by I. T. Lucas
Emmett narrowed his eyes at William. “Why do you want to decipher our language? Did my leader answer my email after all?”
“She didn’t. I just want to make sure that your fascinating story is not the product of an overactive imagination or a mental problem, and that the language you wrote that email in is an actual language and not gibberish.”
“Why would I invent stuff like that?”
William shrugged. “You have a penchant for theatrics. You might have been a Dormant who had been accidentally turned immortal, and you created this story to explain your oddities to yourself.”
Emmett glanced at Andrew and smiled. “Your truth detector would have known if I lied.”
Evidently, the guy didn’t miss much.
“Some people believe in their own lies,” Andrew said. “If you believe in it, I wouldn’t know whether it was true or not.”
“I admit that I’m a creative man, but if I were to invent a story, I would have made myself look much better. I would have been the queen’s lost son, an heir to a powerful nation, or a hero who fought to free the poor humans that the evil pure-bloods enslaved.” His eyes sparkled. “Don’t get me started, or none of you will go home anytime soon.”
It seemed that captivity hadn’t diminished Emmett’s sense of humor. Or what was more likely, he was relieved that torture was not on the horizon for him. At least not as long as he cooperated.
“Write it down,” Anandur suggested. “You have nothing better to do.”
“That’s not a bad idea.” Emmett’s expression turned calculating as he looked at William. “The structure of our language is very different from English. If I translate the email word for word, you won’t be able to make sense of it. Do you prefer that I translate it loosely?”
“I need it translated word for word. I’ll figure out the structure.”
“You are not going to learn anything new from it. You already know what I told her in the email.”
“Nevertheless, I need it translated.”
Emmett shook his head. “I can’t do that. If she answers and reveals their new location, by giving you the ability to translate her email, I would be betraying my people.”
Kian cast him a hard stare. “She didn’t answer yet and probably won’t. But that’s beside the point. You will translate these documents or suffer the consequences. You either cooperate or you don’t eat. And if that isn't enough, we have no problem with resorting to harsher methods of interrogation.”
Emmett swallowed. “Give me your word that you won’t harm my people.”
“They are holding humans enslaved, and it’s my moral duty to free them if I can. But if they surrender them freely, I give you my word that your people won’t be harmed in the process.”
“What about after they free them?”
“We will establish acceptable rules of conduct for them and enforce them.” Kian had no idea how he would do that, but they weren’t there yet. It was a worry for another day.
“When do you need those documents translated?”
“Have them ready by tomorrow afternoon.” Kian pushed to his feet and headed for the door.
As he waited for it to swing open, it occurred to him that he still didn’t know what Emmett’s people were called.
Many of the elements of his story resembled the fictional people Syssi had invented for the Perfect Match adventure, and Kian was starting to think that it had been given to her in a vision and not produced by her imagination.
“Before I go, I have one last question. What do your people call themselves?” He held his breath as he expected Emmett to say the Krall.
“We call ourselves Kra-ell.”
Damn. Close enough.
28
Arwel
After Arwel had returned Emmett to his cell and removed his shackles, he’d left Alfie in charge and headed to the upstairs apartment where Jin was waiting for him together with Mey and Yamanu.
What Emmett had revealed had serious implications for the four of them.
They had already gotten the gist of it from Peter, but much more had been revealed today.
The smell of cooking and three somber sets of eyes greeted him as he entered the apartment.
Jin unfolded her legs from under herself and walked over to him. “More bad news?” She wrapped her arms around his neck.
“It’s a mixed bag.” He took her hand and led her to the couch. “If you and Mey are indeed related to Emmett’s people, then the venom glands you are growing will produce a substance that is meant for torture, not pleasure.”
Her eyes widened. “What the hell? Why? Given Eleanor’s reaction to Emmett’s bite, it was just as pleasurable as that of an immortal male.”
“Their society is different. To get aroused, their females need to fight, and they bite their chosen partners to cause them pain.”
“That’s twisted,” Mey said. “I hope that we are not related to them.”
Jin pushed a strand of hair behind her ear. “We are. It explains so much about my sexual preferences.”
Yamanu covered his ears. “TMI, little sister.”
Hiding his smile, Arwel shook his head.
Jin wasn’t bashful about her sexuality or anything else. Whatever thought passed through her head got voiced.
His mate was a wildcat in bed, aggressive, lustful, and she loved to put up a good fight before surrendering to him. Fortunately, they were perfectly matched, and he was turned on by her aggression.
“You must be disappointed.” Mey patted her sister’s arm. “You were looking forward to your venom glands becoming functional.”
Jin snorted. “Not as much as Arwel.”
That was true. He’d been pumped about the possibility of being the first male to enjoy a venom bite from a female. Now he hoped that Jin’s venom glands would remain dormant. Enough time had passed since her transition for them to become fully functional, and since they hadn’t yet, perhaps they never would.
“I have some potentially good news too. Kian thinks that your mother was a Dormant, our kind, not theirs, and that means that you will live as long as we do because the immortality gene is transmitted by the mothers.”
Yamanu let out a breath. “That’s the best news I heard today. What makes him think so?”
“According to Emmett, the pure-blooded females don’t mate with humans, only the males do. So if their genetics are similar to ours, then the longevity genes cannot come from the father. It would also explain why Yamanu and I were able to induce your transitions and form bonds with you. I don’t think it would have been possible if you had no godly genes, only theirs.”
Jin leaned back and crossed her arms over her chest. “There is also another possible explanation. What if their males can transmit the longevity genes, and they are genetically similar enough to immortals for the induction to work?”
“We need to find the fuckers,” Yamanu spat out. “Emmett doesn’t know enough, and we have to find the truth.”
“That’s another weird part of his story. There are only twenty original pure-bloods.” Arwel pushed to his feet and walked to the fridge. “Anyone want something to drink?”
“I’ll take a Snake Venom if you have it.” Yamanu followed him to the kitchen. “I’m also hungry.” He grabbed a dishtowel, opened the oven door, and pulled out a casserole.
After Jin and Mey set up the table and they all sat down to dinner, Arwel continued. “There must be more of them. Emmett thinks that the twenty were part of a larger group, but that the others didn’t survive the landing or the trip.”
“Do you believe him that he wasn’t told anything?” Jin passed him the salad bowl.
“Andrew was there, and he verified that everything Emmett said was true. He only tried to lie once, when Kian asked him when the Kra-ell had arrived on Earth.”
Jin chuckled. “The Krall? Like in Syssi’s Perfect Match scenarios?”
“Close. It’s pronounced differently, but it’s eerily similar.” Arwel sp
ooned more of the casserole onto his plate.
“She’s going to freak out.” Jin passed the salad bowl to her sister. “Maybe Kian shouldn’t tell her.”
Mey frowned. “Why not?”
“Because she is heavily pregnant, and freaking out might be dangerous for her.”
“That’s nonsense.” Mey waved a dismissive hand. “And speaking of being pregnant, Yamanu and I are starting Merlin’s fertility treatments. It’s been eight months since my transition, and Bridget says it’s safe.”
“Good luck.” Arwel shifted his gaze to Jin.
“Don’t look at me. I’m not ready to be a mother.” She put her fork down. “And I think that you should wait too. We need to find out more about our origins first.”
“It doesn’t matter.” Mey pushed her plate away. “We might never find out, and I’m not willing to put my life on hold because we don’t know who our father was.”
“Or fathers,” Arwel said. “You might have shared only a mother. Emmett told us that they keep a bunch of human females as breeders and housekeepers, and their society is not monogamous.”
29
Syssi
“Kian is on his way.” Syssi led Jacki and Kalugal to the dining room table. “He said that we should start with the appetizers.”
“Nonsense. We will wait.” Kalugal pulled out a chair for Jacki next to Amanda. “I’m very curious to hear his report.”
“I am too.” Amanda rubbed a hand over her stomach. “But I need to feed my little darling.” She reached for the basket of bread Okidu had put on the table. “She’s a hungry little thing.”
“Have you started thinking about names?” Jacki asked.
“Constantly. But I’m not going to decide until after she’s born.” She glanced at Syssi. “Unlike my sister-in-law, I’m superstitious. What about you?”
Jacki chuckled. “If it’s a boy, I’m thinking of naming him Noah. It’s a solid, respectable name.”
“Over my dead body.” Kalugal wrapped his arm around her shoulders. “With all due respect to David, I’m not naming my son after his brother. I want a majestic name, like Alexander.”
Amanda grimaced. “Anything but that. The only clan member ever sentenced to entombment was named Alexander.”
“What did he do?” Jacki asked.
“He used thralling to trap young women and sell them on the flesh market.”
“That’s vile.” Kalugal’s lips twisted with disdain. “I guess every family has a rotten apple or two.”
“Thankfully, he was the only one.” Amanda reached for another piece of the baguette and spread butter over it. “Pregnancy makes me crave carbs more than ever.”
As the door opened, Syssi lumbered to her feet and went to greet her husband.
He dropped his briefcase on the entry table and pulled her gently into his arms. “Sorry I’m late.” He kissed her forehead.
“That’s okay. How did it go?”
She’d asked him the same question when he’d called to let her know that he was on his way, but he’d said that he would tell her later.
Syssi had a feeling that it was something big. Otherwise, Kian would have given her at least the highlights on the phone.
He shook his head. “I don’t want to keep our guests waiting.” He took her hand and walked with her to the dining room.
“Good evening. My apologies for keeping you waiting. The interrogation lasted longer than I’d expected.”
“Did you learn anything new?” Kalugal asked.
Kian nodded as he pulled out a chair for Syssi. “Regrettably, Emmett doesn’t know the full story.” He pulled out a chair for himself and sat down.
“Do you believe him?” Amanda asked. “Yesterday, you said that he might be making it up.”
“Regrettably, I can no longer hold on to that theory.” Kian reached for Syssi’s hand and clasped it. “Not after he told us what his people call themselves.” He looked into her eyes.
Her heart sped up as she waited for him to say what she’d suspected.
“They call themselves the Kra-ell.”
“No way!” Amanda exclaimed.
Syssi realized that she was gaping and closed her mouth, only to open it again. “How is that possible? I made them up.”
“You are a seeress, my love. You get visions. Perhaps some of them happened in your dreams, and as it often happens with dreams, you didn’t remember them. But your subconscious retained what you’d been shown and used it as inspiration for the Krall stories. Besides, you had one actual vision about them that you remembered.”
“I thought that the vision was the result of the stories I invented and not the other way around.”
“How similar are Emmett’s people to Syssi’s Krall?” Amanda asked.
“There are a lot of similarities. Except, they are not based in Greenland, and there are not as many of them. According to Emmett, there were twenty original pure-bloods, and they had six pure-blooded children born to them while he was still there.”
Kalugal put his wine glass down. “Emmett is a hybrid, though, right?”
“Yes.”
“How many hybrids did they create?” Kalugal asked.
“He said that only two female hybrids were born, and I forgot to ask him how many males. We got sidetracked by all the stories of the bizarre aspects of his society.”
Amanda waved a hand. “Well, don’t keep us in suspense. Tell us what you’ve learned.”
“Let’s eat first.” Kian motioned for Okidu to start serving the first course.
Syssi was still reeling from the name. Kra-ell was just a different pronunciation of Krall. “Is Emmett very tall?”
Kian shook his head. “He’s about my height. Why?”
That was pretty tall. Kian was six foot and four inches.
“The Krall in my vision looked very tall and slim. The female leader was nearly flat-chested.”
“Emmett is not slim, but then he’s a hybrid, and I didn’t ask him about his leader’s bra cup.” Kian chuckled. “Remind me to ask him that tomorrow.”
30
Anastasia
“I’m calling it a night.” Leon pushed to his feet and offered Ana a hand up.
Nervous butterflies fluttered in her belly. Tonight, she was going to implement her plan.
“Go ahead.” She kissed his cheek. “I’ll clear the table and wash the dishes, and then I’ll join you.”
“I’ll do it,” Bowen offered.
She shook her head. “It’s my turn.”
“Don’t take long.” Leon leaned in and kissed her cheek.
“I won’t.” Ana smiled, trying to hide her nervousness.
He eyed her with a frown, but then turned to Margaret and Bowen. “Goodnight.”
“I should retire as well,” Margaret yawned and reached for her crutches. “It has been a long day.”
“Do you need my help in the shower?” Ana asked.
“I’m going to shower tomorrow morning. I’m too tired.”
“If you change your mind before I’m done with the dishes, call me.”
“I won’t.” She hobbled toward her bedroom. “Goodnight, everyone.”
Margaret was doing much better, no longer needing Ana to assist her in the bathroom and getting dressed on her own. At this rate, she would be ready to return to Safe Haven in no time. Hopefully, she would decide to stay a little longer. Leon wasn’t happy about having her and Bowen there, but Anastasia enjoyed the company.
When she was done, Leon was still in the shower, and she debated whether she should join him there. That would be easier than what she planned to do with the blindfold, but it could also backfire.
He might send her to bed and decide to tie her up.
Her best bet was to play the part of an agreeable, besotted girlfriend, and catch him by surprise when he least expected it. If she acted super submissive, he wouldn’t tie her up. Then again, if she overdid it, he might suspect that something was up.
Instead, she
took her new phone off the charger and checked her emails. As usual, most were advertisements. There was a new one from the university, and she read it but didn’t reply.
Ana still hadn’t decided what she was going to do with the rest of her life.
Plopping down on the bed, she closed her eyes and imagined a house full of children and herself chasing them while they ran to hide behind their father’s legs, squealing joyfully.
It was a good fantasy, and she could totally see Leon handling a brood of children with ease. But Ana wasn’t sure that she was up to it. Two or three kids would be enough.
Did she want to be a stay-at-home mom, though? Her mother hadn’t worked, and she hadn’t been happy, but that might not have been related to her lack of gainful employment. Maybe she’d suffered from depression?
Over the years, Ana had often wondered whether her mother’s death had been an accident or a suicide. It would have been a really shitty thing to do for a mother to kill herself in front of her daughter, but it was too strange that the wave had only swept her mother away but had spared her.
If she remembered it right, they had been holding hands, but after so many years, she couldn’t be sure which of the details of the traumatic memories were fact and which had been supplied by her mind to make sense of what had happened.
As the bathroom door opened and Leon walked out with a towel wrapped around his hips, the sight of him pushed away the sad memories. “You look good in a towel.”
Unless his scars were on his hips or his butt, he had none.
Leon leaned and kissed her lightly on the lips. “You always look good.” He pulled her up, turned her toward the bathroom door, and swatted her bottom. “Hurry up.”
“I will.” She ducked into the bathroom and closed the door behind her.
Since moving into the cabin with Leon, Ana had been showering at least three times a day, which loosely corresponded to how many times they were making love.