Page 155 of Tamed By Her Touch

Outside the transparent vehicle, the beautiful alien city swept past beneath twin suns—the silver trees, curved cream buildings, sparkling turquoise waterways, and distant violet-blue mountains glowing beneath the strange sky. Clair never once considered the possibility that she shouldn’t be going to the Blood Archive alone.

She didn’t know that Kaelus’s decision to go there without Sendar had already changed everything.

And she had no idea that by the time she reached him, science would be the least dangerous thing waiting for her.

25

KAELUS

Kaelus had discovered something extraordinarily satisfying during his second morning in the Blood Archive—he did not need Sendar.

In fact, he was considerably more productive without the irritating male hovering over his shoulder, steering him away from particular databases and inventing reasons why certain historical samples could not be accessed.

Kaelus had arrived shortly after first light, armed with the access protocols he had quietly copied the previous day and a considerable amount of determination. It had taken him nearly an hour to work his way through the layered security surrounding the oldest records, but the Blood Archive had been built by scientists, not politicians, and scientists had a predictable weakness—they wanted information preserved even when governments later decided it ought to be hidden. Somewhere beneath every restriction was an original record, and Kaelus had spent enough of his life dealing with badly organized medical databases to know how to find the cracks.

Once he found them, the truth had unfolded with astonishing speed.

The ancient records confirmed nearly everything he and Clair had begun to suspect. The Love Virus had never disappeared from Titus Four. It had never mutated into some harmless modern variant, and the males of the planet had never developed natural immunity. Ancient blood samples from the Savage Period carried essentially the same viral markers Kaelus had found in the modern population.

What had changed was not the virus…the population had changed around it. More specifically, the women had.

Kaelus scrolled through centuries of forgotten research, his excitement growing as one piece of the puzzle after another dropped into place. Records from the period immediately preceding what Titus Four historians called the “Great Accord” contained repeated references to veloria consumption among females, followed by gradual reductions in violent male episodes.

There were notations regarding intimate contact, descriptions of women calming afflicted males through prolonged physical closeness, and several frustratingly vague references to something translated as the “female protective factor.” Later researchers had identified an unknown metabolite in male blood but apparently failed—or perhaps had been prevented—from tracing its origin.

Kaelus knew its origin now—Clair had found it.

His brilliant, impossible, curvy lab partner had discovered that female bodies transformed the inactive veloria precursor into the active compound circulating in protected males.

A surge of pride filled him just thinking about her and Kaelus wished she were standing beside him.

The thought came with an ache he immediately tried to suppress. He had left early because he needed distance after the previous night—that was the sensible explanation, anyway. He had told himself that allowing Clair to sleep was an act of consideration and that coming to the Archive alone was simply efficient.

Both things were true…but neither was the entire truth.

Kaelus had awakened with Clair wrapped around him, her cheek resting against his chest and one small leg draped over his thigh, and for several dangerous minutes he had allowed himself to imagine that she truly was his wife. He had wanted to stay there in bed with her…wanted to wake her with a kiss…wanted to tell her everything he had forbidden himself to say.

So he had gotten out of bed before weakness overcame him and headed for the Blood Archives.

Now, several hours later, he found himself missing her when he ought to be focused on work.

“Pathetic,” he muttered to himself. “You know you can never have her. Concentrate.”

Kaelus returned his attention to the historical records and continued downloading everything he could find. The final set of data was the most damning. It concerned viral specimens removed from archival storage within the last several years—ancient strains from the Savage Period which should never have left secure containment.

Most of the authorization information had been deleted, but the deletion itself had left traces. Someone with senior Archive privileges had accessed the samples, copied the genomic structures, and later removed physical material.

Someone with precisely the level of authority Sendar possessed.

Kaelus’s jaw tightened as he copied every piece of information onto his data pad and a pattern began to form. Ancient viral strain retrieval…unexplained genomic manipulation…off-world transport logs disguised as routine biological shipments. And then the most damning thing of all—a shipment sent toward the same region of space where the Glenvarren colony was located. And all of them had been signed off by Sendar.

The circumstantial evidence was overwhelming. Sendar had not merely known about the Savage Syndrome outbreak—he had caused it.

Kaelus cursed under his breath. This bastard was directly responsible for the deaths in the Glenvarren colony. But why had he done it? Why had he⁠—?

A sharp stinging sensation as something pierced the side of his neck derailed his thoughts.

He grunted in pain and slapped at his neck.