Sapphire, however… it fits her. There’s no denying it. Even saying it in my head feels right.
She—Sapphire—moves her head so that it’s tucked under my chin. Everything about this is intimate. Too intimate. Soon, I’m going to have to end it. I’m going to have to pull away.
We can never be. In any sense.
Yet the male in me argues that we already are. That this is undeniable. I can fight it all I want, but if I don’t get far away from her soon, I’m going to end up giving in.
Fuck my life.
“I don’t understand why Father told you,” Sapphire mumbles.
Father. She considers Dr. Allen her father. And he is. He knows it, too. My mind flashes back to how ruined he was when he had let her go. “He wants me to help you. He loves you.”
Sapphire scoffs at that. “I love him, too. But he has to understand. We have no choice. I have to do this.”
The way she said she loves him distracts me from everything else. There was no hesitation. It’d been a solid, unwavering statement. I’m not much for love, don’t understand it, but there was loyalty behind her words, and that I do understand.
Something niggles at the back of my mind, trying to get my attention. It’s when I focus on it that the rest of her words finally register. “What do you mean you have to do this? Are you talking about taking Magdalena’s place?” Stupid question. Of course she's talking about that.
Sapphire nods her head and the softness of her hair tickles my chin. “Father didn’t want me to go, but they made it very clear that he had no choice.”
Meaning Lei Heaton’s threat to Dr. Allen.
I’m starting to develop an intense dislike for the CEO of Heaton Corp. “But you aren’t Magdalena. You now own what was once her body, but you’re two separate people.”
Her soft sigh makes me tighten my arms around her. “I know, but Mr. Heaton doted on his daughter. It’s a good life and I stand to inherit everything. With all that power, I can protect myself and my father from everyone.”
“What are you saying?”
“Mr. Heaton is dying. He has a year to live at most. And I’m—Magdalena is—the sole heir to his entire empire.” Sapphire straightens, moving out of my embrace. She sits facing the wall with her back against my side.
I stare at her profile, at the hard glint in her eye.
“I didn’t ask for this life.” She shrugs one shoulder. “But from the moment I gained self-awareness and assimilated all the information at my disposal, I was aware of how the world works. How humanity functions. It’s all about power. From the lowest to the highest, it’s a never-ending contest of wills. Due to what I am, I will never be safe. Or my creator.”
I know where she’s going with this, and it’s the logical conclusion. It makes perfect sense. A part of me even admires her for being smart enough—and strong enough—to see things this way.
Rejection bubbles up inside my chest. I don’t want to hear it. Don’t want the proof of what life is doing to her. My brain refuses to witness such a young, and in many ways innocent, girl choosing that kind of path.
Her head turns in my direction, and I’m hit with all that determination full-on. “Me and my father will never be safe unless I accumulate enough power to protect us. This is my chance to do it.”
My mind splits in a million different directions. It’s at the tip of my tongue. An offer that will spare her this choice.
An offer that will drag everything I’ve worked so hard to build, and everyone that helped build it, into this mess.
I want to lay myself and the entire Adelphi Organization at her feet. Put all of our power at her disposal. I want to promise her that we’ll take care of both her and Dr. Allen.
You’ll be dragging everyone into this. Everyone.
It’s true and it’s the only thing that stops me from telling her that I’ll fix this.
Too bad the urge doesn’t go away.
Sapphire is young in every way that counts. Before now, all I had seen was the signs of that. I’d accepted it as the entirety of her personality. This new side of her hits me as wrong somehow. She shouldn’t have been forced into becoming this hard woman before me.
An irrational wish goes through my mind: that I could’ve been there when she’d awoken, that I could’ve shielded her from all this.
But I’m Deimos, remember? I would’ve hastened the process of hardening her. My life doesn’t leave room for an alternative.
That’s all it takes for me to change my mind. This isn’t wrong. It’s good. The only way she’ll be able to survive is by being smart, prepared, and cold if need be.
Admiration sparks shortly after. A lethal emotion. It comes to life like a fire in my chest that spreads everywhere. I’ve never admired a woman that I also wanted to fuck before. Shit. It’s like a damned drug. Heady. Thrilling. All-consuming.
And then all I can think about is how beautiful and amazing she is. The admiration is twisting through my veins, mixing with everything else I feel for her—lust, awe, God knows what else.
This girl is dangerous. Dangerous because she loves Dr. Allen, and because her mind harbors enough intelligence to help her succeed in anything she wants. She isn’t a damsel in distress. Not by any means. Her claws are out, elongated. She’s ready to kill if necessary; I see it in her eyes.
She’s becoming more attractive to me by the second. Sexy as hell. I’m afraid to learn anything else about her. I inhale as the hunger thrums through me. It’s so powerful that I swear it’s leaking out of my skin. The air around us goes hot, suffocating.
That determined expression falls off her face. One shaky inhale on her part, and her lashes flutter as she blinks.
Fuck.
I need to tone this down. Doesn’t matter that my head and my cock are both pounding with hunger for her. It can’t happen.
My lids get heavy. Against my will, I give her body a slow perusal. Her legs are tucked under her. Her thighs are unlike any I’ve ever seen. Smooth, firm, toned just right.
For two seconds, my mind races ahead of me, and all I see is my hands clutching at those thighs, holding her still as I pound into her.
I blink myself out of it. The reaction that image shoots through me has me close to jumping off the bed and running out of the room. I shouldn’t be on a bed with her. Period. Not when I want what I want this badly.
There’s an almost invisible line running down the side of her thigh. My focus is drawn to it. I’m only able to see it is because of my advanced vision. She has another one on her other thigh and other areas of her body. Wherever they had to cut open to get inside her.
Barely visible scars, identical to the ones I have running down the sides of my arms.
Without thinking, I reach out and run the tip of my finger along the scar.
Too late I realize that I’m not just touching her skin; I’m touching her thigh, for fuck’s sake.
Sapphire gasps, eyes dropping to my finger. Almost immediately, those eyes go heavy-lidded on me. That blush is back, highlighting her cheekbones.
My face burns. Fuck that, my entire body has been burning since I met this girl.
Sapphire ducks her head. Her smooth, thick hair falls along her cheek. When her eyes move back toward my face, I have to restrain myself from grabbing her.
Her eyes are dark. Full of hunger, the type I've seen in the eyes of many women before. It's a simple matter of fact, but none of them ever made me this wild with just a look.
My rock-hard dick throbs in my jeans, demanding her.
In return, her stare demands everything from me. All that I have to give.
I'm so ready to give it to her. So damned ready. Whatever she wants; however she wants it.
Fuck, fuck, fuck.
The plane shakes all of a sudden. It lasts less than a second. We must have hit some turbulence.
I see how fast Sapphire's mind jumps from one emotion to the next and understand why. My brain works the same way. Our minds now process st
imuli and emotions at three times the speed of an average human due to the implants in our brains. The same software and hardware packages that control our bionic limbs give us a whole new mental edge.
Come to think of it, she's more advanced than I am. I can only imagine what's going on in that head of hers; how overwhelmed she must be. Especially when it comes to an emotion like fear. That shit is no joke.
Just like that, the tigress ready to kill is gone, and the sweet, scared girl is back.
That's right. Scared girl. Not horny girl.
She was two seconds ago.
Did I mention that I'm starting to hate myself, too?
Once more, I’m forced to grit my teeth and ignore my body’s irrational reactions. “Come back here,” I tell her in a low voice, opening my arms again.
Bad fucking idea on my end, but it worked to calm her down the first time, didn’t it?
She doesn’t waste any time moving back over to me and leaning her head on my chest.
I try my hardest not to be affected by any of it. I’ll give you two hints as to how that works out for me.
Not. Well.
“WHAT IS IT?” I storm past Gage, heading straight for the cockpit.
“The engine is failing. We’re going to have to touch down.”
I falter in my next step. It isn’t every day that words like that make my stomach drop, but as my mind flashes to the girl sleeping in the bedroom, that’s exactly what happens.
I don’t bother asking him anything else. If he’s alerting me of this, it means the engine restart has failed. Adrenaline pumps through me. There’s no rush accompanying it. For the first time in years, the beginnings of panic blossom.
There’s no caring about my team. I don’t even care about myself. I should, but one thought is repeating itself over and over as I near the cockpit: I can’t let anything happen to her.
Isaac, one of the pilots, turns to me as soon as I’m at the cockpit door. “Hong Kong International can accommodate an emergency landing. We’re starting descent.”
“Any idea what caused the failure?” I ask him.
John, the other pilot, gives me his attention long enough to tell me, “No. We won’t know until we land. Misty already started a scan to see if the software’s corrupted at all.”
Gage is behind me when I turn around. Motioning with my head for him to follow me, I storm back out of the cockpit and toward our seats. The rest of our team is already buckling up for the descent. “I’m going to go wake her. But you need to be informed: someone’s after her.”
“Her?” Gage’s eyes flicker toward the closed bedroom door. “Why? Because she’s Lei Heaton’s daughter? Or for her parts?”
“Both. And because she’s not Magdalena and I think whoever is after her knows that.”
His eyes shoot wide. “Excuse me?”
“There’s no time to explain it all right now. I’m sending all the info I have on the situation to your drive.” I’d already downloaded it onto my own, so a single mental command initiates the transfer. Gage blinks as the download starts. “Go through all of it while we land.”
The nod he gives me is tense. Serious. The soldier in him has taken over.
Good.
“We’re not letting anyone take her.” With that, I turn to head to Sapphire.
“There’s no way I’m letting anything happen to her.” Gage’s tone is low and dangerous. A vow he intends to keep.
And it’s a good thing. It is.
Doesn’t stop my fist from itching to connect with his fucking mouth.
I crack my neck and move onward. There’s no point in addressing the situation, and definitely no time to do so right now.
En route to the Peninsula Hotel.
Tsing Sha Highway, Hong Kong, China.
THE INSIDE OF THE CAR IS SILENT. Only the noises from outside penetrate the tense quiet around us.
As for the plane? It’d been sabotaged. Misty found the virus deep within the plane’s software. I’m also one-hundred percent sure that a check of the engine will show structural damage as well.
So is Gage. Now that he’s up-to-speed on everything, he’s come to the conclusion that someone leaked the info on the Sapphire AI. If that’s true, there’s no telling how many factions are now after Sapphire.
Lei Heaton spoke to Logan back at headquarters. He’s demanding that we let him send his own private jet to pick us up.
Impatient fool. He’s well-known; a select group of people know about Adelphi. If they were able to track us down and mess with our plane, there’s no way they wouldn’t recognize anything even remotely linked to him.
Another stealthier, smaller plane of ours will be here in the morning to pick us up. Along with more agents. We had to pull Horus and his team off a mission for this. With him, Gage, and I together, we should be able to handle the situation.
We booked rooms under aliases at the Peninsula Hotel for the night. That’s where we’re heading.
Clark is driving again. The cars we rented are much bigger this time. A lot flashier, too, which worries me. People don’t look twice at a regular car. Now, a Rolls-Royce Phantom? Eye-catching. Damn it, it’s all we could get on such short notice, but I can’t wait to get Sapphire out of this car and somewhere safer.
Russell and the rest of the team are in an identical car. I ordered them to take an alternate route to the hotel. One Rolls-Royce is conspicuous enough, thank you very much.
I’m sitting on the right side of the three-person seat in the back, next to the window. Sapphire lies beside me, asleep with her head resting on my lap. It’d been impossible to wake her up during landing. I’d had no choice but to carry her out of the bedroom and strap her to the seat next to me.
She woke up for three seconds after arrival in China. That’s it. Needless to say, it worried me. I’d done a scan of her vitals to make sure she was alright. Physically, she’s fine. A scan into brain activity had proved something else I’d been suspecting.
Sapphire hasn’t had enough time to become accustomed to being in a human body. Add to that the fact that her mind is also working at warp-speed, and you have hypervigilance. It’s a state of constant hyper-feeling, if you will, and it’s hell to get used to. Everything she perceives is magnified. Her feelings are being pushed to the extreme.
God, she is strong. I’d seen little glimpses of her hypervigilance, but she’d kept it under control so far.
It’s no wonder she’s exhausted, though.
I’d just finished scanning her and raised my head to notify everyone that her vitals were fine, for the most part, when Gage opened his mouth and beat me to it.
He’d been scanning her at the same time I had.
I close my eyes, blocking out the view of Hong Kong outside, and breathe slow. In for three counts, out for six. Over and over, all the while telling myself that there’s something bigger going on. Sapphire is being hunted and I have to remain in control to do my job. There’s no time for petty, ridiculous jealousy.
But the motherfucker scanned her. He’d been inside her like that.
He's done it to countless people. So have I, and it’s not lost on me that the only reason it bothers me now is because it’s her.
Sapphire shifts and mumbles something in her sleep. I open my eyes and focus on her. A lock of hair is laying across her cheek. Shifting again, she groans and her pert little nose twitches.
I allow myself a small smile and reach to move the hair away from her face. The silky strands slide across my fingers. I let one finger linger on her cheek, caressing her.
She lets out a soft sound and moves her face closer to my hand.
Movement from the front catches my attention. It's Gage, head turned toward the back. His eyes are on my hand and where it is. He doesn't seem happy about it.
He wants her.
I know. I want her, too.
Neither of us can have her, but if one of us is going to...
There's no fucking doubt about it—it's going to be m
e.
Need proof? She woke up for a few seconds again once I'd gotten her in the car. Her little hand had wrapped around my wrist, silently asking me to be the one that sat next to her. Once I had, she'd wasted no time getting comfortable, laying her head on my lap and going back to sleep.
Was I pleased? Yes. Am I worried about it? You bet your ass I am. Would I have let Gage sit next to her instead of me? Hell the fuck no.
The car turns onto Argyle street and merges with the heavy traffic. I’ve been here many times before. It’s one of Hong Kong’s busiest thoroughfares. We pass Tung Choi Street and the jam-packed Ladies’ Market. Row upon row of stalls filled with merchandise can be seen from the entrance alone.
We’re facing off against an unknown enemy, the mission is close to being compromised, and the thought that goes through my head right then has nothing to do with any of that.
Man, I wish I had time to take Sapphire shopping there. She’d been at the power plant ever since waking up. There's so many things she hasn't had a chance to do—
The sound of a massive blast echoes around us.
Gravity fails. My stomach is shoved up into my larynx.
The car flips up into the air. Sapphire flies out of her seat. I scream her name, trying to reach for her as the car goes through another flip.
There's a crash—the sound of glass breaking. Blood has rushed to my head, the pressure making it impossible for me to focus.
Another flip; Clark goes right through the windshield. Gage screams out. The car slams on the ground then bounces back up into the air. This time, Sapphire screams as Gage flies out the passenger side window.
Impact. My body gets jolted by the force of the crash. Everything around me sounds like it's breaking. The car seems to come down around me. Crushed. I'm upside-down, being held by nothing but my seatbelt, my forehead mere centimeters from the roof of the car.
There's so much noise. People screaming, running. Horns honking.
A second explosion.
"Sapphire!" I yell as loud as I can.
I'm the only one left in the car, trapped by the fucking seatbelt. Where is she?
The Exchange Part 1 Page 5
