He gave a nod. “The GTECHs are only fertile with one woman. Finding that woman is a mystery and he’s conducting dangerous and pretty horrific fertility testing. And if you want to know what that means, ask Sterling’s lifebond. She knows firsthand.”
“Lifebond? What is a lifebond?”
“The one woman the GTECH is fertile with. Sterling is one of the rare GTECHs who found his.”
She inhaled sharply and let it out. “And you?”
“There is no woman for me but you, Sonia. There never has been.” He cut his gaze and seemed to grapple for control before slowly shifting his eyes back to hers. “There are things you don’t know and I can’t tell you right now. I need to leave this room before I do something we will both regret.”
The next thing she knew he was stalking past her, clearly headed for the door, and intending to leave.
Would he come back? Would she ever see him again. Sonia pursued him and shackled his arm. “Please don’t go. Please. Not when I’ve just found out you’re alive.”
“I have to,” he said, sounding as if he was in pain. “I don’t have control with you and you have no idea the implications of what that means.” He ran a rough hand through his hair. “I’ll be back. Just...just give me some time. You can’t leave the facility, but you can go anywhere inside. I’ll send someone to show you around.”
“You show me around,” she said, regretting how she’d doubted him, how she’d reacted to what he’d told her.
“I can’t, Sonia. I just...can’t. You don’t understand that now but you will. You will.” He pulled away and was through the door before she could stop him.
CHAPTER FOUR
Kel stalked down the hallway toward the lab where he knew he’d find Becca, Sterling’s lifebond, someone who could help Sonia in all kinds of ways. Emotion expanded inside him, ready to explode but somehow he clamped down on his feelings. He knew the right thing to do. He knew he had to wipe Sonia’s memory as he would the waitress, once they’d arranged a new life for her, someplace safe and far away from the Zodius’ reach. Instead, he burned to pull her into his arms and make love to her, to make her his lifebond and bind her to him forever. The bond was no sure thing, and even if it was, it would steal her ability to choose her future. Not this time, not when she had options. And not when the final outcome was her being bound to him in life and in death. She deserved a choice and but he worried it wasn’t that simple. The truth of the matter was thought that he wasn’t even sure that he really could give her choices. Would her dreams simply recreate whatever he’d erased?
The only person that might be able to answer that was Becca. She had abilities that her transformation to GTECH had given her.
He entered the lab, and sure enough, the pretty brunette Sterling called wife and lifebond stood at a lab table looking through a microscope.
“Hi Kel,” she said, glancing up at him. “How is Sonia and when can I meet her?” She took one look at him and rephrased. “What’s wrong?”
Kel started to pace, ignoring the question. “She has dreams that come true.”
“I heard something about that. Sterling said you thought they’d gone away?”
“I did,” he said. “But apparently they’re back.”
“For how long?”
He stopped walking and ran his hand through his hair. “We didn’t exactly get to that.”
“She was pretty upset over you faking your death?”
He nodded. “That’s an understatement.”
“I can understand her being upset.”
“I had to do it.”
“I know,” she said gently. “If anyone knows I do. Remember? I was inside the Zodius facility. I saw what they do to women there.”
“I don’t want this life for her.”
“She’s already a part of it,” Becca reminded him.
“If I wipe her memory, I need to know if the dreams will recreate them. I need you to test her and find out.”
“Kel, I touch someone and I see their memories. I can’t see what their future memories will be. And if she has this ability, you can wipe away her past, but you won’t stop her dreams from taking her where they want to go. Call me a romantic, but I’d like to think they will always lead her right back here, to you. You love her and you hurt every day being away from her. I see it in your eyes.”
“How do I bring her into this world and justify that as okay?”
“How do you justify doing what the army did to you and the others in ‘Project Zodius’ by denying her the ability to choose?”
“Because I’m saving her life and they were taking ours.”
“You think stealing her memories and giving her some life she didn’t ask for is saving her?”
“DO you know where Kel is?” came a muffled female, very familiar voice from the hallway.
That she’d come hunting for him shouldn’t have surprised him, yet it did. She was, and always had been, determined to get what she wanted. That she wanted him both warmed him and turned him to ice. He didn’t know how to handle this right. He’d had no time to think about this.
Becca smiled. “She’s looking for you. I like her already.”
Suddenly, the door opened behind Kel and Damion said, “You have company.” Kel turned just in time to see Damion step out of the doorway and Sonia appear from behind him.
“Kel,” she said, charging forward to embrace him, tilting her chin up to find his eyes with hers. “All that matters is that you’re alive and we’re together. I love you. I never stopped loving you, or missing you, or hurting from the loss of you. I’m not letting you play macho super soldier and send me away. Not unless you tell me you don’t love me anymore.”
Kel buried his head in her hair, inhaling the sweet smell of woman - his woman - and he knew why he’d walked away without giving her a choice. She was a giving, beautiful woman in so many ways. She was at that bar tonight to save the waitress, fearless for herself. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
She pulled back and forced him to look at her, those gorgeous green eyes of hers seeming to see right into his soul, her voice hoarse with emotion. “Then don’t leave me again.”
“I don’t want to,” he assured her, and there was no way she could possibly know how much he meant those words, how much he wanted to be selfish and keep her with him.
“But you’re going to?” she challenged, seeming to read his mind. She shook her head. “No. I won’t let you.” There was stubbornness, passion, and love, in that vow.
It was all he could do not to pick up Sonia and carry her out of here, back to the apartments he called his own when in the city. To his bed. Somehow, he managed to restrain himself and instead he gently took her hand. “Let’s go back to the room.”
She nodded and he turned to Becca. “Sonia, this is Becca. I’ll introduce you more formally later.”
Sonia waved. “Hi, Becca. Nice to meet you.”
Becca smiled softly. “We’ll get acquainted after you two get some much needed time together. I’d love to hear about your dreams. I have a few abilities of my own I’m still getting used to.”
“I’d like that very much,” Sonia said.
Kel motioned to the door and he and Sonia headed to the hallway. The floral scent of her, the soft sway of her hips, seeped into his senses.
Suddenly, his adrenaline was pumping fiercely, his blood burning through his veins. He been so long without her, too long without her. But there were things she had to know, things about him, and he dreaded the moment she might call him a monster. The moment she saw what he’d really become. And he was afraid that moment was now.
CHAPTER FIVE
The minute they were in the hallway, Kel fought the urge to pick Sonia up, as something primitive and wholly male inside him began to expand and take control. They walked past rows of apartments, adrenaline pumping through him with every step, every long second. The instant they were inside the apartment and he shut
the door, the adrenaline pouring through him surged and took over. This time he really did pick her up and carried her to the bed, going down onto the mattress with her on her back, the soft and delicate curves of her body beneath his bigger, harder form.
He kissed her, driven by passion, by a wild, almost desperate need to claim her. His hands slid over her body, over her breasts. She moaned softly into his mouth and fire burned inside him, and he knew he was millimeters from forgetting everything but this moment, forgetting the consequences.
He tore his mouth from hers, his words gravely with desire. “There are things you need to know.”
“I know the most important part. You’re alive.”
“I’m not human, Sonia. Not anymore.”
“You’re still the man I love.”
“You don’t know-”
“I know you.”
“I’ve changed.”
“Show me,” she whispered. “Show me who you are now.”
He kissed her, a deep passionate kiss that bled like lifeblood into him, powerful, passionate, yet oh so sweet. But he didn’t want sweet. He wanted the heat, the fierceness of what they felt when they were together, what he’d been without for so very long.
Kel deepened the kiss, drinking her in, thirsting for her as he had never thirsted. He wanted the lifebond mark that would show on her neck if they bonded to appear, knowing that it would, because lifebonds weren’t created from science, but from love. It was the one thing they knew of the bond, and the one thing he knew existed between him and Sonia. He craved that bond, justifying his actions, even as he swore he would not bond with her. As long as he didn’t exchange blood she would not be bound to him in life and death. But if he was forced to erase her memories, some part of him would stay with her with that marking.
He touched her, everywhere and anywhere. She clung to him, arched against him, responding with such utter passion that there was no way she wasn’t his lifebond. No way he could stop needing, and wanting, and caressing. His lips caressed her neck, and she tilted her head, giving him more, but not enough. Never enough. There was too much time to make up for, too many ways he wanted to know her again. Too much possibility that this was it, all he would ever have of her. “You’re beautiful,” he whispered in her ear, before he was kissing her again, ravenous with need. “You have no idea how much I missed you.”
“I know how empty I was without you,” she said, her breath heavy, her voice a whisper. There was real pain beneath those words that hurt him. Without the ability to wipe away memories he had now, he’d hurt her.
He kissed her again, desperate to make her forget the pain, to give her pleasure. His mouth trailed downward, over her breasts, and he pushed her shirt upward, removing the barriers between them. They’d had too many of those. They still did. She quickly rid herself of her sweatshirt and tank top. Impatient to see her, to feel her, he unhooked her bra while her arms were still over her head, filling his hands with her naked breasts before she’d even tossed away the garment.
He lapped at her nipples, suckling and licking, knowing how it turned her on. He knew her. He knew what she liked. The thought that some other man might know almost destroyed him. It’s why he’d had Sterling watching out for her, why he never asked if she was dating. He had no right to know, to ask. He’d lost her.
The thought was lost to the gentle twine of her fingers into his hair, the way her back arched forward, and the soft little purring sounds coming from her mouth. He missed those sounds more than he’d realized. He missed every inch of her and he set out to kiss every spot he should have been kissing for the past few years.
Kel barely remembered undressing, or how her pants and shoes came off. Impatiently, he ripped the tiny piece of black lace panties she wore away, removing everything that separated her from him. He was hot and hard, and he burned wickedly to be inside her, to feel her tight around him. To claim her as his again.
But he wanted this memory to last, he wanted it to be powerful enough to become her dreams, to defeat his power to erase her memories. It was a ridiculous thought, and an impossible idea, but it was the one that drove him, pushed him, made him have the power to pull back, to go slow when he wanted everything she was and ever would be now.
His hands were all over her body, her soft skin like a drug. He kissed her stomach, caressing her hips with his palms and then trailing his lips over the curve of one of them, traveling a path down her thigh and then back up. Tension coiled in her body beneath his hands and mouth. He could feel her stomach quiver under his palm where he rested it.
By the time his slid his shoulders between her legs and stroked the slick wet heat of her body with his tongue, they were both on edge, both shaking with need. He lapped at her, the salty feminine taste of her seeping into his senses, driving him wild. Somehow, he restrained himself, going slowly, licking and suckling as he slid two fingers inside her until she was on edge. Until she wanted harder and faster and he gave it to her, his reward being her gasp and then the spasm of her body around his fingers. Then she did what she always did. She turned her head and hid her face, embarrassed by the intensity of her orgasm. God, he loved that side of her, the woman who could be so vulnerable no matter how many times or ways, they made love.
He slid up her body, pulled her mouth to his and kissed her. Her shyness slipped away as they faced each other. Her gaze slid over the tattoo of angel wings on his left shoulder and arm. He’d gotten them when he was in a dark moment, in need of some faith.
Her beautiful green eyes lifted to his, filled with mischief. “Sexy. I like.”
“Do you now?” he asked, his blood heating as he pulled her on top of him and repeated her earlier words. “Show me.”
She smiled and kissed him, reaching behind her to stroke his cock and shifting to guide him inside her. The instant he felt the wet heat of her body, his lashes lowered, sensations roaring through him as she took him fully.
Together they sighed in pleasure and relief. “I love you,” he whispered, threading his fingers in the soft honey-colored strands of her hair. “I love you so much, Sonia. I was only trying to protect you.”
“Don’t protect me like that again,” she ordered.
He couldn’t promise that, and he didn’t promise that. He kissed her instead, thrusting into her at the same time, losing the question to the heat, the burn, the joining of their bodies. A slow sensual rhythm emerged, the two of them moving as one, kissing and swaying.
Sonia lifted her upper body away from him, sitting up to ride him, and he held her hips as she started to move, watched as her gaze swept his body and settled on one of the many tattoos he’d gotten in the past two years.
She stopped moving, her hand sweeping over the design. “You had my name tattooed on your chest?”
He gently pulled her to him, holding her close. “Because if this day ever came I didn’t want you to have any doubt you were always on my mind.”
She made a soft sound of surprise. “I love you,” she whispered and pressed her lips to his. He parted her lips, and tasted the salt of her tears, the emotion they represented. The slow raw need between them turned to wild, hot passion. They exploded in a frenzy of touching and thrusting until they were shaking again, this time with release. And when he held her in his arms, expecting the burn of the mating mark to cause her to react and she didn’t, he understood her tears, understood what she feared. That this was the end not the beginning. She wasn’t his lifebond. It was the one thing in the back of his mind that he now knew he hadn’t wanted to discover, but he had to know. She was destined for someone else. He had to set her free and it was going to destroy him.
CHAPTER SIX
Sonia lay beside Kel, her head to his chest, the soft rhythm of his heart music to her ears. “Tell me about your dreams,” he said, stroking her hair. “When did they come back?”
Her mind tracked back to the torment of the past few years, of losing him, of what followed. Awake and asleep
she’d been in hell.
“They started about a year after you left, and they got...more graphic. I saw people die. I saw the blood. I felt pain and fear that was theirs but felt like mine. I wanted an escape and I didn’t want to know they were real. I stopped watching the news or reading the internet and papers. I went to the doctor. She told me it was from the trauma of losing you and gave me pills.”
“What?” he asked, shifting her so that they were side by side, still on top of the blankets they’d never pulled down. “They drugged you?”
“I was desperate,” she argued. “I dreamed of a young girl in a car accident. I was in a store and they had the televisions on and I saw the news. It was her, but Kel she’d died the night before. I couldn’t have stopped it, or that’s what I believed at the time because she was dead when I woke up. I was hysterical, and even my faith was tested. You were dead. I was seeing other people die and I couldn’t stop it. I needed help and this doctor, a dream specialist, said I was using real life to build my dreams.”
“She convinced you that you somehow saw these stories and then recreated them in your dreams?”
“That’s right and at first, Kel, I thought she was right. The medicine stopped the dreams and I was okay. Only I wasn’t. The dreams came back and more powerfully. They adjusted my meds. They came back again. Finally, I said no more.”
She watched relief wash over his face. “Good. You don’t need medicine. You just need to learn how to deal with the dreams. If anyone has learned that unique abilities are possible, it’s me and there are people here who can help you do that.” Regret etched his brow. “We could have helped you long before now. I made so many wrong choices with you, Sonia. I’m so sorry.”
She kissed him. “You were trying to protect me. Don’t do it again, but I know that. Besides, I did a lot of research and decided to stop fighting the dreams. I began writing a journal of all I remembered the minute I woke up. It took a year, but I finally realized that I dreamed about the people involved in the accidents for weeks but only remembering the tragic events because they woke me up. Still, I didn’t know how to find the people and help them. Until recently, that is. Now, I can pick up landmarks and hone in on the places and people. I’m getting better and better at it. I even see flashes of the dreams when I’m awake. It’s what I’m meant to do, Kel. I’m supposed to save these people.” She held her fist to her chest.”I feel it in my very soul.”