CHAPTER NINETEEN
An hour and a half after heading to the Sunrise Hospital, Lara had been poked, prodded, scanned, and thus far, given a perfect bill of health. As much as Lara would have liked to be happy about that news, it did nothing to give her back her memories, nor did it stop the flashes of images in her mind or the growing throb in her temples.
“A few more minutes,” Cassandra said, sitting on the medical stool beside the leather hospital chair Lara currently occupied. A portable machine set between them, wires attached to the pads stuck to Lara’s neck and forehead, to test her brain wave activity. So far, the test had been uneventful and painless, at least on her end. She couldn’t see the monitor, and based on the tension she felt radiating off Cassandra, she was pretty sure she didn’t want to.
Lara closed her eyes, willing the images into her mind, desperate for answers when that strange tingling sensation on the back of her neck started again. Lara opened her mouth to mention it to Cassandra, in case it affected the test readings, but before she could speak, Cassandra stood up. “One second. Michael is here. Let me tell him what’s going on, and then we should be able to wrap this up.”
Lara frowned. “How do you know he’s here?”
“The Lifebond mark on my neck is like an early alert system,” she explained. “It tingles like crazy when he’s nearby.” She opened the door and stepped out into the hallway, leaving Lara gaping behind her with the implications of what she’d said.
Damion stepped inside the room and shut the door. Their eyes locked and held, and the room shrunk. There was something new in the air between them, or maybe she imagined it—maybe it was simply her knowledge of what the tingling on her neck might mean. Either way, big, broad, and lethal, he stole her breath and set her heart racing. The tingling faded to a warm caress across her entire body. Could this man be her Lifebond?
He sauntered toward her. “What happened to calling me if you needed to go to the hospital?”
“I was afraid you’d talk me out of it.”
He grabbed the rolling stool Cassandra had just occupied and slid close. Lara remembered the cabin, remembered him doing the same then. She remembered every second with Damion, so why couldn’t she remember the rest of her life?
“Seriously,” he said, those hazel eyes of his probing hers, “what changed your mind about the testing?”
You. I don’t want you to hate me. “It’s that women’s prerogative thing.”
“Lara,” he said softly.
“I’m tired of not knowing, but so far, this hasn’t worked out how I’d hoped. There is no easy fix. My memories won’t return with a snap of the fingers.”
“I’m back,” Cassandra said, entering the room. “Okay, Lara. We can unhook you now, and you can head out.”
“What about the results?” Damion asked, rolling backward so Cassandra could get to the machine.
Cassandra didn’t look up at his question, busying herself by pulling the pads from Lara’s forehead. “Kelly and I are going to talk them over.”
Lara knew avoidance when she witnessed it. Gently, she shackled Cassandra’s wrist. “They aren’t good, are they?”
Cassandra stopped what she was doing and turned so that she could speak to both of them. “Look. I don’t want to jump to conclusions here. For a human, the results aren’t good. In fact, they’re downright unsustainable. But you aren’t human, Lara. Sleep and time can do wonders for GTECHs, and since we didn’t test you before the three-day snooze you took, we don’t know if you are better or worse. So Kelly and I both agree that you should try to sleep another eight to twelve hours, and then let me re-run the test to see if there are any improvements.”
“What exactly do you think was done to her?” Damion asked, taking the words right out of Lara’s mouth. “What are we up against here?”
Cassandra pressed her hand to her forehead and then pressed her fists to her waist. “Okay. I wasn’t going to talk about this until I did some more research, so let me preface this by saying it’s pure speculation,” Cassandra replied. “I did read a couple of studies on a sophisticated army brainwashing program when I was at Area 51. Which means my father had access to them as well. The end result of those tests wasn’t good, which is why the techniques weren’t used.” She held up a hand. “But those studies were done on humans, not GTECHs.”
“Brainwashing,” Lara said, in stunned disbelief. “You think I was brainwashed?”
“Speculation,” she said. “That’s all this is. But yes. It seems logical and a way around the GTECH’s ability to destroy any inserted object or device. However, the miracle of the GTECH body is that it evolves and adapts. My theory is that your mind is trying to heal itself and undo the artificial memories.”
“Artificial memories,” Lara murmured, staring at the ground. That was why she couldn’t remember her family. They weren’t real. But Skywalker was. Skywalker was real and he was dead. And Sabrina was responsible. Powell was too.
“You could easily heal from this, Lara, and even get your memory back,” Cassandra continued. “We’re gathering a scientific team to game-plan ways to stimulate the healing process under such unique circumstances.”
Lara didn’t look at Damion. She couldn’t. She felt as if her heart had lodged in her throat. She pulled off two pads from her skin and sat up, somehow finding her voice. “Thank you for trying, Cassandra.” She turned to face Damion, and she knew what she had to do. She knew that no matter what the consequences to her, she had to stop Powell from doing this to anyone else. She had to stop him from hurting the Renegades. “I need to talk to you.”
Someone knocked on the door and it opened. “I’m supposed to get some blood from Lara,” Emma said, appearing in the entryway.
“No blood,” Lara said to Damion. “No more. I need to talk to you.”
He glanced at Cassandra and Emma in a silent plea for privacy, and they quickly departed.
The instant the door shut, Lara started talking. “It’s Powell. I’m part of an all women’s team of GTECHs called ‘Serenity.’ Counting me, there are—were—seven of us, but Powell was planning to grow our numbers. He said he was aligned with the government—that he is the government. That all GTECHs are the enemy. Lucian is Powell’s personal bodyguard, and the only male GTECH I ever knew to exist in our operation. Sadly, considering I was taking orders from the man, I know little to nothing more about Powell and the operation. At least, not that I remember. We both know my memory isn’t exactly golden at present. Bottom line here is that Sabrina and Lucian know I’m with the Renegades, and Powell will worry that I’m spilling his secrets, which is why I’m saying all of this now. Every second that passes gives him more time to escape before you can get to him.”
“Where is it?”
“I’ll take you to him.”
“Not a chance in hell,” he said, and before she could object, he added, “And no. It’s not because I don’t trust you. It’s because I care about you. You heard Cassandra. You have to rest. You have to heal. When you’re well, you can kick as much ass as you want, and I’ll cheer you on. Powell isn’t worth dying over. He’s a smart man. The chances that he’s still in the same location are next to zero. I’ll send a team to scout. If they find anything, we’ll decide what to do next.”
Lara would have argued, but her head was spinning, images of Powell sitting across from her at a table in a jail cell flickering in and out of her mind’s eye. “Mexico,” she said, and then gave him exact longitude and latitude.
Thirty minutes after Lara had given Damion Powell’s last location, Michael and a team of Renegades were planning to scout Powell’s last known location under the cover of night. Easily reading Lara’s unease after her confessions, Damion was now protectively ushering her back to his place where they could be alone.
Together they stepped onto the moving sidewalk leading to the soldiers’ quarters, tension and unspoken words stretching between them, and it was all he could do not to reach for her. He could see the pain in her face, the tightness around her lips that told him she was suffering. He wanted to touch her, to use their bond to make it go away. He wanted to tell her he was in awe of her courage for doing what she’d just done, by giving them a shot at catching Powell. He could tell she was hanging on by a thread, either waiting to unload something she hadn’t told him, or possibly, trying not to. Touching her before she felt more in control would be a mistake. He knew this. Maybe that was because they were Lifebonds, or maybe it was simply because they’d been through a lifetime of hell together already. They had that rare connection that friends and lovers felt, from the instant they’d connected, that allowed the Lifebond to exist in the first place.
When they finally stood in front of his room Damion keyed in the code. The instant the green light flashed on the panel, Lara pushed open the door and darted forward. Damion hesitated in the hallway, his body heating at the memory of her doing the exact same thing just a few nights before—remembering the naked, playful Lara who’d teased and pleased him for hours on end.
In pursuit, Damion entered the living room just in time to catch a glimpse of Lara cutting through the bedroom. He found her inside the bathroom, back to the mirror, holding a small compact and lifting her hair to see behind her. Damion stilled, catching a glimpse of what she was seeing in the reflection, of the etched circle with another circle inside it. The Lifebond mark. His mark, their mark. On some instinctive level, he’d known from the moment he’d first seen her by the pool—before they’d spoken, before they’d touched—that she was special, that this was where they were headed.
She let her hair fall to her shoulders, her hand dropping to her side, the compact crashing to the floor. “You already knew, didn’t you?”
“I suspected.” He forced himself to hold his ground, to give her a little more time, a little more space—no matter how much he wanted to touch her, to taste her, to hold the woman who he knew with certainty now to be his Lifebond.
“When? Why didn’t you say something?” She held up a shaking hand to her face and dropped it. “It doesn’t matter. We can’t be Lifebonds. I can’t stay here. I need a separate room. We have to stay away from each other. Cassandra said that when she and Michael—”
“You talked to Cassandra about this?”
“No.” She cut a hand through the air. “She doesn’t know about us. But she told me about her and Michael. They didn’t have to do the blood exchange, Damion.”
“They did a blood exchange.” He took a step toward her.
“Stop!” she ordered. “Wait. Don’t touch me. Listen to me, Damion. Please. The blood bond just speeds up the completion of the bonding. Cassandra started converting without it, just by being near Michael. I’m already GTECH. Surely it will be faster for us. You can’t touch me. We can’t even be near each other—”
Something dark and possessive stirred inside him. Anger, need, a burning. Damion pulled her close, turned her so that her back was against the wall, her body hugged by his. “Is it such a horrible thing to be bound to me, Lara? To a Renegade?”
“No,” she rasped urgently. “Yes. No, damn it. It’s not about you being a Renegade. It’s about me—about me not knowing who I am, or what I’ve done, or to whom I’ve done it. We came together because we were enemies, destined to hate each other. We can’t change that anymore than we can change whatever I’ve done in my past.”
He kissed her, a passionate claiming that screamed of possession, of the first acknowledgement that she was his, and he was hers. “Do I taste like an enemy?” He kissed her again, his hand sliding over her waist, her hip. “Do I feel like an enemy?” He palmed her breast, wanting her naked, wanting to be inside her. “Do I feel like I hate you?”
“There’s a fine line between hate and lust.”
“That’s love and hate,” he corrected softly, before kissing her again. She shoved at his chest, trying to pull away, only to moan as his tongue found hers, stroking, caressing, demanding her response. He pressed his hand under her shirt, onto the warm, soft skin of her back, molding her closer, molding her breast with his palm.
“Stop,” she panted, and then moaned again, arching into his touch, before tearing her mouth from his. “Damn it, Damion.” Her fingers curled around his biceps. “What if I did something neither of us can live with? Something that will make me unwelcome here?” The desperation in her voice stilled him, and he pulled back to study her face.
“Is there something you aren’t telling me?”
“No,” she said quickly. “But that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. What if I did things I can’t remember? What if I killed one of your friends? People you care about?”
He ran his hand down her hair. “You didn’t.”
She grabbed his shirt and balled it in her hands. “Please listen to me. I beg you. You can’t know what I did or didn’t do. Powell told me the Renegades killed my family. No. It was more than mere words. He put memories in my head of the night they were killed. Until I met you, I hated the Renegades and lived for vengeance.”
Tenderness filled him, and he ran his hand down her hair. “Lara, sweetheart. Whatever happened—happened. It’s done and over with, and it can’t be changed. You were brainwashed, and everyone here knows that. It only worked because you’re brave, because there is an inherent part of your character that wanted to fight back for your family. It only worked because of who you are as a person. And that person happens to be amazing. I’m crazy about you.” He picked her up.
“What are you doing?” she asked, holding onto his neck.
“Doctor’s orders,” he said. “I’m taking you to bed.”
Logan entered his newly relocated lab office, tension rippling in his muscles. Opal was dead after suffering a sudden, unexplained seizure. She’d freaking died. She’d walked into his office and told him she wasn’t feeling well and then just seized herself right to death. He and Jenna had tried everything to save her. Now she was lying in a lab room, waiting for him to explain why she was no more, when he finally got the courage to call Powell in Germany. This, after they’d lost their newest recruit during relocation, also to a seizure. He’d been certain that moving her during her Bar-1 assimilation had been responsible for the attack. Now though… now that Opal had experienced a similar fate, he was screwed.
He scrubbed his jaw, walked to the small fridge in the corner, grabbed a beer, and then put it back. This was a whiskey kind of night if he’d ever had one. Powell would kill him if Bar-1 failed. And then there was little Lara Martin. What if her trigger didn’t work? What if she had a seizure and died before he was able to reprogram her and use her to destroy the Renegades?
He headed for his steel desk, sat down, pulled open the bottom left drawer, and removed the tequila inside. He was about to pour himself a shot, when a knock sounded on the door. Damn. He shoved the bottle back into the drawer. “Come in.”
Jenna appeared in the doorway, looking delicate as a flower, too delicate and too beautiful to be mixed up in this hell of a war.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
Was he okay? He was thinking she was delicate, and she was asking him if he was okay. No, he was not okay. “I’m fine.” He motioned her forward and lifted the bottle from his drawer. “Or I will be. Care to join me?” He set two shot glasses on the desk, next to the bottle.
She walked into the room, and her lab coat flashed open to give him a glimpse of a slender waist and a tapered black skirt. She had a body on her—a slender, curvy, hot body.
“Shut the door,” he said. He wanted her. If he was going to die soon, he wanted a piece of this woman before he died.
She did as he asked and surprised him by walking around the desk to stand next to his chair. She leaned against the desk, and he filled the glasses, handing her one as well. He touched her glass with his. “To staying alive.” They both downed the booze, and she coughed slightly.
He laughed and filled her glass again. “They go down easier the more you have.” They both drank.
“Powell will kill us if Lara dies before we can reprogram her to destroy the Renegades.”
“That’s right,” he said, and downed another shot. “Which is why I haven’t told him Opal is dead.”
“How do you plan to make Lara believe Skywalker is alive and set off her trigger? Because however you plan to do it, I say do it now.”
“I assure you, we have a plan to do just that, but Powell is right about waiting. The Renegades need to trust her, and that takes time. If I rush this and fail to turn Lara into the Renegade executioner, I’ll be dead. If I don’t rush this, and she dies before that happens, I’ll be dead.” He moved her to sit in front of him and rolled her skirt up her legs, his gaze following the lines of her sleek thighs, to reveal thigh-highs. “If I’m going to die, I want to die a happy man.” He pulled her skirt to her waist and glanced at her. “Why, sweet little Jenna—you don’t have any panties on.” He set her on top of the desk and spread her legs. “Here I thought you were a good girl.”
“That’s because you were fucking the wrong woman,” she said. “Now I’m going to help you fuck the right one.”
He arched a brow, aroused by this new, naughty Jenna. “And you would be the right one, I assume?”
“Literally, yes.” She slid her high-heeled feet to the arm of his chair. “Fuck me, and fuck me well, because I’ve been waiting far too patiently for you, for far too long. Figuratively speaking, no. I was referring to Sabrina. If Opal just disappears, then she’s Sabrina’s problem, not yours. Sabrina will look incompetent, unable to motivate and manage her team. You will be the one person Powell can count on. The one who can make sure the Renegades are destroyed. When they are, he’ll look like a hero to the government, and we’ll get the funding we want to fix what’s wrong with Bar-1 and replicate the GTECH serum.” She leaned forward and grabbed his shirt, pulling him forcefully forward with more strength than she should possess. “And we won’t tell him it only takes half the serum he thinks is necessary to convert a human to GTECH. That’ll be our secret.”
He stiffened. “What are you saying?” He tried to lean back, but she held him easily. “Jenna, did you—?”
She nipped his ear. “You bet I did. A few more weeks and I’ll be as strong as Sabrina. I’ll replace Sabrina in every possible way.” She let him go and leaned back. “So you see… you don’t get to die just yet. I’m not done with you.” She slid one of her high-heels to his chest, pressing it against his flesh, the bite painfully arousing. “And don’t even think about saying no. Sabrina isn’t the only bitch in the house anymore. You have no idea the things I have in store for you—or her.”
Logan smiled. “Right now, sweetheart, I’ve already died… and gone to heaven.” And then he ripped her blouse open, but he was in some deep water, and he knew it.
This wasn’t the Jenna he knew, the Jenna he’d wanted. This was someone else—another Sabrina—another GTECH on a power trip. If this could happen to Jenna, it could happen to anyone.
It was proof to him that Powell was right—the GTECH serum created monsters that had to be controlled. So he was along for the hot ride that Jenna offered, the short-term high, but he was officially Team Powell.