Free Alphas - Origins by Ilona Andrews Page B

other, in this house, with an illusion of privacy and an excess of aggression. And now there is you. Daniel doesn’t really want you for your own sake. He wants you because he views me as competition and now I have something he doesn’t. I am the only consequence he fears. He’s hostile and defensive, and Arthur made him sit down and shut up today. Daniel had to vent and I’m the only one who would put up with it.”
    â€œWhy?” she asked softly.
    â€œBecause he is my brother.”
    There was a tiny pause. “But he is not a Demon like you.”
    â€œDifferent fathers,” he told her. “All of us within the House of Daryon carry genes from many different subspecies. Our mother was a Demon. My father was a normal human. Daniel’s father was a powerful Acoustic. We both played the genetic lottery and got different prizes.”
    He left out rape, imprisonment, and murder. It sounded much better this way.
    â€œDid Daniel hoard food as a child?”
    She was perceptive. He would have to remember that. “Yes.”
    â€œAnd you took care of him?”
    â€œYes.” Because nobody else would.
    â€œWhy doesn’t he just leave?” she asked. “Why don’t you? You don’t seem to like living here.”
    â€œBecause we have a job to do. We guard you from genocide.” The mission overrode everything. A logical part of him assured Lucas that life outside of the original mandate existed. He just couldn’t picture himself living it. “As long as we exist, you survive.”
    â€œI don’t understand.”
    He sighed. This was another long explanation and he had no energy for it today. Nor did he want to shock her again. She’d been through enough. “Monsters exist. They call themselves Ordinators. They want to kill people like you. Normal ordinary people. We exist to keep them from succeeding. That’s all there is to it.”
    â€œBut what do they want?”
    â€œThey want you to die.”
    â€œWhy do they hate us so much?”
    He sighed. “They don’t hate you. They simply want you not to be. It’s a genetic cleansing, a mass extermination. They view the current situation as a mistake, which they’re trying to correct. They feel that they are ordained to take your place. Subspecies 61, the ‘normal’ human, has no value to them, except maybe as an occasional food source in a pinch.”
    â€œThey’re cannibals?” Her voice spiked a little.
    â€œOnly some of them. I meant a food resource for their war animals. Do you know what a daeodon is?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œIt’s a nasty breed of entelodon, a prehistoric boar. Picture a predatory pig, twelve feet long, seven feet tall at the shoulder, jaws like a crocodile. It eats anything, and once you mess with its genetics, it gets smart and breeds fast. They need a lot of meat.”
    When he opened his eyes, he found her looking at him. Karina sat submerged so deeply, only her face floated above the water. Warm color had returned to her cheeks. Her hair, slicked by the shower, swirled in the roiling water.
    Mmmmm. Mine.
    Lucas could reach out and pull her to him and run his hands up and down her body, to feel the heavy fullness of her breasts, the curve of her ass . . . If it wasn’t for fatigue, and the fact that she trusted him, anchoring him to the spot, he might have done it.
    His thoughts must’ve reflected on his face, because she pulled as far from him as the tub would allow. A haunted look claimed her face, sharpening her features. Like a stray dog, he thought, shivering, scared, and ready to bite. He held the key to her: turn it one way and break her; turn it the other and the pressure would ease. He’d been just like that a few years ago. The memory of being scared of everyone was still fresh.
    â€œYou know I can’t stop you. What consequences do you fear?” Karina asked.
    â€œRight now I just