Chapter Three
Hamel took in quick shallow breaths so as not to breathe her in. Fuck. Why now? Why did he have to find his mate in the middle of his tour of duty? He was ecstatic to have found her finally, but during duty he wasn’t allowed to touch her. Not to mention she was his ward for the next several weeks. At least until intelligence reports came back saying the threat had been neutralized.
How would it look on his record if he was caught sleeping with his assignment? Well, there wouldn’t be much sleeping going on. It took everything he had not to set her on the table right now and slide in balls deep. Fuck. He had to keep his identity covered for her safety. And that wasn’t going to be as easy as originally thought.
She was fucking smarter than shit. He wouldn’t be able to get away with laziness on this job. In a way, that made him proud. His mate was a tough adversary; no pansy for his family.
Right away in the meeting room, she suspected something. He’d smelled it. He should’ve never worn the damn glasses. She could tell he wasn’t comfortable in them. Her file said she’d worn thick lenses her entire life. Only someone like that would pick up on the facial nuances that gave away his secret.
And now, standing so close to her to peek at her password—which he thought was hilarious; he wouldn’t forget it, that’s for sure—she smelled so freaking good. He was about to say screw the job. He’d whisk her off this continent and to a secluded island where he would be sure to put babies in her belly.
Well, fuck. His balls ached thinking about it. He turned his back to her and walked away. Anywhere, just not so close. He rounded the end of the table and spoke across the gap between them. “You were telling me how you found the virus.”
“Yes, the virus. Of course.”
He hadn’t missed her reaction to him. Heart suddenly racing, chills on her skin. She probably had no idea what hit her. His jaguar wanted its little mate, and it would have her, no matter what. He only needed to remind his animal they were on duty to protect her first. No sex. All they got was slapping the monkey, and that would have to wait.
Melinda continued with her story. “The wildlife reserve not too far away called us about three baby monkeys that died for no apparent reason. The workers had noticed strange things happening, also.”
“Strange how?” he asked.
“Like things being moved from where they placed it. Food disappearing. They thought they had a prankster spirit. I saw a witch doctor last time I was at the animal medical facility. I’d heard about him, but never saw him until then.
“So, anyway. The three babies were ready for testing. I took blood, saliva, all the normal stuff. Then I noticed a stream of dried blood in one of the babies’ ears. We brought that animal back to do cranial scans to see if it had any head trauma. What we discovered was this.”
Melinda turned her computer around to show him images of what looked like the top view of a brain. The only time he’d seen anything like that was on TV crime shows. He scowled. What the hell was he supposed to say? He was a soldier, not a doctor. Though, he played one undercover. He scoured his head for something that didn’t sound idiotic. “Really? Did you rescan to make sure there were no imaging errors?”
“That’s the first thing we did. You’re looking at the third rendition. All are identical.”
He crossed his arms, pretending to be pondering. His job was to protect her from the perceived threat his agency knew existed, not challenge her mental abilities or work theories. He should’ve kept to the original plan of helping with “paperwork” and such. But when he discovered she was his mate, he wanted to be closer to her. Know more about her and what she was doing. Now he had her thinking he was a doctor. Well, fuck. Now what? Think, think, think. Had to be real. “Uh, this is good, but let’s get to the bottom line. What are your conclusions?”
She raised a brow, but continued. “My conclusions are these three babies had highly developed nervous systems.” She paused, looking at him. Like he had a clue what the fuck she just said. The babies were nervous all the time. So?
Melinda pointed to the center of the image. “As you see here, there are many more synaptic connections than normal.”
He tried to sound unimpressed. “Of course. Go on.” She paused a second before continuing.
“Therefore, I believe the babies overly developed in the womb and were born with extrasensory . . . abilities.”
He scowled at her again. “Extra what?”
She hurried away from the laptop. “I know that sounds ludicrous. But what else can occur when you have a trillion more synaptic connections firing all the time?”
Beat the hell out of him. What?
“It’s like having another brain smashed in with yours to make it twice of everything. The brain is extra strong. And with the additional fiber links, the brain can process tremendous amounts of information, taking it to the next level, per se.”
“Next level? As in . . .” Overly ADHD?
On the other side of the lab, she opened a cage on a countertop and pulled out a little white mouse. She grabbed a handful of treats and put them into her coat pocket.
“I’m going into the next room and calling you.” She pointed to a phone attached to the wall. “You answer and we’ll go from there.” She left, closing the door behind her.
What the hell was going on? What did all this have to do with a virus? And the biggest question: Who the hell would kill to get their hands on an unknown biological weapon?
The phone rang. He picked it up. “Yeah.”
“Okay. After I hang up, count to five and watch what the mice do. Ready? I’m hanging up.” He ticked off a handful of seconds, then the mice went berserk in their cage. The phone rang. “Did you see that?”
“The mice made a lot of noise and stuff, but that’s it.”
“Okay, after I hang up count to ten and watch.” He placed the receiver in the cradle and did as instructed. Same thing with the mice. They went nutso for a few seconds. He waited for the phone, but Melinda came through the door instead.
“Wasn’t that exciting?” she asked.
“Overly. What’s your point?”
Her expression turned harsh. Maybe he needed to back off on the asshole-doctor shtick. “I apologize if I sound a bit skeptical.”
She softened. “I understand. Here’s the point.” She turned her back to the far side of the room, where the small animals were. She held a treat in front of the mouse she held so it could smell it. The others immediately erupted into a scuttle. She repeated the process after waiting a few seconds.
Holy living fuck. “Are you saying those mice in the cage know when this one here is given a treat and they get fussy wanting one, too?”
Her smile blew him away. So warm and inviting. Her eyes twinkled with happiness at sharing this with him. “That’s exactly what I’m saying. The additional brainpower gives the animal clairvoyant abilities.”
He put his hands up in supplication. “Whoa, here. Let’s back this train up.” He held his hand out. “May I hold the mouse?”
She started to hand it over, but when she got close to his hand, the mice exploded into screams and began bashing the sides of their cages on the other side of the room. The one in her hand wriggled, trying to get away. He snapped his hand back and they settled down. “Huh, guess they don’t like me.” More like they didn’t like his big bad kitty smell. He forgot about that. “Okay, I don’t need to hold it. I see the correlation. I’m not seeing how this relates to dead monkeys or viruses though.”
Melinda turned toward the other side of the room. “Hold on a second. There are several working parts to this.” She put the mouse into a cage and gave them all treats. Returning to the table and her laptop, she brought up another image, which looked identical to the other one, but the center of the brain was dark, where before it was light. She pointed to the midsection again.
“This is the same image of the brain, but in its original state. We had to lighten it so we could see all the synapses that are hidden by the shadow in this one. We don’t know what we’re looking at. Why they are all black.”
Good, he didn’t feel so stupid that he didn’t know, either. This doctor gig was not going to work much longer if she expected him to sound intelligent. He was so screwed.