A roar sounded in the hallway a moment before two shifted Werewolves charged into the room. I found my strength the way I’d been taught—I dug deep for it—and I shoved Brynna behind me. She might have been fast, but she wasn’t a fighter. This was my job. I wrenched the machete off my back.
These were trained Wolves. They knew how to fight Warriors. Lately, they’d gotten better. I whirled around, grabbing a chair and throwing it at one while I swinging my machete through the neck of the other. It took two strokes, but I got the head off.
“Brynna, run. I can’t worry about you and do this.”
She didn’t argue which I appreciated. I faced down the other Werewolf. To the one side of me, the machine I’d been looking at made a strange noise as though it powered up. The chair I’d thrown landed on top of it after it hit the Werewolf.
Fine. I’d deal with whatever was happening after. The beast and I circled each other slowly. He growled and leapt at me, which was his first mistake. The Werewolves always gave in to the aggression or more of them would beat us. It was a dominance struggle. If he waited me out, he seemed weaker.
He jumped, I struck.
His head rolled to the side. Victorious, I spoke to the dead Wolf. “I wait you guys out every time. One of you should have killed me by now.”
Brynna appeared by my side and threw her arms around me. “I didn’t leave. I didn’t want to distract you.”
She smelled like roses. I whistled against her shoulder. “I told you to go.”
“I don’t listen really well, and the thing you said to me before? I’m sorry if I made you feel those things; I’m sorry if you feel unwanted. I don’t want either of us to be stuck. If you want me, after we fix this, that’s a different story.”
I didn’t want to think about any of that. The buzzing of the cloning machine reached my ears, and I let go of Brynna to go see what was happening. Red and yellow lights blinked, and the once empty tank was filling with water. I hit what looked like the power button, and it didn’t shut off. Brynna gasped.
“Did we accidently turn this thing on and tell it to clone someone?”
I appreciated the we, but she hadn’t done any of that. I did. Or at least, I was the one who had thrown the chair that hit the fucking thing. “Is there a plug?”
She shook her head. “Look, I don’t know much about this at all. But the memories the few Vampires had who have been in here when this happened seem to indicate once the process starts, it can’t be stopped.”
“Well, who are we cloning because so help me, if I have brought back Icahn, I am never going to hear the end of it, trust me. I’m going to wait here and kill him before he can do whatever he’ll do.”
Brynna tugged on my arm. “I don’t think we have that kind of time. They’ll know this is on now. They’ll come in droves. I’ll never be able to stop the Vampires they have with them from killing us.”
“Will they come after us or just if the scientists see us?” I didn’t give her time to answer. Instead, I ran into the other room and grabbed an empty trunk. It was huge, and I bet at one time, it had held all sorts of medical equipment. “Go from here, Brynna. Take yourself somewhere safe. I’ll be fine. Just, go. Besides, if something happens to me, you’ll be free from this mess.”
She huffed. “That’s not funny, Micah.”
“Good. I wasn’t joking.” I jumped into the trunk. One way or another, I was going to see who was coming out of the cloning machine. “Go, Brynna. Now.”
Instead, she pushed her way in. The trunk was big enough for me to feel solidly uncomfortable in it. With the addition of Brynna, we were achingly cramped. That was okay. Sounds of running footsteps stopped me from arguing. I closed the trunk, sticking my finger in it to stop it from closing all the way. With the tiniest spot to look through, I’d get my answers.
I hoped no one thought to see why the trunk wasn’t where they had left it.
Brynna was right. The room was suddenly filled with people wearing white lab coats—twelve of them.
A female voice spoke. “We need to get the feed in here hooked back up. We can’t be caught unaware. We didn’t think the Wolves would figure out the machine, but it looks like they did.”
The Wolves? They’d been present, come when he touched the machine. Why were they interested in cloning? This was all so confusing. If there were so many cloning machines, why had Icahn been overly upset when Rachel broke his?
These were questions for Margot, ones I intended to get the answers to when I got out of this trunk.
“Everything is broken. With Icahn back, we can go see Doubleday. She’ll talk to us now. Then we’ll get things working again. I’m tired of living in this hellhole. This wasn’t what was promised,” a man answered.
Someone groaned. “They brought back the Kenwood boy. I guess those furry assholes really can’t live without their leadership. They wanted an Alpha, they made one. What do you want me to do? Kill it when it wakes up? And look those Warriors must have chased them in and killed some of them. This place is such a mess. I want a transfer. I hate this quadrant.”
“Don’t kill it. They’ll simply bring it back again. What I want is to destroy this machine altogether, but Doubleday won’t hear of it.” The man speaking sighed. “I say we let the guy show up. Looks like they aged him. Fuck. They’ve really been paying attention to this. It’ll be the perfect age to go after the Clancy bitch again. Or Lyons or whatever. Maybe he’ll kill her this time when he succumbs. Let’s not feed him when he wakes up. He can be hungry and confused.”
My heart rate kicked up. Jason Kenwood was coming back, and they hoped he killed my sister-in-law. I’d done this. I closed my eyes. Icahn was back, so there was no stopping his cloning. I was mated to a woman who used to be a Vampire who didn’t want me.
I was one big mess of trouble everywhere I went.
Rain pounded on my head. I didn’t care. Jason Kenwood was coming back. Isaac Icahn had already returned. Why did I ever think I could fix anything? I stood on top of the hill staring at Genesis, and I didn’t give one single fuck about the freezing rain soaking through my clothes. I turned to Brynna. “You should go,” I called over the noise. “They’re going to come down on me like a ton of bricks. I really don’t know what’s going to happen.”
“Then better to not leave you.” If the rain bothered her, she didn’t indicate. Still, I’d rather she not get any wetter than she already was.
“Brynna, you’re going to catch your death.” I sounded like my grandmother. For the first time in forever, I missed her.
An old memory moved through me, catching me by surprise. Nana wasn’t a pretty woman by any means. I didn’t think she’d ever been. But she loved my grandfather with abandon and thought her son, my father, walked on water. Consequently, we all did. She laughed, holding my six-year-old self against her while she stirred her tea.
“Micah, you come from sturdy stuff.” She kissed my cheek, and she smelled like tomatoes. The woman had made the best sauce. “We sometimes falter, but we never fail. Not when it comes down to it. Your great-grandfather was a prince, and you have his name.”
My father would later tell me her stories were all made up. My family had come over to the United States in lieu of being executed for stealing. They’d then been indentured servants for years before gaining their freedom. I smirked. I liked her version better.
I blinked back into the here and now. Thinking of someone was dangerous around Brynna.
“She loved you.”
“She did. She might be the last person to have really done so.”
I was glad to have her memory at the front of my mind. My father, I would later realize when I was finally able to see adults for what they were—people, instead of gods—was embarrassed by his mother. She chewed with her mouth open. She spoke too loud. He hadn’t cared that every time she made dinner she’d done so with love. He hadn’t remembered she’d sat up nights sewing his socks so he never had holes even when he was an adult. My moth
er would bring her the socks. I cringed. I’d forgotten my grandmother, too. She doctored my skinned knees. She never overlooked me for Chad or disregarded Chad for me. Tia wasn’t better because she was a girl. We were all the same.
She’d died when I was ten, and everyone had moved on like the next day was normal. I’d had to force myself to only weep in the bathroom when no one could hear.
“People love you, Micah.”
I pinched my lips. “Chad loves me. But he has her heart. Our grandmother. I realize it now. My dad and I… we’re two of a kind. And I get to go tell the people down there that their lives are about to get much, much worse. Not sure even my pretty face or my last name will matter now.” I winked at her. When in doubt, flirt. “It’s been nice knowing you, Brynna. Good luck with everything.”
I walked toward my destiny. Somehow, it had always been moving toward this.
Chapter 9
I missed Brynna the second I left her, but I had to ignore the ache. I searched until I found Deacon. He was home with his wife. She had her feet up while he rubbed them. I could see through the makeshift windows in the tent. Lydia laughed at something he said. I was too wet to go inside. I’d get water everywhere, and unlike my home, they’d actually taken the time with theirs to make it look like someplace a person would want to spend time.
I knocked on the window until they both looked at me. Yeah, they could both call me Peeping Micah. I was pressed against their window like a creeper.
Deacon opened the door flap and stuck his head out. “Hey, man, come inside.”
“No.” I shook my head. “I can’t.” I wouldn’t be welcome anymore in anyone’s home. I’d officially cloned a Werewolf that had tried to kill us all, and I didn’t have the balls to stay there and kill him. As soon as I could, I’d run away. Because I was a coward on top of everything else.
Deacon stepped outside into the rain. I hadn’t wanted him to do that. I’d only wanted to tell him what I knew. “Go back out of the storm.”
“Why can’t you come in?” He stayed by the door. I stepped away from the window. I wouldn’t spy on him anymore.
“Because you won’t want me in there.”
Deacon scrunched up his nose. “Why?”
“I’m a coward, and you never are.” I spoke the truth. It felt good to do so. “I cloned Jason Kenwood. I didn’t mean to, but I did. Because, fuck, that’s what I do, right? I fuck up. Icahn is already back. And there’s somebody named Doubleday who’s actually running the show. You want to get your raincoat or umbrella or whatever the fuck you want and go get my father. Someone needs to arrest me. I’ll stay here.”
Deacon didn’t do as I asked. In fact, he made no noticeable movements. He lifted his eyebrows. That was all.
“Micah,” Brynna called to me, and I turned to the left to see her standing there. “Chad doesn’t have her heart. You do.” I almost couldn’t breathe after she spoke her words. The storm picked up, the rain flying sideways at us. “Your grandmother. I can see her in your head—I don’t know how this memory sharing works—and I can see her in Chad’s. You have her heart. Your father wasn’t nice enough to her. Chad knew, knows, whatever, that, too. But you have her heart. They haven’t taken good enough care of it. You are not your father. Tia is maybe the closest, but I don’t know her. I haven’t met her. All I know is you have it. You love like she did. Completely. Without reservation. The only difference is she had your grandfather, until he died. And he loved her the right way. That’s how she got through all of it, I think. That’s what Chad thought. That’s what she told him, once.”
I felt like a voyeur for the second time in minutes. First I was looking through Deacon’s window and now into Chad’s memories via my mate. How much more fucked up could things get?
But she got me… and I didn’t want her to stop. I didn’t want this to stop. Maybe it was the mating, or maybe it was that I liked having her total attention. “I wish I was her. She didn’t have a selfish bone in her body. She loved my dad every second of her life, even when he was an asshole.”
“Well, your father was her child. That’s how it works most of the time. As far as I can tell from other people’s memories. You love them and you forgive them. Time and again. Your father should be loving you the same way.”
Whatever. We were in the rain. And what did it matter? There was a Werewolf coming for my sister-in-law. Why was I here talking to Deacon? Why had I run straight here? Why did Brynna follow me? I…
I’d always supposed I’d know if I was about to have a freak out. I’d have warning. I could take myself some place and do it in private where no one would see. That wasn’t how it worked. One second I was okay, and the next, I just wasn’t.
I turned my head to the sky and screamed. I fell to my knees. I couldn’t even have explained why if asked. My hands tingled. My legs had gone numb. Deacon was there. He said something to me. Brynna was by my side. They were talking. She wiped my wet hair off my face, pressed her head against my shoulder. The smell of roses in the rain. I couldn’t stop… fuck, what was I doing? Crying? No. Lyons men didn’t cry.
Except I was, and I wasn’t stopping. I let my head fall forward. Deacon was still talking but to who? I couldn’t hear him over the roar of the rain and thunder. When had the thunder happened? Streaks of light lit up the darkness. Lightning. Lydia was there, a blanket around my shoulders—all of it was vague.
There was so much death. There was nothing. The world my grandmother lived in was long gone. Hundreds of years. Vampires and Werewolves ruled our night. I was so sick of being strong. What did it matter anyway? I fucked up everything, and the woman who made me feel not alone for the first time maybe ever wanted out of this arrangement.
I was brought inside. My shoes came off. I thought I kept telling them all to stop. I thought I twice managed to stop crying. I didn’t know. Not for sure.
Because I knew nothing, not really. Just that everything was always hard. Always a small piece of hell, and we never really got to beat back the devil because I fucked everything up and brought them right back.
I wiped at my eyes. When had Chad arrived? He sat across from me at Deacon’s table. When had I gotten there? Chad silently watched me. “Hey.”
He raised his eyebrows. “Hey?”
My whole body hurt like the time I’d had the flu. “Yeah… sorry.”
Was there protocol for what to say when you had a nervous breakdown?
“If you say sorry one more time, I’m going to deck you.”
Had I said it multiple times? “I don’t remember saying it before.”
Chad leaned forward. “How long have you been holding on to so much pain?”
Now there was the question of the hour. “What difference does it make?”
“Don’t deflect.”
Fuck me. I supposed, considering what I’d done, I didn’t get to play it cool for at least 24 hours. “I don’t even know, Chad.”
“Well, none of us are poster children for mental health and nothing we can do about it, anyway. So Jason Kenwood is back. You didn’t build the cloning machine. You threw a chair. That’s what Brynna said. She went back to see if she could waylay Jason. If he comes back, then we’ll deal with him. He’s not the end of the world. Rachel picked me. She had herself wiped from people’s minds for me. At the end of the day, at this point, he’s another Werewolf.”
Somehow, I sincerely doubted my brother felt as blasé as he sounded. But, fine. If he wanted to play it this way, we’d do that. “I did this.”
“You didn’t do anything, but get mated to a Vampire. How’s your mating going, by the way?”
I shrugged. “She doesn’t want me. She wants out of the mating. Apparently, I’m a manwhore.”
“That’s what she said? That you’re a manwhore?”
“In not so many words.” What was complicated about this?
“Huh.”
I bent my head. Since we were sharing, I might as well be honest. “I don’t understand it when you ma
ke noises like that. That sound, that huh or whatever. I don’t know what you are thinking or what you want. I’m not smart.”
Chad leaned forward and pounded on Deacon’s small table. The two water glasses sitting on it somehow leapt in the air and fell back down without spilling. “You’re smarter than I am. You always were. You never put your head down and studied. You never took two seconds to give two shits about our classes. You still made decent grades. I had to work all the time. If I’d spent as little time as you, I’d have failed.”
“The difference, Chad, is you’re physically incapable of failure, and I’m pretty much fine with it.”
He patted his chest. “I died, Micah. I’d say that was pretty much failing. Wouldn’t you? The me in front of you has different skin than the one I was born with. I’m a copy. That’s a pretty big failure.”
I hated talking about this. “Look…”
“No.” He pointed his finger at me. “You look. You freaked out tonight, and I think it was a long time coming. You picked the right person to go to in order to have your eruption. Deacon would step in front of traffic for you if there was such a thing anymore. So would I. Rachel, too, for that matter. And the woman you think believes you to be a manwhore went back underground because she wants to fix this for you. What do you want, Micah? Do you want to disappear underground? Never come back? You could have done so a dozen times now. Do you want to stay here and fight? Not fight? What do you want?”
The problem was the answer to his questions changed every day. Every hour. Every minute. “I don’t want to stay here and be a lesser version of you to Dad and every person, other than the ones you mentioned, every second of the day. I want to help the effort. And I can’t have all of those things all at once. Right now, I also want to destroy every cloning machine ever made and that makes me feel like shit because that’s why you’re sitting here.”
Chad ran his hand over his face. “Then let’s do it. Let’s be hypocrites. All right, I’m here because of the tech. Well, screw it. I’m tired of these scientists getting to mess with our lives. Let’s get rid of their technology. Let’s make them live like the rest of us.”