CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Sterling could hear Becca’s high-pitched scream even before he burst through the lab door, leaving Caleb and Michael in the hallway, adrenaline pumping through his body like white lightning. He felt that scream right to his soul, the terror in it, the pain, and the desperation to survive. Becca thought she was dying. That someone was trying to kill her. How he knew that, he didn’t know. But he knew.
The lab came into view in a whirlwind of flying debris that Sterling fought his way through as he spotted the computer and the overturned chair. Relief washed over him as he found Becca huddled beneath the desk, knees pulled to her chest, but no intruder.
He rushed to her, glass crunching beneath his boots as he squatted down in front of her. “Becca,” he said, his hands going to her knees. “Becca, sweetheart.”
She screamed again, clutching onto his arms, and then kicking and screaming. Hysterical…fighting for her life…scratching at him…wild. He backed away long enough to see her eyes. Wide…blank…as if she were blind.
“Get her out from under the desk,” Caleb said from behind.
Sterling looked over his shoulder. “Are you nuts? We have no idea what she might do to you.”
Caleb appeared above him. “I have mental shields other GTECHs do not. So does Becca. I can feel her energy, and if she doesn’t start using them and using them now, she’s going to die. She’s being attacked. So get her out now.”
Sterling didn’t need to hear another word. He reached for Becca, curling his fingers around her arm, and pulled her kicking and screaming from under that desk.
“Hold her still,” Caleb ordered.
“Right,” Sterling muttered, sitting down on the floor and positioning Becca in front of him, pinning her arms to her sides from behind, her back against his chest. Still, she kicked wildly. “That’s as good as it gets.”
Caleb kneeled at their side, out of the range of her kicks, and pressed his hand to her forehead.
She let out one sharp final scream and then gasped. Her head fell forward. “What just happened?” she panted.
Sterling had no idea what Caleb had just done, but he was thankful. Quickly he turned Becca in his arms, his hand sliding over her hair. “You’re okay.”
“Sterling,” she whispered a moment before her eyes went wide on Caleb.
“She won’t be,” Caleb said. “Not if we don’t act now.”
“Adam!” Becca yelled, trying to pull back, shifting to her knees.
“Caleb,” Sterling and Caleb said at the same moment.
“Becca, listen to me,” Caleb insisted. “Someone attacked your mind. They’re going to attack you again. You have the ability to shield yourself. I need you to focus with me, and let me teach you how.”
“I can’t,” she said. “I don’t have any idea how to do that.”
“You do,” Caleb insisted. “Relax, and let it happen.” He eyed Sterling with a keen glance, before returning his attention to Becca. “Do you trust Sterling?”
“I…” She cut a look at Sterling. “I…”
“Good,” Caleb said, as if she’d admitted trust. “Let him help you. Let him be your anchor. Find him in your mind first, and when you start to lose focus, you go back to him.”
Sterling had never been anyone’s anchor and never thought he wanted to be. Nor was he sure he was made of the right stuff for such a task. But he’d do just about anything for Becca. He took her hand. “I’m all yours, sweetheart,” he teased. “Take me when you’re ready.”
She laughed. It didn’t matter that there were tears welling in her eyes. That sound was like honey on a hot sunny day. Sticky sweet in all the right ways.
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” she challenged, her voice hoarse, but not without a playful twang.
“I would,” he said, shifting his weight to one knee. “So do it.”
Caleb reached out and pressed his palms to both their forearms. “Close your eyes.”
To Sterling’s shock, warmth spread up his arm, energy almost like electricity, moving through him into Becca…or maybe through her into him. “Find his mind, Becca,” Caleb ordered.
Seconds ticked by. That warm energy flowed through him, getting hotter, more pronounced, until Becca’s mind was there. Sterling could feel Becca in his head.
He wouldn’t be able to explain that feeling to anyone if he had to; he didn’t understand it himself. But it rocked his world, the intimacy of her inside his head. For just a moment, the idea that she might read his past, know his weaknesses, almost made him jerk away. Caleb’s hand tightened on Sterling’s arm, as if he knew what Sterling was feeling, what he was about to do.
Then, suddenly, someone else was there, in his head—no, in Becca’s head. She gasped at the malevolent touch. In his mind’s eyes, Sterling saw a boy—young, strong, evil. Then a flash of himself cutting open Becca’s arm. Pain wrenched through him as he felt what Becca had felt when he’d cut her shoulder.
“Find Sterling in your mind, Becca,” Caleb said. “Find that anchor, and center yourself in that place. Then fight back. Seal out the pain. Block the intruder. This is your mind. Not his. Get angry. Fight!”
“Fight,” Sterling whispered, out loud, or maybe it was in his mind, in hers. He didn’t know exactly, but he felt Becca shaking. Sterling was shaking with her. That energy that had drawn him closer to her was pushing him away. He could almost feel the pressure on his chest like a hand.
“Don’t let him win, Sterling,” Caleb said softly. “Be her anchor. Reach for her mind.”
Anchor. He was supposed to be her anchor. Sterling tightened his grip on Becca’s hands as Caleb had on his arm. “Becca,” he said. “I’m here.”
Her fingers curled around his, and he could hear her breathing rasping out faster…shallower. Long moments passed. She pressed hard against his mind, pulled him toward her, and wrapped him inside out with her presence. The pain faded in a sudden rush of awareness.
“He’s gone,” Becca said, her shoulders slumping. “He’s gone! I did it!”
The energy he’d felt spiking along her nerve endings faded instantly. Sterling let out a sigh of relief, and it was all he could do not to pull her into his arms. Had he ever felt such protectiveness for a woman? For anyone? Her grip on his hand tightened, her eyes meeting his, awareness between them.
There was something as intimate as sex in that connection they’d shared. Something beyond physical contact, a sense of knowing each other on a level no other person could. It was remarkable. On some level he knew her fears, her joys, her needs. And, he thought, with a hard swallow, she knew his. She knew things he’d never shared with anyone.
“Can you feel your shield in place, Becca?” Caleb asked. “Protecting your mind?”
“Yes,” she said, and obviously struggled to pull her gaze from Sterling to Caleb. “I feel it.”
“Keep it in place,” he said. “Practice releasing that shield and then pulling it back into place. Use Sterling as that anchor if you need to, especially when you go to sleep. You have to feel that shield before you allow yourself to rest.”
Sleep. Bed. Him with Becca. Sterling mentally shook away that image. “If she lets down the shield, then can’t her attacker come back after her again?”
“I can’t be certain, but I don’t think so,” Caleb said, releasing their arms and leaning back on one foot, settling his arm on his knee. “Emotions create a type of energy wired to the brain. That energy leaves a residue that lasts for a short period of time. Once it’s gone, it’s gone. He’d need another strand of her energy to attach to. And the good news here is that Becca, in essence, has the same ability to shield herself as a full GTECH, minus the help of a Lifebond.” His gaze touched Sterling’s. “Not even a Tracker could find her should she ever be marked.” Sterling inhaled. Caleb was telling him that he could be intimate with Becca without consequence.
“Is this because I’m using ICE?” Becca asked.
<
br /> “I don’t think so,” Caleb replied. “After the connection we shared, my feeling is that this has to do with a natural ability you possessed without awareness before using the ICE. Or maybe before combining the cancer treatments and the ICE. I don’t think your abilities can be recreated in other people without the same dormant skills.” He shrugged. “The whys, whens, hows, and mights—those are questions for you scientists.”
“This is all so…surreal,” she murmured, tilting her head to study Caleb. “You look so much like Adam, but yet, you are nothing like him.”
“I consider that a compliment,” he said in what was meant to be a nonchalant tone, but failed. Sterling knew Caleb’s secret fear of becoming like Adam one day.
“You don’t communicate with wolves?”
Caleb shook his head. “No. That is my brother’s ability.” His tone darkened. “Who was he, Becca? That boy who attacked your mind?”
“Dorian,” she whispered, then firmed her voice. “It was Dorian. I hate even saying his name. He’s Adam’s son.”
Sterling’s brows shot up. “Come again? Adam’s son is six months old. How would he attack your mind?”
Grimly Becca explained, “Dorian is only six months old, but he’s aging at the rate of two years per month. He’s the DNA source for ICE. And let me tell you, he is the epitome of evil, beyond Adam, and he’s getting stronger and more dangerous every day.”
“Holy mother of Jesus,” Sterling murmured, his eyes meeting Caleb’s troubled stare.
“You can say that again,” Caleb agreed. “I felt that boy’s energy. If he’s this powerful at six months old, what will he be at a year? Or five?”
“He’s pure evil,” Becca repeated. “I can’t stress that enough. He’ll kill just to watch someone die, because it entertains him. I saw him in action. And that’s the kind of evil these Clanners are ingesting daily.” Her lips thinned as her face paled. “That I’m ingesting every day.”
The parking garage was a scurry of activity as police tried to get to the car that had been reported as stolen. Zodius soldiers held them at bay.
Meanwhile, in the exact spot that stolen vehicle had once been, the spot where Rebecca Burns had experienced the pain Dorian was now using to connect and hopefully kill her, Adam watched as Dorian’s eyes rolled from the back of his head and came into focus. “I have met my uncle, Father,” Dorian said. “You were right. He is very powerful. He has defeated me. He has saved the woman’s life.”
Adam inhaled a bittersweet breath. Caleb’s abilities, his strengths, however cumbersome at present, would be immensely useful when Caleb assumed his role as a leader by his side.
“He does not wish to join us, Father,” Dorian said. “But I know that you wish him to. He is concerned for the humans. Why not kill some of them? He will join us to save them.”
“Because killing humans scares the other humans,” Adam said. “Until we control enough of them, we must cater to their many sensitivities. We do not want to scare people away from using ICE before its use becomes a national epidemic of sorts. Which will be soon.” He was already hard at work planning expanded distribution.
Adam redirected to matters most urgent. “Do you know where the woman is, Dorian?”
“I know only what I saw in her mind,” Dorian said. “She is still in the city—not far, I think. In a lab with the one they call Sterling. He was in her mind, too. Sterling is fond of the woman. She could be used against him if need be.”
Adam smiled at the way Dorian instinctively found weakness and turned it into a strategy. He snapped his fingers at Tad who stood nearby. “Find Sterling. Follow him. He will lead you to Rebecca Burns.”
She’d introduced Caleb to Dorian, the source of ICE. That screwed up his plans to use Dorian as a secret weapon when he’d reached his prime. Adam balled his fists at his side. He should have killed that bitch himself when he had the chance.
Adam cut Dorian a look. “Give the humans something to think about besides us.”
Dorian’s eyes filled with a mixture of menace and excitement. “Thank you, Father,” he said. “I so enjoy playing with the humans.”
A moment later, flames shot from a nearby car, then another. And another. Adam laughed as voices lifted in the air, people scrambling to safety.
Adam and his entourage faded into the strands of wind whistling through the screams.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Becca’s blood work was almost normal, as in barely a trace of anything pointing to cancer. It was a miracle, but Becca didn’t celebrate. Kelly and Sterling seemed to understand she needed to set herself aside, including the threat Dorian represented, and focus on the big picture.
Six hours later, Becca punched a computer button to end a session with Kelly and turned away from the lab table to run smack into Sterling.
His hands settled quickly to her arms, steadying her. Heat curled in her stomach, and she had the most exasperating desire to push to her toes and run her fingers through his spiky blond hair.
“You’re hovering again,” she reprimanded.
“I was bringing your dose of ICE,” he said and then grinned. “But yeah, hovering too.”
“My mental shield is up,” she said. “I can feel it. I’m okay. I swear. You don’t have to stand over me and wait for Dorian to attack.”
“I’d rather be safe than sorry,” he said. “I’m staying close by your side. So just deal with it.” His hands slid away from her arms, leaving her cold and eager to have him touch her again. He held out the vial of ICE. “I don’t want you going into withdrawal.”
Reluctantly, she reached for it, but closed her hand around his instead, as she suddenly remembered something she’d learned while in his head. “This isn’t about me surviving this addiction,” she said, needing him to know that for some reason. “I know you’re worried about that, maybe even worried that I will have second thoughts about destroying ICE. But I wouldn’t have told you about Dorian if that were the case. I know you might think I’ll make decisions simply to keep myself alive, or maybe others around you will, but I won’t. This is bigger than me.”
He reached up and brushed hair from her eyes, gently, protectively. “Then I guess I’ll have to keep you alive.”
She wanted to melt into him at that moment, wanted to believe he could protect her, save her. But he couldn’t. Why pretend otherwise? She slipped the vial of ICE from his hand and turned away from him. Ashamed by such an addiction, she didn’t want him to see her take it.
Becca downed the ICE and set the vial on the lab table, the freezing sensation sending her hand to her throat. Suddenly, Sterling’s hands were on her shoulders, and he was turning her toward him. Before she knew his intention, his fingers laced through her hair, and he was kissing her, his mouth hot, demanding. His body—strong, warm—pressed close to her.
With only a moment of hesitation, Becca leaned into him, wrapped her arms around his back, moaned as his tongue slid along hers, caressed and teased, hungry. He tasted like apple pie, and if she hadn’t been so hot, she might have laughed at the fact that he’d been eating apple pie.
But she was hot, and for the first time since meeting Sterling, maybe for the first time ever, she kissed him—kissed a man—with complete, utter abandon. Kissed him like there might not be a tomorrow, like a woman who knew what she wanted, and what she wanted was him.
Long seconds later, Sterling tore his mouth from hers, staring down at her with heavy-lidded bedroom eyes that made her want to kiss him all over again. “I thought you had reasons not to touch me,” she challenged, hardly recognizing the gravelly, desire-laden words as her own.
“I’ve never done real well at doing what I’m supposed to do,” he said, his thumb caressing her cheek, the sensation somehow making her breasts heavy, her nipples tight and achy. Becca had never felt so ready to lose herself in a man. But then, she’d never been in a position where she had nothing to lose but herself. It was liberating in ways sh
e was ready to embrace.
She drew a breath and willed away the flutters in her stomach, nerves that came from years of suppressing her desires. “I’ve always done exactly what’s expected of me,” she confessed. “I don’t want to this time. I don’t want you to either.”
He lowered his head, his breath warm as it caressed her skin. The promise of his kiss brought her to her toes when suddenly he drew back. “Once we do this,” he said, a deep, whiskey-rich quality to his voice, “we can’t undo it.”
He’d said something similar at her house, when he was about to tell her about the GTECHs. She didn’t shy away then, and she wasn’t going to now. And apparently neither was he, because despite his warning, he didn’t move away, didn’t put distance between them, and she could feel the thick ridge of his erection. Courage formed with those realizations. Becca flattened her hand on his chest, splayed her fingers, absorbed the feel of muscle flexing beneath her palm. She wanted to touch him, to feel him close, to forget everything else for just a little while.
“I don’t want to die never having known you, Sterling.”
Torment sliced through his expression. “Becca—”
She pressed her fingertips to his lips. “Don’t,” she said, easing her fingers away, letting them slide over his jaw. “Every day of our lives could be the last for every one of us. I’m simply living with that in mind. I regret not doing so my entire life.” She’d regretted a lot since finding out she had cancer, and regret was something she could do without. “I want you, Sterling.”
He stared down at her, and she’d never been looked at quite like that, with so much simmering heat. He really did look like he wanted to gobble her up as he’d once suggested, and thankfully, he apparently decided he would. He kissed her, more than kissed her. It was a claiming, a taking. A possessing. His lips pressed to hers, first soft then firm, his tongue pressing past her teeth, warm with demand, hungry…devouring her. And she wanted to be devoured, wanted to devour him right back. Wanted to do every wanton, sensual deed she’d ever dared to consider, ever dared to wonder about, and always allowed inhibitions to destroy.
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