The confusion built in the room. Briet leaned back against Jason, the tiny ridge between her blond brows deepening as she held the sheet over his thigh, perplexed.
“All options of the human spectrum.” Sagari reiterated, seemingly finding no relief in wrestling with the puzzle.
“A broad spectrum test,” suggested Tsu.
Sagari turned back in annoyance to Turen. “For what end? If he’s testing his nano methods to destroy humanity, it will achieve disaster. Both our races would end. There are easier methods to annihilate a species.” She held up her hands with a snort at the grumbles brought on by her frankness. “You know I’m right.”
“He doesn’t hold humans in much esteem, or us. We can’t rule out that he doesn’t care.” Turen rubbed a hand over the back of his neck. “On the other hand, he could be searching for something in this large pool of people. A reaction. A new weapon. Whatever it is, we have to conclude he considers the test subjects expendable.”
Jason noticed the sheet go lax in Briet’s finger a second before she turned to stare at him.
“What happens when Frank’s people find the man connected to Salvatore?” Briet’s question stopped the flow of conversation.
He was going to have to tread carefully here.
“Several of us are going to deal with him,” said Ansgar.
She looked pointedly at Jason, her gaze never leaving his face. He gave her the truth.
“I’m going after him.” He held tight to her hand, not allowing her to pull away from him as he continued. “He has critical information and I need to deal with him.”
“Then I’m going, too.” The line of her jaw tightened and her lips pressed into a thin line.
Jason felt the minute her frustration reached its peak. She’d absorbed a lot in the last several days and she needed an outlet. He was the safest target. He would try to give her what she needed, even if it wasn’t what she wanted.
“I know you’re not going to tell me I can’t do this.” Her voice strengthened with anger.
“You’re right.”
He avoided her gaze but he couldn’t avoid the looks of the others. Ansgar’s brows had furrowed in anger for the first time in several days. Sagari looked perplexed. Turen had his arms crossed, waiting to shut Briet down as soon as Jason was finished. Only Tsu, sitting beside Quan, remained impassive except for the slight shift of his head in support.
“What?” Briet had opened her mouth to argue and narrowed her eyes in confusion.
“This is your project. These are your people.” He dropped his arm from her shoulder and shrugged as she tilted her head at the surprised support. “Since you have all these skills, you are probably as proficient as Tsu, or Ansgar, or Turen in self-defense. Right? You must have their speed, their agility, their talent with weapons.”
He gave her a firm look and didn’t back down because this was all or nothing. He wasn’t about to risk her on her whim. He waited and watched the indecision flicker across her face, watched her brows knit together as she tried to figure a way to gloss this over.
“Because if you don’t,” he kept his hands from her, giving her time, “then you not only put yourself at risk, but you would be a liability to others who would feel compelled to protect you. I’ve never seen you exhibit qualities of recklessness at work. Ever. You’re the best at what you do, Briet. You’d never risk anybody else.”
Her gaze finally shifted to Tsu and back to Jason then her shoulders sagged. “Point made.” Her hands fisted in her lap as she stared at him. “But you’re going.”
Jason sucked in a deep breath and looked to Ansgar. “I’m not driving this battle and I’m very realistic about my limitations. I do, however, have something I need to do.”
Briet turned to look at her brother. Ansgar’s expression had relaxed when she’d backed down. He moved to crouch beside her. “I’m not going to let anything happen to him, Pip.”
“None of us are,” said Tsu.
“Promise you’ll bring him back.” The words came out small and soft, but Jason heard each painful syllable.
He pulled her back into the circle of his arms. “They don’t need to promise. I’ll be back. I have no false illusions of heroics.”
“Yeah, I’ve seen you practice.” Ansgar’s snarky comment brought a choked laugh from Briet.
“But I’ve been a team player all my life.”
Ansgar rolled his eyes begrudgingly.
Turen cleared his throat, the action obvious but everyone refocused. “Even if we are able to shut down the manufacturing facility, we still need some countermeasure to retract the effect of the DNA modification. If it’s even possible.”
“We’ll find an option.” Determination flickered in Briet’s smile. She gave a quick side-glance to Grimm. “We can start today.”
He audibly groaned but said nothing and rubbed at his eyes in feigned frustration.
“Then, Briet, we’ll meet back here when you’re both ready with a plan,” said Turen.
CHAPTER 29
“I don’t want to go back to the room.” Briet rubbed her cheek against Jason’s shoulder as her fingers teased along his neck. Exhaustion and sadness ate at her. Thoughts of Annie’s death and Salvatore’s treachery nagged at her. For Jason’s sake, she refused to give in to melancholy. He’d bolstered her and guided the strategy for a large part of the council meeting, all after days of caring for her. He deserved better than her distress.
A grunt vibrated from his chest to her breasts where he carried her cradled close to him. “Don’t think we’re getting a pass from Grimm just yet.”
“What I mean is I’d rather go to our quarters.”
He paused with her in the middle of the hallway. The vibrant blue of his eyes darkened as he tightened his grip, then he reluctantly shook his head and glanced around. “Probably won’t take long for him to find us. But if I never see those peach walls again, it’ll be too soon.” His eyes met hers. “I almost lost you surrounded by that awful peach wall color. Which way?”
She gestured with her chin to an adjoining hallway several feet away.
“Should you give me fair warning?” he asked.
“I don’t think it will offend your masculine sensibilities. No frills or white feathers.” She pointed toward a double set of doors at the end of the hall.
“I have nothing against feathers. They can be very useful for certain activities.” His chuckle produced an array of wicked images for her imagination. Wanting to torment him a little, she rubbed her face against his neck.
“Stop being a tease.”
“Not teasing.”
He brushed his lips across the top of her head. “I’m perfectly willing to provide examples and extensive instruction on every feather fantasy I can think of—after Grimm’s cleared you for action.”
Briet stifled a sound of frustration, gave him a sour look, and pressed her palm to the plasma plate beside the door. She worried her lip with her teeth and watched the expression cross his face as the door swung wide. His eyebrows gave a quick tilt up as he glanced around and for a second she tried to imagine the room from his fresh perspective.
Several stairs dipped down to the main living area, wooden floors flowed to the floor to ceiling windows on the opposite side. The two-foot wide vertical shutter panels ran the length of the window, cranked open now for a view through tree limbs to patches of wild grasses bordering the hillside. Long camel colored sofas and side chairs of sage and gold graced the room.
“Nice. Bedroom?” he whispered into her ear, then laughed as she let out an exasperated sound when he didn’t take more notice.
He followed the few stairs directly into the expanse of the bedroom and without hesitation stalked right to the bed, dropped her unceremoniously, and crawled over her body to lie next to her.
Well, thank heavens she’d had the foresight to provide a huge bed. It would give them plenty of space avoiding each other. Before her arms crossed over her chest, he scooped her in his and rolled her on top of him.
“Now we rest.”
She braced her forearms on his chest and leaned up to see if he was kidding. “I don’t want to rest.”
“You—we have a very nice place,” he said as he traced his thumb along the edge of her jaw. “But today’s been stressful, for everyone.” His finger rested on her lips. “We disobeyed Grimm’s orders and now, no distractions. We’re going to hang out here and nap.”
She parted her lips and nipped his finger. “What if I don’t want to sleep?”
“I didn’t say sleep, just nap.” His palm cupped the back of her head, gently maneuvering until her lips met his.
“If I want to talk?” She smiled against his lips and stared into his eyes. “Because I know this isn’t leading anywhere until Grimm says so.”
He pressed closer. “We can enjoy the parts leading up to
anywhere
.” His lips captured her lower lip, testing and teasing, finally releasing it with a taste from his tongue. “And we can talk.”
The firm muscles of his shoulders shifted beneath her fingers. With a slide of her hands, she curled her fingers into his hair and relaxed her body on top of his. She let herself sink into him. Bodies pressed thigh to thigh, heartbeat to heartbeat, and cheek to cheek, she admitted this had all the potential for restful. “Today was hard.”
“Today was hard,” he repeated, letting his hands stroke along her back and hips, his fingers sliding beneath her shirt gently massaging the flesh on either side of her spine.
“Hard to believe one of my own people could cause so much pain to so many people.”
“I can’t begin to understand his reasons.” His hands paused for a second, his breath stirred against her hair as he pressed a kiss. “One thing I know for certain, I’m never letting you be at risk from him, ever again.”
“I’m not sure that’s a promise either of us can keep.” She lifted her head, his hands leaving her body to cup her cheeks.
“Whatever happens, we’ll face it together.” His thumb stroked over her cheek, caressing the corner of her mouth until she tasted him with her tongue. “No more of him. You are all I want to see, the only presence I want in this room with me.” His lips sealed over hers, gentle at first, then moving with such intensity that desire built between them in tiny delicious sparks. She opened for him, letting his tongue savor and explore, needing the taste and passion of him to wipe away the ash of Salvatore’s evil with waves of Jason’s strength.
So close to more and yet, as their kiss deepened, need spiraling into heat, he pulled back. She let out a frustrated sigh.
“Sorry,” he murmured against her temple. “My control is nonexistent with you.”
She nodded and held him closer, burying her face against the curve of his neck and shoulder.
“What do you want to talk about?” he asked.
“We need information on Salvatore’s other trials.” She felt his chest expand beneath her.
“Frank’s people are securing some samples from the other patients. I should be able to bring some back when I meet with him.”
With an exertion of will, she forced her fingers to comb slowly through his hair and hold back her fear. The idea that he was heading out on this mission, no matter how many of her team surrounded him, still filled her with dread. Yet he didn’t coddle her and he deserved the same respect and trust. Even if it made her chest tighten as she calculated the moments until he received the call. “How are we going to fix the DNA?”
“I’m not sure we should.”
She lifted up her head in surprise, checking his face to make sure he was serious. He met her gaze straight on. “We can’t just leave his mutations.”
His fingers stroked up her arm as he assessed her. “The splice is coupled into the natural DNA strand. I didn’t even realize the nanite particles were there, inert, until I thought to recheck your toxin for a better understanding. This is his playground, not ours. We risk setting off some other trigger we haven’t found, trying to put this back to right.”
She looked away, chewing on her lip to consider the problem. Neither of them had anticipated the dormant nanites in the foreign strand. While she hadn’t seen them yet, Jason had briefed her on all of his findings from the last few days. He was right. She wanted to reverse the condition; however, caution and reducing the patient risk were the primary objectives.
He continued. “Assuming other trial patients exhibit similar modifications to their systems—even with trials limited to sixty or so patients—we can’t fix all the DNA in seven hundred people, perhaps more.”
He’d obviously given this a great deal of thought. Not really a surprise. Planning was his forte.
His forefinger moved between her brows. “Talk to me, don’t frown at me.”
“Your points are all valid. So, what do you propose?” She pulled his hand from her face, kissed the palm, and curled her fingers around his. “I can tell you have more.”
“I’ve had time to kill.” His gaze drifted away as if in thought. “He has the same problem we do with relation to dealing with his experiments.” He looked back. “The numbers are too cumbersome for him to approach each patient. He would need a remote trigger for the nanites in the splice. Does he have that measure of control over electrical impulses from a distance or via some sort of upload?”
She rubbed her lips over his knuckles, pondering past history. “He controlled the robotic guards here at the Sanctum with subtle electrical impulses. Ansgar told me no one was able to detect what Salvatore instructed them to do or when he’d activated commands, but they moved and responded without verbal orders from as far as a mile away.” She looked up at the puzzled expression on his face. “They were decommissioned. Tsu and Ansgar tried to dissect one of them later, off grounds, but didn’t get very far in determining the design.”
“I figured with so much automation in this place someone must have the skills?”
“Most of what supports the Sanctum, our security, our data systems, are all organic based systems. Most of them evolved long before the dark ages. We’ve only recently interfaced some computer functions with our systems. Salvatore was the only one to delve into the heavily mechanized, computerized arena. He’d done it for far longer than we’d realized.”
Jason pursed his lips, his brows pulling together. “All the more reason we shouldn’t tinker with his creation until we have detailed research and information. You and I can figure out the biological, genetic implications. However, we barely have a toehold in his ultimate aim for the cancer trial. Who knows what he planned on the others. I wouldn’t put it past him to have booby-trapped the engineering if we try to remove or quarantine his alteration. We just don’t have enough knowledge in his area of expertise or time to come up to speed.”