Blood Legacy Origin of Species (21 page)

Aeron nodded. “I can tell you learned chess from your mother, as well,” he said to the boy on his lap. “And I predict an endless round of ‘draws’ for the two of you over the years.”

This seemed to please both boys.

Aeron became aware of Ryan’s presence. He was still getting used to her ability to move so undetected, an ability he had seen only in Abigail to such a degree. Drake sprang from Aeron’s lap and sprinted to her, hurtling himself into her legs. She lifted him, laughing, then hugged him tightly. She turned to Aeron.

“I think you should take Drake topside for a few days, get him out in the sun.”

Aeron was surprised that Ryan would make such a suggestion. He had been allowed to spend as much time as he wanted with his son, but he had not been allowed to take him anywhere unsupervised. Jason shifted in his chair and Ryan interpreted his body language.

“You should go, too, Jason. You’ve been underground too long. And you should take your mother as well, she’s been working too hard.”

“What about you?” Aeron asked. “Would you care to join us?”

“My last outing did not go so well,” Ryan said, remembering the trip with Susan and Marilyn. Since the council meeting, Victor had apparently arranged some sort of informal rotation system with the Old Ones and she felt like she had a constant babysitter.

“Kusunoki just left, and Marilyn is not expected for another two weeks.”

“I will make certain I return before that happens,” Aeron said under his breath.

Ryan ignored the comment. “Victor is gone but a few days, then he will return. Besides, it’s not as if I’m here alone. Edward watches me like a hawk and there’s an entire staff on hand.”

“I won’t go far,” Aeron promised, “and you’ll call if you need anything.”

“It will probably be Edward calling for help,” Ryan said, sighing, “if I transform and begin tunneling my way through solid rock with my bare hands.”

Despite her protestations, Susan had to admit that Ryan was right. She had desperately needed a break and although she was reluctant to leave Ryan, she was enjoying herself.

Drake and Jason were playing in the pool. They were staying at a marvelous estate out in the middle of nowhere, not far from the hidden entrance to the chambers. Susan did not know if it was someplace that Aeron had already owned or had merely purchased because he needed it for the weekend. She still had difficulties adapting to the material wealth these people possessed.

Susan examined her son. Although he had her coloring and fine facial features, he had his father’s build. It seemed he grew taller every day and his shoulders were just starting to broaden. She was grateful that Jason was going to have his dad’s athletic physique since he was continually surrounded by so much physical perfection. Even Drake, who was still a child, was clearly going to be built like Ryan, tall, lithe, and slender. Although still small, he already had muscular development comparable to a teenager.

Drake’s father, however, was built nothing like a teenager and Susan had difficulty not staring as Aeron strode out clad in only a pair of shorts. He looked as if he had been chiseled from marble, except the marble flexed and rippled beneath the surface of his skin as he moved. He took the lounge chair next to her, also watching the boys.

Susan wondered if it bothered Aeron that Drake so little resembled him, and feeling unusually bold, she asked.

“Drake has your eyes, and Victor’s dark hair, but he greatly favors Ryan.”

“No,” Aeron corrected her, “he is nearly identical to her.”

“Does that bother you?”

Aeron turned his blue eyes upon her. “Does it bother me that my son looks like the most stunning creature I have ever seen? In a word, no.”

What was obvious to everyone else finally occurred to Susan. “You’re in love with her.”

Aeron’s mouth twitched. “Just now figuring that out, are you?” Then after a significant pause. “So are you.”

“What?” Susan asked, the indignation in her voice causing the boys to glance up. “I am not.”

Aeron smiled his shark’s smile. “Marilyn is right, you really are a prude.”

“I am not,” Susan exclaimed, the second protestation sounding as weak as the first. “Ryan is my friend. I would never impose on that relationship.”

Aeron’s tone was filled with sarcasm. “So you’re telling me that if Ryan chose to take your blood, you would not give it willingly?”

Susan did not really have a response. “As I thought,” Aeron said.

“Well, it’s not as if that will ever happen,” Susan said.

Aeron sensed the disappointment she would not express. “The only reason why Ryan has not Shared with you is because you are too young and it would kill you,” he said in his clipped, aristocratic manner. “Which is why if I were you, I would avoid her when she lacks memory because she will not restrain herself and you will most likely end up dead.”

With perfect clarity, Susan understood why so many Young Ones went willingly to their deaths in Sharing. Aeron’s matter-of-fact prediction of her fate was in no way a deterrent; instead it left her with a sense of warmth.

Aeron smiled. How typical. He was not willing to let Dr. Ryerson off so easily.

“And what will you do in a few years when those two wind up together?” he said, nodding to the boys in the pool. His tone implied many things.

“What?” Susan stammered. She tried to recover, “I mean, if that’s what happens, then that will be okay, I certainly wouldn’t object…”

“If that’s what happens?” Aeron repeated mockingly, “that is Ryan Alexander’s son, she who unintentionally seduces everyone around her. But Drake will be different. Ryan did not grow up around the Others and had very limited contact with any of our Kind until she was almost a hundred years old. She was raised as a human. Drake, on the other hand, has been raised to be exactly what he is, with my influence, and Marilyn’s influence, and Ala’s influence, and god forbid, Abigail’s influence, but most of all Ryan’s influence.”

“Drake,” Aeron said with emphasis, “will seduce everyone. But unlike Ryan, he will do so with the full knowledge of what he is doing.”

Susan watched the boys in the pool, aware of the closeness and connection between them. It was brotherly now, and protective. Jason was demonstrating all of the traditional signs of young male adolescence and his interest in girls was pronounced. His infatuation with Marilyn was more than evident, much to his embarrassment. But she wondered what effect Drake would have on him as the two grew to adulthood.

“Jason is not like me,” Susan said slowly, “and although things at times have been confusing for him, he, like Drake, has been around the Others most of his life. He adapts to concepts that would have buried me. I will never forget when he asked Ryan to be his dad when he was Drake’s age.”

“Why his dad?” Aeron asked curiously.

“His reasoning was that he already had a mother.”

The two fell into silence, then another question occurred to Susan, mostly because she was thinking about Jason’s future.

“Who will Change Drake?”

“Ryan will,” Aeron said without hesitation. “Her blood will make him stronger than anyone else’s.”

Susan thought about Ryan’s current condition. “And if she can’t, for whatever reason?”

“Then it will be Victor,” Aeron said, again without hesitation. “In fact, I believe that’s why he doesn’t Share with her now, just to ensure that option with his grandson.”

Susan was always amazed at how far in the future these people planned. Victor’s actions today were influenced by something that might happen twenty years from now.

CHAPTER 14

RYAN WAS BORED. True, her boredom was of her own doing. She was the one who had imprisoned herself in the lower levels then dismissed everyone. She had spent some time training in the simulator but it was not nearly as enjoyable as fighting with a live opponent. She almost wished her imaginary friend would return so that she could spar and banter with him, but apparently she had resolved whatever emotional issues had caused “Petrus” to manifest.

Ryan’s pace down the rock hallway slowed. Someone was here, someone unexpected. She reached out, trying to assess the presence, but could not quite get a fix on it. Simultaneously, she felt a wave of dizziness come over her and she put out a hand to steady herself against the wall.

“Oh, wonderful,” Ryan said aloud. She could feel the weakness overtake her. Her own weight suddenly became a crushing burden and her boredom disappeared into concern that she would not even be able to make it back to her quarters. She had left explicit orders that were she to pass into any phase, including this relatively benign one, none of the staff were to break the seals and come to her aid. She knew she was being monitored and it would be mortifying to be seen crawling down the hallway. She considered just sitting down right where she was to let the hours or days pass until she recovered.

“You don’t look so well, my dear.”

“And you,” Ryan said, resigned, “as always, have the most impeccable timing.”

Abigail moved from the shadows and took her elbow, a gesture that was gentle but insistent with a trace of possessiveness. Ryan had no choice but to lean upon her as the matriarch helped her down the hall.

“I could carry you, little one.”

“No,” Ryan said quickly, gritting her teeth at the exertion “that isn’t necessary.”

Abigail allowed her to struggle a little further, then swept her effortlessly off her feet. “Apparently it is,” Abigail said with cool amusement, carrying her down the hall.

Ryan endured the humiliation of being carried like a child, primarily because she had no choice. Abigail was unbelievably strong, a match even under normal circumstances, and right now the circumstances were definitely not normal.

Abigail swept into her own chambers, closing the doors behind her.

“I see we are not going to my room,” Ryan commented.

Abigail merely smiled, settling into one of her large overstuffed chairs. Ryan was now pressed fully against her in the confines of the chair, her legs draped over and supported by the plush arm-rests, her head held close to Abigail as one would hold a sickly child.

“Let me guess why you are here,” Ryan said.

Abigail said nothing, but ran a fingernail just beneath her own collar-bone, opening a small wound on level with Ryan’s mouth. Ryan stared at the drop of blood that oozed out, took a teardrop shape, then began to run downward, tracing the curved path of the body.

“Damn you,” Ryan murmured, putting her mouth to the wound and stopping any downward flow.

Abigail gasped with pleasure but was fully in control. She allowed Ryan to drink for a few moments, then gently pushed her head back to the armrest. “You know what I want, my dear.”

Ryan gazed up at her, mildly bitter but fully resigned. “Of course I do.”

Abigail’s voice was gentle steel as she bent to slice into Ryan’s neck. “Then you will show me everything.”

The intense connection was like an electrical current throughout Ryan’s body. Although she had Shared several times since her ordeal, this was the first time she had achieved full mental contact with anyone. Had she been the one to initiate the contact, she probably would have pulled away in shock, but Abigail held her tightly, taking her blood slowly, methodically, relentlessly. In Ryan’s current condition, she was helpless.

The visions were haphazard, confused, a tumult of sight and sound that were a direct representation of the state of Ryan’s mind. Abigail knew she was going to have to guide the girl fairly unmercifully to get the information she wanted.

“I want to see everything,” she whispered, “starting from when Madelyn took you from us.”

Ryan’s body jerked, a physical manifestation of her unwillingness to comply, but Abigail pressed her hand to Ryan’s torso, a gesture both soothing and controlling. Ryan’s eyes unfocused, giving in to the influence that Abigail had always exerted over her.

And Abigail began to see what she wanted to see. Madelyn, as she had first appeared to Ryan, beautiful and horrifying, perfect and yet unnatural, powerful beyond reason and imagination. She saw Ryan taken away, bound and gagged, then sedated. She saw her awaken in the mountain fortress in a solid rock prison. She saw the guards, Madelyn’s men, treat Ryan with disdain then pay dearly for their underestimation of her. She saw Madelyn stop Ryan’s blows without effort, then take her blood, injecting her with a neurotoxin that paralyzed Ryan and caused her great pain.

At this memory, Ryan twisted about as if trying to free herself and Abigail held her tight. Abigail stroked the girl’s stomach, the ridged abdominal muscles clearly defined beneath the thin cotton shirt, so tense was Ryan’s body. Ryan relaxed a little, still struggling against the imaginary foe.

“I want to see more,” Abigail whispered to her, softly and remorseless.

And the visions came. Ryan escaping from her captors, acquiring the swords that equalized their combat, then taking them down one-by-one. She saw Ryan gain hope at her success, hope that was dashed when Madelyn re-captured her with stunningly little effort. The creature Madelyn took Ryan to her chambers, and secured her cooperation by kidnapping Susan and Drake.