Davin's Quest (15 page)

Callie stopped a few feet away from the bed, the tray still in her hand and just watched him, her head tilted to the side, her eyes narrowed in concentration. Rick started to sweat under her scrutiny. She was so beautiful and she’d never looked at him quite that way before, concentrating on him, on his comfort.

“Something’s different.”

Rick sat up and rested back against a pile of pillows. “I don’t know what you mean.”

Callie placed the tray on the bedside table. She sat on the edge of the bed and stared at him as Rick tried to stay calm. He’d always been careful to school his thoughts around this woman.

She reached out to touch his face, but he shied away. Immediately he regretted the move when he saw hurt cross her face.

“You know I’m empathic.” He nodded, not liking where this conversation was heading but helpless to stop it. “Well, you’ve always been blank to me, Rick.” She spoke in a low voice, her hands cradled in her lap. “But you’re not anymore. I’m starting to pick up…things…from you.” She blushed and looked down at her hands.

Rick swore under his breath. “Ignore it, Callie. Just forget all about it.”

She looked up until her gaze met his. “What if I don’t want to forget it? What if I can’t?”

“Dammit, Callie.” Rick looked away in frustration, but she drew him like a magnet and he found himself staring deep into her eyes as his emotions bubbled over. “You belong to Davin.”

She nodded. “We’re mates. I’m his and he’s mine.” Her expression turned shy, but determined.

“But…what if…”

“Forget it.” He took her hand. “It’s not right.”

She laughed in his face. “If you only knew my family, you wouldn’t say that. Besides—” she took his hand and pressed it to her heart, “—I know what you’re feeling, Rick. I feel your conflict, your desire to protect, and your attraction. I feel it too.”

He pulled away, shaking his head. “It isn’t right, Callie.”

She stood, looking down at him until he met her gaze. “My mother has three resonance mates. My biological father is Justin O’Hara, but his brothers Caleb and Mick are every bit my fathers as well. They raised me and they all love my mother. If you truly are my resonance mate, we could have that, Rick.

You, me and Davin could share our happiness and love for the rest of our lives. Give it some thought.”

Leaving him speechless, she turned and walked away.

Rick ate his breakfast mechanically, but her words haunted him.

87

Sinclair Prime was the Council’s best assassin. Retired now to participate in an experimental treatment program, he’d been called back for one last mission. He had never questioned the Council’s orders before, but since taking the treatment—which consisted of a concentrated dose of DNA-altering substances administered through a skinpatch—he was beginning to feel…things.

Startling, really, for an Alvian.

Sinclair had applied the skinpatch two nights ago, just before retiring for sleep. The next morning the top secret call had come in and he’d been activated. Bad timing, but the Council was well aware of his participation in the program. He knew it had to be very serious for them to call him out of retirement for one last job with his physical status at all in question.

So far, approximately thirty-seven hours since applying the patch, he was feeling only slight physical differences. He had a bit of a headache. That was all. The emotional component was much more worrying.

Sinclair Prime had never had emotions bother him much at all, though he was of warrior stock. The warrior DNA made him just a little more animalistic than the rest of the Alvian population, but the genetic designers who’d bred all emotion out of his people let the imperfection remain, since it made for more aggressive soldiers. As an assassin, he’d trained to suppress even the vestigial emotion that sometimes allowed him to feel echoes of pleasure, anger, anxiety and the like.

Problem was, he could no longer suppress it. Since applying the skinpatch, those vague echoes of emotion were no longer vague. They were becoming sharper with each passing minute and he was starting to long for things he’d thought dead and buried.

As a soldier, he’d never had a family except for the men he served with. When he’d been chosen as an assassin, even those loose ties to others of his kind had been severed. He found himself remembering the men he’d come up through the ranks with and laughing at odd memories of the things they’d done in their youth. He felt genuine fondness for some of those people in his past that he knew they would never understand.

Well, maybe soldiers would understand such things better than regular Alvians. His kind at least felt
something
, where the rest of the population had no emotions left at all.

Mixed emotions were not something to be brought on an assassination op, but Sinclair Prime couldn’t help it. The Council called and he answered. This would be the last time. As the hours wore on, the emotions were getting stronger and stronger. He was feeling happy emotions and frightening emotions he didn’t know how to deal with. He started thinking back over his career as he headed south in his personal transport, and didn’t like what he remembered—or felt—at all.

Guilt hit him out of nowhere for the lives he’d taken. No longer did he feel an efficient sort of vague pride about the cleanness of his kills. No, now he was feeling horror at the thought of how many lives he’d snuffed out without a second thought and it sickened him.

And now he was going to do it again. One last time.

He wasn’t sure if he could, but he knew it was either do this last job, or be the next target on the
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Council’s hit list. It was his life or Davin’s.

Rick recovered over the next day and a half. Callie brought him food and chastised him when he overtaxed himself walking to the bathroom and back to the bed, but he sort of enjoyed it. He’d never had anyone look after him. Well, not since before the cataclysm, but he’d only been a kid when his mother died.

Callie mothered him a bit, but with her, there was also the attraction. Rick loved to watch her move. He liked to make her smile and inwardly he basked in her attention, though he’d never let her know it.

Davin was a background presence, there constantly, watching with troubled eyes. Rick used the tall alien’s presence to keep himself on track, and Davin left him in peace…until he was healed and it was time to go back to his own quarters.

Preparing to leave the Chief Engineer’s suite, Davin blocked Rick’s path.

“We need to talk about Callie before you leave.”

“I’ve already said all I’m going to say on the subject.” Rick tried to push past, but Davin blocked him again.

“Don’t be a fool.” Davin’s voice was low, urgent. “You could be her resonance mate! It’d be a crime to throw that away.”

Rick’s reply was cut off as Callie walked in from the other room, her brow furrowed. She undoubtedly felt the emotion crowding the room and zinging back and forth between the two men in a standoff by the door.

Rick kept his voice pitched low. “Look, we don’t even know if I could be this resonance thing you keep going on about.” Rick was fed up.

“There’s one sure way to find out,” Davin’s words and stance dared Rick. The alien didn’t bother to keep his voice down. “Kiss her.”

Silence reigned for a long moment while Rick stood, tempted beyond reason. Then Callie pushed him too far, simply by moving to stand altogether too close. She reached up and placed her one hand on his shoulder.

“What’s this about?” she asked.

Rick’s fingers formed fists as he fought against his baser instincts that said to grab her and kiss her like she’d never been kissed before. Instead, he backed off, moving back into the room, leaving Davin facing his woman.

“Callie, you and Rick Hum. He could be another resonance mate, but he’s too stubborn to find out.”

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Callie actually blushed as Rick watched. “Davin, I…” She moved into the alien man’s arms, hugging him.

“I didn’t realize. I’m so sorry, my love. There’s something there, but I…”

“It’s all right,” Davin brushed her hair back with one hand as he stepped away from her. “We need to know if he is your resonance mate or not. Otherwise, the uncertainty will drive me mad.”

“I don’t want to hurt you.” Her voice was shatteringly gentle.

Davin leaned down to kiss her, just once. “Hurting you, hurts me. Your joy could never bring me pain.”

“You’re a generous man, Davin, and much too good for me.” Callie kissed him once, with palpable tenderness and love, then turned to face Rick. She walked right up to him and Rick felt frozen in place like a deer in a spotlight. Callie crowded him until they stood toe to toe, then she angled her sweet face upward in invitation.

“Just one kiss, Rick. I know you want to.” Her voice was that of the siren, tempting men to their deaths.

Rick was powerless against this, the final test. He’d been strong for weeks, but he could be strong no longer.

He jumped in headfirst, his arms snaking around her waist as his head dipped to claim her lips with his.

He’d been wanting to taste her delicate flavor for a long time. Hunger rode him as she responded to his demanding kiss. He knew he was going too fast, but he couldn’t help himself. Callie O’Hara was in his arms and his body knew no respite from the yearning he’d too long denied.

She gasped as he moved closer, pulling her unresisting body against his, conforming her curves to the hard planes of his chest, his abdomen and his aching cock. She felt so good, he never wanted to let go.

But this was wrong. A niggling voice in the back of his mind insisted that she wasn’t his to keep. He had to let her go.

With Herculean effort, he eased off, bit by bit, though his body protested every millimeter he put between them. At length he lifted his lips, allowing one final caressing sweep of his lips against hers, over her cheek and down into her soft neck.

“We can’t do this, Callie.”

“I think we just did.” Amusement filled her breathless voice, stunning him. How could she see humor in his utter failure of control? Rick stepped back, heat rising to his cheeks in an angry flush as he broke the contact between their bodies completely. Opening his eyes at last, he was blinded by the shining crystals all around the room. His heart sank and soared simultaneously as he understood what it meant. Callie was his resonance mate.

Rick looked beyond her, searching for Davin, but the Alvian was gone from the room.

“I’m sorry, Callie.” Rick stepped away, heading for the door. “I can’t do this. It isn’t fair to Davin and it isn’t fair to you. You’re not living in the Waste with no choices. You chose Davin long before I arrived. I respect that choice.”

He left before she could speak, but he still heard the faint echo of her voice in his mind as she ’pathed just one sentence to him.

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“What if you’re both my choice?”

That one sentence haunted Rick’s sleep for days, but he did his best to act as if nothing were changed between them when he went back to work. He was still partnered with Callie for the bigger experiments and he treated her professionally. He was torn inside, knowing how she tasted now, how she responded, but it was all wrong. She deserved more than to be shared between two men. She deserved his respect.

The respect that grew out of the love hidden deep in his heart for her.

Sinclair Prime looked through his scope, lining up Chief Engineer Davin in his crosshairs. With one squeeze of the trigger, Davin would be gone and Sinclair Prime would be officially retired. He’d turn down any further missions, no matter what they said. He couldn’t do this anymore. He was beginning to feel things that made it impossible for him to kill anyone in cold blood ever again.

But that’s all he was good at.

Sinclair Prime didn’t know where that left him. An Alvian with uncontrollable emotions was unstable.

He’d probably end in madness sooner rather than later if the way he felt was any indication. An assassin with a brand new conscience, who could no longer kill, was a liability. The Council would mark him next.

Either way he was a dead man.

Much like Davin, who even now moved around his training hall, not knowing death waited a nerve impulse away. Sinclair Prime studied the man. A throwback, Davin was a rather famous oddity among his people. Sadly, Sinclair hadn’t given the Chief Engineer much thought before today.

Now that Sinclair Prime had some idea of the emotional storm the Chief Engineer had to deal with every day of his life, he had new respect for the man. And envy.

Sinclair Prime watched through the scope as Davin put his arm around a pretty Breed female and walked out of the room. A few minutes later they reappeared in his private quarters, several floors above the training area, locked in an embrace. The passion Sinclair saw between the resonance mates was astounding, and humbling.

Sinclair had to pull the trigger now, before his new emotions unmanned him. He had to do it. Had to. It was Davin or him. Simple as that.

Sinclair took careful aim, lining up the shot, but at the last possible moment, he moved just a millimeter to the right.

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Glass broke and a second later, a red stain erupted on Davin’s sleeve. Confusion reigned as he looked around in bewilderment. He’d been shot.

As the thought registered, Davin pulled Callie down with him, behind a metal screen. Someone had shot at them!

“We’ve got to get to the hallway. Whoever it is, they’re outdoors, shooting in. We need to get away from the windows.”

“But you’re hurt!” Callie tried to see his wound, but he pushed her away with some force, toward the door that led to the hall.

“Get to safety first! Whoever shot me is still out there. I’m fine for now. It only hit my arm.” Davin knew there was something odd about that. Any assassin worthy of the title wouldn’t have missed when he’d been standing out in the open like that. Davin hadn’t moved suddenly to throw off the shot. No, he’d been standing quite still, making all too easy a target. The assassin shouldn’t have missed.

So why had he? Was it a warning shot? Some kind of game? Davin didn’t know, but he did realize he had to be suspicious of everything now. The stakes had just been raised once again.

They crawled on their bellies to the door and out into the windowless hallway without further incident.

Davin sent a message on the hall comm for security and med help, but Callie called Rick as well. Davin would have argued¾Rick had kept his distance from them in the past weeks¾but he couldn’t be sure of the Alvian med team. They might yet kill him in the guise of treatment if they were somehow part of the plot to get rid of him. Rick’s observation of their work couldn’t hurt.

Rick arrived before the med team and applied pressure to the flowing wound, his face grim. Davin felt a tingle of heat and realized Rick was using his healing abilities to stop the flow of blood. Things were more dire than he realized, then, since Callie made no protest.

Davin looked from his beautiful mate’s worried eyes to the grim face of the man who also loved her. He knew what he had to do.

“If I don’t make it,” Davin gasped as pain hit him anew, “take care of Callie. Promise me, Rick.” Davin grabbed on to Rick’s arm, digging deep with his fingers.

Rick knew Davin was in bad shape the moment he arrived on the scene. The shot had hit an artery, though there was no way a sniper could have aimed for such a thing. No, more likely, the sniper had missed the juicier targets and hit Davin’s arm, the projectile hitting just the right spot more out of luck than any skill on the shooter’s part. Rick used a burst of his healing energy to repair the nick to the artery, but Davin had already lost a lot of blood. Still, he’d pull through if Rick had anything to say about it—and if the Alvian med team could pump him up with fluids or a blood transfusion—but they hadn’t made the scene yet.

Now Davin was demanding a promise to take care of Callie and Rick couldn’t say no. Suddenly, everything was clear. He loved Callie, but he cared for Davin too, like a brother in arms, an older, wiser sibling who looked out for his family. Rick was part of that family now. Had been ever since Davin convinced him to take part in the crystallography program. Davin had been looking out for him, and for
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