by Milly Taiden
“Do you mean what kind of shifter?” Henley asked. “To be honest, I don’t really care.”
Gerri shook her head. “That’s not what I mean. What characteristics would you want in a perfect mate?”
Henley considered for a moment, almost afraid to answer. “I can’t say.”
“Why?” Riley asked. “You’ve gone gah-gah over Damen since the first moment you laid eyes on him. The man’s tall and gorgeous with a body that doesn’t quit, and a job that carries danger more often than not. What more could you want? I’d say he’s the perfect match for you.” She turned to look at Gerri. “You’re the matchmaker. Am I right?”
Gerri swirled her drink. “Perhaps.”
“Damen is all that and more, but—” Henley stopped, her face hot as all eyes watched her.
“But what?” Karis asked with the beginnings of a frown on her face. “Are you saying he’s not good enough for you?”
Henley put her drink on the table with a sharp glass clink. “I didn’t say that. You girls are putting words in my mouth and me into his bed before I’ve even had a single taste of the man. We worked together when Riley and Jag went off to find Bors and that snake Sharan Dul, and working with him was intense, but—” she stopped again as Karis got up from her spot on the side of the bed.
“Don’t look at me like that.” She shifted nervously in her seat. “We haven’t spent enough time together, and besides, in the short amount of time we had together, I never got that vibe from him.” She took a breath at the blatant lie, but it was better to self-protect than be hurt. “Maybe he’s just not interested, and if so, why should I give him a second thought?” She glanced from one to the other. “Gerri, you were the one who told me and Riley that Galaxa was a smorgasbord of hotties.”
She nodded. “I did, but then again, I have the distinct honor of knowing who should sample that smorgasbord and who just wants to order off the menu.” The matchmaker eyed her more closely. “Out of the three of you girls, you, my dear, are the biggest challenge. You like to pretend you’re a playah, but you’re no ho, Henley. You want Damen, and only Damen. Don’t deny it. Every shifter in the palace, me included, can smell it on you each time you lock eyes on the boy. He makes your panties wet and your nipples ache, and if you spend any more time eye fucking him, Hen, I’m going to have to make a jump back to Earth just for batteries so your vibrator can keep up. You, dear, are going to give yourself carpal tunnel syndrome with the way you’ve been taking care of business yourself.”
“I have not!” Henley balked, but hid the makeshift brace on her right wrist. “I’ve been taking notes. Yeah, lots of notes. For when I go back to Earth. I’m going to write a book.” She lifted her chin and sniffed.
Riley burst out laughing and shared a grin with Ivy as she gently burped the baby. “A book? Yeah, right. I used to have the room next door from you, remember? Whatever you filled those pages with is out and out porn.” She crooked her fingers at the word pages.
“Fine. I admit it,” Henley said with an exasperated flop against the back of the couch. “The man gets me hotter than that desert sand out there. I want to wrap my legs around him and ride’em cowgirl. He’s just not into me, okay? At least not in the way Vander and Jag were into you two. Happy now?”
Gerri moved to sit beside Henley. She slipped her hand over hers and squeezed. “Sometimes things aren’t what they seem, despite the standoffish signals blasting you from all sides. Maybe there’s a reason he’s keeping his hands and cock to himself.”
“Yeah, like another woman.” Henley exhaled. “You didn’t answer me earlier, so I can only assume you’re trying to spare my feelings.”
Karis clapped her hands twice. “Okay, Debbie Downer. This is a celebration. I know Damen like I know my two boys, and he’s just as cock-driven and mate-determined as Vander and Jag were before they met these two.” She jerked her head toward Riley and Ivy. “He’s not originally from here, so you might want to talk to Vander. Those two go way back and if there’s anyone who can fill you in on Damen Iceri and his wants and needs, it’s the king.”
Henley shook her head. “I’m not begging any man to want me. Shifter or human. I’m tough and I don’t shy away from a fight, but if a man is too dense to want me, then fuck him.”
“What if his hands are tied, dear? And not in a fun way.” Gerri raised an eyebrow. “Like I said, situations aren’t always what they seem, and if you want your situation situated, with batteries not required, then you’d better use that strategic brain of yours and plan your attack. Find out.” She shrugged. “What have you got to lose besides that chip on your shoulder?”
“Ooh, Gerri Wilder, matchmaker on a mission. Taking names and kicking ass, calling it like she sees it.” Riley laughed.
Henley smirked. “Shut up, Ri.”
“So, what do you think?” Ivy asked, rocking the baby in her arms. “You’re a smart cookie. Gerri’s right. The guys will be back soon. Find an opening and go for the kill.”
A slow smile spread on Henley’s face. “When you put it that way, how can I resist?”
4
Vander, Damen, and Jag walked with the doctor until he stopped at a bank of microscopes and computer screens. A row of clear jars filled with a brownish slime sat on the steel shelf above the scopes. Damen leaned in for a closer look, jerking back when something inside slithered through the liquid.
“What the hell!” He pulled back with a grossed-out cringe. He’d faced down danger and death, but slithering slimy unknowns made his skin crawl. “If that’s some sort of lab pet, you might want to rethink it and get a cat.”
The doctor eyed him over the top of his glasses. “It’s not a pet. It’s what I wanted to talk to you about.” He reached for one of the sealed jars and swirled the goo inside stirring the inhabitants into movement.
“These are the worms recovered from one of Maddox’s associates in the market square. We already know he used their excretions to poison the women’s bathhouse, causing sickness and in some cases death. In every case that survived, the women were rendered infertile.” He put the jar down and then slipped on a pair of surgical gloves before unscrewing the lid. Reaching in with a long set of tweezers, he pulled a specimen from the ooze.
“Oh, man. Do we really need to see that up close?” Jag winced, pulling back as well.
The doctor held the specimen up to a UV light and the damn thing hissed, squirming to get away from the light. Excretions poured from its gray skin into a petri dish underneath.
“Ugh, that’s absolutely foul!” Vander raised a hand to his nose. “Must you do that?”
The other two grimaced. “What the hell is that stench?”
“Their excretions.” The doctor dropped the worm back into the slime and sealed the jar again. “The foul stench is a defense mechanism. It’s the first warning they give a potential predator, but if the predator persists and takes a bite, the next result is a toxin. If you think that stench is bad in here, holding the worms to natural UV light is even worse than the artificial UV lab light. Fortunately, the worms and their excretions only last three days outside their slimy home.”
Damen picked up one of the jars and swallowed back on his revulsion, giving the container as swirl as well. “Have you been able to identify the species in our databases?”
Shaking his head, the doctor put the jar on the shelf. “No. It’s still a mystery. We did find two pieces of information, though. The first we were able to identify from a sample we took from one of the worms that expired. The source location. These parasites come from somewhere in the central jungles on the far side of Galaxa. We also ran tests on the worm itself, and our analysis was able to read trace elements that left us speechless.”
“Go on,” Vander prompted when the man hesitated. “We need all the information you can give us.”
He nodded, taking a quick breath. “Our analysis found suggestions of shifter tissue in the worm’s complex DNA.” He lifted a hand, dumfounded. “It’s as if the sourc
e species had mutated into something completely different.” He looked at both men. “The other piece of information we found was completely by accident. One of my lab assistants was careless while working with a live specimen.”
“God, please don’t tell me one of those gross things squirmed up his nose or something.” Jag made a face.
The doctor smirked. “No, but after my assistant’s stupidity, I threatened him with that.”
“I knew there was a reason I liked you, Doc.” Damen winked, relaxing a bit.
“So, what happened?” Vander asked. “Did a specimen bite him? Is he okay?”
The doctor nodded. “He’s fine, and no, the specimen didn’t bite him. He accidentally pricked his finger with a tweezer while reaching for one of the live worms. His blood dropped into their brown ooze and it was a feeding frenzy. Like a swarm of sharks. They devoured those few drops of blood and then their color changed.”
“Their color?” Damen raised an eyebrow, his curiosity piqued. “What, like from green to blue?”
“No. More from a death-pallor to living flesh,” the doctor replied. “It was as if feeding on blood charged their life-force.”
Vander took the sealed jar from Damen’s hand and shook it, watching them slither inside. “Do you think that’s the case? That they feed on blood?”
Shrugging, the doctor exhaled. “If you want an educated guess my answer is yes. Do they all?” He shook his head. “That I can’t answer. We’d have to do more tests on the few live worms we have left. The ones we have preserved we are going to dissect and infer as much information as we can for the database. Like I said, they don’t live more than three days outside that slime. The toxins in their excretions seem to have the same shelf life, which explains why the deaths and sickness at the baths seemed random and confusing.”
Damen looked to the lab door and frowned, his fingers curling into his hands, indignant. “Maddox brought these foul creatures into the Palladian capital. Since he never left the city he had to get them from a source.” He reached into his pocket for the black vial he palmed from the silver medical tray at the end of Maddox’s bed. “Maybe you can’t answer our questions, Doc, but with a little help from our friends on Earth, I think we know someone who can.”
The three men walked from the lab to the ward room. The doctor took the vial from Damen and poured the contents into the dispensing cup the way the nurse had sought to do earlier. He added a little water from a jug on the tray and then held the cup out to Maddox.
The old man took the cup from the doctor’s hand and sniffed. “What is this?”
“Like my nurse said,” he encouraged when Maddox tipped the cup to stare at the contents. “It will help.”
Maddox snorted. “Help me or them?”
“Just take your meds, old man,” Jag chided. “If we wanted you dead, you’d be food for the desert beetles already.”
Maddox lifted the cup to his lips and then swallowed the contents in one gulp. He shoved the empty plastic dispenser at the doctor and then slumped onto his pillow.
Eyeing Damen, he frowned. “Whatever that was, it’s not going to work. I made sure to make myself immune to whatever mind tricks you might play if I was caught. There’s nothing on this planet you can use, so I guess you lose again.”
Damen tapped the side of the cup, letting a slow grin spread on his lips. He never allowed gratification to edge into his work, but in this case he couldn’t help but gloat. “Maybe nothing on this planet.” He bent to place the dispenser on the small table beside the bed but leaned toward Maddox’s ear. “Then again, who says I didn’t import something for this exact situation.”
Maddox’s eyes locked on Damen as the initial sedative took effect. The old man’s pupils dilated and his muscles relaxed into the mattress. Giving a quick nod to the doctor, Damen watched as the man took a syringe from his lab coat pocket and injected the truth serum straight into the bloodstream.
Maddox’s lids slipped closed and his lips parted slightly as the drug spread. Damen gave a chin pop to the doctor, and he immediately dismissed the rest of the ward staff.
Pulling the curtain closed, Damen sat on the side of the bed before slipping a lipstick sized cylinder from his pocket. He stood it on the side table beside Maddox’s head. “Communicator. Record mode,” he commanded.
The cylinder glowed blue, and a white illuminated circle spun at the top of the device. “Record ready.”
“Maddox, can you hear me?” Damen asked.
The old man burbled something inaudible, but then nodded.
“Good. I want you to tell us about the worms. The ones from the Tempera jungle, the ones you used to poison the baths.”
The old man drooled from the corner of his mouth and the doctor wiped it with a cloth.
“Maddox, can you tell us about the worms.” Damen tried again.
The old man nodded. “From the Tempera.”
“We already know they’re from the jungle. How did he get them?” Vander prompted, but the doctor lifted a finger to his lips.
He pulled the king and his brother to the side, whispering, “Too many voices and too many questions will cause the subject to become incoherent. This drug was formulated for use on humans, not shifters. We have a very short window for it to work.”
Vander and Jag stayed back and let Damen handle the questions. The security chief glanced over his shoulder, and the doctor nodded the go ahead to continue.
“Yes, Maddox. They’re from the jungle. How did you get them?” Damen asked, keeping his voice steady and calm.
“The nomad. Sharan Dul. He gets them from the Hatun. They give them to him for me.”
“The Hatun?” Jag whispered. “They live in the heart of the Tempera. Their tribe is isolated. None of our scouts have ever found their actual settlement.”
Damen spared Jag a glance before continuing. “How do the Hatun get the worms?”
Maddox flailed, his head slightly as if in pain. “Hurts to remember.”
“Maddox,” Damen prompted a little more impatient. “You have to tell me what you know.”
The old man exhaled a long breath, letting his mouth drop open with a groan.
“Maddox!”
Damen gripped the man’s hospital gown and shook him, but the doctor rushed forward. “Don’t. Violence will only make it harder for you to get him to focus.”
“Of course, sorry.” Damen removed his hands from the old man, and with a steadying breath, he tried again. “Maddox, how do the Hatun obtain the worms? Do they dig for them near the river?”
A maniacal rasp left the old man’s mouth. “No. They trade for them with the Unduru.”
Damen exchanged a look with Jag. “Unduru? Are they a rival tribe?”
“Evil.” Maddox laughed again, moving his head from side to side. “Unduru feed on the Hatun. The worms are from Unduru bellies after they feed. The Hatun trade blood for the worms so they spare their tribe.”
Throat tight, Damen exchanged a horrified look with the others before turning back to Maddox. “Maddox, what do you trade to the Hatun for the worms?”
“Flesh!” he yelled. “I trade them living flesh and blood!”
Damen’s fingers closed into his palm and he squeezed, squashing the urge to choke the life from the old man lying on the hospital cot.
“Whose flesh and blood?” he ground out.
Maddox laughed, and the ragged sound pierced the silence. “Ours!”
5
“Let me kill Maddox now, Vander.” Jag clenched his teeth. “It’s bad enough Bors and his mountain monkeys abducted our women to sell on the black market, but to think Maddox sold those poor Palladian girls as a hot lunch for those creatures—just to further his sicko pure blood plan?” He raked a hand through his hair. “How have we never heard of this cannibalistic tribe of whatever? I mean, nobody’s had Galaxan history drilled into their heads more than us. Why didn’t our tutors know about this? Maybe that truth serum stuff made Maddox delusional.”
> Damen looked out the window at the dark sky. “Maddox may be psychotic, but he’s not lying about these creatures.” The night was clear, and from this vantage, the peaks of the Mirror Mountains were visible through the cloud cover. “You never heard of them because they’ve been the stuff of legend and nightmare for a millennium.”
“You sound so sure. Is there something you know about this?” Vander asked, interested.
Damen turned from the window. “Yes and no. I didn’t know what these creatures were called, but I heard whisperings in the Summit Clan about beings that came in the night and ate shifter flesh.” He shrugged. “Gunnar and I always believed they were nothing more than stories told to frighten us and the rest of the clan youth from leaving our land. Remember, the Summit Clan is isolated and secretive and the elders want to keep it that way.”
“Yeah, but you’re mountain people. Not jungle. How would a hidden Tempera menace affect you?” Jag asked.
Damen fished in a bowl of fruit for a ripe Galaxan peach and held it up. “Because of this.”
“Fruit?” Jag asked raising a brow.
Damen nodded. “You said it yourself. We’re mountain people. Summit people. Even in the summer when the sands between the capital and the Mirror Mountains are boiling, are weather is cold. We trade for fruit and vegetables we can’t otherwise grow ourselves. Each year the elders put together a team to venture down the mountain to the Tempera tribes to trade. Some never return, and the ones that did brought back more than just peaches. They brought back the stuff of nightmares.
“The year before Vander got separated from the royal hunting party and caught in that avalanche, Gunnar and I went off on our own expedition. We decided to find out if the stories from the trade routes were true or not. We left before daylight and made our way down the mountain trails to the jungle. We had no idea where we were going or what we would find, but it was a chance to break free and I took it. I still can’t believe Gunnar actually agreed to come with me.”
