Alphas Unleashed (42 page)

“I’m sorry about your place, Zoey. You two can stay here for a couple of days. I don’t report back to the Project until next week. The Sat schedule is posted by the garage door. You can borrow one of my cars. The Casper Project will have every camera in the city set to track the plates on your truck. So, unless they change things up, you’ll know when the house is being watched from above. And my boys will take care of any surveillance issues on the ground. They control every camera within a three-mile radius of the house. They can also get you intel, supplies, anything you need.”

“And just who are your boys?” Aron asked the question, but Zoey leaned around him, waiting for the answer.

“Katherine’s team at the CP. They walked in the dark with her, and when they came back…well, let’s just say they’ve got their own agenda these days. Any enemy of the Triscani is a friend of ours.”

Aron wrapped his arm around Zoey and pulled her close. His plan had seemed so simple before. Find the doctor, do what he had to, then hunt Triscani scum until he turned all their bodies to ash…or one of the Hunters did the same to him.

But now? Now everything had changed. Ajax was missing, most likely in a box somewhere being tortured to the very edge of insanity. The doctor and his human team were chasing their tails at this Casper Project. The ignorant humans didn’t even know the Triads existed, let alone have the courage to fight them. Most likely, the Casper Project itself was run by one of the Triads and none of the human soldiers knew the truth. One did not give an assault rifle to a child. How could he give his weapon to these humans when they were blind to the presence of such a foul enemy? An enemy much worse than the Triscani, an enemy that lived and walked among them, that pulled their strings like puppeteers and slaughtered humanity for sport.

And he had Zoey to think about, to protect. He’d assumed that she would be safer if he led the Hunters away from her. One beautiful, delicate flower lost in the ocean of almost seven billion humans on the planet.

He’d been wrong. Her internet alias and her blog made her the target of every Triscani, every Triad member, and, if the doctor was to be believed, every assassin within her own government. The list of powerful, dangerous beings who wanted her dead was long, and impressive.

It scared the hell out of him. He could never leave her alone. He was the most dangerous man alive, more deadly than all save his siblings, and more powerful than this Teagh, the Darkwalker Lord and Guardian of the Gates. Teagh, was part human. He had to be. To guard Earth’s Gates, he must have human D.N.A. Aron was not human, but he was more than a simple Itaran Prince. He was the Dark One of prophecy, the second born of three, the reincarnation of the original Triad, the rulers of all Itara before the new Queens took power and hunted his lineage. His will and power fed the Gates themselves, held the dark dimension together, filled the shadowed spaces between the light. Who better to keep Zoey safe from the dark than the monsters’ own prophesied king?

Dinner went by in a flash as Zoey and the doctor chatted and laughed, their banter easy in the way of old friends. Aron’s hands lifted food to his mouth and he ate without tasting, his mind busy calculating his next move, figuring the odds of a woman as beautiful and perfect a creature as Zoey choosing to stay with him willingly.

Sure, he’d pleasured her in bed, but now her home was gone. Her sister was dead. Her life had been destroyed by his people, by the other forbidden sons lost and exiled to the dark dimension. How could she trust him or want him in her life when it was his own kin who murdered Jiselle and brought death to millions of humans? Was he simply fodder for her blog? Was she using him to get information, using his mind and his ignorance of her world as a weapon?

More importantly, when had her love become more important to him than his people? Than his own survival? He’d been free of one cage a matter of hours. Did he now willingly walk into another one? Did she truly care for him, or did the Mark on his hip blind him to reality? Was she playing him for a fool? Using him for her own personal gain? A body guard with benefits? Was her presence on that mountain an elaborate ruse to trap him?

Were his enemies that smart? That patient?

Yes, they were.

He watched her move. She was fit, strong, but her bones were small. Her body petite and feminine. She was no warrior. No killer. How had she stayed alive this long without a protector?

Was she so desperate to expose the Triscani and the Itaran-led Triads that she’d sleep with the enemy for information? Was she as innocent, as unaware, as she seemed? Or were his years in the cage blinding him to the possibilities? Did she already know who the Triads really were? Why they were here? And if she did not know, could she love him when his brothers were Triscani scum and the mothers on Itara sent their criminals to Earth? Thanks to the House of Judgment’s negligence, those criminals ruled Earth’s people via a system of Triads. Monsters hungry for death on one side of his family tree and power-hungry Immortals on the other who, once exiled to Earth, lived centuries manipulating and enslaving the entire human race.

He was a real catch, definite mate material.

She’d have to be a fool to love him, and Zoey was no fool. She could be anyone. A thief. A liar. Seductress. Spy.

Her laughter moved through his blood stream like bubbling Champagne. He threw his fork down with a clang. He couldn’t breathe in here. This house, with its magnetic walls and reflective glass, was just a bigger box. Another cage. He still wasn’t free. 

Chapter 8

“I have to go, Zoey. I will return at dawn.” Aron had changed into black leather gear supplied by the doctor. He looked like one of those stupid vampire slayers from the movies, dressed all in black and dripping with sharp-edged weapons. Vampires? If only. She’d take a freaking vampire right now, with a side of zombie and a dash of werewolf for extra spice.

“No.” Zoey shook her head. She didn’t want to hear it. She’d known that Aron would take the destruction of her home as a personal challenge. Hell, she wanted to go hunt for the stupid Triscani herself. But not tonight. Not now. She wasn’t ready. She’d be no help in a fight, and she didn’t want to lose him.

“The Triscani stalk their prey from the shadows. They would have hidden in your home and waited like fat spiders for you to return. They did not burn your home. But someone did. And whoever it was, they are either very foolish, or they were trying to send you a message.”

“That they wanted me dead? That they hate my guts?” She paced and clenched her hands at her sides. “What?”

He stopped her in mid stride and held her face in his hands. “A warning not to go home. They may have saved your life and the lives of anyone who lived near you.”

“George.”

“Yes.” He placed a chaste kiss on her lips and walked to the chair near the window. They were in one of the doctor’s spare bedrooms. The suite was larger than the main floor of her entire house. A large-screen television hung on the wall opposite a king-sized bed covered in plush sheets and a down duvet. The whole room was decorated in soft greens and browns, a calm and soothing retreat from the world. It was peaceful. Perfect. And hers for as long as she needed to stay…doctor’s orders.

With Aron gone it would feel like solitary confinement.

Aron pulled on his new boots with a grunt and laced them up, not looking at her. “I have to find the Hunters who were at your home and destroy them before they can track you here. They won’t have gone far. They’ll be watching your house, watching your friends, hoping you return.”

“No. Let it go. It’s all ashes. I don’t care.” She pulled at her hair, on the verge of tears. How could she tell him what she felt? That she knew what was going on in that macho-man head of his. She’d felt him panic at dinner, shared his perceptions, the feeling of walls closing in on him, of being back in a cage. Trapped. That was what he’d felt when he looked at her. Not lust or love or even desire. Trapped.

But he was wrong. She didn’t want to cage him. If he wanted to run, she’d let him. But not into battle with an unknown number of nasty Immortal killers, and not using her stupid old house as an excuse. “I don’t need a protector, Aron. I don’t need you to fight my battles. I don’t want you to risk your life for me. Do you understand?”

He refused to look at her, but his anger and irritation became a palpable force floating in the air between them.

“I must eliminate the Hunters, Zoey. They are tracking me, and now you. They will kill a great many innocents. They’re worse than bloodhounds. They’ll never stop. They don’t need to eat or sleep. They don’t have a conscience. They don’t make love. They don’t listen to reason. They hunt and they devour human souls. It’s all they do.” With a sharp tug on the laces, he stood and shrugged into a lightweight leather jacket.

“Let me help you? You can use me as bait.”

“No.”

“I’ll distract them and you can take them out.”

“I said, no.” He headed for the door and paused with one hand on the open door’s frame. He turned to look at her over his shoulder and death was in his eyes. “I will hunt tonight. I will kill them all, suck their souls dry and turn them to dust. I don’t want you there, Zoey. Stay here, where I know you’ll be safe. I don’t want you there, in danger. You’re a liability that I can’t afford tonight.”

The words crushed her heart into a bloody pulp, but she met his glare with one of her own. “Fine. Go. Go kill things all by yourself.” She picked up a pillow and threw it across the room at his back. “But you’re wrong. You do need me there. You need me.”

He blinked slowly, like a mountain lion about to pounce.

She reined in her temper and calmly crossed the distance to where he stood. On tiptoe, she kissed his cheek and whispered in his ear. “You’re wrong, you know. I’m not a liability. I’m not the cage. I’m not your prison. The hell you live in is all yours, sweetie. Your power is your prison, and without me, the darkness will swallow you whole.”

He walked away and left her standing there like a broken-hearted fool, barefoot and alone.

Aron moved silently down the hallway. He’d never dreamt a pillow could hurt him, but it had. Leaving Zoey behind was painful, but necessary. What remained of her home was a ticking time bomb, a lure. But those Triscani were expecting to reel in a small helpless female, not an Immortal shark, one of their own.

The doctor didn’t look up from his desk as Aron entered the library, simply waved his hand at the chair and told Aron to close the door. Aron did, and sat facing the man on whom he’d pinned all of his hopes for humanity, a man who had no idea of the enormous burden Aron was about to lay on his shoulders. By the gods, Aron hope the little human doctor was made of steel.

The doctor clicked his mouse a few times and shut down the computer, unplugged it from the wall. He looked at Aron. “Cell phone?”

“No.”

“Good. Good.” Doctor Hansen leaned back in his black leather chair and looked over the tops of his reading glasses. “You’re leaving us?”

“Yes. I must hunt the Triscani and discover who destroyed Zoey’s home. It won’t be safe for her until I do.” Aron rubbed his sticky palms on the smooth leather of his pants. Why did he suddenly feel like a chastised boy awaiting a lecture from his father?

“Mmm-hmm.” The doctor’s shrewd blue eyes missed nothing. “Are you going to tell my why you sought me out? The real reason you’re here?”

Just as he’d suspected, the old man didn’t miss much. The thought gave him hope. “I need to give you some knowledge. It’s nothing I can put to paper, or explain to you. I will have to download the data directly into your mind, as if the knowledge and memories were your own.”

“You can do that?” The doctor looked intrigued.

Aron nodded, but held the man’s interested gaze. “Among other things.”

“What kind of data?”

Here is where things got tricky. “The kind that will put a giant target on your back. Every Triad member on Earth will want you dead.”

The doctor actually smiled. “That good, huh?”

“I’m afraid so.”

“What is the nature of the knowledge? Why would they want me dead?” The doctor walked around to the front of his desk to stand within arm’s reach. He took his reading glasses off and tossed them, forgotten, onto the stacks of paper and journals littering his desktop. “Why me?”

That was the real question.

Aron held the man’s gaze. Now was the time for honesty. If the doctor couldn’t handle the task, he’d wasted precious time here. He’d need to find another. He’d have to survive the hunt with his sanity intact, and he wasn’t sure that was possible without Zoey there to bleed away the darkness. But it didn’t matter. He couldn’t risk her life tonight.

“I chose you because Katherine trusts you. She believes you are courageous and honorable, that you will do absolutely anything to ensure humanity’s survival.” Aron stood, his shoulders dwarfing the lean little doctor like a giant oak standing over a sapling. “Anything.”

The doctor tilted his head back, but didn’t flinch or look away. “She’s right.”

“Good.” Aron held out his hand and the doctor placed his own in Aron’s gentle grip. “Hold on, Doc. It might be a bumpy ride.”

That was the only warning he gave before thrusting his mind and memories into the doctor’s head. The elderly man was healthy and strong, well educated in the field and brilliant, but the mental onslaught was too much for him, too fast, and his knees collapsed. Aron caught him and placed him in the chair. Knowledge and memories, some his own, most stolen, flowed like a river through his mind into the doctor’s. Genetics. Microbiology. Experiments gone right…and wrong. The males who’d come to torture him over the centuries had a long and twisted interest in human D.N.A. Aron hadn’t figured out why they were so obsessed with a species that was believed to be physically and mentally weaker, a species that was mortal. But he’d seen much when they touched him, oblivious to his power. He’d learned of the Timewalkers, the Descendants, and the Triads.