Tempting Evil (Riley Jenson Guardian #3)(53)

“Where do you want Quinn to meet your removalist?”
“There’s an old pine leaning over the fence near the south corner. We’ll have people there in five.” He hesitated. “Be careful. And keep in contact, Riley. I mean it.”
I’m sure he meant it the first time he said it, too. It still didn’t mean I’d remember. I flicked off the com-link and glanced at Quinn. “You’d better get moving.”
He nodded and shifted his grip on the child, then wrapped his free hand around the back of my neck and pulled me close. His lips, when they met mine, were warm and demanding, the kiss itself unlike any other kiss from any other man. It was both a promise of intent and a declaration of feeling, and so damn right—so damn hot—it had me melting.
A sigh escaped when his lips left mine. He chuckled softly. “Keep that thought for when all this is over.”
I opened my eyes and stared into the obsidian depths of his for several heartbeats. “Only if you accept what I am, Quinn. It wouldn’t be fair to either of us, otherwise.”
His smile was tinged with bitterness, though that bitterness didn’t seem aimed at me but rather himself. “It has occurred to me that to win the race, I must first be in the race. I may not like a werewolf’s propensity for many mates, but if sharing means I get the chance to prove that we are meant to be, then I have little other choice but to accept it.”
My hormones did a happy little jig. “Meaning no more demands that I see you, and you alone? No more gibes at the werewolf culture?”
“Yes to the first, and I will try to the second.”
Well, that was better than nothing. I leaned forward and kissed him gently. “Thank you.”
“Even the very old can try to change if we see something worth changing for.” He briefly touched my cheek with his fingertips, then stepped back. “Be very careful in that house.”
I nodded. He turned and disappeared into the night, though I watched the flame of his body heat until the trees took it from sight. After which, I turned and headed back to my room.
Only Berna was there when I entered, but she wasn’t asleep. Far from it. Her expression was dark, angry, like she was ready to hit someone. And her eyes, when her gaze met mine, suggested that someone was me.
I stopped cold, wondering what the hell I’d done. Other than whip their asses earlier, that is.But before I could ask, pain hit. Deep, deep pain that struck like a hammer, smashing through my body, driving me to my knees and snatching the air from my lungs.
It wasn’t my pain.
It was Rhoan’s.
Chapter 14
I’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 fate.
When the guards moved away, I said, “Help me rescue my partner, then together we’ll see what we can do about yours. But if we do get her free, I want you both out of here.”
“Your partner has been caught?”
Caught, tortured, and on the move. But not under his own steam. “Yes. I need to get him out of here.”
“How? They have guards on all exits at the moment. No one is getting in or out.”
“Let’s concentrate on one problem at a time.”
I threw the blanket to one side, then turned on my heel and walked out. Berna followed, her larger feet slapping heavily against the floor, drowning out any noise my footfalls were making. I pushed open the exit door and stepped into the cool night air. The guard looked at us but didn’t say anything. He was human. He wouldn’t have seen or smelled the blood and sweat and fear riding my body.
“Where’d they take Nerida?” I asked, as we moved away.
“To the pens, wherever they are. She’s slotted in as the after-dinner entertainment.”
“Against those winged things?” I followed the path around to the left, following instinct and that tenuous, fragile thread that linked Rhoan and me.“Yeah. If she happens to survive that, she wins the right to fight Merle.” Berna’s gaze was grim when it met mine. “We both know that isn’t going to happen, but Nerida can’t or won’t see reason. Revenge has blinded her.”
I opened my mouth to say it was stupid, but the truth was, I could understand it. If something happened to Rhoan, hell itself wouldn’t stand a chance against my desire to get even. To make someone pay.
“Which means she won’t want to leave, even if we do rescue her.”
“She’ll leave. I promise you that.”
It was a promise she had better keep, or Jack would have both their heads. He didn’t have much patience for those who got in the way of Directorate operations.