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“It’s not just mating heat they’re after,” Mercury breathed out roughly. “This code was developed in one place only. The labs I was created in. This code,” Mercury tapped several lines of the attached transmissions, “it’s the code for feral displacement. They’re attempting to duplicate it.”
As he stared at the code, bits and pieces began to show a pattern. Numbers, glyphs, scientific formulas began to come together. He shook his head. Hell, it had been too damned long since he had done this. “It would take months to piece all this information together without the key to the code.”
“We don’t need the key to the code to stop them,” Ria told him, turning back to the papers before glancing back at Callan and Jonas. “Whoever’s behind this knows Mercury’s lab history, the tests he excelled in as well as the experimentation done on him in regards to the feral displacement. Adult Breeds were killed when they began showing it. Mercury is one of the few they allowed to live. Whoever’s doing this knows that.”
“And Ely kn
ows it,” Mercury said dispassionately.
Like Jonas, he found it hard to believe the doctor they had depended on would be the one to betray them. But unlike Jonas, he had firsthand experience in just how far Ely would go to prove he should be locked up, confined, drugged.
The drugs for the feral displacement had made him easier to control, had turned him into an automaton. By time the drug therapy had taken hold, he hadn’t even been certain which world he existed within, or rather which one he fought within. It was a world she would have returned him to.
“Can you slip Dane into the estate tonight to install the program?” Ria asked Callan. “He’ll also need access to the main security terminal in the communications bunker.”
“I can get him in,” Jonas stated.
“We have about eighteen hours to get installed and running,” she added.
Mercury was there when she turned to him. He backed up just enough to meet her eyes, to watch as her gaze moved from his just as quickly as she’d met it, then moved away again.
“You behave.” She pointed to Dane as she moved quickly from the living room back to the bedroom. Mercury let his gaze slide to Dane’s then.
Dane arched a tawny brow mockingly. “Feral displacement,” he murmured. “Interesting.”
Mercury glared back at him. “She’s not in any danger.”
“I never imagined she was.” He grinned. “You know, I have to admit, life has livened up a bit since the Leo revealed himself to this pride. I can see I’m going to have to pace the amusements or I may burn myself out.”
“Shut up, Vanderale,” Jonas ordered him as Mercury stared back at Dane, refusing to be baited by him.
“Invade her bedroom again and you’ll be more than burned out, you’ll be bled out,” he told him.
“Hmm,” Dane murmured. “Too bad you can’t mate though. She would have made a fine mate. A wonderful mother.”
Mercury’s chest clenched. He stared back at Dane, wishing he had killed him when he had the chance.
“Dane,” Jonas growled. “That’s enough.”
“Yes, it is.” Dane shot Mercury a caustic look. “No worries, my friend. When she’s had enough of the hardheaded Breeds here, she’ll return home.” His smile was smug, confident. “And when she does, I’ll be waiting.”
CHAPTER 14
Mercury closed the bedroom door, locked it, then attached the small, rectangular temporary alarm over the crevice between the door and the frame.
He moved to the window, attached another alarm and then turned to face her.
Ria resisted the urge to rub her hands over her arms as she stepped from the bathroom, once again in her gown, weariness dragging at her as she caught a glimpse of his face.
Primal and wild just didn’t do his expression justice. It was suffused with sensual lust, his eyes glowing with it, the flesh stretched taut over the hard planes and angles of his face.
The clean white silk gown she wore might as well not have been on her body. The way he was looking at her stripped it from her, revealed the hardened tips of her breasts and the dew she knew was accumulating on the curls between her thighs.
“Has Vanderale been your lover?” he asked her, his voice rough, grating with animalistic fervor.
Ria swallowed tightly. “Not in this lifetime. I grew up watching that man play more games than a chess master.”
She had no intentions of allowing him to play games with her heart or her emotions. And Dane wasn’t above it. He was a good man, but his focus was set on the protection of his parents and the Breeds rapidly making their mark in society. He would do whatever it took to protect both. And if that meant breaking her heart, he would apologize, he would regret it, but he would do it over and over again.
