by Vyne, Amanda
Tag twirled the stick in his fingers and eased back in his chair, mumbling, “Fuck.”
Vin shook his head. “I saw things—experiments—done to innocent people, and I had to participate, to pretend I was fascinated.” The horrible part was a piece of him actually had been. That had been a damn difficult self-realization to accept. “Could you have done that, Tag? Stood by while innocent men and women were tortured in the name of science?”
A muscle ticked in his brother’s jaw. His silence was telling.
“I didn’t think so. Of the two of us, I’ve always been a little less rigid with my honor.” Vin might not have liked that about himself, but he’d been able to do what was necessary to protect his cover and get the job done—things Tag never would have tolerated. “Without you to anchor me, I let the lines blur to prove my loyalty. After a few years, I was transferred to the labs in Dublin.”
Tag tossed a glance at the darkened door of the master bedroom. “Brit.”
“Yeah. I was there a couple weeks before I saw her.” Vin and a select few others were brought into the labs, but the guards had been careful to keep them away from their little secret weapon. He’d caught her scent in the halls and outer labs but hadn’t been able to discern exactly what it was that intrigued him. A soft smile arched his split lips. “I knew her for what she was the moment I saw her. She was so young, barely seventeen, yet so focused and intense. She didn’t even notice me.”
Tag’s grin was derisive. “Not much has changed.”
“I watched her for a while before I realized she was at the heart of the research I was sent to uncover. She’d been there for a couple of years already and was starting to balk at their demands, refusing to perform the experiments once she realized where it was headed.” The guards had tried to use her stepfather to gain her obedience, but he was a Guardian, fast healing and resistant. That’s when they’d used her baby sister. “It would have destroyed her to do what they wanted.” And he knew because his soul had begun to decay with every experiment he performed. “I just couldn’t allow that.”
“You were the one who helped her escape.”
“I tried.” Vin dropped his head back on the couch wearily, staring up at the ceiling, remembering. “I tried. I…convinced my handler to arrange for her and her family to escape the labs, but the Triumvirate found out about it. We think they may have had an Elemental seer feeding them information.”
“I know her family was killed helping her escape. Or at least her parents were,” Tag amended. Obviously her sister had somehow survived. “There’s a year unaccounted for from the time she escaped and the time she ended up here.”
A year. It felt more like a lifetime. He’d been incarcerated and tortured while they tried to determine if he was more than he’d led them to believe. They taunted him by telling him what they would do to her once they found her if he didn’t talk. He’d finally managed to convince them he was no more than a Drachon who’d unexpectedly found his mate. All of the Arcane were well aware of the length a Drachon would go to protect his mate. Even the Triumvirate couldn’t doubt that.
“I made a deal with the Triumvirate. Me for her.”
Vin met his brother’s hard gaze. “What the fuck are you saying?”
“If they allowed her to leave the country, I would finish her research. I would resurrect the ARSA project.”
Tag sat forward and braced his elbows on his knees, his head lowered. The silence stretched painfully as Tag processed the information. Trust had to start somewhere.
“ARSA,” Tag finally breathed, lifting his head. “Katya.”
Vin swallowed but nodded. “Yes. Brit may have theorized the experiment, but I executed it.” And the petite blonde wasn’t the only one he’d experimented on. There were others. Dozens, if not hundreds of others. Their faces haunted him.
Tag launched to his feet and paced away. “Damn. I get it. You traded Brit’s life for innocent strangers unlucky enough to be your guinea pigs. It’s fucked up, but I can’t say I would have done different. Still it was a big risk. How could you even be sure they would leave her alone?”
“You.” Vin stared at his brother, watching as the truth seeped into him, drawing deep lines in his face. Tiny, tenuous strands of understanding stretched between them. It wasn’t much compared to what had once connected them, but it was something. Hell, it was a beginning, and that was everything. “Let’s face it, Tag. I always strayed to the edge of what was morally acceptable. You anchored me with your damn unshakeable sense of honor. Even after years apart, you were the piece of me I always trusted to remain constant—my true north.”
Tag rubbed a hand over his buzzed head and turned his back to him. His voice was harsh and low. “So you sent her to me.”
“Yes. I knew they would eventually try for her again. She was too brilliant, and I wanted her safe.” If Vin was going to sacrifice the last of his humanity, he’d wanted to make certain that last shred of his soul lived on in his brother and mate. “I knew once you saw her, you would die before you let them take her. I needed that reassurance.”
Tag turned to meet his gaze. That tiny thread thickened and grew stronger. “So you figured that would be it, huh? That you’d just die there?”
Vin shook his head. He’d committed himself to the Triumvirate to ensure Brit’s safety. She’d become a part of Incog, found some security in her life. It was a sacrifice he’d make all over again if given the choice.
Vin and Tag both turned, the sudden awareness of their mate an electric current that arced between them, strengthening the new bond the truth had created. Brit stood in the door of the bedroom, hair a dark red cloud around her shoulders, fury making her pale eyes luminescent.
“You’re responsible for this?”
Chapter Nineteen
“You were the scientist who synthesized ARSA?” Brit pressed her palms to her belly. She felt sick. “That research should never have seen the light of day. It’s the embodiment of every dark part of me. My parents died helping me destroy it.”
Pain shot through her middle, and she bent over, trying to contain it. Both men stepped forward, but she held out one hand to ward them off. They couldn’t touch her. Not now. She’d shatter.
“Don’t.” Around her the room flickered into the strange blues and reds from before. She blinked it away as she processed what she’d just overheard. Vin told her he’d made a deal with the Triumvirate, but he hadn’t said what. “Were my parents’ deaths part of the deal?”
“No,” Vin growled and advanced another step. “All of you were supposed to escape.”
Brit swallowed against the pain that lodged in her throat. Her mother, her stepfather, her baby sister…all sacrificed to stop that research. She wanted to hate Vin for making the loss of their lives mean nothing, for bringing the darkness in her into sharp relief. Thanks to his work on ARSA, it had become too real, a mirror that cast a hideous reflection of what she was capable of—of who she was.
“No, baby.” Tag didn’t try to get any closer, but his mind blanketed hers, holding her steady. “You are what your parents believed in, what they died for. They saw what I see now, and I don’t see anything dark in you.”
Brit shook her head. Inside her, the pain clawed to be released. She could feel Vin’s grief, his shame. He was frozen with it, his gaze fixed on her. Waiting.
Her voice felt raw as it ripped from her constricted throat. “Why?”
“I saw inside you. You were pure, so brilliant it hurt to be near you. I knew that research would kill you before it made you dark, and I couldn’t let it happen. I would have done anything, would do anything to save you from it.” Vin lifted his chin, the crease deepening between his dark eyebrows. “I wouldn’t change that, not even if it meant bringing your family back.”
“I would!” Brit screamed. The rending of her control was deafening, and she crumbled, the guilt and anguish of these past years flowing from her in a rush that overwhelmed even that rational, analytic part of he
r she’d depended on for so long. “I should have died,” Brit cried out, pounding her fists on her chest. “Not them. It was my research, my drive to find the answers—to know. I killed them. They died because of me.”
Her sobs folded her in half as the emotions boiled over her. And it hurt to let herself feel them. It hurt so much. Tag’s arms wrapped around her from behind, holding her up as her regret and grief and guilt raged through her.
Suddenly Vin was there, kneeling in front of her. His big hands cupped her cheeks, and he touched his forehead to hers. His hazel eyes were brilliant as he looked into hers. Her tears ran unchecked, running in endless rivulets over his fingers. His mind opened, an offering, letting her see that night through him. It was obscured in her memory, surfacing only in the deepest of her nightmares, forgotten with the dawn. She’d always felt as though she’d somehow lessened their sacrifice with her inability to remember it. Now it was there, every detail in Vin’s memory.
She watched from a distance as she and Meghann moved swiftly through the door led by a guard. She remembered the guard, had wondered why he was helping them. She could feel a confusing blend of satisfaction and regret shadowing the memory. It was Vin’s memory, and the emotions linked to it were his as well. She realized he’d been the one to bribe the guard. The memory of the doors slamming and the siren alerting unauthorized movement was familiar. Vin’s fear mirrored what she remembered of her own.
The guards swarmed them on all sides. She watched as her father knocked her and her sister to the ground and launched over their prone bodies at the attacking guards. She’d hit her head when she’d fallen—lost consciousness. She didn’t recall that. She’d always thought she’d blocked the memory. Meghann curled around her body protectively and hissed at her—no, at Vin. Fear and fury swamped her, the awareness narrowed to her body on the floor. Vin had run into the fray and was checking her, his hands shaking as he touched her face, felt her pulse. She felt the moment the cold determination flowed over him. The world went into shades of fire and ice.
She could see the blazing silhouette of her father, hear his words spoken in a harsh growl to Vin as he fought by his side. “Her ability is a gift that will save us all. Don’t let them destroy it. Protect her at any cost.”
More tears poured from her eyes as the memory sped forward in a rush of violence. She could smell her father’s blood, feel her mother’s energy build next to Vin, hear the chilling screech of her battle cry. The sound fueled Vin’s fury. It sizzled up her left arm, flooded her with deadly purpose. Brit gasped as pain ripped through her shoulder, knew he must have been injured, yet he never wavered even as the guard drove his claws deeper. Then Meghann’s scream rent the air right before her sister’s body slammed into the attacking Guardian, her claws ripping out his throat. Brit could feel the warmth of blood spray her face—Vin’s face—and she looked right into Meghann’s bright green eyes, heard the crack of a gun. Meghann jerked and blood bubbled from her mouth.
Meghann! Brit realized the grief wasn’t hers. It was Vin’s—tempered with respect. This time instead of the deadly purpose, satisfaction filled him when he knocked the gun away and tore the Guardian’s head from his shoulders.
For you, little warrior. The thought echoed in her mind.
When Vin lifted Brit from the carnage, he paused, her family’s blood pooling around his feet. He lingered the longest next to Meghann’s body, his regret strongest then. Yet, stronger was his determination. To save Brit.
Brit closed her eyes, disconnecting from his memory. She didn’t want to see any more. Her family died protecting her without regret or pause. Even her rebellious little sister. They believed in her, thought her intellect a gift. They hadn’t been protecting her from herself but for herself, for what she had the ability to do with her intelligence. And all this time she’d felt their deaths like a weight around her neck. No more. She would make herself into what they’d died for.
Brit slumped back against Tag’s chest. She felt drained, her soul light without the weight of her guilt. Tag was solid behind her, anchoring her, shoring up her crumbling emotions. He was connected to Vin, merged deeply.
Vin.
It would have been easier if she hadn’t seen into him so clearly. The darkness that shadowed him was undeniable, but more than that she saw that raw, lethal determination to do what he thought needed to be done. In that case, he’d been protecting her. In his mind there hadn’t been any other choice. She didn’t understand it, but she recognized it.
Accepted it. Accepted them.
Brit opened her eyes. Vin’s pupils were elliptical, his hazel eyes more green than brown as he captured her gaze. The men surrounded her, the scent and energy of them enclosing her, making her skin feel tight. She clenched her hands and shifted in Tag’s tightening grip.
The flood of her emotions left a stark hollow inside her. Something new and powerful seeped into the emptiness, leeched into her bloodstream, sending a heady sensation pulsing through her body. The very air that touched her skin had texture. Brit arched in Tag’s hold, twisting her head to the side on a desperate gasp as she struggled to distance herself, to give herself room to think.
What was happening to her? The mating heat? Kahn had tried to explain it to her, but his honesty was hindered by his loyalty to his sons and his explanation ended up creating more questions than answers. Brit looked back at Vin, gaze drawn to the bloodstains on his ripped shirt and the smooth expanse of his chest visible beneath the torn material.
The sight affected her strangely. Her heart hammered against her sternum and the muscles in her abdomen clenched with a craving that was startling in its onset. A drive crawled through her with electric fingers, sending ripples through her body. She wanted his blood, to feel it touch her. That couldn’t be right. There had to be a biological explanation for her reaction, but Brit couldn’t find it, all logic obliterated in the heat of that burning instinct. The smile that slid over her lips tasted devious, deceptively languid as she leaned back into Tag, rocking into the cradle of his hips. The feel of his cock hardening against her buttocks only made the compulsion pulse harder and more intensely. His arms loosened around her, and his breath blew against her ear. She could smell his arousal. An incredible sense of power infused her, and she turned her face to brush her lips against his, to breathe him in, but her awareness stayed centered on Vin and her need to mark the smooth expanse of his chest.
Tag’s hands slid away to caress her arms. She pushed off and slammed into Vin. He was bracing her against him as they toppled backward. A protector. Something inside her liked that. Yes, he would be a good provider.
“Oh fuck!” Tag was on her, lifting her away from his brother, and a disappointed keening sound escaped her throat. Vin’s blood was damp on her skin, and instead of appalling her, it soothed her. The sight of those four angry gashes pleased her. “Shit, bro. She marked you.”
“Mmmm.” The purr of her voice sounded strange to her own ears, but she couldn’t be bothered to analyze it. She needed to feel Tag’s blood on her skin now. She tried to turn in his arms, but he tightened his hold.
“I don’t think so, baby. You made me wait, now you have to earn it.”
Brit growled low in her throat and rocked back against the evidence of his desire. He was hard, pressing up between the cheeks of her ass through her slacks. She moaned, needed to feel him without the barrier of their clothes. His big hands slid down her arms to wrap firmly around her wrists, restricting her.
Vin caught her attention as he rose to his feet and devoured the distance between them with slow, purposeful steps. He stalked her, and it sent a thrill of challenge through her. Tag pulled her arms up and back, arching her and pushing her chest out toward his brother.
Vin tossed away his destroyed shirt and trailed his long fingers over the desperate pulse in her neck. “Ah, love. We don’t need this, do we?” He smoothed his fingers against her sensitive skin as he unbuttoned her blouse—teasing touches that made her jerk against
Tag’s restraining hands. All she could see was the bright red lines on Vin’s chest. She wanted to feel them, to rub herself against him.
Once he’d pushed away the edges of her blouse and the cups of her bra, he leaned in just enough to brush against her straining nipples. It wasn’t enough. Brit tried to press against him, to gain a firmer feel of his flesh against her own. Tag pulled her back, and Vin leaned just out of her reach. They were communicating, working together to drive her crazy.
Frustration welled up, sending her vision into shades of midnight and crimson. She blinked and tugged furiously against Tag’s grip to no avail. Confusion swamped her mind. Why were they denying her what she needed? What she craved?
Their chuckles felt like a caress as Tag handed off his grasp on her wrists to his brother. Vin pulled her hands to the small of her back and aligned his chest against hers. It felt good, but it didn’t provide her the relief it first promised. She needed more. She needed Tag.
“I know, baby. And you can have me.” Tag’s breath fanned against her lower back, and she twisted to see him. “As soon as you submit to us.”
A knot tightened low in her belly at the thought of simply lying down for them. Brit growled and arched her hips back in an attempt to throw him off her.
“Nuh-uh.” Tag reached around and slid the zipper of her slacks down. His lips followed in the wake of the material as he lowered the loosened band over her hips. “Naughty baby’s not wearing any panties.”
“No panties?” Vin breathed against her neck.
There was no way she was going to admit they had become too uncomfortable to wear these last few days. She was too sensitive. Too needy. Even half lost to the biological imperative to mate, Brit was not going to give Tag that kind of ammunition.