“Seiger is many things, but foolish is not one of them. That is why the colony migrates. The Mutable Alpha fears discovery. What he has in numbers he does not have in skill. My kind is powerful but fewer.” Casek is quiet for a moment, then continues, “I know they killed my sire and mother when I was a toddler. I do not remember them. I was perhaps two or three. For reasons unknown, I am a half-breed. From what I understand, it is rare for a First to be mixed.”
“It's good to be part-Lycan,” I say because it's true. Casek's nose got them this far, avoiding roaming scout packs of Mutables easily.
His eyes meet hers. “Only when I can be in the half-form. Because I'm both First and Lycan, the First puts a damper on that sense unless I'm fully Lycan.”
“But now we need to get food again.” And I wish for the human fridge again, filled with meat. But we couldn't stay there forever, we need to keep moving.
“Yes,” Casek stands, holding out a hand. “We're covered with the filth of our deeds, and that will need to be taken care of as you mentioned, or we will attract notice. It's not about us 'reeking,' Jael.”
I look at him from beneath my lashes and laugh.
“It's about the humans not paying attention to us.”
He's right. I suppose wanting to be clean comes from being used to it. Seiger's a bastard, but he believed in feeding, clothing, and keeping me clean.
Couldn't have the prized future breeder dirty. Oh no—that wouldn't do.
A pang of sadness tightens my stomach. I'd been told about Talbot Cline. My mother. But I'm an orphan now. No female among the Mutables ever knows their mother.
With a sigh, I stand, and Casek's nostrils flare. He's scenting my mood.
I could tell him what I'm feeling. But he doesn't ask. I don't want to sound like the ungrateful wench I feel like.
“Lead on,” I say.
With a pensive frown, Casek turns, and we walk up the gentle ravine.
Ahead is a Denny's Diner attached to a Pilot fuel station. At least, that's what I can read. I'm literate only because there were books lying around in the homes the Mutables raided.
I was never truly left alone, and while they plundered, I was nearby and took books. It was an entire year before I could learn to read. When I finally did, it hurt me worse, I think. Because then I knew what I was missing: a life.
As we walk toward the diner, Casek says, “There.”
I turn in the direction he indicates. Showers, a sign reads.
We walk in together, and Casek hands me a pulse voucher. “Just swipe. Idiot Dirk did not pulse fingerprint protect anything.”
Good for us. I frown, and he intuits the question on my face.
“I eavesdropped well. That is how I came to understand the finer details of credits.”
I take the pulse filled with credits and swipe it at the door.
Luminescent numbers blare the debit against the card. Turning, I hand it back to Casek.
He stares at me for a moment. “Don't worry, I'll be quick, and when I'm done, I'll wait here.”
“See that you do.”
Casek is bossy, but he saved me, and so far, even though he's told me what I already know about my accelerated maturity, he's not tried to “breed” me.
I should feel lucky. I don't. I feel sad—sad to be this female who has males after her who don't give a shit about her existence except that it gets them something. They don't care about the fact that her future holds no family. No real life.
But maybe with Casek, I have a glimmer of something other than abbreviated colony life.
I don't dare to hope.
Dear earth—do I feel better. I'd had to wash myself twice. My hair is still somewhat tangled, but with the use of the conditioner that comes included in the credits I paid for the shower, finger-combing seemed to be sufficient to detangle a lot of the mess.
Peering into the mirror, I softly tap the dark circles under grayish-green eyes and curse my coloring.
Blend in, he says. I don't have “blending in” looks. From what I've read on the stolen internet time I sneakily grab, the gene for redheadedness is nearly extinct in the year 2026. It's purported that there will be no one left with the coloring by the ʼ50s.
Running my eyes over my form in the cheapest mirror ever, I look the way I feel: tired. Casek's right; my rapid cycling toward maturity is accelerating. Faster than Seiger had anticipated, and I don't love the way I'm feeling.
Just a month ago, I'd been flat-chested, narrow-hipped with a square, girlish figure.
No longer.
My waist is pinched, hips flaring gently from the narrowness. My breasts are full, and the bra that I escaped in no longer fits well, offering the globes of flesh up like ripe fruit.
I'd seen Casek looking at me, and when he saw that I'd noticed, he looked away.
It's not a one-sided street. Though my mother had been bred to death to produce only me, and I knew what was going to be my lot within the colony, like any young girl—I'd longed for the dream.
A different dream than a fully human girl would have. A dream where instead of a husband, I would have a mate. In one of the looted human homes, I'd found an old-fashioned book that had the word romance on its cover. I was unfamiliar with the term, but it soon became apparent through the reading of the human literature what that particular term meant.
The cover had piqued my interest because the female had been red-haired, like myself. The male gracing the art had been large, similar to Casek and some of the Mutable males, arms twined around a much smaller female.
When I read the book, it had outlined a relationship of great passion and longevity. What the reading of the book made me realize was that there's a world that doesn't involve murder, breeding, and bloodshed. That the colony is not the universe but a narrow sliver. I will do anything to not go back. My decision might even mean killing myself. I have nothing to lose and everything to gain that I don't want to be subjected to.
Turning from my image, I grimace at having to put some of my horrible clothes back on.
I leave the t-shirt in the trash receptacle and wear only the cami that had been beneath it as that piece of clothing had been saved the brunt of all the gross fallout because of the t-shirt I'd worn over it. I decide I'll be cold and clean.
I scowl at my black silky pants. There's nothing to be done. At least they're black, which hides blood really well. Tearing off a paper towel, I dampen it, spot cleaning the muck as best I can.
Taking another look at my image in a warped, full-length mirror, I sigh. Better but still gross. With what they had here in the community showers for cleansing, I did my best.
Exiting, I obediently stand by the door, looking around for Casek. Nowhere. My heart starts to thump hard. Has he left me? Forget it, Jael, he's not responsible for you. You're not his mate. You're some burden he feels sorry for and only helped you escape from the colony. Buck up.
“Hello,” a deep voice rumbles beside me, and I grab my throat, spinning to face the owner of that deep bass.
I fight the desire to throw myself into his arms from relief. It's Casek. But not.
This Casek is clean. There must have been a razor, and though First Species (from my limited understanding) do not need to shave frequently—he had taken the time to do so.
His face is stark with his now clean, longish, golden hair swept back and tied.
His face is also beautiful. Every angle and plane is free of dirt, blood, and wounds. Fine scars hairline here and there, but they don't distract from his gold eyes or the masculine features of his heavy brow and square jawline.
I move before I realize I have, pressing a light finger into a slight dimple at the center of his chin.
Jerking his jaw back, Casek says, “Why do you touch me?”
Dropping my hand, I fall back a step, feeling heat rise to my face. “I—I don't know. I just never saw your face before.”
His eyes drop. “I know that I am ugly. I ask that you do not rub salt in the wound wi
th an insult.”
“What?” I whisper, trying to catch his eyes.
Casek's eyes meet mine. “I am respectful toward you—I ask that you return the favor.”
I laugh, and he flinches.
My eyes move over his closed expression. “Wait a second. Is that what you were told?”
Casek pauses a moment before giving a curt nod.
An idea slowly forms. “Have you seen yourself before?”
A full minute slides by as he stares at me then finally admits in a low voice, “I have seen my reflection in a lake, once.”
“So you just went in to use the restroom, and that's the first time you've seen yourself in the mirror.”
Another nod.
“Oh my earth!” I say, careful to speak in hushed tones. “How did you know how to shave?” I search his eyes, remembering razors for credits inside a dispenser in the bathroom of which I had no clue how to use.
The corners of his lips twitch. “I did not. Know how.” His smile crinkles the corners of his eyes.
That's when I take in all the little nicks at his jawline.
I return his smile. “I've been surrounded by mostly males in my short life, and for the record, you are handsome.” I'd almost said beautiful but stopped myself at the last moment, realizing that “handsome” is the name men use to quantify their beauty.
His smoldering light gold eyes drop from mine.
I duck and capture them again.
“Are you listening to me, Casek?”
“Yes,” he says in such a soft tone that if I hadn't been listening, I would have thought I'd imagined it.
We stand there for another awkward moment then straighten together.
“You look...” his eyes sweep my body, probably taking in the tight cami, ridiculous boob issue, and dirty clothes. His Adam’s apple bobs, “clean.”
“Clean?” I ask innocently.
He nods, a dull red color climbing his nape. “Very clean.”
Okay.
Then a frown forms between his strong brows as his eyes once again take in my bare shoulders. “You will become cold tonight.”
With a bravery bordering on stupidity, I poke the snake. “You can keep me warm.”
Without a backward glance, I sashay to an open table, plopping down.
It's not just males who will notice I'm maturing. There is also the female biological directive to mate, to breed.
Forced breeding does not interest me. But I'm feeling a little reckless now that I'm not in the colony.
A breeding or mating of my choosing—does interest me. Very much.
Casek follows a few seconds later, slipping into the booth opposite me. His gold eyes meet my green ones.
Uncertainty fills his along with another emotion I easily recognize.
Desire.
Chapter 26
Kiel
H e does not need Camille Becker. The longer she tarries with the First female, Talyn, the more time Kiel has to talk himself out of the possible union between them.
Kiel has some strange impulses. He always has. He likes pain and pleasure—mixed. Having fought since he was a toddler to advance to his status of Alpha within a tight clan, things have never come easily for one such as he.
When he fucks females, he doesn't love them. They are something to relieve his needs. He is too First for rape. But he likes the peripheral trappings of it.
Those traits are considered disturbing and an absolute perversion of his race. But then again, Kiel is not fully First... is he?
His face jerks in the direction of the door, for he scents Camille before she opens it.
“Lock it behind you,” Kiel commands the instant she breaches the threshold.
With a full look, Camille shows him her back and slides the bolt.
Lacerations have shredded the blouse she wore, her blood causing the material to stick to her back.
Turning, Camille faces him, her slender hand moving to cover her throat where the marks of his essence purge still lie. So many males use their fluids to cure or heal a female.
But only the seed from his prick will find fertile ground for offspring. Though Kiel is not sure he wants that, ever. He might make a terrible sire. In fact, he is almost certain of it.
No ounce of tenderness has survived in him. Yet, here he is with this female.
“Listen, I don't know what all this is, but you don't have to do this, Kiel. If I'm not in your wheelhouse, you can just heal me and go.”
Kiel frowns, finding himself irritated with words he doesn't totally understand, but the context is clear. The female is the one backing out when he was ruminating about the very idea just seconds before she entered. Let someone else from the clan have a chance, a thought he'd just been mentally chewing on. He doesn't need a mate anyway. Not with how he's hardwired.
But fuck it, Earth damn her. It's been a difficult acquisition, filled with Mutables and strife. He had been a true protector and now what? She's just saying—go get fucked?
“What?” Camille asks, flinging her palms out, clearly reading his expression. “I appreciate you helping me. I won't lie, we have some chemistry, but I don't really want kids, and I definitely don't need a guy.”
Kiel blinks. A guy?
He strolls across the large interrogation-style room. Towering over Camille, he crosses his arms. “What did the mixed prehistoric female tell you exactly?”
“Talyn?” Camille shrugs, her eyes tightening after the movement, and Kiel easily scents her residual pain. She is far too injured to have been cured with just the one round of his essence.
With an internal smirk, he understands perfectly that she will need to submit to be fully healed.
It will be sexual as is normal.
“The bottom line is that I'll die without transitioning, and my future consists of popping out babies for a guy I don't know and shelving the career I loved.”
Life-bringers do not understand how vital their role is, dismissing it as a duty that is common when it is anything but. However, Kiel can see through even casual study of her multi-faceted expressions, she will not be convinced of those facts readily.
“Fine.”
“Fine?” one of her arched, dark auburn brows rises.
“I will heal you, and then we shall travel to the clan where you can choose whatever male seems fit to transition you.”
“Oh,” she says in a slightly deflated voice, clearly having readied herself for an argument. “What if I transition before we reach your, ah—clan?”
“Then you will have to deal with me.”
Her mute expression tells Kiel much. None of it is flattering. “Is it a fate worse than death that I would breed you and clear the way for your life as First or prehistoric?”
Her lips flatten, a gorgeous pink bloom spreading across her cheekbones. “Breed me? Yeah, it sounds pretty bad. I just don't want to die, Kiel. I'm not some young, naive woman who needs the big man to save her.” She makes a low sound of disdain in her throat, dropping her fingers from making little air quotes around “big man.”
Her attitude makes Kiel see red. “Then, by all means, hop up on that table and submit to my healing so we can be on our way, and you can be transitioned by a male who is more to your liking.”
He points to the hard, banquet-style table sitting dead center in the room they're in.
“What?” Camille whispers, looking between the table and Kiel.
“Yes,” Kiel grits.
“I couldn't even remove my blouse to take the drive-by shower I managed here in the Final Enforcement building.”
“I will see to that,” Kiel growls, and grabbing her hand, he tows her behind him.
“Ouch,” she says in a low voice, “you're hurting me.”
“Then don't fight my healing.”
“Let me go. I'll go over there myself.”
Kiel drops her hand as though burned.
She glares at him, backing up to the table.
“Now what?”
“Oh my Jesus, no way. You're going to have sex with me after that little convo?”
“No, I am going to lick you until you come then bite your femoral artery as you orgasm. The process will kick my healing essence everywhere and eradicate all your injuries in one fell swoop.” Kiel places his hands on his hips, brows up. Not to mention the fact that Kiel really loves going down on females. He had only had humans and imagined a transitioning female would be even sweeter.
Especially if he could mix his brand of sadism into the equation.
“I can't.” Camille glares at him.
“Then you die.” Kiel scowls right back, letting the silence take precedence between them.
“I'm embarrassed,” she finally says. “I don't know you, not really, and that act is super-intimate.”
Yes, it is. It's exactly what Kiel wants. In fact, he's got a raging erection just thinking about it. He would not force Camille, but he admits her reluctance is making the potential interlude hotter.
“Talyn didn't say anything about this.”
“Because she did not transition with a First, nor, apparently, was she wounded.”
Camille's citrine eyes flick to his and slowly, without a word, her hands slide up beneath her skirt, and she shucks her panties, kicking the lace off a scuffed tennis shoe. The mismatched outfit is clearly something that's been patched together after this evening's wild events.
Kiel surveys the tiny scrap of lace lying on the floor between them.
Camille stares at it as well.
With a movement too sudden for her to see, Kiel grabs her rear and lifts her, setting Camille on the table.
She squeals in surprise, gripping his shoulders to maintain balance. “What are you doing?”
“Readying you.”
Gently, Kiel pushes Camille to her back, and she hisses. His palm on her clavicle spreads nearly shoulder to shoulder.
“You're an intimidating man, Kiel.”
“I am no man,” he corrects, and with a jerk of his other hand, he tears the skirt to her entrance.
Eyes wide, she says, “You're scaring me.”
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