Loving Lucius (Werescape) (32 page)

Augustus eyed me warily.

Apparently, I didn't swallow all Wolf's snarls.

"Are you having a problem?" my sire asked.

"No."

"Good. Because I need you to deliver a combine part to the Western Fields. To Hostillian."

Josie. Again. I'd been stalking her shadow for days. And she'd stared me down defiantly almost every time. Seeing through me with that condescending gaze that shouted go away. She'd undoubtedly pieced together ever atom of Augustus' plan and gave us nothing to react upon. Nothing but sitting and mourning. So, my departing for the Western Fields must indicate Augustus has a new scheme he's about to reveal. "What are you planning?"

He thrust splayed fingers into his graying brown cropped hair and vigorously scratched behind his ear. "I've never seen Josie so withdrawn. So spark-less. She isn't going to heal without him."

Hostillian didn't deserve Augustus forcing him to deal with Josie's antics. Hostillian is the most dependable Shifter in the clan. Nobody else was as reliable. As determined. As intimidating. We'd be insane to expect him to shake Josie from her depression. Why should she be so special anyway? Depression is normal after the death of a loved one. Or many loved ones. Whatever plan lurked in my sire's head is a fiasco waiting to give birth to an even bigger fiasco. Time to learn about this bomb. "What do you want me to do?"

"Feel Hostillian out. I need to know if he's open to meeting with Josie. I don't want to send her to talk to him if he's going to treat her like shit the way he has the last few times he spoke with her."

Mate
! Wolf snarled his demand again.

Gods-be-damned beast. I choked down a gulp of air and held it.

The sensation seemed to push Wolf deeper into the chasm. That's exactly how Hostillian will feel. Caged. For what? Dutiful service to the clan? But the trip could save my ass from mating to keep my mate with me when I leave to meet with the Elders. "Alright. Give me a few days. And keep up with my mate. She won't be happy I'm away."

My sire cracked a knowing grin. "Mates never are." He patted my shoulder. "Just head out. I'll catch her after school and explain I needed you to leave now."

Good. One look at her, one whiff of her up close, and she'd be incubating Wolf's seed.

****

Focusing an apologetic mask on me, Augustus stood near the corridor leading to the twenty-two concrete stairs ascending to the subterranean community's external lodges. "I'm sorry, Elise. But there was an emergency. Lucius had to deliver a motor part to the Western Fields for me. He'll return as soon as possible."

What will life be like without Lucius for more than twenty-four hours? I guess it's just time to see how life really is around here with Lucius away. To see if there truly is a place for a hybrid female here. I nodded.

My father-in-law sauntered over to pat my shoulder as supportively as the curved back of the plastic chair I anchored to the slick floor. Although, I sat alone among the long tables in the communal room, I'm not. Not with Augustus here. What does he want? Doesn't he need me to keep Violet happily producing his code?

"Now don't look so glum."

Easy for him to say. He isn't separated from his mate. Not to mention, he gets to call the shots all damned day.

"You're as easy to read as an open book." He chuckled and waved for me to follow. "Come on. I can use a hand. Better still, you have two. And I think it's time I introduced you to the ins and outs of the laboratory."

Lab work? At least, he didn't suggest I man the oar at the stinking pot of bubbling animal fat. Life would truly be tortured in bio-fuel production. I followed him back to his enormous lab.

"We make penicillin here." Augustus' camouflaged pants and leather boots whispered as he crossed the shadowy cavernous space, leading the way to two side-by-side refrigerators and adjacent countertops.

Antibiotics are absolutely rare and in the highest demand. Penicillin is one of those things only the wealthiest people can afford to have on hand. Legendary. Precious. Ranking up there with miracles in general. And Augustus played creator in producing it. "I'd always wondered if there was still a place somewhere where medications are manufactured." There has to be. Doesn't it have a shelf life?

He turned a smug smile to me, halting beside a refrigerator. "Shifters take care of our own. And then some. Where would we be if our children or spouses got sick from every little knick they acquired? Now," he chuckled softly as if thinking he understood my surprise to find antibiotics here, "I'm certain you're in for quite a few surprises because you're starting your lab training."

My training? "I'm going to be learning how to run the lab?" First, gardening. Now, the lab. An alien hybrid being taught such secrets? He has to be showing me I'm family now.

"Yes, ma'am." He even nodded for effect and reached for a deep drawer in a lower cabinet next to the refrigerator.

So. He called me ma'am. Not that I'm old. Most women my age look a good decade older by now. You'd think I would, given the stress I've dealt with hiding Langston's secrets. But my youthful appearance had to be credited to Langston as much as my anxiety. Maybe they both cancelled each other out? Maybe I lived because Langston wanted me to live? Not because I am an alien experiment. But because Langston loved me like his own blood. After all, I was half Mother's. And now I'm Augustus's own. I blinked out of my digression to realize Augustus held a plastic tub filled with Petri dishes.

Had he been talking? Lord. Hopefully he hadn't said anything I'd be quizzed over later. I have to pay attention to prove I've got valuable scientific training as well as these important ovaries and a uterus to add to life here like Violet.

He placed the tub on the counter. "Take a look," he said encouragingly, stepping to the left to allow my approach.

The dishes held what looked like mold.

Wouldn't they? Penicillin is mold. I think. I tried to pretend I understood just to satisfy his enthusiastic expression. After all, he seemed so genuine in his attempt to share the lab's secrets with me as well as keep me preoccupied while Lucius was away. "What do you do with this mold?"

"These dishes are the tests for the batch the elder teenage girls and I have just finished. But these samples are tests used to ensure nothing else toxic is growing in the mix." He tucked the tub back into the drawer. "And we want the mold to grow at happy seventy degrees. So, back into your controlled environment, my helpful friends." He tucked the dishes away in the drawer.

So happily. Like he thoroughly enjoyed his chores. But what about other things connected to those communities of helpful mold? Where does the medication go? "Is this lab the origin of penicillin I've taken back East?"

He winked. "It's a secret."

Oh, the big confident Shifter is a handful.

"Now, I'm going to begin in the beginning by teaching you how to grow mold."

Anyone who had food lying around knew that much. "Leave food exposed to the air?"

He grinned. "You did learn from your tutors."

I could have smacked him. "I can only imagine how difficult the production of something so useful may be. So, can you please humor me and quickly run through the steps?"

He went all serious. "Oh, Elise, my dear, if I intimidated you with all that information, you'd run for the hills before growing one spore." He winked again and gave me another encouraging pat on the shoulder. "I've learned from experience that if I just walk you through it step by step you'll warm up to the process much more easily than if I rattled off chemicals, measurements, supplies, and warnings."

Okay. Waiting for Lucius to return won't be a lick of fun. But I will face this challenge. "Maybe I should volunteer to man the bio-fuel oar?"

His palms settled on his hips in a motherly fashion. "Oh, what fun would life be stirring that old cauldron? Be thankful you aren't
fracking
oil shale for all the oil a Shifter can squeeze out of fine-grained sedimentary rock. That's no fun. Trust me." He winked. "
Fracking
oil shale is far more stressful than anything in this lab." He shrugged. "But somebody has to do it these days."

****

My caged Wolf rode my ass the two days' ride to the Gods-be-damned open gate of the walled lodge in the forest adjacent to the fields of wheat. And, still, he choked me for release. Maybe he thought I'd pass out so he could finally take over. If only his tail could be hogtied. But Elise's ovulation had rooted in his nostrils and permeated every cell of his being. My being. And sitting in the saddle when every ounce of one's essence screamed turn around was one gargantuan feat. I deserved a far greater prize than being able to take my mate along to the gathering for controlling my inner beast. I studied the sun hovering above the western horizon's stretch of grassland.

The sun would set soon. There's no time like the present to find Hostillian's thick skull and play my sire's games.

Oh, how Augustus loved to stir things up. He'd be remembered as legendary with his schemes. Traps. Covert operations. Matchmaking. If Hostillian caught wind of the true reason for my visit, my hide would be stripped and hung from the log wall for all to see. To warn everyone not to meddle in his affairs with Josie. I passed through the thick posts of the gateway leading to the large log lodge and completely-enclosed stable tucked under the forest's concealing canopy of pines and ash.

A unique outpost. One built in the forest without cutting down one tree. The point being to hide the lodging and stable so aircraft couldn't spot it from overhead. The crops alone were easily seen from above. But we don't want to paint a bull's eye on our Shifters' lodge near something so blatantly agricultural as an expanse of manmade neatly-planted fields. So, the small outpost contained the bare necessities to keep those here working and guarding the fields safely hidden away. Anyone flying over the fields would assume we'd burrowed underground to avoid an extermination ray.

My two teenage brothers exited the stable in the familiar camouflage clothing they always wore, heading for the lodge.

Trajan and Otho. Eighteen months apart, they looked almost identical except Otho was a head taller being the eldest.

Both turned toward the movement Paint and I made.

"Hey!" seventeen-year-old Trajan said, waving, heading my direction, through shadows cast by the trees, across the leaf litter and forest debris that covered the ground surrounding the two buildings.

Still excited to see me. Like that would change because our sire sent him here to learn to grow and harvest wheat. That part of his education had nothing to do with me and the soft spot I had for his intelligence and enthusiasm to grow up. To become a warrior. And he'd grown. Kept growing. The beanpole. But Otho had filled out a bit since I'd seen him in late winter. He'd be considered old enough to mate after he proved he could handle the combine this year.

Both tall. Healthy. They should top out seeing eye-to-eye with our sire. My height.

"What brings you here?" Otho called a few feet away.

The inevitable question. "Augustus sent a part for the combine."

"Well, you're just in time for supper." Trajan grinned. "You're going to stay a few days too. Right?"

Gods. I hated hurting the kid. He'd always loved to haunt my shadow. But my mate is waiting. "Not this trip. I'll be leaving in the morning."

Those blue eyes we all shared stared back at me. "Why? What did you do? Go and mate some female or something?"

The jibe was a friendly poke more than the reflection that Trajan harbored some uncanny sixth sense. But he'd hit the truth nonetheless. I swung a leg over the saddle, stepped onto a crunching twig, and turned to their blue stares. "Yes. I have."

They tossed speculative glances between each other like a hot stone from a campfire before anchoring the most ridiculous stares of disbelief back upon me.

As if what I'd declared had been deemed impossible through the ages. "Look. I did. Can we go inside? I've been riding two days. Alone. And I don't feel like being interrogated out here when there's food on the table." I hope. Some meat would keep Wolf busy for awhile.

Otho reached for Paint's reins as he always did with his silent understanding of Trajan's need to spend time with me. "I'll come inside after taking care of Paint."