“Make sure you write that first observation,” I reminded her with a snort. Pulling a pen out of the pocket of my jeans, I uncapped it and reached across to scribble on Charlie’s page. “Drama queen.”
The sound of the lab door unlocking via electronic access card halted our conversation as more of the team settled into their home, away from home. With the lab being the largest space on the floor, Matt would brief us all here before he set us free to work. I itched to implement the months of reading and planning that we’d put in place.
The only thing I was missing was the test subject.
Furious didn’t cover how I felt about the decision.
There wasn’t a single word in any language that could describe the white-hot rage that pulsed through me.
Hunter had been in discussions with the mortals for years and hadn’t bothered to inform us all. Not until he’d brought the plans forward to the council. And I had been the only one to object to the ludicrous idea. I thought we’d have more time. I believed I could talk them around. Erik, Ig, Sloan — they were always willing to listen to me, but the days had run together and all the lip service materialised into reality.
Outnumbered, I had no choice. My anger had flourished, and Hunter needed to rebuild the council chambers when I was done. When they’d wrestled me into cuffs, it had tipped me over the edge. They dulled the powers that coursed through my veins, and I cursed my brother in every tongue I could for agreeing to work with those who were beneath us. To give them power over us so Hunter could have a pet project. I didn’t care about his reasoning. It was pure lunacy.
I walked sullenly with the mortals left in charge of me and was ushered into a lab, silent now that they had separated me from my kin.
Even without my clear rage, the team gave me a wide berth, and that was how I preferred it. Slowly surveying the room, I took in the members of my team. All of them lesser beings who needed to be reminded of their place.
“Matthew Holden.” A man introduced himself, taking a step forward and stopping in front of me. “I’m the head of the team that’ll be in charge of your integration.”
I looked at him, already bored by mortal pleasantries.
“You’ll also be spending time with Dr Charlotte Brown,” Holden pressed on. “She’s a behavioural psychologist and heading that branch of the team.”
Charlotte stepped forward and offered a bashful smile. It was a smile she had probably perfected for her clients. One that made them feel at ease with her. She dressed demurely, and she’d chewed the lid of her pen until it lost its shape — a tell-tale sign she was nervous to start this job.
“You want to know if I have Daddy issues?” I sneered at her, not taken in by her timid manner. This woman wanted to understand what made me tick, but she had no right to pry inside my head. Nothing would be handed to her easily.
“Well,” she responded, not rising to the bait, “it’s more than that.”
Holden placed a hand on her arm to stop the potential verbal essay she had prepared and was about to unleash from her lips.
“You’ll also work with Dr Quentin Scott,” Holden told me. “Our resident developmental biologist on this floor.”
I was surprised when another woman stepped forward. With a name like Quentin Scott, I’d expected to see a man. Instead, I was faced with a woman, who for a moment, had caught my eye as I was dragged past the meeting earlier. Her eyes were so dark they looked black, but the fear from earlier had been wiped clean.
Standing in front of me now, I sensed the chaos that laid beneath the surface. It didn’t run as freely as it did in the others that occupied the room. She buried it deep, kept it under lock and key, but I wanted to crack her open and feed from it.You only restrained something so aggressively when you knew it was a beast that couldn’t be controlled.
Holden opened his mouth to continue the introduction, but Quentin Scott cut him off.
“I’m interested in your biological composition and what makes you so different from us.”
She walked up to me, with Holden hovering a few steps behind her. This woman was no different from the rest of them. The beat of her heart was prominent in her chest, picking up the pace as she neared me. She’d witnessed the spectacle I’d made of myself, and she feared what I was truly capable of. My reputation wasn’t completely shattered yet.
“As if I’m able to show you what makes me superior,” I spat bitterly. My fingers flexed, but nothing happened, and the anger stirred in my chest, heating every inch of my skin.
A ghost of a smile tugged at her lips. “The cuffs,” she said, realising what had upset me.
They were currently wrapped around my wrists, locking my hands together in front of me, giving me the appearance of a common criminal.
I narrowed my eyes at her and asked, “What do you know about them?”
“Quentin helped create them,” Holden answered from behind her. “Along with some of the —"
I looked back down at the woman before me and launched myself at her without a second thought, unable to contain the rage again. She stumbled backwards out of the way, narrowly missing my attack, while Holden pushed past her and joined the other two security guards in grappling with me to regain some control over the situation.
“Let him go,” Scott told them, straightening out her lab coat. I’d caught her off guard and rattled the calm composure she’d held. “Let him go. I’m fine.”
“Scott,” Holden said, looking back at her. “He just tried to attack you.”
