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Tomás, who’d had no trouble breaking my wrist like a twig, stomped into the cell with a terrified Tabitha and pulled a syringe from his pocket. The door slammed closed. I would’ve startled had I been able to move. Who’d shut it?
“Looks like I’m going to need a new shifter.” The major tsked as she looked down at Julian straddling his prey. “Get up and speak,” she ordered, and Julian stood.
“He’s not dead,” Julian said calmly.
“Yes, he is. He’s useless to me.” The major jerked her chin to the right, and the man’s head wrenched to the side. A hideous crack rang through the hall as Tabitha screamed from inside the cell.
How had this all gone so wrong?
“I don’t know how you managed to survive,” the major said, turning her too-sweet smile on me. “But maybe I’ve misjudged your usefulness. Perhaps I should reconsider whether you are worthy of joining our ranks. After all, with a little training, you could be my equal.” She stepped into my personal space and leaned in. “I took a version of the serum too. I know Dr. Devaux. I know how sweet and harmless he can act. But I also know how ruthless he can be.”
She tugged down the collar of her fatigues. My vision was filled with the nasty scars of a savage vampire bite. Had my father done that? It wasn’t like I wouldn’t have done the same, given the opportunity based on her lovely personality. And what serum had Dad developed that she’d taken? Had he continued his experimentation with psychics?
“We should chat,” she said, slapping my face lightly then turned to Julian. “Now, what to do with you?”
“You do realize you’ve made a mistake,” Julian said as calmly as one could dressed in rags with blood coating his chin.
“Do tell?” The major laughed.
Julian smiled—one of his amused yet dangerous ones—and relief flooded me. He was back, at least for now, to the man I knew. “I came to let you know a new agent,” he nodded to me, “a psychic with two powers, was being sent to the retrieval. Not that I had a chance to inform you since you decided immediately I was a double agent. Yes. I was. But for you. Precisely how do you think your superiors will react when I tell them what you did?”
“Then I shouldn’t give them a chance to react,” the major responded. “As far as I’m concerned, you are the mole, planted by SHADE to betray MorningStar, Jules. No one is as likely to double cross as a double agent. Your very nature is untrustworthy.”
The door to the cell shot open, and Tomás marched out, skin full of color and licking his lips. I barely caught a glimpse of Tabitha’s limp form on the ground before he swung it closed. It eerily matched the vision I’d had when we’d touched hands.
Tomás walked behind the major and faced me, slowly running his tongue over his fangs in a not-so-subtle suggestion that he’d like to munch on me next.
Julian’s growl grabbed my attention—and the major’s.
“You care for her?” she asked, eyes lighting up. “Could it be? I know your type, Jules, you wouldn’t have given up your ruse for anyone. Is she your mate? So very rare. Oh my. I’ve caught two for the price of one.” She strode back to me and threw an arm over my shoulder. “Well, this is going to be fun then.”
Chapter Twelve
Room Service and Conversation
“Here’s how this game works,” the major explained, pacing between Julian, bound by silver in the corner of the room, and where I lay, strapped to a table in a paper gown.
We’d been separated for a while as they’d prepped me for what I assumed would be experimentation. It turned out quite a few people worked in the space, all very businesslike and apparently used to the pleas of their subjects since they ignored mine. They’d wasted no time in giving me another dose of suppressant either, so I had little hope of escape. Not that I was going anywhere without Julian.
Her comment about me being his mate wasn’t the first time I’d heard it. But we’d never really discussed it—mostly because my aptitude for living in denial was unrivaled. But I thought—as I lay helpless on the cold metal table beneath fluorescent lights—perhaps we should discuss it when we got out of here.
“Jules will watch as we extract as much data as possible from the subject,” the major continued, patting my bare leg, “and if at some point he decides to talk, we will stop the experiments and listen. All very simple.”
“You’ll just continue the experiments again afterwards,” I said with a snort. It was bravado I didn’t feel.
She smiled at me and squeezed my leg until it hurt. “Perhaps. Or perhaps what he has to say will be worth your life. We do have room for more talented psychics on the team.”
“I will never join up willingly,” I shot back, unable to raise my head more than an inch.
“No one said it had to be willingly.” She leaned over me. “You are familiar with mind-bending, right? You obviously haven’t been well trained by SHADE, which gives me fascinating information. Your ability can do so much more than you’ve dreamed of.”
A slim woman in a crisp white lab coat and goggles waited nearby, her sleek dark hair held back in a ponytail. When the general nodded at her, she strode forward and leaned over me, using her gloved hand to tilt my head to the right then the left.
“Subject has no noticeable surgical scars,” she said to no one in particular.
“Yet,” the major added with a smirk. “Let me know if our dear Jules decides to talk.” She strode out of sight as another pair of hands held my head down while the woman shone a laser in my eyes.
“Don’t talk, Julian,” I said, just before someone shoved a bite block in my mouth to prevent me from speaking. At least I hoped that was its purpose and not so I wouldn’t bite off my tongue during torturous electro-shock treatments. But what would be the point in that? These people, evil or not, wanted information, and they were scientists like me. Well…not like me, like me.
