Blood of Eve

by Pam Godwin

  He gave me a pained look beneath heavy brows. “Evie.”

  I covered my mouth. “Did you get his spider shit, too?”

  He closed his eyes.

  I jumped to my feet and paced, swirling up the tension in the room. The Drone’s own creations had turned on him, infecting him. But he’d stunted his mutation with his homemade strands of spider DNA. Hence, the fangs.

  “Son of a bitch.” I stopped, swinging around to face him. “Why didn’t you tell us?”

  “I…” His breath shuddered, and he reached up to touch a tooth. A fucking fang. “Studying…wanted proof…”

  Always with the damned proof. Distrust plowed through me in full force. He’d pulled that shit when he was studying my blood, refusing to disclose his conclusions until he could authenticate them.

  I knelt beside him and touched the fading scar on his chest with a shaking hand. “Did you know you could heal like this?”

  He nodded then shook his head. “I didn’t know the extent…until now.”

  His breathing was returning to normal, his face regaining its olive glow.

  “You lied to me. Again.” I tried to swallow my distrust, hawking it back and choking on it.

  I couldn’t trust him, and that realization simmered bile through my stomach and swelled an ache behind my eyes.

  Jesse and Roark watched me carefully, probably worried about an impending explosion. They were right about that, but I managed to keep the detonation inside, gritting my teeth against the nausea surging through my insides.

  “So ye have the aphid’s healing abilities?” Roark crouched over him and cast him a drawn-out look.

  “And their speed.” I mentally replayed his supernatural movements on the battlefield, his bite from the kiss, all the pieces linking together in a dizzying mix of emotions. “What about bloodlust?”

  The Drone had struggled to keep his greedy fangs away from me. Something to do with my evolving biological characteristics of the ladybird and the spider being my natural predator.

  What did it mean for Michio and his attraction to me? Would the bloodlust turn him on? Would it affect me the same way? Or could it make him lose control and hurt me?

  Images flashed through my mind. His mouth covering my neck, sharp teeth biting and drawing blood. Our naked bodies sliding together. His fingers bruising my skin. The richness of his voice deepening into an animalistic growl.

  The sudden heat low in my belly warred with the itch to bury a dagger in his heart. “There better not be any negative side effects.”

  His Adam’s apple bobbed.

  My hands curled into fists in my lap. Blood coated the nail beds and splattered up my arm.

  I’d almost lost him. Whatever changes were happening to his DNA, it had saved his life. Focus on that.

  Jesse moved to Amos’ side and checked the man’s pulse. Amos hadn’t twitched in his silent sprawl, and I knew what Jesse would find.

  He met my eyes and shook his head. Dead. Amid all the emotions rioting through me, guilt rose to the top. Yeah, I had been defending myself, but so had Amos. He thought I was a monster, and could I blame him? I should’ve checked him for weapons. Stupid fucking hindsight.

  I managed a small smile. “Looks like Shea will be joining our road trip.”

  Michio looked at me, his eyes fried with taut lines of exhaustion and tension. “We won’t be able to bring along every woman we cure. We need to find a safe place for her.”

  We really did need a plan for keeping the cured women safe. The best bet would be to ship them back to the Lakota in West Virginia. But how would we do that? At the end of the day, it would be up to each woman to decide where she wanted to live.

  “Let’s get her healthy first.” Roark shifted his gaze from Michio to the still nymph-like, unconscious woman. “Then we’ll worry about traveling.”

  Jesse strode toward the door and scanned the hillside. Beyond his broad frame, the horizon swallowed the final haze of daylight.

  Despite the gun shots, Georges and Tallis would’ve known not to give up their positions on guard to come investigate.

  Jesse hadn't said a word about the situation. Was he plotting Michio’s death? Or thinking about ways to use the doctor’s abilities as a weapon? I wished I could read his locked-down mind.

  When he looked back at me, I tried to decipher his eyes. Coppery, paradoxical, and contemplative, sometimes they gave a glimpse into his stormy emotions. But not now. They were as guarded and secretive as his thoughts.

  Back on my feet, I holstered my sidearm on my thigh and adjusted the carbine’s sling on my shoulder. The mark on Michio’s chest had vanished, along with the fangs. How had I not noticed his teeth before? Could he retract them at will?

  I opened my mouth to ask but caught myself. His eyes were closed, and I had more important questions bucking inside my skull. Like would he continue to evolve? Would he turn into the monster the Drone became? I chewed the inside of my cheek, my fingers restlessly tapping the carbine. No, the Drone had been a monster long before the virus.

  Roark stood and pulled my hand from the carbine. Was he trying to separate me from the gun? Worried I’d shoot Michio on principle?

  He massaged my fingers, tenderly, lovingly. My nerves were so overloaded I shook against the sensation.

  “Why den’ ye go clean up?” He glanced at my tattered jeans and blood-soaked tank top. “I’ll watch over Doc and Shea.”

  The nymph-woman breathed in a deep, steady rhythm, but even in sleep her face began to narrow. The sickly hue of her complexion receded, her muscles filling with blood beneath her skin, her cells growing and changing from my blood. And the sounds. Ugh, the sucking sounds of her throat breaking down and reforming saturated the room. Indentations climbed up and down her neck, like fingertips pressing from the inside. I could almost feel her mandible cracking apart, the inhuman pieces disintegrating, the gruesome snap and grind of bones.

  As horrific as the transformation was to watch, it was the reason we were here. Despite whatever we now faced with Michio, we’d succeeded in freeing another woman from the creature she had been trapped in.

  I flexed my fingers, my steps a little lighter as I joined Jesse at the door. “I need a smoke.”

  Maybe I could burn away the rest of the tension with a couple or twenty cancer sticks.

  Jesse untied a tiny leather pouch from his belt and passed it over. “There’s a water hole round back. I’ll guard while you bathe.”

  He strode out the door, not bothering to wait for me. Damn the confidence in his gait, the imposing bow at his back, and the way his jeans cupped his ass. He could’ve modeled for the Playgirl edition of Outdoor Life magazine. But it was a good distraction as I left the drama behind me, if only for a short while.

  The brawn in his shoulders and biceps moved sensually beneath his sun-soaked skin. Messy spikes of hair paired perfectly with the dirty, glistening sweat on his nape and back. Worn denim accentuated his battle-toned thighs. Even the mud-caked boots looked intimidating. He really was a savage. If I pressed my nose to his neck, I’d smell the wildness wafting from his pores.

  He made me feel safe, despite the vulnerability wheezing from my lungs.

  But his feral appearance wasn’t half as reassuring as the intelligence working behind those fierce eyes. He harbored opinions about Michio, even if his casual indifference said otherwise. I needed to hear his thoughts, wanted him to tell me our team of four still had each other’s backs, that we’d survive this. Together.

  Smokes in hand, I followed on his heels with every intention of prying the hulking, reluctant conversation from his clamped lips.

  Hues of deep purple streaked the sky, casting an unnerving gloom over the clearing behind the animal clinic. Without a breeze, the stifling air didn’t stir. Neither did the shadows between the skeletal trees that surrounded the field and small pond. The area was eerily still, too quiet, like a fog from the water hole was suffocating the environment.

  Except there w
as no fog.

  A few steps ahead, Jesse’s long-legged strides slowed. When I reached his side, he said, “Stay here.”

  “Do you feel it, too?”

  He squinted at the trees, his eyebrows burrowing together. “What? Are there aphids?”

  “No.” I pressed a hand against my stomach, feeling strangely calm yet not calm at all.

  His nostrils flared as his attention darted around us, his body posed, as if ready to attack the shadows.

  “Tell me what you’re feeling.” Impatience clipped through his Texan drawl.

  “Nothing. That’s just it. Nothing is always something.” I stood halfway between the building and pond, giving serious thought to abandoning the bath. “I don’t know. This place creeps me out.”

  He scanned the mirrored surface of the water, the border of woodland, and returned to me. “Do not move from this spot." He looked directly in my eyes, and a shimmer of anxiety reflected back in his, straining the inches between us. “I'll be extremely unhappy if you do.”

  When I nodded, he jogged off toward the copse, keeping to the edge and remaining in sight. But the shade strewn by dead trees closed in around him. Dried-up husks splintered with broken branches, their dark silhouettes hunched over like spiny bones, like aphids crouched on double-jointed limbs, waiting to attack. I shuddered and rubbed my arms.

  As Jesse moved in and out of the shadows, my nerves rattled around in my stomach. What was up with me? I wasn’t usually this strung out.

  I pulled out a cigarillo, struck a match, and tied the pouch at my belt. A few seconds later, the burn of tobacco and smoke curled through the dark and relaxed my lungs.

  Smoking grounded me, each pull and puff connecting me to an easier life, when stress was brought on by a traffic jam on the way to work or an argument with Joel about hanging up his clothes. Nicotine had a way of mellowing my mind and dousing my nerves.

  But not now. A strange sensation nipped at my nape and tingled my scalp. I twisted to look behind me.

  Nothing moved. Not the shadowy grassland around the animal clinic or the dense spaces between the clusters of buildings a few acres to the south.

  As I exhaled the final drag, Jesse strode back to my spot, blasting me with those copper eyes. “There’s nothing out there. What do you feel now?”

  I touched a hand to my cheek. Cold fingers on a warm night? I stomped out the cigarette, feeling light-headed, out of sorts, but… “Still nothing. Overactive imagination, I guess.”

  A foot away, he bent his knees and put his face in mine, his eyes softening. “Or lingering shock from Doc’s revelation?”

  I couldn’t have asked for a better opening. “Yeah, about that—”

  “I don’t…” His jaw set, and his back straightened, as he scrubbed a hand through his hair. “Listen, I don’t want you fucking him.”

  My eyes must’ve bulged out of my head. I was shocked speechless and completely unnerved on so many levels. I mean, Jesse didn’t acknowledge my sexual relationships. He made himself scarce when I was with Michio and Roark intimately. He never showed signs of jealousy. One would think he didn’t give a shit, or for that matter, didn’t even notice. I knew better, but for him to voice an opinion about it was huge.

  He loomed over me, hands on his hips. “You need to replace your IUD as soon as possible.”

  Wait. “What?” I knew he noticed more than he let on, but the IUD? “How do you know about that?”

  He gave me a pointed look. “I make it my business to know everything about you.”

  My pulse kicked up, and my chest thrummed with warmth. Why did I like hearing that so much?

  I stared up at him and hoped my expression didn’t look overexcited. “Why?” When he started to shake his head, I rushed forward. “You have to give me something. Your secrets aren’t helping either of us.”

  Shifting his weight from one boot to the other, he pinched his lips together and glanced away. I didn’t want to surrender to his silent treatment, to the closed-mouthed Jesse Beckett, who seemed to know everything about me but offered nothing in return. Something had to give.

  “Do you want me to replace the IUD because you’re afraid of what kind of child Michio and I would conceive? Or do you have some premonition about what will happen if I became pregnant?”

  Would my baby be something other than human?

  He stared at the horizon for long seconds then slid that pensive gaze to me. His eyes roamed my face so intensely I wanted to shrink into my shoulders. But he seemed to be considering something. Talking? Sharing? Open your stubborn mouth.

  I held still, examining his features as diligently as he searched mine. Stubborn jaw covered in reddish-brown whiskers. Strong cheekbones from his Native American heritage. Full lips that separated, just enough to reveal a restless tongue. And his eyes… Even when squinting in the dark, they had the power to heat my skin and pin me in place. Like now.

  The current that ran through our shared look was staggering. He must’ve felt it, because he gripped the back of my head and pressed my cheek against his chest, breaking the spell. Holy hell, every inch of his body was solid rock, the ridges of his muscles so very warm and hard against my face.

  But it was his words that sent my pulse into overdrive.

  “If you get pregnant…” He inhaled deeply, the pause ratcheting my heart rate. His hand clenched in my hair. “You’ll die, Evie. A child will kill you.”

  My stomach dropped, and I jerked back to meet his eyes. “What? How? You mean, childbirth? Or after?”

  I flinched against the sudden image of a spider-baby skittering from its bed and sucking my blood while I slept.

  He tightened his hand around my nape, his gaze stark and unblinking in the moonlight as he rasped, “I don’t know.”

  The mere thought of pregnancy made my blood run cold. “Find me another IUD, and I’ll let Michio replace it. What else are you not telling me?”

  He licked his lips, his attention bouncing between me and our surroundings. “The night I met you, Annie said…”

  My entire body froze in remembrance of that night. Chasing her ghostly manifestation through the woods. Falling into the fire. Meeting the Lakota. My daughter’s spirit had been so vivid and real in the mountains, her toothy smile so full of life.

  A tremor shook my fingers. I curled them against my thighs. “Annie said?”

  He closed his eyes, and his mouth tightened.

  No, he couldn’t shut down. Not yet. I placed my hand over his, holding it against my face. “Please?”

  His eyes opened, locking on mine, and his expression sharpened with severe lines. “She told me all the ways I would save you from death. The hunting trip in the mountains. The sailor in Dover. The Drone’s dungeon on Malta. The volcano in Iceland. The cliff in America.”

  The air shriveled, sucking all the moisture. My mouth dried, and my throat sealed up. I would’ve died in those places? How was I supposed to wrap my mind around that? “You were there. Every time. God, you’ve saved me over and over…”

  “Except the cliff,” we said in unison.

  I dropped my hand, and his followed. Straightening my stance, I lifted my chin. “So we avoid cliffs in America.”

  “We can’t—” He snapped his teeth together, and his body stiffened with frustration. “She said if I change your path, an unpredicted death would take you.”

  “That’s why you didn’t tell me the details of the visions?” Or Roark and Michio. So we wouldn’t make decisions based on prophecy, decisions that would alter those premonitions and send me on a path he couldn’t see. “That’s why Annie didn’t tell me.”

  He nodded and leaned closer, a hint of hickory dancing on his breath. “I let you lead the way for two years, didn’t sway your course, and intervened only as her predictions happened.”

  Oh, Jesse. My God, the burden he carried all this time. I rewound every event since I met him, playing and replaying those near-death encounters. Then I drifted back to our conversation in
Italy. He’d told me then about the spirit world and his interactions with Annie and Aaron’s ghosts. The veil between our realm and theirs shows me other things, darker things. Things I must keep from you.

  He’d claimed he could prevent those things if he kept distance between us. So damned vague. But he always had this uncanny ability to show up at the right time, when I was bleeding, cornered, fighting for my last breath. Now it made sense…in a bizarre, fucked-up, out-of-this-world kind of way.

  I didn’t like it. It made me feel like an unwanted tether, a noose around his neck. “You’ve been shackled to my ass for too long. I’m not your responsibility.” I lowered my voice, vulnerability trickling in. “I don’t want to be this…this obligation to you.”

  “I’ve told you this, Evie, and I’ll tell you again.” He framed my face with his huge hands, tipping back my head to peer into my eyes. “I want this. Fuck, the moment I saw you in the mountains, before Annie shared her visions, I knew I would live to protect you. But…”

  I stared into the fiery abyss of his eyes, soaking in the rawness in his voice and the strength of his words. His honesty was as mesmerizing as his beauty. I gripped his wrists, a silent plea to continue.

  “I just hoped…” He slid his hands from my face, pulling out of my hold, and stepped back.

  “Jesse.”

  A private smirk twitched his lips. I knew that smirk. If it had a voice, it would say, "Fuck off. We're done here."

  The pause that followed grew dark and steep, erecting a cliff between us. A fuck-off cliff, reverberating with fuck-off echoes.

  He turned away and inspected the trees.

  I wasn’t ready to fuck off, dammit. “You hoped…”

  “Doesn’t matter.” He strode toward the water hole.

  I ran after him and jumped into his path, facing his foot-taller frame. “What did you hope?”

  He stared over my head, focused on nothing…and everything.

  “Come on, Jesse.” I placed a hand on the brick wall of his chest. “We’re making progress.”

  He shook his head, his eyes hardening with anger. “We can’t make progress. Don’t you get it?”