by Lynsay Sands
Sherry didn't fight when he lifted her off the floor and carried her back to the counter. She felt it press briefly into the small of her back, and then he was setting her on the countertop and bending her back enough that his hands could slide over her body. It was like those images she'd had flash through her head earlier, except that she wasn't naked.
But she wanted to be.
Dear God, she wanted to feel every inch of his naked flesh against her own. Her very skin seemed to cry out for it and her body was weeping for it. She could feel the passion gushing through her, eagerly shifting to where it could be of the most use. Moaning, as his hand found one breast and the other began to tug at her top, Sherry reached to help him with the task of removing the impediment to his touch.
"I would say you are definitely life mates."
Sherry heard Lucian's words, but they didn't really register until she realized that Basil had gone still against her. She didn't know if it was a result of his age, but he didn't act like a teenager and immediately jump away, all flustered and embarrassed. Instead, he broke their kiss and eased back just enough to give her the room to straighten her clothes and gather herself, sheltering her from his brother with his body as she did. Once she was done, he asked, "Okay?"
Sherry nodded, and--aware she was blushing, but unable to do anything about it--she decided to ignore it and forced her head up, determined to be as composed as he was.
"That's my girl," Basil murmured encouragingly, and gave her arms a squeeze before lifting her off the counter, slipping his arm around her waist and turning her with him to face his brother.
Sherry glanced at the man, grateful to find that he was at least alone, and then glanced to Basil as he said to Lucian with great aplomb, "It would seem so."
Lucian nodded. "Good. It saves us some manpower, which we are sadly short on lately thanks to Marguerite and her matchmaking." He scowled as he said that and then announced, "You will both stay here tonight and then accompany Stephanie and the girls back to Port Henry tomorrow. You'll be staying with them at Casey Cottage."
Sherry frowned. "I have a business to run. I can't just--"
"You cannot return to your business," Lucian interrupted firmly. "Leonius saw you with our Miss Stephanie. He knows where your business is, and is a crazy, vengeful bastard. When he cannot find Stephanie, he is likely to head back to your store to take it out on you and anyone else in the vicinity."
Lucian walked to the refrigerator and opened the door to retrieve a bag of blood before continuing, "We will place a couple of hunters in your store for now, to run it for you in the hopes that he returns and we can capture him. But you are to go nowhere near the place. You would be a liability if he showed up, and I will not have one of my people hurt or killed trying to protect you."
Sherry sighed and nodded reluctantly, understanding everything he'd said. Truthfully, she had no desire to return to the store right now if there was a chance that Leonius could return.
"Okay. I get that I can't go back to the store for now, and am willing to go with Basil and the girls tomorrow," she agreed, and then added, "But there's no need for me to stay here tonight. I have to go home and pack clothes and a toothbrush and whatnot anyway, and my purse is still at the store. I--"
"Justin will pack you a bag," Lucian announced. "And I shall have someone collect your purse from the store. But you are staying here tonight."
On that note, Lucian took his bag of blood with him, turned, and strode out of the room.
Sherry stared after him until he moved out of sight and then turned to Basil and said, "He does know the days of feudal lords and slavery are over, right?"
Basil grinned. "He is a high-handed bastard and bossy as hell, isn't he?"
"Definitely," Sherry said irritably.
Basil's expression grew serious. "But he means well, and he is right that it is safer for you to stay away from your store and home. If Leonius took it into his head to go after you, it would not take much effort for him to find out your name and where you live."
"How?" Sherry asked with a frown.
"He and his men have been inside the heads of your employees. He will know all sorts of things about them, be able to track them down and find out from them who you are and where you live." When he saw Sherry getting upset, he added soothingly, "Though, I am sure Lucian has people watching your employees. Still, it is better to stay here for now, rather than take risks."
"Right," Sherry said on a sigh, and thought that her eyes had been opened to a whole new world today, one that had more to do with Fright Night than Leave It to Beaver. The thought made her frown and mutter, "Today."
"Today what?" Basileios asked.
"It was mid-afternoon when Stephanie came into my store . . . and we were running around in the sunlight afterward." Turning to him she added, "And you and I walked to the outbuilding in sunlight too."
"Ah." Basileios nodded. "I gather Stephanie did not get the chance to explain our origins to you?"
"Your origins," she murmured, and then shook her head. "She said you weren't dead and soulless, but she didn't explain exactly how you are the way you are."
Basil nodded and then took her hand. As he turned toward the door to the hall, he said, "Well then let's go find a quiet corner and I shall explain everything now."
"Sherry? Are you all right?"
That question from Basil made her force a smile and nod. But Sherry wasn't at all sure she was okay after hearing the explanations he'd just given her about his people and their abilities. They were seated in a small parlor on the main floor and Basil had spent the last half hour giving her the explanations he had promised. Now she was trying to absorb what she'd been told.
"You are not speaking," Basil pointed out with a frown. "You have not spoken since I started explaining."
There was no denying the concern in his voice and on his face, and she supposed she could understand that concern. He'd just given her a lot of information, telling her things that would make most people call in the guys with straitjackets. However, after what Stephanie had told her earlier and the crazy stuff she'd seen . . . And then there was all the blood in the refrigerator, bags of it stacked on top of each other and filling a good portion of the fridge.
"Sherry?" Basil repeated, definitely worried now.
"I'm just processing," she assured him quietly, and then cleared her own throat and said, "So, let me be sure I have this all straight . . . Atlantis existed. It was technologically advanced, as the myths suggest. Scientists there developed a bio . . . er . . . something or other nano things that could be introduced to the body that were supposed to cure disease and heal wounds without the need for surgery or chemo and stuff."
When she paused briefly, he nodded. "Right."
"And these nanos run on blood."
"And use blood to make their repairs," he inserted.
"Right. But it means they need a lot of blood, more than your people can provide."
"More than a human can provide. We are human too, Sherry," he said quietly.
She thought that was debatable. Atlanteans may have started out human, but it seemed to her they were now a kind of cyber-vampire people.
"But no, the human body cannot produce enough blood to support the work the nanos need to do," he added when she didn't comment.
Sherry merely nodded and continued. "So, you're saying that in Atlantis they handled that small glitch with blood transfusions. But then Atlantis fell and those of you who survived climbed over the mountains to join the rest of society and--" Pausing, she tilted her head and frowned. "What did you mean when you said Atlantis fell? And did you really have to leave? Couldn't you have just stayed and rebuilt? Why did you have to join the rest of the world? How was the rest of the world separated from you? Surely it wasn't just the mountains? And how could the rest of the world be so far behind technologically? Why didn't your people share your technology with others? Heck, if the rest of the world had known about it they would have stolen it, b
ut how could they not know? And--"
"Breathe," Basil instructed.
Sherry grimaced. "I'm sorry. It's just--"
"No need to apologize. I should have explained these things." He smiled wryly and then admitted, "This is the first time I have had to explain our origins."
"Really?" she asked with surprise.
Basil shrugged. "We are not encouraged to share our existence with others without good reason."
"Ah," she murmured.
"Atlantis was isolated from the rest of the world by mountains. I am sure there were some Atlanteans who traveled over the mountains to explore, but I did not personally know anyone who did. Most I think were happy to remain in Atlantis. Until the day Atlantis was no more," he added sadly, and then took a deep breath and continued, "When I said it fell, I meant that literally. It suffered a series of earthquakes and crumbled, sliding into the sea. There was nothing . . . and nowhere, to rebuild. And precious few to rebuild it. The only survivors were those who had the nanos."
"Everyone in Atlantis didn't have the nanos?" she asked with surprise.
"No. It was only tested on a dozen or so people who were mortally wounded or fatally ill before the scientists realized the flaw. My parents were among them, and my brothers and I inherited the nanos."
"The flaw?" she asked.
"The nanos were programmed to return their host to their peak condition and then self-destruct and disintegrate, to be flushed from the patient's system."
"So get cancer, get a shot full of nanos, they kill off the disease and then disintegrate and you're normal again?" she asked.
Basil nodded. "That was what they expected to happen, yes."
She arched an eyebrow. "So why didn't that happen?"
"Because rather than have to program individual groups of nanos with different programs, like programming one group for cancer, another for damage to the kidney, another for damage to the arteries, etcetera, they went the lazy route and programmed the nanos with all the information on the human body," he explained. "And, as I said, they then gave them the prime directive to return their host to their peak condition."
She shook her head, still confused.
"While it may have been given to patients with fatal diseases or who had internal trauma, etcetera, the human body is at its prime in the early twenties."
Her eyebrows rose. "So rather than just curing or repairing, it acted like the fountain of youth, sort of, making anyone older than that young again."
"Yes, but even that was not the problem. Returning us to our prime is an unending process. Between damage from the sun, pollution, or even simple aging, our bodies are constantly in need of repair."
"So once they repair one thing, something else needs repair," Sherry said with understanding. "The nanos are always working and never dissolve."
"Exactly," he said, sitting back, and then he shrugged and added, "Once the scientists realized that, they stopped their trials and went back to work on the nanos in an attempt to find a way to handle that problem."
"I'm guessing they never succeeded," Sherry said quietly. "Otherwise you and the others wouldn't be--"
"No," he agreed solemnly. "The fall happened before they managed to do that, and the only survivors were the Atlanteans with nanos, the patients who had been given them in the trials, and their offspring. And then only about sixty percent of us survived."
"So only seven or eight of you survived?"
"No. There were more than that by then. As I said, it was originally tested on twelve subjects, but those twelve married, had children . . ." He shrugged. "I am not sure how many made it out exactly. I know of at least twenty, but we did not all come out together. Others took different routes. For instance, no one knew the no-fangers had made it out. We are not even sure how they did. The conclusion we came to was that they were either released by one of the scientists, or perhaps just escaped and climbed out when the buildings began to crumble."
"Released?" she asked with confusion.
"No-fangers were dangerous, crazy and sadistic, basically a bunch of Jack-the-ripper types. They were locked up," he said quietly, and then admitted with distaste, "I suspect the scientists experimented on them, trying to remove the nanos."
"So Atlanteans were enlightened-type people," she said sarcastically. "Willing to experiment on the victims of their own inventions."
"They were just people, Sherry," he said quietly. "And as with every society, we had good people and bad people too."
"Right," she said on a sigh, then commented, "So if not all of you made it out, then your kind can die?" It had been sounding like they couldn't.
"Oh yes, we can die. It is just harder to kill us. As far as I know, only decapitation or being consumed by fire can kill us," he said quietly.
"I see," she murmured. Sherry paused for a moment to consider that, and then went back to the original conversation. "So sixty percent of the Atlanteans with nanos survived--"
"That does not include no-fangers," he inserted.
She nodded. "But those of you who survived were left with nothing. No home, no homeland, no transfusions."
Basil nodded.
"So the nanos gave you fangs and . . . stuff," she ended lamely.
"Fangs, extra strength, night vision, abilities and skills that would make us better able to get the blood we needed."
"Okay, but I don't understand how the nanos . . ." she hesitated, searching for the right words, and finally settled on, "knew to do that, I guess. I mean, you said they were programmed to repair injuries and stuff, but who programmed them to give you fangs and the other things?"
"I am very sure no one programmed that into them," he said. "I believe it was just their solution to the problem when Atlantis fell and we found ourselves without any way to get blood transfusions to gain the blood they needed. Getting that blood was the only way they could carry out the directive to keep us at our peak. Without those abilities, we would have died. In fact, some of us did die without evolving."
"So these nanos can think?" she asked with a frown.
Basil frowned too and started to shake his head, but then his eyes widened slightly and he said, "I guess they must."
He seemed shocked at the idea, and for a moment they were both silent, and then Sherry let out the breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding and said, "So, Atlantis fell, your people joined the rest of the world, grew fangs and-- Oh, hey!" she interrupted herself suddenly. "Stephanie said Leo and his men were no-fangers. She said she was an Eden something or other too and then said she was immortal, so I'm not sure--"
"Edentate," he explained. "It is an immortal without fangs."
"Wouldn't that be a no-fanger, then?" she asked with confusion.
"No. No-fangers are from the same batch of nanos as Edentates, but while the no-fangers were insane, the Edentates are the ones who survived the turn with their sanity intact. They are very like us, just without the fangs."
"There was more than one batch of nanos?" she asked with interest.
"Yes. The first round of experiments with nanos were much less successful. One-third of the patients died, one-third came out of the turn insane, and only one-third came out seemingly fine. However, those who survived the turn from the first batch--insane or not--well, they never developed fangs after the fall. Most of them who survived the fall died when they didn't produce fangs."
"And Stephanie--?"
"Was turned by Leonius Livius, a no-fanger," he explained quietly. "So was her sister, Dani. Fortunately, they both survived the turn with their sanity intact."
"Leonius is the Leo from my store?" Sherry asked, and he nodded.
"Anyway," Basil said, "when the first batch of nanos showed such poor results, they changed the programming, and the new improved nanos were the ones that immortals who later produced fangs came from. It's very rare for a turn to die in the process, and no one comes out of it insane . . . well, unless they were insane beforehand," he said with a smile.
"Ri
ght," Sherry said quietly. "You're an immortal . . . with fangs?"
He nodded.
Sherry hesitated, and then asked, "Can I see them?"
He blinked in surprise, and she suspected he wasn't often asked that. Maybe even never, she thought wryly. Sherry doubted vampires ran around playing "You show me yours and I'll show you mine."
"Basil! Sherry! Pizza's here!"
He stood abruptly, offering her his hand as he said, "I guess I shall have to show you later."
Sherry accepted his hand and stood, but she glanced at him curiously as they left the sitting room. She got the definite feeling he was relieved to put off showing her his fangs. She wasn't sure why, though. The man was reacting as if she'd asked him to strip naked for her.
But then, she thought suddenly, maybe for vampires, fangs were like genitals. Certainly he wouldn't have been encouraged to flash them around anymore than mortal men were encouraged to whip out their penises at a party. Perhaps that's all it was, she thought, and then let the worry go as they reached the kitchen and she saw all the people there. Lucian, Leigh, Stephanie, Bricker, Sam and her Mortimer. There were also two other couples there she didn't know. A dark-eyed and dark-haired man who she would have guessed was Italian was leaning back against the counter with his arms around the waist of a woman leaning back against him. The woman was beautiful, with silver-blue eyes and dark brown hair laced with red, and she looked familiar. Sherry suspected she'd waited on her in the store a time or two.
"That is my sister-in-law, Marguerite, and her mate, Julius," Basil murmured, noting where she was looking.
Sherry nodded and turned her attention to the other couple, who were sitting at the big kitchen table at her end of the room. Well, the man with dark hair and silver eyes was sitting at a chair at the table. The woman was sitting in his lap. Sherry peered curiously at her, noting the chestnut-colored hair up in a ponytail and her golden-brown eyes, thinking she'd seen her before too.