Uncontrollable (Beyond Human)

by Nina Croft

  Table of Contents

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Discover more Amara titles… Darkest Heart

  Entropy

  Her Alpha Viking

  Magnolia Mystic

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Copyright © 2018 by Nina Croft. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce, distribute, or transmit in any form or by any means. For information regarding subsidiary rights, please contact the Publisher.

  Entangled Publishing, LLC

  2614 South Timberline Road

  Suite 105, PMB 159

  Fort Collins, CO 80525

  rights@entangledpublishing.com

  Amara is an imprint of Entangled Publishing, LLC.

  Edited by Brenda Chin

  Cover design by Cover Couture

  Cover photography by

  romancephotos and sam741002/DepositPhotos

  marcogarrincha/Getty Images

  Blacqbook and Cherdchai Chiengwong/Shutterstock

  ISBN 978-1-64063-677-4

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  First Edition September 2018

  Dear Reader,

  Thank you for supporting a small publisher! Entangled prides itself on bringing you the highest quality romance you’ve come to expect, and we couldn’t do it without your continued support. We love romance, and we hope this book leaves you with a smile on your face and joy in your heart.

  xoxo

  Liz Pelletier, Publisher

  For Rob - who always seems to be able to read my mind.

  Previously on Beyond Human…

  Quinn Sutherland has always believed he was one of the good guys. Second-in-command of the Tribe, a covert operations group of telepaths under the control of the British government, he thought he was working for a better world. A world with no more lies.

  When Quinn’s twin sister died five years ago, he was told it was from natural causes. But when members of the Tribe continue to die under suspicious circumstances, they realize their one chance of survival lies in escaping their government controllers and uncovering the secrets of their past.

  Their only clue is a connection to an ancient, isolated group discovered by an explorer, Malcolm Rayleigh, in Africa, in 1878. This group was subsequently taken to Scotland to live on the Rayleigh estates.

  Quin grew up in an uncaring foster home with his twin sister, Shanna, and some of his happiest times were holidays on the Rayleigh estate. And Martin Rayleigh, descendant of the explorer, became a father figure to him. But Martin disappeared four years ago and can’t be found.

  During their search, Quinn and other members of the Tribe uncover secrets. They learn that their government controllers were mere puppets, and for years the Tribe has been under the control of the Conclave, a clandestine organization which secretly controls much of the world for its own gain. Furthermore, the Conclave has been infiltrated by Kane Revilla, a mysterious man with telepathic powers similar to their own, and who is using the Conclave’s resources to systematically wipe out the Tribe.

  Now, hunted not only by the government they once worked for, but by the Conclave, and Kane Revilla, the Tribe must become as ruthless as their enemies if they have any hope of survival. And Quinn’s belief that he is one of the good guys is being eroded.

  As their enemies close in, the Tribe find evidence that Martin is being held prisoner in the United States. Quinn heads over there to continue the search, but the lead seems to be a dead end. Months later and he’s no closer to finding Martin. But while he’s been away, things have changed. Old enemies have become allies. The Tribe is now working with Colonel Winters, their old government controller, and with the Conclave, and Kane Revilla. Quinn no longer knows who the good guys really are.

  So, when he finally locates Martin, he’s unsure who he can trust. But he has to find out…fast.

  Prologue

  Federal Bureau of Time Management

  Code Red Alert–Asset Request Form 4012-56

  Date requested: May 15th 4012

  Details

  Alert: Time Displacement Anomaly level 1

  Date of Anomaly: February 27th 2017

  Source: Unknown

  Actions Required

  Assign Agent. This assignment is volunteer status only.

  Primary Objective: Discover source of anomaly. Assess threat level to timeline. Eliminate if threat level is deemed 0-1%.

  Secondary Objective: If threat level higher than 1%, no action must be taken. Collect relevant data and return to base for review.

  Notes

  Due to proximity to the Cataclysm of 2020, this mission is deemed highly dangerous. The investigating agent must proceed with extreme caution. Timeline must not be compromised.

  Captain Haran Lyons

  Agent in Charge.

  Federal Bureau of Time Management.

  …

  Special Agent Melody Lyons was seated at her desk when the asset request form flashed up on her screen. And her heart literally missed a beat.

  They all knew about the supposed anomaly—the station had been buzzing with the news since the alert was picked up two days ago. An alert from an unidentifiable source, which had echoed down the centuries from a time long before the technology should have existed. Nearly two thousand years in the past. Nothing that far back had ever been recorded, and most of the Bureau considered it must be a glitch in the system. The captain had been in meetings for the last four hours to decide whether they should send an agent to investigate or just adopt a wait-and-see approach and hope it would disappear without intervention.

  Now it looked like the mission was on.

  And she wanted in.

  More than she’d ever wanted anything in her life before.

  Growing up, she had dreamed of joining the Federation’s elite time control unit. She’d gone to the academy, done her time on the surface, and even a rotation in deep space. But through it all, this had been her dream job. She was quite aware that many of the other officers believed she had gotten where she was through unfair means. But that was untrue. She’d finished at the top of her class in every course she’d taken. She’d worked hard and was proud of what she’d achieved. She had more successful jumps than any agent—well, live ones, anyway.

  She’d already drafted out her application to volunteer—including all the reasons why she was the best agent for the jo
b—and she swiped her hand over the send key and sat back, blew out her breath.

  The captain wouldn’t be happy, but then he was also her adopted father and wouldn’t like her putting herself in harm’s way. But she had always promised herself she wouldn’t use their connection to further her career, so she was damned if she’d allow it to hinder her.

  On the positive side, she doubted there would be many volunteers.

  The danger that something might go wrong with the jump—and there were so many possibilities—increased with the distance in time. Most jumps were limited to days or weeks. The longest she’d ever gone back was a year and that had nearly ended in disaster. Only her quick reactions had saved her from a sticky end.

  But she was willing to risk it.

  That period in time had always fascinated her. While she’d never admit it to her colleagues, her secret hobby was watching old movies and TV programs from the pre-Cataclysm days. Certainly, she’d never reveal that she had a particular fondness for romance. They would probably see that as a sign of impending insanity and likely she’d never get sent on a mission again. Somewhere in the last two thousand years love had become extinct. These days, compatibility, emotional and genetic, was what mattered in a relationship.

  Of course she didn’t believe in love, either.

  That didn’t stop her wanting to go and see what the Earth was like before the Cataclysm.

  Now all she could do was wait.

  Chapter One

  “Nobody gets hurt,” Quinn said as he climbed out of the back of the black van and stepped onto the tarmac at the rear of the Massachusetts Correctional Institution.

  Rose jumped down beside him. “I’ll do my best, boss, honest.”

  Did he detect a hint of sarcasm? Probably. “And absolutely nobody dies.”

  “Geez, you’re fussy. I’ve been practicing, all right? Hopefully, the worst anyone will get is a bad headache.”

  He supposed that would have to do. “Just remember, we’re supposed to be the good guys here.”

  She snorted. He was quite aware Rose considered him naive. He wasn’t. That didn’t mean he was ready to sign up to join the dark side just yet.

  “Have you ever considered,” she said, pulling on a leather jacket over her black T-shirt, “that good and bad, right and wrong, are just a matter of where and when you’re born?”

  “No.” He believed some people were inherently good, and he’d always strived to be one of them. But he’d done some terrible things in his time working for the government. Things he’d justified by telling himself that there was a plan, a greater good behind them.

  Well, that had turned out to be a load of fucking bollocks.

  They’d had the “greater good” lie thrust in their faces for too long. So, a year ago, the Tribe had parted company with their government controllers. But Quinn had always believed it was temporary, that they’d find a way to protect themselves and a way back in.

  Rose rested a hand on his arm. “Hey, we’re doing the right thing. We have to get Martin out.”

  “I know.” Martin was a good man, and the closest thing Quinn had had to a father figure, growing up. He’d disappeared four years ago and had presumably been held without trial all that time. That wasn’t right.

  “Calm down.” Rose squeezed his arm. “Things will work out.”

  He hoped so. Quinn had spent more than a year searching for Martin. Now that he’d found him, he was getting him out—failure was not an option. He’d just prefer it to happen without any collateral damage.

  The plan was simple. Well, actually there wasn’t one—they were going to play it by ear. He would have preferred something a little more structured, but Rose had turned up last night, with her arms dealer boyfriend, Dave Madsen, in tow, and the bad news that the Tribe wasn’t the only group after Martin. So, they’d had to move fast.

  They’d parked as far away from the entrance to the prison as they could get to avoid the surveillance cameras. According to their tech expert, Stefan, who had accessed the systems remotely from London, there were none in this area.

  It was early summer, but the sun was warm, and sweat trickled down his spine. He rolled his shoulders and tried to get comfortable in the unaccustomed formal clothes. He was wearing a dark gray suit and white shirt as befitted the lawyer he was pretending to be. He tightened the tie, then smoothed down the jacket.

  “You should have let me give you a haircut,” Rose said, studying him.

  “I had one six months ago.” It reached almost his shoulders again, but he’d pulled it back into a neat ponytail. “Okay, let’s do this.”

  He moved around to the side of the vehicle as the window at the driver’s side slid open, and Dave poked his head out. “You two ready to go?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “We’ll give you a call when we’re five minutes out. Once you get the okay, bring the van to the front.”

  “No problem.”

  “And if we’re not there in thirty minutes, get the hell out of here. Contact Jake and…”

  Actually, he didn’t know what Jake would do. Jake was their leader, in command of the Tribe. He was also Martin’s foster son. Quinn had known him almost all his life; he was his friend, and the nearest thing Quinn had to a brother. But they hadn’t seen each other in nearly a year, and Jake’s priorities had changed drastically in that time. He had a wife and new allegiances.

  Jake and the rest of the group had been the one solid thing in Quinn’s life. He hadn’t realized how truly huge that closeness was until he’d been out on his own. He missed them. But at the same time, he hadn’t been able to bring himself to go back. He suspected he was sulking—Jake had new friends now. His lips twitched at the thought. He’d share it with Jake as soon as he got the hell out of here. Which, if all went well, would be tomorrow.

  “Jake will come and get us,” Rose finished for him. “Because that’s what he does. Things haven’t changed that much. You’d know that if you’d popped home now and again.”

  “Home?”

  “Home is wherever your family is. That’s us, in case you’d forgotten. And right now, most of us are in Uganda—so that’s home. Shall we go?”

  He nodded to Dave and followed her across the parking lot. Like all the Tribe, Rose was tall with blue eyes and black hair, strikingly beautiful and hard to forget.

  They entered the prison, straight into a security check. Quinn walked through the scanner and a guard patted him down, then nodded him through into the reception area. A second guard sat behind the counter that ran along the back wall, a slightly overweight woman, her dark blond hair tied up with a clip and a bored expression on her face. There was a third guard behind the glass door leading into the main prison. Exactly as they were expecting.

  “So far, so good,” Rose said inside his head, and he gave a slow nod.

  He approached the counter, pulling his fake ID from his jacket pocket. “I’m here to see Martin Rayleigh. I’m his lawyer.”

  As the guard tapped the keyboard, Quinn dipped into her mind—he was in no way the strongest of the group, but he had no problem pulling out top-level information. He got the number of Martin’s cell. Then something else.

  “Damn.”

  “What is it?” Rose asked.

  “Martin’s not in his cell. He’s being interviewed by the fucking FBI.”

  “Might be better for us. We’ll be away from the other prisoners. Fewer witnesses.”

  “I’m afraid you’re going to have to wait,” the guard said. “There’s someone with your client right now.”

  He didn’t want to wait. He hated prisons, and this place, in particular, was giving him the creeps. He considered his options. Rose wasn’t the only one who’d been practicing. He slipped into the guard’s mind again.

  “We need to see Martin Rayleigh right now,” he said, accompanying the words with subtle tendrils of coercion.

  A small frown drew the guard’s brows together, and then she gave a slow shake of her head. �
��I’ll get someone to take you right away.”

  As the woman spoke into her phone, Quinn glanced over to the other guard at the door, but the man hadn’t noticed anything amiss.

  “Very impressive,” Rose said.

  “I’m not just a pretty face.”

  The glass door opened, and the guard stood up. “This way, please.”

  They were led along a corridor with gray walls and strip lighting. In the distance, he could hear the muted sounds of too many people crammed in together. A faint hint of despair permeated the air. He pushed into the guard’s mind, suggested they hurry, and their pace picked up. “When we get to the cell,” he told Rose, “take out the guard, and the FBI agent. Then we walk out of here.”

  “Ballsy. I like it.”

  “If we meet anyone on the way, just knock them out.”

  “I’ll try, boss.”

  They hadn’t seen anyone since they’d come in, and with luck they wouldn’t see anyone on the way back. But it was better to be ready. This was going to go smoothly and cleanly, and they’d be on their way home in no time.

  …

  Special Agent Melody Lyons stripped off her jacket and tossed it on the back of the plastic upright chair. She rolled up the sleeves on her gray knit pullover shirt and scrubbed a hand through her hair. This was the first breakthrough she’d gotten, and she couldn’t afford to screw up.

  When the Bureau’s systems had picked up a code red alert, it was obvious, from the timing and location of the anomaly, that this job was ultra sensitive, with the potential for cataclysmic consequences if they made a wrong move.

  So, she had to get it right. That meant finding the source of the anomaly and resolving the issue with as little attention as possible.

  She glanced across at the prisoner. While she still wasn’t sure exactly how he fit in, she knew there was a link somewhere. All she had to do was dig it out. She had approximately twelve hours until her next debrief, and if she wanted to be the one sent back to complete the assignment, she needed to find something to report.

  Martin Rayleigh looked like a man who hadn’t seen sunlight in a long time. His skin was pale, with shadows like bruises under his hazel eyes, and his dark hair was streaked with gray. He was fifty-eight and looked every one of his years, and more. She didn’t know how long he’d been incarcerated—his records were sketchy—but she was guessing a good few years from the look of him. He’d only just surfaced under his own name with his last transfer to this facility. Before that, he’d been kept under a number of aliases.