ThirteenNights Read online

  They walked hand in hand to the front door. The name on the mailbox, P.S. Cassidy, caught Tai’s attention. “You use human surnames?” he asked. Warriors usually used their positions as last names for brief interludes among humans.

  “When our skills take us deep into the human world, yes, it’s necessary to fit in. This won’t come as a surprise but your mother is a rarity among Amazons—a scholar. She’s on the faculty of the University of Virginia. I think Phoebe uses it to avoid attention. I had to really dig to find her. She didn’t break any rules in terms of registering with the Elders but she found every loophole. It’s no wonder you never found her because I’m sure you tried. Phoebe, it seems, is the Amazons’ best hacker. Your skills come from her. I used my human networks to get this address.”

  A small smile tugged at the edges of Tai’s lips. He kissed her temples. “You’re really wonderful. Let’s meet my mother.”

  A tall, wide-shouldered blonde woman opened the door wearing jeans and an orange-and-blue university sweater. Fine wrinkles radiated from her eyes and lips, streaks of gray hair shimmered in the light, a deep inner sadness was etched into her face, even though she welcomed them with a big smile. Annie put her hand out flat, opened her fingers, two to each side, to create a V. Phoebe responded by placing her hand upright, created the same V and inserted into Annie’s, forming the Amazon lock—the greeting between warriors denoting mutual respect.

  “You honor me, Antiope,” said the blonde, her husky voice tinged with emotion. She turned to face Tai, who hovered a few steps behind Annie, and Phoebe’s voice shook. “Your resemblance to your father is startling—black hair so dark it’s almost blue, aristocratic nose, stubborn chin and a focus so intense a person feels they are under a microscope.”

  Tai’s hand crushed hers, his body tense with such conflicting emotions, they threatened to overwhelm her. “May we come in?” Annie asked. “I can make coffee while you two talk if you don’t mind a stranger sorting through your kitchen cabinets?” She wanted to give Tai a chance to be alone with this woman, and to give herself breathing space. Too many powerful emotions in the room clawed at her sanity, constricted her throat. Even though being in another room could not shield her from others’ feelings, a few moments alone concentrating on a physical task could help get them under control.

  Phoebe nodded to Annie and ushered Tai to a seat on a plush brown-suede couch centered in the cluttered living area while she settled herself on the adjacent recliner. Overstuffed bookshelves covered all four walls and left no room for photos, art or, more importantly, the trophies of battle and physical accomplishments most Amazons displayed. Like Tai, she made no attempt to advertise her victories, which Annie knew were legendary. The kitchen cabinet like the bookshelves overflowed with stuff, forcing Annie to search high and low for the coffee and filters.

  She heard Phoebe’s voice drone out the story of Tai’s birth, as if she had repeated it so many times it no longer held meaning for her. Phoebe’s pain blasted Annie’s senses—the older Amazon had never recovered. “Your father, Sander, well Alexander Xenos and I met at an historian’s conference in London. I’m the Elder Amazon historian, my job is to document, analyze and preserve the deeds of our warriors and our race. I also earn income as a human historian at the university. Sander was beautiful and brilliant and powerful for a human. We spent the conference in his hotel room and he went home to his post at Kings College, which is part of the University of Cambridge. I returned to Virginia and discovered my pregnancy a couple months later.”

  Annie brought the three mugs of coffee into the room. Moving some books to the side on the glass coffee table between the couch and chair, she placed the drinks down. Tai’s face clamped into a blank stare but his anger and sadness twisted through him and tugged at her heart. On her way back to the kitchen to get the milk and sugar, she squeezed his shoulder in support. His hand brushed hers in thanks. Phoebe’s eyes took in everything even as she continued the story.

  “Because I live and work in the human world, I hid my pregnancy and your first six months from the Elders. I was caught trying to sneak you out of the country when I felt you were old enough to travel. I wanted to find Sander. If he didn’t accept us as a family, I intended you to grow up near him. They took you from me and sent me through retraining, twice. I continue my duties as historian virtually, but never returned to the fold. When a new Elder takes over, I will step down and merge completely into the human world.”

  “Does my father know about me?”

  She shook her head, a tear rolled down her cheek. “No, if Sander made any attempt to connect with you the Elders would have killed him. So I stayed far away, because it was not a secret I could keep from him.”

  Annie placed the milk and sugar on the table and settled next to Tai, whose body was so tense she feared it would snap. She pressed her shoulder and thigh against his and felt him relax into the touch.

  “Did you decide to research the warriors’ fertility before or after I was born?” Tai asked, his voice a growl.

  Annie’s eyebrows hit her hairline. “What are you talking about?”

  “The Elders suppressed that research. You dug it out.” The lack of surprise in Phoebe’s face had Annie’s curiosity in a frenzy.

  “I stumbled over it during one of my regular hacks into the warriors’ databases. I didn’t realize at the time that the author, P.S. Cassidy was my…mother.” The word rolled hesitantly off his lips. “Why did you use your human name?”

  “Feeling left out here,” Annie prodded but Phoebe continued to talk to Tai.

  “Before. I had gone to the London conference to find him, to validate my results. Sander’s a world expert on fertility rates and culture throughout history. I used my human name in an attempt to give the results greater validity. My scholarship and my reputation are well respected in the human world. But it didn’t work. The warrior races are dying, sterility rampant among most of our population. If we don’t change soon, we’ll be snuffed out by our own stupidity.”

  “Why did the Elders suppress something so important?” Anger flared hot through Annie’s body.

  “Because they disagreed with the conclusions. The Amazon Elders believe a better handle on the genetic matches between the warriors would fix it. It won’t. In fact, infertility has accelerated since they started tinkering with our DNA. The only solution is to mix in human and other DNA and allow families to form. Not all would choose family, but I believe enough of us would and that would reinvigorate our fertility.”

  “Game-changer, I get it now,” Tai mumbled under his breath as if he were talking to himself.

  “Tai?” Annie asked.

  “I’ll explain later,” he whispered in her ear after giving it a light nip.

  “I know I don’t deserve it, but I would like the chance to get to know you better, Tai.” Phoebe’s eyes never left his, a warrior facing her mistakes with courage.

  His hand curled around Annie’s, fingers interlocking with hers. “You’ve checked on me periodically. Snuck in resources I needed to survive the camp, covered my ass when I first started hacking, found clandestine ways to be my mother.”

  “You knew?” Joy flushed Phoebe’s cheeks pink and softened her features. “I’m glad of that.”

  “I suspected. Now I know. Thank you.” His grip on her hand relaxed. “I would welcome the chance to get to know you, Mother. I won’t promise you an easy ride, but I will show up.”

  A smile crossed Phoebe’s face that tempered although did not eliminate the pain carved so deeply in her visage. “Before you leave, I want to give you something.” With his mother out of the room, Tai turned to Annie, his thumb caressed her lower lip. “After we leave, we’re going to find the closest inn, take a room, and I’m going to thank you until you beg me to stop.” Before she could react, Phoebe returned with a cardboard box, filled to the brim.

  “There are two things in here. Photos of you as a baby. In case you wanted them. The other is all my research. I
have a feeling you two may need it. That Tai fits no molds, I already knew. That you found me, brought him here and can’t stop touching him… Don’t give in, Antiope. Find a way. I’ll help in any way I can.”

  Ninth Night

  Tai woke up in an overly plush four-poster bed spooned around Annie, his knee wedged between her legs. Sun streamed through partially closed curtains on white wallpaper adorned with small pink and yellow flowers. They found this Bed and Breakfast about twenty minutes from Phoebe’s house and took a room, both jumping out of their skin with need. The door had barely closed when he pounded her against the wall. They both shattered within minutes. Afterward, he loved her tenderly on the floor where they collapsed, then took her hard again in the shower. By the time they got to the bed, his warrior strength abandoned his dick. Unable to stop indulging in her, he licked and sucked, ravaged her with his mouth until she batted him away and passed out.

  As tempting and pleasurable as it was to wake her up and keep thanking her with his body, he wanted to show his appreciation for her gift in a similar fashion. He dragged himself quietly from the bed, found his computer bag and opened his laptop on the small table by the window. His laptop traveled everywhere with him and even had a special pouch on the Ducati.

  He knew Annie’s sister was older, which meant she had to have participated in at least one previous Thirteen Nights ritual. When he hacked that site to get Annie, he had recoded a small piece of it to provide him with an easy backdoor should he ever need to reenter quickly. It took no time at all to pull up Marta’s medical and genetic records.

  “What are you doing?” Annie called, her voice husky with sleep.

  “You need to come see this.” As much as he wanted to dive back into bed, his discovery was too important to withhold. He turned back to the screen, not wanting the temptation of her naked body. Her arms twined around his neck, her cheek pressed to his and soft breasts rubbed warm against his back. Yeah, he could concentrate on the computer screen.

  “An Amazon medical file?”

  “Marta’s records.”

  Her body stilled against his. “You found something.”

  “A similar genetic anomaly as you.”

  Her arms squeezed him tighter, her breathing quickened. “So you were right, she may be empathic too. That explains a lot.”

  “There’s more. You ready for it?”

  She nodded against him, her ear brushed against his hair.

  “She’s sterile. She can’t have children.”

  “Since we both run from Hippolyta’s genetic line and the Elders want an heir, they’ll be monitoring me even more closely. What’s all this mean for us?” A long pause. “I’m with child, Tai.”

  With the speed of the warrior, he had her in his arms, on the bed, joined to him—lips to lips, legs and arms wrapped around each other. His woman, his baby, his family. Her acceptance that something existed between them turned his emotions into a ticking time bomb, threatening to blow him wide open with the thought of losing her. He had every intention of keeping her, but the fight just got harder.

  “Do you want to stay with me, raise our child together?” he whispered into Annie’s hair, his arms held her tight against him, his mind and heart willing her to say yes.

  “What do you mean, Tai?”

  “The blood bond.” A lifetime commitment, like a human marriage, but more.

  “The Amazon Elders haven’t permitted a bond since they ruled all conception matches required prior genetic approval and launched Thirteen Nights.”

  “I’m not asking the Elders, Annie, I’m asking you.”

  “I know.” She blew out a breath, ran her hands through his hair. “Yes, I want you. How are we going to pull ourselves off the grid? I must be truthful, I tracked down your mother for you in the hope that maybe, somehow…I don’t know.”

  “Yeah. Even though I can recode the DNA patterns in the digital records, there are backup paper copies hidden throughout the world. When I changed my own records to allow the pairings, I assumed only a cursory check, not a global search. Given the low probability of conception, I never really believed we’d have a baby.” It was impossible to run from the Elders. Amazons and Gargareans had figured out how to track DNA patterns.

  “We find your father. Phoebe’s information is dated. His research may shed new light.” She stroked up and down his back, alternating rough scratches and gentle caresses—a promise that she’d be there with him, be it hard or easy.

  Luck seemed to be on their side. Alexander—Sander—Xenos was still in Cambridge, but not the one in England, he was in Massachusetts on a one year fellowship at Harvard that started only a couple months prior. The information Tai unearthed noted that he’d already established himself as a frequent visitor at the Quill and Parchment, a Cambridge pub run by Clio, the muse of history, where pantheon thinkers and human scholars mixed. Annie raced to Ronald Reagan National Airport in Arlington, Virginia, where they caught the first flight to Boston.

  It was evening by the time they found a hotel near Harvard Yard and grabbed some toiletries and extra clothes in some open shops on Oxford Street.

  The hotel room was standard issue—king-size bed in the center, brown nondescript desks and dressers, TV hidden in the armoire. Tai itched to go the Quill and Parchment. Annie stopped him with a kiss so carnal—wet, demanding and totally female—all his energy retargeted to her. They had moved so fast this morning, gave each other no real time to adjust to exactly what they were doing. He suspected she was dragging her feet, not quite ready for the rebellion they would initiate whereas he’d been preparing for it all his life. Only now did he understand what form it would take. The game-changer found his game. How odd that rebellion for a warrior would be something as quiet and ordinary as loving a woman and creating a family. He’d give her tonight, warrior to warrior, to ground her for the challenge to come.

  Her arms still locked around his neck, he picked her up and threw her on the bed, landing on top. She flipped him back onto the floor, taking a lamp and the alarm clock with them. With those nails, she ripped his clothes off, then rode him so hard she pulled the curtain off its rod when she came. Not to be undone, Tai slammed her against the wall, splattering plaster all over the carpet, and an image of her shoulders etched into the paint. He threw her on the floor. Her nails ripped the patches of carpet to her side to shreds during a particularly violent orgasm. A broken chair, tattered sheets and a warped showerhead later, and the damage to the room would set them each back a couple of paychecks. They loved each other and would fight for change, but they remained warriors.

  Tenth Night

  Brick buildings and ivory columns greeted Tai and Annie as they made their way through Harvard Yard to find Sander Xenos. The light jackets they brought from Washington, DC looked out of place among the down coats and sheepskins of the Harvard students in the nippy Boston weather. Warrior trained, they barely felt the chill. They had no trouble navigating their way to Robinson Hall on Quincy Street, the home of Harvard’s history department. Once they were inside, a student pointed the way to the appropriate office, but Sander Xenos was nowhere to be found. After several inquiries with the departmental secretary, they discerned that Sander was not on campus, was not expected to be there, and she was not sure when he’d return. He was there for research, and had no teaching obligations.

  Popping into a café, Tai opened his laptop, performed his magic, and fifteen minutes later had a home address and directions to a nondescript modern apartment building that overlooked the Charles River. They waited to enter behind a tenant so as not to have to call up. Trying to explain Tai on the apartment intercom would have been an exercise in futility. If their appearances were as similar as Phoebe insisted, better to have Sander see him for himself. On the top floor, they found his door, rang the bell and waited. They rang again, then a third time. Nothing. Tai quickly picked the lock and dragged Annie inside.

  “Why are we doing this? We protect, this is wrong,” she whispered,
even though they were already inside and no one could hear them.

  He squeezed her hand. “I want to learn something about him, help me prepare to meet him.”

  She nodded but her body remained tense. “I’m not sure how much you’ll learn from this place. Aside from the packed bookshelves and old maps hung on the walls, the place feels sterile.” It was a typical rental with blah, beige carpets, walls, cabinets and bathroom tiles. “He’s not really planning on immigrating here.”

  “Books can be pretty revealing. You take the shelves by the couch. I’ll check the ones over the gas fireplace.” He patted her butt, coaxing her to get started.

  Volume after volume of mythology—Greek, North American, Asian, Norse—he had scores of books on each pantheon from all time periods. Modern, older, and others that looked almost ancient. Some humans suspected that myths had a basis in reality, that a supernatural world coexisted with their own. Did his father?

  “Tai, I’ve got all his books. He’s written a mountain’s worth about fertility rates, culture and family structure among various tribes, ancient peoples all over the world. He really might be able to help.”

  “I also think he may be a myth hunter.” Humans who looked for evidence of their existence. Almost every pantheon had a public relations team who monitored the media and went into action to keep the existence of supernatural beings a secret. “Whether he’s dangerous or intellectually curious is something we’ll determine when we speak to him.” Tai might want to change the rules but he also knew that neither the humans nor the pantheons were quite ready for that secret to be out yet. “I’m heading into his bedroom to see if I can find his computer. I want to hack his calendar.”

  “You have no shame.”

  “It’s why you like me.”

  The computer had no password protections, anywhere. It opened right up, his email password was saved. Tai slid right in, found nothing and let a groan of frustration that had Annie scurrying in to check on him. The clock around their future ticked faster and louder. The need to find his father, who was proving to be an untraceable Luddite, clawed at his gut. He needed answers, a strategy, and time was running out if he was going to keep his Amazon, his child and prevent a death sentence. Once the baby was born, there would be no way to hide what he’d done.