Anna stared at the mound of food in front of her, torn between embarrassment, hunger, and nausea. As wonderful as everything looked and smelled, there was something vaguely disgusting about the sheer abundance of it.
And she was still tempted to dig in and see how much she could manage to put away. It took an effort to sit politely and simply drool over the food while she waited for her host.
He settled across from her. “So … tell me … how goes the research?”
Anna felt her appetite take a nosedive. “It’s coming along very promisingly,” she lied and then frowned. “Paul mentioned my research?”
He seemed to hesitate. “Let’s just say I know a little about it—genetic enhancement of plants, correct?”
Anna struggled. It wasn’t a deep dark secret by any stretch of the imagination, but she didn’t particularly want to elaborate. “Something like that.”
He grimaced. “All things considered, it seems like the way to go.”
Inwardly, Anna shrugged. “Yes, all things considered. They’ve made great leaps in food production in a lot of areas, but not nearly enough to feed everyone.”
He frowned. “And yet, I got the impression that you didn’t approve of tampering with genetics?”
Anna blinked at him, trying to assimilate the comment.
“On people.”
“Oh! No, definitely not. I don’t see that as the answer at all! That’s playing god!
And, when all is said and done, if you alter the human race, we aren’t human anymore and we’ve already lost the battle for survival.”
“My sentiments exactly,” he murmured approvingly. “In fact, I can safely say that everyone here shares your view.”
“Really?” Anna asked disbelievingly. “Oh! That’s right. Paul said something about the organization you started—Humans for Humanity. That’s the goal of the organization? To preserve pure human genetics?”
“Ummm,” he said. “We’ve been lobbying against tampering with human genetics for years—not with a great deal of success.”
She could relate to that! “Well, I don’t see changing humans as the answer to the problems we’re facing! I mean, just because we can adapt humans to conditions they might not otherwise be able to tolerate doesn’t mean we should! What we need is enough food to feed everyone, not to turn people into … well, for lack of a less offensive term, freaks. People have enough trouble fitting in, socially, without setting them apart from everyone else physically.”
“Here! Here!” he agreed, smiling at her. “Research like yours is the answer we need.”
Anna felt the momentary lift her spirits had taken take a downturn. “Hopefully, it will eventually.”
“Tell me a little about yourself,” he invited.
“There’s not really much to tell, unfortunately,” Anna said wryly. She discovered that he was very good at drawing her out, however, leading her from one thing to another with intuitive questions and comments until she’d told him things about herself that she’d never told anyone else.
“I couldn’t help but notice you haven’t mentioned your father …?”
“Oh! He died when I was a baby. I don’t remember him. Mom never talked about him.”
“So … it was just the two of you … growing up?”
Anna shrugged. “I always hoped Mom would find someone else, but she never did. I guess it was because we moved so much. She really didn’t have much chance of forming any sort of relationship. She did date a couple of men that I was hopeful would become my father, but … we moved on.”
“Umm,” he murmured noncommittally. “Your mother liked to move?”
“I guess.” Anna thought it over. “She was always searching for a better life for the two of us, a better job, a better place to live.”
“Where does she live now?”
Anna felt the smile freeze on her lips. “She doesn’t. She was killed by a hit and run driver when I was in college.”
He frowned. “I’m sorry to hear that.”
Anna felt discomfort waft through her. He sounded sincere enough and yet she had the sense that he was secretly … pleased?
She studied him uneasily, but she couldn’t quite put her finger on why she’d gotten that impression.
“Are you finished?”
Anna stared at him blankly until she realized he was talking about her food.
Embarrassed when she saw she’d barely eaten enough to tell the food had been touched, she glanced at him uncomfortably. “It was really good. I guess my eyes were bigger than my stomach. I hate to see it go to waste, though. Maybe I could take it home?”
“I’ll tell the server. Why don’t we take a walk?”
Anna glanced around a little uncomfortably, wondering where Paul had gotten off to. “I should probably find Paul. I completely abandoned him and he brought me.”
“He’ll survive,” Cavendish said coolly, rising from his seat and helping her from hers. “Don’t look so guilty! He brought you because I told him I wanted to meet you.”
Anna looked at him in surprise. “He did?”
So much for thinking Paul had an interest in her!
“He did,” Cavendish responded, tucking her hand in the crook of his arm once more and guiding her along the balcony, which she discovered had emptied while the two of them had dined.
“Why?” she asked a little blankly.
He looked amused. “Why did he? Or why was I interested?”
She thought it over. “Both, I guess.”
“Why wouldn’t I be?” he countered. “You’re a lovely, fascinating young woman and a brilliant scientist.”
Anna felt a little thrill at the comment … and a good bit of doubt. “I am?”
He chuckled. “If you didn’t know that, it gives me grave doubts about the young men out there.”
“I haven’t found many hiding among my plants,” Anna said wryly.
He threw back his head and laughed heartily at that. “You have a quirky sense of humor. I like that. Don’t tell me you’ve no interest at all in the male of the species?”
Not a great deal, actually. “My research is important,” she said a little stiffly. “I consider myself extremely fortunate that I found a patron before I’d even graduated— who has given me the opportunity to pursue my research. I certainly don’t want to disappoint him. I really haven’t had the time to spare for … other pursuits.”
“Somehow, I don’t think your patron expected you to devote your entire life to research,” he said dryly. “You want children, at least?”
“Heavens! I certainly can’t consider that! I’d never get anything done if I had a child to take care of! Besides, people are starving and the world is … well, it’s a disaster! It’s unthinkable to consider bringing children into a world like this!”
“And yet life goes on.”
Anna glanced around and discovered he’d led her into what appeared to be a home office or maybe a library. The important thing was that they were completely alone.
She eyed the couch a little uneasily, considering the topic under discussion as he’d directed her to it and wondered a little wildly if that was his idea of seduction. “Uh … I guess so.”
He settled on the couch and patted the seat beside him invitingly.
Anna glanced toward the door he’d shut.
“Sit down, Anna. We need to talk.”
She frowned at the tone of his voice. “About what?”
“About our relationship.”
“We don’t have one.”
“But I’d like for us to.”
Anna gaped at him. “We just met!”
He stared at her blankly for a moment and grimaced. “This isn’t what you apparently think, Anna. Please! Sit down.”
Embarrassed to think she might have jumped to the wrong conclusion, Anna reddened, but she wasn’t convinced enough to sit do
wn on the couch with him. “I’m fine. I’m a little tired of sitting, actually.”
He released an irritated breath. “I’m your patron, Anna. I also happen to be your father.”
* * * *
The unthinkable had happened. Miles Cavendish had dropped a bombshell on Anna that had totally disrupted her focus. He’d torn apart the very fabric of her life by telling her that her entire life had been a lie. She wasn’t certain an actual bomb could have so completely traumatized her.
The shock itself was almost as debilitating. She’d never in her life had trouble concentrating. If anything, she’d been accused of too much focus, tunnel vision that blocked everything out except whatever it was she was centered on. To find herself suddenly without the ability to concentrate threw her even more off-kilter, as if she’d lost a vital part of her body and was trying to learn to cope with it. Try though she might to find her inner strength, though, she hadn’t managed to block out the many things disturbing her for more than a handful of minutes at the time since the night she’d met Miles Cavendish.
She couldn’t even sleep! If she managed to beat her thoughts back during the day enough to go through the motions of carrying on her research, at night when she lay down total chaos erupted in her mind. Random thoughts seemed to pelt her and lead her in first one direction and then another in an endless round of tug-of-war—everywhere except to composure and sleep.
Releasing a pent up breath of annoyance, Anna threw her covers off and rolled out of her bed. Food, she decided, would help her achieve her goal—sleep. She needed to find something pleasurable enough to keep her focus and filled with enough drugging elements to knock her out. High fat, she decided as she made her way down the hall toward the kitchen. Milk had sleep inducing properties.
Moving to the cooling unit, she opened the door and stood staring a little blankly at the nearly empty interior, wondering when she’d last ordered a grocery delivery. Of course, she never ordered much. For one thing, food was rationed. For another, it was damned expensive and she had to keep costs down and focus her spending on her project.
Which her ‘father’ had been paying for all along!
Squeezing her eyes closed, she forced the thought to the back of her mind. She tried. When that didn’t work, she started humming a tune, forcing her mind to focus on the tune rather than the thoughts battering to get inside.
Unfortunately, she couldn’t really think of any damned songs except the childhood songs her mother had taught her and they were too simple to help her keep focused. “Old MacDonald had a farm ….”
She picked up the container of milk and examined the expiration date. “Had sour milk because his cow had expired ….” She opened it and sniffed just to be sure. “Oh my god! I could make cheese with that! Ok, milk’s out. Fattening, fattening ….”
The take out boxes were empty, she discovered, wondering why she’d emptied them and left them inside the unit. “Old MacDonald had a farm, e-eye, e-eye, O!” she sang, pitching the containers over her shoulder in the general direction of the trash bin.
“And on that farm he had wrinkly tomatoes and withered lettuce, something unidentifiable and a black, hairy moldy thing! E-eye, e-eye … fuck!”
Slamming the door of the unit, she turned to head to her cabinets to check those for something that might appeal to her. It took her eyes a few moments to adjust from the brightness of the cooler to the darkness of the kitchen, several critical moments for her eyes to discern that there was a big, black, impenetrable shadow between her and her objective. The split second she realized that the dark shape was roughly the size and shape of a very large man, she screamed.
Something brushed her arm—a hand—and she screamed again, whirling to flee.
She slammed into the wall before she’d taken more than two leaps of fright. Stunned by the impact and the discovery that the wall was a lot closer than it should have been, the man she’d slammed into had coiled his arms around her before she’d gathered her wits.
Screaming again, she dropped all of her weight against his arms and slithered halfway through the lose coil before he realized what she was doing and tightened his arms, pinning her face against something soft and squishy. It hardened while she was huffing and puffing out muffled screams against it, flailing her arms and legs wildly and gyrating her body to try to get loose.
“Grab her god damn it!” the man above her bellowed.
She sensed the presence of a second man and then a third as they surrounded her moments before she felt them grabbing at her. The man holding her head released her abruptly. For a handful of seconds, she managed to keep her arms free. She surged upward when the man holding her let go. Someone grabbed her around the hips. She slapped at his head and shoulders, heaving against him to try to break his hold and then someone grabbed her from behind, manacling her arms to her sides. A hand nearly as big as her face clamped over her mouth and nose. A fresh wave of panic swept over her when she sucked in her breath and found her mouth and nose passages blocked by the hand. She sank her teeth into the heel of the hand over her mouth and sucked in a sharp breath when he yanked his hand back with a hiss of pain.
“Don’t cover my face! I can’t breathe!” she exclaimed in a frantic gasp, twisting her head back and forth to prevent the man from covering her face again.
He hesitated.
“Gag her,” the man in front of her said grimly. “She’ll start screaming again the moment we get her out of the house.
“I won’t!” Anna said pleadingly. “I swear! What do you want? What are you doing in my house?”
“Your father,” the man who’d spoken before growled angrily. “You’re going to lead us to him.”
Shock went through her. She stilled, but her mind was churning. Miles Cavendish? She hadn’t even accepted that he actually was her father and now, within the space of a week, she’d met a man claiming to be the man she’d thought long dead and a dangerous gang of men wanting to get to him through her?
“I’ll take you to him!” she volunteered. “I know where he is!”
“Just like that?”
Anna nodded vigorously, ignoring the twinge of guilt that stung her. Why should she die for a man she didn’t even know, though? Whatever he’d done, she certainly hadn’t had any part in it!
The man moved away. A few moments later, the kitchen light came on, blinding her. She clamped her eyes closed instinctively the moment the glaring light hit her pupils and then squinted to see. Another jolt went through her. There were four men standing around her and not one of them had on a stitch of clothing!
Her eyes widened as the shock of discovery went through her. The light glistened on their skin. Sweat from wrestling with her? Or water?
The man standing by the light switch, the one she realized had been issuing all of the orders, was exceptionally tall—over six feet, she was sure—and broad shouldered.
His black hair hung around his shoulders in damp, faintly curling locks that ended just at the tops of his bulging male breasts. Wedge shaped muscles formed blocks all the way down his belly to the light nest of black hair that cupped his genitals. He was still semi-erect, leaving her in no doubt of where her face had been.
Even as heat began to creep into her cheeks, she registered something that made the blood rush from her face.
His skin from just below the waist to his feet was patterned—not smooth and even as the rest of his skin. It almost looked like a tattoo—except she knew it wasn’t even before she caught a glimpse at the feathery looking fins at his wrists and elbows and his ankles. Her gaze swept upward to his face again of its own accord and then, with barely time to actually register his features, moved from him to the other men within her view.
She couldn’t see the one holding her, but she could feel the hard ridges of his flesh digging into her through her thin nightgown and knew he was the same.
They were all tall, with hard, elegantly de
lineated muscles that gave them the grace and beauty of sculptures depicting the perfect male body rather than the appearance of actual, flawed human beings.
Because they weren’t human beings at all.
“Mutants,” Anna breathed in shock, scarcely realizing she’d spoken aloud until she saw their handsome faces freeze and harden.
The man she was staring at glanced toward the one she’d realized must be their leader and her gaze automatically followed the movement.
She had the impression that he’d been studying her with equal thoroughness while she’d looked at them. It was hard to say what he’d thought of his assessment, though, because, clearly, she’d managed to insult and anger all of them.
“She either isn’t very bright,” he said coolly, “or she has some sort of false sense of superiority that not being a ‘mutant’ somehow protects her from the consequences of pissing off men who aren’t in a very forgiving mood at the moment.”
Anna swallowed convulsively several times, blushing at the insult, struggling to think of a response. “I’m not very bright,” she agreed shakily. “Could I … uh … just give you directions?”
He narrowed his eyes at her. “And apparently, she doesn’t think we’re very bright either,” he said dryly.
Irritation flickered through her. “I’m not deaf! I do understand English, although I have to say yours is damned hard to understand!”
He moved toward her, bending down and pushing his face close to hers. “It comes from being a water breather,” he growled, enunciating each word slowly, and then added. “Born one.”
Her eyes widened.
He lifted a hand and skimmed a finger lightly along her cheek. “Yes, we breed .
Is that why your father decided to step things up? He figured if he didn’t start blowing us up there’d be too many to kill all of us?”
If he’d punched her in the stomach he couldn’t have more surely jolted her or deprived her of air or sent her mind into complete chaos. She felt dizzy with the rush of blood away from her head. “Blow up?” she managed to whisper through lips that didn’t seem to want to cooperate in forming the words.
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