Winter's Wrath: Sacrifice (Winter's Saga #3) (33 page)

Creed’s thick arms held her.  He held her beautiful body
as if
she was already his.  And she let him.  She wanted him.

The liquid burned going down, some of it slipping past his lips and down the stubble on his chin.  Absently he swiped it away with the back of his hand and slipped the bottle into the convenient cup holder beside him.  The cap had fallen and was rolling lost and useless on the floorboard.

Her waking moan reverberated around the barn, thick and
sultry
in the air.

He just needed to put distance between himself and the barn.  Feelings of worthlessness and betrayal surged
amplifying
his need to hit something.  His thick palm slapped the steering wheel repeatedly.  He felt no pain.

Her perfect bow-shaped lips parted for him.

Cole felt an anguished scream erupt from his throat, and in the solitude of the empty country road, he yelled into the impassive glass of the windshield. 

When she kissed him, his heart w
o
ke—like a shock to his system, she brought his breath back
to his blue lips
. 

He had loved her since they’d first met.  He was always there for her.  He watched her grow, change—even evolve.  Hadn’t he always loved her?  Hadn’t he always shown
h
is devotion to her?

He brought the thick bottle of alcohol up to his lips again and sucked the burning fluid even as his body tried to forget the memories of her warm lips tasting his
own
so delicately. 

Hadn’t she searched his lips for her salvation?  Didn’t she need his stability?  His unwavering devotion to anything and everything she had to offer?  He was sure he felt her sigh as they knelt together at their shared discovery of their love for one another. 

He drove watching the road with only a dazed view.  The SUV headed toward a strip of road under construction, forcing four lanes to narrow tightly.  With no shoulder on either side, Cole’s anguish mind registered but ground its teeth at the idea there was no room for error and he should reduce his speed. 

Instead, his foot pressed harder on the accelerator.  The SUV responded immediately.  Anger and hurt surged so painfully in his chest, he couldn’t hold in the sobs.  They tore his throat raw.  The thick, unforgiving cement barrier separating his northbound traffic from the oncoming southbound flew by his driver’s side window in a beautiful blur. 

Creed leaned down to caress her face with soft kisses, and as she awakened, she leaned up to accept his touches with kisses of her own.  

His mind flashed to the countless times they’d exchanged smiles, laughs, unobtrusive touches over the last year.  He only wanted to be worthy of her love, but he was never good enough. 

The drab gray of the median became mesmerizing. 

Cole found himself fixating on the cement barrier.  It was thick, dull cement with a periodic seam, but he was traveling so fast, all details were lost in the blur.  His eyes kept drifting from the road ahead, to the heartless, impassive median. 

It was calling to him. 

His final thought was of the way Meg sighed beautifully when she pressed her lips to Creed’s there in the dusky barn.

He yanked the steering wheel sharply to the left and directly into the cement median.

The sound of the SUV hitting the immovable cement would have been chiseled onto anyone’s mind. 

Metal against median. 

It screamed a deafening screech.  The SUV flipped over the median and landed upside down, directly onto the path of oncoming traffic. 

The driver of the eighteen-wheeler would later describe the events as unreal, as if he was watching a movie.  He saw the white vehicle flip up and fly over the protective cement median.   And when he heard his wheels screeching to an ineffective stop as it careened into the inverted vehicle, he knew there was no way to stop his rig and its heavy load from ramming the SUV.   He watched helplessly as the car flipped over and over down into the ditch beside the four lane highway on that Texas road.  Its final resting place was anything but as the car spun eerily upside down at the bottom of the ravine. 

Cole’s body looked only like a wicked blood smear on the shattered windshield, still cracking and groaning under the effects of the accident.  The black seat belt dangled uselessly above the crumpled and broken body of the boy with the green eyes.

“There’s something I need to tell you,” Creed began, eyes sweeping the room.  Everyone was there except Cole.  No one had seen him for a while and the SUV was gone, so the parents figured he was out running an errand.   It was unusual that he hadn’t checked with anyone before leaving, and even stranger still that he’d left his cell phone sitting on the catch-all tray in the kitchen.

Looking intently at Creed, Meg focused on his emotions and sensed something momentous was about to be said and it had everything to do with her.

She swallowed hard and tried to brace herself, but the intensity of the secret was bringing about a cold clamminess that swe
p
t fast over her skin.  The enormity of the unspoken secret pressed her chest hard enough to make her breathe only the shallowest of breaths.

He leaned forward, draping his thick elbows on his knees, letting his hands hang loose between and looked down gathering his thoughts.  “Before, I mentioned that Williams had some sensitive material he was holding against me to force me to obey his orders.”  He looked around the room to be sure the others acknowledged his reference before continuing.  “Well, I don’t know how to say this.”  He looked back up at Meg.  Her eyes had never left him, but her body began to shiver with adrenaline.  This was going to be bad.

He stood and walked across the room to sit beside her on one of the sprawling sofas.  Though she didn’t see it herself, Meg could sense the room was feeling the tension building. 

“What is it?  Just say it?”  Meg’s voice quivered.

He looked Meg in the eyes and nodded.  “Williams sat me down with a couple of the scientist responsible for studying me after my return to the Facility.  Gavil was also present.  Though at the time, I didn’t know why.  He started by bombarding me with questions—testing my amnesia.  Then he told me what I did during my first assignment.  He said I turned traitor against him so when he had a choice to kill me he only opted to let me live so he could experiment on me.  He wanted to know how I could heal from those lethal wounds I received.  Once he figured out I’d been exposed to an Infinite serum from the
St. Paul
lab that had awakened heightened abilities in my body, he only kept me to use as a guinea pig. 

“He told me he had ordered his scientist, Bjorn was his name, to extract semen from me while I was in a medically induced coma.”

Meg blushed.  “I’m so sorry they did that to you, Creed.  During my last—emp
a
th reading into Williams, I learned of his plans to use your seed to father the start of metahuman embryo.  It’s one of the reasons we were so determined to come help you.”

“You were going to come for me?” Creed stared at Meg with wide-eyed revelation for a moment before looking across the room at Margo and Theo.

“Of course we were,” Margo nodded earnestly.

“We were trying to get Meg healthy enough and figure out a way to get you to come with us,” Theo added.

Meg felt compelled to explain, “It was during that same reading that I found you had lost your memory.  So we were trying to figure out how to come rescue someone who maybe didn’t want rescued and certainly didn’t even know who we were.”  Her brow crinkled with the worry she’d felt so deeply.  “We didn’t know you survived the Island until that reading.”

Creed looked into his lap, still and quiet for a moment.  “I’m…wow…I’m not sure what to say,” his voice was thick with emotion.  He still didn’t look up.  “I can’t imagine why you’d be willing to risk yourselves for me.”

“You’re family Creed.  Whether or not you remember us, we remember you.” Margo smiled warmly at the young man. 

Creed glanced quickly up at the woman who had treated him like a son and looked back down to his lap, nodding slightly.

He took a deep breath before continuing.  “Well, you know about what they did to me.  Does that mean you know about what they did to you?”  He looked at Meg, directing his question to her. 

Meg frowned.  “What do you mean?”

“Your eggs?”

“My what?”

Creed shook his head, anguish slipping across his face like a well-worn mask.  He took a deep breath.  “I hate having to be the one to tell you this part.”

Meg’s face drained of color.  “Just tell me.”

Creed swallowed hard and continued.  “After he told me about what they did to me, Williams went on to talk about his first research lab.  The original one in
California
and he talked about you three.”  Creed looked over at Evan and Alik then back to Meg.  “And about you Dr. Winter.  He told me you welcomed me into your family.  He knew how important family is to me…” Creed’s voice trailed as he stared off into space for a moment.

“He’s not done punishing me for my betrayal.  This is where you come in Meg.  He talked about you at length.  He has this sick fatherly pride in you.”  Creed visibly cringed at the memory of the look on the bloody scientist’s face as he spoke of the beauty holding his hand.  He wanted to kill that man so badly he could taste the copper of blood.

Meg’s hands began shaking in Creed’s.  “Meg, when you were a baby—when he first dosed you with the serum and realized you’d live—he did something,” Creed coughed, visibly shaking with anger. “He told me he harvested two or three hundred of your eggs and put them in a cryogenic freezer in
Germany
.”  The words spilled from Creed’s mouth like vomit.  He pinched his eyes closed.

“
HE DID
WHAT
?
”
  Margo flew to her feet, arms waving frantically at her sides.  “He took her eggs when she was just a baby?  You were all just babies!  He’s inhuman.  Lord help us, he’s the devil incarnate!”

“I’m so sorry,” Creed offered miserably.

“It’s all true.”  Gavil had let Creed tell the whole story, respecting the fact that this was his trauma, but now he felt compelled to speak up.  “Like Creed said, I was there.  I heard the whole thing myself.  Williams means to combine the two and study the results.  He wants to dissect metahuman embryo.”

That set Margo and the brothers on an even more frantic tirade.

“Oh, my God!” Theo gasped. 

“He’s a monster!” Margo was so mad the veins in her neck stuck out.

Meg couldn’t speak—feeling like she’d been sucker punched in the stomach.  All the air whooshed out of her and left her as empty as her ovaries.

She felt numb.  Creed’s hands were still holding hers, but she didn’t feel the warmth anymore.  She felt shocked.  Violated.  Raped. 

The room spun in a flurry of angry voices for what felt like an eternity.  Margo kept screaming her fury while
Meg’s
brothers and the others in the room started talking all at once. 

Meg forced herself to stare at Creed’s strong fingers and found her voice.  Leaning closer to him Meg spoke directly into his ear so she’d be heard over the room. 

“Why?  Why take my eggs?”  Meg pleaded.

Creed shook his head sadly, “Please don’t make me say it.  Please don’t hate me for this.”

Meg searched Creed’s anguished eyes.  “No.”

Creed said nothing, letting the shock and realization sink in.

“No.” Meg’s dark eyes glistened with pain, tears pooling and spilling down her olive skin.  She swallowed what felt like a lump of pumice in her throat trying to get her words out.  “He’s going to combine my eggs and your—sample?”

Creed’s jaw locked tight.  He looked afraid to speak.  One clipped nod was all he could manage, anguish and rage barely restrained.  

Oh, dear God,
we were both violated.  Please
help us
stop him before it’s too late
.
Meg prayed.

Neither Creed nor Meg had noticed the room had grown silent during their exchange.  Everyone was feeling the shock and horror as the two metahumans sat side by side in their dread.

“He’s going to create conception in a Petri dish and then what?”  She coughed around the words.

“He would have to impregnate a surrogate, unless he’s created an artificial womb.”  Evan interjected, shaking his head miserably.  He had walked to Creed and Meg and sat on his haunches between them.  “I suppose I shouldn’t put it past him to have done that.”

Maze, who had awakened finally from his sedative a few hours ago, yawned and stretched as he crawled out from under the coffee table and ambled to Meg’s side.  The coyote leaned his shoulder against her leg, nuzzling his head under her arm, asking for attention.

Absently, Meg rubbed his ears.   

“We need to hear more details of what Williams said,” Alik nodded to Creed.  “What did he say he’d do if you brought us in?”