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It was more a warning to the heads of the other cartels who were in this room than a statement to Berna. And it was one I bet everyone in that room took heed of.
I looked back to the arena as Merle walked away from Nerida, the gun held loosely in one hand by his side. His left side, the side closest to Nerida.
She came to life, lunging forward in one of those risk-all movements that only the very desperate make. She snatched the gun from Merle's hand, twisted around as she dropped back to the sand, then pulled the trigger and shot his brains out the back of his head. 9;d never felt anything like it before. The pain was real, and yet it wasn't. It washed fire across every nerve ending but the agony of it didn't linger for more than a heartbeat or two. Even so, my limbs trembled with sudden weakness. It was almost as if my strength was being sucked away by the pain.
Or maybe it wasn't the pain. Maybe it was Rhoan, calling on my strength because his own was failing. It wasn't something we'd ever figured possible, because we couldn't share thoughts and, up until now, had never shared the pain of hurts. Though we certainly knew when the other was either emotionally or physically wounded, and we'd always been able to find each other - an ability that had saved us both over the last few months.
If I was feeling this from Rhoan now, he was in trouble. Life or death type trouble.
Panic hit like a club, sucking away my breath.
I didn't know what was happening to him, but I sure as hell intended to find out. I took a deep breath, and staggered to my feet. Only to have my neck caught in a vise-like grip and my back shoved violently against the wall.
"You betrayed us, didn't you?" Berna's face was inches from mine, her expression contorted with the rage that trembled through her entire body. "We trusted you not to say anything but you did."
If she wanted a reply, she wasn't going to get it. Not when her grip was so damn tight breathing had become a sudden luxury. I reached up, grabbed her hand, and pried her fingers away from my neck before thrusting her back and away.
Surprise flickered through her eyes. Despite the fact I'd beaten them both, Berna still had no idea as to my true strength.
"What the fuck are you talking about?" I rubbed my neck and fought the urge to run, to find and rescue my brother. Something else had obviously gone wrong - something I needed to know.
"Nerida tried to kill Merle. Only he was ready for it. Waiting for it. That could only have happened if he'd been warned."
And the fact that the kitchen had been bombed then the entire power grid had gone down had absolutely nothing to do with his readiness. These two might have been good rangers but they couldn't have been leaders. They weren't forward thinkers.
I shook my head in disgust. "Let me guess. You were treating Merle as an ordinary target, weren't you?"
"That's because he is a normal target, even if he is a half-breed." She took a step forward, her huge paws clenched and ready for action.
I held up a finger in warning. "Don't even think about it, Berna, because I'll break your fucking neck. Then who will be left to rescue that stupid fox bitch?"
"In an even fight I can take you, wolf."
I snorted softly. "You have no chance, Berna, just as Nerida had no chance."
"A fox-shifter will always beat a half-breed who has not been warned. It is the way of the world. Full bloods are stronger, faster - especially when the half-breed is part human."
"That might be true if we were actually dealing with a normal half-breed. But in the case of Moss and Merle, we're not. They're genetically engineered humans who have been implanted with the DNA of several races. They aren't normal in any sense of the word."
She blinked. "What?"
"I warned you there was more to this. Starr is not only the leader of one of the nastiest cartels in Melbourne, he's also the head of a lab that has been playing in the DNA gene pool for several generations." Her eyes widened as the implications of my words hit her. "Did you honestly think those winged things were a product of nature? Did you really think the zoo was nothing more than a collection of misfits?"
"Well, I've seen stranger things - " She stopped. "Why should I trust anything you say?"
"Because as a former ranger, you were trained by the military to see beyond the surface. You must know things are not what they seem in this place." I shifted my stance from one foot to the other. I needed to get out there, to hunt down my brother and beat the crap out of whoever it was causing him pain. "I don't really care if you believe me or not. But I promise you, if people I care about die because of your interference, you will pay."
"You can't know of our military service. Our files are sealed against public perusal."
"Who said I was public?"
She blew out a breath. "We've walked into the middle of a major operation, haven't we?"
"Yeah, and might well have blown it."
"Fuck." She thrust a hand through her short hair. "What can I do?"
I held up my hand rather than answering. From down the hall came the rough voices - the guards were doing a bed check. I grabbed a blanket and wrapped it around myself to hide my bloody state. We waited in silence until our turn came, answering accordingly when our names were called out. They didn't ask about Nerida, so they obviously knew her rate.
