by Tamara Hogan
And something… snapped, broke apart inside, something natural, violent, and inexorable, like ice heaving in the spring, leaving open water in its wake.
His mate.
Chase. Taste. Take.
Clamping an arm around her waist, he tumbled them off the couch and pinned her to the floor, his hips nestled snugly between her spread legs and his hands pinning her wrists to the floor over her head. At this distance, he could see her eyes, the mossy green nearly obliterated by her dilated pupils.
She twined her legs around him. “Love me, Gabe.”
I do. But instead of saying it with words, he said it with his hands, tearing off the rest of her clothing, then his own, snagging a condom from his wallet and quickly donning it. Told her with his mouth as he kissed and licked every inch of skin he uncovered. Told her with his body as he plunged into hers, over and over again, until they finally shattered in each other’s arms.
Chapter 15
Lorin watched Krispin Woolf pace the Sebastiani Labs boardroom, his rising voice a tip-off to his growing frustration level. No matter how loudly he repeated his arguments, he hadn’t changed anyone’s mind. Breach the vials in the capsule and accelerate the pace of genetic research, on the off-chance that one of the vials contained lupine DNA? Gene splicing? No fucking way. On the other hand, Krispin’s proposal meant that he accepted the possibility that the capsule might have originated on the Arkapaedis, a theory he’d discounted for years.
“Krispin, please calm down. Certainly you can see—”
“I’m immune to your siren’s wiles, Claudette.”
Lorin’s fingers curled, forming fists under the boardroom table. Sitting at her side, Gabe gasped—whether at his alpha’s tone or at his words, she didn’t know. What she did know was that Krispin Woolf, having failed to make his case with questions, arguments, declarations, guilt-mongering, patriotism, and vocal brute force, had now resorted to name-calling. He’d just skated uncomfortably close to calling the Siren First, the Council president’s bondmate, a whore, implying that the rest of the Council was operating under her vocal influence.
“Father. Control yourself,” Jacoby Woolf said, his voice switchblade-sharp.
Krispin’s nose and mouth twitched as he glanced at his wheelchair-bound son. Was Krispin about to shift? Here? Adrenaline surged, pulling her upright from her comfortable slouch. Shifting in the boardroom was forbidden, tantamount to making a physical threat.
Lukas inhaled, his chest expanding to linebacker proportions as he assessed the room’s emotional energy. Jack rose from the table to stand beside Elliott. Lorin stood and joined him, flanking Claudette, weight balanced lightly on the balls of her feet.
Gabe sat wide-eyed, and rightly so. When they’d worked their flowcharts last night, no one had really thought “Imprison WerePack Alpha” was a likely possibility.
“Okay, everyone, it’s been a long, stressful day. Let’s calm down.” Scarlett’s voice saturated the room like an anesthetic balm, and Lukas shot her an annoyed look that Lorin completely understood. Though Scarlett had defused the standoff, they’d all be fighting off the effects of her voice for minutes to come, rendering their physical protection less effective. On the other hand, Krispin would feel similar effects.
“Willem, could we take a short break, please?” Claudette asked.
“Certainly.”
Krispin turned his back to the room, and Lorin hoped he was making a sincere effort to pull himself together. He had four minutes left on the clock, and then they’d finally be able to vote and get this over with. Any more time than that, and she was sure he’d stroke out.
“Please, take your seats,” Elliott murmured to her and Jack. Jack nodded and sat, but the adrenaline coursing through her system was waging a royal battle with the effects of Scarlett’s velvet-covered bludgeon of a voice. She needed to move.
She strode to the refreshment station set up along one of the conference room’s side walls and poured herself half a cup of coffee. Keeping one eye on Krispin, she paced, sipping caffeine she certainly didn’t need. After the meeting was over, she’d work the excess energy out of her system with a vengeance. Eyeing Gabe’s wide suit-covered shoulders from behind, she knew exactly how she wanted to proceed.
She looked around the room, where people still milled about after Krispin’s near breach of protocol. As Scarlett had noted, it had already been a long, stressful day, with every Council member attending the meeting in person. Two additional seats were filled by Gabe, who sat between Lorin and her mother, and Bailey Brown. They’d started the day hours ago, working through their regular agenda, with Krispin predictably finding “insurmountable” issues with the latest candidate being considered for the open Humanity Chair. Personally, Lorin thought that the very appeal Krispin had cited as a negative in mediagenic physicist Brian Cox was a huge, huge asset. They’d need someone with a firm grasp of media relations if their existence was ever outed to humanity; Dr. Cox’s boyish mein and adorable English accent wouldn’t hurt one little bit. Voting as a bloc, they’d managed to table further discussion of his candidacy until the next meeting.
Lukas’s update on the search for Stephen had been terse and short: “No change since last report.” Wyland and Bailey’s presentation on the data archiving project showed some forward progress, but the effort was seriously behind schedule due to competing demands on Bailey’s time. They’d voted to greatly restrict the Internet privileges of a teenaged were who’d posted a picture of a friend, mid-shift, on a popular social media site.
After breaking for a short lunch, she and Gabe had been up, with her providing a verbal update on the work at the Isabella dig while Gabe clicked through the sequence of pictures they’d chosen: the closed command box as it sat on the cabin’s rough wooden table. The open box, a downward shot, taken in the downstairs lab. A sequence of photos of Nathan discovering the capsule, each picture exposing more and more of its freakishly clean, greenish-platinum metal. After much debate, they’d included a picture of the latest discovery, made by Paige just last night, of a stack of silvery, sharp-edged metal pieces found not two feet from where the capsule had been found. Vertically stacked by size, with the largest resting on an intricately woven mat, the pieces had clearly been arranged by sentience rather than by chance. There’d been a collective gasp as Gabe showed some of the nighttime shots he’d taken of the metal-flecked trees, and he’d picked up the presentation from there, displaying one of the samples at extreme magnification. The jagged edges suggested violent manipulation of the metal.
“We also found traces of an unknown accelerant,” he said, “supporting the working theory that these pieces may be remnants of the Arkapaedis.” Gabe suspected the same could be true of the pieces that Paige had just found. With Elliott’s full support, they’d asked Anna Mae Whitman to helm the next phase of the lab work, freeing them up to return to Isabella early tomorrow morning. Too many important finds were being made solely by their student crew.
“You have no proof,” Krispin had challenged.
“As I stated, Alpha, it’s a working theory. There’s a lot of work to do yet—both in the lab and at the site.”
He’d clicked through more pictures taken down in the Sebastiani Labs basement: the tech unit. The locks of hair. The small totem, the kernels of rice. Bailey then supplied a pithy update on the tech unit’s theoretical breach of the Sebastiani Labs and Council_Net networks. “No damage noted so far. Still analyzing.” They’d ended their presentation by playing the recording of the capsule opening at Gabe’s touch—which Krispin Woolf didn’t bother to pretend he hadn’t seen before.
Then it was Krispin’s turn to reveal details about the genetic research he’d been performing in Sebastiani Labs’ basement lab facilities. It was an oral report—the WerePack Alpha was notoriously reluctant to put anything in writing—with each detail being pried out of him like rusty nails from a board, and ending with his unexpected zinger of a demand: access to the organic material in the cap
sule Nathan had found. His request had been summarily shot down, lighting the fuse on the fireworks still whizzing around the room.
“Let’s settle, please,” Willem requested. He waited for the room to quiet. “Mr. Woolf, you have four minutes remaining.”
Now facing everyone again, Krispin glanced at the clock—and then directly at Gabe.
Trouble. Lorin quickly strode to the table, taking her seat at Gabe’s side.
“Gabriel, I don’t understand why you, of all people, would disagree with this proposal.”
Earlier in the meeting, Gabe had disagreed with his alpha—diplomatically, and using the language of science—but publicly, and on the record. The tension which had subsided slightly during the break was now back with a vengeance. At Gabe’s other side, her mother’s knuckles whitened around her pen. Elliott, Lukas, Jack, and Jacoby had all straightened in their chairs.
The air felt combustible.
“Your own family has been disproportionately impacted by genetic issues,” Krispin continued in a voice as smooth as buttercream frosting. “Your eyesight is failing as we speak. I understand surgery is recommended but that a successful outcome is by no means assured. Surely you, of all people, see the benefits of accessing heritage genetic material—”
“Alpha, thank you for your concern, but the condition of my eyes isn’t nearly that dire.” Using an even, respectful tone, Gabe repeated the arguments he’d made earlier. “We don’t yet know what kind of organic material the vials contain. It could be plant or animal matter. We don’t know whether it’s viable. It could be toxic.”
“Even if it’s lupine and viable, we don’t know how long it might take to sequence the DNA,” Elliott said. “The samples themselves might be genetically modified or biohazardous in ways we can’t predict. Krispin, I—we”—he gestured to everyone sitting at the table—“share your concern about the wolves’ genetic degradation, but you must understand that we have years of research and investigation ahead of us before—”
“You don’t know—”
“You’re right,” Lukas interrupted. “We don’t know. We don’t have enough information to make an informed decision about your proposal today—a proposal that might put your wolves at greater risk, not less. Even if the capsule contains viable lupine DNA, it will take years of work to refine the technology to the point where we can entrust our people’s safety to the process.”
Gabe sat, tense, at her side. While every Council member knew there was no love lost between Lukas and the WerePack Alpha, they always presented a united front to their people. Gabe had likely never heard anyone speak quite so frankly to his alpha before.
Krispin’s cagey glance now encompassed them both. “Gabriel, now that you’ve engaged the… ah… interest of the Valkyrie Second, wouldn’t you find it worthwhile to investigate ways to improve the health of your future offspring?”
He’d watched them. Of course he had. Lorin’s skin crawled, and a flush washed over Gabe’s sharp cheekbones. Damn it. Krispin knew Gabe’s sore spots, knew exactly where to poke his stick. Reaching under the table, she clasped his hand more tightly.
“Lorin?” Krispin indicated Gabe with a negligent wave of the hand. “Would you taint the Valkyrie line of succession with his issue?”
Sitting in his wheelchair across the table, Jacoby Woolf’s expression froze.
“‘Taint’? His ‘issue’? Krispin, how medieval,” she drawled. How in the world could she explain to a man who didn’t realize he’d just insulted his own son? “Gabe is smart, loyal, capable, and contributing to the good of our people. Krispin, is Jacoby any less a son, a family member, a friend, a Council member—a man—because he has a motor neuron disease? No, of course not,” she answered before he could recover from her conversational sneak-attack. “Neither is Gabe.” Pausing, she looked around the jam-packed conference table. “Aren’t loved ones loved regardless of the condition of their chromosomes?”
“Any of us who are fortunate to live a long life will develop abnormalities simply due to age,” Valerian said with a serenity leavened by nearly nine hundred years of age.
Gabe sat, unmoving as one of Rafe’s bronze sculptures, and understandably so. When he’d taken his seat at the boardroom table earlier that day, he couldn’t have predicted that his private medical data and his sex life would be on the meeting agenda—or that she’d claim him, publicly and on the record, as her lover.
No, the actual words she’d used were “loved one.” She closed her eyes. No wonder he looked stunned.
Opening her eyes again, she took a shaky breath. She’d spoken nothing less than the truth. In for a penny, in for a pound. “I could crash my truck and die during tonight’s evening rush,” she said. “Tomorrow is promised to none of us. I don’t know about you, but I’ll take today, imperfections and all.” She indicated the clock. “Time’s up. Let’s vote.”
Elliott glanced at the clock and nodded. “Willem?”
Up on the large screen, Willem displayed Krispin’s proposal. “A ‘yes’ vote authorizes fast-track genetic research on the contents of the capsule. A ‘no’ vote tables the topic pending additional analysis.” He paused. “Council members, please issue your votes.”
Reaching for the conference table’s integrated touch pad with her left hand, Lorin selected “no.” As the other Council members issued their votes, Gabe’s fingers finally, slowly, curled around hers.
She squeezed back and looked at him. When she met his eyes, she caught her breath at the emotion roiling in their icy blue depths.
“All votes have been cast,” Willem finally said.
There was an odd quality to his voice that she couldn’t place. Elliott’s, Lukas’s, and Antonia’s nostrils were twitching up a storm.
“The votes are now displayed.”
Her mother gasped.
When Lorin raised her eyes to the screen, her jaw dropped. One “yes” vote, and eleven “no”? Across the table, Jacoby Woolf’s face was expressionless.
The WerePack Beta had voted with the majority. Against his father.
And the shit was about to hit the fan.
***
“What did you say?” Lorin yelled at Andi Woolf, standing less than an arm’s length away. She could see her friend’s lips move, but the music thumped so loudly that she couldn’t hear a damn thing. The dance floor was packed. Bodies jostled and writhed, and the scent of pheromones drifted like exotic smoke. Finally, admitting defeat, she simply pointed toward the back bar.
Andi nodded and took off, elbowing through the writhing bodies like a roller derby jammer.
Why had she let Andi drag her to Underbelly? And where the hell was Gabe? She should have touched base with him before coming, made plans for later, not simply have taken Andi’s word for it that Gabe’s siblings had made big celebration plans with their brother tonight.
After being asked for a private word with his alpha after the council meeting, celebrating was probably the last thing Gabe was in the mood to do.
Was he okay? Plucking her phone from her pocket, she impatiently checked messages. Nothing. She couldn’t call him, because Bailey was still configuring his damn phone. How frustrating!
Lorin took a deep breath. She could try his desk phone again. Then, when she reached Underbelly’s back bar, she’d ask Flynn to pour her the biggest, stiffest—
An arm snaked out of the crowd, yanking her against a tall, hard body. “Damn it.” Someone’s testicles were about to be kneed clean up to their eyeballs.
“I have a bone to pick with you, Lorin.”
Chadden. She relaxed slightly—but only slightly. He had yard-long arms, and both of them were wrapped around her like octopus tentacles. His voice vibrated against the tender skin under her ear, his sharp teeth an inch away from her jugular.
She met his gaze squarely. “What makes you think I’m interested in your bone, Chadden?”
His eyes lit with self-deprecating humor. “Who isn’t, darling?”
Ah, h
ell. While she wasn’t deluded enough to think him harmless, she let his arms stay where they were and started dancing with him. She had to bleed off some of the outrageous buildup of energy coursing through her body somehow, and dancing would do for now.
“I understand that your arrangement with Rafe Sebastiani has ended.”
She ignored the hard bulge at the front of his leathers. “Calling my relationship with Rafe ‘an arrangement’ makes it sound so… cold-blooded.”
“Well, it looks like you didn’t break his heart,” he said, gesturing with a sideways tip of his head that sent his dark hair sliding sensuously over his shoulder.
Twenty feet away, next to the DJ booth, Rafe danced with Bailey Brown. Though they barely touched each other, she could smell Rafe’s familiar pheromones from here.
Rafe, a human? What the hell are you getting yourself into?
“Speaking of offended”—Chadden’s voice dipped to a rumble—“Gabe Lupinsky? Lorin, I’m desolate.”
She stiffened in his arms. If Chadden said one nasty thing about Gabe or his family—
“He’s way too straitlaced for my rowdy, randy Lorin.”
A visual of Gabe lashing her lips with his talented tongue popped into her head. She considered telling Chadden that there was something to be said for devastating focus and precision, but she decided not to. Her only answer was an enigmatic, secretive smile.
Chadden kept them dancing, but his arms loosened just a little. When Lorin looked at his face, his expression had relaxed, shifting from predatory hunger back to flirtatiousness. “I bet he brings his phone to bed. In one of those hideous waistband holders.”
She laughed lightly, shaking her head. “We don’t actually make it to a bed very often.”
Chadden raised an approving eyebrow. “Mr. Lupinsky has hidden depths—and he’s sitting at the back table. Despite his delightful female company, he doesn’t look like he’s having a very good time.”