Delancey had known the project would tank after the first few test runs. But he was a man with aspirations. So what if a few of Uncle Sam's finest took a hit? Sacrifice was a part of duty, and Delancey stood to make a fortune farming rogue Circs to foreign governments.
Too bad moral dickheads like Hawkins had to stick their noses where they didn't belong.
Along with everything else Delancey had been promised by that asshole in charge of the Circ project, the plan to kill Hawkins and the others had failed. The navy had turned their suspicious eyes on him. Thankfully, his contact had shielded him from the worst of it and directed him to another profitable scheme: new drugs that could instill instances of psychic ability in normal users while hurting actual psychics with inherent ability. Delancey smacked his lips. That was some seriously good shit, and it fucked up Admiral London's plans. A two-for-one. It should have been perfect.
Except this scheme involved South American mercenaries, oddball psychics, and Ricardo Montaña, a monster in human skin.
He glanced over his shoulder at the closed door and tried to ignore the screams Montaña never failed to produce out of his bedmates. “Pablo, turn up the music.” Pablo nodded, and the techno beat amped through the speakers. The young mercenary/crewman returned to the bar but kept a watchful eye on the nubile women.
Annoyed by a present he was forced to deal with and a past he couldn't rectify, Delancey motioned to one of the dancers. Her tits didn't sway as she moved, so firm and round and young.
A familiar hunger returned, and with it came a haze of something more. Ah, the wonder drug had finally taken effect.
“Come here and get me off, honey. I need to forget for a while.” The woman crossed the distance, knelt between his legs, and serviced him like a pro while her friend continued to gyrate to the heavy beat. The music pulsed in time with his cock, and for a few minutes, Delancey lost himself in a desire that didn't last long enough.
The price of pleasure, he thought as he spurted into the woman's mouth. A vision of bright skies and calm seas filled his mind's eye. He jerked as the woman swallowed him, and he continued to come in a steady rush down her throat.
Green eyes glared at him, full of anger and hate. “You did this,” he said, and pointed to Kisho Hayashi, who lay bloody and unmoving on the ground.
“No, he did this.” Delancey aimed his pistol at Julian Hawkins. A monster stood in place of the man, a giant beast with dark skin, long gnarled hair, and blazing bright eyes.
“You're going to pay for that.” Hawkins raced for him and stretched out those claws.
Delancey pulled the trigger, but it was too late.
As pain raked down his chest, he saw a pass of clouds overhead, majestic in an otherwise beautiful, final day…
“Let go, you perv!” The woman struggled in his grip as she tried to extricate herself from his hands entangled in her hair. “Holy shit, you're still coming?” He grunted as he let her go and milked the rest of it from his shaft. The drugs produced a very interesting reaction in his body. The visions he could do without, but the prolonged orgasm was absolutely perfect.
“Sorry.” She flushed and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “You came a lot, and then there was so much. I thought you were, ah—” She paused.
He smiled. “Don't worry about it. Pablo will help you clean up downstairs.” Where a rogue Circ waited for her with impatience. He sucked in a breath when another rush filled his flaccid cock once more. The drum of his heartbeat raced, but he didn't care. Better to die of a sexually induced heart attack than at the hands of a fucking beast.
This made the tenth vision he'd had where he died at Hawkins's hands. At least this time, he'd taken out that asshole Hayashi. Another do-gooder with too much power for his own good.
Delancey forced himself not to think about Fallon and that freak Tersch and shook himself free of the unnerving premonition.
Pablo led the woman from the room while the other chugged a beer and continued to dance. A beat of silence settled while the music changed artists. In the silence, muffled sobs and screams sounded through the door behind him. Then the blessed surge of rhythm and bass thumped through the walls of the yacht once more.
Outside, the sun in the sky made the ocean look more blue than green. A breeze flowed through an open window, pushing past the ship drifting aimlessly on the ocean.
Life didn't get much better than this.
Delancey gripped the base of his dick and waited for another swell of ecstasy. The dancer finished her beer and stared in fascination at his erection.
“Now, honey, for round two.” Unlike her friend, this one smiled, took a shot of tequila, and joined him. She gave him the respite he needed with enthusiasm. Watching her head bob, he made a mental note to call Montaña's scientist friend. A vague plan formed. He'd work with the vision he'd just had, reshape it, retool it, and hopefully make some dough while getting Hawkins out of the way for good.
Morgan sat in his room reviewing his notes when a knock sounded at the door. Wishing for Kisho but knowing it would be anyone but him, he swallowed a sigh. “Come in.” Olivia Fallon walked through the door. Tall, sexy, and taken.
He smiled. “What can I do for you, Olivia?” He laced his words with an innuendo she couldn't miss.
She laughed. “Now why doesn't my mate like you, I wonder?” Mate. Olivia had apparently taken to the Circ way of life, which reminded him that she, too, was Circ. He wondered what she looked like when changed.
Her blue-green eyes subtly narrowed on him, and he reinforced the shields around his mind. “Give it up. You're not going to see anything I don't want you to.”
She huffed and crossed the room to sit in a stuffed chair in the corner.
Like the other rooms in this wing, Morgan's bedroom was more like a giant suite. He had his own bathroom with an expansive shower, a small area complete with a desk and two chairs, a large bed, several dressers, a reading chair, and a walk-in closet. Done in dark browns and blues, it had a masculine but tasteful flair. Definitely not designed by any of the Circs in residence.
The one glance he'd had of his lover's room showed a tasteful, minimalistic design in natural colors: greens, browns, and tans.
“What are you hiding?” Olivia asked and tossed her long black hair off her shoulder.
She had looks, sexuality, and a graceful charm, made all the more appealing because she didn't seem to know it.
“I can't believe your mate would let you wander, even so innocently, into my room.”
“He's out with the guys. I think they went for a beer or something.” So much for feeling like a part of the team. Despite Kisho's avoidance, Morgan's training with the other Circs had gone well. Learning how they fought and showing them what he could do had taught them all not to underestimate each other. Whereas the Circs possessed brute strength, Morgan had an uncanny ability to avoid most harm. His natural reflexes were as good as, if not better than the others, but he had a feeling Kisho would equal his speed.
Olivia continued to stare at him.
Talk about the perfect woman for Fallon. During their sparring match earlier, the telepath had done his damnedest to pry into Morgan's mind. Both Mr. and Mrs. Fallon were more than tenacious. A pair of bulldogs that never quit.
He rolled his eyes. “All right. I'll bite. Why are you here?”