Blood Bonds (7 page)

“I got the email this morning. The D.A.’s office okayed everything with the Director and I went in. I left you a message with Claire.” Haley shivered. “If you think I jumped the fence on this one...”

“No. That’s not what I’m saying at all.” He glanced at her again and this time his stare lingered. There was a little worry in those storm cloud eyes of his. Haley looked away. Other Humans showed weakness, never Garrett.

She stared out the window and watched the tree line start to shrink as it was replaced by more and more concrete. “Then what are you saying?”

“I called the Director after I got the call you were in holding. No one okayed anything with her. She didn’t even know you were gone. I called the D.A.’s and asked around. No one knew anything about the request.”

Haley stared, well aware her mouth was hanging open like a barn door. “I got the email directly from the D.A.’s office. It came from Marco’s email account. I swear.”

Garrett nodded. He flicked on the blinker, and took the I-20 off ramp and headed into downtown.

“The email came from the D.A.’s office. I checked it myself before I came and forwarded it to upstairs. Just in case. I had Ken in IT double check what I found. He said it came from the D.A.’s office, too.”

Good. If Ken said it came from the D.A.’s office, then this wasn’t some figment of her imagination.

“He verified it as coming directly from the D.A.’s account.”

Even better.

“So what’s the problem?” she asked.

“Paul Marco didn’t send you the request. He decided after Bob...” The “pissed his pants” went unsaid. “He decided whatever Niles had to offer wasn’t worth putting another person through that. They were worried Niles tried to make Bob do something...”

“You mean
push
him?” Haley shook her head. “He’s Male. Queens do stuff like that, but not Males. Males just don’t have that kind of metaphysical power.”

“He’s old, Haley, really old.” Garrett turned onto Industrial Street. “No one’s sure how old he is. Even the old Hatching records, preserved by census, don’t have an exact date.”

“You could ask his Brother.”

“What Brother?”

She shrugged a little. “Niles mentioned a Brother ... what?”

Garrett gave her a look. “While the dates of his hatching are fuzzy, the one thing that isn’t are the number of eggs in that clutch. And there was only one.”

Which was unusual. Clutches rarely had less than a hundred. Unless, of course, he’d once been a Prince. Still, why would Niles talk about a Brother he didn’t have? The records had to be wrong. If he really was that old, it was a distinct possibility. After all, it’s not like they make a spell check for stone tablet five-point-oh.

She glanced at Garrett, but he was watching the road. He took another right and headed up Peach. The CFKR building was only a few blocks on the right.

He said, “I’ve requested a full I.N.I. on the email, and the D.A.’s office has issued its own full internal investigation.”

Why would someone send her a trumped up email so she would meet with Niles Fury? What would it accomplish?

“What are you thinking?” Garrett pulled the car into the back lot and parked it in his usual spot. The thrum of the sedan’s engine made Haley miss her Mustang. Not because they sounded anything alike. Quite the opposite. It was a sad reminder of how good hers felt. She was going to miss the vibrations of the engine biting into her bones.

“How I’m going to miss my car.” It wasn’t a lie, but it also didn’t fool Garrett for a second.

“Before that.”

“Who would want me to talk with Niles and why?”

He gave a nod. A short quick one that said he was thinking along the same lines. Garrett opened his door and Haley followed.

“Here.” She started to hand him his jacket then looked down at herself.

“Keep it until you get changed.”

Yeah, it was no secret she kept a few extra clothes in the downstairs locker room. Getting bled on wasn’t all that uncommon of an experience when it came to interviewing her people.

“Thanks,” Haley said. “For everything.”

Garrett’s gaze was hard. “Nothing about you is ever boring, you know that?” A small dark smile replaced the thin slash of his mouth.

“Great. Is there an Employee of the Month award for that?”

The smile cracked and he almost laughed.

Almost.

Haley was out of the shower in record time. She finished getting dressed and worked on getting her hair dry. Black dominated her wardrobe--it was easier to mix and match that way--but now she wore a red blazer with a black skirt.

Her shoes were the same three inch heels she’d started the day in. Garrett didn’t approve of her choice in footwear. But at five-foot-three she needed the heels to give her an extra few inches. The neck cramps from looking up got old. Besides, they made her legs look good.

Haley knew she was not immune to the kind of vanity that infected Kin from coast to coast. But she hadn’t had the choices of form and shape that so many of her people were given. She was by no means unattractive. The way Human men looked at her confirmed that ample hips and breasts were well appreciated, but she lacked the artificial perfection of god-like beauty.

Instead of being obsessed with unblemished beauty in her white-scale days, she’d been fascinated with the details of the Human body, such as the hair on their arms, the scars on their skin, the change of pigment depending how much sun their bodies were exposed to.

The results had been a less than perfect form, flawed in ways synonymous with Humanity. It also made her almost impossible to pick out in a crowd. Unless, of course, the one doing the Where’s Waldo routine could sniff out the difference. Haley had long ago accepted that her lack of Kin perfection was fate, but it didn’t mean she couldn’t enjoy nice clothes and expensive shoes.

Very. Expensive. Shoes.

As Haley walked down the hall and through the front lobby, she knew the news of what happened that morning was already making its way around the office. She’d have to be blind, deaf and dumb to not notice the averted eyes, the cold glares and muffled whispers. Even though she’d been with the Center longer than the building had been standing, there were still people here who didn’t trust her. Hell, a lot of them didn’t even like her, especially the women.

Haley couldn’t decide what was worse: the men who thought she was a whore, or the women who also thought she was a whore. Only worse because she wasn’t even discrete about it. She’d given up trying to explain things years ago. Why bother? Her job was to deal with her people, which meant a lot of touching and palm licking.

And Humans just didn’t do palm licking.

She walked into her office, dreading the next round of office rumors she was going to have to deal with. But it could have been worse.

I could still be down in that hole, who knows how deep, waiting for someone to realize I was missing.

“Hey...”

She looked up. Farley was sitting in her chair with his feet up on her desk. The floor was littered with Post-It notes folded into paper footballs. By the look of the place, he’d been at it for a while now.

Housekeeping was not going to be happy.

He slid out of the chair and glided across the floor.

Farley was the only other Kin who worked the Atlanta Bureau and he wasn’t even an Agent. Garrett had tried to give him Agent status once, but Farley was Male. A relatively low-man-on-the-totem-pole-type-Male. Okay, even that was giving him a status booster. Farley was Food, which meant his control just wasn’t what it needed to be.

After a few write ups he’d been dropped back down to an informant. The pay sucked, but at least it was a job. It kept him licensed and legal outside the Dens.

Still, he was better than average about working with Humans. But there was no mistaking him for one. Farley wasn’t tall and broad like most Males, but his skin had the flawless ethereal look. His eyes were large with thick lashes. Too pretty for a man. Now that he kept his hair sheared short, he didn’t have those lovely red curls to soften his facial features as much. If it weren’t for the short hair, the tawny muscles and his squared-off shape, Farley would look feminine.

Haley hated to admit it, but she missed the curls.

“You okay?” Farley smiled in a crooked way which said he was thinking nefarious things. But then, he had a one track mind.

Haley pushed the door shut behind her and let out a sigh.

No, she wasn’t okay. She leaned into her friend and he wrapped his arms around her and pressed his face into her neck.

God of Man, it felt so good.

A deep thrum kicked up in Farley’s chest and the sound of it reminded Haley why she loved her Mustang so much.

He stroked her back. “Are you hurt?”

Haley didn’t trust herself to speak, so she just shook her head.

His mouth touched her neck, his tongue pressed down on her pulse. The sensation was calming. Better than alcohol or tranquilizers. If Humans only knew what they were missing.

Haley turned her head so her nose was against Farley’s neck and all she could smell was his scent. It was nothing like Niles. His scent screamed power, Farley’s whispered comfort.

He pulled her to the small two seat couch and made her sit. Haley said nothing to the fact he’d broken about a hundred taboos about Males initiating contact.

The truth was she just didn’t care.

No, Haley liked it that Farley didn’t act like other Males. Oh, he knew how to revert to the mode of survival when it came to working the Dens, but when he was with her, he knew she wouldn’t pull the dominance card.

She didn’t want to pull it.

Farley drew her into his lap until she had one leg thrown over his thigh and her entire body was pressed into his. He stroked her back and rubbed his cheek along her jaw while she curled against him and listened to him purr.

Haley petted the soft cotton of his black T-shirt. Farley didn’t have her hang ups about clothes, but then, he was usually in the Dens. At the office, Farley’s choice of baggy skaters, black urban shit kickers, and various heavy metal T-shirts were out of place. But in the Dens, he fit right in. Haley touched his forearm and traced the gold and bronze pattern of his
Nevus
. Most Kin only had one. Farley had a rare trait and displayed mirror images, one on each arm. His hold tightened.

“How bad is it?” He’d know exactly what she meant. The media backlash for this kind of crap always got to her.

“Do you really want to know?”

When she looked at him, his dark brown eyes were flecked with gold. He smiled, flashing fang.

Typical Male. Low threshold.

She sighed. “Yeah, I do.”

Farley slipped right into reporting mode. “News has been on all morning. Lots of exclusives with EFH members.”

Great. Put the bigots on the news. Give them plenty of air time.
Haley heaved another sigh and closed her eyes, wishing she could go back and start the day over. “What else?”

“Channel Five is flashing about eight seconds of security footage showing Niles doing a number on those Human guards.”

Haley moaned.

“Channel Two has that and another snippet of you getting top.” He grinned.

“I was holding him down.” She glared at him. “I had one hand around his heart and the other in his lung, for crying out loud. I don’t do sex in public.”

‘Cause that’s exactly what a large majority of her co-workers would think. Not to mention the public. Nobody would bother to take into consideration all the blood.

Farley’s grin widened. “I know. But I still like to hear you say it.”

Haley sobbed. She just couldn’t hold it any more. It was the worst of her Human impressed habits. Crying. Real crying, the shoulder-jerking, earth-shattering kind. Kin weren’t supposed to cry.

“Hey, hey, I was only kidding.”

“All I wanted to do was prove I could be trusted outside this damn building.” She didn’t resist when Farley pulled her face up and made her look at him. His thumbs erased the tears out from under each eye. He sucked them off one by one.

“Who says you can’t be trusted?” His eyes searched hers. There was more gold in them now and little flickers of copper-red. “You’re completely trustworthy, Haley. You’ve got control like no other.”

“And yet, every interview I do, I have someone leaning over my shoulder. The cops are afraid to be in the same room with me. The other Agents don’t want me on any case they deal with. I’m stuck here, in this building, every day.” And what made it worse were the restrictions the higher-ups put on her. She had to live in a certain area of the city, attend at least half of the office functions, and go to Human Sensitivity Training at least once a year. Not to mention she wasn’t allowed past the Wall into the Dens.

Farley shushed her. The thrumming in his chest kicked up a notch, easing her tensions. His hand went to her throat and he stroked her under the neck with his thumb.

“Why do you do this to yourself?” He sounded so sad. “Why do you stay with them?”

She knew what he meant.

It was an old argument. It wasn’t that Farley didn’t understand. If anyone was capable of it, he was. He’d been her friend for a very long time. Haley’s adoptive Mother needed a way to
feed
her. Fresh kill could only do so much. The metaphysical side of her biology couldn’t be sustained by human standards of consumption.

Back then, it was common for Alchemists to used pinned Kin in the labor trade. Haley’s adoptive mother picked Farley because he was small. If only she had known his reputation for being a man-eater. Farley stayed with Haley in the little town she was in and eventually the town became a city. With each passing generation of Human life he always asked her why she endured the hate to stay.

And for her the answer was simple.

She stayed because it was all she knew.

Besides, Medan had made it clear that she was not welcome in the Dens.

Haley wiped her eyes and sat up. She sniffled once, cleared her throat, then pulled herself off the sofa. She had work to do. There would be forms to fill out about the incident and she needed to check her voice mail. It was always full with requests from other Agents who needed her expertise in dealing with Kin. Expertise that was mostly book-learned and supercharged by genetics.