“You need to understand what is going on here. We are in full mating heat. I know you’ve been analyzing your responses. You’ve seen the proof.” Vin swung an arm out to encompass the lab at large. “You can’t refuse it or resist it. You may think you have it under control, but once Tag and I get you alone, you’ll be begging for it.”
Brit rolled her eyes with a snort. “Do you even know just how egotistical that sounds?”
Vin purposely used the preternatural speed of his kind to round the table before she could react and aligned his body against hers. With a hand against the small of her back, he pulled her tight enough to feel the steel of his erection against her belly. Her startled squeak blew against his chin.
“Don’t fool yourself, love,” Vin whispered against her cheek, his lips moving to her ear. “Once we have you between us—and we will very soon—you
will
be begging to stay there. And when that time comes, there will be nothing but skin to separate us.” Vin dragged his mouth back across her cheek to breathe against her lips. “So yes,
now
is the only time we are likely to get to discuss it.”
She trembled against him, and his dragon writhed beneath his flesh as though wishing to touch her. He dropped his hand and allowed her to step back, gaze drawn to the wild flicker of her pulse at the base of her neck. Soon he would taste that frantic pulse with his lips, feel it in her wrists held tight in his palms as he lost himself in the depths of her body.
“Fine,” she said breathlessly, eyes wide, pupils dilated until the pale blue was a fragile ring. In her mind he could clearly see the image he’d drawn in his, her body rising to meet his every thrust, arms restrained above her head.
Brit spun back to the counter, knocking books to the floor. She muttered in Gaelic and bent down to retrieve them. Vin smiled. It appeared he might have found a way to even the odds when she was being obstinate.
“You’ve adequately made your point.” Brit slammed the books to the counter and faced him, hands buried in the pockets of her lab coat. “What is it I need to understand?”
“The truth,” Vin said before he lost his good intentions. He paced away from her, needing both the distance and the activity. “Twenty years ago, my older brother died from the unmated heat. We were close.” He closed his eyes, the loss and helplessness roiling over him. If he’d had half the promise his people believed he did, he should have been able to save Bryce. Vin shook his head and turned back to meet her gaze. “After that, I swore I would find a way to save my species. We had been hearing rumors that the Triumvirate was making strides in genetic manipulation. I made the decision to infiltrate the Dublin labs.”
Brit frowned. He knew the Triumvirate’s Dublin labs were where she’d been held for most of her adolescent years. Vin held his hand up to stop the questions he could feel rising in her.
“I spent ten years gaining the trust of the Triumvirate.” He hadn’t gotten there on his own; others were still in the Triumvirate’s inner circle. But he wouldn’t acknowledge their existence and put them at risk after all the sacrifices they’d made to get there. Not even to his mate. “Then I saw you.”
“Wait! I don’t remember…” She was shaking her head, searching her memory.
“You wouldn’t. The Triumvirate kept you fairly insulated from the rest of us, and you were too young and intent on your work to notice the men around you. But I recognized right away what you were despite the impossibility of it. I arranged to get you out, but somehow Triumvirate guards found out.” And everything had gone to hell from there. Shards of memory flickered through her mind. He could see them, feel her trying to assemble them. She’d struck her head when her father had pushed her and her sister out of the fight. She’d been conscious but only barely.
“My parents. My sister…Meghann tried to protect me.” Tears welled in her eyes, making the blue crystalline.
Her spitfire of a sister had launched directly over Brit’s prone body, eyes black, claws drawn. The teenager had killed two guards and wounded another before she was killed. Or so he’d thought. Back then his only interest had been Brit and getting her out alive.
“We left them there to die. It was my fault they were there in the first place. If I hadn’t wanted to learn—”
“No,” Vin said and clenched his fists against the need to touch her, to pull her into his embrace, but he’d never finish this if he touched her now. And the hardest part was still unsaid. “They were not your victims, love. They knew the risks. It was your mother who screamed for me to save you.” The woman, stunning with her fire-red hair and flashing green eyes, had stood between him and Brit and the oncoming guards, her daughter and husband dead at her feet.
Brit drew herself up, and Vin could see much of that woman in the one who stood before him. More composed, she nodded. “So you were there that night. You carried me out. Then what?”
Vin inhaled and met her gaze. She was so beautiful and brilliant and strong. He was humbled by her—his mate. His father was right. He couldn’t start their lives without honoring her with the truth. “I had to go back, to buy you time. Arrangements were being made to get you out of the country, but you were too young, too vulnerable. I didn’t want you to live hunted, so I made a deal with the Triumvirate.”
Brit narrowed her eyes. Did she anticipate the darkness of the truth before she knew exactly what it was? Not for the first time, Vin suspected her natural intellect was enhanced by a certain degree of psychic talent.
“What kind of deal?”
“They agreed to leave you alone, and in exchange I offered to continue—”
“Doc!” The lab door opened with a
snick
, and a woman with blonde hair and ice-blue eyes barreled in. Katya—the mate of the other Drachon. “You need to see this.”
Brit’s gaze lingered on him for a long moment as though she would ask him to go on, but she only turned and followed Katya to a computer terminal. Heart pounding heavily, Vin moved to stand behind them. He didn’t know if he was relieved or discouraged by the stay of execution.
“Tag found footage of the women in that room, including your sister. They were moved the morning of the raid on the facility.” Katya stepped back to show them the video footage of five women being escorted down a hall. A guard held one, a tiny brunette, to his side, a gun to her head. The other four walked in front of him. One woman looked over her shoulder, long red hair falling down her back, eyes promising death to the guard. That was definitely Brit’s sister.
“Look!” Katya panted, her excitement poured off her skin. Vin glanced down at the little blonde, tilting his head, easing his mind over hers. Her heartbeat was fast and irregular.
“See that woman herding them into that room?”
Vin turned his gaze back to the screen. A tall, thin woman with glasses and her hair pulled tightly back from her face was ushering the women into the room. She wore a lab coat, and an identification tag swung from the breast pocket. The woman glanced back over her shoulder, seemingly nervous.
“She’s Dr. Rupple’s assistant.” Katya gasped, holding on to the back of the chair tucked beneath the computer station. “She tried to convince me to leave with some guards when I was there. We think she’s working for the Rebels. Now watch…”
Katya’s hands shook, and she had to type the sequence of commands twice before she got it right. A new video came on the screen. This one of another cell with a single bed, a sink, and a toilet. Three of the women sat on the bed, and the other two, including Meghann, paced the small space.
“Katya?” Brit braced the other woman as she swayed to the side. “Come sit.”
“No!” Katya panted. “Watch. It looks like they’re talking to someone just off screen, and then one by one they just walk off.”
“Did Tag check the blueprint of the building? Is there another hidden door like in Rupple’s lab?” Vin frowned down at the screen. The angle of the camera didn’t provide coverage of that corner.
“The schematics didn’t show…” Katya’s voice faded off, and she reached for the back of the chair again but missed. Vin barely caught her as she lost consciousness.
Chapter Fifteen
“Lay her on the cart,” Brit instructed Vin as she pushed open the door to the small exam room off her lab. She yelled out, “Tag, I need Raife down here right now!” She knew that Neanderthal had her exam room rigged with his “security” surveillance equipment.
“Her pulse is thready but present,” Vin said from behind her. She turned to see he’d found a stethoscope and blood pressure cuff and was putting them to use.
Brit stared at the pale woman on her cart and froze. She needed more time. If Katya died, she would take Raife and her unborn child with her. Brit couldn’t be responsible for three more people dying. A feeling of heaviness crept up her legs into her chest, weighing her down.
“Raife is on his way, baby. Do you need me?”
Tag’s soothing voice in her mind pushed the panic back.
“Not now.”
Brit jerked and looked up at Vin when his voice cut across the mental link between her and Tag. A cool, concise tone replaced that low rumble she’d become accustomed to.
“She won’t be able to handle both of us in here. She’s barely hanging on now.”
“Katya!” The roar resonated through the wall as Raife burst into the small room and skidded to a halt next to his unconscious mate. Kahn and Forestor were right behind him.
Brit shook herself and yanked the heart monitor from where it was positioned against the wall. “Blood. Give her blood now.”
Raife didn’t hesitate. He pulled a knife from a sheath at his ankle and slit his wrist open. He pressed the wound to his mate’s mouth and whispered against her temple, “Come on, baby girl. Stay with me.”
“Make her drink,” Brit ordered as she pulled the heart monitor leads from a drawer in the cart.
“Her blood pressure is too low,” Vin said and ripped Katya’s shirt open so Brit could apply the leads to her chest.
“How can I help?” Kahn said from the door.
“I need a blood sample,” Brit muttered. She needed to check Katya’s levels again. She hadn’t liked the way Katya had looked earlier. Brit should have insisted the woman come to the lab right away, but she’d been so distracted. “There.” Brit pointed to the drawer that held her supplies.
Vin pressed several buttons on the heart monitor, and a fast, irregular
bleep
sounded from the machine. Both she and Vin studied the lines across the screen. Katya’s heart was having a hard time keeping up.
“Doc!” Brit turned, and Raife, pale and drawn, motioned to where blood stained the cream slacks between Katya’s legs.
“She’s degenerating too quickly.” Brit steepled her fingers together against her lips and watched Raife frantically try to get his mate to drink. Tears stained his angular face. Kahn, Forestor, and Vin were standing there looking at Brit. Waiting. Kahn held the hypodermic in his hand.
Time slowed as she stared at that needle. Katya was mostly Sanguen, or had been until she’d been genetically altered. Pregnant Sanguen received important proteins when digestive enzymes broke down the blood. But Katya was mated to a Drachon. Her baby would be mostly Drachon. What if the fetus wasn’t getting what it needed through the traditional feeding of the Sanguen? Yet the mutation of the ARSA was breaking down her blood cells faster than she could reproduce them to maintain herself, let alone a fetus. She needed whole blood, not just the proteins she received from feeding from Raife.
A transfusion.
Brit burst into action, turning to yank a drawer open and pull out two needles and tubing. She tossed one of the needles to Kahn. “Start a line on Raife. We need to transfuse her now.”
The three of them established a line directly from Raife’s artery to Katya. Brit watched the clear tube turn dark with blood and checked Katya’s IV site to be sure it was infusing. Once she was satisfied, she yanked open another drawer and pulled out the small Doppler fetal heart monitor.
God, please let there be a heartbeat.
She just needed more time. She’d be able to fix this.
Please, just give me more time.
Brit unbuttoned Katya’s slacks and pulled them back to put the gel on her lower belly. She slid the wand along Katya’s skin, aware of the sudden stillness in the room and the soft sounds of Raife begging. She closed her eyes, straining to catch any sound, any indication that the fetus still lived. Relief sent a chill down her arms as the rapid, strong beat of the baby’s heart broke the tension of the room.
Thank you. Thank you. I’ll find a cure. I can fix this.
Tag’s voice eased over her mind, settling her.
“Easy, baby. You’ll kick this thing’s ass. I know it.”
“
We
can do this, love. Let me help you.”
Brit opened her eyes and looked right into Vin’s, her knees trembling, the handheld monitor clutched to her chest. “This is all my fault.”
“No, love,” Vin whispered, taking the equipment out of her hand and handing it off to his father. “The Triumvirate did this. You were as much a victim as Katya.”
Brit fell into those hazel eyes; the soft greens and browns held her. She was so tired, so heavy. Vin was right; she could barely think rationally anymore. She was not only no help, but she could make matters worse in her condition. Her hesitation had almost cost Katya her life and that of her child’s.
“Your quick thinking saved her.”
“I just don’t know anymore,” Brit muttered, looking back at Katya and Raife. Vin’s hard chest felt solid against her shoulder where she sagged against him. “I just…I don’t know if I can do this.”
“Her cardiac rhythm is stabilizing,” Kahn said, placing a big hand on Raife’s shoulder. “I’ll stay with Agent Merrick and help him care for his mate while you care for yours.”
Brit shook her head. “No, I need to get a sample and check her levels. I don’t know how much time—”
“Go.” Kahn’s voice resonated with authority. “You cannot help her in your condition. Let my son feed you. Sleep. Then we will confront this together. You are no longer alone, little healer. You are a Drachon.”
Brit sagged against Vin again, frustrated with the limits of her body.