human, shoving him in the direction of the door to the stairwell. They both watched him stumble and then start pounding on the door.
No doubt the first time he had been locked out of his own business.
“You ready to go?” she asked her mate.
John’s hands were quick to sign, Tell me you did enough.
“More than enough.” She leaned into him and kissed him on the mouth, lingering with the contact. “Thank you for coming with me. And for believing me when it comes to Murhder. We have a shared history, but not a shared future. It’s you who I love like that. No one else.”
The small, secret smile she was used to seeing appeared on his face. It was his special one. The expression that he never gave anybody but her. It was how he said “I love you” without using his hands.
Abruptly, she felt a relief and gratitude so enormous, she had to blink quick. “Let’s go.”
One after the other, they dematerialized, leaving the loading dock through the tiny gaps in the garage door’s slats. They re-formed on the perimeter of the lab property, in the snow field on the far side of the high concrete wall. No alarms. No signs that the infiltration had been noted or responded to. There might be some confusion for the security folks when they saw the video feeds, but with any luck, Murhder’s guard took care of all that.
John tapped her on the arm. Are you sure you’re okay leaving like this?
As Xhex exhaled, her breath left her in a white cloud. It was impossible not to measure this departure against her previous, toast-your-marshmallows-and-then-some one. And the truth was, she was never going to be perfectly okay with any of it. Not what her bloodline had done to her or to Murhder. Certainly not what had been done to her body at the hands of that human she’d just scrambled the brains of.
But burning this lab down and slaughtering a bunch of innocent humans working security detail was not going to bring her any greater measure of peace.
Besides, she had taken care of things when it came to the drug company. Kraiten had a special project he was going to work on over the next couple of days.
“Yes, I’m all right.”
She turned and faced her mate. As a cold breeze ripped by, like it had discovered a zip code that wasn’t frigid AF and was determined to take care of that oversight, John’s hair ruffled on one side.
As she reached up to smooth things, he captured her gloved hand and kissed the center of her palm.
She thought of him meeting Murhder—and the seizure he’d had. Then she thought of what she knew, but had not told him, about his emotional grid. And of the scar on his pectoral, the one that he said he had been born with.
John whistled in an ascending sound, his way of asking what was up.
Xhex glanced over to the lab’s wall and wondered if they shouldn’t get moving. But what did it matter. If any humans came after them, they could just dematerialize away.
Or kill the bastards.
It was more than time for her to say this, and why not here? “John … you belong in the Brotherhood. And not just because you’re a good fighter.”
He frowned. And then shrugged.
“I know, it’s not your decision or choice. But … you recognized Murhder, didn’t you.” Yes, that was a leading question. “In your heart, you know him. You know all of the Brotherhood. Have you ever asked yourself why that is?”
John shrugged again and let go of her hand. It just is the way it is. I get along with them.
“It’s more than that. And you’ve sensed this.”
Her beloved mate had a total anomaly when it came to his emotional grid. In fact, she’d never seen anything like it before. The structure of his emotions and sense of self were perfectly normal, the norths and souths, easts and wests of his feelings in an orientation that was exactly as it should be. What was not? The fact that there was a shadow grid directly under his own, an echo of his pattern that precisely reflected whatever he was feeling, like she were seeing double. She had often wondered if maybe he’d had a twin who had died … but there was no way of knowing that because the details of his birth and the whereabouts of his mahmen were unknown.