Chosen by Blood (39 page)

By the time Knox had teleported his tenth Other, Mahone had arrived. He stood silently toward the back of the small room where the medics had situated themselves.

After handing the werewolf to a medic, Knox turned toward Mahone. “Lafleur’s a traitor.”

Mahone just shrugged. “Old news, Knox. We found that out for ourselves when he showed up dead. How much longer do you have?”

“One more Other and then the team,” Knox said, hating the sudden weariness he heard in his voice. His strength was starting to wane and his limbs felt alarmingly heavy. That’s when it hit him. He hadn’t even thought of it before, even though he should have. The last Other that needed to be teleported was a vamp, but he hadn’t even considered the fact that being that close to another vamp would render teleportation impossible.

He stared at the thin, worn gray carpet beneath Mahone’s feet. Knox was going to have to leave one of his own—maybe not one of his clan, but one of his people nonetheless—behind.

Could he do it?

Later, he told himself. Think of that later. Right now you need to go back for Felicia. For the rest of the team.

“What about the antidote?” Mahone asked.

“I sent Hunt for it. He hasn’t returned. Yet.”

Staring at him, Mahone shook his head. “Risky move, Knox. And it appears the risk didn’t pay off. Perfect for us really.”

Knox stared at him, certain he’d misheard. “Excuse me?” He shook his head, but the fog that had formed in his mind was just getting worse. What was going on here? He was so weak, and the weakness had hit him so suddenly.

Too suddenly, he realized. Right around the time Mahone had shown up.

Swiftly, he tried to teleport. When he remained exactly where he was, he was literally stunned silent by shock. Just like the time he’d tried to read the scientists’ minds, he could barely fathom his inability to do something that was normally as easy as breathing.

Knox’s gaze swept the room, searching for any sign of foul play. Metal was a vamp’s weakness. If someone had brought the right metal into the room, it could explain the downward turn in his energy.

Before Knox even realized the man had moved closer, Mahone punched him in the face hard enough to rock him back on his heels. “It’s obvious you don’t have the strength to teleport and bring them back. Give up gracefully and we might let you keep your heart.” Mahone turned to the two muscle-bound agents who’d been standing behind him. Vaguely, Knox noted that the medics had cleared out with the Others sometime while he and Mahone had been talking. “Restrain him,” Mahone snapped.

He’d suspected it back in Quantico, Knox reminded himself. It was his own fault for trusting a man just because he’d seemed to genuinely love his mother.

Knox moved back, somehow managing to keep himself out of reach. Again, he tried to teleport. Again, he couldn’t. His mind was racing, trying to understand what could be motivating Mahone’s actions. “Why would you want North Korea to have the antidote? They’ve threatened the U.S. with nuclear destruction.”

Mahone smiled tightly. “Still haven’t caught on, have you? Lafleur stole the antidote and killed Barker to do it. He injected the other scientists with the antidote so they could serve as test subjects, then he used persuasion to wipe their memories clean. We suspected Lafleur but couldn’t prove it, so we let him stay on, pretending we trusted him while we monitored him.”

“But the scientists, I tried to read their minds—”

“You might have thought you were keeping your secrets, Knox, but before he turned, Lafleur gave us a great deal of information. Metal? It’s so cliché. Like Superman being unable to see through lead.”

“Sorry we couldn’t be more creative,” Knox gritted.

“We wanted to give you a sign of good faith, but the truth is those scientists were wearing gold underneath their clothes and we were quite pleased when you couldn’t read their minds.”

His suspicion was swift but unwarranted. He hadn’t given Felicia the medallion or revealed its secret purpose until after he’d tried to read the scientists’ minds. Still, the way he automatically thought of her made him wonder why. But there were other questions in his head he needed answers to right now.

“I don’t understand. Why send us for the antidote in the first place then?”

“Because at that point, we wanted the antidote. We just didn’t trust you enough to let you read the scientists’ minds. Plus, if Lafleur turned out to be a traitor, what’s to say you weren’t in on it, too?”

Grasping his head to keep it from rolling off, Knox struggled to understand. “So who murdered the scientists?”

“They weren’t murdered, Knox. They died. Died from taking that fucking antidote. When we finally realized that, we made it look like murder so we wouldn’t cause a nationwide panic . . .”

The rest of Mahone’s words faded as a loud buzzing sound flooded through Knox’s brain. The scientists had died because they’d taken the antidote? The same antidote Felicia suspected Barker had given to her?

No, not Felicia. Felicia couldn’t die. Please—

Mahone, oblivious to Knox’s thoughts, kept talking. “. . . delay? Using O’Flare to set up Wraith so they’d turn on each other? It’s all been part of the plan because the FBI no longer wants you to bring back the antidote. Only we couldn’t just tell you that, now could we? We leave the antidote in the North Korean’s hands and they’ll eventually take it. Especially once we leak false information that the vamp vaccine, and not the antidote, turns on its host in five years, destroying its immune system.”

Stumbling back, Knox suddenly straightened, blinking when he felt something surge inside him. He focused on the fury and the swelling of his muscles. He imagined a few stuttering sparks of red lighting his eyes and was careful to keep them lowered to the ground.

With every word Mahone spoke, Knox felt an influx of strength as his royal blood strained to transform him. Although it went against everything he was, Knox heeded his instincts and took several more steps back. With some amazement, he felt his muscles bulge even tighter. Flexing his fingers, he quickened the steps taking him away from Mahone.

“Going somewhere, Knox? You won’t be able to stop it. The country’s as good as dead.”

“What about the Others I just delivered?” Knox forced out. He needed to keep Mahone talking. Distracted. Whatever it took to get to Felicia and make sure she was okay. “Are you going to return them or simply kill them?”

Mahone waved his hand and the two agents came around to the side, the three men clearly intending to box him in as Knox’s back came up against a wall. “Do you know how difficult it is to get agents in North Korea? Do you know the simmering threat that country’s posed to the U.S. for years given their expanding nuclear program? Most people believe the danger is in the Middle East, and while that’s true, people tend to forget that North Korea is just a bomb waiting to explode.”

“So you’re just going to wipe them out?” Knox asked. “Women, children, innocents alike?”

Mahone shrugged. “They’d do the same to us.”

Knox wasn’t at full strength, but he felt better. Good enough that he could transport if he needed to.

It wasn’t their proximity, Knox realized, but something about his position in the room that had been weakening him. Careful to appear more weakened than he felt, Knox slumped against the wall. “And that makes what you’re doing okay? So what now? Let the team, including Felicia, die?”

“Felicia? You brought Felicia into this mess? No matter. As an agent she knew the risks going in.”

Knox’s mouth twisted bitterly. So much for company loyalty. “Just like my mother did, right?”

Mahone’s brows lifted. “Your mother?”

Knox felt a jolt of surprise at the blank expression on Mahone’s face. Mahone had no clue what he was talking about.

Knox didn’t betray his thoughts by so much as a flicker.

Swiftly, knowing it would probably deplete the last of his powers, Knox entered Mahone’s mind.

That’s when he realized the creature in front of him wasn’t Mahone.

It could only be one of the infamous shape-shifters, one who’d taken on Mahone’s form and was clearly being fed information by another—someone who was knowledgeable enough to know a lot of what Mahone knew, but not knowledgeable enough to know about Bianca Devereaux.

Knox locked eyes with Kyle Mahone’s imposter. “You’re not wearing gold. Why? There’s something in the room suppressing my powers, isn’t there?”

Mahone’s face smiled tightly. “In the walls.”

Knox nodded. “But only in one wall, right? That wall over there?” Knox said, pointing to the wall farthest from him.

Mahone frowned. “How—”

“Guess they thought it was good enough for government work, huh?” Knox lunged and gripped the shape-shifter and wrapped his arms around it in a bear hug, squeezing tight. In a matter of seconds, he teleported the thousands of miles back to North Korea.

Once there, he shoved the shape-shifter to the ground. “Restrain this bastard, O’Flare.”

F
elicia hadn’t found any signs of Hunt or anyone else inside the compound. She had, however, found the lab and had filled a box with all the vials and containers she’d discovered inside it. She’d brought out anything that could possibly be the antidote, planning to take it with her when she transported back with Knox.

But where was Hunt? She couldn’t help but wonder if he’d grabbed the antidote and run. A were with that kind of prize could virtually name his price and sit back to watch the vamps fall at his feet.

Once she’d returned, Felicia had almost gotten used to Knox popping in and out as he’d been transporting the Others. After a while, he’d started to look tired. When she’d pointed that out, however, he’d brushed her off.

And she’d allowed herself to be brushed off. After all, this was Knox. He wouldn’t risk their lives or the antidote for his clan by being foolhardy.

He still wasn’t back after his last teleportation. Felicia told herself he was probably just waiting for Mahone’s scrambling staff to find space for the newest Other arrival. When five more minutes passed, she reminded herself how much stronger he’d been after she’d fed him and that he was going to be fine. And when another ten minutes had passed, she’d seen the concerned looks on O’ Flare’s and Lucy’s faces and she’d begun to panic. For all of two seconds.

Then O’Flare’s eyes widened as they settled on something behind her. The relief that swept over his face was so contagious that Felicia’s knees almost buckled. “I knew you wouldn’t . . .”

Turning, Felicia’s words slowly died.

Wraith. She was walking slowly toward them, her steps almost robotic, her face paler than usual with dark grooves under her eyes.

Felicia was happy to see her, of course. But O’Flare? He brushed by Felicia at a dead run. He threw his arms around the wraith then, stepping back, did the unthinkable.

He planted his hands on Wraith’s chest and shoved, toppling her to the ground. “What were you thinking!” he shouted.

Felicia gasped and ran. Before she could get to them, O’Flare had straddled her and pinned Wraith’s wrists to the ground next to her head. Distantly, Felicia noted that despite his aggression, his hands gripped Wraith’s wrists over the sleeves of her jersey rather than her bare flesh.

Wraith immediately tried to buck him off her, but O’Flare rode the undulation of her body with the ease of a seasoned bull rider. Leaning down, he pressed his upper body into hers. “How the fuck could you do something so fucking stupid?”

At O’Flare’s double F-bombs, Felicia stumbled to a stop and looked back at Lucy, sure that her uncertainty was reflected on her face. Hesitantly, Lucy moved from the side of the sole Other left to their care and took a step forward. “O’Flare, why don’t you—”

O’Flare and Wraith rolled in the snow, leaving a visible indentation in their path. Then Wraith managed to gain the top position. She planted her feet in the snow and leaned back, trying to yank her wrists from O’Flare’s grasp. O’Flare refused to release her.
“Let. Go!”
she screamed.

She screeched with rage when O’Flare flipped her on her back again.

“Don’t you ever do something that stupid again, do you understand me?”

“Get off me, you idiot. You asshole. You pig-sucking, big-headed, lily-livered—umph.”

O’Flare lowered his head and took Wraith’s mouth with his. The wraith completely froze as O’Flare’s mouth rocked on hers, lifting and then immediately going back for more, retreating then invading, kissing her with long, deep penetrations of his tongue and pulling back to sprinkle hard, brief kisses on her lips before repeating the process all over again.

Although she hardly considered herself a voyeur, Felicia couldn’t take her eyes off them. O’Flare looked like a man who’d starve if he couldn’t kiss Wraith, and that immediately brought to Felicia’s mind an image of Knox drinking at her neck, his hands gripping her with the same desperation that he sucked her blood.

Feeling herself flush, Felicia glanced at Lucy again. The mage had turned away.

A breathy whimper floated through the air. Felicia turned back just in time to see Wraith’s lips move against O’Flare’s. It was only for a heartbeat, and then she pulled back and kneed O’Flare in the nuts so hard that he whimpered and crumpled on top of her.

Wraith shoved him off her and stood. That she immediately walked past Felicia instead of kicking O’Flare in the face spoke volumes about her priorities. Her main objective? Get as far from O’Flare as possible.

“Thanks for your help, ladies,” she snapped. “So much for loyalty within the sisterhood.” She reached Lucy and turned around, tracking O’Flare, who’d gotten shakily to his feet.

Walking toward her, Felicia shook her head in wonder. “Wraith . . .” She ran her gaze up and down the wraith’s body. She looked exactly as she had before, except for a few pink lines on her face that were still fading. “You look wonderful,” Felicia said, throwing her arms around her much like O’Flare had done.