CONCEPTION (The Others) (5 page)

“You think I would not appreciate your independence?” Dusan
asked in that same gentle voice he’d used since she’d met him.

This time she did look up at him, hoping to catch something
in his expression beyond that controlled calm, but whatever she’d hoped to
find, it wasn’t there. “I think you’d appreciate right up until my independence
came up against your wishes.”

He smiled. Small creases fanned out from the corners of his
eyes and melded with the severity of his cheekbones, creating a composite image
of rugged masculinity. “Like now?”

“Yes,” she agreed, sucking in a breath. Dusan Knight was a
very handsome man. “Like now.”

The baby woke. Her little arms flailed and her mouth pursed
into a Cheerio of displeasure. Bohdan first looked shocked, then awkward, but
when a wave of her fist connected with his chin, totally captivated. “The
little one is hungry.”

As one, the men looked to her to fix the problem. She folded
her arms across her chest and stared right back at them. “Then feed her.”

Both gazes dropped to her crossed arms, but it was Dusan who
responded. “We are not so equipped.”

She snorted in disbelief and raised her voice to be heard
over the baby’s cries. “If you can change into a giant bird then I think you
can grow a pair of breasts.”

“That was illusion, this is reality.”

The baby’s cries increased in volume. “I can’t feed her.”

The
shots the lab techs had given her had taken care of that. They weren’t
interested in the baby’s emotional well-being, just her genetic makeup.

Bohdan stepped closer. “She has no milk.”

“Is this true?” Dusan asked.

Eden didn’t answer, and she didn’t reach for the child
Bohdan held out to her.

“A woman’s milk lets down when her child cries. Hers has
not.”

Deuce’s nostrils flared as he took a breath, as if trying to
catch a whiff of her…milk? That was just disgusting.

“Will
you two stop sniffing me?” She dug her fingers into her arms and leaned back
into the chair.

Bohdan glanced at Deuce before tilting his head to the side
and saying in that aggravating, soothing tone, “It is not a problem. Other
arrangements can be made.”

“Did
it ever occur to you two bloodhounds that I may not be her mother?” It was a
possibility that nipped at her certainty, and one they should have at least
considered.

The look Dusan gave her was pitying. “You are her mother as
I am her father. Her scent and thought patterns are of both of us.”

“You’re sure?” She had assumed the child was hers, but there
had been no way to know for sure. Her grandfather’s house was huge, a labyrinth
of rooms that could hide hundreds of secrets, dozens of victims. God, she hoped
she was the only victim, and her child the only experiment.

Deuce paused as the question hung in the air between them,
the quiver of uncertainty in the two syllables more telling than words. Eden
had not known if this was her child. Their child. Yet she’d risked everything
to bring her here.

Dusan placed his hand on her arm. The coat blocked his
access to her flesh. He pressed until he could feel the resistance of substance
beneath the material, very aware that all he’d need to do to feel the pleasure
of her flesh was to extend one talon and slice through the material. He focused
instead on matching his mind to hers, to calm the fears that had put that look
in her eyes, but all he encountered was that frustrating wall of silence. This
could not continue. “I am sure, but I do not understand how this came to be.”

Eden sat tall in the chair. Her throat muscles worked. She
took a breath and stared somewhere off to his right. “They had the…samples from
when you were captured. From there it was just a matter of technology.”

“You will explain.”

She pulled her jacket tight around her and turned away,
shaking her head. The ridiculous pom-pom bounced in his face. He snatched the
hat from her head and froze. Eden gasped and covered her head with her hands,
her big blue eyes filling with hurt and humiliation as she grabbed for the hat.
Anger, an emotion Deuce was fast becoming familiar with, set a muscle in his
cheek to ticcing. Her head was shorn as smooth as a newborn babe’s.

He stood, unable to believe what he saw. “Who did this to
you?” He would kill them. The hat crumpled in his hand, the pom-pom offering no
substantial outlet for his rage. Slowly and surely, he would kill them.

Her hands dropped from her head. Her chin came up and those
shoulders—those slight shoulders—squared with that indomitable pride that
comprised so much of her personality. She held out her hand. “Give me my hat.”

He looked at her hand and then at the ugly hat. He tossed it
across the room and stood, straining to hold on to his control. “You are
beautiful to me in all ways, Edie, but I would know who dared do this to you.”

Her chin wobbled as her gaze trailed the flight path of the
hat like a lifeline, then firmed. “That was unnecessary.”

He hated the hat and all it represented—his failure to
protect her, her suffering, his grief at the thought of her loss. “It was very
necessary.”

A trickle of power filled the room. He glanced at Bohdan as
a soft feminine scarf appeared in Eden’s hands. Eden gasped and dropped it as
if it stung her, looking first at him, then at Bohdan before slowly reaching
for it.

“You will tell me their names,” Deuce ordered as she picked
up the scarf and whipped in into a triangle. He could not believe anyone would
dare to be so cruel as to cut off her hair. Those beautiful, wild
go-where-they-would curls he’d loved to slide his fingers through.

“It
doesn’t matter,” she whispered, tying the scarf quickly.

Dusan
touched a dangling corner with his fingers, unable to express the regret and
guilt he felt. She had needed him and he had not been there. “It matters.” And
he would take great pleasure in handling it. “Forgive me for not protecting
you.”

She
jerked out of his reach. Her elbow hit the arm of the chair with a dull thunk.
She grabbed it and rubbed it, but did not look at him. “I was there, remember?
You were in no condition to do anything.”

That still stung his pride. That he, one of the Chosen, had
been so easily tricked. He took a breath before releasing it on a sigh. “I
would still ask your forgiveness for leaving you unprotected.”

“You’re kidding me, right?”

“No.”

“You’re forgiven.”

The words came too quickly. Too easily. “If that is so, you
will allow my brother to heal you.”

Every muscle in her body pulled taut at the suggestion,
until it felt like she’d shatter if he pressed too hard. “I said you were
forgiven, not trusted.”

“Nonetheless, I must insist.”

She flicked her fingers at him in a parody of the humor he
remembered. “Insist away.”

He did not mistake her words for consent any more than he
missed the flare of pain that radiated from her when she lifted her arm. She
suffered. The time for humoring her had passed. Because he thought it would
scare her less, he used his hands rather than his thoughts to open her jacket.
Her response was beyond reason.

She turned on him like a wildcat—teeth bared, hands doubled
into fists, her emotions leaping past that wall of silence in an equally wild
bid for freedom. Her blows were nothing against his strength, but the
impressions that flooded his mind as she vented her fury almost dropped him to
his knees.

He caught her arm as her fingers went for his eyes. With a
simple spin, he turned her around, arms folded across her chest, hands anchored
at her side. He could not let her harm herself. He nodded to his brother.

Bohdan
whispered to the baby, sending her to sleep. He placed her on the bed. Even
from across the room, Deuce could feel the waves of soothing comfort in with
which Bohdan surrounded the baby. He was taking no chances on the little one
waking up before they were ready.

 
“Let me go,” she
hissed, kicking out at Bohdan who easily sidestepped the blow.

“No.” Deuce sat in the chair and pulled Eden down onto his lap.
He was never letting her go again. She tried to butt him with her head, but she
was so small she only rapped his collarbone. Neither her lack of size nor the
odds against her swayed her determination. Her breath came in ragged gasps. Her
heartbeat thundered in his ears and still she fought. The scent of blood
intensified. Dusan tightened his grip, sheltering her with his body, trying to
find a path through her panic. “You need care.”

Bohdan approached again, hands at his side, weight balanced
on his toes. “You will explain why you fear the healing.”

The calmness of his order did not override the battle stance
he’d adopted. Bohdan was ready to force the issue. It was pointless to hope
Eden didn’t know that. She cast one desperate glance over her shoulder, the
agony in her blue eyes raising his beast before she wrenched so hard against
his hold, he feared she would pull a muscle. Sweat poured down her face as she
arched against his restraint. “If he touches me, they’ll find me.”

“How?”

“I don’t know how.” The admission strained out between her
gritted teeth as she pitted her strength against his. “But if they find me,
they find the baby.”

Deuce held her until she accepted the futility of her
effort. She slumped against him after one last valiant bid for freedom, either
accepting the pointlessness of further struggle or simply being too weak to try
again. Deuce suspected the latter. The Edie he knew did not understand the
concept of surrender. He turned her in his arms. Her head dropped back against
his shoulder. Her eyes were huge and drowning in tears as they met his.

“You can’t let that happen.”

Chapter Four

He would never let the Coalition have his daughter. “You and
our daughter will be safe here.”

The distress in her expression puzzled him at his proclamation
as much as her “I can’t stay” offended him.

He pulled the coat sleeve over her arm. “Nevertheless, you
will.”

The odors of female sweat and desperation swirled around
him, mixing with, but not masking the scent of her injuries. Her lids dropped
to over her eyes as she whispered, “I won’t.”

“You have no option.” Deuce tugged the other sleeve. He
would simply make the barrier go away, but he feared it might send her into
hysteria. At last the coat fell from her body. He reached for her shirt front.

“It’s too dangerous.” Her voice reflected the tension in her
body. She was terrified.

Her hand hovered over his as if she knew she could not stop
him from undressing her, yet she was driven to try. She was right to think she
could not. He was desperate to see the extent of her wounds. Her gaze bounced
off his to check the window, the door, as if she feared discovery. Or attack.
It was the behavior of a person who’d learned there was no such thing as safe.

Bohdan put his suspicion into words. “You have escaped
before?”

“Yes.”

Deuce worked the collar button free of its hole as Eden sank
back into his lap. If she were Chosen, she would have disappeared. But she
wasn’t Chosen, she was human and her only defense was her determination and her
wits. It never failed to amaze him how she could do so much with so little. He
opened the buttons over her chest. She jerked, her lip catching between her
teeth, her breath filling her lungs and staying there. “You were not
successful.”

With his hands so close to her skin, Deuce could not miss
her shudder or how the memories intensified the stench of her fear. Her
memories were not pleasant.

“No.”

Such a little word to contain so much emotion. It was his
right to know her thoughts and emotions. His privilege to protect her from her
enemy and the memories that would hurt her. It was not right that he stand on
the outside looking in, watching her suffer. “How did you escape this time?”

Edie did not look at him. She kept her gaze locked on her
hands, her lashes dark against her cheeks, the pale tips blending with her
skin. “I had help.”

Deuce nodded to Bohdan who turned away before he pulled the
shirt off. “Who?”

“I don’t know.”

She wore no bra. A flush spread up over her chest, surging
over the prominence of her breastbone as he glanced at her breasts. Her
embarrassment tainted the air around them along with her stress. She was afraid
of, or feared for, whoever had helped her.

“They will not find you again,” Deuce said quietly, draping
her shirt across her full breasts, preserving the modesty she valued. “And if
you give me the name or the image of the one who helped you, they will not harm
him either.”

She shook her head. Her fingers locked together and clenched
until the knuckles glowed white. “I can’t.”

He would have pressed, but he had fears of his own. One of
them being that she was holding onto her sanity by a thread. When she was
healed, he would know his enemies and know his debts. He pulled the bottom of
the shirt up, exposing the white bandage steeped red with blood that rose above
the waistband of her jeans. He reached for the snap.

She jerked back as far as she could. She would have fallen
to the floor if he hadn’t caught her. “I can’t allow you to touch me.”

He kept his hands where they were, absorbing the tangle of
emotions spilling from her—terror, pain, need and determination. The last was
the most disturbing. Now that she had found him, she should be relaxing, not
building her resistance. “You will be healed.”

She tugged her shirt tight around her middle. The physical
gesture seemed to bolster her composure. Her voice was almost normal as she
said, “Not if you can’t do it without touching.”

“Touching is required.”

“Then no.”

“You like that word too much.”

Her glance was wry, with the faintest hint of amusement,
giving him another glimpse of the woman he remembered. “Men always say that.”