But more than any of these details, Becca was struck by her eyes. They were wide and shocked—the eyes of someone who has survived some horrific event and hasn’t quite been able to convince themselves they’re still alive yet.
“Tess?” she asked sharply when the other girl just looked at her. “Tess, honey, are you okay?”
“I…” Tess shook her head. “I don’t…don’t know.”
“Tess, look at me—listen to me.” Becca tried to keep her voice calm and soothing. She wished she could reach through the viewscreen and grab the other girl’s hand or hug her but all she could do was talk. “Tell me what happened to you,” she insisted gently. “Come on, tell me now.”
“He ate him.” Tess’s voice was little more than a whisper. “He ate Pierce—my ex-husband. Every…every last bit of him. Like…like a dog licking a plate clean. He devoured him.”
“He? He who?” Becca demanded, her heart thumping. But she was terribly afraid that she knew the answer. The image of a huge, floating dr’gin flashed in her mind’s eye again. Tess’s next words confirmed her worst fears.
“Garron,” she whispered. “He…he changed into his dr’gin and then he devoured Pierce. Even his clothes. Even his gun. Everything.”
“Mother of God,” Becca murmured. “Are you serious? But I thought he got an implant to control it—to keep it inside.”
“It didn’t work.” Tess sounded numb. “I mean, it might have if Pierce hadn’t broken into the cabin and started carving me up with a knife.” She touched a long red cut that ran from her temple all the way down to her jaw. “When Garron saw that, it was like…like something inside him snapped. He…he changed. And then he…”
“Ate your ex-husband,” Becca finished for her.
“That isn’t all…” Tears began to leak down her cheeks. “Then he changed back and he tried to…he was going it…” She sniffed. “I can’t say it. I don’t want to say it.”
“Say what? Never mind.” Becca waved her hand. “You can tell me later. How many people know this? How many saw?”
“Just me,” Tess whispered. “I…I saw it all. And oh, Becca…I can’t unsee it. It…it’s in my mind. Like a movie clip that won’t stop playing. I keep seeing him bite…biting off Pierce’s arms and legs and his…his head.”
She buried her face in her hands and her shoulders began to shake as silent sobs wracked her.
“Oh, honey….” Becca bit her lip. She had always liked her brother-in-law, despite his inherent potential for this kind of violence. But knowing that it had actually happened at last—that he had let his dr’gin out and had killed and eaten someone—was almost too much for her mind to encompass.
“I…I wish I could forget,” Tess whispered. “But I can’t. I can’t.”
“Listen, you stay right there. You’re in the Asheville HKR building in North Carolina—right?” That was where the communications officer had told her the call was coming in from.
“Y-yes,” Tess said in a trembling voice. “And I’m sorry to bother you but I didn’t know who else to call.”
“You did the right thing,” Becca told her. “You stay right there—I’m coming to you just as fast as I can.”
“Thank you.” Tess wiped at her streaming eyes, smearing some of the blood that speckled her face across her pale cheek. “Thank you so much.”
“Just stay there,” Becca said again. “I’m on my way.”
She turned away from the view screen and nearly ran right into Truth, who was standing just inside the doorway.
“I heard everything,” he said grimly before Becca could speak. “Come on, let’s go.”
* * * * *
Tess felt a little calmer by the time the shuttle bearing Becca and Truth touched down. The Kindred commander on duty was the same one who had loaned Garron the ship to go to Zeaga Four and he had been kind and understanding when she asked for a private viewing room to call Becca. Even better, he didn’t ask any questions, despite her startling appearance.
After the call, while she was waiting for Becca, he had provided her with a private room to shower and change. He had even found a pair of old sweatpants and a sweatshirt someone had left there. That someone must have been a Kindred because the clothes were far too big for Tess. Still they were clean and whole and there was no blood on them so she was glad to put them on—even if she did swim in them.
Now she was sitting on a couch, sipping a hot, soothing cup of tea that one of the human girls manning the HKR had made her. The warming liquid running down her throat seemed to steady her nerves so Tess was feeling much more like herself when Becca and Truth finally burst into the HKR building.
“Tess, oh my God, are you okay?” Becca ran up to her, a worried expression on her lovely face.
“Better now.” Tess put down her tea and got up to hug her. She was glad to feel the other girl’s arms around her neck. “I’m sorry for calling you like that, acting so crazy,” she said in a low voice when they broke apart. “I just…I guess I was in shock.”
“Of course you were.” Becca pulled her back down on the couch and Tess picked up her tea again. “What you saw sounds terrible.”
“It was,” Tess said quietly. She took a deep breath. “It was like something out of a horror movie, honestly.”
“I have seen a dr’gin feed after the first transformation,” Truth said in a low voice. “I understand your horror and distress.”
“I can understand the…what Garron’s dr’gin did. What I don’t understand is what happened…after.” Tess bit her lip.
“After?” Truth asked.
“After it was over with Pierce and he changed back into himself.”
“What happened?” Becca said gently. “It’s okay, Tess, you can tell us.”
“He…he attacked me. Or started to, anyway.” Tess put a hand to her eyes, almost unable to tell the awful details. The way Garron had acted after his dr’gin had eaten Pierce was in some ways worse than seeing Pierce torn apart and swallowed up in the first place.
“He attacked you?” Becca sounded like she was frowning. “That doesn’t sound like Garron.”
“It wasn’t like him—at all,” Tess exclaimed, looking up. “He…he seemed to go crazy with lust. He was shoving me around and holding me down to kiss me and…” She cleared her throat. “Anyway, he’d never acted like that before. I just…can’t understand it.”
Truth cleared his throat. “Maybe I can shed some light on the subject. What kind of a man was your ex-mate?”
“Abusive.” Tess looked down at her tea. “Sadistic. Manipulative. I stayed with him a lot longer than I should have but he made it really hard to get away—he was a police detective.”
“One of your peace keepers here on Earth?” Truth asked.
Tess nodded. “I don’t have to tell you in words—all you really need to know about Pierce is right here.” She touched the side of her face where the long slice Pierce had made with his knife still throbbed.
“What happened there?” Truth asked.
“Remember I told you Pierce—my ex—came after me with a knife?” She looked at Becca who nodded.
“That’s awful.”
“It wasn’t exactly a day at the park,” Tess said dryly, touching her cheek again. “Pierce sliced me from my temple all the way down to my jaw but he wanted to do more. He was…was talking about pealing my face off.”
“Seven Hells,” Truth muttered hoarsely. “What kind of a male would do such a thing?”
“Pierce would,” Tess told him. “He liked hurting people—me especially. But when he said that—that’s when Garron sort of lost it and turned into his dr’gin.”
Truth nodded. “Seeing the female he cared for threatened must have been too much for him to bear. Even the emotion dampening implant he had would not have been able to hold him in check.”
“That makes sense,” Tess acknowledged. “But what does any of this have to do with the way Garron was acting?”
“Everything,” Truth said. “A dr�
��gin tends to take on some of the characteristics of the person or persons it devours for a short time after the first transformation.”
“It sounds like your ex was a real piece of work,” Becca murmured. “So if Garron took on some of his personality traits…”
“Those traits coupled with his intense need to breed is probably what prompted the way he acted toward you,” Truth said.
“He did back off when I was forceful enough. I had to…to slap him and yell at him to make him stop.” Tess pinched the bridge of her nose and sighed. “So you’re saying that this uh, personality change is only temporary? Because I have to tell you, it scared me to death.”
Truth cleared his throat. “Typically the traits ingested along with the dr’gin’s first meal will fade quickly.” He frowned. “So would you mind telling me…what happened after Garron uh, ‘backed off,’ as you put it?”
“Yes…” Becca leaned forward. “Did the two of you make up? Where’s Garron?”
“I don’t know.” Tess shrugged. “He said he was sorry, then his dr’gin came out and took over again and he ran out the door. Or, um, floated out the door. I have no idea how he did that. The way his dr’gin moves is so weird.”
At her words, Truth groaned softly and Becca looked truly upset.
“What?” Tess was alarmed. “What did I do? Was it bad?”
“It’s not your fault.” Becca leaned forward to put a hand on her knee.
“What’s not my fault? What did I do? What about Garron?” Tess fought to keep the panic out of her voice and didn’t quite succeed.
Truth sighed heavily. “I am afraid that Garron has gone D’fex.”
“D’fex? What the hell is that?” Tess demanded.
“It’s a rogue dr’gin. A beast which is mindless, hungry…and very, very dangerous,” Truth said soberly.
“What? But why? What does that even mean? How did it happen?”
“When a Rai’ku male enters his first transformation, his dr’gin’s first instinct is to feed,” Truth explained. “Once that hunger is satiated, he turns back to his original form. At that time he has a very short window in which to breed with the female his dr’gin has chosen. Tell me, Tess, did Garron’s dr’gin stare at you or look into your eyes before he changed back?”
“Well, yes…” Tess remembered feeling like the dr’gin was looking into her somehow—searching for something. She also remembered wondering what would happen if it didn’t find what it was looking for. “Yes, it did,” she said again.
Truth nodded. “It was deciding if you were the female it wanted—for itself and for Garron.”
“And what was the verdict?” Tess asked.
“It chose you—obviously. If it hadn’t, you wouldn’t be here with us alive right now,” Truth said.
“Oh…right.” Tess shivered as the implications of that sank in.
“All right, so the dr’gin chose Tess,” Becca said. “Then Garron turned back to himself—his guy self I mean—and tried to attack Tess because he’d basically had an asshole for breakfast—meaning Pierce.” She looked hastily at Tess. “Oh sorry, I guess I shouldn’t speak ill of the dead.”
“No, in this case you’re just telling the truth,” Tess tried to smile but couldn’t quite manage it. “And you’ve got it all right so far. But then after I refused to…you know with Garron, he turned back into his dr’gin and left. And now you say he’s some weird word that means he’s crazy?”
“D’fex. And yes, he has for all intents and purposes lost his mind,” Truth said, nodding. “He will be nothing but a dangerous, hungry beast now—hunting for humans to eat wherever he is.”
“And all because I wouldn’t have sex with him?” Tess was aghast. “This is my fault?”
“Of course not, honey!” Becca protested. “Nobody could blame you for not wanting to get busy after just watching your ex get eaten alive. You’d be some kind of psychopath if that kind of thing turned you on!”
“But…we can fix it, right? I mean, we can find him and…and…”
But both Truth and Becca were shaking their heads.
“I’m sorry, Tess,” Truth said quietly. “I am afraid Garron is lost to us now.”
“Lost to us? What is that supposed to mean?” The panic was surging in her again and she had to fight to swallow it down and keep her voice from trembling. “You don’t mean he’s permanently stuck in that form—in his dr’gin form, do you?”
“Unfortunately, that is exactly what I mean.” Truth looked down at his hands. “He’s gone now. Gone for good. Everything that made him a sentient creature has been obscured—buried permanently beneath the beast mentality of his dr’gin. There is no bringing him back.”
“What? But…no. No, I don’t accept that.” Tess slammed down her mug so quickly that lukewarm tea sloshed over the side and spilled on the floor.
“I’m afraid you have to accept it, honey,” Becca said gently. “That’s just the way it is—Rai’ku Kindred biology.”
“Well why didn’t someone tell me any of this?” Tess demanded. “Why didn’t Garron happen to mention it? Why didn’t he say, ‘Hey, babe, if I do happen to turn into a dr’gin and I don’t eat you up, I’m going to need for you to have sex with me right away or I’ll be stuck as a dr’gin forever. Why didn’t he say that, huh?”
“I believe he was deeply ashamed of what he was.” Truth looked up and the sorrow on his face really drove the reality of the situation home to Tess. Garron really was lost—his brother was already mourning him. He was gone.
“Ashamed?” she whispered.
“Because of his fear that he would hurt the female he loved—first Nella and now you—he has hated the beast inside him and hated himself for carrying it inside for years,” Truth said.
“Besides, he got that emotion dampening implant,” Becca pointed out gently. “That was supposed to solve the problem. There was no way he could know it would fail.”
“I guess not…” Tess sank back down on the couch and buried her face in her hands. “Is there really no way at all to bring him back?”
Truth shook his head. “Once a dr’gin turns D’fex there is no bringing it back.”
“But…but what if I went out in the woods…went looking for him? What if I—?”
“Don’t you dare!” Becca looked really alarmed. “It would be like hunting a man eating tiger!”
“Rebecca is right,” Truth said firmly. “You would be courting your own death. There is nothing left of Garron now but a very hungry beast. No Rai’ku male has ever been brought back to himself once he has gone D’fex.”
“So that’s it then?” Tess sank back against the couch feeling like someone had dipped her heart in lead. “He’s really gone. Permanently gone?”
“I am afraid so.” Truth looked away but not before she saw that his eyes were suspiciously bright.
“Truth, honey…” Becca put a hand on his knee and he took it in his own and squeezed it.
“I should have done more to help him,” he said in a low voice. “Should have found a way somehow…”
“You’re talking like he’s dead,” Tess whispered, sitting up. “But he’s not—Garron is not dead. He’s still out there somewhere, alone in the mountains.”
“Everything that made him Garron—that made him my brother—is dead,” Truth said harshly. “Dead or buried so deeply there is no getting to it.”
“I know this is rough, Tess,” Becca said softly. “Which is why Truth and I aren’t going to leave you. We’ll take you back to Tampa with us and make sure you’re settled.”
“I guess I could go back to Tampa now,” Tess said numbly. “Garron took care of Pierce for me so there’s no reason I couldn’t…couldn’t go back to my old life. I could even start nursing school again if I wanted…”
“That’s the way to think,” Becca said gently. “Go forward—look towards the future, not the past.”
“I’ll try. It’s just that…” Tess’s breath hitched in her chest. “Just that
even though I hadn’t known him long we…we formed a connection. He was…Garron was so special. So wonderful…”
Now you’re doing it! whispered a little voice in her head—the voice of Tess BP and this time it sounded angry. Listen to you—talking about him like he’s dead. Like he’s past tense. This is the man you care about, Tess—the man you love. Are you really going to give up on him that easily?
The little voice was like a shot in the arm. Tess squared her shoulders and took a deep breath. No. No, I’m not! Garron is out there somewhere—I just need to find him and bring him back to himself. That’s all.
But something told her not to tell Becca and Truth about her determination to find Garron. They were both convinced that he was mindless and dangerous and beyond help—if she told them she wanted to go looking for him they would stop her. No, it was better to just slip away unnoticed and go on her own.
“Would you excuse me?” she said. “Too much tea—I’m going to the ladies room.”
She was half afraid that Becca might decide to come with her but it was clear the other girl wanted some time to comfort her man. Truth’s eyes were still bright and his jaw was clenched.
“Okay, hon,” Becca said distractedly. “You go ahead. We’ll be here.”
“All right.” Tess nodded. She wanted to say something else about how grateful she was that they had come down to be with her, but she was afraid anything like that would sound like a farewell and put them on alert. So she just nodded again and headed for the ladies room as casually as she could.
She walked quickly and purposefully in the direction of the bathrooms, which were located in the front of the building. To be on the safe side, she pushed open the door to the women’s room and went inside.
Once there, she counted to ten and took a deep breath. She hated lying to her new friends like this but she was sure Becca wouldn’t let her go without a fight. And right now, she didn’t need any more drama. She just needed to go look for Garron.
She counted to ten again, then opened the door a crack and looked out. Becca was turned away, speaking to someone on one of the many public viewscreens—probably her other husband, Far. Truth had his head in his hands.
Devoured Page 36
