Primal Instincts (11 page)

A female of the species would know.

She didn’t argue; running a vampire Clan was similar to commanding a military unit. She was slated to become a Matri, so maybe she could learn a few tips from this martinet.

There was a plate stacked with toast and a platter with some bacon and scrambled eggs. Francesca made herself a sandwich out of the leftovers, and she leaned against the sink, her back absorbing warmth from the window behind her. The winter sunlight was feeble even by Southern California standards, but she loved the feel of it.

What on earth had it been like to be a vampire before the daylight drugs? It didn’t bear thinking about. No wonder the Tribe boys were so mean. And angry about having to do without the miracles of science unless they gave up their own ancient, evil ways.

She ate, sipped coffee, and watched the master of the Dark Angels as he dealt with one after another of his cohorts and sent them on their way. It occurred to her after a while that she was going unnoticed. She’d been so busy appreciating the fine figure of Tobias Strahan that it took her a while to realize she wasn’t being watched, leered at, or come on to by any Prime in the room.

Because Strahan had marked her as his?
Oh, please.
But it seemed to be working.

She wasn’t the object of anyone’s lust. She liked it.

You most certainly are a lust object
, Strahan thought.

You don’t count.

I’m the
only
one who counts.

She thought about arguing but kept her thoughts and words to herself for now. She respected the command structure of the Dark Angels enough not to challenge Strahan in front of his people, waiting for her chance to get Strahan alone.

Flare didn’t like being the center of the universe? Tobias hid his surprise at this revelation. He thought he must have been mistaken at thinking that was what he’d picked up from the most beautiful woman in the world. Who knew she was the most beautiful woman in the world and took Primes worshipping at her feet as her due.

Or maybe he’d just imagined that.

Her relief at being left alone? Or her regal acceptance of being the center of the universe?

He wanted to ask her which was the real Flare and probably couldn’t stop himself from doing
so even though it would be smarter to leave her alone. One of the problems with two beings trying to meld into a bond was the instinctive compulsion to learn everything there was to know about each other. His curiosity was killing him when he needed to concentrate on more important things.

If he was lucky he’d gotten Flare pregnant last night and she could be sent away to a safe haven. But would he be able to put the need for her aside, for even a little while? He was tough, he’d cope.

Until she came crawling back begging to be with him.

Or vice versa, he admitted ruefully.

They hadn’t shared blood. She’d been smart to insist that they not taste each other. That would help slow the bonding. But if she wasn’t already pregnant he’d continue to have sex with her until she was. At some point blood was bound to become a part of the equation. He could hardly wait.

Calm down, boy.

For a moment Tobias wasn’t sure whether the thought was his or hers. He shook his head and forced himself to concentrate on business.

“Tell Ed I want a sweep of the Citadel ASAP, Tsuke.”

The Japanese werefox made a note on her PDA. She wasn’t exactly a werefox but a
kitsune.
Tobias wasn’t quite sure of the differences. Vampires were vampires, werefolk were complicated.

He pinched the bridge of his nose as he mentally ticked through the assignments and orders for the day. “Okay, that’s everything,” he told the remaining Crew. “Dismissed.”

Within moments he was alone with Flare Reynard. His impulse was to take her back to the bedroom.

“Let’s go,” he told her.

Her faint smile told him she knew what he was thinking and what he meant. “To the clinic.”

He nodded. But the cell phone in his jacket vibrated before he could take a step. “Excuse me.” He took out the phone to check the text message.

Flare was standing at his side as he gave a snort of laughter. “What?” she asked.

“From Saffie.” He let Flare read the message on the small screen:

Remember the cheek swab thing?

“Meaning?”

“My mortal teenage daughter.”

“That was who you were talking to last night? I thought it sounded like you were talking to a kid. I tried not to eavesdrop but heard some of what you
said.”

“That’s okay.” He typed an answering text, which wasn’t easy on the tiny keyboard with his big hands, while he explained. “Her science class got involved with a DNA study.”

Remember. ??

Mistake?

??

What if results suck?

U don’t suck.

U do.

UR adopted.

“I thought it would be a good idea for her to learn something about her ancestry. When this came up she told me she thought the work mortals are doing to trace migration patterns is fascinating.” He sighed. “I never thought consenting to a biology project would cause a panic attack.”

“She doesn’t know anything about her family?”

He was annoyed by the notes of alarm and sympathy in Flare’s question. Of course a Clan female would only understand about Clan connections.

“You don’t need bloodlines to make a family,” he told her.

“I know that. But you must think genetics counts for something, or you wouldn’t have encouraged your daughter to—”

“Point taken,” Tobias growled.

“I’ll take that as an apology.” She walked away.

He went back to soothing Saffie’s worries, but guilt nagged at him the whole time he typed text messages to his daughter.

He was beginning to suspect that he suddenly had more women in his life than was healthy for a simple soldier Prime.

Francesca looked out the patio door with her arms crossed tightly across her stomach and tried unsuccessfully not to think about how easy it was to become attached to mortals.

If she and Patrick had had a daughter, she would have been mortal. Nothing wrong with being mortal; Francesca would have loved her just as much. Taken pride in her. Raised her to be the best person she could be. Vampires lived longer, were faster and stronger, healed more quickly, but they weren’t any smarter than mortals. They didn’t have any more spirit or talent or anything that really made their minds different from a human’s.

Damn it, Patrick, why’d you have to go and die on me? We would have made beautiful babies.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.”

Francesca hated that she hadn’t noticed Strahan come up behind her and that she felt like that was where he was supposed to be. She watched his faint
reflection in the glass as he filled the space behind her. For a moment she couldn’t recall why he might think he’d upset her.

“I like most mortals I’ve met,” she finally said. “Small ones are especially cute. They take a lot less training to domesticate than vampire children.”

His laughter was ironic. It coaxed a faint smile from her.

“Of course, I’ve never raised one,” she added. She thought she successfully hid the stab of pain these words brought her. Never mind the connection she and Strahan were developing, there were some things she needed desperately to keep to herself. “Where is she? I get the impression it’s a private school somewhere.”

“Very private,” he answered. “Very exclusive. Very expensive. Back east. She hates it.”

“Well, if she was raised around your Crew—”

“That’s the point. I’ve let her get close to danger too many times. She needs some stability. She needs to learn how to be a normal mortal girl.”

This time Francesca gave the ironic laugh. “She’s being raised around vampires and werefolk—and studying to be a witch, I think—so how can she even pretend to be a
normal
mortal?”

“She needs to have the chance.”

“Or so you have decided, oh master of all you survey?”

“Don’t start. All I want is for Saffie to be happy and safe. That’s all I’ve ever wanted.”

His sincerity twisted her heart. She turned to face him, unsatisfied with talking only to his reflection. The look of absolute pain and horror was frightening. And utterly compelling. She had to reach out to comfort—

T
he baby batted her big brown eyes at him again and Tobias couldn’t stop the smile. He didn’t spring for first class often, so he hadn’t been at all happy when the Indian woman with the baby sat down in the seat next to him.

He’d had one of his
feelings
since he boarded the plane. He expected the baby to add to his irritation. Instead she was proving to be a delightful distraction on the long international flight. He had a lot of thinking to do but played peekaboo with the baby until she went to sleep. The baby’s mom didn’t mind his attention to her but didn’t say anything to him, either. She nodded off a little while after the baby did, though her hold on the child resting against her shoulder never slackened.
Parenting wasn’t something he’d ever given any thought to, but he found the example of it next to him quite touching.

As the huge plane plowed on through the night he turned his head toward the window. Every now and then he caught a glitter of moonlight off the ocean far below beyond his own reflection in the glass.

He wondered where the legend of vampires not being able to be seen in mirrors came from. Was it from folklore or the movies? He knew that many of his own kind very deliberately shunned knowing anything about the mythos that surrounded vampires in mortal minds. They were snobs, in Tobias’s opinion. Besides, what you didn’t know could get you killed.

The problem with both vampires and werefolk was that they weren’t paying attention anymore. He had a strong feeling that it was a much bigger problem than even the paranoid few like himself suspected. Oh, Clans and Families kept an eye on the fanatic fringe of mortal vampire hunters. Werefolk were expert at hiding from mortals—even those few mortals who knew they were real thought they’d been hunted to extinction. But Tobias suspected that it was time to keep an eye on more than just the traditional threats.

And what about internal threats? Not all Clan
and Family Primes worked for the protection of the good old U.S. of A. Even though most vampires had migrated to the wider spaces and more open society of America in the last three centuries, those who hadn’t had their own loyalties, their own ideologies. Prime fighting against Prime in mortal conflicts had happened in the past. Tobias felt it was coming again.

What about the Tribes? Feral werefolk? The Tribes were keeping too low a profile in his opinion. They were up to something. Getting themselves organized? Finding or forcing mortal alliances?

And feral populations were growing, even though the werefolk councils in America, Asia, and Europe actively and angrily denied it.

He was on his way home from Africa and the tale he had to tell wasn’t a pretty one. He’d resigned his army commission to make this trip, to tell his story, to put a plan in action. He was a Family Prime. He hadn’t taken any vow to protect mortals, but he’d loved his military career. He knew some of the people he was heading to America to meet would mock his feelings, but they would have to listen to his evidence.

He’d been in West Africa on a totally covert mission. His five-man team had been there as protection for a team of spooks gathering intel on the
bad and ugly things mortals were doing to each other in that desperate, unstable, violent, but very mineral-rich part of the world.

He’d seen a lot of death along the way. Mortals killing mortals for ancient grudges, for modern politics, mostly out of greed. Illegal diamond mining was a lucrative way for mortals to fuel trouble all over the world.

It was diamonds that had gotten every living soul in one village they’d come across killed. He’d been the only one who’d truly understood how appalling the sickening sight he couldn’t get out of his mind really was. He’d made his mortal comrades forget what they’d seen, what they’d found. He was the only one who could bring this knowledge back to the world. His world.

He’d recognized the villagers for who they’d really been, werefolk. Lion People. It took more than AK-47s and machetes to kill people who could change at will into lions, but every male, female, and child was dead. Why? Because they worked their own small, carefully concealed diamond mine. They’d probably worked it for many generations. The trade was their means of keeping themselves secret from the mortal world.

Who would know about the place? Other immortals.

Who could kill werelions? No one who wasn’t
even more dangerous and deadly. Other werefolk, perhaps. Weretigers might stand a chance against werelions. A very large pack of werewolves might be able to do the job.

But Tobias knew damn well from what he’d seen, from what he’d smelled, from what every sense and extra sense told him, that the killers had been vampires.

He didn’t yet know who. He didn’t yet know why—maybe it had only been to get the cache of diamonds and no other agenda. He knew only that immortals had killed immortals and he had to do something about it.

A sudden hard jolt brought him out of his thoughts. Another knocked the plane sideways almost instantly. The jarring continued. The baby beside him started to cry. Seat belt signs lit. The captain’s voice announced, “We’ve run into some bad turbulence, folks. We should be out of it in a few minutes.”

The turbulence didn’t last long, but it was wild while it did. The baby didn’t cry for long after being startled awake, but Tobias watched her mother’s face going paler and paler with nausea, until she’d turned a faint shade of green that contrasted horribly with her bright turquoise sari.

As soon as the seat belt sign went off, he said, “Go.”

She handed him the baby. “Saffron,” she told him, and ran for the nearest unoccupied toilet.