Evan stared in astonishment at the giant sitting with his niece and Hale. It didn't take a scientist to see that there was much more to this McKinley than met the eye.
From what Doc had gathered from Sabrina's, Derrick's, and Hale's comments, McKinley was a puzzle. A Circ who didn't look Circ, but who possessed the capabilities of one.
And he worked with Diego.
Evan's heart pounded at mention of the man he loved like no other. He'd given Diego his heart and soul eight years ago. Love at first sight, an odd reaction for a man of science. But from the first, he'd felt an instant connection. When Diego had betrayed him, he'd felt as bad, if not worse, than he had when he'd learned about what Elliot had done to his Circs. Injecting men with a serum that would forever change them, turning most of them into murdering psychopaths, shouldn't have equated to having one's heart broken, but there it was.
He struggled to focus on the important things McKinley mentioned, yet his pulse raced at thoughts of Diego. “
Diego misses you like you can’t believe
.”
“Start at the beginning,” Roane demanded. “Where the hell did you even come from?”
McKinley shifted, his huge bulk a threat in itself. What intrigued Evan about him, however, was the gentle way he held Paige and the almost proprietary manner with which he regarded Hale. Very interesting.
The large Circ didn't blink, his yellow eyes fastened on Roane. “I was born to two loving people. They didn't know what Pearl had really done to them when they had me. That's another story not relevant to what you really want to know. Suffice it to say, I hold no love for Elliot Pearl. All I am is because of him.”
Paige squeezed her way closer to his chest, and Evan watched as Hale rested a hand on her shoulder.
“None of what Pearl's done is Paige's fault. She's as much a victim of his ego as the rest of you,” McKinley continued.
“We're not arguing that.” Roane glanced at her. “Paige, we're not angry at you, but we hold no love for your father.”
“Yeah, well, neither do I,” she said angrily.
“Good girl.” Derrick nodded. “Yeah, you'll fit in right nice here.” He gave Hale a meaningful glance, and Evan understood the team would be behind Hale's mating with Paige. With McKinley, he wasn't so certain.
McKinley explained, “When I joined Pearson Labs, it was after they tore Project Dawn apart. I'd been keeping tabs on Pearl for a while. I didn't know what he'd done to Paige, though. If I had, I'd have rescued you a helluva lot sooner,” he said to her.
“I know,” she murmured.
“But when I found him outnumbered and nearly brained to death by a few rogues in a killing frenzy, I took a shot and stepped up. I entered Pearson Labs as Elliot's bodyguard, a position he was hoping Hale would one day hold.”
“Hale?” Evan saw the confusion on Hale's face and turned back to McKinley.
“Why Hale?”
McKinley paused, his eyes on Hale with a tender understanding that stunned Evan. Evan glanced around the room and noted the resigned look on Roane's face and the incredulous expressions on the others.
“Oh, hell no. Come on, playboy. At least Sabrina's good-looking,” Derrick complained.
“Oh my God.” Sabrina stared, wide-eyed.
“No fucking way,” Ace and Zack said at the same time. More and more, the two of them seemed to finish one another's sentences. And when Kelly was in the same room with them, it was a toss-up to see which mate spoke for the other.
“Cut it out,” Hale hissed and nudged McKinley's arm. Evan caught the scent of evergreen and watched in shock as McKinley flushed and coughed to hide his embarrassment.
“Fine.” McKinley glared, his eyes eerily wild. “Rogers is a freaky psychic, and Pearl wanted to breed him with Paige. Happy now?” he asked Hale.
Hale ran a hand over his face. “Shit.”
“Hale's psychic?” Evan frowned. “Hale, you've never said anything about that before.”
“Because I wasn't. I mean, my parents were, and a lot of my relatives can do stuff, but it never hit me until…Paige.”
“His wacko dreams,” Derrick offered. “Hale's been dreaming about her for months.”
Paige sat up and stared at Hale. “You have?”
Hale stood and walked away from the pair on the chair. He leaned against the kitchen counter, looking uncomfortable. “Can we get back on topic? McKinley, tell us what you know about Pearl.”
McKinley scowled at him, showing a hint of fangs, and Evan itched to study the male. Something about him seemed so familiar yet so foreign at the same time. He wished he could put his finger on it.
“Fine. Be a dick,” McKinley muttered. He slid out from underneath Paige and stood, running a hand through his hair. “I took the job with Pearl only after I'd taken a job with General Shields. Mike Shields is a stand-up guy. He always hated the project.
He didn't trust it, didn't like the idea of science messing with perfectly good Marines and sailors.
“So when it was under way, he kept a close eye on things from the inside. After everything went to shit, he continued to watch Elliot Pearl. He'd heard rumors of more government interference. The Senate committee hearings that should have happened were swept under the rug. No way the Defense Department wanted to publicize that nightmare.”
Evan sighed. “I can well imagine. Rogue Circs murdering innocent civilians would go a long way to ruining careers. With Elliot's money and contacts, it would have been easy to make everything go away.”
“Yeah. So he started making new Circs. After a year of going it his own way, he needed more funding. He couldn't get money from investors and continue with his mad science at the pace he wanted.” McKinley paused to run a hand over Paige's hair.
The instant connection between the pair was obvious. Hale seemed to approve of the casual touching. But when he saw Evan looking his way, he tightened his jaw and hardened his glare.
“Is that when Senator Kuntz got involved?” Zack asked, sitting close to Ace. The pair always sat together, touching more often than not. Like Hale had been with McKinley.
Not sure if he liked thoughts of his niece with not one, but two men, Evan mentally castigated himself. Who was he to judge? He knew better than most that Circs didn't fit into any mold. Instinct and basic necessity played a greater role in Circ relationships than anything science could describe.
McKinley nodded at Zack. “Kuntz jumped at the chance to be a part of Elliot's nonsense. So two years ago, he came aboard. And then General Harold Kohl stepped in.” The hatred in McKinley's golden eyes blazed. “The bastard kept it quiet. None of us knew who he was, but we all knew Elliot wasn't calling the shots anymore. Not that Elliot seemed to care. He worked all day and night in his damned labs. The blood work he'd taken from me, the stuff I thought I'd disposed of when no one was looking, found a way into his research after all.
“The new mutants are a result of using the control drug—generated with my blood—on rogue Circs. At first it worked to delay the inevitable change that turned the rogues psychotic. But then it did more than that. They grew stronger, faster. And then they turned into something monstrous.”
“We know,” Ace said quietly, probably recounting his own experience with a mutant a few months back. Had it not been for Zack, he might have died under a mutant's sharp claws and teeth.
McKinley looked to Evan. “I need you to develop a cure. More, I need you to find a way to slow the rogue transformation. There are some good men in there who need help. But they can't get it from the labs.”
“What do you mean?” Paige asked, her brows drawn.
“I was getting to this. Yesterday, someone ratted me out to Kohl. I'm no longer any use there.”
“Do you know who it was?” Hale asked.
“Simon Dunn.”
Roane swore. “That shithead? He's still alive? He's been so quiet, I thought Derrick had killed him last time they met.”
“We should be so lucky,” Derrick muttered. “Asshole tried to kill Sabrina.” Sabrina glared. “Tell me about it.”
“And kidnapped Kelly.” Ace swore. Zack growled.
“Let's not forget what he did to Caitlyn,” Roane added. “Bastard tried to rape her with that creep Vincent Hoff.”
Evan watched McKinley's reaction. Caitlyn sparked an odd reaction in the male.
The mention and sight of her seemed to pain him.
“Hoff's dead,” McKinley said, rubbing his forehead.
“We know. A rogue female killed him six months ago,” Roane said in a low voice, the challenge in his gaze as he stared at McKinley impossible to miss.
“
I
killed him six months ago. The female was already dead. Hoff was—” He stopped to look at Paige and sighed. “Hoff wasn't right. He did bad things, things you really don't need to know about. He died wishing he'd been a little nicer.”
“Good,” Paige growled, stirring Hale to move away from the counter. The room suddenly smelled like cherries.
“Paige?” Hale and McKinley spoke at the same time. Evan didn't know what to make of his niece, for she suddenly stood and began
growing.
Her eyes flashed from a light to a darker brown, and her pupils elongated. She didn't quite
change
, but she definitely looked larger.
The others rose from the couch, but McKinley barked at them to stay back.
“Do it,” Roane said, and they listened. All but Hale, who continued to approach Paige.
“I'm so tired of hearing about Elliot Pearl. He was a monster who let people like Simon Dunn and Vincent Hoff treat Circs as no more than slaves. They raped and murdered,” she cried, her nails sharpening to impressive lengths. Still, she looked normal. Her skin remained an olive gold, her features still proportional and human.
McKinley tried to console her. “It's okay, honey. Dunn's not long for this world.
The stuff he's taking is ruining him from the inside out. Eckles and I are friends, and he tells me things.”
Evan leaned forward. “What kinds of things?”
“Uh, Doc? I think we might want to hold off on this conversation right now.” Hale slowly crossed to stand between Paige and the others. “McKinley, what say we take her up to my room?”
Paige continued to rant. “He did terrible things. He didn't feel, didn't have a heart.” She ripped through the chair's bolster, shredding the leather as if slicing through butter. When Roane took a step forward, she growled low, a warning to back away.
“Dammit, Roane.
Please
,” Hale breathed. “Let me handle this.”
“Let
us
handle this,” McKinley corrected in that low, gravelly voice. “Except I'm not asking. I'm telling you to back the fuck up.” Seeing the unnecessary light of challenge in Roane's eyes, Evan suggested an alternative. “Hale? Why don't you and McKinley take Paige downstairs? I've just finished transforming the blue room into a comfortable area. You know, where Kelly, Zack, and Ace will go after the baby's born?”
Hale shook his head, as if trying to process Evan's words through the sweet smell of cherries in the air.
“Yeah, Hale,” Roane said in a hoarse voice. “That's a really great idea.” Evan noted the sudden tension in the room that grabbed the others. He felt nothing, thankfully, but the Circs were definitely aroused. Whether pregnancy hormones had subtly affected Paige or not remained to be seen. But if she didn't get out of here soon, Evan feared a bloodbath, because McKinley appeared on the verge of seriously breaking down.
“Hale?” Evan said loudly, to be heard over all the growling. “Take your mates to the blue room.
Now
.” He could see Hale fighting the
change.
“Yeah, right. Blue room,” he rumbled, his voice husky. “McKinley, follow me.
Paige, come on.”
Slowly, the three of them walked away, and Evan breathed a sigh of relief. Then he turned and took a good look at the others. “For the love of… Go find your mates.” With sheepish grins, the rest of Circe's Recruits departed, leaving Evan alone and lonely, and missing Diego once again.
Hale didn't know what to feel. It took most of his concentration to remember the pass codes to the elevator to take them to Doc's underground lab. The three of them fit in the steel-walled elevator, and as they shared the small space, their interlocking scents grew stronger.
So hard he could split wood, Hale wanted nothing more than to pin Paige beneath him and fuck her until she couldn't walk…except he didn't want to turn away from McKinley to do so. The male sparked with sexuality. So large, so dominant. Hale's beast wanted to submit, even as he wanted to dominate. He felt confined and confused and could have cheered when the elevator brought them one level lower.
So different from anything at Pearson Labs, Doc's underground facility had been painted in a cheery yellow with bright fluorescent lights along the hallway. Several rooms with reinforced glass windows lined the corridor, and at the other end of the hall sat an exit stairway that led to a steel-enforced shed aboveground.
The first room on the left would be Kelly's in a few more months. Hale had actually helped Doc to renovate the place, so he knew why Doc had recommended it.
Equipped with a huge-ass bed big enough to hold three large Circs, the blue room had been designed for comfort. A soft love seat, rocking chair, and bolster took up one section of the room, while a small eating area and dining corner took up another. The large bed and crib were, of course, the central focus. And as soon as Paige entered, she stared at the crib, relaxing.
Hale waited until McKinley entered before locking the door behind them. No ordinary lock, entry and exit could only be accessed through the right set of numbers.
And the walls were Circ-proof. Hale closed the blinds of the large, reinforced glass window, leaving the three of them in darkness until he turned on the light.
Paige stared at them, her breasts heaving as she panted with confusion. “What's happening to me?”
McKinley stepped forward but stopped when Paige snarled at him. “I don't know.” He sounded unsure and worried.
“It's okay.” Hale hoped to hell it was. “You're experiencing a need to
change
, I think. We're here to help you.” He nodded at McKinley and began undressing, waiting for Paige to do something more.