Lords of the Deep (34 page)

“He must said something that upset her, damn it!” Miles snapped.

“She said she wanted to go back to her people!” Basil snarled. “He said he would think about it!”

“I guess that explains it then,” Justin said with disgust.

“How the fuck does that explain it?” Basil asked coldly.

Justin sent him a look. “I thought you said he was going to offer her a domicile near the palace?”

Basil paced the room again and finally paused to prop against one wall, folding his arms over his chest. “He did. She said she wasn’t interested. She wanted something outside the city—so she could study the wildlife or something like that. He said she’d be safer in the city. She said thanks, but keep it and shove it up your ass. I’m going home.”

Miles stared at him in fascination. “She said that? Exactly that?”

Basil rolled his eyes. “Not exactly that, but that was what it boiled down to. Thank you kindly, but I’ll be going now and maybe I’ll drop by and visit with your grandson in a few years … and maybe not. Not one fucking word to me about bringing
my
son to see me and me standing right there!”

Cole lifted his brows. “Somehow I would never have pegged you for a doting father, Basil. Why the sudden interest in the brat?”

“If I want your fucking opinion, little brother, I’ll beat it out of you!” Basil snarled.

“How about right now?” Cole asked tightly.

“You two didn’t get enough battling in at the breeding grounds?” Justin demanded in disgust.

Damien, who’d been studying Basil speculatively for several moments, broke in to the brewing sibling battle. “Why wouldn’t he just let her have a place outside the city if that was she wanted?”

Basil glared at him. “Because I already had the place picked out. It’s near everything … the hospital, the shopping areas ….”

“The palace,” Galen said dryly.

“Your point?” Basil asked coldly.

“You know what the point is!” Damien snarled. “You had everything all planned out for your convenience. You don’t give a fuck what she wants!”

Basil flared a challenge but wrestled his temper a moment and finally gained the upper hand. His eyes were still narrowed with anger, though, when he spoke. “I don’t think you, of all people, are in any position to be throwing that accusation around. It isn’t a fucking hovel! Any woman would be pleased with it. She didn’t even look at it.”

Rasmus got up from the couch where he’d been sitting and scanned the other men. “However she got here, she’s here now and breeding—one of ours. She belongs here. Unless you just want to keep her in chains, though, I think we’re going to have to consider persuading her to stay—as a citizen, with rights, and that would include the right to decide where she wants to live,” he added, giving Basil a hard look. “I’m going. I’m dead on my feet. I’ll check back later and see how she’s doing.”

Galen, Justin, and Cole got up to follow him, expressing similar plans.

“I’d like to have a look at her scan myself when I come back … If you don’t mind,” Galen said.

Resentment flickered briefly in Miles’ eyes, but he merely nodded.

Galen made a sound of disgust. “I’m not questioning your expertise, Miles. I’d just feel better seeing it myself.”

Miles shrugged. “I’ve been keeping them for studies.”

Galen looked like he might say something but finally merely shook his head and left as the others had.

Miles glared at the door. “What the fuck do you think he meant by that?” he growled.

“Maybe he was wondering if you still look at Angie as an experiment?” Damien said tightly.

Miles was outraged and didn’t attempt to conceal it. “I’m a scientist, gods damn it! There’s something
wrong
with wanting to understand how her body works? Exactly how are we supposed to treat any sort of problems that might arise if we don’t? If I knew more, now, I wouldn’t be worried sick about the pressurization. I’d know!”

“Nobody’s questioning that!” Basil said.

“No,” Miles said, quietly furious. “They’re questioning just how fucking cold blooded I am in the pursuit of science.”

Damien and Basil exchanged a look when Miles strode from the room.

“Why do you suppose she wanted a domicile outside of the city?” Damien asked after a while.

Basil shrugged. “She said she was a scientist and her specialty was studying sea life—that’s why she was on that boat you snatched her from. She was with a group of scientists, according to her, that had come out here to try to catch a giant squid for study … a
live
squid, if you can fucking believe that!”

Damien stared at him in disbelief. “They thought they could catch one of those fucking things without the whole lot of them getting themselves killed?”

“So she said,” Basil said distractedly.

Damien frowned, thinking back, but he couldn’t remember anything about the floating island. It hadn’t seemed that big to him—not big enough to hold enough men to catch a live squid. He glanced up at Basil sharply after a moment. “Boat? What’s a boat?”

Basil sent him a quick look. “It’s what they call those things referred to in mythology as floating islands.”

Damien narrowed his eyes. “It’s what
you
called it. I never heard her call it anything.”

Basil’s expression tightened. “Maybe if you’d spent a little more time talking to her and little less fucking her you would have.”

Damien flushed with discomfort and then anger. “You watched. You knew when we got her to the breeding grounds that she wasn’t a catkin.”

“I watched. I knew a long fucking time before we got there that she wasn’t a catkin.”

“Because you knew what she was … before we did.”

Basil seemed to wrestle with something for a few moments and then almost seemed to shrug. “It’s been top secret for years, but there’ll be no keeping it that way … now. Still, it wouldn’t be healthy for you if this got out and was traced back to you.”

“Spill it!” Damien said tightly.

Basil stared at him a moment longer and finally moved to sprawl in one of the chairs. “You know about the explorations of the
above
, I assume?”

“They teach that in low school,” Damien said dryly. “I
did
go.”

“What they teach is that the shuttles designed for it proved it was a wasteland, but the shuttles weren’t safe—had serious design problems that made them unsuitable for exploration of the
above
—and the project was scrapped altogether less than fifty years after it was first launched. The truth is the shuttles work fine and the
above
isn’t a wasteland, and they know about us, and we know about them, and we both like it better if we stay in our own backyards.

“It wasn’t actually a problem until their scientists began to have a determined interest in exploring the seas—in ships designed to go below the surface. They’ve had ships—floating islands—that cross the seas for centuries. They’re land beings, though—strictly air breathers—and it wasn’t ever anticipated that there’d be serious conflict.

“Still—their governments know—ours do—and we keep a wary eye on one another.”

He shook his head but smiled faintly. “Angie’s one of those nosey scientists we like to keep an eye on. I knew she was going to be trouble the first time I set eyes on her.”

Damien studied him thoughtfully. “So … keeping her here is more a matter of national security than personal interest?”

Basil narrowed his eyes at him. “I don’t give a fuck about ‘national security’ where Angie’s concerned.” He shrugged. “It isn’t an issue anyway. She might be a scientist, just as she claims—and I see no reason to doubt it—but
they
think we’re a myth. Not only would nobody believe her if she claimed to have spent the past month with merfolk, she would know it would ruin her credibility, and she wouldn’t attempt to report it.”

“Except Miles surgically implanted the artificial gills developed for children born with birth defects—and she’s carrying your baby. She’d have proof.”

“I never said the king didn’t have concerns,” Basil said dryly. “I said I didn’t. It’s not something likely to remain a secret much longer no matter how much the governments might want to keep it that way. The advances in science and technology in both mers and humans assure eventual discovery. It’s only a matter of time.”

They both fell silent, focusing on their own thoughts for a while. Abruptly, Damien grinned.

Basil observed him sourly. “Something amuses you?”

“The irony.”

Basil lifted his brows questioningly.

“She’s a scientist. She’s probably been just as busy studying us as Miles has been studying her.”

“I don’t find that particularly comforting … or amusing,” Basil growled.

Damien considered it and frowned. “Now that you mention it, I don’t either.”

* * * *

“What do you think?” Damien asked evenly, studying Angie through the observation window.

“According to my calculations it should be safe to take her out,” Miles responded. “Let’s get her on the table and do a scan to be sure.”

“I hate like hell to wake her up … especially considering the rage she was in when we put her in there,” Damien said wryly.

“I’d rather do that than take the chance that something could go wrong.”

Damien nodded. Moving to the door, he opened it and went in, crouching down beside her. Any doubts he’d had that she actually was asleep and not feigning, vanished as he studied her face. He hated like hell waking her when she was so exhausted, but he finally grasped her arm despite his reluctance, lifting her enough he could slip arm beneath her head. She started, her eyes fluttering, rousing enough to try to roll over. It helped him get an arm beneath her knees and he straightened, carrying her out and laying her down on the table for the scan.

Her eyes fluttered open slightly and closed again. She tried to roll over on her side and curl up as she had been before. Catching her shoulder, he made her lie flat. “Be still,
mesoma
. We need to do a scan.”

Her brows hitched together in a faint frown.

“Where’s a translator, Miles? I forgot she wasn’t wearing one.”

“Good thing, too,” Miles said dryly. “I’m just as glad I didn’t know what she was saying a while ago.” He left to find one once he’d set the scanner, though. “Don’t put it on her until the scanner’s finished. I don’t want to take a chance on fucking up either one.”

Damien rubbed her arm soothingly and finally smoothed her capelette. “It’s different when it dries,” he murmured to no one in particular.

“Because it isn’t the same thing as ours. There aren’t any nerves in the capelette itself. The nerves are in the skin and alert her brain when the capelette moves. It doesn’t actually have sensation,” Miles said a little absently.

She seemed to drop off briefly, but jerked when the scanner stopped just above her head.

“Be still. Just a few more minutes,” Damien murmured gently, refraining from touching her with an effort when Miles bent a censorious glare at him.

He scooped her off of the table as soon as the scanner stopped at her feet and left the lab.

“Damien?” Angie murmured sleepily, inhaling his familiar scent as she snuggled her face against his neck.

“Yes, love,” Damien responded soothingly. “I’m putting you to bed. It’ll be a hell of a lot more comfortable than the floor.”

“Missed you,” she murmured.

Damien frowned, wishing abruptly that he’d put her translator on her head before he picked her up instead of holding it in his hand. She was still more than half asleep, though, he reflected. It seemed doubtful whatever she’d said made any sense.

Regardless, he decided to rectify the situation as soon as he’d settled her on her bed. He didn’t want a repeat of what had happened before when he’d tried to explain that they’d only put her in the chamber for pressurization. She hadn’t understood, he knew. She’d been just as afraid as she was angry, maybe more afraid.

She opened her eyes and looked at him a little dazedly when he settled the translator on her head. For a moment, he thought she would smile at him. Then her memory seemed to return. She glared at him instead. Balling her hand into a fist, she punched him in the chest. “You asshole!” she snarled, then flipped onto her side, presenting him with her back.

Damien stared at her stiff back angrily for several moments, absently rubbing his chest. “We had to put you there because of the pressure differences.”

“You wouldn’t have had to if you’d left me the hell alone!” she retorted.

The urge to try to reason with her—or argue if that didn’t work—was strong, but he realized that not only was she not in any mood to be reasonable, he was tired and edgy himself—and spoiling for a fight, if the truth were known.

He got up after a few moments, heading back to the lab.

Miles’ voice, icy with suppressed fury, halted him in his tracks briefly as he reached the open door of the lab. Dividing a glance between Miles and Basil, he moved inside after that brief pause. “What do you mean she isn’t pregnant?” he asked a little hoarsely. “She lost it?”