“You’re stronger, faster, smarter than your children. So should your children be plotting your extermination?”
“No.”
The answer seemed appropriately contrite, but Free had already learned the hard lesson that humans can be deceptive in deadly ways.
“Exactly. My guest, Elora Rose Storm, tells me that humans can’t stand the idea of not being the best at everything, top of the phylogenetic scale. It’s ironic that such creatures set out to deliberately create a superior species. Don’t you think?” Free waved his hand as if to say he didn’t expect an answer to that.
“It’s simple. If you accept us as part of your community, your people will live and perhaps profit from the infusion of new ideas and perspectives.” Free glanced at Carnal. “Not to mention blood. If you don’t, you may bring about your own demise.” The mayor looked at him sharply. “No. It’s not a threat. It’s a vision of one possible future that depends entirely on the choices you and your people make day to day, hour to hour. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” Comstock replied, looking humbled, a little sick, and not wanting to look Free in the eye.
“Here’s the first choice of many I may offer. Do you want to go out there and tell your people to get ready for our migration and integration or should I?”
To his credit, the mayor squared his shoulders, raised his chin, and said, “I will.”
“Very well. Once again, be certain you emphasize friendliness and cooperation.”
Comstock bowed his head once.
CHAPTER TEN
Rosie was stretched out on the bed with a book she’d picked up on one of her nocturnal errands to gather such things as girlie boudoir deco and soft socks. The knock at the door was distinctive and made her smile. Charming.
“Come in.”
Charming opened the door, took one running stride, and leaped, twisting his body midair so that he landed on the bed facing her.
“That was amazing.”
He grinned. “Thanks, but you’re not exactly a hard audience. It’s easy to wow you.”
Rosie smiled ruefully. “Is it now?”
Charming laughed. “Yeah. Don’t you know that?”
“Hmmm. Maybe.”
“What are you reading?”
“It’s an old book about witchcraft.”
“Witchcraft?” He looked excited. “You’re learning that shit? What are you gonna do?” He grinned. “I know. You could have the broom sweep the bar for you. And then the mop…”
Rosie giggled when “Fantasia” came to mind and she pictured Mickey Mouse in a wizard’s conical hat. “Calm down. Humans can’t really do witchcraft.” At least that was the party line that witches steadfastly maintained to keep humans from mucking about where they shouldn’t, making messes somebody else invariably had to clean up. “I’m just reading for fun.”
Charming looked at the book with suspicion. “Doesn’t look like fun from here. Where’d you get it?”
“Brought it with me. What do you want?”
“I want to know what you think?”
“About what?”
He chuffed. “About the whole let’s-move-in-with-humans thing.”
“I think it’s a good idea.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. Really.”
“Why?”
“Keep your friends close and your…”
“Enemies closer. Got it. Is that all?”
“No. I think both humans and hybrids will benefit from a merger of culture.”
“Why?”
“Because fresh perspectives spark fresh ideas. Multicultural societies thrive with life and color, emerging art forms, innovation of all kinds. It can be exciting.”
He raised up, resting his head on his hand. “You talk like you’ve seen that firsthand?” She nodded. “Free seems to think you’re some kind of divine messenger.”
She watched the mocking smile tease at his mouth, then said, “Stop it.”
Charming turned his head toward the door. “He’s home.”
“I didn’t hear anything.”
Charming laughed at her. “Come on. Let’s go find out how it went.”
She slammed the book closed and pushed up to follow him downstairs.
As they entered the kitchen, Serene reached up with the corner of her apron to dab at her temples. She’d been carving up the roasted haunch of some beast or other. She was smiling as Free stood pressed behind her, hands on her hips, whispering in her ear.
“Ew,” said Charming. “It’s the kitchen!”
At that Free grinned into Serene’s ear.
Rosie watched the exchange wistfully, thinking she wouldn’t mind having exactly that. A man like Free utterly devoted to her after thirty years. An unbidden image put her in a kitchen with Carnal smiling into her ear as their children complained about parents making out before dinner. It was a vision that was shockingly pleasing, especially since the last thing she’d ever imagined for herself was domesticity.
Free reached around Serene, grabbed a carrot, stuffed it in his mouth, and stepped back, smiling at Charming.
“We’re dying to know what happened,” Charming said.
“You don’t look like you’re dying.”
“Ha. Ha. Tell us.”
Free took his chair at the head of the table. “It went as well as expected.” Serene set a platter of meat and veggies in the center of the table and took her chair at the other end, looking just as curious and eager as Charming. “Carnal did a good job with the watcher schedule. Everybody’s been briefed. No human is to take anything away from any of the facilities and no hybrid is to leave a post without a replacement. All key buildings are covered.”
“I’m on duty tomorrow,” said Charming. “Been paired with Jagged.”
“Where?” asked Free.
“The lab. It’s in the city near the…”
“I know. I was there,” said Free.
“Oh yeah. Well, anyway. I’m supposed to watch and learn. And, like you said, make sure the humans don’t leave the premises with anything.” He put a chunk of meat in his mouth. “And I’m supposed to make nice with them.”
“Did Carnal tell you that?” Serene asked.
“I guess you could say he told me that. It was more like his highness ordered me.” Free and Serene both turned to look at Rosie when she giggled at that. “But what I really want to know about is the mating decree.”
“What mating decree?” Serene looked at Free.
“That’s what they’re calling it,” Charming said as he tore off a fistful of fresh baked bread. “Tag and I are talking about teaming up if we find a human girl we both like well enough. The only thing is I like small and perky,” he formed cups with his hands at chest height,” while Tag likes…”
As Charming was enlarging the space indicated by his hands, Serene blinked twice, then looked at Free with a darkening expression.
Seeing that, Free cut off the rest of that sentence. “Um, well, son, you make it sound like a much more casual proposition than what we were thinking.” He looked at Serene to judge her reaction to the direction his response was taking. When she nodded, he continued. “You have some maturing to do before you’re ready to, ah, team up.”
“Oh yeah. Well, sure. Gotta shop around.” He grinned.
Serene stared. “Right now, you’re concentrating on your education. Not ‘shopping around’.”
Charming grew instantly serious. “Of course,” he nodded. “My education.”
Rosie looked down at her lap and snorted. Everyone heard it, but ignored it.
Free steered the conversation back to something more salient. “Stood next to Comstock while he told his people about the changes. Then Red and I started looking around for ideas about how to house Exiled close together in the middle of the city without uprooting humans who already live there.
“A lot of the taller buildings have upper floors that are unoccupied. They would never have been built if it wasn’t for eleva
tors, but of course those are inoperable. Humans don’t like to climb multiple flights of stairs so the upper parts sit empty. Since that’s not a problem for us, it would work, but it would also be easy to trap us on upper levels. So we decided against that.
“Same thing for sublevels. Too easy to be trapped. We decided that our people need to be in ground level housing and, of course, that’s hardest to come by because that’s what everybody wants. There are a few buildings that are in such a serious state of disrepair that they’re not being used. Those are possibilities. If necessary we can also build temporary housing in the big park in front of City Hall.”
Serene cocked her head. “Why temporary?”
“Because, when we get everything up and running again, the elevators will work. Humans will move to upper levels and there will be more ground level space.”
She nodded. “That makes sense.”
“Have you come up with a timeframe?” Rosie asked.
Free glanced at her and back at his plate. “Tomorrow I’m taking Cage and Breaker with me to meet with the military brain trust and see what we think of their plan. Meanwhile, Red is taking his people to further assess what can be done about housing and how long that might take. We’ll have a better idea in a couple of days.”
Rosie looked across the table at Charming. There was no mistaking the fact that he was excited by the prospect of moving to the city and, in a way, that excitement was hopeful. It was certainly better than dread.
Rosie went to sleep reading by the light of an oil lamp. When she woke in the early morning, the oil lamp was off, her book had been left open to its place on a bedside table, and she was tucked under covers. It was cold in the early dawn. She rose to get to the bathroom before the household woke. When she opened the door and stepped into the hall, she noticed something was amiss.
Carnal’s door was never closed unless he spent the night, which was an occurrence so unusual as to be considered an event. But he was, apparently, in residence. She snorted softly at her use of the phrase. Apparently Charming’s description of Carnal as ‘his highness’ had resonated with her.
When she emerged from the bathroom, Carnal stood on the other side of the door looking sleepy in the most attractive way. Before she could form another thought, he pressed her back against the wall and passed his lips lightly over hers before urging her mouth open into a sensuous kiss that left no room for anything in her mind but the taste and feel of Carnal. Her awareness bounced back and forth between the hardness of the body bearing down on her, the implied danger of a touch of fang, and the ecstatic pleasure of his tongue tangling with her own.
At the very moment when she’d become pliable as a jellyfish with nothing more than a hazy notion of who and where she was, he let her go abruptly, stepped inside the bathroom, and shut the door. Left standing alone in the hall, wondering what just happened, she wasn’t sure whether to feel flattered, angry, used, or embarrassed, but after a few seconds she’d discarded ‘flattered’ as one of the options.
When she arrived downstairs for breakfast twenty minutes later, Carnal was licking frosting from a roll with an amused twinkle that only intensified when she glared at him.
“Morning, Rosie,” he said with annoying cheer.
Rosie’s responding harrumph caused Serene to turn around and look at her.
“Good morning, Serene,” she said sheepishly before giving Carnal another glare behind Serene’s back.
He wasn’t sure whether she was glaring at him about the ambush kiss or about leaving her barely able to stand on her own. Either way he was satisfied that he’d shaken her up, disturbed her complacency, and guaranteed that she’d be thinking about him all day. He wanted her to be experiencing the same pleasure/pain of not being able to get her off his mind.
After the freaky comment about not being shared, Carnal had done exactly as Rosie suggested. He’d gone straight to his father.
Free had sat back in his chair and chosen words carefully. “I’m afraid that idea is ripe for misinterpretation. I asked Rosie to point out possible pitfalls, problems that might be avoided if they’re anticipated. Most of the time we can put countermeasures in place if we know what’s coming.
“She said there’s a sexual math problem. Too many males, not enough females, and that the human females will choose hybrid over human.”
Carnal smiled. “For obvious reasons.”
“And,” Free said pointedly, “that will leave unmated human males with a powerful resentment toward hybrids that could turn into another conspiracy.”
Carnal’s smile failed as he narrowed his eyes. “And you suggested that problem could be solved by…”
Free sighed and looked away. “I said that two Exiled males might form a household with one human female, thereby solving the math problem.”
Carnal cocked his head at his father. “You didn’t say that.”
“I did. Cage and Breaker liked the idea. Charming seemed to take to it as well.” After a few beats Carnal started laughing. “What’s so funny?”
“This is the first time I’ve ever seen you blunder. When you do it, you really do it. I can’t wait to hear your plan for extracting yourself from this one.”
“We were brainstorming. It wasn’t intended to be a well-considered or serious solution ready for proposal.”
Carnal was nodding and smiling. “Serious. Solution. Wow.”
“You think it’s easy? Wait till it’s your turn.”
“My turn to what?”
“To lead.”
Carnal’s eyebrows tried to touch his hairline. “Lead?!?” He started shaking his head. “Noooooooo. Not in a hundred years.”
Free had been leaning back in his chair. The front two legs hit the floor with a thump when he leaned forward, levity aside. “You may not have a choice, son. Fate gives you what Fate gives you.”
“Yeah? Well, the only thing I want Fate to give me is…” Carnal realized he’d said too much and looked away.
“What?” Free asked with more than a mild curiosity. “What is it you want from Fate?”
When Carnal looked at his father, Free’s face softened. He could count on one hand the times in Carnal’s life when he’d appeared vulnerable. The longing on his son’s face was unmistakable.
“Rosie,” Carnal almost whispered.
Free’s expression went slack. “Carnal. She’s not staying. She’s just passing through. Kellareal said she’d only be here a short while. And she’s not…”
“Not what? Not one of us? I thought you wanted us to mate humans. Mix it up. Isn’t that what you said in the Commons?”
“Yes, but…”
“But what? It’s good enough for the others, but not me?”
“Well…”
“She’s special. More special than you can even imagine. And she affects me in ways I don’t even understand.”
Free thought about the fact that Exiled would be facing extinction if not for Rosie. “It’s undeniably true that she’s special, uncommon in many ways and we owe her a lot. I mean, she’s human, and I’ve made her an advisor on par with the elders.” He looked at Carnal. “But she’s not staying.”
“She might.”
Free cocked his head to the side. “Has she indicated that she’s interested in you?”
It was Carnal’s turn to take a deep breath. “I’m not sure. Maybe. Sometimes I think yes, then… I don’t know. Ask me tonight.”
“What’s happening tonight?”
“Not tonight. This afternoon.”
Free tapped his fingers on the table and seemed lost in thought. “Your mother likes her. And it would be a good example to set. If my oldest son took a human to mate.”
Carnal grinned. “Way to put a political twist on love, Dad.”
“What can I say? I’m a political animal.”
“Please. It’s too sober in the day for animal jokes.”
Free pinned Carnal with a pointed look. “Like it or not, so are you. A political beast, that is.�
��
Carnal knew that look. He also knew that Free was usually right about things. Following in those footsteps wasn’t something he saw himself doing, but if Free thought it was inevitable, Carnal knew he needed to stop being dismissive about the possibility.
“So what’s happening this afternoon?” Free asked.
“None of your business,” Carnal said casually.
Free laughed. “All your life, you’ve always found a way to get what you wanted, even if you knew it’d mean punishment. Elora Rose Storm…” Free shook his head, “strikes me as being someone who is an immovable force when she doesn’t want to do something.”
One side of Carnal’s mouth raised into a lopsided smile. “I’m sure you’re right about that. She’s not like anybody else. So wish me luck.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Carnal was waiting on a stool at the end of the bar when Rosie threw her apron in the bin and grabbed her shawl.
“What are you doing?” she asked as she moved toward the door.
“Told you I’d be here.”
“And here you are.” She smiled. “Bye.”
He stepped around her but didn’t stop her path toward the house. He simply walked backward. “You owe me.”
That brought her up short. Tilting her head back she looked up at him. “What do you mean I owe you?”
“Our date was cut short. The picnic? You owe me half a date.”
Carnal was encouraged when he saw the corners of her mouth twitch. “You gonna let me drive your bike?”
“Definitely not.”
“Well then, why should I give you half a date?”
Without warning he pulled her into his body and resumed the kissing he’d so expertly delivered in the hallway during the early morning light. Somewhere between the time her body started to hum and drawing him closer with her hands around his neck, she forgot every reason why she might object to anything Carnal had in mind.
When he pulled away from the kiss, his hands continued to grip firmly enough to keep her snug against him.
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