Gravity (40 page)

else sharing his space. These were the things he could imagine enjoying with a woman—the

personal moments.

He decided to give Page the time she needed and walked down to the training room. It was his

temple, and Justus spent twenty minutes practicing ancient fighting techniques mixed with martial

arts.

“You’re really good,” Page said from the doorway.

He used the end of his shirt to wipe off his face and turned to look at her. His dark blue shirt

stretched down to her knees.

“Do you know how to defend yourself?” he asked, remembering the videotape of a panicked

woman running for her life. What good were locks if she didn’t know how to protect herself?

Page shrugged. “I’ve never had to.”

“Come here,” he said.

Her brows angled into a comical slant. “Why?”

Nodding his head, he coaxed her with a wave of his arm. “Come here, I said.”

She rubbed her nose and crossed the floor, stopping in front of him and putting her hands on

her hips.

“Are you feeling better?” he asked.

“It’ll take a little while before I’m one hundred percent, but I’m holding my own.”

He could smell her hair; it was still wet at the ends and wild all around her face. She looked like

a pixie with her liquid brown eyes and shapely mouth. Not a beauty in the way that most women

were in today’s time, but there was something fetching about her expression and unique features

that held his attention. It reminded him of when he used to paint and how other artists would seek

out the most beautiful landscapes, sunsets, or women. The paintings fell flat. Yet he had once

painted the family of an aristocrat and the eldest daughter—who happened to be the least

attractive—wound up becoming the most captivating face on his canvas. A lovely smile played in

her eyes that never showed on her mouth. She held a classic beauty that was not favored during

that time, and it was such a disappointment when the buyer refused to pay for it because his

daughter outshone his own wife.

Justus reached out and wrapped his hands around Page’s throat. “What do you do?”

She gripped his wrists and tried to pull his arms away.

“No, not like that. Drop your chin.”

She did as he asked with each command.

“Good,” he said. “Hunch your shoulders. That’s right, Page. Good. Now take a small step back.”

Page stepped back a little, half-smiling. “Are we dancing again?”

Justus was too upset to find it amusing that Slater was able to take her down in her own

apartment. “Raise your left arm straight up and bring it down over my arms. Twist your body and

neck to the right as you do it.” She followed his orders and Justus lost his grip. “Now you can strike

me in the face or kick me with your knee, but you must attack.”

“Why can’t I run?”

“Because I’ll chase you. Throw me down and injure me and you buy time.”

Page was hesitant at first, but he reminded her that he was a Mage and no injuries she

inflicted upon him would matter. That hesitation kept her from delivering the move properly.

“Do it, Page!” he said angrily.

“I am!”

“Like you mean it. Pretend I’m coming after you.”

She sighed audibly. “You’re bossy, you know that?”

“You’re weak,” he dared, saying it under his breath as he reached for her neck.

The transformation in her expression was brutal. Page completed the moves and had Justus on

the floor in three seconds. When he bent forward, she drove her knee into his chest and sent him

to the mat.

“Oh God, I’m so sorry,” she said, kneeling by his side. She rested her hands on his shoulders

and then a cunning smile tugged the corners of her mouth when she realized he wasn’t upset.

Justus was grinning, and he couldn’t have been more proud than he was watching her rise to

the challenge.

“You’re something else, you know that?” Page caressed his cheek and he flinched.

“You don’t like to be touched, do you? I’m sorry; I’ve overstepped my bounds.” She sat back on

her ankles and frowned.

It took most a while to notice his little nuances, but Page was a perceptive woman, always

analyzing the situation.

He sat up, feeling vulnerable on his back.

It was a strange moment to think about Eleanor, the woman he’d loved from afar who was

murdered years ago. He’d kept his distance so she wouldn’t succumb to his charm. Only recently

had he found out she was a Blocker—a Mage with a rare ability to block the gifts of others. Page

had her own blocking mechanism that kept her from reacting to his energy the way other women

did.

Since the night Merc revealed the truth about Eleanor, Justus realized he had wasted an

opportunity he could never get back.

Walking into Page’s empty apartment had reawakened a nightmare he couldn’t live through

again. But this time the feeling was stronger, and it made him question if what he had felt for

Eleanor was truly love or just the idea of something he’d never known for himself.

Justus leaned forward and kissed the tiny scar on her forehead.

“You really came for me,” she said. “I’d hoped someone would find me, but I can’t believe you

came for me.”

“I would have crossed a battlefield for you.”

“Will you…”

He was so close that his nose touched her cheek. “Anything. Speak your mind.”

“Will you kiss me?”

Justus dragged his lips slowly to meet hers and whispered across her mouth. “My lips are

yours.”

“Yes,” she breathed.

That single word—not only the meaning itself, but the way she whispered it—seized him

unexpectedly with desire.

Their lips touched warmly, tenderly. When he broke away, Page looked disappointed.

“Apologies,” he said.

“No need. Now I know.”

“Know what?”

“I wanted to see if I felt passion in your kiss.”

“I feel passion every time I look at you, Page.”

Without warning, he cupped her face and kissed her as a man who burned for a woman and

wanted to discover her with his mouth. He could feel her hesitation at first. Justus didn’t kiss

women very often; sex had merely become an outlet. But a fire licked at him just as fervently as

her tongue against his. The kiss was so deep their tongues made love.

He could have kissed her for lifetimes.

A tangle of emotions weaved through him: fear, lust, and something else wholly unfamiliar. It

expanded within his chest with every passing second.

Sexual energy pulsed throughout his body, energy he’d always kept tethered with his sexual

liaisons. A Mage could only touch another Mage during intercourse because if they released their

energy into another Breed, it would injure their partner. He’d found ways around this by keeping

his hands out of reach. However, accidents had happened, and Justus was enraged that he could

hurt a woman who trusted him in the most intimate way. So for decades, he’d restrained all those

desires. A woman could satisfy him, but it was a passionless affair.

But with Page, he couldn’t control the energy and it spiraled out of control. God, her wet lips

and the way she moved her tongue. The way she tasted, smelled, and how he wanted to know

every curve of her body with his mouth.

“Wait,” he said, breaking the kiss. They both were breathing heavily. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

“I kicked you in the chest and threw you down on a mat, and you think kissing is going to hurt

me?” She chuckled and her laugh sounded like little wind chimes.

“Do I seem cold to you?” he finally asked.

She wiped a few wet hairs away from her eyes. “Why would you ask that? Brash, yes. But

when you danced with me that night, you were anything but cold.”

“A Thermal has that—”

“No,” she said, lifting her hand to silence him. “That’s not what I meant. A cold man would

have left me out there on that floor to make a fool of myself. Or maybe he would have driven me

home and taken advantage of my being drunk, only to leave me in the morning. You’re anything

but cold, Justus. I might say that you should consider toning down how you speak to people, but

then I’d be a hypocrite if I did.”

Justus rose to his feet and held his hand out. “Let me take you to bed.”

“I’m not sleepy,” she protested.

“Neither am I.”

Chapter 32

We tied the men to the tables using the restraints. Simon had a little too much fun scaring the

big one with his knife. He did a trick where he could twirl the blade between his fingers, back and

forth.

“How many other labs are there?” Christian asked Slater. There was no telling which of them

knew more or less, but each man was going to have his turn with Christian.

“One that I know of,” Slater replied in a monotone voice, completely entranced.

“Where?”

“The address is in the files,” he said, nodding his head at a drawer.

I pulled it open, thumbing through the files until I nodded at Christian, removing a red folder

marked “locations.” Slater confirmed they had absorbed one of the other labs and acquired their

paperwork.

“Simon, I think we’re going to have to go through all the files,” I grumbled. “We’ll need Novis to

help us move it out; there are way too many drawers here and it’s not going to fit on Christian’s

bike.”

A bike ride I dreaded. Justus had taken the car and Simon declared he was going to head over

to a swanky bar up the road for a couple of drinks to take the edge off, leaving Christian to take

me home.

Something with Simon was off, and I knew it had to do with Knox. That’s why he was so

anxious to get back on board, because Nero was involved. Simon may have given Knox a hard

time, but deep down he liked the big guy. The vacant stare on his face mirrored my own as I

occasionally lost focus, thinking about what hadn’t quite sunk in yet.

Simon continued playing his game with the Mage, repeatedly stabbing the dagger into the

table next to his head. The older Mage, who looked like a science teacher, remained quiet, hoping

we would forget he was there.

The questioning went on for hours. The big Mage could only tell us about the women who were

brought in. His responsibility had been maintaining the files, doing runs for the serums, and other

odd jobs. His involvement was incriminating, but by no means was he the brains in this show.

Whoever was in charge had the right idea in keeping the talent separated. Perhaps they were

easier to control if only one person knew what was going on within each lab.

The older Mage tapped his finger against his leg, watching us with wide eyes. Simon guarded

the biggest threat, but ever the strategist, the real person he was tormenting with his knife tricks

wasn’t the gopher, but the older man who was forced to watch.

Slater had been a recent addition to the gang. He didn’t seem to possess the depth of

knowledge one would expect in someone working on genetics. He had written a few papers that

received some attention, and someone anonymously offered him a large sum of money to put his

knowledge to use.

What Christian got from the big guy was that all the pregnancies yielded human children. The

mothers were disposed of, and once they realized the children were not Breed, they would dump

them off for someone to find. Even they couldn’t bring themselves to murder a child.

It was a horrifying revelation, a fate that my mother was lucky to have escaped. They were

looking for the next genetic leap and needed something special. They’d figured out how to

manipulate sperm and eggs by altering the DNA. Half of what they were saying was over my head,

but it sounded like they were trying all kinds of combinations based on the results of the other

labs.

Slater confessed he had found my vial of blood in Page’s possession and sampled my DNA to

see if I might be a potential candidate for their experiments. To his surprise, he found that my

blood was very similar to the infants born in their lab.

It took dedicated research to discover I was patient zero—the first baby born of these

experiments. Now that I was a Mage, it excited him tremendously. Once he made the connection,

he tried to locate my file, but the complete records didn’t date back that far.

Some were missing.

Only one of their files had minimal information on my conception. It stated that Grady was an

Infuser who was able to seal energy onto core light that would otherwise escape with time. I was

told that not many Infusers come out because they’re highly sought after. A Mage has no desire to

become a commodity, so many keep their gifts a secret. Simon mentioned some of the Learners

who discovered their gifts early and made them public were kidnapped and sold on the black

market.

The egg had been fertilized and inseminated into the patient. Grady had concentrated a small

amount of energy into the womb and then used his abilities as an Infuser. The idea was to

strengthen the uterus and the egg so that the woman would be able to carry a Breed child. We