Primal Instincts (12 page)

It was in the center of the plane, between first class and coach. That was where the bomb went off.

The poor woman never had a chance. Nor did anyone in the back of the plane, where the explosion and fire immediately swept through. Those in the front of the plane didn’t have a chance either. They had the long fall ahead of them.

“Oh, dear goddess! How could you . . . ? How did you . . . ?”

Francesca knew Strahan must have been holding her up because she could not have been standing on her own. The horror of the memory was too much. The fear . . .

But at least the voice was her own. She looked out of her own eyes now. She was herself. But the terror was fresh. The falling . . .

His fingers tightly gripped her arms. He held her as close as it was possible for two beings to be without melding into one. His warmth kept her alive.

No. That wasn’t right. It was her warmth that kept him alive—while he fell and fell and the earth came closer and . . .

At least they were over land.

What does that matter when striking water at terminal velocity would be no different than striking . . .

Francesca made herself look up into haunted brown eyes. His eyes. His eyes, not hers.

She forced her mind away from his direct memories. This time she
would
stay herself. But she had to know!

“How? Even a vampire shouldn’t have lived through that. And a mortal baby?”

Strahan nodded. “Shouldn’t be possible, but it happened. I can’t exactly say we were saved. At least I wasn’t. The pain was—” He shook his head. “The cold was worse. The fall goes on for a long time when you’re that high. At least the oxygen masks still worked. I made sure Saffie was able to breathe. Wrapped her in my coat, her blanket, her mom’s shawl. You couldn’t tell there was a kid in the cocoon I put around her. Maybe being bundled up like that helped her, cushioned her. I held her close and curled up around her.”

“But how did you survive everyone else’s fear?”

It must have been a telepath’s worst nightmare, to be bombarded with the emotions of all those people who knew they were doomed.

His face went blank, but his eyes still burned with anguish. “I’ve been a soldier all my life,” he said. Then he bent his head and admitted, “I still have nightmares reliving it.”

Francesca nodded. His honesty deeply touched her, made her proud of him. She knew this wasn’t
the time to hug him, even though she wanted to. “Damn right, you do. You couldn’t be sane and not be haunted by it.”

“I don’t think I
was
sane for a while after the crash. I . . . coped, but because Saffie needed me.

“The pilot was damned good,” he went on. “Half the plane was gone, but he still managed to keep the nose up.”

“He tried to glide? Like a shuttle landing?”

“Tried, yes. The cabin was mostly in one piece after we hit the ground. But no mortal could survive that landing. I remember—I remember curling myself around the baby and then darkness and—pain.”

What he did say was hard enough to express, but Francesca was aware that what he wasn’t telling her was worse. Something he didn’t want to think about haunted his mind, his soul, even his physical memory. She knew it couldn’t just be the recollection of pain. He was a Prime, a soldier. Pain came with the territory.

It was blood.

She knew he’d never told anyone else this, yet he couldn’t help telling her. Couldn’t help trusting her with this secret. She was appalled at this intimacy—and honored by it.

“Mortal bodies fly apart with that kind of impact. Bones are crushed, skin bursts, limbs are torn away, organs—you get the picture.”

She swallowed nausea. “Vividly.”

“There was blood everywhere, along with every other bodily fluid. The reek of it blended together—goddess, but I didn’t want anything to do with blood for a long time after that. I had to get out. Maybe I should have checked for other survivors, but I had to get out of that charnel house.”

“Nobody could have survived.”

“Of course not, but . . .” His gaze had been far away; now he looked her in the eyes. “I shouldn’t be doing this to you.”

She wanted to understand him. What he needed was important to her. “Talk as much as you need to. I’m here.”

His big hands cupped her face. “Why are you the one?”

Her heart raced at his touch. She fought the urge to kiss him, fought the desire brought on by his nearness. If talking helped heal his wounds from that awful time, it was her duty to listen.

“Damned if I know why you’re telling me,” she answered. “What happened next?” Francesca coaxed him.

“I remember crawling, but where to and for how
long, I have no idea. I was blind for a long time, I think. At least the world was completely dark and my eyes hurt like hell. The air was sweet and fresh, but my lungs were injured and it hurt to breathe until they started to heal. I’m not sure how long I crawled, but we were out of sight of the wreckage when my vision came back.”

“The plane crashed in Canada, didn’t it?”

She recalled how news of the air disaster had filled the headlines back then. Investigators had found evidence of a bombing but no clues on who was responsible. No terrorist group had ever laid claim to the horrendous crime.

He nodded. “Nova Scotia. Lucky for me. Where we hit helped me to survive.”

“How?”

“The Fenris Pack has a sanctuary up there. They were the first to reach the crash site. Saffie would have died if we’d had to trek out of there. I’m not sure I would have made it.”

Each of Strahan’s individual words made sense to her, except for two. “What’s a Fenris Pack?”

He looked at her like she was crazy for a moment. “Vampires don’t know very much about other immortals,” he said with an exasperated sigh.

“Well, you obviously do.”

“The Fenris are werewolves,” he told her. “A
fanatical pack that spend most of their lives shifted to wolf form. They keep as far from mortals as they possibly can. They showed up to try to help at the crash site and were not happy when all the rescue crews, investigators, and media showed up in their territory. It was months before they had their sanctuary all to themselves again. In the meantime they took in Saffie and me, kept us hidden, and got us out of the area when I was able to travel.”

“Why hidden? Why didn’t you take the baby back to mortals?”

Why would a Prime adopt a mortal child? She believed that had been her original query before time had disappeared into Strahan’s bad memories.

He stepped away from her, suddenly wary. “Her mother gave her to me.”

Well, that certainly made no sense. The woman had run to the bathroom; she hadn’t meant to get herself blown up before she could come back.

“But what about her family?”

“I couldn’t contact her family.”

“Couldn’t? Or you didn’t look for them? Surely you could have gained access to the passenger list.” That was the sort of thing the Corbett twins were experts at and charged exorbitant fees for.

“No one survived the crash,” he said. “No mortal could have.”

“Not even a miracle baby who managed to crawl
away—”

“Oh, please. Don’t you think there would have been an investigation of how this
miracle baby
survived? An investigation that would have led to the Fenris Pack? The entire immortal community?”

She saw the logic to this argument, even if she thought Strahan used it more as an excuse after the fact to justify the impulse that bonded him to the mortal child. He couldn’t have been thinking clearly when he made the decision to keep Saffron. There was no use questioning something that it was too late to change.

Besides, it was none of her business. Even though she was profoundly affected by this Prime’s love for a child.

Strahan’s attention shifted as a call came in on his Bluetooth earpiece, ending any further conversation. He answered the caller’s questions, then took Francesca by the hand.

“Come on,” he said. “Time to go to work.”

“Contacting me by telephone might not be wise at the moment.”

He listened to the vampire’s sneering voice issue from his telephone handset and gritted his teeth. “You also told me that it wouldn’t be wise to meet. Not being a telepath, I can’t think of any other option. Unless you can get e-mail in your coffin.”

“I read my e-mail at Wi-Fi hotspots.” The vampire’s sneer was gone now. “But I’m not checking it at the moment. Our communication lines aren’t as secure as our enemy’s, but we are working on that,” he added.

Sometimes he thought this liaison with the monsters was just plain crazy. The creature was
prone to mood swings. Sometimes he could be outgoing and treat his mortal allies like buddies. Sometimes he was sullen. Sometimes the creature’s natural arrogance dominated his personality. The monster even called himself by an arrogant name—Dr. Stone. A vampire variation of the eighties term for a drug dealer
Dr. Feelgood
, was how the vampire explained the stupid nickname.

He suspected the knockoff daylight drugs the Tribe vampires used weren’t as improved as they claimed. But as long as the Tribe Primes stayed sane enough to carry out the alliance’s goals, what did it matter? The Purists would put them all out of their misery eventually anyway. But until that time he had to be patient with the animal.

“I have information from the selkie that Primes might want to act on.”

“Is the guinea pig still alive?”

Though he was fully aware of the immortality experiment, he resented the vampire’s term for the woman who had been used. Even if she was a vampire’s whore.

“That is part of the information, yes. She is alive, and test results run by Casmerek’s lab show that she is healthy, so far.”

“You do understand how valuable she is, don’t you?”

Of course he did! He had money invested in the longevity project. They all did. It was rumored that the Tribe vampires had poured all the profits from their illegal diamond trade into the project—blood diamonds, indeed.

Even if the Purists weren’t the main financial backers of the scheme to adapt all the vampires’ physical advantages for human use, their motive was to improve humankind. He wondered why no one had ever thought to make a profit from the monsters before disposing of them for good before now. Not that the Tribe Primes saw the project that way.

They were all playing games with each other. But for now he remained the helpful accomplice.

“We need her back,” the Prime said.

“An assault on the clinic would not be wise.”

“I know that! Did you risk a call to tell me what I already know?”

“Of course not.”

“Can your selkie sneak her out?”

“Possibly,” he answered. “I’ll have her work on it.” He paused to relish the response he knew was coming, then asked, “Should she bring the female vampire along, as well?”

“The female—!” The Prime calmed down. “They have a female there? Is that why you called?”

He tried to keep his gratification out of his voice. “Yes. And yes. I thought you’d want to know.”

Now, didn’t that make him sound like a good, trustworthy ally? It was Purist policy to kill vampire females to keep them from continuing the species. Offering the Tribes a breeder showed good faith, that the Purists had truly changed for the sake of future mutual profit.

At least it mollified suspicion.

“Bring me the female,” the vampire said.

“I doubt I can do it alone,” he answered. “I think what we need is a plan.”

Daddy hadn’t gotten it. Saffie had a feeling—a bad feeling. And if anyone should have understood about bad feelings, he should have. But he didn’t this time. It was the distance between them, she was sure. Phones and computers were great for keeping in touch, but being able to touch was better. She might not have been a telepath, but at least she understood that much.

It wasn’t that she was worried that she’d find out that she was from Mars or something. All she had to do was look in a mirror and know that at least her mother had been Indian—maybe born in Ohio or France, but Saffie knew her genes had
Indian subcontinent
stamped on them. But her dad—no, the male half of her genetic code? What if he turned out to be a flesh-eating demon or something? Not that she’d ever met any demons, but with a vampire for a daddy, who knew what was possible in her paternal DNA?

She’d had a growing feeling of dread since a couple of days after they’d done the test. Ever since waking up from a dream about the plane crash. She couldn’t remember a thing about the crash while awake, but sometimes it snuck up on her in her sleep. She’d woken up from the latest dream wondering for the first time why she’d lived. A voice in her dream suggested that maybe she wasn’t mortal.

It had only been a dream, but the dread grew worse with every day closer to the test results showing up.

She had a few minutes before it was time to walk into a class where disaster awaited. She needed some support. Some defense. Someone to offer more than
There, there, there’s nothing to worry about.

Yes, there was. She didn’t know what, but she needed a plan B. Even a plan A would have been nice.

“Dee.” Her witch mentor had trained Saffie to listen to her feelings. Dee would understand.

Saffie gave up on texting and opened her laptop to send a quick sip for advice to the Crew’s witch. All she could do then was head to biology and hope for a chance to check for an answer during the class.

“Welcome to New York,” Gregor announced to the pair of slaves as he entered their windowless workroom. “I brought doughnuts.”

This got the geeks’ attention. His entry hadn’t caused them to look up from their computer screens, but sweets did. He handed over the box. “You prove my theory that one should treat pets well.”

“Dibs on any chocolate,” the female said. “Thank you,” she added when Gregor cleared his throat. Young mortals could be so rude.

“Did you enjoy the trip from Los Angeles?” he asked.

“We were handcuffed, blindfolded, and stuffed into an airplane,” the female said. “Oh, yeah, it was great.”