Линси Сэндс - Meant to Be Immortal [calibre]

“How much older?” she asked dubiously. He didn’t just look younger than her, he acted younger too. It was hard to imagine he was older.

“I’m over a hundred years old, CJ,” he said with a grin. “I’m just young at heart still.”

“You are not!” she said at once.

“I am,” he assured her. “I was born in 1910.”

“No way.”

“Way,” he assured her.

“But that’s—”

She’d snapped her mouth closed before the word old could slip out, but he laughed and said, “If you think that’s old, Decker is at least twice that,” he told her, and then glanced toward Decker to ask, “What are you now—260, 270?”

“I was born in 1750,” Decker answered. The man was standing next to the bed, his eyes shifting between his wife and his aunt.

While CJ goggled at Decker, Bricker continued, “Dani is the youngest. She’s only in her forties, and I know Marguerite was born in 1265, but I’m not sure about Julius. I think he’s a lot older than her. He—”

“I was born in 534,” Julius announced, and then added, “b.c.”

CJ stared at the people around the bed. They all looked in their mid-twenties, just like Bricker, and just like— She turned to stare down at Macon.

“When was Mac born?” Bricker asked the room at large.

“1009 . . . b.c,” Marguerite answered. Her voice sounded weary now, but at least the breathless panting had ended. It looked as if the pains or contractions she’d been suffering had stopped.

That had to be a good thing, CJ thought. She stared at Mac silently now, recalling thinking that he was lying about his age and was younger than her. She’d been right, he’d been lying, but if what Bricker said was true, he definitely wasn’t younger than her.

But how could what Bricker said be true? she asked herself with a small frown. They didn’t have the kind of technology he was talking about now let alone two, three, or even four thousand years ago.

“The Atlanteans did,” Bricker said suddenly.

“Did what?” she asked with confusion.

“They had that kind of technology,” he explained. “Atlantis was more advanced technologically than we are even now. The nanos were one of their last great discoveries or inventions before it fell. They were still working on fixing the flaws when earthquakes and whatnot destroyed it.”

“The flaws?” she asked.

“Well, they hadn’t intended it to be a fountain of youth, for one thing,” he admitted with a wry smile. “It was just supposed to cure cancer and mend wounds.”

“But isn’t the ‘keeping you all young and healthy’ bit a good thing?” she asked, finding it odd that they would see something that men had searched for forever, the fabled fountain of youth, a bad thing.

“No society can exist if the people don’t die,” he pointed out, sounding suddenly older and more mature than he’d ever seemed. “Not with new babies born all the time. The earth couldn’t support us all if we kept just having babies and no one died.”

CJ supposed that was true.

“That’s why we have the law that each immortal couple is only allowed to have one baby every hundred years. It’s to help prevent our outgrowing our blood source.”

CJ grimaced at the “blood source” bit, but asked, “So Marguerite can’t have another baby for a century after this one?”

“Nope.” He shook his head. “It’s been a little over two hundred years since she had her last child, and will be another hundred before she can have her next.”

“Marguerite and Julius already have another child?” CJ asked with surprise.

“Yep. They have a son, Christian, together,” he told her. “And Marguerite has four other children besides that from her first husband: Lucern, Bastien, Etienne, and Lissianna.”

CJ peered at Marguerite, amazed to know the woman had five children, soon to be six. At one hundred years apart, her oldest must be at least six hundred years old. But then, he’d said she was born in 1265, so the lovely younger friend she’d thought she’d made was actually well past seven hundred and fifty years old. Yet she didn’t look over twenty-five. CJ shook her head. It was really quite amazing.

“So,” she said slowly, “the nanos fight disease and keep you young, but the trade-off is you have to take in extra blood to power them.”

Bricker nodded solemnly.

“But you don’t bite people, you use blood banks to get that blood?” she asked.

“Usually, yes.”

CJ stiffened. “Usually?”

“Well, emergencies crop up,” he said with a shrug. “And if an emergency does crop up, say, a car accident or plane accident in the Alps or someplace far from blood banks, it’s better for an immortal to feed carefully and judicially on a mortal than to lose his shit and attack them.”

CJ supposed that was true. Still, it kind of rankled that they drank blood at all. Essentially, it sounded to her like mortals were cattle for these immortals or vampires, or whatever they were.

“Immortals,” Dani said firmly from her position by Marguerite. “Vampires are dead and soulless. We aren’t.”

CJ frowned at the woman. It sounded like she was correcting the thought she’d just had. Bricker had said he could read her mind. Surely the woman hadn’t done that?

“Yes. I’m just monitoring your thoughts to make sure Bricker isn’t freaking you out,” Dani said, sounding distracted, and then she straightened from clasping Marguerite’s wrist and said, “Your pulse rate has gone back down. How is the pain? Are you still experiencing contractions?”

“Just barely. It’s like they are fading away,” Marguerite assured her, sounding relieved to be able to say it.

“Good,” Dani said with a smile that didn’t hide her own relief. “Just keep breathing deeply.”

CJ turned to stare at Bricker. “You guys can really read my mind?”

He nodded, his gaze on the shrinking bag of blood on Mac’s face. “Read, control, put memories in that aren’t real. The nanos give us any skills we might need to survive.”

“Control?” she asked with concern, and wondered if Mac had controlled her. Was she really so crazy attracted to him or had he controlled her and made her think she was?

“Mac can’t read or control you,” Bricker said, proving he could indeed read her mind. “That’s why you’d be perfect for him. Actually, that’s how we recognize possible mates. We can’t read or control them and the sex is—” He licked a finger, held it up, and made a sizzling sound. “Sex is hot, hot, hot between life mates.”

“Life mates?” she questioned sharply. Mac had mentioned the word a couple of times on the island. He’d like her to be his life mate, he’d said.

“Yeah, that’s what we call our wives or partners. The belief is that the nanos somehow suss out the perfect mate when she or he is near, and once they do—” he shrugged “—that’s it. We’re off the market. See, we’re like wolves and swans and stuff. We mate for life. So, you know, you wouldn’t have to worry about Mac messing around on you like your first husband did if you agree to be his life mate. We’re loyal to the end, and really good in bed because we experience what our mates are experiencing. We share the pleasure back and forth somehow.”

CJ’s eyes narrowed skeptically. While the sex with Mac had been crazy hot, she hadn’t noticed sharing his pleasure. It had just been crazy, extreme pleasure.

“Bet he didn’t let you touch him, then, huh?” Bricker asked as he plucked the now empty bag from Mac’s mouth and applied another.

CJ blinked at the question as she realized Mac never had let her touch him. Every time she’d tried he’d changed position, or taken her hands in his and held them over her head to discourage it.