar grabbed his hand, linking their fingers. “Okay. Come on.”
Valen let her drag him down the hall, thumb tracing circles on the outside of her hand. It made her stumble as it brought to mind the way he’d traced his hands along other parts of her body. At the bottom of the stairs, she hesitated, listening closely to hear where the other guys were, and glanced back at him.
He stared at her, blue eyes nearly black in the dimly lit stairwell. “You’re miraculous,” he said when he held her fast. “I—”
“They emerge!” Marcus called from somewhere on the first floor. She heard his footsteps, and then his dark face peered around the corner. “Come down for nourishment?”
Immediately, Briar slapped a hand over her chest, as if he could see the mark Valen had left. Marcus narrowed his eyes. He drew in a breath, and his eyes widened. “Valen?” His voice shook.
“I’m fine,” Briar answered quickly. “Marcus. Nothing happened I didn’t want to happen.”
From the way Marcus leveled a glare at Valen, her explanation wasn’t cutting it. He took another breath and refocused on her. “All right.”
Valen squeezed her hand, assuring her it would be fine, but Briar didn’t feel reassured. Marcus’s reaction indicated she’d crossed a line allowing Valen to taste her blood. Before she could say another word, he’d spun on his
heel toward the living room, under the stairs and toward his study. He opened the door and stood aside for her to pass. Inside, the soft strains of classical music played low while Sylvain and Hudson sat in leather chairs.
“What are you doing up?” Hudson asked. He crossed the room to her side and dragged her into his arms. Burying his face against her neck, he breathed her in and froze, but unlike Marcus, he didn’t say anything. He merely set her away from him, and pinned Valen with a glare that promised death.
“Why do I smell her blood, Valen?” Sylvain asked.
“I asked him to bite me.” Briar met Sylvain’s stink-eye and gave him one of her own. “I’ll let you bite me later.”
The air inside the study seemed to thicken, but Sylvain shocked her and began to chuckle. “Okay,” he replied, edging around Hudson to grip her elbow and pull her against him. “I’ll hold you to it.” His voice was hot with promise, lifting the fine hairs at the back of her neck.
He kissed along the side of her jaw before taking a step back. “So why are you here?” Sylvain’s question seemed to put a period at the end of the Briar let Valen suck her blood sentence.
“I wanted to know, are there places on other genes that identify you as vampires?” she asked.
Hudson moved toward his desk and perched on the edge. “Other than Chromosome 18?”
“Yes,” she answered hurriedly. “What about a gene for longevity, and narcolepsy, and something about your blood. I don’t know what exactly the blood thing will be, but Marcus will know.”
“I’d be glad to offer my lab at Harvard,” Marcus interrupted.
“Not the time, Marcus,” Hudson ground out, but his brother merely crossed his arms and rested his back against the wall.
“Just saying.”
“Healing,” Briar went on, even though now she was smiling at Marcus’s joke. She was seeing more of the person she was used to, though shadows still passed in front of his eyes more often than she’d like. “Visual acuity, hearing, strength, metabolism. I want to look at genes for all those things.”
“The traits that make us vampires.” Hudson nodded. Then added, “What do you believe could make such a drastic change to a person’s genome?” He went into professor mode.
She pondered his question. “Genes reduplicate themselves all the time. And there can always be errors when they do. Substitutions, deletions. Environmentally, there are some drugs that can change genes. But those things didn’t happen to you,” Briar said. “Radiation. Inheritance. All of those things can change DNA.” She hesitated. “Viruses.”
“A bloodborne virus,” Marcus added. “Like HIV can cut into the genome, insert itself into the DNA. Then it makes a gene that should stay inactive, ‘turn on.’ ”
“It is possible that vampirism is like HIV—a bloodborne virus that cuts into your DNA? I don’t know the how or why, but if one virus can do that, why not another?” Briar asked.
“I knew my expertise would be important,” Marcus crowed. He pointed a finger at Hudson. “She’s coming to my lab now, Hud. Oh, DNA! Sunlight. It all comes back to blood, my brother.”
“That it does.” Hudson’s smile was self-deprecating. “But I still have the equipment. So unless you have something I don’t know about, we’re going to BC to start separating our DNA.”
“Can we go now?” Briar asked. “What have you already investigated? I know this must not be the first time you’ve considered vampirism a virus.”
“Vampirism?” Sylvain interrupted. “We’re vampires.”
“Vampirism,” Hudson explained, “would be the disease that makes us vampires.”
“If it’s a disease, then you could cure it.” Sylvain’s arms dropped to his sides, and he rubbed a hand over his hair.
“Or it’s like HIV, and we can merely treat the symptoms of the disease,” Marcus said. “Besides, Sylvain. What would happen if we cured it? Would we disintegrate? Age like, what’s the guy’s name?”
“Bjergtagen?” Valen asked. “Trolls?”
“Trolls?” Sylvain drew his brows together and shook his head. “Trolls? What the—fucking trolls, Valen?
“The bjergtagen steal people from the villages and keep them for hundreds of years, so when they return, they are old men,” Valen went on patiently.
Briar giggled, finally understanding who Marcus meant. “Rip Van Winkle, Marcus.”
“Yes.” He left his place on the wall to stride toward her. He kissed her temple and tucked her into his side. “Yes, you beautiful genius. Rip Van Winkle.”
Hudson tugged a bag he must have packed while the rest of them bantered onto his shoulder. “Magic and science. Belief and logic. Let’s go investigate your hypothesis.”
Briar nodded eagerly. At the front door, she shoved her feet into a pair of boots and shrugged on her coat. The guys waited, and she realized they were all going together. “Good. I can show you what I’ve been talking about,” she said to Valen and Sylvain. “And on the way there, you can tell me stories.”
“Stories about what?” Sylvain asked as they hurried out the door and into the underground parking. Briar caught the way his eyes constantly studied their surroundings, and that after speaking, he took a deep breath, as if tasting the air.
“About where you came from and what you saw,” Briar said quietly.
Sylvain paused at the car, his dark eyes serious. “Those may be stories for another day,” he said. “But for tonight, maybe I could just hold your hand.” He reached past her to open the car door, and she slid inside.
When he followed, she took his hand to hold between both of hers. “I can do that.”
Chapter Sixteen
Hudson
Just like her emails from her undergraduate days, Briar’s mind continued to fascinate Hudson. After so many years hiding what had truly been his life’s work, it was thrilling to speak of it openly. Not only did he have Briar’s astonishing brain pondering the same questions he did, but Marcus’s.
His brother may joke, as he had been by teasing about his lab at Harvard, but it was subterfuge. Marcus wanted to help. He wanted to contribute.
It was the same with Valen and Sylvain. They hadn’t spent years learning about biology and chemistry, but they’d spent years learning how to fight. Yet, he hadn’t included them in battle strategy, nor had he included them in his work studying their condition.
It was time for that to change. All of them were smart men. Together, they could make much more headway on their problems than if they acted alone.
“Briar brought up a good point,” he said, turning in his seat to better see Valen, Sylvain, and Briar. He glanced down at Briar’s hands, wrapped tightly around Sylvain’s, and felt a pang of jealousy. He should have chosen the back over the front seat. “I’ve been focusing on one symptom of our condition, the inability to walk in sunlight. Marcus has been working on another, the need to drink blood to survive. But we’ve never put together all of our symptoms and looked at is as a whole. Nor have we talked about the earlier days of our transformation—”
“Beyond the bloodlust,” Briar interrupted. She shrunk a little in her seat when Hudson frowned. Bloodlust wasn’t something he wanted to think about when her delicious scent was filling the car. And beneath her sunlight and heat scent, somewhere on her body was a trace of blood left by Valen’s fangs.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “It wasn’t you. I was thinking of something else.”
“Oh.” She sat a little straighter and continued. “You mentioned the bloodlust. Time going by without realizing what you were doing. It sounded almost like a fever. And then there are the crawlers. The ones where something went wrong. And the soldiers, who are easily controlled.”
“One variable at a time!” Marcus laughed. “You’re describing years of research. Let’s focus on the one question you’ve given us. Are our symptoms genetic mutations we can identify on our chromosomes?”
“Yes,” she agreed as they sped down the street.
Hudson glanced out
the window. This time of night, it wouldn’t take Marcus long to get to Boston College.
“Oh, no!”
Hudson whirled in his seat at Briar’s outburst. She glanced down at her clothes and back up. “I forgot everything. My hat. Gloves.”
“You’ll be safe in my lab,” Hudson said. “We can stay there from now, through the day, into the evening if we must. Though, an easier solution would probably be sending one of us back to the house for your protective clothing.”
“I’ve been trying so hard to remember,” Briar said. “I got caught up.”
She bit her lip. Hudson was about to reach back to tug it from between her teeth, but Valen beat him to it. “Don’t worry, little one. As soon as you are settled, I will run back to the house. It won’t take a moment.”
She leaned on his shoulder and nodded. Before twisting back toward the windshield, Hudson met Valen’s gaze and was struck by the wonder and joy in his brother’s eyes. Was the same thing reflected in his own?
Marcus put the car in park, and they tumbled out of it like excited puppies. Briar bounced around them, but Hudson wasn’t listening to her words anymore. He was following the lilting melody of her voice. Even with the breeze, and the lingering scents of a hundred humans, Briar’s heat and sunshine scent overpowered everything.
Taste her.
She had offered. More than offered, she’d given Valen permission to drink from her. As he followed her into the building and down the stairs toward his lab, he remembered how she’d tasted when he kissed her and how soft she’d been beneath his fingertips.
What a gift this woman was.
Distracted, he swiped his identification over the keypad and entered his code. He pushed the door open and growled.
Rot. Decay.
He hit the light next to the door, and it revealed what he suspected—what he hadn’t noticed because he’d been reminiscing about Briar’s body—a slime trail.
Crawlers had been here.
“We all missed it.” Sylvain spun and strode down the hall, Valen following a second later. If they were still here, his brothers would find them.
Shadow of Thorns (Midnight's Crown Book 2) Page 17