Page 5

PSI (Paranormal Security and Intelligence) Division B Headquarters. Location classified.

Garth sat near the bedside of his best friend and former second-in-command and stared at the machines monitoring the man’s condition. The steady, rhythmic beeping had become a comfort of sorts. It meant his friend was alive. And so long as the beeping didn’t change, there was a chance for Gram. The thinnest sliver of hope remained that the alpha male would heal from the incredible amount of damage he’d sustained in a blast that should have killed him just over a week ago.

But with each passing moment, Garth’s hope died a little inside.

Already in the past two days, alarms had gone off more than once, bringing with them various doctors and nurses in the state-of-the-art PSI medical facility. Everyone on staff was top-notch (if you didn’t count the fact Auberi was a doctor there as well), and they worked tirelessly attempting to fix the very broken man before Garth.

Most divisions in the organization had taken to expanding in order to include some level of medical treatment. Though not all divisions had the space to do so, Division B did, so the medical facility was housed within the building.

Division B was newer on the grand scale of things. It had been built with large alpha males in mind. Where some headquarters had tight halls, small rooms, and no elevators, this one was spacious. There was still plenty of room to expand should the need arise. And the elevator held more than one supernatural male. The entranceways had enough clearance that even Garth managed to walk through them without having to duck.

Had he been given a choice, he’d have stopped growing sooner than he had.

That wasn’t the case. Thankfully, he wasn’t the only above-average tall supernatural male in PSI. There was a fair number. He couldn’t think of any who were under six foot.

One would assume that the PSI building headquarters would have had accommodations for the men from day one.

One would be wrong.

Garth had been assigned to more than one division in his long career with PSI. To date, Division B in the United States was his favorite. Probably because he didn’t give himself a concussion every time he walked through the front door.

Always a plus.

Division B was also surrounded by woods that stretched out for miles. The woods were stocked with game. It tended to cut down on issues with attacks on humans if the supernaturals had something else to hunt when they needed to release whatever darkness they carried.

Jannick had once eaten a man who had wandered into the facility’s private woods, and the paperwork Garth had been stuck filling out was a nightmare. It did help some that the man turned out to be a human wanted for various murders, but still, they didn’t have a checkbox on the forms for “human is a dick, so he had it coming.”

Though, they should.

As he looked at Gram, who was lying in a medically induced coma, he couldn’t help but think about his brother, Grid. His brother was part of the reason Garth sat at the bedside of a close friend, silently willing the man to live.

Garth hung his head, his elbows going to his lap. His long blond hair fell forward. A few varying braids were secured with small silver beads. He pushed his hair back and wrapped it in a self-contained knot of sorts at the base of his neck. He put his head in his hands and sighed, feeling as if the weight of the world was upon his shoulders.

In many ways, it was.

So much had happened in such a short period of time that it was nearly impossible to avoid feeling overwhelmed. No amount of preparation would have helped. Besides, how exactly did one prepare for their close friend nearly being killed, mad scientists doing gods only knew what, evil Fae who were named after trees, and finding out one’s twin brother had decided to go to the dark side?

Yeah.

There was no fucking preparedness and readiness courses for any of that offered through PSI. Though, with all the crap that was hitting the fan at work as of late, there really should be. But if a course had been offered, he’d have seriously second-guessed his career choice.

Who was he kidding?

He’d been a card-carrying member of PSI for so long that he’d actually lost count of the years. The organization had held a variety of names over the course of the centuries he’d been affiliated with them. No matter what it was called, it all boiled down to policing supernaturals and keeping both humans and supernaturals safe. Often from each other.

There was no end to the number of assholes out there, so his job was secure. Anymore, it felt as if he could throw a rock and hit some criminal mastermind hell-bent on world domination.

They were a dime a dozen.

At least that was how it was starting to feel. It made Garth miss the days of old when the biggest thing he had to do was keep warring supernatural lines from killing one another. Now, even the supernatural lines had blurred with the advent of crossbreeding and genetic engineering.

His thoughts drifted back to twenty years ago. When his team and a number of the Fang Gang had found the secret labs in the lower level of an organized crime boss’s home. That day stuck with him still. So did seeing the children who had been neglected and tested upon.

The tiny girl who Auberi had given his blood to still haunted Garth’s dreams. In them, she didn’t make it. In reality, all he’d been able to glean as far as details upon returning to human form was that she had lived. Landros had worked closely with the director of PSI, General Newman, to see to it that all the children had received the necessary medical care, and then had been placed quickly into good homes.

Homes that the heads of PSI weren’t big on sharing the locations of.

Hell, Garth had even attempted to have paid hackers dig through PSI computers for information regarding the children from that experiment, but nothing had been found.

As he thought harder on it all, he realized that if the child had indeed survived, as Landros assured him she had, she would be in her early twenties by now.

An adult.

That, in itself, was difficult to wrap his mind around.

So was the fact that he’d totally and completely lost his shit that night in the lab. His wolf had overtaken him in a way that it never had before. He’d been stuck in wolf form for nearly three full weeks. Upon returning to human form, Garth had found himself held captive by his own fucking teammates.

Of course, being held by his teammates might have had something to do with the fact Garth’s first order of business back then had been to seek out Auberi and try to drive a stake through his heart.

PSI frowned upon that.

Apparently, some idiot who made decisions thought the vampire was worth protecting.

Garth didn’t agree.

As far as Garth knew, Auberi was also in the dark on the whereabouts of the children involved in what was later termed the Asia Project.

The facility they’d uncovered back then hadn’t been the only one.

Each had housed children of varying ages.

They’d all had one thing in common.

They’d had their DNA manipulated while still within their mothers’ wombs to suit the scientists’ twisted desires.

They’d been hodgepodged together from varying strands of DNA, spliced and genetically manipulated to be far more than merely supernaturals. They were each blends of more than one thing.

And if intel was right, there were hundreds, even thousands of these children who had been experimented on.

No one was sure how many in total, or how many had survived the testing.

What they did know was that PSI had turned over a rock twenty-plus years ago and the roaches beneath it had scattered to the winds, hiding their creations away and going deeper underground.

Proof that they’d never stopped their wicked ways had recently come to light.

All of it only served to remind Garth of the little girl who had stopped breathing on the table long ago. Who had looked at him with hopeless eyes, making a ringing the likes of which he had never heard again sound in his head. The little girl who had needed his help. The little girl he’d failed by losing control of his beast.

Each day, new information came to light about the enemy, who now had a name—The Corporation. Their fingers were in everything. In every government around the world. They could be traced back to the Nazi regime and earlier, all throughout history. They’d been a puppet master for centuries, and seemed to have limitless resources and assholes willing to serve their cause.

Hell, they even had traitors in PSI who the men were trying to ferret out.

With each grain of knowledge, Garth inwardly hoped something would come up about the little girl. A list had come to light not long ago and Garth had scoured over it, searching for any links to that particular lab, but he’d found none.

That was saying something.

It was like that lab and experiment never took place.

But it had.

He’d been witness to it.

Since the first list had turned up, two new techs had come into the PSI family fold. Each were mates of PSI operatives. Laney, who was mated to James Hagen, was one. The other was a relatively new addition who had only just started work today, Brooke—who was mated to Garth’s good friend Malik Nasser. Garth had pulled Laney aside earlier in the day and asked her to look into the children from the experiment twenty years ago as discreetly as possible.

No sense alerting the guys in charge at this point. Besides, Garth wasn’t sure they could all be trusted.

Laney was good at what she did, and from what he’d been told about Brooke, she was as well. Maybe the two women would have better luck than the techs he’d worked with before.

The thought that they might be successful, only to find out the child had not made it, weighed on him. It shouldn’t bother him as much as it did. After all, he’d fought in countless wars in his twelve hundred years. He’d been exposed to so much death that he should have been indifferent to it. He wasn’t. He didn’t fear death. For him, there would be no greater honor than to die in battle. His people had always believed doing so would grant them access to Valhalla.

He didn’t fear dying.

His fear ran more along the lines of those he cared for dying. It happened way more than he wanted to admit. Case in point, a man he considered family was currently clinging to life in the hospital bed because he’d been hurt protecting an innocent child from the very people Garth’s brother had aligned himself with.

Unable to swallow the harsh reality that had been thrust upon him recently, Garth closed his eyes and did something he’d not done in centuries. He prayed to the gods for guidance, asking Odin to show him the way. To help with the dark road he had ahead. One that would leave brother standing against brother.

Absently, Garth reached out and touched Gram’s hand. There was very little of the man that wasn’t covered in severe burns. He was showing no signs of healing. If anything, he looked worse than he had when they’d rushed him in. Gram had given his all in order to keep a fellow operative’s daughter safe. While he’d succeeded in protecting Malik’s daughter, he’d suffered greatly.

So much so that Garth wasn’t sure his friend would pull through.

He’d lost too many people he’d been close to in his thousand-plus years. And he knew that would never end. Death was part of life despite how much he hated it.

Auberi entered the hospital room. At the sight of Garth, he curled his lip. Tension filled the air.

Auberi said nothing as he went to Gram and began checking him over. From the vamp’s expression, things with Gram were not improving.

Garth didn’t need medical training to know as much. It was fairly obvious.

“Why isn’t he healing?”

asked Garth, a certain gruffness to his voice because of Auberi’s presence. Time had done nothing to lessen their dislike of one another.

Auberi didn’t bother looking at him as he replied. It was no secret the vampire thought himself above most in life. “A syringe was recovered from the scene of the explosion. We just finished running tests on its contents. We suspect it has something to do with why his natural healing abilities haven’t kicked in. James is working on something to counteract it with the use of Brooke’s blood. He thinks she might be the key to helping Gram.”

A growl broke free from Garth. The enemy had already sunk low enough to try to harm a child, so he shouldn’t have been shocked by their actions. Yet he was. He was not only shocked, he was outraged. He wanted blood.

Auberi nodded. “It infuriates me as well. Gram is a good man, despite his friendship with you and the fact my best friend can’t stand him. Correction, Malik couldn’t stand the guy before he saved his wife and kid.”

Garth glared at the vampire. Auberi and Malik were best friends. Though, Garth couldn’t understand what Malik saw in the man.

Dr. James Hagen entered the room and lifted a brow at the sight of the two men near Gram’s bedside. “Am I going to need to separate the two of you—again?”

James had taken over heading up the medical affairs of Division B upon his return to the fold not long ago. Prior to that, he’d been on what the Ops liked to term an extended leave. One that had lasted a decade.

The man was in his signature white lab coat. Something he never seemed to be without when they were within the building.

Auberi flashed a wicked smile. “I can behave myself if the stupid wolf can.”

Stupid wolf?

Garth nearly came up and out of his seat, but the look James gave him said he was tired of having to separate the men. It was hard to blame him. Auberi and Garth had already come to blows more than once as of late.

Tensions at PSI were high.

One of their own was severely injured with the very real possibility that he would not recover.

James glanced at Auberi. “How are you feeling? Because you sure in the hell didn’t rest like I told you to.”

Auberi shrugged nonchalantly. “As I told the others, the blood of a virgin healed me perfectly. I don’t require any more rest.”

James and Garth groaned in unison at the vampire’s remarks. They could only hope the man was joking. But knowing Auberi, one could never be too sure.

Auberi had also been seriously injured in the battle that had left Gram in his current state. Pride had the vampire refusing treatment. He was slower than normal but otherwise seemed fine.

Shame. It would have been nice to have the enemy take out the asshole and save Garth the time.

Win some. Lose some.

“Any news on your brother yet?”

asked James of Garth.

Garth stiffened then shook his head. “No. I’ve reached out to all his last known contacts. He no longer runs with them.”

Auberi sneered. “Now he’s too busy in his high-powered position in the enemy’s ranks.”

Garth said nothing because there wasn’t anything he could say to make it better. It was true. Grid was deeply embedded with The Corporation.

The vampire snorted and grinned, showing the slightest bit of fang in the process. “Tell me, Viking, did both apples not fall far from the tree? Is there a part of you that is as twisted as your brother?”

James cleared his throat. “I think we know that isn’t the case.”

“Do we?”

asked Auberi. “I seem to recall a time in this one’s past when his loyalties came into question—or was it not him who stopped me from ending the life of his brother over a century ago?”

Garth remembered the day as if it were yesterday. Auberi really had nearly killed Garth’s twin brother, Grid. Auberi had blamed Grid for the death of a young woman whom Auberi had held close to his heart. To this day, Garth still wasn’t sure who the woman had really been to Auberi, only that she’d mattered to him.

A lot.

And Grid had been suspected in her gruesome death.

There had been a time when Garth could never fathom the idea his brother could harm a woman at all, let alone in such a manner. The woman had been butchered. There was simply no other way to put it.

Recent events had shed new light upon his brother and it was like history was repeating itself. Grid had hurt women. He may have even killed some for all Garth knew. Grid was deranged and an animal. He’d sided with pure evil, and from what Garth had learned recently, Grid was as bad as, if not worse than, the men he worked for.

It felt as if the sins of old were coming back with a vengeance, scratching at scabs that had never fully healed over. Each revelation brought with it remembered pain. Garth had been so blind to his brother’s true nature all those years ago. He’d believed that a kernel of good was still in his brother. That wasn’t the case. There was nothing left but rot.

His brother was a cancer that needed to be removed.

Like the vampire had wanted to do long ago.

Too much water was under the bridge between Garth and Auberi. It was impossible to form the words telling the man he’d been right about Grid all along.

Grid was a monster of the worst kind.

The type who came across as caring and invested in others, but who really lived to torture and inflict pain. His mind was twisted. Had Garth not had it all thrown into his face in the last few weeks, he’d have continued to live in ignorant bliss, assuming Grid was off living his life in peace all these years.

No.

His brother was aligned with an organization hell-bent on world domination. They had achieved great headway in making that a reality. Every day there seemed to be new information coming to light about The Corporation and just how far and deep their reach extended. He held little doubt that they actually controlled a fair number of governments fully. He wouldn’t put it past them.

They did unspeakable things.

And his brother was with them.

The thought twisted Garth’s gut.

Plus, that meant the annoying fucking French vampire had been right a century ago. But that didn’t mean he was right now.

“I’m nothing like Grid,”

said Garth, his tone harsh, his fists clenching as he stared at Auberi.

James eased between the men as if expecting trouble.

Auberi leaned, looking past James. He licked his lower lip. “If you say so, Viking.”

“Enough,”

warned James as he put a hand on Auberi’s chest and eased him back to the other side of the room.

James and Auberi began to speak and the medical jargon sounded like gibberish to Garth, so he ignored them. Focusing on his friend, a pang of guilt hit him. Gram wouldn’t have been in this situation if he’d still been Garth’s second-in-command. If Garth would have refused to sign off on Gram’s transfer, the man wouldn’t be where he was now. In a medically induced coma.

He’d be safe.

But then Malik’s daughter might not be. After all, she was the child Gram had given his all to save. The very little girl that Gram saw as a stepdaughter. Garth had been right all those years ago when he’d thought Gram would make a great father. The man’s caring nature and fierce need to protect those he loved had left him taking the brunt of a blast while shielding Bethany, Brooke’s daughter, from injury. Still, all of it happened because Garth had okayed Gram’s transfer off Team Eight and to the Shadow Agents side of things.

The thought made Garth tense.

He wasn’t a fan of small children, or children at all, but he had to admit Bethany had grown on him quickly too. Her father, Malik Nasser, was a man Garth had called a friend for centuries. They had a long history and trusted one another without question. It had always pained him that Gram and Malik could never find common ground before the recent tragedy. Both men were close to him, yet neither could tolerate the other. At least that had been the case prior to the explosion. Malik visited Gram’s bedside, wanting the man to heal. Garth knew Malik was thankful Gram had acted so selflessly.

Just like Auberi and Garth, Malik and Gram had a lot of water under the bridge between them. Maybe the two alpha males could mend fences. In order for that to happen, Gram had to live.

It took Garth a minute to realize both Auberi and James were staring at him.

“What?” he asked.

James scratched his chin. “Never mind. Nothing.”

Auberi rolled his eyes. “James has come up with something he thinks will help Gram, but he’s worried about testing it on him with as weak as he is. I offered to let him test it on me, but seeing as how I’m not a dog-shifter,”

he gave Garth a wicked smile, knowing being called a dog would piss him off, “the results won’t be worth anything. James can’t try it himself because he has amped-up healing abilities that The Corporation gave him during his involuntary stay with them. He was about to go ask Duke to test it, but you’re here. We can test it on you.”

Garth stood quickly. “Yes. Test it on me.”

James sighed. “They tell me you were there when Malik lost his shit in Egypt five years ago. Back when he tested those suppression drugs for PSI.”

Garth had been there. Malik had lost control of his shifter side back then. He’d claimed his mate, and, in the process, his beast had broken free. Garth remembered the incident vividly, as he’d been one of the men who’d been forced to pin the ancient Egyptian to the floor of his hotel room while the man was in full lion mode. That had lasted nearly two hours and wasn’t something he wanted to see repeated anytime soon.

During the entire event, everyone thought Malik was nuts because he’d claimed a woman they’d all thought was human. Turns out, she wasn’t human after all, but the suppression drugs that Malik had volunteered to test had monkeyed with his senses. They’d thrown his beast off-kilter, making it unable to detect what was right before his eyes. Not to mention, Brooke’s mother had apparently suppressed her natural abilities in order to hide her from the enemy.

Garth took a deep breath. “I was there. I saw the drugs fuck with his head and senses.”

James gave Auberi a sideways look and then inclined his head. “You know I took some blood from Brooke, and that I’ve been trying to engineer it to help Gram because her healing abilities are off the charts, right?”

Again, Garth nodded. “Auberi told me as much.”

“I think by playing off the research and the drug PSI was testing five years back, I might be able to help Gram. I just don’t want to chance testing it on him. If it has a weird side effect, I’m not sure he’d be strong enough to survive it. Testing it on you, a fellow wolf-shifter who’s healthy, will let me know if there are any major side effects.”

Garth put his arm out. “I already said you could test it on me. Do it.”

James sighed. “Okay, but just a small amount. I don’t want to be responsible for the next mating mix-up around here.”

With a snort, Garth tossed his shoulders back, standing tall and proud. “I don’t have a mate, and I haven’t left Gram’s bedside lately. Kind of hard for me to happen upon my future wife if I’m in here nonstop.”

James watched him. “About that…”

Auberi snickered. “We feel it’s best you take a day or two away from here. One of us will call if Gram’s condition changes.”

“You just want me gone period,”

growled Garth, glaring at the vampire.

“Yes. There is that.”

James caught Auberi’s arm and tugged him back, looking tired. “Garth, this isn’t healthy for you or Gram. You have unwarranted guilt.”

“My brother was partly responsible for this,”

argued Garth. “That makes it my fault. Damn right I have guilt.”

“No. It makes it your brother’s fault. You are not your brother,”

stated James.

Auberi huffed and mumbled something derogatory under his breath about Garth being exactly like his evil twin.

Garth clenched his fists, wanting to pummel the vampire into little bits. Partly out of fear Auberi might be right. Did Garth have it in him to be evil?

James groaned. “Enough, you two. Garth, I’d like to try the serum out on you to check for side effects. I’m also kicking you out of here for a couple of days. Should something come up regarding side effects, reach out to me at once. In the meantime, we’ll keep a close watch over Gram. There isn’t anything you can do here for him anyway. By testing this serum, you’ll be doing all you can for him.”

Auberi laughed wickedly. “I really hope this fucks with you like it did Malik. And I hope you walk out that door today and right into your mate. When that happens, I really fucking hope you find a way to screw it up as badly as Malik did.”

Garth cringed at the idea of being mated. “Bite your tongue, you walking-dead douchebag.”

Auberi snarled.

James pulled on his cheeks in a dramatic fashion. “You two make me tired. Garth, come on. Let’s get you set up with the serum.”

Corbin Jones entered the room. “Oh, Garth. I was looking for you. Can you fly down to Savannah to handle a prisoner transport?”

Garth sighed, knowing full well the request was coming more out of a desire to see him leave the infirmary than necessity. They had people for that stuff at PSI, and his pay grade was well above that.

Maybe they were all right.

Maybe stepping away would help to clear his head…and maybe without Garth hovering nonstop, Gram would heal.

“I’m getting an injection of something that will probably make me get stuck in wolf form and want to hump everything that moves, but if all goes well on that end, I’ll do it. When do I head out?”

he asked of Corbin.

Corbin gave him a questioning look. “How about we not get stuck in shifted form, and do our best to avoid humping everything, okay?”

Garth shrugged. “No promises.”

Corbin checked his watch. “Wheels up in two hours. James, I need to speak with you.”

James looked to Auberi. “Can you handle administering the serum?”

“I want him sticking me with something about as much as I want crabs.”

Auberi grunted. “How about I give you something to make you sleep, and then take you to get neutered? Isn’t that what should be done to dogs?”

“I’m not a fucking dog,”

snapped Garth.

Corbin leaned towards James. “You’d think this feud would get old.”

“It does for the rest of us, but apparently it doesn’t for them,”

said James as they headed out of the room.