Betrayal's Shadow (17 page)

“Are your children born with past knowledge?”

He smiled. “To a great extent our children evolve into our knowledge. Basic core concepts and functions evolve as we grow:
folding
, healing, in the past access to records and histories, our Archives. The genetic uniqueness, however, is unpredictable and evolves for each child at maturity. Each generation is intended to have a full complement of all the genetic variances and skills.”

“Leaving a big gap after the virus while the children were re-evolving. Weren’t there any records? Or documents? Or computer stuff?”

“Most of our records are not what you would consider written. They exist in a special medium, one we’ve lost the ability to access. Our parents mined the Archives of the past to search and extract details and add insights. None of us have any ability to call the repository.”

The Archives? The big, friggin’ teleprompter in her kitchen? She’d accessed the medium, as a mere mortal—maybe not so mere anymore. Inspired by a latent gene, or was her ability a human bridge for the Guardians who were now void of access? If the Guardians couldn’t get to the Archives, perhaps fate had provided a human being to connect the missing circuitry. At least for now. Talk about cyber security. Password protection at brain level. Fascinating.

“You’re very quiet.”

She brushed at her pant leg. “It’s a lot to take in.”

“Yet you hardly seem surprised.”

“For a human?” She flashed him a quick grin. He rolled his eyes, but the edge of his mouth twitched. “The information is intriguing, not like learning about the hybrids. I can go home and pretend this is all just a dream.”

“Can you really?” he asked softly.

Mia shifted uncomfortably, and then rubbed her hands down her shins to wick away the subtext of his words.
Focus
.

There was more to his confusion and sadness than just missing pieces of history. In the middle of this muck was the real reason for the planetary guilt Turen carried. The more she mulled through this, the less she understood how a trained warrior had allowed his own capture, even if information in this compound held all the answers.

“You really expect you can salvage Xavier,” she whispered. From all she had seen in this compound, that goal was a one-way mission.

Turen rested his arms across his knees and hung his head. “You think too much.”

“What if he kills you? Your skills will be lost, too. Is it worth so much? What can you hope to recoup by such a sacrifice?”

His head jerked up, his expression fierce. “My people are worth everything I can give them.”

She let out a snort. “We’ll just tattoo martyr across your forehead and be done with it.”

He gave a harsh laugh. “No confidence in my abilities?”

Unsettled, she looked away for a second and then met his gaze. “I have an incredible amount of confidence in you. You scare me with your strength of purpose. I know I don’t have a chance in hell of talking you out of it, so that leaves me with assisting you along your path of insanity. The vial in my backpack, what did you want me to do with it?”

This time he glanced away, finally caught off-guard. “Would you keep it for me, somewhere safe for the time being?”

“Of course.” She nodded. “It’s his?”

“I’m guessing, yes. Any more information you wish to extract from my addled brain?” A layer of humor wove beneath the challenge in his words. “Perhaps you can solve all of this with a snap of your fingers.”

“Yeah, I’ll click my ruby slippers three times and fix everything.”

He glanced at her black long-sleeve shirt, slacks, and boots. “Steel-toed leather is the new ruby?”

“Funny.” He’d told her to blend, and she was doing her best. She shifted under his gaze and crossed her arms over her legs. “I’m trying, Turen.”

He wrestled her hand free and brought her knuckles to his lips for the briefest of kisses. A kiss a dear friend would bestow. “I know you are, my Mia.”

***

The first prick and injection barely registered in Turen’s brain. A metallic jangle rang as the syringe hit the rim of the shallow steel bowl and slid to a rest in the belly. The smart snap of fingers against the inside of his elbow preceded the prick of the second needle before it, too, flipped to join the first.

There was no physical change. The three full syringes remaining on the table before him warned that wouldn’t remain the case for long.

“Leave him.” Xavier’s voice echoed in the small lab room.

Fingers dug into his shoulders. Then the force that pressed him into the seat of the chair suddenly released and the fetid breath of his guards moved away.

The last guard hesitated by the door. “What of restraints?”

“Unnecessary,” said Xavier.

Turen tried to move and found he couldn’t. His eyes were open and alert, but his head wouldn’t turn, though he could still hear his breath channel in and out of his nostrils like a horse ridden hard.

No, Xavier didn’t need help for this session.

“Leave.”

Turen caught sight of Rasheer from the corner of his eye. The man’s eyes widened in surprise and then narrowed with annoyance.

The door closed, and Xavier grabbed the steel bowl, pitching the syringes into a lit fireplace in the room’s corner. With a brief crackle a flair of green and blue peaked, and then dissolved into the golden flame.

Xavier picked up a rubber strap. With an ease that confirmed extensive practice, he fastened the rubber to his own arm with one hand and glanced at Turen.

Eyes void of color, stark white, scrutinized him without a blink.

In silence, Xavier flipped open the top of a bronze-colored bottle, then shook two white crystals onto a tablespoon on the tabletop. His thumb and forefinger snapped an ampoule of amber fluid and poured it on top of the crystals. He flicked the ampoule into the fireplace with a cold smile.

Lifting the spoon above one of several lit candles on the table, he melted the concoction until it was liquid. With delicate care, he lowered the spoon to a plate and used an empty syringe to siphon the content. He looked Turen in the eye, not a challenge, but a hard promise. Then Xavier plunged the needled into his own engorged vein. Not a muscle moved on Xavier’s body as the drug fed into his system.

His comrade’s eyes closed with a deep inhale, as if he sucked the drug through his nose and not his vein. Eyes snapped back open, the last vestige of the man before gone. A cold glaze of black pupils with pinpoint striations of silver replaced the white void from moments ago.

Shit, how could Xavier see? Either extreme seemed impossible.

The man gave him a snide grin as if he could hear Turen’s thoughts. “Now we will begin your cocktail,
little brother
.”

He pulled a chair next to Turen and waved his hand over the remaining syringes, all lined up. “The first two doses have immobilized you. It won’t last for long. The next two have multiple capabilities, not that you would care to know. It will feel as if you are wearing your insides on your skin. The last”—he tapped the final syringe—“knocks away your resistance for days.”

He reached for a syringe. “The next few hours will feel like hell. When the effects start to take place, you’ll return to confinement to learn control of your new body. I’ll deal with you after a few days.”

Accompanying another strange smile, Xavier’s bright obsidian eyes gleamed above the stark whiteness of his teeth. “I would have tried this on Isabella, but she would likely not have survived.” His voice rumbled deep. The rough timbre grated across Turen’s skin. “Convenient I can test this on you instead.”

He raised the needle of the syringe in the air, gave it a flick with his finger, and pushed the plunger enough to send liquid squirting from the top. With a smirk, he braced his hand on Turen’s abdomen. “This is going to hurt.”

The prick didn’t hurt. The fire that flooded into Turen’s stomach afterward erupted in his brain with a silent scream. His immobilized body contained the flames as searing shards of agony ripped through his flesh.

Xavier was right—the next syringes barely registered.

Minutes, hours, days later?

Turen wasn’t sure which. The flame moved and mutated through his entire system—every cell, every organ, every muscle in him convulsed and revolted at the toxic abuse. Jumping and seizing, his muscles refused his commands for control.

At the most violent, his body vaulted from the chair. His chest and chin hit the wooden table as his rubber arms and legs flailed in hopeless attempts to avoid damage. Thick arms wrestled him to the floor and contained him until his seizures subsided. When he thought he could take no more, his system began to give up everything.

He wretched until he was empty, heaving after that until his stomach no longer paused between spasms.

Somewhere in the middle of the prolonged torture, Xavier stripped him, hauled his naked body to a large, tiled shower stall, and left him on the floor to writhe in his pain as he sweated, purged, and eliminated the last fluids from his system. Xavier turned the showerheads on him, the pummel almost a blissful cool against the burning heat of his skin, and left him. The presence of his vomit and waste evidently proved too much to stand.

Function returned to him, but it took all his effort to angle his head so he didn’t drown in the spray of water. His hands flexed against the tile floor, so cold under his palms, so refreshing after the prolonged burn. Exhaustion beat at every muscle.

When the dizzying ache and thunder in his head subsided, Turen pushed up to kneel. Despite the uncontrollable shivers, he took a deep breath and then froze.

He forced control over his muscles as scents of Mia’s hair and skin permeated every synapse in his brain, choking him with terror.

Please, God, no.

His long, wet hair shielded his face from view, but he flicked a gaze around to confirm Mia wasn’t physically in the massive shower area with him.

Thick black boots stepped into his view and lined up with his fists on the floor. He lifted his head to follow the length of the leather pants to find Xavier watching him.

Turen breathed through his mouth, tensing to still the shiver of reaction to Mia’s scent that still blanketed his senses. The very thought of her hardened his cock like a steel pipe.

“Feeling’s a bitch, isn’t it?” Xavier’s voice was oddly distant.

A brief pinprick singed Turen’s neck, and then blackness crashed back in.

CHAPTER 11

The air in the cell clung to his skin in a thick, cloying layer. Enduring the discomfort, Turen focused on slow, shallow breaths through his teeth to minimize the intensity of Mia’s scent.

The sweet fragrance burrowed into his memory with each inhale. A complement of honeys tingled on his tongue, buried deep in his throat, and imprinted on his nerves, mimicking the pattern of a long-cradled addiction. The effect was so intense he doubted his ability to distinguish between the sensory pull of the illusion of her scent and Mia’s actual presence.

He was wrong.

Pricks of fire erupted along his skin and shocks of arousal vibrated along every nerve ending of his hypersensitive flesh. His muscles tensed and his cock tightened painfully; even his torn jeans hurt against his flesh. He struggled to restrain the surge of lust. No matter what Xavier’s treatments did, he wouldn’t allow loss of personal control to result in harm to Mia. She would come to no abuse at his hand.

From beneath half-lowered lids, he watched her and battled the overwhelming desire to pull her into his arms. His hands itched to slide over her curves, to satisfy the yearning to bury his face in the curve of her neck and savor her taste.

Her backpack dropped to the floor with a soft thud. One hand brushed at the leather sheath strapped to her thigh to slide home the small knife he’d taught her to carry during her
folds
. He could sense her wariness, her nerves battling with a new confidence.

Twice she’d controlled her
fold
to his cell. Each time, she balanced the cockiness of her achievements with the newer dictate of constant caution. A brief rush of pride swelled at the mastering of her accomplishments, doused just as quickly by fear those same skills would expose her to more danger than he could ever train her for.

“You should practice going home.” His low, thick growl was a surprise to both of them.

“Didn’t you miss me?” She paused to stare at him when he didn’t respond.

She backed away from him with a frown and spun to take in the spigot and a shower nozzle in the far corner. She spared only a glance for the series of tiny low-watt, pea-sized bulbs recessed behind the grates in the ceiling. “They moved you again, and you get to shower.”

Turen rolled his head, but tracked her progress from the corner of his eye. Even without direct line of sight, every movement registered in the slight breeze of her turns. The waft of her essence and the pulse of her life force thrummed in distinct sonar against his senses.

The lights flickered several times, then extinguished, leaving only two dim beams of haze in the ceiling at either end of the cell.