Page 66 of Penny for Your Saints

“Sébastien, with all due respect—what the fuck are you talking about?” Frank yawns and gives a little stretch—the bottom of his open leather jacket flapping in the icy breeze, drawing my attention to the thin trail of dark hair dusted from his navel down to the fly of his jeans.

I shake off my omega brain reaction, my body nearly driven to throw itself against his with the delirium of my heat. This is serious, though, and I can’t undercut the conversation by derailing it to get railed.

“None of us should be surprised, considering what her parents were researching—” I begin, my voice quavering slightly—betraying the cool calm I was shooting for. “But it would seem that our Little Lucifer really is our morningandevening star.” I opt for flowery language in hopes that it might soften the blow, but I can tell by the way that the gentle light sputters out in Frank’s eyes that we won’t be so lucky.

“Quentin, if you don’t quit talking in poetic fucking riddles and explain what the hell you mean by that,” Frank threatens, invading my personal space in the blink of an eye; suddenly chest-to chest. Since I’ve got a few inches on him, he can’t quite stare me down—but he’s glaring at me with as much alpha intimidation as he can muster.

Maybe if I weren’t in heat, I could stand up to him—tell him to stop trying to throw his weight around like a toddler having a tantrum—to use his big boy words instead of his pheromones and his bark; the threat of violence at the ready in case either of those options isn’t enough. Regretfully, I am an omega in heat—and my body is weakest to all of Frank’s alpha whiles in this moment—so I bend, lest I break.

“She’s our fated mate, Francis,” I say softly, closing my eyes—willing my voice into steadiness as the resinous sweetness of Frank’s scent breaks over me like a wave.

“What?” Frank can barely form the word through breathless disbelief.

“All of us, connected like some kind of fucked up constellation written in the stars,” I sigh. The weight of the admission is somehow lighter now that my mind has begun to accept what my body already knows to be the truth.

“Bullshit! It’s not possible!” Frank roars, his face nearly purple with rage, spinning away from me—his hands flying up to cradle his head—fingers clutched in his toss of wild raven hair as if he might tear great handfuls of it out in his fury.

“On the contrary, Papa,” Sébastien sighs, either too exhausted or too empirically convinced to be affected by Frank’s hysterics. “Maman is right—I saw it, along with some other… illuminating things when Caz and I ran everyone’s samples and the dart serum at LSU,” Seb adds calmly, reaching inside his parka to produce a silver flask from the interior pocket, offering it to Frank.

“Like what?” Frank growls, snatching the flat metal container, unscrewing the cap in a single motion—the pungent smell of Mahia warmed by Seb’s body filling my nose.

“The Zeitnot virus has no known cure,” Seb begins calmly as Frank takes a swig from the flask. “There’s no known vaccine for the virus, either.”

“No shit, Sherlock,” Frank grits out, wincing at the potent burn of the Mahia. “Tell me something I don’t know.”

“Louise and Quentin both show signs of antibody-based immunity to the virus, while both Cazimer and myself—being theta and gamma respectively appear as unaffected as one would assume we would.” Seb lets that information land, Frankstanding still as a statue—the open flask still frozen mid air in his hand.

It feels far too long before Seb adds, “I expected you to appear as an asymptomatic carrier, like all alphas who have been infected with the Zeitnot virus.”

“Spit it out Bouaziz, what the hell are you trying to say?” Frank bristles—that eerie, dark cold rising behind his eyes.

The sudden, uncharacteristic use of his last name seems to draw Seb up short. Up until now, he’d been treating Frank’s tantrum as ignorable—but this sharp tonal shift visibly puts Sébastien off balance—all of his confidence gone in an instant.

“I’m not ‘trying’ to say shit, Frank—I can’t explain exactly how, but you’re not an asymptomatic carrier, as a matter of fact—you appear to have a similar immunity to that of Louise and Q.”

Frank’s lip curls back in a toothy snarl, and for a second, I’m worried he’s going to slug Seb in the face.

“In what world does that make sense?” Frank closes the flask and slaps it flat against Seb’s chest, his rage still unbound. “Let’s say the Penny’s did actually find out how to cure the Zeitnot virus that they created in the first place. Assuming that’s true—the virus still only affects omegas and sigmas—alphas can be ‘infected’ but don’t present any symptoms, thus acting as silent carriers and spreaders of the virus and all the other designations are immune completely.” He paces a short track back and forth, waving his hands, raving like a madman. “So, let’s say that Q and Lou were part of the super-secret 90s outbreak that was managed by the US government—and they were treated and survived; the virus and the cure locked away by the Feds for some nefarious rainy day.”

Caz, Seb, and I can do nothing but stand back and let him continue his outburst.

“Then how the fuck do you suppose I’ve got the magic antibody immunity?” Frank rounds on Seb with a wild intensity.

“I told you, Frank, I don’t know yet—but the results appear to be pretty definitive. We won’t know more until we talk to the Red Bishop and try to get Louise to help us get into the few caches we haven’t been able to approach without her cooperation!” Seb actually takes a protective step back, and I can see from the pain in his face just how much this concession to his pride costs him.

As if the show of submission was as much of what Frank was after as the explanation of the anomalous test results, he finally eases off—giving Seb room to breathe, his posture softens, the darkness behind his eyes becoming flat, transforming form the fathomless shadows of hate of a few seconds ago; the gaze of the stranger.

“Does she know?” Frank’s question is as cool as he can manage, as if it’s an afterthought—but all three of us; Caz, Sébastien, and I—we see the calculation, the con. He’s staring down the ledge of panic as the words leave his mouth.

“We don’t know.” I finally find my voice, furious with myself for being otherwise paralyzed by Frank’s alpha aura until now—leaving Sébastien in the jaws of the beast. “She hasn’t said anything, and if you weren’t aware yet—there’s a good chance she may not be either.” I do my best to talk him down without injuring his fragile ego in the process.

“Not a fucking word about this.” A lucid flicker of light returns to Frank’s eyes as he raises a single finger and points at each one of us accusingly. “None of you breathe so much as a syllable about this to her, not until we have a better handle on what the fuck is happening with Seb’s virus findings—do you understand me?” He warns, low and menacing.

“But don’t you think that if she knows, it might help us convince her to help us break into those particularly sensitive caches?” Caz ventures cautiously.

“No, I do not—Susan fucking Lowry already convinced her to do whatever we need to do to get Louise her revenge,” Frank snipes back. “We don’t say shit until we know more. If she starts trying to tell you she thinks we’re all meant to be, you shut it down—got it?”

It’s clear from the uneasy silence that follows that none of us agree with the direction Frank wants to take us in, which only seems to infuriate him more—but he’s either too exhausted, or too unwilling to push us to the edge to force a response.

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