Page 10 of Keeper of All

He started at his phone hearing the dial tone. “Bye,” Mao grunted sarcastically. Damn Ben and his fucking rational thinking.

This just does not feel right. There is something that’s not making sense.

Keeping one eye on the road, Mao flicked his phone to play anything that might drown out the worry in his head. It was tempting to just turn around and go… somewhere else. It could be a week or two before anyone found out, or started to worry about him, and by then maybe Mao would have the information he still felt was missing from the whole scenario.

It wasn’t often that his head and his heart were in two different places, and Mao really didn’t like the way it made him feel. He was a decisive man and always had been. It was a bit late for second-guessing himself if a building had just gone boom. There was no putting it back together again. Dithering between “leave the job to someone else” or “stay the course” was giving him a headache. Especially when there didn’t seem to be any other options. Caged, that’s how he felt.

Maybe I just need to get a burger or something, he thought, noticing a truck stop up ahead. Food would shut up either his brain or his heart, although considering the food went to his stomach, he wasn’t confident that it would work. In his experience, the only way to shut off his brain or heart was to either be sleeping—difficult to do in a moving SUV—or be focusing on something else. Let’s hope the food is good enough to do the trick.

Chapter Five

Ekon

Ekon picked up his pace with the voice in his head urging him, and all the while doing his best not to get lost in his thoughts about who the voice belonged to. Exerting himself in this way was easy, years of training and his animals gave him super strength. Only it was more difficult than usual to get all his limbs to coordinate when his body could power a whole damn city the way his cells were dancing under his skin. He could feel each and every one. Moving. Changing. Morphing.

Morphing into what?

Christ, what the fuck was wrong with him? He shook off the stupid notion. Yet, it clung on with a certainty that made his gut churn. He’d been changed before—painfully. Was this something the scientists had done to him, and it was a delayed reaction of some kind? It was possible, he supposed. They weren’t sure how it all worked, and Ekon wasn’t a scientist or a sadistic fuck despite what he’d done for a living. Far as he was concerned those he’d killed had deserved it, and as he didn’t know different, he’d stopped dwelling on such things when they couldn’t be changed. What they’d done to him couldn’t be changed either, and his thoughts circled back to whether this was a delayed reaction to something that happened years earlier. Anything was possible, he’d learned that the painful way. Had seen what Conrad could become.

Was he going to be like that? All animals inside him coming out as one? Fuck, he hoped not. He’d freaked out the one time he’d seen Conrad like that.

You are the keeper of all.

Will you stop that shit or explain properly! Ekon snapped back, his boot catching on a large root with the unwanted distraction and forcing him to slow or face plant a tree. He evened out his breathing and slowed his pace. Fuck the voice. Fuck the urgency. He was in control.

You are the keeper—

I heard you the first time. And back was the urgency, a physical pull forcing Ekon to return to super-fast speed, running through the forest faster than the eye could track, the need to get to the bunker his sole focus—or whatever was urging him. And something—someone—was.

He had no control over himself. None. His whole being felt a physical connection to… something. It held the cells in his body in a precision grip that left him more a passenger than the person in control.

Sweat dripped down his back from the speed he was going and the strange humidity under the canopy of the trees. Not a breath of air rustled the leaves. There was no disturbance from a critter, bird, or insect. The forest was eerily silent, even his booted feet made no sound with his speed.

Magic licked at his skin, a lover's caress. It welcomed him home. He came to such an abrupt stop, his brain and body not working in conjunction with each other; he stumbled and landed on his knees. The weight of his pack driving him into the ground, the hard impact rocking through his body. His vision wavered as he came forward, hands planting on the dirt and leaves, heaving up the small meal he’d eaten.

No.

No.

No.

This makes no damn sense, this isn’t home.

He spat on the ground, reaching to take off the pack to grab his water canteen and rinse his mouth. His hands weren’t steady as he shook his head to clear his vision, scanning the surrounding forest, looking for what he couldn’t say, but the heckles at the back of his neck were bristling.

He wasn’t alone. He sniffed subtly at the air, scenting. The lack of breeze made it harder to scent anything other than the surrounding trees, dirt, and animal scat. He sucked in a deep breath, shut his eyes, and opened himself up as he’d taught himself to do when going into a new environment to check for threats.

Releasing his breath slowly, he held on to his frustration when he picked up no threat… yet there was something lurking there. It wasn’t the voice’s presence, he’d lived with that for the last few months. He knew how that felt to him. This was different.

Ekon’s cells were still dancing, but now they were warming his blood in a way that suggested he was coming into a heat. Readying his body to have sex. Although he was an alpha, they had used omega DNA to change him and in doing so, his body could be triggered into a heat if he was sexually attracted to someone. It had only happened twice. The first time he’d been thrown, and it had stopped the sexual encounter. The second time he’d understood what was happening, but the guy who had shown an interest hadn’t liked that Ekon was unusual so had run him before things had gotten interesting. Ekon hadn’t bothered after that. What the hell was this now when his body was acting weird when there was no one he could see or hear?

It had to be whatever was drawing him to the bunker—didn’t it?

Sweeping the forest once more, Ekon stored his water canteen, rising to pull the pack back into place. He wiped at his full lips with the back of his hand, taking a breath before he took off at a slower pace but faster than the average jogger.

He felt a jolt, like a lightning storm was in full swing, the moment he encountered where the bunker began even though he was still a few miles from where the door was concealed. His thoughts tumbled around inside his head at how different this was to the last time he came with Magnus, Kelvin, Marvin, Ajani, and Duron. He’d felt none of the crazy-ass stuff his body was experiencing, and he could admit it, he was weirded out by it.

By the time he reached the door and keyed in the code, Ekon’s body was acting like he’d drunk several bottles of hard liquor. He’d done it once with Duron just to see if they could get drunk. They hadn’t, not really, but there’d been some hellish lack of co-ordination that had lasted a day. Very disconcerting.