Shadow of Thorns

by Ripley Proserpina

  He opened it and saw exactly what he expected. All of the samples he’d kept cold, vials of his blood, of his brothers’ blood, of Briar’s blood, were gone. Taken.

  It must have been difficult for the creature to take those vials without breaking them open and draining the contents. But then again, they were Asher’s only sentient minions. They would understand the consequences if they failed him. A soldier on the other hand may not have been able to resist the temptation.

  “Someone broke in?” Briar asked. Her human eyes would not have been able to make out the trails that gave away the crawlers presence. “What did they take?”

  “Blood samples,” Hudson answered. The trail went over his chair toward his computer. He touched it with a finger, pulling it away with a tail of mucus. He’d need to replace the keyboard. Wiping his hands on his pants, he walked over to his supply cabinet. Inside were gloves, and he pulled them over his hands. Maybe he drank blood, but slime was gross, and he didn’t want to touch it.

  Gloves on, he hit a key on the keyboard, and the screen glowed to life. He was ready to enter his password, but what came on the screen was not the option to write his admin password.

  It was one of his reports, the one he’d written describing what he’d found on Briar’s chromosomes. He’d only written it for himself, a series of question and answers he’d made to guide his thought process. But it wasn’t meant to be shared. Not with a creature loyal to Asher, and especially not with Asher himself.

  “Your work?” Briar asked, glancing over his shoulder. Hudson looked back at her and caught Marcus’s gaze. His brother stood sentry by the door, hands loose next to his legs. Anyone who didn’t know Marcus would think he was relaxed, but he wasn’t. Human eyes wouldn’t catch the way he stayed on the balls of his feet, fingers slightly clawed. His fangs, white and sharp, were visible as he panted through his mouth, sucking in the air and tasting it for any foreign scents.

  “Hudson.” Briar’s voice made him meet her glare. “Hudson. Talk to me, please.”

  “Do you smell that?” he asked.

  Her small nostrils flared as she breathed in, and her face whitened. “How did I miss it?” she asked, wrinkling her nose. “It smells like worms.”

  “Worms?” he asked. He’d never put his face next to an earthworm, so he couldn’t say for sure.

  “The way it smells after a heavy rain. You walk outside and all the earthworms have escaped from their little flooded tunnels. It smells like that.”

  “Huh.” She was right; it was analogous to the smell the crawler left. “It was a crawler,” Hudson said. “This?” He held up his glove and rubbed the fingers together to show the slime between his fingertips. “This is the trail they make when they travel.”

  “It must make it easy to track them.” She glanced toward Marcus and the door.

  “If it is still nearby, Valen and Sylvain will find it,” he agreed.

  Briar shivered and touched her neck, cupping it with her palm. “Slime.” She dropped her hand and crossed her arms. “So do we wait? Or do we work?”

  “We wait until Valen and Sylvain give us the all clear,” Marcus answered from the doorway. “If they find the crawler, they’ll kill it and return here. Then we leave.”

  “We’re probably safer here than we are out there,” Briar mused. She turned slowly, examining the walls and vents. She walked from Hudson to the wall to thump with her knuckles. “It’s just as likely to keep something out as your house. And at least here there aren’t windows.”

  “Fair enough,” Hudson answered. “But in all honesty, I’ll have a hard time wrapping my brain around genetics right now.” With that, he pulled the keyboard off the computer and dumped it in a nearby garbage can. Then he peeled off his gloves and threw them in as well.

  “I understand.” Briar sighed and sat on a rolling chair. She spun on the seat before kicking against the floor to propel toward one wall. “You said crawlers are intelligent. So they choose to follow Asher?”

  “They aren’t intelligent like we are,” Marcus said. “That came out wrong. I mean—they retain self-control, but not a sense of self. They lose who they were.”

  “Are you certain?” Briar asked. She spun in the chair, kicked off the floor again and rolled toward the computer. Once there, she pointed at the screen. “Because this certainly seems like the work of an intelligent creature. What did you use crawlers for when you were with Asher?”

  “Reconnaissance, mostly,” Marcus answered. “Torture, because of their venom, but that only worked on humans.”

  “You tortured humans?” Briar asked, and Hudson saw his brother clench his jaw.

  “I did a lot of things I’m not proud of,” he answered.

  “Okay.” Briar stood and brushed her hands over her pants like she was dusting herself off. “Let’s get this out in the open.”

  “Get what out in the open?” Marcus asked.

  Hudson smiled, gaze bouncing between his brother and the woman he loved. That girl had been waiting for her opportunity to call Marcus on the carpet about his behavior the other day. And now she was doing it.

  “You said I didn’t know you. And then you tried to tell me I wouldn’t love you after I knew what you’d done. So let me tell you what I think you’ve done.” Her voice hardened, all trace of smiles gone from her sunny face. Her scars stood stark against her skin, red and angry. She swept a trembling hand through her hair and gathered it over her shoulder. “I think you’ve killed people. Humans. I think when you were controlled by bloodlust, you killed indiscriminately, and you can’t remember all their faces, but the ones you can remember haunt you.”

  Marcus stared down at her as she approached him, his face devoid of expression.

  “I think you killed vampires, maybe humans too, in the heat of battle. I think you were cruel at times because you were stronger, faster, smarter.”

  Her voice began to tremble, and her sunshine scent blossomed. Hudson took a step toward her. Marcus’s expression hadn’t changed, except his eye twitched, a small spasm that gave away just how hard it was for him to keep himself together.

  “I think when you finally cleared your mind of bloodlust and Asher’s control, you were horrified by your past. It tore you apart.”

  Next to his legs, Marcus’s hands twitched and Hudson leapt between the two of them. If he was struggling with his control, Hudson would keep Briar safe. Marcus hissed, showing Hudson his fangs, but he didn’t make a move toward her. A soft hand touched his shoulder, urging him to the side.

  “I’m fine, Hudson,” she said. But he didn’t want to move. Every word out of Briar’s mouth described not only Marcus’s past, but his own. Without knowing exactly what it was they’d done, she’d summarized his entire two thousand year existence. Marcus’s green eyes rose to meet his, revealing the torture each statement inflicted.

  “Marcus.” Briar stood between them now and reached for Marcus’s face. She held it between her palms and stood on her tiptoes, gently kissing his lips. Hudson couldn’t help himself, he moved closer, crowding her body with his. His hands went to her hips, and he dropped his forehead to her shoulder. She smelled so good. “Marcus,” she whispered, “I love you. I love the man you are, and you never would have become him without the past you lived. And without your vampire. So guess what? I love him, too.”

  With a groan, Marcus lunged for her. He wrapped her in his arms, pulling her off the floor to hold her closer. Hudson let her go, but still he reached for her. When Hudson touched her side, Briar took his hand with one of hers. She squeezed him as tightly as he saw her holding Marcus, as if she knew she’d spoken to both their fears.

  “I love you,” Marcus whispered into her neck.

  A burst of sunshine and heat filled the room, and Briar sighed. “I love you, too. I love all of you. And nothing you could do would change that. Nothing you’ve done, will change that. Do you understand?” Briar squeezed Hudson’s hand, driving the statement home.

  “Yes,” he whis
pered.

  “Yes,” Marcus repeated and let her slide from his arms. For a second, his brother met his gaze, and Hudson smiled, understanding the unspoken message.

  He moved closer, gripped Briar’s hips, and tugged her against his chest at the same time Marcus crowded her. His brother bent his head, capturing Briar’s mouth with his own. Hudson traced her neck with his lips, allowing his teeth to graze her skin.

  She threaded her hand through his hair, holding him in place as Marcus continued his onslaught. He heard her heart speed up as her hand clenched in his hair. Flexing his hips into her backside, he groaned. Her body was soft against his hard, and so responsive. At once, she arched back into him, all the while his brother continued to kiss her.

  Through the haze of his arousal, he made out footsteps hurrying down the hall and forced himself to step away. Briar let him, though she stretched her arm toward him, searching for his hand. He gave it to her. When Marcus finally lifted his head, she stumbled, and he caught her.

  “Do you understand now?” she asked, peering over her shoulder at him before back to Marcus.

  “Yes,” they answered in unison, and she giggled.

  “Finally,” she answered.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Briar

  Hudson found another keyboard in a nearby lab. It reminded her of the EEG machine he’d heisted from one of his colleagues. It was a good thing the professors were easy going about equipment, because as Briar helped Hudson clean the slime, it became apparent they were going to need to borrow a lot.

  The keyboard was already in the trash, but the test tubes, a couple microscopes, and some of the consumables, like gauze, tape, and alcohol pads, had been slimed.

  Briar held up a carton of pipets. Ribbons of slime oozed along the outside and slipped to the floor. “I don’t remember it being so slimy. It’s like they went to extra effort to get this stuff everywhere.”

  Behind her, Sylvain choked and coughed. She turned, and caught him breathing slowly, eyes closed. In his hands, he held a medical file. It too was covered. As if he sensed her watching, Sylvain opened his eyes, accidentally glancing down at the file in his hands, coughed and gagged. “It smells gross. I can’t do it.” He dropped the file in the sink and backed away.

  “I didn’t know vampires could puke,” Briar said. “Huh.”

  “You can’t smell it. I—” His shoulders heaved, and he hurried to the lab door and opened it. “I’m going to patrol. Sorry.” He slipped out, shutting the door behind him.

  Briar glanced at the three guys left. None of them seemed especially pleased about the cleanup, but no one looked as green as Sylvain had. Poor man.

  “I should go with him,” Marcus said and began to peel off his gloves.

  “Nice try,” Hudson said. “But you’re the only other person who knows how to clean this equipment.”

  “Briar does,” Marcus complained.

  “No,” she apologized. “I don’t. It would take Hudson longer to explain to me how to clean it than for you to do it. I’ve got my own job. Quit breathing and start de-sliming.”

  Valen chuckled and tossed a handful of paper towels in the garbage. “We’re almost finished anyway. I think, Hudson. You should probably just burn the paperwork. In fact, maybe if we light all those burners over there it’ll get rid of the smell.”

  “It’ll also activate the sprinkler system, so that’s a hard pass,” Hudson said. “I’d offer you cotton rolls to put in your nose and alcohol, but those are ruined, too.” Of all of them, besides the now absent Sylvain, Hudson was the only one not cleaning. Instead, he was accessing the files on his computer, identifying which ones had been opened and copied.

  One thing was certain, after today, her vampires would not underestimate the intelligence of the crawlers. As Briar scooped a handful of ruined chromatography paper strips into the garbage, she thought about the creatures. What a horrible existence they must have. They lost everything—their lives, their humanity, their identity—and then they were forced by their maker to essentially be a slave.

  Briar had learned a little about the soldiers Asher kept, and in her opinion, of two horrible deals, they’d gotten the slightly less worse one. At least in their case, they didn’t know they’d become grotesque. They didn’t see, and understand, that they’d lost everything.

  “Did you ever become friends with any of the crawlers?” Briar asked, resting her back against the sink.

  Valen shook his head, but Marcus laughed. “Uh. No. Definitely not.”

  “Why not?” she asked. If they were capable of higher understanding, and perhaps they had been known to the guys before they’d been changed, what stopped them from interacting with them?

  Marcus shrugged and carefully cleaned the equipment in front of him. “No point. They rarely lasted longer than the task they were assigned.” Briar didn’t answer, and Marcus paused his cleaning to glance up at her. “Why?”

  “It just seems a sad existence,” she replied quietly. “To have awareness, and see yourself disintegrate. To understand others’ contempt. Poor creatures.”

  “Don’t feel sorry for them,” Valen said. “I never knew an innocent who became a crawler. Often, they were the greediest humans Asher could find. He’d promise them immortality in return for some favor, and they’d gladly agree.”

  “So he made them crawlers on purpose?” she asked.

  “No,” Valen said. He placed the mop in the bucket and squeezed the water from the cotton. “Crawlers are accidental creations, but now that you’ve brought it to my attention, I do find it interesting that the only crawlers I knew were the worst type of humanity.”

  “Did you ever try to turn anyone besides Annie?” Briar asked and immediately regretted the question when Valen dropped his gaze to the floor and shook his head.

  “None of us did,” Marcus said quietly. “Not while we were with Asher. Only masters made vampires. Or crawlers and soldiers.”

  “I wish your equipment was working,” Briar said, flinging off a spot of ooze that was stuck to her sleeve into the sink. “We could look at this more closely. Perhaps we could see the differences between you and the crawlers.”

  “You have so many questions,” Hudson mused from his seat at the computer. “It would take an eternity to answer them all.”

  The room was silent after his pronouncement. Briar imagined they all were thinking of the request she’d made to be turned immortal like them. Hudson’s words hung heavy in the air, and after a moment, unable to stand the awkwardness, Briar spoke again. “I’ve been thinking about the purpose of my genetic mutation.”

  Though it wasn’t audible, there seemed to be a collective sigh of relief with Hudson quickly latching onto her idea.

  “What did you come up with?” he asked. “Chance? Heredity? Virus?”

  “Nope,” she answered. “Evolution.”

  “Really?” He rolled away from the computer and waved a hand in the air to encourage her before crossing his arms. “Go on.”

  “Well, I started thinking, what could I possibly gain from staying out of the sun? There has to be a reason, right? And as far as I know, neither one of my parents has a relative with my similar condition. I mean, first cousins, second cousins, third cousins… But what if, somewhere way back in time, there was a reason for me to stay out of the daylight.”

  “Like what?” Marcus asked. “Asteroid pushing the Earth closer to the sun?”

  “Haha,” she answered. “No. Mimicry.”

  “Mimicry.” Hudson smiled. He rubbed his hand across his chin. “Go on.”

  “Well, mimicry has lots of purposes. The simplest is that bigger and meaner predators don’t eat you. But it’s a little less obvious. Like—if you’re forced to live among predators. What if your scent confuses them, so as a result they don’t eat you.” Briar raised her eyebrows. “What do you think?”

  “Wasmannian mimicry,” Hudson answered. “Interesting idea.”

  Marcus finished his cleaning and lean
ed on the wall near Hudson. “So you think—way back—your ancestors survived by confusing vampires and running away?” He shook his head. “Sorry, Briar. I can’t see it. We’re really fast.”

  “I thought of that,” Briar said excitedly. Valen strode toward her and wrapped her in his arms, trading places with her so she leaned her back against his chest. She wrapped her arm around his and sighed happily. This was her dream come true, surrounded by people who loved her while she debated scientific topics. It took her a moment to remember what she was talking about, distracted as she was by the realization of her fantasies. “It’s just a theory, remember. But what if my scent binds you to me. Makes you want to protect me, rather than eat me.”

  “It makes me want to do both,” Valen rumbled from behind her. His lips nuzzled her neck as he placed a kiss against her skin. “This is a very good theory.”

  The door to the lab opened, and Sylvain strode in. He took a breath and grimaced. “It’s not as bad as it was. Are we done here?”

  “Briar was explaining something,” Valen said, smoothing his hands along her arms. “Be quiet and listen.”

  “It’s not a theory that can be proven, unfortunately,” Hudson said. He turned back to his computer and shut it down before standing. “Humans are not as clear-cut as say, insects, who use pheromones to make more dangerous insects believe they are of the same species.”

  “I know” Briar said. “But I like to think there’s a reason I am the way I am. That there’s a purpose for my condition. I mean, for the first few years of my life, I was able to walk in the sun. Why was that?”

  Hudson stood, narrowing his eyes. “You never told me that.”

  “No? I thought I had,” Briar said. She tried to remember the many, many emails she’d sent him. “I was sure I’d mentioned my first burn.”

  Hudson glanced at his computer longingly, like he wanted to get right back to work. “Dammit,” he muttered. “I want to stay here, open what I had saved on the computer, but there’s too much work to do to just dive right back in.”