Protector: The Elect, Book 1 (2 page)

“Maybe.” He shrugged. “You didn’t tell me what it was.”

“But I did say you should ask Zach,” she snapped.
 

The flash of temper should have cooled the heat in his body, but it only made it hotter. “Why would Zach send me if he knew?”
 

She rolled her eyes. “You ask anyone in my field who the world’s foremost genetic expert is, and they’ll tell you Zach Littman. You should know that. You’re his employer.”
 

She took a deep breath and that damned white coat didn’t do anything to conceal the tantalizing breasts beneath them. He couldn’t wait to bare her nipples to his gaze, his touch. His tongue. He could see them pebbling the more he pushed her. He was reaching to do just that when the building’s alarm started blaring. He grabbed her arm instead, dragging her through the door to her office.
 

“Time to go, baby.”
 

She tried to dig in her heels, but he was bigger and stronger. He tossed her bag to her and dragged her back through her lab to the private stairwell, figuring it was there to escape chemistry experiments gone wrong. He pulled the key from the deadbolt on one side and relocked it on the other. Hopefully, the lab occupants on the floors below kept their doors secured. They'd gone from the sixth floor to the second when she jerked to a stop.

“I’m not going anywhere with you.”
 

“There’s where you’re wrong, Esme,” he snapped. “You aren’t going anywhere
without
me.”
 

She crossed her arms over her chest and stepped away from him. He was fucked. Short of tossing her over his shoulder, he couldn’t budge her.
 

“Why would I agree to that?” she asked.

Her demeanor had completely changed. If he didn’t know better, he’d think he was dealing with a hard-nosed street cop. Her eyes were narrowed, her lips pressed tight. She’d taken on an aura of determined calm that made him realize she’d give him hell if he tried to force the issue. She’d try a different tactic if she knew how intriguing he found that.

“You want to wait and hang around for whoever just broke in?”

“You broke in,” she reminded him.
 

His earpiece gave a warning click before Mason Cole, his security director, spoke. Brax had forgotten he was wearing the damn thing. “Unfriendlies in the front, Brax. The back is clear for now, but hurry.”
 

Damn it. “Look,” he ground out, “I can’t explain anything here. I’ll take you to Zach. You trust him.”
 

Four floors above them, the door rattled and they both looked up as the intruder fired two fast shots.
 

“I’m not the one shooting at you,” he pointed out.

“He’s shooting at the lock,” she snapped back, already hurrying down the stairs. “But, point taken.”

They exited on the bottom floor and Brax pulled her at a dead run with him to the back doors. He was impressed as hell when she kept up, but he wasn’t taking any chances. He flipped the mic down and spoke softly while peeking outside. It looked clear. “Pick-up,” he ordered.
 

“Two minutes.”
 

“Not good enough, Mason.”
 

“It’s okay,” Esme whispered, tugging at his sleeve.
 

She held up a set of keys. Her smile was tight and angry, but she was cautious when she stepped out the door as if she’d run into the night many times before. She set off into the parking lot with an efficient, smooth gait that was fast but unhurried. If anyone drew the attention of unwanted eyes it was him, but he couldn’t help himself. The need to protect her was riding him hard. He stuck close to her side, one hand on the small of her back, the other holding his pistol next to his thigh. She hadn’t even batted an eye when he pulled it out. Who was this woman? She wasn’t only the cerebral scientist he’d imagined her to be, for sure.

They stopped next to a new Camaro, and he bit back a curse. The damned things were not designed with six-foot-four men in mind. She unlocked the door with the key instead of the remote, silently, so there were no flashing headlights to alert anyone to their presence. She’d either done this before or planned in advance. He took the keys from her, reached in to hit the unlock button for the other door and escorted her around.
 

“I’m driving.”
 

Seconds later, he backed out of the space and checked the rearview mirror in time to see a man bursting from the door they’d just exited. He lifted his weapon but didn’t fire as Brax accelerated. Instead, he lifted his wrist to his mouth. If Brax had to guess it would be he was calling in the rest of the team Mason had seen enter the building, or a backup follow team. It seemed like a lot of work and effort for one lone researcher. Brax had a bad feeling the situation was a hell of a lot more complicated than he’d first believed.

He keyed the mic on his earpiece. “Follow us to the compound.”
 

Esme didn’t speak until they were off the small college campus and on the highway heading out of the city. “Care to explain what the hell is going on?”

“I’m saving your pretty little ass,” he hissed, spotting their tail. He’d guessed right about the second team. He would have had a team standing by to follow in case his prey escaped too. Acting without intelligence and a plan was a mistake he wouldn’t make again. He accelerated, whipping around slower cars while she gasped and grabbed the
oh shit
handle.
 

“Seems more like you’re trying to kill me the hard way.”
 

He loved that flash of waspishness. He grinned, punching it when a stretch of clear lane opened on the left and watching in the rearview as the SUV behind them smoothly moved in to block their pursuers.
 

“Baby, I have no intention of killing you.”
 

Unless it was with ecstasy. Damn. He didn’t know what the hell had come over him, but he was staking his claim. He’d have her in his bed within the next twenty-four hours.

It wasn’t going to be as hard to lose the tail as he’d feared. Traffic was heavy and he remembered there’d been a big concert and baseball game that evening. One or both must had recently finished. He saw an opening in traffic in the right lane and slid into it just in time to take the next exit. There was no pursuit in the mirror when he checked, so he keyed the mic.
 

“You still got them?” he asked Mason.
 

“Yep. By the time they realize they lost you and circle back, it’ll be too late,” he said. “Get her safe. Zach is waiting.”

He didn’t bother with a response. He flipped the speaker up and turned off the earpiece.
 

“Tell me what you think you found, Esme, and who you shared that information with.” He needed to know who to kill.
 

“Dr. Durand,” she said primly. Grinning, he glanced over at her. She sat straight, hands clenched together in her lap, and stared out the front window.
 

“Esme,” he crooned. “If you don’t consider this situation enough for a first name basis, I promise to change your mind at the earliest opportunity.”
 

There was no mistaking his meaning. The look she flashed him was full of awareness. Shock and disbelief, but also interest and desire. Her scent was lush with it. He wanted to drown in her, and it would be hours yet before he could.
 

“The tests?” he reminded her, desperate to retain some semblance of control before he pulled to the side of the road and took her with all the finesse of a horny teenager.

The silence stretched, a not-so-subtle sign of defiance. The primitive core of him rose to the surface. He wasn’t human. He was something more. More advanced. More evolved. A predator. And his woman was defying him. Disobeying him. It didn’t matter that she hadn’t realized yet he’d claimed her. He was the hunter. She was the prey.
 

“Esme.” It was a snarl, a demand full of menace and promise of retribution. Her hand convulsed on the door handle. “Don’t even think about it, baby. You’d never survive the fall.”
 

That she considered trying to escape him pissed him off. That she’d do it in a way that guaranteed her death enraged him. Was she always so damned careless with her life?
 

“Answer me. What did you find in the blood tests?”
 

“It isn’t human,” she answered softly, her voice still vibrating with anger. “It’s close. About three percent variation, but it isn’t human and it isn’t in any database of recorded genetic samples. It’s something…new. Or more accurately something that hasn’t been discovered yet.”
 

Zach had warned him she would figure that out, and fast. That was why they’d been in such a damned hurry to get to her. She was an expert. She’d found something new and consulted at least one other expert, who thankfully was one of the Elect. But who else had seen her results? Who had come after her tonight?
 

“Who besides Zach did you talk to?”
 

“No one.”
 

He could smell the lie and clenched the steering wheel. He wanted to bend her over his knee and tan her hide. It might help with the defiance, but he doubted it’d do a damned thing for the distrust.
 

“Don’t lie to me, sweetheart.”
 

She was quiet so long he didn’t think she would answer. “The only other person I talked to was the one who gave me the sample.”
 

“Who was it?” He glanced over at her as he asked.
 

She shook her head, biting her lip, and as big a turn-on as that was, her refusal to answer made him see red.
 

“You will tell me,” he said, almost wincing at the arrogance in his voice.
 

She shook her head again. Stubborn and defiant. Shit. She would make him lose all control. He could feel it slipping away now, and he knew he shouldn’t be around her in that state. He wasn’t like anything she’d ever experienced before. He was stronger, faster, smarter, both physically and mentally. They all had to be careful when a human was brought into the fold.
 

“You aren’t protecting your subject,” he snapped. “Whoever it is isn’t safe now. Or worse, they betrayed you to whoever is after you.”
 

Which was his suspicion. A team of armed men had come after her. Why else would they do that if not for her information? And who the fuck were they? How had they found out she had that blood sample? Mason better have some answers when he got back.
 

She gave one sharp shake of her head and he felt her denial, her refusal before she spoke. “No. It was someone else. If they were even there for me.”
 

He didn’t bother to respond to that. She knew better. She’d been in her lab late on a Saturday night. She was the only one there when he’d entered. She was the target. The question was, who had put that bull’s eye on her back?
 

He finally reached the compound turnoff, put the code into the security gate, and drove down the mile-long road to his house. He pulled right up to the door, which opened as he exited the car. Zach stepped out onto the porch, but Esme didn’t budge until Brax opened her door and pulled her out. She didn’t move forward when he tugged at her hand.
 

“You wanted answers,” he murmured. “Now’s your chance, baby.”
 

She came. Reluctantly, but she let him lead her into his house, into his study, where he realized everyone could use a stiff drink. He walked to the sideboard and pulled down three glasses and a whiskey bottle. She was shaking, but she knocked it back and held the glass out for another quickly consumed shot. She set the glass down very carefully, softly, when Brax could feel her desire to slam it. He bit back a grin and watched as she turned on Zach.
 

“What the hell is going on? I trusted you to keep that email to yourself.”
 

Her voice was so calm and even, her emotions held so close, that Brax doubted even she was aware of the hurt that resonated from her. It was clear Zach didn’t see it. The researcher scowled.
 

“That information is too sensitive, Esme. We couldn’t let it get out. It endangers too many people. We need to know where it came from.”
 

“We.” A soft response, but Brax could hear the suspicion in her voice. Sensed it on the psychic plane. She was drawing conclusions, the right ones. Zach was well known in his field. If he’d discovered a new species, he had no reason not to publish his findings. Unless he was a member of that species and wanted to hide his identity. “If I tested your DNA, Zach, what would I find?”

Zach didn’t say anything and neither did Brax. She backed away, tried to put distance between them and edge closer to the door. He almost smiled. There was no way in hell he’d let her run from him.
 

“What are you?”
 

“Aliens?” he quipped, and was damned glad for it when her lips twitched and she rolled her eyes.
 

“I don’t think so. The DNA is too close to human.”