“I’m dreaming again,” she whispered, her heart beating wildly in her chest. He couldn’t be here.
“You’re not dreaming,” he said. “It’s me.”
She didn’t go to him. She wanted to, but she was afraid the dream would shift and he’d be gone. He seemed as if he was afraid to move, too. “You aren’t real.”
He nodded. “I’m real.”
“Kel?”
“Yeah baby, it’s me.”
She was off the bed and in his embrace in a flash, wrapping her arms around him, feeling his heat sink in through her thin shirt. “I can’t believe it. I can’t believe you’re here. You’re real. You’re really here.” He kissed her and it was heaven, spicy and male, and so very Kel, so real, so perfect. “How? How is this possible?” She couldn’t stop touching him, trying to prove to herself he was flesh and blood.
“It’s complicated,” he whispered, his mouth caressing hers, holding her close, like he thought she might escape. “God, I missed you.”
She pulled back, tracking the lines of his face. Kel. Kel was alive. After nearly three years of believing he was dead. “Are you sure this isn’t a dream?”
“It feels like one to me,” he murmured, his lips brushing her neck, her ear. “I didn’t think I’d ever hold you like this again.”
A shiver of pure heat rushed down her spine, the kind of need no one but Kel could create. “Me either,” she said, kissing him, caressing his cheek. She was sitting across his lap now, and all she wanted to do was get lost in the man she’d lost and now found, but memories rushed over her of their free will, and Carrie’s screeches of fear ripped through her mind. “You’re sure my friend from the bar is safe?”
“Absolutely.”
“The men, they came out of nowhere. There was wind and then they were there. And you too. I’m confused. I don’t understand what happened back there at the bar. I don’t understand how you’re alive or how I’m here and why did you put me to sleep?”
“We’re at one of the top secret facilities where my special ops team operates,” he said. “I had to put you to sleep. It’s protocol.”
Her stomach knotted. Something wasn’t right. “Kel, what’s going on?”
He maneuvered so that she sat in the chair and he knelt in front of her. “Sonia, I...it’s not easy to explain. I...” He lowered his head and a wave of emotion rolled off of him.
Her hand stroked his hair. “What is it?” she asked gently, certain whatever he’d been through must have been horrific, since everyone had believed he was dead.
When he lifted his head, his expression was etched with torment. “I didn’t want this for you, Sonia. I didn’t want you in danger. I didn’t want you to give up everything you knew to live in a world that is this messed up. But you got the wrong people’s attention when you made that phone call about the missing woman, and now, now everything has changed.”
She stiffened, dread pooling in her stomach. “What are you saying? Oh, God. No. I don’t believe this. You faked your death to get me out of your life, didn’t you?”
“It’s not like that, Sonia-”
Confirmation hit her hard. She shoved away from him and stood up, stepping around him and backed away. “Then how it is? You’re alive and clearly everyone but me knew that. Do you have any idea what hell I have lived thinking you were dead?”
He rose to his feet. “Sonia-”
“Did you fake your death for me?” she demanded, every word tight and exact. She was shaking. Tears prickled at the back of her eyes.
“I was trying to protect you.”
She hugged herself. Protect her. She didn’t even know what to say to that. “Why show yourself to me now?”
“Because I’m no longer the most dangerous person in your life.”
“You haven’t even been in my life so how could you be dangerous?”
“That’s the idea,” he said. “I had to stay away. And it killed me. I know you don’t understand, but-”
“I understand that you chose for me, which must mean you didn’t want me anymore. Why not just break up with me Kel? Why? Why let me mourn you?”
“Leaving you behind killed me, Sonia,” he said, his voice raspy with emotion she knew had to be fake. He’d left her. He’d walked away like she was nothing.
“And yet you did.”
“You would have chosen me,” he said. “I had to choose you.”
“By playing dead?”
“Yes,” he ground out, drawing out the word. “I chose your safety. You don’t understand what happened. I’ll explain-”
“You are Special Forces,” she said. “I knew the danger. Nothing you can say will change how much you hurt me. And now – now you say I’m in danger so you pull me back into your world by necessity, but not choice?”
“It’s not like that,” he argued and took a step toward her.
She backed away. “And yet it is. It is.”
“They changed me, Sonia,” he said, his voice gravely and thick. “They turned me into something I don’t even recognize.”
She hugged herself, not sure how she was holding back the tears, trying to control her shaking. “I don’t either, because the man I thought I knew and loved wouldn’t have done this to me, to us.” She inhaled and let it out. “Can I leave now?”
“It’s not that simple.”
“Why? What does that mean?”
“It means that you’re being hunted by Adam Rain and that’s a very dangerous thing to be.”
“Caleb’s brother?”
“Yes,” he said. “Caleb’s brother. He’s leading a rebel group called the Zodius who took over Area 51 and they intend to take over far more than that.”
“What?” she gasped. “Why? When did this happen?”
“The immunizations they were giving us at Area 51 weren’t immunizations at all. They were experimental DNA that changed us. We aren’t...human. Not fully anymore.”
She was stunned. “What does that mean? What kind of DNA?”
“The rumors of a ship that the government recovered in New Mexico were true,” he said. “And with it they acquired some unique DNA. After years of study, they finally decided to see if they could create what you might call a ‘super soldier’ while the government calls them GTECHs.”
She gaped in total disbelief. “Oh my God. And they didn’t tell you what they were doing?”
His lips thinned. “No. They didn’t tell us. The change took months to occur. That’s why I didn’t initially pull away from you. I simply had no idea what I was or what had happened. Once I knew, I was afraid of what I was becoming. For all I knew I might become a monster that would hurt you, or worse, kill you. Much later, Adam decided the GTECHs were evolution and overthrew Area 51 and created what he calls Zodius Nation.”
“Zodius?”
“Project Zodius was the name of the experimental program the Army undertook to make us,” he explained before going on. “Caleb organized the Renegades, an opposing force to the Zodius, and I knew I’d made the right decision. Anyone a Renegade loves is a weapon Adam would use against us. Adam had met you. Had I not ended what was between us long before he became the monster he is now, you would have been a target. Now, unfortunately, you are anyway. He might not know you have a special gift, but he thinks you have an insider telling you his plans to kidnap women. He won’t stop until he captures you.”
She sat on the bed, stunned and unsure she wasn’t dreaming. “This seems impossible.” Her gaze lifted to his. “Adam is kidnapping the women, then?”
He gave a nod. “The GTECHs are only fertile with one woman. Finding that woman is a mystery and he’s conducting dangerous and pretty horrific fertility testing. And if you want to know what that means, ask Sterling’s lifebond. She knows firsthand.”
“Lifebond? What is a lifebond?”
“The one woman the GTECH is fertile with. Sterling is one of the rare GTECHs who found his.”
She inhaled sharply and let it out. “And you?”
“There is no woman for me but you, Sonia. There never has been.” He cut his gaze and seemed to grapple for control before slowly shifting his eyes back to hers. “There are things you don’t know and I can’t tell you right now. I need to leave this room before I do something we will both regret.”
The next thing she knew he was stalking past her, clearly headed for the door, and intending to leave.
Would he come back? Would she ever see him again. Sonia pursued him and shackled his arm. “Please don’t go. Please. Not when I’ve just found out you’re alive.”
“I have to,” he said, sounding as if he was in pain. “I don’t have control with you and you have no idea the implications of what that means.” He ran a rough hand through his hair. “I’ll be back. Just...just give me some time. You can’t leave the facility, but you can go anywhere inside. I’ll send someone to show you around.”
“You show me around,” she said, regretting how she’d doubted him, how she’d reacted to what he’d told her.
“I can’t, Sonia. I just...can’t. You don’t understand that now but you will. You will.” He pulled away and was through the door before she could stop him.
Chapter Four
Kel stalked down the hallway toward the lab where he knew he’d find Becca, Sterling’s lifebond, someone who could help Sonia in all kinds of ways. Emotion expanded inside him, ready to explode but somehow he clamped down on his feelings. He knew the right thing to do. He knew he had to wipe Sonia’s memory as he would the waitress, once they’d arranged a new life for her, someplace safe and far away from the Zodius’ reach. Instead, he burned to pull her into his arms and make love to her, to make her his lifebond and bind her to him forever. The bond was no sure thing, and even if it was, it would steal her ability to choose her future. Not this time, not when she had options. And not when the final outcome was her being bound to him in life and in death. She deserved a choice and but he worried it wasn’t that simple. The truth of the matter was thought that he wasn’t even sure that he really could give her choices. Would her dreams simply recreate whatever he’d erased?
The only person that might be able to answer that was Becca. She had abilities that her transformation to GTECH had given her.
He entered the lab, and sure enough, the pretty brunette Sterling called wife and lifebond stood at a lab table looking through a microscope.
“Hi Kel,” she said, glancing up at him. “How is Sonia and when can I meet her?” She took one look at him and rephrased. “What’s wrong?”
Kel started to pace, ignoring the question. “She has dreams that come true.”
“I heard something about that. Sterling said you thought they’d gone away?”
“I did,” he said. “But apparently they’re back.”
“For how long?”
He stopped walking and ran his hand through his hair. “We didn’t exactly get to that.”
“She was pretty upset over you faking your death?”
He nodded. “That’s an understatement.”
“I can understand her being upset.”
“I had to do it.”
“I know,” she said gently. “If anyone knows I do. Remember? I was inside the Zodius facility. I saw what they do to women there.”
“I don’t want this life for her.”
“She’s already a part of it,” Becca reminded him.
“If I wipe her memory, I need to know if the dreams will recreate them. I need you to test her and find out.”
“Kel, I touch someone and I see their memories. I can’t see what their future memories will be. And if she has this ability, you can wipe away her past, but you won’t stop her dreams from taking her where they want to go. Call me a romantic, but I’d like to think they will always lead her right back here, to you. You love her and you hurt every day being away from her. I see it in your eyes.”
“How do I bring her into this world and justify that as okay?”
“How do you justify doing what the army did to you and the others in ‘Project Zodius’ by denying her the ability to choose?”
“Because I’m saving her life and they were taking ours.”
“You think stealing her memories and giving her some life she didn’t ask for is saving her?”
“DO you know where Kel is?” came a muffled female, very familiar voice from the hallway.
That she’d come hunting for him shouldn’t have surprised him, yet it did. She was, and always had been, determined to get what she wanted. That she wanted him both warmed him and turned him to ice. He didn’t know how to handle this right. He’d had no time to think about this.
Becca smiled. “She’s looking for you. I like her already.”
Suddenly, the door opened behind Kel and Damion said, “You have company.” Kel turned just in time to see Damion step out of the doorway and Sonia appear from behind him.
“Kel,” she said, charging forward to embrace him, tilting her chin up to find his eyes with hers. “All that matters is that you’re alive and we’re together. I love you. I never stopped loving you, or missing you, or hurting from the loss of you. I’m not letting you play macho super soldier and send me away. Not unless you tell me you don’t love me any more.”
Kel buried his head in her hair, inhaling the sweet smell of woman - his woman - and he knew why he’d walked away without giving her a choice. She was a giving, beautiful woman in so many ways. She was at that bar tonight tonight to save the waitress, fearless for herself. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
She pulled back and forced him to look at her, those gorgeous green eyes of hers seeming to see right into his soul, her voice hoarse with emotion. “Then don’t leave me again.”
“I don’t want to,” he assured her, and there was no way she could possibly know how much he meant those words, how much he wanted to be selfish and keep her with him.
“But you’re going to?” she challenged, seeming to read his mind. She shook her head. “No. I won’t let you.” There was stubbornness, passion, and love, in that vow.
It was all he could do not to pick up Sonia and carry her out of here, back to the apartments he called his own when in the city. To his bed. Somehow, he managed to restrain himself and instead he gently took her hand. “Let’s go back to the room.”
She nodded and he turned to Becca. “Sonia, this is Becca. I’ll introduce you more formally later.”
Sonia waved. “Hi, Becca. Nice to meet you.”
Becca smiled softly. “We’ll get acquainted after you two get some much needed time together. I’d love to hear about your dreams. I have a few abilities of my own I’m still getting used to.”
“I’d like that very much,” Sonia said.
Kel motioned to the door and he and Sonia headed to the hallway. The floral scent of her, the soft sway of her hips, seeped into his senses.
Suddenly, his adrenaline was pumping fiercely, his blood burning through his veins. He been so long without her, too long without her. But there were things she had to know, things about him, and he dreaded the moment she might call him a monster. The moment she saw what he’d really become. And he was afraid that moment was now.
Chapter Five
The minute they were in the hallway, Kel fought the urge to pick Sonia up, as something primitive and wholly male inside him began to expand and take control. They walked past rows of apartments, adrenaline pumping through him with every step, every long second. The instant they were inside the apartment and he shut the door, the adrenaline pouring through him surged and took over. This time he really did pick her up and carried her to the bed, going down onto the mattress with her on her back, the soft and delicate curves of her body beneath his bigger, harder form.
He kissed her, driven by passion, by a wild, almost desperate need to claim her. His hands slid over her body, over her breasts. She moaned softly into his mouth and fire burned inside him, and he knew he was millimeters from forgetting everything but this moment, forgetting the co
nsequences.
He tore his mouth from hers, his words gravely with desire. “There are things you need to know.”
“I know the most important part. You’re alive.”
“I’m not human, Sonia. Not anymore.”
“You’re still the man I love.”
“You don’t know-”
“I know you.”
“I’ve changed.”
“Show me,” she whispered. “Show me who you are now.”
Renegade Passion Page 2
