Page 74 of Crimson Moon Falling

Conall would collect and partially process the threads, and the machine would finish processing and hold them until they could be identified. I could hold out that long.

“How bad was it?”

Parker’s mouth went flat. “There was blood everywhere. It looked like you’d been beat up or shot. The sheriff and Beau nearly had a coronary.”

The front door opened, and I heard Conall talking to Freda. Even before I saw him, my body knew. The bond flared, a warm current cutting through the implant’s cold hum.

He filled the bedroom doorway a second later, his dark hair wind-tousled and his normally gray eyes burning yellow-gold at the edges. Drew followed behind him, his white hair and black-framed glasses askew, holding an armful of equipment.

Conall crossed the room and sat beside me, taking my face in his hands. His touch was careful despite the fury rolling off him.

“Why didn’t you tell me so I could be here?”

His voice was quiet and controlled. I shrugged a shoulder, then winced as fresh pain lanced through my skull.

“You would’ve tried to stop me.”

“No, I would have stopped you. No more. You won’t keep risking yourself like this.” His jaw worked as he tried to contain his temper.

Drew set his equipment down on the dresser, then pushed his glasses up his nose. His energy was calm and focused, the steady hum of a Strategist already running calculations.

“Yell at her later. She’s hurting, and the threads may not hold much longer.”

Conall helped me sit up, his arm around my shoulders, solid and warm. Then he pulled me into his lap and tucked my head against his chest. “You know the drill. Open for me, love.”

His warmth wrapped around us both and carried the scent of desert rain and sage. I closed my eyes and directed the first signature toward him. Carefully, he pulled the thread from me as I breathed through the pain. He transferred it to the fMRI, and Drew worked his magic.

I wrapped my arm around Conall’s hard waist as he began the last signature. A tear slipped from my eye as Conall slowly gathered the thread, and when he had it all, I collapsed against him. He processed and transferred the signature to the second container on the fMRI machine, and the screen lit up with cascading data. Waveforms, frequency patterns, the raw architecture of Wilson’s energy signature as it unpacked and decoded.

My body slumped, and my head still throbbed, but the worst of the backlash had passed, and the implant was stabilizing and recalibrating with cold efficiency.

“General Wilson,” I whispered, “or someone in a military command role, stood at that desk and reviewed those maps.”

Conall’s hand found mine, his grip almost painful. “We’ll talk about the fact that you went back there without telling me later.”

I met his gaze. The gold was receding, leaving his eyes a sharp, penetrating gray. “There wasn’t time.”

“You make the time.” His words were low and hard.

Drew glanced between us, then wisely returned his attention to his screen. “This is going to take a while to process. I also need my lab.”

Conall stood and scooped me up in his arms. “We’re going to the smaller cabin. Will you ask Freda to send her belongings over?”

Parker raised an eyebrow. “You wanna stay here, Bug?”

“No, she doesn’t,” Conall answered for me. He strode out of the bungalow with me in his arms and Parker following us.

“How’re you feeling?” Conall asked.

“My whole body hurts, and I feel like I’m going to throw up,” I admitted.

He squeezed me to him. “Talk to me. Why would you go back there to Spool without telling anyone?”

I laid my head on his shoulder and sighed. “We need solid proof Wilson was there, not just circumstantial evidence, but something we can use. The threads are the closest thing to a smoking gun there is.” Parker opened the cabin door and pulled back the covers. Conall set me in bed.

“You’re my mate, and you don’t get to make these kinds of decisions without me.” His voice had gone quiet. “That’s not how this works.”

My head spun as I looked up at him. “I can’t watch them take anyone else from us, and I’m tired of hiding and being scared. It’s time for me to make a stand.”