First Species

by Tamara Rose Blodgett

  I contain a small shiver. I've been a server since I was out of high school, and after seven years, I'm a lead, picking my hours, enjoying great benefits, and contribute to a 401k. Unfortunately, all that hard work doesn't get me out of the messy situation that just sprang up.

  These guys will never respect me. For the millionth time, I wonder if I shouldn't find another job. I love waitressing, for the most part, but these are the times that make me rethink stuff. I dream of meeting a guy and having a family (if that's even possible). But the guys I want don't spend their time here; they're somewhere else, doing something else.

  Something better, I bet.

  Of course, the Chucks of the world are here.

  Randomly, I notice the salt/pepper shakers need filling about the time Chuck's lurid voice interferes with my ignoring technique.

  “Listen, little lady, you don't seem to be able to take a joke. There's no tips for chicks who don't like a laugh.”

  At my expense, I don't say aloud.

  His eyebrows lift.

  I sigh.

  Truly, I wasn't expecting much from Chuck and company. They're crummy tippers anyway. Since we all went to the same high school, they like to come in here and hassle me.

  They were dicks then, they're bigger dicks now. Not literally but figuratively. I withhold a snicker.

  Shifting my weight, I say, “I'm just doing my job here, Chuck. Your commentary about my breasts is not part of me running you food and beer.”

  There I go. Fucking up my tip forevah. Yup. I can be kinda compulsive.

  His face goes hard. “Yeah. You run it, sweet thing. We'll like watching your backside just as much as your front.”

  Jeering echoes all around the table this time.

  God.

  He and his other two buds… Dave and Scott, I have time to remember before a new customer enters the bar, scanning the interior with inhuman eyes.

  I'm summarily forgotten for the moment as this one is clearly not wholly human and instantly noticed for that difference even if the other patrons aren't sure why they notice.

  A woman, who is a few inches shorter than my five feet seven, soundlessly glides further inside the gloomy bar. No... that's not quite right. Struts.

  I have a very small quirk that no one knows about. The revelation of the shifters?

  Not new to me.

  The revelation of vampires?

  Definitely not new to me.

  I know when someone isn't fully human. They have a halo around them. A color like smoke that hovers just over their body like a second skin.

  Gulping, I turn back to see the dickheads at my table getting all distracted by the new woman.

  I can almost feel sorry for them.

  They don't recognize her for what she is. I do because Narah Adrienne does have a certain notoriety. She's one of the first public cases of a female hybrid human turned into a vampire. That the general population knew about.

  Somehow, I don't think Chuck and gang are that into staying informed with pulsenews.

  I understood when the hybrid females were around because I'd see a woman I knew (I was also aware that she was partly other), and then she'd have a different aura the next time I saw her.

  Changed. Turned. Other.

  Thank God, I was too old to get caught in the paranormal mess a few years ago where our lovely government had injected all the eighth graders with some weird shit that made all their paranormal abilities come out of hibernation.

  Wham! We had a bunch of kids with psychic talent and no maturity to cope with it.

  Like adolescence is so fantastic anyways.

  “Wow, she's hot as fuck,” Dave breathes out, taking in the tight denims and platinum cornrows that decorate Adrienne's tiny frame.

  He's spot-on. Enforcer Adrienne is curved in all the places she should be and hard everywhere else.

  Vampires have a cerulean haze just above their skin. I can't understand why other people don't see it. It's so obvious to me.

  They just don't see that telltale identifier.

  Having the “gift” to see their auras is similar to me having green eyes with dark blonde hair. I was born with this ability. I see if someone is something other than human. Though I don't think I've ever identified a prehistoric shifter or this new one—First Species. Maybe they haven't presented themselves yet.

  Or they don't frequent bars, I think with a smirk. That's probably most of it. The shifter community must not be big drinkers.

  My lips give a hard twist.

  But from what the pulsevision had said, the newest shifters on the scene have been very difficult to pin down.

  No shit. I stifle a snort because I've never seen one. Of course, that's not saying much with all the hours I work leading to the virtually non-existent social life I currently have.

  My eyes shift to the dark male vampire at Adrienne's side. They're related because his aura color matches hers. All vampires are a very distinctive color of blue; this pair shares the exact shade.

  Ignoring the tall male vampire beside her, my peripheral vision catches Chuck standing, hiking up his denims.

  Oh shit.

  “Uh, Chuck,” I begin, feeling like I should warn him. After all, Adrienne is mated to a Hunter (Lycan) and a Turner (vampire scout). That fact has been spread far and wide on all pulse channels. Adrienne is absolutely lethal—a proficient ten. She's the bounty the cops give their shit to when they can't handle it. I keep up on the supernaturals. Because I can see them. Better to know where they're at when I have the unique perspective to recognize them. The greatest thing is they don't know that I know.

  Thank God.

  “Buzz off,” Chuck says absently as he hikes his shoulder, the weight of my hand sliding off his arm as he promptly forgets my great “rack” for the razor hard body of Enforcer Adrienne.

  Her silverish-gold eyes come to rest on Chuck.

  He puffs up his chest like the pathetic peacock he is. Though, how Chuck believes Adrienne could think he's such a prize when she's accompanied by another dude (or for any other reason) escapes me.

  Chuck logic. “Chuck,” I hiss at his elbow.

  His face whips to mine. “What? Ya suddenly gonna give it up because a real woman just showed up?”

  I flinch away. Oooh, ick. My hand drops from reaching for his arm a second time.

  Guess I can't save Chuck from himself.

  Also, what can I say without letting everyone know my talent?

  I lightly gnaw at my bottom lip, thinking of how well that would go for me—I'd be exploited ruthlessly by our government, who continually scouts for any paranormal human they can find. We're labeled as Randoms now. There's all kinds of fertility problems from the insane Zondorae scientist duo screwing the teenage population up a few years ago with the pharmaceutical paranormal cocktail. Even that was not enough for those jerks. They'd been certain that some natural ability had also manifested without the aid of said government-sanctioned inoculation to innocent teens. Zondorae and other government types had postulated there'd been some who'd slipped between the rips in their net.

  Unfortunately, they're right. I'm proof. But only if they know.

  I switch tactics on Chuck, trying to reason with the idiot. “She's with another guy,” I point out in a low voice.

  His beefy chest swells with his next, self-important inhale. “Not a guy like me.”

  He's right on target. But not for the reason he thinks. Because the “guy” next to Adrienne isn't technically a guy at all.

  Chuck brushes past me.

  I clutch my pulse device, careful to keep my thumb off the doc rather than my emotions thinking stuff that my boss and line cooks definitely don't want to know.

  Chuck saunters up to Adrienne, who clearly notices his aggressive demeanor from the beginning.

  Her eyes flick over him in a dismissive way while the vamp at her side has agitation rolling off him in waves.

  Adrienne created the vampire who silently watches Chuck'
s miserable false bravado.

  What's his name? I wrack my brain. Finally, in a swell of memory, the vampire's name rises to the top of the mental wave I was trying to catch: Murphy.

  “Be a good muppet and bugger off,” Murphy says as Chuck opens his mouth to stick a foot in. Hoping to impress Adrienne with his wit, I'm sure.

  The whip of Murphy's British accent hits Chuck squarely between the eyes. Apparently, it's a glancing blow because Chuck speaks anyway.

  Incredible.

  His mud-brown eyes slide salaciously to Adrienne. “Why don't you let a real man buy you a drink?”

  A glimmer of humor spreads itself across Adrienne's angular features as she hikes a thumb at Murphy. “He's not a man.”

  Chuck looks comically confused for a befuddled second.

  I'm pretty sure that's not an unusual look for him.

  Murphy crosses his arms, a smirk riding the arc of sensuous lips, dark brow lowering above liquid black eyes. “Excellent point, love.”

  Chuck's eyes widen. “What is he then?”

  Murphy's mouth slants, fangs peeking from between lips I'd just thought were the most kissable on a man I'd ever encountered.

  An almost inaudible hiss issues from between them.

  Chuck staggers back a step. “My bad,” he says, practically tripping over his own feet to get away from the pair.

  Then, the unerring gaze of Murphy lands on me, and my eyes slide away like water seeking a crack in a rock. It's common practice for humans to be placed in thrall by vampires. We all automatically look away if we know what they are even though thrall doesn't work on me. Except, in this instance, maybe I'd made a classic mistake. I proved knowledge of what they were by avoiding Murphy's gaze. Maybe I can claim my visual avoidance was the fangs I'd glimpsed.

  Suddenly, sneakered black Converse tennis shoes appear before me, and I blow out a frustrated breath, eyes trained to his feet.

  “Paige LaRue?” his chilly smooth British voice clips out.

  My heart thumps away.

  “Yes?”

  “Your attention, please,” commands Narah Adrienne.

  Of course, she can't command me through vampire thrall. Along with my talent at reading a shapeshifter or hybrid human's aura, my ability to resist thrall must be a genetic fluke. Another one. Not a grain of thrall works. Not from their voice—their gaze. Any of it.

  No small feat.

  But the Final Enforcement bounty hunters don't need to have any proof.

  I raise my gaze to meet her eyes with impunity.

  Her gaze reflects in a vaguely silvered way. Though Adrienne keeps the iris color of her humanity from before she was turned, a crisp citrine that glitters back at me, the combo of the gold iris and silvered vampire effect makes those irises shine like molten precious metal.

  “Yes.” My voice is a thready whisper.

  She passes a slim, credit card-sized pulse device to me. “I am Narah Adrienne from Final Enforcement. Sign in, please.”

  I don't want to sign in.

  There are no outward clues that I'm a hybrid. Except the one I've been noticing in my mirror. A soft white haze is scattered over my skin, and small iridescent specks glitter throughout the white.

  My stomach does a slow tilt and fall as I stare at the small, dark screen.

  Lying to myself doesn't really work in this case—I'm something, all right. Just not anything I've ever seen before. Some hybrid the experts never identified. Because I haven't heard anything through all the pulse social media outlets.

  I believed if I ignored my reflection, it'd go away. If I felt great, then I was alright.

  I mean, don't all women complain of debilitating health on the way to discovering their hybrid status?

  My mandatory testing done every quarter hadn't caught anything.

  I depress my thumb, and letters float to the surface of the device Adrienne holds before me.

  LaRue, Paige. Age twenty-five. Cocktail waitress. No priors. High school graduate. Bio-parents: LaRue, Jean-Claude and Margaret. The most important bit:

  Target for transition.

  Then, after a fistful of tense seconds: Identifying, the letters announce.

  The luminescent green letters pulsate on the surface, fading to almost nothing then brightening again to a neon green.

  Our eyes briefly lock, and her expression is unreadable for a long moment. Then her thumb sweeps the doc to think the pulse into hibernation. “We're here to escort you to a secure transitioning space,” Adrienne states in a slightly bored tone.

  As though she didn't just pull the rug out from underneath my entire existence.

  You see, human hybrid females need protection from the Mutables. So whenever one is discovered, Final Enforcement is assigned to protect said woman until the proper group comes forward to claim her.

  Since the Great American Health Care Act of 2022 (spurred forward by the Covid-19 pandemic of ʼ20), preventative exams are required from every citizen each year or they are disqualified from medical treatment. That preventative annual measure includes blood work. That is how human female hybrids are discovered now.

  You could hear a pin drop in the bar space after that nifty little pronouncement.

  Everyone is staring at me.

  Seven years of working at Spinal Tap has just been erased. There will be no going back.

  A musical note sounds, alerting the enforcers that I've been identified.

  Adrienne and Murphy lean forward to see what identification I've been marked with.

  Our eyes take in the word together. All three of us huddled.

  I blink at the word.

  If events were not so dire, I'd be amused to witness the pair of vampires stumped over the reading.

  Unknown radiates with diminishing and strengthening color like an unseeing blinking eye within the small, thin device that supplanted the cellular phones of a few years ago.

  Just one word.

  As I see it, a word that ultimately ruins my life.

  Chapter 3

  Conrick

  G race had a bad night with the triplets and rests in our bed as this is her week with me.

  I share my mate with two others. Two weeks she is here, one week with the vampire enforcer, Murphy—and the other—with the prehistoric, Doric.

  The males and I have come to terms with our unique standing. Grace is mother to two vampire hybrids, called such because they will be daywalkers. The other child, our daughter, can shift into dragon and gorillan.

  Amelia is special. Her resting form is human—an unheard-of state for a First Species. As Alpha of the First Species clan, my easiest form to maintain is gorillan. Both human and my fully-changed forms are more challenging to maintain.

  But not Amelia.

  I feel my lips lift in a rueful smile. She has singed two beds so far.

  This is Doric's problem. That fact pleases me. The dragon part of our mutual daughter has taken to having temper tantrums and lighting furniture on fire.

  She is but two cycles. However, Amelia must not be allowed to set beings alight when she's spitting mad. That translates to fire sparks. As a toddler, she cannot exhibit the full flame of her sire. But the sparks have been problematic enough.

  Some are immune to dragon's fire and cannot be burned. Grace and Doric, naturally. Amelia's brother and sister, who, as vampires, do not succumb to fire easily. Fire-resistant vampires as the humans might name them.

  Pure vampires will torch most easily, another positive gained by our children due to their mixed genetic cocktail. They will not burn.

  Science cannot explain it.

  The First Species cannot explain it.

  It is a new era of perpetuating the supernaturals, and many oddities are surfacing that have not been present before the introduction of females who are hybrids.

  First Species and prehistorics can no longer hope to find the one-in-a-million, purebred female. That precept would have had us dying out long ago. Securing hybrids has been a millenni
um-driven quest. However, with that, it is uncertain what the offspring will manifest as a result.

  Drest walks into what I consider to be my domain without a knock, glance, or hesitation.

  I half rise from my seated position, anticipating the worst from his abrupt entry alone.

  “Alpha.” Excitement thrums through his voice.

  I am never much for preliminaries. “Speak.”

  “A female has been found.”

  A First Species female like my Grace? Or a female who possesses blood sufficient enough to breed; two entirely different things.

  Curling my knuckles, I press them against the enormous table that stands between us, leaning forward. “Of what type?”

  Drest shakes his head in answer to my question. “My source claims the female is surfacing as unknown.”

  “Perfect.” My hands come away from the ancient wood, and I peg them at my hips.

  He gives a curt nod. “Yes. We know if she were standard vamp or any shifter other than First or prehistoric, she wouldn't surface as unknown.” Drest spreads his heavy arms wide, his expression clearly locked down to contain his excitement.

  Neither of us mentions the fact that Grace was “identified” as unknown. There isn't an accurate blood typing identifier for blooded First Species females. Perhaps someday, but that day has not yet arrived. Certainly, this female could hail as prehistoric as well. She's not guaranteed First Species.

  “I don't want to share her.” Drest crosses heavily muscled arms. His unspoken comment is: like you share Grace.

  There are some circumstances that cannot be avoided. Such as extremely low female breeding numbers.

  Grace is part of just such a situation.

  Drest's eyes are gold like my own, and we are both Alphas. Generally, two First Species Alphas cannot be together in the same clan.

  But he is my cousin, and family has more value in these times when extinction threatens our way of life. We have agreed to live in harmony. We do not need more males to die in skirmishes our species can ill-afford.

  However, no one feels his need more acutely than myself. Drest must take a mate. This newest female might be a rare chance to make it so.

  Drest slices cleanly through my thoughts, “Nor do I want to keep something like this from Doric.”