Cooper (8 page)

"But I'm not breeding babies with you to continue this war. First of all, I don't think I can. I might have gotten a full erection, but that's a long way from being able to ejaculate fertile sperm. Secondly, I'm not fathering children as cannon fodder for a war without an end."

He must have sensed her horror at the clinical way he talked. "Sorry if this sounds unromantic. I’m a medical researcher for the Sons. Everything is clinical to me. And sometimes I go too far. When Alice healed Connor's bullet wound a week ago I wanted to carry out some tests on the mates to see the extent of their healing abilities. I think that Colt and Connor, having thought about my suggestion, are now more likely to rip my head off my shoulders than let me experiment on their mates. An activated cat is hyper-protective of his mate, we’re discovering. And for the first time that concept isn't just theoretical for me. I understand it. I feel it."

"So what happens now? I can't go home with my eyes like this." She needed him to tell her what to do because she was so far out of her depth she knew she’d drown if she couldn’t find something strong and stable to cling onto.

"Go look in the mirror. I think you'll find your eyes are back to normal. The cat only comes out in extreme situations. The rest of the time the fellas say it's
caged
. You have no idea how many times the
letting the cat out of the bag
saying gets thrown around at HQ. It got old about five years ago for me, but every new recruit seems to discover it and throw it around the other brothers as if it's something you-beaut and never been heard before, like
Hooley Dooley, aren't I clever coming up with this pun
?"

"Your-beaut, Hooley Dooley?" she repeated curiously.

"Aussie slang. Actually, it’s a bit ancient. My mum used to say it a lot. I never had much to do with kids my own age, given where I lived, but I gather it's not common slang these days."

"You didn't have kids your own age to play with?" Amy felt an even closer bond forming between them. And somehow hearing about his life grounded her, allowed her to hold-off on making decisions she just wasn’t ready to make. Might never be ready to make.

"I had kids on the other end of the radio. We lived too far from schools and so I did lessons via Distance Education and the School of the Air. Not much face-to-face stuff. When I was in hospital I got to know some kids. Oh, and I had a pet kangaroo I raised from a joey. He was a great friend."

"Didn’t you miss having kids to play with in person?"

"How do you miss what you've never really had? And I had great parents and most of the jackaroos around the place were friendly and didn't mind a kid following them around. I suppose I never learned to talk like a kid. I always talked like an adult, if that makes sense."

"Yes, I think so. I assume a jackaroo is a cowhand who works on your property?"

"Close enough. Rough bunch of buggars, but good at their job. We got a few jillaroos, too, over the years. They don't last long. I think they do it for the experience. Enjoy riding horses all day, checking fences and such. But the loneliness gets to them. At least, I think it's the loneliness; they can work as hard as any man, so it's not that."

"Hmm," she grunted because some comment seemed required of her. It sounded like another world to her. How do you comment on another world?

So she asked another question instead. "Did you ride before your accident?"

"Yep. I was riding before I could walk. My parents had a special saddle made so I could keep riding after the accident, too. It was a little touch of freedom and I loved it. But after a while my mum got worried I'd fall off. So in the end I stopped, because I couldn't stand watching her being so worried. As I said, I was over-protected."

"I think I know how your mom must have felt. She probably thought she'd lost you after the car accident, and then every time you got on a horse it brought all that pain and worry back again."

"Yeah, that's what dad said it was. I don't blame her. But I sure felt trapped by these then." He gave his leg a hard hit that made her grimace.

She got up and went to look at her eyes as he'd suggested. Sure enough, they were back to normal. It almost felt as if she'd imagined it. If not for Cooper, she would have written it off as part of her psychosis.

When she came back, Cooper was sitting up again; his eyes back to normal too. "Do you want me to take you home, or can I take you in to HQ? I think they'll want to meet you. I think Alyssa is there. Colt is, so she won't be far away. Not sure about Alice."

"Really? You'd really take me to meet Alyssa Aimes?"

Her excitement made him laugh. "She's no big Hollywood movie star. She's just a street performer who entered a reality TV show. Just a normal person."

"A normal genetically engineered cat-person. Do we share the same DNA? Are we clones? No, obviously not. Silly question. We look nothing alike. And she’s way prettier than me and –"

"No, you all have unique DNA, except for the inclusion of the panther coding. And she's not prettier than you. I don't think so, anyway. Colt would likely disagree. Maybe we should run a Mate Beauty Contest and see what the rest of the Sons think. It would be an interesting experiment."

She groaned and hit him in the arm. "You're joking, right? As if my self-image isn't bad enough already, you want to put me up against Alyssa Aimes and some other girl who is probably equally as pretty?"

"I haven't seen Alice. But she's a card. I've learned that much from talking to her on the phone. She's a good match for the smart-arse Irishman."

The temptation was huge. But so were her fears. How could she be sure going along with Cooper was the right move? She needed time to think this all through.

But there was no time. They couldn’t sit in the hotel room all night.

“Are you sure about me going back with you? I...I just don’t –”

“Yes, I’m sure. Trust me, Amy. Trust what your cat is telling you. She wants you to come with me, doesn’t she?”

Amy did an internal check. Now she could fully identify the feral side of her nature. The strong, confident part she’d wished for, for so long. And that part wanted to go with Cooper; not only to be with him, but to meet more of her kind. But the human in her had reservations, and she had to consider those, too.

"Okay, I trust you; as long as I get home before dawn. It's easier to stay out now than to try to sneak out again on another night. After tonight I don't think I'm going to get away with wandering the streets of San Francisco on my own again."

"You don't have to go home at all. You can just disappear, if you want. Stay with me." Did she hear a note of vulnerability in his voice? Was the wheelchair thing really making Cooper doubt his appeal?

But she wasn't ready to jump into this with both feet quite yet. It felt too much like jumping out of the frying pan into the fire. She wanted to escape her father and his world, but it was also the only world she knew. Though the rules were cruel and destructive, they were rules she had learned to play by. This new world was still unknown to her. She didn’t know how she fitted into it, what the rules were. Even Cooper was unknown. And how he made her feel was both wonderful and discomforting.

Until she could get some semblance of solid footing under her again, she needed to stay with what she knew. And there was still so much stuff to sort out, so many answers to find back in that old world.

Like how could the tests on her paternity all come back saying she was Maxwell Hays' child, when that wasn't true? And if the Résistance had arranged for her embryo to be implanted in Gloria Hays, had they kept tabs on her ever since? Could the dart that had saved her from rape been from some guardian angel Résistance member? She'd wondered about that for years afterwards. If not for that dart she would have faced the worst trauma of her life.

Yet if she had someone watching over her, why had they let her be abused by Maxwell Hays for years? She no longer had the urge to call him father. It felt freeing to give him his full name, as if he was a stranger. An unpleasant stranger she'd prefer to avoid.

So why was she even thinking of going back to that house to face him? It was madness to want to stick with the bad she knew rather than embrace the wonderful new, but that was how she felt. However, once she went back, who said she could escape again? What if her
cat got out of the bag
in front of Hays? He'd have her locked in a lab somewhere and experimented on like some poor chimp.

Maybe this was an example of
one step at a time
, as her therapist used to tell her. If she tried to do everything at once she'd fall flat on her face. And with a face like hers she didn't need more damage to add to its lack of –

She caught that thought before it fully formed. What if it wasn't true? What had Cooper said? They were programmed to loath the Guild. So if her kind didn't like their kind, maybe Guild didn't find her attractive for the same reason? Maybe she wasn't ugly and stupid after all? What if she was pretty, not beautiful like Cooper considered her, but maybe pretty to non-Guild people. That was an incredible world-changing thought that required further research.

But for now she'd try to stop those
habitually negative self-talk messages,
as the therapists at the sanatorium used to call them.
Self-talk can be our worse enemy
, they said,
but it comes from us. And because it comes from us then we
can
change it. We might not be able to change our outer world, but we can change our inner one.
It had all sounded so good when she was in the warm cocoon of the hospital, but as soon as she got home...Well, all the old programming just kicked back in.

Cooper was nervous. A few hours ago his brothers had categorically denied him the right to see Amy again. It was one thing to flout Chase on small things, but quite another to go against him as he did in this. He'd risked them all by calling Amy and getting her to come out to meet him. What if she was right and there was a tap on her phone. That could lead back to him and HQ with the right hackers. He was in deep shit and it was getting deeper.

But as he looked over at Amy's excited face in the passenger seat, he couldn't regret a moment of it. His instincts had been right. Not only had his cat known she wasn't Guild, but he'd known his mate when he saw her. And finding her had not only activated Amy, but him too. No, there was no way he was going to apologise for following his gut on this one.

All his adult life he'd followed logic because he had nothing else that was reliable enough to guide him. Coop had seen how the cat's instincts trumped logic every time, for each of the other Sons, but that capacity had remained closed to him. He'd thought forever. Now everything had changed.

Euphoric, apprehensive of what their relationship would be like once they settled in to it, Coop was still determined to make a go of it and protect her from the people who had hurt her the most. All of it jumbled around in his mind as he drove into the warehouse on the block across from Scanlan Industries and used the hidden ramp and tunnel to get him across the road to their underground HQ beneath it.

As soon as he had parked the van, he rang Chase and asked him to meet him, with Colt, Connor and their mates, if they were in the complex. Chase was guarded but agreed.

No more than ten minutes later, he was leading Amy into the common room where the Sons hung out during their off time. Several men were still watching TV, despite the late hour. Though he knew every brother by sight, he didn't always get their names right. These were three men in A Unit, and for the life of him he couldn't remember any one of their names.

But as he and Amy entered the room the Sons' nostrils flared and they turned to take in Amy. Oh, shit! He hadn't considered the possibility that another might try to claim his mate. After all, he wasn't exactly the alpha in the pack. If push came to shove, he wasn't going to be able to fight for her and win.

"Coop, who's the pretty girl? Not like you to break protocol," said the Son who looked remarkably like Connor. Cooper might have mistaken them, had this brother not spoken with a South African accent and sported tats up his arms.

The three rose as one and prowled forward, faces entranced. Amy whimpered and took a step back behind his chair. This was one of those times when he wished he could stand – so she could hide behind him.

"Back off, mate, she's
mine
. We seem to be finding mates everywhere lately." He tried to keep his voice light, but there was steel in there too. The others must have noticed, because they slowed their approach, but kept their eyes glued to Amy.

"How come a guy in a wheelchair gets the pick of the bunch?" asked the brother with Goth makeup and dyed black hair.

"Because he can," came the surprising answer from behind him.

Was that Amy? His shy, insecure Amy, who took all the crap in the world but never returned it?

That broke the three Sons up and they nodded their heads in acknowledgement.

"You got a feisty one, like Connor. Gorgeous and gutsy. I'm jealous, bro, real jealous," the South African version of Connor said with a grin.

"Yeah, well, keep your distance. My cat has just been activated and he's tetchy. I probably couldn't take you, but I'd do some serious damage trying."

South Africa laughed again and nodded, as did Goth and a guy with hair not much shorter than his own. He sported a wispy moustache that didn't look great. Scratch that for his future look. Maybe he better make an effort to shave more often before he started looking like a teen trying to grow his first beard.

"Stand down and leave the girl alone," demanded a crisp, authoritative voice from behind him. Sure enough, Chase, dressed in sweats and tee-shirt, was striding into the room, a scowl on his face.

Chase was the same age as the rest of them, but acted as if he was ten or twenty years older. It seemed as if he carried the weight of the world, quite literally, on his shoulders. Though they were called twin brothers above ground, and had known each other for six years, far longer than anyone else here, there was still something aloof and distant about Chase. He never let his hair down or allowed anyone to get to know the real him behind his role.

Now he was studying Amy with interest. "I see what you mean, Coop. Beautiful. Not Guild then." He didn't even comment on her presence in their secret organisation's headquarters.

"Not Guild. My mate. We seemed to have activated each other. And there I was all set to play the tortured Romeo to her Juliet."

This drew Chase's steady, intense stare onto him, just as he wanted it. Amy may have spoken up in his defence, but she was not going to withstand too much more of this intent male interest.

The sound of approaching chatter reached them, drawing everyone’s attention to the door. Moments later, two couples entered the room and came to an abrupt halt.

"Feckin' hell, another one," Connor said, his Irish accent pronounced because of his surprise.

The short, pretty singer with honey blonde hair gave a laugh that sounded remarkably like Amy’s, reminding Coop of tinkling bells. Her sister, equally as tiny, was the shade to her light, with short dark hair, olive skin and big eyes that looked to be surrounded by inky kohl. Had she had a long ponytail Coop could have imagined her as a harem dancer.

Both women were dressed in sweatpants and tee-shirts, as were their mates. He was feeling decidedly overdressed in the dress-pants and button-down shirt he'd worn under his jumper for the show. Was that only a few hours ago? It felt like weeks had passed since then.

"Wow, Coop, this is takin' experimentin' on mates a step too far, me boyo. Goin' out and findin' yer own an' all," Connor said with a cheeky grin. He sounded a hell of a lot more like himself now that Alice was out of trouble. The last time he'd spoken to Connor he'd been as moody and volatile as his partner Colt.

"I take my work seriously. And you fellas weren't in any hurry to let me poke and prod your pretty ladies. So here's Amy, our newest recruit." It was meant as a joke. Did it come across as one? The terms
poke and prod
could be seen as sexual innuendos.
Please God, don't let them take it that way and embarrass Amy.

Alyssa came forward and hugged the stunned and somewhat awestruck Amy. "Welcome to the fold. A bit more estrogen around here won’t go astray. You look familiar…Have we met?"

Amy shook her head, tongue tied. He jumped in. "Amy is a Frisco socialite who sponsors many good causes. Her picture is in the papers a lot."

"Not a lot," mumbled Amy, beginning to blush.

"That's probably it. Wow, someone really rich and famous. You can teach me how to act around people like you. I'm hopeless." Alyssa gave a self-deprecating laugh.

Colt shook his head. "You do okay, Lyss. As long as it's not Guild you're dealing with."

"Yeah, they do scare me, I have to admit."

"
Energy vampires
, didn't you call them?" Connor quipped, his accent fading now his surprise had disappeared.

"Yes. I don't know what it is, but they drain me."

Coop looked at Amy and saw her blanch, the red fading to a sickly white. She was taking this as a personal insult.

"Amy knows exactly what you mean. She was raised as one. Even had a Guild give birth to her. Now if that's not the worst luck in the embryo draw I don't know what is."

Connor and the two women stared at Amy in astonishment.

"You poor thing," Alice said with a shudder. "I guess because of that I'll have to decide
not
to hate you for that beautiful hair of yours. Was it really awful being raised by them?"

Amy relaxed and let go of the breath she'd been holding. Chase frowned and looked from Amy to Coop and back again. Did Chase think she held allegiance to her birth parents, even though they were Guild? Was he worried that Coop had brought a Trojan horse into their midst?

"Yes, awful. I spent more time in a mental institution in the last eight years than I did at home, just trying to get away from them."

Wow, now that was his girl embracing change. He looked up at her and gave her an approving nod.

"And I went to get her out after her loving father used her as a punching bag again tonight. You want to see the bruises, Chase?" His nostrils flared with challenge as he met his leader's gaze. For once it was Chase who looked away first.

Yet again the surprised Sons looked at him, this time as if he'd grown an extra ear in the middle of his forehead. He was getting really sick of this.

"Alyssa, Amy is your biggest fan. The only way I could get her here tonight was to tell her she'd get a chance to meet you."

"Really?" Alyssa beamed her pleasure at Amy, who shrugged uncomfortably.

"I thought the show was rigged. You should have won." Amy found her voice yet again to voice her support of someone she considered victimised.

"It was. By us," Colt said with a chagrined grimace. "She won by a landslide, but if she'd claimed her win she would've been contracted to tour for the show for a year, and I couldn't be away from the Sons for that long."

"And I couldn't help the cause by getting Cam better placed in the Guild, or giving Alice the opportunity to get incriminating data from Rothmen so he could be brought down." She looked at her mate with mock offence.

"Yeah," Colt conceded, dutifully put in his place. "Lyss was essential to the success of our last mission. She's quite the Mata Hari."

The sound of fake whip cracking had the men laughing at Colt good-naturedly.

"Do you ever hear anyone cracking whips when men treat women like trophies or slaves?" Alyssa asked the other two girls innocently.

He felt Amy warming at the inclusion. The Sons and their mates were going to be good for his girl. His heart became lighter just seeing it start.

Alyssa yawned suddenly and covered her mouth, grimacing with embarrassment. "Sorry, it's not the company. It's been a rough couple of days. I need sleep desperately."

"Yeah, sorry for disturbing you. I wanted to get Amy here while I still had her. She needs to get back before dawn, if she doesn't want to be missed."

"You're going back?" Alice said in surprise. "That's brave. If some bastard was knocking me around I'd be running the other way."

"And I'd be beating the shit outta him for trying," Connor finished off for her.

"I don't want to go back. It's ... It’s just that I need answers that I don't think I can get anywhere else. And this has all been so sudden, so overwhelming. I haven't quite caught up yet."

Both girls laughed at that. "We hear you, sister, we hear you. Why the whole mate-bond has to be such a
wham-bang
thing, I don't know." Alyssa looked cheekily at her mate. "See darling, I left off the
thank you, ma'am,
this time. For accuracy."

Colt wrapped the small woman in his arms and gave her a frustrated bear hug. "You, my girl, are going to be the death of me. Or my manhood at least."

"I doubt that, if current performance is any indication." And with a big grin, she ducked out from under his arms and raced the two steps to the door. Then she stopped and turned back to Amy. "I hope I see you again soon. Don't let cold feet stop you from embracing the new. It is an amazing life you're being offered here." And with that she disappeared out the door with Colt hot on her heels.

"Does she seem tired to you?" Connor said with an innocent expression plastered rather crookedly on his face.

"Don't rub it in, boyo," Alice said, giving her mate a light punch. "The rest of these poor deprived males get to go to bed alone. And on that note…”

Heading for the door, she paused briefly to say goodbye to Amy. “See you again soon, sister. If our ranks keep growing the way they are, we'll soon have these guys permanently on their knees. Then we really
will
be cracking the whip on ‘em."

Amy laughed, and it was such a light, happy sound he couldn't help laughing too.

"Maybe it's possible for us to answer some of your questions, so you don't have to go back," Chase said to Amy cautiously.

Coop felt his heart grow even lighter. That was as close to a welcome mat being placed at the door as Chase was capable of giving. "Let's go see if Caleb is still hard at it. I swear, than guy is more mushroom than cat.”

"Mushroom?" Amy looked to Coop for clarity.

"Lives in the dark and feeds on sh…compost. Well, in his case, he feeds on junk food, which is close enough. You two'll have lots of interesting health-related topics to discuss. I don't think I've ever seen Caleb eat a vegetable in the whole time I've known him. Ten-to-one, if he finds his mate, she'll be a vegan."

In the end, though, Caleb didn't have answers, only more questions for Amy. So, several hours later, she reluctantly asked to be taken home. Coop’s cat growled at the idea, but he knew he had to give her time to process what was happening. It had been a lot to take in for just one night.