Page 6 of Rifted Hearts
No, Remi needed to get a grip on himself. He seduced his targets, not the other way around.
“Mixed.” Lyall rolled off the bed and rummaged around in the closet, throwing various pieces of clothing Remi had neatly hung up onto the floor before tossing on a pair of jeans commando-style over his bare ass. The necklace Remi shouldn’t have given him was around Lyall’s neck, but he still chose to steal Remi’s clothes. The inert organism in thetacky rawhide-and-tooth jewelry, once awakened, transformed into impenetrable protection for his more vulnerable humanoid shape, at least according Lyall’s endless war stories. Instead of activating it, the damn hellhound picked up one of Remi’s favorite shirts and pulled it over his six-pack abs. “You’re mixed yourself, rat boy. You should recognize one of your own.”
Remi tried a breathing exercise his therapist in Boston had recommended. Lyall had this effect on him. He should have pushed back harder when his father had insisted the dog go with him as backup muscle. “Drakones don’t fuck humans. Or ratkind like me. They also don’t marry outside their clan.”
“Not in the old country, sure.” Lyall prowled around the room, probably looking for something to eat. A bottomless pit, no matter what shape he took. “But he’s not much older than you. He would have been a child during the Sundering. Everything’s screwed up here on Earth, what with the Matchmaker going haywire.”
Remi didn’t care about drakones and hellhounds clutching their pearl and fang necklaces, respectively, over the chaotic effect of Earth’s natural laws. Over twenty years ago, entire chunks of the Riftworld split off, stranding multiple species on fragments of their home planet that opened only onto portals to Earth. Traveling to a different part of the Riftworld involved crossing into a world with wildly different natural laws, inhabited by a violent invasive species that was busily destroying the only planet they had.
That was the Sundering, as Riftworld people called it. To humans, it was the Monster Apocalypse, with inter-dimensional portals replacing areas around the Earth and alien “mons” pouring out of them. It might have been a bigger news event if there hadn’t been six other apocalyptic-likeevents since then—seven, if you counted the US adopting the metric system.
Anyway, two alternate universes colliding had to cause some chaos, and the Matchmaker, a mysterious entity that selected marriage partners and altered reality until they met, was something that could easily be fucked up. Granted, being forced into a lifelong relationship with a random and entirely unsuitable partner by an ancient matchmaking sentience probably sucked. Fortunately, the Matchmaker targeted the so-called “higher peoples,” not ratkind like himself.
The sex was supposed to be fucking awesome though.
“You think he’s got enough drakone blood to have solid mental shields but not enough to figure out what we are.” He still didn’t believe Kaveh was part drakone, but Remi didn’t face romantic rejection often—at least when it came to the sex part. Anything more long term than a few nights hadn’t worked out, but he was fine being single, thank you very much. “What the hell am I supposed to do to get him in the sack? I don’t want to go back to Father with my tail between my legs, and you don’t want to go back to him at all.”
“The ranch is showing off a new Riftworld animal tomorrow at the petting zoo.” Lyall couldn’t have said anything Remi wanted to hear less. “Kaveh will be there, along with a horde of gawking humans. Show up and do that video nonsense you enjoy so much. He’ll love to talk to you about the ranch’s new pet mon.”
“Fine.” Remi hated the thought of the zoo, but a live-stream with a new baby monster would bring in a lot of views. His vid streaming had started out as a cover story for a con, but Remi kept it up because he enjoyed filming his travel show. Plus, it made money. Remi had blown all of hisfirst year’s haul on a Rolex which he hadn’t brought on this trip but otherwise wore every day. Legal income—a refreshing change of pace from the Colony’s cash flow from various illegal enterprises. “What will you be doing to earn your kibble?”
“I’m going to check out the monstertown.” Lyall getting close to a rift was a bad idea on many levels, but Remi had promised. “Might do a little hunting, get the lay of the land, that sort of thing.”
“You want to figure out how to weasel out of your contract.” Remi understood why Lyall wanted to get out from under his father’s clawed thumb, but Remi wasn’t willing to face his father’s wrath if the hellhound succeeded in freeing himself. “Saguaro Rift opens up onto drakone territory. Not friendly terrain for either of us.”
“I can take care of myself.” Lyall’s eyes transformed, glowing an unholy red. The dog was a badass fighter when he felt like it, which was why Father had sent him along. But even with the added power being near a rift would give him, the hellhound couldn’t fight an entire clan of drakones.
Lyall strolled to the door then paused on his way out to give Remi more unwanted advice. “Worry about how to get into Kaveh’s pants and let me do my job.”
4
The last thing Kaveh wanted was to be late for the petting zoo event. Not that he was looking forward to it. In fact, he had been dreading it every minute of the two months since he and Kat had pitched the idea to Garreth and Chrissie.
He shouldn’t blame Kat. Wild schemes and overly optimistic plans were part of his vet assistant’s charm. Usually, Kaveh played the voice of reason when Kat came up with yet another suggestion that might end in disaster. But Amanita giving birth to a foal who looked nothing like a normal horse had left Kaveh with few good options. He could only hope Kat’s latest bright idea wouldn’t destroy both his work and his relationships at the ranch.
Kaveh swung off Ranger and began to take off the gelding’s tack, grateful when Javier came over to help him with the horse.
“I’m excited to see the new mon you and Kat are showing off, but Flutterberry’s put out by all the attention this is getting.” Javier, a part-time wrangler at the ranch, had a sister with a Riftworld companion animal—a mothcat—who often appeared at the zoo as one of what Kaveh called his Riftworld ambassadors. “My sister and Flutterberry got here early for it, and it’s a good thing they did. There’s already a bigger crowd than the owners expected.”
“There is?” Kaveh’s stomach lurched at that news. “I’m running late because of an emergency in my clinic, so if you don’t mind taking care of Ranger, I’ll head over to Amanita’s stall and bring the colt over to the zoo.”
“Kat already did that for you.” Javier dropped that bombshell with a cheerful smile then continued blissfully relating more bad news. “Garth and Chrissie are there with the mayor and a whole mess of reporters. Remi’s live-streaming the whole event. He’s that famous guy from Apocalypse Data I picked up at the airport yesterday.”
Kaveh didn’t wait to listen to the rest of Javier’s updates. After mumbling a quick thanks, he strode toward the zoo at the fastest walk he could manage without appearing to be running in a panic.
He had made it clear that he would be the one to bring the colt over. The young animal had never shifted from his repoequus form into a horse. Although the animal hadn’t tried to kill Kat since his birth during that bad rift storm, his poison fangs and fledgling psychic assault abilities still made him dangerous.
The petting zoo had originally been a barn with a fenced-in area containing kid-friendly Earth rescue animals such as goats, angora rabbits, and a few chinchillas. After Kaveh arrived, he had altered the space to accommodate a number of benign Riftworld species who either volunteered to interact with curious humans or who had no other safe place to go and at least didn’t object to the arrangement.
Kaveh heard the crowd of people before the zoo came into view, but it was still a shock to see how many hadshown up for the weekly lecture he and Kat held every Monday afternoon.
He spotted Kat standing on the small wooden stage they used for their talks, with a cockatoo wearing a leash perched on his arm. Kat had not only taken the colt over by himself against Kaveh’s specific instructions; he had brought along Snow, of all the part-Riftworld animals he could have chosen. His sense of relief that his assistant was none the worse for wear after leading the repoequus colt away from Amanita was tempered by the sight of the bird, a force for chaos at the best of times.
Someone tapped him on the arm, and Kaveh turned to see the vid streamer Javier had mentioned standing next to him.
Remi, that was his name.
A small drone hovered in the air near the dark-haired man, and Kaveh realized with a jolt he was being—what had Kat told him it was called?
