BIKER QUEEN AND HER HELLBOUND KING

CHAPTER 6

Grace

The bar was empty by midnight.

I heard the last of the Riders head upstairs or out through the side door, and then it was just the two of us, me at the table near the window and Kent behind the bar doing something that looked like inventory but was probably watching me. Outside, Velmore was completely silent. Velmore didn’t have the vibrant hum of a city or the occasional siren of Charlverk. It just had the wind against the glass and the sound of my own heartbeat, which had been too fast for hours.

I'd been turning the research drive over in my fingers for an hour. I finally mastered enough courage and walked up to Kent at the bar and put it on the table.

"I'll tell you what I know," I said. My voice sounded thin in the empty room. "But it probably won't make any sense to you."

Kent came around the bar and sat across from me, and I had the same feeling I always had when he got close, that the air changed slightly. He didn't say anything, he just waited. So I started talking.

"I work at Charlverk Bio," I started, “well, worked… I'm pretty sure I can no longer return there” I said, tracing the edge of the drive with my thumb. "I was about to be promoted to senior biochemist. Dr. Fenn brought me into a private sector project two years ago.” Kent said nothing as I spoke, but the full weight of his attention was on me.

“I was part of a clinical research team running trials on a compound that was supposed to work as an amplifier. We were working on cellular regeneration— specifically, a compound that used a biological catalyst to jump-start the immune system in terminal patients."

I looked up at him, hoping to see a flicker of understanding, but his eyes were like flint.

"It’s science, Kent. Or it was supposed to be. Dr. Fenn chose me for the trials because my bloodwork was a unique match for the serum. He called me a universal donor for the project. I thought it was just a rare protein string."

"And the glow?" Kent asked, nodding toward the vial I'd dropped on the table mid explanation.

"A byproduct," I said, trying to force confidence my voice. It was something I usually did when I gave presentations back at Charlverk, this situation was no different. "It’s a bioluminescent reaction to the serum. When the compound hits blood, it triggers a massive ATP synthesis. The light is just energy escaping the cells. It’s chemistry."

Kent reached out. He didn’t grab the vial; he just hovered his hand near it. The gold liquid inside reacted instantly, it rose toward the glass, following the line of his fingers like a compass needle. I stared at the display with wide eyes.

"Chemistry doesn't sing, Grace," he said quietly. "And it doesn't recognize a century-old boundary. You’re calling it science because you’re afraid of the word 'Marked.'"

"I'm not afraid of words. I'm a scientist. I believe in things I can measure. Besides, I don't even know what that is." There had to be a scientific explanation for everything I'd witnessed ever since the lab explosion. Sure, I'd seen two of Kent's riders transform into creatures I couldn't name, I'd seen another rider with wounds that healed itself. Heck, I'd watch Kent's eyes glow right before me. Nothing made sense anymore at this point.

"Then measure this," he said, voice still calm. "There is a boundary around this town. It has been here since before your grandfather was born. People don't find the road to Velmore unless I want them to find it. They don't cross that line unless they carry a Marked bloodline, and even then, they have to be invited before they can cross but you walked through it like the air was empty. You didn't even feel the Ward."

"Because it’s a physical location, not a magic trick," I snapped. "I was driving. I followed a map." I felt like he was trying to brainwash me into believing something crazy.

"There are no maps to this place that show the truth," Kent said. He set the vial down with a sharp thud.

I looked at the drive and the vial he just dropped like it wasn't worth years of work and snapped. "The night the lab exploded, he gave me this and told me to run. He'd been keeping records, everything about the trials, the compound, the results and that very vial." I held his gaze. It was true that Dr. Fenn had turned on me but it wouldn't be an exaggeration to say the research was my life's work. I put in so much effort with the research and volunteering as a test subject, I couldn't sit still and listen him discredit my work with some magical nonsense.

"Your Dr. Fenn didn't choose you for your protein strings. He chose you because he knew what you were, he was hiding you in a lab under the guise of research because a lab is the only place a person like you can freely exist without suspicion." Kent said, unfazed by my outburst.

"A person like what?"

"A Conduit," he said.

I wanted to laugh, but the serious look on his face stopped me. "That sounds like something out of a bad fantasy novel."

"Did Fenn ever tell you what you were?" Kent asked.

"He told me I was a good scientist," I replied. I was very confident in that fact.

“Well I cannot agree or disagree with that, but you're also more. You are a conduit” he repeated the word that made absolutely no sense to me.

“A what now?”

"It’s a bloodline," Kent explained. He leaned forward,elbows on the table. "Think of the world as being divided into two rooms. In one room, you have the Unmarked, basically humans. They live, they die, they see only what is in front of them. In the other room, you have the Marked beings, we carry abilities. Shifters, blood-wielders, Seers. We have our own laws, our own borders."

"Blood-wielders," I repeated, barely masking a snicker "You mean vampires?"

"Technically, yes, but not the way your movies tell it. They don't burn in the sun or sleep in coffins. They are people with an affinity for the life force in the veins. They are dangerous, and they are very real."

"And werewolves?"

"Shifters, there are many subgroups." he corrected. "Like the two you saw at the tree line. It isn't a curse. It’s an inheritance."

I rubbed my face with my hands, I couldn't believe I was listening to this. The more I tried to make sense of it, the more ridiculous it sounded.