"Meaning?" Rule gripped his weapon, his gaze sharper now.
Mercury shook his head. "I can see the threads of it, sense them, but I can't put my finger on where they're going. Ely has targeted me, though, and she's never done that with another Breed. She needs me out of the way. Or someone does." It just didn't work for him that Ely would be in on any kind of deception, but he knew it was possible. It was even probable.
"Ely?" Lawe straightened and started back at him in disbelief before he shook his head and suspicion began to fill his eyes as well.
"We need to be careful." Mercury stared back at the cabin, and thought of the woman inside. "Ria's not here just to decide whether or not to stop Vanderale funding. The files she's going through have nothing to do with funding, and everything to do with outgoing transmissions. Ely's managed to separate me from Sanctuary, but not as far as she could have without Jonas standing in her way. When Jonas arrives, I want you at the meeting."
"And Ria?" Lawe asked. "Will she be in on it?"
He turned back to Lawe. "She'll be there, or there will be no meeting."
She wasn't his mate. But he didn't have to mate her to know she belonged to him.
* * *
Ely stared at the test results as she sipped at a bottle of water and felt the anger burning in her mind. She was sitting here, putting together the proof for what she was trying to convince the Ruling Cabinet of, and a part of her already knew they weren't going to listen to her.
Mercury was a strong enforcer, and not just in physical strength. His animal qualities were more a part of him than anyone suspected. The Council drugs may have recessed the more violent qualities of his animal, and the senses he had once possessed, but he was still intelligent, and cunning. That animalistic intelligence was by far his most dangerous trait, because it was stronger than other Breeds' she had run across since the rescues.
If it hadn't been for the feral fever, he would have been trained to lead and to command. He could have possibly been a stronger alpha than even Callan. As hard it was to believe that there could be a stronger alpha.
She pushed her fingers through her hair and fought the rage burning behind her eyelids, fought the screaming warning her own animal was sending through her head. She had never felt like this, and she knew the pressure was beginning to get to her.
Reaching around, she rubbed at the back of her neck, fighting the headache that seemed to spread there.
Shaking her head, she opened a bottle of over-the-counter pain medication and washed two down with the water before turning back to her computer.
She put a tight hold on the anger, forced it back and forced her mind to work on the analysis of the fluids she had taken from Mercury.
There was something in the se**n that she knew was off, something odd. The saliva as well. His blood was corroded with the feral adrenaline, and that terrified her. The images of the videos taken in the labs where he had killed so horrifically continued to run through her mind.
His hands, the nails thick and curved like claws, had punched right through a man's chest. The bloody mess of the man's heart had still been in Mercury's clenched fist when he drew back. That heart had been ground into the trainer's face before Mercury ripped his head from his shoulders.
That shouldn't have been possible. To just rip flesh and muscle, cartilage and spine away in such a brief span of time and toss the head away.
She shuddered, imagining Callan or, God forbid, Jonas taken apart in such a way.
Jonas was her nemesis, but there had always been a sense of fondness between the two of them, until now. He had respected her opinion even if he didn't always want to believe what she had to say. He pushed her to find other answers, and because of that she had run these tests until her head was about to explode.
"You bastard!" The snarl surprised her as she jumped from her stool and began to pace the room. "Damn you, Jonas, I can't find any other answer."
And why should she care what she found for him? This was the man who had had his own sister captured. The man who had blackmailed that sister, laid her head on the chopping block of Breed Law, and he would have gone through with it. He would have killed Harmony if she hadn't done as he ordered.
Just as he killed others.
He thought she didn't know the things he had done. The trips the Breed heli-jet made to an active volcano, one that bubbled and churned and waited with greedy anticipation for the sacrifices he fed to it.
The bodies he had dropped into it. Council scientists who had been wiped away within the boiling mass of molten stone. He and his pilot, the wild-eyed Jackal.
Jackal. Damn him. He was protecting Mercury as well, and he was furious with her. And he was just as much a killer as Jonas was himself. Everyone knew it. Even Kane, head of Sanctuary's security, knew it. Jackal was a murderer. He should have been born a Breed rather than a human.
She dug her fingers into her neck, trying to rub away the pain there. There had to be a way to convince the Ruling Cabinet that Mercury had to be confined and forced to undergo the testing she needed. It would be easy to duplicate the drug the Council had used to control him. He had lived well then. He would live well again, and there would be no risk of death. No risk of losing those she cared about.
She breathed in deeply, forcing the calm she needed, and moved back to the computer and testing equipment. She was the scientist. The Ruling Cabinet respected her opinion, and she knew Callan had called the cabinet together for a meeting. A very secretive meeting. She would make certain she was prepared. And she would make certain she saved Mercury. As with the others, she cared for him. He was her friend and losing him would leave a vacant hole inside her. She didn't want to see him killed. The feral displacement wasn't his fault. It was the fault of those bastards who created them. And she would find a way to save him. No matter the friends she lost in the process.
* * *
Mercury put away the groceries as Lawe unpacked them, the other Breed's acute sense of smell going over each item.