“That was Mac, again.” He continued. “His brother Alec is flying in tonight. Alec isn’t a Defensori, but he’s got some connections with the Librarians. He’s also trying to get hold of Galen. You’d never know it by looking at him, but he’s a technology geek. He should be able to tell us exactly what’s on that microchip.”
“Alec’s not a Defensori? But Kat told me he helped McAllister and Luca rescue her and Callista from Jacques Rapier.”
“You don’t grow up a McAllister without learning how to fight,” Dimitri chuckled. “But, technically Alec isn’t a soldier. He’s the family academic.”
The chopper banked sharply to the left and Elle’s stomach pitched and rose into her throat. She swallowed a mouthful of sour bile that burned all the way down and instinctively tightened her fingers in Dimitri’s when the lights of the helipad on top of the McAllister building appeared below and they began their descent.
Lower and lower, they dropped out of the night sky like a stone. Elle vaguely perceived Dimitri’s voice, but she didn’t register the words. Her heart thudded so wildly, she barely felt the jolt as the skids made contact with the roof and the craft bounced to a stop. Her attention remained riveted on the woman on the rooftop standing stiffly in her husband’s arms watching their arrival. The wind generated by the whirling blades of the aircraft tossed her silvery hair around her face, obscuring her expression.
“Drop your shields,” Dimitri advised as he unbuckled his safety harness and brushed Elle’s fumbling fingers away to free her from her restraint. “Kat’s empath will feel the truth, but Mac might take a little more convincing. Let him see what he needs to know.”
“Swell,” Elle whispered through lips gone dry as Dimitri hopped to the ground and reached back for her. His large hands spanned either side of her waist as he swung her out of the copter, keeping his head down as the blades continued to whirl. She clutched his jacket, waiting for her shaking legs to support her, and he kept one hand at her waist while he reached back with the other to grab her bag. As soon as they were both clear, he signaled the pilot, who took the chopper back into the air and headed off in the direction of the airport.
“Okay?” Dimitri asked quietly. Elle glanced up and searched his face. She detected no condemnation in his expression, no anger, only the same unexpected concern she’d seen earlier. She didn’t believe she deserved it, but she was incredibly grateful for it at the moment. She swallowed past the lump in her throat and nodded. Taking a deep breath, she dropped every shield she’d ever built. The air began to swirl around her again but the chopper was long gone. The hair on the back of her neck crackled with electricity and gooseflesh rose on her arms. Hearing a strangled gasp behind her, she squared her shoulders and turned out of Dimitri’s arms to face the storm.
Kassian McAllister had taken a step back from his wife, presumably to avoid being burned by the white-blue sparks spewing from her fingertips like Fourth of July sparklers on crack. Kat’s hair rose in the air and floated around her face like a wild tangle of spun silver and her eyes were alight with an otherworldly glow as fascinating as it was frightening.
“Shit,” Dimitri hissed close to her ear. “Behold the Archangel in a snit.”
“Put your damn shields up,” McAllister roared. “She’s absorbing your memories and she can’t control the anger.”
“Ooops, my bad.” Dimitri’s tone wasn’t the least contrite. In fact, he sounded oddly amused. Elle slammed a mental wall into place and would have turned to ask exactly what he could possibly find humorous about the situation, but she couldn’t tear her attention away from her friend. Kat’s hair slowly settled around her shoulders and the finger fireworks sputtered and died.
“Arabella Penelope Gatewick, I am so going to kick your ass,” Kat called as she shook out her hands with a grimace while stalking across the roof in their direction. McAllister followed right on her heels, his expression darker than any thundercloud.
“Penelope?” Dimitri burst out laughing.
“Not. Now.” Elle hissed, frantically searching Kat’s expression as she drew closer for any hint of softening or forgiveness. Instead of icy rage, Kat’s face was damp with tears and splotchy from crying, and Elle’s heart contracted sharply knowing she was to blame for the pain so plainly visible on her friend’s face. She raised her chin slightly, fully prepared to accept whatever venom Kat launched in her direction. Still, as Kat’s arms came up, Elle instinctively took a step back into the solid wall of Earthbound behind her and Dimitri’s arms closed around her protectively.
Kat halted and cocked her head to one side.
“Dimitri, please unhand that stupid, stupid girl. I’d like to kill her now,” Kat demanded mildly. After a moment’s hesitation, Dimitri’s arms dropped away. Elle’s body sagged and her lungs felt suddenly too tight to draw in a breath. Whatever she’d been expecting, a physical confrontation had never even entered her mind. She felt Dimitri’s fingers poke into her back below her shoulder blades and her chest tightened even more as he nudged her away from his body in Kat’s direction. E tu, Brute? She choked back a sob. They were all against her. She’d been expecting it, but Dimitri had seemed so certain…she’d thought he…she’d been a fool to believe…
What little breath she’d been able to suck in left Elle’s body in a shocked whoosh as Kat grabbed her and pulled her into a suffocating hug. So maybe the Earthbound Archangel witch planned to use her supernatural powers to simply crush the life out of her?
When Kat drew back at last, Elle’s arms still hung limply at her sides. She opened and closed her mouth, but couldn’t seem to get a word out.
“Look, Kassian,” Kat laughed, “Elle is totally speechless.”
“And people say there are no miracles left in the world,” McAllister drawled in a dry voice.
“But I don’t understand…what I am…what I’ve done…I thought you would be so hurt, so angry…and that whole lightshow…”
“The lightshow, as you call it, was my empath reacting to your memories. I still can’t control the whole Archangel part very well…but if I had John Gatewick in front of me right now, I’m pretty sure I could fry him like a pork rind without a second thought.” Kat frowned. “As for being hurt and angry. I am. I’m hurt that you didn’t trust our friendship enough to tell me the truth sooner. I’m angry that you would run away rather than tell me now, believing I would hold your past against you when it was never your fault. For a bright woman, you really are a complete and total idiot! Your father may have taught you to shield your thoughts, but I’m also an empath, you dipshit. Did you really think I wouldn’t know there was more to your story than what you told me?”
“He’s not my father.”
“Maybe not, maybe so. Doesn’t matter. Can’t pick your relatives.”
“So even knowing something was off, you took me in … and when they came looking, you protected me, lied for me, even knowing I used you?” Elle shook her head in stunned disbelief.
“You were desperate, I was lonely.” Kat shrugged. “So I guess in a way I used you as much as you used me. Besides, I could feel those guys coming a mile away. They were evil, you weren’t. I wouldn’t have given anyone up to those sleezebags. I took a chance and it paid off in the end.”
“Did it? Seems like this is a hell of a way to repay you. I should have trusted you. I should have told you everything years ago. I just didn’t know how. I’m so sorry, Kat.” Elle croaked. Her throat ached with unshed tears. She’d been prepared for anger and recrimination. She hadn’t expected embraces and rational conversation. She couldn’t decide on an appropriate reaction.
“Yeah, you should have,” Kat agreed without hesitation. “But you were desperate and scared, and I guess I can understand why you didn’t feel like you could tell me back then. But now? I thought we were way past that! I told you about Kassian, and the Earthbound, my parents, and Luca, and well, everything…even when some people thought it was the worst idea in the world.” She paused to shoot a dark
look in her husband’s direction. “Yet you still chose to run rather than level with me. I won’t lie, Elle. It cuts pretty deep.”
“I know. I’m sorry,” Elle repeated in a whisper. “I really don’t know what else to say. I realize it doesn’t change anything, but I thought I was protecting you.” When Kat raised her brows in clear disbelief, Elle hurried on. “I thought he might try to get to me through you… but you’re right.” She flicked a glance in McAllister’s direction. “I knew your husband would never let them get near you. The truth is, I didn’t want to face you, didn’t want to deal with your rejection when you learned the truth about me. I took the coward’s way out. It was a selfish decision and you deserved better.”
“Won’t get any arguments from me.”
Elle took a deep breath and nodded. “I wish I had a do-over, Kat. But I don’t. I can only tell you again that I’m sorry. I know there isn’t any way to make it up to you, but…”
“Hmmm.” Kat tapped a long, manicured nail against her chin. “Maybe there is.”
“What?” Elle, Dimitri, and McAllister exclaimed in unison.
“The black Louboutin ankle boots.” Kat narrowed her eyes and her lips curled in an evil grin. “You’ve got ’em, I want ’em.”
Elle’s mouth fell open. The single pair of shoes Elle loved more than any other she’d ever owned? Her Louboutins with the crisscrossed laces, open toes, and sensually curved heels? The shoes made of leather so supple it made butter look tough? Those boots brought sexy and edgy to a whole new level and were the one designer indulgence she’d been unable to leave behind, even when she’d downsized at the hotel. They were right at this moment lovingly wrapped in acid free tissue and stuffed in the bottom of the bag sitting at Dimitri’s feet. Those black Louboutin ankle boots?
“Katrina, don’t be ridiculous!” McAllister groused. “I’ll buy you a hundred pairs of boots if you want them.”
“Of course you will,” Kat replied levelly, her eyes never leaving Elle’s. “But that requires absolutely no sacrifice on Elle’s part, does it? Is my forgiveness worth more to her than her favorite shoes, I wonder?”
Elle swallowed the urge to laugh and bit into her lower lip, hard, to keep from smiling. It was going to be all right. Unbelievably, Kat had forgiven her and their friendship remained intact. It was a gift she knew she didn’t deserve, and she locked it away in her heart and treasured it accordingly.
“Can I borrow them, sometimes?”
“Perhaps,” Kat replied airily.
“The price of your forgiveness is high, Kemosabe. Still, I guess you’re worth it. Deal.”
Elle stuck out her hand and Kat shook it solemnly before tugging Elle into her arms. They pulled apart wiping at their eyes, simultaneously laughing and crying while the men looked on in confusion.
“I mean it’s not like you can ever wear them or anything. You’ll never fit those enormous clown feet of yours into them no matter how much the leather stretches.” Elle sniffed haughtily.
Kat linked her arm through Elle’s and dragged her toward the door. “I’ll have you know my large, but slender and beautifully pedicured toes are perfectly proportioned to my tall willowy frame. Thank heavens I am not a small, stunted troll with size six tootsies like some people I know.”
“I believe the description you’re struggling so hard to avoid is delicately petite. Jealousy will get you everywhere.”
They’d nearly reached the door to the stairs leading down to the McAllister penthouse when Kat paused and they both looked over their shoulders at the two men staring at them like they were aliens who’d dropped out of the sky.
“Coming? I mean, I know we’re good but I don’t think we can figure out how to take Gatewick and his operation down all by ourselves.”
Dimitri exchanged a look with Mac before bending down to grab Elle’s bag, gratified to see his fellow warrior looked equally befuddled by the exchange that had just taken place. Against all odds, and one coveted pair of boots later, it appeared the drama was over with limited tears and without a drop of blood being shed in the process. So not the kind of confrontations he was used to. Shaking his head, he followed Mac through the doorway into which Kat and Elle had already disappeared. If he lived another seven hundred years, Dimitri decided he would never understand women.
Chapter Eleven
“I suspect he created me using a DNA microinjection technique. Though from what little I could learn about his work, Gatewick seemed to focus primarily on Retroviruses. But with a Retrovirus-mediated gene transfer technique, he would have had to inbreed for twenty or more generations to achieve his goal. DNA microinjection has a low rate of success, but it’s a one and done deal as far as producing an offspring with a homozygous genome...yeah, I guess that would be me. Ta-freakin’-da,” Elle pronounced with more than a hint of sarcasm.
Dimitri chugged down his last swig of beer and set the empty bottle on the glass-topped coffee table with a plunk. He slouched in one black leather armchair and Elle perched on the edge of the other while the McAllisters sat hip to hip on the large matching sofa. He bit back a grin at the look on the faces of Mac and Kat McAllister as they stared at Elle in utter confusion. He supposed Mac would have to retract his earlier opinion that the woman had nothing in her head but the latest shoe sale. Damn, he loved a woman with a brain. Loved? Well, sure, he cared about her, and he wanted her maybe more than air to breathe, but love? Wow, where in the hell had that come from?
No one responded and the McAllisters simply continued to gape.
Elle flushed and twisted her fingers together in her lap, but continued. “Based on my initial research, I worried I might be transgenic, but upon further consideration, I think maybe I could be more accurately classified as cysgenic?”
She glanced at Dimitri and he nodded.
“Transgenic offspring result from the genetic material from one species being added to the genetic material of another unrelated species. But if the genetic material used is from the same species or a species that can naturally breed with the host, the result is a cysgenic organism. While humans and Earthbound are technically different species, they can mate and produce offspring,” he confirmed.
“But why?” Kat shook her head and seemed to come out of the academia induced stupor. “What’s the bottom line in the whole thing? So, Gatewick does a little genetic modification combined with in vitro fertilization and successfully produces a child with Earthbound DNA. What does he gain?”
“Elle thinks he’s trying to build a better human, one with Earthbound longevity and accelerated healing ability.” Dimitri snagged another beer and settled back into the deep leather upholstery. “Just between us, I’m a little concerned he might be on the right track. You all assumed Luca’s awesome skill was the reason Elle survived his dagger to her chest. Fiorelli and I have had each other’s backs on more occasions than I care to recall, and he’s better with a knife than anyone I know, but let’s face it, he was a little distracted by Callista at the time. Considering the distance and the size of the target, he made an amazing attempt, but it wasn’t perfect. He nicked Elle’s aorta. Technically, she should have bled out long before I got in there.”
Elle gasped and the color drained from her face. Dimitri scrubbed a hand over his jaw and looked away from the accusatory glare of those big, blue eyes clearly saying he could have mentioned her unusual recovery a little sooner. And a little more privately. Dimitri exhaled on a long sigh. Sometimes he was about as subtle as a baseball bat to the head. He guessed he needed to work on that.
“So you’re saying…?” Mac left the question dangling in the air.
“I’m saying that Elle does exhibit some evidence of accelerated healing abilities. Luca’s aim was slightly off and given the resulting injury, she should be dead.”
Kat disentangled herself from her husband and jumped to her feet. Perching on the arm of Elle’s chair, she reached for her friend’s hand and griped it tightly.
“But thanks to Dimitri, you
aren’t dead, so don’t even go there,” she admonished.
Elle shook her head slowly, her gaze fixed on Dimitri. He shifted uncomfortably. He’d been baffled by her survival from the beginning, knowing he couldn’t take the credit for it no matter how developed his medical skills. Once he learned the truth about her origins, it all fell into place. And judging by the look in her eyes, it had all just clicked for Elle, too.
“Thanks to Dimitri, I had wonderful, compassionate care,” Elle agreed in a pained voice that cut Dimitri to his soul. “But you didn’t actually save me did you, Big Guy? I saved myself. Maybe you could write me up for one of your medical journals, huh? Arabella Penelope Gatewick, Test Tube Angel.”
Dimitri leaned forward, propping his elbows on his knees and lacing his fingers together. He looked directly into her eyes across the length of the coffee table as if they were the only two people in the room. Her shields held firm, but even without the benefit of telepathy, or Kat’s empathic talents, he knew her well enough by now to understand she’d reverted to feeling like a freakish experiment.
“I am going to say this one more time. I can’t force you to believe me. Okay, actually I can since Earthbound are able to manipulate minds to a degree, but I would never do that to you. Baby, you are smart and beautiful and uniquely you. You’re strong and resourceful, maybe a little quirky and insecure, but hey, we all have our issues. I won’t even pretend to understand the shoe fetish, as I myself own just three pair, two of which are motorcycle boots. It doesn’t make any difference to me or to anyone here if you were conceived in a petri dish, a seedy motel, or the back of a fifty-seven Chevy. How you started your life is a minute and insignificant footnote in the story of who you are. When I look into your eyes, Arabella Penelope Gatewick…” Dimitri bit back a grin. “Okay, sorry, can’t really get past the Penelope…” Elle’s attention was riveted on him and she never even blinked.
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