New Species 12 Darkness (19 page)

That alarmed Darkness. “Is Salvation okay?”

“I went up after him and explained the differences between canine and feline. Ellie had called me. I was close. She had gone to use the bathroom and he was out the door that fast. She found him on the roof. I had a talk with him about how he could harm his mother if he ever did that again. She was ready to try to catch him.”

Darkness winced. “He could have done damage.”

“I know.” Fury sobered. “It’s tough for her to try to keep up with a Species child. She had to stop tussling with him after he bruised her badly. He didn’t understand how strong he could be. I’m at work often. He grows bored. Some of my friends have come forward. They take him to the park to run and play games. It would be nice if he had an uncle who could take him out to play when I’m busy though.”

“I’m not fit to be around a child.” He scowled. “He could learn nothing good from me.”

“We’ll never know for sure unless you try. It might be good experience if you ever have children of your own.”

“That won’t happen.”

Fury shook his head. “Says the male who is obsessed with a female.”

“I’m not.”

Fury snorted. “Justice comes.”

Darkness turned his head, his keen hearing picking up the slight footfalls. “So does Jessie.”

“Here we go,” Fury muttered. “I hope he’s not pissed.”

“Why would I be?” Justice stepped into the dining room, holding Jessie’s hand. “What have you two been up to now? I don’t see any bloody knuckles.”

* * * * *

“So there you have it,” Kat announced. “He’s totally wrong for me in every sense.”

Missy buttered toast and dropped each piece on a plate. She turned, setting it down on their dining room table. “You’d have problems with any normal guy anyway. I can see why you’d be attracted to a New Species.”

“I don’t see it.”

Missy sat. “Eat breakfast.”

“You’re bossy today.”

“I’m grumpy. We didn’t get enough sleep last night and I’m kind of jealous. The only guys who are interested in me are creeps. They find out what I do for a living and instantly assume I’m some kind of porn star/sex fiend. The only action I see is what my imagination comes up with.”

“Did you hear the part where I mentioned how he’s never going to see me again? He was a control freak too.”

“You intimidate men so you need a strong, take-charge guy.”

Kat lifted her toast and bit into it. She chewed and swallowed. “He’s over the top.”

“Says the woman who made her last boyfriend cry.”

“He wasn’t a wuss. He put his foot down eventually.”

“He stood up to you right until you told him to shove it up his ass if he thought you were going to quit your job to make him happy. Then came the tears and the shitload of flowers he sent. I was the one who had to sign for them and read the cards to you since you were too swamped at work to make the drive home. Do I need to remind you of the begging that went on?”

“We still would have had the same issues. I did him a favor by not calling him back. He was too needy.”

“You walked all over him. Let’s just cut to the chase.”

“Jason was a great guy.”

“He was. He was too nice though. You need someone tougher than you are and those men are hard to find. You aren’t the easiest person to get close to. You need a man who won’t allow you to keep him emotionally distanced.”

“Well, Darkness knows all about building walls and keeping people out. I could take lessons from him.”

“Exactly. He made you feel when you didn’t want to. That’s what you need. You’re both hardheaded and stubborn. It sounds like a perfect match to me.”

“I don’t want to talk about this anymore. I said more than enough last night.”

“So you’ve reached the deny-he-means-anything-to-you stage now?”

“Shut up.”

Missy threw a piece of crust at her. “Are you at the anger stage yet? We really need to do something about this kitchen and I’m not doing it alone. How do you feel about knocking out cabinets?”

“I’m not in the mood.”

“You’d get to smash shit.”

“Then we’d have to put up the new ones.”

Missy sighed. “Right.”

“We should just hire someone.”

“You can afford that but I can’t. Fifty-fifty, remember? I’m sorry. I’m hoping this new series I’m working on will hit a bestseller list. That stove is one of the things we most need to upgrade. I’m tired of having to light the burners.”

“You’ll get there.”

“I’m a poor artist but at least I can pay my bills. Why did I quit my day job again?”

“Because we both have faith that you are an excellent writer. Give it more time.”

Missy wiped her mouth with her napkin. “You should call Homeland and talk to this Darkness. You look miserable and you only left there yesterday. Just admit you have it bad for him.”

“It was just great sex.”

“Right.” Missy rolled her eyes. “Because you haven’t ever been exposed to hot guys before while on the job and you risked your ass for all of them.” She stood. “Lie to yourself but don’t forget who you’re talking to. I see through your bullshit.”

“I only knew him for a short time.”

Missy rinsed her plate, turned and leaned on the counter. “Sometimes you just know when it’s right. I believe that. Hell, I make a living writing books about it. I write from my heart and I’m hopeful that I’ll meet some guy who makes me feel. Love is messy and terrifying, Kat. It’s not going to be the guy who is your type or someone you can walk all over. You’d be miserable within a year. I’ve seen it go down before. This is the first time you’ve met a guy you can’t control, who doesn’t bow down to your strong will, and he made you take risks you never thought you would. Use that intelligence of yours and figure it out fast because let’s face it, you’ve got it bad. This is the guy. Go after him.”

“No. He doesn’t want me. He made that clear.”

“You don’t want him either, according to you. You’re both full of shit. This is the first time I’ve ever seen you lose it, Kat. It’s for a reason. You really feel something for him and it scares the hell out of you. You’re into giving reality bitch-slaps. This is me calling you to the mat.
POW
!” Missy grinned. “Bitch-slap delivered.”

“You spend way too much time with fictional characters.”

“Did you think I’d really slap you? Give me a break. You’d beat my ass.”

“I’d never hit you.”

“That’s because you know I can’t fight and it wouldn’t be any fun whaling on someone who just lay there and screamed. Stop being such a wimp and call Darkness. You’d be all over me if I had it bad for a guy but was too chickenshit to give it a shot.”

“He doesn’t want a relationship.”

“What’s your motto? Oh yeah. Shit happens. Deal with it. Neither of you were looking for someone but he nailed you. You said he avoided all women and hadn’t had sex in a long time. He broke his monkhood streak for you.”

“Monkhood?”

Missy nodded. “Is he religious?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Exactly. He couldn’t resist you. If he’s as cold and controlling as you say, that’s big. You are a robot when it comes to your job and you broke rules. Big. Huge.” Missy pushed away from the counter. “Stop being a dumbass and go after him. You two sound well matched.”

“I’ll think about it.”

“You do that. I’m going to go write. Give a yell if you decide to rip stuff apart. I have my own frustrations to work out.”

“Are you okay?” Kat turned in her chair, studying her friend.

Missy paused by the door. “Don’t blow what could be a good thing. I’d kill to meet a guy who flipped my switches and made me feel what I think you do. I get to watch other people live through books and out my window. One of us deserves happiness. Go full-out, balls-to-the-wall for this guy. Life is too short and regret is the worst thing to live with.”

“You’re thinking about Chris.”

Missy teared up. “Yeah. I always do. I had my chance but lost it. He wouldn’t have moved to New York if I hadn’t been so set on finishing college before I married. What did I do with my degree? Nada. He and his wife just had their fourth baby.”

“How do you know?”

“I looked him up on the internet. You should see the nice family photos. They look really happy. That could have been me with my arm around him. I have a dog and a kitten instead.”

“You have me too.”

Missy grinned. “I know, but regardless of what your dickhead boss thinks, I’m not doing you.” Her humor fled. “My sex life only involves a vibrator. I know battery-operated-boyfriends don’t leave their clothes on the floor or fart in their sleep but I’d take all the flaws that come with a real person any day of the week over being so lonely. You can’t solve that for me.”

“I understand.”

“I know you do. So go after this guy, Kat. Get messy and be scared of having your heart broken. At least try. I would.”

“I can’t exactly storm the gates of Homeland and I won’t be allowed back in. He made that clear.”

“Call and bug him. Don’t let him sweep you under the rug. Give him hell.”

“I’ll think about it.”

“You do that.” Missy left, going down the hallway into her office.

Kat closed her eyes and sighed. “Damn.” She missed Darkness but her pride would take a hit if she tried to call him.

Justice peered at Darkness over his desk as he hung up the phone. He lifted the paper he’d written on and passed it over. “That is a list of every name Jessie’s father could get. He called in lots of favors. He’ll text the address if you can identify her by name. He wasn’t able to get ages or descriptions but he could pull one or two files without raising red flags. That’s everyone Mason could issue orders to.”

Darkness accepted the list and read each name. One made him pause. The other names didn’t come close. He reread the ninth name again. “This has to be her. Katrina Perkins.”

“Are you sure?”

Darkness looked up. “She said everyone really called her Kat. With a K. Katrina could be shortened to Kat. She used the name Kathryn Decker to enter Homeland. Don’t they attempt to keep the first names close to their real ones when they go undercover? That’s what Tim told me. They use similar names because it draws their attention easier when it’s spoken.”

“Agreed.” Justice picked up his cell phone and tapped the screen. “It should take a few minutes.”

“I want to send four teams out to retrieve her.”

Justice set down the phone. “Why do you want this female brought in? You’re the one who argued we should release her in the first place.”

“All the information we received on Robert Mason alarms me. He’s been transferred seven times in four years. He kept requesting this post. I believe it was for a reason. You read the file. He hasn’t asked to be reassigned elsewhere. It’s possible he’s been working with Boris. They would have been able to have face-to-face contact to avoid leaving any traces of their meetings.”

“There are no bank records to show any connection between Mason and the payments we made to the false account Boris set up. Mason seems clean.”

“There wouldn’t be. Mason is a smart male who catches the mistakes of others for a living. He sent agents after True’s mate and then he sent in Kat.”

“We still aren’t sure why.”

“I know.” Darkness closed his mouth.

“You assume he wanted information on Jerry Boris. I agree. They are linked by marriage.”

“He has to know we’re digging into his background by now. I don’t want him to go after Kat in an attempt to silence her. Boris set up Jeanie. Mason could do the same with Kat. These seem to be males who don’t mind hiding behind females and allowing them to take the fall for their crimes.”

“You want to toss her into interrogation?”

That wasn’t the plan but Darkness just lifted an eyebrow. “She might have answers we need.”

“I understand. We’ll wait for her file to make certain she’s the right female. The last thing we need is to bring in the wrong one.”

“Let’s order the teams to prepare.”

“Two should do it.”

“I want four.”

Justice frowned. “You think this female is that dangerous?”

“I believe Mason is. He has agents at his disposal. He could order her arrested or sent on assignment somewhere. He could also hire someone to take her out.”

“It’s possible if he really is working with Jerry Boris. I really dislike that male. You weren’t able to confirm their association beyond the family tie while you were in Medical?”

“He showed signs of high stress. I didn’t want to kill him. You asked me to try to keep him alive.”

“I read the updated medical report. You broke two of his fingers and inflicted cuts.”

“Just a few.”

Justice leaned back and sighed deeply. “You should have had the doctor present if you wanted to question him further.”

“It’s done.” Darkness wasn’t about to apologize.

Justice regarded him with an unblinking stare. Darkness didn’t blink either.

“Fury feels guilt. You’re aware of that, aren’t you?”

“The male has no reason to. Why are you bringing this up?”

“He took you to Boris. I have a feeling you used that guilt to get him to agree. I have a problem with that.”

Darkness stood. “I don’t use emotions to force males to do anything. I laid out why I wanted to speak to Boris and he agreed.”

Justice stood. “Fury has a blind spot where you are concerned. We’re both aware of it, even if he isn’t. Family is very important, especially when shared blood is involved. It’s rare. Don’t use him again.”

Darkness clenched his teeth.

“Answer the questions he has, Darkness. You owe him that much.”

“I plan to.”

Justice sat. “Good. Go do that now while we wait for this file to arrive. I’ll contact you as soon as it comes and have Tim put together four teams.”

“I don’t want Tim there.”

“Trey can take lead then.”

“I’ll lead them.”

Justice seemed unable to hide his surprise. “You don’t like to leave the NSO.”

“I’ll make an exception. I demand to be put in charge of retrieving Kat.”

A calculated look entered the other male’s expression. “I see. Fine. I have calls to make.”

Darkness strode out of Justice’s office but didn’t leave the building. He sought out Fury. The male was on the phone when he opened the door but he waved Darkness to a seat. He hung up a minute later.

“What did Justice say?”

“I’m surprised he didn’t call you as soon as I left him.”

“We’ve already spoken. Did you find out the female’s real name?”

“I believe so. Justice is having the Senator pull her file to make certain. He agreed I could have four teams to go pick her up. We’re just waiting for confirmation of the name and face matchup.”

“I’m glad. She’ll be safer here at Homeland.”

Darkness hesitated. Memories flashed through his mind—bad ones. “Her name was Galina. She was an attractive female in her early thirties.”

Fury frowned. “That is Kat’s real name?”

“No.” Darkness blew out a breath. “She was the female hired to come into the camp where my brothers…” He paused. “
Our
brothers were taken after they transported us away from Mercile Industries.”

Fury swallowed, the muscles in his throat working. “Go on.”

“She was a tall, blonde female with pretty light-green eyes. I don’t know if that was her real name but she was so frightened I could smell her fear. They brought her to where I was being held in handcuffs. The guards removed them and one of them pulled his sidearm, pointing it at her head. He said for her to do her job or he’d shoot her. They left her there with me. I didn’t know what to think.”

“She was a prisoner?”

“I believed so. She fell to her knees and began to beg me not to kill her. I wasn’t in chains. We all had explosive collars around our necks. They threw one outside the camp when we first arrived to show us what would happen if we breached the perimeter. It exploded as it sailed past the marked line. They used a second collar around the neck of a dog to show us that they could be detonated at will when the man in charge pushed a button. The dog was small and there wasn’t much left of it. No chains were required. We knew escape would be impossible. They were coded every six hours and without a password they auto-detonated so taking out our captors wasn’t a possibility. The male in charge of the code wasn’t in our camp but video monitored the entire site.”

Fury grimly regarded him. “Is this too difficult for you to discuss? I really would like to hear it but I don’t want you to suffer.”

Darkness shook his head. “The female was hired to have sex with me. I didn’t want to touch her but she started to cry, informing me they’d kill her and her family if she didn’t do her job. Rejection meant death. She swore she had two small children being held and that in her younger years she’d shared sex in exchange for money with humans. It’s why she was kidnapped and taken to the camp.”

Fury nodded but didn’t comment.

“It made me less inclined to touch her, knowing it was forced, but I felt pity for her. She begged and removed her clothes, telling me about her young. They were babies, according to her. Both were toddlers. I didn’t attack her. I just stood there when she started touching me. I hadn’t had a female in nearly a year. She unfastened my pants and I responded to her touch. It was the first time a female had put her mouth on my dick.”

Fury shifted in his chair. “Understood. That’s something I couldn’t ignore.”

It didn’t make Darkness feel any less guilty. “I didn’t resist when she was brought to me every few days. They’d already taught me how to inflict pain. She was there to teach me how to seduce females into giving up information. That and, according to her, to help keep my aggression levels lower since I was the most dominant of the males. Our brothers took orders from me.”

Fury opened his mouth as if he wanted to ask a question but reconsidered and closed it.

“They did look like us. We were very similar but I was the tallest and most aggressive. They forced us to train together and fight. My reflexes were faster and I picked up the fighting skills easiest. None of the humans would dare spar with me. They were afraid I’d kill them.”

“Was she sharing sex with our brothers too?”

“They brought in other females, never the same ones twice for them and with less frequency. Galina was assigned solely to me. I believe they wanted me to form a bond.” He paused. “It worked.”

“It would be natural.”

Darkness wished it were that easy. “We began to plot how to rescue her young and get my brothers freed from the camp. They took her to the secondary camp where the male in charge of monitoring us was kept. She told me about the tent and the many viewing screens she’d seen. The guards were lax with her since she was a female. I began to teach her how to fight. There were no cameras inside the tent where I was kept. I was as desperate to save her young as she seemed to be. It was her plan, her insistence we could do it.”

Fury leaned forward. “It went bad.”

“Worse.” Darkness broke eye contact and looked down at his hands, resting on his lap. Pain tightened his chest but he held still, enduring the male’s curious stare. “The humans in charge were forcing us to kill other humans. They weren’t American soldiers but threats to them. It was taking a toll on us all. We’d been reassigned numbers, one through four. I was number one. At Mercile we dreamed of killing our captors and the ones harming us but it was different out there. These were strangers. We didn’t know what their crimes were or why we were being forced to kill them. We were given an order, a timed mission, and the collars would blow if we didn’t return to the camp. They would send humans with us who could activate the bomb collars to make certain we didn’t deviate from the mission.”

Fury’s hands on the desk fisted and he lowered them out of sight. “That must have been hellish.”

“It was. It was breaking us apart inside. Four was more sensitive than the others. He hesitated during the killing. We tried to cover for him and hold him together. He grew mentally unstable but we were able to hide it from the humans. Two had anger issues. He enjoyed the killing a little too much. He saw all humans as the enemy. We tried to conceal his flaw. Three was like you, Fury.” He smiled, a fond memory surfacing. “You remind me of him.”

“How?”

“He was very reasonable but he was one to watch closely when he was angry. He’d think about it before he acted.” Darkness chuckled. “He stood up to me and did it in a way I admired. Very clever and always had my back. We were the closest. We would talk often and assess the other two, working as a team to protect their flaws. He could make me laugh. He had a keen sense of humor.” Darkness rose and walked over to the mini fridge. “May I?”

“Help yourself.”

He removed a soda and opened it, taking a drink. He couldn’t sit any longer and paced instead, avoiding Fury’s gaze. Darkness didn’t know how to tell the rest of it. The male’s chair creaked and Fury moved in front of him.

“Just talk to me. I want to hear it all.”

Darkness set the drink down. “I don’t think you’ll want a bond with me after you do.”

“Try me.”

“I trusted Galina. I opened up to her and talked to her. She said she loved me and I felt highly bonded to her. I shared my fears. We were waiting for a human named Darwin Havings to leave her campsite. He had a lot of guards with him and the security would lighten when he was gone. It would give her a real chance at reaching the male monitoring our camp, force him to give her the pass code to unlock our collars, and then we could take out everyone at our camp to reach hers. She’d given me detailed directions on how to reach her. It was only a few miles away. We planned to steal their vehicles from her location. She said she could drive and she had friends who could hide us. We’d work out the rest later.”

Fury kept close, watching him.

“Havings was set to leave in four days. That was the time we planned to make our escape. She was able to get an exact time, stating she’d overheard some of his personal guards making the arrangements. All of us were excited. We had no idea what awaited us in the out world but we were ready to find out. It had to be better than being returned to Mercile or staying there, forced to kill for them. She left my bed to return to her camp and orders came to us that we were going out that night to attack another group of humans. No one was to be left alive.”

“It went bad,” Fury guessed.

“There were no males there.” Darkness clenched his teeth and took a calming breath. “It was all females and their young.”

Fury wavered a little on his feet. “It was kill or die.”

“Those females and children screamed when we entered their camp, cowering and crying. We terrified them. They weren’t armed and the few weapons they had in camp, they didn’t even go for or attempt to defend themselves. They were too frightened and shocked by the sight of us. It would have been a slaughter. We refused and left. The humans on scene ordered us to turn around and go back. We ignored them.”

Fury didn’t hide his look of relief and Darkness didn’t blame him for feeling that emotion. Dread showed on Fury’s features next. “They killed our brothers as punishment.”

Darkness could have just nodded. That was the easy way out. It would leave the male peace of mind to know they’d died for a good reason. “I wish it were that simple.” He took a deep breath. “Sit down.” He took his own advice and returned to the seat on the other side of the desk.