Chapter Fourteen
THIS HAS TO be the stupidest thing I’ve ever done.
Alex stood with Kennedy in an abandoned warehouse down by the waterfront in Seattle. At the late hour, only a few transients and the occasional tweaker had neared the building. Most of them had taken one look at him and walked in the opposite direction.
He’d have done the same in their place. He felt like he looked—wild around the eyes, tempted to claw through something just to alleviate the growing tension. His beast hated the thought of being the bait in a trap, not when he could have lain in wait to hunt those hunting him.
His heightened senses made his skin impenetrable to normal armor, but the enemy would come with Circ-piercing weapons. The worst part was knowing he wouldn’t be killed, but that they’d make sure to sedate him so Doctor Crazy could run more tests. Having seen what Lang, Smith, and the others had done to Gideon and the guys—God, Smith hadblowtorched Gideon’s balls—Alex had no desire to become a human pin cushion.
The knowledge Kennedy was also in danger was killing him. But her beast refused to let him treat her as something less, to be protected. The creature had stared at him through Kennedy’s eyes, and he took small comfort in knowing his mate could defend herself. Besides, Kennedy was no one’s fool.
Except perhaps, when it came to her family.
He watched her pace, scented as much as saw her nerves, and sighed. Man, even anxious, she was the loveliest woman he’d ever known. She appealed to him no matter what. Even their arguments about him coming with her hadn’t dissuaded him from feeling so much for the stubborn beauty.
Kennedy wore a hooded sweatshirt under a sleeveless vest, hiding her dark red hair, but her eyes gleamed a vivid blue, and she wore no contacts to mask her beastly eyes. Like Bailey, her pupils remained human. A side effect to better let the females blend in, for safety, perhaps? He didn’t know. But he did know he wanted this over like yesterday.
Alex felt exposed, but this opportunity to get to Lang had to be explored. He hadn’t liked lying to his team, but he knew how those with foresight worked. There were key events that had to occur, because they affected the future. And screwing with those events could lead to much worse happening. Charlie had told Kennedy to come with Alex, alone. So they’d come alone. Eleven p.m., on the dot.
But he wasn’t a complete idiot. He’d left behind a message for the guys, as well as ingested a tracker, one that wouldn’t be detected on his body, thanks to some high tech gear they’d “appropriated” from some government types not long ago.
The question of whether or not the bug would function past electrocution and God only knew what hell they’d put him through, though, that remained.
Alex glanced around at the three-story building. Broken glass windows at the top of the structure allowed moonlight to stream inside and cast shadows over the concrete pillars and mounds of rubble over the cement floor. The main bay doors had been ajar, security around the rundown place nonexistent. He wondered what exactly this place had been before it had been abandoned. Not part of the shipyard, he didn’t think.
The smell of chemicals and an odd metal hinted at something else…
Or perhaps that was the smell of Lang’s men already set up and prepared to take him and Kennedy in. He still couldn’t believe he’d gone along with her reasoning, but her psychic cousin had insisted, allowing him to rationalize the instructions.
A deeper, angrier part of him knew the urge to put his hands around Yates’s neck and squeeze, or better yet, to disembowel Myers again. Except this time he’d make sure Myers died before leaving his body to rot.
“You’re growling,” Kennedy whispered.
“This is stupid. You shouldn’t be here.”
“Why? Because I’m a girl?”
Of course her belligerence did nothing but turn him on. “Yeah, because you’re a girl. Lang wants nothing more than to breed more Circs.” They’d had this discussion nonstop since she’d told him flat out to shut up. “Kennedy, trust me. You don’t want this. There’s still time to go.” Though he doubted it now. He’d sensed them drawing closer, the enemy just outside the building.
No, now inside, creeping on near-silent feet a level above.
“I’ve said what I had to say.” She glared at him, but he heard her soothing in his mind, even if she wasn’t aware of it. After bonding the way they had, their mental pathways had opened. As if subconsciously, both recognized no threat in the other. Alex liked the idea, while a small part of him was uncomfortable with the knowledge that she could hurt him like no one else could.
“Why don’t you just talk to me in here all the time?” He tapped his forehead.
She flushed. “It feels intrusive. I don’t do it much unless I have to.”
“I like it.”
Her shy smile undid him. “Really?”
He smiled back. That’s when he felt rogue Circs draw closer, felt the dozen humans hovering on the inner girders on the second level. A subtle shift in energy differentiated powerful rogues nearby from the regular rogues. He couldn’t be sure, but he thought more than just the B series had come.
They’re here,she whispered in his mind, and he felt her pushing her power out as she concentrated.Yates, Myers, Sheer, some rogues, and a bunch of men with guns. Just like Charlie told us.
“I know.” His adrenaline pumped, and his beast fought him, rejecting the idea of overwhelming odds. It hadn’t liked that the team had split in the first place. Gideon and Carter had gone to investigate a fake lead Kennedy had given them, courtesy of her psychic cousin. A lie, obviously, yet the guys hadn’t sensed anything wrong with her information. Only Bailey had given him a few strange looks, though she hadn’t said anything.
She remained behind to watch their home base with Eli, where the pair would also work on more hand-to-hand training. Alex had taken Gideon aside to let him know Kennedy was out-wrestling Bailey. That hadn’t gone over well with their empath, but Alex would be damned if he’d hold back from Gideon, who took all their training and welfare into account. With their enemies close, they needed to be as strong as possible.
