The Phoenix Project

by Jacquelyn Frank

  “Don’t,” she said, trying not to feel the hurt her thoughts sent spearing through her even as she voiced them. “Don’t act like you chose me. Don’t act like you wouldn’t have looked right through me if you’d seen me in the street when we were human. You made me your mate because you had no choice. No choice. Not in what you became and not in what you had to do because of it. I don’t blame you for any of it, but don’t expect me to believe you’d want anything to do with me if you got your humanity returned to you right this very second.”

  “That isn’t fair,” he returned sharply. “There’s no way for me to prove otherwise to you. You and I both know we’re never going to be fully human again. And if staying a Morphate means I get to keep you for the rest of my life, then I don’t want to be fully human again.”

  “And there’s no way you can prove that either! You just said you and I both know it isn’t going to be an option. And frankly, I don’t think you’ve considered what ‘the rest of’ your life really means. Your life has just become significantly extended, Nick. Hundreds, maybe even thousands of years!”

  “Thank God, because it’s going to take me that long to figure you out!” he shot back furiously.

  “There’s nothing to figure out! Don’t you get it? I’m just some girl from the wrong side of the wall. You said it yourself; the only thing I am good at is surviving. Apparently I’m good at fucking, too, or you wouldn’t even be here.”

  “Amara!” Nick grabbed hold of her suddenly by both arms and shook her so violently her teeth clacked together. “Don’t you fucking ever say anything like that to me again! Do you hear me? Despite what you think, I have feelings, too! You’re the one who keeps saying I’m still human, damn it. Well, I can be hurt, too, you know. Part of me died today when I thought Paulson killed you. I’ve never known such a totality of grief and regret. You think I didn’t choose you? Paulson shot me while I was kneeling over your body, baby, not while I was immediately sniffing after Mina to replace you! No choice? Oh, I chose. Mina chose to fuck a half dozen males before she tried for me. They must have tossed her room to room when they saw she had an appetite for it. But you heard Paulson. You and I were an exception, not a rule. We didn’t have to choose to mate for life, Amara, but we did. Are you saying you had no choice? That you regret giving that to me?”

  “No!”

  “Then what the hell makes you think it’s any different for me?” he challenged.

  “Because you’re better than I am,” she whispered painfully. “You treat me like I’m special, but I’m not. You are.”

  “Baby, baby,” he groaned as he jerked her hard into his embrace and hugged her so tightly she squeaked. “You and I are going to wish we weren’t special soon enough. I can promise you that. But there has never been anyone in my life as special to me as you are. I think I’ve loved you from the moment you told me you wished you’d never met me. I think that’s why when they put you in with me I couldn’t resist but take you for my own as thoroughly as I could.” He took her head between his hands and tipped it back so he could see deeply down into her tearing eyes. He blurred until she couldn’t see him, but she heard him even over the painful sob she could no longer contain. “Morphates don’t have to mate for life, honey. We just know immediately when we are supposed to. If we were human, our human hang-ups and bullshit would have made it take forever to figure out. Damn it, are you going to make me admit I’m glad Paulson did what he did just because it got me you?”

  “That’s a lie,” she sobbed softly.

  “I don’t think so,” he said honestly, his thumbs brushing tears off her lashes. “I can’t be glad he hurt so many of us, Amara, but I have to give credit where it’s due. If Paulson hadn’t been so cocksure and megalomaniacal, he wouldn’t have made the mistake of keeping me alive and then compounding it by giving me something as powerful as you are. Honey, just accept that I love you. When we’re done here, I’ll spend this long lifetime of ours convincing you of it.”

  “Will it take that long for me to convince you I love you, too?”

  “I’m going to say yes,” he said with a sudden grin, “just because it will be fun to watch you try.”

  Epilogue

  “This is Miranda Alvarez reporting from the White House, where today Nick and Amara Gregory watched the president sign the now infamously named Morphate Land Bill. The bill declares the six so-called Dark Cities as now belonging exclusively to the Morphate packs, or clans as they now prefer to be called, making them Morphate territories. These territories will act much in the way of Native American territories, establishing a subculture within a culture, while at the same time providing a solution to the rampant gang violence that spreads out from these Dark Cities more and more every year. As the president said earlier, ‘I wouldn’t want to be the one to cause trouble behind those walls once the Morphates move in to take possession.’ Morphates will be responsible for policing their own peoples and territories; however, federal jurisdiction will still apply. They have pretty much already proven that under their current leadership they are far more capable of controlling themselves than the gangs have proven to be. Of course, opponents to the signing of this bill say this is an act of insanity on the part of the government. ‘A case of letting the lunatics run the asylum,’ said Congresswoman Fiona Huron. She and others like her believe that within only a few years, the clans will not be satisfied with their territories and will only grow stronger and stronger over time. ‘If they decided to take over the world, who could stop them?’ one aide was heard to say, referring to the apparent immortality of this new species among us. This begs the question: Can we only trust those whom we have the power to kill?

  “Considering all they have suffered, I think this is one concession that is long, long overdue. Barren, walled-in cities polluted with drugs, violence, and worse are our idea of a gift to compensate them for their suffering, and in return they offer to repair and rebuild those cities and their infrastructures, ridding them of the influences this government could not. Some have publicly called the Gregorys and their clans monsters, but this reporter has been with this story since it began to unfold a year ago, and I have seen the Morphates treat us with far more patience and respect than we have ever given them.”

  Nick shut off the television and dropped the remote onto the night table.

  “They make it sound like we haven’t already been living in the Dark Cities for the past eight months. We went from four months continued lab analysis, poking and prodding by the damned government, and straight into here.” Amara pressed her cheek to the glass of the Dark Manhattan highrise apartment. The clan was currently spread out over the entire territory, a precautionary tactic to keep them from being lumped all together where they’d make an easy target, should anyone ever figure out how to kill them without using a radical bomb that would destroy human populations as well. It was also why they had chosen to send each protocol to a different city: Dark Chicago, Dark Phoenix, Dark L.A., Dark Manhattan, Dark Houston, and Dark Philadelphia. “They make it sound as if we had a choice of living among the rest of the world. We’d have been as welcome as a leper colony.”

  “Hey,” Nick said gently as he slid off the bed and came up behind her. He rubbed large, warm hands over her hips, drawing her backside flush against him. “You were the one who came up with this idea.”

  “Because I knew it was going to be like this.”

  “It won’t always be. And even if it is, we’ll make better places and live in better ways. It’s our choice.”

  “I don’t know,” she sighed softly. “We’re still so animalistic, Nick. And some of those other Alphas…I don’t trust them. Ambrose gives me the creeps.”

  “Yeah, me too. But he’s in line for now and keeping his clan in line. The Alpha Council is working out pretty well so far. Better than I expected.”

  “You and Devona. She was sure it would never work. But I think part of its success is because you and Kincaid act more like brothers than Alphas, and
because you had the very smart idea that it had to be male and female Alphas. It provides a certain balance.”

  “I’m glad Kin took Philly. Kept close.”

  “Mmm. He’s on his third Alpha mate, though. He needs to find a good, strong female to mate with permanently or the constant power plays will cause a lot of trouble.”

  “He will,” Nick assured her.

  She snorted in disbelief. “More likely one will have to kick ass, become Alpha, and force him to fall stupidly in love with her. Your brother is a very stubborn man. If he wasn’t so nice to me, he’d probably scare the hell out of me. He’s rather intense.”

  “Don’t ever say that to him. You’d hurt his feelings if he thought you were afraid of him. He really likes you. Sometimes I think he likes you too much.” Nick frowned against the back of her head. “He stares at you a lot.”

  “I think he’s trying to figure out what I see in you,” she teased him, her grin reflected back at him from the window.

  “Maybe.” Nick pushed aside her hair to rub his lips and nose against her warm neck. He took in several long breaths, which he exhaled hotly against her skin in rolling sounds of male intrigue. “God, you smell incredible.” His hands circled her waist, stroking across the low plane of her belly. His fangs made their appearance and he scraped the wicked tips down the length of her pulse until her nipples were painfully hard with the chilling stimulation and making a prominent show under the silk of her blouse. Amara reached down to close her hands around his at her waist when she knew they were about to move on to new and exciting adventures across her skin.

  “You know we can’t,” she said breathlessly as he nudged his awesome erection against her soft bottom cheeks. “Not for two more days.”

  He growled and nipped her neck in frustration, crowding her against the cold glass window. “I don’t want to wait. I smell you everywhere and I can’t get a damn thing done all day because of it. The president was signing that bill and all I was thinking about was how much I needed you. God,” he groaned with agonized reflection as he rode his hips into her, “I’m so hard it hurts.”

  “I can feel that,” she said in a hitched gasp as her sensual chemistry began to clamor for what he was offering. “L—let me turn around. You’ll love me on my knees, baby.”

  “No!” He barked at her as he pressed her roughly to the glass, his body, and his persistent phallus all at once. “No,” he whispered much more softly against her sensitive skin. “As much as I love your mouth, honey, it simply will not do.”

  “But…” Her protest faded away jerkily when his hand dipped below the waistband of her skirt and crept into the warmth and moisture beneath the fabric of her panties. His large fingertips skated over her in an instant, the slick readiness of her excited body making it so easy. Of course she wanted him. She always wanted him, and now more than usual. They’d long since discovered it was designed this way in their new natures. “Nick, you can’t…we said we wouldn’t. You made me promise not to let you do this. Oh, God,” she groaned, her head falling back against his shoulder as his touch glided around and around her hypersensitive clit.

  “I’ve been suffering for two days,” he rasped, his words scratching fangs into her skin until she creamed a flood of juices over his buried hand. “You’ve been very attentive with this mouth of yours,” he said, kissing the corner of her mouth. “You have the tongue of an angel gone so very bad, and your hands are divinity. However,” he stipulated, using his deep hold in her pussy to push her rhythmically back into the steady rock of his hips, “heaven only exists for me when I am buried balls deep inside of your hot body. I want my heaven now. It calls to me with heat, liquid need, and incredible scent. God, you’re drenched in it.”

  “Nick!” she cried as his touch and bodily movements worked her into a blind frenzy of desire. It wasn’t hard to do. She had been walking the edge of need ever since she’d gone into heat two days ago. But…

  But they had agreed now was not the time for children. And since human methods of birth control for females didn’t seem to work for Morphates, it meant abstaining or the use of condoms. Nick’s extraordinary size made the latter a very uncomfortable choice for him. Amara’s irresistible body chemistry made the former uncomfortable for them both.

  “You have to…wear a condom…,” she panted as he drew up her skirt over her backside and reached to shuck off her underpants. His reply was an irritated grunt that sounded too much like a negation to her.

  “I’ll pull out,” he said hotly, struggling with a single hand to release his belt and the zipper to his pants.

  “You won’t!”

  Amara didn’t know how she managed it, but she ripped herself free of him, gasping for breath as she stumbled back into the room away from him. He turned on her with a very intimidating sound of displeasure and immediately began to stalk her even as he stripped himself of his shirt and then his pants. Amara swallowed hard when his gorgeous body was in full, glorious display, his arousal absolutely mouthwatering to her starving and ramped-up libido.

  “Nick…,” she half warned and half begged him. “Nick, you won’t. You can’t control it like that. You know that. Don’t put this all on me. It isn’t fair.”

  Nick reached for her and she leapt out of his grasp with only threads to spare. She backed up even farther, nervously glancing at the shut door of the bedroom.

  “Come here,” he beckoned, his grin absolutely wolfish. “Let’s make a baby, then. Let’s make lots of babies.”

  That stopped her retreat cold, and her eyes flashed with sudden fury. “In this hellish place? With killers and rapists at our gates and dirty needles and broken vials the landscaping for their playground? No!” She reached out and slapped him so hard it echoed through the large room and sent his head snapping sharply to the side. “Damn you, Nick! Knowing the way I was raised, you ask me to be that careless? You selfish prick!”

  Trying not to burst into tears, Amara turned to grab the door. It was barely open an inch before the slam of his hand above her head sent it crashing shut. Then he was against her back again, the impact of his body flattening her to the wall near the door. He grabbed her wrist, pinning it high above her head, and she felt him dragging up her skirt once again. She cried out, and the tears burst free as her heart raced with dread and panic.

  “Shh,” he hushed her softly against her ear. “Don’t you trust me, baby love?” he demanded fiercely. “Hmm? Don’t you trust the man who loves you to know what would hurt you?”

  “I trust the man…but not the beast,” she sobbed as he wedged his thigh between hers and made her step out wider. He eased her hips away from the wall and toward him, bending her slightly at the waist and opening her sex to the intrusive glide of his rigid cock from behind her. “No! Please, Nick,” she wept.

  “The man and the beast are the same,” he whispered roughly, biting her ear briefly as he wetted himself with the slickness coating her heated pussy. “You love and trust us either completely, or not at all, Amara.”

  Nick slid himself into place at the entrance of her body, merely a single thrust from sinking into her ripe sheath. The smell of her pheromones called to his every male instinct, her ovulating body begging for impregnation from her mate. Amara wanted to trust the man she loved, but after a year of these awful four-day cycles every month, she knew how crazy this chemistry made him. It made her just as desperate to have him as it made him to take her.

  “I…” Amara’s heart was pounding with the terror of becoming pregnant before she was ready, before Dark Manhattan was ready to safely contain their offspring. “I love you, Nick,” was all she could say. She closed her eyes tightly, her hands balling into fists.

  Amara felt his head drop slightly, his mouth lowering to her shoulder line, edging up to her neck beneath her hair. His mouth opened on her, fangs pricking and holding her still without breaking her skin. He thrust in a slow, shallow series of increments, entering her and teasing her at the same time, backing completely f
ree of her before returning in prodding touches.

  “You say you love me,” he breathed against her, nipping her as if in punishment, “but you mean you don’t trust me. You don’t trust me to protect you. To care for you and your feelings. To know how much pain it would cause you to watch your child grow in a place without safety, love, or even green grass.”

  This time he rushed deep inside of her, the pleasure of feeling him filling her warring with her other volatile emotions for control of her. She hadn’t felt him for two days. Two days. For them, it was so long. Too long. Longer still while they were tormented by the natural cravings a madman had forced onto their biological makeup. Nick surged up into her once more, finally burying himself completely into her. He was so heavily aroused, so thick and hard with it, that she felt impaled straight to her pounding heart. Her body ignored the distress of her emotions, the need of it overriding her mind with anything and everything it needed to do to coax what it wanted from her mate.

  She couldn’t resist the need to thrust herself back against him, to squeeze his cock tightly within her. She knew all it would take was just a little more movement and she would come hard around him, her body ready to milk him for his seed.

  “Oh, God!” she gasped when he began to glide into her in a slow, steady rhythm. Three strokes, then four, and she pitched over the edge. She ejected a cry that combined pleasure with dismay as her entire body locked in rich, wrenching spasms.

  Nick’s fangs punctured her deeply and she screamed as it jacked her ecstasy up beyond reason, if not completely beyond caring. She could feel him drinking deeply of her, each swallow punctuating the increasing speed of his thrusts, like a car shifting gears with her blood acting as the clutch. Her feet lifted completely off the floor with each impact between them, and she felt the vibrations of his moans shimmering over her skin. She closed her eyes, tears staining the wall where her cheek rested even as she climbed a second peak just listening to his crisis approach. She would be ready for him, suckling him of everything he had, ensuring his genes were secured to her own as her body demanded.