She watched as Hope’s face paled. “Did you tell Aiden this?” she whispered desperately. “Does he know?”
Charity shook her head. “Keegan knew. I assumed he had found time to talk to Wolfe.”
Hope shook her head imperatively. “Keegan hasn’t said anything, Charity. Nothing. The Winged Breeds disappeared within hours of their rescue. No one has seen them.”
No one? Keegan held the answers, the key to all this. He had told her, right before the attack on the mountain, that he had figured it out. That he knew what the scientists were doing, and how nature would eventually fight back. He had kept her sane those last days as he connected with her, explaining what her body was doing, and why. He wouldn’t just leave.
“No.” Charity blinked at her in surprise. “Keegan wouldn’t do that. He knows the experiments. He knows what they were doing, step by step, even when I didn’t. Hope, Keegan is incredibly psychic, with a photographic memory. He was connected to me during those experiments. He knows everything, every last detail, he wouldn’t just leave.”
Hope stood to her feet, the first aid kit and Charity’s raw feet forgotten as she panted for breath. “I have to find Wolfe. This is worse than any of us believed.”
She rushed from the house, the door slamming behind her as Charity covered her face with her hands before pushing her fingers through her hair with weary frustration.
“Where are you, Keegan?” she bit out furiously, rubbing her temples, fighting for the connection he had often kept with her. Unable to believe he would just disappear, just leave. “Damn you, why the hell did you run?”
The mental connection she had once shared with him was absent, though. She felt only silence, only a bleak desertion by the man she had thought was a friend.
It made no sense. Keegan wasn’t the type to just drop a responsibility he had taken on. He knew he would be needed. Knew Charity would need the information he had gathered as he shared those experiments with her telepathically. It was the reason she had allowed him to set up the link in the first place.
Frowning, she fought to re-establish the connection then sighed in bleak resignation. Keegan had always come to her. She had never had to call out to him, to try to find him; he had just been there. A presence she had been able to feel whenever she needed to maintain control, or when the pain became too blinding to focus for herself.
And now he was just gone. Her eyes narrowed. What was he up to? She knew he was calculating, secretive. He wouldn’t have left in such a way unless there had been a reason for it. Unless the danger was increased somehow by his presence. She bit her lip thoughtfully. He was up to something. She could feel it. She knew him well enough to know how he plotted, planned. Now, she just had to figure out what he was up to, and why.
Chapter Eleven
Aiden stood quietly behind the chair Wolfe sat in, while Jacob stood more to his side. His pistol was strapped to his thigh, along the wall behind him a rack of automatic weapons were held, ready for use. As the leader of the controversial Wolf Breed Packs, protecting his life could sometimes become a job in itself. At the moment, the room held not just Wolfe and his mate, but Jacob and his as well. Other than Charity, these two women were the only known mated females. That they were also the mates to the head of the Packs made them even more important.
The news that Hope had brought to Wolfe earlier was already beginning to cause a stir in the small Breed compound. Gathered in the room were the Leaders of the four packs who had pledged their loyalty to Wolfe and to the newly formed Breed Alliance. They all listened with bated breath as Hope explained Charity’s information. Information she had not given him, but had given to another instead. Information he would have much preferred that she keep to herself for a bit longer.
“To verify this, I’d have to run my own tests.” Dr. Armani was thoughtful as she watched Wolfe. “There’s no way I will consider accepting this information on hear-say alone.” She glanced at Hope apologetically. “Charity’s blood tests alone tell me it’s possible, but I refuse to go in blind.”
“Charity is already pumped full of the drugs, she would be perfect…” Hope began.
“No.” Aiden’s head rose in shock and anger as Hope voiced the thought. He speared her with a dark glance, his jaw clenching tightly as he fought to control the instinctive anger.
More experiments? The pain he had watched ravage Charity’s body, even while unconscious, had nearly destroyed him. He wouldn’t consider such an action.
“Aiden, hear her out,” Wolfe said quietly.
Aiden growled, for the first time that he could remember, so opposed to his leader that he feared his own reactions.
“I refuse to allow it,” he bit out, pacing around the couch, aware of the other members of the Council watching him carefully. “She is not part of this Pack, Wolfe, and therefore not under your command. She is mine…”
“And you are under my command.” Wolfe glanced at him, his gaze reflective.
Aiden narrowed his eyes, watching the other man intently. He had never known Wolfe to issue an order he didn’t agree with. Never known the other man to ask of others what he would not do himself. But this, Aiden would not consider.
“She is my mate,” he snarled, his body hardening, tightening at the thought of her unclaimed status. “It is not for you to order me there, Wolfe.”
Wolfe sighed. “Unfortunately you are right, Aiden. But it is not for you to choose for her. Charity will be given the choice.”
“No…”
“Aiden. Our very survival depends on our ability to breed. Hope and Faith are in constant arousal now, their bodies no longer their own, their sexuality no longer theirs to control. If there is a way to stop this, then it is not something we can overlook,” Wolfe snapped in frustration.
Aiden well understood his leader’s anger and concern. He glanced at his sister in frustration, seeing her compassion, her understanding as she watched him. But he also saw well the signs of her growing arousal once again. Both women were unable to be away from their mates for very long. The situation was breeding nothing but anger and more frustration.
“The blood work I’ve run up to this point supports Charity’s claims,” Dr. Armani said softly in the silence of the room. “The tests I would require would be done gently, Aiden, with all care given to your mate’s body and her mind. I don’t wish to harm her. But we must see the results of the drugs they used on her. It could help me, perhaps, to determine how to recreate the process in a gentler manner.”
“It seems to me it would be smarter to find those damned Winged bastards,” Aiden snarled. “They have the answers.”
“Doesn’t matter. Charity’s body holds the key. We could do nothing without examining her to see the results of whatever information Keegan holds,” the doctor snapped out. “Stop being so damned possessive, Aiden. I’m not going to hurt her.”
His head swung around as he fought a furious growl. The doctor was watching him as she would a recalcitrant child. The look didn’t set well with him.
“You are right. You will not hurt her, because there will be no tests,” he bit out.