Chapter Five

The other warriors tramped intothe locker room to full-on change for the meeting with Toni, while Thomal just yanked on a pair of sweatpants over his workout shorts and headed out of the mansion—the warriors' training gym was in the basement—and headed down Main Street. Now he could duck into Aunt ?lsi's, just down the way, and grab a to-go cup of coffee.

The TradeMark Clothing Store, his sister-in-law's place, was right next door, and Beth Costache was also inside ?lsi's, ordering a drink that would probably throw her into sugar-shock. Thomal secretly rolled his eyes. Women.

As far as sweet went, though, Beth had the lock on that, with the type of ultra-nice personality that was somehow reflected all over her skin. If Thomal didn't know better, he'd say Beth was one of those sparkly vampires from Twilight. He snorted. Sparkly? Regular humans got nearly everything wrong about the breed, but sparkly had to take the cake.

Thomal chatted with Beth, then paid ?lsi and grabbed his cup, full of straight black coffee as man was meant to drink it. Meandering down Main, he came to Garwald's Pub, located just before the road forked, and spotted D?nu?, exiting the bar with a bag of ketchup bottles. D?nu? was manager of the community diner, and by the looks of it, he'd run out of some supplies.

Thomal lengthened his strides, passing the pub to head down the right fork. D?nu? wasn't dressed in a way that was especially bleak, but Thomal still only saw a depressing blend of charcoal, black, and grey whenever he looked at the dude, and that wasn't how he wanted to start his morning.

"Hey, Thomal!" Hadley was just coming out of the grocery store. "What are you doing out and about?" His girlfriend drew close and smiled up at him. Her teeth were so white they seemed to catch the pretend sunshine from stadium lights overhead and reflect it back tenfold. "I thought you were training this morning."

"I was. We got interrupted to have a meeting with Toni." He gestured down the street toward the hospital. "I'm heading to her office now."

"Oh. Well, I'm glad I ran into you. I wanted to tell you something last night, but couldn't find you."

He sipped his coffee, pretending great interest in it to avoid Hadley's eyes. He'd been avoiding his girlfriend, lately, afraid he might somehow give away how frustrated he was feeling toward her these days. Which made him a total dick—both the avoidance and the frustration. Because he should do nothing but count his lucky stars that Hadley was in his life.

This community ran extremely short on mate-able females: specifically, women like Hadley who were in possession of an ancient, rare gene called Dragon. These females were the last frontier of breeding options for Varcolac since their dying species had reached the limits of their DNA and now couldn't procreate with their own kind. To go back to the lucky for him part, Hadley was awesome; she had a million-dollar smile, a righteously hot bod, honey-blonde hair, a very pleasant personality, and—after an initial freak-out when she found out he was a fang-bearing sub-species of human—now wanted to be with him as much as he wanted to be with her: marriage, kids, lots of sex, the whole nine yards.

The catch?

She suffered from a needle phobia.

And, yeah, to take a pit stop in Obvious Land for a moment, his fangs were much sharper than needles, more like blades, which equaled a bunch of hurry up and wait, already on his end.

Hadley was working on overcoming her fear of his fangs with the community therapist, using some technique called "systematic desensitization." But after three months of treatment—three long months, during which time he'd been privileged to watch warrior buddies Dev and Gábor nab wives—Hadley didn't seem much further along than when she'd started. He was growing sick of plastering a smile on his face and pretending that dating her with no end in sight was just super-okay, and that's where the avoidance had come from. He was also pretty damned sure that if Hadley found out how horny he actually was, it wouldn't help his campaign to ultimately convince this woman that he and his fangs could be oh-so-sweet to her.

"I had a B12 shot, Thomal."

He whipped his eyes up. "What?"

"Yep." Her expression glowed with pride. "I focused on happy thoughts and kept my heartbeat even, and I did it!"

"Holy crap."

"I know, isn't it great!? I need to manage a few more shots, but otherwise, I think we can be together soon." She moved closer and widened her smile.

Her scent—that of an unmated female—drowned him in the smell of mount-me-now-and-hard-baby, and he jolted. Grinding his teeth, he tried to pinch his nostrils off from it. And, yeah, he'd go ahead and solve world hunger and create peace for all, too, while he was about the easy shit.

She reached up and palmed his cheek. "That is, if you still want me."

"Of course." As the words left his mouth, he felt something twinge in his conscience. He had a knack for seeing the true side of people—a throwback from his artist days—but with Hadley, he felt like he was overlooking something. There was some kind of…essence about Hadley that pulled him toward her, but as if he didn't have a choice in the matter and the hell if other shit got ignored.

She threw her arms around his neck and hugged him. "I'm so sorry, honey. I know this wait has been difficult for you. It's been hard on me, too, unable to be with you when I love you so much. But…" She turned her head to whisper directly into his ear, "I promise to make the wait worth it."

Lights, camera, action. A porno movie instantly lit up his brain, a string of endless variations of what her promise implied parading through his mind. Hadley in a bikini shot instantly to the screen. Every time the two of them went to the Water Cliffs he just about blew his load in his swim trunks…metaphorically speaking, of course, because he couldn't get the ol' bone daddy going until he was a mated male. Hadley had a cute little birthmark sitting high on her left hip—in addition to the one on her back that marked her a Dragon—which for some reason he always wanted to lick. It was shaped like a lopsided "3," and sucking on it while he peeled off her bathing suit was the movie going off in his head that—

Prickles of pain needled his cock, his blocked-off sexual plumbing saying hey, watch it, bub in full contradiction to his mind shouting yahoo, let's rock! Such fun to have schizophrenic sex organs. He stepped out of Hadley's arms. "Hey, now, don't start in on that. I'll end up on the floor." He was smiling, though, really happy for the first time in a long time. "I gotta go, Hadley, but let's have dinner tonight to celebrate."

She laughed. "It's Thanksgiving, silly. We're going to the Bruns' house, remember?"

"Oh, yeah. We'll celebrate there, then." What better place to raise a toast to his future than with his family and friends? "I'm really proud of you." He gave her a quick kiss and took off down Main Street again.

??ran?'s hospital stood between thecommunity grocery store and the beginnings of the residential neighborhood where couples with children lived. Every house there was painted a different bright color, but each one had a white picket fence out front surrounding a lawn of artificial turf. Various other fake plants and potted flowers littered the yards, depending on individual preferences, creating the illusion of any upper-middle-class neighborhood from topside rather than the inside of a cave. At the end of the street, there was a schoolhouse on the right, and on the left a path leading toward the Water Cliffs park, where sand, waterfalls, and pools provided for fun family outings. It was very happy-go-lucky stuff, and Thomal grinned so widely it was a wonder the sides of his mouth didn't knock his ears in. He'd be living here soon. He knew just how he'd arrange the plants in the front yard, too…although he should probably leave that to Hadley.

Toni Parthen's office took up a huge corner of the ground floor of the four-story hospital building. A desk of pale wood sat to the left of the door and a cluster of couch, chairs, and coffee table were situated opposite. Straight across from the entrance was a frosted sliding glass door which led out to a garden courtyard where convalescing patients could sit or hobble about. Above the couch hung a rectangular picture of one-hundred-percent girlie crap: flowers on a hillside. On the wall by the door was mounted a state-of-the-art flat screen TV.

Raln Dodrescu, ??ran?'s media tech guy, was currently kneeling beneath it, fiddling with the TEVO. Raln was in charge of television programming for the community, which mostly consisted of him flip-flopping shows to meet ??ran?'s backward day/night cycle. Nighttime topside was daytime here, and vice versa, and it wouldn't go down well to have primetime TV playing, like the risqué Three and a Half Men, during kids' breakfast while SpongeBob Squarepants was the only thing available for adults in the evening.

Raln was only a few years older than Thomal, but was of the "lost" generation of Varcolac. He was married to a woman of his own breed and had suffered through the birth of two stillborn babies before he and his wife gave up on the idea of a family. Devastated by years of death and loss, most couples of this lost generation had stopped trying for children even long before Roth Mihnea, Toni's co-leader of ??ran?, had forbidden all future Varcolac-to-Varcolac reproduction. Real tragic stuff.

"Forward to the spot when the police officer leaves the house," Toni directed Raln. "Then freeze-frame as soon as the door swings open."

Nodding, Raln super-slow-forwarded the picture. On the TV, a female newscaster was reporting in front of a single family home, the tag of "El Cerrito" on the lower right hand corner of the screen, indicating where she was in San Diego.

"Who did the reporter say was kidnapped?" Dev asked, focused on the TV.

Devid Nichita was leader of the Special Ops Topside Team, an expert military unit created to deal with problems occurring up on planet earth. All of the team were at this meeting—Gábor, Sedge, and Thomal—as was, Jacken, their ultimate boss.

"A young woman named Elsa Mendoza," Toni answered. "Sister to Ria Mendoza."

Sedge pulled his long blond hair into a ponytail. "The name Ria Mendoza sounds familiar."

Toni nodded. "Ria's a San Diego prosecutor. Kimberly probably knows her." Kimberly was Sedge's wife, a champion-class attorney who lived down here, but also practiced law topside, working cases for her own firm as well as attending to issues for the community. "In the middle of the abduction, Elsa's live-in boyfriend came home and was killed by the intruders."

They all watched in silence as the TV picture moved forward frame by frame. The door to the house swung open in slow motion and a uniformed policeman moved into the entry.

"Okay, stop there," Toni said to Raln. "Now move back to when the door first opens." The frame click-clicked back. "There." Toni pointed at the television screen, indicating a bloody mark on the wall just inside the house: a piece of crime scene evidence TV viewers weren't supposed to see…and nobody probably had, because the door opened and closed so quickly at normal speed.

Jacken gave his wife an incredulous look. "How the hell did you spot that?"

"I don't know. I just…did." Toni swept her gaze over the warriors. "That blood mark is what I think it is, isn't it?"

Thomal cursed below his breath. The red stain on the wall was in an unique, symmetrical starburst pattern, one that could've only been created by the enchanted exploding knives both the underground and topside demonic Om R?u used to devastating effect. So, yeah, it was what Toni thought. The boyfriend had been killed by a B?taie Blade.

"Shit," Dev confirmed.

Thomal frowned at the TV screen. This didn't make shit for sense, though. "What would an Om R?u want with a Mendoza?" he asked. Dark-eyed and dark-haired, a Latin girl was the farthest thing away from the fair, blonde Dragon females that both the Varcolac and Om R?u races needed…and fought each other to possess.

Jacken crossed his arms. "Good question, Costache. Let's find out." He glanced at his watch. "It's a little after eight at night topside now." He looked directly at Dev. "If you hurry, your team can probably arrive at this Ria woman's house around nine or so, get some questions answered. I want full optics on this as soon as possible."

"Got it." Dev bought off on the mission without hesitation, but Thomal caught a flicker of disappointment pass through his friend's gaze.

Dev and Marissa's baby crib was being delivered today, and Thomal knew Dev was excited about putting it together. Why deprive a man of his pleasure for something as benign as a fishing expedition?

"Why don't I take point on this?" Thomal said, tossing his empty coffee cup into Toni's trash can. "Charm is needed for this mission, right?" He flashed the men a cocky smile. "And who better to finesse answers out of a woman than a Costache?"

A laugh rumbled out of Dev. "True enough. Take Arc with you as backup, then. He's been on half duty for a while with Beth's pregnancy and wants to get back in the game." Dev smirked. "He's the one with the real charm, anyway."

Thomal didn't actually flip his team leader the bird, but put plenty of that sentiment into his gaze.

Toni sat down behind her desk. "Just make sure you and Arc are back by two o'clock for Thanksgiving dinner. I've got a twenty-two-pound turkey cooking."