CONCEPTION (The Others)

by McCarty, Sarah

  “Just a little more, Edie,” Deuce coaxed.

  She didn’t have it to give him. She was so tired her body ached with the effort to sit upright. His fingers curled around her shoulder, stroking gently on the tops of her breasts. “Relax. Let Bohdan in.”

  She cracked her eye. Bohdan stood by the head of the bed. His dark eyes shimmered in the gloom. Energy reached out from him in a seductive pulse. She should be terrified but there was something enticing about that energy field, something good.

  Deuce bent his head to hers. His breath stirred her hair above her ear, tickling her nerves. “You will let him in, my mate. I will not allow your stubbornness in this matter.”

  “It’s really not your call.”

  “Everything about you is my call. You are—”

  She cut him off. “I know.” She sighed, dropping her head back against his shoulder. “I’m your mate. That’s getting old, Deuce.”

  “Nonetheless, you will do what I say.”

  “Because you say so?”

  “Because it is your only hope.”

  Yes. It was. She took a deep breath. “Are you sure it’s safe?”

  “Yes.” His lips brushed her forehead. “Lie against me, relax, take slow deep breaths, and all will be fine.”

  “Relax, Eden,” Bohdan echoed in a voice as enticing as the energy he projected. “Your mate is with you. He would never allow a betrayal of your trust.”

  She took the ordered breath and braced herself for the uncomfortable intrusion. She bit her lip at the first tentative touch of the healer’s mind. Inside her head, deep inside, the protest began—only a scream she could hear, only denial she could feel.

  “Your fear insults me.” The whisper was almost lost amidst the protest of the “Voice”.

  Eden attempted her first mental response mostly because she was too tired to form words. Deuce? You’re here, too?

  Though her effort sounded garbled and muffled to her, he understood. “I would not leave you alone with your fear.”

  She caught his finger in her hand and squeezed, unable to express the alien conflict inside that was so much more than fear. “I don’t like this.”

  “I know.”

  “Think back now,” Bohdan interrupted in a swirl of color, “as far back as you can. Think of what happened after Deuce was rescued.”

  Memories rushed at her. Humiliating, painful memories. She held them at bay. “Not with Deuce here.”

  She didn’t want him to see her that way, to know what they had done to her.

  Deuce wrapped his fingers around hers. “There can be no secrets between us, Edie.”

  She had no trouble identifying the probe he sent forth. She shook her head, pushing it back. Pain started at the base of her skull.

  Bohdan saved her with a succinct “Leave”.

  On a hard curse in a language she didn’t understand, Deuce retreated. The pain receded.

  “He is no longer here,” Bohdan murmured in a voice that echoed her heartbeat. “Open your memories.”

  “You’ll keep him out?”

  There was a pause and then, “You will not cooperate otherwise?”

  “No.”

  “Then I give you my word.”

  She didn’t know if his word was any good, but as Deuce had so succinctly pointed out, what choice did she have?

  Chapter Six

  Dusan held Edie carefully. She felt so fragile in his arms, her breath a light brush on his skin, her scent a fragrant enticement. He had wanted to be in her mind with her, shielding her from the memories that jerked her body during the probe, but Bohdan was a man of his word. He would not let him in and he could not force the issue for fear of harming Edie. It had been the longest hour of his life, enduring her emotions without the ability to help, trying to sort through the energy flowing from her, sometimes discordant and wrong, other times clear and precise. He brushed his lips over her bright, springing curls. It was not his nature to sit back and wait.

  He wanted to hunt down those who had hurt his Eden, tear into their flesh, hear them scream the way they had made her scream. Only worse. For them it would be so much worse before they died. They had dared to touch the mate of a Chosen. His mate. Their fate was sealed.

  Edie whimpered and twisted in his arms, murmuring a protest against the memories he could not protect her from.

  “Easy, my mate,” he whispered in her ear. “Nothing can harm you. You are a Chosen mate. My heart for yours. My life for yours. My soul for yours, through this time and the next.”

  The formal joining words spoken aloud, soothed his nerves and reminded him who he was. He was a Chosen in his prime with a mate who needed all his patience and skill.

  If Bohdan’s findings were correct, the damage to her body was reversible, but they would have to proceed slowly, cautiously, and let the change occur as slowly as it had been perverted. He touched her too cool cheek, the smoothness of her skin a kiss of joy to his senses. No matter what it took, he would not allow Bohdan to be wrong.

  “Wake, Edie.” He waited for the order to drift through her memories. She came to with a slow twist that knotted his insides with a wrenching lust. He bent to breathe in her sleepy sigh as she turned her face to his bare chest, as if instinctively acknowledging the relationship between them. His cock, already hard, jerked against the confines of his jeans. For a heartbeat he enjoyed the incredible pleasure, before her eyes popped open and she stiffened, pushing away, a frown on her brow and dread seeping from her pores.

  “Is it over?”

  “Yes.” He shifted her naked thighs until his cock nestled into the crease, his fingers curving around the gently rounded muscles as they flexed under his touch.

  As tuned in to her as he was, he could not miss her hitch in breathing or the delicate scent of arousal that drifted up in the wake of the move.

  “Did it work?”

  “Bohdan feels he knows what has happened.”

  Her big blue eyes filled with a desperate hope. “He fixed the problem?”

  He ignored her efforts to shift away and kept her where she was. “The fixing is not under his control.”

  He rode the edge of her mind, calmed the scared stutter of her heart, caught her fear and tucked it away out of her experience, as always shocked by the strength of the emotions she endured. The Chosen were not prone to so many highs and lows.

  “Breathe, Edie.” She did, her breath catching until he relaxed the emotion-tightened muscles for her. With a frown, he slowed the rush of adrenaline pumping into her system. “You need to be calm.”

  Her “I’ll work on it” was dry.

  A tugging alerted him to the fact that she was trying to get the comforter out from under them. “You are cold?”

  She shook her head, sending curls dancing down her back, and her gaze ducking his. “Just feeling a little exposed.”

  He sighed as she yanked on the comforter and a blush crept over her chest. He stood so she could move it. “You will get used to being unclothed with me.”

  Her breasts stretched with the pull of gravity, bouncing with the effort she put into covering herself, drawing his eyes and his desire.

  He leaned away from the bed, totally freeing the comforter. As charming as he found her modesty, he hoped she would get over it soon. He did not intend to deny himself the pleasure of her beauty. She was a feast to his eyes with that white skin that flowed like rich cream over her lush curves and delicate bones. Her blush intensified to a deep pink beneath his stare. The intriguing color spread across her chest, ending at the paler flush of her areolas and nipples. Nipples that plumped in invitation under his attention. He tightened his grip on her thighs as she curled against him, gathering the excess material up from the floor, her distress palpable.

  Deuce nuzzled her hair as he sat, absorbing her scent. She was such a delight to him in all ways, right down to that inappropriate independence and wit that amused him as often as it frustrated him. He ignored her efforts to slide out of his grip, smi
ling internally as, with a huff, she settled for pulling the comforter over her shoulders until his view was limited to the tumble of curls surrounding her face.

  He did not really mind. It was such a lively, beautiful, revealing face, telegraphing her every emotion with vivid clarity. Like how vulnerable she felt in his presence.

  “There is no need for the embarrassment you feel. It is right that your body respond to mine.

  Her gaze fused somewhere in the vicinity of his chin. “As you see it.”

  He nodded, conceding her point. “As I see it.” Which was the way it would be. Such things were inevitable between mates.

  “Was Bohdan able to give me more time?”

  “The process can be reversed.”

  “Thank God!”

  He again had to steady her heart, and quell the adrenaline rush that came with the news. No wonder humans had such a short life span. They wore their bodies out with excessive emotional responses.

  “How?”

  “Your captors tried to convert you to one of the Chosen.”

  “They tried to make me a vampire?” Her shudder merely confirmed his fear that she would not like what he had to say.

  “They tried to make you Chosen.”

  He felt her hesitation and admired her control as she asked, “Did they succeed?”

  “Such a thing is impossible.”

  She paused, the surge of relief pouring off her making him lightheaded before he contained it.

  “You’re kidding, right?”

  “No.”

  “You mean hundreds of hours of late-night TV has steered me wrong?”

  He smiled, letting one of her curls wrap around his finger. “I am afraid so.”

  Her laugh was shaky, but there. He felt the weakness still dragging at her. He shifted, leaning back against the bed’s headboard, taking her with him.

  “I can support myself,” she grumbled as he rearranged the comforter to her modesty’s demand.

  “I am aware of what you are capable.”

  She finally gave up fighting her body’s weakness and allowed her head to rest against his chest. “So what did they actually do?”

  “They made a mess.”

  “What can you do?”

  This was not a subject he wanted to plunge into. “A mating between a Chosen and a human is a rare thing.”

  “How rare?”

  “I can only remember one other.” He could barely feel her arm through the thickness of the comforter, but with his senses, he was aware of every goose bump, every shiver, the almost imperceptible drop in her body temperature.

  “What happened to them?”

  “They died.”

  “Because they married?”

  “Not directly, no.” Her curiosity built with lightning speed, projecting outward, questions flying about in the blink of an eye, with no discernible order. He did not know how she ever concluded a thought, so pell-mell was her method of analysis. He stepped into the mental melee with the truth. “They were murdered.”

  “Oh.”

  Trying to track the spill of speculation that followed that “Oh” was almost enough to give him a headache. He would have to teach her how to shield her thoughts rather than project in moments of emotion.

  “By whom?”

  “People who wanted to steal what would not be given.”

  Her sigh was as exasperated as her “That’s as clear as mud”.

  “You cannot learn everything at once.” Nor could he reveal everything without overwhelming her.

  “I’ll settle for what’s wrong with me.”

  “There is a process a Chosen and his mate go through when bonding. It must be completed with all its elements to be successful.”

  The comforter bunched beneath the tightness of her grip, but her voice remained steady. For such a small, frail human woman, she had incredible strength. “You’re saying my grandfather did a halfass job on me?”

  “Yes.” Likely through ignorance more than design.

  “But you can fix it?”

  “Yes.”

  “How?”

  He tightened his grip, pulling her close, illogically trying to shield her with his body from the pain of his words. He rubbed his fingers over her shoulder, soothing her panic. Even if she never grew completely comfortable as his mate, he could insure she never regretted being his. One would compensate for the other.

  She snapped up straight in his hold, yanking at her arms trapped in the comforter’s folds. “I am not becoming a vampire.”

  “Be calm.” He lowered her heart and adrenaline rates again, easing her blood pressure back to normal as she struggled against him. He took the pain from her abdomen into himself as he caught both her arms and turned her to face him. “I have already said that is not possible.”

  She slowly settled in his grip, her gaze locked to his, her mind taking a subconscious, tentative foray toward his before retreating behind the defensive wall she’d erected. Her eyes searched his face.

  He did not know what she saw in his expression that calmed her, but her muscles went lax. She panted against him, her small reserve of strength critically depleted by the emotional outburst. “I’m sorry.”

  He allowed her to feel just enough of her body’s discomfort so she would not try such behavior again. “Do not fight me, mate. You do not have the strength for it.”

  Depleted or not, she still managed to put enough distance between them so that he could see her frown. Confusion shimmered around her as she asked, “Which reminds me of something that’s been bothering me—how did my grandfather know you would think I was your mate?”

  That was one of the things he had his people seeking to answer. “I do not know.”

  The Coalition, which they’d thought weakening, had actually grown more powerful, keeping their increasing strength a secret. He did not like that any more than he liked Eden’s phrasing of her question.

  He felt the wave of weakness come over her before she leaned against him. Her strength was fading past the point her will could sustain. She needed to get beyond her resistance. She needed to accept their relationship. “We do not have much time to start the process, Edie.”

  “Is it almost time for you to go into your hole?”

  “Yes, but that is not what concerns me.” Eden was a strong woman, but he did not know if she could get past her human fears in time to do what must be done. He would prefer to leave her the illusion of choice. Her resentment at the changes being his mate would forever make in her life would be less that way. But if he had to, he would take the choice away. He would not go back to his aching, hollow existence without her. Nor would he deny his claim and leave her unprotected. “The damage to your body is reaching the point of no return.”

  She shifted on his lap, her legs stretching and retracting as the indecision in her mind moved through her body. “What does being your mate entail?”

  “It is a marriage in all ways.”

  “So this means you’ll be off drinking with the boys and fooling around with other women in about two years?”

  He shook his head at her foolishness. “You know that is not true.”

  “I don’t know anything about you.”

  He stroked her hair, offering the only comfort he could. “You know in your heart all you need to know.”

  “I happen to be a logical person.”

  She had the least logical mind he’d ever touched. “You did not question the rightness of our union last year.”

  She hesitated. He could feel the effort to lie in her mind, the wave of loss before she hedged the truth. “Last year was different.”

  “Last year I was interrupted, or this conversation would not be taking place.” Had he had even one more day, she would have been bound to him for all time. Her love treasured and nurtured and nothing, nothing would have harmed her.

  As if she sensed the rage inside him, she touched his chest, his throat and lastly his hand where it rested on her thigh, her fingers strokin
g soothingly. A glance at her face told him the gesture was unconscious.

  “How does one of the Chosen see his wife?” she asked. The fact that she would not meet his gaze told him his answer mattered.

  “A mate is the most precious of gifts to one of the Chosen. Not all are fortunate enough to find one.” He massaged the tension in her shoulders. “We mate once and only once, for life.”

  “You live a long time.”

  “Yes.”

  Her hand reached over his shoulder and caught his wrist. “A long time to be with just one person.”

  He knew she could not actually grasp the concept of forever as the Chosen knew it. She thought in human terms with a human concept of bonds. “It is an even longer time to have no one.”

  Her fingers paused on his wrist, her index finger resting on a life point. Deliberately? Was she asking for entrance to his mind?

  “How can you be so sure I’m your mate?”

  He opened his mind. She did not take advantage of the opportunity. He brushed his lips over the top of her head. He would need to let her learn to walk before expecting her to run. “All of the Chosen recognize the one meant for them. There is no doubt.”

  Her “For you maybe” was a mutter of frustration. There was a long pause. He could feel the emotions battering her. He kept the strain from her body, bound by his word, but could do nothing about the turmoil in her mind. “You will trust me in this, Edie.”

  The muscles under his fingers tensed one by one until he had to stop the massage for fear of hurting her. “I’m not in the habit of putting my life in someone else’s hands.”

  “For this once you must.” He stretched his fingers down to the tops of her breasts, measuring the rise and fall of her respiration. “I cannot let you die.”

  “But you don’t normally find mates in humans. Maybe there is someone of your own—”

  He shook his head, cutting off that train of thought. “It is rare, but the unions have been happy after a period of adjustment.”

  “Will your people accept me?”