Dage prowled after her. “I look forward to the discussion, love.” Tipping his head back to take a deep gulp of his ever-present grape energy drink, he glanced over his shoulder. “Conn, Talen wants to meet in the third-floor conference room in fifteen minutes. You, too, Jordan.” His footsteps echoed down the hallway.
Jordan nodded. Fierce brown eyes flicked toward the werewolf’s head. “He wanted Katie. He sensed Katie.” It had guaranteed the beast would lose his head.
Every once in a while Conn forgot about the killer lurking behind Jordan’s easy smile. “The werewolf put up a good fight.” Dage had reported it as an intelligent fight, different from a normal one.
“Yes.” Jordan glanced down, frowning at a long gash across his knuckles. He stretched his hand, opening and closing his fingers, allowing claws to emerge. “I haven’t apologized for what happened with Marcus. My people, my fault.”
“No.” Conn’s fangs emerged, pricking his lip to draw blood. “They caught me. My head wasn’t in the game ... for obvious reasons.” A snarl wanted loose and he shoved it down, taking control of the beast inside him for the moment. He was better than the decapitated monster sprawled on the table. He could think and plan.
“Women.” Jordan’s claws retracted, his mellow tone belied by the frozen fury on his face—powerful and animalistic, even in human form. “What are you going to do with yours?”
Conn wanted to respond with amusement. He searched, but the weight in his gut kept him somber. “I don’t know. She’s gifted ... and driven. Even with her powers, she’s not, well ...”
“One of us.” Jordan tucked his hands in his jeans pockets. “She may fight, she may even kill in battle. But the things we’ve done, even for the better good—”
“Yes.” Conn spoke softly, tearing his gaze from the remembered knowledge he saw in Jordan’s. “We were at war, we did what we had to do.” A mantra he’d repeated to himself on more than one dark night. “Do you ever ask yourself if the end justified the means?”
The people he’d killed, murdered really—Kurjans, shifters, enemy combatants—had needed to die for the war to end three hundred years ago. He’d killed coldly and without mercy, ensuring Dage could broker the treaty. Ensuring the people who wanted war to continue wouldn’t be at the table.
“No.” Jordan’s voice lowered to a tone hinting he lied to them both. “It’s too late for that question.” Most people didn’t realize the congenial leader of the feline nation had been as vicious and frequent an assassin as Conn in the last war.
“You’re right.” The chill in the room came from death, not air in the vents. The discussion held no place in this century. “What’s your plan with Katie?”
The lion’s snarl held frustration. “She’s so young.”
Conn barked out a laugh, lacking in humor. “Been there. I wouldn’t wait a century, my friend. It’s too long.” He glanced at the man he’d bonded with over battle tactics and duty so long ago. They weren’t brothers, but they were close. “She loves you.”
“She’s a child with a crush.” Lines of frustration cut into the lion’s face. “I had hoped to give her time, but now she’s vulnerable ... and we’re at war again.”
So that was it. “Our mates don’t need to see what we do, Jordan.” Conn hadn’t been ordered to kill again. Yet. When he went, Moira would stay home. “The burden stays on our shoulders, not theirs.”
“Perhaps.” Jordan stretched his neck. “Katie needs to remain here while Emma figures out a way to deal with the catalyst now in her blood.” His words thickened on the last. “I’d stay, but I have a nation to clean up. Marcus was only the beginning.”
Yeah. Jordan needed to get the felines under control. “The sooner your people are solid, the better. At least, before the Bane’s Council comes for our heads.” The Bane’s Council hunted and killed werewolves, and the vampires hadn’t exactly been forthcoming about the infected wolf shifter being hidden on Jordan’s ranch.
“I know. By now I thought we’d have found Maggie’s people, but no luck. Perhaps she was alone.” Jordan shrugged, pivoting for the door. “In my mind, she’s a wolf, not a werewolf.”
The Bane’s Council wouldn’t see it that way.
Silence descended as the lion took his leave. Conn inhaled, filling his lungs. Bleach and death commingled in a scent that crawled like spiders over his skin. The urge to fight, the urge to protect the life he wanted, swirled through his blood until his shoulders snapped straight. The monster on the gurney was the beginning, and he knew it. He also knew, without question, what Emma’s test would reveal. He sensed the truth.
This was no ordinary werewolf. Its legs hung off the metal edge, its muscle tone beyond that of a normal animal. Well over eight feet, even in death, power suffused the were. After Emma concluded her tests, he’d have to notify the Bane’s Council. Right or wrong, he wouldn’t report Maggie’s existence.
Conn stepped closer, peering down at the animal. “The only question I have is whether you were lion, wolf, or multi.” Wait. He had a second question. How in the hell had Katie sensed the beast?
His soldier’s mind whipped battle plans into place. If Katie had a gift, he’d use it. Even if he had to go through Jordan Pride.
War sucked.
Moira edged down the hallway toward a gathering room at the opposite end of the elevator. She desperately needed an Irish whiskey. Stomping around the corner, she stopped in her tracks at Katie huddled in a captain’s chair, her somber gaze on the flickering light of a television showing all static. The low buzz filled the room along with the smoky scent of despair.
Taking a breath, Moira flicked her wrist and the television shut off. Pivoting, she dropped into a deep leather chair the color of Brenna’s gray eyes. An oddity, since the rest of the sisters had green eyes. Bren’s eyes had created a family joke. Her father raised his eyebrows at any man in the vicinity with gray eyes, always sending her mother into peals of laughter. “Katie. Can I help?”
Katie jerked, her gaze swinging away from the blank screen. “Not unless you can cure the virus.” Red and swollen, the rims of her eyes made Moira blink in reaction.
“Ah, no. We’ve tried for the last eight months.” To alter a cure enough to bind to the necessary chromosomes was possible, but they needed a physical concoction first. “Emma found the right concoction of drugs to counteract the catalyst in a pregnant mate ... and I assume she’ll start looking for a way to attack the catalyst in your blood. If you’ll let her.”
“No. I made my decision.”
Yeah. Moira figured. “Well, then she’ll find a drug or drugs to fight the virus as a whole.” Someday, with hard work ... and luck.
Katie sighed. “When? I mean, look how long AIDS research has been going on for humans. They haven’t found a cure.”
Moira narrowed her focus, searching beyond the scattering brain waves cascading off Katie. Dark and discombobulated, the rhythm changed in speed and frequency. “Wow. You have a lot going on there.” All waves held set patterns ... which she then altered to seek a different result. She had no idea how to alter Katie’s.
“Checking out my screwed-up aura?”
“Kind of.” Moira leaned forward, frowning at the shades of brown and gray in the waves. “Want me to try and reorganize the waves?” Such an attempt may be a seriously bad idea—sometimes waves and particles exploded. “There’s a definite risk.”
Katie shrugged, her eyes dull. “Go for it. I don’t care.”
“All right.” Moira rested her hands on her knees, palms up. She reached past the layers of brown, pleased to find a sparkling green flickering. “So. Tell me about Jordan.” The green flared to life, then sputtered.