CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Tension crawled down Damion’s spine and back up again as he weaved a path through the crowd and set the pitcher on the bar. He didn’t want Lara to know about his brother. Hell, these days he tried not to even think about Tommy because when he did, he could drive himself insane.
“Refill,” he said to the bartender—Moe’s brother, Mack—a tall, muscled dude who looked more Renegade than bartender, and who’d come to Sunrise as family to one of the Wardens, once a captive in the sex camps. They couldn’t drag the guy anywhere near the war zone though, despite what his sister had been through, and no one knew why.
Mack saluted. “Coming up.”
Damion gave a nod and pressed both palms on the bar, letting his head fall forward between his shoulders, and telling himself to calm down. Instead, a flash of Tommy’s young face flickered in his mind, spiking his blood pressure to the moon. Holy hell, now he was the one having flashbacks. It was too damn long ago, well over a decade since Tommy’s death, for him to still be this raw.
He shoved off the bar and toward the back of the joint, weaving through yet more people, and heading down a narrow hallway that ended with a turn to the left for men and one to the right for women. He walked left, and once out of sight, leaned against the wall, pressing his face in his hand.
“Damion.”
The soft, familiar voice came seconds before the smell of sweet coconut and woman filled his senses, before Lara was there, wrapping her arms around him. “Talk to me.” She urged gently. “What’s Houston’s real name, and why is it a problem?”
His heart exploded in his ears. “I don’t want to talk about this.”
“It has something to do with what you said to me back at the cabin, doesn’t it?” she pressed. “When you said you were good at taking the blame for things?”
His heart was back in his chest, and with it a firestorm of emotion erupted. He grabbed Lara, pulled her into the restroom, shut the door, locked it, and then leaned against the wall with her pulled into his arms. “Yes. It has something to do with what I said back in the cabin. Houston’s name is Tommy, and Tommy is the name of my dead brother.”
She let out a breath, her fingers splaying over his chest. “Oh God, Damion. I’m sorry.”
“He was sixteen, and my parents had grounded him for talking on the phone after bedtime. It was Saturday night, and our parents were at a movie. I stopped by to check on Tommy, who convinced me to take him to the fast food joint his girlfriend worked at.” He pressed his forehead to hers, unable to look at her as he finished. Their breath mingled, and her fingers gently brushed his cheek then rested there. He forced himself to continue. “There was a box truck and a red light the driver didn’t bother to stop for.”
Lara gasped and pulled back. “No. Tell me no.”
He nodded, because he couldn’t speak, trying to swallow the emotion that had lodged where his heart had been a few minutes before. “He was a lot like Chale. Always joking around. My brother gave me hell for my bad driving all the way to the hospital. I thought that had to mean he’d make it, but…”
“Oh God, Damion.” She pressed her lips to his, kissed his jaw, his cheek, her fingers sliding over his face. “It wasn’t your fault. I can see—I can feel—you think it was, but it wasn’t.”
He dropped his arms from her and stared up at the concrete ceiling. “That’s not what my mother and my brother thought.”
She wrapped her arms around him. “They blamed you.”
“Yeah,” he said, tilting his head down to look at her, not even trying to wipe away the pain he knew had to be in his expression. “They blamed me.”
“And your father?”
“Died of cancer five years ago,” he said. “And I think my mother and my brother cursed him all the way to his grave for standing up for me. He’d wanted me to run Megatech, and that only made things worse. That’s why I joined the army and got the hell out of Dodge. I thought he and my mother would be better when I was gone.”
“But they weren’t, were they?”
“No, they weren’t.”
“I’ve read about couples splitting after the loss of a child,” she said. “There is an inherent need to place blame as a way to deal with pain. Now I know why you said you were good at taking the blame. You tried to make everyone happy. You left everything behind, trying to make everyone happy. That makes you a very, very special person that I feel honored to know.”
He pulled her to him and slid his fingers into her hair. “I can’t lose you,” he said and kissed her, a passionate, desperate kiss. “I won’t lose you.” His hands started to travel, the need to touch her, to feel her, to know she was here, and she wasn’t going anywhere, driving him wild.
“Damion,” she whispered into his mouth, a moment before their tongues touched again, before the heat between them boiled to downright molten. Her hands slid under his T-shirt, over his chest, his back.
He palmed her breasts through the thin material of her dress. “I love you in this dress,” he murmured, and turned her so that her back was against the wall, his fingers tugging up the hem of the dress, curving along the soft skin of her backside.
“I’ll have to wear it more often,” she panted, as he lifted her leg to his waist, stroking the tiny strip of her thong and then using his other hand to slide the silk at the V of her body away and stroke the wet heat. “I really need to be inside you right now.”
Someone knocked on the door. “Go away!” they both said at once, and then laughed, their voices laced with passion.
“I really need you inside me too,” she said tightly, reaching for the zipper of his fatigues.
Damion finished the task, pulling his cock from his pants and shoving her panties aside, urgency driving him. This wasn’t about sex. It was about how much he needed this woman. It was about a bond they hadn’t completed, that they were trying to replace with fire and desire.
She grabbed his shoulders as he penetrated her, her lashes fluttering, her fingers digging into his flesh, her breath coming in heavy pants. She looked so damn sexy, so incredibly sexy. He pressed into her, the wet heat of her surrounded him, blasting him a heavy dose of pleasure. She bit her lip, her gaze capturing his, passion burning from her stare, the connection between them expanding, consuming the room, consuming the very air filling their lungs.
Damion sunk deep inside her, sliding his hand to her face, the other around her backside. “You belong here with me,” he told her, kissing her before she could object, before she said something that defied his claim. She tasted sweet, like honey, smelled like heaven, and felt like a hot, tight ride to ecstasy. He moved inside her. She arched into him, setting off a slow rhythm of movement that quickly turned to a frenzied rush of their bodies sliding together, of kisses, touches, and wild abandon where time disappeared.
“Damion,” Lara gasped a moment before she buried her face in his neck, her body tensing before she spasmed around him, milked him, claiming his release as she had already claimed him the moment he’d laid eyes on her.
They melted into one another, panting into completion and then resting their foreheads together. “Tonight, Lara. Tonight, we do the blood exchange.”
She leaned back. “No. We can’t.”
“We can.”
She shook her head and pushed away from him. He let her leg fall and reluctantly eased their bodies apart. She quickly slid away from him, grabbing a towel and righting her dress, then standing there without turning. “I know you think you have to do this. I know you think you’ll be to blame if anything happens to me, but…”
He turned her to face him. “No. It’s not like that.”
“It is like that.”
“God, no.” He pulled her close. “I’m pretty sure I’m falling in love with you, and before you say it’s too soon, you should know that’s the first time in my thirty-four years I’ve ever said the word ‘love’ to a woman, so it’s not something I say lightly. Hell. I didn’t want to ever feel this for a woman. I did my best to never let it happen. But it is happening—maybe it already has. All I know is you matter in a huge way to me, Lara, and I don’t plan to lose you before I ever find out what that really means.” His gaze swept the restroom. “And damn it, I would never have wanted the first time I said something like this to you to be in a restroom. This is definitely not my Prince Charming moment, but I’ll make this part up to you. I’m not exactly used to these kinds of confessions.”
“Damion,” she whispered. “You don’t even—”
“Know you?” he asked and didn’t wait for an answer. “I know you. I don’t give a flying flip about your past. I also know you’re afraid you’ll regain your memories with the bond, and then we’ll hate each other, but that isn’t going to happen.” His voice softened. “We decide our future. We do, not the past, not Powell, or anyone else. Most importantly, we need to make sure we have a future. That means we have to complete the blood bond.”
Her bottom lip trembled. “I stopped caring about the past when I learned what Powell did to me. You know that. You know that’s why I confessed everything I knew about him and Serenity. And I’m pretty sure I already love you too. I don’t know if I’ve ever said that to anyone else, because I don’t remember anyone else, but I know what I feel, and clear to my soul I know I’ve never felt for anyone what I feel for you.”
Relief washed over him, relief and so much more. Damion scooped her into his arms. “You think you love me?” he asked, scared shitless of her saying yes and scared shitless he’d misunderstood and she’d say no.
“Well,” she said, her fingers brushing his jaw in a way that was fast becoming familiar and endearing. “You enrage me, arouse me, and make me laugh. I frequently want to kiss you. I more frequently want to undress you, proven by our highly inappropriate restroom encounter. Sometimes I even want to kill you. Not literally anymore, of course. So yeah, I’m pretty sure you’ve done the love number on me, Damion Browne, which is exactly why I won’t put you at risk.”
“I won’t let you die, damn it,” he said fiercely, the protectiveness in him expanding, threatening to take on a life of its own.
“I don’t intend to die,” she assured him. “I intend to find Powell and my medical records. You just reminded me of why I can’t give up, which I almost did today. I have to find him, and I will.” She pressed her lips to his, clearly trying to distract him, then said, “Take me to your bed and give me the good-caveman-you’re-mine routine. I’m surprised how much I like it. While you’re at it, make love to me, Damion.”
“I’ll take you to our bed,” he said, drawing her toward the door. “However, this conversation isn’t over.”
“So you keep telling me and then proving.”
He pulled the restroom door open to have a handwritten piece of paper fly to the floor that read, “Out of Order.” He and Lara looked at it and then each other, before bursting into laughter. And as Damion led her through the restaurant, he sensed no embarrassment in her over their little encounter, clearly made public. There was simply an understanding of their connection, and their need to find privacy.
Damion had every intention of showing Lara just how well he could make love to her. Maybe—just maybe—in the heat of passion, he’d convince her to complete the blood bond despite how much the life-and-death bond had him shaking inside. One screw up, and she’d be dead right along with him. If they didn’t complete the bond tonight, one way or another, they were going to be. Because if there was anything that revisiting Tommy’s death had done for him tonight, it was to remind him how easily someone you loved could be lost.
Logan kissed Jenna and then set her back from him. He grabbed one of his kitchen chairs and moved it away from the table. He sat her down in it and then retrieved a pair of military-grade handcuffs made for the GTECHs from the slim black box on his bar. He dangled them in the air. “Hands behind the chair,” he ordered.
She laughed nervously and motioned to her slim, prim and proper, black dress. “Shouldn’t I get undressed first or something?” Her gaze swept his slacks and button-down. “And you too?”
“Hands behind your chair,” he repeated in a soft, lethal voice. Tonight wasn’t about sex, though she thought it was. Tonight was about control and manipulation. His control, his manipulation of all the parties involved in Bar-1, to ensure he came out on top.
Her bottom lip quivered, telling him of her nervousness, but she did as he said. He had no doubt she would. Logan walked behind her and secured her hands. A moment later, he stood above her, staring down at her.
“Now what are you going to do with me, my mad scientist?” she purred seductively, but that hint of nervousness still teased the note, as if she sensed all was not right.
“It’s not what he’s going to do to you that you should worry about,” Sabrina murmured to his left. Logan turned to find her in the doorway, holding a long knife, and hot as red fire in a tight leather pantsuit that would bring a man—this man, specifically—to his knees.
“Logan?” Jenna asked, panic sliding into her voice.
Sabrina licked the end of the blade. “Logan won’t help you, honey. I do, however, have a mad idea he might enjoy watching.” She strolled to Logan’s side and wrapped herself around him. “You’re going to enjoy this, now aren’t you, baby?”
He didn’t reply. Any enjoyment Sabrina gave him always came with baggage he wanted removed, and he had a bad feeling that wasn’t going to happen. His gut said that Sabrina would be the last Serenity-bred GTECH standing—the only one who hadn’t been brainwashed, and the only one who wasn’t about to die from a stroke. The only one who hadn’t been exposed to Bar-1.
“How long have you been shorting the GTECH serum?” Logan demanded, furiously certain that Jenna was the cause of Bar-1’s failure.
“What?” Jenna asked, her voice cracking. “Logan, please.” And just like that she transformed, back to little Jenna, so innocent and in need of protection.
Logan didn’t know what she was asking him to do, but he felt a punch in his gut, and he wanted to go to her. For an instant he forgot his discovery in the lab. This woman had quite possibly single-handedly destroyed Serenity.
“How long have you been shorting the serum?” he asked again, through gritted teeth.
“I told you,” she said. “Just the new girl.”
“No,” he ground out. “You told me you’d shorted several of the subjects.”
She shook her head. “I didn’t.”
Sabrina sauntered over to her and settled on the bed, then rested the blade on her stomach. “How many?”
“Just—”
Sabrina leaned up and put the knife to Jenna’s throat. “How many, bitch, or I swear to you I’ll gut you and let you bleed out and die.”
“All of them, but the first.” Jenna rushed the words out.
“Crystal,” Sabrina said. “You’re telling me you didn’t short fucking Crystal?”
“Yes. No, I didn’t short Crystal.”
“Fuck!” Sabrina yelled, shoving Jenna’s chair back so that it hit the ground. Jenna screamed, and Sabrina went down on top of her, straddling her. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done? I’m going to kill you. I’m going to—”
Logan grabbed Sabrina and pulled her backward, only to have Sabrina stiff-arm him and send him tumbling.
“Stop, damn it!” he shouted, pushing to his feet and grabbing Sabrina again. “We need her. We fucking need her, Sabrina! I need to run a brain wave test on her to verify my theory. I need to know exactly what I’m dealing with, if I have any chance of fixing this.”
Sabrina whirled around to stare at him. “She destroyed Serenity. Opal is missing. Lara is with the Renegades. All the rest who are Bar-1 are going to die because she shorted their serum.”
“No,” Jenna said. “It’s not because of the serum. It’s because of Bar-1.”
Logan glared at her. “Bar-1 kills humans. I started the process before the complete conversion, knowing the serum would heal any damage—not knowing that you’d shorted the serum.”
Tears streamed down Jenna’s face. “They fully converted. I did the blood work, I swear. I would never do anything to hurt you or Serenity. I believe in our cause. You know I do.”
“You did the wrong test,” he growled, pissed beyond belief. He’d thought he might care about this woman. She was turning out to be a bigger liability than Sabrina could ever have been. “I ran my own tests once I knew there was something to look for, including brain wave activity, on all subjects.” Even Crystal, which had been hell to arrange without setting off Powell’s alarms. He’d had to use the excuse of preventive action—reinforcing all subject triggers in light of Lara’s betrayal. He grimaced. “Healing capacity for the women in Serenity, outside of Crystal and Sabrina, was diminished, and brain wave activity was erratic.”
His gaze focused on Sabrina, who was still on top of Jenna, and again said, “I need to test her, Sabrina. I need to know if it’s the low serum alone causing the strokes, or if it’s the low serum combined with Bar-1. She’s the only one who fits the criteria of low serum and no Bar-1 conversion. I need to compare her results to those with low serum dosage who’ve assimilated to Bar-1 to see if there’s a difference.”
Sabrina grimaced, looking as if she might refuse, then turned to Jenna and lowered her mouth to a breath from hers. “If I can’t kill you, I will hurt you. Plan on it.”
“I’ll kill her myself if she destroyed Serenity for her own personal gain,” he promised.
“Logan,” Jenna hissed, a storm of tears bleeding from her eyes. “Don’t do this. Don’t turn me into the enemy.”
He turned away from her, done with her tears, and walked to the closet to grab the supplies he’d stored there. He started to right Jenna’s chair, and Sabrina grabbed him. “She stays on her back and as uncomfortable as we can make her.”
Jenna sobbed, and Logan found it irritated him. He left her on her back. A few seconds later, he’d rolled a machine next to the chair and began connecting pads to Jenna’s forehead, while Sabrina stood, arms crossed, above them.
“Logan,” Jenna pleaded.
“Shut up,” Sabrina spat. “Just shut the hell up.”
Logan didn’t bother to look at Jenna. He watched the monitor and the table, steady brain waves. Finally, when the truth was clear, his attention went to Sabrina. “Bar-1 didn’t kill Opal.”
Jenna gasped. “You told her about Opal!”
Sabrina laughed. “You didn’t seriously think he’d hide anything from me, did you? I even know the exact Dumpster where you put the body. Powell would notice she was gone. I have to deal with that. Powell believes she’s running a recon mission. Problem solved.”
Jenna cast Logan a disbelieving stare that said, we had a plan to deal with Opal—us, not you and Sabrina. And they had, but after some evaluating and reevaluating, it had proven ineffective. He’d needed an ally to help him act before all the affected members of Serenity stroked and died—someone who wanted Serenity and Bar-1 to survive this disaster as much as he did. That someone was Sabrina. Once he was done with her, once he’d handed Powell the destruction of the Renegades, he didn’t think he’d have trouble convincing Powell that Sabrina had to be controlled by Bar-1, that she was a monster, that all GTECHs were monsters—case in point, after all, being Jenna. Sweet Jenna, who was now a monster.
Logan stood up, giving Jenna his back. “Our one chance to save Serenity and Bar-1 is to use Lara to destroy the Renegades before she strokes. That alone will make the risk-reward ratio of any potential Serenity backlash worthwhile to Powell and the ‘powers that be.’ You already know I need Powell’s involvement to properly pull off the scenario that will trigger Lara’s memory recall.”
“I couldn’t agree more with the risk-reward assessment,” Sabrina said, “but Powell wants to give Lara more time to bond with the Renegades.”
“So I’ll tell him my new testing shows the trigger weakens with time, thus we need to set it off now, not later.”
A slow smile slid onto Sabrina’s lips. “You do know he’ll be pissed that you didn’t know this in the first place.”
“He’ll get over it when we destroy the Renegades.”
She inclined her head. “Well played, Logan.” She motioned to Jenna. “And her? Can I kill her now?”
“Once we’ve proven ourselves to Powell, he’ll hand over more serum. We’ll complete her conversion and then use Bar-1 on her. She, Sabrina, will be your loyal subject when I’m through with her. You have my word.” Silently he added—and you will be mine.