Kissed by a Dark Prince(24)

“Of course we would contain the specimen. He should have been contained when he had first come into the lab. Then we could have carried out a full study on him, without this debacle.”

Oh, he didn’t. Olivia almost growled. “He is willing to come in and let us study him. Surely you can’t expect him to agree to being strapped down while that happens? I want him here as a guest, not a prisoner. He must be free to come and go.”

“As he pleases? That sounds dangerous to me.” The grey-haired man in the middle of the three superiors raised an eyebrow at her and the other two nodded in agreement.

Olivia drew in a breath to stop herself from saying something that would probably get her the same treatment as they were offering to Loren. She had spent a few days in the cells at the containment centre before. She didn’t want to go there again.

“Perhaps we should have a break?” Mark smiled at everyone, defusing the bomb that had come close to exploding.

Olivia nodded and exhaled slowly. Everyone rose from their seats and the doctors immediately made straight for the senior staff members, schmoozing them with false smiles and talk of how they would handle this study. Sable caught Olivia’s arm and pulled her away, towards a table lining the cream wall.

“Don’t kill the other doctors,” Sable said, her voice light and airy. Her friend was deadly serious seventy-five percent of the time. The rare times Sable let her sense of humour out, things were normally dire and about to get worse.

“They’re going to take this away from me.” Olivia knew it. They were going to pull rank on her and take her off the study completely, and then they were going to strap Loren down and do God only knew what to him. “I can’t let that happen.”

“So don’t let it.” Sable’s logic was sound but also full of holes.

“And how do you propose I don’t let it happen? I have zero standing with the five most powerful people in this room. Even Mark doesn’t want to let me have this chance to redeem myself. I can see it in his eyes.” She looked across the room at him where he was talking to the three male hunters.

The air between them shimmered and Olivia gasped as Loren appeared right before her. The air behind him wobbled too and the other one appeared, the one who had looked ready to kill her the few times they had met.

Sable drew her short collapsible crossbow from the belt of her black uniform and had it aimed at Loren before Olivia could react. The other three hunters sprang into action too, drawing their weapons and aiming them at the two elves.

Loren stood before her, dressed in complete black scale-like armour that hugged every inch of his lithe body like a second skin. A black helmet covered most of his head, the top flaring up from a point above the bridge of his nose, sweeping back into serrated curved spikes that almost resembled a crown. The black metallic material obscured the lower half of his face, but she would recognise his blue eyes anywhere.

His fingers flexed around the black sword he had drawn. His armour turned them into long jagged claws with sharp pointed tips that looked deadlier than the blade they gripped.

Loren’s blue eyes met hers, a touch of warmth in their silent greeting, and the lower part of his helmet folded back to reveal his face, stopping when it had cleared his cheeks.

She had forgotten how tall he was, but she hadn’t forgotten how beautiful. He stole her breath.

The hunters behind them called for assistance on their communication wristbands and the alarms in the building wailed, dropping the room into red flashing light.

Loren’s sensual lips peeled back and he bared his teeth. All blunt. He was masking what he was and she couldn’t blame him.

He raised one hand, his claws flashing menacingly in the red strobe, and the alarms went silent and the lights came back on.

Everyone stared at him, surprise written across their faces. She probably looked the same way. What powers did Loren have? Just the abilities she had seen him use so far were incredible and she had the feeling they were just the tip of a very big iceberg.

Loren turned on her, his blue eyes cold now, his voice little more than a thick snarl. “Is this the greeting I was to expect?”

Olivia raised her hand and lowered Sable’s weapon for her, and indicated for the other hunters to do the same. They didn’t. This wasn’t going to go well. If Loren felt threatened, his friend would attack to protect him.

The male tossed an emerald green glare at the men around him, disgust written in every line of his handsome face.

Olivia stepped towards Loren. “No, but we hadn’t settled the details regarding your visit and your arrival was unexpected... and you’re not exactly dressed in the friendliest way.”