Chapter Six

Qadaire

The delicious-smelling human woman proved even more competent than he’d gathered from afar. He’d expected to slow down his process in order for a human with merely two hands to keep up, but she was attentive, all her questions valid, thoughtful, and concise. She easily followed his recipe and had no trouble recreating it. He never had to explain anything more than once. Her intelligence made her blood smell that much tastier.

As for her fear, it strengthened when he stood too close. That she was able to push through it to work alongside him was a testament to her inner strength. He tried to stay an arm’s length away, but it was like there was a magnet in her core that pulled him closer, sending him into orbit around her sensuous body. His desire for her teetered on the line between claim and kill. It was frustrating, but a small price to pay for good company. He’d not been so close to another walking, talking, critically thinking being in too long. He prickled to admit his crow family had been right.

“The potion is complete. Now we wait.” Qadaire cleared the station, set things aside in their designated spots, then disinfected the workspace. “Would you like to see the star tower?”

“Yes! Definitely yes.”

He took the lead. Zero climbed from the chair to follow. Qadaire tutted and scooped him into his lower arms, then held the door open for Cassandra.

As they navigated the hallway, he pointed out things on the walls and side tables that he thought she might find interesting. Expensive treasures, gifts of gratitude from those whose careers he’d bolstered. Artifacts from archeology digs, back when he was still able to glamor large numbers of people. Trinkets that he’d found while hunting. It pleased him every time she asked a question or hummed in awe.

He paused at a small moon-shaped room lined with books and stole a quilt from a plush armchair, wrapping it around the dog. A few doors and another left turn later, they reached the staircase of the star tower. Once ascended, he set the pup down and arranged him in the blanket.

“Here we are.” Qadaire checked the view through the telescope, made adjustments, and stepped away. When Cassandra switched places with him, she let out a low whistle.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” As the words slipped his tongue, his awareness drifted to the human’s pulsing wrist, where the blood in her veins sang to him like an ethereal chorus.

“It’s gorgeous. I’ve never seen the galaxy so clearly.”

“While the model I created has been improved upon many times since, the first refracting telescope was one of my inventions.”

“Shut up. It was not.” She dropped one hand to her side and jutted her hip, creating an alluring slope from waist to thigh. “Wasn’t that in, like, 1600?”

“Yes, although I invented it significantly earlier. It was a tough field to find someone who’d believe it possible. Until Galilei. No one talked about the gaseous orbs that twinkled above them except to tell stories.”

“I bet.” She didn’t sound convinced. “I remember learning about space in school. Everything seemed so outlandish. Like if it were true, then my life was insignificant. With my peanut butter fingers and speech impediment, sitting in Mrs. Tanny’s classroom.”

“Hmm.” He glanced at her hold on the telescope and hoped her hands weren’t sticky right now. “Yes, it can make one feel small. Billions of galaxies, and everything lined up for ours to host life.”

“I’ve always thought binary stars were romantic,” she said, light and airy. “Two stars, orbiting and eclipsing each other, like they’re each other’s whole universe.”

“Until the white dwarf drains the smaller star of its life force.” Hardly romantic at all.

“Or like they couldn’t bear the space between them. To always be rotating around the most beautiful thing they’d ever seen, never able to touch them.”

“Instead, they forcibly assimilate and erupt in a cataclysmic explosion, leaving behind a rip in space-time?”

Cassandra snorted. Hands in pockets, she backed away from the telescope and gave him a droll look that had no reason to make his fangs ache the way they did.

Another yawn elongated her radiant features, this time sending streaks of liquid down her cheeks.

“It’s late. You must rest. Come.”

He made the trek through the castle slower this time. The only room not littered with stuff or dust was his own chamber, so he led them there.

“In the morning, follow the hallway this way and the lab will be down the stairs, to your right.” He made to leave but heard a soft noise from her lips. He turned to see her rifling through papers on his desk.

“You were going to write to Jeff?”

“No one has denied me. I had to make other arrangements.”

“Yeah, and Jeff definitely would’ve agreed.” She shot him an amused look. “Who all have you had claim your work while you hid in here?”

“I enjoy my solitude. Haven’t you wondered about the seemingly miraculous discoveries by famous people in your textbooks?” His shoulders rolled back. He’d forgotten how good it felt to brag. “Was penicillin really an accident? Or smoke detectors? Dynamite? The hollow steel needle? Once, I wanted to see the bottom of the ocean, so I created a machine to submerge in.” Qadaire watched Cassandra’s shock grow as he spoke. He’d lost track of all his accomplishments, but he searched his mind to bring forth more. “Beyond that, I—”

“Wait, wait, wait.” She waved her hands back and forth dismissively. He watched the movement with confusion. The ease with which she displayed her emotions was astounding. “You’re telling me you were behind modern medicine, and you let pigheaded white men take the credit? Have you ever given the credit to a woman before me?”

“Of course I have,” Qadaire scoffed. “I give it to whoever has the public’s attention. Not many existed in those days.”

“What didn’t exist? Women?”

“Not in the science spaces, not where they would have been believed—”

“You could have changed that!”

Qadaire stumbled backward at the sharpness in her tone, deadly as an unsheathed blade. The muscles in his face twitched. The warmth of Cassandra’s heated blood crashed over him. Her citrus flavor begged him closer, beckoning him to drink, to satiate his desperate urge to claim her. He had to get away from that scent. Now.

He stepped behind the threshold of the room and abruptly turned down the hall. He raced through the house until he reached the entryway, where he spread his wings and soared through a broken window to where his friends roosted.

What was wrong with that woman? Had he truly done something so terrible by solving these problems of her world, and not sending it to some unknown woman? He’d always been focused on the solutions, the innovations, the knowledge. He had no time to waste digging through female applicants.

And nine fucking rings, that scent! The more her blood had boiled, the warmer her cheeks had flushed, and his senses were absolutely flooded. How could he possibly focus on her accusations while his neglected cock was standing at attention, his fangs filling with venom?

This was a bad idea.

A crow cawed from the trees. Qadaire flew to the branch and trapped it under his talon. The crow couple had one little egg in their nest, the mother off hunting.

“I can’t believe you stuck me with this wretched human. How do you know I won’t lose control and drain her before we finish this little project?”

The crow rumbled in its lower throat sac. Qadaire knew he was being chastised, though he couldn’t sort the anger from his mind to listen. All these transient birds had names in their own language, although they couldn’t be said or written. No matter who each crow was, there would be another in their places by a dozen winters from now. Even so, Qadaire made a point to remember everyone’s names. He growled this one’s through gritted teeth.

“I ought to kick you all out and stop fraternizing with such ornery creatures.”

But, master, then you would be all alone.

“That’s for the better.”

He brooded there in the tree until the mother returned, fed the baby, and gave Qadaire a curt stare. He was encroaching on their family time.

As he flew back through the window, he collided with another of the flock’s kin. The agitated bird fluttered around him aggressively, tussling his feathers along the way.

“What? For fuck’s sake, what?”

The bird shot down the eastern hallway. There was no reason to go down that hallway. Qadaire had never cleaned up the horrible, awful things that the mad king had kept there. He’d meant to.

In the shameful corner at the end of the easternmost hallway lay the very first lab Qadaire had ever worked in. There was no real reason why he hadn’t cleared out the disturbing beds, cages, and various tools that were more torture than medical. It wasn’t as though he needed a reminder to never lose himself to madness, nor could he ever forget the horrible sounds of shrill cries, the deep pit in his stomach while conducting ruthless experiments on innocent subjects.

No, it certainly was not a reminder. He didn’t need a reminder so much as he needed to atone for his heinous sins against humankind. A punishment was more fitting. One that was likely to rain down its reckoning when the soft, beautiful, human scientist learned of it. Judging by the bird’s urgency, she had.

Qadaire found her staring at a mound of gruesome paintings piled on top of three medical beds pushed together. He took one look at her panicked doe eyes and knew he couldn’t bear to watch her reaction play out. He took a few steps past her into the room, to where various artistic depictions were stacked on the blue beds from the time he tried to burn it all down. The thin sheets and the flat pillows were all stained with blood. Glass crunched under his talons the farther he walked, but he couldn’t turn around, couldn’t face her. His fists curled at his sides as he observed the room where his personal demons dwelled.