“Not 'you guys.' Us. That's you too, honey. Mate.”
“So what, exactly, do you do?” Tersch asked. “You healed yourself, but it took Kisho, Mrs. Sharpe, and Ava to feed you the energy. You some kind of vampire or what?” All eyes shifted to Morgan.
“I deal with energy in weird ways. I don't know how exactly to describe it.” Morgan ran a hand through his hair, and Kisho tried very hard not to stare at the bunch of muscle in his arms and chest under his body-hugging T-shirt. “I don't get hurt. If I do, I heal right away. I don't consciously do it; at least, I hadn't until two days ago. I normally just absorb the energy around me and use it, the way you breathe. It's an unconscious response to need.”
“You're half-Circ,” Kisho accused, wanting Morgan to stop screwing around and tell the team.
“Actually, I'm not.” Morgan sounded apologetic. “I'm different, yeah. But I've never had the Circe serum, and my family was never exposed to it. We're just a different breed of people, I guess you could say.”
“Different, my ass.” Jules straightened beside Tersch and looked at Mrs. Sharpe. “You specifically chose Morgan to join us. You knew all about him before he arrived. What aren't you telling us? And why does he seem to have so much insight into Montaña?” Mrs. Sharpe squared her shoulders. “Jules, I don't tell you half of what I know, simply because you need to focus on specifics, not the bigger picture.”
“That's bullshit,” Jules answered. “Admiral London kept me in the loop.”
“Did he?” Mrs. Sharpe asked quietly.
Kisho saw that Jules's patience had neared its end and intervened to prevent a showdown.
“Hold on. Morgan still has a few things to explain. Like how he turned Circ.” Once again, his lover had managed to avoid answering the question.
“You said that before. He's Circ?” Tersch rose and sniffed. “He doesn't smell Circ.” His eyes narrowed. “He smells like you.”
Kisho flushed.
Morgan rubbed the back of his neck and muttered, “I borrowed your energy, Kisho.” Jules shook his head. “But you didn't turn Circ after you took Kisho's energy to heal.”
“Yeah, but I also took energy from Mrs. Sharpe and Ava. I didn't think too much about it. I just told Kisho what to do, and he did it.”
“But how did you tell him?” Fallon asked. “You said you're not a telepath.”
“He's not,” Mrs. Sharpe answered. “His energy had parted from his body after the blast. He used his tie to Kisho to heal himself. Those self-preservation instincts he was talking about? He used them to live.”
“What do you mean, 'parted from his body'?” Olivia frowned. “Like he was dead?” Ava swore. “Yeah. Mr. Moron—I mean, Morgan—dies a lot. He's a real pain when it comes to burial arrangements. You're never quite sure when it's time.” Everyone stopped and stared at Morgan in shock.
“Is she serious?” Jules asked.
Tersch growled, “Just how the hell does Ava know so much about you, Reynolds?” The others groused over the confusing information. Kisho wasn't satisfied either. He'd seen his lover turn Circ, had felt the larger, expansive body. Hell, Morgan had satisfied his beast, and only a Circ could do that. Why was Morgan lying? He leaned closer and asked again, through the noise building as his team began arguing with each other, Mrs. Sharpe, and Ava.
Morgan whispered back, “I turned Circ when you were inside me. During sex. That's the difference. Your energy then was your beast, and I shared it to complete you. I'm yours, remember?”
Kisho hadn't considered that, and it made a weird kind of sense. If Morgan really did manipulate energy, then he'd tapped into Kisho's beast during sex. No wonder he'd been able to handle the rougher stuff.
“I'm not Circ, not really. Actually, you're a lot more like me than you know.” Morgan finished, confusing Kisho once more.
A loud whistle quieted the cacophony around them. “That's better.” Ava turned to her boss.
“Mrs. S.? The floor's all yours.”
“Thank you, dear. Gentlemen and ladies, let me clarify something. This is my meeting, and you'll remember to keep quiet unless asked to speak.” The wave of power that slapped at them all had Kisho shrinking back and Morgan swearing under his breath and holding his head.
“Yeah, sure. Got it,” Morgan rasped, and the others agreed.
“Now. One, Morgan is psychic. Two, he's on our side. Three, yes, he can die and somehow revive himself, but he doesn't know how many lives he has, so putting himself needlessly in harm's way is a stupid risk.” The look she sent Morgan made Kisho glad she hadn't directed it at him. “Four, we know where Delancey is now. He's definitely with Montaña. The incident at the dock that blew up involved several of Montaña's unhappy employees. They were more than willing to share what they knew.”
Jules smiled, an alarming grin that said Delancey was a walking dead man.
“And five, Kisho has something he needs to share with me. I'd like the rest of you to file out while Kisho stays behind. Jules, take the others and Morgan and go train. My time with Kisho shouldn't take long. Then you can plan to take out Montaña and Delancey for good. Once you have a strategy in place, we'll meet to go over details.”
“Right.” Ava grabbed Olivia and dragged her to her feet. “Come on, Olivia. I have coordinates, but we need your intelligence system to coordinate everything.” Olivia leaned down to kiss Fallon. “See you later.” She left with Ava.
Kisho looked from Morgan to his team. “Don't kill him,” he warned Tersch.
“I won't. I promise. We're just going to train some more. Right, Jules?”
“Right.” Jules gripped Morgan's arm and pulled him to the door. He said to Kisho, “Come to the gym when you're through. We'll occupy Morgan while we're waiting.” Morgan groaned in protest and soon disappeared with the others.
Kisho's beast gave a soft growl of displeasure because not only had Morgan gone with other males, but he'd left, period.
Mrs. Sharpe smiled knowingly. “You seem much better now. Funny how Circs settle once they've bonded with another, hmm?”
He really wished the woman would turn off that insight. It was alarming how much she seemed to know and how little they actually knew about her.
Kisho didn't answer her, not sure how he felt about a mate. On the one hand, it gave him real joy, and on another, real dread. He didn't look forward to explaining Morgan to the guys, and thought if he avoided it long enough, an answer would appear. Maybe he could explain his new “boyfriend” as a result of Circ hormones. That might work. Not his fault he was attracted to a guy. Not as if Kisho actively sought males for sex. Except that he did. Christ. Tersch would have a field day with his “fruitiness.”
“Kisho?” Mrs. Sharpe pulled his attention. “Tell me about your dream.” Yeah, best to deal with what he could handle at the moment. “It wasn't a vision, but it was more than a dream.” He described it in detail. “I can't help thinking Jules is still in danger. And the fact that the danger took place here, in our home, worries me.” She frowned. “Me too. The two foxes have to be you and Morgan. The owl? I'm not sure.
The hawk would be Jules, of course. But the flowers? The light? More exotic jungle, hmm?
Everything we've been dealing with concerning Delancey lately has a connection to that laboratory in Brazil. I have a feeling we might have missed it.”
“How? When we got there, everything was gone. We checked over the place thoroughly.
Trust me; nothing was there but dead scientists and useless trash.” The look in her eye disturbed him. A dot of red flared in the center of her pupil before it disappeared as if it had never been. But Kisho had seen it. What the hell did that mean?