Manipulating Mikey (First Wave Book 8) (14 page)

Lauren looked up, startled to see
Amun standing in front of her looking at her curiously.

“Amun! Sorry, I was deep in
thought. I didn’t realize you were still here,” she said, wondering what was
keeping him since he usually left and went back to his mate and child aboard
the Adaria.

Amun smiled gently at the doctor
and moved to walk beside her down the hallway.

“After removing the tracking device
from Mikey, I noticed the derivation in the mitochondrial DNA that you had
noted in your report. I was wondering if we could discuss it for a few minutes.
I believe it may have broader implications,” Amun explained.

Lauren stopped mid-stride, shocked
at what Amun said.

“What did you find?” she asked,
hoping there wasn’t anything wrong with Mikey.

Amun chuckled, hoping to ease some
of the fear he could feel in Lauren.

“I haven’t found anything bad. I
just wanted to try and isolate the oddities and see if we can find anything
that we can compare it to.”

Lauren wasn’t fooled. She knew that
Amun wouldn’t be staying down here if he didn’t think there was something about
the DNA that they needed to figure out.

“What do you think we’re looking
at?” she asked bluntly.

Amun looked around the hallway, saw
no one, and gently moved her towards the nearby MedLab.

“I don’t have a clue what we’re
looking at. That’s why we need to sequence it and try to find a comparison,”
Amun explained, not wanting to have the conversation in the middle of the
hallway.

Lauren stopped in front of the
medlab door and turned to Amun.

“Don’t lie to me, Amun. You
wouldn’t be here and asking me if you didn’t think there was something to it.
What are your thoughts?” she demanded.

Amun sighed and ran a hand through
his short, dark hair.

“Lauren, I really don’t have a
clue. I know there’s something we’re missing—I just don’t know what it is.
Which is why I’m asking you to help me. If you don’t want to, I will ask Sergei
to assist me,” Amun countered, knowing she’d pull herself together.

Lauren blew out a frustrated breath
and glared at Amun before opening the door and going inside the lab. Once Amun
was inside, she looked around and realized no one was there.

“Tell me what’s going on,” she
demanded as she crossed her arms over her chest and turned to face him.

If there was one thing being hunted
in the jungle taught her, it was that she was stronger than she thought she
was, and she needed to step out of her isolated world and pay more attention to
the bigger picture—especially if Mikey was going to stay and possibly be a
member of a mission team.

Amun studied her for a moment as he
gathered his thoughts.

“I’ve done exhaustive research on
the unique mitochondrial DNA of the hybrids,” Amun began, “and even the hybrids
of hybrids. There’s something different about Mikey’s, but also familiar in a
way that I cannot seem to place.”

Lauren looked at him with narrowed
eyes, trying to figure out why it bothered him so much. She finally just asked.

“Why is this bothering you?”

Amun laid his palms on the desk
he’d been working at and lowered his head a moment before looking back at
Lauren.

“I don’t know. And to be honest, I
don’t know what I’m looking for, but I can’t shake the feeling that we’re
missing something here. Something . . . I don’t know,” Amun said, his
frustration bleeding from his energy.

Lauren shook her head, trying to
understand what Amun was trying to say. A thought struck her and she looked up
with narrowed eyes.

“Do you think he’s dangerous? Or
anomalous?” she asked, fear skittering down her spine at the thought.

Amun shook his head, his
frustration increasing because he had no explanation for her.

“No, I don’t think he’s anomalous.
I can’t explain it,” he said, imploring her with his eyes to try to understand.
“It’s just a feeling I have that we need to look into it further, that we’re
missing something.”

Lauren studied the normally calm
and in-control Valendran while she sifted his energy. She could clearly feel
his frustration and his intense need to study the DNA further. She didn’t
understand why he was so intent on further investigation, but she felt the need
to trust his instincts.

“OK, where should we start?” Lauren
asked.

She was a little surprised at the
rush of relief she felt in Amun’s energy as he moved to the main comm center in
the medlab. Lauren watched his fingers fly across the keys as he brought up a
DNA strand on the large screen.

Amun used his fingers to pull out
several sections and tapped them once to enlarge them before turning to Lauren.

“These are the ones I can’t stop
thinking about. I see these damn things in my dreams. Whatever these sections
are, there is something about them that we need to figure out,” Amun explained
as he studied the different sections.

Lauren studied the sections on the
screen and saw something familiar in one of the strands. She touched it on the
screen and expanded it, but after several minutes when she still didn’t see
what made it stand out to her, she tapped it back and chose another one to
expand.

It was at least an hour later when
Amun looked at Lauren with exasperation.

“You see what I mean? There’s
something there,” he said as he stared at the images.

Lauren had understood what he’d
meant after 20 minutes or so. She felt what he did when she looked at the
individual sections; there was something they should be seeing—or
understanding. Amun was right; they were missing something, and she could feel
her own frustration building the longer they went without figuring it out.

“What the hell are we not seeing?”
she asked, not taking her eyes off the sections on the screen.

Amun shook his head, also staring
at the sections.

“I have no idea, and it’s driving
me crazy. I can’t stop thinking that the answer is staring me in the face, and
I’m just not seeing it. I even have Sergei pulling his hair out trying to
figure it out,” he admitted.

“Gee thanks for sharing the crazy,”
Lauren said with a teasing grin.

She was glad that Amun had included
her in his suspicions. There was something off here that they weren’t seeing,
and like Amun, she felt it was important.

Amun chuckled.

“I thought spreading the crazy
around might help make it clearer.”

“There’s nothing clear about this,”
Lauren said with a shake of her head. “Maybe we should try re-running the scans
on it?”

“For the fourth time?” Amun asked
with a quirk of his brow.

Lauren shrugged.

“We can keep staring at it and hope
it’ll talk to us instead,” she suggested with teasing grin.

“We’ll run it again,” Amun said
with a grin of his own.

“Sergei has no ideas or suggestions
at all?” Lauren asked for the second time in the last hour.

“Not a one. Although, he also feels
we’re missing something.” Amun shook his head while he ran the scans again.
“Three perfectly capable and intelligent doctors, and we know something is
there but can’t put our finger on what it is.”

“Have you tried matching the
sections with others in the database?” Lauren asked while she watched the scans
begin.

“I’ve ran it through our files and
found Mikey’s paternal lineage, but nothing on the mitochondrial,” Amun said.

Lauren turned to look at Amun with
a little surprise.

“You found his father’s family? Can
I ask if it’s anyone we know?” she couldn’t help but ask.

Not that it mattered to her who his
parents or current family were, she was just hoping it was someone that Mikey
could look up to, someone who could convince him to stay with them.

“I guess it depends on if you’re
asking as his doctor or his mate,” Amun said without looking up from his
screen.

Lauren knew what he was saying. It
wasn’t right for her to take Mikey’s privacy any less seriously because she was
his mate. Especially since she was an unbound mate.

“I would probably be asking as
both, so you should tell him if he has any surviving family,” Lauren agreed
with a heavy sigh. She really wanted to know.

Amun cleared his throat and stepped
away from his comm center.

“I have got to walk away from this
for a little while. How about we go speak to Mikey’s family members first, then
break the news to Mikey together?” he suggested.

Amun grinned when Lauren jumped up
and squealed in her excitement.

Chapter
Fourteen

Mikey stared at the images on the
wall and blindly reached behind him, his hand looking for any remnants of food
on his or Lauren’s plates. When his groping hand came up empty, he finally tore
his gaze away from the wall and looked at the empty plates, wondering when he’d
eaten all that food.

He pressed the stop button on his
comm, unwilling to lose his place even though he’d been watching the same video
loop and almost had it memorized. Mikey’s stomach growled loudly, and he looked
at the time, surprised to see he’d been looking at the vid for over 10 hours.

He immediately wondered where
Lauren was and why she hadn’t come back in to see him, but he realized that she
and the rest of the base was probably fast asleep. Mikey stood and stretched
his arms above his head, marveling at how he didn’t feel cramped or even sore
from his hours of sitting in one position.

“Beast buddy, if that’s you making
me feel less sore, then thanks a million,” Mikey muttered as he headed to the
door. He grinned to himself as he felt the coolness in his head.

Still no verbal responses from the
beast in his head, but Mikey wasn’t going to let it get to him. He knew by the
coolness he could feel that his beast was beginning to forgive him for being a
major asshole. He just hoped that he wouldn’t screw up and have to start all over
again.  

He pulled open the door and headed
down the long hallway to the kitchen area, figuring he could get something to
eat, and afterwards he could see if he felt like sleeping or going back into
the room to watch the vid.

He was missing something as he
watched it. He knew it and could feel it, but he was having a hard time
pinpointing it. He was deep in thought when he turned into the kitchen, and it
took a few moments for him to realize he wasn’t alone.

He recognized all but two of them
and smiled broadly at Lauren before becoming curious at the silent stares.

“Sorry, guys, am I interrupting
something?” Mikey asked, feeling like he’d just stepped into the middle of
something.

When the silence continued, he
looked to Lauren for a clue as to what was going on, but she just stared back
at him blankly. Figuring he wasn’t wanted at the moment, Mikey began backing
out of the room when Amun stood.

“Mikey, I’m sorry. We’re sorry.
We’d just been discussing you and having you appear in the doorway was a little
. . .” Amun began.

“Creepy.”

Mikey looked at the dark haired
woman sitting next to Lauren who had spoken, and he felt a small surge in his
energy.

She looks familiar
, he
thought, then took a closer look at the man next to Crator.
I’ve seen him somewhere
too. But where?

Amun chuckled, interrupting Mikey’s
thoughts.

“Creepy isn’t the word I’d have
chosen,” Amun said aloud.

Mikey could see that Amun was
speaking to the woman privately through the Shengari’ by the intense looks
passing between the two of them.

Mikey held his hands up and started
backing out of the room again.

“I’ll leave you to it,” he said as
he turned to leave.

“Mikey! Don’t go; we need to talk,”
Crator said as he stood from the table and headed to Mikey.

The dark haired female stood as
well.

“Please, Mikey. Sit down. I didn’t
mean you were creepy, just that . . . under the circumstances, I’m just a
little shocked,” the woman said, alleviating none of Mikey’s confusion.

Mikey looked again to Lauren, and
this time she stood and cleared her throat.

“Mikey, we analyzed your DNA as you
know. We discovered that through your Valendran side, you are a distant cousin
of Crator. Through your hybrid side you are second cousin to Discorian and his
sister, Alaina,” Lauren said motioning to the large male still seated and the
dark haired female. “They are your family.”

Mikey’s eyes widened slightly, the
only indication that he’d heard what Lauren had said. It was clear that he was
more than a little surprised at the news.

Crator grinned and clapped Mikey on
the back.

“I was an only child, and you’re
too close to my age, so you can be my baby brother instead of cousin,” Crator
said with a friendly smile.

The large man at the table stood,
and Mikey couldn’t read his thoughts from the expression on his face as he
rounded the table and stood in front of him.

“I am Disc, and like my sister, I
am a little surprised. We’re honored to include you among our family,” Disc
said as he offered his hand to Mikey.

Mikey shook his hand and jerked it
quickly away and stared at Disc in confusion. Disc only smiled and grabbed his
hand again, the energy current zipping through them both as their beasts formed
the familial bonds between them. It only lasted several seconds, but it left
Mikey a little shaken.

“I think we should get to know each
other,” Alaina said, holding out her hand to him next.

Mikey looked at her hand blankly
for a moment before he watched his hand reach out to hers as if by itself. He
felt the same jolt he felt with Discorian before Alaina grinned at him and
stepped away.

Crator looked at Mikey’s shell-shocked
face and threw an arm over his shoulder before leading him to the table to sit
down.

“Don’t worry, I’m stationed here
with you so I won’t hit you with the bond yet,” Crator said in his mind as he
sat Mikey in one of the chairs next to Lauren.

Mikey turned to Lauren and searched
her eyes to see if this was a sick joke.

“You said my DNA was weird. How can
I have family?” he asked her privately.

Lauren reached out and gently took
his hand in her own before looking him in the eyes.

“Crator is related to the original
outpost survivor that sired your great, great grandfather. Discorian and Alaina
are related to you through your great grandfather, who was a hybrid of two
hybrids. They truly are your relatives through the beast side of your family.
We’re still trying to figure out the mystery of your mitochondrial DNA,” Lauren
explained to him.

A strained silence hovered around
the room as each was wrapped in their own thoughts or at a loss for what to
say.

As family reunions go, this is
about as painful as a root canal
, Mikey thought.

“Man, I know this is a shock, but
damn it’s not like you just found out you’re related to a serial killer. I’m
not that bad,” Crator said with a teasing grin at Disc, Alaina, and Mikey.

“No!” Mikey rushed to assure him,
not wanting to offend the warrior. “It’s not you . . .”

“It’s me?” Alaina finished with a
chuckle. “He’s right. We’re all a little surprised, but at least you’re good
people. Just don’t embarrass me.”

Disc gave his sister a dark look
before turning to his new cousin.

“We’re glad to know that we have
more family. Crator isn’t bad, but he’s an asshole sometimes,” Disc said with a
grin as Crator threw a stone plate at him that Amun caught. “So come hang with
me or Alaina when you get sick of him.”

Alaina laughed at the two men who
acted more like brothers than distant cousins.

“Yeah, don’t come hang with me
though. I head a team in Europe, and things are a little dicey out there after
what happened in Paris. You’ll have to come visit when things settle down
though, it’s amazing over there,” Alaina offered.

“What’s going on with that?” Crator
asked, turning serious.

Alaina shook her head sadly as she
tried to get the images out of her head.

“It was horrible. More than one
group knew of what was going to happen, and they let it occur so they could use
it as a smokescreen for their own actions. I can’t be more specific until Grai
is done looking into a few things; it’s why I’m here right now. He and a team
went over there an hour after it happened,” she said.

“What are you talking about? What
happened in Paris?” Mikey asked.

“Some cowardly bastards calling
themselves terrorists struck in multiple places at once,” Crator said with foul
look on his face. “Hundreds of innocent were killed or harmed.”

Alaina looked disgusted but
defiant.

“Terrorists my ass. You have to
instill terror to be a terrorist, and the French are too courageous and too strong
to be frightened of such cowards. Even now, the people are rallying together,
becoming stronger as a people,” she said, proud of the people she’d come to
know and respect as she worked among them.

“I’m sorry,” Mikey said, completely
floored at the news. “I hadn’t heard.”

“It’s like that here. We’ll try to
keep more news feeds coming through in the common areas,” Thjodhild said as she
came into the kitchen and began filling a plate.

“Have you heard from Grai?” Amun
asked, wondering if he was needed in Europe.

Thjodhild shook her head as she set
her full plate on the table and sat beside Amun.

“I imagine he’s busy since the kids’
place was taken out,” she said.

“What kids?” Amun asked, his fear
rising as everyone waited with bated breath to hear what kids Grai was
concerned about.

“His kids. The Dranovians. The
place they had in Paris was destroyed during the terrorist attacks. It was a
message. Grai thinks they may have gotten too close to the dark prime,”
Thjodhild explained.

“Oh damn,” Alaina breathed out.

“Are the kids safe?” Amun asked,
trying to remember where they were the last time he’d spoken to Sergei.

“Oh yeah, they’re fine in the US,”
Thjodhild said. “Grai just doesn’t want them near the place until his team can
go through it.”

“What would be the point of setting
fire to the compound they used if they weren’t there?” Disc asked.

“Like I said, a message,” Thjodhild
said. “Someone wanted the kids to know that they knew where they were. Where
they hid in plain sight. It’s a scare tactic.”

Mikey had no idea what a Dranovian
or dark prime was, but he was riveted by the conversation. He quietly stood and
moved to the counters to fill a plate with food so he could satisfy his
growling stomach while he listened to the small, blond woman who ran the
magical place.

He sat back down and listened to
the conversation around him about what happened in Paris and some children
called Dranovians, who he figured out were actually adult children of Grai. He
heard Lauren’s stomach growl beside him, and he grinned at her as he slid his
full plate between them so they could share it while they listened to the
others.

“Are you doing OK?” Lauren asked
Mikey through their private path on the Shengari’.

Mikey turned more towards Lauren
and gave her a small smile.

“Yeah, I’m good. I felt a little
ambushed for a while there, but I was the one who walked in on you guys,” Mikey
answered as he grabbed a piece of cheese and popped it in his mouth.

He knew the white cheeses were her
favorite, so he left them on the plate for her along with the nuts and fruits
she liked.

“We had just told Discorian and
Alaina and were trying to think of how to tell you when you came in. You must
have known we were talking about you,” Lauren said, smiling at how sweet he was
to leave her favorite things for her on the plate.

Mikey smiled and stood to get
another plate for the two of them to share.

“I figured that out when I was able
to think again. I didn’t think Disc or Alaina could fake the shock on their
faces when I came in the room. It reminded me of a bad talk show entrance,” he
said, laughing in his mind.

Lauren snorted at the image of him
walking across the stage of a daytime TV talk show.

“Sorry . . . it went down wrong,”
Lauren said, explaining her snort to the others who’d stopped talking and
turned her way.

Mikey gently patted her back as he sat
another plate between them and sat down beside her.

“Don’t make me laugh like that!”
Lauren said, smothering her giggle as Mikey made a face at her.

“So they really are my family,
huh?” Mikey suddenly asked, the smile gone from his face as he picked at a
piece of bread.

“Yes, they are. They’re really good
people too,” Lauren said, wondering if he was still trying to process it all.

“I figured they were,” Mikey
admitted.

They have to be if my beast
accepted the bond that easily,
he thought.

“I’m sure it’s a lot to take in,”
Lauren said, encouraging Mikey to talk about his feelings instead of keeping
them locked inside.

Mikey grinned and shook his head.

“Actually, I feel pretty great
about it all. A few weeks ago, I thought I was going to die by the hand of my
own government. Today, I have friends, family, and maybe a new purpose. Never
know, one day I may meet my real parents too,” he said, a little stunned that
he really did feel all right with everything.