by Arthur, Keri
“Then I guess you’re not such a perfect specimen of wolfhood after all, are you?”
He raised an eyebrow, a confident smile touching his lips. “You want a fight, little wolf?”
I flexed my fingers. “You think I’m afraid to?”
“I think you’re very afraid.”
And he’d be right. But it wasn’t so much his physical strength but rather his aura. Even from where I stood I could feel it. It was a blanket that was almost smothering, a heat that crawled across my skin like some insidious, insistent demon. Close up, it might be too strong to ignore for any length of time.
He uncrossed his arms, then pressed the band on his wrist. “Security, I have a problem here that needs to be attended to. Use whatever force you deem necessary to deal with the breach.”
Security obviously weren’t happy about this, because I heard their squawk from where I stood. Talon cut them off with a curt “Do it,” then looked back at me.
“And that,” he said, shaking his arms and flexing his fingers, “should be the end of your lover.”
“Don’t underestimate him.” I balanced lightly on my toes, ready to jump out of the way the minute he sprang.
“Oh, I’m not, but even the greatest fighter in the world can be blown to smithereens by the force of a laser—as you’ve so aptly shown.”
“Damn shame the thing ran out of power when it did. I would have enjoyed blasting that smug smile off your face.” Taunting him probably wasn’t the brightest move, but I just couldn’t help it.
His gaze slid down me, a warmth that made me cold inside. “Darkness has fallen outside, little wolf. The moon is only minutes from rising. I shall enjoy beating you into submission, and then I shall enjoy fucking you in wolf form.”
Bile rose in my throat. Forcing yourself on someone while both were in wolf form was not only the act of a bastard, it was the ultimate form of degradation and humiliation for a werewolf. It had nothing to do with the power of the moon or the needs of a wolf, because the moon heat ended when the change swept over us. It was an act of rape, of domination, of power. It said you cared nothing for the person you were with, that in your eyes, he or she was no better than the animal whose shape you both wore.
I knew of no wolves who made love on this night. Most took to the hills, enjoying the freedom of the forests, rejoicing in the rise of the moon.
“You can try,” was all I said.
But I knew, like he knew, that I would have to beat him before the change came on. Because in wolf form, he would be stronger. That was the way of nature and something even my vampire genes couldn’t get around.
His smile stretched his lips even farther, then he came at me. I waited until he was close, then pivoted, smacking him in the face with a fist before ducking out of his way. His fingers glided down the coat, catching the end and jerking me to an abrupt halt. I cursed him and jerked out of it, spinning away.
He chuckled. “I can smell your arousal, little wolf. And I can see it.”
This close his aura was smothering. Yet I was resisting and for the moment, that was all that mattered.
And maybe, just maybe, I could use his desire against him.
I slid my hands up my body and cupped my breasts, brushing my thumbs across my nipples. “But do you see anything you like?”
Lust shone brighter in his eyes. He threw the coat to one side, then charged. I sidestepped. The tingling in my body was fiercer. I had to get this over with soon.
He slid to a stop, cursing as he swung around. “You can’t have what you can’t catch,” I taunted.
He charged again. Not thinking, just reacting. His aura snatched my breath and made me dizzy, but somehow, lust remained fenced. Though barely.
I caught his wrist and swung him around, thrusting him back against the wall. Wrapping a hand around his neck, I pinned him in place, then slid my free hand down his body and caressed his thick erection. He thrust into my touch, his body quivering, skin sheened with sweat.
“You want something from me, you ask. Taking is never appreciated.”
“You’ve appreciated it in the past.” His words were a pant of air, his quivering growing.
“That was then, this is now.”
I kept caressing him, watching the desire grow in his eyes, fighting that part of me that wanted to take him inside and ride him to the end. As he drew closer and closer to the edge, I slid my hand away from his neck and retrieved the last knife from my boot. His orgasm hit, his body jerking and thrusting as his seed spilled out across my hand. I raised the silver-threaded knife and punched it hard into his shoulder.
His eyes flew open, shock registering. Then the blood hit the knife and smoke began to rise from the wound. He screamed and punched me. The force of the blow flung me across the corridor. I hit the wall with a grunt and slid down to the floor, seeing stars and tasting blood for the second time that day.
Then there was no time to do anything more than try to protect myself, because Talon was on me, a whirlwind of fists and anger from which there was no escape.
But it barely lasted more than a few minutes, because the tingling in my body became a power that would not be denied. It swept around me, through me, blurring my vision, blurring my pain. Screaming filling my ears, screaming unlike anything I’d ever heard before. Then, suddenly, there was a blur of red fur, and Talon’s weight was gone.
“Rhoan, no!”
Jack’s voice, sharp with command.
I scrambled upright, my claws scrabbling against the steel floor. Rhoan, in wolf form, stood above Talon, his deep-throated growl making his whole body quiver, his bared teeth a hairsbreadth away from Talon’s neck.
Talon was beyond caring. His eyes were wide and glassy, and he still screamed. His body was aflame with the flicker of golden energy, which usually signaled the change from one shape to the other, but the sliver of silver I’d forced into his shoulder had him trapped in human form.
I’d always wondered just how bad that would be.
Now I knew.
Jack strode forward and grabbed Rhoan by the scruff of the neck, hauling him off. “He’s no use to us dead,” he snapped, then glanced at me. “You all right?”
I nodded. There was little else I could do. Rhoan walked over and nuzzled me. I licked his nose and wished I was in human form so he could just hug me.
“Then I suggest,” Jack continued tartly, “you two go find our missing vampire.”
We went.
But Quinn had disappeared.
And so, too, had the body of his friend.
Chapter 16
I plopped down on the dewy grass and drew together the edges of my borrowed coat. The sun had risen just over an hour ago, but the flags of dawn still colored the sky with clouds of orange and gold.
At the foot of the hill on which I sat there was a hive of activity. Trucks lined the rough dirt track that led to the entrance of the underground lab, and people were bustling back and forth, some carrying equipment, others leading prisoners.
To my right, thick black smoke trailed skyward, and the smell of burning flesh rent the air. The clones had been killed and the cleanup had begun.
I rubbed my forehead wearily. I just wanted to go home, take a long bath, and forget this whole episode. Everything except Quinn, that was.
But Jack had ordered me to remain until he had a chance to talk to me, so I remained, watching and waiting and wondering how I was going to sidestep the rest of the mess.
Because it wasn’t over yet.
I closed my eyes and lay back, enjoying the caress of the breeze and partially drifting off to sleep. After a while, footsteps approached, and I cracked open an eye.
Jack, not Rhoan.
He sat down on the grass a few feet away, staring up at the sun, his face drawn and tired-looking.
“So why were you late?” I said, when he didn’t immediately say anything.
He snorted softly. “Would you believe traffic?”
“No.”
“Ah. Well.
I guess I’ll have to admit we lost the signal.”
“Bugger.”
“Could have been.” He glanced at me. “It was Rhoan who found you. He just started walking, and before we knew it, there you were.”
Thank God for the connection of twins. “I’ll have to tell him to walk a little faster next time.”
A smile touched his lips, but his eyes were all seriousness. “You know what I’m here to say, don’t you?”
I took a deep breath and released it slowly. “The job is only half-done.”
We’d found the source of the clones, but while Talon had been flirting with crossbreeding, his labs were not the main source of the crossbreeds. And definitely not the source of that weird-looking blue thing that had attacked me in the parking garage.
Jack nodded. “Everything I’ve found in that lab suggests Talon was not working alone.”
“He said he’d worked with Misha in the past.” Talon had been so sure of his success that he’d blabbed far more than he should have. “He also said that he wasn’t responsible for those two men kidnapping me and that the person behind it all was someone I apparently know quite well.”
“Yes. He’s been quite talkative in the past hour or so, as well.”
Not willingly, I’d bet. “So what has he said?”
He hesitated. “His idea to get you pregnant was all his own.”
“No surprise there.”
Jack nodded. “No, but apparently, it’s been happening for well over a year. ARC1-23 was not the first fertility drug he’d tried, though all the others were legal.”
Meaning lack of success had forced him to try other drugs. Meaning I might be as infertile as the doctors had feared. I closed my eyes, not really sure how I felt about that despite the lump that rose in my throat.
“So why wasn’t this picked up in my six-month checks?”
He grimaced. “I checked, and it was. But fertility drugs are not on the reportable list, so it never made the overall summary.”
“I’m gathering it will in the future?”
My voice was dry, and he grimaced. “Anything out of the ordinary will be reported from now on.”
Even though it might be a case of shutting the barn door after the stock had bolted.
“Of course,” Jack continued lightly, “Talon’s desire to create the ultimate werewolf is quite amusing considering he himself is not entirely wolf.”
I stared at him. “What?”
“He’s a dhampire, just like you.”
“He said he was a werewolf.”
“And still insists he is. Our tests reveal otherwise.”
So much for Talon thinking he was the pinnacle of wolf breeding. “So if Talon is an example of what was achievable, how come everything is going balls up now?”
“Because his father was a very powerful, very wealthy maverick working on his own, and much of his research was lost in a fire that destroyed his lab and took his life.”
“That suggests that maybe Talon’s not the only successful creation.”
“Exactly.”
“And maybe one or more of those creations are running the other lab.” Which might or might not be called Libraska.
Jack gave me another of his pleased smiles, but I was too tired to get annoyed by it.
“Did all this come from reading his mind?” I asked.
“And the files in his office. Many of them are his father’s.”
“So you know who Talon’s working for?”
He grimaced. “No. That section of his memories has been burned away. Someone with very powerful psychic gifts has been at him in the last forty-eight hours. He’s only reciting what they’ve told him to recite.”
“So why has he been so chatty?”
“Their erasing was not as good as it could have been.”
“It also means they were willing to sacrifice Talon and this section of their work.”
“Quinn was getting close, as were we. This project was probably becoming too hot to hold on to.”
That made sense. “What about Misha? Where does he fit in, do you think?”
“I think he’s definitely involved, but the force behind it? I don’t think so, especially given his apparent willingness to let us investigate him.” He looked at me. “If Talon is right, and the person is someone who knows you, then they may also know what you are.”
“No one else knows what we are.”
“I knew. Quinn knew. Liander knows.”
“You want me as a guardian, Liander loves Rhoan and wouldn’t harm a hair on my head because of it, and Quinn wouldn’t have used the man he’s known forever to be the source of those clones.”
A smile tugged Jack’s lips. “All true. But if Talon was telling the truth, and the person behind all this is someone you know well, then guessing the truth might not be as hard as you think.”
I frowned. “But that doesn’t make sense. I mean, if they’ve known all along what I was, why wait until the last week to send a shooter to test me or two things to kidnap me? And why suspect what I am, and yet apparently not Rhoan?”
He shrugged. “I really don’t know.”
“And here I was thinking the Directorate knew it all.”
“We will. Eventually.”
Great. In the meantime, I was stuck in the middle of it all, with no option but to remain involved no matter how much I might wish otherwise. I closed my eyes again, and asked the one question I didn’t really want an answer to. “So where do we go from here?”
“Misha is the only lead we currently have.”
“You can’t say that until you’ve had time to go through all the files in the lab.”
“True.”
“I don’t want anything more to do with Misha.”
“I know.”
“Then don’t ask.”
“I won’t. But you have to ask yourself how are you ever going to know which mate you can trust and which mate might be another plant.”
I knew all that. Knew I was really doing nothing more than blowing smoke, because truth was, I was going to see this through. I just didn’t want Jack to think I was going to let it go further. Didn’t want him to think he was getting me easily. “I will not become a guardian.”
But it might already be too late, and both he and I knew it.
“Riley, if I had any other choice, I would not be asking this of you.”
I snorted softly. “Don’t try conning me, Jack. Not this time.”
He gave me a lopsided smile. “This time, it’s the truth. Whoever’s behind this has obviously infiltrated the Directorate. I have no idea who else there might be besides Alan Brown and Gautier. All the people on that list you found in Brown’s office are dead, and while we are following up everything they worked on, it’s going to take time. Which means that Misha is currently our only viable source of information. If we try to put anyone else on his trail or in his bed right now, they’ll know we’re on to him.”
“Misha knows we’re on to him. Raiding his office gave that away.”
“But I suspect Misha is playing both sides of the fence, and that could certainly work to our advantage.”
“Meaning I should just do my duty and spread my legs like the good little doggy that I am?”
Annoyance flickered in his eyes. “We found Kelly’s remains in that place, Riley. She’d been beaten to a pulp in that goddamn arena.”
Tears squeezed past my closed eyelids. I’d hoped against hope that her fate would be different from that of the other missing guardians. Had hoped that she was still undercover and merely overdue. But fate seemed set on turning my world upside down just then, and I really should have known that hope wasn’t on the agenda.
“That’s playing dirty, Jack.”
“They’re playing dirty. I have no choice but to do the same.”
I didn’t say anything. Just grieved for the loss of a rare friend.
“It’s not over, and deep down you know it.”
I swiped the tears from
my cheeks and gave him what he wanted. “You’re wasting breath on the already converted.”
He chuckled softly and patted my arm. “You are going to be one of my best.”
“No, I’m not. Nor will I approach Misha. I think it best if we just sit back and let him make the first move.”
“With that, I can agree.” He rose, and stretched, his bones cracking lightly. “Why don’t you go find your brother and both of you go home?”
I looked at him. “I think we both deserve a week off for R and R.”
His gaze narrowed slightly, but the glimmer was back in his eyes. “Two days.”
“Five.”
“Three.”
“Let’s split the difference, then.”
He grinned. “Done deal. But if Misha approaches you in that time, I expect to be told.”
“Okay.” But he wouldn’t. I was sure of that, if nothing else.
Jack walked down the hill and disappeared inside the building. I lay in the sunshine a bit longer, then decided I’d better move before the weeds started to claim me.
I pushed upright and headed back down to Genoveve. Rhoan appeared out of the main doors as I neared the road, looking as weary and disheveled as I felt.
He didn’t say anything, just pulled me into the hug I’d been wanting all night. The dam broke, and the tears started falling—grief for Kelly, grief for myself, and grief for a relationship that had never been given a chance.
“Don’t let him pressure you into anything you don’t want to do,” Rhoan said, after a while.
I pulled back, hiccuping and wiping borrowed sleeves across my face. “I won’t.”
“And don’t give up on Quinn.”
My gaze searched his. “You’re the one who told me not to expect anything from him.”
He grimaced. “That was before I read his note.”
My heart leapt. “He left a note?”
“Yeah, in the cryogenic chamber they must have been keeping Henri in. Here.”
He dug a white piece of paper out of his pocket and handed it to me. My fingers shook as I unfolded it.
Thank you for helping me find my friend. Sorry I cannot offer what you are searching for. If we had but met centuries ago . . . Take care. Quinn.