Talen shook his head. “They knew it was us the second we flew into range. The code was to make sure all was well—that nothing unexpected was going on.”
“Good security,” Cara said thoughtfully.
“You have no idea,” Talen grinned.
“Well, you have had centuries.”
Before she knew it the lift came to a stop, and the same door opened to reveal a wide room carved from metamorphic rock and granite. Two soldiers stood guard on either side of a massive rock door. They were large, armed, and unsmiling. Cara moved closer to Talen.
He tugged her across the expansive floor and stopped with a grin. “Max, Jones, this is my wife, Cara.”
The change in the men was immediate and a bit astonishing. Broad smiles covered predatory faces as they took turns shaking her hand, being very careful not to crush her.
“Hi, ma’am. Janie is so excited to see you she can’t keep still.” The one dubbed Max turned and punched in a code to open the door behind them. “Please tell her she owes me a rematch on Old Maid.”
Cara stumbled behind Talen as he pulled her through the door and it slid shut. Large arms grabbed her and yanked her into a hard chest, squeezing her in what could only be called a bear hug. “Welcome home, little sister,” a deep voice boomed in her ear as she was put back on her feet. Familiar green eyes twinkled down at her.
“Thanks, Conn.” She grinned as she regained her equilibrium. The brothers were matched in height and size but Conn had lighter brown hair cut short and silver flecks throughout his mossy eyes. The strong shape of his face resembled Talen’s, and a large dimple winked to the right of his generous mouth.
The large room looked like an ordinary conference room. If one could call granite walls, a huge dark granite table, and a myriad of mounted plasma screens ordinary.
“This is the first gathering room where we sometimes invite allies to meet.” Talen gestured her forward to another deep door set into the rock.
Her feet echoed dully on the hard surface. “Where’s Janie?”
“The family safe quarters are toward the center of the mountain. She wouldn’t be anywhere near this close to the perimeter or entrance,” Conn said as he placed a hand on the wall next to his head, leaned forward and peered into a small screen that shot out a green beam across his eyes. The door clicked open.
Conn led them into a wide rock hallway that wound past several closed doors until they finally stopped at one layered with sedimentary rock. His palm print opened the door, and Talen gently pushed Cara inside.
Chapter 21
“Mama!” Janie yelped and jumped for her mother.
Cara laughed as she swung her daughter into her arms and held. Tight. She burrowed her face into her daughter’s soft neck and smelled the scent of powder and child. Her world finally righted itself.
She knelt on one knee with her arms still around Janie and shifted back to take a good look at her baby. Janie had on new jeans and a dark blue shirt and her braids were an odd mess of starts, stops, and wraparounds. Blue eyes sparkled and her hands clapped together in glee—blue, green, and pink fingernail polish decorated each nail and some of her fingers.
“I’ve missed you,” Cara whispered.
Janie smiled and threw her arms back around her mother’s neck. “I missed you too.” She leaned back with her hands still on Cara’s shoulders. “We’re in the middle of a mountain, close to the earth. She likes us here.” Janie showed her gapped tooth.
“She does?”
“Yeah. And it’s easier to talk to her this close.”
“To the Earth?” Cara asked.
Janie rolled her eyes. “Who else?”
“Don’t I get a hug?” A deep voice asked from behind Cara.
Janie gave a happy gurgle and released her mother to hurdle herself at Talen, confident he would catch her.
He did and then swung her high off the ground in a gentle hug. “Did you know we were coming today?”
Janie nodded. “Yep. The Earth told me.”
“Thought she might. Rumor has it you owe Max a rematch on Old Maid.”
Janie shook her head as she put both small hands on Talen’s cheeks. “He’s really not very good at cards.” She shut her eyes for a moment. “Watch behind you, Daddy.”
Talen narrowed his eyes. “What do you mean?”
Janie shrugged. “The Earth told me to tell you. Don’t forget.”
“I won’t.” He promised. “What else has she told you?”
Janie was quiet for a moment before shrugging. “I’m going to have a baby brother.” Cara coughed in surprise as Janie grinned mischievously. “But I don’t know when.”
Talen chuckled and placed his daughter back on the ground.
Cara nodded at the two soldiers on either side of the small entry room, and they smiled at her in welcome. One turned and palmed the wall behind him to have a smooth door roll open. The security in the place was beyond obsessive.
“Talen,” Conn murmured, “Dage is back with some information. Jase is meeting us in the control room in a minute and Kane is joining in virtually—there’s some kind of problem. We need to go now.”
Talen nodded and leaned down to place a soft kiss on Cara’s lips before leading her and Janie through the door. “Stay in the family quarters and have Janie show you around. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
Cara gulped in air with a nervous glance around. “I left my plant at Katie’s.”
Talen frowned. “I’m sure she’ll take good care of it, Cara.”
“I know.” Cara’s heart sped up. “It’s just that plants provide oxygen and comfort. They can’t live under the ground.” Man, she needed nature, not pure rock surrounding her. The walls began to close in.
Talen ran a comforting hand down her back. “It’s all right, sweetheart. I promise we have plenty of oxygen pumped in.” He gave her a gentle push. “Now go explore with your daughter.”
She took Janie’s hand in hers and the stone door silently closed behind them. Janie tugged her along the hallway brightened with landscape oils until turning into a large, comfortable family room with a big screen plasma television mounted into the wall and two plush brown leather couches before an oak coffee table. The plasma showcased a peaceful mountain scene viewed out of a framed window. A small open kitchen with a round table sat to the left.
“This is the fun room,” Janie said as she maneuvered her mother around a couch to enter a narrow hallway opposite the kitchen. Three doors stood open down the granite hall. “This is your room”—Janie pointed into a large bedroom with king-size bed covered in pale blue silk before she nodded toward the end of the hall—”a bathroom, and”—she tugged Cara into the third doorway—”my room.”
Wow. The bright pink room held a twin bed covered in a purple flowered comforter, a light white dresser and a huge dollhouse in the corner. A cheerful lime green rug shaped like a flower spread from one end to the other, and a mounted plasma screen showed pretty ponies running through a river.
“Amazing,” Cara said.
“Yeah,” Janie agreed. “I got to pick this stuff out the first day on the computer, and then everything showed up the next morning. Can you believe it?”
Cara shook her head. “Have you been staying here by yourself?”
Janie nodded. “But Jase or Conn sleep on the couch every night. Or they work with the TV on. I don’t think they sleep as much as us.”
“Oh,” Cara said lamely as she noticed the sheer amount of little girl clothes in the opened closet.
“I told them they could sleep in your bedroom, but they liked the couch.” Janie shrugged.
Their position kept them directly between any threat and her daughter. The vampires might be a scary race, but they’d sure done everything possible to protect her baby.
“So Mom,” Janie turned hopeful eyes on her, “will you fix my braids?”
Cara giggled and nodded before getting to work.
They had just settled into the warm leather sofa to watch a
movie about princesses and ponies when Talen stalked into the room with Max right behind him.
Cara turned curious eyes their way. She had only been apart from Talen for less than an hour and yet butterflies fluttered in her stomach. His thick black hair was tied back in a band, throwing the hard angles of his face into focus while green flecks danced through his golden eyes. Danger, or maybe even violence, percolated just under his skin. The gold warmed to gilt as his gaze swept her.
Then her heart thumped at what he carried in his hands. Set into a deep white cleaning bucket sat a young Pseudotsuga menziesii. “You brought me a small Douglas fir tree?” she asked, turning and rising from the sofa.
Talen shuffled his feet and cleared his throat. “Yeah.” The fir stood about two feet, the soft green needles faded to brown, drooping toward the earth. “It was in the shade of several larger trees not getting any sun. I figured we’d replant it at home.”
Her eyes filled with tears. He’d brought her a tree. The scent of rich earth and pine filled the air, and she took a deep breath, settling herself.
Talen turned and placed the fledgling tree on the table. “It’s okay. I tore it out by the roots, so it’ll be easy to plant.” He frowned at his offering.
She crossed to him, reaching up with both hands to cup his face. “Thank you.”
He grinned, his arms going to the small of her back. “You’re welcome. I figure he’ll bring enough oxygen to the space to make you happy.”
Peace and warmth flushed through her. She leaned up and placed her mouth against his.
Max cleared his throat, shoving a coffee cup filled with a mountain dandelion between them. “I brought you this.” He was as tall as Talen but not quite as broad across the chest; long light brown hair illustrated a sharp face with light blue eyes.
Cara took the cup, stepping back and giving Max a big smile. “Thank you, Max.”
He shrugged, a small blush coloring his high cheekbones. “Talen said you liked plants and stuff around, so I thought this one was pretty.” His gravelly voice lowered, and he tucked his chin to his shoulder.
“It’s beautiful,” Cara agreed, fighting a giggle. The big, dangerous vampire was shy.
He turned toward Janie sitting on the couch and tugged a deck of cards out of his pocket.
“I’m here for my rematch.” Max tossed the deck into the air to catch in his other hand. His smile at Janie was genuine.
“All right,” Janie piped up, “but the loser has to paint their fingernails pink this time.”
Max balked for a moment before shrugging and stepping toward the couch.
“Cara”—Talen shook his head in amusement at his friend—”Kane is sending some information from a lab in Canada, and we thought your knowledge of plant viruses and gene manipulation would come in handy. Do you mind?”
Cara frowned, glancing at her daughter.
“It’s okay, Mom.” The little girl grinned impishly. “Max will be pretty with pink nails.”
“Oh, I brought my A-game,” the vampire snorted as he sat on the other couch.
“Bout time,” Janie retorted.
Cara nodded and, with one last look at her child watching Max shuffle the cards, followed Talen from the room. Once in the hall his strong body turned and pinned her against the wall before he lowered his mouth and entrapped hers. The kiss was hot, deep, and insistent. Cara moaned in the back of her throat. When Talen stepped back, his grin was easy but his eyes swirled green through the gold. “I missed you, mate.”
The hunger emanating from him stole her breath. The ache in her own lower body wanted relief, now, and she shook her head for clarity.
Talen grasped her chin before running a thumb over her swollen bottom lip. His eyes heated even more as her tongue reached out and connected with his thumb—then he stepped back and dropped his hand. “They’re waiting for us, mate. Two more seconds and we’re not going to make it.”
Cara clasped her hands together in an effort to control raging hormones.
Talen grinned again. “I wouldn’t mind, but my asshole brothers would come searching for us, trust me.”
“Oh,” Cara said with a grimace. That was the last thing she wanted.
“Come on.” Talen put a heavy arm around her shoulders and propelled her through the winding hallway until he stopped and placed his palm against the stone wall next to a large granite door. It slid open.
Cara stepped inside a spacious round room cut into the rock with an enormous plasma screen mounted on the opposite wall. Several computers sat directly ahead and to the right perched a large rock table where Conn and two other men peered at an array of printouts.
Conn gave her a wave as the other two men jumped to their feet. The first was well over six feet with copper eyes flecked with dark zinc; he was a bit thinner than Talen but the resemblance with the long black hair and deep grin was obvious. “I’m Jase, the smart brother,” he said as he shook her hand before returning to his spot at the table.
The other man was bigger than the rest and appeared a bit older. Not in the face, but his eyes spoke of a long life. He studied her with an intent that almost made her uncomfortable.
“Dage?” Talen asked.
Dage cleared his throat before stepping forward to take her hand in a gentle grip. “Sorry,” his husky voice rumbled with an ancient power. “You resemble somebody.”
“Who?” Cara asked, bemused.
Dage grinned and shrugged. “I don’t know her name.”
Cara smiled and tipped her head way back to take in the leader of the Realm. Deep silver eyes shone out of a hard face only softened by his full mouth. He gently tugged her forward to the table to sit next to Jase. Talen sat on her other side, and they all faced the large screen. Giants surrounded her.
Conn punched in a couple of keys and the face of another brother filled the screen.
Intelligent metallic violet eyes scanned the room before they rested on her. “You must be Talen’s mate.” The grin was one she’d already seen in his brothers. “I have to tell you blue eyes, you could’ve done better.”
Talen scoffed next to her. “You wish.” He threw an arm around her shoulders. “Before we get started here, will you be returning for the colloquium next weekend?”
Kane nodded. “Yes. Well, at least for the second day, I may miss the ball.”
Jase snorted from down the way. “You always miss the ball.”
Cara turned her head. “What’s the colloquium?”
Talen grinned. “Every ten years the Realm has a symposium or convention of sorts that begins with a ball. One Kane somehow manages to miss every decade.”
“A ball? But …” The protest died in her throat.
Talen leaned in, his breath stirring her hair. “Don’t worry. Full wardrobes are provided for all of us.” Grinning, he settled back into place.
Cara rolled her eyes. Okay, that’s what she was going to say, but still. It’s not like she had ballroom dresses just hanging in her closet, for pete’s sake.
Dage cleared his throat, obviously ready to get down to business. “Kane, do you have the newest feed?”
Kane nodded, his eyes turning serious. “It’s coming in now. I’ll relay the information to you, and we can figure it out together.” He looked down and the sound of typing could be heard. “We just cracked the encryption on these files—we took them from a research lab in Paris last night.”
Dage tensed on the other side of Conn.
“What?” Talen asked, his eyes still on the screen.
Dage shrugged. “Bad feeling.”
The level of tension in the room rose, and Cara shifted in her seat. Apparently Dage’s feelings carried some weight with his brothers. Conn typed some more and the screen split into two, so Kane remained on one side and a series of images came up on the other. Cara studied the images for a moment. A graphic of a spiraled helix of acids chained together swirled in a multitude of colors. “There are twenty-three pairs of chromosomes—that’s human DNA, not
plant.”
Talen nodded as a second image came up next to the first. Cara gasped as she counted thirty chromosomal pairs on the second chain. “That’s vampire DNA,” Talen confirmed quietly.
Cara peered with interest at the third colorful chain of DNA spiraling together next to the others. She counted the pairs. Then she counted them again. “There are twenty-seven chromosomal pairs.” She turned inquisitive eyes on Talen. “Who has twenty-seven?”
Talen shrugged. “Dunno. Shifters have twenty-eight.” They all studied the different images for several moments as Kane worked furiously to decode more of the file.
Cara slowly pursed her mouth in understanding. “Conn? Would you put the unknown strand of DNA in the middle?”
Conn nodded and switched the images on the screen.
“Now put the unknown over the human.” He did so and twenty-three pairs of human DNA lined up exactly with the unknown, leaving four left over from the unknown DNA sample.
“Now over the vampire.” This time twenty-seven pairs of vampire DNA lined up perfectly with the unknown sample, leaving three vampire DNA pairs left over.
Simultaneous sharp intakes of breath erupted around her when the men saw it.
“The unknown is combined DNA.” She turned surprised eyes on Talen, whose jaw had hardened to match his eyes. “A combination of human and vampire. You said you changed me. It’s probably my DNA.”
Chapter 22
Cara studied the screen as angry tension chiseled through the silence in the underground conference room. “Or it’s the DNA of any mate, I guess.” She thought for a moment. “Maybe this has something to do with the allergic reaction you get with someone else’s mate.”
“Maybe.” Talen didn’t conceal the raw anger riding through his voice.
The giants sitting at the table kept their gaze on the large screen.
“Oh, shit,” Kane said through the monitor as he sent additional images to replace the strands of DNA.
A healthy cell came onto the screen before a prickly round blue blob attached itself to the cell and wormed its way inside. “It’s a virus,” Jase said somberly.