It made a beautiful sense to Jim, who loved how humanity had adapted to a challenge of life and death. From what Jim understood, the people of the spheres were just like him, with no physical manifestation of these traits. Of course, their environment had not necessitated change, so they had remained as they were.
When had the Fragment appeared? Were they Band? Tree guys? Jim didn't know.
Fascinating. “Are you guys carnivorous?”
Ulric appeared to understand the word and grinned, his sharp teeth not those of a human but resembling an animal's.
Jim had never seen monkey teeth before, but he was betting these were not like them. They weren't clubby at all. Jim felt the first tingle of sweat on his palms.
Jim took note of the healing wounds on Calia's body and mused aloud. “So, yeah. And your immunity to the pox was transferred to Calia through blood consumption.”
Amazing.
Jim felt himself frown as he took in Elise. She was doing better than Calia but would have to do the vamp with Ulric. A trickle of disquiet threaded through Jim at the vampiric idea.
Elise's eyes widened at his expression as though putting two and two together. “I do not wish to…”
Jim nodded. “Doesn't matter. If Ulric will let you do the vampire routine on him, then you can beat this thing. Who knows how long it'll take us to make the bridge, or whether the healer can figure this out. After all”—Jim maintained eye contact with the group—“the pox was brought here for a reason.”
“It is the killer of women,” Ulric interjected.
Knew it.
“Do you have females?” Adahy asked.
Ulric's eyes narrowed at the Iroquois.
Tension became thick as pea soup.
Jim spoke into the middle of the testosterone fog. “I don't think they're looking to poach your women.”
Only the slow drip of water struggling underneath the ice of a nearby creek could be heard. “We have women. They are guarded,” was Ulric's cagey reply.
So women were a rare commodity across the board. But now Jim knew why there were too few—and why Ulric and his kind were immune to the pox. It had already swept the area, and immunity had been handed down through the generations like blue eyes and height.
But it had not been inherited by the women. Maybe the tree girls could just suck up the blood from the guys and keep disease at bay. Jim scrubbed his face. He had lots of questions.
And he needed to ask the right one to get the answers he wanted.
“Do you know the Fragment?” Philip asked suddenly, keeping Calia close to him.
Ulric's lip curled in distaste, and the other tree guy, Brom, said, “The marauders.”
As monikers went, it was an apt one.
“We are not quick to pick up our weapons,” Ulric answered cryptically and in smooth evasion of the original question.
“But you'll make an exception in their case,” Jim pressed.
Ulric gave a curt nod. “Every time.”
“What do they think about your apeness?” Jim asked.
His question caused a flurry of chatter between the five of them in what he assumed was their native tongue.
Ulric nodded several times, adding another comment. Finally, they settled down and he turned to Jim. “We do not have their opinion.” That vague smile rode his lips.
Jim frowned.
“We attack from above. We leave only the Pure Ones alone for they harm for a reason.”
“Common enemy,” Jim said and Calia nodded.
“I'm just—a little blown away by the entire shape-shifting thing.”
Ulric directed one of his small smiles at Jim again. “It is normal for us. It is how we survive, defend.”
“Our quiet lifestyle has prevented detection,” Brom added. Jim glanced at his huge body, which was muscled but not in the way of the Band. He had powerful upper-body strength and legs shaped by tree hopping.
Jim's fingers plowed through his hair. Full of static, it lit up under the touch. “So why come out of the trees, boys? There are some who are less than pure here.” Jim touched his own chest then gave a significant look at Adahy and Elise.
“We knew there was a problem. We could smell the disease on the women. If it had been men, we would have let death claim them.”
A rough exhalation escaped Jim. “I see.” Compassionate dude. “The women—it always comes back to them.”
Ulric didn't bother to defend his methods. “Yes,” he agreed simply.
“But Calia and Elise belong to the Band—and Adahy,” Jim argued.
“They belong to who they choose,” Ulric said neutrally.
Oh boy.
Philip growled. “Calia is mine to protect.”
“She was also very close to death, Pure One. And could you have protected her from the Yellow Death?”
Philip's expression became troubled.
“Smallpox,” Jim clarified.
Ulric shrugged a dismissal. Tomato, Tomahto—it's all the same. Women get the disease and die, his expression seemed to say.
Philip gave a heavy sigh of pure frustration. “Nay, I could not. Gathering food and water had to be accomplished. If it were not for that, I would have remained.”
“Yes, I am certain you would have. No one, aside from our tribe, honor the virtue of a woman's life as those of the Tree Clan.”
“You call yourselves Clan?” Philip asked incredulously.
Jim hoped the tree guys didn't hear any disdain in his voice.
“Did you listen to our leader when he explained that we were of one clan a century before?” Brom asked curtly.
Yup, heard it.
Philip left Calia and started to do the rooster dance with Brom—the whole puffy-chest routine. Great.
We don't have time for this. “Philip, calm down. He's asking a question. Is it possible that you could have all been Band? That maybe the Tree Guys here are actually Band who evolved to live only in the forests?”
Philip's fists unclenched, his eyes like slits of hate on Ulric. “I concede it is possible.”
Jim walked up to Philip and clapped him on the back. “That's all you have to think about, big guy. They're not trying to lay claim to anything. I think you could align with a worse group. They hate the Fragment—you hate the Fragment. They're badasses—so are you. I say make friends and move on.”
“Bad asses?” Philip asked, a slow smile spreading across his face.
“Yeah!” Jim said, doing a roundhouse-kick demo. “Bad.” He whipped it an inch away from Philip's face. “Ass!”
Philip caught his foot and twisted.
Jim spun, jerking his foot out of Philip's grip as he did. Jim landed on his feet like a cat.
Philip's eyes twinkled. “Bad ass,” he repeated thoughtfully. “Methinks some of your words are interesting.”
Jim smirked, giving a shallow bow. “All. My. Words.”
“We make friends later,” Adahy said, bringing an unconscious Elise forward. “She weak.”
Jim embraced his new role of peacemaker.
He put his hands on Ulric's shoulders. The other man was at least a tenth of a meter taller than Jim. Jim looked up into an open face. Intelligence and kindness held equal parts in Ulric's expression.
“Time for the blood-letting, pal.”
Ulric turned and gave a serious look to Adahy. “Let me have her so my life force might heal her of the Yellow Death.”
Adahy didn't have that believer look.
“What of your women?” Jim asked.
Adahy scowled but allowed Ulric to take Elise carefully as his eyes met Jim's. “The men of our clan all carry the blood magic. There is no disease that can take us from this place.”
Jim was taken aback. “Really?” he replied with a small snort.
Brom was the one who answered for Ulric. “We are only the second of our kind.”
Jim's mind reeled second?
Oh shit—he meant the second generation.
Jim wasn't the
only one who put it together. Philip took an urgent forward stride. “How many years are you?”
Jim assessed Ulric physically. He looked to be in his mid-thirties.
“Those who stand before you are over one hundred years. Our parents still live, though they do not possess… the transformation abilities we do.”
“Where are they?” Jim asked.
“Our elders dwell at our feet—they are scouts for the safety of the clan.”
The wheels of Jim's mind were a blur. “You have a system of protection. Your ancestors—living ancestors,” Jim corrected, and Ulric and Brom nodded, “alert you of intruders, and you fall from the trees and nail them.”
“We do,” Brom immediately answered. Jim looked him over, deciding he wouldn't want to meet him in a dark alley, Kung Fu or not.
Adahy didn't look very happy to hand over Elise to Ulric—especially since Ulric looked so happy to help.
Too happy.
Maybe the Tree Men were too good to be true.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Elise
In all of Elise's life, she had never partaken of anything as revolting as the act she was about to perform.
She would consume someone's blood.
Elise did not at first know the word vampire, yet Jim's explanation had made her wish she had never learned it.
Adahy had listened intently, his features darkening, as Jim spoke. Then he'd stalked off.
Calia had whispered that only a small amount of Band blood was necessary for the males to become enraged whenever another male “handled” their mates.
“I am not his mate,” Elise had explained to Calia, not quite able to keep the sadness out of her voice.
Calia had nodded, ignoring the catch in Elise's voice at the admission. “I do not think he is aware. To him, it is but a formality.”
Elise had dozed off only to be roused from her fevered sleep, hair plastered against her temple and found herself in unfamiliar arms.
Of course, it had provoked a fight-or-flight response. She struggled until the first drop of blood hit her lips.
Ambrosia.
It was every good thing she had ever eaten—or drunk. It had not the metallic smell of battle and torture she had anticipated but was like a smooth, thick wine. It funneled down her throat and burst into living fire, warming her from the inside out. Elise was a healer and, therefore, was acutely aware of her own body.
She could almost feel Ulric's borrowed blood fighting the disease from the minutest parts of her.
Then something remarkable happened. A terrible pain claimed a spot above her pubic bone and underneath her stomach.
Her eyes flipped open, and a low moan escaped her as she drank.
Ulric's gentle gaze found her own.
Adahy appeared, rage on his face. “You hurt?” His fists were curled into balled hammers of anger.
Elise quickly shook her head, a drop of blood leaking from her mouth.
Ulric never looked away from Elise but instead put his wrist against her lips. “She is more damaged than just the Yellow Death.” Elise paused in her suckling, seeing the thunderous expression Ulric directed at Adahy.
“Are you the one responsible for these wounds?”
Adahy's expression was blank, then slow understanding dawned. He shook his head. “No. Fragment hurt Elise—before.”
They looked at each other in mute communion.
Ulric redirected his gaze to Elise. “Just a little more. It will hurt, for much was done and in need of repair.”
The pain made Elise cry out. Stabbing knives carved her insides and she thrashed.
Ulric kept her bound to his wrist. “Feed, and my blood will repair you.”
Adahy stepped forward.
“Stop.”
Ulric glanced at him.
“No. Have patience, red warrior.”
Elise watched Brom kick off from the base of a huge tree and stride to Adahy.
The two squared off, taking each other's measure.
“My leader heals her. Do not interfere.”
Adahy said something disparaging in Iroquois.
“I am not an imbecile,” Brom countered quietly.
This does not go well, Elise thought. But the blood took her, and she purred like a contented animal at Ulric's wrist while Adahy flirted with exchanging blows with his compatriot.
Elise felt as drunk as when the Fragment had confiscated cups of grapes.
“You speak Iroquois,” she heard Adahy say in a nonplussed voice.
“I do,” Brom said.
“Why?”
“I do not know. We speak all languages. Maunder, Band, sphere-dweller and Clan—all.”
Elise could hear the sarcasm of Brom, who was most likely Ulric's second in command.
What had they got themselves into? Elise was afraid—or should have been. But the more she drank from Ulric's wrist, the less she found she cared.
With a groan so quiet she might have imagined it, Ulric pulled away. The pain that had been so horribly intense minutes ago had settled into a deep, throbbing ache in her womb.
Ulric gathered her against him, and she watched his self-inflicted wound that had seeped blood moments before now begin to close, repairing before her eyes.
He gave her a soft smile and she sighed, letting the weight of her head rest against his arm. “You are a healer of mortality?”
Elise gave a dreamy nod in response.
“I cannot heal the sick,” she replied
“But the injured? Those who are near death?”
Elise nodded. It had seemed so pleasant and right to be sitting there drinking the blood of a stranger.
“Then you might be of our kind. If you were not, I could not have healed old wounds—old hurts.”
Our kind.
That made Elise wake up in a start. She dove upright then cringed as pain lanced her yet again. Elise gave a huge burp.
She slapped a hand over her mouth, mortified.
Ulric chuckled and placed his hand lightly on her back.
“It is a compliment to me that you drunk so deeply of my essence.”
Elise felt nothing but an abiding awkwardness. How could it have felt so right moments before, and now she felt like a skittish colt?
Terrible.
Adahy's hand was suddenly there, and she took it with great relief. He snatched her to him. But unlike Philip's grudging gratefulness, Adahy wore a serious expression of gratitude.
“Thank you,” he said, though she could see they were not easy words for him to utter.
“You are most welcome, tribesman of the Iroquois—and Band.”
Adahy flushed a deep red. He had been summarily identified and spoken to in his native language by a people who they had all heard about as only legend.
No matter what their name—Forest Devils, Stone Giants, what had Jim said? Big Feet, or some such—they were like her, yet different.
Elise looked into Ulric's eyes and shivered. They glowed like a cat's in the cover of gloom the canopy of trees provided.
Elise broke her gaze and looked up.
There, high in the trees, were structures, ropes dangling down partway to the ground.
The more Elise looked, the more she found they took shape as her eyes adjusted to the light.
Wait. Her eyes squinted. The shapes were not platforms—but houses.
Her chin came down quickly, her eyes locking with Ulric's.
“You live in the trees.”
Ulric nodded.
“How many are there of you?”
“Dozens and dozens.”
Elise swallowed. “Jim told me that you were a vampire. But you cannot be. You,” she drew her palm to follow the line of his massive body, “change your form at will to something between man and ape.”
Ulric cocked his head, and Brom laughed, walking off to stand again at the trunk of the tree. “I do not know the term vampire.”
Jim walked to where they stood. “I was joking. Him donat
ing some blood because he has super-impressive healing properties doesn't make him a vamp.” Jim laughed.
Ulric did not.
Jim's expression grew sharp. “Wait. Let's run down the list. Now,” he said in a light tone, “in my world, there's all kinds of paranormal types.”
Ulric gave him a quizzical brow.
Elise's sense of unease grew.
A terrible understanding hovered at the edges of her mind, wings unfurling to be unseen but felt.
“But we don't have any werewolves or vampires. Those are just a fable.” Jim shrugged with a small chuckle.
“A myth?” Ulric asked.
Jim smiled in relief. “Exactly.”
“Ah,” Ulric said, knotting his hands behind his back, a vague smirk affixed.
Jim's brows drew together. “Why do I get the feeling that this is somehow funny to you?”
Elise backed into Adahy's body tighter. Some lingering instinct, as primitive as fear of the dark, kicked into motion as her disquiet deepened.
Ulric's reflective eyes found her again—as though he sensed her fear, tasted it, and found it good.
He turned toward Jim once again, and Elise's tension lessened. Just being out of his piercing scrutiny eased her.
Ten minutes ago, I was lapping blood at his wrist.
Elise shuddered.
Lifting her arm, she saw that the pox marks had become flat, crusting at the edges. She had healed.
What else has healed? Automatically, her hand sought her lower abdomen.
Old hurts, Ulric had said.
No—could it be? A seed of hope dug deep.
She tried to wrench it free, but it clung to the tenderest part of her mind.
“You're carnivorous?” Jim asked again.
Ulric nodded.
“Of a sort.”
Jim backed up a step. Ulric smiled.
His teeth were now different. Longer.
Adahy drew Elise tight against him, and they retreated a step.
Ulric tracked their movements like a hawk.
Jim ignored them. “Do you leave the cover of woods?”
“Never,” Ulric said.
Jim's entire body was a thick line of tension. Elise saw him circling some enigmatic answer. What had he called himself? Elise dragged her lip between her teeth, gnawing on the tender flesh. Ah yes—scientist. A finder of facts. This was what Jim was, and what he endeavored to be in this moment.
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