Dr. Jess moved past her and led the way down an even wider staircase.
Wow. Whatever this place was, it was clearly backed by a great deal of money. It was almost overwhelmingly palatial and lavishly decorated, with large oil paintings on the walls, mostly landscapes, life-sized Greek and Roman statues, and gold-fitted, shiny wood banisters. At the bottom of the stairs, they cut through what could only be The Grand Entrance Hall. The floor of the room was tiled in checkered mauve and white marble, with potbellied brass vases standing sentinel next to soaring white marble pillars, a sparkling gold-and-crystal chandelier lording over the entire room.
Dr. Jess took her down another smaller staircase, this one leading into a long hallway lined with doors. Passing one of the doors, she heard male voices again, their bantering and cursing punctuated by the distinct thud of fist meeting flesh.
She slanted a look at Dr. Jess.
He smiled pleasantly at her.
They came to a large set of double doors at the end of the hall. Dr. Jess pressed an intercom button. “Dr. Parthen and I are here, sir.”
“Ah, excellent,” came the affable reply. “Come in, of course.” A buzzer sounded and the double doors snicked open.
Dr. Jess again politely stood back for her to enter first. She stepped into a room that appeared to be a combination library and office. Tall mahogany bookshelves lined three of the walls, and an arrangement of plush, dark leather chairs of the kind one might find at an Oxford men’s club was set around a coffee table of polished oak.
All of this received no more than three seconds of her attention. As magnificent as the décor was, her eyes couldn’t help but rivet on the two black-haired men across the room.
One was rising from behind a desk, unfolding himself to a height of well over six feet. He was dressed with understated wealth, pleated gray silk slacks and a v-necked cashmere sweater in cobalt: a completely respectable look that should’ve offered reassurance, except that there was just something about this man. Something … that whispered danger.
Yet, even he only received about one second of her attention. As much as this man demanded notice, the man who was standing statue-still off to the side of the desk, his hands clasped behind his back in a stance that pushed his enormous shoulders forward and made them look even more enormous, demanded it more.
He was, without doubt, the most frightening man she’d ever seen outside of the movies. No whispering here; this man’s danger came at a person like a wrecking ball. He was dressed in clothes directly out of a Gangstas Я Us catalog, steel-toed biker boots with thick silver buckles at the ankles, black leather pants that hugged a pair of powerfully built thighs and lean hips, and a black lycra T-shirt that similarly clung to his torso in a way that displayed every delineated muscle the man owned, of which there were a lot. The scary dude look was made complete by a pair of dark sunglasses that hid his eyes, and a jaw so hard she’d bet she could take a crowbar to it and never crack a smile out of him. Maybe someone had already tried that maneuver; there was a line of scabbed flesh streaking the man’s cheek.
“Dr. Parthen, welcome,” the man behind the desk said in that same affable tone she’d heard over the intercom. “My name is Roth Mihnea. I’m the leader of this community. Please, come and sit down. We have much to discuss.”
Community? Had she … oh, crap, had she been committed to a mental hospital by mistake? Jesus, she’d probably completely wigged out on Nurse Bun’s drug and…
But then … these men didn’t exactly look like psychiatrist dweebs, did they?
Roth Mihnea indicated one of the antique black Renaissance chairs set before his desk and smiled. No big, toothy grin here, either.
She rounded on Dr. Jess. “What’s going on here?”
The doctor’s expression turned sheepish as he shut the double doors, and she heard another snick. This time it was the lock reengaging.
Adrenalin surged through her body, tripping her heart into a runaway beat and suffusing her flesh with heat. She was usually pretty quick on the up-take, but it was only now reaching her concussed brain that perhaps she’d been knocked unconscious for reasons other than incompetence.
Chapter Five
“Am I being held against my will?” Toni asked tightly. Probably a real stupid question, all things considered.
“I should think not,” Roth answered mildly. “We’re hoping you’ll willingly help us, Dr. Parthen, once you’ve heard of our plight.” Roth’s smile remained in place. “I admit that drugging you and then abducting you is hardly likely to have put you in a helpful frame of mind. I do apologize for that. But this is a top-secret community, and such methods were necessary to maintain security.”
Top secret? As in …? What? A research institute for nuclear weapons …? Chemical warfare …? Cloning …? Stem cells? Again, she didn’t think so. Whatever else these two men might be, they definitely weren’t think-tank dweebs, either. She rapidly ran through a list of other possibilities, her mind landing on the most probable, at least based on the presence of Hard Face over there, who looked every inch a “goon” bodyguard, and the Drug Lord security system. These guys were Mafia. An icy prickle raised the fine hairs on her skin. Oh, shit.
“I understand how disconcerting this is,” Roth inserted into her elongated silence. “Please, Doctor, I just ask that you listen to what we have to say. If you don’t agree to our offer after that, then you’re free to go.”
Did she have another option? Most likely not. But she wasn’t going to let herself get in a panic about it. A member of the “family” was probably a hemophiliac or maybe had a Myeloproliferative disorder, and she’d been brought in to offer a second opinion for Dr. Jess’s diagnosis. Whatever the case, the sooner she cooperated and treated the patient, the sooner she could get out of here.
“All right,” she said, moving over to the Renaissance chair Roth had indicated and sitting down.
“Thank you.” Roth sat down, too, a hint of relief showing on his face. “Let me start by explaining our need for secrecy. This community is home to a very special race of people, Dr. Parthen. All of us who live here” – he made a wide gesture – “must remain in hiding because we have a unique genetic … variance, if you will, that the outside world doesn’t understand or accept.” He folded his hands over his desk blotter, his long, tapered fingers braiding. “We all have unusual bone marrow, you see. Ours makes predominately white blood cells and very little red. This condition has its advantages. We have heightened powers of healing and, as such, a much longer lifespan than people of your race, but it has also left us with our curse: a blood-need, we call it, which requires us to get our red blood elsewhere.”
“Oh?” Toni kept her expression neutral. What hay cart had this man fallen off of? There was no bone marrow disorder that functioned that way.
“Unfortunately, as will often happen with people who are different and misunderstood, we’ve suffered extreme prejudice, thought of as diseased and dangerous, rather than simply … unusual. Our kind used to prevail in Romania, but our enemies spread lies about us over a hundred years ago – 1877, to be exact – which led to a wave of mass hysteria and killings.”
Toni frowned. Romania? Not Italian Mafia?
“We were hunted savagely and without mercy, nearly all of our kind slaughtered. This forced us to flee our homeland and go into hiding or else be wiped out.” Roth’s knuckles whitened briefly.
Toni shifted in her seat. Something about this didn’t ring true. She couldn’t imagine any group being persecuted to the point of forced seclusion and near extinction, not in this day and age. The ACLU would have a fit.
“By the time we finally made it to California,” Roth continued, “and were safely hidden away here in this secret underground community, our numbers had dwindled severely. We tried to rebuild our people, but reproducing within such a small gene pool eventually took its toll. Our bloodlines weakened to the point that we ceased being able to produce viable offspring.” His voice quieted. “Th
at was thirty years ago. After more than ten years of these stillbirths, I finally forbade any more procreation within the race. We tried reproducing with the general population, but once again that brought us nothing but stillborn children. It seemed we were truly lost.” Roth’s eyelids swept down, as if concealing a private pain.
She waited, then exhaled silently. “I’m sorry, Mr. Mihnea, but I’m a bit confused. Is this a genetic problem you’re having, or a blood disorder?” She switched her gaze between Roth and Dr. Jess, who was seated in the Renaissance chair next to hers. “Because as terrible as I feel for your predicament, genetics isn’t really my forté.”
“Ah, but Dr. Jess here knows a great deal about our genetics.” Roth brightened. “The good doctor finally found a solution to our problem. You see, in the process of mapping the blood components of both the general population and our kind, Dr. Jess stumbled upon a rare element in the makeup of some of your race which would mix well with our DNA. Reproducing with this unique offshoot of people allows us to have children with all of our characteristics, and with renewed vitality, health, and strength. Peak 8, he called the element, named for its placement on the blood graph.”
Toni nearly rolled her eyes. Jesus Christ, the man had a gift for talking around an issue; she still had no idea what he wanted. “There’s no technique for mapping blood that would result in anything called Peak 8, Mr. Mihnea, at least none that I’m aware of.”
“Not with your methods, no. Dr. Jess’s analyses are unique.”
She shot a narrow glance at Jess. Just what sort of doctor was he, anyway?
“Peak 8,” Roth went on, “is representative of an element from a very ancient lineage, Dr. Parthen. In an earlier age, both of our cultures used to interbreed with a now-extinct race called Dragon. Not because they’re actual dragons, of course,” he hastened to add, “but because the people of this species were born with an extravagantly winged creature of brilliantly colored scales on their backs, almost like a tattoo. Of a dragon.”
She smiled thinly. Right. As far as weird went, they’d sort of just left the playing field. “Okay,” she went along, “did someone contract hepatitis from one of these dragon tattoos, is that what you’re getting at? Or HIV, maybe, because if that’s the case, then –”
“The tattoos are hereditary, Dr. Parthen, but that’s hardly the point.”
“Then what is?” she snapped. She was getting really sick of The Munster Family Story Hour. “I’ve been waiting forever for you to get to the punch line.”
Roth sat back in his chair and drew a deep breath. “You have this special ancestry I’ve just described, Dr. Parthen. You carry the Dragon bloodlines we so desperately need bred into our population.”
“I –” She slammed her mouth shut, then opened it again. “I what?” What was this guy talking about? “I most certainly do not, Mr. Mihnea.”
“I’m afraid you do, doctor.”
“I’m a hematologist, for Pete’s sake. I think I’d know if I have a blood anomaly.”
“You just haven’t been able to see it with the type of tests you use. With the right analyses, you could.” Roth pushed his chair back and opened his desk drawer, taking out a manila folder and placing it on his blotter. He pulled a sheet of paper out of it. “Here’s the blood graph Dr. Jess drew up on you based on the CBC Scripps ran while you were in the hospital. It clearly shows Peak 8 as a part of your makeup.” He set the graph on the edge of the desk facing her.
She glanced dismissively at the unfamiliar hills and valleys spread out across the page. “I’ve never seen a chart like this before in my life.” Her patience growing thinner by the minute, she made a flip gesture at the paper. “For all I know, you generated this using an Etch A Sketch. Not only that, but my CBC wouldn’t exactly have been available for public scrutiny.”
“Dr. Jess would be happy to show you how he performs his tests. I have no doubt you’ll find his methods adhere to all of the most rigid scientific standards.” Roth pulled out another sheet from the folder: an 8x10 photograph. “You also have the mark.” He spun the photo around and set it next to the graph. “Although you had it lasered off several years ago.”
She looked down at the picture of her bare back, and gasped. It was from her confidential medical records!
“It’s a dragon’s foot, you see.” Roth pointed to the left side of her spine, where a brown, irregular blotch marred her skin. “And claws: if you look closely, you can see them. The mark isn’t made up of colorful scales as it is with our race, and the majority of your dragon is missing, but that’s typical for someone of your –”
“It was a birthmark,” she cut him off coldly. This conversation was rapidly moving from ridiculous to downright irritating.
Roth retracted his finger and slowly arched his brows. “Precisely.”
“Oh, for the love of God.” She pressed two fingers to the middle of her brow. She might as well stick her head in a car door and slam it a couple of times rather than try to make this man see reason. “Okay. Fine. For the sake of argument, let’s just say I can suspend disbelief and common sense long enough to accept the idea that I have some fantastical ancient ‘dragon’ blood anomaly. What’s your point?”
“My point, as I said from the beginning, is that we need your help.” Roth spread his hands. “You’re the only type of woman the men of our race can have children with.”
“Children? You mean for ….” Her breath hissed out of her in sudden understanding. “Oh, my God, you want to … you want to have a baby with me!?”
“Well, not me in particular.” Roth chuckled, sounding embarrassed. “Actually, I’ve selected three –”
“Him?!” She pointed at Hard Face, alarm burying her anger as she imagined that brute pushing between her thighs.
Roth coughed lightly. “No, not Jacken, either. Actually, I’ve selected three men from our Warrior Class for you to choose from.”
She gripped the armrests of her chair, panic pushing acid into her throat as another realization hit her. “And if I refuse,” she whispered horribly, “I’m not free to go, am I?”
Roth’s gaze dropped briefly. “You’ll adjust and eventually be happy, I assure you. The others have.”
She sucked in an appalled breath. “You’ve done this to other women?”
“There are five other Dragon females,” Roth informed her. “Women who’ve found men to love here, who have homes of their own, fulfilling careers, and a caring community to raise their children in – everything we’re offering you.”
Her heart was pounding so hard she was starting to feel sick. Jesus Christ, somebody needed to put Haldol, Thorazine, Navane, or any of the choicer antipsychotics into the water supply around here. This man Roth was a bona fide lunatic.
“You’ll meet the others soon,” he said. “They’ll be of tremendous help to you during your adjustment. They know exactly what you’re going through right now.”
She shook her head numbly, as if the mere act of moving her head from side to side could deliver her from this nightmare. She couldn’t believe this was happening. “My God,” she rasped out, “who are you people?”
Roth held her gaze for a long moment. “Our race is called Vârcolac, Dr. Parthen.” He came to his feet and strode to the middle bookshelf where a crystal decanter sat. He poured out a measure of Scotch, then crossed back over to offer it to her.
She remained very still, swallowing with a hard click of her throat. The amber liquor sparkled through the cut glass. Roth’s eyes turned to gray smoke.
“People of your race devised the name vampire for us.” He smiled at her, his expression making a valiant attempt at sympathy even as he showed her a set of pointed canines. “But we’re Vârcolac.”
Chapter Six
Jacken kept his eyes locked on Antoinetta Parthen through his sunglasses, every muscle in his body held rigid as he waited for her to flip her lid, pretty much par for the course when a new acquisition heard the V-word. If she kept to the usual script,
there’d be a whole lot of screaming and hysteria coming out of her any minute, definitely begging, then after that, the worst part. She’d start to cry.
Only Hannah, the very first Dragon woman they’d ever brought into Ţărână, hadn’t had a total meltdown. But then Hannah was a librarian with a master’s degree in fables and myths, and she’d been instantly captivated by them. It hadn’t hurt that she’d also been instantly taken with Nice Guy Vârcolac, Willen Crişan, the two of them falling in love in that cupid’s-arrow-in-the-ass kind of way. In the six years since the repopulation program at Ţărână had been set into motion, Hannah and Willen had already had three kids and another was on the way. Everyone loved Hannah, although she’d misled them all into thinking that their acquisitions would always run so smoothly. They hadn’t.
Ellen and Beth had come next, numbers two and three, one right after the other. Both had been very pissy about being ripped from their lives and forced into the program. Considering that they had a solid point there, they’d adjusted reasonably quickly. Ellen was a dentist who’d become fascinated by a whole new species of dentistry, and Beth was a fashion designer who’d opened her own clothing store, The TradeMark, and become the word on all matters of style in Ţărână. She’d hooked up with Arc Costache, and they now had two kids, while Ellen had somehow cracked the surface of brooding Pedrr and landed him, also getting herself a couple of squirts.
Then had come number four, Magnolia, aka Maggie, a pampered former Southern belle and trained horticulturist, a totally useless profession in a cave, and a year later, number five, Kimberly, a workaholic, ladder-climbing, and also useless – at least to this particular community – lawyer. Both had been real trouble cases when it came to adjusting.
Luken, an indisputable saint of patience, had finally calmed down high-maintenance Maggie enough to get her underneath him and pregnant. Which had left Kimberly. Who knew Sedge would end up taking care of that little problem. But one day the badassed mixed-blood warrior had jacked her up against the wall outside of Garwald’s Pub and balled her brains out. Presto! Problem solved. No kids out of those two, yet, though.
The Community Series, Books 1-3 Page 5
