Morgan (14 page)

“Abramov and Petrov intend to keep the women in cages,” Samson said. He turned and looked out the window, the muscles in his shoulders bunching as the kitchen bench he was gripping shattered in his hands. “They plan to harvest their eggs and then use Bethany and Morgan’s wombs to incubate the monsters they create with Abramov’s sperm. Abramov wants his sons to be strong. Wants them to be blooded in the fighting rings before they one day take over his and Petrov’s merged empires.”

Bethany made a choking sound and Samson was at her side an instant later, a basin held close under her chin as Michael caressed her back.

“It’s not happening,” Michael murmured reassuringly. “He won’t take either of you from us.”

Evan rose and carried Morgan from the room. Ben followed, as did Cameron, giving the Reed men some privacy with Bethany. Evan didn’t stop walking until he was sitting on the bed in the room they had left earlier.

“One of us needs to be with Morgan at all times,” Evan said. Kissing Morgan’s cheek as she straddled his lap, her face buried in his neck.

“I’ll call Cooper and make sure he accounts for that when he draws up the schedule for patrols,” Cameron said. He looked out the bedroom window at all the other trainees filing into the bunkhouse. “Is Aiden still questioning that big guy we caught this morning?”

Evan
and Ben both tensed. Morgan pulled away from Evan’s neck to look up at him. “What is it? Did he escape?”

“No, honey,” Ben said. He looked at Evan and Cameron, unsure how to answer.

“You need to tell her,”
Cameron said.
“No secrets between mates, Ben. Not in our mating.” Cameron and Morgan shared a look and Ben wanted to know the secret they shared. His cat roared and he had to swallow and take deep breaths to calm his cat and halt the shift. He needed to trust that they’d tell him soon.
If it’s important to Morgan, then one of them will tell me soon.

* * * *

Morgan was lost in a sea of confused and conflicted emotions. She was now far removed from the controlled virtual life she had led two days ago. She was no longer using avatars to navigate through dangerous online scenes. This was flesh-and-blood people who were being hurt, tortured, and killed because she had wanted to find her parents. Ben’s gaze bored into her, heaping more guilt into her already remorse-filled soul.

“Morgan, it’s going to be fine. You have nothing to fear,” Ben said. She couldn’t answer him. She was too busy listing her transgressions.

She needed to share her fears of intimacy with both him and Evan. She needed to say sorry to Bethany for bringing their father to her very doorstep. For endangering her, her mates, and their baby.

She needed to apologize to Melanie for putting her and her husband’s lives in danger. Then there was the nurse at the hospital. She’d already died, so Morgan was unable to tell her how sorry she was. What about Marina, the mother who had died twenty-two years ago in order to keep her daughters safe? Morgan’s selfish actions had now made her sacrifice worthless.

“Should we slap her?” she heard Ben ask.

“Only if you want to die,” Evan said. She felt movement and then cold water was streaming over her. It ran into her mouth, making her cough as she tried to scream in protest. She wrapped her arms and legs around Evan, clinging to his warmth as the cold water continued to wash over her. She continued to cough it from her airways.

“Are you back with us, Morgan?” Cameron asked. She coughed and tried to nod as her body started to shake.

“It’
s cold
. Please. No more.” The cold water stopped and Evan’s arms released her. She continued to cling to his warmth. He gently unwrapped each leg from around his waist and stood her on the cold tiles of the shower.

“Let’s get these wet clothes off and then you can tell us why you had a panic attack,” Evan said softly.

A dry towel was wrapped around her as her wet clothes were removed. She just stared at the floor, her mind as numb as her body as the brothers dried her and pulled a T-shirt over her head. A towel was wrapped around her wet hair and Evan turned her around and patted her on the ass.

“Take her back to bed while I go and grab some clothes.”

“Come on, honey,” Ben said. He took her hand and led her back to the bedroom. Cameron was sitting on the end of the bed and he opened his arms wide. She walked into his arms and laid her head in his shoulder.

“You smell so good,” she said with a sigh.

He did smell good. They all did. She breathed him deep into her lungs and felt something lock into place. A feeling of contentment and peace flooded through her. She opened her heart and let the feeling pour in. Ben stood behind her and rested his hands on her shoulders.

Evan sat on the bed beside Cameron and cupped her face, directing her gaze to him. She was right where she was always meant to be. She had felt it yesterday when she’d met them, but had refused to accept the instinctual bond because she hadn’t understood what it was. She wouldn’t deny it again. She couldn’t. She felt it too strongly now.

“I belong with you, with the three of you,” she whispered, afraid they would deny the connection she could no longer ignore. Growls surrounded her, washing over her skin and vibrating her bones.

“You
are
ours,
” Evan said. “If you hadn’t gone looking for your family, your sister, we would never have found you and we’d have wandered the earth for three centuries alone. Forever searching for the mate that Artur Petrov had stolen from us.”

“But I caused
all
of this,” Morgan said hoarsely, reluctantly giving voice to all her guilt.

“Aiden learned that Petrov has been looking for his daughters for years. He’s had limitless funds and teams of men dedicated to the search. That was why he reached you before we did. It was inevitable, Morgan. He would have eventually found you both. I have no doubt of that.”

“Now you have your mates to protect you, as does Bethany,” Ben said, squeezing her shoulders gently.

“You both have the protection of the entire Eminence pride,”
Cameron said.
“We will neutralize the threat to you and Bethany and also eliminate some vermin from the shifter race. Petrov and this doctor need to be stopped.”

“We also have Aiden to help us,” Evan said.

“He didn’t return home with Brody?” Cameron asked. He sounded shocked.

“Brody and Elliot have returned to Pine Falls alone. I need to tell you what happened today,” Evan said.

Cameron rose and pulled the covers down. He sat with his back against the bed head and settled Morgan between his legs. With her back against his chest and his arms holding her tight, Morgan felt surrounded by him. It felt good.

Ben came and sat next to him, taking Morgan’s casted hand in his as he gestured for Evan to continue his explanation. Morgan noticed that both casts had been ruined by the shower, the plaster now soggy and useless.

“During his exploration of the tiger’s thoughts, Aiden learned something that upset him so much that he lost control and attacked the prisoner. The tiger’s restraints broke in the assault and it attacked Brody as it tried to escape.”

“God, how long was it before Elliot killed it?” Cameron said.

“About two seconds,” Ben said with a small laugh.

“
Elliot
was extremely protective,” Evan said. “I’m happy for him and Landon. Brody seems like a nice guy.”

Cameron smiled and shook his head. “Wish I’d been there to see it. Brody wasn’t injured, was he?”

Evan shook his head. “He’
s fine
. He shifted into a tiny bear cub and did a disappearing trick that had him immediately out of the vampires hold.”

Morgan felt Cameron stiffen behind her. “What is it?” she asked. She knew little about shifters and less still about vampires and demons, but they’d told her that this Brody person could move from his home in Wyoming to any place on the planet in one step.

“He shifted?” Cameron said slowly.

“Shocked the shit out of Aiden, too,” Ben said.

“Jason wanted to make him a laboratory rat,” Evan said. “But Elliot just roared loudly and Jason backed right off.”
Evan
’s face changed completely as he smiled and Morgan’s heart skipped a beat. He was so beautiful.

“What did Aiden learn that had our cool, calm, and collected vampire so upset?” Cameron
asked.

“He learned that Petrov has been keeping a vampire hostage for nearly a century,” Ben said. Morgan felt him shudder. “He’s keeping him on the brink of exsanguination so he can’t escape and using the vampire’s mind-reading powers to keep him on top in all his business dealings.”

“That’
s horrible,
” Morgan said on a gasp. “He’s been using someone like that for a hundred years?”

“Aiden said that being so depleted in blood like that is extremely painful for a vampire,” Evan said. “Aiden also knows the vampire in question. He was one of Aiden’s friends.”

“My father is not a good person, is he? What he has planned for Bethany and me is just one in a long list of despicable acts. No wonder my mother fled from him.”

“She was a brave woman,”
Cameron said.
“Your life would have been very different if she hadn’t loved her daughters so much.”

“
We won
’t let her sacrifice be for nothing,” Ben said. “We’ll keep you and Bethany safe and put an end to all of his depraved practices. The fights, the torture of this vampire, all of it has to stop.”

“We also risk exposure to the human population the longer he is allowed to continue like this,” Evan said. “It’s a miracle he hasn’t exposed us already.”

“It’s a whole new life for me now, isn’t it?” Morgan said. “Do I have to stay here in Eminence forever now?” Morgan hadn’t really considered moving here, but she knew she could never leave these three men. The thought of returning to Charlottesville and leaving them behind made her stomach lurch. However, her father was there, and she was now
all
the family he had.

“Of course not,” Cameron said. He squeezed her a little tighter to his hard chest. “You can go anywhere you want. You just have to take the three of us with you.”

She looked up at him to see if he was teasing her, but his expression was serious. “My father,” she whispered.

“We would go with you and live wherever you want, Morgan. You are more important to us than the pride,” Ben said. She saw Evan was nodding, but even in the two days she’d been here she’d seen how strong the ties between members of the pride were.

Now that she considered leaving, she realized she felt tied to Bethany already. She could never leave her sister, not now that she’d found her. Her father could decide to move here, or he could choose to stay in Virginia. The choice would be his. She was able to do her computer work anywhere and Michael had incredible computers. Her decision was an easy one.

“I can see that you all would and I’m grateful to you for that. I love my father, but I’d like to stay with Bethany. I don’t want to live in her house though.” She smiled and looked at each of them. “I’d like our own kitchen table.”

Cameron glanced in the rearview mirror at his gorgeous mate. The sun was low in the sky and the pink and orange hues of the magnificent sunset were reflecting off Morgan’s shining platinum hair. Her blue eyes were bright as she laughed at Ben’s description of some of Brody’s many talents. He and Ben had just started to tell Evan and Morgan about Brody and Aiden’s abilities, and how they differed from shifters, when Cooper had called to say they were needed at the Prentiss ranch for a meeting.

“He just makes fire from the air? Just like that?” Morgan asked, grimacing as she attempted to click her fingers together. “Ouch. I can’t wait for these to heal.”

Jason had replaced her ruined casts with splints. Her latent shifter DNA had healed the breaks to such a point that the splints were now adequate. Morgan had never really noticed that she’d had extraordinarily good health her whole life. She’d just always assumed that her solitary lifestyle exposed her to fewer infections.

Cameron looked across the cabin at Evan.
Should they tell her that the breaks would heal in a matter of minutes, not days, if they were mated?
Evan shook his head slightly, correctly reading the question from his expression, and Cameron knew he was right. They needed Morgan to mate them when she was completely ready. They’d regret it for hundreds of years if they felt they’d coerced her in any way.

“How he does what he does is a mystery to us,” Ben said. “He just explains it as being able to manipulate the elements. We’ve seen him turn solid rock into lava, and freeze people from the inside, as well as use his ability to travel anywhere in an instant.”

“But Aiden is more like a shifter,” Morgan said, her brows creased as she attempted to understand things that she’d believed were all simply myths only two days ago.

“Nothing like one, really,” Evan said. Cameron saw him shudder and raised an eyebrow at him.

“Have you seen him angry?” Evan asked.

“He’s fucking scary when he changes like that,” Ben said. Cameron swallowed, thankful he’d never been on the receiving end of Aiden’s anger. He’d try his hardest to make sure he never was.

“He moves so fast even we can’t see him,” Ben said. “He’s much stronger than a shifter and he lives forever.”

“But has no problem with sunshine and garlic?” Morgan said, her face relaxing into a smile.

“Will I wake up tomorrow and find I’ve been dreaming? I can’t believe I’m having this conversation.”

Cameron pulled up in front of the large two-story home. There were several trucks already in the drive. “Looks like we’re the last to arrive,” he said.

He ran at preternatural speed to Morgan’s door, opened it, and had her in his arms and on the porch before his brothers had exited the truck.