Jaci's Experiment Read online

  “Without the crystal gift, you can’t power your cities.” Ruth caught on quickly.

  “And without emotion, the crystal gift is leaving our people.”

  Ruth shook her head in wonder. “I would never have thought of that, but we’ve all been speculating.”

  Jaci had to grin. “I guess the telepathic grapevine is quite active down here.”

  “You can say that again.” Ruth laughed outright. “We don’t have much else to occupy us down here, except Dave and Mike make an effort to find entertaining and educational things on their viewer and share them as often as they can with the rest of us who can hear. We’ve been learning a lot about your people since you installed it in their cell.”

  “And speculating a great deal, I imagine.” Jaci found herself astounded by their ingenuity. “I’d be willing to help you decipher anything that might be confusing. Just ask.”

  Ruth’s smile lit her whole face. “That’s great! Thanks.”

  She found herself in the cousins’ cell shortly thereafter, a smile full of apprehension on her face as she faced them.

  “It’s off,” she said as calmly as she could.

  She didn’t want to appear weak, but she really needed a hug. The emotions were flooding her again and each cell she visited made her want to break down and cry. But she had to be strong. She couldn’t show the changes that were happening to her.

  “Come here, sweetheart.” Michael’s tone was gentle as he tugged her into his arms.

  She felt at peace for the first time since leaving her dreams of these two men. She snuggled into Michael’s embrace, unsurprised when David moved up behind them, placing his soothing hands on her head and neck, massaging away her tension with his magic touch.

  “How’s that? Better?” David asked at her ear, making her shiver.

  She heard a sound come from her throat that she’d never made before. It was a hum of pleasure and it alerted her to another sound, a low pulsing hum that had started sometime after Michael had opened his generous arms to her.

  She stood back from them with wide eyes, breaking contact and the hum stopped.

  Could it be?

  “Blood of the Founders!” Her whispered exclamation caught their attention.

  “What’s wrong?” David’s voice was a little sharper as she looked at him.

  “I don’t know. Maybe nothing, but…” She moved forward, her hand outstretched to touch his cheek, gently, with great uncertainty.

  And there was the Hum. She knew what it was now, with dreadful certainty. Her heart was both elated and troubled.

  She let him go and turned to Michael, repeating her action. As she touched him, the Hum returned. But how could this be? Her thoughts whirled. They only had about five minutes left for her to tell them what she suspected, but it was much too complicated.

  She firmed her shoulders and turned to face them both, touched by the concern on their faces. She’d just have to do the best she could.

  “I don’t understand this, but have you ever heard the term ‘resonance mate’? It is part of my culture’s distant past. There might be something in the ancient texts they’ve given you access to that could help you learn more, because there’s no way I can tell you much in the time we have remaining before I have to turn the monitor back on.”

  Her eyes grew wild and the men moved closer, seeking to calm her. They touched her, David first, taking her into his arms, then Michael surrounding her from behind and the Hum returned, pulsing through her entire being, making her feel warm and comforted in a way she had never before experienced.

  “Take it easy, sweetheart. Whatever has you troubled, you can tell us in your own good time.” David was so kind, his words gentle as he kissed her cheeks and eyes with a softness that nearly broke her heart.

  “You can’t hear it, can you?”

  “Hear what?” Michael asked from behind, stroking her waist and hips with his hands as his mouth burrowed under the hair at her nape, placing soft kisses on her heated skin.

  “The Hum. When I touch youboth of youwe Hum. It’s the first of the tests for resonance mates. There’s supposed to be only one perfect match for each person, but I Hum with both of you. I never noticed it before.”

  David pulled back to look down at her. “This sound serious.”

  “It is.”

  She gasped as he leaned in and kissed her once, very thoroughly before releasing her. She was spun around and Michael took an equally devastating kiss from her lips before she could form a coherent thought. He released her abruptly and set her away from them.

  “God, but I’ve been dreaming of that all day. But we’re running out of time.”

  She was glad someone was keeping their wits about them. She moved back toward the monitor.

  “Look it up on the viewer if you can. There’s too much for me to explain now, but please, I hope you don’t mind. I never expected that I would ever Hum with anyone. It’s not something that happens to my people anymore.”

  “Not since they bred emotion out of them, right?” David’s voice was knowing.

  She was amazed. “You’re right! And now that I’m changing, this has changed too. Amazing.” She shook her head in wonder. “I’ll have to test this further.”

  Michael drew her attention back to him by taking her around the waist and dropping a small kiss on her brow. She’d never felt so cherished.

  “Just don’t go around kissing all the boys. I think Dave and I would have something to say about that.”

  He smiled and she laughed, but it made her warm to think that these two handsome men would care what she did and with whom. But then, she’d been their only link to the outside world for months now. Perhaps they cared for her in some odd fashion. She’d heard that prisoners sometimes fell in love with their jailors.

  Her face fell at the thought as she left Michael’s embrace. She wasn’t very good at hiding her emotions in front of these men. They knew her too well.

  “What you’re saying doesn’t make sense. I know I’m the only woman from the outside that you have contact with. I can’t trust that if things were different you would still feel the same.”

  “Stockholm Syndrome, you mean?” David asked, coming forward, looking intrigued. “I’m aware of the implications in our situation but I don’t think either Mike or I would fall victim to such feelings. I know for a fact we both want to rip the legs off the bastard who hunted us down and captured us like dogs.” His expression turned violent. “I heard his men calling him Prime. A prime asshole, I figure.”

  She realized suddenly that these men hadn’t gone quietly into imprisonment if they’d sent their best troops after them.

  “Grady Prime,” she said softly, nodding to herself.

  “Yeah, that was the bastard’s name. Grady,” Michael growled, his eyes going cold with hatred. “You know him?”

  She felt uncomfortable. She could hardly tell these two that she’d serviced him just days before. She somehow understood just the idea of it would make these men violent. But she couldn’t lie either. They would know. They could read her too easily, with their lifetimes of experience with the emotions she was only just starting to feel.

  “I know him, thought we do not interact often. He’s an elite, a Prime. He outranks me to a very considerable degree, even if he is of soldier stock. In the normal course of things, a Jaci would rank slightly higher than any soldier, but not a Prime, and especially not Grady Prime. He is the best of the best.”

  Michael snorted. “Well, at least there’s that. It took their best man to take us down. We’d been on the move for years, but this Grady bastard had us on the run. Until he came along, the patrols were easy to outmaneuver, but this guy was downright spooky. He always seemed one step ahead of us.”

  “That’s because I was.”

  The cold male voice sounded from the archway, startling all three of them. And there he was. Grady Prime, in the flesh.

  “Holy shit,” Michael cursed softly, moving in fron
t of Jaci as if to protect her from the soldier.

  Dave was more direct as he faced the other man. “You have some nerve showing your face here, scumsucker.”

  Grady just watched them with mild curiosity. “I’ve come for the girl.”

  David stepped in front of Grady, blocking his path across the room to her.

  “You’ll have to go through us to get her and I see you’ve left your goon squad at home this time. I’ve been waiting two years to get a piece of you, so just try to take her. Make my day.”

  She’d never heard David sound more lethal and the look in his eyes truly scared her. There was only one way out of this situation. She had to bluff them all, but she didn’t know if she had it in her. Still, she had to try. She didn’t want any of them getting hurt over her.

  She took a deep breath, schooled her features and stepped out from behind Michael. He tried to grasp her arm, but she evaded him.

  “What do you require, Grady Prime?”

  “Mara 12 has ordered that you accompany my team on a short mission. There is some technical data that must be gathered and you were chosen to do it.”

  She carefully hid her relief. “I am almost finished with the maintenance of this cell and can be with you momentarily.” Without waiting for acknowledgment, she turned back to Michael, gave him a look that begged him to stand down and moved to switch on the monitor.

  She tried her best not to look at either of the cousins as she finished her duties and walked straight to Grady Prime. The soldier had not eased his vigilance with the two Breeds, but stood ready should they offer him trouble. She had to respect all three men for standing their ground, but not giving in to their baser emotions.

  She’d almost gained the door when David shot out his hand, catching her arm in a light grip. He held her by the wrist, his skin against hers and the air filled with the low, throbbing Hum she’d only just recognized.

  “Will you be all right with him?” His concerned expression demanded an answer.

  She nodded, trying to convey all that she was feeling without giving herself away to the soldier who watched with great interest. “Grady Prime is our greatest warrior. There is no shame in having been captured by him.”

  “I didn’t mean—”

  “What is that noise?” Grady was looking at them strangely, thankfully distracted by the noise that only he and Jaci could hear with their more sensitive Alvian ears.

  She tried to look innocent while tugging her wrist free of David’s light hold. The Hum stopped and Grady eyed them suspiciously.

  “I don’t hear anything.” Michael stepped up to face the soldier, belligerence in every line of his hard muscled body.

  “You wouldn’t,” Grady said quietly, his voice calm and not at all mocking. “I doubt human ears would pick up something this low frequency.” He shook his head. “But it’s gone now. Must have been some equipment somewhere that’s just switched off.”

  Jaci tried not to show her relief, nodding calmly. “Must have been.” She stepped forward to stand next to Grady. Ever the soldier, he hadn’t let down his guard for a moment with the men in the room. “I am ready to depart with you, Prime. Will the journey be long?”

  “We should be back by nightfall.”

  She turned to the cousins. “Then I will see you tomorrow, gentlemen, unless I am reassigned. Have a nice day.”

  It was her standard parting from all her charges and had been for years so there was no way it would raise any alarms with those who watched over the monitors. Still, she wished she could say something more private to the two men who had become so important to her. Any other time, she would have jumped at the chance to be assigned to Grady Prime even temporarily. It was a sign the Maras were pleased with her work and it could mean advancement was not far off for her, but just now, with so much happening to her inner being, any further change was unwelcome.

  She couldn’t let it show, of course. She couldn’t let anything show.

  She went as calmly as she could out the cell door with Grady Prime to face whatever the future held in store for her.

  Chapter Three

  Their destination was the Southern Engineering Facility. Jaci had never been there before, and she found it quite an amazing sight. The facility was built in dense green jungle that sparkled and sang with natural crystal deposits. She felt an energy in the air that she’d never felt before and she realized what it was almost as soon as she saw the small woman bounding toward the shuttle.

  She was a Breed! Roaming free about the facility and even carrying advanced crystals on her person, she greeted Grady Prime by name, even daring to reach up and place a kiss on his cheek. Jaci had never seen the like.

  The woman’s broad smile turned to her and suddenly a puzzled frown replaced her open expression. Jaci immediately felt fear. This woman could see right through her, she realized, and it could spell disaster.

  The woman stepped forward, offering her hand. Jaci had no polite choice but to accept the human gesture of greeting.

  “I’m Callie. You must be the lab tech Mara was sending along to take samples.”

  Jaci pulled back from the disturbing contact with the woman’s cool skin.

  “I am Jaci 192 and you are correct. Mara 12 sent instructions on my duties here, which I studied on the trip. I am ready to collect the samples once I am directed toward the patient.”

  Callie chuckled. “That would be me.”

  “You’re pregnant then?”

  Jaci found it hard to believe. This small woman seemed too delicate to be carrying a baby. According to Mara’s notes, Callie was supposed to be just entering her second trimester and Jaci couldn’t see much of a bulge around her middle.

  Callie nodded with a broad smile that Jaci found infectious.

  “Yes. I’m having a girl and she’s quite active already.”

  “Congratulations,” Jaci said with some confusion as the bubbly woman escorted her into the facility. The soldiers were doing various tasks around them, loading and unloading crates of supplies and equipment which had been their primary task on this trip. “But how do you know it’s a girl? Mara seemed to indicate that you have not yet had medical testing.”

  “I don’t need medical testing to know. This child is telepathic, as am I. She’s talking to me already. Well, not talking, but sending me images at least.” Callie opened a door to the landing control room and breezed through, sweeping Jaci along a series of corridors that she hardly noted.

  “Amazing.” Jaci’s mind was moving quickly. “I’d heard of these abilities, of course, and encountered them among my charges from time to time, but I had no idea a child in the womb could communicate with its mother.”

  “And its father, even if he’s not telepathic at all.” A deep voice sounded from the back of the large workroom they’d just entered and a tall, fair, Alvian man stepped forward to wrap his arms around the Breed woman.

  “I am Jaci 192.”

  She had to remember her manners though she was secretly astounded by the obvious relationship between these two people. The man especially surprised her. There was emotion in his eyes and joy on his face as he hugged the small woman. She’d never seen an Alvian face so animated before.

  The man nodded at her respectfully but did not loose the woman. “I am Davin.”

  Suddenly it all made sense.

  “Chief Engineer.” She tried desperately to keep her voice even, but she knew she failed when the woman’s eyes flashed up to hers. “I am honored to be of service.”

  The man seemed to look her over more thoroughly then, placing a kiss on the crown of Callie’s head before releasing her. He faced Jaci with narrowed eyes.

  “It is to my mate that you will be of service. I expect you to show her the same courtesy you would show me. Is that clear?”

  “Perfectly, Chief Engineer. Again, I am honored.”

  She could feel the caution emanating from him. She knew he was a throwback. Everyone knew it. Unlike the vast majority of Alvians
, Davin’s genetics were very much like that of their ancestors, an aberration that happened every once in a while even in the best of laboratory conditions. He had emotions and had dealt with them all his life. Stories abounded about his finding of a resonance mate among the Breed women.

  The High Council hadn’t liked it at first. Under normal circumstances, a throwback would never be allowed to procreate, but Davin was unique. He was the most gifted crystallographer in generations and his skills could not be lost to the madness that would claim him had he not found his mate. Neither could the High Council afford to alienate him. If he wanted to have a child with his Breed mate, then there wasn’t much they could do to prevent it.

  Which brought her back to why she’d been selected to come here. They weren’t happy about it, but the High Council wanted to monitor the child’s development. Not only was Davin the greatest crystallographer in many generations, but his mate was also highly skilled with the crystal gift. Rumor had it that their abilities had expanded when they came together, to the point where the High Council could not do without either of them.

  That explained why this Breed female was given extraordinary freedom in this secure facility. Without her and her mate, it would cease to operate and all the Council’s technology would eventually falter and die without the crystals these two were tuning for their use.

  Davin appeared highly protective of his mate. Undoubtedly he’d had a hard life among the Alvians before he’d found her. Jaci felt sympathy welling up inside her no matter how hard she fought hard against it. She wanted to put this man’s mind at ease. Jaci would never do anything to insult or hurt his mate and she sought for some way to express that without blowing her own secret.

  “I have heard rumors about your mating, Chief Engineer. I enjoy reading our people’s histories and I’m gladdened by the idea that you have found your resonance mate. Such things should not have been lost to our people, though I believe that is the case.”