by Alyssa Day
“She died thinking I hated her.”
“No,” Brennan said. “She died knowing you loved her. Friends and family argue and fight, but it means nothing. It’s human nature. Love isn’t perfectly patient or kind or sunny. Love is volatile and tempestuous and forgiving.” He leaned forward. “She forgave you, Tiernan, probably before you ever made it out of the house. The woman you describe would have done no less.”
A boulder the size of one of Yellowstone’s bison suddenly lifted off of Tiernan’s heart, because he was right. Susannah had never held a grudge, even when Tiernan ate the last yogurt or forgot to give her a phone message or screwed up in the hundreds of different ways a truth teller, overwhelmed by the demands of living in society, could screw up.
She belatedly realized she was using Brennan’s term for her, and wondered if accepting his identification of her talent meant accepting that it truly was what he said. A Gift, instead of a curse.
But she hadn’t told Brennan the rest of the story. Maybe he, too, would look at her with the same disgust she’d felt for herself since Susannah’s death.
“I didn’t tell her. I didn’t warn her about the kidnapping ring, even though she’d just told me she was a shifter,” she said quietly. “I ran out, angry, to go to my meeting, and I didn’t tell her.”
The tears blurred her vision now, and she had to wipe them away with the corner of Brennan’s sleeve.
“By the time I got back to the apartment a few hours later, ready to apologize for being such an ass, she was gone. I never saw her again.”
“They captured her,” Brennan said, the lines on his face deepening.
“They captured her. The next time I saw her was three weeks later on TV when she was in a fight with half of the Boston Paranormal Special Operations unit. She was so strong, Brennan—she threw one of them clear over a car. They—” She had to pause, to catch her breath from the pain cutting off her air supply.
He waited, giving her time, not pressuring her.
Finally she could breathe again and she met his gaze. “They shot her to death. Right there in the road. They said in a press conference that she was the one who had brutally killed a local politician, but I knew it was impossible. Until I linked the two, the mind control story I was working on and her abduction.
“If I’d told her—warned her . . .” The pain took her, and she buried her face in her hands, fighting to stay quiet and not attract the guards’ attention.
“If you’d told her, she would have been careful, but she was young and in love, and they were and are a well-organized team of trained killers,” Brennan said. “They would have taken her anyway. This is not your fault, Tiernan. Nobody but Litton and the monsters he works with and for are responsible for this. You did not kill her.”
His words fell on her withered soul like a benediction, and warmth and light followed in their wake, breathing hope into the dark places in her heart that she’d feared could never be redeemed.
“I didn’t kill her,” she said slowly, forging another link in the chain that connected them. “Just like you didn’t kill Corelia and her child.”
His head shot up and a haunted expression darkened his eyes. “That’s different.”
“No, it’s not. So either you admit that you don’t bear the blame for Corelia, or you leave me alone with my guilt for Susannah,” she fired off, desperate for him to find the same absolution he was offering her.
Wonder dawned, first in his eyes, and then his entire expression changed. Lightened. Almost as if a burden exactly like hers, or maybe one weighted down so much more, by two thousand years of gravity, was beginning to lift.
“You are more than I could ever deserve, Tiernan Butler,” he said, his voice low and husky. “I will see you safely out of this hell if it is the last thing I ever accomplish in this life. You are mine, my revelation and my redemption, and I will never let you go.”
The intensity in his voice shook her to the center of her being, but the memory of the vision she’d had in the soul-meld was still with her, still vivid. The baby he didn’t—couldn’t—recognize.
Maybe, just maybe, visions could be changed.
“I still want to have a chat with Poseidon,” she said, but a yawn escaped in the middle of the sentence. Exhaustion and hunger were finally catching up with her.
“Rest now,” he said. “I will watch over you, and we will discuss Poseidon when we escape from this trap in the morning.”
She wanted to say that there was no way she could sleep on a concrete floor in a cell, with murdering thugs and evil scientists all planning horrible things for them, but her drooping eyelids proved she was wrong. So she nodded and curled up in the tightest ball she could manage, as close to the bars as she could safely be while staying out of range of accidently striking them in her sleep. Just before she drifted off, an idea flashed in her mind and wouldn’t let go. She raised her head and looked at Brennan.
“Why don’t you tell Poseidon that you’re sorry? After all this time, surely he’d accept your apology, right? Even gods should be able to forgive.”
He stared at her, his mouth opening, then closing, but he said nothing for the longest time. “Tell him I’m sorry,” he said, as if the words themselves were a revelation. “You are a miracle, mi amara. You truly are.”
She smiled a little and gave in to the waves of tiredness pulling at her. “Mi amara yourself, buddy. I know what that means, remember. And if you get me out of this, you can call me anything you want.”
Brennan managed to ingest two more drops of the potion, dismissing any slight concern of overdose. All that mattered was that he stayed awake to protect Tiernan.
To remember Tiernan.
The heat of manufactured energy rushed through his body again, sizzling through blood and bone. His skin itched and burned, and even his hair follicles tingled. It was unpleasant, but not to the point of pain; physically he was fine. Emotionally, however, was far different.
Emotionally, he was strained beyond endurance. Anger seared into rage, and fear for Tiernan’s safety descended into pure terror. He stared at her, curled up in a huddled ball on the floor, and self-disgust for how he had failed her became utter loathing. He sat there, his body shuddering with the force of it, but he could have fought it. Could have beaten it. Except for yet another emotion.
Desire. Desire crescendoed into raging lust. His hands clenched with the need to touch her. Take her. Plunge his cock into the heat of her body and pleasure her over and over and over.
“Ah, look, the big strong guy is shaking. Think he’s crying for his mommy?”
Brennan jerked his head up to see the two guards standing near the bars of his cell. He bared his teeth at them in a snarl, but they laughed. They laughed, and he knew he would kill them.
They spent several minutes at the bars, taunting and jeering, but thankfully Tiernan didn’t wake up. When one of them made a crude suggestion of what they might do with Tiernan, Brennan lost all control and hurled himself at the bars. As before, the electricity slammed him back, but this time it nearly knocked him unconscious. The stimulant in the potion evidently stimulated everything—emotion, sensation, and even thought—because Brennan found his mind racing at the speed of a bolt of lightning, examining, analyzing.
Solving.
He would be still. He would not react. Another jolt of that electricity might kill him, and Tiernan needed him. He sat, stone-faced, and ignored the verbal abuse from the guards until, bored, they turned away and retreated to their chairs and their food.
He would endure, and then he would destroy, and Tiernan would be safe. Tiernan would be safe. He repeated it in his mind, over and over, and it became his mantra. Several hours later, when Litton arrived, Brennan was still repeating his vow.
Tiernan would be safe.
Litton walked up to the cell, standing a prudent distance from the bars. Apparently he’d heard about Brennan’s repeated attempts to crash through them. A few seconds later, Smitty walked i
n, followed by several of his thugs, all armed with pistols.
“It’s time to wake up, Ms. Baum,” Dr. Litton said in a grating, singsong voice. “We’re going to experiment on your lovely brain now.”
Chapter 30
Brennan shot up off the floor, the berserker rage flooding his brain again. Must protect Tiernan, who was sitting up, groggy and blinking sleepily.
Smitty studied him like he was a rat in a cage. Maybe he was, but they would not harm his woman.
“You touch her, and you will pay,” Brennan snarled. “I will hunt you down, no matter how long it takes, and I will torture you for years before I let you die.”
Litton paled and danced back a few steps, but Smitty just smiled and gestured to the thugs and their guns. “Mouth making promises your circumstances can’t keep? You’re locked in a cage, and we’ve got guns. Try anything, and we shoot her first.”
Tiernan scrambled to her feet and backed up. “Please. Dr. Litton. We’re on your side, remember? I’m sorry I got carried away before, it’s just that Susannah was my friend, but we agree with what you’re doing and we can help. Brennan has money and I have contacts in the news and—”
“Shut up,” Litton said. “You gave yourself away. Do you think I’m stupid, to be deceived by a pretty story or a pretty face now?”
“You should relax, miss,” Smitty said, not unkindly. “It hurts less if you don’t fight.”
Either Smitty’s calm or Tiernan’s fear evidently gave Litton courage. “I’ve changed my mind,” he said, a cruel smile on his face. “Brennan goes first. We activate him, and not only will he sign over his fortune, but we can dispense with all this chest-beating nonsense.”
Brennan dropped his hands to his side, in order to appear as nonthreatening as possible. “Yes. Take me. I will go quietly, just let her go.”
Litton threw back his head and laughed. “Nobody is going anywhere. A journalist on the loose with this story? Right. I may as well shoot myself in the head now.”
“Don’t let us stop you,” Tiernan said, and Brennan wanted to applaud.
“We’re going ahead with this. Now. Get him out of here and strapped into the chair,” Litton ordered Smitty.
Smitty didn’t move. “Is Devon okay with this? I thought he wanted you to wait for him. I don’t have any plans to run afoul of the top vamp in the region, you understand. I like having my full quota of blood.”
Litton rounded on him, his eyes bulging. “You do what I say, do you hear me? We don’t have to listen to Devon anymore, that pretender. Jones is in charge now, and he called me not twenty minutes ago and told me to go ahead. You answer to me, you overpriced bodyguard, so do what I tell you or get out.”
Smitty stood calmly through Litton’s tirade, even when the scientist started yelling at him. When Litton finally stopped, Smitty simply nodded. “You’re the boss.”
“Yes, I am. Don’t forget it,” Litton said smugly.
Brennan couldn’t believe that the scientist, supposedly a genius, could be so completely unaware of reality. Smitty was no tame thug. The man could reach out and snap Litton’s neck in an instant. Clearly, Smitty had a reason for being here beyond payment.
Or else the payment was really, really good.
Brennan had money, too. He could work with that kind of motivation if he got another chance to speak to Smitty alone.
He glanced at Tiernan, trying to communicate with his body language and facial expression that she would be safe. She was staring at him with such hopeless defeat that the pain of it knocked him back a step.
“Tiernan, it will be all right. I’ll be back soon, and remember what I told you last night. Have faith in them. Have faith in me.” He stared into her eyes, memorizing every detail.
“Brennan, if they take you away . . .” She stopped and glanced at Litton and Smitty. “You know what will happen. I’ll—I’ll do my best to remind you. To help you remember, okay? Don’t worry.” She offered him a shaky smile of reassurance, and again he was knocked off balance.
She wasn’t afraid for herself. She was afraid for him.
“This is very touching, but I’m afraid it’s time to go,” Smitty said. He nodded to the guards over by the control monitors. “Turn it off.”
They did something, and suddenly the constant buzz of electricity shut down. It was so abrupt that Brennan almost missed his chance. He froze for a moment, but then blasted an emergency call through the mental pathway so loudly that Alexios would surely hear it—unless he’d gone back to Atlantis.
Come now. They have Tiernan and they’re going to try to manipulate our brains. Come now. He tried to give a visual of their location, but by then Smitty was advancing into the cage, holding out a small metal device.
“Let’s not try anything, shall we?” Smitty said. “You’ll notice that my chums have their guns trained on your lady friend, and they’re all trigger-happy. It’s so hard to get good help these days.”
Brennan tensed, every fiber of his being wanting to pounce, to kill, to rip Smitty’s arms off and use them to beat Litton to death, but Tiernan made a small noise and he turned to see that four of them were all lined up around her cage, pointing their guns at her head and chest.
There was no way they could miss at that range.
He nodded. “Yes, I will go willingly.” He put his hands on top of his head and clasped them together in the universal posture of a prisoner, but then he pinned Smitty with a look that held every bit of his intent. “I will hold you responsible if any of them hurt so much as a single hair on her head.”
Smitty slitted his eyes nearly shut and grunted noncommittally. It was the best he was going to get, so Brennan walked slowly out of the cell. Litton scurried out of the way, careful to stay several paces away from Brennan. So. The man had at least some wisdom.
Before he left the room, he stopped and looked back at Tiernan. “Trust me,” he said.
“I do,” she replied, tears streaming down her face. “With my life.”
Brennan nodded, vowing to Poseidon himself that he would honor that trust. Then he followed Litton out of the room.
They led him only a short way down the corridor to another room, this one enormous, all white walls and gleaming metal, with the astringent smell of chemicals permeating the air. Litton rushed over to a huge chair that dominated the room, all but dancing around it like a pagan preparing for a human sacrifice.
Brennan knew who the sacrifice was going to be. He knew an instant of pure, icy terror, and adrenaline shot through his veins, kicking his fight-or-flight instincts to a frenzied peak. Smitty narrowed his eyes and raised his gun, but Brennan had no fear of the weapon. He had no fear for himself. Every ounce of that terror was for Tiernan, left alone in that cell.
If he died, she would be alone, and she would suffer for it. Therefore, he must live, no matter what they did to him.
He must survive it.
They strapped him into the chair, and he didn’t struggle. Didn’t fight. He sat passively, restraining the rage and the need to kill them all. But he couldn’t completely hide the berserker inside him. Anyone who bothered to look in his eyes saw it and involuntarily stepped back from the intensity of the hatred staring out at them.
Everyone but Smitty. He just nodded, recognizing a fellow predator, and continued strapping Brennan down to the chair.
Litton approached to put the metal helmet on him, and an instant sense of claustrophobia clawed at Brennan, in a way that the hours in a cell had not. He strained at the leather bonds holding him to the chair, suddenly mindless, knowing only that he had to escape, had to find a way, couldn’t let them get to his brain.
One of the guards made the mistake of coming just that fraction of an inch too close, and Brennan reared back and smashed his head into the man’s face. He shouted in triumph at the crunching noise and the guard’s scream, then whipped his head around to where Smitty stood on the other side of the chair.
“Can’t say I blame you, mate, but can’t have t
hat,” Smitty said. Then he lifted his hand and touched the metal box to Brennan and a powerful, painful jolt of electricity seared through his body, arching him off the chair and locking his clenched jaw in place so hard his skull ached from it.
When the buzzing and the pain stopped, Brennan found himself wavering at the edge of consciousness, unable to move or fight. Unable to protect Tiernan, his mind thundered at him. Failed, failed, failed.
Then Litton laughed and came closer and closer, holding up that godsdamned helmet. “It will be all better soon, Mr. Brennan,” he crooned, as if talking to a child. “All better—for me.”
With that, he slammed the helmet down on Brennan’s head and began attaching electrodes. Brennan tried to struggle again, but his muscles didn’t want to obey his brain’s commands, and after a few seconds, Smitty reminded him of why he must not struggle.
“They’ve still got those guns pointed at your woman. Do you really want to give us a reason?” Smitty’s dead eyes held something for an instant—maybe a flash of empathy—but then it vanished. “You know I’ll give the order.”
Brennan fell back against the chair, and he didn’t move again until they turned on the machine and the electricity shooting into his skull from the helmet sliced his brain into pieces.
He couldn’t help it. He started to scream.
Chapter 31
The first lightning bolt seared through his mind and Brennan’s consciousness shattered, pulled in so many different directions he couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t find a balance. A kaleidoscope of visions fractured through his mind: Atlantis, Tiernan, Alexios, Tiernan, Conlan and Riley, the baby, Tiernan.
Always back to Tiernan. He knew he had to hold on to her image, to her memory. Must keep her fresh in his mind, no matter what.
