When the lights go down, who knows what danger...and unspoken desires lurk in the dark?

Three young people with a shared tragic past that left them burdened as well as blessed with supernatural talents are now the target of forces determined to harm them. But their fate rests with the strangers that help them—a nurse at a mental hospital, a detective and a small-town librarian—strangers who must suspend their own disbelief to protect them. In this enthralling trilogy, these fearless, damaged souls are ready to embrace the unfathomable but are wholly unprepared for the passion they find in the arms of a stranger.

Love blooms best when the night falls, doesn’t it? Don’t miss this scintillating collection of novellas from New York Times bestselling author Megan Hart!

Strangers of the Night

Touched by Passion

Passion in Disguise

Unexpected Passion

Megan Hart

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MEGAN HART is the award-winning and New York Times bestselling author of more than thirty novels, novellas and short stories. Her work has been published in almost every genre, including contemporary women’s fiction, historical romance, romantic suspense and erotica. Megan lives in the deep, dark woods of Pennsylvania with her husband and children. Visit her on the web at www.meganhart.com.

MILLS & BOON

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This collection is dedicated to Jeffe Kennedy, who was there for me every time I struggled with the words.

Table of Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

Title Page

About the Author

Dedication

Touched by Passion

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Passion in Disguise

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Unexpected Passion

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Copyright

Touched by Passion

Megan Hart

Prologue

Collins Creek

Jed doesn’t like the sound of the babies crying. He can hear them even from the other building, wailing inside his head. He’s too big to be one of them anymore. No more diapers. No more crib. No more giant room that always smells faintly of milk and poo. Now he has his own big bed in the dorm with the other kids, and although he misses his mothers, he knows better than to give in to tears. If you cry here in the dorm, you get a beating.

Instead, he clenches his fists tight at his sides and stares up at the ceiling. His cot is hard and lumpy. The blanket scratches his chin if he pulls it up too high, so he tucks it around his belly. The other kids are sleeping, but Jed can’t seem to manage. There’s too much noise, too much going on. If he gets up now, he could go to the monitor, who will give him some medicine to sleep, but it makes his head feel fuzzy and his belly hurt. He tries to fall asleep on his own.

Tomorrow is dedication day.

The fathers have been watching them all since they were babies in the nursery. They already know which ones are special. Who will be dedicated, who will be sent away.

This is Jed’s first dedication time, but he’s heard the other kids talking even when they’re not supposed to. Everyone’s scared about what happens when you’re sent away. The rumor is that you get put into the big fireplace in the barn and made into smoke, and Jed believes it. He’s been able to “feel” everyone at the farm for as long as he can remember. The kids who get taken away after each dedication, well...he doesn’t feel them anymore.

Before he’s even had time to sleep, the lights overhead come on. The other kids shift and squeal, crying out in excitement and fear when the doors to the dorm boom open and the fathers are there in their black robes, their white masks. It’s supposed to make them all equal, but it doesn’t matter to Jed that they all look the same. They all feel different.

The kids are up and in a line, marching into the hallway. One by one, they go into the meeting room. None of them come out. They won’t know until later who’s still left, though of course, Jed will know before everyone else. That’s what he tells the fathers waiting for him in the meeting room when they ask him. He tells them who he can still feel. Who he cannot. They stare at him from behind their white masks, nodding when he points to each and names them.

They feel happy, and that makes Jed feel happy, too. He won’t be burned up into smoke. He gets the special pudding for dessert that makes the world spin around in many colors. He gets to go back to the dorm and his lumpy bed, where he can only lie on his back, laughing and laughing at the funny way everything grows and shrinks.

He’s still laughing when the doors bang open again. More men in black. No white masks. Guns. They kick over the beds, the monitor’s desk. They shout. Most of them feel angry, though one or two feel more scared than anything else, and none of them feel nice.

They take all of the children.

Jed never sees Collins Creek again.

Chapter 1

Samantha Janecek had never liked hospitals in general, but she loathed this hospital in particular.

It wasn’t the smells of chemicals and despair, though those clung to her like some stinking perfume she could never quite scrub away. And it wasn’t the bright, unrelenting lights that forced everyone inside to adjust to some artificial internal clock, although they messed with her sleep so much that she hadn’t been able to get more than four hours at a time since she’d started here. More than anything else, it was this uniform.

No scrubs for the nursing staff here at Wyrmwood. Nope, the women had to wear white, starched dresses with Peter Pan collars and a weird belt thing that hit her too high on the ribs to be comfortable. Thick white support stockings, crepe-soled granny shoes. Worst of all, the mesh cap she had to pin into the thickness of her blond hair, which refused to ever stay neatly in the required bun. The uniform was straight out of the late sixties—fitting, she supposed, since the rest of Wyrmwood seemed to have been arrested in that same era. Including the fact there were no male nurses here, only orderlies. They also wore all white, but at least they got to wear pants.

“Morning, miss,” said Nathan through the glass as she showed him her ID card and pressed her fingertip to the panel at the side of the door.

When the green light clicked on, she pushed through the heavy door that slid behind her with a hushed whirr. “Hi, Nathan. How’s it going?”

“Same old, same old.” Nathan shrugged. “Quiet tonight.”

Of course it was quiet. Not only were all the patients on the fourth floor secured in their individual rooms behind soundproof walls, but most of them barely spoke aloud. Some by choice, an elective muteness. Some because they’d lost the capability for speech somewhere along the way. It might’ve been different on other floors, but as she’d never worked on any of them, Samantha couldn’t say.

“Have a good one,” Samantha said as she signed in using the electronic keypad at Nathan’s station.

She paused for the automatic snapshot that would be added to her file, another level of proof that she was who she said she was. That she was here when she ought to be. She’d often considered pulling a funny face during the picture taking, but had never quite dared. Humor was not encouraged here.

She didn’t speak to the armed guards posted at the elevator entrance to the floor. One or both of them might be on her team, but she never knew. Never would know, not unless it was necessary. Vadim made sure of that.

Samantha had been working at the Wyrmwood job for the past eighteen months. She’d never asked what strings had been pulled to make sure she was assigned to the fourth floor. She simply followed the rules she’d agreed to when she took the job. The money from the Crew kept coming in, deposited into an account in no way connected to the one she used for her Wyrmwood salary, and which she checked only once a month, using an encrypted burner phone she then tossed immediately. Money she couldn’t spend until she was no longer needed here.

The question was, when would she decide that she was finished with this assignment? How much longer could she stand it here before she lost more than a little bit of her own mind? Working in near silence all day long, taking the vitals of men and women who were often little more than chilly mannequins. Forcing her body into an artificial day/night cycle that fucked up her social life, not just her mental state. She was not the first person Vadim had ever assigned to this task. Sooner or later, all of those who’d come before her had ended up leaving, some of their own accord and others because they’d stopped toeing the Wyrmwood line. She’d never found out how many of them had ended up as patients themselves. Stopping for a moment in front of a closed door with nothing more than a small viewport in it, she allowed herself the briefest second to touch the cold metal. A little longer, she told herself. Surely she could last a little longer.

At the desk, positioned between the two corridors of the L-shaped building, she managed some banal chitchat with the nurse leaving her shift. Patty was nice enough. She did yoga. Had a bland husband, several unremarkable children and a couple of dogs she referred to as “fur babies” in a way that made Samantha supremely uncomfortable. She and Patty would never be friends—Wyrmwood employees were discouraged from socializing outside of work, anyway, even if they’d had anything in common beyond the job. Samantha knew, though, that no matter how normal Patty seemed, the fact she worked here at Wyrmwood meant she had the highest security clearance possible. It meant that, like Samantha, Patty was capable of killing you with a ballpoint pen or her bare hands. Not only capable, but willing.

“Quiet tonight,” Patty said in an echo of Nathan’s earlier statement. “You shouldn’t have any trouble.”

“Never do,” Samantha said with the bright, sterile smile she’d cultivated over the years as part of her armor against the “normal” world. It had worked well for this stint in Wyrmwood, that was for sure. That smile, she was convinced, was what had finally earned her the job. “Have a good night. Give the pups a squeeze from me.”

“Will do!” Patty gathered her things and signed out of the computer, pausing for another of those snapshots, and left.

Alone at the desk, Samantha released a pent-up sigh and allowed her face to fall into an expression that didn’t even come close to a smile. She was still being watched, of course. She knew that. But she didn’t have to pretend she was here for a party. If anything, the two performance reviews she’d had since taking the assignment had made note of her “professional demeanor” and “consistent attitude.”

Signing in, adding another profile picture to the files, she settled into her seat to scroll through the notes left behind by the last shift. Patty preferred crossword puzzles to extensive note taking, which was fine with Samantha, since there was rarely anything important to note. Fourth floor had twenty patients who required varying levels of care, and all of them were her responsibility.

But she was there, really, to take care of only one.

Chapter 2

If there was something about warm, smooth skin and bristly beard stubble that wasn’t meant to send a girl straight to heaven, Persephone Collins didn’t want to hear about it. The man in the bed beside her had muscles in all the most important places, eyes as dark as midnight, hair like the sweetest Australian black licorice and, more important, a mouth made for kissing that he hardly ever used to talk. Silence was one of a man’s best qualities, according to Persephone.

Well, silence and a nice cock.

It didn’t have to be huge, she thought as she rolled over to let her hand trail down his firm, hairless pecs to the bit of fur on his belly. Just proportional. A little lower, and her fingers brushed soft flesh. He stirred, thickening under her stroking touch. His groan made her smile.

He put a hand over hers. “Again?”

“Again,” she whispered and lowered her mouth to taste him. Warm, sweet skin. Tangy. She closed her eyes to savor his unique flavor.

“Please,” he said. “I don’t think I can.”

She looked at him. “Oh, I think you can.”

“We’ve done it five times, babe.” His voice dipped low, almost into a growl that became a drawn-out groan when she again dipped her head to take him between her lips.

She ran her hands over her body, knowing exactly what he would see. High, huge breasts tipped with cherry nipples. Flat belly. Wide, curving hips. And also...

“You don’t want this sweetness?” She let her fingertips travel over the thatch of soft strawberry hair between her thighs. The hair was really hers.

Not much else was.

The guy on the bed—damn, what was his name, exactly? It began with an M. Mark? Marcus? Marcellus? Whoever he was said, “Of course I do, darlin’, but you’ve about wore me out.”

Her fingers curved around his shaft again. Stroking gently. Up over the head and around, until he arched. Cock stiff. The sound of his moan rippled through her.

Oh, how she loved fucking.

Especially men built like working out was their job. Oh, right, she thought as he continued to respond to her touch. It was his job. She’d met him at the gym. He was a personal trainer.

It surprised her when he sat up to put one big hand on the back of her neck to pull her close for a kiss. She managed to turn her face at the last second so their lips slid against each other quickly, barely connecting. She urged his mouth along the line of her jaw and down her throat. Lower, to her breasts. He licked and sucked at one nipple, then the other, and although this body that he was worshipping was mostly illusory, it still felt good. More than good. Fantastic.

Desire rose within her, trickling through her veins. Filling her. It swept away everything except the urge for mindless ecstasy.

“Come up here.” Strong hands urged her upward to straddle his face.

His tongue slid against her, effortlessly finding her clit. His hands kneaded her ass cheeks—plumper than her own. Softer. Her real body was tight, lean, hard with muscles she’s built at the gym where they’d met. The gym where he’d never paid a second of attention to her before today, when her rising need had made her focus on him.

Persephone shook away these thoughts. She needed to come, to lose herself in exploding pleasure. To be swept away by fantasy, not reality. She looked down at his face, his eyes closed as his mouth worked on her.

“There,” she murmured, rocking against him. Letting the sensations swirl inside her from deep in her belly. “Oh, yeah. Right there. Right there.”

She’d intended to ride his cock one more time before using his shower, helping herself to whatever was in his fridge, perhaps lifting the contents of his wallet before leaving him sleeping in the tangled, sweaty sheets left behind after their marathon fuck session. However, she wasn’t going to turn down the delight of his lips and tongue against her. It was better, in fact. Taking this pleasure from him without having to focus on his.

He muttered something against her. The vibrations sent another surge of pleasure, up, up, twisting tight and coiling. She cried out as her thighs trembled. Her cunt clenched, throbbing. His tongue swirled on her clit, sending her over the edge at last.

She rode it, shaking and crying out. The climax eased. She rolled off him and limply fell back on the bed.

Silence.

A low chuckle turned her toward him. Persephone pushed herself up on her elbow to look into his face. “Thanks.”

Marcus or Marco or whoever he was smiled. Yawned. “You’re welcome.”

She glanced down at his cock, no longer hard. “You sure you don’t want...?”

“Oh, I want.” He rolled to face her and put a hand on her hip. “Just can’t right now. Surprised I was able to so many times already, girl. Something about you...”

Well, yeah. There was that. She smiled and touched his face. For the briefest moment she thought about letting the pretense drop. Instead, she let her fingers press the spot between his eyes. Gently. Softly.

His eyes closed. He began to snore. She studied him a moment longer, thinking how much nicer he’d been than she expected. Of course, she wasn’t going to be around in the morning to find out if she was wrong about him. And the next time she saw him, he wasn’t going to recognize her, so it wasn’t as though she’d even have to worry about either an awkward conversation or getting the blow-off.

“Good night,” Persephone whispered into his ear.

He didn’t stir. She got off the bed. Long slim legs and big boobs wavered and shifted. When she looked in the full-length mirror, her real, true image stared back at her. Five foot two. A-cup breasts. Thick, muscled thighs and biceps. Her body was strong and fit, and never let her down, no matter if she was running from the cops, breaking and entering or letting some rando with a hard cock have his way with her. This body, she thought as she cupped her breasts and flicked her nipples erect, was no wonderland. It was the real deal.

Without a glance behind her, she got dressed. She did raid the fridge, snagging a piece of cold pizza and a soda, along with a couple bananas from the counter for later. She did not, however, take his wallet. Didn’t even sneak a couple twenties from it. He’d been a good lay but more than that, seemed like a pretty decent guy...

Clearly, she was slipping.

Pushing that thought from her head, Persephone kept her head down once she reached the street and headed for home. Light was tingeing the sky when she got back to her place. Maybe she’d be able to sleep now.

The sound of feet scuffling behind her as she stopped to pull her mail from the box didn’t make her turn. She knew who it was without looking. She said nothing as Kane Dennis moved beside her to check his own mail.

“Morning.”

She pursed her lips. “Mmm.”

He laughed, the sound of it low and rich and rippling through her in a way she hated because of how much she liked it. She pulled out a sheaf of junk mail, the only kind she ever got. Pretended it was something important, like she was a real person who paid bills or got postcards from friends. She shot a sideways glance at him.

Six feet of lean, long legs. Broad shoulders. Taut stomach. Faded jeans, form-fitting Henley under a plaid shirt, unbuttoned but rolled up to his elbows to expose his finely muscled forearms. She was such a sucker for forearms, and his completely slayed her.

“Still having a problem with the hot water,” Kane said conversationally. “Not trying to be a pain in the ass about it, but if you could take a look?”

“Now?” Persephone tucked the mail into her bag.

“It would be great if I could grab a hot shower before bed,” he told her.

She tucked the inside of her cheek against her teeth at the thought of Kane beneath a spray of hot water, sluicing over the perfect body... She shook it off. “Sure. I can come up now.”

“Great,” Kane said with a smile that tried to get its way inside her, despite her every effort not to let it. “See you in a few?”

“Yeah, sure,” Persephone said without returning the smile. “See you in a few.”

Chapter 3

There were twenty patients on the fourth floor of Wyrmwood, ten in each wing. Samantha had never been told she had to take care of them in any certain order, but she almost always started at the far end of A wing and worked her way down toward the end of B wing. Dispensing meds. Taking vitals. Her role as a nurse was very limited, which was a good thing, since she’d never had any kind of actual medical training. Her degrees had been fabricated the same as the rest of her history. Still, none of her required tasks were difficult, and she’d been trained to call on other staff if anything did get out of control. It made her wonder, more than once, what the Wyrmwood powers above truly intended her function, and that of the other nurses, to be.

Glorified babysitters, she thought as she loaded the tray with necessary pills and vials of liquids for each room and pocketed her stethoscope and thermometer. Or more likely, part of the experiment, whatever it was. The cameras everywhere, the security. The out-of-date uniforms and strict rules that controlled after-hours behavior. The deathly quiet working atmosphere, no cell phones allowed. No outside reading material. It all seemed designed to drive the staff to madness right along with the patients, that was for sure.

She paused outside A1 to look through the porthole. The patient inside, sixty-year-old Helena, liked to draw elaborate spirals but had been denied the use of a pen or pencil since she’d stabbed an orderly with the point. She’d been allowed soft chalk, though, and routinely covered the walls and floor of her room with intricate designs every day, only to wipe them all away and start over when she’d finished. She never gave Samantha any trouble and was amenable to halting her work long enough to take the drug cocktail she’d been prescribed. She didn’t make eye contact with Samantha. She answered when spoken to, but nothing beyond that.

“Do you need anything?” Samantha asked the standard question that was rarely answered by any of the fourth floor’s patients.

Helena shook her head, already reaching for the thick block of blue chalk. She turned from Samantha without another word. Outside, Samantha took one last peek into the porthole, but Helena was already back to her drawing.

In a normal job, there’d be patient histories. Records she’d have been able to pull to see why the patient had been put here in the first place. She supposed it didn’t matter much. They paid her well enough not to ask those sorts of questions; more important, they paid her enough not to worry about it. Since none of the patients were being blatantly abused and all of them seemed content enough in their captivity, Samantha did her best not to care.

Slowly, she worked her way down the A wing. Whatever fight had been inside these patients in their lives had gone dead a long time ago, Samantha thought as she double-checked the next wing’s meds and pushed the cart toward B10. She very carefully didn’t think about the man in B1. Not until she got to B5, at least, and then, then...

She smelled lavender.

Closing her eyes as she pretended to fuss with the cart and the meds, Samantha couldn’t stop herself from smiling. Jed knew it was her favorite smell. She’d mentioned it once, early on. She’d never told him that she noticed how the scent always wafted around her when she got close to his room. Saying it aloud would mean the ones who watched them would be able to hear. It would be proof that Jed was still capable of manipulating his environment. Proof of a connection between them that she didn’t dare let anyone know about.

She drew in another slow breath, though, delighting in the scent. As she stood, the meds for B5 in one hand, the door at the end of the hall opened and Dr. Ransom came through it, flanked as he always was by two guards. He nodded at her, stopping in front of Jed’s room.

“Hello, Nurse. I’m here to get Jed for a session.”

“He hasn’t had his meds yet—” The doctor was already gesturing to one of the guards to step forward and take them from her. With a frown, Samantha pulled the small paper cup from the cart but didn’t hand it over. “If you can wait a few minutes, I’ll be happy to—”

Again, the doctor cut her off with a dismissive wave. “Not necessary, thank you, Nurse.”

The scent of lavender faded, replaced by the chemical, hospital stink that burned the insides of her nose, making her cough. The pills chattered a little in the paper cup, and she forced her hands to stop shaking. “It would really only take—”

Dr. Ransom’s head swung around and, for the first time in perhaps the entirety of her working here, he looked Samantha in the face. “Is there some reason you feel it necessary to argue with me?”

“No.” With that same bright, plastic smile, Samantha handed over the pills to the guard, who took the paper cup without even blinking. “Of course not.”

“Get back to work,” Ransom told her, already dismissing her and looking through the portal.

Samantha wasn’t dumb enough to say another word. She lingered, though, at the cart, until they brought Jed out. Not in cuffs, although the men on either side of him were clearly ready to handle him if he did anything out of line. He hadn’t in the past eighteen months, but she knew he had, a long time ago. Watching Ransom’s face, she thought the doctor was sort of hoping Jed would pull something now, so he’d have an excuse to order Jed’s restraint.

Was this it? The end of things? Were they finally taking him away? Should she react? There’d been no word from the Crew, and nothing from Wyrmwood, either. No changes in the schedule that would indicate that anything had changed.

Jed didn’t look at her when he came out of the room. Not so much as a glance over his shoulder.

She was already planning her attack when the softly drifting scent of lavender returned. She didn’t think he even knew she was there. She’d never spoken to Jed about the real reasons she’d come to Wyrmwood, but it wasn’t impossible that he knew and understood. Not out of the realm of possibility that he would know before she could, before anyone else could, that his time here was over.

Chapter 4

Jed came back as Samantha was finishing her shift. She heard the doors open and stood up from her place at the desk to look. Ransom hadn’t come back with him. The same two guards from before were marching him to his room, a hand beneath each of his elbows to hold him up. He looked exhausted.

“Does he need something? Jed, do you need something?” She came around the desk to face them.

“Doctor said he’ll be fine, he just needs to sleep.” One of the guards gave her an assessing up-and-down look, and then a surprising grin. “I could use a little something, though.”

“Shut up, Clement,” said the other guard with a scowl. “Get this door open. Get the guy inside, okay? I want to go the hell home.”

Samantha ignored both of them and stepped closer. “Jed?”

He shook his head. “No. Just tired. I’ll sleep now. That’s all.”

He looked terrible, but so did most of the patients when they came back from a session with Ransom. Samantha hesitated, once more wondering if now was the time. She could take out the first guard, no problem, and with great satisfaction, considering how he’d leered at her. The second would be harder to topple, warned and ready, but she had no doubts that she could take care of him, too. Her fingers fairly itched to strike out at both of them, but she didn’t show any signs of it.

Vadim, the man in charge of the Crew and the one who’d brought her in on this assignment, had told her there’d be times when she felt ready to act, but that she needed to wait. She’d be told when the time was right. Until then, she was to monitor Jed. To foster a relationship with him, such as she could with limited interactions. She would have to trust the Crew, Vadim had said, and she’d have to get Jed to trust her.

Samantha had never been big on trust, either giving or receiving, but she did believe Vadim and the Crew knew what they were doing. So now, instead of going into battle mode and destroying the two dudes manhandling Jed through the door and into his room, she went back to the desk and gathered her things. She signed out, although until the next nurse showed up to cover her shift, there wasn’t much she could do.

“Hey, listen, so maybe me and you...” The first guard had come out of Jed’s room and leaned over the desk to give her a wink. “Drinks?”

“You know that’s not allowed.” Without looking at him, Samantha scanned through the security feeds on the camera, searching for any sign that her replacement was at least in the elevator.

“Hey. I’m talking to you.” He went so far as to put his hand over the top of the desk and tried to grab her shoulder.

She pulled away before he could touch her, one hand going up automatically to grip his wrist and break it, before she stopped herself. She did not smile. “I’m not interested in getting fired, Clement.”

“Yeah, that pussy isn’t worth it, anyway,” he said derisively, his mouth twisting. In the next second, he was choking, coughing, doubled over so that she had to stand and look over the edge of the desk to see what the hell was going on. The fit lasted only another few seconds, but when he stood his face was red, eyes streaming tears. He muttered a low curse and backed away from her with a scowl.

A dozen retorts leaped to her lips, but as with almost every other action she ever wanted to take while on this job, Samantha held it back. She gave Clement her patented blank smile and enjoyed the way it made him flinch. The hall door opened, letting in the nurse who’d be taking over, and Samantha pushed past him without so much as a look at his face.

The scent of lavender stayed with her the entire way home.

Chapter 5

It was a rare day when Persephone didn’t have anything going on. No repairs to make or schedule for the building. No appointments with the small but consistent stable of men who paid her to be the woman of their dreams...or sometimes, nightmares, depending. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d woken feeling semi-rested, without even a tinge of anxiety following her around.

It wouldn’t last, she thought as she headed out into the morning, taking the concrete steps at the front of the building two at a time so she could get to the bodega on the corner for a cup of coffee and a candy bar. Caffeine and chocolate in hand, she was already tearing open the plastic when she bumped head-on, literally, into a man as solid as brick. She hit him hard enough to bounce off, stumbling back.

“Watch it,” she muttered, preparing to push past him.

The guy snagged the sleeve of her sweatshirt, turning her to face him. Persephone was already working, shifting, smoothing the lines and curves of her face to look like someone else. Dark hair instead of bright red-gold. Big tits. Tight top. His eyes went right there, and even if she hadn’t masked her face he’d have barely paid attention, so taken was he by the sight of her knockers.

Men, she thought with a sneer. So predictable.

“I’m looking for someone,” he said. “You seen her?”

The picture he pulled up on his phone was blurred, but definitely her. Thank god she’d automatically put on the glamour for him. The question was, why did he have a picture of her in the first place?

“Nope. Never,” Persephone said. “What’d she do?”

She thought he might say she owed him, or someone he was working for, money. That she was part of a scam. That she’d been caught up in a kinky prostitution ring, and he was part of the sting operation.

“Nothing.” Something in his cold, dead eyes left her shivering. “Just looking for her.”

Then he backed up and kept walking, leaving her behind. She watched him go, knowing that if he turned to glance back, she would still look like someone else. Uncertain if, in the end, it would matter. If a man like that was on her trail, she might be in trouble sooner rather than later.

He was from Wyrmwood. She felt it. He wasn’t one of the soldier guys who’d raided Collins Creek; they were drones that followed orders. This guy was the advance scout, sniffing around to see if he could catch wind of her anywhere.

And if he found out where she really was, Persephone thought, then the other men would come.

Then, they would try to take her away.

Chapter 6

Jed would have liked to really put down that guard who’d been harassing Samantha all the way to the ground, his lungs blowing up, heart bursting from his chest. He’d settled instead for squeezing the asshole from the inside out, just enough to get the guy to back off from Samantha, and even that effort had nearly put Jed onto his hands and knees. There wasn’t any blood, though. Whatever damage he’d done to the guard’s brain hadn’t been bad enough for that.

Ever since he was twelve years old, Jed had discovered the joys of hurting people, especially when the rewards bore merit—video games, chocolate cake, comic books. All he had to do was let Dr. Ransom open the window blinds into the other room and show him the man or the woman in the chair, then he’d have to think really hard and later, not quite as hard and then not hard at all, to make them scream and writhe in agony.

It had taken him only another year to understand that hurting people did not make him feel good. It left him with a sick stomach and an aching head, worse than finishing the puzzles or reading the word cards in the box or any of the other dozens of things they had him do. Hurting people took effort; getting them to behave like his puppet took even more. More than once it left his nose bleeding.

One terrible time, it left him blind.

His sight came back. So did the tests. So did his anger, bigger now than anything else. No more rewards for doing what they wanted. Now he suffered the punishments for refusing. Starvation. Electric shock therapy. When they realized he could no longer be controlled by any of those methods, the drugs began.

At seventeen, he killed a man, but not the one they wanted him to kill. After that, the people at Wyrmwood started to be afraid of him.

Now, at twenty-five, he should still be terrifying them, but he’d spent the last eight years doing his best to convince them that they had nothing to fear.

The testing tonight during his session with Dr. Ransom had been unexpectedly brutal. After years of proving to them he was no longer capable of doing what they wanted, years of taunting them into just disposing of him already, Jed had almost forgotten what it was like when the doctor was convinced he could get a reaction from his patient. Almost, but not quite. His body remembered, anyway, the sting and burn of electricity. The pungent horror of the chemicals they dripped into his veins to make him compliant. There’d been times over the years when it would’ve taken so little to tip him into death, but they’d pulled him back. So many times he’d have let them—but that had changed when Samantha started working there.

She was not the first person to look him in the eyes, but she was the first to at least try to connect with him as a human being. Small things, nothing that would get either of them in trouble. A gentle squeeze of his shoulder when she took his vitals. A smile. A compassionate laugh at his lame jokes.

He felt it when she left the hospital. If he tried a little harder, he’d be able to feel her wherever she went, but doing that would surely rip something inside his head, so he eased back the small tendrils of thought that had connected him to her in the first place. She’d be back tomorrow, he thought just before he passed out on the hard cot, her face the last coherent thought he had.

Chapter 7

Samantha could not stop thinking about him.

After escaping from the hospital that was a prison, she went home only long enough to change into her workout gear. She hit the street as dawn pinked the sky, and though her body cried for sleep, the only way she’d get any was to exhaust herself. She set off on a route that would take her through the park, where she could test herself on soft dirt paths and boulders, then along the riverfront and back home before the early-morning-rush traffic started.

Since starting at Wyrmwood, she’d shared perhaps a couple dozen conversations with Jed that weren’t related to his medication or treatment. The training and rules had been explicit and strict about having as little contact with the patients as possible. She’d rarely bent the rules and never enough to get any disciplinary action. There was no denying that she felt closer to him than she did any of the others, but she’d always chalked it up to the fact she’d been hired to save his life when the time came. Something like that would naturally lead her to be more...affectionate was not the right word, not even close. Concerned. Protective. Aware?

She ran harder, leaping a park bench with one foot on the seat and pushing off with the other on the back, then hitting the grass with her fingertips digging into the soft earth before she leaped again. It was ridiculous to think Jed had done anything to the guard. Though there’d been plenty of documentation about what he’d been capable of when he was younger, all the reports Vadim had given her said that Jed’s abilities had begun fading in late adolescence, becoming completely extinct over time.

It had happened with other members of the commune where he’d been born. Children born with psychokinetic or telepathic talents had been taken away from the Collins Creek farm under the guise of child protective services, but they’d been sent to places like Wyrmwood, not foster care. They’d been held, tested. Of those that had been released in adulthood, none of them had been reported as maintaining their abilities. Most of the ones the Crew had been able to track had suffered from the years of institutionalization. High rates of suicide and crime had followed. Jed was one of the last of the Collins Creek kids the Crew had been able to find.

She jumped up to grab a low-hanging tree limb and swung out, arching her back. Landing hard. She no longer smelled lavender, but the memory of it wouldn’t leave her. There’d been more than a few times when she’d thought she sensed Jed’s presence while she was at the desk, always looking up, expecting to see him there but finding only empty space. Sometimes, a joke would tickle its way into her head until she laughed aloud.

Maybe all of that had been Jed. He had come to her defense, not that she’d needed him to, with that moron Clement. Which meant that despite all the information Wyrmwood had been collecting on him, he wasn’t telekinetically dead.

But he was going to be physically dead if he didn’t reveal that truth to the Wyrmwood team, or if Samantha wasn’t able to get him out of there when Vadim gave the go-ahead. It would have to be soon, she thought, thinking of how drained Jed had looked when they’d brought him back to the room.

On the way home, she picked up a burner phone and sent off a text to the number she’d memorized.

How long?

Then she tossed the phone into a Dumpster and continued on home. She didn’t worry about how Vadim was going to answer her. He always found a way.

Chapter 8

Persephone had stopped dreaming about Collins Creek a long time ago. If she did think about her childhood, it was only in a series of flashing memories she did her best to shove aside. She and her twin brother, Phoenix, had managed to escape when Wyrmwood attacked and took most of the children away. The two of them had grown up on the streets, running constantly from Wyrmwood’s scouts who’d found other survivors and made them disappear. The rumors about what was done to the Collins Creek children had circulated. Phoenix and Persephone had always managed to stay a few steps ahead of them, and in many ways the memories of the things they’d done to survive had been much worse than anything she could truly remember from her first ten years on the farm.

Now, though, she couldn’t stop herself from looking over her shoulder everywhere she went. She couldn’t prove the guy from this morning had been from Wyrmwood.

Twenty years had passed since the raid. Why would they suddenly be looking so hard now? Turning over in her bed, she thought of calling Vadim. He’d offered her and Phoenix sanctuary, but her brother had refused, not willing to throw in his lot with a group that, to him, seemed as likely to turn out to be as awful as Wyrmwood. Persephone had not been quite as convinced of that. She had, in fact, done a job or two for Vadim over the years. Never anything serious or long-term. The money was fantastic, but like her brother, she’d never wanted to commit to it.

Vadim would know if there was anything new going on with Wyrmwood, though. Restless, Persephone got out of bed and paced through her apartment, checking as always the exits. One door in, one door out. The only window a single transom on the alley side of the building. She could get through it if she had to, but her real escape was the service elevator, a dumbwaiter, in a closet off the kitchen.

Running through her escape plan calmed her a little, but she was still not going to sleep. She needed something else, and she knew exactly where to find it. She dialed a familiar number.

“Leila? Girl, what are you up to?”

Leila was up to going out and causing trouble, as she almost always was. Persephone didn’t hang out with her very often for just that reason—any kind of trouble Leila wanted to get into usually ended up bad. She didn’t have the sense of self-preservation that Persephone had, or even Phoenix, who admittedly could be way less worried about keeping his ass out of the fire. Leila’s skill was in counting. Her brain was an abnormally brilliant calculator that could figure the most complex equations with little more than a blink or two. She had not yet managed to use this Collins Creek–created skill for much of anything, though. Maybe she never would.

Still, it was good to get out, go dancing. Get a little drunk. Grind on a handsome guy or two or three. Persephone and Leila hit the town, dressed to...well, not to kill, Persephone thought absently as she scanned the crowed for likely prey. She never wanted to kill anyone ever again.

All at once, there he was from across the room. Kane Dennis, the cop who lived in Persephone’s building. He was the one with the hot water problem. He was leaning against the back wall, a cup of beer in his hand. Scanning the room, back and forth, as though he were looking for something. Or someone. It didn’t look like he’d seen her yet.

She began to layer herself, homing in on his mind. One at a time, that was the only way she could do this. He would have no idea that he was looking at a different woman from the one everyone else could see.

“I’m glamouring for that guy,” Persephone said to Leila with a discreet point toward Kane. “You’ll be okay here?”

Leila was already tonsils-deep into a make-out session with a guy she’d picked up a few minutes before, and waved Persephone away. Why, exactly, Persephone was doing this when there was a club full of dudes she didn’t have to see in front of the mailbox every morning, she could not say. Only that he was there and she was here, and a curling flicker of need was rising inside her that she wanted to sate.

Maybe it was because he was a cop. She would be safe. If someone broke in and tried to take her, she thought, blaming the booze and the smoke and the little white pill of undetermined origin that Leila had slipped her earlier for this ragged train of thought. If someone broke in, Kane would be able to protect her. Wouldn’t he?

By the time she got to him, she wore longer legs. Bigger tits as usual, since that’s what most men seemed to dig. Soft, round booty. Dusky skin. Dark ringlets. Red lips, dark eyes.

“Hi,” she said. “I’m Maria. Thinking about getting out of here, how about you?”

That was all it took. Persephone had not figured Kane for a guy so easily seduced and was in truth a little put off at how simple it had been, but she supposed it didn’t matter as long as she got what she needed from him. Hard cock. Big hands. Sweet tongue. They found a cheap room in one of the hotels lining the street this end of town.

He kissed her mouth as soon as they got inside the door, his hands roaming over her. Fingers playing beneath her skirt, he found her already wet. Slick. Hot. He slipped his fingers inside her, fucking in and out, and she opened for him. His thumb pressed her clit, a steady pace that had her ready to go in minutes.

He let her lead him to the bed and strip him down. He watched her do the same. He rolled her over, nudging open her knees. She thought he would go down on her; she hoped he would, but instead Kane pressed a series of kisses to her belly, up to her breasts. Her throat. Her mouth. He’d pulled a condom from his wallet while they undressed and sheathed himself so efficiently that he was inside her in moments.

“Oh,” she said. “Okay, then.”

Kane fucked her slowly at first, making sure to get her going. When she needed a little extra pressure on her clit, he gave it to her, just right. Persephone rarely had any trouble getting off, but tonight it was taking her longer. Because she knew him, she thought, irritated with herself now that the buzz was fading. She ought to have found a stranger.

She didn’t have much more time to think about it then because something in the way he shifted had brought her to the tipping point. They moved together, easily, steadily, and she came in a slow rush of rolling pleasure. He followed with a shudder and buried his face against the side of her neck.

When her phone rang, she was happy to shift out from underneath him so she could grab it. “Hey, girl.”

“I didn’t go home with that guy,” Leila’s drunken voice crackled through the phone, a bad connection. “I’m back at my place. You okay?”

“Yes, fine.” Persephone glanced at Kane, who’d sat up to look at her. She’d been holding on to her illusion as a matter of habit, a good one, but tightened it now to be sure he had not even a glimpse of her true self. Leila had disconnected.

“I have to go,” she said. “Sisters before misters, am I right?”

“Sure. No problem.” He yawned and fell back on the bed. “You need a cab or anything?”

“I’m good.” She paused as she gathered her clothes to look at him. “Thanks for tonight.”

He rolled onto his side to crack open an eye and grin at her. “You’re welcome.”

It was on the tip of her tongue to offer him her number, which of course would be ridiculously stupid, even if she did use the fake side line she kept for these very occasions. Instead, she dressed quickly and let herself out of the hotel room.

Chapter 9

Jed studied the wooden puzzle in front of him. It was more suitable for a five-year-old than a twenty-five-year-old, but since he’d been given puzzles identical to this one or nearly so since he had been five, he guessed they’d never seen any reason to change. A rectangular wooden base with different sized, shaped and colored holes, meant to hold the brightly colored matching pieces. Unlike a toddler puzzle, this one had more complicated shapes and smaller pieces. The goal: fit the pieces into the slots as fast as possible. He’d been using this same one for so long, the paint had worn down to bare wood in many places. It didn’t matter. At this point, the exercise was more of a self-soothing device than anything else.

He shook out the pieces, scattering them across the desk like jacks. He set the base upright and leaned back in his chair, closing his eyes. His hands went to the edges of the table, fingertips touching the worn wooden surface lightly. Through the pads of his fingertips, he could taste the harsh sting of the antibacterial cleanser they used in here every afternoon while he was in session with Dr. Ransom. It was a bad taste, yet somehow comforting. It had been the same for twenty years. Just like the puzzle. Like the lights set on timers to keep him on a regular day/night schedule that had nothing in common with the actual movement of the sun. Like everything else here, over time, the hospital had become...home.

Without opening his eyes, Jed began fitting the pieces into the slots. His fingers moved, stroking over the wooden desk, though now the harsh bite of the chemicals had been replaced by the smoother, older smell of colored paint. Blue star. Yellow circle. Red hexagon.

Faster.

Green cross. Black square. Purple triangle.

Faster.

The wooden pieces fit themselves into place with small, clattering thumps and thuds as they rolled across the desk.

When all the pieces had returned to the base, the vibration in the desk ceased and he opened his eyes. He put his fingertips on the edge of the table again and touched the puzzle with his gaze and nothing more. He’d done this forty-seven times already tonight, and would keep doing it until the lights went off when he was supposed to be sleeping—but of course he didn’t sleep. He hardly ever did, never more than an hour or two at a time, anyway.

He closed his eyes.

Faster.

Faster.

He could do this another three times, if he was quick, before it was time for Samantha to bring him his meds. He’d have to be finished before she got here. She had no idea what he was, what he could do. But out of all the people who’d worked here over the years, all the doctors, nurses and orderlies, all the guards, hundreds of people who’d taken care of him—Samantha was the only one who’d made it seem like it mattered. How she saw him. What she thought of him. She was the first person since he’d been sent here to make Jed care about anything.

A scant few seconds before he heard the click of the door lock, Jed had finished his last round of the puzzle and pushed it aside. He was already on his feet, standing behind the red line painted on the floor well away from the door. He smoothed his hair, suddenly self-conscious. He should have quit the puzzle sooner. Brushed his hair, his teeth. Changed his shirt, as if any of the four he owned were not identical.

“Hi, Jed.” Samantha’s grin urged his own. “How’s it going?”

“Good, good. You?” He always sounded such like an idiot when he spoke to her, but she never seemed to notice.

“Oh, I’m dandy.” She waited for the door to lock behind her before stepping toward him.

In the past eight years, Jed had never once moved over the red line before that solid click. In eight years, never given anyone reason to fear him. For a brief period of time when he was a teenager, they’d upped his meds to keep him from trying to escape, testing him over and over again to see if he could do with the door lock what he could do with the puzzle, but he’d always failed. It was the type of metal, they said amongst themselves. They had no idea that it wasn’t anything to do with that all, but the simple fact that Jed wanted them to stop drugging him.

Not so he could get out. That, he could’ve done at any time, despite the drugs and the special metal in the locks. His memories of what life had been before had never faded, even through the distortion of childhood. He never wanted to go back to the life he’d known before coming here. If that meant spending his life in this room, so be it. No, he’d simply hated the fuzzy way the meds made him feel. Slow and thick and stupid.

“Is it getting cold outside?” he asked her suddenly, regretting the stupid words the moment they flew out of his mouth.

Samantha frowned and gave him a sideways glance, then another at the corner of the ceiling where the hidden camera lurked. “You know I’m not allowed to talk about that, Jed.”

“Right, right. I know.” Did they really think he didn’t remember there was a world outside these walls? Sometimes, Jed thought, they must. He’d allowed them to think of him as simple for so long, he must’ve convinced them he was also stupid. “I just wondered.”

“Can you sit down, please?” She gestured, and when he had complied, as he always did, always, never disobedient, she made a show of pulling out her stethoscope but leaned over him as she placed the round part of it against his chest. “The leaves are changing. The air smells like snow.”

That whisper sent an electric jolt all through him. So did her touch on his wrist as she counted the too-many and too-fast beats of his heart. Samantha looked into his eyes, so close he could see the white specks surrounding the blackness of her pupil. She gave him a small, secret smile and waited a moment or so before she officially took his pulse. Giving him time to relax.

She knew him.

She’d never commented on the embarrassing way his body reacted to her standard routine. Not when she used gentle fingers to press his neck and throat to check his lymph nodes and his heartbeat again raced, and not when she had him lift his arms to his sides so she could pass her hands along his body and he shifted against the rise in his pants. She noticed it. She had to. There was no way to hide the heat of his skin. But she always managed to be standing at an angle to block it from the camera, and she always took her time to make it possible for him to calm down before she stepped back.

Today (it was really close to midnight, though they wanted him to think it was more like noon) she lingered with the exam. Stood a little closer than usual. She dropped her stylus, a soft-tipped rubber utensil that should not have been able to cause any harm, should he decide to take it from her and shove it into a vulnerable spot. It was a sensible precaution, though he wondered why nobody had ever seemed to consider the fact he’d need no weapon if he really wanted to hurt someone.

And they thought he was the stupid one.

She smelled so fresh, so clean, that all he could do was close his eyes and breathe her in. He wanted to cover himself in her scent, to wash away the stink of this room. Of all the years...

“Jed,” she said. Warning. “No touching.”

He hadn’t meant to. The gentle pressure of his fingers against the inside of her elbow had been involuntary. He didn’t move them away. Staring into her eyes, Jed let his fingers trace a small circle on her bare skin.

Her lips parted on a small sigh. She blinked rapidly. At the tiniest hint of her tongue pressed to her upper lip, another rush of electricity jolted through him. He was so hard now there’d be no way she could keep up the pretense of this exam long enough for him to hide it from whoever it was that got their jollies watching.

She should move away from, he thought a little incoherently. She had to know what was happening. He should stop touching her, but he couldn’t make himself. Another infinitesimal stroke of his fingertips on her skin had her eyes going wide. Dark.

Her smell changed from fresh air to something his brain told him was flowers, though it had been twenty years since he’d even seen a flower; the taste of her like golden honey, sweet syrup, flooded him through the continuing touch. Every muscle in him tensed, straining, though neither of them so much as moved more than the constant, steady motion of her hands as she made a show of checking his vitals.

Pulse. Temperature. One-handed, not moving so he could keep his fingertips on the inside of her elbow, Samantha kept up a running commentary on what she was doing—for the benefit of the observing camera, maybe. Or for him. For herself, Jed thought irrationally as the steady drone of her voice cracked and dipped for a second before she recovered.

He had never kissed a woman. Never made love. They’d started giving him porn when he hit adolescence—an outlet, they thought, so any pent-up desires could be dissolved. Preventing him from what, from violence? From yearning? It had worked, to a point, he thought now, but you couldn’t replace human touch with paper pages or digital images. You couldn’t replace making love to a woman with your own hand.

He wanted to kiss Samantha. He wanted to touch her. He wanted to make her shiver and shake, not the way the women in those movies did, but from deep inside her core. For real. He wanted to hear her say his name while her body tightened around him...

Samantha put her hand over his, her eyes closing. Her body tensed. She shook, but so briefly there could be no way anyone but Jed would notice. A small moan slipped out of her, covered up so fast by a cough as she turned her head that again, nobody but he could’ve possibly heard it.

“You have to stop.” Her lips moved, in silence he understood, anyway.

Ashamed, he let her go. Samantha took a step back, almost stumbling before she caught herself. Her eyes opened. Gaze focused. A flush had spread up her throat to paint her cheeks. With her back still to the camera, shielding him, she pulled the small cup of meds from her uniform pocket and made a show of dispensing them.

“Take your vitamins,” Samantha said.

They weren’t vitamins, but at least they weren’t hallucinogens or sedatives. He swallowed them with the bottled water she gave him from the small fridge next to the desk. By the time he had, he’d also managed to will his erection back down.

“Careful, you’ve spilled,” she said calmly without looking away from his eyes, not so much as a glance at the small wet patch on the front of his pants.

Still watching out for him, he thought. Doing what she could. His balls ached, but he didn’t dare even to shift in the chair.

They shared a look, lingering as long as they dared. At least he imagined they did, but when she cut her gaze from his, Jed had to admit that perhaps all of this was in his head. Surely Samantha didn’t have any romantic feelings for him. How could she? He shouldn’t mistake kindness and a sense of duty for anything like affection. In fact, he should be ashamed of using his talent to inflict his lust on her.

“Do you need anything?” she asked him.

He needed lots of things, none of which she could give him. “No, thanks. Is it almost time for my session with Dr. Ransom?”

“Yes. I...think so.” Again, her cheeks colored as she checked her watch. “Wow, yes it is. I lost track of time.”

“The exam took longer today,” Jed said, watching her.

Again, Samantha snagged his gaze with hers and didn’t look away. She smiled. “Yes. A little longer.”

Behind her, the green light over the door clicked to red. She didn’t turn to look at it, but noticed him staring. She straightened, tucking the empty tin back into her pocket and patting it. She smoothed the fine tendrils of pale hair that had fallen over her forehead and cheeks. She cleared her throat and took another step back.

“Everything’s fine, though,” she said.

Jed smiled without much humor. “Isn’t it always?”

“No,” Samantha said even as her mouth formed the word yes, adding, “Don’t forget to buzz if you need me.”

I need you. I always need you. His answer, unspoken, could not possibly have reached her. His talents didn’t extend to projecting thoughts.

Still, she nodded as though she’d heard him, but that was his own foolishness. His own desire. Without another word exchanged, Samantha left the room and the door locked behind her, and Jed forced himself to get out of the chair so nobody would think something was wrong.

Chapter 10

Leaving her shift in the light of day meant Samantha would be going home to blackout shades and a white-noise machine—but there’d be no easy sleep for her this morning. Not after that interminable five minutes in Jed’s room. Not with the memory of his touch lingering.

A cold shower didn’t help. She tried it, of course, running the water as frigid as she could stand it until her teeth chattered and her nipples peaked to near-painful tightness—but getting out, drying off, every stroke of the towel’s soft fabric against her had Samantha’s nerves tingling. Now she lay naked in her bed, the covers tossed off to expose her to the chilly autumn air, her window open to let in the breeze, because after a night’s work in Wyrmwood she couldn’t bear to be closed in, not even inside her own apartment.

Stretching, letting her naked skin shift on the sheets, she tried not to touch herself but gave up after a few minutes of halfhearted resistance. She’d been on fire since giving Jed his exam—the same one she gave him every shift. A quick check of his temperature, his pulse, his glands, the clarity of his eyes and little more than that. It was required, but useless, since the likelihood of anything being wrong with him that nobody hadn’t already noticed was so slim.

It was not the first time she’d murmured to him about the world outside, completely in defiance of the rules. Nor the first time she’d lingered over the exam, if only because of the way he’d pushed himself into her touch the way a cat would, purring, butting at her hand for the barest scrap of affection. Nobody touched him unless they were examining him. She knew that much, not from anything she’d ever been told as a staff member, but from the reports she’d studied, provided by Vadim and the vast reference and research sources of the Crew.

Nobody touched Jed to comfort him, not since childhood. Certainly never to arouse him, though she’d noticed about six months into her stint there that he’d begun reacting to her in that way. She’d never made a fuss about it, at first because she didn’t want to risk them pulling her off duty taking care of him, for fear there was any kind of connection between them. Later, to keep him from being embarrassed. Now, she noticed but never acknowledged it because she couldn’t admit to anyone, not even herself, how knowing that the simplest touch of her against him got him hard. How he looked at her, hungrier for that ten minutes they shared than he ever was for the trays of bland food they brought him.

Tonight was the first time, though, she’d ever had a similar reaction.

Her hand slid between her legs to cup herself. Fingers slipping inside. She was still slick. Her clit, still sensitive enough that the slight flick of it from her thumb forced a sigh out of her.

He’d almost made her come while barely touching her.

With a low groan of frustration, she stopped. This was no good. She didn’t want to admit that she thought of Jed in that way. Jed, the man she was supposed to protect. Not lust after.

Still, the job with Wyrmwood had made it impossible for her to have much of a social life, which left nothing but the touch of her own hand. It had been about a week since the last time she’d pleasured herself, and she was surprised she’d made it this long without taking the time to get herself off. No wonder he’d been able to bring her so close, Samantha thought with a sigh as she rubbed her clit in a slow, steady circle. She was definitely in need of an orgasm.

The scent of lavender. It teased and tickled her nostrils. Memory, she was sure, but caught up in the eroticism of her own touch, she didn’t think much about it beyond that. She let the smells wash over her, urging her toward release.

Sometimes she used toys, but tonight the touch of only her fingers was getting her there. That and the memory of standing next to Jed, her fingertips on his wrist and feeling the suddenly swift throb of his heartbeat. His erection, conspicuously thick in his scrubs. The small wet spot of his precome that had stained it...all that from doing nothing but sitting near her. The thought of it was intoxicating and had her slipping over the edge into a hard, brief orgasm that left her breathless and sated...for now.

She gave herself a few minutes to luxuriate in the afterglow, which was nowhere near as nice as it would’ve been if she had been with someone else, but it would have to do. She’d already filed her daily report for the Crew, but now she rolled out of bed and slung on a silk kimono to sit at her desk and flip open her laptop. She typed in the web address of the secure reporting site and scrolled back through all the information she had on Wyrmwood. On Jed. Her notes were complete and thorough and said very little because there wasn’t very much to say. She went in. She did her job. She came home. She waited for word on when it was time to get him out of there.

And sometimes, she thought with a small pang of guilt, she made herself come when thinking about him.

She wasn’t surprised when her computer rang. Surely they monitored when she logged in, and what she looked at. “Vadim.”

He smiled at her from the small video chat window on her screen. “Samantha. What’s going on?”

She did not want to tell her boss about the sexual encounter today. It was an embarrassing lack of self-control on her part. It might get her pulled from the assignment, and there were so many reasons she didn’t want that to happen—some she’d own up to and some she would not.

“Nothing,” she said after a second’s hesitation. “Can’t sleep. Just trying to refresh myself on the case, I guess.”

“There’s nothing new in there. If there were, I’d have alerted you.” Vadim tilted his head to study her. “You haven’t heard anything from the hospital, have you?”

“Of course not. Like they’d tell me anything.” She snorted soft laughter and shook her head.

Vadim was no longer smiling. “It’s going to be soon. Our source says the paperwork’s been filed for his transfer.”

The transfer from Wyrmwood to an unknown location. They didn’t need to know where they were taking him to understand that he’d be killed wherever he ended up. “Why do they bother, Vadim? Why not just overdose him at the hospital? It’s not like anyone would know.”

The words were truth but tasted bitter, making her sneer.

Vadim shrugged. “Who knows, other than even their most vetted employees could end up with too much information, and they don’t want to risk it? Better to ‘transfer’ the ones they’re no longer interested in using to someplace else and simply dispose of them along the way.”

Samantha shuddered at the thought of it, of Jed being put into a white van. A gun to his head, maybe, or a simple injection. His body put into an unmarked grave. Vadim gave her a curious look, even as she quickly smoothed her expression.

“You’ll be ready?” he asked. “The only time you’ll be able to extricate him is in that small window between him leaving Wyrmwood and before he arrives at where it is they plan to take him.”

She’d known that when she took the assignment. Breaking him out of the hospital was an impossibility, no matter her level of skill or how much the Crew could help with computer hacking or other measures to get past security. She’d always known she would have to wait until they were transferring him and move at that time. So why, then, did she feel so suddenly desperate not to wait any longer?

“It’s been years.” She leaned closer to the computer, staring into the camera. “Is it possible they’re simply going to leave him alone? There are plenty of residents at Wyrmwood living out their lives without interference.”

“Not a single one of the children captured from Collins Creek have been left to live without interference,” Vadim said. “The ones that showed no abilities were, of course, put into the foster care system. The others have either been kept, as Jed’s been kept, or exterminated.”

“There are some others,” Samantha said quietly. “The ones who got out.”

She’d read about them in the files. A few obscure references, no more than that, these special children almost as much of a myth as Bigfoot. Sometimes spotted in the wild, but never captured, their existence never proven.

“You know as well as I do that nobody’s ever been able to connect anyone out there with Collins Creek. It was swept, the residents removed and most of them died during the raid.” Vadim paused. “Certainly we’ve had many cases of men and women with extraordinary psychic talents, but none of them have been connected with the farm or the cult. And even if they were, does it matter? Your assignment is to protect this one man.”

“Of course.” She nodded, pulling the robe closer around her throat from the sudden chill sweeping over her.

“Samantha, you should know I have no doubts about your ability to handle this assignment. You’re very, very good at what you do.” Vadim did smile again, though the effect of it was probably less reassuring than he meant it to be.

Samantha saw no point in false modesty. She’d spent her childhood being trained to survive any situation, including the impossible, like an alien invasion or the rise of the undead. She’d joined the Crew after several stints in government organizations so secret even she wasn’t sure who ran them—only that the training she’d had as a kid had been nothing compared to what she’d learned there. Those skills and credentials had been what got her approved to work at Wyrmwood. “Yes. It’s not that I’m worried about it... I’ll be ready. But...”

“Yes?”

Samantha shook her head, knowing she had to own up to it. “It’s the subject. He seems to have formed an...attachment.”

“Ah. Can you use it?”

Startled, she recoiled with a grimace. “What? No! Why would I?”

“If it was necessary to gain his cooperation, I would expect you to, especially if it was to help protect him.” Vadim shrugged, eyeing her.

“I fail to see how encouraging him to have a crush on me could help protect him.” The words came out too sharply. She sounded guilty.

Vadim gave her a narrow-eyed look. “The subject has been kept in near isolation since childhood. Before that, he’d been raised in horrific social conditions. Understandably, he could be expected to form an emotional or sexual attachment to an attractive caregiver. The records show you are likely not even the first...”

That made her feel all kinds of irritable. She’d read the reports, of course, about the nurse who’d been removed from duty when her relationship with Jed had become closer than the Wyrmwood executives decided was appropriate. That had been when he was little more than a kid, though. It wasn’t like what was between the two of them. It couldn’t be. She kept her expression smooth. “We don’t talk about it, of course. I do my job. I leave the room. I wait.”

“Ah, yes. The waiting. Well, we’re all waiting.”

“And why?” she demanded suddenly. “Why not just take him out of there now? There has to be a way!”

“If there was, don’t you think we’d have gotten him out of there long ago?” Vadim fixed her with a stern look. “Even with inside help, Wyrmwood is impossible to break into or out of.”

“Nothing is impossible. I thought that was the Crew’s motto or something like that.”

Vadim laughed without much humor, although his dark eyes did twinkle. “If we had a motto, I suspect it would be more like ‘nothing is improbable.’ As it is, you won’t have to wait much longer. All the signs are pointing to his imminent transfer. Be prepared to hear more as early as next week.”

“If you can tell they’re getting ready to transfer him,” she began, but stopped at the look on the older man’s face. She’d never made Vadim angry with her, and she wasn’t about to find out now what might happen to her if she did. As charming and paternal as Vadim could be, there was a darkness in him that Samantha recognized...and didn’t want to mess with.

“This connection you believe he’s begun. Is it something you reciprocate?”

“Of course not,” she said steadily, getting his gaze head-on as best she could through the computer screen. “He doesn’t deserve to be put down like a dog that’s lived past its use, that’s all.”

Vadim said nothing for a moment or so, studying her. Not for the first time, Samantha wondered what Vadim’s talents were. She wouldn’t have doubted that one of them was reading minds.

“Be ready,” he said finally.

Chapter 11

“How are we feeling today?” Dr. Ransom pushed his glasses up higher on his nose with one hand, tapping his pen against the desk with the other. “Nurse says you didn’t eat your breakfast.”

“Her name’s Patty,” Jed said mildly. Dr. Ransom never knew their names. Jed wouldn’t have been surprised if the doctor barely remembered Jed’s name. He certainly hardly ever used it.

“Was there something wrong with breakfast?”

“I didn’t feel like eating today. That’s all.” Jed used a small push, a tiny one, undetectable, to still the doctor’s tapping pen by making it microcosmically harder to move. Just enough to make the other man feel as though he didn’t want to make the effort, but nothing close to him feeling that he was being manipulated.

It had taken Jed a long, long time to refine that skill. Many hours of having to listen to the doctor’s relentless fidgeting.

“Not hungry? Not feeling well?”

“I don’t like pancakes,” Jed said.

Dr. Ransom looked confused. “No? Who doesn’t like pancakes?”

“Me. Never liked them.” Jed leaned back in the chair, one leg crossed over the other, with a grin. Blank and empty, stretching so wide it felt as though his teeth were the size of dominoes.

“Well. I suppose I can make sure the kitchen never sends you pancakes again.”

That wasn’t going to happen. If anything, now that he’d made his preference known, he’d be served pancakes three or four times a week, and that was because they liked to mess with him that way. The truth was, Jed preferred pancakes to eggs, but although he knew that lies were the devil speaking with his tongue, he didn’t care. He’d stopped caring about that a long, long time ago, about the same time he’d decided to stop playing by their rules. He was simply careful about how he went about it, that was all.

When Jed didn’t answer, Dr. Ransom looked concerned. “Nurse said you didn’t get out of bed at the usual time, as well.”

“Her name is Patty,” Jed repeated.

Dr. Ransom put the pen down completely and laced his fingers together. “Patty.”

“Samantha is the day nurse. Bryant and Carl are the orderlies. Stephen is the janitor.”

“You’ve never interacted with the custodial staff,” Dr. Ransom said.

And the janitor’s name was not really Stephen, but the doctor wouldn’t know that. Jed shrugged. He thought about using his talent to take up the pen and bury it point-deep into the wood of the desk, but didn’t want to give them the satisfaction or deal with the consequences.

“Is there a reason why you overslept today, Jed?”

The fact he’d been unable to sleep last night, tossing and turning after the interlude with Samantha. He wasn’t about to admit that to Dr. Ransom, though. As far as the doctor was concerned, Jed barely knew the nurse, and that was how he wanted it to stay.

When he was fourteen or so, there’d been another nurse. Miss Jean. That was how she’d referred to herself, and how Jed still thought of her. Miss Jean had worn the same uniform as all the other nurses, the same as it had been in all the years Jed had been in Wyrmwood. She’d had pale, short hair and wide green eyes and a smile that reminded him of his birth mother’s, when Mother had been happy. Miss Jean had never looked at him the way the others had sometimes. Afraid. No matter what he did or how he behaved, Miss Jean always stayed calm, friendly, kind. And because she never gave him reason to misbehave, slowly, slowly, Jed had stopped always trying to cause trouble.

When it had become apparent to the unseen—whoever was in charge, the ones he’d learned watched and judged, but never met with him in person—that Miss Jean’s influence was changing Jed from who they wanted him to be into something else, something less violent, well. Miss Jean went off shift one day and never came back.

That was when Jed had started training himself to unlearn all the things they’d taught him.

Eleven years later, and the daily testing had stopped. His sessions with Dr. Ransom had gone from five days a week to twice, each session only lasting thirty or so minutes, since there never seemed to be much to say anymore. It couldn’t be much longer, now, Jed thought. Until they either killed him, or let him go.

“Jed?”

“I was tired, I guess. Had a bad headache.” That part was true enough, though it wasn’t like his head didn’t always throb with the effort of holding himself back from giving them what they’d been after since he was five.

“Your medicine should prevent that. Your vitals haven’t changed. Your blood pressure is fine.”

Jed had learned to control that, too.

“Maybe it’s seasonal allergies,” Jed said, deadpan.

Dr. Ransom didn’t smile. He did, however, lift up the pen again to scratch a few notes on the pad in front of him. “I’m going to prescribe you something new. For anxiety.”

“No! I mean,” Jed said in a calmer voice, “I’m not anxious about anything.”

He was already on some complicated cocktail of pills designed to keep him under control, but it had been years since they’d felt the need to use anything to keep him calm. He wasn’t going to go back to being chemically brain-dead again. He couldn’t. He would die first.

“Just a little something,” Dr. Ransom said in that soothing tone he always employed. He looked at Jed over the rims of his frameless glasses. “It seems to me that you haven’t been yourself lately.”

Himself? Ransom had no idea who Jed was. Nobody did, including Jed.

“Is it because of the tests?” Jed asked bluntly.

The doctor hesitated, cutting his gaze from Jed’s. “Of course not. You know we’ve always made it clear that our concern is for your well-being. Never any test results.”

It was what they said, but never what they’d meant. Jed frowned. “New meds won’t make it any easier for me to do what they ask.”

For the first time since Jed had entered the room, Dr. Ransom smiled. The effect of it was chilling—a stretching of the older man’s lips that in no way resulted in any humor reaching his eyes. Ransom tap-tapped his pen rapidly against the desktop.

“We only want what’s best for you, Jed. We’re your family.”

“The only one I have,” Jed replied, sincerely if not gratefully.

Ransom’s smile stretched wider, showing his yellowed teeth. “You’ve been at Wyrmwood a long time. We’ve worked together for a long time, too. I’d like you to know how...fond...of you I’ve grown over the years.”

Jed shifted in his chair, wondering if the doctor expected a matching response. He couldn’t make himself lie, so he stayed quiet. After a moment, the doctor’s smile faded. He tapped his pen once or twice more, then closed the folder.

“You can go back to your room now. Our session is finished. Unless you have something you need to talk about?”

Jed shook his head and stood. “Not really. Will there be a test?”

“Oh, no.” Dr. Ransom laughed. “No more tests will be necessary.”

Relief and terror in equal parts raced through Jed, who did not react in any visible way. He nodded when Ransom repeated that he’d be sending Jed some new meds, but didn’t protest again. As he left the room, a guard on either side of him, he considered striking out. Surprising them.

They’d kill him without a second thought—he knew that—and wouldn’t suicide by armed guard be a better way to go than waiting, waiting for them to finally decide to end his life by some other method? Wouldn’t it be better to go on his own terms? But of course, he only walked meekly between them without a word and stepped through the door into his cell, where he waited for whatever was going to happen next.

Chapter 12

There was always a way to get whatever you wanted, if you knew how to ask. Unlike her brother, who could simply make you do whatever he desired, Persephone had learned the best ways to ask. A quiet word in the ear of the skater kid on the corner who hooked her up with some weed before passing along the word to someone else, who got the news to the contact Persephone needed. Eventually, a woman pushing a stroller took a seat beside her. The woman bent to offer the toddler in the stroller a lick of her ice cream.

“Word is, they’re getting a little desperate. Losing funding. Need something to get their grants back.” Suburban mom cooed at her child for a second, then pulled a package of baby wipes out of her purse and started to wipe the kid’s face.

“Does that mean they’re actively looking for us again?”

“If they get one of you, they could make a case for keeping the program open. We’ve had no word that they’re doing anything major, but I’d be careful, yes. They have freelancers working on it.”

Persephone sat back on the bench. “Bounty hunters?”

She’d dealt with bounty hunters before. The guy from the other day had sure felt like one. Not a very skilled one, she thought with some relief and a little alarm at how close he’d been to her, even if he hadn’t known it.

“They don’t have the means to put together any kind of teams like the one...” The mother trailed off, looking around, but they seemed to be the only ones there.

Persephone nodded. “I got it. You don’t have to say.”

“The reality is, the organization has been privately funded for a long time, but they’re on the way out. They’re swirling the drain. Without a big benefactor or some kind of breakthrough, they’re going to have to close completely. Look, I’m on maternity leave right now, and the only reason I agreed to meet you is that this is really low priority. You know they don’t have eyes and ears all over the place, they’re not monitoring the entire world or anything. Vadim said to tell you that they’ve assessed the danger to you as minimal, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be careful.”

“I know.”

The woman studied Persephone. “He said to remind you that you have a place with us whenever you want it.”

“I’m doing all right. Thanks.” Persephone stood.

“Even so, he told me to remind you.” The woman stood, too, and pressed a small square of paper into Persephone’s hand. “Call him on this number when you’re ready.”

Chapter 13

Waking from a nightmare, she realizes all too quickly that this has not been a dream. The ringing in her ears is still so loud all she can do is clap her hands to the side of her head and rock back and forth until it eases. She’s alone. Whoever did this to her has left her for dead, she thinks, and risks running a hand over her body, checking for wounds.

The blood covering her is not hers. The bits of flesh and bone and brain, also not hers. Her fingers clench, remembering the feel of the weapon in her hands, but she can’t remember shooting anyone. Unsteadily, she holds her hands out in front of her, inspecting the nails, grimy with filth.

She has killed with these hands.

The question, with the answer she can’t remember, is has she killed now? Or perhaps not if, because it feels so obvious that she has, but who? She can’t even remember who she was fighting. Staring at the tufts of fur beneath several of her fingers, stroking along the slices in her clothes and the torn flesh beneath, Samantha thinks maybe she needs to ask not who.

What.

Blinking to clear her vision, she makes sure she can stand upright before she tries to go anywhere. She’s in a safe house, not one she remembers, but she recognizes it without too much effort. Bare floors, bare walls, utilitarian furniture. Nothing to show anyone on the outside that there’s anything here but an almost empty house waiting for someone to occupy it. Nothing to stand out to anyone who came to the door.

She hopes nobody does that now. The beige walls are spattered with thick dark fluid that smells of dank earth. The furniture, a brown plaid couch and matching armchair, are overturned, the stuffing torn out. It would be so very clear this house was the scene of something awful.

She doesn’t call out. The ringing has faded enough that she can, if she strains hard enough, hear more than the buzz. Her feet are steady, planted shoulder-width apart. Her fingers ache; she forces them to relax and open. She doesn’t search for her weapon. She already knows it’s gone.

Whatever happened here was recent enough that the blood is sticky, but not dry. Her wounds still seep. She could not have been unconscious for more than twenty or thirty minutes. Listening hard, Samantha waits for some clue to tell her what went on, but she hears nothing but the harsh rasp of her own breathing.

In the next room, she finds him. Eyes wide. Mouth open. He stares at the ceiling, the ribbons of maroon on his throat evidence of what killed him. A familiar face.

Her father.

She kneels next to him without bothering to check for a pulse. You can maybe survive a wound that leaves your trachea hanging out of your throat, your bones poking through the skin, but only with immediate medical attention. It’s very clear that her father went down alone. He won’t get up again.

She tries to cry and can’t. Later, she thinks she ought to have tried harder. He raised her, after all, in the absence of a mother. He did the best he could. But she thinks he wouldn’t have wanted her to weep, not because it was a sign of weakness, but because he’d passed from this life and into the next. The one he’d always taught her was the better one.

The rest of the house is empty. There are signs, left behind by other safe house users. A code—something like the symbols used by transient hobos in the thirties to distinguish friendly homes from those where a man looking for a meal and a hot shave would instead get a serious thrashing. This house, she reads, is no longer safe.

“No shit.” The words leak out of her on a tongue sore from being bitten.

In the kitchen, she finds no signs of struggle. In the fridge, a gallon of milk hasn’t turned, and she gulps it greedily although she doesn’t like milk. Her stomach bucks a protest, but she keeps it down. She spits a few times into the sink. Pink. Again. Clear this time. She puts the jug on the counter and both hands on the rim of the sink, gripping hard as the floor tips and tilts. When she’s once more gathered her balance, she uses the sink to wash her face and rinse her mouth. She watches the water swirl away the blood and bits of fur.

She stands there so long, she realizes the light outside has gone from night to day.

She’s lost time again, but this time remembers coming into the kitchen. Drinking the milk. Going to the sink. She remembers her father is dead, and that someone before her tried to warn them that this house was not safe, but she still can’t recall what brought them here.

She remembers she hadn’t spoken to him in months, though. Before this. How they’d had a final falling-out—he wanted her to keep moving with him, and she wanted to find a place, settle down, keep a job. Have a life. They’d parted on bad terms.

With a gasp, Samantha shakes herself awake again. The faucet is still running, the water ice-cold. She turns it off. Closes her eyes.

Did she kill her father?

No, no, that can’t be. She runs a fingertip over her teeth, careless of the gore still grimed into her skin. She wouldn’t have done that. And it doesn’t explain the fur.

She will never fully remember what brought her to this house, or what happened inside it. She will find the text on her phone from her father asking her to meet him at this address. Nothing more than that. But she does learn what happened to him, and that is because several days after burning that house to the ground in the hopes she can prevent anyone from finding out it had been a haven for the people her father had believed in, a man named Vadim approaches her in a coffee shop two towns away. He sits at the table outside, where Samantha is turning a lukewarm paper cup of shitty coffee around and around in her hands without being able to drink any of it. He says nothing, not even when she recoils as though she might hit him.

“I know what happened to your father,” he says in the calm and steady voice Samantha will come to learn so well. “If you want to know, come with me.”

So she does.

* * *

Jed was dreaming.

He knew it, of course, because in the waking world he would not be dancing slowly with Samantha. Her head would not be on his shoulder. His hand would not be on her hip. He surely would not be moving with her to the strains of some classical waltz, both of them keeping perfect time as he led her around the floor.

He would not be kissing her.

But this was a dream, and he had them so rarely that he was not willing to give this one up. Aware of being watched, knowing they would be monitoring him, it didn’t matter because the press of her mouth on his was too good. The slide of her tongue along his, too sweet.

He groaned when she aligned her body with his. Softness. Breasts and hips and the curve of her ass under his hands. His cock ached. She rubbed herself against him. She slid a hand between them. Stroking.

“Kiss me,” she said.

He did. Then again. She shivered and tipped her head back to give him access to her throat. Her collarbones. She was naked, all smooth skin and warmth. She pulled him down onto a bed—where had a bed come from? He didn’t know. Did not care. All the mattered was moving his lips and tongue over every part of her body.

He found the salty heat between her thighs. He parted her. Found the small spot that made her writhe and sink her fingers into the meat of his biceps. He licked her, soft and slow and steady. When he felt her body tense, he moved up and over her to sink inside her.

It’s a dream, he thought. None of this is real.

He couldn’t stop it, though. Pushing his cock inside her heat was better than anything he’d ever imagined possible. He pushed deeper, deeper, pleasure consuming him.

In the way of dreams, some of the details were blurry. Her face, though. Her smile. Her body, welcoming him. All of that was clear as anything.

He moved faster, and she moved with him. Everything around them faded away until it was only the two of them. Naked, skin on skin. Mouth on mouth. Heat and wetness and friction, building up and up until he couldn’t hold back anymore.

He woke a second or so before his climax. Fingers clutching the sheets, body tense and straining, he gave up to the rush of pleasure. His cock was so hard it had slipped free of the waistband of his scrubs, and hot fluid spurted onto his belly in a series of forceful jets that left him spent and breathless.

Let them watch, he thought, blinking at the ceiling. Let them get their jollies, if they did. Let them monitor him, make their reports.

He was still alive, and his body was still his, no matter what they did to him. They couldn’t take that away. And they could never get inside his head.

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