Chapter 31

CHAPTER 31

TOURON

T he room is silent for several minutes after Cameron and Ubron leave. I should go check on Selas, but she's probably still asleep. Her body is healing, and she needs her rest.

"I think I may have spoken with Ubron a couple of times late at night," Levi says.

"And you couldn't tell that it wasn't Serath?" Curi asks.

Levi shakes his head. "No. He didn't say much. I did most of the talking, and he listened."

"Then went back to Cameron's bed," Curi says tightly.

We're all thinking it, but no one is going to say it.

"Do you think he had sex with her?" Ginia says.

I bite back a groan. No one except Ginia is going to say it.

"Ginia, please…" Palia sounds weary.

Ginia presses her lips together for a beat then blurts out, "If they're somehow mated, then she wouldn't have felt off about him, so?—"

"Ginia!" Palia snaps. "Enough. That's for Serath and Cameron to sort out. Not for us to speculate on."

"This is so fucked up," Curi says.

"Derek and I found something," Shar says, neatly and effectively changing the subject. She pulls a small notebook from the thigh pocket of her lastonflex suit. "I didn't get a chance to read it, though."

"May I?" Orix asks.

She hands it to him, and he flicks through it, a delicate frown marring his forehead. "It's written in a different language."

"Can I take a look?" Palia asks.

Orix passes her the notebook.

"It's Latin," she says. "I can read it." She goes silent for several minutes. "This is bad."

"What is it?"

"It says here that they're working on perfecting a serum to suppress the gargoyles' primal mating urge."

Wait… "What does that mean?"

"It means that they've found a way to eliminate a gargoyle's primal instinct to mate based on pheromones."

Does that mean what I think it does?

"This is bad," Orix agrees. "The mating instinct, the pheromones are how we create the strongest goyles. It's how we maintain the guardians. Without the guidance of those primal instincts, our race will weaken and maybe even die out."

Or it could free us. "Not if we choose to take it."

"It won't be a question of choice, though," Orix snaps. "If they've created it, if it's been perfected, then it will be released on us en masse. It could destroy us."

"The journal is old," Palia said. "If they haven't perfected it by now, maybe they won't."

"Or maybe they have," Orix says, "and they're waiting for the perfect time to use it."

"Or," Ginia says, "maybe they've already used it, and we don't know."

I should be as horrified as them, but I'm not because this serum spells freedom for me. Freedom from a primal instinct that's stopping me from being with the woman I love.

Derek materializes beside Shar.

"Are you all right?" she asks.

"I'm fine."

She searches his face as if looking for clues as to the sincerity of that statement. "You must have expended too much energy."

"No. I have expended more in the past and been unaffected," Derek said. "Something is wrong. I should have been able to fight for longer; not only that, but I did not sense Cameron's distress in time."

"We were a room away," Shar says to us. "There was a smaller room at the back of the one we were scouring. It's where I found the book, so we didn't hear the commotion right away."

"But I should not need to hear it," Derek says. "I should feel it." He presses his hand to his chest. "I am her shield."

"Then we'll speak to Yarrow," Shar says. "We'll figure it out, okay?"

"You can't tell him what happened," Orix reminds them. "About the facility and the graynite attack."

"We'll keep that out of it," Shar says. "Derek, it'll be fine. We'll figure this out."

Cameron enters the kitchen trailed closely by Taz. She looks shaken and subdued and in need of a hug. I cross the room and pull her into my arms. "It'll be okay." I kiss the top of her head, and she bursts into tears.

My eyes heat, the stress and uncertainty of the last few days hitting me hard, and I blink back my own tears, hugging her tighter.

We need to find this faction and take them down. And soon.