Blood Bonds (28 page)

Emily clawed at the door and yanked on the handle. “I want out. Please, please...”

“You don’t want to do that.”

Emily lunged for Haley, clawing at her face and eyes, spitting and kicking. It was like trying to keep an angry cat out of her face. Haley moved off the door rather than fight her.

Fine. Have it your way.

Emily jerked open the bathroom door. Haley took her time following her out. No need to rush. When she caught up, Emily was smack dab in the middle of the room staring at Deshi, cradled in Farley’s arms, his jaws locked on Farley’s shoulder. Head to the side, Farley’s eyes were glazed, and his mouth worked as he panted. A combination of feeding and sex sounds came out of them.

Haley promised to thank him later for at least keeping his pants on.

Deshi tore a mouth full of flesh and fell away. Long sharp
chelae
tipped each of his fingers and he used them to claw the decimated bed as well as himself. His cock jutted up between his legs and he was soaked with ejaculate.

Emily’s eyes took on a shadowed look. The way she stared at Deshi made Haley nervous.

Haley said, “It’s not what you think. He loves you. Very much. So much he has managed not to kill you ... twice.” God of Man, she hated that word, but it was one Emily would understand. Or at least she hoped she would understand.

In a dead tone Emily asked, “How long has he been fucking him?”

Haley winced and turned away. Yeah, it was time to leave. That was
so
not a conversation she wanted to have.

“C’mon, Farley, let’s go.”

It was Emily’s turn to get in the way. She jabbed a finger in Haley’s face. “I want to know! How long has he been fucking him? Huh? He talks to him in his sleep!” Farley grabbed his shirt and pushed himself up off the floor, staggered a little, but made it across the room. Emily slapped at Haley when she tried to pass. Enough! Haley knocked Emily’s hands away, grabbed her by the throat, and shoved her into the wall with a thud.

“Tell me!” Emily spit and kicked. “I want to know how long that bastard has been fucking my husband!” Haley slapped her just hard enough to let her know she didn’t appreciate wearing her body fluids.

“Two years! And it isn’t just him. We both are! Just so you know, when he’s in me, it’s your name he calls out. Farley tries to never touch him, because Deshi knows how homophobic you are. Because trying to tell you it isn’t like that for us won’t work! So he suffers! He hates it. He hates being with us. Our friend loathes what he has to do! But he did it because he didn’t want something like this to happen.” Tears burst out of Emily’s eyes, but Haley wouldn’t put her down.

“Let her go!” Deshi came up on Haley like a bull. At the door Farley snarled, teeth long, and sharp. Deshi flashed fangs right back, while frosted silver scales rose across his chest and shoulders. Emily screamed, flailing her arms and reaching for the Prince.

Deshi threw Haley to the side. She hit the door jamb hard enough to crack the wood. Pain screamed through her side as a rib punched through her lung. Farley roared and Haley stopped him with her good arm. At the same time, Emily threw herself into Deshi’s arms, wailing and clinging to him, with acting that could have landed her in Hollywood.

It made Haley want to vomit.

Deshi’s eyes flashed with bits of orange and red. “Get out of my house.”

Haley rubbed her shoulder as the bones finished knitting. “Deshi, you need to make sure this doesn’t happen again.”

He snarled at her and Farley bristled right back.

“I said get out!”

Emily’s face was barely visible behind his muscled arms. Deshi murmured against her hair and stroked her back.

Yeah, now that he was sated he could go all Human and pretend it never happened.

Haley glared at him. “Next time there may not be a dog to get in the way. Remember that, okay?”

Deshi shook his head. “I’m sorry I called you. I should have never called you.”

“Yeah, well I’m not. Because maybe this will be her wake up call. Link with her, Deshi. Link with her, so you can get what you need, before you wind up down in a hole waiting to die.”

Deshi shut his eyes, looking pained. “Just go, please. Just go.”

He sounded so pitiful Haley had to fight the urge to try and hold him. He needed out of this place. Away from that woman. When he turned his back, Haley walked away.

Think about it later
, she told herself. Right now this needed to disappear. Even pissed, Haley didn’t want Deshi taking a fall.

On the way down the steps, she flipped open her phone and called the cleanup crew. “Manny, I have a job for you in Ansley. One first aid and a cleanup. Yeah, it’s
special
.” There were three types of clean ups: the usual, the special, and the deluxe. Only the last one meant Human body parts. “I’ll triple your usual fee and give you a fat tip if you can get to it tonight. Yeah, you’ll need a truck.” Haley thought a second about all the heavy furniture. “Maybe two. Thanks, Manny, you’re a gem.” She shut the phone and headed out the front door.

“How can you let him get away with that?” Farley skipped up beside her.

“He’s a Queen’s Son.”

“Fuck that, he put his hands on you! He pushed you! Christ, if he did that to any other Female, they’d eat his throat out!”

Haley turned on him. “Is that what you want? Do you want me to go up there and tear his throat out? Do you want me hurt him? Bleed him? Force him to submit?”

The heat coming off Farley’s body from the
feed
leaked all over her, feeling like super-heated cobwebs. “If you don’t, then he’s going to wind up killing Emily. Then what?”

With a growl she yanked away.

The wadded up T-shirt went back and forth between Farley’s hands. “You know I’m right. Admit it.” His face was inches from hers. She could smell him. Sex and food. The bite on his shoulder was only a light bruise now, but the scent of blood was on his skin. “Admit that I’m right. I am. You know I am. I--”

Haley shoved him and he landed on his ass, hard. “All right! You’re right. He’s going to kill her. He’s going to kill her, and then I’m going to have to watch him die.” Haley threw her arms out and laughed. It was a bitter angry sound. “He’s just one more among so many. What does it matter? Medan doesn’t care! She’d never let him back into the Dens after what he did ... did to himself for ... HER! God of Man, he cut out his
nevus
for ... her!” The tears came in a sudden flood, bursting out of her eyes, and running in twin streams down her cheeks. She damned her adoptive Mother for being so weak, and now here she was crying. Instead of a dragon, she acted like an emotional Human female.

And Haley hated herself for it.

Arms closed around her, and she didn’t fight them. The deep thrum of Farley’s purr punched through her bones. Haley hid her face against his neck and soaked him with her tears. She gave up trying to stop. She just wasn’t strong enough.

It took years, hours, or maybe minutes. Time was irrelevant. When the tears ran out she stayed next to him, finding comfort in his scent and the feel of him against her.

Finally she said, “I don’t know what to do.”

“Mark him, or find someone who will.”

It seemed like such an easy answer. A very logical and practical one. But Haley couldn’t do it. Her Humanness wouldn’t let her.

“Taking Deshi away from Emily would kill him.” That much Haley was sure of. Whatever power Emily had over him was real. She was Human, not Kin, not a Queen. And yet ... she commanded him.

Close to her ear Farley said, “And if you don’t, she’ll kill him.” Truth is often a difficult pill to swallow.

Haley shut her eyes and wished for an answer. None came. No divine voice whispered through her head. Even God could not accept them.

Alone, we are utterly alone in this world.

“We have our people,” Farley said. But Haley didn’t think it was enough.

Light cut through the darkness of the cul-de-sac, courtesy of high beams on two oversized Dodge trucks. They were both white with the letter E on the door.

“That’s Manny, with the crew.” She wiped her face, sniffled, and made a sad attempt at straightening her blazer.

Manny got out of the truck. Dark skin, dark hair, short and wide, he looked every bit as South American as he sounded. A dark splatter of iridescent color covered most of the right side of his face, marking him for what he was, Lesser-Bred.

No matter who you were, if you made a mess doing something, he was the guy to call. Legal, illegal, he treated all his clients the same. Manny never heard or saw a thing. He just cleaned. “I took the liberty of calling you a car.”

Well, at least someone had thought about how they were going to get back to her apartment.

“Just put it on my bill.” Damn, did she sound as tired as she felt? Yeah, she realized, she did.

Manny shook his head. “On the house. This time.” His crew walked past him saying nothing, carrying paint buckets, shovels, Shop-Vacs, water tanks, an EMT bag, and lots and lots of plastic.

“He ate the dog.” Haley wasn’t sure why she felt the need to explain. At least she managed not to tack on the “again.”

Manny glanced up at the house, his expression blank, his dark eyes sharp. “We’ll be out of here in a few hours.” He left without saying anything else.

After a few minutes the muffled sound of vacuums running and heavy broken things being moved leeched out into the still night air.

Another set of headlights preceded a black Lexus down the drive. It was so new the paint looked wet. It fit right in among the fancy houses and long drives.

The car stopped and waited for them. Automatic locks clicked as Haley reached for the door.

Together they sat in the back. There was a pane of glass behind the driver as black as the windows. Haley didn’t have to tell him the address. Manny would have made sure he knew.

The trip was too long and quiet. Farley sat against the far door looking out. Neither of them spoke, and when the car stopped in front of her apartment, they didn’t get out.

After a while Haley said, “I want to be alone tonight. If you need a cab, I’ll call you one and pay the fare.”

He shook his head. “I’m good.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah.”

She put her hand on the handle but didn’t open it. “I’m sorry.” It just seemed like the thing to say.

Farley gave a small nod, opened the other door, and got out. Haley did the same.

The car pulled away when the doors shut. Farley walked away with his head down and his hands in his pockets. And Haley went inside.

“Hello?” Haley didn’t remember answering the phone, it was just suddenly at her ear.

“I’m sorry to call you so early,” Dr. Meyer said. “But you need to hear this.”

Haley looked at the clock. It was just past four. She pushed herself up on one elbow, then swung her feet over the side of the bed. “I’m listening.”

“The virus. I sent a section of the gene-typing to that friend of mine in Charlotte. I wanted to make sure I was seeing what I thought I saw. This is incredible. Terrifying, but incredible.”

“Wait ... wait ... you lost me at Charlotte. Start over.” Haley stood up and headed into her kitchen. Walking was good. Walking required blood flow, and that meant she’d be more awake.

“The virus we got from Creyal--it’s not new. I’ve seen it once before in some samples that were sent to me from Beijing.”

Haley grabbed a stool and barely made it before her knees buckled. “Fa-Da?”

The mass Kin death had actually made the front page of the
Atlanta Constitution
. And stayed there for six months. At first, there had been panic over the prospect of some super flu that could actually affect Kin. Then they discovered the thing wasn’t really a disease, but a manufactured biological weapon. The virus was nothing more than a delivery agent.

“Yes. Part of this protein chain is an exact match; there have been changes, additions. The sample we had was too degraded for the current technology. But I remember what I saw. It was a very unique protein sheath, crystalline almost. It used the reactive chemicals in the
ulysiss
gland as a conductor. The only reason more Kin didn’t die is because of the genetic difference, and that it needed physical contact for transfer. The virus in Beijing was coded only for three, maybe four bloodlines, tops. And it was too unstable to be airborne. It stopped because it ran out of victims in the radius it occupied.”

But
thousands
had died in Beijing. One of the densest Kin populations in the world lived there.

Ran out of victims...

Haley clenched her eyes shut. Every Kin in the world mourned the loss of so many. It had affected them all, such a great loss of life.

“So what are you telling me?”

“This new virus ... it’s been coded with
hundreds
of family lines. The delivery is what’s so unique.” Haley heard Meyers move around. “Male Kin have only one sex chromosome. Pleitropy of this one gene will affect certain genes within the Kin genome.”

“I’m sorry, but I don’t understand what you’re talking about.”

Meyer laughed. “I’m sorry. You’re right. Most Humans don’t even know how many chromosomes they have, let alone what they do. I don’t know why I expected you to be any different. Forgive me.”

“Considering you just said the nicest thing any Human has ever said to me, all is forgiven.” Haley smiled.

“Pleitropy is when a single gene affects the expression of polygenetic traits. The Male sex chromosome is unique to each family and it has a very high rate of mutation. Only a small amount of genetic information stays the same each generation. All organisms have the potential to develop alleles to existing genes, but your people are constantly creating entirely new protein chains. This change seems to be especially responsive to certain pheromones and enzymatic processes.”

“You’re losing me again, doc.”

“Okay, basically the genetic code of your species undergoes genetic changes with each generation. The Male sex chromosome acts like a key. This key affects the expression of the genes, by turning them on and off like a light switch. And because Males only have one sex chromosome, they can only get that key from their Queen. That’s overly simplified, of course.”