Chapter One

Boston, Modern Day

 

Dafydd turned his head just in time to avoid getting soapy water in his eyes. “Idris, what did I say about splashing?”

His son gave him a toothy grin and lifted his hand to do the forbidden act again. Dafydd reached over the side of the tub and took hold of the baby’s wrist. He was careful to keep his touch light—not enough to hurt, merely to contain.

“I said ‘no’. Stop being such a chopsy boy or bath time is over.”

Idris looked at him, his violet eyes assessing, as always. Even at his young age, he was calculating how much he could get away with. His growth spurt had been troubling, although not unexpected. He should have still been a wiggly bundle of soft skin and small bones…if he were human. He wasn’t. Instead, he’d grown to toddler-size—and with his father’s monstrous intelligence in the bargain.

And his evil inclinations.

No, he couldn’t think like that. It was too early to tell what manner of boy, then man, he might grow into. He didn’t have to become like his brothers, a shadow of their alien father’s nature. There was a chance—a good one, if he were to believe his current hosts—that Idris would mature into whatever manner of man Dafydd raised him to be. He’d never been given the chance to influence the twins. This time would be different. Maybe if he showered this son with love, he could dispel whatever bad thing lurked in his blood. He might have done the same with Bran and Cadoc, regardless of the manner of their conception, if he’d been permitted.

The mere thought of his other sons and what he’d been forced to do with one of them caused his vision to blur. For a few seconds, he didn’t see Idris sitting in a bubble bath. He saw Cadoc’s wide-eyed look of surprise before his face and body crumbled into dust. His heart squeezed in an echo of the grief that had overtaken him at the time. He wouldn’t have thought he’d have any capacity to love his sons, yet he had.

He mentally shook himself. There was no value in dwelling on it. His life went on and so did this newest child’s. There was a chance for him to make things right, to raise a hybrid to be a good citizen of this world, not a monster. He’d taken the first step by putting aside the forced pregnancy and the way he’d loathed it. Idris wasn’t to blame. He knew, and mostly felt, that.

Idris blew a raspberry before saying, “Otay, Dada. Duck!”

Dafydd gave his son an approving smile before releasing his hand and reaching for the New England Patriots rubber duck. Idris squealed in delight as he took it and plopped it into the water. The boy was an odd mixture of abilities. His understanding of language was excellent, as was his vocabulary. But he had what Harry referred to as speech impediments, reflective of the way his body was growing rapidly. He was also a bit clumsy. This was all normal, his hosts assured him. He had to trust them on that. Other than being used as a punching bag at Dracul’s encouragement, Dafydd had had no real hand in raising his first two sons.

“How is bath time going?” Lucien, Harry’s husband, asked the question from the doorway of the large bathroom.

Dafydd tamped down his irritation. He didn’t like being monitored, even unobtrusively as Lucien typically did. He understood their concern. Having first rejected Idris then killed Cadoc, Dafydd’s intentions toward the baby were a little suspect. When he was being fair-minded, he could see their point of view.

“Fine,” he replied without taking his eyes off his son. “No one’s drowned yet.”

He winced. Now who’s being the chopsy boy?

He looked over his shoulder. “Sorry. Not funny, I know, and I need to watch what I say in front of the baby.”

After grabbing the bottle of shampoo, he squeezed a dollop onto his palm and began to work it into Idris’ thick hair. He could feel Lucien’s gaze on his back then heard him come into the room to stand next to him.

“I’m sorry if it feels as if I’m your jailer.” Lucien had a lovely voice, soothing, and a quiet way about him that put Dafydd at ease.

“No, that’s fine. It doesn’t. Not really, like.” He glanced up. “I’m doing all right, though, yeah?”

Lucien smiled. He was such a pretty man and appeared to be so happy to have been changed in a way that had allowed him to bear Harry a son. Dafydd had hated that whole thing and was glad to be rid of that ability. Harry had kindly cut the unnatural womb out of him. Although he had never been actually able to detect the thing within him, he still felt better now. His body had changed back to the state he wanted and he’d never been healthier in his life.

“You’re doing very well, indeed. I’m here to help, Dafydd. That’s all.”

No, it wasn’t, but Dafydd held his tongue.

“You know,” Lucien continued, “I was hopelessly out of my depth caring for Demi his first couple of years. Harry was of little help, having had no experience, either. We figured it out as we went along. I hope my experience can be of use to you.”

“For a certainty. Rinse now, Idris.”

This was the tricky part. Nobody wanted soap in their eyes, so the boy naturally kicked up a fuss as Dafydd tried to sluice water down his head using a cup. He shielded the boy’s face with his other hand, but when Idris’ movements got stronger, Dafydd lost his grip. Down the boy went backward into the water, his slick skin too hard for Dafydd to keep a hold on.

For a brief moment as Idris’ face went under, Dafydd flashed on another time and place. Only it was he who was looking up as a smug Dracul held him under until his lungs burned and his panicked thrashing sent water spraying around. He’d been stupidly rebellious in the beginning, too young to truly understand that fighting outright would earn him nothing but pain. The near-death experience had broken him more than any rape or beating had, more than having the blood sucked out of him.

“Oh my God!” He grabbed the slippery baby and hauled him out of the tub. He clutched the squirming body tightly to him for fear of dropping him back in, or on the floor. Idris’ outraged wail made Dafydd hug all the tighter.

“It’s all right, Dafydd.” Lucien quickly wrapped a towel around the baby, forcing Dafydd to loosen his grip. “He’s fine, except you’re squeezing him. Ease up.”

The man’s calm tone and sure movements helped pull Dafydd back from the emotional cliff he’d been careening toward. Damn, every time he thought he was okay, something happened to prove he wasn’t ready to be a real father to Idris.

“Here, take him. Please,” he added, as he pushed Idris into Lucien’s arms, although with his heart pounding and his nerves on edge, he didn’t feel the least bit capable of civility.

Lucien, bless him, was quick to comply. He pressed Idris against his shoulder and rubbed his back through the towel. “Everything’s fine,” he crooned. Whether it was only to soothe the baby or Dafydd, too, was hard to tell.

Didn’t matter, either. Dafydd pushed back his loosened hair with a shaky hand. “Thanks for that.” He stuttered out a breath. “I’m that tired, I guess. Do you mind putting him down for the night?” He swallowed hard. “I know I should. It’s only…”

Lucien flashed a smile. “It’s all right. I understand and am always happy to help.” He jiggled a fussy Idris with practiced ease. “With my own son grown, you know I’m desperate for time with yours.”

“Yeah.” Dafydd edged away and toward the door. “And you’re better at it than I ever will be.” Familiar panic was rising inside him, eager to get out and send him spinning out of control

“Don’t say that. It’s only a matter of practice. You’re too hard on yourself. You’ll get there.”

“That’s kind of you to say. I wish I had your confidence.” God, how was he managing to carry on a conversation given the screaming in his head? Oh, right, practice, as Lucien had said. Living with a monster for centuries made it easy to be one thing on the inside while showing a different face to the world.

“I’ll be back in a little while,” he said, then turned to race from the bathroom.

There was just the one bedroom for him and the baby, so he couldn’t stay there while Lucien put the boy down for the night. He needed air and privacy, and there was only one place for him to find that.

He opened the door to the hallway, peering in both directions before stepping into it. Not enough time had passed for him to shake the ingrained habits of checking out his surroundings and being on the look-out for big, scary men who would drag him back to where Dracul had set him. He wasn’t a prisoner anymore—or so everyone kept saying. He wasn’t sure he believed it. Trust was something he’d lost long ago.

He hurried down the hall then punched through the door leading to the stairwell. The pounding beat of the club could be felt all the way to his floor. A faint amount of music floated up as well. Although he liked listening to it when he could, the idea of going down held no appeal. There were too many men who looked at him with hungry eyes. He’d tried a few times and had run back to the relative safety of his room within minutes.

So, solace was above him and of his own making. He reached the roof quickly and pushed open the door with some trepidation. There was typically no one up there, although sometimes the scariest of the men he lived among—Val—would stand around, smoking a cigarette and checking out the night sky. Dafydd breathed a sigh of relief when he confirmed that was not currently the case.

He had no interest in enjoying the view himself. Not yet. Instead, he made straight for the stash he’d created behind the great big whirring thing that made the building cool. Crouching, he grabbed the bottle first and popped its lid. Small white pills rattled around inside, although not enough for his liking. He frowned as he tapped one onto his palm, already planning how he’d cage more from Harry. It was only a light tranquilizer—for his nerves, as he still slept poorly. The doctor would understand, and if he didn’t, maybe Dafydd could find a way to be extra nice to him as an incentive.

No, don’t be daft. That’s not how things are done here. You can’t offer to suck his cock for favors.

Besides, Harry wasn’t his only option. There was another with dark brown eyes, only not quite the same shade as his own, and slightly curly brown hair, again different than his. Ric, the human doctor who had refused to let him die. His vehemence on that point had almost made Dafydd laugh, even during Idris’ horrible birth. And there had been strength in the man as well, a power that came from something other than brute strength—confidence, perhaps, although wrapped in an amazing gentleness. He’d put Dafydd at ease, never wavering from his certainty and remaining calm in the face of Dafydd’s storminess.

The man had effortlessly brought out things in Dafydd that he’d tried to keep buried—a desire to live, not the least of which, but also a nascent sense of hope. There were reasons to keep living, including now raising Idris. With quiet persistence, the doctor had forced Dafydd to see parts of life that he’d tried to block out. It wasn’t only a desire to keep breathing and be a father. No, the man had persuaded a much more surprising part of Dafydd to rise from the depths of his soul—desire. Dafydd had thought it dead and buried, desecrated by Dracul’s brutality. And yet there was a disturbing spark, a tug that made Dafydd remember long-ago fantasies and guilty spying on men bathing in a pond.

Alarm had him dismissing his own thoughts.

I don’t want him. I don’t want any man ever again.

Although if he needed to make the doctor think otherwise, he could do it—for the pills, nothing more. If it became necessary—which it wouldn’t. Harry would help him. There was no need to go to Ric, even though the man came with alarming frequency to check up on him and Idris.

Putting the worry aside, he closed the bottle then popped the pill into his mouth. He chased it down with a swig of brandy wine that he’d picked up next. No, they called it only ‘brandy’ in the here and now. Oh, but that was fine stuff, sliding down his throat with a smooth burn, if that were a thing. He only knew that it was very dear, and he felt slightly guilty in having pinched it from the bar’s storage room, except that the leader of this group of aliens, Alex, was as rich as Dracul had been. The man could spare a bottle or two.

Taking another slug, he slid down with his back against the low edge of the building and looked up. It was a warm and pretty night. The stars here looked much as they did back home. He tried to appreciate only their beauty and forget that monsters lived up there and sometimes came to Earth to steal stupid boys and turn them into slaves.

Ah, and there he was again, getting maudlin. The past was best buried. He had a good future to look forward to, if only he could pull his shit together. The pill helped and so did the spirits. Warmth and peacefulness infused his body, making his muscles lax and letting his worries go.

Yes, this was what he needed. Idris was fine with Lucien. Once down, the babe slept straight through the night. He didn’t need Dafydd fussing over him. No one would miss Dafydd if he sat there for a couple of hours, easing his pain and gazing at the stars. His brain already felt fuzzy, his panic in the bathroom a distant memory. More brandy would make it even better. He took another long swallow and stuttered out his breath.

It was so peaceful with only the sounds of the city intruding. He liked them, actually. Having spent so long in isolation, it was good to know he wasn’t buried away somewhere. Life teemed around him yet couldn’t get close. He was safe on that roof. Another pill would blur his thoughts and fear even more, but no, he had to conserve those. He frowned at realizing he’d quickly forgotten how few he had left.

More brandy. That was what he needed. Plenty of that was available for the taking. He just had to be careful not to drink too much. Idris was extra hard to deal with when Dafydd woke with a heavy head. That was hours away, though, so he could have a bit more. Another sip, more star-gazing and he could almost forget the demons that plagued him.

 

* * * *

 

Moving from emergency medicine to pathology had been the right decision. Ric reaffirmed that thought every day as he walked into work. While the ED had been filled with people and constant controlled chaos, the medical examiners’ domain was quiet and precise. It had been a big leap to switch his career path, but ever since alien vampires had turned his world on its head, he found the peace of the pathology lab a welcome change. He didn’t need the excitement of treating trauma victims in the hospital when he got plenty of stimulation hanging with his new friends.

And that was the truth of it. What had started out to be clinical assessment of the supernatural had morphed into the personal. Quite unintentionally, he’d become emotionally attached to his subjects. He cared what happened to Alex and his unusual family and was dedicated to helping them as much as he was his own species. Moreover, since his adventure in Wales and beyond, he’d fallen in love with someone he shouldn’t have.

Dafydd.

He said that name inside his head more times during the day than he could count. It was like thinking of sex—unplanned, unbidden and unwarranted. Throw in ‘inappropriate’, as well, given what the poor man had been subjected to not only for years but for centuries. PTSD didn’t even begin to cover what Dafydd must be experiencing, especially after having killed his own son. All without therapy, too. Ric had dared to broach the subject with Harry, the alien doctor who had probably forgotten more than Ric would ever learn about medicine. The man had been emphatic in his response. Alex would never allow yet one more human in on their secret, and without that piece of the puzzle, what good would therapy be? Dafydd had to let out all the demons or there would be no way to help.

So despite Ric’s commitment to pathology, he’d started learning what he could about psychotherapy in the hope of helping Dafydd cope with his trauma. He’d visited as often as he’d dared, and although the man was making progress—accepting his baby being an amazing step—Ric knew there was instability lurking under the surface. Dafydd was the proverbial powder-keg, ready to blow at any time. If Ric could help even in a small way, it would be better than nothing. Everyone would benefit from his being able to intervene.

All of which was possibly only a big rationalization for his spending time with the guy, but so what? Lots of good things happened because people convinced themselves to do the right thing for the wrong reason. As long as Ric never acted on his attraction to Dafydd and kept their relationship strictly clinical, it would be fine. He just had to keep himself under tight rein and stop his thoughts from going into inappropriate directions—no thoughts of Dafydd’s beautiful body on display, no more dreams of Dafydd naked and under him, moaning his name, clutching him tightly as Ric dove into a hole that welcomed him because he knew how to give pleasure and not pain.

He tripped over his own feet, sloshing his grande hot latte with coconut milk over his finger. Yeah, that’s exactly the kind of shit I have to knock the fuck off.

“Hey, Paz?”

Grateful for the distraction, he waited for the coroner, Vincente, to catch up with him. “Good morning, sir.”

Vincente slapped a clipboard with a file attached to it against Ric’s chest. “Here’s your first task of the day. A DB sent over from the ED at Saint B’s.”

Ric grabbed the file. “Yes, sir.” He knew without looking at the information that whatever it was, the coroner considered it low priority and not the least bit interesting. That was the kind of autopsy work the man passed along to Ric. He wasn’t exactly the mentoring type. Vincente was more the ‘you take the shit work off my hands’ sort of boss.

“Pretty straightforward. This guy fired his gun during a drug-related confrontation of some kind and died from multiple shrapnel wounds when the gun exploded in his face.”

Ric frowned. “That’s unusual.”

“Not when the gun is made out of crappy products and a 3-D printer.” Vincente shook his head. “Dumbass.”

Ric’s interest perked up, and in his mind, he was already making a call to Trey Duncan. Even if there was no alien angle, the cop would want to hear about this.

‘If anything unusual comes your way, I want to know.’

“I would think that would make this a high-profile case.” Ric was surprised Vincente didn’t want it for himself. “3-D gun printing is illegal.”

The coroner shrugged. “The case is a big deal. I think the FBI is already flying people in. How and where he got the weapon is hot stuff. But the autopsy is going to be pretty cut-and-dried. Of course, if you find anything important, you let me know ASAP.”

“Yes, sir.” Ric watched his boss walk away. He juggled the items he held in order to open the file to study it as he headed to the room where the body was being stored. By the time he’d finished reading the report and had the guy on a slab, he was sure that Vincente had been right. There was nothing surprising about how the man had died. As he peered down at the body, making his initial visual assessment, he could see the pieces of plastic embedded all over his face, neck and torso. One had nicked the carotid, so no mystery about the cause of death. The hand holding the gun had been shredded right up to the elbow. There were no other signs of injury.

“Why did you go for a crappy plastic gun when metal ones are so easy to buy on the street?” he asked his patient. “Was it cheaper? I wouldn’t have thought so.”

He knew the reasons why the printed guns were appealing. They were relatively expensive to make but could be done under the radar of law enforcement and were capable of getting through security without setting off a metal detector. It makes sense if you’re a terrorist. For a local criminal, however, it seemed like something harder to get, pricier, and ultimately a weird choice for a local criminal engaged in drug dealing.

“Well, let’s see if you have any secrets to share with me, huh?”

He started taking pictures of the corpse, first clothed then nude, careful to put everything he removed into an evidence bag. He conducted a visual exam of the external parts of the body while dictating his notes into a hand-held recorder. Vincente had fancy, hands-free equipment for that, but Ric preferred the low-tech option. He noted some old scars on the man’s torso and thigh, evidence of a frequently violent life, even for one who was in his early thirties. When he was ready to open up his patient, he put on his protective gear. Then he got to work.

For a little while, he managed to banish thoughts of a pretty Welshman from his mind.