by Donya Lynne
He briskly dried himself then wrapped his towel around his waist and returned to the bedroom to get dressed.
“I was wondering . . .” she called from the bathroom.
“About?”
“This black ops team you’re going to put together.”
He buttoned up the fly on his jeans. “What about it?”
“Are you going to need someone with medical training on your team?”
Micah froze with his shirt halfway over his head.
“You know, like a nurse or—”
“No!” He tugged his shirt down and marched to the bathroom. “Absolutely not, Sam.”
She’d been rubbing lotion over her arms and abruptly dropped her hands to her sides. “What?”
“You’re not going to be part of my team.”
She crossed her arms and cocked her head. “Why not?”
“It’s out of the question.”
Her eyebrows popped. “Out of the question? Are you saying you won’t need someone with medical training on your team?”
“It’s too dangerous.”
“You’re forgetting that I was an Army medic, Micah. I’ve seen combat. I’ve seen danger. I know how to take care of myself.”
He slashed the air in front of him with both arms, pushing them in opposite directions like he was throwing open a set of heavy drapes. “If I need medical personnel on my team, I’ll choose someone else. Not you.”
Her mouth fell open and she gave him a look like he’d just accused her of cheating on him. A moment later, she whipped off the towel she’d wrapped around her and threw it at him as she stormed into the bedroom.
“Am I not good enough to be on your team?” She yanked open the top drawer of her dresser and pulled out a pair of underwear.
“That’s not what I said.”
But she wasn’t hearing it. He’d stepped on her temper and she was on a war path. “I can save your life from drecks, drag you back to my apartment”—she jabbed her index finger at him—“and carry you over my shoulder, I might add”—she shoved the drawer shut—“and provide medical assistance to you, but I’m not good enough to provide medical backup for your team?” She pulled on her panties with enough aggression it was a wonder she didn’t rip them in half. “It’s not like I’d be in the field with you, Micah.” She tugged the drawer back open, whipped out a bra, and blew past him to the closet. “I’d be in a medical unit away from the danger, ready to provide emergency assistance if and when it was needed. That’s what I did in Iraq and Afghanistan. That was my job. And I was damn good at it.”
Hangers scraped loudly over the rod. A moment later, she reappeared, holding a pair of jeans and a peach-and-cream peasant blouse.
“I’m not asking for special favors, and I’m not saying I won’t need training. I know I do. But you won’t even consider it. Why is that, I wonder?” She tugged on the jeans, beat her chest dramatically, then finally stopped to pointedly meet his gaze. “You big he-man. Me? I’m helpless. Is that it?”
“Sam, you’re preg—”
Green fire erupted in her eyes. “So help me God, if you tell me I’m pregnant as if it’s a reason for me to shrivel up into a bedridden sissy one more time, I’m going to pack my things and get my own place for the next nine months so you won’t be tempted to lay a hand on me. Do you understand me, Micah Black?” She practically shoved herself into her blouse.
“But—”
“No, Micah! Not another word. You can deal with it and get with the program that pregnancy doesn’t make me a weakling or get up close and personal with your hand for the next nine months. Those are your options. You decide what it’s going to be.”
She pushed him aside, marched past him back into the bathroom, and slammed the door behind her, leaving him in dumbfounded silence.
He’d heard pregnancy hormones could cause wicked mood changes worthy of hell’s demons, but dayum! It’s one thing to hear that it could happen and another to witness it in the flesh. Hell, forget witnessing, he’d just experienced the phenomenon full force.
Typhoon Sam had torn through the bedroom and shredded him.
She had made a valid point about working together, though. She was trained for combat, so it wasn’t like she’d be a liability. Not like an untrained doctor who wasn’t used to the field. But this was his mate he was talking about. His pregnant mate. Every instinct he possessed demanded he keep her safe, and keeping her safe didn’t include taking her anywhere near the field, where she could get hurt or worse.
Okay fine, she wouldn’t actually be in the field, but she’d be involved. She would be close to the action just by being on his team, even if she was tucked safely away inside some medical bunker far from the actual bloodshed.
The question was, could he function knowing she was there? Or would she be too much of a distraction? Would he feel safer and more comfortable knowing someone he trusted with his life was ready to provide him with medical care should he need it, or would he prefer medical aid from someone he wasn’t emotionally attached to, and who wasn’t emotionally attached to him? He just didn’t know. He wouldn’t know unless he gave it a try.
She would be working at AKM, anyway, and wouldn’t it be easier to ensure her safety if she were on his team rather than in the new underground facility, especially if the drecks had a mole on staff?
Whether he ultimately added her to the team or she stayed on AKM’s official payroll, she would need training first. He wouldn’t allow her to even take a test drive on the team without receiving proper training from the AKM medical staff.
The bathroom door slowly opened, and Micah prepared for another round of destruction.
Instead, she gingerly stepped out, her face red, and her brow curled upward over nose. She shamefully met his gaze then threw herself at him, burying her face against his chest.
“I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean all that. I don’t know why I said it.”
He grinned and wrapped his arms around her, flattening his palms against her back. Jesus, her hormones were flowing like the Great Flood inside her. “It’s your pregnancy hormones.”
“Seriously?” She pulled back and frowned up at him.
He nodded. “I can feel them. You’re buzzing like a beehive. A very busy beehive.” He kissed the tip of her nose. “Lots of honey.”
“Only I’m not as sweet.” She chuckled then groaned as she dropped her forehead against his sternum. “I’m not even a month in. Am I going to be like this for the next nine months?”
“They’re just words, Sam. You didn’t hurt me. And you’re wrong. Your honey is very sweet.”
She groaned again and shook her head against him.
He rubbed his hands up and down her back and kissed her hair. “We’ll get through it.” He hugged her close and rocked her side to side. “But you made a good point.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Yes, you did.”
“No—”
He pushed her away and kissed her to shut her up. When he broke their lip-lock, all she could do was stare at him in stunned silence.
“Maybe I need to rephrase myself,” he said. “I’ve reconsidered your offer.”
“You have?”
“Yes, but I can’t promise you anything. Complete your training, and then we’ll have a trial run. We’ll see how it goes. Right now, I don’t know if having you on the team would distract me too much to do my job or reassure me that I have someone I can trust ready to take care of me if I should need medical assistance.”
“You don’t have to do that, Micah. I was out of line.”
He kissed her again. “It’s too late. I’ve already made up my mind.”
She bit back a smile. “And your word is final, huh?”
“Yep.”
Her smile turned into a sexy smirk. “And what if I change my mind after I have the babies?”
“Then we’ll figure it out then, but for now, get ready to bring your A game, Mrs. Black, because I plan on giving you a tryout
when the time comes.”
She sighed impatiently. “How many times do I have to tell you that just because you put a ring on it doesn’t mean you can call me Mrs. Black? Until we’re married, I’m Ms. Garrett.”
“Then I guess we’ll have to do something about that.”
Chapter 28
“Are you intentionally trying to embarrass me, Persephone?”
She knew better than to answer. Her father didn’t want an answer, anyway. He wanted complete acquiescence. He didn’t even seem to care that she’d almost died this morning. All he’d talked about since entering her room was how humiliating her actions were to the family, how ashamed he was of her, how things were going to change if she knew what was good for her, and how if the Chastain family found out about her overdose they might reconsider the arranged pairing between her and Cecil.
Persephone actually liked the sound of that last one, but her optimism was short-lived. If the arrangement between her and Cecil dissolved, her father would just find some other intellectually worthless, physically bankrupt male to mate her off to. Someone more in love with his money than her. She would still be in the same boat she was in now, she’d just be sailing down a different river.
Her stomach knotted with a sour grumble. Now that she was back on the detox drugs AKM used in their overdose and addiction recovery protocol, her stomach had begun to roil with increasing discontent. Her father’s angry outbursts weren’t helping, either. She was pretty sure she was going to throw up sometime in the next ten minutes. If she was lucky, she’d throw up on him.
He paced at the foot of the bed, his face crimson, his hands wringing the air. “I don’t understand what’s gotten into you, Persephone. Your mother and I have given you everything.”
“Not everything,” she muttered.
He couldn’t say they’d given her everything when they refused to give her the only thing she wanted: a biological mate.
Her father stopped and spun toward her. “What?” His voice boomed. No doubt every doctor and nurse in the facility heard him. “What did you say, young lady?”
Finding courage from God knew where, she raised her chin. “I said you haven’t given me everything.”
He appeared affronted, rearing back the way someone might if they’d been insulted. “Is that so? The house? The clothes? The car? Your phone and jewelry? All those designer shoes in your closet? Are those things nothing to you?” Then his eyes narrowed knowingly as he zeroed in on the real issue. “This is about your mating, isn’t it?”
She set her jaw and lifted her chin higher without answering. She feared if she did, she would hurl. In record time, her stomach had become a bubbling witch’s cauldron with one too many eyes of newt in it.
Her father marched to the side of her bed, ominous and foreboding. “There will be no more talk of biological mates, Persephone. Do you understand me? I’m not taking a chance that some filthy, undeserving male will mate you. Is that what you want? What if he’s a drug dealer? Or a criminal? Or, God forbid, a killer? Is that really the kind of male you’d want as a mate?”
Her anger helped her resist her upchuck reflex. “Why does my biological mate automatically have to be someone bad? What if he’s a noble male? He could be an upstanding citizen. A male of worth.”
“He could be a pauper. Where would you be then?”
“If he’s my biological mate, I wouldn’t care!”
“You say that now, but when the money dries up and you can’t afford a decent evening gown for our annual summer ball, will you be so forgiving?”
Persephone forced the bile back down her throat. “The money and appearances mean more to you than to me. I don’t care about evening gowns and summer balls and diamond necklaces.”
Her father threw up his arms and barked out a sarcastic laugh. “Then, by all means, when we return home, I will have the servants clear out your closet and give away all your designer gowns, your shoes, your fur coats.” Persephone had never worn the furs, anyway, believing them a cruelty. “While I’m at it, I’ll have them clean out your jewelry bureau, as well. I’m sure the poor would love to get their hands on them so they can pawn them for money. Let’s see how happy you are then.”
“Then you’ll cancel the arrangement for me to mate Cecil?”
If her father was serious about throwing out all her designer dresses and million-dollar necklaces, she would have no need of them, anyway, if he dropped his quest to mate her off to a wealthy cad. But if he still planned on going through with the mating, there was no way he would get rid of her things. After all, it was all about appearances with her father. He couldn’t let his daughter be seen in public, on Cecil’s twig of an arm, wearing jeans and a T-shirt. She would be expected to dress only in the finest couture. To wear the gaudiest and most expensive jewelry.
Such was the life of the aristocracy.
Her father’s expression creased in both anger and frustration. “I will hear no more of this nonsense about biological mates, Persephone.”
For a moment there, she’d glimpsed a flicker of hope, but just like every other flicker of hope she’d tried to grasp, he snuffed this one out, too.
“You are to be mated to Cecil. The arrangements are being made as we speak.” He loomed closer, casting his shadow over her. “So here’s what’s going to happen. You are going to enter the drug rehabilitation program. Again. You will clean yourself up, and this time, you will stay clean. Do you understand?”
As usual, her father spoke, and he expected his word to be followed as if it were law.
She stared straight ahead, too busy fighting the nausea to even nod, but her submission was implied.
“After your rehab, you will come home, attend a formal engagement party, and become Cecil’s mate.” He straightened, took a deep breath that seemed to pull the veneer he usually showed the world back over him, and brushed his palms down the front of his suit.
How vain. She’d been overdosing and dying, and he’d still had time to put on an impeccably tailored three-piece suit. Talk about priorities. It was good to know she rated below Armani, Versace, and Marc Jacobs.
“You have responsibilities, Persephone. You have a duty to your family name.”
How she wished her family name was anything other than Fenton. She used to feel sorry for Miriam, because her father was the king, and despite the king’s support of biological matings, he’d once felt as Persephone’s father did. He had wanted her to mate a “suitable male,” too. As such, he hadn’t approved when Io was the one to form a bond to her.
He’d eventually come around, but it had been a hard-fought battle. One that almost saw Miriam’s death. But she had survived, she was clean, and she was happy. And the king was happy for her.
Now Persephone was in a similar position, except her father would never bend as King Bain had. Miriam was the lucky one in this friendship. She’d found her match. Persephone would never get that chance.
“You will fulfill your obligations to this family, Persephone. Is that clear?”
She nodded only once, more to get him out of her room than to surrender.
He took the hint. Checking his watch, he told her he would be back to collect her in a few weeks, after her rehab was finished, and then he left without so much as a good-bye, good luck, a promise of visiting her while she recovered, or a kiss on the cheek.
She watched him go, willing her tears not to fall, even as her stomach approached critical mass.
She had no intention of fulfilling her disgraceful obligation to the family, but as far as her father was concerned, she would do as he commanded, without question. She would be the dutiful daughter who had no voice, no rights, no thoughts of her own, no dreams, and no life.
But she did have a choice. And when another chance presented itself, she would take her life and leave this godforsaken existence.
Dr. Snow gingerly entered her room. “Are you okay?”
“I’m going to throw up.”
The doctor got the puke
tray under her mouth just in time, but at least the purge brought relief. Relief that her life was closer to its end than its beginning.
Much closer.
Chapter 29
Micah scanned his key card at AKM’s back entrance and pushed inside.
The main floor was unusually quiet. Most of the staff had been relocated to the new underground facility by now, but a skeleton crew remained, along with a small medical staff who continued to look after the last of the victims from Bishop’s lab. The ones they hadn’t yet been able to move because they were still too unstable or critical. Kieran, for example. He was the demon boy with the fucked-up tattoos that could take on a life of their own. Kieran was still being held in an induced coma, and Savill, who had been sliced open from neck to groin, hadn’t yet regained consciousness. He’d been traumatized into a coma, and it was anyone’s guess how long he would remain that way.
But even if Savill woke up today, moving him to the new facility was out of the question. Micah and Dr. Snow agreed that the secret of his half-vampire, half-lycan blood couldn’t leak to the general population, and if he was moved to the new facility, it wouldn’t take long for the staff there to see what he was. And then . . . let the leaking begin. Whatever he and Dr. Snow were going to do with Savill, they needed to think of it soon. Time was ticking down.
Now Ronan had joined the do-not-move crew.
And that was where Micah was headed. To check on his brother. Then he would pay Bain a visit and give him his answer.
His footsteps echoed in the empty hall as he made his way toward the break room. Micah had no idea what King Bain planned to do with the building once all of AKM had made the move to the new facility, but he felt a little reminiscent about this old place. They had wrung every last ounce of productivity out of it. The building was severely outdated and too small to house the growing ranks of enforcers and tech personnel needed to keep up with the mounting cobalt epidemic and rising crime. It was also too exposed, out in the open as it was. The new facility had been built underground and included secret passages that connected covertly to Chicago’s underground pedway for emergency evac and entry.