The Bloodline War (28 page)

Roth broke eye contact long enough to glance around the conference room. “All of this drama doesn’t seem like your style, Dr. Parthen.”

She lazily lifted her brows at him, adopting an expression of mild curiosity, almost boredom. An interesting opening sally. Was Roth trying to make her feel churlish? Childish? Or get under her skin by making her think he knew her better than she knew herself? She smiled. She wouldn’t give him any of it. “You made the dramatic gesture necessary, Mr. Mihnea. You weren’t listening to the women of your community down in Ţărână. The hope is that we’ll have better luck with you up here.”

“Just because someone doesn’t concede to another’s wishes,” Roth countered smoothly, “doesn’t mean he hasn’t heard them.”

“Ah.” Toni sat back, her forearms on the armrests. “So you were just ignoring them?”

“Not in the disrespectful way you’re suggesting.” Roth steepled his fingers together in front of him. “I assure you that I haven’t been disregarding anyone’s feelings or wishes. There have just been issues of survival at stake.”

“We appreciate that you’re dealing with your own set of challenges.” She paused a moment, tamping down the urge to snark,
spare us that argument, we’ve all heard it ad infinitum
. That probably
would
come across as churlish. “Our position is this, however: nothing excuses taking women against their will. If you continue to kidnap Dragons, we will refuse to live in Ţărână. That’s the bottom line, and it’s non-negotiable.”

His brows arching, Roth turned to look at the Dragons at the far end of the table. “You plan to leave your husbands and children?”

Toni felt her face tightening, her jaw locking. She and Kimberly had discussed the possibility that Roth would use the Dragons’ love for their Vârcolac husbands against them. Now here he was, being oh-so-Roth-like. “The Dragons have no intention of leaving their children. They’ll live topside
with
them.”

Willen sucked in a breath. “By darkest night.”

“Maggie, my dear…” Luken began.

“The husbands,” Toni plowed on before the Dragons could waver, “will be invited topside once a week during nighttime hours to feed.” She smiled tightly at Roth. “The Dragon women don’t want any harm to come to their men, whom they love dearly.”

“No.” Jaċken snapped off the single word like a curse.

She shifted frosty eyes over to him. “Unless you plan to kidnap us again, and woe betide anyone who tries it,” she gritted, “then you can take your
no
and stuff it. The only way to get us back into the community is by agreeing to our demands.” She looked at Roth again.

He inclined his head at her. “Nicely played.”

“This isn’t a game,” she shot back, air burning through her lungs. “The Dragons engineered this escape to make sure that you understand they’re dead serious about their concerns over Ţărână’s leadership. I recommend you listen to them, Roth,
for once
.”

Roth tucked his steepled hands beneath his chin and regarded her mutely.

Chapter Thirty

Jaċken almost turned to glare at Roth with a silent
Just give her what she wants, you dumb shit
. But he fought off the urge, keeping his eyes locked straight ahead, like a good little damned solider.

A cold knot formed in his stomach, so tight it hurt. If Toni and Roth didn’t manage to smoke the fucking peace pipe together, then Jaċken would have to let Toni walk right back out of his life.
Yeah, no prob.
And while he was at it, he’d just barbecue his own heart for dinner. Jaċken turned his gaze to the pitcher of water and four glasses sitting in the middle of the conference table.
Screw it
.
LEAVE, already. Whatever
. The sight of Toni looking so damned beautiful was making him nuts, anyway.

He shut his eyes briefly and inhaled a slow breath. Christ’s sake, it felt like someone had installed new hardware in his brain—and mis-wired it. His thinking was completely warped. One minute he was filled with an elation he’d never known at having Toni back, his blood practically skipping through his veins, and smelling her was…hell. Having her scent back in his head was such a profound comfort, it made him realize just how broken he’d been this past week. Just how much he needed her to make him feel like a whole person. The other side of his schizophrenic madness wanted to drop-kick her to the curb without delay. Because, thing was, he was under no delusions that if she returned to the community, at some point she’d pick a mate.

Would it be Thomal of the Fine Ass? Most-fucking-likely. Or Dev the Schlong, as he’d heard the man called? Yeah, wouldn’t that be just jim dandy imagining those two bumping fuzzies every day.

Roth’s long exhale jerked Jaċken back to the present.

The leader of Ţărână scrubbed a hand over his face, his expression turning weary, exposing the fatigue Jaċken knew Roth had been feeling all week, if not longer.

Normally, it was impossible to tell the age difference between Jaċken and Roth. Until a Vârcolac became an elder, he or she looked about the same at twenty-one as at one hundred and twenty-one. But at times like these, Roth showed his age. It was in his eyes, the look of a man who’d spent more than a hundred years watching his race die, the look of a man who had an entire species’ existence on his shoulders.

“You may not believe this,” Roth said to Toni, “but we Vârcolac have always prided ourselves on being the good guys. I’ve hated that our desperate straits have led us away from that for a time.” He looked down at his hands for a long moment. “I can’t do it anymore. I just can’t bear everyone’s displeasure; I’m too tired.” He looked up. “I agree to your demands, Toni. No more kidnappings. And if that means our breed must die out, well….” He trailed off.

Jaċken heard the husbands shift in their seats. A heavy pause pushed air out of the room.

Toni’s expression softened, the color in her eyes deepening. “I don’t want the Vârcolac race to go extinct any more than you do, Roth. If you truly are the good guys, then I’d like to see you have the chance to show that, to be the proud, wonderful breed that you no doubt are. My brother and I have been tossing around a plan to get Dragon women down into Ţărână voluntarily.”

The room stilled.

“Can you…truly do that?” Roth asked in a quietly stunned tone.

“I believe we can, yes, but it’s going to require a willingness on your part to get out of your comfort zone and loosen up on some security measures. To
change
,” Toni emphasized.

Roth closed his eyes for a long second. “I’ve been insisting we keep to the old ways of being for too long, I realize that. Danger has followed us for so many years, we’ve already had to lose so much of ourselves because of the necessity of hiding. I’ve probably been holding onto our culture too tightly because of that.”

“I would never ask you to give up your culture entirely.” Toni glanced wryly at the other Dragon women. “We know how frustrating it is when someone is forced to do that.”

Roth pushed his lips together into a closed-mouth smile.

“By the same token, Ţărână is a town of mixed cultures now, Roth, and the leadership there needs to reflect both sides if you want to have a successful and harmonious community. For one, the humans need democracy; they need representation. On the other hand, I also realize that your tradition permits only Vârcolac of royal lineage to hold positions of authority. That leaves
me
as the perfect answer. I can bring a human perspective to the table, yet my royal bloodlines will allow me to lead beside you without putting Vârcolac noses out of joint.”

Jaċken snapped his brows together.
What
?

Toni smiled. “As it turns out, I’m a Royal. So is my brother.”

“But…how can that be?” Roth breathed.

Toni looked at her brother. “Show them The Book, Alex.”

Reaching into a duffle bag at his feet, Alex fished out a book with a crescent and star on the cover, then stood and leaned over the table, setting it in front of Roth.

Dr. Jess gasped. “Good heavens! It’s the Străvechi Caiet!”

Alex sat back down. “Hey, so you know it.”

“Stars above, yes. This is the book of our history, both past and future.” Dr. Jess stared at Alex in awestruck wonder. “However did you get ahold of it?”

Alex’s eyes lit. “Kind of magically, I guess.”

A small huff passed Jess’s lips. “I wouldn’t doubt it. The Străvechi Caiet has been lost to us for a century.” He reverently opened the first page of the book, then turned another and another, all the while marveling.

“Can you read it?” Alex asked.

“Of course not,” Jess scoffed, “no one can. Not unless you’re a….” The doctor whipped his gaze up. “You can, can’t you? That’s how you know that you and Toni are Royals.”

Alex shrugged. “Yeah, some of it. I should be able to read more, I sense that, but…I don’t know, something’s always just kind of in the way.”

“By holiest night,” the doctor whispered. “You’re a Soothsayer.”

Jesus, Alex Parthen might as well have just crapped a brand-new, gold-plated Sigmund-phase piece of lab equipment, the way Dr. Jess was looking at him now.

“A…? Really?” Alex perked up, glancing at Toni. “Hey, that sounds cool, doesn’t it?”

“I prefer Know-It-All,” Toni returned drolly.

“Ha! Would you listen to that! She’s just getting me back for all the times I called her stubborn.”

Roth regarded Alex solemnly. “If you don’t mind a question, Mr. Parthen, what would be the name of the line you’re descended from?”

Alex smiled broadly. “Ah, a test. No, that’s cool. Human Dragon royalty descends from King Σoseph of the Flacără line,” he rattled off. “The Royal Vârcolac come from Σoseph’s cousin, Ællen, of the Seară.

Jaċken exhaled under his breath.
I’ll be damned
….

“Well.” Roth looked a little amazed now, too. “You couldn’t have known that unless you’d studied Vârcolac/Dragon history in our community school.”

Dr. Jess clapped his hands together. “Do you realize what this means?! The Parthens are more than just Royal—they’re Royal
Fey
.” Jess beamed at them. “That means you both have enchantment skills, yours, Mr. Parthen, being soothsaying. Although clearly the majority of your power has been confined under centuries of repression. We must figure out how to release it.” Jess looked at Roth. “Why didn’t we see this before, Roth? They both have red in their hair and…dear heavens, Toni has always smelled different, hasn’t she?!”

Jaċken darted his eyes over to Toni. Holy fuck.

Nodding slowly, Roth looked at Toni for an elongated moment. “A co-leader, you say?”

Maggie piped in, “We won’t return to Ţărână without her.”

Roth chuckled. “No need to take a stand on this particular issue. I very much relish the thought of your co-leadership, Toni. I’ve been in sole charge of Ţărână for a very long time now.” He stood and held out his hand. “Welcome aboard.”

Jaċken’s heart played pinball against every bone in his ribcage as he watched Toni rise to her feet and shake Roth’s hand. The two had come to an agreement. Toni was returning to Ţărână.

“Actually, there’s still one minor caveat to me coming back,” she said.

Jaċken’s elation dropped away like a stone in a deep well. Christ, what now—? Oh, crap. The back of his nape prickled as Toni turned a penetrating blue stare on
him
.

“You and I,” she said, “need to settle our disagreement first.”

This couldn’t be good. “I wasn’t aware we had one.”

“Unfortunately, we do.” She sank gracefully back into her chair. “I want to be your mate, and you keep refusing me like a stubborn ass. I’d say that’s a disagreement.”

Searing heat slapped him in the cheeks as a raging mass of unpleasant emotions churned through him: anger that she would revisit something so painful to him, awkwardness that everyone was now gawking at him, no one bothering to hide how amazed they were that a woman of Toni’s caliber could want him.
Yeah, shut your traps and join the club, people
. And also some kind of bizarre-o childish
gee whiz, hurray, she wants me
feeling that made him want to bang his head on the conference table a couple of hundred times.

“Sorry if my Om Rău genes are getting in the way of your dreams of domestic bliss.” Shit, that came out even more snarky than he’d intended.

“Bound by a vow of celibacy, no vasectomy possible, blah, blah, blah. Yes, I remember all the reasons you
can’t
.”

He stared at her.
You’ve got to be shitting me
. “Your blasé understanding of the circumstances is touching.”

“The hell if I’m being blasé,” she snapped back. “I’m telling you none of that matters. I just need to know if you love me. That’s it. The rest we can work out.”

The heat was back in his face full-force. He’d never been the type of man to melt beneath a table in embarrassment and he wasn’t going to start now.
Tempting
, but fuck, no. “I’m not talking about this with you here.”
Or ever
.

“You’re going to have to,” she countered. “I can’t go back to Ţărână until I know.”

He gave her a hard look. “Are you threatening the welfare of the community over a—?”

“Jesus, you’re not
that
idiotic, are you? I don’t want to live down there without you, Jaċken, so I need to know if you love me.”

Pack sand. Stick it up your ass. And, yes, I love you so much I can already taste you
was the psychotic babble that lit off inside his head. Nice to know his sanity was still on a ten.

“It’s a simple enough question,” she prompted.

His temples were starting to pound. “Nothing about this whole damned situation is simple. We just found out that you’re a Royal, for Chrissake. Fuck if I’m going to let you waste those bloodlines on me. I can’t have children. We’ve been over that.”

“They’re my bloodlines. Shouldn’t I get a say in the matter?”

“You don’t have anything
to
say.”

“Don’t I?”