by Anne Marsh
From the look on Zer’s face, he was connecting the dots fast. “So your research on the thirteenth tribe of Israel wasn’t a crock of shit after all.”
“No.” She shot him a bitter look. “It isn’t. It’s the academic breakthrough of the century. There’s not a journal in the world that wouldn’t rush to publish the paper I could write.”
“Can you find the other women?” No missing the fierce interest in his voice. Yeah, he’d want to know that, wouldn’t he?
“Not all of the women may have had the allele, but enough of them did. They likely lived in that area for several generations and then migrated from there. They share the same genetic variant. Test a woman, and I can tell you whether or not she’s got the marker Mischka and I share.”
“You weren’t a ringer, after all,” he said, savage satisfaction filling his voice.
“No.” She couldn’t keep the sadness out of her voice. “No, I wasn’t.” He’d been right. She was a match. Just not for him, it seemed.
“Tell me how I find them.”
She understood now that she needed to help Zer find the women. Keeping their identities to herself would not keep the potential soul mates safe.
“You can give me the list and bring me biological samples from each woman on that list. If I type their DNA, I’ll know whether or not they’re the ones you’re looking for. Or—”
“Or?”
“Or, you can approach this from another angle. Go through a larger sample set, typing for hits.” When he didn’t answer, she continued. “Blood banks, Zer. Hospital records.” God, she was suggesting felonies as if they were flavors of ice cream. “Anywhere you can get me the biological matter I need. Hell, you can go scraping the Metro if that’s what you want. I can’t tell you where those women will be, but I can tell you if they’re carrying the mutation you’re looking for.”
“I don’t want you involved in all this anymore. Just tell me how to identify the DNA, and we’ll set up a team of scientists to do the actual work.”
“Don’t ask me to do that, Zer.”
What would happen if the whole world knew exactly what the genetic marker was? Her mind supplied a mental picture far too easily of the media feeding frenzy that would result. Worse, what if it turned out that her kit, her little pee-on-a-stick genetic test-in-a-box could identify potential soul mates? She’d upend all their lives. And paint a great big fat red bull’s-eye on their foreheads. She hadn’t made anyone’s life better. No, what she’d done was plunge them all straight into a living hell. Worse, the kit was already out there. It identified those traits—it just didn’t say one line for nice, normal human life and two lines for a destiny as the eternal soul mate of a soul-sucking Goblin.
“I’m not asking,” he growled. “I’m telling.”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
A spectacular fuck and a hot favor. Most women would have been pleased with the bargain. It was just too damned bad that she wasn’t one of them, Nessa thought as she fled the lab and Zer’s demand. She refused to give him all her research yet, and she was afraid he wouldn’t take no for an answer. Which explained why she was out here, on the sidewalk, racing toward the university.
He was Fallen. He didn’t have emotions—she’d had that explained to her, up front, and she’d still refused to believe. He wouldn’t hesitate to go looking for the research he needed, even if it meant raiding her former lab. When he wanted something, he took it. She should know.
She’d laid a course for the nearest Metro station. Logically, she knew she couldn’t have gotten away unless he allowed it. She knew he could beat her to the lab if he chose to. But she was running, anyway.
All she got now was the tinny voice of a train operator and the soft shush of the train sliding into the station, doors opening. She’d hopped on before she could think it over. Part of her couldn’t believe he’d just allowed her to walk out. That was the hopeful, naïve part. Logically, she knew he could call her back any damn time he pleased. The bond made sure of that.
By the time she got off the train, he’d made it pretty damn clear that he didn’t care where she went.
Some long-dead Soviet architect had decorated the Metro exit with reliefs of entire families of happy Soviet workers. Sadly, their utopia hadn’t worked out any better than hers had. She’d known better than to believe in the happily-ever-after Zer had been pushing. Sure, he’d held out the promise of a favor. That was the one funny spot in a pretty damn bleak landscape. He’d expected her to demand a building or a salary. A useful leg up on the university ladder. What she’d actually requested had really thrown him for a loop.
Because she’d asked for something impossible. She’d not only asked him to feel something—for her—but she’d demanded it. Yeah, and how was that working out for her? Straightening the cuffs of her no-nonsense cotton blouse, she carefully picked her way up the stairs to the street level, her heels clicking a steady beat. Just to be on the safe side, she wrapped her hand around the railing, despite the germs, because slipping and falling now would be too damn ironic.
Walking across campus this time of year, it was impossible not to observe the student hookups going on around her. It was spawning season, her colleagues liked to joke.
Shoving the sleeves of her shirt up, she examined the dark markings that circled both wrists. Yeah, it was spawning season, all right, and she’d made a mistake of epic proportions. The black markings curled around her forearms, tracing an uncompromising pattern over veins and bone. No hiding these for long.
Still, here she was, right back where she’d started. Heading into her lab. Her time was past up, but she had bigger problems on her hands right now. What she had to do was get in and destroy her notes. She couldn’t risk the possibility that either Zer or Cuthah might find them. She needed to destroy her samples. It sickened her to think of deliberately flushing away years of work, but the alternative was unacceptable. Don’t think about it, she warned herself. Just go in there and do it.
Sliding her key card over the sensor pad, she pushed open the door when the light blinked green.
She was back where she belonged.
Because she couldn’t shake a feeling of restlessness, she took the stairs, not the elevator. In all truth, she wasn’t sure she could face an elevator anytime soon. Not until she’d somehow manage to bury the hot memories of Zer’s large body pinning hers in one. Pleasuring her. He’d feared he’d hurt her, and maybe he had, but not in the way he’d worried. He’d been concerned about her body. Instead, she’d handed him her heart.
No, she’d take the stairs, thank you very much, until the bitter sting of those memories faded somewhat. Exercise had to be good for what ailed her.
At this hour of the day, the building was still mostly empty; 8:00 A.M. was the crack of dawn for her students, and she knew it. A few lights were on down the hall in her laboratory, though, so some of her RAs had made it in already. Her second clue was the rich, burned smell of coffee and artificial sweeteners. Maybe coffee would be the pick-me-up she needed. Or not.
Pouring herself a cup, she headed for her office. She had to decide what she was going to do next. Looking down at those damn tattoos again, she knew he’d let her walk away from him this morning. That burned, but facts were facts. She’d made a deal with a Fallen angel, and there was no going back. Maybe she should have done some begging and pleading, but to whom? Zer was the damn leader of the pack, and he’d already admitted that there was nothing he could do to change the nature of the bond.
Not until he granted her the favor she had requested.
Damn. She should have settled for the lab upgrade.
Setting the coffee cup down on the first book-free surface she spotted, she slid into the banker’s chair behind her desk and shoved a hand through her hair. Yeah, and that was another problem. What the hell had she been thinking? She’d demanded all of him, all of that sensual, infuriatingly alpha male. He blamed her for that, and he was right. She’d been so mad that she’d forgotten Mi
schka Baran’s warning: be careful, be specific. Instead, she’d demanded—and gotten—a colossal, open-ended, impossible-to-fulfill favor. Chances were good she and Zer were bonded for life.
And he didn’t want that.
Which made her feel like hell.
Not, she mentally added, even as that little inner voice she couldn’t quite quash mocked her, that she wanted forever, either.
Shoving aside a stack of professional journals, she pulled the coffee cup closer. Stuff was thicker than tar, despite the handful of powdered creamers she’d dumped into it. Worse, whenever she relaxed, she could feel him. Zer. A dark, solid presence in the back of her mind and a constant reminder that that mind wasn’t her own anymore. Mentally, she tried shoving him out, but he went nowhere.
Just how powerful was he?
If she could feel him, could he feel her?
The next moment, all she was feeling was a massive explosion from down the hall, knocking her off her chair and onto the floor.
Hot coffee splattered everywhere. Defying all known laws of physics, the cup seemed to contain at least a gallon of the scalding brew. The dark brown liquid pooled, soaking into the books and papers piled everywhere.
“Damn it!” Automatically, she leapt into action, shoveling still-dry books away from the minilake she’d just created, reaching for the roll of paper towels she kept stashed in a desk drawer for these sorts of emergencies.
Wait. Explosions weren’t Monday-morning routine here. Only lab on this floor was her genetics laboratory, and explosions were foreign currency there. They didn’t traffic in volatile chemicals. Ever. So what the hell had just happened?
Reaching for the landline, she lifted the receiver. Nada. The line was dead, and that was not a good sign.
Grabbing her cell, she flipped it open as she headed for the door. She didn’t know who to call, but having a plan felt good.
The plan ran out at the door, however. She should have insisted on a window office. The small, windowless space made her feel trapped, and, given the commotion down the hall, trapped wasn’t going to be good. She had only two ways out: the door or the air duct in the ceiling. Since she was no ninja, it was going to have to be the door.
Okay. Next step.
After testing the doorknob for betraying heat, she cracked the door a half inch and listened. All she got was a dull roar—flames?—and a whole lot of screaming and yelling.
Rogues?
Sliding the door open another inch, she peered out. The wall to her laboratory was gone, blown out. This was no natural accident. As the flames licked hungrily at a piece of loose-hanging drywall, the sprinklers finally engaged, dumping water. Worse, looking through the weak flicker of the flames, she had a dead-on view of the large hole blown through the exterior wall. Even from her end-of-the-hallway perspective, she could catch glimpses of sky over the campus quad through the billowing smoke.
So, okay. No way campus security had missed that blast. Calling them was going to be a moot point.
No one was looking her way, which was good.
What was bad, however, were the four very large, very unfamiliar males filling up her lab space. She didn’t need introductions to recognize them for the predators they clearly were. Equally clearly, they weren’t human.
As the fourth male shoved a woman toward a pair of humans, a fifth male came through the hole. His wings rippled as he landed on the floor, sending out a shock wave of raw power.
Yeah, she definitely had trouble on her hands.
Weighing her options, she tried to estimate just how many of her RAs or students might be in the lab.
Worse, she was playing sitting duck where she was. The minute she stepped out of the office, she’d be right in their line of sight. Maybe she’d get lucky and catch them off guard, but she wasn’t going to bank on it. It was growing smokier in her office, too, despite the valiant efforts of the building’s antiquated sprinkler system to dampen the flames. Nothing lethal—yet—but she couldn’t stay where she was, not forever.
Voices echoed, bouncing off the walls of the lab, and booted feet crunched over broken glass. Outside her office, someone sobbed, and a male yelled. She recognized that voice. It was Brad.
The rogues were rounding up her students.
The carnage was delicious. Opening his senses, Cuthah drank down the delicious cocktail. He didn’t need the emotional drug the way the Fallen did, but that was like saying he was a recreational drug-user and not a hard-core addict. He could walk away, but why should he? This was pleasure, pure and simple. Here he was, stronger than ever and front and center at M City University. The university where the Fallen’s newest soul mate had her lab. He hadn’t missed the protective streak in her—any more than he’d misjudged her stubbornness. She’d left G2’s an hour ago, running as if someone had lit a fire under that lovely ass of hers.
Since she hadn’t gone back to her flat, and since she had nowhere else to run, Cuthah figured she’d do the predictable thing. She’d go to the university lab.
All he’d had to do was wait for her, and then part two of his plan could kick in. He was betting that Nessa St. James was still 100 percent human, even after her close encounter with the Fallen. She wouldn’t like hearing that Cuthah had gotten his hands on her students. In fact, Cuthah was betting she’d go after him just on principle.
She’d want to stage a little search-and-rescue, and he had just the welcoming party for her. She wasn’t going to know what hit her any more than the students at her university would. There was no better way, he figured, to lure her away from her Goblin’s protective embrace.
Sympathy. It got humans every time.
The new doorway he’d opened up in her lab wall was going to be useful in more ways than one. No point bothering with the stairs, he figured, when an explosion made his point so much better. Snapping his wings closed, he ran his gaze over the room. The mazhyk tingled over his skin as his wings shifted back into the tattoo on his back.
The laboratory was standard-issue and nothing much to look at. Of course, his boys had created a hell of a mess here. The broken glass, collapsed shelving, and burn marks made quite a calling card. Indeed, the chaos was downright delicious, but even better were the hostages. Early as it was, three of Professor St. James’s research assistants had already made it into the building. He’d bet they were regretting that. Two girls, one boy. More or less intact, although the boy was nursing a snapped wrist and a bruised jaw. Shouldn’t have tried to take on his rogues, but humans seemed to give in to the adrenaline rush first and use logic later.
Much later.
“Ladies and gentleman,” he said, and heads snapped up. “Now that I have your attention, I have a question for you.”
The girl nearest him merely sniveled, but the boy snapped to indignant attention. “A question?”
“Yes. Have you seen your charming professor this morning?”
“No.” Boy human shook his head vehemently. Of course, even if he had, Cuthah knew he wouldn’t have shared that information. Not willingly.
Not yet.
“Really?” He said the words lightly, stepping forward. The crying girl only cried harder, but the other two students were watching him. They knew things were headed south, and they were right. When he pulled out his fyreblade, its bright light lit up the room. All eyes tracked the sharp edge, so he was certain he had their full attention now. “Are you quite sure?”
“Yes.” The boy sounded desperately glad, so Cuthah figured he was telling the truth. Pity.
“Well, then,” he said, and he stopped talking. Drew just the tip along the edge of the boy’s throat until he could see the crimson trickle of blood against the soot-streaked white lab coat. The boy swallowed hard and tried to take a step backward—the adrenaline must have been wearing off finally—but a quick jerk of Cuthah’s head had two rogues stepping up behind him, forming an impenetrable wall. So all the boy met was an immovable surface.
“We could wait for her,” Cuthah su
ggested. “Or, perhaps—” He stopped, and the blade stroked down the exposed throat a second time.
Nessa’s graduate student stared at the winged creature holding him, a lamb in the teeth of a wolf, and there was nothing—nothing—Nessa could do to head off the disaster she saw coming. Did Brad have any clue what was headed his way? Of course, the lab’s new entrance should have been all the heads-up he’d needed.
“Perhaps what?” Brad swallowed again, the blade nicking his Adam’s apple. The move might not have been intentional on Cuthah’s part, but he clearly didn’t have any issues with bloodshed.
She’d seen the dead woman on the quad. She should have had a plan. After all, she never went into a situation without one. And yet, here she was, facing public enemy number one, and she didn’t have the faintest idea where to start.
Cuthah’s face twisted, the snap of his wings folding and closing on his back too loud in the tense room. Somehow, she’d expected angels to be terrifyingly beautiful, all golden skin and hair. Cuthah had the terrifying part down, all right.
Her fingers flipped open the cell. She was way out of her league here, and she knew it. Call Zer.
“Perhaps Professor St. James hasn’t made an appearance yet,” Cuthah said softly.
Her grad student didn’t blink, caught in that cold gaze.
“Or perhaps she has. Perhaps”—Cuthah moved the blade to the other side of her student’s neck—“you know that.” The girl on the floor had stopped crying. Marlene. She’d started last week. Professor Markoff’s lab was going to look damn good after this episode.
