by I. T. Lucas
Richard had no problem with that.
Unlike her, he was an open book.
47
Vlad
It was about twelve in the afternoon when Vlad parked his car in the village’s underground, but since he’d started his day at four in the morning, it felt like the end of the day for him.
Sundays, he could put in more hours at the bakery than during weekdays, taking advantage of weekend pay, which was double. It used to be a great arrangement until Wendy started working at the café. She had the weekends off, and he would have preferred to spend time with her, but Jackson hadn’t found anyone who was willing to switch shifts with him. Until a replacement was found, Vlad was stuck working Sundays.
When his phone buzzed with an incoming message, he waited for it to appear on the car’s screen.
The text was from Roni. Sorry, dude, but I found no more information about Wendy’s mother. Her father is the only one who can give you answers.
Damn.
Wendy wasn’t ready to confront her father or even think about him. She was doing so well, but her new positive attitude was still fresh and fragile, and the last thing he wanted was to do anything to slow the momentum.
She was taking self-defense classes with Kri, getting in shape, making friends, and even contemplating a wedding once she fully transitioned.
Perhaps the best thing would be to wait until that happened. In six months she would be stronger physically and emotionally, and a wedding would cement their everlasting bond in her mind.
Finding her mother could wait six more months. Besides, there was no guarantee that her father knew where she was or even where to start searching for her.
Since Vlad’s impetus was less about finding Wendy’s mother and more about avenging her, he would have gone on alone and done that. But then he would have to lie about why he was leaving for a few days, and he didn’t want to do that. Lies and secrets were bad for any relationship, but especially in his and Wendy’s case. She had severe trust issues, and it was imperative that he never gave her the slightest reason to mistrust him.
He’d told Wendy a while back that he’d planned to ask Roni to find out more information about her mother, so that didn’t qualify as a breach of trust, but he hadn’t told her about Roni’s findings or lack thereof.
She hadn’t asked. But if she did, he would tell her about that but not about his plans to seek out her father.
Six months wasn’t a long time in the life of an immortal, but it would be difficult to wait. The need for revenge was like a corrosive agent in his veins, casting a dark shadow on what should be the happiest time of his life.
Passing by the café, Vlad caught a glimpse of his mother, and was surprised to see Richard with her. The two were holding hands and were so immersed in their conversation that neither noticed him.
Evidently, Richard was still in the picture, and Vlad wasn’t happy about it at all. The guy hadn’t transitioned after getting induced several times, including by Kian, so he wasn’t going to. Richard was a decent guy, but he was just a human, and Stella was wasting her time with him.
When his phone rang, he pulled it out of his pocket and smiled at Wendy’s beautiful face on the screen.
“I’m almost home.”
“Awesome. Do you want to meet me at the café?”
Vlad grimaced. “My mom is there with Richard.”
“Good, it concerns Richard too. Eleanor is here in the village.”
Vlad stopped in his tracks. “What? Eleanor, aka Marisol, aka the bitch who compelled the trainees to do shit they didn’t want to?”
“That’s the one. She transitioned.”
Vlad walked over to the nearest bench and sat down. “How? When? And why the hell did Kian allow her in the village?”
“Meet me at the café, and I’ll tell you everything I know. Richard can join us and it will save me telling it again.”
“You can wait until he comes back home. I don’t want to intrude on his date with my mother.” He shook his head. “I don’t know why she’s wasting time on him. The guy is not going to transition.”
He heard Wendy open and then close the front door. “Not every date is about finding the one. Your mom is lonely, and she likes him. There is no harm in them seeing each other.”
“Unless she gets attached to him. I don’t want her to get hurt.”
“Trust the Fates, Vlad. They know what they are doing.”
He rolled his eyes. “Not every couple is brought together by the Fates. If that was so, Richard would be mated to Ingrid and weeks past his transition.”
“Maybe he needed a lesson in humility. Or maybe he needed to be cured of his skirt-chasing ways, or just to mature. I think the gigolo gig has taught him several important lessons.”
“Like what?”
“That not everything wished for is actually worth having, and that sometimes the very thing we crave the most turns out to be a real drag. That was one. The second lesson could be that he needed to get his fill of women to realize that he wanted to settle down with just one. And the third could be that he needed all that to open his heart to love.”
Leaning forward, Vlad let his long bangs flip down. “If he had transitioned, I might have agreed with you. But since he didn’t, all of that is irrelevant. He can’t be anyone’s mate.”
“What if he didn’t transition because he wasn’t in love? All the other male Dormants who transitioned had an immortal female they loved and wanted to be with. Maybe that’s the ingredient he was missing.”
48
Kian
“Good morning, Turner.” Kian motioned for him to take a seat at the conference table. “William is going to join us a little later, but we can start without him.”
“No problem. What would you like to talk about?”
“How was your weekend?”
“Relaxing. Yours?”
Kian pulled out a chair next to Turner. “I keep thinking whether letting Eleanor into the village was a good idea.”
“You had no choice, so there is no point agonizing over the decision.”
Sometimes, Kian envied Turner’s cold, analytical approach. Life was simpler without emotions and gut feelings getting in the way. Except, muted emotions diminished the experience, and in his opinion, that wasn’t a good trade-off.
“You are right. What’s done is done, and I will just have to watch her closely.” He raked his fingers through his hair. “It’s not like every member of the clan is a saint. We have our share of rotten apples. Except, they are family so we are stuck with them. Then again, Eleanor’s inclusion was necessary, so we are stuck with her as well. The problem is that she might be too rotten to tolerate.”
Turner pulled out his yellow pad. “Perhaps you should watch the other rotten apples as well. If you give me their names, I can talk it over with Onegus and establish a monitoring protocol.”
Stifling a laugh, Kian put his hand on Turner’s forearm. “That won’t be necessary. Until they transgress, they are innocent, and I can’t justify watching them. We are trying to run things in a democratic way here.” He leaned back. “There is enough resentment over the fact that Sari and I run things because we are Annani’s children.”
“That’s ridiculous. You are also the best qualified people for the job.”
“That might be true, but we were not elected to our positions. We were nominated by our mother.”
“The clan is a family first, and that’s how families are run. If at any point our numbers reach thousands, we can revisit the idea of elected leaders. Although to be frank, I don’t know anyone who could replace you. You are fully dedicated to your people, you are capable, and you are doing an excellent job.”
“Thanks. Coming from you, that’s a huge compliment.”
“I wasn’t trying to flatter you.”
“I know.” Kian smiled. “That’s why I value your opinion. Pleasing me or anyone else never enters the equation. You just analyze the facts. Which brings me to
the first item on this morning’s agenda. Richard is not likely to transition, and he’s requested to stay in the village as a human. What are your thoughts on that?”
“I hear that he’s providing a valuable service,” Turner said with a straight face.
“He is. He’s also well-liked and he doesn’t mind staying on without ever having the option to leave. He wants to be part of our community. My gut feeling tells me to let him stay, and Syssi urges me to listen to it. But I want your opinion.”
Turner leaned back and crossed his arms over his chest. “If Richard is willing to exchange his freedom for life in the village, I don’t see why you should deny him. He will need to wear a security cuff for the rest of his natural life, though. If he ever regrets his decision and tries to escape, he will be stopped.”
“I’m afraid that it will create a precedent. If I let Richard stay, the next time we have a potential Dormant that doesn’t transition, I will have to allow him or her to stay as well.”
“Richard is the first potential Dormant who has failed to transition. What are the chances of it happening again?”
“Minimal, but they exist. I’m not comfortable with humans living among us. What status do I grant them? Will they get the same benefits as the clan members? And if they don’t, will we have two classes of citizens in the village?”
Turner frowned. “I see your dilemma. Unless you grant them a special status, the humans living among us will become second-class citizens, and that’s not good. If Richard fathers children, which we hope he will, they would become members of the clan because their mothers are. You will have no choice but to grant him the same benefits as the other clan members, and once he becomes a father to immortal children, you can give him his freedom back. Instead of loyalty to a mate, Richard’s will be to his children.”
That was an angle Kian hadn’t considered. Richard seemed like a good man, and good men defended their children. He wouldn’t betray his own.
When a knock at the door announced William, Kian got up and opened it for him. “Good morning. Did you get everything you were expecting?”
William nodded. “The new vendor I found is excellent. A little more pricey than the one I used before, but there are no mess ups with the orders.”
“Good. I’m glad that you found a solution. Please, take a seat.” Kian motioned at the table, walked over to the fridge, pulled out three bottles, and brought them to the table.
“How is the cuffs’ production going?” Turner asked.
“We will be done way ahead of time.”
“I was wondering.” Turner removed the cap on his water bottle. “Are the cuffs custom-made for each of Kalugal’s men?”
“I changed the design a little to allow for adjustments, and I’m making them in several sizes.”
“So you will have leftover cuffs.”
William chuckled. “I’m sure we will find a use for them. I’d rather have a bunch in stock than rush to make them every time the need arises.”
Kian put his water down. “But if there is even a little flexibility, a desperate and determined immortal could break his hand to pull it out of the cuff.”
“Do you really think I would overlook such a thing?” William pushed his glasses up his nose. “The cuffs monitor the pulse and they are snug despite the little give I allowed them. The moment contact is severed and the cuff can’t detect the pulse, an alarm goes off.”
“Smart. Is Richard’s cuff also equipped with that sensor?” Kian asked.
William shook his head. “Richard’s cuff is the same kind that I made for the other trainees. Its main purpose is to disrupt the signal the tracker in his body is emitting. The others transitioned and their bodies destroyed the trackers, but Richard is still emitting.”
“So it’s not tracking his movements. Is it possible to do both?”
“Why? Do you think he plans to run?” William chuckled. “Did he get tired of the auctions?”
“I decided to let him stay in the village even if he doesn’t turn. Which means that he can never leave and we need to ensure that he doesn’t.”
William took off his glasses and cleaned them with the corner of his shirt. “I will have to design something special for him.”
“Do you have time?”
“I hired most of the genius squad to work full-time, so yeah, I do. We will be done with the regular cuffs by tomorrow, and then we are moving on to the sound deflector. We will build a small model first to test how it works and to make the necessary tweaks, and then we’ll build the full-scale model.”
“I like the name,” Turner said. “Sound deflector.”
“Actually, the sound analyzer is more accurate, since that’s the first step in the process, but my squad and I also thought that ‘sound deflector’ is a better name.”
“How long until it will be operational?” Kian asked.
William shrugged. “It depends on how many snags we encounter. I hope we will have it in a month, but it might take longer. After we are done with that, we will start on the virtual machines.” He shifted in his chair. “My lab is not big enough. In fact, it’s too small even for what we are doing now. I will need you to clear rooms in the underground to accommodate my guys, and we will also need one large space for putting the machines together.”
This was a more complicated undertaking than Kian had expected. “We only need two machines. Are you sure you can’t manage with what you have?”
William shook his head. “These are very complicated devices, and we will have to 3D print some of the components in-house. It doesn’t matter if we make one or twenty, we will still need expensive equipment and room to work, so let’s make more.”
“Perhaps I should just ask Gabriel to build them for us.”
William shook his head again. “They are not meeting their own production goals. Perhaps we should scrap the whole project?”
The virtual machines were a luxury the clan could live without, but Kian liked the idea of having in-house manufacturing capability. They could design and build things that no one had dreamt of yet. Maybe even tackle some of the schematics contained in the gods’ tablet.
“The equipment you need to get for this project is going to be useful for future projects as well, right?”
William nodded.
“Then it’s a worthwhile investment. The ability to 3D print components makes it possible for us to build experimental devices in-house without having to resort to human manufacturers. This new technology could be our gateway to building some of the things contained in Annani’s tablet.”
William’s eyes blazed with an inner light. “I love the way you think.”
“You can have Kalugal foot some of the expenses,” Turner suggested. “Since his men will be using the virtual machine to date clan ladies, he should pay for the privilege.”
“I don’t want him to have access to our new manufacturing endeavor, but I can have him pay for his machine. I’ll talk with him about it without mentioning where and how we are building them. I also haven’t discussed with him your idea of having an office for his men in the city yet.”
With all the brouhaha surrounding Eleanor’s capture and transition, he’d forgotten all about it.
“Anything else on today’s agenda?” Turner asked.
“That’s all. I need to call Richard and tell him the good news.”
49
Richard
Richard turned on his side and covered his head with a pillow. The damn phone was ringing, but since he knew that it wasn’t Stella, he ignored it. Everyone else could wait until he was ready to get out of bed, which wasn’t going to happen anytime soon.
Except, the caller was persistent, and as soon as his phone stopped ringing, it started again.
“Damn. Why can’t you leave me alone?” He tossed the pillow aside and snatched the phone. “Who is it?”
“It’s Kian. Did I catch you at a bad time?”
Richard was awake in an instant. “Not at all.” He
cleared his throat.
“Good, then you can come to my office. How soon can you get here?”
“Fifteen minutes.”
“I’ll see you here.” The call disconnected.
His heart pounding like a locomotive, Richard bolted out of bed and ran into the bathroom.
There could be only two reasons for the early-morning summons. Kian was either kicking him out or letting him stay, and given that the guy sounded gruff even when he was wishing someone happy birthday, it was impossible to tell from his tone of voice which one it was going to be.
Wendy and Vlad were gone, so no one stopped him to ask him why he was rushing. On his way out, Richard grabbed a bottle of water and a piece of toast that had been left on the counter.
He reached the office building with one minute to spare, and was at Kian’s door right on time.
Taking a deep breath, he schooled his features and commanded his heart to stop racing, but it refused to obey.
“Come in, Richard,” Kian called from the other side of the door.
Immortals and their damn super hearing. The guy had probably heard his heart beating and his heavy breathing.
Richard pushed on the handle and walked inside. “I didn’t even knock yet. How did you know I was outside the door?”
“I heard you walking down the corridor and then stopping in front of my door. Please, take a seat.” Kian motioned at one of the chairs in front of his desk. “To save you unnecessary anxiety, I’ll open by telling you that I’ve decided to let you stay.”
Suddenly feeling as if all of his muscles had turned to mush, Richard slumped in the chair. “Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me yet. I want you to give it some more thought. If you stay, you can never leave. Perhaps once you have immortal children, I will reconsider letting you come and go, but until then, you are stuck in the village. It’s not a large place, and after a while you might start feeling trapped.”
