Fire's Touch (The Enlightened Species Book Three) (7 page)

Osiris’s fingers tapped out a rhythm only he could hear on his desktop. The simpering staff servant he’d spontaneously recruited to play the part of an oracle huddled wide-eyed on the chair before him while they waited for the arrival of Dr. Huey Fennell. Grunting and scuffling preceded the door swinging wide, and then the bright red hair of the healer crossed the threshold, followed by two of Osiris’s sons.

“So good to see you again, Huey.” Osiris rose in greeting, and the healer’s eyes flashed fear at the sound of his voice in person. “Please, take a seat.” He indicated the chair beside the simpering false oracle.

Eyes flashing around the room like a caged animal, Dr. Fennell grudgingly found the seat he’d been directed to. “What the hell do you think you’re doing, Osiris?”

Osiris waved away the healer’s indignation. “I invited you here to give you a virtual tour of the facility that will be put at your disposal … once you finally agree to embrace the many opportunities and resources I have to offer.”

The wall behind him slid to the side, revealing wall-to-wall monitors tuned to one of his many extensive research labs. The healer had told him he wouldn’t join Osiris in the pursuit of a cure for the problems facing the male Hulven, and Osiris needed to see for himself that Huey was sincere in that. He needed someone to infiltrate the SOSC headquarters, and Huey was the perfect candidate.

The young, talented healer stood transfixed, staring at the monitors, and then walked closer to them, his eyes hungry for the lab equipment displayed and the dedicated staff obviously working diligently in real time. The front of Huey’s slacks lifted in his excitement. Only a true lab geek would get a hard-on from looking at a fully equipped, functioning lab full of more geeks.

“Where is this place?” Huey asked in a hushed, reverent whisper more befitting a church.

Osiris sent the burst of kinetic energy to activate the closure of the wall that would cover the monitors. A conquering smile lit his face as Huey leaned to catch a last glimpse of the lab before it fully disappeared. Now that he’d whetted the healer’s appetite for something Huey would covet, Osiris was one step closer in generating his loyalty.

Osiris waited for the glassy-eyed healer to resume his seat before answering his question. “That particular site is in the U.S., though I have others if you would prefer to be abroad.” It never hurt to give an informant a false sense of importance. “I believe you will head up the department dedicated to Hulven sterility wonderfully.”

Huey’s excited gaze clashed fully with his. “Head up? You mean to put me in charge of my own lab? Why?”

The loyalty noose was created, now all Osiris needed to do was pull the slipknot tight. He pointed to the false oracle seated beside Huey. The healer turned and startled like he’d actually forgotten the chair had been occupied. Oh, yeah, Osiris had the healer right where he wanted him.

“Dr. Fennell, I’d like you to meet Jefferson.” The two shook hands. “Jefferson is an Oracle, and according to him, you are a critical link in finding this cure, and you will do it while working for me.” Not exactly what his true oracle had predicted, but this version suited Osiris’s plan better, plus it would remove any lingering reservations Huey might have about betraying his colleagues and calling.

Huey looked between Osiris and Jefferson, his mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water. Finally he heard what he needed to hear and confirmed what he’d suspected. “Osiris, I didn’t believe your intentions of finding a solution or gaining me as an ally were sincere. I didn’t know you were following a divine path mapped by the Fates themselves.” Huey bowed slightly in deference to “Jefferson,” who gaped and blinked in response but wisely kept his trap shut.

Oh, his old friend Shakespeare would have been proud of the performance Osiris played. Osiris quickly jumped from his chair to pace in contemplation behind his desk, leaving Huey to stew with his regrets for not believing in him as the wonderful and magnificent hope for his kind. Osiris willed his expressions to shift between sorrow and acceptance to make Huey believe he was the hurt soul who had believed in Huey only to be repeatedly rejected by him.

He returned to his seat with a long, mournful sigh. “I will have my sons escort you back to your house. I wished things had worked out differently between us, Dr. Fennell. I want nothing more than to have grandchildren.”

Watching through hooded eyes, he saw Huey look back at his Hulven sons guarding the door in sympathy and apology. Both his boys kept their faces neutral and stared straight ahead, refusing to meet the healer’s eyes. Osiris kept his sons on a much tighter leash since his son Ten had turned against him and aligned with the SOSC—a slight he hoped to rectify.

Huey’s distress could be felt across the room; Osiris squelched his grin. It wouldn’t be easy to convince the healer to get the records he wanted, yet Osiris felt confident he would have Huey’s full complicity before this meeting ended.

“I don’t know how to begin making amends for refusing you for so long, Osiris. I will happily offer you a blood bond if that helps to prove that I have learned the error of my thinking.” Huey was almost groveling, close to being right where Osiris wanted. He just needed a few more pushes.

Osiris dramatically dropped his face into his hands, a model of a male facing personal defeat. “I have a difficult enough time dealing with the SOSC without having an ally on the inside who isn’t fully committed to my organization and goals. The thing you may not realize is the SOSC and High Ones have veered away from helping the Hulven for eons. Granted, the Elven population seems to be making an effort to bridge the gap now with the Hulven, but that is by design. They treat me as a rogue, someone evil, someone to be feared and hunted. The truth is I’ve been striving to aid Hulven since well before the Elven, willing to utter the term in mixed company and long before the Symbiosis of Species Council began formation. They hunt me because I know the truth and I aspire to eventually reveal that truth, a truth the SOSC and especially the Elven do not want known.”

Huey had leaned in while Osiris spun his tale of being the victim, castigated and misunderstood, swallowing the line of rubbish hook, line, and sinker. “What is this truth?” Osiris shook his head, denying the healer the information to make him hungrier for it. “Please, I must know.”

Laying it on thick, Osiris slumped his shoulders. “If I tell you and you reveal my words to the SOSC, they will kill you, my friend. You are too valuable to risk; you are the only chance male Hulven have for a future. The only chance my sons will ever have to become fathers. I can’t.”

“I will never tell. You have my word of honor as a male and as a healer that it will never pass my lips.” Huey’s desperation seeped into his voice. “As a Hulven male, don’t I have a right to know?”

Osiris dropped his hands from his face, meeting the healer’s eyes for the first time since he’d dismissed him earlier. “I suppose you do.” Sighing with surrender, he continued. “Elven are dinosaurs living on borrowed time before extinction. The only thing holding the Hulven race back is the male’s inability to procreate, which is why the Elven put so much into barring any efforts at remedying it.” If Huey bought this, Osiris planned to sell him ocean-side property in Idaho next.

Osiris watched as Huey digested the information, reconciling in his sharp, scientific mind the possibility Osiris posed. The frown on Huey’s face showed that he wanted to believe, but the explanation still seemed too far-fetched. Osiris hammered the final nail into Dr. Fennell’s mental coffin of loyalty. “Have you
never
wondered why there are Hulven warriors, healers, agriculturist, tradesmen, etc., yet very few if any true Hulven scientists like yourself? Why you have felt compelled to keep your research a secret? Why there are no Hulven Oracles … none? It is because they are put to death if discovered, as you will be. Somewhere inside, you must have known that your studies threatened your life, even if you didn’t fully know the reason. The true rogues are the Elven race of Volaticus society and, by association, the SOSC.”

Firm, outraged determination set in Huey’s eyes … finally. Osiris had given the good healer a cause to believe in and the paradise of a lab to look forward too. Now he needed to put his redheaded new tool to use.

“What would you have me do?”

Osiris shrugged. “I need some records from the main Hospe in Greenland. After that I want you to tie up any loose ends you have in your current life and join the life you were meant for.” He indicated the wall behind him.

Chapter Seven

Prince Hansi Alba stared at the text Mattie had just sent him: “Cassie’s in Seattle” and an address. His mind churned and he nearly forgot where he was. After giving the report for his last mission to the SOSC leaders in Greenland, he had returned to Mesa to see his friend Umbrae and her quadruplets. He enjoyed the warm welcome he got from each of her children. The quads could lighten any situation. Umbrae and Enlil had bestowed each child a godparent and a namesake. The baby girls had been named after their namesakes. Jestyl was named after Jess Einar and had the warrior Irsu Einar as her godmother. Tana, named for Enlil’s deceased bloodedmate Etana, had the Aquatie warrior Greyton as her godfather. The third baby girl, Erisa, was named for Umbrae’s father Eros and had Greycia, Greyton’s paired sibling, as her godmother. Hans was the godfather of the only boy, Harmen, who was named for the healer Herme. Protected by members of the three species and adored by the entire SOSC, the quadruplets never lacked for attention and visitors.

“Great Fates, Hans, what the hell just happened? You’re pale as a ghost.” Umbrae had been his partner before she’d mated and gotten pregnant. She was also one of the few people Hans trusted completely. A highly effective assassin, Umbrae was deadly when necessary, but she was also one of the most generous and compassionate females he’d ever met.

“My … friend Cassie has turned up. No one’s heard from her for the last twenty years.”

Umbrae’s brows creased as she looked in his eyes. “Friend, are you sure that’s all it is?” Hans shifted his gaze and nodded. “Okay, whatever you say.” She grinned, pulled Erisa onto her lap, and blood-nursed the baby at her wrist.

“How do you keep up with them all?” Hans tried to change the subject for both of them.

“Only Tana and Erisa need blood. Well, and Enlil, of course.” She blushed; sharing blood with one’s mate was far more intimate than blood-nursing a child. “At least I get to eat all the iron-rich food I want.”

Harmen crawled into Hans’ lap, spreading cookie crumbs up his arms. His godson let out a sigh as his eyes drooped and he fell fast asleep. “You know Conlon’s partner Mattie, right?” He needed to tell someone. If anyone would understand feeling hopeless, it would be Umbrae. Of course, she’d never let hopelessness get the last word.

Umbrae laid Erisa on one of the sleeping mats and rubbed the hair of a sleeping Jestyl’s brow before lifting Tana to her opposite wrist. “Yes. She’s come with Conlon to some of the family gatherings Jess and Shane throw.”

“Her full title is Princess Matalina Aleen, and she and Cassie—Princess Cassiopeia—are only a few years apart and closer in age to me than any of my sisters. We come from neighboring colonies; I’ve known them all my life. The three of us grew up together.” Though she nodded, she didn’t rush, push, or prod him for more information. Maybe that was why she was so easy to talk to—why he continued, “and I love Cassie … I shouldn’t … it’s forbidden … but I do. At one time I thought she loved me too.”

“Forbidden is a pretty menacing word, Hans. Are you sure it’s the correct one?”

He sighed. “Unfortunately, yeah. We Tellus are pretty tight-lipped about our culture, but being a royal sucks. Being heir to the crown and/or throne really sucks. Sexual intimacy between members of royal bloodlines is forever binding. I’m not sure how to put it delicately.”

Umbrae scoffed, “Then just spit it out. I’m hardly a delicate flower.”

Umbrae had spent centuries under the control of a blood master who not only used her sexually he’d also traded her to others. Hans swallowed at her subtle reminder. “Until I sexually mate with another royal, I am sterile. So are princesses like my sisters and Cassie and Mattie. The mingling of bodily fluids binds us genetically. If I have sex or even open-mouth kiss a female of royal bloodline, that female will be the only person capable of having my young … and I would be the only one able to sire her young too. My eldest sister is heir to my mother’s crown. Her marriage was arranged, and as first-born, she and her husband will one day sit at my parent’s throne. I am heir to my father’s crown as first-born son, only son. My nuptial is pre-determined, contracted and arraigned to the eldest daughter and heir to a different throne. My other sisters can marry and mate with any one of royal bloodline if they want children or whoever they want if they are willing to let their individual bloodline die out, since they wouldn’t be able to conceive. My mating was arranged before my birth.”

“I take it the female you’re supposed to marry isn’t Cassie.” Umbrae gave him a sympathetic look when he shook his head. “Is the arranged marriage more important than your happiness?”

“Our nuptial contract ended a feud between our two colonies that preceded our species’ enlightening. Neither the princess nor I wish to marry each other or mate …” The thought of bedding Mattie actually made his balls shrink up. “We’re friends, so by mutual agreement we have contrived to delay our nuptial until one or the other of our parent’s forces our hands. As long as her mother and my parents are content in their roles as king and queen, we can wait … and we have. Eventually we will be forced to mate or our colonies will go to war over the territory.”

“If this queen, your betrothed’s mother, rules alone now, why can’t the princess take the throne whether you mate her or not?” Umbrae asked. This was part of the reason Tellus didn’t talk about their political structure—it was confusing to outsiders.

“The people of our colonies won’t follow an infertile leader. They have to be assured their monarchy will reproduce and ensure the integrity of the monarchy structure. The queen rules alone because her mate was killed after she had children to carry the line. Unfortunately she doesn’t have a son, so her mate’s crown will not pass—only hers along with her throne, which means whoever marries her first-born daughter must also be a first-born son. And heir to the crown of his sire king to hold the king’s throne in her colony.”