She laughed. “You boys are the ones who keep finding trouble that requires my kind of intervention.”
“Thank you,” I said. Max released my arms, and I brought them down to my sides. “I am healed, then?”
“Mostly. The rest is up to your body. The more life-affirming activities you can do, the faster you’ll heal the rest of the way,” Reine said. She stood, and I rolled to my side and then to my back. It felt sensitive, but closed and no longer raw. Max helped me to sit and then stand and hobble to the couch. Reine brought me a robe, which I put on before collapsing.
“You need food,” she said. “And, as I said, life-affirming activities.”
“That’s the good part of her prescriptions,” Max told me with a wink.
She nodded. “But as with Max, you need to recover for a few days.”
Max’s eyes met mine, and we both seemed to have the same thought: I didn’t have a few days to solve this mystery, and he certainly didn’t have the extra time. Neither did Selene or her brother. As for the fate of the Institute—my mind didn’t want to acknowledge the fact, but with David dead, I’d lost the majority support and possibly the ability to help those who needed it most, the ones who had been turned lycanthrope against their will.
“I’ll do my best,” I said. “Where’s Selene?”
“Selene! That reminds me…” Max stood. “I’ll fetch her. Believe me, I have my own questions for her.”
I’d half expected her to disappear during Reine’s procedure on me, and I have to admit to some embarrassed surprise when she walked in after Max called her. She rushed to sit beside me.
“Are you okay? You were making the most horrible noises!”
“Fairy medicine isn’t pleasant,” I said. “But I’m much better.” I put an arm around her. “Max has some questions for you, and you need to finish telling me what you started earlier. I suspect it’s all about the same thing.”
“Selene,” Max said, “we know that the sixth reversal subject Corey Richardson is really your brother Curtis Rial. I need to know what you were playing at and what you’ve been keeping from us.”
She slumped back into the couch cushions. “Gabriel, when I came to you a few days ago and told you Otis’s death was my fault, I wasn’t lying,” she said. “And as much as I’ve lied, it’s because I had to protect my little brother.”
“Start from the beginning,” I told her.
She pulled away and looked into the fire.
Chapter Twenty-Four
“Curtis always had problems,” Selene said. “Like, the kind that ends a kid up on medication by the time he hits first grade. Impulsivity, mostly, with a little bit of defiance. It later came out that my mother had an affair, and she never told my father, who left when we were little. Then I found the genetic tests when I was a teenager and pieced it together with information from her diary. She’d written about it in deliberately vague terms, but I knew she carried a lot of guilt with her. It was a relief to find out why my father left and her part in it.”
“What did she write about the man who fathered Curtis?” I asked. “We have strict rules about that sort of conduct. Should a child be born with lycanthropy, or what you’re calling full-blown CLS, it’s the responsibility of the werewolf blood relative to make sure he or she is brought to one of our communities and trained so the child won’t accidentally hurt anyone.”
“My mother only wrote that she’d made a new friend at the airport, where she worked in marketing. He was a corporate type who flew through often, and she’d caught his eye. Never any physical descriptions, and then a passage about how they never talked any more in spite of everything that had happened between them. If he offered to help with the baby he’d fathered, she must have refused him. Or maybe he didn’t know.”
“Let’s get back to Curtis,” Max said. “Does he have CLS?”
She nodded. “Once I learned about the disorder in graduate school, I knew that’s what he must have, but the genetic type. He did display the classic behaviors: sneaking off at night even as a preteen, hyperactivity and impulsivity around the full moon, and strong loyalty to friends to a dangerous degree. What is it that parents always ask their teens? If they’d all jumped off a bridge, he would have too.”
“So how did you get it?” I asked. “Or were you a genetic case too?”
“No, just my luck, I had a flu vaccine from the tainted batch when I was on my predoctoral internship at the Central Arkansas VA.”
“Maybe the same batch that infected Leo,” I said.
“Maybe.” She rubbed her eyes. “But I adjusted to it better than Curtis ever did. He struggled in school, even with medications. He hates the changes, which started once he hit late puberty. He didn’t tell me about them until he caught me at one of mine. I just thought he’d disappear. It’s amazing—he would have been the one per generation that happens in the general population had it not been for the viral vectors. But he can’t even hold down a part-time job because the sensory experiences are too intense for him.” She blinked, and a tear rolled down her cheek. “He’s been my responsibility since our parents were killed. I had to do something, and this was going to help both of us. I am interested in the work, very interested. I understand just how difficult this condition can be for people.”
“So you conspired to get a job with us, for him to change his name, and for the two of you to come here.” I looked at her silhouette with slumped shoulders against the fire. I wanted to be angry at her, but I remembered the Young Bloods and how they struggled with their lycanthropy. Curtis’s case sounded even direr than theirs. Was it fair to withhold something that could help the extreme genetic cases that couldn’t function in the real world? Was it any wonder our ancestors who couldn’t survive in society took to the woods to become hermits so they wouldn’t end up burned at the stake as witches?
“What about Curtis’s friends?” asked Max. “The ones who are holding him hostage?”
“As I said, he’s overly loyal to his friends. One of them was a Scottish exchange student named Jake. He convinced Curtis to come over early before he was going to be a study subject and hang out for a while. Jake brought him to Wolfsheim, who can look at a person’s blood and know things about them. He saw what Curtis had, and worse, who he’s related to.”
Now her earlier statement that this went all the way up to the Council came back to me. Also the theft of the blood from the Institute’s vault. “Who would that be?”
She looked at me over her shoulder. “Curtis is Bartholomew Campbell’s illegitimate son.”
Reine clapped her hands. “Oh, that’s perfect! And does Bartholomew know?”
“I don’t know. I suspect so.”
“So why did they let you go?” I asked. “What do they want you to do?”
Selene turned away. “Wolfsheim wants me to bring you to him, Gabriel. He wants you to be his spy inside the Council and the Institute. He said something about you not being fully developed, so you’re the one it will be most easy to influence.” She shivered. “And he is able to influence.”
Her words brought back something David had told me, and my gut clenched with anger at what had been done to him. “That was before he killed my friend and tried to blow me up.”
“He’s powerful, Gabriel,” Reine said, the syllables of my name dropping like two diamonds and a pearl from her lips.
“As powerful as you?” asked Max.
“No.” She shook her curls, and I thought I saw little white rabbits hopping through them. “But he is very old and has lost what little humanity he had. What motivates someone like that? Power, and then the choice becomes whether to save or to destroy because humans cannot do both. He has always wanted to eliminate your kind.”
“He will not do so through me,” I vowed, “and I have to destroy him before he tries with someone else.”
Selene gazed into the fire,
and her silhouette reminded me of an ancient pagan priestess, which made her words that much more frightening. “He has his fingers in all aspects of your life and organization. He will find a way, or one of you will die with his attempts.”
“Is that what Otis’s death was?” Max asked, and his normally cool tone even icier with anger. He must have learned some tricks from Reine. “An attempt to influence us?”
“I don’t know.”
“But your friend was there,” I said. “The one with the scarred cheek.”
“Rhys,” Selene and Reine said at the same time.
I shook my head to clear the bell-like tone that echoed after their less than perfect harmony. “So when you said Otis had a question for you, it wasn’t to ask you out. It was about your brother.”
“Yes,” she said. “He’d found out somehow through his research that Curtis and Bartholomew were related. All the applicants had to submit initial blood samples to confirm their CLS diagnosis. He went digging.”
“And the Institute also had blood samples and profiles on the Council members, their mates, and most of the Institute staff as a show of good faith in the blood magic process and to start a database,” Max told us. “But not Bartholomew Campbell. He abstained from the project.”
“What if someone got a blood sample from him and slipped it to LeConte?” I asked. “Garou’s report said there was no sign of a struggle. What if Campbell’s secretary had been working with LeConte all along?”
“Why?” asked Selene.
“To gain access to the rest of the blood.”
“Can you prove it?” asked Max. “LeConte was fanatically curious, so I’m not surprised. But that doesn’t tell us who killed him.”
“He wasn’t supposed to go digging like he did, and he would never have betrayed us.” But Selene didn’t sound so sure. “I can tell you Rhys didn’t kill him. Rhys doesn’t have that kind of magic. As for who did…” She shrugged. “He won’t tell you. His secrecy is a price for working with Wolfsheim, and he’s not going to go up against his boss. He told me he doesn’t even know a name.”
“Did he give you a description?” I asked.
“No. He told me not to worry my pretty head about it and focus on my objective, which was to snare you.”
Selene’s words hung in the air between us. I knew she spoke the truth, and she’d previously admitted it, but it still stung my male ego. I wanted to inspire her pursuit, not have it dictated. On the other hand, I’d believed her when she said she was truly attracted to me—and her kisses confirmed her words.
“So we come back to an unknown assassin,” I said. “But at least there’s a clearer motive. I need to talk to Bartholomew Campbell again.”
“He’s likely at his Solstice gathering,” Reine pointed out. “My kind makes complaints every time his filthy pack descends on the islands. He in particular disturbs the selkies.”
“I can probably get him to come back,” I said. “I just need to find my phone and call his secretary. She owes me a favor, and we need to talk again, anyway.”
Max and Reine left with the admonition that even if I wanted to go after Wolfsheim and Bartholomew Campbell, I needed to wait until the rays of the coming dawn allowed the last of Reine’s cure to work. She didn’t compel me, but the possibility hung in the air between us, and I felt the resentment from my toes. Or maybe it was whatever was growing within me to bring me to my full power. However it worked, I agreed to be a good little doggie and sit and stay.
Or maybe not so good. Instead of leaving with the other two, Selene stayed and looked into the fire as I said my goodbyes. Her face held a neutral expression, and her posture, while contemplative, didn’t indicate the valence of her thoughts. Her still, closed aspect reminded me of her profession as a psychologist, but I wanted to ask her the questions. Did it feel good for her to have the big, ugly secrets off her chest? Or did she feel more vulnerable and conflicted now that she’d revealed what she knew? How would this affect her brother?
As though she read my mind, she said, “We can only have tonight, Gabriel. I can’t lead you into danger, and I have to go to Curtis and use what little influence I have to protect him against Wolfsheim.”
Her words chilled me, and I moved to stand behind her at the fire. “Let me help you.”
She turned and wrapped her arms around me. Her body radiated heat and chased the vestiges of the sensations from Reine’s spell away, and I bent my head to her copper hair, which reflected the color of the flames. It smelled of my shampoo—she’d taken a shower while Reine worked, apparently—and I stifled a growl of satisfaction at the small scent indicating possession.
Where the hell did that come from?
I didn’t want to become a totalitarian alpha like Bartholomew. I wanted to be more like David, who did his own thing and held his enemies at bay with the promise of strength rather than the brute force use of it.
David. Now when I pulled Selene to me, it was as much for my own comfort as for hers. I closed my eyes and called to mind how he’d looked mocking me in his kitchen for pursuing her and his good-natured teasing, but the image of his bloody demise tried to intrude. I opened my eyes and looked at the flames instead, wishing I had some sort of talent to divine what I should do.
“Gabriel, I’m loving this, but I’m getting hot,” Selene said, but she didn’t pull away. Instead, she snuggled in. “You’ve had a rough week.”
I let her change the subject, but I vowed to convince her to let me help her. “You have too,” I said. I picked her up and carried her to the sofa. We sat with her on my lap, and I asked, “What shall we do about our weeks?”
“I can think of a very effective kind of stress relief.” She traced my jaw with her hand, and she allowed her fingernails to rake through the stubble under my chin, bending my head to hers. The sensation and sound went directly to my groin, and I had to acquiesce to her command.
Our lips met. Now there was nothing between us, no secrets, and we found a rhythm underscored by the crackle of the fire and the howl of the wind outside. I slid one hand up the outside of her leg while holding her close to me with the other one. She put her hands on either side of my face and ran her fingertips down my neck and across my shoulders under my robe.
“This isn’t fair,” I murmured. “You’re wearing many more clothes than I am.”
She pulled back with a wicked grin and stood. I reached for her, but she eluded me.
“Sit, stay,” she said, and I growled, but I didn’t have much of a choice.
“You don’t know what kind of beast you’re messing with, my dear,” I said.
She laughed. Unlike Reine’s, Selene’s chuckle had depth and sunshine, and it spoke of chases through the dappled sunlight of the trees. I found it preferable to the icy wind chimes of the Fey’s.
“Just watch,” she said, and I did.
She turned to face the fire, gathered her long, red-gold hair, and pulled it over her right shoulder. The set of her shoulders and the movements of her elbows told me she unbuttoned her shirt, and I moved to stand, wanting to see the fire flickering over her pale skin and to count her freckles with my lips.
“Stay,” she whispered. She opened the shirt to the fire and slid it down off her shoulders and back. It fell to the floor, and she held out her arms so I could see her silhouette. As most of us do, she had good proportion and muscle tone, and who am I kidding? My eyes immediately went to the hint of the curve of her breasts at her sides, and my mouth went dry at the realization she wore no bra.
“Care to help me with my pants?” she asked with an over-the-shoulder glance that brought me to my feet and to stand behind her before my brain could command it.
“You bewitch me,” I said, my breath swaying the little hairs by her ear. The view of her pale front was even better than I had imagined, and I cupped her breasts and lightly caressed her pale pink nipples wi
th my thumbs.
“Pants, Gabriel,” she breathed, but she leaned back into me.
“In a moment. Sit, stay.”
I nibbled and play-bit her neck on the side opposite where she’d gathered her hair from her ear lobe down to her shoulder. As I’d hoped, she had a light dusting of freckles across her skin, and I kissed every one I could see and a few the flickering light hinted at. All the while, I savored the weight of her breasts in my hands and the hardness of their tips. She ground her butt into my front, and I feathered my fingertips over her ribs and slid my hands down her belly until I found the button of her jeans, which I unfastened. I hooked my fingers over the straps of her panties as well and slid the whole mess to her ankles. She tangled her fingers in my hair for balance and stepped out of them.
Now she stood completely naked in front of me, and again, she reminded me of a pagan priestess, strong and in command. Only her eyes, the slight o of her lips, and the flush of her skin told me she was mine for the taking. I pulled her to me.
“You’re sure about this,” I said. “This is you wanting it and no other.”
“You could’ve asked me that before I got undressed,” she said, “but gods, yes, Gabriel. I want you. And it’s just me.”
I pulled a condom out of my robe pocket and allowed the flannel to fall to the floor so we stood with nothing physical in the way. She tore the packet open with her teeth, and I had to tamp down the desire to just pick her up and take her without protection. To make matters worse, she grabbed my cock. The feel of her light, slender fingers wrapped around its ruddy length nearly made me lose control.
Finally, she rolled the condom over me, and I picked her up. It showed my weakness from the evening’s events that I couldn’t hold her up, so I gently kneeled and laid her on my robe in front of the fire. She was more than ready when I slid into her, and again we picked up nature’s rhythm. The flames roamed over her skin along with my tongue and hand, and she explored my body as well, her touch sending shivers to my core and driving me to more intensity. We cried our release simultaneously, and it felt that even the fire was quieter for a beat after.
Blood's Shadow: The Lycanthropy Files, Book 3 Page 21