by Seere, Diana
The bloodthirsty thought made her hurry into the lab, seeking something she felt more confident about—her work. Her science.
And a hit of ibuprofen for the earache that was only getting worse.
Asher would handle the physical threat of Tomas, wherever he was, however close and powerful. But Sam would attack what she could at the cellular level. What had Tomas infected Asher with during the fight? Was it a virus? A mutation? She needed to get him into the lab and do some tests, lots of them, but he’d left her, locked her up, and was busy saving the life of every human and shifter on the planet. There was no way to get samples—
“Ah,” she breathed, slapping her forehead.
She already had a sample of Asher’s DNA—between her legs. And she had the equipment she’d need to collect it.
Grinning, she got to work.
Chapter 8
“What do you mean, she has lab samples she wants sent to Boston? I made sure she had the finest lab equipment and machinery possible here at the ranch!” Asher boomed as he listened to Manny’s report, drinking from a glass of sparkling water one of the servants, Ariana, had brought, the bubbles annoying him. After his shift, he’d come home ragged, exhausted, and slept a hard night’s sleep, waking in a sheet-twisted bed, the covers filthy with pine needles and dirt, his body scratched and bruised.
And he’d awoken more determined than ever to marshal all his resources toward one, singular goal:
To eliminate Tomas Nagy.
Shrugging, Manny handed him a note, a piece of hastily torn paper neatly bisected by a folded line, the brush of paper against his fingertips an irritation he could not ignore.
“Dr. Baird wanted me to give this to you,” the man said, clearly bracing himself for an unpleasant reaction.
Asher unfolded it, a whiff of Samantha’s anger and sweet scent wafting up to Asher’s wide nostrils, a welcome interruption in an otherwise truly odious situation.
Dear Mr. Stanton, the note began.
Oh, she’s angry, he thought to himself. Mr. Stanton, is it?
Dear Mr. Stanton,
While your attempt at building a top-notch laboratory is admirable, you failed to provide me with what I need. Had you consulted with me first, or bothered to give me information about your endeavor, then the lab could have been equipped with the necessary building blocks for a healthy, vibrant setting that supports change and innovation.
Instead, it has hollow spots and a distinct deficit, one that reeks of someone ignorant of the basic needs for a senior scientist in my position.
Please ensure that Manny and Roger deliver these samples to LupiNex as soon as possible, where my carefully cultivated laboratory has all of the constituent parts that I need for success.
Sincerely,
Dr. Samantha Baird, PhD.
Failed.
Bothered.
Vibrant.
Deficit.
Success.
She knew how to throw a verbal barb, didn’t she? That mouth of hers had sharp edges.
It also had soft, pliant curves he could still taste.
Swallowing his frustration, he paused, thinking this through, a long sigh escaping him. Why did his skin feel as if it were made up of millions of angry fire ants? Her note wasn’t the source of his restlessness. It did not help; he had taken great pleasure in creating the on-site laboratory with Samantha in mind, imagining her reaction to being handed everything she could possibly want.
Giving her whatever she needed was his ultimate desire.
I want you, the voice said, knocking him out of his thoughts with such swiftness he dropped the glass of bubbly water, spilling the contents all over his wingtips, the droplets scattering on the hardwood flooring at the edge of the great Persian rug that covered much of his office.
Hand on his heart, he ignored the wetness seeping in through his shoe, closed his eyes, and did something so uncharacteristic he would not believe it if he were not experiencing it.
He felt.
Channeling a deep calling inside, behind his closed eyes he traveled, layer by layer, to a level of consciousness denied by most rational thinkers. Dismissing what could not be measured was a mistake most people made.
Asher Stanton was not most people.
Attenuating the rush of frivolous thoughts and undesirable emotion, he fixated inside, layer after layer of a chattering outside world fading as he rode into deep consciousness. While mystics might call it hypnosis, or meditation, thousands of years of shifter world knowledge, passed down from generation to generation, called it nothing.
For the goal, indeed, was true nothingness.
Clarity came to him in images of his blood as red cells, Samantha’s fiery hair as ribbons on the wind, a child’s giggle at a balloon, the ripe sweetness of the first strawberry in May. Each photographic thought, disjointed and unconnected to lived experience, changed his breathing, his pulse, his skin. As he slowed himself down, time followed.
The mind was more powerful than power itself.
Leave it untrained, and it could destroy worlds.
Worse—it could destroy him.
A thin hum, no louder than a chime struck from a thousand miles away, made an entrance into Asher’s consciousness, a sound he’d not felt nor heard before. Rippling like gooseflesh in skin, it made waves throughout his awareness, steady. Thrumming.
No. Not a hum.
A purr.
Instinct made him angry. Overriding impulse, though, was his forte. Pushing aside the parts of him that wished to break the connection with lethal force, he did something more dangerous.
He listened.
Words were not what he attended to, but feeling. Emotion. Drive. Tomas Nagy had lost his logical sense, tipping into a cunning madness that Asher began to feel. Distancing himself from it was paramount, for if he could observe without reacting, he himself could become his greatest weapon.
He had no choice. Knowing he had a powerful tool, even if it was in his blood, meant he was obligated to use it.
Closing his eyes, he focused hard. The purring grew. The cold evil that Tomas drank in like a parched man gained momentum inside Asher, the taste bitter at first, then pleasant…
NO! screamed a voice inside tearing him out of his thoughts, the purr dying instantly as if someone sliced it in half with a blade.
That no? That female voice?
It could only be Samantha. But how?
“Tell Roger to fly the samples to Boston,” Asher directed, expecting Manny to nod and leave. If the man scattered immediately, he might not notice Asher’s shaking hands.
He did not.
“There is more?” Asher asked, his voice turning into a steam engine of unrestrained irritation.
“She, uh, Dr. Baird, uh… wants Zach.”
“Excuse me?” Tempers were famous among the Stanton men in the bloodline going back centuries, but Asher had prided himself on never giving in to such childish displays of anger. His body, however, was a flashpoint right now.
And it was all her fault.
“I mean in the lab, sir. She needs someone to help her with some research. She specifically asked for Zach.”
The elaboration did not help. While Asher knew that the foreign invasion of jealousy, a houseguest he most certainly did not wish to allow any quarter inside the precious real estate of his mind and heart, was driven by some other issue, he was, nonetheless, temporarily thrown off-balance by it.
Samantha wanted Zach not simply because of his professional abilities.
She wanted him because he could give her insight into the shifter world.
How had she cut through his connection to Tomas? What was this strange tether between the two men—and how had Samantha, by God, broken it?
Zach was the only person on the ranch capable of giving Asher answers, if such answers even existed.
And for her own good, Asher could not let Samantha have that information.
NO! he shouted back, though he knew she could not hear hi
m. The thought of her being in that mind space with Tomas made his stomach sour, his hands turn to fists, every protective instinct on overdrive.
She was there. With them both.
No.
* * *
Sam sat in the custom-made executive chair in her office, glaring at the steam rising from her cup of coffee. Perfect cup of coffee. Perfect computer on her desk, perfect desk. The medicine cabinet in the bathroom had provided five pain-killing options for her earache, and she’d tried all of them.
Asher had obviously gone all out making the lab as comfortable and well equipped as possible, and she was glad he hadn’t tried to recreate every facility she might need on occasion. Every scientist used outside services, and sending samples to and from specialty labs was an efficient use of time and resources. He could hardly employ hundreds of lab techs and scientists here at the Stanton ranch when their security was so uncertain. Locking her up for a day or two was one thing, but he couldn’t do that with a full-staffed biotech company. Well, he just might, but he shouldn’t.
The impossible man.
She hoped her letter made him really, really mad. Writing it had drained her of energy, and after she’d given it to Manny, she’d collapsed in her too-comfortable executive chair and closed her eyes just for a moment, wondering if her temper had gotten the best of her. Sometimes she acted a little impulsively. More and more since she’d met the Stantons—first Gavin, with his thrilling, secret project of shifter research, then his twin brother and sister who were well-known at the Platinum Club, and finally…
Well. It always came back to Asher, didn’t it? He was everywhere: her work life, her personal life, her body, her waking mind, her dreams. She couldn’t close her eyes without seeing him. Just before she’d shaken off the daze and made herself a cup of espresso, she’d dreamed of Asher as a mountain lion with Tomas’ face. Or was it Tomas with Asher’s face? Her inability to distinguish the two had been a swift, nauseating nightmare.
She’d screamed No! and fought them both, not sure which was her enemy. Or if they both were.
Asher’s emotions had permeated the dream, leaving her psyche exposed to them as if they were her own. She’d felt his anger, how it boiled and roiled inside him, clawing to get out, and when she awoke, she discovered she’d scratched four long, angry stripes on the back of her own hand.
Her hands were already banged up from the garage, but the angry new scratches were especially visible against her pale skin. If he asked her what had happened, she’d blame the Bugatti. Sex on the Bugatti. Those vintage cars leave their mark.
She smiled at the absurdity, at the memory. And then groaned because she wanted him; she wanted him so badly and always had and always would. Making love to him once had only increased her hunger. Now she knew how good it could be.
There would never be anyone else like him. No matter what happened, she knew it. As a woman and as a scientist, she would be fascinated with Asher Stanton to the end of her days. The samples she’d sent to LupiNex would only begin unraveling the mysteries contained in that lupine, feline billionaire sex god.
Groaning again, she drained her coffee and went out to the lab station she’d chosen for Zach. He preferred working on his feet, with a stool and standing desk, and this one had easy access to her office as well as the cold rooms, eye wash station, employee lounge, restroom with emergency showering chamber, equipment storage, computer support, technical administration, and… everything. Asher hadn’t missed a thing.
A buzz sounded at the side door of the lab. Zach must be eager to get to work—her request through Manny hadn’t been much more than an hour ago. She smiled, wondering if Sophia’s third trimester was making her difficult to be around. Pregnant human women were known to do a lot of domestic baby preparation at that stage; Sam theorized a bear shifter female would be even more crazy—er, energetic. Sophia already prepared for her hibernation every winter through long weeks of uncontrolled eating and mating. A werebear pregnancy—again Sam was only forming a hypothesis since nobody had ever been invited to perform a decent study of shifter cultural and biological anthropology—must involve truly staggering amounts of food and lovemaking.
Perhaps Zach wouldn’t be too uncomfortable to answer a few of Sam’s scientific questions. She didn’t know Sophia quite well enough to ask her directly… at least not until after the baby was born.
Sam flung open the interior door and went into the intermediate chamber to greet Zach. But to her surprise, it was Molly, not her old lab assistant, who waited there. Manny was outside, already striding away.
Molly was mated to Edward Stanton, the youngest of the siblings, a full-time resident at the Montana ranch, part-time firefighter—and one of the two witnesses to her romp on the Bugatti with Asher. Sam flushed, wondering how much Molly knew.
Molly had swept Edward off his mountain lion feet around the same time she’d learned her special importance to the shifter world. Sam’s work at LupiNex had discovered Molly’s blood had unique characteristics that enabled the creation of a dangerous biotechnology—a serum that could prevent the manifestation of shifter genes in an otherwise human body.
Sam’s research had been built on an ethically flawed foundation, and she always felt guilty whenever she saw Molly. Sam had hidden the truth of the research from Molly over many months and years of taking samples of her blood. Her need to redeem herself was what drove her now, every day and every minute, to find antidotes to the damage she’d done. Tomas had been a shifter employee at her lab when he’d used the serum in evil ways, creating shifters from humans, sometimes with monstrous results. Whatever experiments he continued on his own were why Molly was in perpetual danger.
Until Tomas was destroyed, Molly wouldn’t be able to live freely. Her blood was too precious to him.
And Sam was to blame.
“Molly,” Sam said, opening her arms.
“Sam!” Molly accepted the hug with her usual good cheer. Sam was always amazed how Molly could be so forgiving. “You look so nice. Fabulous skirt, and I just adore the silk top. That teal is killer with your eyes. And it really complements your hair, of course.”
Sam had decided long ago that if she was going to hold her head high around Asher Stanton, it would be easier if she weren’t in jeans and a T-shirt. “It’s great to see you, but I was expecting Zach.” Sam looked through the glass door to see if he’d escorted her.
“I don’t know about Zach,” Molly said. “Manny came and said you could use some company. But I brought even more than that.” She lifted a garment bag she carried.
“You didn’t,” Sam said.
“Of course I did!” Molly looked around the antechamber. “God, this is depressing. Do you really like all this science stuff everywhere all the time? It’s so sterile.”
Sam laughed. “Yeah, that’s the point.”
“And cold,” Molly added.
“Only in here. My apartment downstairs is pretty nice.” Sam sighed. “For a jail.”
“I can totally relate. Asher has us all locked down. There was a major scare, I guess. Edward wants to take me somewhere else—I’m voting Tahiti—but for now Asher has convinced him we’re safest here. Since that plane flew over, none of us can go outside without a security team.”
Sam felt some relief to know she wasn’t the only one feeling like a prisoner. It wasn’t only her special bond with Asher—sexual, emotional, or fated—that kept her inside.
“He actually locked me up in the garage at first,” Sam said, her heat rising with the memory. But then she grinned. “I busted out with a motorcycle.”
Molly bit her lip. “Yes, poor Edward. That was one of his.” She waved it away. “But don’t worry. He understands.”
“Oh no!” Sam cried. “I wasn’t thinking! Please tell him I’m sorry. Tell him Asher will pay for the repairs. I’ll make sure he does.”
Molly laughed. “I bet you will.”
“I’m really glad you’re here,” Sam said, realizing how true i
t was. She gave Molly another hug. “I’ve been going out of my mind. Bored, angry, worried. Come downstairs and I’ll make brownies.”
“Brownies?”
“Damn right. Can you think of anything you’d like more than brownies? Ever?”
Molly grinned. “Anything?”
“Other than that.”
“Oh, OK. Other than that, no. Definitely not. Brownies for the win.” Smiling, Molly slung the garment bag over her shoulder. “And you can hang up the little present I got you.”
Sam led her friend downstairs to the penthouse-in-the-basement, unable to stop wondering if Edward had told her what he’d seen in the garage earlier. Molly was a very earthy, sensual person who had enjoyed a busy social life before meeting Edward. When she’d come in to donate plasma, Molly had kept Sam (who she’d thought was a nurse) amused with updates on her sex life, which when compared to Sam’s solitary workaholic habits, had seemed glorious.
“I’m guessing that’s not a new lab coat.” Sam led Molly into her living room and headed for the kitchen to get the brownies started.
“Not on your life, sister,” Molly said.
Sam looked at her sharply. Yeah, she knew.
Molly’s round cheeks dimpled. “It’s the sexiest dress I’ve ever seen, it’s a gorgeous sapphire blue, and it’s in your size.” She held up a hand. “Don’t say no. I can’t bear rejection.”
Sam rolled her eyes. There was no stopping Molly and her unheeded fashion advice. She turned aside, smiling, and opened the cupboard. “Do you mind mocha chip?” Every item she might ever want was already stocked, but there was a framed note inside the cupboard door indicating what number to call or text to have anything else she desired brought to her immediately. Or if she didn’t feel like so much work, she could just push the convenient little green button on the fridge, tell the computer what she wanted, and it would relay the message.
