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Mundane? Brock barely refrained from scoffing at the inadequate word. Of course, neither Gideon nor any of the other warriors had been present for the head-to-toe body search performed on Je
Given that he was the only one who could level her out, Brock had been drafted to stay at Je
Yet he’d had a startlingly unprofessional response to the sight of Je
He recalled every smooth curve and sloping valley, every little mole, every scar—from the ghost of a c-section incision on her abdomen, to the smattering of healed puncture wounds and lacerations that peppered her torso and forearms, telling him she’d already come through hell and back at least once before.
And he’d been anything but clinical and detached when Je
He didn’t need to be thinking about the woman, naked or otherwise. Except now that he’d gone there, he could think of damned little else. And when she glanced up and caught his gaze through the glass of the little window in the door, an unbidden heat went through him like a flaming arrow.
Desire was bad enough, but it was the odd sense of protectiveness serving as a chaser that really threw him off kilter. The feeling had begun in Alaska, when he and the other warriors first found her. It hadn’t faded in the days she’d been at the compound. If anything, the feeling had only gotten stronger, watching her fight and struggle through the strange sleep that had kept her unconscious since she’d come out of her ordeal with the Ancient in Alaska.
Her frank gaze still held his from across the infirmary: cautious, almost suspicious. There was no weakness in her eyes, nor in the slight tilt of her chin. Je
She was calm and stoic, as brave as she was beautiful, and it sure as hell wasn’t making her less intriguing to him.
“When was the last time you ran blood work and DNA?” Lucan asked, the grave, low-voiced question giving Brock something else to focus on.
Gideon pushed back his shirtsleeve to check his watch. “I drew the last sample about seven hours ago.”
Lucan grunted as he pivoted away from the infirmary door. “Run everything again now. If the readings have changed so much as an iota from the last sample, I want to hear about it.”
Gideon’s blond head bobbed. “Given what Brock has told us, I’d also like to take some strength and endurance measurements. Any information we can gather from studying Je
“Whatever you need,” Lucan said grimly. “Just get it done, and fast. This situation is important, but we also can’t afford to lose momentum on our other missions.”
Brock inclined his head along with the other warriors, knowing as well as any of them that a human in the compound was a complication the Order didn’t need when they still had an enemy on the loose—namely Dragos, a corrupt Breed elder whom the Order had been pursuing for the better part of a year.
Dragos had been working in secret for many decades, under more than one assumed identity and within clandestine, powerful alliances. His operation had grown numerous and long-reaching tentacles, as the warriors were discovering, and every one of those grasping arms was working in concert toward a single objective: Dragos’s complete and total domination over both the Breed and humankind alike.
The Order’s primary goal was his destruction and the swift, permanent dismantling of his entire operation. The Order meant to take Dragos out at the roots. But there were complications to that goal. He had all but vanished recently, and there were, as always, layers of protection in front of him—secret allies within the Breed nation, maybe outside of it, too. Dragos also had an u
Brock glanced into the infirmary room where Je
Inside the room, Alex pivoted away from her friend and approached the door. She opened it and stepped out to the corridor, her brown eyes soft with concern under the dark blond bangs that fringed her forehead.
“How’s she doing?” Kade asked, moving toward his woman as though gravity pulled him there. They were a newly mated pair, having met during Kade’s mission in Alaska, but looking at the warrior and his pretty bush pilot Breedmate, it seemed impossible to Brock that they had only been together for a couple of weeks. “Does Je
“She’s confused and upset, understandably,” Alex said, moving into the shelter of Kade’s body just as he had done with her. “I think she’ll feel better after a long shower and some fresh clothes. She says she feels stir crazy in the room and wants to take a walk to stretch some of the tightness out of her legs. I told her I would ask if it was all right.”
Alex looked to Lucan as she said it, directing the request to the Order’s oldest member, its founder and leader.
“Je
“Thank you,” Alex said, gratitude brightening some of the uncertainty in her eyes. “I told her she wouldn’t be kept here as a prisoner, but she didn’t seem to believe me. After what she’s been through, I guess that’s not surprising. I’ll go tell her what you said, Lucan.”
As she turned to slip back into the infirmary, the Order’s leader cleared his throat. Kade’s mate slowed and swung a glance over her shoulder, some of the wind already leaving her sails as she met Lucan’s stern look. “Je
Brock had to work to bite back the curse that rose to his tongue.
Just frigging great, he thought, wanting like hell to reject the continued assignment that would keep him in close quarters with Je
Instead he acknowledged Lucan’s order with a nod.