“You thought it would keep her occupied.”
“Yes. But”—her next words were shredded with a violent mix of rage and pain—“I didn’t know enough about prions then. They’re notoriously difficult to culture.”
Dorian didn’t need her to explain the rest. “So she created a living petri dish.” He imagined that was how Amara must’ve thought of it. To use a child in that way—it was a concept utterly abhorrent to his nature. And yet Amara
was
Keenan’s mother. That was something that couldn’t be ignored in any decision they made. Neither could his duty to DarkRiver. “Is he infectious?”
Amara threw the
glass beaker against the wall and watched the liquid dribble down the white surface without seeing anything.
“Sir?”
She glanced at Keishon Talbot, her assistant, and probable spy for Ming LeBon. “Get out before I kill you.”
The other woman left without a word.
Amara threw another beaker, her mind chaotic. Ashaya had done something. The link between them, the one that nothing could break, it was getting weaker. It had always shifted in strength—from background noise to a pure telepathic bond when they both focused. But it was always
there
, easy to pick up from either end.
Not now.
Something was interfering with the transmission—Amara didn’t know how that was even possible. She considered all the parameters and came to the logical conclusion:
he
was the cause. The intruder. He had to be destroyed.
Calm descended with the decision.
She stepped over the broken glass on the floor and headed outside—though the psychic link between her and Ashaya was
erratic, it was enough to lead Amara to her twin. The guards would try to stop her, of course. But they thought of her as a polite, controlled M-Psy, like Ashaya. Of course, Ashaya had never
actually
been controlled, either, but that was their secret.
She picked up several loaded pressure injectors as she walked.
Clay lets you get away with far too much, Ms. Smart-Ass. My mate is going to adore me so much, she’ll do everything I say.
—Dorian Christensen in a text message to Talin McKade, six weeks ago
Is he infectious?
“I won’t let anyone touch him,” Dorian promised Ashaya, “and the pack will stand by you.” As he’d stood by their mates and children. “But we need to know.”
“To catch it from him,” Ashaya said, her voice thick, “you’d have to cut him open and ingest sections of his brain tissue. Amara got that idea from an obscure New Guinean prion disease called
kuru
. She tinkered with the protein until ingestion was the
only
method of transmission—she didn’t want anyone to be able to steal her research.”
Unable to put the car on automatic, he reached out and tangled the fingers of one hand with hers. “Is he terminal?”
“No.” To his amazement, her face lit up. “Keenan is absolutely, utterly healthy and he’ll stay that way. I don’t know what Amara did to him in the test tube, but Dorian, he’s a miracle … he has antibodies in his blood.”
He wasn’t a scientist. It took him a second. “He holds the answer to a cure for all prion diseases.” Hard on the heels of that joyful realization came another, darker one. “He’s also the key
the Council needs to unleash Omega.” It was a truth they could
never
be allowed to discover.
Ashaya nodded. “Amara has no idea about the antibodies—I sabotaged her tests. But no matter what, I knew it would come down to her or him.” Her eyes met his and in them he saw a heartbreaking decision, the bloody protectiveness of a mother winning out over the ties of a bond formed before birth. “Age five was the point at which she planned to dissect his brain.”
Jesus.
“You were racing a deadline from day one.”
“Yes, at first. Then two and a half years ago, when Ming began to pay her too much attention and she went underground, I thought he was safe.”
“But she didn’t forget him,” he guessed.
A jerky shake of the head. “She considers him the first step in her most important piece of work.”
Her fingers were clenching around his hard enough to bruise. She was, he realized, barely keeping it together. “You want to talk about something else for a while?” He wasn’t up to subtlety at the moment, but he needed to take care of her.
She grabbed on to the offered escape with desperate quickness. “Yes.”
“How about my abnormal DNA?” he teased, though the cat was still snarling in protective fury. “Have you fixed me?”
“I’m working on it.” Her fingers relaxed as she found her footing in science.
His leopard growled in pleased approval. Ashaya’s internal strength was a thing of beauty. Yet she’d let him soothe her. It was as much a caress to his predator’s soul as if she’d curled those long, talented fingers around him.
That was all it took.
Sexual heat was suddenly a talon inside him, his beast one step closer to animal savagery. “Tell me.” Letting her go, he squeezed both hands around the steering wheel in a vain effort to stop the primitive fury of his reaction. He’d waited too long, and now his cat was no longer giving him a choice. Either he coaxed Ashaya into melting for him in every way … or he got the hell away from her. And right now, there was no damn way he was going to leave her unprotected.
“It’s a puzzle,” she said, unknowingly stoking his hunger
with the primness of her voice. Especially now that he knew how uninhibited she was in bed. He could still hear her gasping little cries from this afternoon, all hot and demanding.
If he didn’t have her naked and under him soon, he’d go fucking insane.
“Your DNA is identical to normal changeling DNA in every respect that I can see, but—”
“Where did you get the control sample?” A flash of dark heat raced through him and he knew himself well enough to identify it as a dose of pure jealousy.
“From Tamsyn.” A pause, as if she was debating whether to continue. “I knew you’d react negatively if I approached a male. You’re … possessive.”
“Sugar, I’m way past possessive.” His voice was no longer fully human.
“Dorian?”
The sound of her voice, thick velvet and honey, wrapped around him like a silken fist. “Be quiet.” He focused his attention on getting them where they needed to go.
“I won’t take being talked to in that tone.”
She was worried about his tone? If she didn’t stop inciting the beast, she’d be hot and tight around his cock before they even got off this bloody highway. He growled low in his throat, releasing the leopard the only way he could. “Be.
Quiet.
”
Ashaya seemed shocked into silence. It lasted about six minutes. “Predatory changeling men are meant to be protective toward women.”
He kept his eyes on the road.
“Their women, in any case,” she said after another pause. Fifteen more minutes and he’d show her exactly how protective he was.
“I suppose technically I’m one of the enemy, so the protective element of your nature wouldn’t apply.”
Where the hell was the turnoff? There! He swept the vehicle into a narrow dirt track, taking Ashaya deep into an isolated section of the sprawling Yosemite forest. While most of it was a national park, habitation was allowed under certain restricted rules.
“Dorian?”
Ten more minutes, he told himself.
“I’m right, aren’t I? You consider me an ene—”
“Shaya,” he gritted out, “you’re babbling.”
That made her snap her mouth shut for several more minutes. “A nervous reaction. I should be able to handle it using the same tools I used when sitting face-to-face with Councilor Ming LeBon.”
The dirt track became nothing more than the most primitive of paths a hundred meters ahead. Switching to the hover-drive, he took them into the shadow of the majestic guardians of the forest—the giant sequoias.
“However, none of my tools seem to be working.”
He slammed the car into low gear, maneuvering them over a small outcropping of rock. Even using the hover-drive, he could cause damage, but he knew the forest well enough to avoid going near anything that wouldn’t regenerate quickly. Right now, he was more worried about his cock regenerating. It was going to end up cut in half if he didn’t lower the zipper soon.
“I can’t stop talking,” she said, her shock open. “Why? My stomach is full of butterflies, my heart is thundering, and my palms are damp.” A small pause, followed by a relieved sigh. “Must be fear. You’ve got a very threatening look on your face.”
That did it. He brought the car to a halt in front of a cabin so well hidden by greenery, not even cats would find it if they weren’t actively looking. He wondered what Ashaya would think of it. But first things first. “You,” he said, turning to glare at her, “are never to be threatened by me. Understood?”
She blinked. “Actually, right now you’re—”
“Tell me you understand.” He leaned closer, eyes narrowed.
“But—”
“No buts, no nothing. You have the ability to piss me off without even trying, but I’ll fucking take a gun to my head before I lay a hand on you. You clear on that?”
She was crushed against the door now, his hand palm down beside her head. But her face was one of rebellion. “No. Not while you’re being so aggressive.”
“Go on, baby, push me a little more.” He smiled.
Ashaya had a very bad feeling about that smile—but it was the kind of bad that had her body melting from the inside out. “Dorian, maybe we should go inside the house … I assume there
is
a house close by?”
He smiled widened. “Sure.”
Wary of his agreement, she waited until he moved back and then quickly got out. He followed a few seconds later, stopping to get her pack out of the back. “This way.” He jerked his head toward a heavy mass of foliage.
Her eyes widened as he nudged aside a sweep of trailing vines dotted with tiny white flowers and put his hand on a high-tech scanner, unlocking the door. She entered to find that the entire place was—but for a corridor that she assumed led to the bathroom facilities—a single large room shaded with the green dark of the forest.
“Lights,” he said a second later, and cunningly placed fixtures bathed the cabin in what felt like sunshine.
“It’s all glass,” she breathed, taking in the way he’d brought the forest inside. The leaves and flowers felt so close, she was tempted to reach out and touch. While the greenery was all shadowed curves outside, clean lines dominated inside. The bed took up the left section, but with plenty of room to move around it. To her right was a comfortable seating area, and beyond it, a small kitchen.
Suddenly, and though she’d heard no voice command, the lights all dimmed, except for the one that lit up the sleeping area. Turning, she opened her mouth to ask him—“Oh.”
Dorian was unbuttoning his shirt.
Her throat dried up as inch after inch of golden male flesh was revealed. A strange heat washed through her body, a turbulent internal storm. This afternoon, she’d held on to him because she needed to forget. Tonight, she knew she’d remember every touch, every caress … every hard male demand.
He shrugged off the shirt, and she saw it glide to the floor in a motion that seemed ridiculously slow to her heightened senses. In front of her, he was all sleek muscle and heat, a leopard contained in a body blessed with quicksilver grace. Whenever Dorian moved, she felt compelled to watch, it was such a beautiful thing.
Now, with his shirt off and an intrinsically male look on his face, his grace turned into the stalking prowl of a big hunting cat. And she knew very well she was the prey. Still, she stayed in place as he circled around her without speaking before stopping at her back. Tugs on her braid, her hair being released into a
wildly curly mass. Then strong male hands stroked over her, sliding her cardigan down her arms.
She should’ve resisted … except she could find no reason to do so. What he’d done to her on the sofa—it had been beyond pleasure. She wanted more—to touch him as he’d touched her, to explore, to taste. And, given that her PsyNet shields were miraculously solid, she had no cause to fear. As for the rest … she didn’t know how the chaos of what she felt for Dorian kept Amara at bay, but it did. For these stolen moments, she was free. To live. To touch. And be touched.
The cardigan made a soft shush as it hit the floor.
“I’m going to take that as a yes,” Dorian said, his fingers resting on her hips, at the very edge of her waistband. “If you want to say no, do it now.” Taut strain in every syllable.
The practical question should’ve broken the sensual spell, but all it did was unlock her tongue. “You’re distracting me from my work on your DNA,” she said, trying to tease him. It came out wrong—she wasn’t used to this kind of play. And her mind wasn’t quite functioning, her body having taken complete control.
“I’m latent, not broken.”
Something stilled inside her, the primal heart of her—a heart that had come to screaming life entombed below the earth— understanding that his words weren’t a statement at all. “You’re a lethal, dangerously skilled sniper,” she said, speaking the absolute truth because she seemed unable to lie to him. “In many ways you’re tougher than those who know they can fall back on the strength of their beast.”
Clever fingers slid up and under her T-shirt, stroking skin that quivered at the first touch. “So why bother?”
She drew in a shuddering breath, put her hands on his wrists. “Slower.”
His fingers played over her ribs. “I told you the time for saying no was over.”
Despite the harsh words, she knew he’d never hurt her. She
knew
in a way that she’d never before known anything. As if the truth was carved deep inside her soul. “I’m not going to say no.” Against her skin, his fingertips were slightly rough, quintessentially male in a way she couldn’t define. She just knew that the feel of it was an erotic sensation she’d never have expected.
“But sensuality is a drug I need to get used to in small doses.” She thought she might’ve surprised him when his fingers paused.