by Amelia Jade
“Flint, we need to tell everyone about this,” Connor said seriously. “Valen, Marcus, everyone back in Genesis Valley needs to be aware of it, not to mention the shifter community at large.”
The leader of the Underground, and Connor’s nominal boss for the time being, nodded. “I know. I’ll make the call and tell them personally myself. I’ll also get a sample of it sent out, along with the vial you brought back. They have a better lab than us, so maybe they can figure out just what it is.”
Connor nodded. He had almost forgotten about the vial. “I’m surprised it stayed intact, to be honest. I figured in all the fighting and running it would have gotten smashed. Hopefully it’s a clue, because we’re going to need one.”
“Why?” Maddy asked the question before Flint could speak.
Connor quickly told Flint about the Agent at the shipyard, and how he was stronger than other Agents had been, even Extremis ones.
“What does that have to do with anything?” Flint asked sharply.
What the fuck is bugging him today? Flint was a tricky fellow to understand, but he was being unusually cranky. Connor filed it away to ask him at a different time.
“One of the Agents sent after me today was an Extremis Agent. A strong one. Much, much stronger than I am. Stronger than any bear shifter I’ve ever known. I’ve sparred with Valen before. This Agent hit almost as hard as him.”
“I don’t get it,” Maddy said as Flint’s eyes widened in surprise.
Connor hesitated. That information wasn’t exactly his to share.
“I’m in it this far,” Maddy said. “I know Valen is one of the owners of that mining company back at your home, the one that’s funding all of this,” she said, waving her hands around. “I’m assuming he’s a shifter too. What kind?”
“Gryphon,” Connor said after just a short pause. He smiled. Damn, she was smart. Excellent powers of deductive reasoning too. “And a strong one. There are very few species of shifter stronger than that. The Extremis Agent I fought was just a half-blood. He wasn’t even a full shifter, but he hit like a full-blooded gryphon. Whatever they’re doing with that serum, they’re getting better at it.” He looked at the other two in the room.
“We’re running out of time,” he said at last. “If they keep this up, we’ll be obsolete.”
Maddy gasped.
Flint’s eyes took on a faraway stare as he contemplated that bit of information.
“Flint?” Connor asked after a moment. “What do you want to do now?”
The other man shook himself visibly, forcing his attention back to the conversation. “I’m working on arranging transportation out of the city for tomorrow night. Rest up until then. Something tells me you’re going to need all of your strength.”
Connor frowned as he left the room, but then let it go. Flint was under a lot of pressure these days. The Agency was moving more and more men into King City with every passing day, and the Underground’s resources were stretched almost to the breaking point. Something else must have happened. Flint would tell him what it was eventually. He always did.
He yawned.
Maddy rose from her chair. “Get some rest,” she said, giving him a tender hug that lingered on and on. “I’ll come check on you in the morning.”
Connor just nodded as his exhaustion caught up with him.
I must have lost a lot of blood. I’m not normally this sleep—
Chapter Ten
Madison
“What do you want to do today?” Connor asked as she entered the medical room the next morning.
Maddy stopped as she realized he was clad only in his underwear. He was turned to the side, but she still caught a glimpse of his large bulge. Cheeks flushing, she turned around. Several responses to his question darted through her mind, all of them influenced by what she had just seen, and none of them appropriate to voice.
Clearing her throat, she let Connor know that they weren’t going to be doing much, as he needed to rest.
“I feel fine,” he told her. “Honestly, I do. They brought me a huge breakfast to help restore my energy, and now I’m good to go.” He waved at the scattered piles of dishes.
Maddy felt her eyebrows rise. There were enough plates there to feed a family of six! How the hell did someone afford to be a shifter?
“Yeah, nice try, mister,” she told him as he finally pulled on a fresh pair of shorts. Part of her felt sad at that, so she consoled herself with eyeballing the hell out of his muscular body. He reached up to pull on a shirt, the thirty-six pack of abs rippling delightfully as he pulled it on. Okay, maybe it was only twenty-four. She didn’t want to spend her time counting them, only watching. The white material clung tightly to his large biceps, doing nothing but enhancing the muscles they struggled to contain.
She swallowed hard as her body reacted to the show going on in front of her. Nipples hardened, rubbing gently against the material of her bra. She silently said thanks for her choice to wear the one with the extra thick padding that morning. The last thing she wanted was to make her reaction obvious. Now if she could just stop herself from staring…
“Maddy?”
“Huh?” She blinked twice, looking away from the massive mound of muscles and into the sea-blue eyes that were staring at her.
“I asked if you had eaten.”
“Oh, yeah, I had a little,” she said, finally getting herself under control, and purposefully ignoring the sly grin that crossed Connor’s face. It disappeared just as quickly, but she had seen it.
Damn. Now he’s going to want to talk about our little makeout session yesterday.
Was that a bad thing? The thought had come to her unbidden, but now that Maddy thought about it, she didn’t know what she wanted. She barely knew Connor, and yet, she would be lying if she tried to say they didn’t have any sort of chemistry together.
Most men were intimidated by her, or reacted the complete opposite. Some of them got so worked up by her strength and desire to do as she pleased, that they tried extra hard to exert their control. It was extremely annoying. Maddy knew she was strong-willed, and wasn’t willing to give it up. But she didn’t want a man who turned to mush either. She wanted someone who would respect her independence and smarts, but could still “be the man” when necessary.
It might have been an outdated concept in the changing world, but being taller and more muscular than many, she found that when a man did the little things, like holding the door, or pulling out her chair at a restaurant, it made her feel more feminine and beautiful. It was something she had a hard time feeling on her own. So Maddy knew she needed a mix of old-fashioned and modern, all mixed into one man.
Was that Connor?
“Well, I’m not staying cooped up in this room all day,” he said, moving past her, his body dragging purposefully along hers as he moved to the door. “So at a minimum I’m going to move around the club.”
He pulled the door open and held it, gesturing for her to precede him.
Maybe.
Fighting back a delighted smile, she cruised through the door and then headed toward the dance floor. Although she had spent much of her time with Connor, waiting for him to wake, Maddy had had enough time to wander the club and its back rooms to familiarize herself with the layout. She did it partly out of curiosity, but also to learn the exits, in case trouble followed them. It irked her to realize how quickly she was becoming paranoid, but it irked her less to know it might keep her alive.
Oddly enough, Maddy had a small affinity for being alive, and would prefer to keep it that way.
“Where am I allowed to go?” Connor asked, moving up alongside her on the right. His left hand dangled at his side.
“I’m not sure you’re allowed anywhere,” she said sternly.
She let her right hand fall to her side.
“I am somewhat thirsty. They must have water somewhere around here, right?” Connor asked.
Maddy nodded, distracted momentarily as their hands brushed lightly a
gainst each other. She liked the warmth he seemed to exude from within. Every time they touched, she was thrust into the heat. Although she didn’t suffer from the constant feeling of cold that many women did, Maddy still enjoyed a good dose of heat, and Connor seemed to produce it in spades. She spent a moment daydreaming about lying curled up with him, watching a movie while she basked in his radiating warmth.
“It looks so different during the day,” she muttered as they entered the dance floor.
Normal lighting was on, illuminating the bar in a way its nightly patrons would never see. Even the few lights turned on at the end of the night were nothing compared to the full glow that illuminated every last corner just then. There certainly were no corners to sneak off to, to perform drunken acts that would shock the sober mind when it remembered.
Connor grabbed her hand suddenly, and tugged her after him. “This way,” he proclaimed, making a beeline for one of the closest bars.
Maddy didn’t fight it, enjoying the contact with him, and trying to decipher if the tingle she felt was some sort of static electric charge, or just the result of the backflips her stomach was doing at holding his hand. He hadn’t just taken her hand in his, he had purposefully entangled his fingers in hers first.
“We are not getting drunk!” she protested, trying to slow him down.
“What?” he turned with a frown. Seeing the look on her face he barked a laugh. “My dear Maddy, while I am a rogue, a scoundrel, a,” he paused. “A—”
“Yes, yes,” she said dryly. “I’m sure you’re all of those things. But you’re still not getting drunk.”
He slapped his free hand to his heart, then tugged her close with their enjoined hands.
“You hurt my honor,” he said, pretending to be hurt.
She snorted, not believing the act for a second. “You’re hopeless. But no beer!”
Crestfallen, he nodded. “What about a bottle of water?” he asked piteously.
Arching an eyebrow, she nodded, then before he could react pulled him toward her, and spun past him. Now she was closest to the bar. Without letting go of his hand, she moved through the opening in the bar, and tugged him to the side. They were still holding hands, but now she was behind the bar, and he was in front of it, their arms resting on the bartop itself.
“What can I get you?” she asked, affecting an air of disinterest, trying to mimic any normal bartender after about half an hour of work, tired of drunk idiots.
Connor let his mouth hang open a bit while his eyes closed slightly, and he began to weave back and forth, playing along.
“Why, you beautiful creature you, I’ll take one of your most expensive bottles.”
“Bottle of what?” she asked with a roll of her eyes.
“That new stuff,” he slurred, doing an admirable impression of an annoying drunk. “That Dihydrogen Monoxide I’ve heard so much about. Apparently that stuff is the shit.”
Maddy couldn’t help herself; she burst into laughter. His impression was just too spot on. He truly sounded like a drunk moron trying to sound smart.
“Take your damn Dihydrogen Monoxide,” she giggled, letting go of his hand so she could reach under the counter and open a mini fridge. She pushed the bottle of water across the bar at him.
“Ah, just what I wanted!” Connor gloated, spinning the cap off and taking a long swig.
Maddy came back around the bar, her own bottle of “dihydrogen monoxide” in hand. What a silly way to refer to H20, or water.
Still, he had made her not only smile, but truly laugh, a relaxing feeling that helped her cope with all the things going on.
“Connor,” she said, wanting to voice a question she had had for a while.
“Yes?” He turned to look at her, and judging by the expression on his face, he knew that he needed to answer this question seriously.
“What happens once I get to Genesis Valley?”
He paused mid-step, putting the cap back on his bottle before shoving it in his back pocket. Without waiting for an invitation, he reached out with his long arms and pulled her in close, wrapping her tight in his muscles. It still made for such a sharp contrast, to know just how much power was contained in his form, and to then feel the tenderness of his touch as she was just now. The two couldn’t be farther from each other, and yet she knew that it was those polar opposites that formed the man standing in front of her right then.
Maddy shook her head mentally. How had she come this far in such a short period of time? She knew that shifters’ emotions worked differently than a normal human’s. If a bond was going to form, it formed much quicker than it took for a human to come to the same depth of emotional involvement. That was why shifters often saw and recognized their mates in what, to humans at least, seemed like an instant. As the daughter of a shifter, she knew that wasn’t the truth, though it still happened very quickly.
Could the same thing be happening to her, right then and there? It seemed far-fetched. She wasn’t a shifter, after all. She was only a half-blood. While to Maddy that wasn’t a bad thing, she did wish she had another presence inside of her that could confirm what the hell was going on between her and Connor. It would certainly make things less confusing for her.
“What happens to you, is up to you,” he said, stressing the word. She knew then that he had seen through her question, to understand what she was really asking.
What is going to become of us?
Connor’s life, his job, was set in King City. He was part of the Underground, helping shifters to escape the city before the Agency got ahold of them. That’s the way it was, and the way it had to be. She could not, would not allow him to abandon such an important task for her.
Maddy just wished there was a way she could be of help instead of a hindrance.
“I’ve never really fit in anywhere,” she said at last, stepping back from his embrace. “I had twenty-five years to fit in here in King City, and I failed miserably. How am I going to manage in a brand-new place?”
Connor, to her surprise, smiled at her. Taking her hand, he tugged her over to one of the couches in the VIP area where they sat down together, his arm around her, her head resting comfortably on his shoulder.
“You seem to be fitting in just fine around here,” he remarked. “It’ll be even easier in Genesis Valley.”
“Why is that?” She didn’t think she had been fitting in, but at the same time, if Maddy was honest with herself, she hadn’t felt out of place either.
“It’s all shifters. By the sounds of it, you’ve been interacting with the normal, human world. You had a hard time of it. You’ve only been here for a day and you already seem to be carving a place out. This is a mixture of shifters and humans. Imagine if we put you in an environment of all shifters,” he said, his eyes looking faraway as he said it.
Then he laughed. “You’d be running the place inside a week!”
Maddy laughed. Though she didn’t actually believe him, the compliment was still nice to hear.
Then she sobered quickly. “Once I’m safe there, you’re going to come back here, aren’t you?”
Connor did not hesitate. “Yes,” he said firmly. “I need to be here, where I can make a difference. I have the training, and the skills, to help the shifters here. It would be wrong of me to abandon them.” He paused, his sea-blue eyes drilling in to her. “No matter how much I may wish to.”
She swallowed hard at the overt indication that he didn’t want to leave her. It was the most forthright statement either of them had made about having anything more than a physical relationship.
“Could I...” she hesitated.
“Go on,” he prodded.
“What if I stayed too?” she asked.
Connor shook his head emphatically. “No. Not an option. The Agency knows who you are now. You wouldn’t be safe going out in public. You’re human, Maddy. They would get to you.” He grimaced. “I’m sorry.”
She felt anger blossom inside of her. Not at his words, since they were t
rue. No, she was angered at the truth inside them. She was human. Maddy didn’t have a problem with that; she didn’t feel that it was inferior. But in this situation, in the shifter world, it was a liability. She hated being a liability.
Maddy thought about arguing, about telling him that she could be helpful, and that she deserved the choice to put herself in danger. That was where the argument fell flat, however. None of the other humans helping in the Underground were known to the Agency. They weren’t in danger at this time. Maddy could choose to put herself in danger all she wanted. But if the Agency found her, and tracked her, they could find all of the others. So not only would she be putting herself in danger, but she would be endangering everyone else. She couldn’t do that. It wasn’t right.
So Maddy knew she would go to Genesis Valley, and that she would probably never see Connor again.
“Do you ever, um, go back?” she asked. “On vacation or something?”
He smiled, pulling her tight. “I’m generally there for two to three days a month, sometimes more,” he explained. “Normally when we extract someone from the city, one of the four of us goes with them all the way to ensure they stay safe. We do that in rotating shifts. We’ve only been here fighting them for two months now, but I’ve been back six times so far myself.”
Maddy nodded, but she was frowning. “If that’s the case, how come two went with my dad?”
“Contingency.” He shrugged. “If we were ever to get ambushed like we did getting your father out, we were all to go. That way they wouldn’t know the faces of any of the others, only the ones they caught.”
“Ah,” she said. “I wondered why they didn’t jump off the train and come back to fight.”
Connor nodded. “Trust me, they wanted to. I would have wanted to as well, if I were in their place. But we have to look at the greater good here. If they catch us, that puts a serious dent in the Underground’s abilities to get the city shifters out of here.”