Danger That Is Damion (18 page)

A fizzle of unease went through Lara at the “they” reference. “Yes,” Lara agreed, cautiously avoiding a lie and eye contact with Damion. “I was given injections.” She could feel Damion’s attention sharpen, almost hear his mind racing at her choice of words. There was no doubt, he suspected the truth—that Adam hadn’t been the one to convert her.

“It was Ava, wasn’t it?” the nurse asked, as if feeding off Damion’s silent contemplation. “She convinced Adam the injections would bypass the Lifebonding process and make you fertile without it, didn’t she?”

“Emma,” Damion warned gently, saving Lara from pulling some brilliant reply from a hat, when there was no hat in sight. “Lara has a real need to see Dr. Petersen.”

“Yes, of course,” Emma replied, casting Lara an apologetic look. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to pry or make you uncomfortable. I, of all people, know that’s not what you need right now. I’ll get Dr. Petersen for you right away.” She wasted no time departing, pulling the door shut.

Lara stared at the door, a hollow, horrible feeling carving a home inside her as she replayed Emma’s words.
I, of all people, know that’s not what you need right now.
“She was in the sex camps in Zodius City, wasn’t she?”

“Yes,” Damion confirmed, stepping between her and the door, his arms crossed in front of his broad chest, and Lara couldn’t fight a moment of pure female appreciation as she took in the sight of him—tall and hard all over—but his next words dashed her with enough ice water to end her distraction. “She’s part of a group of fifty women we rescued last year. There were more than a hundred inside Zodius City at the time, but Ava’s ability to brainwash many of them proved impossible to overcome during rescue.”

“They force the women to have sex with the soldiers there,” she said, the words heavy on her tongue. “Trying to find a Lifebond connection to make them fertile. She thought I was one of those women, and yet it scared her.”

“Ava’s able to brainwash most of the women into believing they want to be with the men,” he said. “They believe becoming a Lifebond will make them royalty among the Zodius. It’s a small comfort to know the women don’t feel raped while they are there. But not all women are susceptible to Ava’s skills.”

“Emma wasn’t,” Lara said, reading between the lines.

He shook his head. “Emma wasn’t. And now she’s terrified of anyone who might be loyal to the Zodius, as are all the women we rescued from the camps.”

“And if I had been a Lifebond to a Zodius soldier, she would have assumed I would be loyal to that Zodius.”

“Exactly,” he said. “Once a couple Lifebonds, they’re bound in life and death—if one dies, the other will die. That’s pretty intense loyalty by default. That loyalty is what Adam is counting on when he throws women like Emma to his men, like they’re meat to the damn wolf packs he keeps.”

Lara barely suppressed a shiver at the idea of being passed around a group of Zodius soldiers for sex. That was what Adam did to women, and what she’d thought the Renegades would do to women as well. They didn’t though, and Emma was proof of that.

Suddenly, Lara just couldn’t swallow the idea of connecting herself to Adam, allowing herself to be thought a monster in order to protect Serenity. “I was telling the truth when I said I was never inside Zodius City,” she said. “And I would never be a part of something as horrific as what happened to Emma.”

“I know,” Damion said, sitting down beside her and gently pressing her back against the mattress. His hands settled beside her head. His eyes captured hers, reached inside her, and seemed to be searching clear to her soul. She could barely breathe with the certainty he could see too much, her heart and adrenaline kicking into overdrive.

“Emma made me remember one of my initial assumptions when I realized you were GTECH, Lara,” he finally said. “The only way Adam would let go of his precious stock of serum for a female would be to breed you with his soldiers.” Lara’s heart slowed to a standstill, the room shrinking with the foreboding knowledge that she was cornered, with no escape.

“You would have been put through medical tests and subjected to aggressive attempts to Lifebond you, with hopes that you no longer needed that bond to get pregnant. You simply had to have enough sex. In other words, you would have spent lots of time in the sex camps long before you would ever be used for other purposes. You asked too many questions about those camps for someone who’s been inside them. You aren’t working for Adam. I’ve said that before, but always with doubt. This time, I know it’s the truth. You’re working for someone else.” A knock sounded on the door, but he didn’t move, his gaze locked with hers, as he added, “And you’re going to tell me who.”

Sabrina had not only fucked Logan, she’d fucked him up. His eye was black, his lips swollen, his cheek ripped open from her nails. He sat in the chair at a desk, in front of a computer, with her standing behind him. A webcam chat displayed Powell—a distinguished, fifty-something man in full army greens, while Sabrina gritted her teeth through an explanation of why Lucian was missing. “Apparently he’d not only conspired against us with the Renegades, and planned to claim the Russian for their use, he’d involved Lara,” she continued. “I killed Lucian and the Russian, but Lara escaped.”

Powell didn’t react, his jaw tense, his face an emotionless mask, the air thick with his silence. Sabrina had come to know it signaled an impending explosion she wished to avoid with Powell, and these were those signs.

Her fingers dug into Logan’s shoulders. “But as you can see, Logan and I have been discussing options to present to you. He’s assured me he can not only bring Lara back to us, but reprogram her and send her back to the Renegades as a weapon.”

Powell’s gaze narrowed sharply on Logan. “Explain yourself.”

“Each of the Serenity GTECHs has a built-in mental trigger, a memory that will take the subject back to her real identity, but will also take her to an exact location I’ve programmed into her mind. Then she’ll be yours—a clean slate, ready to recanvas. We then send her back to the Renegades, where she will be trusted. We can use her to destroy them from the inside out.”

The muscle in Powell’s jaw ticked. “Explain the trigger.”

“It would be in our best interests to have this conversation
alone
.”

Powell’s eyes lifted to Sabrina. “Leave us.”

“General—”

He cut her off. “Wait in your quarters.”

Sabrina ground her teeth, barely containing the urge to scream with the injustice of the moment. Logan was going to pay for this, just as Lucian had paid for crossing her. She exited to the hallway and went to her room, a sterile white-tiled, white-walled duplicate of the lab, minus the tables, where she paced for twenty long minutes. Finally, the webcam program on her laptop beeped from where it sat on top of her white-and-glass kitchen table.

She rushed to the computer and hit the button to bring it to life, bringing Powell into view. “Who would you consider the best of Team Serenity, besides yourself, of course?” he asked, not bothering with a greeting.

Uneasiness fluttered in her stomach. “It depends on the mission.”

“The best, Sabrina,” he repeated sharply.

He studied her a long, hard moment. “Send Crystal to me here in Germany where I will remain for several weeks,” he finally said. “She’ll be replacing Lucian as my personal bodyguard. I won’t be returning anytime soon, and I wouldn’t want to take Opal—as I’m sure you’ll be counting on her for your upcoming mission.”

Damn it to hell. Crystal was power hungry and eager to win Powell’s favor. “What mission?”

“First you will close the front of the facility. Move everyone to the west, bottom level, so that it appears we’ve evacuated. Lara will be spending a few weeks in the Renegade camp earning their trust, and no doubt, she will tell them our location. When they come looking for us, we will know our plan is working. Then, we will exploit that trust to its fullest potential. Understand me, Sabrina. If anything happens to Logan to prevent him from bringing Lara back to me, I will hold you accountable. Are we clear?”

“We’re clear,” she agreed tightly and without hesitation. She could cause a lot of pain without impairing his performance. And she would enjoy every last second of it.

***

Lara heard the knock a second before Damion released her and pushed to his feet. The door opened and a pretty woman with light brown hair, about Emma’s age, wearing a lab coat, came in the door and shut it behind her.

“Hi Doc,” Damion said, his tone still tight from their confrontation. He motioned to the bed. “This is Lara. Lara, this is Dr. Petersen.”

“Hi Lara,” the doctor said, claiming a rolling chair and setting her clipboard on the counter that ran along the wall, before extending her hand. “Call me Kelly. It’s nice to meet you.”

Lara accepted her hand, surprised at the energy she sensed in her. “You’re human.”

“I am,” she confirmed. “As are most women you will meet here in Sunrise City, though we do have a handful of women converted to GTECH by Lifebond.” She arched a curious brow. “But you were converted by injection, I understand?”

Lara nodded. “Yes.”

“Are there more like you?”

“I’m part of a team of female soldiers,” Lara confirmed.

“Soldiers,” Kelly repeated, casting a surprised look at Damion. “I’m shocked Adam would choose women for such a task.”

Damion’s eyes met Lara’s as he replied, “Women were meant to be surprise weapons,” he said. “Created to kill GTECHs, but fortunately, Lara liked me too much to kill me.”

Kelly’s eyes went wide. “You’re a Renegade assassin?”

Lara could feel Damion’s attention, feel him watching her, feel the tension weave through the air, binding her breath for long seconds inside her chest. Only hours before, Lara would have proudly let Kelly believe she was a Renegade assassin, rather than a GTECH assassin, because that would point to Adam, not Powell. But now… it wasn’t so simple, and she wasn’t sure why. “This was my first mission,” she found herself saying, making it clear she’d never killed a Renegade, avoiding a direct answer. Or she thought this was her first mission, and her gaze dropped, her lashes lowering, hiding her doubt. What horrible things might be buried in the recesses of her mind?

“They told her the Renegades killed her family,” he said. “Promised her vengeance. Still Lara stood against them when they wanted an innocent human killed. Now they want her dead, and we’re offering her protection.”

Lara’s gaze lifted to his, colliding with Damion’s, and finding a silent reminder of his words.
And
I’ll keep protecting you.

“I see,” Kelly said. “How long ago were you converted, Lara?”

“As I remember,” Lara said, meeting her gaze again, “six months ago.”

“She has a head injury about twelve hours old,” Damion offered, stepping closer. “And she’s had no food, rest, or vitamin C since the injury. She’s hallucinating, or she is having flashbacks that come on her almost like seizures. Twice now she’s completely passed out. She’s having trouble holding her camouflaged eye color as well.”

Kelly arched a brow at Lara. “A dictionary of information, now isn’t he? Anything you might want to add, since this is
you
we’re talking about?”

“The first flashback was before the head injury,” she said. “So the injury isn’t the cause.”

“And that rules out the healing illness,” she said, making a note on her clipboard.

Lara didn’t know much about the healing illness, but if it was ruled out, she’d leave it at that. She wasn’t asking more questions that Damion might believe she should already know the answers to.

Kelly finished making her notes and set the clipboard aside again. “Before we continue, let me tell you a little about me. I can sense that trust is an issue for you, so I want to assure you that I’m your doctor, plain and simple. I make you well. The rest is between you and the others.” She didn’t wait for a reply. “I’m one of many humans who live and work with the Renegades, and I’m honored to do so. I’m as much of an expert on GTECH anatomy and health as one can be, considering the ever changing evolution of those converted. I was also one of the original doctors at Area 51.” She frowned and eyed Damion over her shoulder. “You’re hovering, Damion.” She pointed at the chair. “Sit.”

Lara drew back in shock, watching the scowl on Damion’s face, shocked when it turned to defeat, and he stalked to a chair and claimed it. Kelly, a woman—no, a
human
woman
—had just successfully ordered Damion, a male GTECH, to sit, and he’d done it. Blown away didn’t begin to describe how the demonstration affected Lara. This display, and the trust she sensed in Emma for the Renegades, didn’t compute. Damion didn’t match the monsters she’d thought Renegades to be, the Renegades who would abuse and use women as the Zodius did.

Kelly eyed Damion. “Thank you,” she said when he was settled, and then glanced at Lara. “Unless you’d rather Mr. Mother Hen here wait outside?”

Damion flew to his feet. “I’m not leaving her alone.”

“You will if she says so,” Kelly shot back, and then arched a brow in Lara’s direction. “Lara?”

Her eyes went to Damion, who was staring at her, willing her to allow him to remain with her. Damion, Lara realized, was an anchor, the safety net her instincts were clinging to in all of this. He might be a devil in disguise, but at least, he was the one she knew.