Chosen by Sin Read online

  Dex managed to hide his surprise at their mentioning the mage. “Apparently, you already know. Why don’t you tell me?”

  “You’ve been targeted by a diabol. And you’re afraid it will harm those close to you.”

  “That’s right,” he said. “I want to prevent that. I want to prevent the loss of further life in general. Despite what you think of me, I don’t enjoy needless killing or suffering.”

  The center shape-shifter inclined his head. “So your liaison has said. We just weren’t sure whether to believe it.”

  He assumed they were talking about Jes. Then again, she’d denied having any connections to the shape-shifters. How had she set up this meeting then? She’d mentioned an Otherborn Ambassador before. Could she have meant Bodin?

  Dex felt his eyes widen. “Who convinced you to meet with me?” he asked.

  Please don’t let it have been him, Dex thought. Not the same werewolf who’d saved Jes, making her believe he was some kind of supporter of Otherborn rights. But despite Dex’s horror, he knew it was a very real possibility. If Jes’s goal was to help him, she would do whatever she thought was necessary, even if it meant relying on someone he hated. As much as he didn’t want to admit it, he couldn’t really blame her. A part of him admired her ruthlessness.

  “Answer me,” he prodded the shape-shifters.

  “It doesn’t matter, Mr. Hunt. We’ve had our eye on you. Now that we’ve run out of time, we have no other choice but to accept the help you’ve offered.”

  “What do you mean, you’ve run out of time?

  “We’ve suffered a revolution of sorts. Many shape-shifters are tired of trying to make progress the civilized way. They’re fed up with being treated as parasites undeserving of even the government’s most basic protection.”

  “How can they be fed up when European shape-shifters haven’t even exposed their existence to the government?”

  “U.S. shape-shifters have asked for help from shape-shifters world-wide. They are no longer willing to rely on peaceful negotiation and some are willing to take their chances by joining forces with another oppressed group.”

  “Oppressed group? Tell me you’re not referring to diabols as an underrepresented minority.”

  “The diabols you speak of are demons, cast into hell, persecuted for their past mistakes. They long for a second chance at life, and that’s exactly what our rebel shape-shifters want as well. In a few days, the solstice gates will open and for one hour conditions will be such that shape-shifters all over the world can work together to create a bridge. One large enough to carry every diabol in hell into the living world.”

  As he listened, Dex shivered, not so much because of the shape-shifter’s words but because of the expression on his face. They’d already given up, he realized. They held no hope that they’d be able to stop the mass bridging they were talking about. Or that Dex and the U.S. government would either.

  “If a few shape-shifters can work together to create the bridge, why can’t the rest of you work together to destroy it?”

  “We’ve tried on a smaller scale, but not every shape-shifter knows how the bridge is made. It’s taught to us by the evil ones. Obviously, unless we open ourselves to communication with them, a dangerous prospect indeed, we can’t know how to counter what they’ve started. Not effectively enough to change things.”

  “But if we can stop it…if this solstice gate closes…”

  “Then the threat of mass bridging is significantly reduced. Shape-shifters can, of course, continue to bridge diabols in small numbers, but those are intermittent situations we’re more equipped to handle. As we have been.”

  “Of course. So how can I stop the bridging? Or even better, how can I close this solstice gate?”

  “Obserwować Demonie Krawcy. It means ‘watch the demon tailors.’ The phrase is part of your heritage as a were. At least, it would have been if you’d been raised by your pack as was right.”

  Dex didn’t bother asking how the shape-shifter knew he hadn’t been raised by his pack. “That phrase. It’s the same thing you said before, at the church. And the mage I spoke to, she called shape-shifters working in league with diabols ‘demon tailors.’ How do weres watch them?”

  “No one outside the pack knows. It has something to do with protecting the sanctity of the solstice gates. With being able to travel through them.”

  “That’s not a whole lot of help,” Dex snapped.

  “Which is why we told you to seek out your own in the States.”

  “My werewolf grandfather. You were talking about him?”

  “A were with knowledge of your pack’s inherent power. That is all that matters.”

  “Great. I’ll just find a werewolf, ask him, and I’m sure he’ll spill all his secrets to me.”

  “Now you know why we hold little hope of stopping these sad events, Mr. Hunt. But we thank you for meeting with us.”

  He’d been dismissed. And he supposed there was really no reason for him to stay. He had the information he needed. He just didn’t know what the hell to do with it. “Thank you,” he said gruffly, and he could tell he’d surprised the shape-shifters. “For finally trusting outsiders. I don’t know what difference I can make, but I’ll do everything I can to help.”

  Turning, he bumped into Cy, who was looking at him with a flat, unreadable expression.

  “Mr. Hunt.”

  The voice that spoke was one he’d never heard before. He turned back to the shape-shifters, surprised when it was the one on the right, and not the center, that addressed him.

  “You’re different than you were when you first got here,” Righty said.

  Dex was too shocked by the seemingly innocuous comment to respond at first.

  Cy slapped a hand on Dex’s shoulder. “Dex here’s now expecting a baby, and you know how that affects a male. He’s over the moon with happiness.”

  Dex glowered at the dragon-shifter even as he knocked Cy’s hand off him. “Shut up, Cy,” he said, not liking the taunting tone the dragon-shifter had used.

  He also didn’t like the way Righty reacted to Cy’s words.

  Eyes wide, Righty asked “A child? You? But aren’t you staying in Paladine Abbey? With the pretty vampire doctor?”

  An expression of unease washed over Cy’s face as he realized how much he’d revealed. Dex barely managed not to hit him.

  “The vampire is helping my cause,” he said, “but we’re not lovers. She doesn’t mean anything to me. The female I’ve impregnated is back in the States.”

  “That’s good,” the center shape-shifter said. “Because vampires have a natural resistance to possession by diabols and other spirits. That’s not true when the vampire is pregnant or otherwise weakened.”

  “I’ll remember that,” Dex said, pretending the shape-shifter’s words hadn’t scared the shit out of him. But Dex knew Righty hadn’t been fooled.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  After Dex left, Jes was appalled by her childish reaction to the news he’d almost slept with Lucy again. Oh she knew her reaction was understandable given how close she and Dex had become. What female wouldn’t be pissed to learn the male she loved had thought about screwing another female after her, even if it had been for a practical, medically-related reason?

  Had things really changed? If Lucy asked to sleep with him tomorrow, would he do it? Because if he would even considerate it, they were going to have a serious discussion. Right now, however, all she wanted was to see him. To discuss his meeting with the shape-shifters. To repair any damage that had been committed as a result of her jealousy.

  But at the same time, her thoughts were weighed down with a more imminent and pressing concern. Bodin.

  Days ago, he’d rallied. In a moment of lucidity, he’d asked abut Dex again. About his work with the Para-Ops team. Jes had told Bodin about Dex’s current mission. The fact that diabols were somehow involved. Upon hearing that, Bodin had arranged Dex’s meeting with the diregeants.

&nbs
p; Now that the meeting was taking place, however, Bodin had slipped into unconsciousness and Jes didn’t know if he’d come out of it. She and Amanda sat beside him, each fearing his next shuddering gasp for air might be his last.

  Amanda sobbed. Jes placed a hand on the grieving werewolf’s shoulder. Since Jes had kicked her out of the castle, Bodin’s granddaughter had visited her grandfather everyday, always in Jes’s presence, but during those times, the two females hadn’t spoken.

  Amanda turned to Jes. “He’s going to die soon, isn’t he?”

  “I—I don’t know, Amanda. I’m sorry. I’ve tried everything I can think of, including injecting him with Dex’s blood and my own. Nothing has helped.”

  “But you collected your blood under normal circumstances, right?”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “You haven’t tried collecting your blood when your body is in duress. You have the power of regeneration, Jes.”

  Although it had never occurred to her before, it should have. She knew immediately what Amanda was asking but said nothing.

  “I know you think I’m horrible,” Amanda pressed on. “For what I did to Ella. For what I’m asking of you. But I’d do the same thing. In fact, I will. I won’t ask you to do what I’m not willing to do, as well.”

  “No,” Jes began. Amanda’s desperation was causing the werewolf to grasp at straws. Even so, she remembered all the times she’d allowed herself to be experimented on when she was younger. Instinctively, she smoothed her fingers over her scarred arm. She wasn’t willing to let herself be used like that again. Was she?

  “You haven’t done everything you can, Jes. You know you haven’t. Weres can’t be killed in their wolf form.”

  “We’ve taken your blood in that form. There was nothing—”

  “You haven’t taken the blood while I’ve been in wolf form and regenerating. Perhaps there’s a special property that comes out at that time. Something you can’t isolate otherwise.”

  Jes steeled herself. She knew what Amanda was going to say next. And she knew that eventually she was going to go along with it.

  “I want you to wound me and collect samples as I’m regenerating,” Amanda said. “And I want to do the same to you.”

  ***

  “Find Jes,” Dex told Cy as soon as they returned to the castle grounds. A quick glance confirmed the sun was moments from setting. “Bring her here to me.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “I haven’t been able to get a damn signal to call my friends at the FBI. I need to go to the gazebo where the reception is best. We’ve got another agent investigating the shape-shifter murders in the U.S., but my boss can send more men to the weres. They can ask the weres about the solstice gates.”

  Cy looked like he wanted to argue with Dex, but he didn’t. “I’ll be right back.” He ran in the direction of the castle.

  When he reached the gazebo, Dex had to dial Mahone’s number several times before the call went through.

  “Where the hell have you been?” Mahone snarled.

  “Out of touch,” was all Dex said. “I need you to do something.”

  “I’m a little busy right now trying to—”

  “Listen to me, Mahone. There’s a group of shape-shifters who are pissed by the way the U.S. government has treated them. They plan on helping a bunch of hell demons invade the living world. We only have a few days to try and stop them.”

  “How do you know this?”

  “I finally got some high level shape-shifters to talk to me. You need to send men to interrogate the werewolves. Even my grandfather,” he added, surprising himself. “Tell them they’re being asked to do their duty. They need to block demons from traveling through the solstice gates.”

  “Solstice gates? What the hell does that mean?”

  “Just do it, Mahone,” Dex snapped.

  “Fine. But you should know, Lucy discovered most of this days ago. Just not the part about the weres and the solstice gates. We’ve been working on a solution but it’s still touch and go. It involves having to rely on Vanessa Morrison.”

  “The First Lady? The woman who is part of the Quorum? Are you crazy?”

  “We didn’t have any choice,” Mahone said. “You’ve been off radar and we went with the intel we had. I’ll send a team to the weres but in the meantime we’ll keep the other plan in motion.”

  “Fine. I need to go.”

  “Dex. Wait!”

  He brought the phone back up to ear. “What is it? I need to find Jes.”

  “Look, who set up this meeting with the shape-shifters?”

  “Jes. Why?”

  “Does she know about this so-called were power to walk the solstice gates?”

  “I don’t think so. She wasn’t there.”

  “Talk to her, Dex. I have a feeling she might know something about it. Something about you.”

  About me? What the hell did that mean? “Mahone, what are you—” But the line was dead again. He didn’t know if Mahone had hung up or if they’d just lost their signal again, but it didn’t matter. Where was Cy? What was taking so long?

  He waited two more minutes before he went looking for them. When he rounded the corner of the castle, he saw Cy at the front entry. He was leaning against the exterior wall, looking like he’d just been sick.

  “What are you doing? Did you see, Jes?”

  Cy raised his head and blinked at Dex. “Yes. But she’s in the middle of a procedure right now.”

  “In the surgery room? Who’s she working on?”

  Cy shook his head. He looked like he was in shock. Unsure of what to do.

  Dex grabbed him and shook him hard. “Answer me. Is Jes okay? Cy, tell me—fuck!”

  Grimacing, Dex let go of Cy. His head was throbbing and from out of nowhere he heard a whimper of pain. It sounded like it came from Jes.

  “Did you hear that?” he asked Cy. “Did you hear her?”

  “What? No.” Cy looked baffled.

  Dex heard her whimper again and whirled. This time, she had seemed closer. “I can hear her.” I can feel her, he realized. He was hearing Jes moaning in his head somehow. She was in pain but she was stifling the sound, trying not to be heard. He hissed and grabbed at his own arm when it inexplicably began to throb. What the hell?

  “It’s okay,” Cy was saying. “You must be connected with her through the baby somehow. She’s in pain because they don’t want to use anesthesia or pain meds. They’re afraid it’ll compromise the results of the procedure, but she’ll be okay.”

  “What are you saying?” Dex demanded.

  “Dex—”

  “What’s going on? Why is she in pain? Never mind, I’ll go to her myself.” He whirled around and headed for the surgery room he’d seen when he’d arrived.

  “It’s not that one,” Cy choked out. “She’s in a secondary surgery room.”

  “Where is it?”

  Cy shook his head.

  Dex almost couldn’t contain his panic. For Jes’s sake, he did. “Is she hurting herself? Allowing herself to be hurt for some kind of experiment?” He could tell by the guilty expression on Cy’s face that he’d guessed right. “Don’t do this, Cy! I thought you cared about her.”

  “Damn it, I do. That’s why I understand her. I know what’s driving her. And she’s done it before. She was fine then and she’ll be fine now.”

  “This is different,” Dex urged, his desperation rising with every second and each stifled moan he heard. On some level, he knew she wasn’t in agonizing pain. It was manageable, but the thought of her in any pain at all was too much for him to stand. “Anything they’re doing to her they’re doing to the baby, as well. Have you thought of that?”

  “Jes wouldn’t do anything to jeopardize the baby.” But Cy looked unsure.

  “Not intentionally. But remember how you didn’t want me to upset her? This is upsetting her, whether she knows it or not. Now tell me where she is.” He clasped Cy on the shoulder and stared into hi
s eyes. “I’m begging you, Cy. Let me help her.”

  Cy nodded as if coming to a difficult decision. “This way.” He led Dex downstairs until he came across the same door that Dex had, the one locked and expressly denying them entry. The door was enormous and likely reinforced, but Cy didn’t bother fiddling with the lock. He turned to Dex. “It’ll take me a while to recover. Keep going.” As soon as Dex stepped away from him, Cy shifted, turning himself into marble before bursting into flame. The fireball he threw incinerated the door.

  Dex didn’t hesitate to run through it. When he realized his clothes were on fire, he simply slapped out the flames and kept running, letting his instincts as well as the increasing volume of Jes’s moans guide him.

  When he came to the doors marked Surgery, he barreled through them.

  Jes was strapped down to a table, a piece of leather in her mouth. She was biting down on it to stop from screaming while Amanda cut her arm.

  He growled and lunged for the werewolf. “You bitch!”

  Amanda dropped the scalpel and scrambled away, crashing into a tray of surgical tools. “She agreed to do it! She did the same thing to me. It’s painful, but she regenerates. It’s not like she’s going to die!”

  “Get out of here before I kill you,” he gasped out, meaning every word.

  After glancing at Jes, Amanda ran from the room.

  Breathing like a locomotive, Dex turned to Jes. And he could tell she wanted to run, too.

  ***

  Thankfully, Jes didn’t fight Dex when he gathered her into his arms and carried her to her bedroom. She knew better than to agitate him given the anger that was thrumming through his veins. As soon as they were inside and he’d placed her on her feet, she’d wobbled briefly, excused herself, went into her bathroom, and shut the door.

  They hadn’t said one word to each other.

  Dex wasn’t sure if and when he’d be capable of speech.

  He was too afraid that the minute he or she started talking, he would finally lose it and say something he would regret.

  When she turned on the shower, Dex took a deep breath and closed his eyes, trying to calm down. He knew she was hiding, but he’d give her a few minutes to herself. He figured he’d need that long just to get his anger under control.