Authors: Amber Hughey
“He told me that I needed to see you smile to understand. Really smile, I mean,” she finished, pushing away from the tree.
“So you want to see me smile? Really smile, I mean?” he asked, slowly walking towards her.
She swallowed, and walked a step towards him as he stopped a foot away from her.
“I’ve got a better idea,” he said slowly, a dark smile crossing his face.
She cocked her head. “And that is?” she prompted when he just smiled at her, wind rushing through her hair.
“Kiss me,” he said softly, staring at her intently.
“
Kiss
you?” she said, not sure if she’d heard him right.
“Yes,” he said, closing the distance between them, wondering if she would.
“And that will show me what Matt was talking about?” she asked, narrowing her eyes at him in interest.
“More or less,” he said, heart stopping at the look of consideration on her face.
“I think you’re just saying that just so I’ll kiss you,” she said accusingly, a small smile brushing her lips at the thought of kissing the handsome umbren.
“Maybe,” he smirked, “but don’t you want to know what Matt was talking about?”
As he stared down at her, she tipped her head up to his. At first, it was a light brush of lips. Then, he pressed his lips to her, wrapping his fingers in her thick masses of curls. She opened her mouth as he kissed her. He pulled back briefly before lowering his mouth to her neck. He nipped at her neck, gently scraping his teeth across the delicate skin. Hard enough for her to feel what he needed to show her, but not hard enough to do anything to the skin.
She gasped and jolted back, a look of shock on her face as she clenched a hand over the spot he’d been forced to leave. “Show me what I just felt,” she said, unable to stop the tremble in her voice She steeled her nerves, then tried again. “Now.”
A hard look came over his handsome face, but he slowly bared his teeth in a feral smile. He showed her his lengthened canines, glittering in the dim rays of sunshine. He stopped smiling and looked at her, waiting for the explosive reaction that he’d come to expect any time a human saw what he usually hid with a careful smile. Most humans weren’t aware of the canines that all umbren had, and most umbren took great pains to hide them from humanity.
Her breath hitched as she took in what he’d shown her, knowing that she’d felt them against her neck. She held the hand over that spot and closed her eyes. Opening them, she looked Gabriel again, calmer. The wings weren’t scary, actually, she considered. Just the opposite; they were stunningly
beautiful, looking like molten metal in the scarce sunlight. The fangs? Those…now those were scary. People, she thought to herself, don’t have fangs. The rational part of her brain quickly piped up, reminding her that umbren aren’t people, and never have been. She calmed her racing heart, and began trying to separate fact from fiction. Impossible in her current state, she quickly realized.
She swallowed, and paused, carefully considering all of the possibilities that raced through her head. “Can-“ She stopped, not sure how to continue.
He raised an eyebrow, giving her leave to ask the question.
“Can I touch them? I mean, with my fingers, not with…” She felt herself blush as she trailed off, and she quickly looked away.
He considered, then reached out and turned her head back. Looking at the serious look on her face, he gave a soft smile. “Shall I say ‘aaah’?” he teased before baring the fangs again.
She ignored the jest and slowly reached up. She gently touched one. Interesting, she realized, it felt like Lucy’s fang. Sharp, but not razor sharp. She couldn’t help the nervous giggle that manifested at the thought, she pulled her hand back, and she considered the possibilities, and what would make the most sense. Slowly, carefully, she said, “so if the solan are responsible for the ‘heroic white Angels’,
I’m guessing the umbren are responsible for the vampires?”
He nodded, barely moving his head, except to lick his lips, his wings tight against his body, holding him tighter than anyone else could. “The fangs aren’t the only thing that goes with that myth. The blood…” He trailed off, starting to walk towards the house, not knowing where to go with the line of thought, wondering if it would be too much. Too late, he considered, as she walked away from the tree to follow him.
“What do you mean ‘the blood’? Do you drink blood?” she asked, hurrying to catch up to him. She put a hand on his arm, trying to get him to look at her.
He paused his step, finally looking back at her. “Well, it’s drink a shitload every few weeks, or get a transfusion every other month.” He remembered having to drink it, and sometimes he missed the taste of the hot liquid, usually straight from a vein of choice, but he wasn’t about to share
that
knowledge with anyone, least of all Amalia. If the fangs didn’t spook her, that surely would. Mother knows it scared Ivy.
He started walking towards the door again, not wanting to continue the conversation. He knew that she was learning more about the umbren in the last two minutes than most humans would learn in a lifetime, and more than most solan cared to know.
“You get the transfusion?” she guessed, not wanting to think about him biting someone for the fresh blood that lay below the surface. Not wanting to think about him biting her…though the thought was distinctly erotic, she had a feeling it wouldn’t end pleasantly, unlike how most authors ended their tales.
“Me and most umbren. Easier, that way,” he paused, opening the door, “far less dead bodies. And let me tell you, it’s really hard to find enough hiding spots for dead bodies in a tight, claustrophobic city. Very hard. Unless it’s Paris, of course. Those catacombs can be really handy. Unless you get lost. Then they’re just a pain in the arse.”
He paused again, holding his arm out, stopping her from entering the house. “We’re the reason there are blood banks,” he said. “We don’t take from people who can’t afford to give, and we don’t take strictly for our usage. During emergencies, like Katrina, or 9/11, our blood banks helped keep thousands of people alive.” He removed his arm as she looked at him.
“You help save humans so that you can have a clear conscience?” she raised an eyebrow, remembering the time she’d had to get a transfusion after she’d gotten tossed off a horse a decade earlier, having broken her leg very badly. Now, she wondered if she should thank him for it. Probably not, she decided.
“No,” he said, shaking his head, “it’s not like that, not at all. We’re not the only ones who need blood in that quantity. If we can afford to share it, we do. Gladly, even.”
She nodded, considering what he’d told her, and the unspoken things he hadn’t. She walked past him, back into the kitchen. “Other than the fangs and the wings, and the…well, you know, are there any other differences that I need to know about? Anything that might really freak me out if you surprise me in a dark alley? Hidden blades in your hands? That sort of thing?”
He gave a soft chuckle before shaking his head. He joined Matt back at the table before responding. “No, the blood, that’s the big thing. The colors, the dark colors, I mean…those can be changed, dyed, bleached, the usual. The fangs can be filed down. I know several who’ve had it done, but the blood…that can’t be changed. It can be hidden, but eventually, someone finds out. Especially when you get close to someone. We have our list of excuses, but…eventually… Eventually every human get curious.” He left “people like you” unsaid, but she picked up on that and just paused for a brief second before walking over to the table.
She sat down next to him. “And the solan don’t have any conditions like that?”
He snorted. “No, they don’t, unfortunately for us umbren, unless, of course, you count an
overinflated sense of self-worth. They’re the ‘good guys’, the umbren are the ‘bad guys’ and there’s no middle ground if you ask
most
solan. And you can bet that they love to remind us lowly umbren of that ‘fact’. Of course,” he continued, “that makes it easy when I’m trying to hide, because no one thinks to ask any of the solan if they know where a lone umbren is, and most wouldn’t care to know, anyway.”
“If a solan is such a ‘good guy’, why would they want to change a human?” she questioned, wondering about Vicki and Owen.
“Because of fresh blood,” he replied simply. “Or, rather, a wider gene pool. Or, because no one else would marry them within their own species, and barring sheep, a human was the last choice.”
“Sheep?” She paused, confusion written across her face. “Oh,” she said, a giggle rising in her throat, “so Owen wasn’t interested in sheep?”
“If you were a sheep, would
you
be interested in Owen?” he asked philosophically, a smirk rising on his lips.
She giggled again, feeling herself relax. “No, I can honestly say, that even as a sheep, Owen would repulse me.”
“Good to know,” he replied, a smile playing on his lips.
“So it’s all about the gene pool?” she asked, turning back to the previous subject with interest.
“Mostly,” he replied, reaching out and touching an escaped curl. He curled it around his finger, enjoying the silkiness of it.
“Mostly?” she confirmed, as she felt a pang of regret for Vicki choosing a painful transformation for Owen out of love, when it had been his inability to find a solan mate and a desire to widen the gene pool instead of love for her. She reached up and took Gabriel’s hand in her own.
He smiled and pulled back. With a shrug, he said, “I’m sure love is involved, at least a small percentage of times, but mostly it’s adding to the gene pool. Purely selfish on the angelus side. Probably mostly selfish on the human side, too.”
She shook her head at the latter, wondering why any human would risk dying for that miniscule chance of surviving to become an angelus. “What about the solan and umbren? If there’s no middle ground between most of them, how to they…get together? Matt was saying that his mom was a solan but his dad was an umbren,” she asked, not uncomfortable with the question, but blushing anyways.
Gabriel grinned at her, happy that she wasn’t having a complete meltdown over her new discoveries. Now unconcerned with hiding the fangs, they peeked out as his grin widened at the sight of the blush that spread across her face. She glared at him. “That’s not what I mean,” she said defensively. “I’m
not talking about
that
. I’m talking about meeting, dating, and the relationship thing.”
“Same thing,” Gabriel replied with a shrug. “Gene pool.”
“So,” she said after a pause, “are you dating me for my genes?”
He stared at her, fairly sure he could see a smile hinting around her eyes. Narrowing his eyes at her, he said blithely, “of course. Why else would I be interested in a lowly human?”
She snorted. “I think you’re interested in me because you finally found someone willing to lower themselves to trade barbs with you.”
He grinned at that and nodded. “Well, I suppose that’s part of it. Not to mention, you’re actually able to defend yourself. In my line of work, the people I care about can be put in danger. A lot of danger. You, I don’t have to worry about so much.”
She laughed at that and ran a hand over her hair. “Well, there is that.”
“Of course,” he said after another short pause, “I have to make sure you’re armed. I don’t think you could take one of us down unarmed.”
She raised a cynical eyebrow at him before responding, “do you want to test that theory?”
Noticing the fire in her eyes, he quickly replied, “uh, no. I think that’s all right.”
She smiled slowly. “Of course it is.” Her thoughts flashed back to the solan lying on her
kitchen floor, blood pooled around him. With a grimace, she asked, “What’s going to happen to the solan that attacked me?”
Gabriel glanced at Aleks before answering. Aleks ignored the glance, so Gabriel responded, “he’s been picked up by the Breakers. They’ll deal with him.”
“Breakers? Do I want to know what they’ll do? Is it even legal?”
He gave a dry smile and shrugged, reaching out to lay a hand on the table. “In the human world, no. But in the angelus world, yes, it’s legal. And that’s what matters. They’ll get all the information they want from him by the time they’re done. It’s just a matter of how long he holds out, and what they end up having to do to get the information. Hopefully he gives us information that can actually help up break this investigation wide open.”
She stared steadily at Gabriel, her green eyes fixated on his gray ones. “You might be bringing me in to this case for a new perspective, but I’m coming in to find Sam.”
“You going to leave if you find her without solving the case?” Matt asked amiably.
She shook her head. “No. But I’m here primarily to find Sam. I won’t – I can’t let what happened to Donovan happened to her. I can’t.”
“Donovan Walker,” Matt muttered, staring at her with bright blue eyes. “Your brother. That makes sense…”
“What does?” she snapped, hating to be so uninformed.
He quickly shook his head. “Just that you look a lot like him. I thought you looked familiar. Like I’ve seen you before. But that’s it. You look like him.”