The . . . woman (yeah, she was still convinced the intruder was female despite the fact she was completely bald) had eyes that were as red as rubies and a nose that was oddly flat. Like a snake. And worse, her visible skin was patterned with large, dark spots that went way beyond freckles.
The intruder smiled. Not a pleasant smile. More a stretching of her thin lips.
“Yeah, I get that a lot.”
“Were you—”
“Born this way?” The woman pulled off her gloves, revealing her hands that were spotted like her face and tipped with claws. “Yes.”
Angela tried to clear the mammoth-sized lump from her throat.
“So you’re a—”
“Freak.”
Everyone knew of high-bloods, or freaks, as most people called them. The special people born with some sort of mutation that made them different from others.
Not that the general population truly knew much about them. There were rumors of witches and psychics and necromancers. And the strange Sentinels. Then there were the whispers that there were true monsters being hidden behind the walls of Valhalla.
As a future geneticist, Angela devoured the bits and pieces of information on the high-bloods. Unfortunately the Mave who ruled the residents of Valhalla and the satellite communities refused to allow her people to be studied. Only scientists who were a part of their community were allowed any research. Even local doctors were forced to contact Valhalla if a freak turned up in the ER. And anyone trying to collect genetic material was subject to punishment by the Mave.
Not something anyone would be willing to risk.
Now, however, she realized that her clinical fascination with high-blood DNA hadn’t taken into account the brutal truth of what it meant to be . . . different.
The personal cost was written in the bitter glow of the crimson eyes.
“I’m sorry,” Angela whispered before she could halt the impulsive words.
The female snorted. “Not nearly as sorry as I am.”
Yeah, Angela got that.
“What do you want from me?”
“Simple. I want you to fix me.”
“Fix you?” Angela parroted, her brilliant brain trained to comprehend logical facts, not . . . this. “I’m not a doctor.”
“Do I look like a fucking doctor could cure me?”
Angela took another step backward, her ass hitting the edge of the sink.
“What do you expect me to do?”
“Your gift is to alter DNA.” The woman pulled off her other glove and tossed it on the ground. Then she ran her fingers over her bald head. “I want you to make me normal.”
Through her fog of fear, Angela felt a stab of sympathy. She understood the woman’s desperation. She truly did.
But, sympathizing with the stranger didn’t mean she could help her.
“That’s impossible.”
The crimson eyes narrowed. “Nothing in this world is impossible.”
“Maybe not, but the technology isn’t anywhere near advanced enough. At least not yet.”
“Technology?” Something that might have been amusement rippled over the strange, exotic face. “I’m not talking about test tubes and microscopes.”
“I don’t understand.”
The woman waved a hand toward the kitchen table. “Why do you bother with this junk anyway?”
Was this some sort of trick?
“I need it for my research,” she said slowly. “Although I admit it can’t compare to my lab at the university.”
“Come on, Angela,” the intruder scoffed. “You don’t have to hide the truth from me.”
Angela went rigid with a strange sense of wariness.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
The woman gave a sharp laugh. “You haven’t figured it out yet?”
“Figured out what?”
“You, Angela Locke, are a freak.”
“No.” Angela shook her head, squashing the ridiculous urge to slap her hands over her ears. The woman was nuts. A full-blown wackadoodle. “No way.”
“How do you think you’re able to manipulate cells that no one else can?”
Angela sucked in a ragged breath. Why wasn’t she laughing at the woman’s outrageous claims?
“The magnetic particles I’ve developed—”
“No.” The woman stepped close enough for Angela to feel the heat she radiated from her skin even through her clothes. Obviously her mutation made her run at a higher temperature. “It’s you. It’s always been you.”
“This is crazy.” Angela was trapped, reaching behind her to grasp the edge of the counter. Her knees were threatening to collapse. “I want you out of my apartment.”
“If you insist.” The creepy smile returned as the woman reached out with terrifying speed to lock her hands around Angela’s upper arms, her claws digging through the sweatshirt to puncture the tender skin beneath. “I was going to let you pack a bag, but whatever.”
“Stop it,” Angela cried, fear and pain hammering through her with equal force. “What are you doing?”
The crimson eyes glowed with an eerie light. “I have a comfy little home all prepared for our arrival. You’re not leaving my side until you fix me.”
Her grip tightened, but even as Angela braced herself to be dragged from the room kicking and screaming, the stranger was tilting back her head to sniff the air. Like an animal.
Angela shuddered. Oh . . . God. What now?
In answer, the woman whirled toward the door, her hands clenched in tight fists.
“Niko,” she hissed, not nearly as dumbfounded as Angela as a tall, stunningly familiar man stepped into the kitchen.
“Dylan,” Dr. Nikolo Bartrev drawled, his handsome face carved from granite. “I knew you’d eventually show up here.”
It was rare for Nikolo to be caught flat-footed.
No, it wasn’t rare.
It was never.
But trailing Angela from the university to her apartment building, he’d taken time to make a sweep of the neighborhood. He was certain Dylan was going to make her move. And make it soon.
He just hadn’t expected her to already be in the apartment.
A mistake that might have cost Angela her life.
The realization detonated a strange explosion of fear and fury in the depths of his soul.
A sensation that was as unfamiliar as it was unexpected.
Niko was trained to hone his feelings into a smooth blade of cold, calculating resolve. Becoming emotional only clouded his mind and dulled his instincts.
But silently entering the apartment, he hadn’t been worried about his prey. Or even his own life.
His sole focus was reaching Angela before she could be hurt.
Stepping into the kitchen he came to an abrupt halt at the sight of Dylan standing directly in front of Angela. Shit. She was too close to risk an attack.
One swing of her hand and she could crush Angela’s skull. Or use her claws to rip out her throat.
He swallowed a growl, ignoring the voice that warned his hesitation might cost him the opportunity to put an end to Dylan’s murderous rampage.
He would have his revenge, he grimly assured himself. But not at Angela’s expense.
Wiping all expression from his face, he watched Dylan slowly turn, her crimson eyes filled with a mocking amusement that didn’t entirely disguise her seething frustration.
“Long time no see,” she drawled. “Did you miss me?”
“Like a fucking hole in the head,” he retorted, allowing only a brief glance toward Angela who was studying him with a shocked gaze. “You gave up any claim to loyalty when you killed Adam and Fiona.”
“I know you won’t believe me, but I wish their deaths hadn’t been necessary.”
Niko shrugged aside the female’s genuine regret. He’d been the one to discover the two Sentinels. Adam had lost his throat when he’d obviously gone into Dylan’s room to check on her, while Fiona had been shot in the
back of her head while standing guard at the entrance to the psych ward.
Adam had been a longtime friend, while Fiona had been as close as any daughter to him.
He would mourn their deaths for the rest of his life.
“It was a choice, not a necessity.”
“Easy for you to say,” Dylan countered. “You weren’t chained to the walls like an animal.”
“For your own safety.” Niko made a sound of disgust. “Of course, that was a ruse, wasn’t it? You never intended to kill yourself.”
The female shrugged. “I needed to distract attention. I knew I was being watched.”
Niko narrowed his eyes. It had been one of the clairvoyants who’d picked up on Dylan’s growingly dark thoughts, although the Sentinel had the ability to hide her secret plans. It was enough to put a constant surveillance on the unstable female.
“Because you’re a psychopath.”
“So easy for you to judge when you walk around like a Greek god,” Dylan hissed. “How would you feel if you looked like a monster?”
He deliberately allowed his gaze to roam over the spotted skin and too-flat nose before returning to meet the smoldering crimson glare.
“You’ve never been a monster to your family.”
“Family?” Her sharp laugh sliced through the air. “My family tossed me away at birth.”
“We were your family,” he reminded her. All high-bloods were welcomed at Valhalla and Dylan had been raised by people who loved her. “Your parents gave you to us because they understood the challenges you would face and trusted us to protect you.”
She gave a restless shake of her head, her madness refusing to acknowledge she’d been treated with nothing but kindness.
“How did you find me?”
“I’m a Sentinel.”
“My trail was in Texas.”
“You didn’t escape to kill humans.”
“So you knew I was coming for the scientist,” she murmured, glancing over her shoulder at the white-faced Angela before turning back to Niko with a sudden realization. “Ah, you used her as bait.”
“Yes.”
There was a raw, pained sound from Angela that pierced Niko’s heart. Christ. That was a little tidbit he’d intended to keep to himself.
But even as he ground his teeth at the thought of Angela’s sense of betrayal, his gaze never strayed from Dylan.
The bitch was still too close to Angela for him to strike. “Always so clever, Niko,” the Sentinel mocked.
Clever. Yeah, not clever enough to avoid his own trap, he acknowledged wryly, belatedly accepting that Dylan wasn’t the only one to have fallen for the bait.
He took a step forward. “It’s time to end this.”
“Oh no, this isn’t the end. The game is just beginning.” With the fluid speed of all Sentinels, Dylan turned to Angela, her hand shooting out to grasp her chin with claws that bit into the tender skin. “I’ll come for you later, sweet Angela. Niko can’t guard you forever.”
“Damn.”
Niko launched himself forward, but as fast as he was, Dylan was already leaping through the window over the sink and dropping the two stories to the parking lot below.
Without hesitation Niko was in pursuit.
Chapter Four
On some level Angela knew she must be in shock.
Otherwise she’d be curled in the middle of the floor screaming in terror. Or at the very least, calling nine-one-one.
Instead she stumbled toward her bedroom, barely aware of what she was doing as she found a gym bag on the floor of her closet and began stuffing it with clothes.
She had to get away.
Somewhere.
Anywhere.
The destination didn’t matter. Just so long as it wasn’t here.
Vaguely realizing the bag was full, she zipped it shut and rose to her feet.
It was only when she turned that she realized she wasn’t alone.
“Shit.” She dropped the bag, reaching behind her back to retrieve the carving knife she’d grabbed on her way out of the kitchen. “Stay back.”
In answer Niko took a deliberate step forward, his gaze flicking down to the bag at her feet.
“Good. You’ve packed.”
Her gaze locked on the handsome face that had filled her dreams for six long weeks. God. He looked so . . .
Abruptly her tight knot of fear exploded into sheer rage.
“I told you to stay back,” she snarled, waving the knife in warning.
“Please, Angela.” He held up his hands. “You need to listen to me.”
Her heart squeezed with a crippling sense of betrayal. It didn’t matter that she’d known this man for less than two months. Or that he’d never made her any promises.
She’d felt a . . . connection to him.
A tenuous hope that he would be the one man to eventually see the woman beneath the awkward nerd.
God. Could she have been more delusional?
“So I can hear more lies, Dr. Bartrev?”
His eyes darkened, as if bothered by the harsh edge of accusation in her voice.
“My name isn’t a lie,” he said. “I’m Nikolo Bartrev.”
“You’re not a professor.”
“No.” He took another step forward and Angela shivered as he dropped his pretense of a harmless professor. It wasn’t like he’d snapped his fingers and transformed into another creature. It was more a subtle hardening of his dark, beautiful features. The squaring of his broad shoulders that looked even broader beneath the cream cable sweater. And the swirl of heat that poured through the room, stroking over her in silent warning. “I’m a Sentinel.”
She tossed aside the knife. It was worse than useless considering she was more likely to poke it into herself than harm the dangerous predator that watched her with his piercing blue gaze.
And he was a predator.
She could sense it with every fiber of her being.
“I thought Sentinels were marked with tattoos?”
“Those who act as guardians are protected by wards.”
“But not you?”
“No. I’m a hunter. I need to . . . blend when necessary.”
Her jaw clenched at the painful reminder of his charade.
Bastard.
“So what makes you a Sentinel?”
He hesitated, clearly considering his words. Did the high-bloods have a code of silence? She wouldn’t doubt it. There was very little information about them in the general population.
“I’m stronger and faster than most people,” he at last admitted. “I also have heightened senses.”
“And it’s your job to track down freaks.” She deliberately used the insult.
Beneath her overriding fear she was well and truly pissed.
Who could blame her?
Her chin was bleeding from the claws used by the creepy Dylan who intended to kidnap her and force her to play the role of Dr. Frankenstein. And this man—this arrogant jackass—had treated her like she was nothing more than an expendable object.
Something to be used and tossed away.
He gave a dip of his head. “Yes.”
“And you always get your man?”
His gaze briefly lowered to the soft curve of her breasts barely visible beneath her sweatshirt.
“Or woman.”
Her nipples tightened in instant reaction and she swallowed a curse. The tingling, heart-stopping heat that she’d always savored when near this man was now a brutal reminder of just how humiliatingly naïve she’d been.
“No matter who you have to use?”
He shoved impatient fingers through the short strands of his hair.
“Dylan killed two Sentinels to escape Valhalla, then twelve norms to try and draw us from her true purpose,” he rasped. “She has to be stopped.”
Angela grimaced. Fourteen people murdered? Okay. Obviously the psycho killer had to be captured.
But that didn’t make it any easier to know she’d been use
d as bait.
“How did you know she would be coming here?”
He shrugged. “You’re the only one who has the talent to alter her appearance.”
She was shaking her head before he finished speaking.
Dammit. Why were they trying to make her believe she was a freak?
Did they think it would make her more sympathetic to their cause?
“Not. In. The. Mood.”
“Fine.” Perhaps sensing she was on the verge of a meltdown, he wisely backed off. “We need to go now.”
“We?” She made a sound of disbelief. “Are you brain-dead? I’m not going anywhere with you.”
A muscle in his jaw twitched, but he grimly held on to his temper.
“You don’t have a choice. Dylan’s not going to stop hunting you. Not until she’s dead.” He deliberately paused. “Or you are.”
“I’ll take my chances.”
“No.” He was gripping her upper arms firmly before she even realized he’d moved. Holy shit. He wasn’t lying when he said he was faster. “You won’t.”
She tilted back her head, pretending his touch wasn’t searing through her sweatshirt.
The lover of my dreams is now my enemy, she fiercely reminded herself.
“So I’m a prisoner?”
His brows drew together in a scowl. “Dammit, Angela, I’m only trying to protect you.”
“A little late for that, don’t you think?”
“Late for what?”
She forced herself to meet his ruthless gaze. “If you truly wanted to protect me you’d have told me the truth from the beginning.”
“I couldn’t.”
“Of course not,” she mocked, not bothering to try and pull from his grasp. What was the point? He was clearly ten times stronger than her. Which should have made her wonder why she was pissed instead of terrified. “I’m just the bait, right?”
He heaved a harsh sigh. “I was never going to let you be hurt.”
Was he kidding?
She shook her head in disgust. “Well you did.”
He hissed, his hands skimming down to her wrists so he could tug her arms up as his gaze inspected her slender body.
“I’ve seen the scratches on your face. Are you wounded anywhere else?”
She jerked her wrist free and, balling her hand into a fist, she slugged him in the center of his chest.