by J. Bryan
“Mr. Barrett,” Juliana said. “You have to get us out of here. They won’t let us leave, we’re prisoners. I haven’t seen Sebastian in weeks. I don’t even know if he’s still here...or still alive...” She bit her lip and tried to not to sob. She forced herself to look calm. “You’ll take us back home, won’t you?”
“Sh.” Barrett took her hands, and his touch filled with her a throbbing, electric energy. She was surprised her hair didn’t stand up on her head. While Sebastian’s touch was warm and gentle, like afternoon sunlight, Barrett’s touch felt like needles of lightning. She gasped a little, still not used to touching anyone at all. “I came for you,” he whispered.
Juliana trembled, trying not to succumb to the confused whirl of feelings he brought up inside her. She couldn’t understand why she reacted so strongly to a man she knew so little.
“To free me?” she whispered.
“I’ve thought of you every night since you left,” Barrett said, his dark eyes burning into her. “The last glimpse I had of you, standing on the deck of the boat, so bright in the sun, your hair blown by the ocean wind...” He stroked her hair, then his fingers caressed the back of her head. She found herself gaping up at him, not sure whether to squirm away or give in to the urge to wrap her arms around him, bury her face in his neck and draw out all the comfort he had to offer.
“Something happens when we touch.” Barrett’s voice was soft, but full of strength. Full of power. “Like an electric bolt. Like the moment before a storm, when the power gathers in the air. Tell me you can’t feel it.” His finger traced down her cheek to her trembling lips, and she could only look up into his magnetic dark eyes. Everything else faded away. There was only his face, his fingertip soft on her mouth.
She closed her eyes and sighed, feeling the world slide beneath her feet. His hands went to her sides to draw her closer to him, and she didn’t fight the kiss she knew was coming. His lips touched her, and she felt another shock. The tip of her tongue reached into his mouth, and her hands gripped onto his head, holding him there, as if she wanted to kiss him forever. Something vast and dark stirred inside her, woken by his touch.
The long kiss ended, and they looked at each other, holding each other and breathing. The room felt incredibly hot, as though everything in sight would burst into flames. She could feel him thick and hard against her stomach. He was bigger down there than Sebastian, and it seemed threatening and dangerous, like it would cause the most exquisite kind of suffering.
He kissed her again, on her lips, her cheek, and her neck, as if he meant to consume her entirely. He hoisted her up in his hands and kissed her breasts through the thin dress. His lips closed on her nipple through the fabric, and it turned hard as a pebble as his mouth moved on her. His tongue brushed against her breast and she clutched his dark hair in her hands. His hands tightened on her hips.
He carried her to the sprawling bed, which had a massive headboard and footboard made of dark mahogany, inlaid with red tortoise shell and sculpted bronze, something that belonged in a luxurious mansion. She had no strength to resist as he lay her across the bed’s silken coverlet. All the reasons she should refuse him passed through the back of her mind like a procession of ghosts...voiceless, powerless ghosts.
Then they were gone, lost in the surge of her uncontrollable feeling as his mouth moved down along her stomach, kissing her. If her stomach was slightly larger and rounder than he might have expected, he certainly didn’t say anything.
His hands slid down her thighs, and then he was kissing her hip, her legs, the warm inner reaches of her thigh, and she suddenly wished the cheap, thin cotton of her dress wasn’t in the way.
As though reading her mind, he lifted the dress up over her knees, then above her hips. His lips kissed the bare flesh of her stomach, then moved down between her legs. She heard herself moan as his mouth touched her throbbing clitoris, followed by a flick of his tongue. Her thighs squeezed against both sides of his head, trapping him there while he licked and sucked. Juliana screamed as her body quaked, and she grabbed onto his hair with both hands, pressing her face harder against his.
He kept licking her as he slid a finger into her, immediately finding just the right place to touch, as if they had an intelligence of their own. She cried out again as wave after wave of pleasure rushed through her body, her hips jumping up and down on the bed, far out of her control. She gripped the silk coverlet in both hands as her head tilted back, her teeth clenched together, and explosions rocked her body, shaking her to her core.
This was followed instantly by a heavy cloud of guilt. He continued working at her with his beautiful mouth and brilliant fingers, and she knew he was going to make it happen again.
“Stop,” she told him, but it was barely a whisper. With an effort, she put more force into it. “Stop. Stop!” She sat up and pushed away until her back was flush against the tall headboard. “We can’t do this.”
“Why not?” He caressed her bare leg, and it felt both terribly good and terribly wrong. “We’re meant for each other. We both know it. You make me larger and more powerful than I’ve ever been. Nothing in the world could stop us if we were together.”
“We can’t be together, Mr. Barrett.”
“My tongue was just inside you. I think you can call me by my first name.” He gave her a smile that weakened her defenses, but she held firm and didn’t smile back. “There’s no reason we can’t be together,” he said as his smile faded.
“There are lots of reasons. For one, you already have a wife and a son.”
“Both of whom would be much happier living apart from me,” he said. “I could get them a nice townhouse in Charleston. Or somewhere farther away. Savannah. New Orleans.”
“You would send your own son away?” She folded her legs under her, away from his hands, and pulled her dress down over her knees.
“I would do anything to be with you, Juliana. We were meant for each other. We can’t let a small thing like timing get in the way. The future we could have together...” He shook his head. “You give me so many dreams. So many visions of what I could do. The world will bow to us. If only I could make you see our fate, the way I see it.” He leaned closer, as if he meant to kiss her again, but she moved away and stood up beside the bed.
“You have to take us out of here,” she told him. “Sebastian and I both.”
“Don’t tell me you still love that clueless little boy,” Barrett sneered. “He’s not like us. You and I have demons inside us, the same kind of demons, eager to be together. That’s why we can touch.”
“I can touch him, too,” Juliana said.
“What can he do for you?” Barrett stood and glared down at her. She felt cornered. “I can give you everything, Juliana. More than you ever dreamed of. We can become what we’re meant to be. You would be a queen by my side. What can he offer?”
“I love him,” Juliana whispered.
“What did you say?” He leaned toward her, scowling. “Say it again.”
“I love him!” Juliana snapped. “I love him. And I’m having his baby. We have to be together, Mr. Barrett...Jonathan...and we need your help to get us out of here. Please understand.”
“You’re having his baby?” Barrett looked her over, confused. Then he looked angry, his jaw clenching repeatedly inside his cheek. He took a breath. “That’s not a problem, Juliana. I still want to be with you. The child...I’ll care for the child as if it were my own. I promise.”
“Your own? Like the son you just casually offered to abandon?”
“That’s not what I meant!”
“But it’s the truth. I saw how your family lives in fear of you. Why would I ever want that life for myself?” She crossed her arms. She felt powerless in his shadow, knowing he was immune to her demon plague. In fact, he seemed to thrive on it. Attacking him could actually make him more powerful...he clearly had something like her and Sebastian, a touch that made him “supernormal,” but he hadn’t said what it was.
&nb
sp; “Juliana, I am talking about an entirely new beginning,” he said. “A new life for both of us.”
“Tell me you will take Sebastian and me out of here,” Juliana said. “If you love me, you will at least do that much.”
“If I love you? You don’t believe me? You are the only reason I came here.”
“Then help us.”
“Why?” Fury swelled in his eyes. “Help you, so you can leave me for him? You would leave me cold, wouldn’t you? That’s what you’re telling me.”
She took a deep breath. “If you still wish it...you can have your way. Just once, and only after you take us home, if you still want me then, if that is your price.”
“My price? You offer yourself as prostitute? One night in exchange for passage across the ocean. I don’t want you as payment. I want you to stay with me. I want all of you.”
“I can’t give you that,” she whispered.
He snarled and punched an ornate mirror on the wall, shattering it and bloodying his fist. He stalked to the door and pounded on it.
“Where are you going?” Juliana asked.
“Home,” he said. “You’d rather stay with him? Then you can stay here with him, have your child together, enjoy your life.”
“You have to take us!” Juliana ran toward him, grabbing his arm. Blood from his hand dripped onto her dress. “You can’t leave us. It’s your fault we’re here!”
“Tell me you don’t feel the same way that I do.” He leaned in, looking into her eyes. “I know you do. Tell me you’ll leave him. Tell me you love me.”
Juliana gaped at him, feeling crazed. The guards opened the door and immediately drew their long-nosed Luger pistols when they saw blood, all of them pointing at Juliana. Their gas masks stared at her, as expressionless as insects.
“So you choose him,” Barrett said. “You’ll regret it.”
He stepped out of the room, and the guards locked her inside, alone, her dress dotted with his blood.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
After yet another strenuous day of testing, in which Mariella had to predict what images the test subjects would see when they looked at a screen in an enclosed booth, she lay awake in bed. It was late, and the underground facility was silent except for the endless coughing and rattling of the ventilation system. She twisted and turned. Her hands found her way to her stomach, momentarily shocked to find it flat and firm instead of round and full of baby. Her past and present memories were starting to collide in a way that left her confused and sometimes scared.
She had continued cooperating with Ward, and he seemed pleased with her performance in the lab. She told herself that she wasn’t really working with him, that she was just going along, gathering information until the day they could escape. As the weeks passed, though, she began to question her own motives. Maybe she was just taking the safe road, while Jenny and Seth bravely resisted.
Ward was less pleased with Mariella’s failure to win Seth over. She’d visited him several times, but he refused to cooperate. Mariella didn’t see why he couldn’t just pretend. She teased him while telling herself that she wouldn’t actually sleep with him if given the chance, even though she knew just how good his healing touch made her body feel, how she still tingled hours after the lovemaking itself was over. She would resist the cravings of her body and her heart, even if he changed his mind and decided to pretend to cooperate as she did. She would keep her feelings to herself.
Mariella rolled over in bed, aching to touch Seth again and hating herself for it.
* * *
“Wake up, kids,” Alise said as she flipped on the lamp and approached the four-poster bed. Her cousin Niklaus followed a step behind her, as usual, like an obedient attack dog waited for orders.
“Hi, Alise!” Mia sat up, smiling sleepily. Alise came almost every morning to walk them to breakfast, and Mia was happy she did. Sometimes, early in the morning, she would feel the dark shape of something large looming at the back of her mind, like an upsetting memory she’d forgotten. Then Alise would arrive, and she’d feel so much better, happy and thoughtless, lusty for another round with her handsome lover, Sebastian, and his enchanted touch that made her feel better all over. The world always felt right again after she saw Alise.
“Wake up, Sebastian.” Alise shook his shoulder, and his eyes drifted open. His lips curled into a delighted smile at the sight of Alise leaning over him. “Pack your bags. Mia’s moving upstairs, and you’re moving back to your room.”
“Huh? Why?” Sebastian sat up, his hair sticking in every direction, looking confused and hurt. “Wait, what?”
“You’re moving back. Play time is over, boy,” Alise said.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean we don’t need you anymore,” Alise said. “You’ve made your contribution, and now you’re done. Oh, don’t look so hurt. You’ve had a fun couple of months with her.”
“I don’t understand.” Sebastian looked back and forth between them.
“Niklaus will help you get back to your room, if you need it,” Alise said sweetly. “Won’t you, Niklaus?”
Niklaus glared at Sebastian and motioned for him to hurry up.
“Why does Sebastian have to go?” Mia pouted. “I like sleeping with him.”
“I know, but boy time is over,” Alise said. She watched silently as Sebastian gathered his things and followed Niklaus out the door.
“When do I get to come back?” Sebastian asked.
“We’ll see.” Alise waved her hand, and Niklaus closed the door after him.
Alise seized Mia’s hands, making her feel instantly happy. Mia kissed Alise’s hand.
“Mia!” Alise spoke in an excited stage whisper. “I have the best news. Your latest lab work shows that you’re pregnant!”
“What?” Mia asked. She felt dizzy, not so elated anymore.
“You’re going to have a baby. We’ve successfully bred you with Sebastian. Your baby will be the offspring of two supernormals! That’s what the project is really all about!”
“It is?” Mia rubbed her head. “I’m pregnant?”
“You’re so lucky,” Alise said. “I’ve been trying for months, but it hasn’t worked out so far. I just learned about something else I might try, though. Anyway, why do we have to keep talking about me? Let’s get going. The maternity rooms are one level up, and I know just which one I want you to have. I decorated it myself! There’s a little crib that looks like a sleigh, little bears in Reichsheer cavalry uniforms...very cute!” Alise took her by the arm and led her out the door.
Mia trembled. “I’m going to have a baby?”
Alise squeezed her hand, flooding her with a fresh wave of happy, loving feelings. “Don’t worry, Mia. I’ll be right here with you, every step of the way. If we’re lucky, I’ll be having one, too!”
Mia smiled, fully doped on Alise’s love. Alise was right, of course. Mia didn’t need to worry, not when she had such a good friend here to help her...
Alise led the way to the maternity beds upstairs, where Mia would live for the rest of her time at the underground base.
Chapter Forty
“We have a situation,” Ward said as Tommy walked into his office. “It’s on the delicate side, but I think we’ve learned to trust each other these past few months, haven’t we?”
“Yes, sir,” Tommy said. He had no idea why he’d been called in. He wondered whether ASTRIA might be ready to send him on some kind of mission—it felt like he’d been testing and training forever, and he was going stir crazy inside the base.
“I had to follow a very difficult order,” Ward told him. “One of the most difficult of my career. You see, the top brass have decided that paranormals are a threat on par with terrorists, a lone individual capable of doing widespread damage or otherwise breaking national security. Those who are not with us are considered ‘against us.’” Ward watched him closely.
“I understand. But I’ve been working with you, sir.”
“And tha
t’s what makes you so valuable. You’re willing to do the right thing, to put the bigger cause ahead of yourself. Not everyone’s willing to do that.”
“Is this about Jenny, sir? Or Seth?”
“I’m afraid it’s about Esmeralda.”
“She’s not a threat to anyone!” Tommy said. “Her power isn’t dangerous, like Jenny’s. Or mine.”
“That’s not exactly the case,” Ward told him. “Imagine if she got her hands on the body of a high-level politician, military leader, or intelligence operative.”
“That’s not very likely,” Tommy said. “All she does is put funeral makeup on dead people in Los Angeles. She’s not working in Washington, D.C. or anything.”
“If we can determine her power, then so can foreign governments, including those unfriendly to our country. So can criminal and terrorist groups. Any of them might kidnap her and use her for their own ends.”
“You make it sound like she’s in danger.”
“Exactly right. ASTRIA is not the only organization searching the world for paranormals. There are enemies of the United States doing the same. After the Fallen Oak incident, the Pentagon does not want any of them running wild, anywhere. ASTRIA’s role is to identify, recruit...or neutralize.”
“Neutralize?” Tommy felt panicked. “Esmeralda? You’re not going to hurt her, are you? Or...” Tommy couldn’t bring himself to say kill her. He felt the beginnings of rage inside him. If these people had killed Esmeralda, he was never going to work with them. He would take out as many as he could before they killed him.
“No, no. I have clearance to do that, you understand, but like you, I couldn’t see how Esmeralda was a bad or dangerous person. So I took the only other option available: capture her, since she refused to come willingly.”
“You’re going to kidnap her?”
“We have taken her into custody,” Ward told him. “And she’s been transferred here.”
