“You still got them?” he asked Mason.
“Yep. By the time they realize they lost you and circle back, it’ll be too late,” he said. “Get her safe. Zach is waiting.”
He didn’t bother with a response. He flipped the speaker up and turned off the earpiece.
“Tell me what you think you found, Esme, and who you shared that information with.” He needed to know who to kill.
“Dr. Durand,” she said primly. Grinning, he glanced over at her. She sat straight, hands clenched together in her lap, and stared out the front window.
“Esme,” he crooned. “If you don’t consider this situation enough for a first name basis, I promise to change your mind at the earliest opportunity.”
There was no mistaking his meaning. The look she flashed him was full of awareness. Shock and disbelief, but also interest and desire. Her scent was lush with it. He wanted to drown in her, and it would be hours yet before he could.
“The tests?” he reminded her, desperate to retain some semblance of control before he pulled to the side of the road and took her with all the finesse of a horny teenager.
The silence stretched, a not-so-subtle sign of defiance. The primitive core of him rose to the surface. He wasn’t human. He was something more. More advanced. More evolved. A predator. And his woman was defying him. Disobeying him. It didn’t matter that she hadn’t realized yet he’d claimed her. He was the hunter. She was the prey.
“Esme.” It was a snarl, a demand full of menace and promise of retribution. Her hand convulsed on the door handle. “Don’t even think about it, baby. You’d never survive the fall.”
That she considered trying to escape him pissed him off. That she’d do it in a way that guaranteed her death enraged him. Was she always so damned careless with her life?
“Answer me. What did you find in the blood tests?”
“It isn’t human,” she answered softly, her voice still vibrating with anger. “It’s close. About three percent variation, but it isn’t human and it isn’t in any database of recorded genetic samples. It’s something…new. Or more accurately something that hasn’t been discovered yet.”
Zach had warned him she would figure that out, and fast. That was why they’d been in such a damned hurry to get to her. She was an expert. She’d found something new and consulted at least one other expert, who thankfully was one of the Elect. But who else had seen her results? Who had come after her tonight?
“Who besides Zach did you talk to?”
“No one.”
He could smell the lie and clenched the steering wheel. He wanted to bend her over his knee and tan her hide. It might help with the defiance, but he doubted it’d do a damned thing for the distrust.
“Don’t lie to me, sweetheart.”
She was quiet so long he didn’t think she would answer. “The only other person I talked to was the one who gave me the sample.”
“Who was it?” He glanced over at her as he asked.
She shook her head, biting her lip, and as big a turn-on as that was, her refusal to answer made him see red.
“You will tell me,” he said, almost wincing at the arrogance in his voice.
She shook her head again. Stubborn and defiant. Shit. She would make him lose all control. He could feel it slipping away now, and he knew he shouldn’t be around her in that state. He wasn’t like anything she’d ever experienced before. He was stronger, faster, smarter, both physically and mentally. They all had to be careful when a human was brought into the fold.
“You aren’t protecting your subject,” he snapped. “Whoever it is isn’t safe now. Or worse, they betrayed you to whoever is after you.”
Which was his suspicion. A team of armed men had come after her. Why else would they do that if not for her information? And who the fuck were they? How had they found out she had that blood sample? Mason better have some answers when he got back.
She gave one sharp shake of her head and he felt her denial, her refusal before she spoke. “No. It was someone else. If they were even there for me.”
He didn’t bother to respond to that. She knew better. She’d been in her lab late on a Saturday night. She was the only one there when he’d entered. She was the target. The question was, who had put that bull’s eye on her back?
He finally reached the compound turnoff, put the code into the security gate, and drove down the mile-long road to his house. He pulled right up to the door, which opened as he exited the car. Zach stepped out onto the porch, but Esme didn’t budge until Brax opened her door and pulled her out. She didn’t move forward when he tugged at her hand.
“You wanted answers,” he murmured. “Now’s your chance, baby.”
She came. Reluctantly, but she let him lead her into his house, into his study, where he realized everyone could use a stiff drink. He walked to the sideboard and pulled down three glasses and a whiskey bottle. She was shaking, but she knocked it back and held the glass out for another quickly consumed shot. She set the glass down very carefully, softly, when Brax could feel her desire to slam it. He bit back a grin and watched as she turned on Zach.
“What the hell is going on? I trusted you to keep that email to yourself.”
Her voice was so calm and even, her emotions held so close, that Brax doubted even she was aware of the hurt that resonated from her. It was clear Zach didn’t see it. The researcher scowled.
“That information is too sensitive, Esme. We couldn’t let it get out. It endangers too many people. We need to know where it came from.”
“We.” A soft response, but Brax could hear the suspicion in her voice. Sensed it on the psychic plane. She was drawing conclusions, the right ones. Zach was well known in his field. If he’d discovered a new species, he had no reason not to publish his findings. Unless he was a member of that species and wanted to hide his identity. “If I tested your DNA, Zach, what would I find?”
Zach didn’t say anything and neither did Brax. She backed away, tried to put distance between them and edge closer to the door. He almost smiled. There was no way in hell he’d let her run from him.
“What are you?”
“Aliens?” he quipped, and was damned glad for it when her lips twitched and she rolled her eyes.
“I don’t think so. The DNA is too close to human.”
“I don’t know, baby.” He cocked one eyebrow. “You’re the expert. You tell me.”
She pressed her lips into a hard, pale line and then sighed. “You don’t need me. You have Zach Littman. He can tell you what you are.”
He jerked his chin at Zach, indicating he should leave the room. When the door clicked softly behind him, Brax moved closer, careful not to spook her but desperate to touch her.
“I need to hear it, baby. What you know and what you suspect. I need you to acknowledge that this information can never be released. It can’t be published. We can’t be exposed.”
He was near enough he could hear the pulse pounding in her veins, see the pebbled nipples hidden under her shirt and behind the white lab coat. Damn, that thing had to go. He reached out, slow and easy, and pushed it from her shoulders, let it fall to the floor.
“Esme?” he whispered, but he didn’t give a damn about her answer. He was enchanted by the rise and fall of her chest, by the scent of her growing arousal.
“I wouldn’t expose you. I was sure I could trust Zach and I wanted a second opinion.”
His head bent to her neck, her shoulder. He couldn’t stop. He had to taste her. Feel her soft skin against his lips. “What else, angel?”
The sooner he got the questions over, the sooner he could take her to bed. Strip her. Spread her. Taste and touch and indulge. He wanted to go slow and easy, wanted to savor her and give her more pleasure than she’d ever dreamed of or experienced. He’d never considered himself a tender lover, but for her he wanted to try. It might be a week before he came up for air.
“I already said. New species.” She gasped as his teeth scraped over the vu
lnerable skin under her ear. He nibbled his way to the curve at her shoulder. “Hominid. I’d need to study the strands that are different to guess how the species are different.”
She’d already done that. He could feel the knowledge leaking from her mind. She wasn’t able to shield her thoughts as well when he was touching her. He growled in satisfaction. If he had to fuck her, sate her, to get the information he needed to keep her safe, well, he was up to the challenge. He felt her struggling against the need, but she couldn’t fight against the desire cascading through her senses and he wasn’t about to give her time to recover.
He yanked her T-shirt over her head and groaned at the sight of the skimpy cotton bra she wore. It was white, innocent, at odds with the hard peaks of her nipples poking through. He couldn’t resist. He bent and licked one, sucking it between his teeth when she groaned and thrust forward. Hell yeah. She burned as hot as he did. He could scent her desire answering his, could feel the quickening in her body. He shoved the fabric under her breasts, baring her to his lips. Her nipples were hard, pink points.
“Oh, yeah. So sweet and pretty.”
Her hands gripped his shoulders. For a moment she clung to him, then he sensed her pulling back a second before she pushed him away. She stepped back, panting, pulling her bra back over her breasts, but it in no way hid her desire.
Chapter Two
She’d finally lost her mind. There was no other explanation. Why else would she be ready, eager, to rip her clothes off for this stranger and beg him to take her, if she was still sane? She could feel his desire, his hunger. She’d had uncanny intuition as a child. She knew what people felt, what they thought. Their darkest desires. She could communicate telepathically with her brother, could influence people, plant suggestions in their thoughts without their knowledge. She’d almost used that talent when Brax snuck into her office. It had saved her more than once as a child, but she couldn’t say why she held back now.
Her gift, her curse, had made life hell when she was a child tossed into the foster care system. She didn’t want to know if the new father she’d been stuck with had lascivious thoughts about young girls. Or boys. She didn’t want to know she’d only been brought into a house because of the money the state paid. She was different. She knew it, and inevitably, they knew it. She’d been fighting that difference for years. Repressing it.
She wasn’t stupid. She’d studied schizophrenia and paranoia. For years she’d thought she really was crazy, despite seeing the difference in clinical descriptions and what she knew was her reality.
Eventually she’d learned to control the telepathy. It was all about emotion. If she repressed her feelings, she could keep it under control. She didn’t have to feel other people’s thoughts. Didn’t have to feel what they did. But now, the ability to do so was loose. After all the effort, all the work to suppress it. It pissed her the hell off.
She snatched her shirt up from the floor and pulled it on, glaring back at him when he snarled at her. What the hell?
“I’m going home. I know what you are. I have no evidence. And even if I did, I wouldn’t expose you.” She gave him a tight, angry smile. “See? No worries.”
His eyes narrowed on her, and she felt his anger and refusal before he spoke. Damn it, she didn’t want this. She didn’t want to know what people were thinking. She didn’t want to be different. She wanted to be human. And she wasn’t. Not by a long shot.
“You aren’t going anywhere, Esme. You know it isn’t safe.”
She sighed, the fury deflating out of her like a stuck balloon. She’d known he’d say that. Just as she knew he wouldn’t let up until he had her in his bed.
“Would that be so bad?” he asked softly.
“I didn’t give you permission to snoop in my head,” she snapped.
He gave her a wolfish grin. “You’re projecting your thoughts so I don’t have to snoop. Tell me, sweetheart, you’re a geneticist—have you ever tested your own DNA?”
She froze. He knew. He knew she was different. He knew she wasn’t human anymore than she suspected he was. It infuriated her.
So where the fuck had they been? While she’d gone through the childhood from hell, alone and lonely, abandoned by her own parents? Her own people? Watching her baby brother suffer alongside her and then being separated until they were adults?
She lifted her chin and faced him. Damned if she’d show him how much that hurt. The solitary life she’d been forced into.
“What do you call yourselves then? How many of you are there?”
Was her mother among them? They’d been taken from her so long ago. Later, Esme had discovered she’d been hospitalized for a mental disorder. She’d claimed to hear voices. But Esme knew, while the voices may have unhinged her fragile mother, they were real. On her release, she’d disappeared.
“We’re the Elect. There are about two thousand now that we know of, most here in the Tampa area. We’ve made it our home base.”
Shivering, she wrapped her arms around herself. She’d known, of course. Eventually Homo sapiens would evolve, a barrier would be jumped. She’d known she couldn’t be the only one. She’d also known she couldn’t ever let anyone know what she was. She had no intention spending her life as a rat in some privately-funded, top-secret lab.
Why hadn’t she heard? It was a small community she was a part of. And shit, she needed a phone. She needed to call her brother and warn him. It wasn’t his blood she’d tested, but she was certain she’d get the same results. It was his son’s, a little boy who’d been plagued by illness since his birth six years ago. Carter hadn’t even known about the boy until a few months ago, when the boy’s mother had died. He had been contacted in Iraq.
Thankfully, his tour was ending so he was on his way back to the States anyway. But Esme had been surprised to learn he’d already put in a request to resign his commission. When she’d asked him why, he’d just said it was time. He’d served twelve years, the war was over and it was unlikely he’d get promoted again. Too much competition for too few slots, he’d said. But she couldn’t help wondering if that was the whole truth. Had some instinct told him that soon he would be needed at home? Since his service obligation had been met and Kaden’s unexplained illness, combined with his mother’s sudden death, created a family hardship for the boy, Carter’s resignation had been approved without jumping through too many hoops.
She’d only known her nephew a short time, but Esme would do anything for that boy. Whatever it took to save him and her brother. She’d failed to save Carter when he was a child, and that wouldn’t happen again. She took a deep breath and looked around the study, recalling the security when they’d come in. Then she looked at her captor. His eyes were hot, blazing. One part pissed off and the other part lust. She only cared about two people in the world. She’d make a deal with the devil to keep them safe if she had to.
“You find them using DNA testing, don’t you?”
He nodded. “Yes, and we protect them.”
She arched her eyebrows. “Decided not to kill me, huh?”
He rolled his eyes. “You knew that in your lab before we even spoke. You’re safe with me.”
“Everything but my virtue,” she muttered and glared when he grinned. He was smart enough to clear the satisfaction from his expression.
“I get the feeling you’re working up to something here, angel.”
“It is safer here,” she conceded.
Much safer than her place or her brother’s. They lived close to neighbors, and though they had security alarms they couldn’t compete with the fences and cameras she’d spotted on this estate. Not to mention the dogs and guards she’d seen while they were driving in. She met Brax’s gaze and tried to ignore the heat she saw reflected there.
“Is it a requirement of your job to protect any members of the Elect you find?”
“Yes, it is,” he said firmly. “So whoever you got that blood from will have sanctuary here.”
And access to Zach Litt
man. If anyone could help her figure out what was wrong with Kaden, it would probably be Zach. Her instinct said she could trust him, but she wanted assurances.
“I have your word we’ll be safe here?”
His eyes caught the light and glinted as he stepped towards her. She knew she’d irritated him pushing like she was, but she couldn’t let it go.
“Yes, you have my word,” he agreed.
She remembered the gunshots at her lab and her escape with Brax. If he’d wanted her dead, would she still be alive? She doubted it, and really, what other options did she have?
“The blood was my nephew’s,” she said. “If you bring him and my brother in here and promise me they’re safe, I’ll give you what you want.”
Her offer did not engineer the response she expected. He was furious. “You would sell yourself for them?”
It hurt, that contempt, but she hid it and tilted her chin up. “They are all I have. All I have ever worked for.”
“Family loyalty. I understand that,” he said softly, approvingly, as he glided forward. “But you’re wrong about one thing, baby. They aren’t all you have. You have me.”
She held her breath when he reached her, his gaze snaring her. So hot. So carnal. She wasn’t innocent, but she was a virgin. She could block other people’s thoughts as long as they weren’t touching her. Add physical contact and it was game over. It was damned hard to have sex with a man when you could read his mind. When he was thinking her breasts were too small or her ass was too big. She’d given up trying long ago. But she didn’t feel anything from Brax but approval. Nothing but need and desire. She shared it and had every intention of indulging it. When she knew Carter and Kaden were safe.
“I have to call him.”
Somehow she made her voice firm and regained her outward calm, though she knew he saw through it. He nodded, stalked to the door, and jerked it open, barking orders at whoever was out there. He trailed a finger down her cheekbone when he returned, and she swore her knees knocked.
Protector: The Elect, Book 1 Page 2