Act of Passion

by Mandy M. Roth

  There was a large glass wall between Brooke and Malik. She was in the room, sitting by Gram’s bedside, her hand on his. The sight didn’t set Malik’s lion off. It saddened him to know Brooke hurt and that a man who’d protected his family was injured and suffering.

  Brooke’s cheeks were stained with tears as she stood and leaned over Gram, kissing one of the few spots on him that wasn’t being treated for burns. Areas that should have already healed, but hadn’t. “I’m so sorry,” she said.

  Malik’s hearing could easily pick up on her words even though she was talking in a low voice.

  “Thank you for what you did for Bethany. I will never be able to thank you enough. And I’ll never be able to explain how much you mean to me,” she said, crying softly. “I never understood what you meant when you said that we loved one another as much as nature would allow. I get it now, Gram. I get you fully understand how mating works. A part of me wishes I could have loved you the way you deserve to be loved.”

  Her words cut Malik to the quick.

  He looked downwards.

  “And another piece of me feels so incredible guilty for feeling that way,” she confessed. “I couldn’t understand what was missing all these years. You were so good to me, to my daughter, to my best friend. You tried so hard to get me to let you take care of us for good. I know helping us put you at risk at work. And I know that without you, I’d be dead and my daughter would be in the hands of madmen. “

  Malik continued to look down, his body tense with emotion.

  “Words will never be enough for me to express what that has meant to me, Gram,” she said, sounding as if she was crying harder. “Please be okay. Please fight to get better. Edee mentioned bad blood between you and Malik. I don’t know what the bad blood is, and I don’t care. All that matters to me is that one of my best friends in the world and my husband get along.”

  Malik looked up to find her standing next to Gram’s bedside, touching him lightly, crying. He wanted to go to her and pull her into his arms, but he knew she needed this time with Gram.

  “And Gram, I need to hear that you forgive me for doing what felt right, what felt natural. That you forgive me for loving Malik.”

  Malik swayed at the sound of her admitting she loved him.

  Someone cleared their throat behind him and he turned to find James there.

  James nodded towards the glass wall. “Hard pill to swallow?”

  “How can I be upset with her for caring about him when he was there for her when I wasn’t?” Malik asked. “He should be fully healed by now.”

  James reached into his pocket and withdrew a syringe that was partially melted. He handed it to Malik to inspect. “This was found on the scene. I analyzed it and I think it’s something Donovan Dynamics cooked up to suppress a supernatural’s gifts. Gram is testing positive for it in his system. I don’t know how long it will last, but I think it’s stopping Gram from healing as we would. We’re doing our best to quickly reverse engineer it.”

  Malik tensed. “Will he die?”

  “I’m working on something to try to counter it. I wanted to ask your permission to speak with Brooke about drawing more blood from her. She has healing abilities that I’ve never seen before. I think I can use her gift to help him.” James took the syringe from Malik and put it back in his pocket. “And Malik, you should know that I fully believe that dose of suppression drug they gave him was created for Brooke. I think they had every intention of temporarily stopping her in order to subdue her and take her. Knowing them, they realized it was all going sideways, and when they came up against Gram, they panicked and used it on him.”

  Malik’s stomach tightened. “They have a weaponized drug that can hurt Brooke?”

  “Yes. It’s not a surprise. They held her for eight months. They had free access to test on her. Stands to reason they’ve spent the four plus years since working on something to stop her.” James put his hand on Malik’s shoulder. “She’s a blending of more than one type of Fae and something else. Something that took me totally by surprise.”

  “What?”

  “I’ve run the tests three times and even sent them over to the I-Ops for them to analyze. They came back with the same results,” said James. “We have a match on her ancestry. I was able to prove with nearly one hundred percent certainty that her father is one of us.”

  “Who?” he asked.

  “Abasi,” said James before taking a deep breath.

  Malik hadn’t heard the name in almost three decades. Abasi had been a fellow Egyptian like himself, and was nearly as old as Malik. The man had also been from a line of cat-shifters. He had been of noble blood and had been instrumental in the creation of PSI. He, along with others like him, had wanted to make a difference for the better. And he’d walked the walk for centuries before going off the grid without any warning.

  James spoke. “I know you were close to Abasi for a long time. And I know you took it hard when he up and vanished. We all laughed that he was living it up in some exotic location, probably bedding endless women. Guess he was having a daughter instead. Your mate to be exact. We should reach out and try to find him. I think he’d want to know she’s safe now.”

  Malik stared in at Brooke. He remembered her telling him of her father and how he’d read books about ancient Egypt to her. He also remembered what she’d told him about how she’d ended up living with her maternal grandmother. “Abasi is dead.”

  James shook his head. “I’m sorry. He was a great guy. There’s something else I want to talk to you about.”

  “I’m not going to like this, am I?” he asked.

  “Probably not,” he said, glancing in at Brooke and Gram.

  “Just say it.” Malik tensed, readying himself for whatever would be thrown at him.

  “She has small amounts of vampire and cat-shifter in her. But most of her make up is Fae. From what I’ve been able to match up from my database, the Fae line she’s from is one that feeds off sexual energy. Basically, the Fae cousins to the succubus.”

  “Gram told me as much.”

  James swallowed hard. “Malik, I need you to think about what I’m saying to you. I think being with you, and being claimed by you, sort of flipped her supernatural switch. It unlocked what she had in her. Her Fae side. If I had to guess I’d say she had some sort of failsafe there, to keep supernaturals from finding her and from knowing she’s more than human.”

  “Okay. Yes.”

  James grunted. “I’m telling you that you turned on her supernatural side—the side The Corporation wanted. And she was pregnant with your child. A child who had to be a huge drain on her system even with the testing and manipulations they were doing on her to increase her healing abilities.”

  Malik still wasn’t following.

  James put his hands up. “Never mind.”

  “Tell me.”

  “Tut, who do you think fed that side of her from the second she delivered that baby?”

  “Gram did,” said Brooke, standing at the doorway to the room. “He took me from the horrid place and when he did, I couldn’t even stand. My body was spending so much time and effort keeping Bethany safe within me that it couldn’t heal me any longer. Gram smelled me, and knew I was of the same line of Fae as him—not related or anything, but that the odds I’d heal like his kind do would be high. Since he’s also a wolf-shifter, he could smell everything they’d pumped into my system.”

  Malik stiffened.

  “I was so weak that Bethany was at risk,” she said, looking away. “Edee was nearly catatonic. Armand never left her side. Gram never left mine. And Cody was with us, worried for Edee and me. We’d formed an unbreakable friendship with him. And he protected us as best he could in there.”

  She put her hand out to Malik and he went to her at once, drawing her into arms. “Malik, Gram and I didn’t instantly fall into bed together. In fact, we both went out of our way to avoid it. I’m not saying this to hurt you. I need you to understand why it came
to be.” She took a big breath and put her head to his shoulder. “Gram understood fully what I needed—sexual energy. I kept getting weaker and weaker. He was taking me to this underground clinic that he said could be trusted fully. I went into labor.”

  Malik kissed her temple.

  “Edee was with us. She’d not spoken a word in the month that we’d been free. It’s not my place to tell you what she lived through, but I will say that it changed her. It took her spark. She’s slowly getting it back.”

  Malik ran his hand into her hair and rocked her body gently, feeling her pain as if it were his own.

  “Something was wrong. My contractions weren’t normal. And they were instant and way too close together,” she said, sniffling. “Gram knew that between what I’d endured at the facility for eight months, and Bethany being incredibly powerful in her own right, that she was putting a huge strain on my system. He knew, deep down, that only one of us would make it. Bethany or me. Because without what my body needed, it couldn’t handle the load.”

  Malik gasped, holding her tightly to him.

  “He also knew that time wasn’t on our side,” she confessed. “He peeled into a gas station, carried me to the bathroom, laid me down gently. I don’t remember a ton after that because of the pain and the room fading in and out. I just remember him bending over me, asking me to forgive him before his mouth was suddenly on mine. I didn’t understand why he was kissing me and I didn’t have the strength to ask or protest. The longer he kissed me, the less pain I was in, the more alert I became.”

  “He was feeding you the sexual lust you required,” said James, easing closer. “It wasn’t in him to let you suffer. I’ve known him a long time, Brooke. He’s a good man. I also know him enough to know it probably killed him to do that. He already had a firsthand look at what you’d suffered through while being held, and I’m guessing its far worse than any of us will ever know.”

  She nodded. “It was.”

  “Brooke, if you’d like to speak to me in private, Malik will leave us to talk,” said James, giving Malik a knowing look.

  Malik’s entire body tensed when he realized why James offered to make him leave in order to speak to Brooke. He wanted to know the full extent of what she went through—and the man suspected it went far beyond testing and physical abuse. Not that either of those wasn’t horrible in their own right.

  Brooke clung to Malik. “Haneez tried to touch me in the van after they’d taken me from the resort. Something happened that I couldn’t wrap my mind around. I felt this weird cold feeling and he was suddenly propelled away from me. I also had this huge flash of my mother come to mind. I remembered seeing her do something similar when I was young.”

  James rubbed the bridge of his nose. “I had a feeling Malik’s claiming was what triggered your dormant supernatural abilities.”

  Malik held his wife tighter, hating knowing she’d suffered.

  Brooke’s hand came to his chest as she ran her hand over the spot of his “son of the god king” tattoo. “I thought my mind was playing tricks on me. But at the resort when Malik was challenging Haneez, I didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary with him, other than every time he was close to me it felt like bugs were crawling on me. Then in the van, he was suddenly in the back of it, grabbing me and telling me that he’d warned me. That I was a whore and it was time I learned my place.”

  Malik stiffened. “Wait. Haneez is Asshat?”

  “Yes,” she said. “He tried to…hurt me. Then he was suddenly thrust away from me but I didn’t understand how or why. He glared at me and then smiled. He told me that his men were attacking you as he spoke. That they were going to make you suffer and kill you. And if I ever did that to him again, he’d kill me. I didn’t understand then what he was saying. I was terrified for myself and Edee and felt like my heart was breaking because I’d sensed at the nightclub that Haneez was going to hurt you in some way that would be devastating to you, Malik.”

  “Brooke, he never touched me,” said Malik, rubbing her back gently.

  James cleared his throat. “That’s not true, Malik. From what the other men have told me, knowing she’d been taken and that she’d not left of her own free will did devastate you. It killed a piece of you, and from what the guys said, you weren’t the same man after that.”

  “I wasn’t,” he said. “I felt like I was going through the motions of life when all I wanted to do was die. But that wasn’t an option because deep down I knew she was still alive, despite everyone else thinking she was dead.”

  “They tell me that you never stopped looking for her, but as time went by you did it in secret.” James stayed close to them. “And they said they couldn’t understand your obsession with a human female. That you were acting like she was your mate.”

  Brooke kissed his neck.

  “Brooke,” said James softly. “What else happened while you were held?”

  Malik rubbed her back more.

  “When we got to the place, the men who took us dragged us in. It was then I saw who I thought was Garth. I was too stunned to the point I couldn’t speak. How could a man who had been funny and caring hours earlier look so sinister and be so cruel?” She twisted in Malik’s arms, facing James. “He took a weird interest in Edee. One I didn’t notice him doing at dinner or the club.”

  “Because he wasn’t really Garth,” added Malik.

  She nodded. “He grabbed Edee with one hand and me with the other as he dragged us into the facility. He threw me at a man with long white-blond hair.”

  Malik fought the urge to growl, already knowing who that man was. Elm.

  Brooked caressed his thigh, as if sensing how on edge he was. “The man, Elm, sucked in a big breath and when I looked up, his eyes were swirling. I screamed and he dragged me against him, licking his lips. Then the same thing that happened with Haneez in the van happened again. I felt cold all around me and then Elm was suddenly thrust away from me. He looked up at me with this hungry look.”

  “He figured out you were of his line,” Malik said, wanting to hunt the man and kill him.

  “Yes. Over the next few months, he began to spiral from bad to monstrous. He hated that I was pregnant and that the people in charge wouldn’t let him hurt me or the child.” She took a deep breath. “But that didn’t stop him from trying. He’d hit me with so much power that he’d leave me broken for days. The doctors there changed up the tests they were doing. One day, they came into my cell and strapped me down to the bed. They started injecting me with stuff and hooking me to IVs. Cody, who was in the cell next to mine, went nuts.”

  James met Malik’s gaze.

  “He shouted at them, banging the bars like a crazed man. They laughed and told him they’d figured out who I’d come from. Who my parents were. And they informed him they’d see to it I was as powerful as my father and my mother. About an hour or so later, I was still strapped down and Cody was still there, clutching the bars, his gaze never leaving me. His eyes widened and he gasped.”

  James offered a knowing look to Brooke. “Is that when your healing abilities started?”

  “They’d been building from day one, but they went into overdrive that day. And Cody told me I smelled like a cat-shifter all of a sudden. A cat-shifter and old, ancient power.” She stood tall, easing out of Malik’s hold slightly. “One second I was strapped down and the next, the straps undid themselves—like magik. And I came off the bed in an unnatural way, landing crouched on my feet, staring around feeling like I was seeing the world for the first time. I had a hand on my stomach, this almost feral need to keep them all from my child.”

  James put his hands in the pocket of his lab coat and continued to watch her. “It makes sense, knowing who your father was. I know very little about your mother. We don’t have records on her.”

  Brooke stared at James. “You know who my father was?”

  He inclined his head. “We do. He was one of the founders of PSI. And he was one of the most powerful shifters we’ve
ever known. I suspect Malik may be more so, but he holds a lot back from us about his lineage, and the full extent of what he can do.”

  Malik tensed.

  Brooke’s hand found his thigh. “James, tell me about my father. I have memories of him that seem to grow daily. They all started when I was taken. I could only remember small bits about him before my night with Malik.”

  “I’m guessing that failsafe that Malik tripped when he claimed you was also there to keep a wall up to your memories. James looked to Malik, as if seeking permission to tell Brooke what she wanted to know.

  Malik nodded.

  His friend took a deep breath. “Abasi was a great man. And he was close friends with your mate.”

  She gasped, her head whipping around to stare at Malik. “You knew him?”

  “I did.”

  Her gaze focused on his chest. She moved closer to him and undid his shirt more, her fingers skimming the son of the god king tattoo. “Ohmygod, you really are the son of a god king!”

  He bit his lower lip and nodded. “Yes.”

  She lurched back, her eyes wide. “You were in the stories he’d tell me when I was little. The son of the god king—the king who didn’t want to be king.”

  Malik nodded.

  She moved closer to James, but kept staring wide-eyed at Malik. “He’d call me his little princess. He’d tell me that when I grew up, I’d marry a king who didn’t want to be king. My mother would scold him, telling him he might ruin it if he told me too much. And he’d look up at her with sad eyes,” she said, tearing up. “He’d say, ‘Gwenhwyfar, if we don’t teach her now, it might not come to be when we have to leave her.’”

  James and Malik both gasped.

  Malik stared at his wife. “Your mother’s name was Gwenhwyfar?”

  She nodded. “Yes. Did you know her too?”

  “Yes,” he whispered. “She was a very powerful Fae. One both loved and feared in the Fae community. I met her once years ago. I was, um, well…”

  Brooke rolled her eyes. “Let me guess, you were either in bed with a woman, or coming from the bed of a woman.”