Fire's Touch (The Enlightened Species Book Three) (16 page)

Conlon asked, “So what’s the plan?” Jess bit her bottom lip to stifle her giggle.
Yeah, yeah, the male who’d sworn off Bloodmating was hooked … yuck it up, little sister
, Conlon thought.

“The Tellus have generated an electromagnetic field outside this building. It’s already stabilized by the Aquaties. We just need to fold it to travel from here to Mesa,” Eros answered.

“Conlon … I can’t use chortals,” Stacey whispered against his chest.

“Why?”

Stacey shook her head. The heat from her fear made her image start to shimmer, and Conlon could feel his hands blistering against her shoulders. “The first and only time I traveled by chortal was after my rescue. There’s too much energy in them. I nearly burned my escort to death.” Stacey closed her eyes and released her breath, sending hot air across his face. Much as he hated to let her go he couldn’t continue touching her. Her eyes snapped open, looking him over, her hand came to her mouth when she saw his hands. “Damn it, Conlon. You are the most infuriating, stubborn …”

Victor Sicarius lifted a glass from the table, bit into his wrist and held the wound over the cup, then handed it to Conlon with a single nod. Stacey looked at the blood filled cup with furled brows. Conlon grinned at her. “Bring it on, Winkel, you don’t scare me.” He downed the glass.

“So is it pain you like? Are you a whips and chains junkie?” The stammer in her voice revealed her true feelings. She hated her lack of control.

Jess stepped up to them. “Stacey, do you see energy?” Stacey’s gaze stayed riveted to Conlon’s healing, blistered hands, her expression full of remorse and shame. Jess reached out to grasp Stacey’s shoulder. She jumped away from Jess.

“Don’t fucking touch me,” Stacey barked, glaring at Jess.

Jess took another step toward Stacey. “Answer my question. Do you see energy? Do you see colors around enlightened people?”

Stacey stepped back again. “Not unless I touch them. Then it’s like I steal or manipulate it. I don’t see colors. I see … like a fine-ground dust. I don’t know how to explain it.”

“All the time? Do you see it around more than people?” Jess refused to step away from Stacey. Stacey’s desperate expression called to Conlon.

He reached out, grasping Jess’s arm, halting her. “Jess.”

Jess met his gaze, her eyes glowing slightly. Only then did Conlon realize Jess was helping Stacey, siphoning the excess energy her fear was generating. He looked over his shoulder out the lead-glass window. Dark storm clouds were gathering as his sister-in-law diverted Stacey’s energy into the atmosphere. He released Jess’s arm and gave her a nod of gratitude.

Stacey had pressed against the far wall away from Jess. Jess covered the distance despite the frantic, peeved look on Stacey’s face. “Tell me exactly what you see.”

Stacey towered over five-foot-two Jess, but she looked at Jess as if she were the devil. Her shirt clung to her, saturated with sweat. Her own emotional turmoil drove her ability to the brink. Stacey’s dentes erupted and her eyes glowed a sapphire blue, dueling with Jess’s glowing emerald green. Huge raindrops pelted the windows behind him.

“I see it everywhere!” Stacey snapped with fury.

“Conlon, move away from the window.” Jess ordered, never taking her gaze from Stacey. Conlon scooted next to Shane and the others against the wall. “Stacey, focus your heat at the water on the glass. Turn it to steam.”

Conlon watched as Stacey shifted her eyes slowly from Jess toward the window. The air between her and the glass rippled like a hot asphalt mirage. Pane by pane, the rain turned to steam. When Stacey reached the last one her eyes shifted back to the first again and she started over. Each pane took longer to reach a boiling point than the last. Conlon’s gaze shifted from the glass panes back to his female.

Stacey leaned heavily against the wall. Jess swayed, and Shane shot to his bloodmate like a rocket, swooping her into his arms before she could collapse.

Conlon went to Stacey, brushing her cheek with the back of his knuckles. Her skin was cool to the touch. He brushed her damp hair from her face. “You okay?’

Stacey gave him a weak smile. “I did it.” Conlon had no idea what she was talking about, but he nodded to her anyway. Whatever it was, he saw hope in her expression.

Stacey’s knees trembled and Conlon set his hand at her back for support. To hell with her “Betty-Bad-Ass” reputation. “You want me to carry you?”

“Don’t even think about it,” she answered without hesitation

And she calls me stubborn.
“What about the chortal?” He wanted Stacey safely in Mesa
now
.

Jess answered, her words muffled against Shane’s shoulder. “She and I used up our excess energy by folding it. If anything, the energy will strengthen her, not overwhelm her.”

They’d folded the chortal? Through a lead- and platinum-reinforced building a hundred yards away? By themselves? This wasn’t the time to ask questions. Conlon headed to the exit. “Let’s go.”

Stacey didn’t fight his guiding her out of the building and into the chortal, and she remained passive while he strode across the campus, leaving the others to follow behind, past Mattie and Cassie sitting on his porch, and into his front door. Then a giggle floated from deeper in the house. Stacey jerked her head up when a child toddled into view. He had black soft curls and huge gray/blue eyes. His chubby arms extended toward Stacey.

“Ma.” His limited vocabulary was put to use upon seeing his mother. Stacey snatched the boy into her arms, hugged him tightly, and twirled in a quick circle. Johnny squealed with laughter echoed by Stacey.

Gone. That was it. Conlon’s heart no longer belonged to him. Stolen by the beautiful female who made his body burn and surely owned his very soul. That moment, with her clutching her child to her chest, would be the moment forever etched in his memory as the moment he’d fallen head over heels in love with her. His chest constricted and he swayed under the realization. So absorbed in her reunion with little Johnny, Stacey thankfully had not noticed Conlon’s reaction.

Chapter Fourteen

The female Stacey was becoming more interesting all the time. Initially Osiris had stumbled upon her records by following the trail of people that his traitorous son, Ten, had been in contact with the years before his defection. Her inheritance and inaccessibility had intrigued him further, so he’d ordered Nine to track her. Adding her name to the medical search Huey had done for him was an afterthought.

Osiris downloaded the thumb-drive Huey had given him and sent each file to separate people for analysis. Now he just needed to sit back and wait for the results and reports. By far he was most interested in the files for “Mick Tenor.” The fact that Ten had adopted the alias Osiris had created for him galled him to no end. If he understood what the SOSC had done to block his paternal bond to Ten, he could figure out a way to get around it and kill him. Blood transfusions couldn’t be the only solution for Ten surviving the many compulsions Osiris had instilled. By now Ten should have either gotten himself killed or committed suicide. The fact that he still lived and continued to betray Osiris was unacceptable. Osiris was tired of waiting for Ten to leave the protection of the pacific island; he needed to figure out a way to draw him out. With luck the medical reports would give him an idea.

No doubt Ten had developed relationships with Uncle Eros and his Sicarius spawn, since they were all shadowers and technically kin. Unfortunately, Huey had found no records for Eros and his sons. Osiris would have to work with what he did have on Eros’s daughter Umbrae and her quadruplets.

The sheer magnitude of the children’s existence made them enough of a curiosity that he would have wanted their records. That Umbrae was Eros’s daughter … icing on the cake. If Osiris could learn how the female had successfully conceived and delivered multiple births, he could increase the productivity of his remaining breeding sites exponentially.

The information Ten had given the SOSC had taken a significant toll on Osiris’s operations. The boy had single-handedly knocked Osiris’s timeline back nearly a century. Multiple births would go far in rectifying that, as would killing him. Tens’ defection had shaken his remaining brothers. Osiris was still trying to shore up the minds of his other sons so that they would not be inclined to follow in Ten’s footsteps, and he’d fortified their compulsions to kill and die so much that one of them had to be put down because his psyche had snapped under the pressure.

That left him with only four sons left, not including Ten. Much as he hated it, he needed to go into the breeding sites himself and procreate. The idea had his stomach churning. Females where not attractive, never had been. Their soft skin could never compare to the feel of firm, defined muscles in his hands. Not that he’d indulged in much of either in the last few centuries—might as well kill two birds with one stone and mix his work with pleasure. A click later and he stared into the screen, which showed the male leader of the Haitian data entry compound he’d recently been forced to convert to a breeding lab. Frank sat alone in his office, going over files. Truth be known, Osiris would someday have dozens of children … if his scientists could figure out a way for artificial insemination to work on Volaticus the way it did on humans, whereby saving him from having to perform the act itself.

Like definitely recognized like, and Frank had not been vague with his offer to Osiris for sex. Frank was just his type—tall, blonde, knew how to keep his mouth shut and loyal to a fault. Once he’d enjoyed the masculine wares of Frank, he would trudge down and do what needed to be done with a few of the fertile females.

With both sexual excitement and dread, Osiris ported to stand in front of Frank’s desk. The calm lift of Frank’s brow in question was all the prompting he needed.

****

Sitting beside the pond, Mick's mind was consumed with the conversation he'd had with Mattie. Had Stacey gone into a second estrus? He didn't think so. His transfer had happened a few days before the SOSC’s raid on Mount Eccles, Australia. Every day he'd made some excuse to go into the breeding-area monitoring room. Every day the camera in her room had showed her pacing her cage. Unless she'd entered estrus the day she was rescued … the idea filled him with anger. None of the females had deserved what happened to them, least of all her. How could she have gotten pregnant?

Osiris had spoken of attempting in vitro fertilization to boost his infant production; Mick had assumed his father was using one of his medical research facilities toward that end. Mick knew of the research facilities, but his father designated certain sons to certain things, and Mick had never been assigned to those.

He hadn't voiced his thoughts to Mattie before she left this morning, and now he wished she were here. Not that she could figure it out either, he just missed her … already. Her understanding and forgiveness brought tears to his eyes. She was a miracle; silently he expressed his gratitude for her to the Fates. Often Mattie epitomized the only thing worth living for. He'd given the SOSC everything he knew, he worked hard for Gilgamesh, but nothing he did or could ever do would come close to making up for the horrible things he'd done in the past. Only with Mattie did he have hope. Her belief in him made him want to believe in himself.

A sound drew his attention; he stood quickly and turned to face Gilgamesh stepping from the trees. It was only a matter of time before his rape came to light. Seeing Commandant Gilgamesh coming for him was inevitable, but flanked by the high-panel healer Herme rather than a group of arresting guards didn't make sense, nor did the friendly smile on both males’ faces. His immunity had been contingent on full disclosure, and withholding his rape of a female violated that agreement.

“Mick,” Herme greeted him. “Gilgamesh thought you'd be here.” The healer glanced around at the beautiful scenery. “Great spot. I'm sure an area with natural barriers must be quite peaceful for you. Let's talk here.” The healer sat cross-legged and looked at Mick expectantly.

“I need ta get back. Holler if ya need anythin'.” Gil turned and walked away.

They weren’t arresting him?
Mick swallowed hard on the realization and sank to the grass beside the healer, more confused than he'd ever been in his life.

“Relax, Mick.” Herme patted his knee in a fatherly way, his manner filling Mick with guilt. “I need to talk to you about a female named Stacey. I'm sure you know … well.”

Mick nodded and, unable to bear the healer’s kindness any longer, he dumped the entire story on the healer, purging his horrible sin for the second time in less than a day. To his credit, Herme never interrupted Mick, his expression never changed, and he never displayed the disgust or rage the healer surely must be feeling in the face of Mick's crime. A crime far worse in Mick's opinion than outright murder … raping Stacey had been personal, where killing in the name of his father had been following orders, nothing more, nothing less.

Herme leaned forward intently. “Listen, son ...”
Son?
The healer’s term of endearment made Mick realize his cheeks were wet with tears. “I'd wage my twelve thousand years of life that you did not rape Stacey.”

Mick stared at the healer speechless. Didn't he listen to a thing Mick had said? Slowly he shook his head in denial. “She entered estrus. Females are willing take any male then, and I took advantage of that. I raped her.”

Herme gave him a look of sympathy and continued. “Well, I guess that remains to be seen. We need to go.”

Mick stood with the healer. “Go where?”

“To Mesa. We have a lot to discuss.” Herme led the way toward the main campus. Dread curled in Mick’s stomach, but he followed to healer, ready to face whatever consequences were in store for him.

His dread increased tenfold when he saw Gilgamesh and his mate Innanna, the Presiding Oracle for their kind, waiting for them. The tiny female narrowed her huge violet eyes and glanced at Gil before walking the distance to where Mick and Herme had just emerged from the tropical foliage. “Herme, could you give Mick and I a moment please.”