Bound by Night (The Moonbound Clan Vampires) (28 page)

“How’s Nicole?” Hunter asked, and hey, it had to mean something that he didn’t say her name the way he might say “Ebola” anymore. “Any signs of the turn?”

Riker tried to keep disappointment out of his voice. “She should be in the clear.”

“Keep me updated.” Hunter gestured to Bastien. “Ditto with him. If you need help, everyone is here for you.”

They clasped hands, friendship secured, and then Hunter left Riker with Grant and Bastien.

Riker approached Bastien slowly, letting the boy control their encounter. As Riker got closer to the table Bastien was sitting at with a deck of cards, Bastien gave him a timid smile.

“Hi, Bastien.”

“Hi,” Bastien said. “It’s Riker, right?”

“Yeah.” He tapped the back of a chair. “Mind if I sit?”

“No.” Bastien looked down at the cards, each of which had an image of an animal or object. “Morena told me to make two piles. One of the images I recognize, and one pile for things I don’t know.”

One pile was twice as large as the other, but Riker didn’t know which was which. “Did the humans teach you things?”

Bastien nodded, still not meeting Riker’s gaze. “Every night, I got to watch movies and stuff on the TV across from my kennel. I can read, too. Some of the
lab people taught me, but I don’t think they were supposed to. They gave me books.”

“Like what?”

“I’m halfway through
The Hobbit
.” He finally peered through his long, shaggy hair at Riker, although he kept his head down. So like Terese. “Do you have books here?”

“We do. We have an entire chamber dedicated to them.”

The boy’s crystal eyes lit up. “I—I’d like to see that.”

“I can take you.”

Man, you’d have thought Riker had offered to beat him instead of show him the library. Bastien shrank back, his skinny fingers trembling over the cards. “That’s all right. I like it here.”

“How about if Nicole takes you?”

He gave a barely discernible nod. “That might be okay. She’ll bring me back here, right?”

“If that’s what you want,” Riker said, but the dubious expression on Bastien’s face said he didn’t believe Riker. “Bastien . . . you said you don’t know who your father is. Did anyone tell you anything about him at all? Or anything about your mother?”

“They said I look like her.”

“You do. Very much.” Riker just hoped no one questioned Bastien’s dark hair and mocha skin that was a little too tan for someone who had never seen the sun, because neither Riker nor Terese bore that coloring.

The insane breeder male at the lab had.

“How did you know her?” Bastien asked. “You told Nicole about my name.”

Now Riker needed to proceed carefully, dole out the information in small doses and see if Bastien would reach the logical conclusion himself. “That’s because your mother was my mate, Bastien.”

“Oh.” He frowned. “Did you serve humans, too?”

“No.” Riker used a finger to straighten the largest pile of cards, the one with a rabbit on top. “Humans captured her. They stole her away from me and turned her into a slave. Do you know what a slave is?”

He nodded, but his gaze had turned wary. “They said she liked working for the Martin family. It’s an honor to work for humans—”

“No,” Riker snapped. “It’s not.”

Bastien scrambled backward, knocking over his chair and scattering the cards. And for a split second, Riker could have sworn the kid vanished. Then he was there again, crouched in the corner, eyes wild, panting like he’d run a marathon.

“Jesus.” Riker swallowed. So much for proceeding carefully. He’d just scared the boy half to death. “I’m sorry, Bastien. I didn’t mean to frighten you.” He righted the chair and held out his hand, inviting Bastien to come back. “I’m just very angry with the humans.”

“Why?” Bastien crept toward the table, but when he sat, he did so a little farther away from Riker than he’d been before.

Riker struggled to keep in mind that Bastien had been raised by humans, had relied on them for his very survival. Like an abused dog that wouldn’t run away because it didn’t know any better, Bastien hadn’t yet realized that the people he’d spent twenty years with were the enemy.

“They’ve lied to you, son.” Riker kept his voice low and level and his hands folded tamely in front of him. “They’re a cruel, selfish race that enslaves and abuses animals and people. That’s what they did to your mother. That’s what they did to you. You should have been born here and raised by vampires who love you instead of being kept in a cage and poked with needles.”

Bastien appeared to consider what Riker had said. “Why do you care?”

“Because I made a promise to your mother twenty years ago. I promised that I would raise you and love you. I couldn’t raise you, but I can love you.” He inhaled deeply and blew out the breath in a rush. “You’re my son, Bastien.”

“You’re my . . . father?”

Riker nodded. Bastien stared, his big eyes swimming in confusion and disbelief.

And then everything went to hell in a handbasket.

The table exploded upward, scattering cards and knocking Riker onto the floor. Bastien disappeared again.
What the fuck?

“Bastien?” Riker leaped to his feet as Grant ran over.

“What happened?”

“I have no idea.” Riker swallowed. “Did you see him . . .”

“Disappear?” Grant nodded. “Amazing. Never seen anything like it.”

A scuffling sound came from inside the teepee. Very slowly, Riker approached the tent and peeked through the flap. Bastien was huddled against a wooden support, curled into a ball under a blanket.

“Maybe you should go,” Grant suggested. “Give him time to get himself together. I’ll have him help me around the lab. He listened to everything they said in the Daedalus facility . . . he’s got a surprisingly competent grasp of what I do in here, and he’s very curious.”

Dammit.
Riker had, after twenty years, been given an opportunity to make a wrong right, and instead, he’d fucked it up. And what in the ever-living hell was the disappearing-act thing? He’d never even heard of a vampire who could do that.

“Rike?” Grant tapped him on the shoulder. “Anyone home?”

“Yeah.” Riker nodded, but the question remained. Had Daedalus done something to Bastien? “Yeah,” he repeated. “I’m fine. I’ll send Nicole. See if she can get him to the library.” Mind churning, he headed toward the door but paused as he reached for the handle. “And Grant? Don’t stick him with any needles. He’s had enough of that at Daedalus.”

Bastien had been through way too much at that horror show, and somehow Riker was going to make it up to him.

The Martins would not destroy Bastien the way they’d destroyed Terese.

FOR THE SEVENTH
day in a row, Nicole was sitting in the library with Bastien. She’d only seen Riker once, when he’d come to her chambers to check on Bastien’s progress, which, with one exception, had been amazing.

The boy had come out of his shell enough to speak with everyone who spoke to him first, although he was
noticeably more reserved with males. He still loved hanging out at the lab, but he eagerly went with Nicole to the library, and Morena had been able to get him to tour the entire compound. He’d been especially interested in the game room, and he seemed to have a particular talent for darts and an unholy love for Xbox games.

The exception to his progress had been Riker.

Bastien hadn’t wanted to talk about him, let alone see him. Morena, used to working with children, had made a suggestion that Nicole was going to put to use today. She just hoped Bastien would be open to talk. And that he wouldn’t disappear under stress, which, he said, was the only time it happened.

And what a bizarre thing that was. Nicole had never heard of a vampire who could make himself invisible, and no one else Nicole had spoken to had, either. No one but Myne.

There are legends
, he’d said.
Legends of the first vampires, who had different gifts from those the rest of us have. Some are rare, like the midwife gift. Others are only alive in stories. Like traveling through portals or turning invisible
.

Looked like that one wasn’t a legend, and if
that
didn’t stick in her science-minded craw. Riker said that Terese hadn’t possessed the ability, and what little they knew about the male who had sired Bastien came only from the files she’d stolen, and they didn’t mention a tendency to disappear into thin air.

Daedalus had known about Bastien’s talent, though, which explained why they’d kept him for as long as they had. When she’d gone through the files, she’d learned that over the last twenty-two years, the insane breeder
vampire had sired thirty offspring with twenty different females, including one child by his own daughter from a previous breeding.

With the exception of Bastien, the children had been raised in human households and were occasionally brought into labs for testing. Two had been “euthanized” and dissected. Apparently, Daedalus had been trying to build a breeding program for years, which would allow them to genetically engineer vampires who would be docile yet efficient in human service.

It would also allow them to breed their own endless supply of test subjects, donors for medical applications, and whatever else their sick minds decided to do with them. No more quotas, no more millions spent to purchase vampires on the legal auction market or to pay poachers to procure wild vampires illegally.

The whole thing nauseated her. How could she have let all of that happen? How could she have taken the reins of a company before she learned the ins and outs of every single project?

You thought you had time. You trusted your parents to found a reputable company, and you trusted your brother to run it until you were ready
.

Okay, so maybe all of that was true, and maybe she could actually make herself believe it. But where she really stumbled was the absolutely mind-numbing idea that if she hadn’t met Riker, she either wouldn’t have learned about all of this or she wouldn’t have been as horrified as she was now.

She definitely would have stopped Daedalus, at least to the extent that she could. No doubt the board would have done exactly what they—Chuck, in
particular—had already done, by finding an excuse to both discredit and get rid of her.

She felt a tap on her shoulder and looked up to see Bastien join her at the table after his foray into the small library’s history section.

“I found a book about vampires and Native Americans,” he said. “Morena and Grant told me the first vampires were from Native American tribes.”

“It’s true,” she said. “All of the oldest born vampires have Native American blood running through their veins. MoonBound’s chief is full-blooded Cherokee, and Myne is full-blooded Nez Perce.”

“Do I have Native American blood?”

Yes, he did. According to his file, the male who sired him was a mix of two of the twelve tribes that had been affected by the virus first: Crow and Nez Perce. But obviously, the truth wasn’t an option, at least, not right now. Someday Riker might tell Bastien about his real father, but it definitely wasn’t her place to do it.

“I don’t know about your mother.”

He looked down at the book. “Oh.”

“But you know, you can ask Riker about it.”

His eyes flew wide open. “I can’t.” He shook his head. “I don’t want to. Don’t let him—”

“Hey.” She took his hand. “It’s okay. You don’t have to see him if you don’t want to. But he’s a really good guy, and he loves you.”

“Someone else did, too,” he whispered.

“Someone . . . loved you?”

“He said he did.”

Nicole’s forehead broke out in a fevered sweat. She
had a very, very bad feeling about what was coming next. “What . . . um . . . what did he say to you?”

“He said I look like my mother. He said she was pretty.” Bastien’s hands clenched into fists. “He said since she was dead and I didn’t have any parents, he’d be my father.” His fists started to tremble. “He hit me if I didn’t tell him I loved him, too. He broke my arm once.”

Nicole struggled to keep from hyperventilating. She wanted to scream. To cry. To burn down the lab again, but this time with Bastien’s abuser inside it.

Unless his abuser was already dead. Chuck had said Roland was involved with the breeding program. Suddenly, she was glad Myne had killed him.

“Listen to me, Bastien,” she said, concentrating on keeping her voice calm. “Good fathers don’t beat their children. Riker would
never
harm you. I promise. He’s thoughtful, honorable, and loyal . . . and he loves you.” Bastien didn’t look convinced, so she tried again. “Do you trust me?”

Bastien leaned across the table, the slightest quirk on his lips. “Just because I trust you doesn’t mean I trust your judgment.”

She laughed, surprised by his common sense and candor. This was a strong, smart kid, and she had a feeling that with the help of the clan, he’d be healthy, mentally and physically, very soon.

“Busted,” she said. “But you’ll see for yourself that I’m right. Will you at least give him a chance?”

Cocking his head, Bastien studied her. “Do you love him? My father?”

The question caught her off guard. She looked up at
the ceiling, trying to marshal her thoughts and emotions, but she might as well have been herding cats. What it came down to was that she’d grown close to Riker, and she’d do anything to protect him. She wanted to heal his wounds, help him deal with his losses, and somehow make up to him what her family had done not only to Riker, Terese, and Bastien but to his entire clan.

Then there was the insane physical draw between them, the erotic pulse that throbbed in the air whenever he was near. When he wasn’t around, there was a distinct emptiness in her chest and a flutter in her belly when she thought of him. She’d never felt this way before.

Did that mean she loved him?

“I guess I do,” she finally said, and the most amazing sense of liberation practically lifted her out of her chair.

All this time, she’d been lost in both the human world and the vampire one, unsure of her future and, at times, unsure of her survival. And while she was between those worlds, she didn’t feel stuck anymore. She was a human among vampires, but she felt far less alone than she had as a human among humans.