by Diana Seere
“I assure you,” Asher said, long hair flowing in waves over his collar, eyes framed by thick lashes, the cold anger morphing into a warrior’s gleam, “that by the time we’re finished talking, I won’t need to do that.”
Chapter 7
“Speak,” Edward snapped as Asher took his place behind the austere oak desk that seemed to be his eldest brother’s second skin.
Asher let out a low chuckle, tight with reproach. “I am not an exotic bird who recites on command.”
“And I am not a dog who responds to a whistle.”
“You certainly seem to be one when you find yourself in proximity to Ms. Molly Sloan.” Asher inhaled slowly, the breath of a man teasing out the bouquet of a fine wine.
Edward wanted to break his brother’s nose off and throw it into the fire.
He saw the surprise, the anger, in Asher’s eyes. Nowhere else, of course. The eldest Stanton was the king of emotional control.
“Now that we’ve compared ourselves to animals we’re not, let’s get to the point.” Edward was done. Done. This day contained too many emotions, far too many sensations, and not enough time to think.
To roam.
“The point is that Molly is here for a reason.”
“You already said that.” Edward frowned. “I know she’s not a shifter. I would smell that.”
“No,” Asher said carefully. Edward expected more, but Asher did not elaborate.
The silence between them was pregnant and ripe, Edward’s breathing and the crackle of the fire the only sounds.
Asher managed to respire without making a single airy noise. How did he do that?
Those cold blue eyes, fringed with abundant lashes and a hardened brow, bore into him. “But she has qualities very much wanted in the shifter world.”
Edward’s throat burned with the memory of Tomas Nagy’s sexually suggestive comment. “You mean the men like her.”
Startled, Asher’s brow twitched. “I had not considered that to be one of her special qualities. Many human women are found to be exceedingly attractive to shifter men.” The way Asher scrutinized Edward’s response to that statement forced him not to react.
His blood raced through his body, though, unseen. Humming.
“But that’s not what makes her special,” Edward said. “To you.”
“To the shifter families, no. It’s her blood.”
Edward’s eyes flew open, arms and legs throbbing with the rush of fight-or-flight impulse to his extremities. The roar and rush of shifter hormones poured through him as he damn near changed.
“What the hell does her blood have to do with us?” His voice was gravel, pebbles on an eroding mountain, the sound of ground glass against metal. A vague memory stirred in him. A bandage on her arm at Derry’s reception. A comment about being a popular blood donor.
Gavin’s laboratory at LupiNex.
The details whirled about his mind like a child on a carousel, spinning round and round on a golden horse, exhilarated but slightly sick, too overcome to stop.
Asher studied him. “I see the pieces coming together for you, but I’ll explain.”
“Do.”
Again, Asher frowned. “Gavin has spent more than ten years researching DNA issues related to shifters. I told him it was a fool’s errand, but—” Asher moved two fingers in a flicking motion, the gesture compact and efficient. “Gavin would not listen.”
“And?”
“And in the course of this research, Gavin made a startling discovery. Human blood with remnants of shifter genetic material.”
“What?”
“Humans who are not shifters but who somehow possess shifter genes. Humans who have never born a shifter’s child, and yet they have pieces of our DNA in them.”
“Molly,” Edward gasped. The pulse in his arms and legs electrified, turning him into a swollen stronghold, ready to race through the estate to find her, protect her, get her away from this madness.
Madness he was sure to hear in the Asher’s next breath.
“Molly has this genetic material,” Asher explained. “Although she was only one of dozens of anonymous—and voluntary—donors. Gavin only learned of her precise identity a few days ago, after the theft. There were security breaches on several different levels. The encryption that kept her identity protected—even to Gavin and his employees—was shattered during the burglary. Even Tomas, who had been working at LupiNex when the properties of her DNA were discovered, never knew her identity.”
Edward flinched at the sound of Tomas’s name. It must’ve been during the loathsome toad’s tenure at LupiNex that he’d laid his disgusting hands on Molly. It was some comfort, however small, that it hadn’t been a recent event.
“Do her parents share this ‘genetic material’ as you call it? Surely, after invading her privacy thus far, you must have compiled a complete family history on the woman.”
Asher reached into a drawer in his desk and pulled out a thick manila folder. “Not me. Gavin. He has had inadequate time to research her background and just shared this information with me. What we know so far is that Molly’s mother died when she was eleven. Her father is unknown to her.”
Edward jerked, the movement violent. “But not unknown to Gavin.”
“No. He is a man of no distinction. He enjoyed her mother’s company until she became pregnant, it seems, for he disappeared months before her birth. Molly, apparently, never met him. But when we traced his ancestry back, we found a loose connection to a seventeenth-century shifter in Scotland.”
Edward let out a barking laugh, a sound of pain and fury. “You’ve done all this in a few days? You sound unhinged, Asher.”
Deadly serious eyes met his. “I assure you, none of this is delusional.” He tapped the file. “Unfortunately, it is all too real.”
“What, specifically, is in Molly’s blood that makes her so—” So what?
“Prized? Gavin used her blood to create the serum that turns off our shifter genes.”
Edward staggered backward, thighs hitting the edge of a chair. He reached back for balance and paused.
“She told me once that she donates to the Boston Blood Center every six weeks. I even saw a bandage…” He felt his shoulders drop at the same time all his muscles hardened. “It’s not for the blood center, is it?”
“Not that one, no. It’s for LupiNex.”
“They’ve been lying to her all this time?”
“She believed she was donating her blood for scientific research. And so she was.”
“How did Gavin discover her blood was different?”
Another dismissive finger twitch from Asher. “Who knows? Technicalities he can explain when he arrives. And perhaps Tomas has some insights as well.”
Edward gritted his teeth at the mention of Vivien’s brother again. He doubted the sneering playboy had anything useful to add, but Asher wouldn’t tolerate any insults aimed at his old friend. “Tomas?” he asked skeptically.
“He was in some sort of administrative role at LupiNex, don’t forget. He may know something he doesn’t realize he knows.”
“By the way, why did he leave LupiNex?” Edward asked. “I was under the impression the Nagys lacked independent means.” Edward had always wondered if Gavin had given Tomas a job because of Vivien’s murder. One Stanton atoning for the failure of another Stanton.
“Surely you’ve heard the gossip,” Asher said curtly.
“I beg your pardon, brother, but nobody shares any news about the Nagys with me. My aversion to any mention of them is well known.”
Asher brushed nonexistent lint off his lapel. “As I understand it, there was a misunderstanding with a female member of the laboratory.”
Edward snorted in disgust. Tomas had always been a sexual predator, but Asher wouldn’t believe his old friend could be at fault.
“And Tomas left of his own free will?” Asher’s obvious discomfort and euphemism for what was obvious sexual harassment made Edward twitch.
&nb
sp; “LupiNex is Gavin’s company, Edward. If you have questions about the administrative process, ask him.”
That was a nonanswer with an obvious conclusion. At least Gavin had sacked the man.
Gavin. Edward drew his hands into fists. His second-oldest brother had a lot of explaining to do.
“When does Gavin arrive?” Because Edward planned to jump him the second he landed.
“Later.”
Edward felt all his emotions coalesce, the seething taking a palpable form. “You’re telling me that Molly has been unwittingly pulled into this mess and that the theft of the serum at Gavin’s lab puts her in danger?”
Asher gave him a look of respect. “You have put the pieces together without my doing it for you.”
“Fuck you, Asher.”
His brother reeled. Reeled. Unaccustomed to having Edward behave in any way other than submissive, Asher’s expression said everything.
Edward had been living life as a hollow shell for too long, letting others dictate who he was and how he behaved.
“Excuse me?” Asher said, clearly offended, expecting an apology.
One that was not coming.
“Shall I repeat it? I do believe you heard me.” Tension roiled up his spine, into his neck, creeping across his scalp like a thousand fire ants on the march. “Fuck. You. This information should have been disclosed to me—and certainly to Molly—long ago. You’re sitting here with a smirk on your face, acting like this is a cat-and-mouse game.”
“I am doing no such thing.” Asher’s voice was cold steel. “I admired your intellectual fortitude in realizing, on your own, how much peril Ms. Sloan is in. And as such, you will leave her alone.” Asher inhaled slowly again, then gave Edward a sour look. “The last thing she needs is a shifter becoming involved with her.”
“No. The last thing Molly needs is to be left in the dark about her significance. Her blood can help shifters not shift. Having control during puberty, or childbirth, is key. This is an enormous discovery.”
His brother made a subtle shift in body language, just enough for Edward to notice.
“There’s more,” Edward groaned. It was not a question. “I knew it earlier. Tell me,” he demanded.
“While Gavin’s work is on a serum that helps halt the shifter process, that is not the only result of the laboratory experiments.”
Edward took two aggressive steps toward Asher, inches from his face. “Quit speaking in riddles.”
Asher did not yield. “Stop interrupting me and let me get to the point.”
The two stared in a standoff.
“The serum that evolved does not just halt the shifter process,” Asher explained.
“But you said—”
Asher arched one eyebrow as if to say, You’re interrupting.
Edward made a gesture of impatience.
“That was Gavin’s silly goal. As if we’d want to not have this power.”
Edward sighed.
“As science often does, the experiments took a different turn. One of the serums they have now has the opposite effect.”
“Meaning?”
Asher looked at Edward with eyes that reached back thousands of years. “The serum turns a human into a shifter. Any human who injects himself.”
“Gavin knows this? Has tested this?”
“Not on humans. Not intentionally.” Asher dipped his head, long hair falling over his shoulder, the turning away a clue.
“How could you test it on animals?” Wait—not intentionally? What did that mean?
“He hasn’t. But there was an unfortunate lab accident.”
“Oh, dear God.”
“‘Accident’ might be too bland a term. One of the researchers poked himself through a glove. A tiny bit of serum got under the thin layer of epidermis in his fingertip.”
“And?”
“He shifted. A short, wretched experience. The rapidity of his change from human to wolf was too much for his bones. Unlike our bodies, and even the bodies of humans who become shifters through the Old Ways, he shifted in less than one second.”
Edward grunted with sympathy.
“And shifted right back, just as fast, leaving broken bones, tendons out of order, veins and arteries twisted and tangled like electricity cords.”
“Did he die?”
Asher met his eyes again. “That might have been better. But no. He’s being cared for, and Gavin’s company will provide more than enough money and support to him for the rest of his life. Gavin halted the trials immediately. Put the existing lab specimens under lock and key. But now a vial has gone missing. Someone hacked into the computer system and knew exactly where to look for the experiment data.”
“Molly,” Edward whispered. “They know about her.” The urge to find her now nearly turned him inside out.
“Yes.”
“Then we need to protect her.”
“Of course. Why do you think Eva brought her here?”
“I will protect her.”
Asher made a dismissive noise through his nose. “This is not a job for one man. The shifter families have convened for this emergency conference for a reason, Edward. The danger to our way of life has never been greater.”
“Not even in the old times?”
Asher shook his head sadly. “The world is a strange and mystical place. Technology has replaced magic. But people still fear what they do not know.”
“And use technology to create forms of power that they cannot control,” Edward whispered, his mind filled with images of Molly, heartwarming and body yearning.
“Yes. So you understand why you cannot be with Molly.”
Edward jolted. “What?”
“In the wrong hands, she would be tortured. Imprisoned. Studied and scrutinized, turned into a blood-harvesting machine. Or worse.”
Worse.
“And she absolutely cannot become emotionally attached to any shifters,” Asher continued.
Too late.
“She is friends with Lilah and Jess. She already has emotional attachments,” Edward argued.
Asher gave him a gimlet glare. “Not to a shifter. And we’re going to keep it that way.”
Rage rushed through him. “Does Molly know any of this? That her life has been so scripted by others?”
True laughter poured out of Asher. “Of course not! You think any human woman would be smart enough to piece this all together?”
“Claire would have.”
The silence that fell over the room was as cold as the infinite reaches of outer space.
After a long pause, Asher spoke in a near whisper that made the hair rise on Edward’s arms. “You dare mention her?”
Asher’s late wife, a human, had died in childbirth with their first and only child—taking much of the eldest Stanton’s soul with them. “Claire was brilliant,” Edward said.
Asher gripped the edge of his desk with both hands and said nothing, but the emotion roared behind his eyes.
Edward decided he’d made his point. Best not to mention Claire again. “My point is that you’re underestimating Molly.”
“If you take this any further, Edward, I’ll be forced to exclude you from the Gathering. Tell her a word of any of this, and I’ll see to it that you learn no more of this crisis than what I’ve been forced to share with you already.”
“You’d—you’d—exclude me from a Gathering? Your own brother?” The others would surely follow Asher’s lead, leaving him, the one who cared most about Molly, the least able to help her.
“Not if you stay away from her. Having her involved with a Stanton could be deadly, and not just for her.”
Tomas’s disgusting comment ricocheted through Edward’s mind. “Only Stanton men? Shouldn’t she be kept away from all emotional entanglements with shifters, as you said earlier?”
Asher reached across the space between them and gave Edward a light tap on the cheek as if he were a schoolboy. “Other shifter men would use her as a piece of qu—” He pause
d, pulling his hand away, touching his own jaw lightly. “As a play toy. And as long as they do not breed, there’s no harm. I can feel your emotional desire and connection to her, Edward. It radiates off you like a magnetic pulse.” His voice held pity.
“Perhaps there is a reason for that.”
“Oh, don’t start with the Beat and the One with her,” Asher said in a condescending tone. “I’ve had quite enough with Lilah and Jessica.”
“Gavin and Derry were able to mate with humans. And Lilah is certainly different.”
Asher grabbed his forearm, hard, fingertips pinching his nerve, sending a lightning bolt of pain into his shoulder and neck. “Those women weren’t Molly. If you truly care for her, you’ll stay away. Being with her could kill her.”
A brief flash of Vivien’s face floated through his mind, but Edward stood his ground. “There is more you’re not telling me.”
“We’re done here.”
“No.”
“Well, I am. Stay away. You don’t want another woman’s death on your conscience.”
And with that, Asher marched out the door, leaving Edward reeling.
Chapter 8
The next morning, still tingling all over about what had happened with Edward, Molly answered Eva’s texted summons to get to work. She followed an elderly male butler through the house into a family room on the second floor overlooking the lake. Deep-cushioned sofas faced the wide-screen TV, leather armchairs with reading lamps dotted each corner, and a stereo played classical music from invisible speakers. It was surprisingly cozy.
Eva was sitting at an antique pine dining table with her laptop open and a coffee cup at her side. “Good morning.” Her face was expressionless, but Molly had the oddest feeling she was amused about something.
“Morning,” Molly said, setting up her laptop next to Eva’s. They were going to begin researching the long-term members of the Platinum Club and compile a confidential database about the recent attendance of each person and their private guests.
Eva hadn’t explained much, but Molly knew the basics: Gavin Stanton was the CEO of LupiNex, a powerful Boston biotech company. Over the past few years, Gavin had been researching the genes that created shifters like the Nagys—all top secret, of course, for all kinds of reasons. But somebody had learned enough to get curious, and somebody had broken into LupiNex and…
