More than Truth (Arcane Crossbreeds)

by Vyne, Amanda

  Confused, she pushed herself up and frowned at the halo of light that surrounded the door at the far end of the room. It was slightly ajar, so she wasn’t locked in. Fighting the residual lethargy from the sedative, she gingerly eased her legs over the side of the bed and stood.

  Where had they taken her? Casting another glance around the room, she couldn’t see any windows to judge how much time had passed. Brit smoothed back her hair to center herself and stumbled to that door, where there was a narrow shaft of light spearing into the room.

  Was Meghann here? Anticipation and fear cartwheeled through Brit, making the dizziness from that damn shot worse. She swiped her hands down the front of the blouse she was wearing, a nervous gesture. Recognizing it, she fisted her hands and took a deep breath. They couldn’t know just how dazed she was—couldn’t be allowed to manipulate her with her emotions. They’d done it before, and her family had been killed anyway, or so she had thought. Now both the lives of Meghann and Katya rested on her ability to do this.

  Meghann was alive. That knowledge went winging through Brit, the resulting hope as destructive as any fear.

  No. Brit shook her head. She needed to maneuver this carefully and rationally. It was a dangerous edge to tread, because once she went over, she couldn’t take back the knowledge they would have. And what they wanted would endanger every single Arcane species not currently shackled by the blood magic. Whatever changes they had made to her research resulted in a mutation of the genetic material once it was introduced into the subject. It would kill every Arcane they infected it with. She couldn’t let that happen, yet even as she reached for the door handle, a terrifying question formed in a dark corner of her mind. How close to the precipice would she be willing to go to get her sister back?

  It was a question she wished she could answer with confidence, but she’d thought her sister was dead all these years, thought herself alone—without family. To know her sister was out there somewhere was undeniably motivating. Incog would be looking for Brit, if for no other reason than to protect the sensitive medical information she possessed. She had to hold out for that. Once they found her, she would just have to make them understand. The owner of Incog was a fair man; he would never let an innocent woman be held captive.

  Incog would rescue her sister too. She had to believe that and stall for time.

  Brit took a deep breath, lifted her chin, and pulled the door open. The brightness of the room blinded her momentarily, and she blinked against it, forcing her eyes to focus. It was a lab. A state-of-the-art lab. This room she was locked in. The big steel door on one side was a dead giveaway.

  There was an observation deck above like those in an operating room to allow other surgeons to watch a procedure. In this observation deck was what looked to be another lab, complete with the classic creepy scientist. Brit cleared her throat and marched across the lab to stand beneath the window.

  The thin man lifted his head and smiled excitedly at her, pushing long wiry hair behind his ears. He had beady black eyes, and the bright lights of the lab reflected on the lenses of his glasses. He slapped his hands together.

  “Dr. Mahoney, I am elated to have you in my lab. My name is Dr. Anthony Rupple. Your work on the ARSA gene was ahead of the times and undeniably brilliant, and to think you were only sixteen at the time. It is quite extraordinary, as I’m sure you are aware.”

  Brit folded her arms over her chest. “What I am aware of is that I am being held involuntarily in this…” She glanced around the lab, careful to load her voice and face with derision, “place.”

  Dr. Rupple frowned, the resulting lines removing any appeal from his long face. “I thought you understood. I was led to believe you were agreeable given the situation.”

  “And what exactly is the situation that would lead me to disregard my morality to assist you in a project that is beyond unethical?”

  Dr. Rupple’s expression eroded further until he looked quite menacing. “The situation being your sister’s continued good health, I believe.”

  “My sister is dead.” Her heart slammed into her breastbone, stealing her breath, but she merely waved one hand in dismissal, betraying none of her anxiety. “I am a woman of science, Dr. Rupple. Without evidence, the existence of my sister is no more than your hypothesis. And I have seen an example of your research. It is no more than an unfounded and dangerous theory grounded by very little real evidence and implemented prematurely to the detriment of your subjects.”

  Dr. Rupple’s face grew mottled. “If you wish to see evidence of your sister’s existence, you will earn it, Dr. Mahoney.”

  Brit hoped she wasn’t pushing the obviously deranged doctor too far when she seated herself on a nearby stool. “It appears we are at an impasse, then, because until I see my sister, I will not even endeavor to rescue your ghastly attempt at genetics.”

  “I think you misunderstand your current circumstances,” Dr. Rupple said smoothly, then leaned forward to speak into an intercom on the wall. She couldn’t hear what he said. He turned back to her. “This is my lab, and you work for me. Everything you have is at my grace. Mine. But you are a woman of science, are you not? Perhaps you require evidence of this.”

  There was a hum and a click from the prison door, and Brit turned to watch two men dressed in black BDUs walk into the lab. Guardians. A trickle of fear slid unsteadily down her spine. Great.

  “Take her to the hole,” Dr. Rupple snapped, the smile that split his face cold. “Perhaps a couple of days without all these amenities would make you more agreeable.”

  The Guardians jerked her upright by her arms, sending the stool crashing to the ground behind her. Their grip was bruising as they hauled her from the lab and into the hall. It gleamed gray with the concrete floor, walls, and ceiling. No windows broke up the cold landscape around her, and the vents were high on the wall. Underground?

  Could they have taken her to the very complex that Katya had been rescued from? The one Incog had plans to take down? If this was the GenTest facility, then Incog would be here sooner than she had initially anticipated. She needed to find out if her sister was being kept here as well.

  They stopped before another steel door, and once one of the Guardians placed his palm against a security pad to be scanned, it clicked open. She caught a glimpse beyond and balked. Hole indeed. It was no more than a sunken empty cell. A concrete hole.

  Heart hammering, Brit turned to the Guardians. “Wait, I—” One of the Guardians slapped her across the face, cutting off what she would have said. Brit tasted blood, but before she could respond, she felt herself falling. She twisted in an attempt to balance herself, but there was nothing beneath her feet. Pain shot up her wrists as she extended her hands to brace and came in contact with concrete. Her head struck something, and she rolled onto her back, gasping for breath.

  Behind her, the door closed with a click, and the light evaporated from the room, taking the air with it. Brit pushed to her hands and knees and forced herself to take slow deep breaths. It was a room without light. No more, no less. Dr. Rupple wouldn’t kill her. He was trying to prove who was in control. Control.

  Brit latched on to the word. Control. Shifting into a sitting position, she closed her eyes and carefully subdued the panic. She needed to be rational. She had wanted to stall for time until Incog arrived, and now she had it, albeit not quite what she had in mind.

  With a slow expulsion of air, she touched the lump on her forehead, and her fingers came away wet. A small laceration at her hairline. She pinched it shut and held pressure on it. Her knee and hip throbbed, but a quick palpation with her free hand assured her they were no more than contusions. Her slacks hadn’t even gotten torn. She couldn’t say as much for her silk blouse. There was a tear at the shoulder.

  Bastards.

  More in control, Brit felt around her with one hand. Stairs. She’d barely gotten a glance of the room—very adequately named “the hole.” The Triumvirate wouldn’t keep her long; they needed her. When the
guards came to release her, she would have to try another tactic. One that didn’t result in bodily injury and total blackness.

  Brit pushed herself back until she felt the cold concrete wall, careful to keep pressure on her head wound. Now all she had to do was wait—wait and hope that her sister was nearby when Incog arrived.

  Chapter Three

  Taggart Jennings hadn’t slept in two days.

  He was agitated, the drive to overanalyze every moment of the last several months with the doc exhausting and infuriating, but when had the doc been anything less? When he closed his eyes, he saw her, but he couldn’t fucking reach out to her. There was just nothing when he tried. A big fat nothing that filled his chest, rising up in him until he almost choked on it.

  Hell.

  With a frustrated growl, he attempted to focus for the hundredth time on the circuit board he was holding. He’d soldered a circuit in the wrong spot. Again.

  “Fuck.” Tag threw down the piece of technological crap he’d been staring at for the last two hours.

  “Sorry, man, but she left on her own.”

  Tag narrowed a fiery glare on his longtime friend and dragged a hand down his neck. His very skin was rubbing him the wrong way right now. “Don’t fucking push me, Raife.”

  “Face facts, Tag. She betrayed us all.”

  Tag snarled and launched at the other man until they were barely a breath apart. They circled each other. Raife Merrick, the only other Drachon that worked at Incog, was recently mated and strong as hell with the new pheromones running through his system. Tag wasn’t fool enough to think he could take the asshole, but he was spoiling for a fight and willing to give it a damn good try if Raife didn’t back off.

  “C’mon, Tag,” Raife snapped. “You’ve seen the files. She fucking sentenced my mate to a short life with her attempts to play God for the Triumvirate.”

  They were close enough to feel the warmth of the other’s breath, the outline of the other man’s face highlighted in tones of red. Being Drachon and in his final heat, Tag’s dragon was always right there simmering just beneath the thin veneer of his humanity. He knew his pupils would be elliptical, the hunting vision masking his human eyes.

  “Those files were dated back to when the doc was sixteen fucking years old, Raife. There’s no proof she was involved in Katya’s actual treatment.” Tag felt the air heave in and out of his chest, heard the fury swelling in Raife’s. Hell, he couldn’t even blame the bastard. Drachon, once mated, had a life expectancy of about two hundred and fifty years, give or take. Those numbers usually held true for their mate as well. But not for Raife’s. Katya would age quickly, likely never even reaching the average human’s life expectancy. And that had everything to do with the genetic manipulation she’d secretly undergone most of her life. Genetic manipulation that had been born in the labs the doc had worked in as a teenage prodigy. Labs that belonged to the Triumvirate.

  He didn’t want to believe the doc was involved in that fucked-up shit now, but he didn’t know what the truth was anymore. The evidence was damning. He spun away and smoothed a hand over his closely sheared hair.

  The sound of Raife’s resigned sigh gusted behind him.

  “Fuck, man, I know this is hard, but look at the evidence. You went through her lab yourself. All the files from the lab are missing. All of them. You found the transmission she sent to the Triumvirate.”

  Tag paced toward the floor-to-ceiling windows. It was late, well after midnight, the lights of the city blurry smudges in the darkness. Most of the team of agents he worked with were in their beds. The only reason Raife was even in Tag’s workspace was because Katya was feverishly concocting new security software, and the bastard refused to go to bed without her. Usually, Tag checked in with the doc before he tried to sleep. She considered his need to connect with her as harassment, but for him it was a compulsion. A fruitless one, since he’d never mate her, never mate anyone.

  Tag glanced down to the shadowed street several stories below.

  He didn’t know what to fucking think. Just before dawn, the doc had drugged him and calmly walked out of Incog. The damn security footage showed her striding confidently through the halls as though it was any other day of the week and she was heading to her apartment. He’d hacked the city traffic cams and got footage of her leaving the building and getting into a hired car. All of her own free will.

  It was simple enough to catch the plate number on the vehicle and find out where she was dropped off. The team even interviewed the driver. All evidence suggested there was no coercion. Hell, it was all well planned. Most of the team of agents at Incog were crossbreeds, with the exception of him and Raife. They easily believed the doc was cold enough to be a traitor, but Tag was struggling with it. He’d seen into her, or at least more than anyone else. He thought he knew her. Until she’d kissed him and jabbed a damn needle in his neck.

  Tag spun and slapped the circuit board from the table, and it smashed into the wall. It didn’t soothe the craving eating at him to damage something until it was as mangled as he felt. Not even close.

  “Tag.” He turned to look at Katya, who was frowning darkly at him through a wisp of white-blonde hair. She was pale, more so than usual, and shadows made her pale blue eyes almost translucent. “You haven’t slept in two days. Go get some shut-eye.” She glared pointedly at the bent circuit board before meeting his gaze. Her brows lowered. “Do you need Forestor to tuck you in?”

  Tag growled and rubbed a hand over his buzzed head. Forestor was the owner of Incog and one badass Guardian. He was more than capable of making sure Tag not only went back to the suite he lived in on the upper levels of the Incog building, but that he slept…permanently if necessary.

  “Is that a threat?” Tag snarled. Raife shifted to fill the space between them, protective of his pregnant mate. It hadn’t been too long ago Tag had accused Katya of being the traitor. He’d given the little tech genius a hard time, but he’d since made it up to her. It cost him a ride out to that bagel shop down the street every morning to get her favorite craving. And she wouldn’t even share.

  Katya was already head down over her computer, unconcerned with his frustrated posturing. She snorted without looking up. “Growl at someone else, Tag. I’m not impressed.” She lifted her head and stared at him for a long moment, her features softening. “There’s more important things going on here than whether Dr. Mahoney is guilty or innocent. There are people being tortured in the GenTest facility, Tag. People who are innocent. And we both have jobs to do to make sure the hellhole gets leveled and those innocent people rescued. Focus on that.”

  Tag knew she was right. Katya had spent almost a year there, so she knew better than any of them what those people were going through. She and Raife lived in one of the suites in the Incog building down the hall from him because it was too much of a risk to allow her to so much as leave the security of the building. At night she still had nightmares that radiated a pain and terror so strong he picked up on them telepathically from down the hall. To think the doc was responsible for that…

  He couldn’t.

  “You’re right, little sister.” Tag scratched at the two days’ growth on his face with a resigned sigh. “Don’t call the boss. I’ll be a good boy.”

  Raife snorted and folded his arms over his chest.

  “For what it’s worth, Tag, I think there’s more going on here than it looks.” Katya sent the thought to him mentally, casting a wary look at her mate. “Raife is just worried about me.”

  “I’m sorry this happened to you, little sis.” Tag shifted uncomfortably. “You didn’t deserve to get caught up in this shit.”

  “I think you know better than most we rarely get what we deserve.”

  “Understatement of the year.”

  “You’re asking for an ass-kicking, man.” Raife growled, no doubt picking up on their telepathic communication but unable to catch their actual words.

  “No worries, asshole. She turned me down. Again.”<
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  Raife responded with another threatening grumble at the familiar joke. Tag always joked about stealing Katya away, and even though he felt the chuckle move through his chest, the usual humor was absent.

  Instead he left Katya to soothe her grumpy mate and made his way back to his suite. Most of the agents lived somewhere in the city, but Tag chose to keep an apartment within the Incog building like the doc. She’d been barely eighteen when Forestor had brought her in. Haunted. A pain radiating off her that called to him, raising every instinct he had to protect her. He’d suspected then she would have been his mate. At the time he’d assumed it was some kind of fucked-up karmic joke, since Drachon couldn’t mate females not of their species.

  Now he knew it was. Katya and Raife proved Drachon could mate crossbreed females, but whether or not the doc was Tag’s mate didn’t matter. He was only half of a whole. A twin. For Drachon, male twins were rare, celebrated. When mated they became a sacred triad, prophesized to be a sign of renewed life and faith for his people.

  Right. Tag snorted derisively as he keyed his security code in and opened his suite door. His people were totally fucked because his twin was a damn traitor and his likely mate didn’t look to be much different.

  Without bothering to turn on any lights, he made his way to the liquor cabinet and slapped a glass on the cabinet top. Moonlight shafted across the first bottle he pulled out. Fifty-year single malt. He cringed and replaced it. Tonight was going to be one of those nights where he ended up drinking straight from the bottle. He pulled another bottle out, filled the glass, and downed the amber liquid in one burning swallow.

  It scorched down his throat and spread through his chest, but it didn’t ease the hollowness there. Hell, nothing was going to touch that. He was just empty. Tag braced his hands on the glossy surface of the cabinet and glared down into the glass. Yeah, just like the damn glass. Empty.

  Well, fuck the glass, then. He wrapped a hand around the neck of the whiskey bottle and lifted it to his lips to take a long pull from it. His steps were heavy in the darkness as he made his way across the room and dropped down on the sofa, the bottle balanced on his knee and his head against the back of the couch.