Adam & Eve (A.D.2203, #1)

Title Page

Copyright Page

Dedication

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

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E
arth 2203

Eve strode restlessly out of the lab, walking quickly through the air shield and out into the night. She was tired but anxious, on the verge of completing a pet project. Glancing up, she swore, “Damn, it’s a Lupine Moon!”

Her assistant, Charles, cocked one eyebrow at her and gestured in an offhanded manner, saying drolly, “Eve dear, I told you that three days ago. You grunted. But
noooo
...the greatest geneticist of our time was in the middle of bending over her microscope doing what she does ten hours a day.”

“Shut up, Charles,” Eve spat out.

Any minute she was going to start hyperventilating. This was not good. She was miles from home and the safety of her sealed lab, which wouldn’t protect her now anyway. In order for it to work, you had to enter the damn airtight room three days prior to full moon. The three days were necessary in order for scent to dissipate.

“I hate full moons,” she snarled. Quickly glancing around the compound she ran the options through her mind.

Nothing. Not a damn thing she could do about it now.

“Your stepfather is a werewolf, sweetie. How can you be so ‘One Race’ about this?”

Eve turned on the tall, elegantly effeminate male. “Charles,” she said in a tight voice. “You and I have been working together for three months to create an inoculation that will give one group of Others a chance to have live, swimming sperm. In any way does this point to me being a member of the ‘One Race’? No,” she said before he could comment. “This puts me at the top of their Human Enemy Hit List. Yes, my stepfather is Were, my half-brother is Were, my sister is married to a Vampire—one of the leaders of the Others. I am
not
prejudiced, I just do not want to chance meeting up with one of the shaggy beasts tonight thinking I smell like wifey,” she enunciated clearly.

Dragging her hands through her cropped, black as midnight hair, Eve nervously checked the compound again before stepping up to her glide. Her heart was racing. She smoothed sweaty palms over her softly curved body and regretted the fact that she hadn’t taken the time for her morning runs in the last month. Like that would help if she were scented. Her amber eyes were narrowed, cautious. Her body poised for flight.

“Do you want me to follow you home?” Charles uncertainly offered.

Eve snorted. “Why? You know as well as I do if I’m scented and marked I have no choices. The Lupine Act took care of that.” She sighed, “Go home Charles. It was my fault I didn’t realize Lupine Moon was tonight. I can only pray that there is no werewolf out there that is genetically tuned to my scent. I
do not
need a husband right now.”

So saying, Eve settled into her glide and programmed it for home. She waved half-heartedly at Charles and leaned her head back, closing her eyes. The ride home from the lab would take exactly 15.6 minutes in the air glide. Its quiet imperceptible motion wouldn’t disturb her thoughts.

Gee—what to think about? The fact that she had made a huge breakthrough in the development of a serum for Vampire males that would give them a window of opportunity to impregnate their warm-blooded mates? Or the fact that the development of that serum would probably get her killed by the One Racers? Nah, let’s go with the fact that for the first time since her maturity at 18, almost 20 years ago, she’d not locked herself up safely in an airtight room three days before LM!

Eve winced. Lupine Moon. One night a month when lycanthropes everywhere were forced to change, and if they were “of age” they hunted for a mate. Only during LM from sundown to sunup did they have the ability to scent and trace their genetic mate. And her grandfather’s work had helped prove the fact that Weres did indeed have a true genetic companion. His work led to the Lupine Act, which meant that it didn’t matter if you were a shape-shifter, human, or warm-blooded Other, if you were scented, found, and cornered for marking before daylight—you were nuclear! Mated.

It didn’t matter if you wanted a mate or not. The minute the furry beast found you and bit your shoulder—marking you for life—there was no legal, religious, or physical way out. Mated pair.

And Were-folk mated for life.

What she’d told Charles was the truth. She wasn’t prejudiced. The problem was she didn’t want any male cluttering up her life. Trying to change her as her mother had changed. With a human or Other, you could JUST SAY NO. Saying no to a loupe-garou was against the law.

Please, dear Lord, do not let a werewolf catch my scent tonight...

A
dam stretched, trying to work a knot of tension from his muscular frame. As had happened well over 280 times in his life since his 18
^th
birthday, it was a full Lupine Moon. Every month, throwing in a couple of blue moons over the years, he looked for her. It seemed as if he’d been searching forever. He was almost 40 and more than ever before he felt the essential lack of a mate to complete him.

Energized, the predatory urge to track coursed through his moon-sensitized body. Some instinct whispered across his skin that this time he would succeed.

He knew he had come close to finding her the last couple of months. He’d caught the faint scent of her; enough to stir his mating instincts, but the hint always disappeared before he tracked her down. Adam knew what that meant—a safe room. He could only hope that by following the trace he had of her to the same area, and that this month she wouldn’t make it in time...that she’d forget, or think herself secure.

Then she would be his. Muscles clenching in anticipation and hope, he moved resolutely into the night.

It was time. Adam could feel the energy of the moon calling to him. Changing him. Throwing his clothes off, he felt the first tingling ripples under his skin. Opening himself, he welcomed the transformation, reveling in the sensation that would change him in a bright flash, from man—to wolf. His last thoughts in human form centered on how much he loved this life, but how he yearned for someone special to share it with him. He could only hope that the old stories were true, that when you felt as if you couldn’t live without your mate one minute longer—that was when you found them.

Following a brilliant burst of light a large, gray wolf moved out of the shadows. The early wars to grant rights to all races, not just the dominant human race, allowed him the freedom and relative safety to roam in his second form. It had been more than a century since either lycanthropic or the Others had to hide. Two decades ago the Lupine Act had given his kind the added benefit of being legally allowed to hunt for their mate.

His mate had to be warm-blooded. She could be Were, human, or one of the Others. In the sub species of Others there were many that were warm-blooded, Faerie and Sprites to name two. Vampires were cold-blooded. His mate had to be genetically capable of having live young. He knew of no Were that had ever mated with a Vampire—the genetic codes never matched. Of course, there were many additional sub species that were compatible, and he wouldn’t care what species his mate was, just that she was his. He hadn’t really kept up on the science of Crypto-zoology, the study, uncovering and classification of hidden animals.

All Were-creatures and vamps had been among the first studied in this field several hundred years ago. He knew they were working on the classification of Big Foot now. When it was proven that any man-like animals existed, had the capacity of speech and the ability to reason, verified that they could be good or inherently evil just like their human counterparts, then they would be given the rights and protections won during the early wars as a sub species of man. So humans would be forced to stop killing them for sport or putting them in cages. They would have to accept them. As neighbor, and mate.

Unfortunately that didn’t stop the Ku Klux Klan mentality of groups like the ‘One Racers’, humans who felt that any sub species should be staked or kept in a zoo, and definitely not allowed to associate or procreate with one of pure human blood. Never mind that over the centuries it was difficult to find a family tree that hadn’t intermingled their blood in one form or another with either Were or Vampire.

In human form, Adam had these thoughts. In wolf form, he concentrated on one thing—following the scent of his mate.

And this Lupine Moon that scent was strong.

T
he glide’s motion came to a gentle stop. Eve nervously stepped into her garage after the door shut behind the glide.

Doors wouldn’t stop them.

She chastised herself again for not realizing three days ago that it was time to lock herself in her private lab.
Private airtight lab
, she reminded herself. Idiot!

Many years ago the One Racers had discovered that it took three days for human pheromones to disperse enough that a genetic trace was impossible for the werewolves to follow. In their zeal to keep their bloodlines pure, they locked their sexually mature sons and daughters up tightly before each and every full moon. There was no law against locking yourself up, just one that if you were caught—you had to honor the mating.

While Eve disagreed with their politics to rid the world of all sub-humans, she heartily thanked their research. It had allowed her to maintain the ideal of strict independence. She did not need or want a mate in her life. Look what it had done to her mother.

After Eve’s full-human father had died, Naomi had been a wonderful single mother to her sister, Jezi, and herself. She had also managed in three short years to become one of the world’s leading Crypto-zoologists. She had found, researched and documented the existence of several hidden species. The most notable of her mother’s discoveries was the Loch Ness Monster. Nessie turned out to be a large, lovable, vegetarian serpent that was 50 feet in length at maturity.

Then “short and hairy” Maxwell, her stepfather, had marked her mother as his mate. In short order Maxwell had forbidden Naomi any outside work. They’d had Jonaa, her half-brother, and her mother had given up the fight with Maxwell to retain her scientific position and had instead become Domestic Goddess extraordinaire. Ugh!!! That was definitely not for Eve.

In the bathroom Eve stripped the clothes off her tired body and opted for a quick air shower. Normally she enjoyed the ancient ritual of water bathing, but it would only irritate her tonight. She wanted to pace and count down the minutes until daylight.

Clean and feeling suitably armored in her old sweat suit, she downed energy pills instead of food. Another favored ritual she would forgo tonight. All Eve wanted was for the night to be over, and to remain blissfully free from any man. Or wolf.

The windows and doors of her 100-year-old home were first rate, and very effective at keeping out the street noise. Everything was quiet. Normally she loved her little house; tonight she’d have felt safer in a compact. One of those high-rise apartment-slash-shopping-slash-entertainment complexes that were hives of activity...and smells.

Oh, hell. Eve’s breath caught in her throat. Was that something scratching at her front door? She strained her ears and fought for some semblance of control. Surely she was imagining a sound?

This is stupid
, she told herself. She forced her body to move towards the view panel. It was voice-activated and she could command a 360-degree view of the outside of her home. “House front,” she managed to croak out.

At first she thought it was her mind playing tricks. A large, gray wolf was sitting patiently on her front step—flashing silver eyes looking directly into the monitor. She ducked. Oh, my God! She needed to hide. Her mind desperately searched for an escape route.

“Oh, now that was just ridiculous.”
It can’t see me
, she thought. She could run. Where?

Closing her eyes, she frantically worked to calm her mind enough to review everything she knew about the Werewolf. She might be able to delay mating. Move out of town, out of state. But, if he’d truly scented her, and there was no doubt he had, or he wouldn’t be sitting on her doorstep...