Gravity (41 page)

had theorized it to death, but that explained the unusual buildup of static I always carried when I

was human. Grady performed this same act several other times, and those were the only children

who ended up on Samil’s list. He wasn’t interested in all the test-tube babies, only the ones whose

lives began with an infusion of Mage energy.

“Why did they want my mother?” I asked the older Mage.

He kept his gaze on Christian while speaking in a monotone voice. “She was the human child of

a Chitah.”

I gasped and Simon spit out a curse.

“That can’t be!” My hands trembled. I couldn’t believe it! I would have never imagined that my

own mother’s life had begun in this world—that she was the child of a Chitah.

“They are usually impossible to locate, but yours had a Chitah mother who tried to claim her

when she was an infant, so her identity was known. There’s something in their DNA that increases

the odds of carrying a Breed child to full term, so we discovered. We had no luck in the beginning

with Breed females carrying; their body would reject any fertilized egg of another Breed.”

“My mother is a Chitah?”

“Human. Just born of a Chitah. But she shares their blood, even if she is not a Chitah. They live

ordinary mortal lives and will never share the same characteristic traits of a Chitah, but there is a

magic in them nevertheless.”

I sat down on a metal stool with my mouth agape. My mother was a human child of a Chitah.

Grady was torn about following through with it, but had finally buckled under the influence of

money. He agreed to help as an Infuser on the condition that he’d no longer have to retrieve any

of the women.

“And what of the spermtabulous cocktail?” Christian pressed.

The older man stared blankly at him. “Our boss made sure that each of us only knew part of

the puzzle. We did our job and kept confidentiality, even amongst ourselves.”

“Who the hell is my father?” I screamed.

Christian leaned in and punched out his fangs.

The Mage continued staring into his eyes. “The egg belonged to a female Chitah. We think

that’s why it bonded so well in the early experiments, but we ran out of human-Chitah surrogates.

Locating one of them who also happened to be of childbearing age became as easy as locating a

goldfish in the Atlantic Ocean. They’re given up anonymously, and we haven’t had any success in

recent years of tracking them down, so we moved on and tried different things. I don’t know

where the sperm came from.”

I covered my mouth with my hand. “I’m a Chitah,” I breathed. “Both my biological and

surrogate mothers were Chitahs.”

“Where is the man who knows about the sperm?” Christian asked in a cool and dangerous

voice.

“Dead. Some knowledge died over the years, which is why we’ve had to try new things. Like

vaccinations.”

“Where is Silver’s file?”

“Below the desk… by the door in the back.”

Christian nodded for me to go look and I dug around until I found an old brown file with a

coffee stain on it. I saw my mother’s picture, her name, information about my birth and

conception.

“It’s here, Christian. I got it!” I said excitedly. I tucked the file beneath my shirt, inside my

pants. “Are you two okay here? I need to go.”

“Hell no, you’re not going!” Christian snapped in almost unintelligible Irish accent. “You forget

I’m your guard?”

So I waited it out for a grueling ten hours.

Christian and Simon extracted every slice of information they could get out of the men,

including all their knowledge, how much of it was documented on paper, where those papers

were, and if they knew anything that had not been documented. Christian got names of three

other men involved, but no one knew the ringleader; he was a shadow. The criminals with money

and intelligence operated like the Great and Powerful Oz, having other people do their dirty work

and staying out of arm’s reach. It reminded me of how Nero conducted business.

***

Justus led Page into his bedroom and closed the door. She leaned against it, and they stared at

each other.

Even before he realized the Relic was immune to his charms, he had been drawn to her. She

wasn’t anything like the women he had been with before. She carried a subtle beauty and never

flaunted it with provocative clothing or heavy makeup. He found himself attracted to her admirable

qualities: intelligence, leadership skills, and how she handled difficult situations with great

fortitude. He understood her personality in a way that few men would, and it’s why he challenged

her every step of the way.

When Page would visit with Silver, Justus stood quietly by the wall, noticing little details about

her. Like how she sometimes tapped her nose while thinking, or whenever she was working

something out in her head, she would twirl her finger in the air and look around. There was a

brilliant light shining in her eyes that captivated him.

In his youth, Justus had been an artist. Life had excited him in much the same way as it did

her, except his medium had been painting and hers was books. She absorbed knowledge the way

a canvas absorbs paint. She reminded him of the man he once was. The man he never thought he

could be again.

The air stilled between them and he dropped to his knees before her. Page smoothed her soft

hands across his bristly head in a very slow manner. She was the first person he had allowed to

touch him so intimately in a private setting. Not the heavy petting that went on in the clubs, but a

touch that meant something as her eyes gazed directly into his.

He ran his hands up her naked thighs and slowly dragged his fingers beneath her long shirt.

The smooth hush of skin filled the silence of the room and her head fell against the door as her

eyes closed. It was the most erotic visual Justus had ever seen, and he suddenly had an urge to

paint it. His rough hands journeyed higher up her smooth thighs until he reached the feminine

curve of her hips. Justus had never experienced such a lack of control with his energy. He

immediately let go and placed his hands on his lap.

“I’ll hurt you,” he warned.

“Then don’t touch me.”

His cobalt eyes sharply looked up at her. “That would be an impossibility.”

She stepped around him to the bed. “Then maybe it isn’t meant to be. Maybe what they say

about dating outside your Breed is right.”

Something caught his eye and Justus stood up. He lifted the object from the dresser and

latched it around his neck with a click.

“Oh, that’s darling,” she said with a flurry of giggles.

Silver’s necklace that suppressed energy hung around his neck, and Justus smiled at her like a

cat that was about to eat the canary.

When her cheeks pinkened, he frowned. “Have I offended you?”

“Can I see you without your shirt on?” The palms of her hands turned red and she wrung them

together as if trying to hide the fact that she blushed all over her body.

His heart unexpectedly beat faster. Page was about to appraise him, and while Justus was

proud of his physique, he suddenly became nervous as hell. She was not under a Charmer’s spell.

Page could reject him.

“Never mind,” she said dismissively, clasping her delicate fingers together.

Without hesitation, he peeled off his shirt and dropped it on the floor. Over the course of the

past month, the physical conditioning in his training room had strengthened his muscles. His abs

were a force to be reckoned with.

He could almost feel the heat from her eyes sliding up his abs, broad torso, and then along the

muscles in his arms. She wasn’t looking at him with Relic eyes, but the eyes of a woman. Her blush

slowly faded and he stepped forward within reach.

“Turn around?” she asked.

“Do I frighten you?”

“The only thing that frightens me is the fact you’re into jewelry.”

He was already concerned about what she thought of his tribal tattoo on his right arm that

snaked around from his elbow to shoulder, but what would she think about the sun on his back?

Justus turned around and heard her gasp.

He instinctively jumped when her finger touched the tattoo, tracing along the lines. “What does

it mean?”

“It’s who I am. The sun, the energy, it represents me as a Thermal Mage,” he said over his

shoulder, proudly. He had personally designed the tattoo of the sun with small bolts of lightning

coming out. Justus had wanted a positive symbol and not a memory of something tragic as so

many men had acquired. He got it when he first became a Mage and discovered what his abilities

were.

When he twisted around to face her, she grabbed his right arm and slid her fingers along the

dark marks of his tribal tattoo.

“And this?”

“It’s personal to me,” was all he could say.

Her hand roamed down his forearm and she curled her fingers around his. Justus’s heart

quickened because no woman had ever held his hand that way before. She used her other one to

caress the back and looked up expectantly.

“Please share your life with me. I’m not asking because I’m a Relic; I’m asking because it’s who

you are. That’s who I want to know all about.”

He sat to her left, holding up his arm and using his finger as a pointer. “I designed it three

hundred years ago after years of travel. That was when I learned who I was and the kind of man I

wanted to be.” He touched a jagged line. “This one is for courage, this one is for honor.”

She lifted her finger and traced over the thick lines, learning every groove of who Justus was.

“This one is for perseverance, this one is for loyalty, and this one is for sacrifice.”

“Where’s love?” Page circled her hands around his bicep. “It’s beautiful,” she whispered.

Justus hadn’t marked himself in over three hundred years, and suddenly he wanted to put

another line in the pattern.

“I find it fascinating that many of you go through the irreversible process of liquid fire.” Page let

go and placed her hands on her lap again.

“What do you sleep in?” he suddenly asked.

Justus had bought Silver many outfits she had never worn. She would have something suitable

for Page.

“Don’t laugh,” she quickly said. “I have this satin gown that’s my favorite. It’s the color of your

eyes. The collar has a lacy little thing going on, but it falls to my knees. I don’t dress in all that

lingerie most women wear.” She rambled on as if this were an ordinary conversation. It made him

smile as she continued. “Although I do have this one baby-doll gown, but it’s not practical at all

because after a few hours of tossing around in the bed, it always winds up over my head. What

about you?”

“I don’t wear gowns,” he said.

Page laughed melodically and straightened her legs. “Seriously.”

He shrugged. “Sweats or silk shorts with a robe. I dress appropriately so I don’t make my

Learner uncomfortable in my presence.”

“I know what you mean. I dress practical because it matters how I present myself to clients. I

don’t need to show off legs when that’s not what I’m being hired for.”

Nothing was sexier to Justus than a modest woman.

“There’s fruit if you’re hungry,” he offered. “Or I can prepare something more suitable in the

kitchen. I’m not the best cook,” he warned, knowing she might be better off with the fruit.

Page crawled across the bed and fell on her back, fluffing a pillow. He glanced over his

shoulder and she gave him a radiant smile. The kind that brightened her brown eyes, and then she

tilted her head and a lock of hair swooped across her face.

“I lied, Justus. I think I could get used to someone taking care of me if this is what it’s all

about,” she said jokingly. “What you have here is fine.”

Justus walked around the bed and sat beside her, taking a pear from the bowl and slicing it

with a knife he kept in the drawer. He handed it to her and she nibbled on it as he cut another

wedge.

“So what’s with the necklace?” Her eyes were brimming with curiosity, the kind he often saw

when she was working out problems in her head.

“The Mage who kidnapped Silver several months ago purchased this metal on the black market.

It can suppress many Breed gifts.”

“Really?” Page went into serious mode as she reached up to touch it. “Have you had anyone

take a look at it?”

“No. We don’t want this knowledge in the wrong hands.”

“I could analyze it. You can trust me.”

His eyes dropped a little as he worked on the next slice of pear. “Why was a vial of Silver’s

blood in the lab we found you in?”

“It was?” She pinched the bridge of her nose. “It went missing and I thought I had misplaced

it. I do that sometimes when I’m in a hurry and have been running on two hours’ sleep. They had

it? Slater was the last person I was around when it went missing, but I blew it off. I didn’t see any

reason why he would want it.” The corners of her mouth anchored down. “Why? Why are you