Anya Bast - Witch Heart

Damn Rue for doing this to her!

She'd been loyal to him since the moment her mother had died and she'd been turned over to his care… with the exception of a few minor rebellions and the rather large one of her helping Thomas escape.

Claire had understood that Rue had never felt much emotion for her, not like an aeamon would, but he'd treated her with respect and understanding for all those years. Surely, he had some regard for her. Yet, when he'd slammed that thunderbolt of magick into her, he'd not hesitated. Not blinked an eyelash.

It was true he'd had no choice. If her assumption about the magick inside her was correct, it would mean the end of the other three daaeman breeds if the Atrika gained control of it. Yet, Rue had known he'd been sentencing her to death, most likely, and he hadn't cared.

Men.

She sighed noisily and tossed, turning her back on the sight of Adam.

"If they're tracking us magickally, they're biding their time," Adam said into the phone to Thomas.

It was a warded call and a warded call would work to keep privacy from a warlock. From a demon, all bets were off. But Claire was of the opinion that, if the demons were watching the house, they wouldn't monitor the phone lines.

"Does Micah have anything yet on Claire's problem?" Adam asked.

Silence. "Not yet. He needs to talk to her."

"She's going to start poking around in the magick today. I think she'll know more soon."

"Call us whenever you have more information, or e-mail. There's a computer in the study." Thomas spoke low to someone near him, hand covering the mouthpiece. "Isabelle wants to know what she's like."

Adam's gaze strayed to Claire. She stood in the kitchen, sipping her very first cup of coffee with cream and sugar. Her eyes were closed and her facial muscles slack. Her dark hair, mussed from sleep, curled lazily around her shoulders and her lashes shadowed perfect, alabaster skin that had never known makeup and didn't need it.

"Gorgeous." Mentally, he slapped himself. "I mean—"

"Adam." Thomas's voice held a hint of warning.

He blew a frustrated breath and whispered into the mouthpiece, "You'd have to be dead not to notice. I'm not a total pig. I noticed she's intelligent, too. To go along with it, I noticed her magick, whatever it is, is mad wicked strong. Once she gets it all under control, she's going to be a force to be reckoned with. She's any witch's dream girl."

"Okay. How's she doing emotionally?"

"Emotionally?" He reflected. "She seems a little cold. It's hard to tell. It's not like she's opened up a lot. I know she's confused by the fact she misses Eudae and feels like a foreigner here. That's all I really know, though."

"Consider where she's grown up. The Ytrayi aren't known for displays of feeling."

"Exactly. I think she's had to learn to repress a lot of that. Anyway, she's warming up slowly. I think it's just going to take some time. Other than that she's feeling a little out of place, but she's eager to experience all the earthy things she's missed out on."

Silence. "Don't show her too many earthy things, Adam."

"I mean like food, boss." Now he was irritated. "Like TV. Like driving fast. Like just having fun." Fuck, and sex, too, maybe. Claire was a grown woman and could make those decisions for herself. "I'm not going to take advantage of her. Shit. Who do you think I am?"

"I think you're Adam Tyrell, who never met a woman he didn't want."

Mark him down for wanting this one, too. Guilty as charged. Still, he was annoyed. "Gotta go, boss. Things to do, demons to fight."

"Stay in touch, Adam."

They hung up and he walked into the kitchen. Claire still sat at the breakfast bar sipping the steaming cup of coffee, her eyelids heavy with pleasure. She noted his approach, gaze flicking over his chest, down his legs, then back to her coffee. Interest there, then gone.

Theo stood at the stove, wearing only a pair of pajama bottoms, black tribal tats inked all over his dark skin. The delicious aroma of eggs and bacon wafted from his efforts. Adam's stomach rumbled.

"Micah has started working on Claire's problem and if we know him, he'll be up twenty-four/seven until he makes progress. Otherwise, it's the usual. Head down, eyes open. He told us to hunker down here for a while."

Theo turned, fry pan in hand. "Did you tell Thomas about his car?"

Adam sat down at one of the place settings at the bar. "Yeeeeah, I think I forgot to mention that."

"Uh, huh." Theo scooped eggs and bacon onto all their plates, set the pan aside and sat down to dig in.

Adam took a sip of his steaming coffee. "Hey, it was a good gamble. It would've solved all our problems if it had worked."

"Yeah, but it didn't work and now Thomas is out his car." Theo put a forkful of eggs into his mouth.

Claire picked up a piece of bacon with a grimace, nibbled a bit, and then set it aside. The eggs she seemed to like, though, and ate those with relish.

"So do I want to know what you ate in Eudae?" Theo asked before he forked more egg into his mouth.

Adam laughed. "I asked her that last night."

"The Ytrayi and other breeds aren't like the Atrika. They eat like you do." She glanced at him and shrugged. "It's all just different meat, vegetables, and fruit. The soil is different there, the water, everything."

"Is it true demons are cannibalistic?" Adam asked.

"Do we have to talk about this right now, Adam?" Theo replied. "Anyway, we already know they are, right? Or is your memory so short?" He swallowed hard. "Mine isn't."

"Well, sure, they eat us, Theo. I'm asking if they eat each other. Anyway, you brought it up."

Claire tried nibbling at a piece of bacon again. "In battle or in times of war all daaeman breeds are cannibalistic, even the Syari, the scholars. They eat their enemies alive as an intimidation tactic, but also to consume their magick and essential life energy. The Atrika were bred to be the ultimate warrior. They are always cannibalistic, no matter if it's in a time of war or not, and will eat their prisoners or any other Atrika that crosses them badly enough."

Theo laid his fork down and pushed his plate away.

"When you say bred, what do you mean?" asked Adam.

Claire's eyes widened. "You don't know the daaeman are genetically engineered?"

"No." Both he and Theo said it at the same time.

"We don't know how or by whom. They suspect some alien race tampered with the indigenous species of Eudae millions of years ago. Either that or another race did it and the daaeman breeds wiped them out, just as they wiped out every other race on the planet."

Adam set his fork down and sat back in his chair. "Wow. So the demons are like… super-enhanced beings."

She nodded. "That's why they're so hard to kill. Whoever bred the Atrika made them nearly indestructible. Even their blood is a weapon."

"Acidic," answered Theo. He was being positively extroverted this morning. "So it's only the Atrika who have acid for blood, not the other breeds?"

"Yes, that's why my favorite theory is the one that says the daaeman breeds were created to serve. The Atrika to fight. The Ytrayi to run things. The Syari to keep records. The Mandari to build. But the creators did their job too well and were taken over by their creations and were annihilated."

"So, basically, we're genetically engineered, too," answered Adam.

"I guess you could say that."

"Crossbred from demons and engineered by default. Thomas is going to love this," Theo murmured.