“Just drop it. If you want to be with me, then be with me. If you don’t, then don’t,” I growl, and his lips claim mine once more briefly to try to bring me out of my tantrum.
“You know I want to be with you,” he smolders out.
“Then drop it,” I mumble against his steamy kiss as he grips my hips.
“I hate you don’t feel like you can tell me,” he huffs out.
“I know I can tell you, I just don’t want to right now. I’m not trying to keep secrets, I’m just not ready to talk about it. Please just give me a damn minute.”
He takes a deep, cleansing breath, and then he shakes his head.
“You’re right. I’m sorry. I just hate he hurt you all over again.”
“You knew he would, and I didn’t listen. You were always the better person for me, and I was just too stupid to realize it.”
I start to feel the tears burning in my eyes, and his comforting hand cups my face as he tilts my head up so my eyes meet his.
“Don’t do that. I don’t want you to cry over him,” he murmurs softly.
“I’m not crying over him.” At least I don’t think I am. “I’m crying because I’m an idiot for believing he would be better when he was actually worse.”
So, so much worse.
“I’m sorry, baby,” he sighs out, and then his eyes cut to the open doorway before he shifts uncomfortably. “We have to go in. We’ll find a seat in the back.”
I just nod, and he takes my hand in his. He pulls me over to one of the side corner rows, placing Hale directly across from us. His eyes burn against me, and they seem to be filled with guilt and pain when he sees my blue eyes that have been streaked and stained because of him.
“Are you on probation or anything?” I ask softly.
“For fighting with another captain?” he chuckles out sardonically. “We have to keep silence and distance between us for seven days, but that won’t be a problem. We’re not allowed to speak directly to each other, and we can’t be in the same room without at least two people present for a month. If we break the rules, we could both lose our stripes.”
“Wow,” I gush in disbelief.
“No worries, babe. I have no intentions of being around him past tomorrow. Clay assured everyone we wouldn’t be at Seminole past this meeting, and he told me Grayson passed all his tests other than long distance shooting which is today - though I don’t know how because he’s terrible,” he groans in distaste.
I laugh lightly at his exasperated comment, and then I lean over to rest my head on his shoulder. I decide to keep quiet about the unethical influence Clay had on Grayson’s test scores. I’ll tell him later.
“I’m sorry you got into a fight. We should be able to leave today since Grayson’s tests were hurried along. His last test should be in an hour, and he’s raving about how great your help was.”
“I showed him all the beginner secrets I barely remember,” he snickers, and then his lips brush mine just as Clay takes the center to speak.
“Thank you all for showing up on such short notice. I apologize for the inconvenience, but we need your help. As most of you know, I’ve excluded the humans from this meeting due to the contents involved. We’ve been aware for a while the humans’ life spans are shortening very rapidly. Few live past the age of forty, and those who do are riddled with cancer from the radioactive atmosphere their lungs can’t filter the way ours do. We change as many as possible, but eventually, the life span of a human will be less than twenty years. Soon after that, humans will cease to exist at all. That’s not good for any of us, and we’re working very tirelessly on a solution to save them and ourselves from extinction. It’s not looking promising though, and we’re no closer to finding a solution to their problem than we were nine hundred years ago.
“Their metabolisms and need for nourishment can’t thrive on the synthetic or cloned meats, fruits, and vegetables the hybrids can, and eventually their natural food source will also dry up due to the same thing killing them. The reason I called you here is because we’ve possibly stumbled upon something which could change our fears and shape our futures that seem so grim. We can clone so many things, but nothing as complex as human blood - at least not in a way that can sustain or heal a full blood. An undercover officer found this during one of his interrogations, and it has the potential to save at least one species from extinction - the full bloods.”
Clay pauses his speech while pulling up the monitor to show a complicated series of blood samples. I have no clue what I’m looking at because I intentionally flunked biology so I never had to work in a lab like a rat.
“As you can tell, this blood is almost identical to blood from a vein. It has proven to heal, feed, and sustain full bloods we’ve tested it on in the past three weeks. The problem is, we can’t duplicate it. The combinations of synthetic processes are far too advanced and complicated for the technology that should be all we have in existence. We need to find the source of this so we can find the process in which this was made. That’s where you come in. Our trail has run cold, and though we have a list of names for leads, it’s not very easy to find them. They’re hiding in the unaligned nations, and entry is not always allowed when you’re a member of the United. I’m going to disperse a list of names, contacts, aliases, pictures, and files on each of these leads to all of you, and I hope together we can pool our resources to find these people and make this happen.
“We still have the best interrogator in the network at our disposal, and should anyone find a lead, take them to Araya Crush at Hershian.”
Everyone turns to look at me, and Brazen’s hand tightens on my shoulder as I slump down.
“Can your undercover ask his or her source to put us on the right track?” a man chirps, and I’m appreciative when all the eyes move away from me and trickle back down to Clay.
“That’s not going to be a possibility,” Clay mumbles.
“Why is that?” a woman asks.
