Derrick groaned and rolled onto his back.
“What the hell?” Hale waited for Derrick to get up and slam into him but grew concerned when he realized this was no ploy. He turned to run for help when he caught sight of glowing eyes in the shadows. “
Dammit
. Robbie, ease up. We were sparring.” Robbie strode forward. He glanced from Hale to Derrick and back again. “Oh. My bad.” He narrowed his stare at Derrick, who sighed with relief.
“Shit. That hurt.” Derrick glared up at Robbie and said to Hale, “Put a leash on your guard dog, playboy. Because psychic or not, I'm seriously going to kick his ass the next time he tries fucking with my head.”
Derrick refused Robbie's hand and stood on shaky legs. He mumbled under his breath as he left,
changing
back into his human form as he went.
Hale turned and
changed
back too. “Well? Want to explain that one,
guard dog
?” McKinley flushed. “I, ah. I'm sorry. I reacted to a perceived threat.” Hell, his cheeks felt on fire. He hadn't planned on screwing up yet again. For the first time since arriving at the compound, he hadn't offended anyone or caused undue harm yet today.
He'd intended a harmless session with some weights to relieve stress. Paige was spending time with Doc, and the others were playing cards in the main house. He'd needed a break.
Then he'd seen a larger, stronger male attacking his mate. He hadn't thought about it. He'd simply reacted.
“It's okay.” Hale sighed. “You know, as much as it goes against the grain to have one of these estrogen moments, I think we need to talk.” McKinley grinned. Hale had a decent sense of humor. Around his mate, McKinley either found himself laughing or growing uncomfortably hard. “Lay it on me.” He took a seat on a nearby weight bench and waited.
Hale raised his arm to run a hand through his hair, distracting him. Damn, the Circ had muscles. Though leaner than McKinley, Hale clearly possessed the strength of a warrior in his normal form. His biceps bulged, his chest heaved as he sighed again, and the sweat beading on his naked chest had McKinley wondering how he'd taste. Too bad he still wore shorts.
“I want to know how you became a Circ.”
“What?” He focused on Hale's tight abs, trailing his gaze farther down, centering on the fabric molding to his thick cock.
“Hey, Robbie, my eyes are up here, bud.” Hale chuckled. “You know, that would sound much better if I was a chick with huge breasts. You know, like Paige.” They both grinned, before Hale grew serious once more. “Tell me how you became a Circ.”
“Why?”
“Because I think it's important. Why shouldn't I know about you? Hell, you can ask me any damn thing you want. I'm an open book.”
“Right.” McKinley snorted. “So what? You want my life story?”
“Something like that.” Hale sat down on the mat across from him, resting back on his hands, his legs stretched out in front of him. Just two guys hanging out at the gym.
Talking.
The extreme normalcy of the moment was surreal.
“Shit. Fine. Nosy bastard,” he muttered. “My dad was an officer in the Army. He was fed the typical vaccines before going overseas.” He scowled. “Except they weren't typical. Pearl fed him the very first batch of EP12, the Circe serum. And the bastard drugged my mother as well. She was full of the crap when she had me.”
“Are you serious?”
“I wish I wasn't.” He exhaled heavily, missing his family. A throbbing started at his temple that he tried to rub away. “I don't know what Pearl expected, but it wasn't me. I was totally normal back then. Had hair like yours, maybe a shade lighter. Green eyes, normal skin and bone structure. We were a happy family, except for Elliot. My mom didn't like him. Said he used to give her the creeps.”
“I can imagine.”
“Yeah. Well, a condition of my dad's service was that he have regular checkups with Elliot. My dad wasn't into standard ops. He did some classified work, so he never questioned his trips to see Dr. Pearl, at least, not at first. But when he started getting faster and stronger, when my mom started developing an ability to see and hear things beyond what was normal, they wondered. And then she…and there was…” Fuck, why couldn't he think?
“What's wrong?”
“I—my head really hurts. I don't know.” It felt as if a migraine consumed him.
“What happened to your parents?” Hale asked softly, pushing.
Forcing himself to think about his dad and mom again, McKinley pushed the pain aside. “We were driving. It was such a nice day, beautiful up in the mountains. I loved it there. We had a summer house just outside of Asheville. On our way to, somewhere.” The burning in his brain flared again. “They crashed and died. I survived. And turned into this.”
“You were how old?”
“Nineteen. Satisfied?”
Hale's eyes narrowed in concern. “What aren't you telling me? What really happened that day, Robbie? Why do you get these attacks when anyone mentions Caitlyn? Why, when I mention your parents, are you getting them again?”
“I don't know.” He tried to stand, wanting to get away from the pain, from the questions. Flashes of Caitlyn's face filled his mind's eye, but in them she was younger, laughing, then crying.
His father drove the car and sang horribly. His mother laughed, chattering with
excitement to have her son home from college. Colleen had missed him so much. And wouldn’t
his sister be so surprised when they all arrived as a family?
Worry filled him. If they didn’t hurry, they’d be late picking her up and taking him back to
school. He had an exam in the morning, but he hadn’t seen her in months. Already sixteen. He
couldn’t believe his baby sister…
“Can't think. My head,” he moaned, falling off the bench to the ground. His beast had suppressed his memories for so long. But McKinley the man struggled to know.
No.
Can’t risk. Not survive. Can’t attack the enemy, not until we’re stronger.
“No, Robbie. Let it out,” a softer voice than Hale's said.
Her
voice. “What were your parents' names?”
“No. No more,” he rasped, as flashes of their faces struck him with the force of blows. God, he missed them. Missed playing baseball with his father, their fishing trips, the long talks they'd had. He missed his mother's warm hugs, her pride as she watched him throw for a touchdown at school, and the funny notes she'd scrawl into his notebooks. He missed his sister's hero worship. The way she'd sneak into his room at night and demand a story. How she'd steal his toys and try to replace them without his knowing. He loved her so much, and he didn't like it when she met with the strange doctor at that place that set his teeth on edge.
“Remember how pretty Mom's hair was? How strong Daddy was when he'd lift us in the air?”
He knew that voice. Knew her scent buried under that of a foreign male.
“Let it go, Robbie,” Hale said, placing a hand over his forehead. Like magic, his mate's touch eased his burden. Safety in solidarity. The ache disappeared, but the pictures of his sister didn't.
“Open your eyes, Robbie. I'm right here.”
He looked up at Hale, at Doc and Roane. At
her
. Caitlyn Chase. Roane's mate.
Robert McKinley Chase's sister.
Memories rushed in where before pain held sway. Hale and Doc pulled him to his feet, but McKinley couldn't stop staring at his sister.
“You've grown,” he said stupidly.
She laughed through tears. “So have you.”
Roane held her close, comforting his mate. And something in McKinley eased. No longer just McKinley or Robbie or that freak Circ. He was Robert McKinley Chase. And he had a sister.
He'd always known in the back of his mind the details of his early life, before the
change
that had turned him into what he was today. But the particulars had never seemed very important. He couldn't turn back into a normal male. He'd assumed his family had died, and his beast took care of the rest. His survival had depended upon being strong. A man with no past, and only the future to look forward to, had few vulnerabilities.
Hale gently pushed him forward, toward
his sister.
“You used to steal my baseball cards.”
“And you used to hide my Barbies.”
She met him halfway, and in her, he saw his mother. An overwhelming sadness took him by surprise, and he had to blink to clear his eyes. Caitlyn didn't seem to mind the tears streaming down her cheeks as she sniffed and sobbed.
She held her arms out and wrapped them around his middle before he could think to protest. For a man who didn't like being touched, he didn't seem to mind Hale, Paige, and now Caitlyn.
His mind blanked when she hugged him. She felt like home.
“God, I can't believe you're alive! They said you'd all died. That Dad lost control of the car, and you all burned up in the fire.”
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Hale and Doc pull Roane with them. Hale nodded at him and smiled, then walked out the door with the others. He remained alone with Caitlyn.
“Who is 'they?' I remember us driving, being excited to see you again. I'd missed you.” He cleared his throat, still holding her. “I was in college, and I hadn't seen you in a while. You were at Elliot's lab, a place I hated. Mom and Dad were going to pull you from Elliot's little program, you know. Except we never made it. Someone rammed us from behind and sent us through the guardrail. Over the mountain.” He didn't remember the tumble, or even getting thrown from the car. “When I woke up, I was like this. Not a scratch on me. But I wasn't Robert anymore. I couldn't remember much more than the accident and vague images of Mom and Dad.”
“How did you find Elliot Pearl after all that time? What did you do after the accident? You never came after me.”
“I didn't remember you. I don't know why. It took me years before I could leave the woods where I woke up. Look at me, Caitlyn. I can't ever pass for normal with these eyes.” He opened his mouth and fingered his teeth. “Even in my 'normal' state, my teeth are pretty sharp, as are my nails. And you can't ignore my size.” She stared at him. “No, you can't.” She was quiet a moment. “So what happened?
How did you live, where did you go?”
He rubbed a tired hand over his face and stepped back. His head no longer throbbed, but he still teetered on an emotional precipice. God, he had a sister. He loved her, that hadn't changed. But she was here. She was Circ.
She was Circ.
“What they did to Mom and Dad affected you too.” He studied her from the top of her head to her feet. “You're Circ. I heard Pearl talk about you more than once, though I didn't know it was you he was talking about.”
“I don't understand.”
“I was nineteen when our parents died and everything changed. I spent two years living in the woods. I ate what I hunted and fished. Dad taught me how to survive, remember?”
She smiled through her sorrow, grief there for their lost parents.
“I admit, I occasionally stole what I needed from the smaller towns edging the mountains. It took time, but I began to remember bits and pieces. I think my inner beast was developing at its own rate. When it was ready, it showed me how to right the wrong done to us. I remembered Elliot Pearl, and I started investigating.
“When I ran across information about you, I avoided it. My beast wouldn't let me sense you. I don't know why, but I never knew who you really were, at least, not until I got here. Whenever I'd think about you or hear about you, my head hurt.”
“Repressed memories,” she whispered.
“I guess. Before I found Pearl, I made a living doing odd jobs. Mostly security work. I caught the attention of some government folks. Right time, right place, you could say. And there I met Mike Shields. He was a colonel then. A good man. He smelled right,” he joked, pleased when she grinned back at him.
“So then what?”
“Then Mike convinced me to join his team. All unofficial. Mike has friends in high places even Kohl can't touch. When Project Dawn started, I was training with his men in foreign countries. I did some work for Uncle Sam. But Mike knew what I was after.
He helped me when I needed it, and I helped him right back.
“He managed to hook me up with Elliot Pearl a little over three years ago. I became Pearl's bodyguard and Mike's eyes and ears. We've been trying to take Pearson Labs down for years, but General Kohl and Senator Kuntz were unexpected additions to an already top-heavy organization. Seemed like anytime we thought we had an airtight case, a witness died or evidence disappeared.”
“How can you make evidence like that disappear? There are Circs running around committing murder.”
“Tell that to a federal judge with hands deep in Pearl's pockets. Or an investigative team who relies on Kuntz's authorized funding to increase their spending.
Investigations into illegal activities at the lab were always forewarned. No one ever saw any evidence of wrongdoing, or the hint that a Circ might exist.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah.” He sighed. “But Mike thinks it's time. We're closing in on that hellhole.” She nodded.
They fell into an awkward silence.
“So,” they both said at the same time.
“Go on.” He waited for her to speak first.
“I was just going to ask you what you think will come next. I mean, I feel like I've just found you. I don't want you to go away anytime soon.”
“Oh.” He was having a hard enough time dealing with the present. What the future held, he couldn't say. “I, ah, I think I have two mates. I don't think they'd like me to leave just yet either.”
She smiled. “That's right. Hale's the best. He won't let you go.” After a moment, she blushed.
“You okay?”
“Oh, sure.” She shifted, and he caught the full force of her scent.
It was ripe with a subtle sweetness. His sister was pregnant. No longer a young girl, the woman she'd become verged on motherhood. “
Shit
. I have to sit down.” He sat in the middle of the mat on his ass, completely floored.
“Are you okay? You want me to get Doc? Roane?”
“Hell, no.” He groaned at her crestfallen expression. “I guess I'll have to try harder to get along with Roane now that we're related, huh?”