It was genuine and powerful, and it wasn’t going away, no matter how much she wanted to convince both of them that it didn’t exist.
That alone should have been enough to make him bolt. Great sex was one thing. He’d never been the kind to walk away from physical pleasure. But this was something else. And for some idiotic reason, instead of taking Brynne’s rejection as the gift it should be, he felt compelled to get to the real reasons she was so determined to push him away.
And the longer he waited to get those answers from her, the more her silent treatment was going to drive him insane.
Making his excuses to Dylan and Rio, he slipped out of the kitchen and headed toward the Order’s command center, the direction she’d gone with Tavia a short while ago.
Gideon practically slammed into him, coming out of a room with his head down and tapping madly on a tablet screen.
“Oh, shit. Sorry, man.” The warrior glanced up distractedly. His spiky crown of blond hair was disheveled and intrigue lit his eyes behind the pale blue lenses of his glasses. “I’m working out a new protocol to see if I can find another way through Opus’s server encryption. Got no time to waste, especially now that our best lead on Crowe turned out to be a dead end.” He winced as he said it. “Bad choice of words.”
Zael paused. “What do you mean?”
“The woman in Ireland,” Gideon said. He tucked the tablet under his arm, his expression sobering. “Rafe and Aric called it in a few minutes ago. Crowe’s mistress was murdered in her home right before our team arrived to drop a net on her. Opus apparently knew we were on to her. Sounds like they made quite a statement in killing her.”
Zael didn’t want to ask what constituted making a statement, but having seen some of the other violence Opus Nostrum’s followers were capable of, he could easily imagine. “So, how were we able to confirm that this woman, Iona Lynch, was in fact Crowe’s mistress?”
“We have a witness who’s corroborated our hunch—Lynch’s roommate. Her name’s Siobhan O’Shea. She was in the house at the time of the attack earlier tonight. To make matters worse, the friend is a Breedmate.”
“Jesus. Was she harmed?”
“Got knocked on the head pretty hard by the two men who killed her friend, but she obviously wasn’t their main concern. She says Lynch knew the men. She let them in and things turned ugly pretty fast. When the roommate tried to intervene, they shoved her into the bathroom and knocked her out while they finished what they came to do.”
Zael exhaled a low curse. “She’s lucky they didn’t finish her too.”
“Extremely lucky,” Gideon agreed.
“That’s not to say this woman isn’t still in danger,” Zael considered. “From all I’ve heard and seen of Opus’s tactics, they don’t have a very good track record of leaving loose ends behind.”
Gideon nodded grimly. “She’d be in Order protective custody even if she wasn’t a Breedmate, but the fact that she is makes her safety a top priority. Not to mention we need her to tell us whatever she can about Crowe and Iona Lynch, and about the men who killed her.”
Gideon’s tablet chimed and he glanced at the screen. “Damn. So much for that brilliant idea. Whoever put the locks on Opus’s network is one shrewd son of a bitch. Looks like I’ve got more homework to do.” He hooked his thumb in the direction of the corridor. “If you were on your way to see Lucan, that’s where I’m heading now.”
Zael hedged. “Ah, actually, I was looking to talk with Brynne. She went this way with Tavia a few minutes ago.”
“Yes, she did.” Although he was already tapping on his tablet, Gideon’s brows rose with blatant interest over the rims of his glasses. “But you’re too late. Brynne’s gone now.”
“Gone?” The newsflash hit Zael like a blow. “You don’t mean back to London?”
“No. Gone to feed in Georgetown. Tavia sent one of the warriors out with her as an escort.”
Zael wasn’t happy to hear she’d left the safety of the command center, let alone that she’d done so with another male. If she needed someone to protect her, then damn it, she could have asked him to take her.
Of course, she’d probably rather swallow her own tongue than ask him for help.
He realized he must have been wearing his displeasure on his face, because Gideon froze for a moment, cocking his head at him. Then he chuckled.
“Well, I’ll be damned.” He reached out and cuffed Zael on the shoulder. “Don’t worry, Atlantean. Happens to the best of us.”
“What does?”
The warrior smirked. “You’ll figure it out.”
With that, he resumed his tapping, leaving Zael to stare after him as Gideon headed back down the corridor, once again thoroughly engrossed in his work.
CHAPTER 18
“You really don’t have to wait for me to finish here,” Brynne told the big dark-haired Gen One warrior who’d been tasked as her personal driver and bodyguard for the evening. “I feel ridiculous that Tavia insisted I be schlepped around like a child in need of supervision.”
To make matters worse, her sister had assigned Jordana’s warrior mate, Nathan, to the job. If Brynne had harbored even the slimmest hope of slipping her collar tonight in order to feed the way she needed to, she stood little chance of getting away from this warrior’s watchful eye.
“It could take a while,” she pointed out. “I’ll have to register and sign the contract before they even admit me.”
Nathan sat behind the wheel of the SUV as he parked at the curb, his expression unreadable. “Take whatever time you need.”
He wasn’t much of a talker, Brynne had gathered, but she wasn’t feeling particularly chatty herself. She’d been too busy calculating possible excuses for why she wasn’t going in to the blood Host parlor, and trying to guess how much longer she would be able to stave off the worst of her hunger if she didn’t get some relief tonight.
By the acid burn of her veins and the increasing throb of all her pulse points, she was perilously close to the edge already.
“You know, I’m a child of the labs too, Brynne.”
She glanced at him, startled by the unsolicited confession. “Yes. Tavia had mentioned it to me at one time. You were part of the Hunter program.”