by Alisa Woods
Tobin looked like he’d just been offered a dish too tempting to turn down. Mercy wasn’t sure what turned him on so much. Getting access to Mercy’s supposed pet lab tech? Swift had managed to sound legit. Did Tobin want her software? Their research? Some of that was company-classified, but Raine Magitek was in-house now—they could arrange an exchange of some research if they wished.
“Sounds like you’re just what we need,” Tobin said with a relish that both creeped Mercy out and gushed her with relief.
Swift was in.
“Great!” Swift proclaimed, finally releasing her. Thank magick. “I can start whenever you’re ready. Sooner the better.”
But he was locking gazes with Tobin again, the two sizing each other up.
“Violet will get you acquainted with our lab.” Then Tobin turned to Mercy and scooped up her hand, holding it in both of his. “It was a pleasure, Ms. Strange. One I hope we can repeat soon. Perhaps I’ll see you at the International Gen-Magick conference next week. I do hope your father will be recovered enough to attend as well. It’s a miracle he survived that terrible drug overdose.” He smiled, but there was no warmth in it, only a cold hunger. And the official cover story about her father was that he overdosed—the illegal drug experimentation scheme had been kept out of the press, while the tabloids feasted on the serial killer story. Which was great for the case, but left her father looking like an addict—something Tobin seemed to enjoy bringing up.
He was still gripping her hand, and before Mercy could snatch it away, he brought it up to his lips. They were as chilled as the rest of him.
She managed not to snarl.
He dropped her hand and turned to leave, striding back through the security arch like he was off on some important business and had forgotten them the moment his back was turned. Violet stood stiff and vibrating, edging toward the arch, waiting for Swift to follow her. He turned to her, and Mercy gave him a look like, What the hell just happened?
He just smiled brightly and said, “Thanks, hon. See you later.” Then he leaned in and kissed her on the cheek! A jolt went through her body, and she barely caught his whispered, I’ll message you later. She struggled to smile as he quickly retreated.
Violet led him across the threshold of the security arch with a fast, shuffling kind of walk.
Mercy’s part of the mission was done—now it was up to Swift to find out how Violet was connected to all of this, where the drugs were being made, who had the knowledge to make them, and all that in time to stop whatever was set to happen tomorrow in this horror show. She hadn’t wanted to be part of any of this, but now that she was, it felt weird to just abandon Swift.
But he was the FBI agent, not her. Still… she was glad he planned to message her. Maybe she could help once he was settled.
Mercy felt almost as awkward as the eccentric Violet Thorn as she turned and shuffled back out the door.
Chapter Four
Mercy Strange had thrown him off his game.
And Swift couldn’t afford that.
The Mercy Strange’s of the world—the ones with all the power and money and connections—would never understand what it was like to be him. He could see that by how easily she judged Walker, the incubus agent. If she’d known what Swift really was—or even half the story—she’d squint those made-up eyes and assess him as irredeemably flawed. Not that she’d be technically wrong. He was a criminal by birth, from a long line of criminals. He’d left his family behind, but that only meant that staying on the straight and narrow was all he had. If he lost that—if he lost focus on his objective here—Underwood Correctional would be his new home. For approximately three days or as long as it took for someone to slit his throat in his sleep.
He couldn’t afford to get distracted by a beautiful and conflicted witch with a hundred hidden emotions—especially if he had to turn her in for whatever she was hiding. So he carefully packed away any intrigue or allure she had on offer, the way he’d done a hundred times with anyone and everyone who piqued his interest, and focused on the lithe form of Violet Thorn, who was hurrying through the labyrinth of Raine Magitek’s research laboratories ahead of him. She’d quickly taken him to the second floor, but then seemed to rethink that, and now they’d gone down the elevator to the basement, where well-lit state-of-the-art gen-magick laboratories hummed with equipment. The place was mostly devoid of people, just a couple lab techs buried in their work. The ceiling was high, and at the end of the hall were tall double doors marked Authorized Personnel Only. The footprint of the building was large, and the visible part of the basement was small—beyond those doors was the remaining two-story space. Maybe the production facility, where Raine Magitek made their drugs? No way to know, as Violet abruptly turned into one of the long, narrow laboratories. She strode ahead, quickly passing a line of machines sitting on black countertops.
“Are you sure you know the way?” he asked, pointedly questioning her ability to navigate her own labs.
Her long brown hair fanned out as she whipped a look back to him—but his clear insult was met with only a briefly terrified look, and then a tremulous lift of her chin. “Of course.” Then she continued her scuttling forward march, the tension of her body vibrating like the screeching symphony of her emotions filling the air.
His probing insult was a test, but Violet was easy to read. She was a natural submissive to Tobin Raine’s dominant, their high-voltage relationship clear even without his ability to read them. Violet exuded gratitude and relief whenever Tobin exerted his will over hers. Raine’s pleasure at her meekness thrummed the air between them. Swift didn’t know if they carried that relationship into sex, but it hardly mattered—it was the power plays that did it for both.
Her terrified reaction to Swift’s mild attempt to dominate just verified how susceptible she was—and she knew it. She would resist another dom coming in and telling her what to do… and then, eventually, succumb if the temptation were too great. Swift could do it—it wouldn’t even be that difficult, she was so on edge—but she was an emotional minefield with so many trip wires. And breaking her would leave damage he had no desire to inflict. He’d seen the full range of effects his Talent could have—and he’d inflicted more damage than he could count. He still had the occasional nightmare where all the emotional husks he’d emptied came back, zombie-like, to pull him down into the abyss.
He had no desire to break Violet, and more important, he didn’t think it would be necessary. Or wise. The damage would be easily detectable by her primary dom, the CEO of Raine Magitek. Violet wasn’t acting on her own. If one of them was involved in the illegal gen-magick drugs—either the creation or the manufacture of the bioweapons—then they were both involved. Two seconds of observation had convinced Swift that Violet would do anything for Tobin, so he was definitely the one in charge, even if she’d been the one to pose as an oncology intern in some elaborate deception of Asher Strange.
Only Swift had no evidence of anything—emotional dynamics and a memory scry of Violet in makeup was insufficient to convict on any charge, much less one involving mass murder. So he needed access to their files without arousing too much suspicion—which was exactly why he’d been assigned to this mission in the first place.
Violet finally shuffled up to a darkened office at the end of the long laboratory. “You can work here,” she said as she hastened to turn on the lights and lead him into the cramped room. There were a couple bare shelves and a desktop computer on a battered gray-metal desk, but that was it. The chair was standard-issue office furniture at least ten years old, judging by the rips in the cushions.
“You can’t possibly expect me to work here.” He gave a look of disdain to the chair, but he was mostly interested in the computer. Could it access what he needed?
“You… you can start here and if… once you’re settled—”
He interrupted her stammering with a forceful stare and stepped closer, definitely into her personal space. “Tobin thinks I can make a substantial c
ontribution.”
She shrunk back, and the surge of panic that thrummed the air told him he was on the right track. “Your work in the Strange laboratory—”
“Exactly.” He eased even closer. She leaned back. The office was too tiny for her to go anywhere, and she’d made the mistake of letting him block her access to the door. “I’ve been working on their most sophisticated gene drives.” He’d whetted Raine’s appetite with that—the idea that Swift might have inside information about the Strange family’s research—but with Violet, it was all about figuring out what pleased Tobin and delivering that. “Don’t waste my time with trivialities, Violet.”
He could practically hear her heart fluttering. The surge of attraction was unmistakable, but it was sending her into a panic. He’d hoped to just bully her into giving him what he needed, but she was too much of a mess. He held her gaze while he reached out with his mind, feeling along the jittery vibrations of her emotional state, homing in on the areas of her mind rife with self-loathing, guilt, and a quivering panic she might succumb to this curious and powerful man who’d trapped her in an office. She feared she might betray her Master, utterly and completely. As he dug deeper and fanned out—reflexively using his Talent to command her entire emotional state, not just the one feeling skittering across the surface—he sensed the discordance of all her conflict. Her wild and growing arousal that she was trapped and she had no choice and that she might simply have to do his will—and the blessed relief of that. The deep and sincere guilt that arousal brought to the surface. The even deeper self-loathing and conviction that she was unworthy of any love, much less the love of her vibrant and powerful Master.
Swift grimaced—he was too familiar with that particular emotion.
But it had serious self-destructive power, so he started there, playing the instrument of her mind by enhancing or dampening the surging electron fires in her brain. He tamped down the self-loathing because she was about to melt down in front of him—but not too much because he needed that prickly motivation to spur her on. He strummed on her guilt, soothing it, then amped up the attraction even more.
He kept his voice quiet, reassuring, leaving the dominance act behind, now that his Talent had smoothed the way. “Give me the log-in and password for your most important research. That’s what Tobin would want.” His words were almost unimportant now—she was wide open, receptive to whatever he wanted. He just had to ask.
“Of course,” she breathed, the relief of having a command to follow was so visceral it almost canceled out everything else. “It’s right over here.” She practically floated around him to the battered desk, her thin, pale fingers quickly turning on the computer, and then, as she waited for it to boot, her hands hung limp and patient at her sides—non-stressed, no anxiety, no conflict now that Swift’s Talent had tuned her emotional state into a perfect balance in which to obey him. Obedience was her natural state. He just had to twist her emotional dials so she’d do it for him.
He came up behind her and said, “You’re a very good girl, Violet.”
Her quivering excitement in response was too strong—Swift had to tamp that down. Too much, and she’d be stripping down and offering herself to him right there on the desk. And he really didn’t want to have to repair the damage that would cause to her psyche—if he even could.
The computer screen lit up. Violet bent over to type at the keyboard, her rear-end nearly brushing against him—her arousal said it was intentional, but she stopped short of actually touching him, thank magick.
He worked hard at believing he wasn’t a monster, despite what he did. Yes, he manipulated the hell out of people. Yes, he violated their will, their minds, and hacked into their most personal self-emotions, the ones tied to their self-concept. He messed with who people were… and that was the sort of thing monsters did. But he only did so when ordered—and now, for a good and just cause. He never took pleasure in it—and he went out of his way to avoid assaulting their bodies while doing it. Some of his prior work had required that—a physical as well as mental violation, although the line between those two was thin and easily crossed.
He hadn’t actually raped anyone.
This was a thing he told himself endlessly, and it was factually true.
He’d simply been ordered to break them—and that often meant a physical assault to go with the emotional one. He hadn’t thrown the punches or stripped them down physically. He hadn’t been the one degrading them physically while their minds were under assault. He’d just watched as someone else played the symphony of physical pain while he conducted the emotional one. And he was always sick afterward, often hyping that up so he wouldn’t have to return to the box to do it all over again so soon.
He could truthfully say he never enjoyed it. He wasn’t that kind of monster, even then.
Now, his work was much less horrifying, but actually more confusing. Because it approximated real life, whereas his military work was always clearly a nightmare reality show he visited only when ordered to do so. Now, the lines were blurred in a different way. When Violet bent over the keyboard, thrusting her pert rear-end nearly into his crotch, it had the illusion of reality—as if they were perhaps playing a seductive game. She was convinced of it, thanks to his Talent, and if he wished, he could convince himself. That she enjoyed it. That she wanted him to command her into sex acts. It might even be true.
But it wasn’t. It wasn’t real.
And he had to struggle every time to remember that.
Whatever was going on between him and Ms. Mercy Strange was the same—it wasn’t real. He hadn’t used his Talent on her, except for that brief, mistaken attempt when they met in her office, but that didn’t matter. He was the lie. He was something she didn’t realize. Something she couldn’t expect. Everything about him was a lie, just like always, and that meant he had to work extra hard to keep the blurry lines between reality and Talent-controlled-fiction extremely sharp.
Or he would become a monster.
And he couldn’t afford that either.
Violet let out a contented sigh. A cryptic window had popped up, saying simply Data Retrieval, and she’d entered the log-in and password. Then she straightened up, turned, and demurely kept her head bowed. “I hope this pleases you,” she breathed. Her delight in completing her task was making a small smile twitch the corners of her mouth.
“Very much.” He frowned at the screen. “You should write it down in case I need it again.”
As she scrambled to find a pen and paper in the desk and jot down the log-in and password, he scanned the screen. The mass of data and files and even the plots made no sense to him. He could try to download it, but figuring it out would have to be left to the experts. Probably Mercy.
Violet handed him a slip of paper. “What else can I do for you?” she breathed.
He grimaced. “Go. I’m done with you for now.” He let some of the dominant voice creep back in as he eased off the full-blown emotional manipulation.
She stood for a moment in front of him, not moving, just blinking her downcast eyes as if trying to figure out what she’d done wrong. But the residual haze of non-anxiety and blissful compliance still lingered, even though he’d pulled out of her mind.
“I should… leave you to…” She glanced at the screen and frowned. “Your work.”
Swift held his breath. She would remember everything. Every word. Every action. But mostly she would remember how she felt… and how those powerful emotions were still swimming chemicals through her brain.
“Thank you for your assistance,” he said carefully, coolly, backing up to give her some space to leave.
She nodded, jerkily, then shuffled from the room. She only hesitated once on her way out of the laboratory.
Swift waited until she was safely gone then hurried into the old and squeaky office chair. He had to hunt a little to find the file directory, now that Violet had logged him into their “secret” network, but the organization was cryptic. Seven digit codes, a
couple names, but no identifiers that meant anything to him. He opened a few files—some were lab reports with tech talk he didn’t understand, some were specialized formats that wouldn’t open automatically, but he found one that looked like genomic data, the kind Mercy had shown him in her office. Fortunately, he didn’t have to understand it—he just had to download a copy. He drew out a tiny flash drive he’d hidden in his sock—just in case they patted him down coming in, which they hadn’t—and dragged the entire directory structure over to it. He might have to smuggle the data out in pieces if it didn’t all fit on the drive—
A window popped up demanding a passcode. He typed in the same one Violet used to get in. Denied. He tried again, in case he misspelled it. Denied again. A third attempt would probably lock him out and maybe even trigger some kind of alert.
Fuck. He closed that out and brought up the genomic data file again. So he could open the files but downloading required special access. To get that, he would need to use his Talent on Violet again, and that could quickly get suspicious. And maybe this was just company-proprietary data and not anything to do with the illegal gen-magick. He didn’t want to risk it if this wasn’t the data he needed.
He pulled his phone from his pocket and dialed Mercy.
“Hello?” She seemed surprised.
