Deadly Game (GhostWalkers, #5)(24)

“No one knows Whitney, not even his friends. He’s like a chameleon; he changes his skin when he feels like it. He presents one face, one personality, one day, and the next he’s totally different. Personally I think he’s a lunatic, drunk on his own power. The government gave him too much authority without anyone to answer to, and he has too much money, so he’s like the number one megalomaniac of the world. And I told him so on several occasions recently.”

“Are you aware he does very accurate profiling? I mean dead-on, Mari.”

She knew he was leading up to something, and she was already there. “He has to have some kind of psychic ability. Otherwise, how could he have managed to choose the right infants in an orphanage? He knew we all had talents. He touched us, or was drawn in some way to us, because of our psychic abilities. That would have been impossible unless he was psychic himself. It’s how he knows things about us.”

Ken swallowed the sudden bile rising in his throat. He’d had a bad feeling, ever since he’d taken Jack’s mission in the Congo and been captured, that it had all been orchestrated. Even down to Jack’s delay in Colombia so he couldn’t lead the rescue team when the senator’s plane went down.

He cleared his throat. “You said Whitney wasn’t exactly friends with the senator. Did Whitney know the senator’s plane had been shot down in the Congo by the rebels a few months back?”

“Yes. We were told.”

“And did you know the first rescue mission was successful but that a man was left behind? Did Whitney know?”

“I overheard Sean telling him the news.”

“And how did Whitney react?” His chest hurt. His lungs burned for air.

“He seemed excited. I thought he was excited the senator was rescued, but then he said something about it being too bad that Freeman had to survive.”

Ken kept his face carefully blank as his world crashed around him. He should have known. Dr. Peter Whitney found great joy in using human beings in his experiments. He went to extraordinary lengths to manipulate people into position so he could record the events and trigger reactions he had predicted. He had done so with Jack and Briony, and now, Ken was certain, he was doing so by sending out Mari to guard the senator.

“Who gave the order for you to protect Senator Freeman?”

Mari hesitated, but it was clear to her that Ken was on to something—and it was entirely possible that they were on the same side. What could it hurt? As he probed her for information, she was collecting data of her own. “I was no longer part of the protection team. I’d been moved over to another program. Whitney was gone, and with a little help from some others, I convinced my old team to let me go so I could get the opportunity to speak to the senator on another matter.”

Ken inhaled sharply. “Is Whitney enhanced?”

She shook her head. She had loyalty to her unit, but certainly not to Whitney, and if this was a trap set by Whitney, he already knew her views on him and his despicable experiments. “I tested him a couple of times, just to see. His bodyguards had to pull me off of him. I’m sure he isn’t. Probably too chicken.”

“You attacked him?”

“I was hoping I’d get lucky and break his neck, but he has one guard, Sean, who is really, really good.”

The admiration in her voice triggered something vicious and ugly deep inside of him that he always took great pains to keep hidden. He turned away from her abruptly, keeping his back to her until he could bring himself back under control. His fingers curled into two tight fists and his gut clenched hard. A black shadow moved in his mind.

“How did he react when you attacked him?”

“He smiled. He likes to smile just before he does something really nasty. That’s when I was pulled off of my unit and moved to another program.”

“His breeding program.”

She forced herself to maintain control, neither flinching nor looking away. “He sent Brett to me.”

Ken’s gut knotted and the shadow in his mind grew larger. He could hear the thud of his heart pounding in his ears like the roar of a wounded animal. “And just what did Brett do?”

“Brett is part of his new breeding program, and he’s paired with me.”

The roaring reached a crescendo. His sight went to heat imaging, glowing shades of yellow and red, flashing like a warning signal as he spun back to her, his hand spanning her throat. “What exactly did Brett do you? Touch you like this?” His palm slid from her throat to the swell of her breasts, stroking caresses. He shoved the blanket back, exposing her body, the smooth firm lines and the lush curves. “This?” He bent his head to flick her nipple with his tongue.

Mari went rigid as sensations burst through her. She should be screaming, fighting, doing anything but what she wanted to do. She knew what this was. She knew he was taking advantage of her injuries and that he was deliberately using sex against her, but she had never felt the bright burst of pleasure that the mere touch of his tongue had brought her. Her fingers fisted in his hair, but instead of jerking him away, she held him to her, closing her eyes and savoring the feel of his tongue, his teeth, the heat of his mouth as he suckled.

He wasn’t gentle; she could feel that the scrape of his teeth and his mouth was more ruthless than sensual, as if he was angry with her, but her body reacted with such urgency she nearly sobbed. One of his hands traveled across her stomach, slid lower, stroking once, twice, and then his finger was deep inside her welcoming body, her muscles clenching around it, wanting to hold him to her. Her body threatened to implode, the orgasm rushing over her when there was no reason for it other than that one single plunge of his finger. She cried out as the sensations overtook her, shaking her, shaking her faith in herself and her ability to resist anything he did to her.