CARNAL, The Beast Who Loved Me (27 page)

He stepped between the cider tap and bar, which didn’t leave much room. When Rosie attempted to go around him, he blocked her way. She looked up at him.

“No more games,” he said. “I want you for my own.”

She stood there holding two mugs of cider, searching his face, and realized she wanted that, too, in spite of the fact that they’d spent little time together and she didn’t know him all that well. Carnal drew her like a magnet, body, heart, and soul. When he was in proximity of her senses, she couldn’t think about anything else.

She heard herself saying, “I won’t be shared,” and wondered what was wrong with her tongue. She’d meant to say, “You wish.”

His brows drew down over his eyes. “Shared? What the fuck, Rosie?”

“Ask your dad,” she said as she stepped around him and served cider. When she turned back, he was gone.

The lunch crowd was twice as big as usual and the kitchen was unprepared for the numbers wanting to eat
and
linger. Would-be diners faced a standing-room-only wait for a second round of food to cook and didn’t seem discouraged by that. If anything, they seemed okay with having an excuse to congregate longer and talk about the momentous announcement. For the Commons staff, it meant they were occupying the space and drinking, even if it was water. That, in turn, meant extra work for the bar staff, but it also presented opportunity to hear reactions to Free’s landmark speech.

The diners had mostly cleared out by one-thirty, but Rosie, Dandy, and Traces had just begun to get things righted from lunch when Carnal returned. He’d brought handwritten ledger sheets with him, which he began nailing to the wall at the end of the bar. When he was done, he pulled a stool next to the postings and, with a wink at Rosie, sat down to stare at her while he waited for people to come by and get their assignments.

All in all, Rosie found it astonishing that he’d been able to sort out who would be on duty where, paired with whom, and come up with a working schedule in such a short time frame. It seemed that Carnal had more going on than rugged beauty and sexual magnetism. When two o’clock came, Exiled began filing in to get their assignments. When he wasn’t watching her, she was watching him. As she cleared, swept, wiped and mopped, she was taking note that he talked easily with people who filed past, one by one, pointing to a line here or there on the schedule.

As her thoughts drifted to the monotonous rhythm of the broom, she found herself wondering why she’d stayed at Newland, why she hadn’t left and gone home. She’d originally planned to stay away for a few days, maybe a week, long enough to make a point, albeit one that she would have to admit was childish.

The truth was that she’d come to feel at home in Newland. Partly because the job made her feel useful. It gave her purpose, which was something she’d never had. Her mother had it. Her father had it. Glen had it. But she hadn’t understood what it meant to be part of what made things work.

Every day she served the community by making their public space clean and warm. Delivering food and drink brought out the nurturing side of her, a side she might not have known existed if it wasn’t for the particular experience Kellareal had chosen for her. It wasn’t a job that required anything supernatural. It didn’t even require a lot of experience, brains, or ingenuity. It was just a job that made her feel needed.

As she swept and reflected, she concluded that her place at the Commons was a big part of her reason for settling in. It had taken root in her identity.

The other part was the people. Once Dandy had shed her reserve, she’d turned out to be a friend, the first friend Rosie had ever made. She’d also come to feel comfortable in the Extant’s household. Charming treated her like a sibling. Then there was Carnal, of course. That thought caused a sense memory to assault her mind, the feeling of being behind him on his bike, pressed to his back, legs around his hips. In her mind she pictured the bike slowing to a stop, Carnal pulling her around to face him so that her legs flanked his hips from the front.

She shook herself out of her fantasy and looked up when she heard Dandy call, “Hey, Roses. They need help in the kitchen.”

Rosie nodded, set the broom aside, and wiped her hands on her apron even though there was nothing on them. It had just become a habit. She smiled at the nickname. She didn’t remember when or why Dandelion had started calling her ‘Roses’, but she didn’t mind. After all, how could she object to a nickname like that?

She heard Carnal’s voice. He was talking to Dandy. “You call her Roses?” He smiled. “That’s perfect. She’s beautiful and she smells good, but she has hidden thorns.”

“Yeah. Look who’s talking.” Rosie regretted it the minute she said it. It seemed her mouth had its own agenda when she was around Carnal.

Deciding that she didn’t want to see his reaction, she turned away and forced her thoughts back to the huge undertaking at hand. Namely moving Exiled to Farsuitwail and integrating them without them reaching the conclusion that it was humans who should be exterminated.

Walking toward the kitchen she was thinking that, all in all she didn’t see how Free’s pronouncement could have gone better. She added highly adaptable and flexible to the list of hybrid traits because the Exiled seemed to take the whole idea of exodus in stride.

She suspected that all hybrids weren’t created equal. The Rautt may have been the unfortunate result of indiscriminate experimental practices, just as there are strains of inappropriate hostility and even mental instability in certain dog breeds. Rosie was thinking that, if that was the case, perhaps what happened to the humans of Farsuitwail was poetic justice, a deserved consequence. But Kellareal had interfered with that consequence when he’d brought the Exiled to defend them. Something about that didn’t make sense and she was going to question him the next time she saw him.

Another pair of hands helped the kitchen staff get caught up in record time, which meant she could get back to the floors that had been left half done.

She’d just resumed sweeping when a pair of scuffed brown boots stepped into the path of her broom. When she looked up into Carnal’s face, he cocked his head slightly to the side and leaned toward her.

“So you think I’m beautiful.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

He smiled wickedly. “It’s what you said.”

She wiggled her head. “I say stuff I don’t mean all the time.”

“I know,” he said. “But I can tell the difference. Remember?”

Being reminded of the fact that Carnal was a walking lie detector brought a flush to her skin. That caused a low and sexy chuckle to rumble up from his chest.

He reached out and took one of her curls, sampling it like the feel of her hair between his fingers was something extraordinary. “Tomorrow afternoon,” his raspy voice was almost a whisper, “I’m coming for you.”

When he turned and walked away, Rosie shouted after him.

“Coming for me?” she said. “What does that mean? We’re going to have a shootout in the street?”

He stopped for a second, looked back over his shoulder, and laughed, shaking his head, before disappearing through the Commons door, presumably to escort Free to Farsuitwail.

When Free arrived at City Hall, flanked by Carnal and crew, along with their master builder, Red, the detainees looked remarkably well cared-for. A couple of them were even chatting with Exiled guards.

Free made eye contact with Comstock and motioned for him to follow to the conference room. Free held the door open for Carnal, but the rest of the crew waited outside.

“Mr. Mayor,” Free said.

“Extant,” the man replied without emotion.

“We’ve made some decisions. We’re abandoning the settlement, moving our people and things to Farsuitwail.” The mayor’s lips parted as his eyes widened slightly. Apparently that hadn’t been among the possibilities he’d anticipated. Rosie made a note to add, ‘Be unpredictable,’ to her list of political warfare sayings.

“We’re going to release your people to go about their business,” Free was saying, “but we will maintain watch at each of the facilities you’ve shown us. Before I go further with our plans, I must ask if there are any other secrets or secret installations that would interest us.”

Comstock shook his head. “No.”

Free looked to Carnal who confirmed the truth of that.

“Very well. Here’s what’s going to happen. You’re going to work with me to find housing, or build housing when necessary, to accommodate our people. You’re going to assist with integrating Exiled into every aspect of your society, starting with education. Our children are going to go to school with your children.”

“I don’t think that’s…”

Free cut him off. “It no longer matters what you think. You lost the privilege of working
with
me when you constructed elaborate plans to murder us. At this point in time, you work
for
me. If you’re able to establish trust, what you think may be taken into account, but I suspect we are at least a generation away from that.

“Our first order of business is for you to assign instructors who can catch our people up on everything you’re doing. In the schools, the labs, the foundry, and the munitions plant. I assume someone is in charge of planning the attack on the Rautt?”

The mayor pressed his lips together in a tight line and nodded.

“I’m going to need to know all the people involved with that. We will work with them, but we have the final say about the details of where, when, and how.” Comstock took in a breath and looked away. “Write down their names.”

Carnal pushed a pen and paper his way. When the mayor had finished writing down names, Free said, “Read them out loud.” Holding the paper up, the mayor read the names. “Is that everyone?”

“Yes.”

Free looked at Carnal who gave a tiny nod. “Let’s go inform your people. How you decide to get the word out to the general public is up to you, but I suggest you strongly encourage friendliness and cooperation. I remind you that it wasn’t Exiled who planned you harm. On the contrary, we’ve spent twenty-five years sacrificing our loved ones to save your ungrateful selves. Did you know that my son, Crave, Carnal’s younger brother, was taken by the Rautt? We don’t know if he’s dead or alive and are halfway afraid that he’s alive. Can you imagine how it feels to look in his mother’s eyes and know that she’s thinking about that every minute she breathes?”

Comstock blanched at that and looked like he might actually be thinking about it. “No.”

“That’s just the story of one of our families. There are many, many more. And the thanks we get is learning that you’ve been conspiring to kill us.”

At that the mayor found the decency to flush and look ashamed. “You have to understand, Extant. My people have good reason to be afraid of hybrids. You’re stronger, faster…”

“You’re stronger, faster, smarter than your children. So should your children be plotting your extermination?”

“No.”

The answer seemed appropriately contrite, but Free had already learned the hard lesson that humans can be deceptive in deadly ways.

“
Exactly. My guest, Elora Rose Storm, tells me that humans can’t stand the idea of not being the best at everything, top of the phylogenetic scale. It’s ironic that such creatures set out to deliberately create a superior species. Don’t you think?” Free waved his hand as if to say he didn’t expect an answer to that.

“It’s simple. If you accept us as part of your community, your people will live and perhaps profit from the infusion of new ideas and perspectives.” Free glanced at Carnal. “Not to mention blood. If you don’t, you may bring about your own demise.” The mayor looked at him sharply. “No. It’s not a threat. It’s a vision of one possible future that depends entirely on the choices you and your people make day to day, hour to hour. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” Comstock replied, looking humbled, a little sick, and not wanting to look Free in the eye.

“Here’s the first choice of many I may offer. Do you want to go out there and tell your people to get ready for our migration and integration or should I?”

To his credit, the mayor squared his shoulders, raised his chin, and said, “I will.”

“Very well. Once again, be certain you emphasize friendliness and cooperation.”

Comstock bowed his head once.

CHAPTER TEN