by Tracy Tappan
“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. “That 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 Jaċken, 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 antipsy
chotics 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
Jaċken 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 had been way ready for another easy case like Hannah when number six had come along: sweet-as-chocolate pediatric nurse, Gwyn, who’d immediately taken to the eight Mixed-blood children in Ţărână. Gwyn had definitely been on the road to adjusting well, but….
Jaċken’s stomach wrenched on a pang of regret. No one would ever know how that might’ve turned out.
Gwyn was the only acquisition who’d been stolen by their nasty Om Rău neighbors.
Şarvan had been in charge of guarding Gwyn that fateful day, but the dingus warrior had let himself get distracted flirting with Trinnía, the community hairdresser, who was, granted, a total babe. To add insult, Trinnía was also a fellow Vârcolac, which meant that they’d both been breaking all kinds of fraternization laws with their bonehead actions. Meanwhile, Gwyn had darted off to chase after one of the children who’d headed into Stânga Town, Ţărână’s slum. She’d come too close to the Outer Edge, the main entrance to the Om Rău Hell Tunnels, and been grabbed.
Jaċken had fired Şarvan’s ass and tossed the fuckup in jail for a week. But that couldn’t bring Gwyn back. Nothing could. Not when it was impossible for a Vârcolac to enter the extreme heat of the Hell Tunnels.
Losing Gwyn had been Jaċken’s worst day as a warrior, not counting those six other days when he’d had to abduct an innocent woman, knowing full well how much he was about to screw up her life. Each time he did that, the part of him that believed in protecting women, not messing them up, suffered a blow. In his mind, there had to be a better way to bring these Dragons into their community, but when he’d questioned Roth privately, his boss had been snappish on the subject.
“What would you have us do, Jaċken? Just ask them?” Roth had flung a hand out. “Yes, let’s imagine a delegation of our race shows up on a Dragon woman’s doorstep and says, Excuse me, Miss So-and-So, would you mind giving up, (A) seeing your family on a regular basis, (B) your career objectives, and (C) any love interest you might currently have? And, oh, yes (D) would you also mind living underground, in permanent hiding, so that you might have babies with a vampire? I wonder what she would say? Or, no, perhaps I already know.” Roth exhaled impatiently. “We have to get the women down here to win them, Jaċken. There isn’t another way.”
And Roth had the final word in these matters.
Besides, Jaċken wasn’t in any position to make demands regarding Ţărână’s way of life, having lived here these last thirty-seven years subject to the generosity of the community. Besides, Roth had a point. People pretty much shut down at the first mention of the V-word, and wouldn’t give them chance one.
So, yeah, now here they were with number seven: recent acquisition, Antoinetta Parthen, doctor of hematology and all-around hot chick.
All Dragons were blonde and incredibly beautiful, a fortunate side-effect of their Dragon bloodlines, but Antoinetta was exceptional. Her hair was a flaxen waterfall streaked with fire flowing just past her shoulders, her eyes sapphire gemstones, and her body was a heart attack, the kind of leggy and busty combination that required a nearby drool cup to handle. On top of that, her scent was…had a…. Jesus, there was an added sweetness to her fragrance that had him working as hard to keep his pants on as his fangs choked back.
She was an unmated female, yeah, and all unmateds gave off a strong scent, a kind of a primitive pheromone which to a Vârcolac male smelled like she’d spritzed herself down with Eau de Screw Me.
Human females were more aromatic than Vârcolac females, and the Dragons were downright heart-stopping. But smelling this woman was like freebasing adrenaline and lust in one big fucking eight ball. He’d bet sweet blood like hers coated the tongue like a velvet orgasm. Squeezing his eyes shut behind his sunglasses, he pictured Antoinetta with her head thrown back, the graceful curve of her throat exposed, inviting him to take his fill. Or the creamy length of her thigh laid bare to him. Yeah, taste her essence, then go straight for the femoral….
Jaċken clenched his teeth, grinding them together until the bones in his head sounded like rocks tumbling down a cliff. He would never taste this woman…not in any way, ever, so he needed to shut his brain the hell up and pay attention. Not that there was anything much to pay attention to. Dr. Antoinetta Parthen had been silent for quite some time now.
He knotted the hands he had clasped behind his back into fists, and looked from Roth, who was seated behind his desk again, to Jess, then over to Antoinetta. The wait was killing him. Damn it, do something already, lady.
And then she did.
To his
utter shock, she came out of her chair, snatched a letter opener off the desk, and pointed the nasty end of it at Roth. Jaċken stiffened as the expression on her face clicked from shocked horror to hostility as fast as someone pushing the button on a slide show.
“You’ll excuse me if I must decline your invitation, Mr. Mihnea,” she said between gritted teeth. “But having turkey basters filled with ‘vampire’ sperm stuck up inside of me isn’t particularly my idea of a good time.”
Roth looked mortified by the very idea. “I assure you, Doctor, that’s not at all what—”
“Don’t move,” she commanded sharply.
Roth stopped coming to his feet and sat back down, placidly placing both hands palms down on top of his desk. “We have no intention of hurting you.”
“You don’t move, either.” She aimed fierce blue eyes at Jaċken, obviously sensing that he was about to go Medieval on her ass. “I know how to use a knife,” she warned, switching her grip on the letter opener with a flip of her wrist, now holding it in perfect throwing position. “And I’m telling you, if you take one step toward me, I’m going to plant this thing in your chest.”
He sneered at her. What a crock of shit. Just because the lady could probably wield a scalpel didn’t mean she could go Kill Bill with any blade she happened to pick up.
“P-please,” Dr. Jess stammered, his face white. “I think everyone just needs to—”
“And that would kill you, right?” She laughed, a bit of hysteria edging the sound.
Well, hell, looked like Jaċken was going to get that meltdown he’d been waiting for, after all.
“I mean, you being a ‘vampire’ and all, and this being the proverbial stake in the heart. Or are you a zombie?” She backed up a step, keeping everyone within her sight line. “Maybe The Creature from the Black Lagoon, or—or, wait!—The Terminator. Yes! You look that part, don’t you?”
Roth shot him a droll look. “Well, this is new.”
“Put the letter opener down, now,” Jaċken ordered her, pitching his voice to a lethal tone. “If I have to take it from you, Dr. Parthen, I can guarantee you won’t like my methods.” He came out of his stance, his arms swinging forward and his legs spring-coiling in readiness.
