CHAPTER THREE: DR. ARACELI CROSS

They took him. They took him away. I didn't see where they took him, so I didn't know how to get back to him. I think I must have screamed when Lucille's hulking bodyguard shot him, but I don't know for certain. All I remember is the wave of relief that swept over me when his body began to convulse on the floor in front of me. Not dead then; stunned. But then Harris took him out of our little interview room, out from beneath the buzzing of the overhead light, away from the cold metal of the table and the chairs and the walls and the floor. They just took him; they took him away. The mousy assistant and the hulking bodyguard. And I was alone in that room with Christian and Lucille Ward, alone in a room full of enemies.

“Now,” Lucille said, “it’s time to bargain.”

“I won’t give up the baby,” I said. “I won’t do it. Do you have any idea what kind of…monstrous thing that is to ask of me?”

“Please,” Lucille said with a roll of her pretty green eyes, “we’re feminists, Ara. We believe in a woman’s right to choose.”

“And I choose to keep this baby, but that isn’t even what I meant. This baby represents the culmination of years of work.”

“Hardly,” Christian scoffed from his place in the darkest part of the corner. “You didn’t know she was sabotaging your work. Turns out all you had to do was spread your thighs for Galatean cock and, boom, success.”

“Let’s not be vulgar, Christian,” Lucille said with a wave of her expertly manicured fingers. “But he does have a point. You didn’t work for this baby. It isn’t the product of your genetic findings. It’s nature, pure and simple. You give it up, and you can go back to living the life you had last week. We’ll even get you a glittery new diamond, how about that?”

“No, thank you.”

“Let me put it another way, sweet pea: if you don’t do what I tell you, if you don’t terminate, if you don’t put that sparkly rock back on your finger, if you don’t marry my son, if you don’t spread your legs and push out my heirs, then I will kill your precious Galatean boy toy. Are we quite understood?”

“Danovan…?”

“If that is his name. Why do you think I’ve kept him alive up to this point? Bargaining.”

My heart dropped low, and I thought I might be ill. I was with two of the most rich and powerful people in the galaxy, and they were forcing me to decide between the man I loved and the life of our unborn child.

“But…” I swallowed hard and tried to wet my lips, but my mouth was a desert. “You…you aren’t supposed to be the bad guy, you said. You’re not supposed—”

“Priorities,” Lucille interjected. “I’m working for the greater good.”

“So, I give up my baby, marry your son, and continue to do my work, and Danovan lives. That’s the deal.” I lifted my tethered hands and rubbed at my eyes with my fingers, trying to clear my vision, trying to clear my mind.

“That’s the deal,” Lucille confirmed. “We eradicate all the remnants of your project, and I put some resources into shutting the Cleansing down, and then it’s business as usual, except all of our many underfunded programs will finally get the resources they deserve.” Lucille smiled broadly and threw her arms out to the side. “Big picture, darling.”

I looked over at Christian, who had never, in all of the time I had known him, seemed so very small. And from the look on his face, he felt it, too.

“Can I have some time to think?” I asked, squinting up at Lucille.

“Sure thing, sweetheart,” she said, and headed for the door with a gentle sway of her hips. “Take the night. We’ll come for you in the morning.”

She paused by her son and tugged him forward by the collar so that she could plant a dark red kiss on his cheek. “Escort Dr. Cross to the cell, would you, baby? Then join me in my suite.”

And with that, Lucille Ward was gone, leaving the vapors of her perfume to trail behind her.

We sat in cold silence for a long, tense moment before Christian shifted where he stood and heaved a long-suffering sigh.

“Come on,” he said, his tone as flat as his mood.

“Christian, wait,” I said, rising to my feet. “You don’t have to do this. You could help me.”

“Just…follow me, Araceli.” He didn’t untie my wrists, but he did open the door and walk out. Not knowing a thing about the layout of the Carpathian, I had no choice but to follow him.

“You are supposed to be in charge,” I said in an urgent whisper as I followed him down the brightly lit hall. Everything was silver and blue and white, the GenOriens colors, bright and new. The hall was lined with heavy metal doors, all of them with little windows that granted me a glimpse inside. I moved as slowly as his pace would allow, and I glanced into all of them. “You’re supposed to be running things,” I repeated. “She stepped down. GenOriens is yours now.”

“All evidence to the contrary,” he said sourly, and I wondered just how much of this he had known before our little audience with Lucille.

“You can do something,” I continued, darting around to stand in front of him, to level him with my pleading blue eyes. “Please,” I said. “Please. I know you. I know you. You don’t want to be responsible for the slaughter of hybrid babies or their parents. Choose to be the man I know you are. Choose to do something.”

He hesitated for a moment, and I saw the wheels turning behind his eyes, but he exhaled sharply and grabbed me by the arm, spinning me around and marching me down the hallway. “Think long and hard about your choices, Araceli,” he said, using his keycard to unlock one of the cells. “I’ll be back to fetch you in the morning.”

“Please, Christian,” I said, gripping him by the sleeve of his dress shirt. “If you ever loved me at all, even for a moment, help me now. Please.” But he didn’t say anything, he simply shoved me through the open door of the cell and slammed it shut behind me.

I stumbled into the darkness, and directly into the heavy, lifeless heft of a body on the floor. No, not a body. A man, a living breathing man. Danovan.

I dropped to my knees in front of him and shook him gently. “Danovan,” I pleaded, “Danovan, wake up. Please. You have to wake up.”

I heard him groan in protest, his pronounced brow furrowing as he came back to himself. I imagined that his muscles were aching: the after-effects of the stun. “Danovan,” I said, and scooted closer, scooping his head into my lap and gently stroking the top of his head, a strange gesture for a man without hair. But it seemed to rouse him, and he even proffered the feint of a smile.

“You’re petting me now?” he asked, his voice scratchy and low, but the same jovial Danovan I knew and loved.

“Thank God you’re all right,” I said, and bent forward to press a kiss to his forehead.

“Yeah, I’ll be fine,” he grunted, trying to push himself into a more upright position, but even sitting down, he was swaying from side to side.

“Take it easy,” I murmured, my hands at the ready to steady him should he topple.

“What did they say to you,” he asked, “after they hauled me out.”

“They made me a deal.” I picked absently at the bed of my nails, having already made up my mind that I would not—could not—lose him. Everything else, it seemed, was negotiable.

“Get rid of the baby.”

“Yes.”

“In exchange for what?”

“Your life.” There was no sense beating around the bush. I’d long since lost track of time and I didn’t know how many precious hours we had remaining to us. I needed him to know how things stood. And he seemed to understand. As my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I saw him nod his head slowly.

“So, we’re agreed, then,” he said.

“Yes,” I replied. “We’re agreed.”

“Good.” He tugged me toward him and hugged me close, and I could feel his muscles twitching from time to time as the effects of the stun wore off. “If it’s a boy, name him Leoch, for my uncle. And if it’s a girl—”

“Stop,” I said, lifting my head up and gripping him by the front of his shirt. “When I said we were agreed, I thought that meant—”

“What, that I would trade my life for that of my own child’s?”

“That you would let me save you.” We nestled in together, not having the heart to talk this out while we looked each other in the face. I situated myself in the crook of his arm, and he gripped me by the shoulders, clinging to me as though I could anchor him to this life.

“Please don’t make me choose between myself and my child,” he murmured, his voice.

“Don’t you make me choose to let you die!”

“There are worse things than death.”

“Yes,” I agreed, “but not this. We didn’t even know I was pregnant until a moment ago. I’m days into this pregnancy, Danovan. Days. Do you know why women don’t announce their pregnancies until the second trimester? It’s because of how bloody common miscarriage is. Who knows what could happen? So, we roll the dice, and what—I lose both of you?”

“We don’t know—”

“No, we don’t. So this is my choice, and I choose you.”

“Ara…”

“My mind's made up, Danovan, the decision is final.” I leaned my head against his chest then and listened to the steady, stable rhythm of his heartbeat. And when he spoke, I could hear the words buzzing in the hollow of his chest.

“Jaelle if it’s a girl,” he said, “after my mother.”

“You stubborn—”

But before I could finish my protest, he caught my mouth in a kiss. He tasted like copper, like there had been blood in his mouth. But I was hungry for the taste of him. I would have him again, if for the last time. I pushed thoughts of last and final and farewell out of my mind and surrendered myself to him.

They’d done him the small favor of unbinding his wrists, but mine were still zip-tied together. When I lifted them up—a silent request that he rip them apart, he gripped them and pressed me back until I was pinned against the floor. Using his other hand, he tugged down my pants, and his own, until we were flesh against flesh, and I could feel him hardening against my pubis mound.

“Keep your hands above your head,” he commanded, “and do not move unless I move you.” He paused in his speech to slide the elastic waistband of my pants down around my hips and past the curve of my bottom until they were tangled in a puddle at my ankles. He bent my knees for me and situated me so that they were winged out to the side, and thus was the flower of my sex exposed to him. The metal floor was cool against my bottom, but he wasn’t done undressing me yet. He reached up and slid my tee shirt up over my breasts, exposing my nipples as well, and he spent a long silent moment looking down at me like that, disheveled, not naked, but with all of my most private areas in full view for him to drink in. “Gods above,” he said, “but you are beautiful.”

I wanted to touch him, but I was too wrapped up in belonging to him to disobey his command. So I lay there with my hands above my head, and my sex spread wide, my breasts heaving as I breathed.

“Tell me that you are mine,” he said, and when I didn’t immediately respond, he slid one of his long, thick fingers inside my warm and ready orifice.

“I’m yours, Danovan,” I breathed as he worked his finger slowly in and out of me. “I’m yours.”

He bent over me then, and I felt his tongue make delicious contact with my clitoris. My hips bucked involuntarily, rising to meet him, and he pulled away. “Do not move,” he reiterated, “unless I move you.”

“Yes,” I said on the wings of a sigh, and groaned when he began to lick the length of me. His tongue and his finger—one, then two—worked me close to my climax. But he was learning what the stages of my arousal looked like, and he knew, now, when to draw away. Just before I was ready to come, he sat upright and withdrew his hand, using my juices on his hand to stroke his cock to full attention.

“Do you want me, Araceli?” He asked, his tone playful and full of a wanting that mirrored my own.

“Yes, please,” I begged, not knowing exactly what I was begging for. Just that I wanted to be joined with him again. I wanted to feel filled up by his presence.

“Good,” he said, and positioned himself above me. He kissed me, and I could taste myself on his mouth. Then, he slid himself easily into my slick, wet center, and thrust himself in to the hilt, burying his sizable member deep inside of me. I moaned into his mouth, and gasped when he pulled out again, luxuriating in his long, slow strokes.

He had lit up my whole being, my mind, body, and soul. And he kissed me as he thrust into me, biting my lip just a little with his teeth as he pulled out, and kissing me full again when he thrust in. It was a delightfully maddening rhythm, and I could feel myself drawing near to climax a second time as he held his cock deep within me for a long, quiet moment. “I love you,” he murmured, and his love poured into me in thick, hot streams. The feeling of him unloading his seed into me was enough to send me over the edge, and I came in jerking spasms that wracked my entire body.

Somehow, I knew we were both thinking of the life we’d made between us, just this way. As he grew soft inside of me, I cradled his head against my breasts, and we held each other there until sleep had mercy on us and took us away from ourselves. The dawn would bring a new life for me, one way or another. And I had not yet given up hope that it could be the life Danovan had envisioned for us.