by L. D. Rose
Shaul nodded, still sitting with a bullet hole between his legs. “Just fine.”
Rome eyed the mattress before he looked back at Valerie, lips curving in amusement. “Nice shot.”
Valerie only gawked at him silently. Blaze kissed her temple softly, her hair like silk against his lips, smelling faintly of mandarin. The combination of citrus and jasmine stirred his blood, cranking up the possessive monster inside him. She relaxed a fraction in his arms as he stroked her back in reassurance, pinning Rome with a dark look.
“We have a problem,” he said, though he knew Rome was already aware of it.
“We’ll talk in the conference room,” Rome replied, all humor fading from his face, leaving it cold and unreadable. “Dax and Kaj are already there.”
He walked out, leaving the air suffocating with tension. Shaul stood, clapping Kasen’s shoulder in a show of gratitude before he followed Rome.
“Shaul?” Valerie uttered and he halted in the archway, whipping back around. “I’m sorry.”
He gazed at her for a beat with empty eyes before nodding tightly. Then he was off to the conference room, bloodied and half-naked.
Valerie turned to JJ, her muscles tensing at the mere sight of him. “I should apologize to you as well.”
JJ waved her off. “Nah, don’t bother.” He managed a smile before he headed out. “I would’ve shot me, too.”
Kasen made a sound that was halfway between a chuckle and a snort. He replaced his fedora and glanced back at them. “You both coming?”
Blaze nodded. “Yeah, we’ll meet you there.”
Kasen inclined his head and disappeared, leaving them alone in Shaul’s bedroom. Blaze squeezed Valerie’s shoulder and she looked at him anxiously. “You can stay in my suite if you want.”
“I want to come with you.”
“You’ve been through enough, Val—”
“This is your family, right?” She jutted her chin in her stubborn little way. “I’ll just have to get used to them now, won’t I?”
He smiled, unable to help himself. “You’re sure about this?”
She lifted her hand, still trembling, and caressed the side of his face. “Completely.”
“It’s only going to get uglier,” he warned. Though her touch quelled the churning well of rage inside him—for now—it still burned hot enough to remind him of the mess they were in.
No, not mess. Mess wasn’t the word. More like a fucking catastrophe.
She smiled, a gorgeous, genuine smile. “That’s what I live for.”
Me too, he thought, gazing at her brave, beautiful face.
Me too.
FIFTEEN
Valerie’s simple black-and-white world had turned seven shades of gray.
And those seven shades were scattered around a rosewood table in a conference room made for the CEOs of Fortune 500 companies.
Blaze and Rome were the only men standing, Rome at the head of the table while Blaze paced along the long row of covered windows that took up one side of the room. The black drapes matched the leather chairs the rest of the men sat in, most of them slouched and looking exquisitely tired.
Dax sat opposite of Valerie, wearing plaid boxers and a tank top, his bare feet propped up on the table. Cleaned scrapes, cuts, welts and bruises covered him from head to toe. The piercings in his eyebrow and lower lip glinted every time he moved, and when his cobalt eyes caught her gaze, he winked at her, giving her a slow, devious smile.
The gesture didn’t calm her in the least, and all she could think of was a frozen vampire slamming into the ground with a sickening crunch.
The last brother she’d had yet to meet, Kaj, sat a few chairs away from Dax, wearing a worn AC/DC T-shirt with his longish, dark blond hair slicked back from his face. He didn’t have any visible signs of injury but he winced every time he shifted in his chair. His skin was a light olive and his facial structure resembled the rest of his siblings, strong and handsome, like an action hero. Of course, he too was tall and well built, an apparent default setting with the hybrids. Broad chest, big shoulders, corded arms. His limbs were covered in tattoos, not quite sleeves, but getting there.
However, what drew Valerie in most were his eyes. They were bright in the gloom of the conference room, the irises an unnatural yellow-green with oversized pupils, like the eyes of a cat in the dark.
Cats, goats, and opals. Her heart pounded like a war drum in her chest, her pulse a crashing cymbal in her throat. Here she was, in a dark room full of hybrids—full of half-vampires—all watching her like a pack of wolves surrounding a scared little rabbit. She probably reeked of fear since Blaze made it a point to stay near her, prowling behind her like a pissed-off panther in a cage.
She no longer had the comfort of her gun, and she wished she did, even if it would prove futile. None of the men outright threatened her, even after she nearly killed one of their own. Hell, they were just sitting there, but the menace and testosterone pumping out of their pores made her feel like she was caught in a lion’s den.
Valerie glanced at Jon for the hundredth time, still unable to believe her eyes. It was as if she’d been dropped in an alternate reality, where having fangs no longer made you the bad guy as long as you had your soul intact. The idea of a vampire hunting his own kind was unfathomable, but, as she’d said once before, anyone who killed leeches was on her side.
Even if you were a leech.
“Konstantinov must already be aware of this,” Rome said as Valerie tuned into the conversation bouncing back and forth between the men. “It’s the only way he would’ve allowed Chimola into the city. They must’ve struck a deal of some sort.”
“Yeah, you take the firestarter, Cy baby, and I’ll harvest the rest,” Dax snorted.
Blaze let out a curse. “I bet he’s running out.”
Rome narrowed his freaking goat eyes. “What are you talking about?”
“That’s why Cyrus is back.” Blaze stopped pacing and braced his hands on the back of Valerie’s chair. Angry heat radiated off him as if she had a rip-roaring bonfire behind her. “He’s running out of blood. My blood. Seven months gets you a vat’s worth but it doesn’t last forever.”
A shiver scurried down Valerie’s spine. Seven months with a monster like Cyrus would no doubt put her in a padded cell and straitjacket for life. She couldn’t even begin to imagine what Blaze had gone through.
If the scars on his body were any indication, he’d been through all nine levels of perdition and back.
“He must be using one hell of an anticoagulant,” Kasen remarked, sitting beside her.
“Or not,” Shaul added, from the far end of the table, opposite Rome. “Coagulated blood wouldn’t be any different.”
Valerie’s stomach turned. Ugh, that’s disgusting.
Kasen nodded in agreement, the gears turning in his head so fast she could almost see the smoke coming out of his ears. “If all they need is DNA, then all they need is cells.”
“I can’t believe I’m hearing this shit.” Kaj dragged a hand over his weary face. “First we’re targets, now we’re trophies.”
“I wonder how much blood is needed for the trait to manifest,” Kasen speculated, straightening in his seat. “It can’t be immediate, since the DNA needs to integrate into a large organism—” He suddenly stopped as if he’d dropped down a well.
“What?” Blaze asked impatiently, hovering over Valerie.
“We must be viral,” Kasen uttered, eyes wide beneath his fedora.
Valerie’s heart screeched to a halt. “You mean contagious?”
Leather squeaked as Blaze’s grip tightened on her chair, another wave of heat crashing over her. A warm tingle shot between her legs, the mark throbbing dully in response, and she gritted her teeth against it, cursing her body.
&nbs
p; Damn him.
“I’m not sure,” Kasen replied, the words flowing out of him faster with something close to excitement. “Gene therapy uses vectors, usually retroviruses, to integrate foreign DNA into genes. Since a vampire breaks down blood for nutrients, maybe we’re still carrying these vectors in our blood. They must be reactivated somehow during metabolism, possibly transduced by a signal—”
“Whoa, whoa, Einstein,” Rome cut in as he braced his hands on the table. “Slow down and speak a language we understand.”
Kasen sprang out of his seat, definitely excited, although Valerie wasn’t sure whether it was a good or bad thing. He crossed the room to a large whiteboard up front and drew a circle with a black marker. He wiped a portion of the circle away and filled it in red before he turned back to face them.
“Granted, this is grossly simplified, but when we were hybridized, scientists took a retrovirus”—he pointed to the black—“that had vampire DNA ligated, or attached, to it.” Then he pointed to the red. “This is called a recombinant vector and they injected this into our embryos.” He picked up another marker, blue this time, and drew a squiggly line. “This is our genome, our genetics. The vector was introduced into our embryos and it replicated, or reproduced, while our cells divided.”
He wiped out several segments of the squiggly line and filled it in red before adding open black circles off to the side. “The retroviruses infected our human DNA with vampire DNA. This is called transduction, and this was the hard part, getting the embryo to survive while this process was complete. Thing is, we may still have these retroviruses inside us.” He pointed to the open black circles and put the markers down, facing his rapt audience once again.
“My guess is when vampires consume our blood, they break it down, so our DNA becomes fragmented. The retroviruses may pick up those fragments, becoming vectors again, and in turn infect the vampires with our DNA. Obviously, vampires aren’t embryos, so the process takes longer, and it only occurs in cells that turn over. Skin turns over every day, so there’s a good possibility a vampire infected with our DNA can daywalk. Certainly not to the extent we do, or maybe not as long, but it might be possible. The same would go for our traits too, depending on where they come from or what kinds of cells manifest them. For instance, it would be extremely difficult for a vampire to acquire Blaze’s vision, since neuronal cells have a very low turnover.”
Kasen took a deep breath and let it out, absorbing everyone’s dumbfounded expressions. “Does this make any sense?”
Everyone nodded slowly, exchanging uneasy glances. No one looked happy. At all.
“So if this happened with Blaze’s blood,” Valerie began, all eyes fixing on her, “this vampire may have his powers.” She paused and shook her head at her word choice. “I mean traits, but Blaze would still be stronger.”
Kasen nodded. “That’s my assumption. Every cell in Blaze’s body holds his trait since he became infected as an embryo. Only certain populations of vampire cells would be infected, so the leech may not even manifest the trait at all, but if they do, it’s probably weak and only lasts as long as the cell lives. I’d even go out on a limb and say it may depend on how much of Blaze’s blood the vampire consumes and the length of time the vampire has been consuming it for.”
“The more blood and the longer the leech has been feeding on it, the more likely they take on the trait,” Rome clarified, and Kasen nodded again.
“Exactly. And it isn’t permanent. That’s why they need a steady supply of blood in order to maintain it.”
Every cell in Blaze’s body holds his trait. The words stuck like superglue to Valerie’s eardrums, repeating over and over again in her mind. “Would that include, I don’t know, ah,” she flapped her hand around in the air, “sperm?”
Blaze stiffened behind her as everyone went still. Valerie’s face warmed until she felt certain she was red as a tomato.
Kasen thought about it, taking her question seriously, making her feel like it wasn’t stupid. “No, I don’t think it would. Nor would saliva. Sperm doesn’t carry a full genome, only half. Besides, a woman doesn’t use sperm for nutrients. Her body just gets rid of it if fertilization isn’t successful. The same would probably go for any other orifice—”
“All right, that’s enough,” Blaze hissed, and the men broke out into smirks and chuckles. Dax outright laughed.
“Can you imagine, shooting fire out of your—”
“Dax.” Blaze’s growl promised serious injury.
“Or ice,” Jon added. “I think I know a few of those, actually.”
That sent a round of laughter around the room, tense but genuine. Valerie smiled and glanced sideways at Blaze, relieved. The corner of his mouth lifted as he reached down and massaged her shoulders. He was probably relieved, too.
I’ll leave the pyrokinesis to him, thank you very much.
“That sounds like a personal problem,” Kaj teased Jon, cat eyes glinting with humor. Valerie never imagined cat eyes could do such a thing.
“Yeah, JJ, what’s the matter? Couldn’t get her hot enough?”
“All right, all right.” Rome cut Dax off, trying to sound stern, but he couldn’t stop grinning. Jon gave Dax the finger and Dax kissed the air in return. Valerie laughed, realizing Jon hadn’t changed much. And he’d met his match with Dax.
“In all seriousness.” Rome’s golden gaze touched them all, his expression turning solemn. “And this is serious. Nothing we discuss here leaves this room. Konstantinov may know about this, but there’s a chance he doesn’t, and the less he knows, the better. Understand?”
Everyone nodded, the gravity of his words draining the humor from the room.
“Good. Kasen and I will look into this further, but we can’t waste any time. If there really is a leech daywalking and blowing shit up, we need to take him out, fast. The last thing we want is another vampire finding out about this. Or another human, for that matter.”
Valerie didn’t even want to think about what would happen if word got out that vampires could daywalk. Chaos. Riots. Pandemonium, as The New York Times had said. She shuddered at the mere thought.
Rome was right. No one could know about this.
“I think I know who the leech is and where he might be.” Blaze straightened. All attention turned to him. “I intended to go there anyway with JJ.”
“Who?” Valerie asked, annoyed he hadn’t mentioned it to her. “Cyrus?”
Blaze shook his head. “Hector, one of Chimola’s cronies. From what Shaul told me, I bet it’s him, and I think he’s crawling somewhere beneath Grand Central with his posse. It’s the only daytime hideout where Cyrus can ensure he’s under control. Especially if he’s running around with my ‘trait.’” Blaze said the last with venom, revealing a deep-rooted hatred for this Hector guy.
A tangible blanket of tension had settled over the room at the mention of both Hector and Grand Central. Valerie wasn’t aware of this piece of history, so she filed her questions away for later. But with the way all the men looked at Blaze now, as if he’d just announced he was going on a suicide mission, she knew this was serious business.
“Are you in?” Blaze asked Jon, breaking the silence.
“Hell yeah.” Jon nodded. “No doubt.”
“You’re powerless down there—”
“I know that,” Blaze snapped, cutting Rome off before he finished. “But I lived in that hole for seven months and all of you will be vulnerable if you go down with me. Some of you may not even survive and I won’t risk that. The only person not affected is JJ. And that’s why I need him at my back.”
Valerie opened her mouth to protest but Kasen answered all of her questions before she uttered a word. “There’s little breathable oxygen down there, never mind the noxious gases,” he said, expression grave. “Vampires don’t need nearly as much air a
s humans and they’re immune to poisons.”
Her gaze snapped to Jon, her heart kicking against her ribs. He gave her a half-smile but it did nothing to reassure her. “What about you?” She glanced back at Blaze, her chest tightening with something close to panic. “Can you breathe down there?”
“I’m still here, aren’t I? I just can’t use fire, but neither can Hector. And if Cyrus is down there with him, all the better. Maybe I can finish this once and for all.”
Fire needs oxygen. Everything clicked into place and now Valerie understood. Blaze had been seized and imprisoned for so long because he couldn’t use his trait against Cyrus. Now he’d go back down there, back to the place where he was powerless and surely weakened, much like a suicide mission.
“I’m going with you,” she declared.
“No way, Val—”
“You’ll die down there.” Kasen’s words hit her with the force of a slap. “You won’t last more than five minutes, if you’re lucky.”
Valerie stared at him, at his heather gray eyes beneath the jaunty fedora, a mixture of anger, fear, and helplessness rising up to swell in her throat. She tried to gulp it down, hating this, hating that she’d have to watch Blaze go down there and she could do nothing to help him.
Or stop him.
“Valerie and I will go with you and we’ll secure the perimeter.” Dax came to her rescue. “If shit hits the fan, I can get you both out.”
Blaze shook his head. “No.”