by Laura Taylor
By all rights, they could have called it a day several hours ago and carried on in the morning, but now that they were so close to a result, neither of them had wanted to quit without at least running a preliminary test. If they knew they could force the shift, then the analysis and fine tuning could wait until tomorrow, but Melissa knew she would never be able to sleep if she left now, with so many questions still unanswered, when victory was so close at hand.
All indications so far were that her theories on shifter physiology had been correct; the shift consisted of four distinct voltages, each lasting a fraction of a second, and flowing over the shifter’s body in a coordinated wave that began at his head and spread down his body like water flowing down a hill.
They’d made further adjustments to the equipment, setting the table up so that rather than recording the voltages, it would deliver them to the shifter’s body, a tightly controlled wave of electricity that should, all going according to plan, force the shifter to change forms.
Heading back to the computer, Melissa glanced up at the Professor, and saw a look of gleeful expectation on his face that matched her own. “Ready?” he asked, making a few last minute adjustments to the controls, and Melissa nodded.
“Ready and waiting.”
“All right,” the Professor said, fingers poised over the keys. “Let’s make some history. In three… two… one.” He hit the controls, initiating the wave of electricity. They watched as the shifter twitched, the electrodes shocking him a hundred times in rapid succession, and they waited for the moment when he would change forms…
Nothing happened.
“What the hell?” Melissa demanded, going immediately to the computer to check the readings. According to the screen, it had worked perfectly, every voltage discharged on time, every shock carrying the exact amount of current their experiments had recorded.
“Try it again,” Banks instructed her, a frown appearing on his face, making his wrinkles look deeper than usual. Melissa did, activating the controls, watching as the computer spat out a flurry of information… and once again, absolutely nothing happened.
“Perhaps he’s resisting,” Evans suggested, watching meekly from the side of the room. She hadn’t wanted to do this tonight, stating that they would do better to try it in the morning when they were all fresh and wouldn’t make mistakes, but when Melissa and Banks had out-voted her, she’d insisted on staying to see their results. In response to her suggestion now, Banks went immediately to one of the guards waiting at the side of the room and snatched the Taser out of his hand.
“You mess with us again, and I’ll Taser you,” he told the shifter sharply. The man’s eyes opened wide in fear, but he shook his head.
“I’m not doing anything,” he said, his voice rough and husky. “You said to just lie here, and I am. I swear.”
“One more time,” Banks insisted, and Melissa hit the controls again. The same wave of electric shocks once more flowed down the table, with the same result: absolutely nothing.
Melissa sank into a chair, feeling almost dizzy at the wave of disappointment she felt at the failure. “What did we do wrong?”
Banks looked as lost as she was. “I have no idea…”
Miller saw Skip the next morning in the kitchen at breakfast. By the time she arrived, Miller was already sitting at the table, toast and coffee in front of him, and she waved happily, before weaving around the other people in the kitchen to fetch herself some food.
As he watched her, Miller was feeling every bit as awkward as he’d expected to. This morning would have been uncomfortable even under the best of circumstances, as he didn’t know whether Skip would want the rest of the Den to know they’d kissed, and while in public, he didn’t know how to walk the line between affectionate love-interest and platonic friend.
But after what Silas had said last night, he was even more conflicted. What was he supposed to do now? Should he just end the budding relationship? With no explanation, that would come across as rather heartless. Should he ask Skip for more details on her past? If he knew in what way she’d been hurt or betrayed, he might be able to form a more realistic assessment of his own ability to be a decent boyfriend for her. Except that that option sounded like an imposingly personal question, and he wasn’t sure it was his place to ask.
Or should he tell Skip what had gone down after she’d left the sitting room yesterday? The latter seemed the most logical way forward, the least likely to inadvertently offend her by blowing hot and cold without any apparent reason.
But Skip was a strong woman in her own right, he acknowledged to himself, as she took a seat next to him with a bowl piled high with cornflakes, a mischievous grin on her face, and he couldn’t help but smile back, muttering a greeting through a mouthful of toast. For all that Silas said she was naïve, he didn’t think it fair to simply dismiss her opinions without at least discussing them with her.
But then again, it was early days between them yet. One kiss didn’t imply any kind of long term commitment, and if he’d been out in the real world, meeting a normal woman who’d sparked his interest, he would hardly think it appropriate to start having conversations about the long term implications of their relationship after only one date.
But in all his internal musings, he had failed to take into account how perceptive shifters were, and he was finishing his coffee, having exchanged a few mild remarks on the weather when Skip turned to him with a quizzical look.
“Is something wrong?” she asked bluntly, and Miller was surprised enough that he fumbled for a reply, rather than delivering the quick denial that might have been less awkward.
“It’s complicated,” he hedged, not wanting to open that sort of discussion right in front of the other people in the kitchen.
Skip sighed. “Who was it, and what did they do?”
Miller glanced around the kitchen. Silas was nowhere to be seen at the moment. “Maybe we should talk outside,” he suggested, the decision largely made for him that he was going to have to explain to Skip what Silas had said last night.
He led the way out the back door, Skip at his heels. “Silas saw us kissing last night,” he said bluntly. “And he was fairly upset about it. He warned me to stay away from you-”
“He what?” Skip shrieked, startling Miller. “What did he say?” she demanded angrily. “Word for word, what did he say?”
“I really don’t think hearing it is going to help,” Miller said hesitantly.
“What did he say?” Skip demanded once again.
Miller sighed, unable to see another way out without sounding rude. “He said that you’d had some difficult times in your past – he didn’t go into any details – and he didn’t think starting a relationship with me right now would be appropriate.”
Skip’s jaw dropped… and then her astonishment turned swiftly to anger. She marched over to the kitchen door, yanked it open, and glanced around, then yelled, “Silas! Get out here!”
Miller was taken aback. Silas would certainly not respond well to being given orders by this slip of a girl, and Miller didn’t know whether to be shocked that Skip would dare to speak to him that way, or fearful of what he was going to do in response.
But to his surprise, Silas obediently came striding out of the back door, coffee cup in hand and a scowl fixed to his face – evidence of his displeasure, though any more overt protest was markedly absent. But when he saw Miller standing there, the scowl deepened. “What’s he done now?” he asked impatiently.
But Skip was having none of it. “What the hell did you say to Jack yesterday?”
Miller was a little surprised to hear her call him by his first name. He’d been called ‘Miller’ for so long that ‘Jack’ just seemed out of place. But if Skip had taken the kiss at face value and assumed it meant a deepening of their relationship, then she’d clearly decided that they were now on a first name basis.
Silas raised a sardonic eyebrow at Miller. “Aww, the big, tough Noturatii can’t take the hea
t? So you run off to hide behind your little woman?”
Skip’s eyes opened wide. She turned to Silas, mouth hanging open in outrage, and swiftly punched him in the balls. “You use ‘woman’ as an insult again, and you’ll find out exactly why ‘hell hath no fury like that of a woman scorned’.”
“My mistake,” Silas groaned, bent over in pain. “Fuck, you know how to throw a decent punch, I’ll give you that.”
“And don’t you forget it,” Skip said, standing up tall and proud. “You have no right to be discussing me behind my back. So what did you say to Jack?”
Silas took a moment to catch his breath, struggling to stand up straight. He looked at Skip, an odd expression of tenderness on his face. “You’ve got no business getting involved with the likes of him,” he said softly. “I was watching out for your best interests.”
“Why do I have no business with it? Because he was with the Noturatii, or because he’s a man?”
“Either,” Silas said firmly. “You shouldn’t have been kissing him, and I won’t have him pawing at you. He needs to learn to stay away from you.”
“Even when I told him it was perfectly okay for him to kiss me?”
“Even then.”
“Fuck you!” Skip snarled at him. “You have no right to tell him what he can or can’t do, because it’s my choice!”
“Exactly!” Silas hissed back. “I’m trying to make sure you have a fucking choice, not just get dragged into something against your will.”
But Skip shook her head, her anger not appeased in the slightest. “Before I came here, I didn’t have a choice. And finally being able to say no was the most outstandingly awesome thing in the whole world, but if I don’t have the freedom to say yes, then saying no doesn’t mean anything. It’s not my choice, it’s just another set of rules and restrictions imposed upon me by someone else who wants to control me. And I’ve been through enough bullshit that no one is going to do that to me again! So if I want to spend time with Jack, or kiss him, or do anything else with him, then it’s not your decision, and it’s none of your damn business!”
With that, she swung around and grabbed Miller, pulling his head down and planting a firm kiss right on his lips. Then she shot a final glare Silas’s way and stalked off, back into the kitchen, anger radiating from every inch of her.
Miller simply stood there, frozen in shock. He’d known Skip had a backbone of steel, but to see her stand up to Silas like that, a man who had regularly threatened to gut him or slit his throat, was shocking.
And even more shocking was Silas’s reaction. As he watched Skip walk away, there was no hint of anger or violence in him at all – rather, his face held all the guilt of a man who’d just accidently kicked a puppy.
“She’s quite the little firecracker, isn’t she?” Miller observed drily.
Silas turned to him with a look of disbelief. “Uh… I seem to have overstepped my bounds,” he said finally.
But that was only a part of the conversation they’d just had. Skip’s words replayed in his mind, and Miller felt a wave of nausea at the implications of what she’d said. “What did she mean about not having the choice to say no?”
Silas growled, though Miller got the impression his anger wasn’t directed at him for once. “You know well enough what it’s called when a woman says no and a man doesn’t listen,” he replied, and Miller gritted his teeth at the cold confirmation of the situation.
“But she was right,” Silas admitted, looking unhappy about it. “It should be her choice. If she wants a relationship with you, I won’t stand in her way.”
“But let me guess,” Miller said. “If I hurt her in any way, I’ll be hearing about it from you?”
“Right,” Silas confirmed, a gleeful look of malice back on his face.
Miller nodded, and Silas walked away, disappearing back inside the manor, leaving him with the odd thought that he was finally starting to get the hang of this place.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Several days later, Miller was feeling rather nervous as he stepped into the library. Baron and Caroline were already seated at the table, Tank and Silas following him through the door, and he took a seat, hoping he hadn’t sorely misjudged these people’s perspectives.
Since his conversation with Skip about providing something useful for the Den, he’d been wracking his brain for anything he could do that would hold meaning for them. He’d already told Baron everything useful he could about the Noturatii, and been told in reply that the information had been sent to headquarters for further analysis. Given that he was still under firm restrictions about his activities around the estate and the depth of knowledge that he was privy to, it had been hard to come up with anything that wouldn’t breach one or more of the rules imposed upon him.
But then, in the cold dark of 3am when he’d been lying awake, contemplating his new life, the answer had suddenly come to him. He’d taken another two days to think the whole thing through, not wanting to make any hasty decisions that he would regret later, and also wanting to make a real contribution to the Den, rather than just flail around trying to bolster his own pride.
Skip had been an incredible help, providing a map of east London for him and printing off a few pertinent details from the Noturatii database she’d hacked earlier in the year. She’d also taken every opportunity to flirt with him, patting his shoulder, sitting closer than was strictly necessary, and she’d managed to manufacture at least one opportunity to kiss him again each day. Given what Miller now knew about her past, he was prepared to take things slowly, but Skip seemed quite determined to give their budding relationship frequent nudges in the right direction. They’d gone for a walk in the gardens one evening, and Miller had dared to take her hand, receiving shy glances and bashful smiles as a reward. And then the routine nightly kiss had turned into something more, small fingers wandering down to brush against his buttocks, eager hands tugging his body against hers. Miller had felt like he was fifteen again, making out with his girlfriend in the bushes beside his parents’ porch, eager to go further, and yet always holding back, not wanting to push too hard.
But their frequent private interludes had not gone unnoticed. The following morning, Heron had pulled him aside, after glancing furtively around to check that Skip wasn’t about, and had told him that if he valued his relationship with Skip, he was never, ever to tell her she was pretty. He’d been taken aback by the odd warning, but had thought better of asking for details as to why. Heron no doubt adhered to the shifters’ honour code that said other people’s stories weren’t open for discussion, and he was only likely to offend yet another tentative ally by pushing for too much information.
“You said you wanted to see us?” Baron said, once everyone was seated around the long table in the library. “So what’s the problem?”
Miller didn’t waste any time in getting started. “There have been lingering doubts around the Den about how genuine I’ve been about leaving the Noturatii,” he said bluntly. “And while I’ve explained that attacking one of their British bases would be a bad idea, it’s now occurred to me that there is something else I can offer you, that would make a huge dent in the Noturatii’s operations in this country, but without impinging on anyone’s moral sensibilities.” He pulled a couple of rumpled sheets of paper out of his pocket, and spread them out on the table. “This is a profile of Jacob Green. He’s the British Chief of Operations, the most high ranking member of staff in the entire country. He was my direct supervisor, when I was working for them.” He turned to the map next, a small area of a couple of blocks highlighted in yellow, with several pertinent landmarks outlined in red. “A lot of the Noturatii’s staff live in their own houses or apartments. But there are also a number of small compounds, gated communities, where some of the more senior staff live. Each complex has several apartment blocks, a few small offices, security buildings and guards posted at every entrance. No one gets in or out without the right security clearance, and everyone living or wo
rking there is employed by the Noturatii. No civilians, no low level employees who are just going through the motions in what they believe is a legitimate job. Everyone in these complexes is aware of what the shifters are, and the true nature of the Noturatii’s operations.” He paused a moment to let the news sink in.
“Jacob Green,” he went on, when he was sure he had everyone’s attention, “lives in this complex.” He pointed to the area he’d highlighted on the map. “His apartment is on the third floor, on the east side. Security is tight, but I know the system well enough to work around it. And if you’ve got a small team capable of carrying out a discreet assassination, then I can get you in, point out Jacob, and you can take him out. And throw the entire British division of the Noturatii into chaos in the process.”
Silas snorted. “Okay, does anyone else see the word ‘trap’ written all over this?”
“It’s waving a few red flags for me,” Tank said drily.
But Baron was silent. He stared at the map, then glanced at Caroline, and an unspoken communication seemed to pass between them. He turned back to the map, regarding it silently for a long moment.
“Why would you want to do this?” he asked Miller finally. “The guy was your boss. You must have worked with him on a daily basis. Got to know him. You’ve already said you don’t want to hand over the people you were friends with. Or did he do something in particular to piss you off?”
“Nothing in particular, no,” Miller replied, not at all offended by the pointed question. “And I wouldn’t say I was ever friends with him. Jacob is brilliant. Organised. Arrogant, and yet strategic. And absolutely ruthless. There is nothing he wouldn’t do in order to destroy the shifters. He takes risks, but they’re calculated risks, with the highest possible payout, which makes him not just intelligent, but dangerous. He became Chief of Operations ten years ago, and he’s grown the Noturatii’s operations in England significantly since then. He was promoted after the last man in that position was killed.”
