Chapter Thirty

Jacken almost turned to glareat Roth with a silent Just give her what she wants, you dumb shit. But he fought off the urge, keeping his eyes locked straight ahead, like a good little damned solider.

A cold knot formed in his stomach, so tight it hurt. If Toni and Roth didn't manage to smoke the fucking peace pipe together, then Jacken would have to let Toni walk right back out of his life. Yeah, no prob. And while he was at it, he'd just barbecue his own heart for dinner. Jacken turned his gaze to the pitcher of water and four glasses sitting in the middle of the conference table. Screw it. LEAVE, already. Whatever. The sight of Toni looking so damned beautiful was making him nuts, anyway.

He shut his eyes briefly and inhaled a slow breath. Christ's sake, it felt like someone had installed new hardware in his brain – and mis-wired it. His thinking was completely warped. One minute he was filled with an elation he'd never known at having Toni back, his blood practically skipping through his veins, and smelling her was … hell. Having her scent back in his head was such a profound comfort, it made him realize just how broken he'd been this past week. Just how much he needed her to make him feel like a whole person. The other side of his schizophrenic madness wanted to drop-kick her to the curb without delay. Because, thing was, he was under no delusions that if she returned to the community, at some point she'd pick a mate.

Would it be Thomal of the Fine Ass? Most-fucking-likely. Or Dev the Schlong, as he'd heard the man called? Yeah, wouldn't that be just jim dandy imagining those two bumping fuzzies every day.

Roth's long exhale jerked Jacken back to the present.

The leader of ??ran? scrubbed a hand over his face, his expression turning weary, exposing the fatigue Jacken knew Roth had been feeling all week, if not longer.

Normally, it was impossible to tell the age difference between Jacken and Roth. Until a Varcolac became an elder, he or she looked about the same at twenty-one as at one hundred and twenty-one. But at times like these, Roth showed his age. It was in his eyes, the look of a man who'd spent more than a hundred years watching his race die, the look of a man who had an entire species' existence on his shoulders.

"You may not believe this," Roth said to Toni, "but we Varcolac have always prided ourselves on being the good guys. I've hated that our desperate straits have led us away from that for a time." He looked down at his hands for a long moment. "I can't do it anymore. I just can't bear everyone's displeasure; I'm too tired." He looked up. "I agree to your demands, Toni. No more kidnappings. And if that means our breed must die out, well …." He trailed off.

Jacken heard the husbands shift in their seats. A heavy pause pushed air out of the room.

Toni's expression softened, the color in her eyes deepening. "I don't want the Varcolac race to go extinct any more than you do, Roth. If you truly are the good guys, then I'd like to see you have the chance to show that, to be the proud, wonderful breed that you no doubt are. My brother and I have been tossing around a plan to get Dragon women down into ??ran? voluntarily."

The room stilled.

"Can you … truly do that?" Roth asked in a quietly stunned tone.

"I believe we can, yes, but it's going to require a willingness on your part to get out of your comfort zone and loosen up on some security measures. To change," Toni emphasized.

Roth closed his eyes for a long second. "I've been insisting we keep to the old ways of being for too long, I realize that. Danger has followed us for so many years, we've already had to lose so much of ourselves because of the necessity of hiding. I've probably been holding onto our culture too tightly because of that."

"I would never ask you to give up your culture entirely." Toni glanced wryly at the other Dragon women. "We know how frustrating it is when someone is forced to do that."

Roth pushed his lips together into a closed-mouth smile.

"By the same token, ??ran? is a town of mixed cultures now, Roth, and the leadership there needs to reflect both sides if you want to have a successful and harmonious community. For one, the humans need democracy; they need representation. On the other hand, I also realize that your tradition permits only Varcolac of royal lineage to hold positions of authority. That leaves me as the perfect answer. I can bring a human perspective to the table, yet my royal bloodlines will allow me to lead beside you without putting Varcolac noses out of joint."

Jacken snapped his brows together. What?

Toni smiled. "As it turns out, I'm a Royal. So is my brother."

"But … how can that be?" Roth breathed.

Toni looked at her brother. "Show them The Book, Alex."

Reaching into a duffle bag at his feet, Alex fished out a book with a crescent and star on the cover, then stood and leaned over the table, setting it in front of Roth.

Dr. Jess gasped. "Good heavens! It's the Str?vechi Caiet!"

Alex sat back down. "Hey, so you know it."

"Stars above, yes. This is the book of our history, both past and future." Dr. Jess stared at Alex in awestruck wonder. "However did you get ahold of it?"

Alex's eyes lit. "Kind of magically, I guess."

A small huff passed Jess's lips. "I wouldn't doubt it. The Str?vechi Caiet has been lost to us for a century." He reverently opened the first page of the book, then turned another and another, all the while marveling.

"Can you read it?" Alex asked.

"Of course not," Jess scoffed, "no one can. Not unless you're a …." The doctor whipped his gaze up. "You can, can't you? That's how you know that you and Toni are Royals."

Alex shrugged. "Yeah, some of it. I should be able to read more, I sense that, but … I don't know, something's always just kind of in the way."

"By holiest night," the doctor whispered. "You're a Soothsayer."

Jesus, Alex Parthen might as well have just crapped a brand-new, gold-plated Sigmund-phase piece of lab equipment, the way Dr. Jess was looking at him now.

"A …? Really?" Alex perked up, glancing at Toni. "Hey, that sounds cool, doesn't it?"

"I prefer Know-It-All," Toni returned drolly.

"Ha! Would you listen to that! She's just getting me back for all the times I called her stubborn."

Roth regarded Alex solemnly. "If you don't mind a question, Mr. Parthen, what would be the name of the line you're descended from?"

Alex smiled broadly. "Ah, a test. No, that's cool. Human Dragon royalty descends from King Σoseph of the Flac?r? line," he rattled off. "The Royal Varcolac come from Σoseph's cousin, ?llen, of the Sear?."

Jacken exhaled under his breath. I'll be damned ….

"Well." Roth looked a little amazed now, too. "You couldn't have known that unless you'd studied Varcolac/Dragon history in our community school."

Dr. Jess clapped his hands together. "Do you realize what this means?! The Parthens are more than just Royal – they're Royal Fey." Jess beamed at them. "That means you both have enchantment skills, yours, Mr. Parthen, being soothsaying. Although clearly the majority of your power has been confined under centuries of repression. We must figure out how to release it." Jess looked at Roth. "Why didn't we see this before, Roth? They both have red in their hair and…dear heavens, Toni has always smelled different, hasn't she?!"

Jacken darted his eyes over to Toni. Holy fuck.

Nodding slowly, Roth looked at Toni for an elongated moment. "A co-leader, you say?"

Maggie piped in, "We won't return to ??ran? without her."

Roth chuckled. "No need to take a stand on this particular issue. I very much relish the thought of your co-leadership, Toni. I've been in sole charge of ??ran? for a very long time now." He stood and held out his hand. "Welcome aboard."

Jacken's heart played pinball against every bone in his ribcage as he watched Toni rise to her feet and shake Roth's hand. The two had come to an agreement. Toni was returning to ??ran?.

"Actually, there's still one minor caveat to me coming back," she said.

Jacken's elation dropped away like a stone in a deep well. Christ, what now –? Oh, crap. The back of his nape prickled as Toni turned a penetrating blue stare on him.

"You and I," she said, "need to settle our disagreement first."

This couldn't be good. "I wasn't aware we had one."

"Unfortunately, we do." She sank gracefully back into her chair. "I want to be your mate, and you keep refusing me like a stubborn ass. I'd say that's a disagreement."

Searing heat slapped him in the cheeks as a raging mass of unpleasant emotions churned through him: anger that she would revisit something so painful to him, awkwardness that everyone was now gawking at him, no one bothering to hide how amazed they were that a woman of Toni's caliber could want him. Yeah, shut your traps and join the club, people. And also some kind of bizarre-o childish gee whiz, hurray, she wants me feeling that made him want to bang his head on the conference table a couple of hundred times.

"Sorry if my Om R?u genes are getting in the way of your dreams of domestic bliss." Shit, that came out even more snarky than he'd intended.

"Bound by a vow of celibacy, no vasectomy possible, blah, blah, blah. Yes, I remember all the reasons you can't."

He stared at her. You've got to be shitting me. "Your blasé understanding of the circumstances is touching."

"The hell if I'm being blasé," she snapped back. "I'm telling you none of that matters. I just need to know if you love me. That's it. The rest we can work out."

The heat was back in his face full-force. He'd never been the type of man to melt beneath a table in embarrassment and he wasn't going to start now. Tempting, but fuck, no. "I'm not talking about this with you here." Or ever.

"You're going to have to," she countered. "I can't go back to ??ran? until I know."

He gave her a hard look. "Are you threatening the welfare of the community over a –?"

"Jesus, you're not that idiotic, are you? I don't want to live down there without you, Jacken, so I need to know if you love me."

Pack sand. Stick it up your ass. And, yes, I love you so much I can already taste youwas the psychotic babble that lit off inside his head. Nice to know his sanity was still on a ten.

"It's a simple enough question," she prompted.

His temples were starting to pound. "Nothing about this whole damned situation is simple. We just found out that you're a Royal, for Chrissake. Fuck if I'm going to let you waste those bloodlines on me. I can't have children. We've been over that."

"They're my bloodlines. Shouldn't I get a say in the matter?"

"You don't have anything to say."

"Don't I?"

"Not that would change my mind. You're going to make a great mother someday, Toni. I won't steal that from you."

Her throat moved stiffly. "People adopt all the time."

A laugh came out of him that did his demonic heritage proud. "Right. Social Services is just dying to send kids down to Vampire Land to be raised by a half-demon father."

She dismissed that with a wave of her hand. "We could finagle our way around that. Just tell me you don't love me, Jacken, and I'll leave this alone."

He sat there, painfully mute, unable to lie. "It doesn't mean anything if I do," he ground out.

"It means everything!" Tears collected along her lashes.

He surged to his feet and pointed a rigid finger at it. "Don't you do that."

Alex, her brother, started blinking rapidly at him.

"C'mon, man," Sedge said from the side of his mouth, "just tell her already."

A tear tumbled free of Toni's lashes and rolled down her cheek.

"Okay! Jesus! Yes! I love you." He threw out his arms. "You satisfied now, you insane battle-axe?!" He spun toward the window, giving her his back. Shit, shit, shit. But what else was he supposed to say, for the love of crap? She was crying! He dragged his hand across his upper lip.

"That's all I needed to know," she said softly. "Because I love you, too, and –"

"Shut up." He slammed his eyes closed.

"I most certainly will not shut up."

He whirled back around and glared at her. "Toni, I swear –"

"Would you just be quiet and listen a minute." She reached under the conference table and produced a black leather briefcase. "While I was away, I did some research. I wanted to see for myself what all the uproar concerning your genes was about. So, I had my brother hack into the community's hospital computer and I ran some experiments with the blood graphs on file. Here are two procreation simulations I conducted." She pulled two sheets of paper out of her briefcase and set them on the conference table. "One is of Jacken and Beth, compared to one of Dev and Beth." She pointed to a couple of hills on the second graph. "Strength and health came out high with Dev and Beth's offspring, but" – she switched to the first graph – "even higher with Jacken and Beth's. I'm assuming that's because of Jacken's R?u. But the problem is immediately apparent. Peak 12 is at excessive levels." She glanced at Dr. Jess. "This is why you determined the Bruns shouldn't have children, isn't it?"

"Yes," Jess answered, "exactly so."

Jacken sharpened his glare on her. He was so happy to be taking this trip down memory lane.

"Then I experimented with my own blood." She pulled out another graph, but held onto it. "You see, when Alex told me I was a Royal, it got me thinking. Maybe my blood is different, too, and look!" She set the third graph next to the other two. "Here's me and Dev."

Roth and Jess leaned forward, Dr. Jess making an interested sound.

"Strength and health increase markedly with this pairing, do you see that? My blood is different!"

Dr. Jess's eyebrows popped up.

"That got me wondering how my DNA would pair up with R?u bloodlines, so I ran Jacken and me." She laid down a fourth graph.

Jacken's heart staggered out of rhythm and he stopped breathing.

"The numbers for strength and health are through the roof, the highest, yet. And here" – she pointed to a small rise on the graph – "Peak 12 is at normalVarcolaclevels!"

"Holy goodness!" Dr. Jess gasped.

Jacken stared at the fourth graph, feeling like somebody had poured epoxy onto his brain, all the gears and mechanisms inside his skull glued into immobility. He should understand what was going on, he really sensed that, but everything was just stuck in a shocked standstill.

"Whatever's in my Royal bloodlines appears to completely counteract the negative effects of Jacken's Om R?u." She shifted her gaze over to Jacken. "You and I can have children, Jacken. In fact, I think we'd make one heck of a Varcolac kid, don't you?"

Jacken stared mutely at Toni, feeling like he was going ten rounds with a telephone pole. This … couldn't be happening. "No," he rasped out. "It's not true. It can't be."

Just run and hide when you see your father coming. His mother gently swept the hair off his brow. Tomorrow will be a better day, Jacken, you'll see. But it never was. So stupid to hope ….

"Dr. Jess," Toni said, "could you please confirm my work is correct?"

Jess nodded. "Dr. Parthen has done everything accurately."

"No." Jacken's stomach sloshed sideways. Clammy goose bumps broke out over his flesh. He reeled backward. "No!" He spun toward the window again and gripped the frame in tight fists. He wasn't letting any of it in, not the impossible dream that Toni could actually be telling the truth, not the bone-deep hunger which had been eating him alive ever since he'd met this infuriating woman. He stared at the stars in the sky until they blurred before his vision and formed the word silently with his mouth. No.

"Don't misunderstand Jacken, okay, Toni?" That was Sedge coming to the rescue. "He's not rejecting you. It's just that, for most of his life, he's had to accept that he'll never have a wife or children, or love. You erased all of that in about ten seconds flat, and … I'm guessing he's feeling a little overwhelmed right now."

Overwhelmed? There wasn't a single solid-feeling bone left in his body.

"Thank you, Sedge," Toni said softly.

Jacken heard her move around the conference table, coming toward him. He squeezed his fists. The window frame splintered beneath his grip with a soft crunch.

Toni slipped a hand around one of his forearms. "Are you going to make me sit on you until you agree to bond with me, Jacken? Because I'll do it. You know I will."

He dropped his head, a low, pain-filled groan spilling out of him. She would, wouldn't she? Jesus, he was so in love with this whack-job. He wanted her for his wife more than he wanted to breathe. No more schizophrenia about it. He flat-out wanted her. "You're a beautiful and smart doctor, a damned Royal, and I'm … I'm … a Half-R?u hardass."

She released an unsteady breath. "Oh, Jacken, do you have any idea how many pieces I'm in on the inside?" She pressed her forehead against his arm, her voice lowering to a whisper. "You're the only man who's ever made me feel whole."

His heart stopped, then restarted, thudding wildly. Jesus Christ, that's exactly how she made him feel. He turned his head to look at her. Their eyes caught and held, and he saw the truth of her words right there in the depths of her magnificent blue eyes. He swallowed hard and found his voice; it was hanging out at the bottom of his stomach, sloshing around with the acid there, burning his throat on the way up and out. "Holy shit."

She laughed breathlessly. "Oh, that's just the beginning of it, pal."

He straightened. "Why the hell didn't you say anything before, damn it, about your blood graph?"

"I had to know if you loved me first." The color of her eyes darkened. "There might be other royal Dragon women out in the world, Jacken, I don't know. But as it stands now, I'm the one woman who can be your wife, who can give you a home and children, and I didn't want you to want me for only that."

He shook his head at her. "Haven't you been paying any attention at all these last few weeks?" He made a grab for her, pulling her into a tight embrace.

She wrapped her arms around his neck just as tightly.

Everyone in the room came to their feet and broke into applause.

"Ah, Jesus." He tucked his face into her throat and inhaled deeply, allowing himself, at last, the supreme luxury of smelling her as his own. God, yeah, she definitely felt like his, her scent saturating him with such a sense of rightness, it was as if he was finding a long lost piece of his soul in this moment. "Don't you know," he whispered against her flesh, "that every viable feeling I've ever had in my whole life has been about you."

The clapping stopped abruptly.

Jacken lifted his head.

Toni stepped out of his embrace, frowning at the opening door.

At first Jacken thought it was Kimberly who was knocking while simultaneously pushing open the door – the woman entering had the same short, bobbed blonde hair as Sedge's wife – but, no, it was some nurse. "Dr. Parthen?"

"Yes, Penny?" Toni's frown deepened as she moved toward the nurse. "I thought I'd asked not to be disturbed."

"Um, I'm sorry, but …." The nurse gave her a distressed look. "The hospital was under strict orders to report it if you showed up."

"What are you talking about?"

Toni's question was answered as the door swung wide. There, standing in the hallway, were two men with guns and badges, one with brown hair, the other Spanish-looking with tan skin.

Penny gestured weakly at them. "This is Detective John Waterson and Pablo Ramirez of the San Diego Police Department."