by Laura Wright
“You’ve got to be kidding.” She gritted her teeth and said slowly, “I want a phone, and I want it now. I have a hospital full of patients and a crime to report to the police.”
His face grew serious. “I’m afraid I can’t bring the police into this.”
“What?” Sara sat up, struggled against the dizziness in her head. “Why the hell not?”
He paused a moment, his eyebrows lowering to meet a dangerous gaze. “I think perhaps you know why not.”
“I’m not a game player, Mr. Roman.”
“I cannot allow myself and my brothers to be exposed.”
“Exposed,” Sara repeated, surprised at the sudden jump in her heart rate. “What are you talking about? Who the hell are ...”
Sara’s words petered out as an image flickered in her mind. It was fuzzy and there was confusion and shock attached to it, but as the seconds ticked off, the hazy memory came slowly into focus. Startled, she looked up. “You!”
The man before her suddenly opened his mouth and revealed two white, blade-sharp fangs.
Pure, white-hot terror assaulted Sara and she shook her head, drew back against the pillows as far as she could manage. “No ...”
The man’s jaw relaxed and his gaze remained even with Sara’s. “It was unfortunate that you had to witness—”
“No.” She kept shaking her head like an idiot. It was the bump on her head. She was delusional. “No. It’s not possible.” Yet there it was. He had fangs.
I AM WHAT YOU THINK I AM.
“Don’t do that!” Her temples throbbing, she stared at him. “This is impossible. You don’t exist ...”
Alexander’s eyes clouded over and he uttered softly, “There are many who would agree with you on that.”
Cold fear rippled through Sara like a dozen icy waves—the heat and comfort of his presence completely dead to her now. Her skin bristled and her heart thundered in her chest, keeping pace with the pain that pounded in her head. This wasn’t happening. Everything in her education and experience screamed at her that this couldn’t be happening, yet her gut whispered otherwise.
What did she do now? Her head was throbbing so badly she felt like she might throw up. She hated how weak she felt. She dropped back against the pillow.
“You need to rest,” he said, his voice as gentle as a kiss. “Have something to eat and drink.”
I need to get the fuck out of here! “I need a hospital . . . I need my phone.” Her words slurred and she forced her eyes to stay open.
“Your former patient is not going to give up, and until he’s caught, I ask that you stay here.”
“Fuck you!” she shouted, but the sound that left her throat was little more than a squeak. She wanted so badly to remain tough and resolute, but she was so tired. “I have patients. My—”
“That asshole wants to kill you, Sara. He won’t stop until he does. I felt it. I felt his need for your blood.”
“You . . . what?” She shook her head, refusing to listen to any more of that. “If you think you’re going to keep me here against my will, a prisoner—”
“Not a prisoner, a guest.”
“A guest?” she repeated. “You’re insane.”
“A very welcome, very honored guest.” Alexander put his hand over hers, and the heat that traveled up her arm found its way into her belly, curling deliciously inside of her. She looked up at him, hating herself for wishing this feeling would never go away. “You saved my life,” he continued. “And all I ask is that you allow me to do the same for you.”
The confusing warmth of his touch was too much for Sara. She should be thinking about escaping, not wishing she could crawl up into his powerful arms and fall asleep.
She yanked her hand from his grasp. “I don’t know who you are, what you are—the only thing I want is to know where the front door is.”
Before Alexander could answer, there was a knock on the door, and an older man’s heavily accented voice rang out, “I’m sorry for the interruption, sir, but Lucian and Nicholas are in the library. They ask that you meet them there as soon as possible.”
“Who’s that?” Sara demanded. “And who the hell are Lucian and Nicholas?”
“My brothers.” Alexander stood, inclined his head. “I have to go. Please try to sleep, and if you need anything just press the call button on the bedside table.”
As soon as he was out the door, Sara pushed herself into a sitting position. Instantly, she gripped her head, her brain pounding mercilessly inside her skull. She was so exhausted, nearly sick with it, but there was no way she was lying down and resting. She had to stay awake, alert—she had to find a way out of this insanity—this nightmare her mind, and the bump on her head, had created.
7
Alexander entered the mahogany-paneled, twenty-thousand-volume library with a newly acquired speed that he reviled. In the coming weeks, he would see more evidence of the powers morpho provided, along with the many shackles that accompanied it, and the thought darkened his mood.
For a century now, he and his brothers had lived unfettered among humans; the only thing separating the two species was the brothers’ need for blood. But everything had changed. He could no longer walk in daylight, and though he had escaped the bonds of a Breeding Male’s debauched and violent future, he would soon be hit with the irresistible need to find his true mate—the one he was destined for, the one who bore his mark.
“Drained the woman yet?” Lucian asked, descending the spiral staircase from the second level, several ancient tomes in his arms.
“Fuck you, Luca.”
“How is she, Alexander?” Nicholas asked. The tall, black-eyed middle Roman brother was sitting at a long metal desk, his head partially obscured by his computer screen as he furiously typed.
“Disoriented, tough as steel.” The bright light from the chandeliers burned Alexander’s retinas and he dimmed all three with a quick suggestion from his mind. “She doesn’t want to be here.”
“Can you blame her?”
Alexander stalked across the room, dropped down on the couch. “She has nothing to fear from me.”
“Not the point,” Lucian said tightly.
“I just want to help her.”
“Even if it’s against her will?”
“If I must.”
“This isn’t 1875, Alexander,” Nicholas said. “Females don’t take kindly to males who tell them what they want or what they must do. And New York women—” He broke off, laughing. “Forget it.”
“She may be tough,” Alexander said, grabbing his laptop off the coffee table. “But she’s also a physician and thoughtful, and she must know she has to give herself time to heal.”
Nicholas glanced up. “Yes, but clearly she doesn’t want to do it here.”
“Well, unfortunately, she must.” Alexander stabbed at the power button on his computer. It was a weak argument for keeping a human in the house and they all knew it. Sara should be with her own kind, under the care of a human physician. And yet he couldn’t let her go. She had saved him. The first female in his long life to do so . . . and he owed her.
A low growl from Lucian’s direction had Alexander looking up. “What?”
“You told her what we are,” Lucian said.
“Yes.”
“Goddammit!” Lucian dropped his books on the desk. The impact sent a cloud of dust into the air.
“She knew,” Alexander told him.
“Bullshit,” Lucian retorted. “You told her so you could keep her. Now her mind will be deeply imprinted.”
Alexander’s eyes narrowed, but he didn’t move from the couch. “She saw me with that skinny human. She saw me go through morpho. She knew.”
“She may have suspected something, but she could never have known—”
“Enough,” Nicholas said calmly, still focused on his computer screen. “What’s done is done. The woman must stay here now. But once she’s well, Alexander, you’re going to have to clean—”
Alexan
der interrupted. “I’m not going to damage her mind, Nicholas.”
“You won’t. Things are different now.” Nicholas turned his screen so he could see his brother.
“What do you mean?”
“You’re a morphed male, Duro. You can clean a human’s mind with no fear of permanent injury.”
Lucian brightened. “Good. Problem solved.”
“Yes, lucky me,” Alexander said dryly, his mind pushing aside one issue to deal with another. “So, speaking of my newly acquired morphed status, what have you found out?”
“Not much,” Nicholas admitted. He shook his head, frustrated. “I’ve contacted a few of our remaining peers in the Eternal Breed who are outside the credenti—first with a location request for the human I let get away this afternoon, and second, for information about males morphing before their time. I kept it casual. No reason for either request to get back to our . . . families.” He said the last word as though it were poison on his tongue. Even after a hundred years of separation, of freedom from their kind, the three of them still flinched whenever they were reminded of the nightmare that was their abusive adolescence.
Nicholas shook off the momentary gloom and nodded at Lucian. “What about you? Find anything in those old books?”
“I focused on the history of the breed, thinking this could be genetics.” Lucian shrugged. “Our father, who he was—what he was—maybe we’re all destined to reach maturity before our time.” He snorted. “Not like dear old Dad stayed around long enough to tell us if we should expect anything out of the ordinary in this department.”
It was a despised and avoided subject for the three of them, having the Breeding Male as their father, their common link. But now the questions were there. Their father had been a paven of purest blood whose genetic code and structure had been altered hundreds of years ago by the Eternal Order. He and two others had been given the ability to impregnate at will and decide the sex of the balas, in order to repopulate one sex or the other in times of dire necessity. Alexander sniffed with derision. It had been hailed as a genius move by the Eternal Breed, but had soon become a nightmare as the Breeding Males grew more like uncontrolled animals, desperate to rut and feed. The Order had been forced to cage them, and brought them out only to service the veanas, the Pureblood females, who were forced by their families to lie with them.
A necessity for progress, for breed survival, Alexander recalled with a sneer. And yet the stigma of being their father’s sons had only made him and his brothers outcasts to their peers, watched specimens to observe and test by the Order, and reviled by their own mothers.
For Alexander, escaping his credenti that hot morning in August had been a truly blessed event.
Forcing his focus back on the present, Alexander continued to grill Lucian on the texts. “Have you found any evidence of genetic predisposition?”
“No past cases,” Lucian admitted. “Not as it relates to morphing, anyway.”
“That doesn’t mean it isn’t possible,” Alexander said.
Leaning back in his chair, Nicholas asked, “What if it was something in the blood you consumed over the past week? The human woman you fed from.”
“Possible,” Alexander said thoughtfully.
“Any injuries in the past month?” Lucian asked.
“Nothing. Could it be environmental?”
Nicholas looked skeptical. “We’d all be affected.”
Evans walked in then, and the servant looked rattled, sheepish. He cleared his throat.
“What is it, Evans?” Lucian said.
“I apologize for the interruption, sir, but it’s the young woman ...”
A growl, guttural and fierce, erupted from Alexander and he shot across the room, nearly setting the floor on fire in his haste. “What is it?” he demanded, towering over the servant.
“Easy, Alex,” Nicholas warned, abandoning his post at the computer and heading toward his brother.
“Christ,” uttered Lucian. “Did you see that speed ...”
Alexander’s attention zeroed in on the servant. He fought to keep from shaking the answer out of the wide-eyed Impure. His fangs quivered, each word out of his mouth a terrifying warning, “What. Is. Wrong. With. Her.”
“She’s gone, sir,” Evans said breathlessly.
“Gone?” Alexander repeated. His gut flexed with worry and disbelief. “Gone where?”
The old Impure shook his head. “I don’t know. The window in the blue bedroom was open. I believe she used the fire escape.”
Shit! Alexander turned and sprinted toward the door with his new hyperspeed. She was in danger. They all were.
“Where the hell do you think you’re going?” Nicholas called out.
Pausing at the threshold, Alexander shot back, “After her.”
“It’s nearly dawn.”
“I don’t care!” Alexander roared.
“You’ll care when that little prick finds and kills her because you’ve turned to dust!” Lucian barked after him.
It took supreme effort for Alexander to stay where he was and listen to reason. His head dropped forward and he uttered a pained “I need her.”
“One of us will go,” Lucian said begrudgingly. “After all, we can’t have her running around with an uncleaned mind, now, can we?”
“I’ll go,” Nicholas offered. “I lost the man. I won’t lose the woman.”
Still shaking, Evans swallowed tightly. “Pardon me, sir.”
“Not now, Evans,” Nicholas said, a little less contained, his gaze trained on his morphed, and very impassioned, brother.
“But, sir, the wall ...”
The man’s words petered out as he stared slack-jawed at something behind them. All three brothers turned to see what the problem was.
“Holy shit,” Lucian uttered. “They’ve found us.” Nostrils flared and breathing heavy, Alexander stared at the blank white wall beyond the stairs. It was moving, like easy waves on the sea, and before their eyes, a message was being carved into the plaster.
The Eternal Order requests the presence of the first precipitately morphed male, Alexander Roman. At the third hour past midnight, in the Hollow of Shadows.
As one brother must shun the light, the other two will shortly follow. Do not disregard our request.
8
Alexander stood in front of the wall, his hand moving over the inscription, his need to run after the human woman momentarily quelled.
Behind him, Lucian snarled. “Un-fucking-believable.”
Alexander glanced over his shoulder. “Is it?”
Lucian’s almond eyes flashed hatred. “I won’t believe it. No one has the power to premorph males. Not even the Eternal Order.”
“Assumption makes asses out of us all, Little Brother,” Nicholas said, seated behind his computer again, typing furiously.
“Then call me the biggest ass on the planet,” Lucian returned. “I don’t believe it.”
Nicholas glanced up, ready to say something, then shrugged and uttered a dry, “Too easy.”
“Up yours, Nicky.”
“Think clearly, Luca. What makes you think the Eternal Order lacks the power to premorph? If they can create an animal like the Breeding Male or remove the sex drives of Impures as though it were any normal feeding session, how hard is it to screw with morphing?”
“Not hard at all, it seems.” Alexander went over to the desk and stood behind his brother. “What are you looking for, Nicky?”
“Anything on the Hollow,” Nicholas said, Web pages opening and closing every two seconds. “Rumors on location, any off-the-radar vamp sites that might have some clue as to where to begin to look for the Order’s headquarters.”
“And?”
“Nothing.”
“That’s because the Order would imprison or obliterate anyone who revealed their supersecret hiding place.” Lucian grinned with menace. “Pussies.”
Alexander released a weighty breath and backed away from the computer. “This will be res
olved. I’ll leave at first dark.”
“Leave for where exactly?” Lucian asked. “Unless a map shows up on the wall in the next few seconds, I’d say we’re pretty much fucked.”
Alexander shook his head. “The one thing I know is the Order wants me to go before them. As is their way, they will make me search like a rat in a maze first, humble me to show me just who is in control, and when that is complete, they will make themselves possible to find.”
“And if they don’t?” Lucian asked.
“If it becomes necessary, I’ll contact the family.”
Nicholas’s head shot up, his normally sedate black eyes burning with sudden passion. “Family? As in your family?”
Alexander shrugged. “We have limited time. Theydon’s uncle used to be a member of the Order. It’s possible that he may know where this place is.”
“You’re just going to walk back into the credenti,” Nicholas continued, “find your mother’s mate, the paven who once wished for your death above all things, and ask him for directions?”
Alexander went cold, his tone like ice. “If I have to.”
Lucian cursed.
“You’re not going,” Nicholas said with a dead calm, rising from his chair.
“Try and stop me.”
“Oh, you know I will,” Lucian said, his features and massive frame tightening into pure aggressor mode. “That cage of yours is looking pretty damn perfect right about now.”
Alexander lifted his shoulders, looked from one brother to the other. “Either way I’m caged,” he said. “But the two of you are free, and I am going to make sure you remain that way.”
“I’m not afraid of morpho,” Lucian said fiercely.
Alexander stared him down. “You should be. You of all of us should be.”
The heat, the anger, the need that boiled in Lucian’s gaze said it all. He was the most like their father, the only albino Breeding Male. If any one of them carried the gene and would become a rutting, uncontrollable animal when he morphed, it would be Lucian.
Alexander walked back to the wall, his gaze moving over each letter, each cluster of words, the uncloaked command. “If this is not stopped, the two of you will be next, tracked by the Order for the rest of your days. The hunger—though it will ease somewhat—will become your number-one need, soon to be replaced by either the inescapable hunt for your true mate or the unstoppable desire to breed.” He paused. Breathing in, breathing out. “I’m in morpho. It’s done. But they will not turn the two of you.”
