The Bloodline War (The Community)

by Tracy Tappan

  Alex’s eyes lit. “Kind of magically, I guess.”

  A small huff passed Jess’s lips. “I wouldn’t doubt it. The Străvechi Caiet has been lost to us for a century.” He reverently opened the first page of the book, then turned another and another, all the while marveling.

  “Can you read it?” Alex asked.

  “Of course not,” Jess scoffed, “no one can. Not unless you’re a….” The doctor whipped his gaze up. “You can, can’t you? That’s how you know that you and Toni are Royals.”

  Alex shrugged. “Yeah, some of it. I should be able to read more, I sense that, but…I don’t know, something’s always just kind of in the way.”

  “By holiest night,” the doctor whispered. “You’re a Soothsayer.”

  Jesus, Alex Parthen might as well have just crapped a brand-new, gold-plated Sigmund-phase piece of lab equipment, the way Dr. Jess was looking at him now.

  “A…? Really?” Alex perked up, glancing at Toni. “Hey, that sounds cool, doesn’t it?”

  “I prefer Know-It-All,” Toni returned drolly.

  “Ha! Would you listen to that! She’s just getting me back for all the times I called her stubborn.”

  Roth regarded Alex solemnly. “If you don’t mind a question, Mr. Parthen, what would be the name of the line you’re descended from?”

  Alex smiled broadly. “Ah, a test. No, that’s cool. Human Dragon royalty descends from King Σoseph of the Flacără line,” he rattled off. “The Royal Vârcolac come from Σoseph’s cousin, Ællen, of the Seară.

  Jaċken exhaled under his breath. I’ll be damned….

  “Well.” Roth looked a little amazed now, too. “You couldn’t have known that unless you’d studied Vârcolac/Dragon history in our community school.”

  Dr. Jess clapped his hands together. “Do you realize what this means?! The Parthens are more than just Royal—they’re Royal Fey.” Jess beamed at them. “That means you both have enchantment skills, yours, Mr. Parthen, being soothsaying. Although clearly the majority of your power has been confined under centuries of repression. We must figure out how to release it.” Jess looked at Roth. “Why didn’t we see this before, Roth? They both have red in their hair and…dear heavens, Toni has always smelled different, hasn’t she?!”

  Jaċken darted his eyes over to Toni. Holy fuck.

  Nodding slowly, Roth looked at Toni for an elongated moment. “A co-leader, you say?”

  Maggie piped in, “We won’t return to Ţărână without her.”

  Roth chuckled. “No need to take a stand on this particular issue. I very much relish the thought of your co-leadership, Toni. I’ve been in sole charge of Ţărână for a very long time now.” He stood and held out his hand. “Welcome aboard.”

  Jaċken’s heart played pinball against every bone in his ribcage as he watched Toni rise to her feet and shake Roth’s hand. The two had come to an agreement. Toni was returning to Ţărână.

  “Actually, there’s still one minor caveat to me coming back,” she said.

  Jaċken’s elation dropped away like a stone in a deep well. Christ, what now—? Oh, crap. The back of his nape prickled as Toni turned a penetrating blue stare on him.

  “You and I,” she said, “need to settle our disagreement first.”

  This couldn’t be good. “I wasn’t aware we had one.”

  “Unfortunately, we do.” She sank gracefully back into her chair. “I want to be your mate, and you keep refusing me like a stubborn ass. I’d say that’s a disagreement.”

  Searing heat slapped him in the cheeks as a raging mass of unpleasant emotions churned through him: anger that she would revisit something so painful to him, awkwardness that everyone was now gawking at him, no one bothering to hide how amazed they were that a woman of Toni’s caliber could want him. Yeah, shut your traps and join the club, people. And also some kind of bizarre-o childish gee whiz, hurray, she wants me feeling that made him want to bang his head on the conference table a couple of hundred times.

  “Sorry if my Om Rău genes are getting in the way of your dreams of domestic bliss.” Shit, that came out even more snarky than he’d intended.

  “Bound by a vow of celibacy, no vasectomy possible, blah, blah, blah. Yes, I remember all the reasons you can’t.”

  He stared at her. You’ve got to be shitting me. “Your blasé understanding of the circumstances is touching.”

  “The hell if I’m being blasé,” she snapped back. “I’m telling you none of that matters. I just need to know if you love me. That’s it. The rest we can work out.”

  The heat was back in his face full-force. He’d never been the type of man to melt beneath a table in embarrassment and he wasn’t going to start now. Tempting, but fuck, no. “I’m not talking about this with you here.” Or ever.

  “You’re going to have to,” she countered. “I can’t go back to Ţărână until I know.”

  He gave her a hard look. “Are you threatening the welfare of the community over a—?”

  “Jesus, you’re not that idiotic, are you? I don’t want to live down there without you, Jaċken, so I need to know if you love me.”

  Pack sand. Stick it up your ass. And, yes, I love you so much I can already taste you was the psychotic babble that lit off inside his head. Nice to know his sanity was still on a ten.

  “It’s a simple enough question,” she prompted.

  His temples were starting to pound. “Nothing about this whole damned situation is simple. We just found out that you’re a Royal, for Chrissake. Fuck if I’m going to let you waste those bloodlines on me. I can’t have children. We’ve been over that.”

  “They’re my bloodlines. Shouldn’t I get a say in the matter?”

  “You don’t have anything to say.”

  “Don’t I?”

  “Not that would change my mind. You’re going to make a great mother someday, Toni. I won’t steal that from you.”

  Her throat moved stiffly. “People adopt all the time.”

  A laugh came out of him that did his demonic heritage proud. “Right. Social Services is just dying to send kids down to Vampire Land to be raised by a half-demon father.”

  She dismissed that with a wave of her hand. “We could finagle our way around that. Just tell me you don’t love me, Jaċken, and I’ll leave this alone.”

  He sat there, painfully mute, unable to lie. “It doesn’t mean anything if I do,” he ground out.

  “It means everything!” Tears collected along her lashes.

  He surged to his feet and pointed a rigid finger at it. “Don’t you do that.”

  Alex, her brother, started blinking rapidly at him.

  “C’mon, man,” Sedge said from the side of his mouth, “just tell her already.”

  A tear tumbled free of Toni’s lashes and rolled down her cheek.

  “Okay! Jesus! Yes! I love you.” He threw out his arms. “You satisfied now, you insane battle-axe?!” He spun toward the window, giving her his back. Shit, shit, shit. But what else was he supposed to say, for the love of crap? She was crying! He dragged his hand across his upper lip.

  “That’s all I needed to know,” she said softly. “Because I love you, too, and—”

  “Shut up.” He slammed his eyes closed.

  “I most certainly will not shut up.”

  He whirled back around and glared at her. “Toni, I swear—”

  “Would you just be quiet and listen a minute.” She reached under the conference table and produced a black leather briefcase. “While I was away, I did some research. I wanted to see for myself what all the uproar concerning your genes was about. So, I had my brother hack into the community’s hospital computer and I ran some experiments with the blood graphs on file. Here are two procreation simulations I conducted.” She pulled two sheets of paper out of her briefcase and set them on the conference table. “One is of Jaċken and Beth, compared to one of Dev and Beth.” She pointed to a couple of hills on the second graph. “Strength and health came out high with
Dev and Beth’s offspring, but”—she switched to the first graph—“even higher with Jaċken and Beth’s. I’m assuming that’s because of Jaċken’s Rău. But the problem is immediately apparent. Peak 12 is at excessive levels.” She glanced at Dr. Jess. “This is why you determined the Bruns shouldn’t have children, isn’t it?”

  “Yes,” Jess answered, “exactly so.”

  Jaċken sharpened his glare on her. He was so happy to be taking this trip down memory lane.

  “Then I experimented with my own blood.” She pulled out another graph, but held onto it. “You see, when Alex told me I was a Royal, it got me thinking. Maybe my blood is different, too, and look!” She set the third graph next to the other two. “Here’s me and Dev.”

  Roth and Jess leaned forward, Dr. Jess making an interested sound.

  “Strength and health increase markedly with this pairing, do you see that? My blood is different!”

  Dr. Jess’s eyebrows popped up.

  “That got me wondering how my DNA would pair up with Rău bloodlines, so I ran Jaċken and me.” She laid down a fourth graph.

  Jaċken’s heart staggered out of rhythm and he stopped breathing.

  “The numbers for strength and health are through the roof, the highest, yet. And here”—she pointed to a small rise on the graph—“Peak 12 is at normal Vârcolac levels!”

  “Holy goodness!” Dr. Jess gasped.

  Jaċken stared at the fourth graph, feeling like somebody had poured epoxy onto his brain, all the gears and mechanisms inside his skull glued into immobility. He should understand what was going on, he really sensed that, but everything was just stuck in a shocked standstill.

  “Whatever’s in my Royal bloodlines appears to completely counteract the negative effects of Jaċken’s Om Rău.” She shifted her gaze over to Jaċken. “You and I can have children, Jaċken. In fact, I think we’d make one heck of a Vârcolac kid, don’t you?”

  Jaċken stared mutely at Toni, feeling like he was going ten rounds with a telephone pole. This…couldn’t be happening. “No,” he rasped out. “It’s not true. It can’t be.”

  Just run and hide when you see your father coming. His mother gently swept the hair off his brow. Tomorrow will be a better day, Jaċken, you’ll see. But it never was. So stupid to hope….

  “Dr. Jess,” Toni said, “could you please confirm my work is correct?”

  Jess nodded. “Dr. Parthen has done everything accurately.”

  “No.” Jaċken’s stomach sloshed sideways. Clammy goose bumps broke out over his flesh. He reeled backward. “No!” He spun toward the window again and gripped the frame in tight fists. He wasn’t letting any of it in, not the impossible dream that Toni could actually be telling the truth, not the bone-deep hunger which had been eating him alive ever since he’d met this infuriating woman. He stared at the stars in the sky until they blurred before his vision and formed the word silently with his mouth. No.

  “Don’t misunderstand Jaċken, okay, Toni?” That was Sedge coming to the rescue. “He’s not rejecting you. It’s just that, for most of his life, he’s had to accept that he’ll never have a wife or children, or love. You erased all of that in about ten seconds flat, and…I’m guessing he’s feeling a little overwhelmed right now.”

  Overwhelmed? There wasn’t a single solid-feeling bone left in his body.

  “Thank you, Sedge,” Toni said softly.

  Jaċken heard her move around the conference table, coming toward him. He squeezed his fists. The window frame splintered beneath his grip with a soft crunch.

  Toni slipped a hand around one of his forearms. “Are you going to make me sit on you until you agree to bond with me, Jaċken? Because I’ll do it. You know I will.”

  He dropped his head, a low, pain-filled groan spilling out of him. She would, wouldn’t she? Jesus, he was so in love with this whack-job. He wanted her for his wife more than he wanted to breathe. No more schizophrenia about it. He flat-out wanted her. “You’re a beautiful and smart doctor, a damned Royal, and I’m…I’m…a Half-Rău hardass.”

  She released an unsteady breath. “Oh, Jaċken, do you have any idea how many pieces I’m in on the inside?” She pressed her forehead against his arm, her voice lowering to a whisper. “You’re the only man who’s ever made me feel whole.”

  His heart stopped, then restarted, thudding wildly. Jesus Christ, that’s exactly how she made him feel. He turned his head to look at her. Their eyes caught and held, and he saw the truth of her words right there in the depths of her magnificent blue eyes. He swallowed hard and found his voice; it was hanging out at the bottom of his stomach, sloshing around with the acid there, burning his throat on the way up and out. “Holy shit.”

  She laughed breathlessly. “Oh, that’s just the beginning of it, pal.”

  He straightened. “Why the hell didn’t you say anything before, damn it, about your blood graph?”

  “I had to know if you loved me first.” The color of her eyes darkened. “There might be other royal Dragon women out in the world, Jaċken, I don’t know. But as it stands now, I’m the one woman who can be your wife, who can give you a home and children, and I didn’t want you to want me for only that.”

  He shook his head at her. “Haven’t you been paying any attention at all these last few weeks?” He made a grab for her, pulling her into a tight embrace.

  She wrapped her arms around his neck just as tightly.

  Everyone in the room came to their feet and broke into applause.

  “Ah, Jesus.” He tucked his face into her throat and inhaled deeply, allowing himself, at last, the supreme luxury of smelling her as his own. God, yeah, she definitely felt like his, her scent saturating him with such a sense of rightness, it was as if he was finding a long lost piece of his soul in this moment. “Don’t you know,” he whispered against her flesh, “that every viable feeling I’ve ever had in my whole life has been about you.”

  The clapping stopped abruptly.

  Jaċken lifted his head.

  Toni stepped out of his embrace, frowning at the opening door.

  At first Jaċken thought it was Kimberly who was knocking while simultaneously pushing open the door—the woman entering had the same short, bobbed blonde hair as Sedge’s wife—but, no, it was some nurse. “Dr. Parthen?”

  “Yes, Penny?” Toni’s frown deepened as she moved toward the nurse. “I thought I’d asked not to be disturbed.”

  “Um, I’m sorry, but….” The nurse gave her a distressed look. “The hospital was under strict orders to report it if you showed up.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  Toni’s question was answered as the door swung wide. There, standing in the hallway, were two men with guns and badges, one with brown hair, the other Spanish-looking with tan skin.

  Penny gestured weakly at them. “This is Detective John Waterson and Pablo Ramirez of the San Diego Police Department.”

  Chapter Twenty-four

  “What now?” Jaċken grumbled at the sound of someone knocking on his bedroom door. He still had a mountain of paperwork to fill out about their clash with Lørke. Not exactly a sit-at-your-desk kind of guy, he’d procrastinated the job, and didn’t want to be dealing with anyone’s bullshit. Hoisting himself up from his chair, he stalked across his bedroom and yanked open the door. Ah, crap. He dropped his brows into a dark scowl: Toni and Vinz.

  “What happened?” he bit out. Had Lørke attacked again? Usually, that dickhead needed some recovery time after taking on the voltage he had, not to mention several knife wounds, but Jaċken wouldn’t have been surprised if Toni’s strong scent had motivated Lørke toward more inhuman feats of dick-headedness. Besides, she looked really upset.

  “She’s having some kind of freakout.” Vinz’s tone was calm, although a subtle something in his expression suggested he’d rather be fighting a horde of Om Rău than dealing with a woman in a mood. “She took off like a bat out of hell from the hospital, and I gave chase. She claims she wasn’t try
ing to escape, and,” he shrugged, “I believe her. Such a move would’ve been too stupid for a woman like her.”

  “What set her off?”

  “Beats the shit out of me.”

  “I’m standing right here,” Toni remarked churlishly. “You can ask your stupid questions directly to me.”

  Vinz shot Jaċken a look. “She, um, insisted on talking to you.”

  He raised his eyebrows. Me?

  “Yes.” Toni took a step closer to the door. “Right now, Jaċken.”

  “Ah, okay, then….” Vinz backed up. “You’ve got her, then, sir. Right?”

  No—shit, no—he didn’t have her. He’d spent most of the last three days making all kinds of threats to himself not to get stuck alone with Toni again, especially in a bedroom. But Vinz was already heading off and—double-shit—Toni was pushing past him into his room.

  He cursed in an undertone, then shut the door and leaned back against it. “Okay, so what’s up?”

  She faced off with him from the middle of his room, feet braced, hands planted on her hips, her eyes fiery with the kind of stubborn determination that never seemed to work out well for him. His stomach did a slow roll over and he fought against the urge to swallow. Last time she’d worn that expression, he’d ended up spilling his guts about why he liked old movies. Yeah, this had bad written all over it.

  “I need to see your fangs, Jaċken.”

  He straightened with a snap, the tips of his ears flaming. Jesus, “bad” did not begin to cover just how not good this was. “No, Toni. Hell no, in fact.”

  “Jaċken—”

  “Go.” He jerked open his door again. “Out of my room. Right now. This isn’t up for debate.”

  She paused a moment, then briskly crossed his room.

  Thank God. She wasn’t going to put up a fight. He almost sighed in relief over the unexpected gift, although a part of him felt an odd disappointment, too. He was starting to get used to her pushing him, kind of felt like he…needed it on some level, to be more himself. Most days, it was just too easy to remain locked behind the hard shell of anger he’d erected around himself too many years ago to remember.