Given to the Savage(58)
Before she could answer, a nurse rushed in out of breath. “Doctor, we have an emergency!”
Dr. Stone was on his feet in an instant and rushing out to follow the nurse. Rowan remained forgotten in his office. She eyed the tablet on his desk and glanced at the door before picking it up. As she did, another alert flashed on the screen:
Explosion at Colony Andorra market square. Chaos, rebel forces rising. Attacks on settlements have begun.
The screen went blank. Rowan stared at it just as the door flew open and Silas rushed in.
She jumped to her feet in surprise, her heart in her throat. “What’s happening?” she asked when she saw his face.
“Come!” he said, taking her by the arm and dragging her out of the clinic.
“What is it? What’s happening?”
“Soldiers from the colony are coming,” he said, his hands digging into her arm as he nearly lifted her off her feet to carry her.
“What?”
“Commander Norrin has been arrested,” he said, pushing open the front door of his house.
“I don’t understand.”
He stopped and turned to her. “There has been intelligence that soldiers have been sent to collect you. Soldiers sent by the captain.”
“No.”
“I won’t let them take you.”
“You can’t stop them! He’ll have you killed. He’ll kill anyone who gets in his way.”
“Silas!”
Both Rowan and Silas turned to the door to find two men standing there. One of them, the one who had called out Silas’ name, Rowan recognized to be Jonah, one of the elders.
“I will not give her to them,” Silas said, his voice hard, as if he’d already had this conversation.
“It’s the only way to keep the village safe. Remember what happened six…”
“No!”
Jonah exhaled and walked inside. “My friend,” he said. “This is impossible. Your son is lost, accept it. The rest of us have but you are unable. Let him go.”
“I cannot!”
“Silas,” Rowan said, “Your son…”
He turned to her, his eyes red.
“He’s not… There’s something you should know,” she began hesitantly.
“What do you know of my son? What have you not told me?”
“The picture on your tablet, the one you showed me, I recognized it. I recognized him.”
Silas’ expression changed and he shook her once.
“Please,” she begged, hands on his chest. He eased his grip and she continued. “Some months ago, I woke in the night from noise in the courtyard. Outside, two guards led a boy into our building. It was strange and I watched but there was something wrong, something different about the child.”
Silas’ lips tightened.
“She knows it too, Silas. Perhaps you will listen to her even if you will not believe your own informant,” Jonah said.
Silas kept his eyes on Rowan all along, the battle within him playing out as a wild storm in his eyes.
“There’s a reason Commander Norrin didn’t show you his eyes. It wasn’t an accident.”
“What are you saying?” he asked her through clenched teeth.
“He’s not like you, Silas,” she said.
His eyes narrowed, filling with tears and it tore her apart to continue. “No.”
“He’s like me. That’s why they wanted you to breed with me because you can make a male breeder. He was the first of his kind. You created him with your wife. You carry the same gene as we do.”
“No.”
“They won’t give him back, Silas,” Jonah said.
Silas ignored the man and continued to stare at Rowan who now felt the hot trail of tears streaming down her face. “He’s right. If your son was who I saw that night, a male breeder, then they won’t let him go. Ever.”
* * *
Silas’ head was spinning. He walked through the village seeing nothing, hearing no one. Jonah tried to speak to him but he pushed the man’s hand from his shoulder and walked out of the settlement.
They had received intelligence earlier in the day about his son. Jonah and Alistair had gone behind his back to obtain information about him and what they had learned had been unbelievable, shocking news. And this on the heels of the long-awaited uprising.
Captain Amro had assumed command of Andorra and Commander Norrin lay injured and jailed on the captain’s orders. The captain had then sent word that he would be collecting his breeder and that should she not be returned peacefully, he would level the entire settlement, killing any and all who stood in his way. The man’s obsession with Rowan was nothing like Silas had ever seen before and Silas refused to give her to him, refused to simply hand her over. But the news of Tobias, of what he was, and of the sure fact that neither Commander Norrin nor Captain Amro would return the boy to him…