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"Jesus Christ. This is it?" "I'm betting so." Gideon scowled, clicking through more files on-screen. "There's more than one formula stored on the drive, however. We can't know which of them is valid until we obtain the ingredients and test each one."
Dante raked a hand through his hair and began pacing. He was curious to know more about the formulas Ben Sullivan had stored on the drive, but at the same time he was damn itchy to be back in his quarters. He could sense Tess's restlessness too, the connection they now shared through the blood bond like an unseen tether linking him to her as though they were one.
"How is she doing?" Savannah asked, obviously aware of his distraction.
"Better," he said. "She's awake and healing. Physically, she's fine. As for the rest, I've been trying to fill her in on everything, but I know she's confused."
Savannah nodded. "Who wouldn't be? I thought Gideon was a crazy fool when he first told me about all of this."
"You still think I'm a crazy fool most of the time, love. That's part of my charm." He bent toward her and faked a bite of her denim-clad thigh, his fingers not skipping a beat on the keys.
Playfully batting him away, Savannah stood up and came over to where Dante was trying to wear a track in the rug. "Do you think Tess might be hungry? I've got breakfast started in the kitchen for Gabrielle and me. I can prepare a tray for Tess, if you'd like to bring it to her."
"Yeah. Thanks, Savannah. Food would be great."
God, he hadn't even considered that Tess would need to eat. What a stellar mate he was proving to be already. He hardly took decent care of himself and now he had a Breedmate to think about, with human wants and needs that were well outside his areas of expertise. Oddly enough, where the thought might have given him doubts in the not-so-distant past, now he found the idea almost... pleasant. He wanted to provide for Tess, in every way. He wanted to protect her and make her happy, spoil her like a princess.
For the first time in his long life, he felt as if he'd found true purpose. Not the honor and duty that drove him as a warrior, but something equally compelling and righteous. Something that called to everything male in him.
He felt as if this bond he'd found--this love he had for Tess--might actually be strong enough to make him forget about the death and anguish that had been stalking him. Some hopeful part of him wanted to believe that with Tess beside him, maybe he could find a way to thwart it.
Dante hadn't even begun to enjoy that slender hope before a scream ripped through him like a blade. He felt it physically, but the assault was on his senses, a fact he realized when neither Savannah nor Gideon reacted to the terrified shriek that froze Dante's heart to ice in his chest.
It tore through him again, leaving him shuddering in its wake.
"Oh, Jesus. Tess!"
"What's wrong?" Savannah paused on her way to the kitchen. "Dante?"
"It's Tess," he said, already training his mind on her, homing in on her location in the compound. "She' s somewhere in the compound--the infirmary, I think." "I'll get a visual." At the computer, Gideon quickly brought up the display for one of the corridor's video monitors. "I've got her, D. Ah, hell. She's run into Rio down there. He's got her cornered--"
Dante took off at a dead run before the words were out of Gideon's mouth. He didn't need to see the screen to confirm where Tess was or what was giving her such a fright. He bolted out of Savannah and Gideon's apartments, hauling ass into the heart of the compound. Knowing the layout of the place inside and out, he took the shortest route down to the medical wing, using all the preternatural speed at his command.
Dante heard Rio's voice even before he reached the set of swinging doors that led into the medical wing.
"I asked you a question, female. What the fuck do you think you're doing down here?"
"Get away from her!" Dante shouted as he entered the infirmary, hoping like hell he wasn't going to have to do battle with one of his own. "Back off, Rio. Now."
"Dante!" Tess cried, panting with fear. Her face was ashen, her body trembling uncontrollably from behind the massive wall of Rio's body. The warrior had her trapped against the corridor wall, animosity radiating off him in blasting pulses of heat.
"Let her go," Dante ordered his brethren.
"Dante, be careful! He'll kill you!"
"No, he won't. It's okay, Tess."
"This female doesn't belong here," Rio snarled.
"I say she does. Now back off and let her go."
Rio relaxed only a fraction and swung his head around to look at Dante. Jesus, it was hard to remember the warrior before the ambush that had left him so wrecked, both physically and emotionally. The once-handsome face of the Spaniard with the ready smile and lazy wit was now a tangle of ruddy scars; his humor had long abandoned him for the fury that might never ease.
Dante parked himself right in Rio's face, staring past the scars on the warrior's cheeks and brow into the nearly insane eyes that looked so Roguelike even Dante was taken aback for a second. "I said, stand down," he growled. "The woman is with me. She is mine. Do you understand?"
Sanity flared within the bright amber depths of Rio's eyes, a lightning-quick glint of awareness, of contrition and regret. He wheeled away from Dante with a grunt, his breath still sawing in and out of his open mouth.
"Tess, it's okay now. Step away from him and come to me."
