More than Truth (Arcane Crossbreeds) (26 page)

Tag shook it away and focused on the hate. The anger. He stoked it, let it consume the pain. Vin didn’t deserve his pain, his grief. It meant Vin still meant something to him. And he wouldn’t give him that. Fuck him.

Tag crouched down into a defensive position, shifting his body so he angled away from his brother. They circled each other.

“No more lies.”
Vin’s voice sliced through his mind, and Tag struggled against that ever-present instinct to meet the mental call, to reconnect like they used to. He resented the fuck out of it, and that gave him enough strength to resist.

“All you fucking have are lies.” Tag snarled again and stepped to the side.

“And you never change. Always acting on your anger first,” Vin said with a drawn-out sigh. “Fine. Let’s play it your way, brother.”

“Fuck you,” Tag gritted out and launched at Vin, their bodies knocking over a standing tray. The crash of metal skidding across the concrete floor sharpened his need for violence. Vin flipped him over his body, and Tag rolled to his feet and spun back around to watch his twin rise slowly.

“Once we settle this, you
are
going to listen.”

Vin’s low rumble flowed over and through him, and Tag had to shake him off before he managed to get rooted inside him and defuse this righteous anger he so desperately needed right now. “Stay out of my head, Vin.”

A smile curled over Vin’s lips.
“I’m going to get so far in your head, Tag. And you can’t stop me. You never could.”

Pain pierced through Tag’s skull, cutting through barriers he’d thought impenetrable to his brother. Tag shook his head and wiped at the trickle of blood seeping from his nostril. His anger and hurt intertwined into a burn that threatened to char him from the inside out. It made his skin crawl and his dragon claw at his flesh.

“You son of a bitch.”

With a roar, Tag rushed the fiery silhouette of his twin, the heavy thud of their bodies easing the restlessness that churned low in his gut. He was driven, desperate to drain that agony from his soul with violence. He was barely aware of each punch his brother got in or the shattering of glass and wood beneath his back as he was thrown again and again. He just focused on each swing of his arm, the reverberation of each strike against flesh, the smell of blood…the burn of air in his lungs.

“Stop it! Stop it!”

Tag jerked back from his brother at that scream. It cartwheeled through him, slicing into him. The blues and reds of his hunting vision swirled around him— disorienting—the heavy fall and rise of his chest grounding him just enough. He inhaled, his fist clenching in the remnants of his brother’s once crisp button-down shirt to pull him closer for another strike. The air drove sharply into his lungs, diffusing into every cell with the electric strike of lightning. The scent in the lab was pungent. His brother’s blood, his blood…
her
. Tag spun, following that scent, his brother forgotten. It was different. Stronger. Violent. It drew him, an irresistible lure to his dragon. Her fiery silhouette undulated like a flame, and he reached for it, wanting to feel it blister his skin.

Her breath gushed in a heated rush against his bare chest when he drew her against him hard. Tag dipped his head and inhaled the warm air in the pocket between her shoulder and cheek, licked his lips to gather the taste of it. Simmering on the surface, his dragon hissed a low threat over his shoulder at the others that tried to get closer to them. She was his. No other’s. His.

“Taggart?”

Tag blinked when the distorted cadence of her voice reached him, seeming so far away, buried beneath the fluid instinct he’d sunk beneath. Her voice was too difficult to understand, but her scent…the feel of her. That translated seamlessly. She was solid and warm against him, and he pulled at her clothes, desperate to feel her smooth skin against his palms. Lifting her up, he pinned her to the wall and ground his cock into her softness, reveling in the spicy scent that grew even stronger. The stiffness of her body against his was a challenge; she was testing his dragon.

When he tried to taste her, she turned her head aside. Tag pressed her harder into the wall with his hips and chuckled. She was strong, a fitting mate. His dragon surged within his mind, and he let it drive them farther into her mind, eager to merge with her—to connect in a way only Drachon mates could. Her mind resisted, and he pushed harder, his instinct to make her submit eclipsing all reason. Distantly he felt her body tremble against his as her mind rebelled violently, rejected his.

She was his mate. His. Why was she refusing him? Confusion broke through the heaviness surrounding him, bringing in shards of awareness. Brit. Her silent screams from his mental assault resonated in his mind, making him feel raw. He became aware of the grip he had on her soft flesh. He eased his hold, and she sagged in his arms. Tag blinked away the hunting vision and saw that he had her pinned against the wall, skirt up around her hips, one hand buried beneath her blouse. Her chest rose and fell in shallow pants, dark red lashes shadowing her pale cheeks.

Shock and horror left gashes in his soul. She was bloody—the bright red an accusation across her lips and cheek, her belly. He would rather die than ever hurt her. Tag cradled her unconscious body against him with one arm.

“Baby? Oh God, what did I do?” His heart ricocheted off his ribs and lodged in his throat. He touched her face with shaking fingers and turned his hand over in revulsion. It was dark with blood.

“She’s fine,” Vin said calmly and moved forward to gather her up in his arms. “The blood isn’t hers. It’s yours.”

Tag felt raw with relief as he met his brother’s eyes. Or eye. One was swelling shut, blood smeared across his face and oozing from his nose.

“And mine,” Vin sighed.

Tag glanced around. The lab was destroyed. His father watched by the lab door, his silent regard a harsher reflection than what Tag would see in any mirror. Raife blocked the entry to the exam room where his deathly ill mate lay, his pupils slitted as though ready for battle.

Tag swallowed the bile that rose in his throat. He’d lost it. He’d become a threat to another Drachon’s mate—an offense worth killing over. Hell, he was a threat to his own mate. It wasn’t a comfortable realization.

With a breath, he turned back to his brother and brushed his shaking fingers across her cheek. “She’s okay?”

“Yes, just unconscious. She’s been pushing too hard, giving too much. I think it was too much for her when you tried to force a mind merge.”

Tag winced but nodded. Vin wasn’t going to make it out to be any less than what it was, and Tag deserved that particular truth. His touch gentle, he opened his mind to hers, careful not to use any force. Unconscious, she couldn’t defend against him, and her emotions ripped through him. She was terrified by their fight and yet excited by it. She wanted them, even craved them, but was repelled by them. The conflict was confusing and impossible to analyze, yet her mind couldn’t stop worrying it, turning it over, searching for a solution. And the reason she couldn’t accept them was his fault— his and Vin’s. They’d let this go too far, misunderstood her, and underestimated each other.

His little doc was exhausted. She was too pale, her nearly translucent skin streaked in blood. They’d pushed her too hard and too long, thinking she would give in if they wore her down enough. They’d been fools.
He’d
been a fool. His doc would never give in; not when so much was at risk. Her sister. Katya. Doc was at the edge of her endurance, and instead of supporting her, giving her strength when she was faltering, he’d reveled in her weakness.

“I’m sorry, baby.”
Tag eased the thought into her mind even though he knew she wouldn’t hear it, and leaned down to press his lips to her forehead.

“You’re right,” Tag finally said as he straightened to his full height. “It’s enough.” His brother’s gaze caught and held his over their mate’s unconscious body. Hard-held resentment stirred in his chest, and he struggled with it, would continue to struggle with it for some time. Reconciliation was going to suck ass, but they owed it to Brit to become a solid pair worthy of her future. He took a deep breath and inhaled the familiar scent of his mate.
Their
mate. It gave him strength. “It’s time we talked.”

“I NEVER INTENDED for things to come to this. I would never just cut you off. When I left the compound after Bryce died, I was desperate to do something—anything—to help our people.” Vin pressed the wet cloth to his lip with a sigh as he paced the floor in Tag’s apartment suite. He cast a restless glance to the door of the master suite where their mate still slept.

Thinking of the past left him edgy and unsure he’d taken the right path despite where he was today. After his brother’s death, he’d been angry and helpless and damn ripe for the picking. He’d barely been a week fresh from the nest when he’d been approached by Irial on behalf of the Trust. “I was in Tuscan when I was offered a way to do just that.”

“I’m listening,” Tag grumbled from behind the unopened Popsicle he held to the bruised corner of his eye. He was slouched down in a big chair, legs extended in front of him. He didn’t look thrilled, but he was listening and that was enough right now.

Vin cast a glance at the array of screens in the far corner displaying every foot of the Incog building in tiny squares. Was this room wired as well? How much did he risk revealing?

“My apartment isn’t rigged, Vin. That’s going too far even for me.” Tag rolled his eyes and licked a drop of melted Popsicle off his finger before ripping the wrapper away and biting off a piece. He motioned with the frozen treat for Vin to continue.

“I never worked for the Triumvirate. In fact I was enlisted to help bring them down.”

Tag arched one dark eyebrow with a grimace of pain but said nothing.

“I was told the Triumvirate was working on some research that could prove to be a serious threat to the Arcane as a whole and the Drachon specifically. They needed someone they could trust on the inside, and with my background they could get me in as a lab assistant, but it meant no contact with the outside world.” Despite that, Vin had still jumped at the opportunity to do something, anything. Tag wasn’t going to like this next part. “I contacted Dad. I kept careful contact the entire time.”

Tag launched forward, the Popsicle stick dangling from his fingers. “That’s just fucking great. I was your other damn half. We practically lived in each other’s heads and you couldn’t tell me?”

“No.” Vin dropped down on the couch and tossed the bloodstained cloth on the coffee table. “Come on, Tag. You’re such a damn hothead. I knew if you were aware of what was going on, you would get involved, and you’d end up dead. You wear your honor raw and out front. You always have.”

Tag twirled the stick in his fingers and eased back in his chair, mumbling, “Fuck.”

Vin shook his head. “I saw things—experiments—done to innocent people, and I had to participate, to pretend I was fascinated.” The horrible part was a piece of him actually had been. That had been a damn difficult self-realization to accept. “Could you have done that, Tag? Stood by while innocent men and women were tortured in the name of science?”

A muscle ticked in his brother’s jaw. His silence was telling.

“I didn’t think so. Of the two of us, I’ve always been a little less rigid with my honor.” Vin might not have liked that about himself, but he’d been able to do what was necessary to protect his cover and get the job done—things Tag never would have tolerated. “Without you to anchor me, I let the lines blur to prove my loyalty. After a few years, I was transferred to the labs in Dublin.”

Tag tossed a glance at the darkened door of the master bedroom. “Brit.”

“Yeah. I was there a couple weeks before I saw her.” Vin and a select few others were brought into the labs, but the guards had been careful to keep them away from their little secret weapon. He’d caught her scent in the halls and outer labs but hadn’t been able to discern exactly what it was that intrigued him. A soft smile arched his split lips. “I knew her for what she was the moment I saw her. She was so young, barely seventeen, yet so focused and intense. She didn’t even notice me.”

Tag’s grin was derisive. “Not much has changed.”

“I watched her for a while before I realized she was at the heart of the research I was sent to uncover. She’d been there for a couple of years already and was starting to balk at their demands, refusing to perform the experiments once she realized where it was headed.” The guards had tried to use her stepfather to gain her obedience, but he was a Guardian, fast healing and resistant. That’s when they’d used her baby sister. “It would have destroyed her to do what they wanted.” And he knew because his soul had begun to decay with every experiment he performed. “I just couldn’t allow that.”

“You were the one who helped her escape.”

“I tried.” Vin dropped his head back on the couch wearily, staring up at the ceiling, remembering. “I tried. I…convinced my handler to arrange for her and her family to escape the labs, but the Triumvirate found out about it. We think they may have had an Elemental seer feeding them information.”

“I know her family was killed helping her escape. Or at least her parents were,” Tag amended. Obviously her sister had somehow survived. “There’s a year unaccounted for from the time she escaped and the time she ended up here.”

A year. It felt more like a lifetime. He’d been incarcerated and tortured while they tried to determine if he was more than he’d led them to believe. They taunted him by telling him what they would do to her once they found her if he didn’t talk. He’d finally managed to convince them he was no more than a Drachon who’d unexpectedly found his mate. All of the Arcane were well aware of the length a Drachon would go to protect his mate. Even the Triumvirate couldn’t doubt that.

“I made a deal with the Triumvirate. Me for her.”

Vin met his brother’s hard gaze. “What the fuck are you saying?”

“If they allowed her to leave the country, I would finish her research. I would resurrect the ARSA project.”