AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Ask Callan.” He shrugged, moving into the room and glancing at the camera, still covered by Ria’s sweater, before turning back to Jonas. “I’m sure he’s waiting on you.”
He took the easy chair in the corner, sat down and lifted one of the magazines lying on the table beside it. As though he wasn’t raging inside, as though fury wasn’t eating him alive.
Ria could see it, feel the danger in the air, and so could Jonas.
“Did you break any bones Mercury?” he finally sighed.
“Nope. All bones are intact and in working order,” he retorted.
The muscle at Jonas’s jaw flinched. “What about other enforcers’ bones?”
“All intact and in working order.” Mercury flipped open the magazine.
“Then what did you do?”
Mercury settled back in the chair comfortably, crossed one ankle over the opposite knee and focused his gaze on the magazine. “I think they’re still trying to figure out exactly how to repair my shoulder weapon.”
That was when Ria realized what was missing. The unique gun, rather like a mini-Uzi, that the Breed Enforcers carried. Vanderale had donated the weapons to the Breeds and limited the sale of them anywhere else. They were powerful, deadly, and Mercury wasn’t wearing his.
Breeds, you had to love them, Ria thought as Jonas’s expression turned as deadly as Mercury’s. His silver eyes flashed, his entire body tensed. They could look more savage in their anger than the animals they were created from.
“I’ll talk with you before you leave this evening,” he stated, his voice cold. “Contact me before doing so.”
“Sure.” Mercury flipped the page of the magazine, his gaze still focused inside it. “I’ll do that, Jonas.”
Ria stayed silent. She was certain a snarl was pulling at Jonas’s lips as he stalked from the room and slammed the door behind him.
Mercury moved then, reach over and flipped the lock on the door, before going back to the magazine, remaining silent, almost thoughtful, as he read.
Ria lowered her gaze to his well-worn reading material, an auto engineering magazine that was quite popular, even in Johannesburg, with some of the top designers who worked in the production departments at Vanderale.
Mercury might well have been reading it, but the tension rising in the room was so stifling that when the phone rang beside her, she jerked and barely held back a gasp before reaching for the receiver on the land-based line.
“Yes?”
“Ms. Rodriquez, this is Austin, from the Security Control Center. Could you please remove the covering from the camera?”
The arrogance in that nasal little voice antagonized her with the first words out of his mouth.
Her lips flattened as she glanced at Mercury. He was staring at her from beneath his lashes, the look from those exotically tilted eyes both wickedly sexual and dangerous.
“That might be a little difficult,” she stated with a heavy emphasis on the false sweetness in her voice. “I’ll tell you what, Austin, why don’t you come down here and see if you can remove it yourself?”
She hung up the phone and glared at Mercury. “Stop the damned growling or you can sit outside. My day has been messed with enough.” And she went back to work. Concentration shot, nerves raw, but she was determined to find what Dane needed so she could leave Sanctuary and the man she knew would break her heart if given the chance.
CHAPTER 9
They took his uniform. Mercury sat silently, his gaze focused on the magazine, though he had no idea what it said.
He felt odd in the civilian clothes he rarely wore. They were comfortable enough, but they weren’t the clothes specially designed to conform to his body.
And his weapon.
He almost growled again. They had confiscated his weapon. The enforcers sent after it had been polite enough, but the feral rage that had nearly consumed him had ensured that the weapon would never be used again. It lay in so many pieces in the barracks now that it was fit for nothing more than the garbage.
He should have left. Hell, he’d even considered it. Packing his stuff then and there, because he didn’t have much, and just riding out. He’d had enough job offers over the years; supporting himself outside Sanctuary wouldn’t be a problem. But Ria wasn’t anywhere else in the world. She was here, and she was his responsibility.
His hunger.
