Winter's Wrath: Sacrifice (Winter's Saga #3) (26 page)

“Gavil, I hope you realize by my allowing you to be privy to the conversations that took place this morning,
that
you are being groomed for even bigger things.  I also hope you took note of what happens to those who cross me.”  The doctor shrugged innocently, as though simply stating the most obvious of natural consequences.

“Of course, sir,” Gavil nodded, feeling his stomach drop. 

“Good.  I’ll see you in the hang
a
r at eleven.”

“Yes, sir.”   The door clicked closed behind him.

“Dr. Chaunders.  I have other matters to attend.”  Williams locked eyes with Chaunders.

“Of course.”  Getting the hint, Chaunders rose from his seat and grabbed with shaking hands at the papers in front of him.  He stumbled a bit working his way out from between the empty seats around the table, but he was in a hurry to get away from Kenneth Williams.  Being in a room alone with this man made Chaunders feel like a moth playing on a freshly spun web.  He couldn’t get away from the bloody mass fast enough.

The click of the door had Williams reach into his front breast pocket, not for his soothing metallic marbles, but for a small case he had taken to carrying around with him.  He opened it carefully on the desk and removed one of the syringes found there, popping off the protective cap.  Only paying partial attention to his own actions, he removed his gloves, flicked the syringe to be sure there were no air bubbles,
and then
slipped the needle into a bulging vein in his hand.  Pressing the plunger with a hand that trem
bled
only slightly, he stared at the puncture site, enjoying the icy cold of the fluid as it slipped up his arm.  He closed his eyes at the sensation, taking a deep breath.  The tremors that had been building in his body smoothed away within seconds.  Williams smiled to himself at his genius as he replaced the tools of his survival back into
their
case and secured
it
in his pocket.

Gavil knew he had a job to do, and no matter what he couldn’t get out of it now. But there was one person he needed to see before he could do anything else.

“Step aside.  I have to deliver a message from the Director.”  Gavil stared, unflinching at the guards stationed outside the room he’d learned his brother occupied.  It didn’t take much digging.  Everyone knew Gavil Young and they knew him to be one of Williams’ chosen inner circle.  He asked a question, and answers were immediately forthcoming.

“Right away, sir.”  One soldier fumbled with a key from his belt unlocking the door to Creed’s quarters while the other stood to the side and saluted.  As soon as physically possible, the door stood ajar and no one stood in Gavil’s way
as he
enter
ed
his brother’s room.

Gavil marched into the room and closed the door behind him.   His brother was seated on the edge of his standard issue bed.  He hadn’t even looked up; his eyes were locked onto the image of the girl.

“Creed,” he whispered.
             

Creed didn’t look up, but spoke.  “I can’t decide, Gavil.”

“You know you don’t really have a choice, right?”

“I know if you’d succeeded in killing me back at the Match, I would have never met this girl.  I can’t decide if that would
have
been better.”  Creed’s voice sounded disconnected, even to Gavil who couldn’t g
ive
a rat’s ass.

“What the hell difference does it make now?  You know you have to get on the plane, right?”

“I’ve dreamed of her, Gavil.  I remember her in my dreams, but until just now, I thought she was just that—a dream.”

“There’s no one that’s going to rescue her from him, except you.  If you want her to live, you have to play along with his game, until we can kill him.”

“What did you say?” Gavil’s words caused enough surprise in Creed, they yanked his eyes from Meg’s picture so he could frown at his brother’s face.

“Listen, I know I hate you, and you hate me.  I don’t care.  The only thing I cared about was tossed out with the trash six months ago.  I always knew this place was hell.  All I knew was hate, manipulation and power.  What the hell was the point of any of it, right?”

Then I met a girl.  She was a meta who kept to herself.  She had a top-secret assignment and was usually on duty, but she came to deliver a message to me from Williams when I was recovering from our Match.  That’s the first time I met her.  We talked—I mean really talked.  She was different.  She made me want to be a better man.  But she…”  Gavil shook his head angrily.  His eyes looked red.  Creed stared in confusion, wondering what Gavil’s angle was.

“She was killed.  Her body incinerated along with all the other medical garbage.  She was just a pawn in one of Williams’
damn
games.”  Gavil’s eyes glistened with tears Creed had never known his brother to shed.  “That’s just it, Creed.  We’re all pawns in Williams’ sick games.”

Creed stared at his brother through new eyes, unsure whether to trust him.  Could a girl change him so drastically?  His eyes slipped down to the photograph still clutched in his large hands.  Her dark hair was spilling wildly out of a clip as it swung.  She was running and was in mid stride as the photograph was snapped.  Her face was a mixture of concentration and emotion as she looked toward, but not directly at the camera.  Her figure was lean and muscular but not so much that it hid her soft female curves.  She was strikingly beautiful, but it was her eyes that commanded his attention.  They were large, wide-set, dark pools that seemed to look directly into the soul—to cause joy or pain with equal devastation.  He knew in a part of his heart that still remembered every moment with her, that he loved her completely.

Yes, a girl could melt his brother’s icy heart, just as
one
had melted his own.

Creed looked back into crystal blue eyes of his brother and nodded.  “I have to protect her from Williams.”

“She would have wanted me to turn the other cheek,” Gavil mumbled unable to say his former love’s name.  “She used to tell me to let go of my anger with you.  She told me she believed family to be a beautiful thing, that she remembered her own mother before she died after a long illness.  That’s why she was orphaned, and fell into Williams’ recruitment machine.  She told me I should feel lucky to have a brother.”  Gavil scoffed at Creed like that was the most ridiculous thing he’d ever heard. 

“Even though she’d tell me all these things, she never judged me for how I felt, or for what I did.  It’s like she was waiting for me to come around to her way of thinking.”  He stared at his hands, as though remembering her holding them. 

“She would want me to help you and Meg.”  Gavil shrugged.  “I’m doing this for her, Creed.  Everything I do now is to honor her memory.”

“I don’t have much time,” Gavil looked around the room as though waking from a dream.  “Williams told me you and I are to figure out who ‘leads’ the team, so it would make sense that we talk on the plane.  We just have to make sure everyone still thinks I hate you.  I don’t want anyone catching on to any plans we come up with.”

“Gavil, are you really going to help me?” Creed wanted so badly to trust his brother, but was fearful.

“She’s beautiful, man.” Gavil nodded toward Meg’s picture before reaching into his own pocket.  He pulled out a picture carefully laminated for protection and smiled at the image softly before handing it to his brother.  “This is her.” 

Creed looked into the face of a smiling girl wearing fatigues, red hair falling loosely around her shoulders in waves as though it had just been freed from a tight braid.  Her green eyes crackled with kindness.  Standing in the picture beside her was Gavil.  He was ignoring the camera, choosing instead to watch the smiling girl at his side.  His brother never looked happier than he did in this picture next to the girl he loved. 

“I’m sorry, man.  You two look really happy together.”  Creed didn’t know what else to say to his brother.  Life sucks.

Gavil nodded solemnly, taking
the
picture from his brother and slipping it back into his pocket as though he’d done it a thousand times before. 

“Meet me at the hanger in thirty minutes.  We’re going to have to keep everyone thinking we’re ready to kill each other, but when it comes to it, Creed ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend.’  I want Williams dead.  Clear?”

Gavil extended his hand to his younger brother.  All of this
was
so foreign to Creed, he hesitated briefly before reaching out and shaking the hand of the person who tormented him his whole life and even tried to kill him more than once.

The brothers locked eyes as they stood together—an unspoken truce accepted by both.  Nodding, Gavil turned to the door, fist pounding on it.  It swung open.  “He will need an escort to the hanger in exactly thirty minutes,” Gavil barked the order to the soldier nearest him. 

“Sir, yes sir.”  The meta clipped.

Without a backward glance, Gavil turned left and walked down the research hospital’s hallway passing undisturbed, thoughts of h
er always just below his gruff surface.

She heard breathing.

Rhythmic, deep, sleeping breaths.

Meg couldn’t open
her
eyes—terrified at what she would find.

It may sound childish, but she didn’t care.  She refused to confirm what she was pretty sure had happened. 

The slow, contented breaths had to come from her friend turned more-than-friend, Cole asleep in her bed.  She stifled a groan.

Inwardly, she laid into Evan for making
her
take those freakin’ sleeping pills.  She was so lonely, so hurt from months of self-inflicted isolation and sleep deprivation.  Meg was intoxicated with the chemical induced pleasure of feeling sleepy.  She was drunk on a full stomach, a
my-family-loves-me-no-matter-what kind of peace
and
a handsome guy pouring love down the empath funnel directly into her aching heart.  He was so gentle and warm snuggled close and when he kissed her (she swallowed hard), he kissed her as if he was tasting the most delicious chocolates.

Damn it!  It was the perfect storm for crossing the line! 

Eyes still pinched shut, Meg let up her anger at everyone else and realized there was only one person to blame for any wrongdoing: herself.  She should have never let this happen. 

With a deep sigh, she forced
her
self to open her eyes and face the truth lying right beside her.  She didn’t know what she was going to say, but she couldn’t lie in bed with a blanket pulled over her head forever, however much she wanted to. 

And there, laying peacefully beside her was…Maze. 

At sensing her movement he opened his sleepy yellow eyes and winked at her before
lifting his head
and yawing wide enough for her to count each and every one of the flesh-tearing teeth inside his muzzle. 

She stared, wide-eyed.  “Maze?”

“Meg?” 

Her head spun at the voice from behind her.  There, seated in the wingback chair in the corner of her room, was Cole rubbing the sleep from his eyes.  His clothes were rumpled and he moved as though carefully working the kinks out of his body.

“Cole?”

“Hey, kid.  How did you sleep?”

Her jaw dropped as she looked back and forth between the coyote still lying beside her and Cole rolling his stiff neck slowly in a chair five feet away. 

“Um…you tell me.”  She had never felt more confused than she did that moment.

“Well, there was no screaming, moaning or thrashing,” he smiled.  She was too panicked to read his emotions.

What the hell did he mean by that?
Meg started gnawing on her bottom lip. 
Holy crap,
her eyes bugged out. 
Did we do more than kiss?  Was that a mischievous glint in his eye?
 

He stood and reached his muscular arms high above his head, stret
ching his full six foot, two
inches
and grinned adorably at her.  “Are you hungry?”

Meg couldn’t do anything but stare and try to control the fight-or-flight impulse coursing through her body.  She shook her head and covered her face with her hands, trying to control herself. 

All she could think was,
Oh my, God!  Oh my, God! Oh my, God!
 

“Hey, are you okay?  You look upset all of a sudden,” Cole’s green eyes crackled with worry as he walked toward her and sat at the edge of the bed.  His warm hands grabbed her wrists and gently urged her hands away from her face.  He studied her carefully, waiting for her to respond.

“Cole, don’t be mad at me when I ask this, okay?”  Meg was tried to control the panic in her voice.

“Okay.”  Cole looked warily at her.

“No, seriously.   I need to hear you say it,” she pleaded.