a semi-clean T-shirt, she focused on the one issue that had been bothering her since the hybrids had attacked them earlier.
“You know that needle meant the hybrids were trying to take you alive, don’t you?” she asked.
He pulled on his shirt. “I’ve been thinking the same thing, but why? They sure as hell didn’t have a problem shooting at me that first day. What could they want with me?”
Kendra had a pretty good idea why the hybrids might be trying to take him alive, but she wasn’t sure how to tell him without spilling all of Ivy’s secrets—and those weren’t hers to spill. She could try and mince words, maybe say enough to get him to recognize the risk he was facing. But that wouldn’t be fair. She’d be risking Declan’s life if she didn’t give him the whole truth. She had to make sure he understood the kind of psychos he was up against.
“They don’t want you,” she said. “They want your shifter DNA.”
Declan frowned. “How the hell do you know that? Oh wait, let me guess. You can’t tell me. It’s a secret, right?”
“It’s a secret all right…a big one. But you need to hear it because I need you to realize how serious this is.”
Declan was silent. “This involves Ivy again, doesn’t it?”
She nodded. “Yes. So when I tell you that you can never breathe a word of what I’m about to tell you to another soul, you know why.”
“Okay. I understand.”
Kendra took a moment to collect her thoughts, trying to figure out what to say that wouldn’t require at least an hour of backstory. Finally, she decided to stick to the important facts that mattered the most right now.
“You know those two doctors the DCO has been hunting for months?” she asked.
Of course he did—everyone in the DCO was aware that they’d been after the architects of the hybrid program since Ivy and Landon had filed their report on the two insane doctors. But she needed somewhere to start and that seemed as good as anywhere else. When Declan nodded, she jumped in with both feet.
“They grabbed Ivy out in Washington State and experimented on her. The one big thing they were after were DNA samples—all kinds of samples.”
Declan swore. “How the hell did this not come out?”
“It didn’t come out because Ivy and Landon never told anyone.”
Silence, then another curse. “Because then everyone would have known Landon didn’t follow the DCO’s first standing order and kill Ivy when it looked like she was going to be captured.”
“Exactly,” she said.
Hopefully Declan wouldn’t ask the next obvious question: Why had Landon refused to follow the most rigid DCO order? Telling Declan that Ivy had been experimented on was bad enough; telling him that she had fallen in love with—and married—her partner? That was a whole different level of complicated.
But Declan was more interested in something else. “So Ivy was captured and instead of calling the DCO for help, Landon called…you?”
“Sheesh, you don’t have to make it sound like I’m that far down on the list,” she said wryly. “But you’re right. Landon initially wanted you and your team, but you were out chasing down Tanner. Landon wanted someone he could trust. That ended up being me.”
She wasn’t going to mention Clayne or the entire Special Forces team Landon had called in. No need to draw anyone else into this story. She was already violating so many promises it wasn’t even funny.
“And these doctors—they experimented on Ivy. Took DNA samples?”
This was the part she really needed to hammer home. She needed Declan to understand the kind of vicious psychos they were up against.
“Experimented is putting it mildly. Tortured would be a better word. They wanted DNA samples and they didn’t care how they got them. At the same time, the doctors wanted to evaluate Ivy’s pain threshold. They used scalpels, drills, and worse. If we hadn’t found her when we did…” She shuddered. “They were planning to take brain tissue samples next.”
Declan was growling before Kendra was halfway finished, and she looked up to see his eyes glowing a soft rose color. She’d never seen Declan’s eyes glow, even when they’d been moving around at night. But while the glow was reddish, it was completely different than that of the hybrids. Nevertheless, to know that his eyes did that when he got angry was a little…scary. She couldn’t believe in all the years she’d worked with him, she’d never seen that part of his shifter nature.