by Alyssa Day
Tiernan? Giggling?
Damn, but she was good at this undercover work.
The vampire leader shot another glance at Brennan and his daggers, but whatever orders he was following evidently didn’t give him room for independent decision making. “We may bleed, but your woman will suffer threefold for every blow you land on one of us.”
“I look forward to playing with her a little,” one of the others said, and then he laughed, a long, shrill cackle of unholy glee. “Devon didn’t say we couldn’t play with them.”
“Devon?” Tiernan’s voice was sharp. “He knows you’re doing this?”
The leader made an ugly hooting noise. “Knows? We follow his orders, little snack.”
Before he’d even quit speaking, the vamp launched himself at Brennan, leaping twenty feet through the air, nails lengthening to outstretched claws and fangs glistening in the ribbons of moonlight that shone through the trees.
Brennan met him in midair.
Daggers clashed and steel rang, but Brennan’s towering rage gave him the strength of ten warriors, and he parried the vamp’s attacks and whirled around, one dagger extended in a death blow. Even before the vamp’s head thudded onto the ground, the neck still smoldering from the orichalcum blade, Brennan turned and shot four razor-sharp shuriken in a smooth underhanded motion at the second vamp. The throwing stars served their purpose brilliantly, decapitating the second vamp as neatly as his daggers had done to the first.
He whipped around to the tree where he’d left Tiernan, just in time to hear her scream. The third vamp was closing in on her, laughing and dancing from foot to foot, mocking her and making lewd suggestions as to what he was planning to do to her cold, dead corpse.
Tiernan, from the tone of her remarks, was not a fan of this.
Brennan’s newly found emotions swept through him with the force of a hurricane. Part of him was overcome with pride to see his woman holding off a vampire with only two sticks. Another, far larger, part of him was burning with a fierce rage so powerful that it seemed as if the earth itself must be scorched from the heat of his fury.
Then the vamp shot out a claw-tipped hand and scratched a furrow on the side of Tiernan’s face before she could block him, and the balance tipped far, far over into insanity.
Brennan rode the fury, harnessed it and pulled magic, water, and power out of the soil and the trees and the very air itself. He roared out a challenge—a grim promise. “By Poseidon and Atlantis, you will die for daring to touch her.”
He called to the water and transformed it into perfect, shining spears that rained icy death onto the vampire. Each glittering spear arrowed into the vamp’s neck, one after another, with unerring accuracy. None a whisper off, none posing the slightest danger to Tiernan, and none missing its mark.
In a split second, the vampire was down, dissolving into a nasty pool of slime on the forest floor, only the ice spears standing to mark the spot where they’d pinned him to the ground.
But Brennan had gone far, far past the point of reason. He was drowning in the rage—no longer a man, or a warrior, but a being of anger, fury, and madness. He yanked Tiernan into his arms—his woman, only and forever his woman, how had they dared to try to touch her—and held her so tightly that she could never, ever get away from him. She struggled a little, and he threw back his head and screamed his defiance into the night, a wordless howl of pain and feral wrath.
Into the silence, broken only by the echoes of his rage, a familiar voice called out a quiet challenge.
“Brennan,” Alexios said. “You need to put the nice human down, or I’m going to have to kick your ass for you.”
Brennan dropped Tiernan to her feet and whirled around to face the new threat, recognizing but not recognizing his friend through the red, shimmering haze of berserker fury that smashed through his mind. His skull pounded with the driving need to hurt, to kill, to tear and maim.
To protect.
To protect Tiernan. His only purpose as the rest of his mind fractured.
“Tiernan?” he said, his voice hoarse and broken. “Tiernan is safe?”
Alexios nodded, but didn’t take his hands off his daggers. “Tiernan is safe, my friend. She’s right behind you.”
“I’m right here, Brennan,” she said, the sound of her voice like a balm to his ragged soul. “Turn around and look at me. Please.”
He turned, and she put her hands on either side of his face and looked up into his eyes. “I’m here. I’m safe. You saved me from those vampires. You killed them all.”
“Killed them?” he croaked. “Safe?”
“Come back to me, Brennan.” She put her arms around his waist and leaned forward into him, sharing her warmth with his cold, cold heart. “Come back.”
Brennan pulled her closer and stood like that, unmoving, for several seconds, holding her as tightly as he dared, content simply to breathe in her scent and bask in her warmth.
Alexios cleared his throat. “I think we probably need to talk.”
Brennan cautiously opened his eyes, and blew out a sigh of relief when his vision was clear. The berserker haze was gone. The miraculous healing power of holding Tiernan in his arms had restored him to some measure of calm.
“Are you able to let me go now?” Tiernan asked, an expression of utter trust on her face, and he pressed a brief, hard kiss to her lips and released her from his arms, but kept her hand clasped firmly in his own.
As he turned to face Alexios, he had a sobering realization. Everything that he was—everything that he would be from now until the end of eternity—depended entirely on this woman and her trust and happiness. If he’d seen the slightest bit of doubt in her eyes, it would have broken him.
“This isn’t what it looked like at all, then, is it?” Alexios said, studying Brennan and Tiernan as he sheathed his daggers. “You were attacked, not attacking her?”
Brennan felt an actual physical pain slice through him at the words. “You could doubt me after so many centuries?”
Alexios shook his head. “I could never doubt you, my friend. But you’re under the effects of a very powerful curse right now and we don’t know what that’s doing to you. If you thought Tiernan was trying to leave you . . .”
The vise grip that squeezed Brennan’s chest at the thought was enough to underscore Alexios’s words. “No, you are correct, unfortunately,” he admitted.
“I’m not going anywhere,” Tiernan said, glaring at Alexios. “And Brennan doesn’t need this from you after he had to face two human thugs in the hotel and three murderous vamp guards out here.”
Alexios scanned the area. “If there were three, there could be more. I don’t suppose they happened to tell you what they were up to?”
“They did, actually. They wanted Brennan and me to go back to the hotel, but when we didn’t immediately go along with the plan, they decided that they’d force us.”
Brennan tensed all over again, remembering the dead vamps’ threats against Tiernan. “They weren’t overly concerned with keeping us uninjured, either. I fear that something has changed in the overall strategy.”
A trilling birdcall sounded through the darkness and Alexios smiled. “We’re here,” he called, and moments later Grace stepped through the trees, her bow drawn and an arrow at the ready. She nodded at Tiernan and Brennan and lowered her bow.
“When I was leaving, I overheard some of the guards saying that three of the vamps haven’t reported in, so they’re going to send out a search party for you two,” she said. “This would be a good time to get out of Dodge.”
Brennan stared at her, confused, but Tiernan supplied the translation. “She means we need to get out of here, fast. Reinforcements are on the way.”
“I can’t call the portal except at a body of seawater,” Alexios said. “I’m not that strong with the magic, and it rarely answers me. Damn capricious thing.”
“Nor can I, generally, but I will certainly try now,” Brennan said grimly. He squeezed Tiernan’
s hand and then released it. Holding both arms up to the sky, he closed his eyes and called to the portal. “If ever you heeded my call, please let it be now. We have need of you for transport to the shining isle.”
At first, there was nothing, but they all waited, breath held, in hopeful anticipation. After a full minute had passed, Brennan sighed, his shoulders slumping. “It’s no use,” he began, but Tiernan grabbed his hand again.
“I think you’re wrong about that,” she whispered, nodding her head toward his left.
As they all watched, a silvery glimmer of light formed in the shape of a long, straight line and then stretched and widened in three dimensions until a glowing ovoid sphere floated steadily about a foot off the ground, its shape tall and wide enough to admit them, one at a time.
“It worked,” Brennan said, filled with an awe so poignant his throat ached with it. “The portal knew I needed to protect Tiernan, and it answered my call.”
“Love conquers all,” Grace said, patting her stomach in an odd manner, and Alexios started laughing and then led the way through the portal.
“Next stop, Atlantis?” Tiernan asked, with only the tiniest quiver in her voice.
“Next stop, Atlantis, my brave warrior woman.”
Still holding her hand, Brennan stepped through the portal, bringing the woman who would change everything to the place where nothing ever seemed to change. Oh, by all the gods, this might prove to be a wild ride, but she was safe, and she was his one true mate, as ordained by Poseidon himself.
Nothing else mattered.
Chapter 15
Dr. Litton’s lab, underneath Yellowstone National Park
Devon stared around the main laboratory, silently taking inventory of the destruction. Hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of equipment—smashed. Shattered beyond hope of repair. Months of work—ruined. He stepped over the dead body in its bloodstained lab coat and walked over to the primary experiment chair. It was a wreck. Cables and cords yanked out of their sockets, some still sparking dangerously. The chair itself knocked loose from its base.
Litton stormed into the room, then skidded to a stop as he took in the extent of the damage. It almost amused Devon to watch all blood drain out of the scientist’s face, until his pallor rivaled that of any vampire.
Almost.
“How did this happen?” Litton said, still gaping. “Who is responsible for this?”
Devon kicked a bloody chunk of what looked like shifter fur out of his way. “The obvious answer is that you are, Dr. Litton. This is your lab.”
Litton’s face crumpled and his mouth worked, but all he managed to do was make incoherent squawking sounds.
“If that translates to ‘why, yes, Devon, I am at fault and will be glad to explain how I let a multimillion-dollar experimental lab be destroyed the day my new benefactor comes to town to see it, I would love to hear more.”
Devon stalked across the room to the bank of computer stations where the techs recorded data, as he knew from the single time he’d been able to stomach watching. Paths and choices, he reminded himself. He only needed to stay focused and the real prize would soon be his.
Litton was reduced to sputtering now, but still nothing that made any sense was coming out of his mouth, and Devon quickly grew tired of waiting for him to regain his powers of speech.
“Guards,” he called out. “Clean up this mess. We need it to be in perfect shape by tomorrow afternoon.”
Three of the shifters and two vampire guards rushed into the room and immediately began working. One of the shifters pointed to the dead scientist.
“What do we do with him, sir?”
Devon shrugged. “Whatever you want, as long as there isn’t as much as a sticky spot on the floor tomorrow to show that he was ever here.”
One of the vamps eyed Devon cautiously before speaking up. “Sir, I’m sure you’ve thought of this, but is there a record he was working with Litton? If there are any questions about his disappearance, we don’t want him connected to the project.”
“Good point. We’ll take care of that. Thank you.” Devon made a mental note to remember the face of this vampire with such excellent strategic thinking skills. It would be very useful for later.
Another of Litton’s scientists, a human, wandered in from the doorway that led back to the holding area. The man was covered in blood and seemed to be in a profound state of shock, judging by the blank stare and stumbling gait. His name tag was dangling from his ripped lab coat, so Devon had to tilt his head to read it.
“Dr. Orson, what happened here?”
It took Orson a while to focus, but he finally managed to train his gaze somewhere near Devon’s shoulder. The man’s eyes were rolling around in their sockets, though, and the effect was quite unpleasant.
Devon steeled himself to objectivity; Orson was a man who had chosen to experiment on his own kind. He was one of the worst kind of sheep and deserved no pity.
“The shifters,” Orson mumbled. “The shifters can’t all take it. There were two of them at one time, you know, we had the new chair, and they both broke free and attacked.”
Devon turned to Litton, who was still wringing his hands in a corner, staring at the wreckage of his pride and joy. “What is he babbling about? What new chair?”
“What? Oh, the chair,” Litton said, waving a hand at it. Unfortunately, it was as badly damaged as the primary chair. “We just connected the second chair yesterday so we could run two test subjects through at once. Too many of the shifters’ brains rejected the treatment. Something about their brain patterns is so different from human brain patterns that we couldn’t quite overcome it.”
“What happened when you couldn’t overcome it?” Devon demanded, pretty sure he already knew the answer, but wanting to hear it confirmed.
“This happened,” Litton shouted, waving his arms at the destruction. “They go nuts, become wildly aggressive and violent, and we have to put them down.”
“Put them down?” Devon repeated. “You have to put them down?”
Even Litton, the king of self-absorption, must have noticed the deadly menace in Devon’s voice, because his head snapped up, and after one look at Devon’s face, the scientist backed rapidly around to the other side of the destroyed chair.
“What else could we do? They were horribly dangerous. Not just to us, but to each other and to themselves. They even cannibalize each other.” Litton shuddered, his lip curling back from his crooked teeth. “Sometimes it happens here, but sometimes, like this week, they seem fine and under control, and we release them to perform some task and they blow up. Sort of a delayed reaction to the mind control.”
“So much blood. All over the place, blood and blood and blood,” Orson added, still stumbling around. “So much blood. Going to take a shower now.”
Devon and Litton watched him in silence as he wandered back out of the lab, smacking his head on the doorway as he walked through it.
“You’d better get him some medical treatment,” Devon ordered one of the guards.
The man nodded and rushed off after Orson, and Devon returned his attention to Litton.
“So, this brilliant success,” Devon said, making perfectly sure that Litton heard the harsh sarcasm in his voice, “this made you think it was a good idea to experiment on two shifters at once?”
Litton made those odd scrunching motions with his mouth again, and Devon wanted to weep that he’d been reduced to working with such a blind, pathetic fool. He wondered, yet again, how far he was willing to take this path. Did the end truly justify the means, or was that merely a convenient excuse for morally ambiguous madmen?
“We had plenty of guards,” Litton finally said weakly. “I don’t understand—”
“I know you don’t understand, you egomaniacal idiot,” Devon shouted, cutting the damn fool off. “You don’t understand anything about shifter packs or prides or any other units of family, but you dare to experiment on them?”
Litton puffed, drawi
ng himself up to his full height, but he still had to look up to meet Devon’s gaze. “I beg your pardon, but I happen to be the neuroscientist here, and I—”
“Know nothing. You know nothing,” Devon said quietly, realizing shouting wasn’t accomplishing anything, however much better it might make him feel. “If two shifters are from the same pack, for example two wolves from the Yellowstone Pack, then being in close proximity to each other strengthens them far beyond any resistance they might have on their own.”
Litton scoffed. “Moral support means nothing against science.”
“I’m not talking about moral support. I’m talking about power. Real power. Magic.” Devon shot a pointed look down at what remained of the experimental chair. “The kind of magic that allows them to shift in the first place causes an actual change in their brain patterns, you incompetent fool. Did you think that human brain patterns stay the same when the humans shift into animal form?”
Litton hooked a finger in his collar and nervously yanked it away from his neck. “Ah, we were working on that, but—”
“But you got your asses handed to you on a platter. By shifters. Where are they, by the way?”
“Where are who?”
It took everything in him to keep from smashing the doctor’s head into his own computer bank. “The shifters, Dr. Litton. Where are the shifters who caused all this?”
“They’re dead, sir.” The helpful vamp spoke up again. “They killed each other before we could stop them.”
“Right,” Devon drawled. “I’m sure stopping them was such a priority.”
A flash of hate skittered over the vamp’s eyes, but he simply nodded and got on with the cleanup.
Litton, however, wasn’t smart enough to let it be. “They’re not humans at all,” he said. “The shifters. They’re freaks of nature. Mutations. Most people think they should be destroyed, but we want to study them so we can learn how to control them. Harness them for the good of others. We should be rewarded for this humanitarian service, not forced to hide in the dark.”
