by Pam Godwin
A pregnancy I wouldn’t survive. We were all thinking it, and the moat dividing our group grew tenuous. I knew, could feel it brewing deep in my core, that Michio was a desperate breath away from jumping the water to get to me. Then what? I wasn’t sure.
He stared at me for a long moment, long enough to signal a tinge of fear to my brain. Run.
I jerked to backup, to run, but didn’t finish the step before Michio bolted into a dark streak, leaping over the moat and straight toward me. He was so damned fast I thought he’d sprouted wings.
Jesse fired the gun, over and over, each ear-splitting burst stopping and restarting my heart. But I knew the bullets hadn’t hit him. His approach was too swift, his movements indistinct to the eye.
I didn’t have time to run or fight or draw a breath. One moment I was standing there, and the next I was pinned against Michio’s chest. Then we were moving at an inhuman speed, his legs blurring beneath me as he carried me into the night.
My hair whipped in my face, and my pulse pounded past my ears. At the rate of speed Michio was running, it felt like I was hurling through a tornado on a sportbike.
As much as I wanted to let go of his shoulders and reach for the carbine strapped to my back, it wasn’t the best plan. Maybe I’d survive a fall at this velocity, but goddamn, it would hurt. I’d definitely break a bone.
There was also the little issue involving my aching need to help him, not hurt him.
Leveling my mouth at his ear, I screamed, “Slow the fuck down.”
The wind caught my voice and tossed it behind us. Cradled in the unbending cage of his arms, my body barely jostled with his fluid sprint.
I flattened a hand on the bare skin of his shoulder blades, half-expecting to find wings, but instead my fingers slid over ridges of muscles bunching beneath smooth, hot flesh.
The field he just bolted through lay silent and unruffled, a trail-less expanse of grassy ground stretching to the moonlit backdrop. Somewhere back there, Jesse and Roark would be tracking us, at a much slower clip.
“Michio, stop.” I dug my fingernails into the hard flesh of his back.
The son of a bitch picked up his pace.
“Where are you taking me?”
“Not far.” His voice feathered out, easy and measured.
How was he not winded? It wasn’t human. He wasn’t human.
My skin shivered where it pressed against his, and my head spun with dizziness. “This is unnecessary. Put me down, and we’ll walk there together.”
He laughed, more like an incredulous huff, as his legs surged in a haze through the tall grass, taking me farther and farther away from Jesse and Roark.
Blasts of air chased my pulse into a faster rhythm, cleaving sharp pains in my chest. I shoved my hair from my face. “You’re scaring me.”
He sliced his eyes to me, his expression startled, maybe even heartbroken. I didn’t trust him, but with his face so close, I did the only thing I could think of to slow him down.
I kissed him. First, on his cheek, then I slid my lips to the spot beneath his ear, my breathing ragged and desperate.
“Evie.”
His growl chilled my blood, but I didn’t back off.
I kissed along his hairless jawline, and his steps faltered. When I leaned closer to kiss the corner of his mouth, he angled his head away.
“I know what you’re doing.”
Wish I could say the same about him. I shoved at his chest, going nowhere. “Let me go!”
A breathless moment later, he slowed to a walk. “We’re here.”
I turned my head to find the animal clinic twenty yards away. The broad outline of Tallis’ back filled the doorway, illuminated by the interior glow of a kerosene lamp.
As I opened my mouth to shout, Michio muffled it with his hand, his other restricting my thrashing body in a painful arm lock. “Not a peep, or I’ll knock him out.”
He’d lost his goddamned mind. My eyes widened with a mixture of terror and venom as I nodded reluctantly.
He released my mouth and arm, soundlessly darted around the building, and holy shit, we were going up. As he scaled the ladder on the stony backside, I reared back a fist to smash his face. But the plan was as fleeting as the ascent. Before I connected with his jaw, my feet touched the flat roof, and the warmth of his body was gone.
Heart racing, I released the carbine from its sling on my back and aimed it at his twisted fucking brain.
He stood a few feet away, arms at his sides, and cocked his head. “You’re not going to shoot me.”
A swallow lodged in my throat. Could I paint the shingles with his brain matter? I didn’t want to. Heaven help me, it would destroy me, but adrenaline and fear made people do desperate things.
“Right now, anything’s possible.” I stretched a shaky finger over the trigger. “Why did you bring me here?”
He slid a hand in his pocket and walked a slow circle around me, his posture relaxed, his eyes on the pitch-black horizon. “We don’t have much time before they catch up.”
Pivoting on the balls of my feet, I followed him with the barrel of the carbine. I didn’t even consider fleeing. He’d stop me before I made one step toward the ladder. How long would it take Jesse and Roark to find me? Thirty minutes?
I refused to fear this man and straightened my spine. “Good thing Jesse’s an excellent tracker. What do you want?”
He stepped an arm’s length away and inclined his head. “Put the gun down.”
“Fuck y—”
Air brushed against me, and my arms suddenly lightened. The gun…
It sailed off the front side of the roof. Dazed, I stared at my empty hands then at his casual stance a foot away. What the unholy fuck? I hadn’t even seen him move.
A tremor shook my body. I didn’t stand a chance.
“Evie?” Tallis’ Australian accent floated up from the front lawn.
My breath hitched.
“Let him see you. Then make him go away.”
Michio’s whisper lacked any hint of emotion, but his dark eyes promised Tallis would wake with a busted skull—or maybe not wake at all—if I set off alarms.
With cautious steps, I moved to the edge. If Michio intended to harm me, he would’ve taken me off the property, far out of reach of the others. But how much of the Drone’s evil was circulating in his blood? How much control did Michio have over himself?
Waffling on a plan of action, I plastered on a lazy smile and peered over the low wall. “Hey.”
“You dropped your gun, mate.” Twelve feet below, Tallis held up my carbine and pursed his lips.
One look at his adorable face decided it. I couldn’t put him at risk. “Yeah, I’m…uh, having a little tiff with Michio. You know how we like to work things out with our hands.” No truer words. The first time Michio fucked me was during a no-holds-barred scuffle of bruising punches and kicks. “We need some privacy, okay?”
“The doctor’s with you?” Tallis didn’t move, boots planted a foot apart, shoulders squaring with tension. “Where’s Jesse?”
“He’s on his way back. Didn’t he say Shea was your number one priority? We really need your focus on her until he gets here.”
He glanced at the valley behind him, at the doorway of the animal clinic, then lifted his eyes to me, his voice lowering. “If you call for me, I’ll hear you.”
With that promise, he strode into the building below.
A gust of air vacated my lungs. Jesse had my handgun, but I still wore four knives on my arms.
Without turning around, I asked quietly, “What do you want with me?”
“Sex.”
No emotion. No elaboration. The man who had surreptitiously and cleverly seduced his way into my heart was nowhere to be found.
Stabbing six inches of high-carbon steel between his eyes sounded more appealing by the second.
With the speed of a single heartbeat, I plucked a blade from its sheath, spun on my feet, and flung it toward his face. It whistled
across the distance and clanked somewhere behind his dodging head.
The musculature of his bare torso looked menacing in the dim moonlight as a smile slanted his mouth, his voice deep and husky. “Do it again.”
He was toying with me, knowing full well there wasn’t a chance in hell I’d hit him. And deep in my soul, I knew I didn’t want to. Still, I refused to go down easy.
I released another knife, sucked in a breath, and ran toward him, swinging the blade at his face.
He sunk on flexed knees, snapped his hands up, and drove a palm against the outside of my striking arm. The action smacked the knife from my grip and sent my forward motion whirling sideways.
I stumbled to right myself, too slow. His chest collided with my back, his weight an inescapable force barreling down on me, aided by the sweep of his leg.
My feet lost purchase, flailing out behind me, and I slammed chest-down against the roof. The strength of his body pinned my chest to the hot shingles.
Motherfucker never held back when he fought me, and now… “Arrgh! You fucking asshole.” I was so fucked.
He wrenched my arms behind my back and restrained them with one hand against my backbone. I bucked against him, twisting my wrists, unable to break the hold. To my horror, he removed his belt and coiled it around my arms.
I redoubled my efforts, kicking for leverage and scratching at the skin on his stomach as the shingles seared my face. “Don’t do this.”
Unsure of what this was, I was damned certain I didn’t want to find out.
Given the unforgiving cinch of the belt, the set of his jaw, and the strength of his legs trapping mine, he was operating on pure instinct.
“Michio.” I writhed and spat and wore myself out. “You’re hurting me. You don’t want to do this.”
“Just listen.” His snarl seared my neck in wet heat. “Don’t speak until I’m done. Then you can fling your knives anywhere you want.”
Pinpricks tingled my fingers, and my hands numbed from lack of circulation. But I stopped fighting, my muscles heavy with exhaustion.
He straddled my thighs, his chest a lead weight against my restrained arms and back, and his forearms caged my head. “Take a deep breath.”
Seriously? The bastard was crushing my lungs.
He didn’t move, simply waited until he had my undivided, bound-by-a-fucking-belt attention. “If Shea’s recovery follows Elaine’s, she’ll experience flu-like symptoms for a week. Force fluids. Broth if you can find it. After a couple days, make her eat.”
What? I turned my neck to look at him, the grit from the shingles tearing into my cheek. “Why are you telling me this?”
His expression, threatening with its ruthless, sharp lines, was enough to shut my mouth. “I knew something was wrong within days after Aiman bit me.”
I thought back to that day in Iceland, when Michio lay on the edge of the lava canyon with the Drone’s fangs buried in his shoulder. I’d been so desperate to help him, I offered myself in his place, to be the Drone’s snack. What would’ve happened if the Drone had bitten me? How would it have affected my already changing biology?
Michio continued, “While you were training and hunting with Jesse and Roark, I tested my blood on the aphids I found in the mountains.”
And here I thought the sneaky jerk had stayed behind to take care of Elaine.
“My blood has the same lethal properties as yours. Explodes the aphid’s heart within seconds. I also concluded we are both immune. Neither of us carry the infection nor would we mutate from a bite.”
We’d already suspected my immunity. But his?
“You tested this?” Sweat gathered on my neck. “You let an aphid bite you?”
He nodded.
I balled my hands into fists. What a reckless fucking decision, one he’d made with the hope his science wouldn't be proved wrong. And those harrowing minutes afterward, waiting to mutate or not. What if he had? Did he even consider what that would’ve done to me?
“I hate you for taking such a selfish chance with your life.”
“You don’t hate me.” His palm swept down my arm, his voice soft and coaxing. “And now we know.”
“How is it possible? Aiman was infected. He would’ve transferred—”
“Before he bit me, he consumed Frida’s blood, remember?”
Frida. The nymph I’d cured in Iceland. The woman Aiman killed shortly after.
“Whatever you passed along to her cured Aiman of the aphid infection, because I don’t have any of the aphid traits.”
Then it clicked. “You have my traits. My speed, my night vision, my—”
“Sex drive,” he said.
I clenched my teeth. Once upon a time, I’d been diagnosed as a sex addict, but I thought the apocalypse had cured me of that. The whole fighting-everyday-for-my-life thing didn’t leave a lot of room for addictions.
Also, now knowing what I did about my high testosterone and its effect on libido, I wondered if I’d been misdiagnosed. “If what you’re saying is true, wouldn’t I be passing my traits to the nymphs I cure? Elaine might be a horny little man-stealer, but she didn’t show signs of evolving strength and speed.”
“Elaine is…” His eyebrows pulled together.
“Useless?”
“A weak sample,” he corrected, in his professional tone. “Time will tell with Shea.”
“Why did you tell me how to care for her? Where are you—?”
“Let me finish,” he snapped. “Have I made it clear enough that I have not contracted the aphid infection?”
I nodded, but it didn’t dismiss the fangy-spider shit poisoning his veins.
“And since a cured woman reversed Aiman’s aphid infection, it suggests that the cured can cure other nymphs.”
Hallefuckinlujah. I could actually feel some of the tension in my chest loosening and falling away. But with all good things, there was always a downside. Like how I could telepathically command aphids but needed physical contact with a man to power the energy. What was Michio’s handicap?
His body crowded closer around mine. He must’ve read the question in my eyes, and I suddenly feared the answer.
“When I take your blood for regular testing…” His hands gripped my head roughly, one on my nape, the other wrapped around my jaw. “I’ve been ingesting what I don’t use.”
Ingesting? Horror crashed over me. “You drink my blood?” My face ground against the rooftop as I tried to jerk free. “Oh my God, why would you do that?”
“Your blood doesn’t reverse my changes, but it makes me stronger.” Something nebulous and foreboding darkened his expression. “It satisfies the cravings.”
Ice enveloped my spine. “Blood?”
“Yes. The hunger is prominent during extreme emotion or pain.” He held my head in an iron grip, forcing my eyes to his. “And arousal.” He lowered his razor-sharp gaze to my neck, to the pulsing artery right there, an inch from his mouth. “And when I’ve lost a lot of blood. Like tonight.”
I curled my fingers, trying and failing to reach the belt that imprisoned me. “If you fucking bite me, I won’t think twice about testing the various ways your new genetics can heal you.”
He stared at me blankly, then a goddamned smile twitched his lips. “There was enough left in the blood dart to take the edge off.”
The one he’d used on Shea. I felt sick, so fucking horrified my voice choked with it. “Does it have to be my blood?”
“Yes.”
“How do you know?” Oh God. “You sampled Elaine’s?”
“Yes, from a syringe. Her blood is ineffective. Impotent.” He rested his forehead against my temple, his grip on my head stopping my attempt to turn away from him. “Just as your adapted genetics drive you to hunt the aphid, the arachnid strand in me seeks the coccinellidae.”
The ladybird. When my DNA evolved, it took on the characteristics of the aphid’s predator. Even if I didn’t believe Michio’s research, I had a dozen spots on my back to prove it. And s
ince spiders preyed on ladybirds… “I have a predator for a guardian. Are you hearing yourself? What am I supposed to do with that?”
Something shifted in the way he restrained me. He didn’t relax his grip on my head or lighten his weight against my back, but it felt more…purposeful. More intimate. With my ass flush with his groin and our lips so close together, his aggressive imprisonment of my body suddenly felt aggressively sexual.
He lifted his head, and his hypnotic eyes became my focal point, a view that could seduce me, consume me…infect me. No biting needed.
My breathing sped up, and my face burned in the possession of his gaze. “Why didn’t you tell me about the cravings? About all of it?”
“The last thing you needed was the burden of another person dependent on your blood.” His hot breath fanned over my cheek. “Because I need it, Evie. Desperately. I’ve never felt anything like this…this need to devour you.” His body grew heavier on top of me, his hips pressing against my ass. “While I’m deep inside you.”
A shudder raced down my spine, but rather than tensing to fight, my body melted beneath the grind of his pelvis, the unmoving confinement of his arms, and the hard swell his erection trapped against the seam of my jeans. How could he disgust me and turn me on at the same time?
This was bad, so fucking wrong. I sensed it in the tingle of my skin against his, in the booming tempo of my heart, and in the ache gathering between my legs in anticipation of being stretched and filled. Had he cast some kind of spell over me?
Somewhere amid the debilitating lust, I found the strength to recoil from his hips. “Don’t do this. You’ll infect me.”
Even as I said it, I knew he wouldn’t. We’d had sex numerous times since he’d been bitten, and on several occasions, his teeth had drawn blood. So why was I trembling with fear now?
He grabbed my throat in a bruising grip and yanked my face toward him. “The arachnid pathogen can only be transferred through the venom glands.”
He parted his mouth, and his canines stretched before my eyes. Two ivory blades, whiter than the moon, protruded between his full lips.