He shakily stood and headed to the door she’d indicated, then turned and asked, “Are you still the human advocate to the Symbiosis of Species Council in the Americas?”
She nodded. He was about to ask about his son Ediku and Etana’s Morsdente killer. She must have bond-known his intent, because her brow furrowed and she shook her head in response. With a deep, sad sigh, he shut the bathroom door.
His son was still not integrating into the SOSC—his mother’s dream—nor had her killer been caught. He’d hoped that when Ninlil had called to him, he would finally get to face her killer.
He’d never forgiven himself for the selfishness he had demonstrated that fateful day. Death by Morsdente was a horrible way to die. Using fangs to kill, Morsdente tapped into the victims’ psychic energy, stealing it. The energy could not survive outside its rightful body forever and would only enhance the Morsdente for a short time. Stronger energies would live longer, retaining some level of awareness. By the time he had been freed from his forced dormancy punishment, the trail of the Morsdente had long grown cold. Short of death, no one knew how long the thread of energy from a victim would remain cognitive.
How long was her beautiful spirit trapped inside a monster? And what of their unborn child? Shaking off the tormenting thought, he focused on figuring out the electronic device Nin had left him while the giant bath filled with streaming water.
****
“Eric, my baby brudder.” Jess hugged Eric’s stiff frame, despite his anger at her. She held the hug, feeling his irritation at her grow, making her grin. Once he was good and pissed, she pulled away just enough to tickle him.
“Stop that!” He wiggled away from her. “I am really mad at you!” He swatted at her tickling fingers, and she finally stopped tormenting him, “What the hell. You just fucking vanish off the planet for hours; scare the shit out of everyone. Then you act like nothing’s wrong.” He was not going to let her off the hook at all.
Sighing in resignation, she sat at her desk. He took Aymee’s chair. “I met someone,” she began.
Eric cut her off. “No, you didn’t. You may be able to pull that shit with Aymee, but I know you better. You can barely stand to be around mom and me when we argue over a Scrabble word. So don’t even try that with me. Where were you, really? If you had to check yourself into the hospital because of that class yesterday and then didn’t even call me, I swear I will call and demand Mom come home right fucking now!” Eric’s jaw was clenched, reflecting his fear, disguised as anger.
Feeling badly for having worried Eric this much, Jess was also getting angry herself. Is it so unbelievable that maybe, just maybe, Jess may have had one normal moment? Well, relatively speaking, and omitting the whole Elven/Volaticus thing … whatever. Okay, fine, not normal then, but intimate.
“Fuck you, Eric,” she snapped back, causing Eric’s eyes to widen in the face of her almost-never-seen anger. “I didn’t go to the hospital. I told you yesterday I felt fine. I didn’t call you because I didn’t need you. God, get over yourself. Last night wasn’t about you.” Standing with her hands in fists at her sides, she was almost shaking in her anger. “I did meet someone and I liked him a lot, enough to go home with him, and thank you labia lord, I happily tossed away the twenty-six fucking years of virginity I’ve been packing around. That’s it. That’s all. Your big sister was behaving like an adult. If you’ve got a problem with that, keep it to yourself!”
“AAAHHHEMMMMM.” Aymee cleared her throat from the doorway behind Jess. “I’m just gonna shut this door, since the eight-year-olds in the class next door don’t need the four-letter-word education.” It was obviously everything Aymee could do not to bust out laughing.
Jess turned back to Eric, all anger having been drained out of her at Aymee’s announcement. She wasn’t sure what to expect from Eric, but it sure wasn’t the shit-eating grin he was sporting.
“I’m a dick,” he stated matter of factly, smiling even bigger at the comment.
“Yes, you are.” She half-grinned back at him.
“So do I get to meet this guy, or are you going to turn into a man-eater like Aymee?” The familiar joke between Eric and Aymee about their shared interest in promiscuity, aimed at Jess, made her laugh. Aymee called Eric a He-Hore. They both truly enjoyed their sexualities. Either of them could disappear for entire weekends and no one thought anything of it.
“He ran to grab us all some lunch.” Jess could feel herself blush in the face of her brother’s obvious joy at her deflowering. “He was at the academy yesterday, in the bleachers.”
Eric gave her a confused shake of his head. “I didn’t notice anyone in the bleachers.” Then he gave her an annoyed look. “Why is he hanging out here? Doesn’t he have a job?” He switched from friend and brother to overprotective father again.
“
He wouldn’t have been able to see me, Beauty. Only you and Jerika.”
Shane’s voice stopped her from giving Eric hell about being an unobservant cop.
“
Are you eavesdropping on my conversation?”
Jess asked, trying to figure out how to deal with Eric, who was looking at her as if she was now hallucinating about the guy in the bleachers. Or worse, he was going to ask what Shane did for a living. She had no clue. She really was acting out of character.
“
Tell him I was only there for a second just before he took his test and then we met in the parking lot after. He was too busy focusing on his test to notice someone popping through the bleachers,”
Shane recommended.
Before she could feed Eric the lie, Shane walked into the office. The aroma of chicken and fixings emanating from the bag he placed on her desk had her belly rumbling. Leaning in for a quick kiss, he teased, “You have the noisiest stomach, Beauty.” His easy reference to one of her quirks made Eric relax somewhat. He was still eyeballing Shane like he was something stuck to the heel of his shoe. Shane kept a teasing look focused on Jess, feigning oblivion to Eric animosity.
Jess reached into the bag to retrieve her order and the one she’d placed for Shane. She handed the rest of the contents to Eric. “Didn’t know what you would want. I ordered you chicken and dumplings— it’s one of those. The other one is Aymee’s.”
“Don’t put my food anywhere near that Hoover.” Aymee bounded in and snatched the bag out of Eric’s hand. “Get outta my chair, He-Hore.” Taking her meal out of the bag, she handed the remaining entree to Eric.
Shane grabbed two of the folding chairs leaning on the wall, handing one to Eric. “You must be Jess’s little brother. Name’s Shane Einar.” He shook Eric’s hand as soon as they both had set their chairs down between the two girls’ desks.
“Eric Reed.” Returning the handshake, Eric puffed up his chest. “Jess said you met at the academy. Are you on the force?” He talked like a good cop but stared at him like a bad cop. Jess nearly laughed, choking on a bite of her chicken. Eric glared over at her.
“Nope. Ranger. Twelfth Regiment. I just stopped in at the academy to say hi to friends. I was cutting through the gym and saw your sister and stopped to watch for a minute. I think you were testing out. Nice moves, man.” Shane pointed at him with the fork he’d just picked up.
Eric beamed. “Thanks. Rangers, huh?” Shane nodded with a mouth full of food. “Bad ass.” One compliment and Eric was suddenly Shane’s buddy. Typical.
“I thought so too, until your sister spanked me.” Shane offered after he’d swallowed.
Aymee and Jess glanced at each other, rolling their eyes.
“She’s hard on an ego that way.” Eric chuckled while Shane nodded, and then thankfully they both shut up to focus on their meals.
****
Shane took in a deep breath, scenting the change in Jess’s chemistry. The smell of her rising iron level was like a call to feed for him. It was everything he could do to appear normal in front of Eric and Aymee. He had always prided himself on his control, but it still remained absent in the presence of Jess. Hell, he still had yet to spend a single minute around her when he didn’t have a raging hard-on.
Jess started to sway slightly in her chair, and he knew he had to act. She’d told him that her aunt alleviated her symptoms. He had no idea how often she required her aunt’s special drink, and he wondered if she had ever been blood-let. He could take her to the Red Cross and have her donate. How would he explain that? Did he even have time? She was dropping fast.
“
Jess, your blood iron is rising.”
He telepathically sent the comment.
“
I know. I shouldn’t have ordered this for lunch. With everything going on, I should not be eating meat. I wasn’t thinking.”
There was a slur to her voice even telepathically.
“
What do you usually do in this situation, Beauty?
” His concern for her was rising by the moment. He also wasn’t sure how much longer he could keep his response to her condition at bay.
“
I haven’t been this bad in a long time.”
She was fading.
“It usually doesn’t come on like this.”
“
Does your aunt blood-let you?”
He asked, already rising to gather her up, bringing Eric’s and Aymee’s attention to what was happening.
Eric said, “Oh shit. I think she’s going to seize.” Did her brother not recognize the difference between psychic overload and iron poisoning? Eric raced over to Jess’s desk, dumping the contents of her purse out. “Here, her anti-anxiety pills. This must be the delayed backlash of last night’s class.” He held out a bottle to Shane.
“Are you alright, Jess?” Aymee asked, her concern evident.
Nodding, Shane took the offered bottle from Eric. Jess’s eyes fluttered shut, and a stream of blood let go from her nose and mouth just as Shane got his arms under her, lifting her. Keeping his back to Eric and Aymee so they wouldn’t see that his dentes had exploded into his mouth, he headed for the door. Shutting Eric and Aymee in, he used kinetic energy to hold it closed as they tried frantically to open it and follow him, and then he headed for the exit. Eric and Amyee called to him from the other side trying desperately to open the door.
“
GIL.”
He appealed to the blood-bond he had with his mentor for the first time in his life.
“
S’up, Shane,”
came the calm, soothing, immediate response.
Shane sent Gil a complete memory of the last few moments. Less than a second passed. “
Got it. Already here. Quick scrub and fill and I’ll meet ya at my place.”
Shane let go of his kinetic hold on the door, comfortable in the knowledge that Gil had things well in hand. Exiting the building, he took a quick look around before lifting Jess’s neck to his dentes. Sinking them into the pounding artery, he drew in the rich flavor of her blood. Before he could fully surrender to the ecstasy of his first direct host feeding in well over a hundred years, magnified a thousand-fold by her iron levels, he gathered her energy with his own. He boosted his energy to port them both to the foyer of Gil’s estate.
Safe, he dropped to his knees, Jess cradled in his arms. Everything male in him filled with primal possessiveness.
BLOODMATE
. He’d had his suspicions before, but now he knew. She was more than a mate; she was his bloodmate. Their body chemistry was a perfect match. He had bound himself to his bloodmate without her consent, knowledge, or reciprocation. So much for his promise to never take from her anything she didn’t offer. If she rejected him now, he would spend the rest of his existence incomplete. Yet he justified what he had done with the thought that, with her life at stake, taking her blood was the right answer.
“Shanley.” A soothing, calm female voice came from behind him. He heard a low growl before he realized it was coming from him. The female softly chuckled from behind him, no fear of him whatsoever. “Ahh, when Sargon bonded me, he went completely feral for a full century.” Her voice calmed him somewhat, a gift she shared with her son.
His mind connected her voice to her name. Ninlil. Not only was she Gil’s mother, she was also one of the SOSC representatives for the Americas. Sargon, her bloodmate, was Gil’s father and the Warrior Council Leader for the North American Continent. He could feel the power of the female. She would not take Jess from him. He heard himself growl again.
Chapter Twelve
Jorie heard the chirp of one of her mother’s alerts. Taking a quick peek, she saw her mother was still sleeping soundly. She ducked into her mother’s office and saw that the chimed screen was the view from a camera overlooking the parking lot of her cousin’s Ryu. Jess’s jeep was still on the screen, and she could see nothing to alarm her mother over.
A familiar longing came over her at the thought of Jess. She wished her mother would let her meet her cousin. Jess didn’t know about what they were yet. Her mom was afraid meeting Jorie would create too many questions, but she promised someday soon. Sometimes Jorie got tired of waiting.
It was her job to let her mom know when she felt Jess’s energy coming through, indicating that Jess was coming for a visit. Jess didn’t know how to mask her energy, so it was easy for Jorie to know. Then she had to hide, but she always listened in. Jess talked about shopping and fighting and her new Jeep. Jorie wanted to go shopping. Her mother made her train in courses. She wondered if that was like fighting. She reeaalllyy wanted to learn to drive that Jeep. She wished she could grow up as fast as Jess did.