by Ophelia Bell
Val’s clearing throat announced his return, and Javin’s face heated beneath the other man’s scrutiny. Shit, he hadn’t wanted to come off like a complete asshole, but leave it to Astra to paint him in that light.
But Val refrained from comment, settling back on his stool and snapping on a pair of exam gloves.
“I’m going to remove the bandage now, if that’s all right.” He glanced at Astra’s face with a perfectly placid, professional expression.
“Knock yourself out,” she said, shifting toward him.
Simon moved to stand behind Astra, arms crossed like he expected Val to misbehave. Javin’s nostrils flared with the rising scent of Astra’s arousal as the panther rested a hand on her thigh and began to peel back the bandage. But Val’s scent didn’t change, which was unusual. Either he wasn’t as attracted to her as he’d seemed earlier, or he had far better control over his animal than any Earth shifter Javin had ever met.
All he and Simon could do was watch.
Val glanced up at Simon once and said, “I’m not going to hurt her. Not beyond the prick of the needle anyway.” When he revealed the wound, he tilted his head, touching the series of tiny puncture marks surrounding it. “The serum is injected straight into the wound site, isn’t it?”
“That’s why I said it would be diluted.”
“No, that’s good. But I’m assuming the serum you’ve been using is based on the old formula. I can give you something more effective for now, something she can take orally. It’s only experimental, but it’s based on the new formula so it should work better.”
“A counteragent?” Astra asked, her voice perking up with hope.
“Not exactly. Effective counteragents would take time to create because they’d have to be designed specifically for each patient. The chemical makeup of the toxin changes when it reacts to your blood the same way the drug is altered when metabolized by whoever takes it. No single counteragent will work for everyone, though it may be somewhat effective at first, and give a patient’s animal a boost to enable quicker healing. I could create a permanent counteragent for you, given enough time, but it would only work for you and may need to be adjusted periodically until you’re fully healed.”
He took a syringe out of a sealed package and prepped it, then swabbed Astra’s wound. The sight of his hand so close to her practically bare crotch made Javin flex his fists until his knuckles cracked.
Astra chuckled. “You might want to hurry. I think Javin’s getting pissed. You’d think he’s had a taste of me the way he acts like he owns me.”
“You aren’t an item with either of these men, I take it?” Val asked conversationally as he leaned closer and pierced the skin with the needle close to one of the claw marks.
Astra barely blinked, tilting her head to look between Javin and Simon. “I really don’t know, to be honest. Maybe ask me again in a week if we haven’t killed each other by then.”
“Astra and I are only friends,” Javin said. “But Simon is more.”
“Don’t put words into my mouth,” Simon snapped. “It’s up to her.”
“Why do you ask, anyway?” Astra asked. “You want a shot at either of them? Because I’m willing to bet they’re game. So am I, if you like girls.” She gave Val a flirty smile and his lips twitched.
“I like women,” Val said, meeting Astra’s eyes for a beat. “And men,” he said, his gaze sliding up to Simon, then over to Javin. “And especially other scientists. But I think it’s safest to keep this professional. Don’t you?”
“Let’s just see what your tests show,” Javin said, ignoring his wolf’s growl of impatience as it reverberated inside his mind. “But I’m guessing it’ll only confirm what I already suspect—the new drug came from this lab too.”
Val didn’t answer, focusing instead on the slow extraction of a sample of the tainted blood from Astra’s wound. The claw marks were nearly black and scaled over, as if her dragon had thrown up armor to seal them rather than her blood coagulating to close the wound. The angry red tendrils still fanned out around the marks in a sinister web, reminding Javin how dangerously close she might have been to dying if the wound had been any worse.
Val set the blood sample in a small rack, then covered Astra’s wound with a fresh bandage.
Astra glanced up at Javin. “You could take a few lessons from Val on bedside manner, you know. See how nice he’s being, not critiquing my choices?”
Javin pressed his lips tighter. “You know taking a mate is a viable solution, Astra. It’s been demonstrated to work at least half a dozen times. I don’t understand why you’re so resistant to the idea.”
Simon cleared his throat and lifted his eyebrows at Javin.
“Mating is a cure?” Val asked. “Do you have any studies to back that up? If so, I’d love to see them.”
“Not as such, but among our community, it is a commonly understood fact that when grave injuries result in a shifter losing his or her connection to their animal, mating can revive that connection. And with champions especially, that connection can mean the difference between life and death. Champions are fast healers by their very natures. But even with a viable counteragent, there’s no guarantee of a link returning. Mating is the only way to guarantee that and Astra knows it.”
“There are no studies that show enough time and training won’t work,” she said.
“She has a point,” Val offered. “It takes time to gather proper research data on shifters. I’m a practitioner of focused synchronicity training myself, and it’s taken me nearly a decade to reach the level of control I have over my panther. I’d love to have an opportunity to dig deeper into pure shifter physiology, where our links to our animals and mating bonds go.”
“You’d get along great with our friend Simina,” Astra said. “She’s into that stuff. Has been ever since she and my brother . . .” Astra trailed off, frowning as if she just remembered who Simina and Talon had been to each other before her brother had died, but it had been nice to see her enthusiastic about something for a moment.
“Let’s take a look at this stuff.” Val glanced down at Astra’s bare legs again. “And as much as I enjoy the view, you can put your pants back on.”
He placed the vial of Astra’s blood into a different machine and turned it on, then leaned back against the counter with his arms crossed while the machine whirred to life and started its analysis.
Taking a deep breath, he said, “In the interest of efficiency, I’m going to admit that evidence points to both iterations of the drug originating from this lab. It would be counterproductive to keep fighting it when we can get to the business of working out how and why, not to mention where the fuck it’s being produced. Because there’s no way for this lab to produce the stuff in a large enough quantity for export to another planet without me knowing about it. Someone must have stolen it.”
“How do we know you didn’t sell the formula on the black market just to make some extra cash?” Javin asked.
Val clenched his jaw. “Because I know in its current state that it is highly addictive, not to mention deadly when metabolized and excreted. I want to save lives with this drug, not ruin them. It’s all I’ve ever wanted.”
“Then where do you recommend we start? This is your facility. You know better than we do how something like this might wind up in the wrong hands, don’t you?”
Val shook his head. “It couldn’t. That’s the thing. I’m the one who unlocks the lab every day. I’m meticulous about tracking every sample. I have a staff here, but they only work with the samples I provide and log the data. They don’t have access to the current formulas, which are locked on a secure drive that only I can access.” He turned to the computer behind him and tapped a few keys. A screen came up requesting a password. He typed a series of characters and across the room a latch disengaged.
Standing, Val gestured for them to follow and he took them to a large walk-in cold room with stark lights illuminating shelves on either side filled with diff
erent types of samples.
“I’m the only one with access to this cold room,” he said, ushering them back out and shutting the door behind them. When the latch engaged, a red light came on above the handle.
“Someone must have gotten into your lab and taken it out,” Javin said. “Are you sure no one else has access?”
Val shook his head. “Just my dad, who is CEO of the company, but he’s oblivious to the goings-on in the lab itself. All he cares about is the business side of things. His domain is the boardroom in the high-rise offices downtown, not way out here.”
Javin caught a hint of bitterness in Val’s voice. “And your dad would have no interest in selling it?”
“It isn’t about money for us, trust me. We’re more than comfortable. He’s more interested in me completing my work on it to get a viable drug on the market to preserve our company’s bottom line. He knows it isn’t viable now as well as I do.”
“Just for the sake of argument then,” Astra said, jumping into the conversation. “If someone did come in who shouldn’t, your security system would know, wouldn’t it? Do you have logs or recordings you can check?”
“The security logs would catch anyone,” Val said, nodding. “But the breach would have to have been more than five years ago for the original formula to be taken. It’s gone through several iterations since.”
The machine behind him whirred to a stop and a chime sounded. The screen beside it flickered to life and Javin took a step closer, bending down to view the results. “Show me what I’m looking at,” he said, glancing at Val.
Val’s shoulder brushed his as he bent over to look, his scent stronger now, and it occurred to Javin that the panther must have let down his guard. He’d probably done something to strengthen his endurance to deal with Astra without pants earlier, which was entirely understandable. But now, as they stood together close enough for Javin to scent the panther’s musky aroma, the attraction between them was more palpable than ever. His cock roused unbidden.
Taking a deep breath, he tamped down that urge. While he believed Val was being honest with them, they still didn’t have all the information. He needed to maintain the upper hand.
“Shit,” Val said. “Well, I guess this narrows down our window for searching.” He pointed at the screen where a graph had appeared with two lines superimposed and several colored dots scattered along the axis. “These are markers in Astra’s blood that correspond to the newest iteration of the formula. This tells me without a doubt that she was poisoned with a by-product of the newest version of the drug.”
“And how recently was the formula adjusted?” Javin asked.
“Just a few weeks ago.” Val had gone a little pale and stood straighter, frowning down at the screen. “So we can check the security logs from last month on for anything suspicious.”
“Well, what are we waiting for?” Astra asked, heading for the door. “Let’s go.”
She and Simon were already out the door, and Val turned to follow, but Javin grabbed his arm. “You already have a suspicion, don’t you? Care to share?”
Val’s jaw twitched and he shook his head. “Nothing’s certain until we see the recordings.”
17
Val
Val refused to believe what the evidence suggested, but his analytical mind kept screaming the facts at him to the point he wanted to bang his head against the wall to get it to shut up. The simplest, most straightforward answer was almost always right, and right now, all the evidence pointed to one thing.
No one else had access to the lab, or to the data besides him and one other person: his father. But why in the world would his dad sabotage this project? The company stood to earn millions from the drug once it was finished, and Val himself would very likely be in the running for a Nobel Prize for it too. It made no fucking sense.
He blindly swiped his security badge to take them back up to the lobby, where Astra proceeded to commandeer the guard’s station. The security guard gave Val a perplexed look.
“Let her look. We’re concerned there was a breach of the lab earlier in the year and we need to track down who the culprit was.”
The guard looked concerned and slightly offended. “Sir, I assure you there have been no unauthorized visitors all year.”
Val patted him on the shoulder. “I believe you. But we need to verify.”
“Javin, get over here,” Astra called. She rubbed her temples and squinted at the screen. The images were flitting past at double speed.
“It might help if you slow it down,” Val said.
“No, we don’t have time,” Astra said. “If I still had my link to my dragon, I’d be able to pick up all the details at this speed, but I can’t. Javin’s trained with champions. He’s almost as good as us.”
Javin took the seat she vacated and the video resumed. Val watched in wonder, Javin’s eyes flicking quickly over the screen as the series of recordings played at double speed. Every so often, he would pause the playback and ask the identity of a person. So far no one who appeared was the least bit suspicious—only normal staff passing through the lab’s hallways and entering the door at normal working hours.
Val saw himself coming in at odd hours, but he could always pinpoint those visits as corresponding to nights he’d had revelations about a new set of tests he wanted to run.
They watched the recordings up to the date of Astra’s injury, about a week prior, and saw nothing. Val was inwardly relieved, though not happy that the mystery remained.
“Why are you rewinding? We didn’t see anything unusual,” Val said when Javin started skipping back to the beginning again.
“Checking again. There was a spot about a month back that I wanted another look at. Something looked off but I can’t put my finger on it.”
The other two flanked Val as they stared over Javin’s shoulder, the security guard leaning down and peering at the playback too. Astra’s intense heat was making him sweat, and he could swear he scented her on Simon, their two aromas mingling. He wanted to inhale them both as much as possible. Instead, he held his breath as Javin paused the recording again, the screen displaying nothing but the empty hallway and the door to his lab.
“There’s nothing there,” he said, and Javin lifted a hand.
“Wait, the image changes. Trust me.”
He rewound a few seconds this time and hit the play button. Again, Val saw nothing, but beside him Astra let out a little gasp.
“What is it?” he asked, shaking his head. Did they have some special shifter sense he lacked?
It was the security guard who straightened up with a curse and shook his head. “Fucking time stamps are off,” he said. “Go back again.”
Javin rewound and hit play for a third time, then slowed the recording down so it moved frame by frame.
“Right here,” the guard said, tapping his finger beneath the time and date at the top corner of the screen.
Val watched with cold dread uncoiling in his belly. One second the time read 22:48, the next it read 23:20. More than half an hour was missing. But it was the date that burned itself into Val’s mind: the date his father had locked him out of the lab a month ago.
It could have been anyone though. The recording only told them that someone had monkeyed with the security feed that night, not who.
The security guard had resumed his seat and was scrolling through a grid on his monitor. “Looks like the security logs may have been tampered with too. There aren’t any key-card readings within that timeframe, not even the cleaning staff, who would have entered the building around eleven. Someone had to have done some serious hacking to clear that data. Who do you think we’re dealing with, boss?”
Val’s mouth had gone dry and he shook his head. “I don’t know. I’ll be in my office.” He turned away, heading down the hallway, only dimly aware of the footsteps keeping pace just behind him.
Once in his office at the corner of the south wing of the building, he stopped and stared out the large windows th
at overlooked the rolling hills between the lab and the city.
The door clicked shut behind him and a second later a big hand yanked him by the arm. He found himself slammed against the window, Javin’s golden eyes blazing.
“You do know something and you’re going to fucking tell us. What’s missing from that recording?”
“I don’t know what’s missing!” It wasn’t exactly a lie, but he felt sick repeating it out loud. Sagging against the glass, he dropped his head. “I only have a suspicion, but there’s no way to be sure without confirmation. I can get it, but it will take time.”
Astra and Simon both slipped up beside him, anger flowing off them in waves. Val cursed and clenched his eyes shut. Boy, he had royally fucked up any chances of a relationship with any of them.
“How much time?” Astra asked. “What can we do to speed things up?”
“There are backups of the recordings, but they’re stored off-site.”
“So, go fucking get them,” Simon said. “I want to know who the fucker was who supplied this drug to the champions on Nova Aurora. Whoever it was ruined my life.”
Taking a deep breath, Val said, “They’re at my dad’s house. He’s the CEO of the company and he’s a bit of a control freak. He keeps backups in a fireproof room in the office at his estate.”
“So, tell your dad the issue and let’s get in to see,” Astra said. “How fucking hard can it be?”
“That’s the thing,” Val said. “I think my dad might be the issue.”
All three of them stared, and after a moment Astra finally broke the silence. “Are you afraid of him?”
“No,” Val said quickly, then, “Yes. Fuck, I don’t know.” He sighed and slumped into his desk chair, raking his hands through his hair. “My relationship with him is complicated. He’s locked me out of my lab a dozen separate occasions when he thought I wasn’t living up to his expectations.”
Javin leaned back against his desk. “Was one of those occasions about three years ago?”
Val thought back to the first time his dad had extorted specific behavior from him and used his lab as collateral. He shook his head. “More like six, but you said there’s time dilation between our worlds. Either way, he’d have been able to access the original formula then.”