Page 321 of Hunters and Prey

Chapter 12

Chiara

Skye Palace

Planet Anarr

The Hai System

Chiara triple-checked her formulas and the genomes she’d chosen to replace the defective disease. Everything seemed to be going well with the four subjects she’d inoculated this morning.

It would take some time to see if it had worked. She’d know within twenty-four hours though if their bodies rejected the new genome. And they would come for new testing every morning and night until she was satisfied they were cured.

From there they would expand to new subjects.

At the moment she was studying the pheromones as Prince Ian had asked her to while she waited for Roman to arrive for his own inoculation.

She still didn’t think their infertility had shikta to do with the pheromones. They were fascinating of course – making it so someone who was not Drakesthai would still be bonded to the Drakesthai male to enhance their biological compatibility.

It only really seemed to make a difference with other Drakesthai females. Because in Zoya, she could clearly see those hormones had activated her fertility based on the data she was looking at. But not from a male’s pheromones. From her own.

That was why Chiara knew Ian was wrong. He must not have really looked too closely at the females. So many doctors and physicians had made that mistake – focusing on the males because of their lack of viable seed.

The females were fertile regardless. It was only birthing female children that was the problem – and as the sex of the child resided in the male’s DNA it made sense why so many had focused on male fertility and never really looked at the female issues.

Regardless of if she cured the males, Chiara would need to look at female Drakesthai physiology. Their bodies were more adaptive due to growing a fetus who developed wings in the womb. But it was dangerous and harmful. And for some reason their bodies spontaneously aborted a female child.

Did the female body somehow recognize the second set of female DNA and attack it?

Chiara grinned. This was so much more complex than fixing a simple male seed problem. The females would be where the real work was.

It also bothered her that even though the Drakesthai valued females so highly they had ignored such an obvious problem in favor of the males’.

She tilted her head and flicked back to Queen Adelina’s genetic workup. It was too strange and different to be very helpful, but there could be a solution in the mixture of her genes.

Perhaps something akin to the way Kalan females activated their fertility would help the Drakesthai. But Chiara wasn’t sure. All she had to do was go to a physician and have it done. No one but her could approve the procedure.

Would that change somehow if she consummated the bond with Roman? Would his pheromones activate her fertility?

Chiara wondered if that’s what Ian had meant. Did they have any tests from Unchanged females mated to a Drakesthai male?

She flicked through the files she had. A knock on the door interrupted her thoughts. “What?” she snapped.

Then Chiara remembered Roman was supposed to be coming to her office. “Come in!”

It wasn’t Roman who came through the door though, but Gia. The other female was one of the best on her team. “They’re asking me what to do about the bodies,” Gia told her. “They want to burn them.”

Chiara stood in alarm. “No! We still need them. Both are in stasis. Why are they pushing for cremation?”

Gia shrugged and held her gaze – an equal in dominance, if not rank. “I think the live Neprijat is making the Drakesthai nervous and there are murmurs about that spy they never caught.”

It was definitely problematic, she could see that. “Is there an empty room in the west wing?”

Pulling out her shreve, Gia checked. “It seems there are a few. Want me to put them in there and change the lock?”

Chiara didn’t bother telling her any royal could override any lock on any door in the palace. Roman would back her up on this. “Yes. I’ve been meaning to study them so we can prevent the initial upload. Have you been able to make any progress since I asked?”

There were too many things for her to do as team leader to focus on them all, so Chiara had entrusted the female she liked best – she was the least annoying and the smartest – to help her with the bodies Roman had gifted her.

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