Rising Storm (Westin Force #2) - Julie Trettel Page 0,27
arm against his? Touch is one of the most common ways to sooth a mate in every species I’ve encountered, but with gorillas rubbing appears to be important.”
I nodded. “It is.”
“As Alpha here, I am a bit more sensitive to the aggression levels of others, particularly males. Your mate may look calm on the outside, but he is far from okay.”
I sighed and rubbed my arm against his. I felt an immediate sense of calm wash over me, and also felt him begin to relax.
Kyle smiled. “Thank you, Emma. We can continue. I have one big question that maybe you can help with. Do you have any insight into why they have begun dabbling in things like animal cage fighting?”
Painter
Chapter 9
Emma snorted. “Well yeah, they’re broke. The Verndari is tired of their games and has been pulling funding. They have to make it up somewhere. That idiot Roger thinks he’s perfected a serum that will stop shifters from shifting.” She grinned but her eyes looked hollow. “He highly underestimates my pain tolerance and stubbornness. He’s not even close, but he truly believes I would never shift for him because I couldn’t. There was a fox shifter there that went through the same trial. She was pregnant so she literally couldn’t shift, but he was too stupid to know that.”
“Obviously, you could have,” Kyle pointed out.
“What sort of experiments were they running on pregnant women in their skin?”
“If they were obviously pregnant, then none. If they could return them using the memory serum they created to wipe people’s memories of events, then they would. If they couldn’t, then they kept them around to work as maids and cooks and the sorts. They didn’t bother experimenting on them though because they didn’t know they weren’t human and assumed they had made a mistake. For all they do know, they are clueless on the basics. Keeley’s not the only traitor to our kind, but even she doesn’t divulge additional information. She’s not the type to put all her eggs in one basket. She has to keep those things close to her to dish out in emergencies. She’s all about self-preservation and only gives them small tidbits, or expands on things she knows they are already aware of.”
Ben looked relieved and I knew he was worried about his young pups.
“Of course there was some rumors that they were experimenting with shifter pregnancies and playing around with genetic coding and then inseminating those embryos into female shifters. I don’t know for certain the validity of it, but Vada was at one of the research facilities and told me it was true. I trust her.”
Everyone in the room but me was taking notes as fast as their hands could move. I just couldn’t stop staring at Emma.
One thing I realized quickly was that my mate was passionate and full of fire. She was also a good person. I knew this because the only reason she had shifted was to set the record straight in the search for justice. That meant a lot to me.
In all the years I’d been working with Silas, I was the ethical voice for us. Silas would follow the money and take any job offered, but I couldn’t in good conscience. It made us a good team because we balanced each other out.
Emma was gorgeous, even prettier than my feeble brain had conjured from the seconds-long glance I’d had of her that one time. She was tall and curvy in all the right places. She had the same big brown eyes as she did in gorilla form.
When she’d rubbed up against me at Kyle’s suggestion, my body had relaxed even though my brain continued to struggle. I’d hoped she wouldn’t disappear into her gorilla again. I needed to talk to her, and not about the terrible things that had happened to her.
I hadn’t known she even existed, but seeing her scars had sliced guilt through my gut. I should have been there to protect her. I’d let her down before I even met her. I was a protector. That was who I was, and the only person that truly mattered had suffered and I hadn’t been there to stop it. I couldn’t change the past, but I could damn well ensure nothing like that ever happened to her again.
“Are you okay Ben?” I somehow managed to ask. As infatuated with my mate as I was, I was not oblivious to how the room had stilled, and an awkward silence set in.