Despite himself, guilt attacked him. “And I wasn’t there for you.”

  She shook her head. “I ended up in a mental hospital,” she said. “Luckily my shifting was inhibited, so I didn’t give myself away. And when I was locked up, I found out…that the emotions can go the other way.”

  Kane furrowed his brow. “What do you mean?”

  “I can heal people,” she said. “Sometimes. If they have certain kinds of problems with their brain or their emotions, sometimes I can heal them.”

  Kane huffed out a breath. That sounded more like the Rachelle he knew, doing good wherever she was. He hoped she wasn’t lying. “So you did that in the mental institution?”

  She nodded. “The Agency was monitoring medical reports all over the country. They heard about me and got me out.”

  She added, “Some of them are okay—I know my handler doesn’t like everything they’re doing. But they keep the other side in check, when they can. Most of what they’re doing is creating cures to offset what Gen-X is inventing.”

  Great. A gen-alt Cold War. And she put herself right in the middle.

  “So you think you owe them?” he asked.

  “They owned me,” she said. “They knew my secret. It took me years to gather enough leverage to get out from under.”

  And she still thought they were the good guys? Kane shook his head.

  “But you didn’t.”

  “I did for a while,” she said. “But they still come to me with jobs that need my special expertise.”

  Kane gazed at her out of hooded eyes. “‘No’ is a good word,” he said. “Especially useful when douchebags want you to do something morally questionable.”

  “Says the guy who was a minion to Selina.”

  Kane froze, feeling like she’d stabbed him. “That was a low blow,” he said.

  She dropped her eyes. “Sorry.”

  His phone buzzed. “Shit,” he muttered. He couldn’t afford not to see who it was. There was too much going on.

  He pulled it out and glanced at the screen. It was a message from the tech working on the footage, with a link to a photo.

  Best I could do, it said. Might be enough for an ID.

  Kane slammed his thumb on the link, and it started to load.

  “You’re right, okay?” he said. “About me and Selina. I just wanted to believe you were better than that—that you could make me better, like you did before. Not the person who turned himself into a monster to please a liar who said she loved me, but who destroyed everything she touched. Including me.”

  “Yeah,” Rachelle said. “I know she did. Why the hell do you think I said yes to the douchebags?”

  “What?” he said.

  The photo finished downloading and appeared on his screen. Rachelle grabbed his hand and held the phone up in front of him. Kane stared at it.

  “Because she’s the one who’s financing the Gen-X lab. Selina robbed your casino.”

  Chapter 16

  This. Could not. Be happening.

  He should have known Selina would never be done destroying his life. He’d felt her claws in his mind all these years. And now, just when he’d found Raven again, just when he thought for one fucking minute something good might happen, she was back.

  And Raven wasn’t who he thought she was.

  Focus on the job. Focus on the job. Focus on the job.

  “What the hell?” were his first words. “Selina was small time. There’s no way she had the juice to pull off jobs like this.”

  “Not when we knew her,” Rachelle said. “But she does now. She must have hooked up with Gen-X and had them enhance her abilities.”

  “What abilities?” Kane said. “She isn’t even a shifter.”

  “Half, they think,” Rachelle said. “I don’t know what kind, or if she has an animal that manifests. But her mental abilities…”

  Kane felt a cold lump in the pit of his stomach. “What mental abilities?” But he knew.

  “Didn’t you ever wonder how she turned her whole crew into her personal slaves? Convinced them to do whatever she wanted?” Her voice dropped. “How she got you to do whatever she wanted?”

  He’d thought it was the mating bond.

  Kane’s head started to hurt. He could hear Selina’s voice in his mind. Those others are weak, it whispered. They’re our enemies. She’s our enemy.

  Wolf started to snarl.

  No! Kane said. It’s Raven. Protect Raven.

  But Wolf was confused. He wanted to come out. Kane saw claws extend out of his fingers. He turned away. He had to get away from Raven.

  But she was there at his side, her hand on his chest. “It’s okay. Shhh, Wolf. It’s okay.”

  Wolf began to whine. Kane’s head was pounding. He could feel Rachelle’s presence soothing him, soothing Wolf, but he wanted to run so bad. To kill. It always got better after there was blood.

  “That’s her in your head,” Rachelle whispered. “You don’t have to listen. She can’t hurt us.”

  Gradually his breathing slowed, and the need to run faded a bit. His head was still hurting, but not as much.

  “Shit,” he muttered. “It hasn’t been that bad in years.”

  Rachelle looked like she was going to be sick. “Maybe it’s worse now that you know she’s nearby,” she said. “It reactivated the neural pathways…”

  “What the fuck did she do to me?”

  “As far as we can tell, it’s related to alpha powers,” she said. “Only more intense. She can alter the brain waves of other shifters so they’re susceptible to her suggestions or commands. It works best on males—something to do with pheromones or the brain waves associated with, um, falling in love. Or lust.”

  That part rang true. Selina’s crew had all been male shifters, and she’d played them off against each other, each one willing to bleed the others just to please her.

  “That’s what happened to Noah,” he said. “I knew he had a new girlfriend, and I thought she was distracting him. I never imagined she was literally fucking with his head.”

  “You can’t blame yourself for that,” Rachelle said. “You didn’t even know it was possible.”

  “We have to tell the Council,” he said. “They don’t know who she is, or what she can do. This mind thing, the cloaking power…we can’t keep that a secret.”

  “We can’t tell them,” Rachelle said.

  “I’m not hiding this!” He slammed his hands against the dashboard, denting it. He didn’t even fucking care. “I’m not that person anymore. I tell the truth, and I do the right thing.” No matter what happened he had to hold on to that, especially if Selina was back.

  He turned to her. “I know you don’t want people to know what you are, but our individual problems don’t matter compared to what will happen if Selina isn’t caught. You have to see that.”

  “I do,” she said. “But there’s more to it than that. At least wait until Jace gets here, and then I’ll explain it to you both.”

  She took a deep breath. “And I’ll abide by the decision you make.”

  He gazed at her, wishing he had the ability to tell if a woman was telling the truth. But obviously, he was a shit judge of character.

  “Do you think Selina really has this cloaking power?”

  “She must have,” Rachelle said. “I don’t know how she could have avoided the security cameras, otherwise.”

  “She didn’t,” he said. “We got that picture off the one in the vault. That’s what made me come over here tonight—I got a security alert with the footage.”

  Rachelle frowned. “She was just on one camera? That’s weird.”

  “Could she have gotten too tired to hold the cloak?” Kane asked. “You said it wasn’t supposed to last more than a few minutes.”

  “Maybe,” Rachelle said. “But why not disable that camera, or physically block it? Why allow her photo to be captured? She’s never done that before.”

  Maybe she wanted someone to see her. That thought rippled uneasily through Kane’s mind. Selina couldn’t possibly know he was here, working this job.

  Unless…shit. Noah knew. Noah could have given her pictures, background on the security team…enough to ID him.

  Kane’s phone chirped and he looked at the screen, dread spreading through him.

  It was a text from an unknown number.

  Hey Hunter. Miss me? I missed you.

  That ex-Marine wasn’t as fun as you. He didn’t like to fight.

  If you’re a good boy, I’ll let you come back home.

  S.

  Kane felt the last of the layers around his heart shatter, and rage roared through him. No matter what he had to do, this was the last time Selina would ever fuck with him.

  * * *

  An hour later, Rachelle sat on a couch in a private suite at the resort, picking at a breakfast sandwich, waiting for Kane’s packmates to settle in for their meeting.

  Jesse glanced at her plate. “Eat,” he said quietly. “We were all up most of the night, and we need energy or we’ll never make it through the day.”

  She tried, but it was hard to swallow. Kane was still angry with her for keeping so much from him—the Agency, Selina, the fact that she was an operative working on the same case he was.

  He was also angry he’d had to meet with the Council and not tell them everything he knew. He’d settled for telling them he recognized Selina from his days living on the streets in Seattle, and enough about her powers to make them understand how dangerous she was.

  But Rachelle had asked him to compromise the integrity he’d fought so hard to build, and she didn’t know if he would ever forgive her for that.

  This meeting was just Jace, Rafe, Jesse and Israel; Kane hadn’t wanted to involve anyone else unless it was absolutely necessary. They were already risking their Enforcement contracts with the Council, which were a large source of income for the pack, and the foundation for their reputation in the shifter world. The fewer people who knew what was going on, the better.

  The rest of them got food and coffee, and spread themselves around the living area of the suite. Jace waited until they were all settled, gave Rachelle a long, appraising look, and said to Kane, “I take it this is the real briefing?”

  Kane nodded, continuing to stand. Rachelle could see him struggling with himself. He’d never told the pack everything he’d done while they were scattered, and she knew that baring his soul to them now—when he was so emotionally shattered by everything he’d just learned—was going to be incredibly hard.

  She wished she could stand up there and support him, but she had the feeling she’d only make it harder.

  Israel glanced over at her, and then got up and leaned quietly against the wall behind Kane—a silent support. She gave him a grateful smile, which he didn’t return.

  Apparently he was mad at her too.

  Jace gave a brief nod and sat back. “Go ahead,” he said to Kane.

  Kane paced back and forth, running his hands through his short, already mussed hair. He looked so gorgeous, and so vulnerable, Rachelle’s heart nearly broke.

  “What I told the Council was true as far as it went. What I didn’t tell them was that Selina and her crew weren’t just people I encountered on the streets. I was part of the gang, and Selina was…” He broke off and took a deep breath. “Selina was my…I guess you’d call her my mate.”

  Dead silence.

  “Holy fuck,” Rafe said.

  Jace cut his eyes in that direction, and Rafe made a zipper over his lips.

  “Me and about a dozen other guys,” Kane added.

  All the men except Israel winced, and Rachelle knew they were imagining trying to share their mates with a dozen other guys. Rachelle heard a low hum of growls as all their wolves objected at once.

  Kane, ignoring their reaction, went on to give a more thorough background on Selina, as well as some of the things he’d done at her orders. He spoke slowly with many pauses, like each word was tearing a piece of his soul out, and Rachelle wanted nothing more than to wrap her arms around him and drown him and Wolf in love.

  But it wasn’t her place. Not now.

  Kane glanced at Rachelle. “I’ve recently learned that Selina is working for the remnants of Gen-X, a clandestine government group that did illegal genetic experiments on shifters in the hopes of creating some kind of supersoldiers,” he said. “It appears they’ve made some breakthroughs in shifter enhancement, partly thanks to an infusion of cash from the casino robberies. They’re now ready to sell their work on the open market. We have to stop them.”

  “Agreed,” Jace said. “But it seems to me the Council would be better equipped.”

  “You’d think,” Kane said. “But Rachelle asked me to hold off. I wanted to hear what she has to say—and I wanted you to hear it—before making a decision.”

  They all turned their heads and looked at her. It was intimidating, even to someone who wasn’t vulnerable to alpha dominance. She could still feel the energy, and any one of them was alpha enough to have his own pack. Jesse’s mind was diamond-bright and sharp enough to slice you to ribbons.

  Her respect for Jace went up. He must be an extraordinary alpha to command their loyalty.

  His face had gone very still. “Explain, please,” he said to Rachelle.

  His alpha energy crackled through the room.

  “First,” she said, “the Council may be compromised.” She outlined what she knew about Gen-X and the Agency. “There have recently been some issues that make the Agency believe that someone in the Council may be assisting Gen-X.”

  They all looked shocked at that.

  “Also,” she said, “there were more personal reasons.” She braced herself for the reactions she would get. “Selina controls the members of her gang—primarily men—by using her mental powers similar to the way an alpha compels obedience. But in her case, she rewires their neural pathways to make the effect ongoing and permanent.”

  That got them.

  “She turns them into zombies?” Rafe asked.

  “In a way,” Rachelle said. “Her commands are basically impossible to resist, and the neurochemical reaction acts like an addiction. They crave her presence—her approval—to the point that separation from her causes withdrawal symptoms so severe it breaks their minds. They literally can’t stay away.”

  Kane was leaning against the wall, his eyes closed. Israel was next to him, only inches away.

  “But Kane did it,” Jesse said.

  “Yeah,” Kane said, not opening his eyes. “Kind of. Spent a lot of nights chained to a bed to keep me from going back.”

  “Holy fuck,” Rafe whispered again.

  No kidding. Rachelle’s stomach clenched just watching Kane’s misery.

  “But he did get away,” Jace said.

  “Yes,” Rachelle said. “As far as Gen-X, the Agency, and the Council can find out, he’s the only one who ever has.”

  More shocked silence.

  Kane’s head snapped up, and he stared at her, eyes burnished gold. “I’m what?” His face went pale, then red.

  She looked straight at him. “You’re the only known person with the mental resistance to have fought off Selina’s influence. That’s the good news.”

  “Well, shit,” Rafe said. “Way to go, Stone-friend.” Then he frowned. “Wait. Does that mean there’s bad news?”

  She said, “Everybody wants to take his brain apart and find out how he did it.”

  Jace’s alpha energy began crackling through the room again, and his eyes got gold flecks in them. “Are you saying they would come after Kane and make him submit to testing involuntarily?”

  “Gen-X, absolutely,” Rachelle said. “I wish I could tell you the Council and the Agency wouldn’t, but I can’t. This ability of Selina’s is incredibly dangerous. Replicating Kane’s immunity—whether or not he agrees to testing—may come under the heading of ‘sacrifices for the greater good,’ as far as they’re concerned.”

  Kane had slid down the wall until he was sitting on the floor, head in his hands. Israel had moved so his leg was touching Kane’s shoulder, comforting him with touch, the way wolves did.

  Kane raised his head. “If they’re so jazzed about experimenting on me, why haven’t they?”

  She bit her lip. “They don’t know who you are.”

  He fixed his gaze on her, uncomprehending.

  She said, “They only know Selina had a crew member called Hunter who left, and took a young wolf shifter with him. They call you Subject Alpha because they don’t know your real name.”

  Jace narrowed his eyes. “But you knew it.”

  She nodded slowly. “Let’s just say I didn’t think they needed to be aware of that. I still don’t. But if we tell them all this—or if they get their hands on Selina—they’ll find out.”

  Jace gazed at her, tapping his fingers on the arm of the chair he was sitting in.

  “You’re not suggesting letting her go to protect Kane, are you?” he asked. “And yourself, of course.”

  She shook her head. This was her moment of truth.

  “I’m also a genetically modified shifter,” she said. “I have unique powers. I can find her.”

  Chapter 17

  Kane sat on a long metal bench running down the inside of one of the Silverlake vans, across from Rachelle. She was sitting with her eyes closed and her brow furrowed, in deep concentration.

  She’d picked up Selina’s trail in the parking lot. From what she said, she had the ability to sense and memorize a person’s energy residue—whatever that meant. It was what she’d been doing in the vault. She could follow it like some kind of mystical scent trail—as long as it was still fresh.

  It all sounded like a bunch of airy-fairy bullshit to him. But then, a few hours ago he would have said the same thing about her cloaking ability, until he’d seen it with his own eyes.

  He wondered again what kind of animal she was—or had been engineered from. He also wondered if she could shift, or if, like Selina, she only had mental abilities.

  Thinking about Rachelle being like Selina sent chills down his spine.

 

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