Blake, Abby - Traitor [Altered Destinies 6] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting)
Altered Destinies 6
Traitor
Could the mind-blowing sex and incredible threesomes be clouding her judgment?
Sandra loves her job. She gets to shut down the bad guys and rescue the innocent. She knows that she makes a difference to the world even if most of her work is classified.
Yet, her priorities are flipped upside down when The Agency seems intent on punishing two men who have technically done nothing wrong. In fact, they’d both been instrumental in the capture of The Agency’s most wanted man—their father.
Davin and Darrick have no idea who to trust. Their physical attraction to the pretty blonde supposedly assigned to protect them is overwhelming, but, to Sandra, are they just another assignment?
Suddenly on the run from both the good guys and the bad, can Sandra, Davin, and Darrick uncover the truth and somehow learn to trust each other?
Genre: Ménage a Trois/Quatre, Paranormal, Romantic Suspense
Length: 36,847 words
TRAITOR
Altered Destinies 6
Abby Blake
MENAGE EVERLASTING
Siren Publishing, Inc.
www.SirenPublishing.com
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A SIREN PUBLISHING BOOK
IMPRINT: Ménage Everlasting
TRAITOR
Copyright © 2011 by Abby Blake
E-book ISBN: 1-61034-908-3
First E-book Publication: October 2011
Cover design by Les Byerley
All art and logo copyright © 2011 by Siren Publishing, Inc.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission.
All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.
PUBLISHER
Siren Publishing, Inc.
www.SirenPublishing.com
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DEDICATION
For Rusty
TRAITOR
Altered Destinies 6
ABBY BLAKE
Copyright © 2011
Prologue
Davin glanced at his watch. It was nearly time. He just had to hold it together for another fifteen minutes, and it would all be over.
The last three weeks he’d been fueled with determination, his course set, his plans clear, but now, now when he needed that confidence the most he felt none. Had he done the right thing? Were his motives as pure as he told himself? Or was he the traitor they would call him?
“Davin, I’m glad I found you. I need your help.” The professor turned away, fully expecting Davin to follow meekly as he’d always done. Davin hesitated. To refuse now would cause suspicion, and if he lost the professor’s trust, he was liable to end up with a bullet in his gut. Just like Jenna.
He followed the professor into the lab, but the memory of Jenna lying on a floor in a white wedding dress bleeding to death filled his vision. He’d prayed that help had reached her on time, but he really hadn’t held much hope. At least the twins were safe. Hailey and Kara deserved a chance at a normal life, and it was good to know something had gone right that day.
“Take a seat,” the professor ordered in a voice Davin felt strangely compelled to obey. He tried to shake off the peculiar sensation but found himself sitting exactly as ordered. The professor picked up a small hypodermic needle filled with something yellowish in color. Then he unwrapped an alcohol wipe and brushed it over the skin of Davin’s upper arm.
Fear gripped him. He’d already figured out that these injections weren’t vitamin formulas like they’d been told. Davin had no idea what was in this needle or what the contents might do to him, but to protest would likely get him killed. He’d always managed to give the impression that he followed the professor like a faithful lapdog. To change that now would alert the man to what was coming.
Even as the injection sank into his flesh, Davin was at least grateful that the last time he’d had an injection he’d developed the ability to hide his emotions from empaths. At least the professor wouldn’t sense his distrust.
As the old man depressed the plunger, heat spread outward from the needle. Davin hissed in pain as the burning traveled across his chest, up his neck, and into his head. His eyesight blurred, and he swayed on the stool, his equilibrium off as he struggled to comprehend which way was up.
“What was that?” he tried to ask, but his words were slurred, the professor’s answer unintelligible. Davin blinked several times, trying to clear his vision, but his brain refused to cooperate. He felt himself slide sideways and almost welcomed the end as everything went black.
Chapter One
Sandra managed to make it to the wedding on time. Adrenaline still surged through her at the memory of finally being able to arrest the bastard who’d damn near beaten her to a pulp and ordered her execution a few years ago. The professor was finally in custody, and for the first time since meeting Theresa and her mother, Lydia, Sandra felt like she could deliver good news. Of course, considering that Theresa had been the lead agent on the raid, actually telling them what had happened wasn’t necessary.
But what mattered the most was that the man who’d ordered Theresa’s mother be held against her will was finally going to face justice. After years of chasing down the professor it felt good to finally nail the sadistic bastard.
Sandra grinned as she approached Dana and John. Dana was just beginning to show with her second pregnancy, but it was obviou
s that John was feeling quite protective of his wife. Even though he wasn’t an agent like his brother and sister, when it came to his wife, John was every bit as dangerous if he thought Dana was threatened by anyone or anything.
After the way she’d been gunned down and left for dead a year ago, Sandra couldn’t blame him or Pete for feeling that way. Hell, she felt that way, too. Nobody messed with her niece, her brothers, or their wife without answering to her first.
“You made it,” Dana said with a happy smile. She was an unusual person. Dana was bad tempered and foul mouthed and in many ways closed off emotionally, but somehow she’d overcome her fears to fall in love with both of Sandra’s brothers. That love and trust had spilled over to include Sandra, and in many ways they were as close as sisters—probably closer than Dana was with her genetic sisters.
But today was Jenna’s day. Sandra sensed a lot of tension among the siblings when it came to Alana’s twin. Jenna had been raised to believe everything the professor said about the superiority of humans with extrasensory abilities and, until a few months ago, had fully believed it. But Sandra had worked with Zane and Rick on many occasions, so if they trusted Jenna, that was good enough for her.
The fact that all of Jenna’s siblings had managed to make it to both her weddings—even the one interrupted by Jenna’s kidnapping—said a lot about the type of people they were.
Pete ran over to their little group. His hair was still wet from his shower, but he wore the same satisfied smile that Sandra could feel on her own face. Being able to tell Jenna that the professor was in custody and she could have a proper honeymoon with her men seemed like a pretty good wedding present to give her.
“Sandra,” Rick said to her telepathically, “did it work?”
“Of course,” she said with a pretend nonchalance. “Did you expect anything less?”
“Thank you,” he said, sounding very relieved. “I already booked the flights. I sure as hell wasn’t looking forward to trying to get my deposit back.”
“Glad we could help,” she sent happily.
Sandra glanced over to see Theresa, Caleb, and Ethan also rushing from the parking lot. There was probably a heap of paperwork that needed to be done, but it could wait. Since finding each other, the siblings had made an effort to become close—even if they were all very different.
The music started just as Theresa reached them, and they all filed into the garden and sat in the seats provided. It was a beautiful day. The sun was shining, the flowers were blooming, and—if she knew anything at all about Rick and Zane—the bride was very, very well protected this time around.
The flower girls stepped through the hedged gateway, looking adorable in their blue dresses and seeming to concentrate hard on stepping slowly like they’d been instructed. It was wonderful to see Hailey and Kara acting like regular kids. They’d been subjected to so many unfair experiences in their young lives it was a relief to see them given the chance of a normal childhood.
A quiet, approving murmur rippled through the crowd as the bride, flanked by both her intended husbands, made a very nontraditional entrance. Nobody was taking a chance that a missing bride could interrupt this wedding. And besides, considering that in other circles two husbands would have been unusual, Sandra supposed nontraditional worked in this case.
As always Sandra tried to hide how emotional weddings made her, but being surrounded by empaths made it almost impossible to hide. It felt a little silly. She was happy with her life exactly the way it was, but on days like today, when love was in the air and everyone seemed to be in couples or triples, she wondered if maybe there was something more.
Lexie wriggled on Pete’s lap, and he tried to get her to quiet down. Sandra tuned into the telepathic argument and tried not to giggle. Lexie was just over a year old but very good at making her point. The fact that she’d been using telepathy for a few months already made her skill even more astounding. Most telepathic children developed their skills around puberty, but the offspring of the stolen siblings were proving to be extraordinary—just as the professor had planned it. Lexie could barely talk out loud, but she was very capable of arguing telepathically, even if the words were a little jumbled on occasions.
At least with the professor in custody Lexie was relatively safe for the moment. So were Kara and Hailey, and Alana’s daughter, Kayla Rose, and the child Jason and Cody’s wife, Bec, was carrying. In fact it seemed that all of the people around her were busily falling in love and starting their families.
A small pang of jealousy struck Sandra unexpectedly. Pete glanced at her and smiled smugly. She glared at him and sent telepathically, “Stay out of my head.”
“Sorry, Sis, but I have been waiting a long time for you to have thoughts like that. Now we just need to find you a good husband.” He waited until she glared in his direction, then added, “Or two.”
No. Fucking. Way.
Sandra had worked hard to establish her career. There was no way she was going to mess that up by falling in love again. One failed marriage was more than enough.
“Your ex was a dick,” Pete said succinctly, obviously still tuning into her internal thoughts despite the irritation she felt at his intrusion. They needed to be close to work as a team for the agency, but it was damned annoying when it came to the more personal stuff. The fact that Pete was happily married to Dana and had no self-doubts about his place in the world just made Sandra feel more inadequate.
“Sis…” Pete began in a soft telepathic voice, obviously having heard that damning admission. But she cut him off, slamming their telepathic link closed. She pulled her annoyance around her like a cloak, cutting off all communication from everyone—kind of like taking the phone off the hook in a telepathic sense. They’d all be able to sense her emotions—she couldn’t hide that—but none of them would be able to contact her telepathically.
She could see Pete’s concern written all over his face, but considering the bride was halfway through her vows, he had little choice but to remain quiet. For now. She had no doubt she’d get a thorough verbal argument later.
Dana glanced over and smiled serenely. If there was one woman in Sandra’s circle of friends who would understand her reticence to enter a relationship it was Dana. She’d obviously sensed Sandra’s irritation and would have easily discerned the cause.
Sandra smiled slightly. It was actually kind of nice to have silence in her head. Ever since she’d developed her abilities at age thirteen, she’d had her parents, her brothers, or her telepathic friends talking in her head. But by closing the link to Pete, she’d effectively shut down all of her telepathic senses, and for the first time in a long time she felt completely alone. Ironically, despite her uncharacteristic jealously, alone was exactly what she wanted.
Finally the wedding was over, and Sandra moved quickly away from the garden, wanting to find some space, but Jason was there waiting for her. Damn meddling family. Pete had obviously called in reinforcements. Ever since Jason had contacted her about Alana over a year ago, they’d built a comfortable friendship. Sandra was also quite good friends with Jason’s wife, Bec, and her other husband, Cody. Bec and Cody were currently training to be doctors, and thanks to Sandra’s knack for being injured on the job, they were three people she saw on a fairly regular basis.
“It was a lovely wedding,” Jason said casually.
She eyed him suspiciously. Jason may be a doctor and an empath, but he was still a man. Most men tolerated weddings rather than actually enjoying them, and Jason was no exception. She lifted an eyebrow and waited for him to get to the point.
“Pete was worried.”
“I know,” she said tiredly. She knew her family cared for her. It was just difficult some days when she felt like the extra. As much as she loved her brothers, their wife, and their daughter, it was their life, not hers. The fact that they went out of their way to include her most of the time just made the feeling worse some days.
“Okay,” Jason said, obviously sensing her
reluctance to talk. “I actually wanted to ask you about the man you found in the professor’s lab. Did he regain consciousness at any stage?”
“Not that I noticed,” she said. She tried to recall every detail from finding the man to handing him over to Cody and Bec at the medical ward and was surprised to realize she could picture the man very clearly in her head. It was very strange that she would have noticed his dark hair and handsome, chiseled features, the slightly bent nose, long eyelashes, and lush, full lips just made for kissing. She shook her head. It was her job to notice details, but whoa, that was carrying things just a little too far.
“Did he say anything?”
“He mumbled a few words but none that I could understand clearly. His mind and emotions were shielded, so no luck there either.” She closed her eyes, picturing the man’s sluggish movement as he was loaded onto a stretcher. “I did get the sense that he was very frightened.”
“Me, too,” Jason said with a nod. “I suspect he might be our informant.”
“Do you know who he is?”
Jason nodded again. “I didn’t know him well, but he always struck me as a reasonable man. I think that after Jenna was rescued and the feds raided the place, he may have seen a whole new side to the professor.”
“It would make sense. Do we know what was done to him?”
“Not yet,” Jason said. He hesitated for a moment, probably conferring with his wife, or maybe Cody. “Bec suspects that he was given one of the professor’s ‘vitamin’ injections a few minutes before we arrived. He still hasn’t regained consciousness. I’m going to head back to the medical ward for a little while. I’ll see you at the reception.”