Danger That Is Damion (16 page)

“I do not get any energy off the female,” Michael argued.

“Stretch your senses beyond the familiar,” Damion urged. “You’ll find her. If she has the ability to shield her location, she doesn’t know how to use it.” His attention shifted between the two men. “They were on us like rats on cheese. I couldn’t risk another hostage situation like the episode back at that cabin.” His gut clenched at those words, at the reminder of just how bad things had gotten back there. “How’s Chale?”

“Still alive,” Caleb said, his attention remaining on Lara.” “Damion did the right thing by bringing you here. No one can get to you inside our city. You’re safe.”

“Safe by your definition,” she said. “I’m not—”

Her words cut off abruptly as she dropped like a rock, her eyes rolling back in her head, her body going limp as a noodle.

Damion cursed softly and caught her a second before she hit the ground, scooping her into his arms and immediately heading toward the elevator. “She needs a doctor,” he said, giving the other two Renegades a quick rundown of her condition as they stepped into the car, and finishing with, “In short, I’m pretty sure someone’s been playing around in her head. Now that they don’t have a handle on her, she’s having painful flashbacks, maybe hallucinations. She doesn’t know who to trust, because she can’t decipher fact from fiction, enemy from ally.”

Michael keyed in a set of security codes, and a series of body and iris scans began on all three GTECHs. “Considering Ava has the ability to influence female minds, I’d say this was her doing, but that means she’s overcome the need to keep the subject at close range.”

The doors to the car began to close. “I’m still not buying the idea that Adam would allow Lucian or Sabrina to live, let alone, trust them,” Caleb said.

“Maybe he’s playing cat-and-mouse with them,” Michael offered, “and fully intends to slaughter them when they’ve served their purpose.”

The car started moving as various murmurs of agreement filled the elevator. “These flashbacks Lara is experiencing explain the odd mix of emotions I’m reading in her,” Caleb commented. “She’s terrified that everything she’s believed in is a lie. You were right, Damion. She definitely believes the Renegades and the Zodius are equally as evil. But yet… she feels the need to trust you, even protect you.”

“That’s because I don’t want anyone to steal my thunder,” Lara hissed softly, “and kill you before I get the chance.” She lifted her head to stare at him. “Put me down.”

“You fainted,” he said. “I’m not putting you down until you see a doctor.”

“I’m fine,” she said. “But I swear to you, Damion, if you don’t put me down right now, you won’t be.”

Michael chuckled. “I think I like this woman.”

Damion ignored him, speaking to Lara. “Right after I find a doctor to check you out.”

She glared at him, the vulnerability of a doe-caught-in-headlights just beneath the defiance, but still her chin lifted. “I might be here. I might be your prisoner, but I’m not done fighting.”

“Good,” he assured her, a smile teasing the corners of his mouth. “Because neither am I.”

And he wasn’t. He’d fight to protect her, to find out the truth about her life. He’d do both, despite a deep sense of uncertainty that told him there would be a price for doing so. His soldier logic told him that price might be too high in the big picture of war that quite possibly divided them. But to the man in him, holding her, feeling her warm in his arms, he was pretty certain logic had gone missing.

***

Deep beneath a Mexican mountain range in the Serenity headquarters, Logan Reynolds finished reading through the data on the latest Bar-1 conversion that one of his scientists, Jenna Jennings, had handed to him on a clipboard a few moments before.

“The subject’s brain wave activity is peaking much earlier than we once thought possible,” he commented, glancing up from the material and offering Jenna a satisfied smile. “Good news, considering Powell plans to bring us a new recruit next week. He’ll be impressed. Now if only we had unlimited serum, we’d be able to create the manpower Serenity needs to truly shut down all other GTECH operations and secure our country from a takeover.”

“You mean womanpower,” Jenna teased. “And my team is working diligently on the serum, trying to re-create it, but it’s not going well. And it needs to go well. I might not agree with all of Powell’s methods of leadership, but Adam Rain’s desire to create a ‘perfect Zodius race’ reads a little too close to Hitler’s ‘perfect Aryan race’ for comfort.”

“Agreed,” he said, setting the clipboard on a lab table. “And Caleb Rain and his Renegades might say they’re different, they might even be different, but they’re too big a risk to leave alone. I am making some progress on Bar-2.” That being the male version of Bar-1. “If I can perfect it, we can use it on the Renegades and the Zodius to control them, rather than kill them.”

“You’ll get it,” she assured him and batted long lashes at him. “You’re just that good, I guess.”

She was a cute little blonde, and with her peachy perfect skin, she looked more like twenty-two than her real age of thirty-two. She had brains and a rocking body to boot. Not to mention how well she played the demure flirtation game, unintentional as it may be, to tie-him-in-knots perfection. “Not me,” he corrected softly. “
We.
We’re that good.”

Their eyes locked and held, and while the look in hers was both shy and uncertain, his, he was quite sure, was far more hungry and primal than he should have allowed it to be.

The air virtually crackled with her unspoken question.
Am
I
crazy, or do you want me too?
A question he knew came from the ever-present call of passion between them that remained unanswered.

But there was what he defined as a “complication,” a reason he didn’t dare touch her. Still… Logan could almost convince himself nothing mattered but pulling her into his arms and tasting her.

Abruptly, that moment of fantasy came crashing to an end, quite literally when the lab door opened and slammed into the wall. “Get out!” came the harsh female command.

Both Logan and Jenna looked up to find Sabrina—the “complication” herself—in the entryway, and her attention wasn’t on Logan. It was on Jenna.

“I said, get out,” Sabrina repeated to the other woman through clenched teeth.

Jenna stood transfixed by the other woman’s presence. Logan could see why. Sabrina was certainly a striking presence, posed in the doorway, her long flaming hair brushing her broad, but slender shoulders, her ripped jeans and snug Harley T-shirt molded to her lithe body like a second skin. Untouched by Bar-1, and uncontrolled by anything but her need for Powell’s protection, she was as wildly arrogant and assuming as any of the GTECHs that Serenity was designed to destroy. One look at Jenna’s pale face told Logan that Sabrina terrified her.

The urge to comfort her was strong, out of character. He didn’t do the coddling, sensitive thing, but Jenna brought out urges in him he didn’t understand. He actually cared that she was alone, without family, and that her work, her place here with him, was all she had. These were nonsense things that had nothing to do with duty and the job at hand, yet somehow they were important where Jenna was concerned.

The hatred burning from Sabrina’s black eyes into Jenna told Logan that Sabrina knew Jenna mattered to him, and she didn’t like it. “Give me a few minutes, Jenna,” he urged, trying to get her off Sabrina’s radar, out of danger. Sabrina
would
hurt Jenna—he had no doubt. Causing pain entertained Sabrina.

“And since they might be the last few minutes he knows in this lifetime,” Sabrina said, “don’t hurry back. I’d hate to taint your delicate sensibilities with the sight of blood.”

Jenna gasped and turned to Logan in silent question.

“It’s okay,” he assured her, more than accustomed to Sabrina’s threats, even physical demands, and then smiled. “If she kills me, you get to be in charge.” Her eyes went wide, and he laughed. “I’m joking.” He glanced at his watch, shocked at the time. “How did it get to be two o’clock in the morning? Go to bed, Jenna. We’ll start fresh in the morning. Or rather, later in the morning at this point.”

“No.” She shook her head. “I don’t want to leave. I—”

“It’s okay,” he assured her, oddly warmed by the realization that she was worried about him. No one worried about him. He was a loner by design, by duty. Yet, even now, with his assurances, she looked as if she might dig in her heels and insist on staying. “I’m okay.” He motioned to the door. “Go rest. Tomorrow is another day.”

She didn’t look convinced. “You’re sure?”

“Positive.”

She studied him a moment and then nodded before reluctantly heading to the exit opposite from where Sabrina stood, glancing over her shoulder as if she might change her mind.

The minute Jenna shut the door, Sabrina slammed hers. In a blink, Logan was shoved against the concrete wall. Pain bit a path down his spine, and air lodged in his lungs.

“You know I like it rough, baby,” he said breathlessly, “but I thought we’d agreed to keep the violence in the bedroom, preferably with you naked, before we get started. Somehow that makes the pain endurable.” Sadly, more than endurable. More like darkly erotic in ways he’d never thought possible. He hated this woman, yet he wanted her, and he had no idea why. Even now his cock was hard; even now, he was ready for her.

Not like Jenna. Jenna had changed everything, made him regret Sabrina, made him wish he didn’t want her and wish he could turn back the clock. But it was too late. He was in too deep with Sabrina, and he couldn’t turn back.

Sabrina’s hand snaked out, a strong GTECH finger pressing to his throat, choking him. “Is that rough enough for you, Logan, honey?” she asked, her free hand sliding up his thigh and pressing to his crotch. “Because right now, I’m feeling like hurting you real bad. You converted Lara too quickly. She conspired with Lucian and sold us out to the Renegades.”

For Logan, the implications of her words were lost to one need. “Air” Logan tried to gasp, but nothing came out. He couldn’t breathe. Desperately, he grabbed at her fingers, trying to pry them free of his neck. “Please.” The strangled word was barely audible. Her fingers dug deeper into his neck, and somehow he forced out the words, “Can fix… her… Lar… a…”

She glared at him, her eyes black ice, so cold he was sure he was a dead man. Instead, a disgusted sound slid from her lips, and she dropped him to the ground. “Pathetic human,” she said. “Your begging disgusts me. It changes nothing.” She whirled around, giving him her back, and sauntered to a lab table.

He sucked in the sweet bliss of air and rubbed his bruised neck. Contrary to her insults, he knew she loved when he begged, loved playing dominatrix—but he wasn’t a fool. She would still kill him. She’d just drag it out and make him suffer first.

She leaned against a lab table, watching him with a mixture of amusement and lust. Hurting him turned her on. Damn it to hell, why did it turn him on too? Deep down, he knew. He wasn’t going to pretend otherwise. Confinement to the Serenity lab had stolen that rush of danger, the high of living on the edge that being a CIA assassin had given him.

He felt it now through the rush, the adrenaline pulsing through him. He was standing on a ledge about to be pushed, and he freaking lived for this feeling. This was where he was best—on the edge, where his mind worked best. And why he’d been a damn good undercover agent.

“Bring Lara to me,” he said. “The Renegades trust her. I’ll reprogram her to use the Renegade trust to destroy them, and Lucian along with them.”

“I killed Lucian, but Lara is already under Renegade protection,” she said. “I can’t get to her. The damage is done. Serenity is exposed.”

“Powell is a master manipulator,” Logan said. “He’ll find a way to spin this with the White House. Serenity will survive this. It will go on.”

“And so will I,” she said. “Which means Powell has to know I dealt with those who failed him—definitively and decisively. You have to die, Logan.” She shoved off the table and sauntered toward him, pressing against him. “I’ll make it good for you, sugar. When you come, when you’re feeling no pain, I’ll end it then. For old time’s sake.”

“Why would you want to kill the one person who can give you Lara?” he asked. His mind raced, calculating how to turn the tables and make this work for him.

She laughed. “Right. You can give me Lara. I don’t think so.”

“Every GTECH subject I assimilated to Bar-1 has a built-in trigger,” he said. “And that trigger, when activated, will bring them back to their old self. Use that trigger in the right way, the way I alone know to use it, and Lara will not only come running right back into your hands, she’ll be a blank canvas ready for creation.”

“You’re lying,” she accused. “The GTECH immune system destroys any foreign objects. A trigger wouldn’t survive insertion.”

“That’s where my scientific expertise comes into play,” he said.

She narrowed her gaze, angst in their depths that he read as fear that, she too, possessed such a trigger. “Powell knows of this trigger?”

“I never, ever, show my full hand until necessary,” he said. “A way to ensure
I’m
necessary.”

“Show me,” she said. “Use this trigger now. Bring Lara to me.”