More than Truth (Arcane Crossbreeds) Read online

  Vin’s heart slammed against his ribs as he greedily collected each sound she made and covertly searched for the scent of her. When a draft of air swirled toward him from the closing of the steel door, it was ripe with her, and he had to control his response as he took in that first fragrant breath. It was the hardest thing he had ever done—that included the day he’d handed her bleeding, unconscious body off to another man to protect. Inside, his dragon came to roaring life, the fiery essence of it burning down his arm. He resisted the urge to rub the tattoo on his arm as the smell of blood tainted her sweet scent. She was bleeding, and his dragon wanted to retaliate for the injury.

  A small smile twisted the doctor’s thin lips as he carefully scrutinized Vin with those soulless eyes. The man knew what Vin’s reaction would be, had been discreetly cultivating it from the moment he walked into this room. Why?

  It was a question that bore investigating further, but for now he needed to carefully navigate this situation in a way that would prevent the doctor from gaining any advantage in whatever game he was playing. Vin girded himself with a slow breath and turned around to give Dr. Britony Mahoney an impassive but thorough study.

  An unintelligible tangle of emotion slammed in his chest. He’d expected a strong reaction but was unprepared for the onslaught that hit him.

  She was here. After all this time, she was a mere twenty feet away on her hands and knees, shoulders rising and falling with each breath. There was a tear in her wrinkled blouse near the shoulder, and her face was concealed by the fall of hair that was a darker red than he remembered. Although he couldn’t discern an injury, he could smell it. Anger suffused him as he moved his gaze over the defeated lines of her body. What had they done to her? At a mere sixteen years old, she’d been a force of nature, pale blue eyes alive and electric. Now she appeared beaten.

  Blood pounded in his temples and behind his eyes as his dragon arched and swelled inside him. Magma slithered through every line and curve of the tattoo that marked his arm as he restrained his dragon.

  “How do you feel now, Dr. Mahoney?” Dr. Rupple’s nasal voice rang through the room, ripe with satisfaction, but his gaze was fixed on Vin. “A little more agreeable to my demands, I hope.”

  Dr. Mahoney raised her chin. Narrowed eyes peered through long ropes of red hair. She blinked rapidly and touched her tongue to the corner of her mouth. Vin could just see the pale angles of her face, one cheek swollen and colored with a dark bruise, her bottom lip split open. Blood marred her pale skin.

  “That depends, Dr. Rupple,” she rasped harshly. “Are you more agreeable to my demands?”

  Vin almost smiled, but Dr. Rupple’s next words had his dragon stirring once again.

  “You may want to rethink your demands, Dr. Mahoney, because I’ve been authorized to use any means short of causing your death to obtain your assistance with this. I’m sure you’re intelligent enough to recognize that could be a very fine and excruciating line to walk.”

  Chapter Six

  “Perhaps you should allow me to intervene before this situation deteriorates further.”

  Brit jerked her head, turning away from the spear of light that assaulted her sensitive eyes. The deep voice that resonated just a few feet in front of her belonged to a man who looked like—no certainly that wasn’t possible. Tag Jennings was at Incog. This man couldn’t possibly be him. No, he…felt different to her. Shock created a solid wall, holding her reaction captive as the thoughts surged and pressed against the barrier. This man looked so much like Tag, yet she knew it wasn’t him.

  Brit watched the man advance on her, his stride long and confident. Her arms were starting to shake from the strain of holding herself up, and she gritted her teeth against the ravenous exhaustion that made her want to just lie down on the floor. The man crouched down in front of her and swept her hair aside with one massive hand to peer at her face. She would have stared him down, but she was fresh out of bravado and so she flinched instead. The guards had tossed her around a bit before dragging her from “the hole,” and she felt every inch of her skin, particularly the parts where they had kicked her.

  His big body blocked the harsher elements of the overhead lights, but she still had to blink several times to focus on his broad face. Like Tag, his skin was dark cream-laden coffee—her favorite. Those eyes were bright by comparison, a rusty green and brown shadowed by heavy brows. Unlike Tag, he had a thick head of silky black curls.

  “Ah, love,” he rumbled, his voice low and rich. “What have they done to you?”

  “A disagreement,” Brit said and closed her eyes. She was tired and cold and as brittle as an autumn leaf. Even worse, she was vulnerable, and he looked so much like Tag it was painful.

  “That is because we’re brothers.”

  Brit jerked her head back and stared up at him, her heart beating fast. He’d read her thoughts? She studied him suspiciously. Tag had never mentioned having a brother, but it wasn’t as though they’d spoken much about family or anything of a personal nature at all. And this man definitely looked enough like him.

  “We’ve been estranged for a number of years, love.” He reached out to touch her bruised cheek with the tip of his finger. A frown deepened the crease between his eyes, but his voice was gentle in her mind. “But I’m here now. He’s sent me ahead to protect you until your Incog arrives.”

  Brit tried to swallow, but her throat was dry and raw, her tongue thick in her mouth. She was dehydrated, and she thought maybe one of her ribs might be cracked.

  “Can you trust me enough to care for you? Just until reinforcements arrive? You shouldn’t have to be here alone.”

  What choice did she have? She didn’t think she’d be able to make it to the suite on her own steam without crawling, and the idea of Dr. Rupple getting to see that truly galled her. Besides, this man’s scent was already enfolding her, eroding her paltry defenses. It was warm and spicy, so much like Tag’s and yet somehow different. With a sigh, Brit nodded.

  “There’s a girl.” Before she could dwell on what her acceptance would cost her, he swept her up in his arms, and she lost all ability to think. His chest was firm and so warm she wanted to burrow in. He carried her easily across the room and into the suite. He didn’t stop until he was in the attached bathroom.

  It was pitiful, but when he set her gently on the vanity next to the sink, she wanted to moan from the loss of his heat. The room was dim but not dark, and she relaxed a little. He studied her, brushing his knuckles down her uninjured cheek. His brows drew together, deepening the crease between them. When he stepped away, she gripped the edge of the ceramic top to steady herself.

  “Don’t move, love.”

  His voice was as low and deep out loud as it was in her mind, and she watched him walk out of the bathroom. A moment later, he reappeared with bottled water and a power bar. He said nothing as he uncapped the water and offered it to her. Her fingers trembled as she wrapped both hands around the cold bottle and lifted it to her lips.

  The cool liquid flooded her mouth, and she nearly groaned. She’d thought she’d grown numb against the thirst and hunger, but it all sparked anew with one sip. He watched her with a frown before he turned away to search through the cabinets that flanked the vanity until he found a first aid kit and washcloths.

  “Well, at least they had you well stocked,” he murmured and set his supplies on the vanity next to her hip. He flicked the faucet on.

  Brit drained half the water bottle before she unwrapped the power bar and took a bite. It tasted like peanut-flavored sawdust, but it would get the job done. She wouldn’t be of any use to her sister or Katya if she was dead on the floor when Incog showed up. She’d already made a tactical error by allowing her temper and pride to put her in this situation.

  After swallowing another dry, tasteless bite of the bar, she took a drink of the water and cleared her throat. “What day is it?”

  Those russet-green eyes fixed on her as he lifted her hair out of the way and gently
tended to her face with the damp cloth. “What’s the last day you remember?”

  “Thursday morning.”

  His hand paused, and she thought a growl might have rumbled from his broad chest. He glanced around, eyes narrowed in consideration before continuing to clean the dried blood from her face. “It’s Saturday, very late, I would say.”

  “Bloody bastard,” Brit hissed. That doctor had kept her in that hole for nearly three whole days. Although the temperature in the room had been controlled, it hadn’t been even close to what she would consider comfortable, and the cement walls and floor had sapped all the heat her body managed to generate. She felt cold from the inside out, and she glanced longingly at the shower stall. A hot shower would be heaven right now.

  The man chuckled. “Soon. I want to be sure you’re not seriously injured first, and then you can scald yourself for hours if you like, love.”

  Brit watched him set aside the cloth and dig through the first-aid kit to pull out an antiseptic wipe. The endearment felt familiar, but she hadn’t even known Tag had a brother. “Have we met? You seem to know me, but I can’t say the same.”

  He paused for a long moment before ripping open the packet and pulling the wipe out. “We met a long time ago. I knew your family.”

  Brit looked down at the wrinkled material of her slacks and smoothed her fingers over the worst of the creases. She wanted to ask how he knew her parents, but she didn’t want to open up that particular wound. “It must have been long ago, then.”

  He tipped her face up with a knuckle below her chin, and she met his gaze. The greens and browns in his eyes were a fractured kaleidoscope around his pupils and soft with understanding. “Yes. Another life,” he said and gave her a reassuring smile before lifting the antiseptic wipe. “This might burn a bit.”

  The line between his brows deepened again as he focused on what he was doing, and Brit winced when he gently touched the pad to her skin. She took advantage of his distraction to study him, to try to determine why she was so drawn to him.

  The man was clean-shaven and, coupled with the full head of curls, it made his face look thinner than Tag’s, but every other feature was the same. Right down to the wide nose and full lips. She wondered if they would be as warm and as soft as Tag’s? Would his kiss be just as aggressive? The thoughts came unbidden, and Brit shook her head to clear them away.

  A small smile lifted one side of those lips, and she wondered if he was reading her mind again. Good God, she hoped not. She strengthened her mental walls in case and cleared her throat. “What’s your name?”

  “Dr. Vincent Jennings,” he murmured distractedly and inspected the tear in her shirt with a frown that was deepening the furrow between his brows. “I want to check your ribs.” He rumbled the words and gently slid the bottom of her blouse up to just beneath her breasts, his knuckles brushing the undersides. Vin’s eyes shifted, the pupils elongating for one heartbeat, but he blinked, and when he lifted his eyelids, his pupils once again appeared normal. His hands were so warm, and her chilled flesh soaked it up, craving even more as he tenderly pressed around her middle. “How is your breathing?”

  “Easy,” Brit murmured and tried not to think about his fingers touching her belly and ribs. “What kind of doctor are you?”

  “PhD. Genetics and bioengineering.” His voice was hoarse, and the sound of it had the effect of a cat’s rough tongue over her senses. He smoothed her shirt back into place. “It doesn’t look like anything is broken, but you’re pretty colorful.”

  “Understandably so. Those bastards managed to land several kicks despite how dark it was.” And it had been dark. Like the pitch her papa had used to waterproof his boat when she was child in Ireland. While she’d been sitting on the cold concrete floor trying to blink away the inkiness that surrounded her, she’d remembered the look of the tar in his bucket, thick and so black it didn’t even reflect the watery sun overhead. That was what the darkness had started to feel like to her, heavy and oppressive, coating her until she feared no light would ever penetrate it.

  A chill rolled through her, raising bumps over her flesh.

  “It’s all right, love. No harm will come to you again. I swear it.” The promise should have felt dramatic and inappropriate, but somehow his words were comforting and right, as were the thick arms that enfolded her shivering body. He rubbed his hands gently up and down her arms.

  God, when had she started shivering? The material of his button-down shirt was soft beneath her cheek, and she drew in a deep breath. He smelled so good she swore she could taste him on her lips. Her nipples hardened and drew up into painful points as desire pooled low in her belly. This was going too far. She was vulnerable and cold and so very tired. She’d refused to do more than doze lightly in that room for fear she would never wake up, and soon it had been hard to tell if she was asleep or awake; the blackness was the same.

  Tag had plagued her thoughts, her carefully hidden longing for him rising in the silence and darkness of the room until it lay raw and open on the surface. She was afraid she was responding to this man—Vincent—because he looked so much like Tag. Having Vincent against her was like she imagined it would feel to be held by Tag. How many times during the endless moments in that hell had she wished for that?

  Thunder rumbled low through Vin’s chest, and he pulled away after a reassuring squeeze. “Let’s get you warmed up. You’ll feel human again after a shower.”

  Brit swallowed hard as the chill air curled back around her in the absence of his heat. She sat obediently and attempted to gather her senses back into a neat pile while he started the shower and gathered towels from the cabinet. Wouldn’t the agents at Incog be shocked to see her huddled on the vanity, craving the touch of a stranger? She wasn’t oblivious; she knew what they thought of her. Cold. Clinical. They said she made them feel like she was looking at them through a microscope.

  A harsh, brittle laugh escaped, and she quickly lifted the water bottle to drain the remaining liquid before any more of that hideous sound slipped past her lips. She wasn’t beaten. She’d been through worse, but she did need to regroup, and this man, Tag’s brother, made her feel safe enough to do that.

  Vin lifted her down, and his hazel eyes studied her. That scrutiny was unnerving. He stared at her as though he were starved for the sight, his intense gaze almost a caress. Her body responded as if it were, sparks of arousal skittering down her flesh until her heart pounded so loudly she was sure he could hear it.

  “Do you need help getting undressed?”

  Brit stepped back and shook her head before her lips could betray her and say yes just so she could feel his hands on her again. The small room was filled with the sound of rushing water. Steam gathered, the wet heat of it swirling heavily against her flesh like a phantom caress. It was too intimate; she needed some distance before she did something foolish.

  His gaze was hooded—heated—as he looked down into her upturned face. There were a precious few inches between their bodies, and she could feel the warmth of his chest through their clothes. It made her go liquid low in her belly with an instant arousal that startled her. When his pupils expanded and his nostrils flared, she knew he was aware of it too.

  “I’ll be just outside the door. I saw a microwave and some instant soup. You can eat a little more and drink another water before you try to get some sleep.”

  Not trusting her voice, she merely nodded and watched him retreat. She undressed quickly and stepped into the shower.

  By the time she turned the water off, her skin was pruned and she had her emotions carefully managed, firmly reminding herself she hadn’t accomplished what she’d come here for. If what Vin said was true, Incog would be arriving soon, and she had yet to acquire the data she needed to save Katya as well as any information on where they were keeping her sister.

  Swathed in thick white towels, Brit stepped out of the shower and froze. There was a collection of hygiene supplies on the vanity. Vin must have come back while she
was in the shower. She glanced back at the frosted walls of the shower stall and decided with no little relief that he couldn’t have possibly seen much while he was in here. Brit was a scientist and viewed the body and sex in an impersonal manner, but Tag—and now Vin—made them feel very personal somehow.

  The mundane tasks of brushing her teeth and hair comforted her, giving her fortitude to face Vin, especially since the only item of clothing left besides the ones she’d been wearing was a large button-down cotton shirt. She was almost positive it was the one he’d been wearing, which had her imagining him sitting in that big red chair with his wide chest and broad shoulders bare. Or sprawled on the bed, all that creamy dark skin—

  Oh God, she needed to stop now before she lost all the ground she’d gained during her long shower. She had herself under control, but it was paper-thin and would shred with the least provocation. What she needed was rest so she could put some distance between her and this frustrating vulnerability that plagued her. For days she’d heard nothing but her own breathing, and the impenetrable darkness had soon turned into a screen for her every regret and nightmare to be projected against. Her fears were still so close to the surface she was afraid merely closing her eyes would bring them back. She’d thought about Tag, fantasized really. Crazy, impossible fantasies. And now Vin was here, and he didn’t feel like a stranger to her.

  Maybe it was because he looked so much like Tag or because she just needed the comfort and strength. Whatever it was, she was susceptible to him right now. After what she’d done to Tag, she couldn’t compound it by sleeping with his brother.