Forever, page 16
She was halfway down the lane leading out of the parking area, on track to meet the first of the defensive barrier systems, when she realized she couldn’t have taken a more inefficient route. Everything was wrapped with steel as a safety precaution. No dematerializing into, or out of, the facility.
She was going to have to hoof it for a while.
Then again, she needed to get her shit together, so maybe the delay was good.
The ascension to ground level went fairly quick, V clearing her at every security point just as she arrived. Man, if she’d intended to get off the Brotherhood property without anyone noticing, she’d picked the worst way. And the fact that Vishous never once asked her what she was doing or why she was leaving by foot along the vehicle tunnel? Probably meant she was going to be followed.
Take out the “probably.” And dematerializing wasn’t going to free her. No doubt the recovery room was bugged, so he had heard her talking to John about her plan. Hell, given that V was responsible for the cell phones everyone used? He no doubt had a record of her conversation.
At least Rehv would get off her back because she was finally following through with his fucking bright idea.
As she approached a triple lineup of twenty-five-foot-high bars that were thick as her thighs and wrapped with steel mesh, she glanced at the monitoring pods that were mounted around the concrete ceiling along with the fluorescent lights. The locking system released with a clink! and then the segments retracted one by one with a whoosh.
The fresh air was tantalizing and cool, marked with the fragrance of pine and dirt.
She wished John were with her, she thought as she started walking again.
Finally, she was aboveground, and as the gates relocked behind her with a series of clangs, she looked up at the stars. Seconds later, she was flying free, traveling through the downright cold night in a scatter of molecules, moving north and to the west. When she re-formed, it was at the foot of Deer Mountain, on the shoulder of a county road that wrapped itself around the contours of a riverbed. Glancing into the tree line, she heard a couple of nocturnal animals scamper away from her presence—raccoons, she guessed, given that they went faster than a porcupine could, yet were not so large as a doe or a buck would be.
Good survival instinct—
The sense that something was behind her made her turn around. And then she refocused on what was in front of her. Thanks to her vampire eyes, she could penetrate quite far into the trunks and stumps, but whatever it was did not want to be seen. All she caught was a fast shadow that darted off.
If it had been a Brother, they would have sheepishly identified themselves.
Putting her hand to her hip, she drew her autoloader and flipped the safety off with her thumb. Then she closed her eyes again and went for another travel through the November air.
This time, when she came back into her corporeal form, it was up on the summit of the mountain, in front of the broad view of a valley down below. From this lofty vantage point, the carpet of pines was solid as a train model’s, looking almost fake in its perfection—except for the gouge across the way: At about the same altitude, on the other side of the evergreen’d topography, there was a man-made extravagance, the construction long as God’s arm and set deep into Mother Nature’s dominion. Work on the resort was ongoing, all kinds of earthmovers, bucket loaders, and cranes sitting dormant, like Transformers waiting to come to life the second there was enough daylight again.
“What a fucking eyesore,” she muttered to herself.
Then she rolled her eyes—
—and swung her gun around. Pointing the muzzle into a stand of pines, she said, “I don’t know what you’re doing back there, but after the last twelve hours, I’ve got an itchy trigger finger and this gun is ready to go to work.”
There was a pause, and then she saw the glowing hazel eyes. A moment later, a gray wolf padded out into the clearing.
Except it wasn’t a wolf in the conventional sense, was it.
Drawing in some air through her nose, Xhex frowned and slowly lowered her weapon. “So you’re the wolven V was talking about when he saw my future.”
EIGHTEEN
AS FATE WOULD have it.
What a saying, right? Blade thought as he stayed behind an outcropping of boulders and watched the two females on the summit: On the right, a four-footed wolf who was not a wolf in the conventional sense of the word. On the left, a biped who looked human enough, but had the blood of two different paranormal species running through her veins.
When he had come here to find the entrance to that final lab, the last person he had expected to see anywhere on the mountain was the very one his King had ordered him to stay away from. And then his sister had pointed her gun into the trees and addressed a presence she had clearly sensed—and he had obviously missed.
He’d been so shocked, both at the wolven’s appearance and his own lapse of survival, that he had been rendered momentarily dumbfounded.
He remained as such.
Although that wasn’t just because of the shifter.
Now he knew why Rehv was worried about Xhex. Her grid was collapsing, that which should have been three-dimensional now only two-. And he also knew why the superstructure of her emotions was folding in on itself.
With her, there was one and only one why—
No, that wasn’t right. Something equally bad had happened to her after she’d gotten out of that lab. Another trauma… he could see the echo of it on her grid. But at least there were other, happier events that had affected her soul, as well. Profoundly good things. Her mate, the Black Dagger Brother John Matthew, for example.
Out at the clearing, Xhex lowered her gun and said something to the wolven that he wasn’t able to track.
There was a pause—and then he saw for the first time a kind of magic that took his breath away.
The wolf transformed herself, her entire body reconstituting, limbs that were lupine shifting into human-like arms, human-like legs, the muzzle retracting, the jaw reworking, a face emerging as the fur pelt, which was luxurious and gray and white and brown, retracted into the skin.
When the change was complete, what stood in front of his sister… was naked in the night, with blond-streaked long hair and eyes that were unapologetic and unashamed by her nudity. As any animal would be.
His eyes locked on her high, proud breasts and traveled down her stomach to the cleft between her thighs.
The stirring deep within his gut was such a surprise, he looked at the front of his hips and frowned. Then he put a hand upon his own crotch.
He couldn’t possibly be getting erect.
No offense to the female sex, but entities of the so-called “fairer” side of things generally did not interest him.
Blade refocused on the resplendent form before him-and what was going on between his thighs thickened even more.
Letting his head fall back, he stared at the overcast night sky. No stars to see, and he could have used the perspective of all those galaxies, all that space, all that epic scale.
Clearly, this was a confusion of some sort, he thought to himself. What sex he’d engaged in had always been with males; he liked submissives with big cocks. Therefore, there had to be another explanation for the fact that he was suddenly partially erect.
Maybe it had been the King’s grip on his throat.
That had to be it. He’d come here directly after being vampire-handled. This arousal was obviously a delayed reaction to a male who had arresting amethyst eyes, and a mohawk that begged to be stroked, and a hand strong enough to powder a concrete block in its grip.
Following this very rational pep talk, Blade righted his head and refocused on the female—
Blink. Those beautiful bare breasts. Blink. Those tight, little hungry nipples. Blink. That bare cleft that was just begging for him to…
“Fuck,” he growled into the darkness.
NINETEEN
ABOUT FIVE HUNDRED yards back from the summit, Daniel waited in the passenger seat of one of C.P. Phalen’s SUVs—while the woman he loved went off into the darkness to meet a stranger. Under any other set of circumstances, he wouldn’t have allowed it. He’d have gone first, all tip-of-the-spear macho.
And as recently as this morning, he would have been furious at being left behind like a child, all locked-in-safe against the big, bad wilderness.
Except here was the thing.
True, he was never going to be comfortable with Lydia going off into the dark, even with her other side being so incredibly powerful. But outside of that, even as his catalogue of you-can’ts glared at him, he remembered the way she had looked all undone and coming in their bed, her head back, her breasts tight and straining for his mouth, her core hot and wet for him—for him.
She had cried out his name.
Three times. Because he had kept going after her first orgasm.
And when she had taken a shower, he had watched her, propped up against the headboard. Through the glass door, she had put a show on for him, soaping her body, leaning back against the marble wall, putting one hand between her legs and the other in her mouth as the water had gleamed over the contours of her curves.
So he wasn’t bitter about not being able to walk all the way to the clearing. And he didn’t care she’d locked him in for safety. And this female they were meeting? Maybe she helped them, maybe she didn’t…
But he had been a man with his fucking wife—
Daniel frowned. “Oh, shit.”
They weren’t married.
As the thought occurred to him, he wondered how he’d missed that little detail somehow. Then again, he’d been pretty busy puking his guts out, having the cold sweats, and wondering whether, at any moment, the cocktail of poisons that were trying to cure him were going to overdo it and knock him off.
Well. Didn’t he have something at the top of his list of things to do.
The smile that hit his face was nothing that he bothered to hide, and not just because there was no one around—and as his cheeks burned, he decided healing came in many different forms, didn’t it: His medical landscape hadn’t changed, but his mindset was improving big-time.
“No more cigarettes,” he murmured as he ran his hand up and down the padded top of the center console.
No more Jack, either. It turned out what he needed to feel like himself was to make his woman feel like herself—and the rest fell into place.
As if the universe wanted to emphasize his new direction, Lydia walked out of the trees and into the trailhead’s open area. She was gloriously naked and utterly unselfconscious about it, as if, to her, nudity on the mountain was second nature.
“My wolf,” he purred.
But then the other woman came out, and not only was she clothed… she was fucking armed. Before he could think about it, he unlocked and opened his door and slid out with his own gun, his numb feet catching his weight.
The woman stopped where she was. She was tall, at least five nine, with short hair, a lean face, and a body that was taut with muscle. In spite of the cold, which immediately started clawing into him in spite of his loose jacket, she was dressed only in a black muscle shirt—and she seemed wholly unaware it was fucking freezing out tonight.
“We going to play with metal?” she said in that low voice he recognized from the phone. “Or do this in a civilized manner.”
Her weapons stayed strapped around her waist, but she put her hands right on her belt so they were within easy reach.
“I didn’t know we were packing at this meeting,” he tossed back.
“Then why did you bring your gun.”
“I’m too weak to defend my woman otherwise. Can you really blame me?”
As his reply hit the airwaves, Lydia’s head snapped around to him, and he was surprised at the admission himself. For however self-aware he had been, he had avoided acknowledging a lot, too.
That shit was done now.
In response, Alex Hess briefly looked down at the hardscrabble ground. “So when you said you were dying over the phone, it wasn’t hyperbole. Or a metaphor for having a bad day.”
“No, it wasn’t.” He lifted his chin and held out his hand to his woman. “I have cancer and not a lot of time left.”
Lydia came over to him, and he sensed her tears sure as if he were looking at her. He kept his eyes on the soldier in front of them, however—because that was what this woman was. He’d spent enough time in special forces that like recognized like.
Plus she was as sure of herself as any other fighter he had ever seen.
“I’m going to throw some clothes on,” Lydia murmured. Then, in a louder voice, she said, “As long as you two aren’t going to make introductions in a target-practice kind of way?”
She clearly wasn’t worried about the woman—and not only did Lydia have that thing where she made instant, valid assessments about people, but the two had walked back from the summit together. Side by side. Without tension.
And Miss Hess didn’t seem bothered by the nudity. She was just staring at Daniel like she was trying to diagnose him.
“Are you a doctor?” he asked.
“No, I’m not.” Her dark eyes narrowed on him. “I’m sorry I kept you waiting.”
“We just got here, really.”
“Not tonight. For all these months.”
Over on the driver’s side, a car door opened and there was some flapping and shuffling as Lydia covered her body. He supposed he should have been uncomfortable that she’d been naked in front of a total stranger, but if she wasn’t bothered, why should he be?
“So what changed your mind, Alex?” He hobbled to the rear door of the Suburban and opened the back. “I’m going to have to sit down. ’Scuse me.”
When he pivoted and tried to pop himself up onto the lip of the cargo hold, he fumbled—and was caught by the stranger with the weapons. But the woman didn’t give him a lot of fussy sympathy or simpering compassion. She just hitched him up by the armpits, set him on the edge as he’d wanted to be, and stepped away. No muss, no fuss.
“So how long have you been in the military,” he asked her.
Her eyes were gray, dark gray. Like her guns.
“I’m not. Well, not in the sense you mean.”
“Me, either.” When she cocked a brow, he figured as a dead man walking, he could afford to be more honest than he usually was. Ever was. “I’m also not in a formally recognized arm of the government.”
“So how long do you have,” she asked quietly.
When Daniel just cocked a brow back at her, she shrugged. “Running out of time means different things to different people.”
“Two months,” he answered. “Maybe. So why did you change your mind about meeting us.”
Not a question, a demand. Because if she could walk around in his mental garden of delights, he expected some quid pro quo on her end.
“My husband, as you’d call him, almost died last night.” As he recoiled, she nodded. “It was a reminder.”
Lydia came around. “Of what, exactly?”
The woman, soldier—whatever she was—looked back and forth between the two of them. “That things can be taken away in the blink of an eye.”
Lydia took Daniel’s hand and squeezed it.
“Does she know what you are?” he asked in a quiet voice.
“Yeah,” Alex Hess said. “I know she’s wolven.”
“But you’re not one of them.”
“No.” Before he could ask her how she could help or what her connections were with Lydia’s other side, the woman cut him off. “Exactly how did you get my number?”
* * *
She’s a vampire, Lydia thought. And something else.
As she stood by Daniel and held his hand, she tested the air with her nose, teasing out and disregarding the scents of shampoo, deodorant, and fabric softener… so she could focus on what was under all that artificial surface stuff.
Vampire. Yes.
Since the spring, Lydia had run into them on the mountain from time to time—although rarely, because like wolven, they preferred to keep to their own. They always recognized her, however, just as she noted their presence, and invariably, there was eye contact over the heads of Homo sapiens.
But there was something else to the female. Something she had never sensed before.
“I got your number from a source,” Daniel said in response to the question that was floating around them.
“What kind of source.”
As the terse demand hit the cold air, Lydia appreciated the female’s no-nonsense approach to conversation.
And she did bring up a question that was worth asking.
“Just someone I know,” Daniel hedged.
“Who is…?”
“A person I once used as a source in a brokered deal for information—and no, I’m not going any further than that.”
In a rush of memory, Lydia remembered the details of Daniel’s previous life, before he’d met her, before the cancer had come for him: She recalled the terrible story of how his mom had thrown herself off a bridge when he’d been a teenager—and how he’d tried in vain to save her. After that, he had floated around under the radar of the system, a homeless kid who had stayed on the streets and learned to survive. Somewhere along the line, he’d joined the military… and after that, he’d worked for a clandestine agency, a shadow arm of the U.S. government tasked with protecting the human genome from bioengineering.
Which was how he’d come to the Wolf Study Project, and why he had lied to her in the beginning about who he really was and what his purpose in Walters had to be.
She could only guess what the information he’d brokered with the “source” for had been and why it had been required.
And no, she didn’t want to know the contact he had used.
“Can you give me a name?” The female known as Alex Hess looked over at Lydia. “Or you?”
“He never told me,” she replied. “And I never asked.”
Daniel squeezed her hand. Then brought it up and kissed it. “I’ll say this. I believe he, too, was… different. In some way.”
