A woman’s voice carried from behind the barricade of green beasts.
“Gage,” she called gently. “May I come in?”
Gage wet his lips. “Scar…I only met her last night. But the men in green, they’ve been straight with me. They’re not bad guys.”
“I want out. Now.” Scar snarled.
“Open it,” the bigger warrior said.
Scar grabbed the closest item he could use as a weapon—a thick, metal diagnostic arm from a machine—and clamped his hand around Gage’s wrist.
Everyone gave him a wide berth as he dragged Gage with him into the empty hallway.
If he had to fight his way out, he wouldn’t leave Gage.
The corridors weren’t the same white labyrinth he expected. They were modern. Clean. Bright with LED panels.
There were no armed guards lining the walls. No limitless cameras or bolted reinforced glass.
Gage tugged him lightly. “Elevator’s this way.”
Scar didn’t release him. He still didn’t trust what he saw.
Inside the elevator, Scar sucked in a full breath.
His head still throbbed from the forced sedation. His body buzzed with the aftershocks of the rush as his eyes continued to skim the corners, vents, seams, and reflections, searching for traps.
Gage reached for him, but he dodged it.
“Why are we going up?” he bit out. “Are you seriously trusting these people? Haven’t you learned anything?”
Gage was too calm. Too centered. Too….
The doors slid open.
Scar didn’t let Gage step out until he scanned both ends of the hall.
Gage guided him to a door with a keypad. After he put in the code and the door clicked open, Scar surged inside first.
He swept every room, and corner. His vision had sharpened well enough to confirm that nothing and no one was hiding behind furniture, and no threats lurked behind closed doors.
When he returned, Gage was sitting on a chair in the living room area with his hands folded in his lap.
He looked at Gage…really looked at him.
He wasn’t the clean-cut church boy from the West Side, or the broken man in White Sector 30, or the scared man he’d stupidly left behind in a barn.
He was…he was… Fuck.
He stared at Gage’s fair skin—that’d always looked too damn soft for the streets—and gentle features. He looked too beautiful to be touched by his dangerous hands.
Gage’s eyes used to be as bright blue as the summer skies, the kind of color that’d pissed Scar off because no one was supposed to look that innocent.
Now his irises were lighter, almost translucent.
An otherworldly blue that looked carved from glacier ice. So damn beautiful it made Scar’s chest tighten and his jaw clench.
He’d always found Gage attractive. An annoying, good-boy handsome that drove him insane because it made him want him in a way he couldn’t have him.
