Chapter Six
Alda rolled over in bed, stretching and yawning with provocative exaggeration.
Her long, nude body with its dark skin, red wine tipped breasts, and taut curves drew her lover’s instant attention, even though he’d already had her twice in the past few hours.
He was dressing, however, and didn’t wish to be sidetracked, even if it was by his divinely sexy mistress.
Alda had the sexual appetite of a cat perpetually in heat.
All Morphates did, really. If he catered to their every sexual whim or need, he’d never get anything done.
Luckily, Alda also had an appetite for variety.
They both did. That understanding, combined with a shared bloodthirsty nature, made her the perfect mate for the ruler of Dark Phoenix.
At least, for the time being, Ambrose amended mentally as he buttoned the cuffs of a blue velvet shirt.
“Come, pet, and dress yourself. By now our assassin will have made her presence known. I wish to be ready to receive her when she arrives.”
Alda sighed with exaggerated boredom. “Provided she has done any better than the others. If not, a gaseous cloud has no stories to tell.” Alda sat up, her hair tumbling in thick, springy black curls around her face and shoulders.
Her beautiful mouth flashed a white smile that was just as pronounced as the unusual sea-green brightness of her eyes.
Her striking looks still fascinated him.
Their type of Morphate, Morphates that had been derived from Dr. Paulson’s reptilian experiments, could alter their appearance if they wanted to in minor ways, like forcing a change of eye color or simple skin pigmentation.
But there was a natural state they reverted to when at rest. Alda’s natural state was unique from the usual stock that filled Ambrose’s Morphate ranks.
It was what had attracted him to her to begin with. That and her other special talents.
“So you’ve no faith in my latest choice?” he asked her archly.
She laughed a full-bodied chortle, fangs flashing.
“Ambrose, my darling,” she cooed, her heavy patois accent making her all the more exotic, “I always delight in the wisdom of your decisions. However, Devona has proved a deadly, unpredictable adversary. Only those who make arrogant assumptions will fail, and you have no such assumptions. This latest assassin … she is skilled, but far too cocky.”
Alda swung out of bed, her long, sleek legs gleaming in the lamplight as she towered to her full six feet in height, a mere two inches shorter than himself.
Diminutive women bored Ambrose. This graceful, powerful with all of her cunning made him hard just watching her movements as she rose to full-scale glory.
It was as though he’d never spent himself, as though she weren’t already covered in his scent from his claiming of her.
She was Alpha female to his Alpha male, but their breed was not inclined to the possessiveness, the exclusivity, and the territoriality of the other Morphates. And that was just fine in his book.
“We’ll see if you’re right soon enough,” he mused, shrugging the matter off as though he didn’t care.
But Alda knew as well as any of the other Phoenix Clan members that the destruction of Devona was Ambrose’s singular obsession.
Even to the point of the unthinkable. He’d offered rewards to humans, creatures he despised and looked forward to subjugating one day.
He didn’t actually expect any of them to succeed, so the exorbitant bounty would forever remain unpaid, but he did expect them to run her ragged, wear her down.
The weaker they made her, the easier for his assassins to eventually figure out how to kill her.
And it was possible to kill her. Thanks to her, any of them could now be killed.
Granted, her method of destroying her brethren Morphates had not yet gone mainstream, but he had no doubt that it would be only a matter of time.
And he had discovered the basics of her key component for himself shortly after the human government had solicited her to develop specialized weapons to be used against the Morphates.
The problem was trying to get a Morphate to use the mercury bullets with their cruder, more quickly devised weapons, especially when they realized the bullets could be turned on them and spell the end of their immortality.
Here again was where humans came in handy.
They had no such qualms, even though the bullet in question could be just as harmful to them, and in several different ways.
The radioactivity alone, though low grade, could still be quite toxic in the long run.
Certainly toxic enough to cause the specter of cancer to loom over the victim’s future.
But amusingly enough, humans were quite short thinkers for such a fragile and mortal species.
They were very apt to put themselves at risk for a good paycheck now and worry about the rest later.
Ambrose had expected a certain amount of initial failure, but he was beginning to get impatient.
Time was against him. If Devona brought her prototypes to human weapon makers, the humans could have the means with which to slaughter all Morphates everywhere, no matter what clan they were from, lowest ranking to highest. It was the ultimate betrayal, one he’d never conceived her being capable of.
Hell, even he would never have dared to threaten giving away the secret to Morphate vulnerability.
But Ambrose had underestimated her cunning and had never seen her ferocious need for the wealth and power that would come with such a critical sway in the balance of power between Morphates and humans.
Then again, when she had belonged to the Dark Manhattan Clan back in the day, she had taken part in Kincaid Gregory’s feverish search for just such a weapon.
Ambrose frowned and left his suite without so much as a glance back at Alda.
She would make her way down in her own time and he was impatient for some good news.
Just as he entered the large receiving room, Tansy was coming through the main door, shaking out her claws and fangs with an audible sigh of relief as she passed out of the world shared with humans and relaxed among her brethren.
She made a beeline for Ambrose, but the fact that she was alone boded ill, and he roared out his frustration before she even reached him.
Those gathered in groups in the hotel ballroom that had been converted into something very similar to a regal throne room quieted to a breathless silence as the Alpha of the clan vented.
Anything that wasn’t bolted down vibrated with the power of his vocalized fury.
The crystal chandelier clinked and tinkled long after the roar had faded and the memory of its impressive impact remained.
In its wake was the purity of silence, all attention centered on their Alpha, some in awe and respect, some in fear and submission.
Ambrose snarled at Tansy as she came near, but the warrior woman merely kneeled at his feet and exposed her neck to him in a gesture of submissive loyalty. This mollified him in a minor way, enough to keep him from tearing the room apart.
“Greta has failed?” he demanded, his words little more than guttural grunts.
“She is dead, my Alpha,” Tansy informed him regretfully. “Devona has surrounded herself with humans for protection.” Tansy spat in disgust at the idea. She had hardly believed her own eyes when she’d seen it.
“Humans! Bah!” Ambrose was only voicing what the murmuring crowd around him was thinking. “She sidles up to a nest of impotent vipers. What she sees in those pitiful creatures is completely beyond me.”
“Alpha, they were armed with mercury,” Tansy added. “I watched from the alley rooftop as Greta evaporated into nothingness.”
“So! She has begun the next phase of her betrayal,” Ambrose hissed, his copper colored eyes gleaming as he turned the information over in his head.
“She gives the cattle weapons to destroy us!” This he shouted for the vast room to hear, although the Morphates were already more than attentive.
They all became restless, some angry and some alarmed as they thought of the implications.
“Now do you see why she must be destroyed at all costs, as I’ve said from the start?
She’s eluded us for too long, finally succeeding in her plot to begin the destruction of her own kind.
But I will stop her. I will stop her if I have to go and hunt her myself. ”
“There is no need for that, my lord,” came a soft-spoken contradiction.
A rustle went through the room as everyone shifted to look in the direction of the speaker. Tansy rose to her feet and turned around toward the door she’d entered a moment ago. The sigh that rippled through the room echoed her feelings.
For Jacan stood there.
Jacan was a marvelous specimen of a male Morphate.
His muscular build and stunning height aside, it was his coal-black sheet of hair flowing down to the middle of his back and the obsidian glitter of his eyes that riveted all attention whenever he entered a room.
Those black eyes held the chill of a true warrior within them.
He was dressed in faded blue jeans that clung to every muscle with well-worn familiarity.
He wore no shirt, only a buttery soft leather vest worked to a natural beige that was almost white, which covered the expanse of bronzed skin across his chest. His magnificent arms were bare, except for the lone braided circlet of leather he wore around his upper left biceps, a beautifully crafted piece made of a much darker leather, painstakingly softened and woven.
Small, curving sparrow feathers rimmed the lower circumference of the band, making a perfect soft brown ring around his arm that swayed with every movement or breath of air.