"Oh, my God," she breathed, clinging to Hunter, sobbing and laughing at once. "Oh, my God ... I can't believe it. Hunter, it really worked!"
Nathan was motionless for a moment, still lying prone on the floor. Then he reached up and pulled the tank top from around his head. He stood, turning to face them. His fingers shook a bit as they climbed up to trace the bare skin of his neck.
Nothing but a white-tinged ring where the chemicals had burned him. The skin would heal in a short time. The miracle was, he was free.
"Wh-what have you done to me?" he asked, the first words he'd uttered to them. His voice was deep but carried the rough scrape of fading adolescence.
"You are free," Hunter told him. "No one can control you anymore. Thanks to your mother's love, her determination to find you, you are finally free to live as you choose."
Corinne stepped away from Hunter's side and held her hands out to her son in welcome.
"I want to bring you home with me, Nathan. We can be a family now."
He swung a look on her as she approached him. Guarded, mistrusting, he frowned and gave a faint shake of his shaved head.
Before Hunter could register the change in the boy, from caution to cornered, Nathan was moving. In a flash of Breed motion, he had grabbed one of the broken shards of his collar and held it tight against Corinne's throat. She gasped, totally unprepared for the assault. Hunter growled, his eyes trained on the jagged, makeshift blade that was poised at his Breedmate's carotid. Whether this boy was her flesh and blood or not, he had just declared himself an enemy.
Chapter Thirty-two
And Hunter would not hesitate to kill him if the threat escalated even so much as a fraction.
Even as Nathan backed her with him toward the open doors of the truck, Corinne's eyes pleaded with Hunter for mercy. "Nathan," she said, trying once more to reach her son's humanity. "You don't have to be afraid. Let us be your friends now. Let us be your family. Just give me a chance to be the mother I should have been for you."
He moved closer to the doors, saying nothing. That damnable bit of sharp material still riding near her vein. "Nathan," Corinne said. "Please, just let me love you - "
He shoved her forward, a violent rejection of all she'd said and all she'd done for him. Then he bolted out of the truck, escaping into the woods as the first light of dawn was already beginning to glow on the horizon.
Chase hadn't actually expected to wake up. His last conscious memory had been running in a blind tear through the city, losing too much blood from the gunshot wound in the artery of his right leg and the lesser hit to his shoulder. He'd taken worse injuries in combat before, but that was then. This was now, when his body was shuddering and weak, his nearly indestructible Breed genetics hobbled by the disease that roused him awake on a pained groan. He tried to sit up but didn't get very far. Metal restraints clamped his wrists and ankles to an infirmary bed. Another wide band of steel and leather lashed him around his middle. He cursed through his gritted teeth and gave the manacles a good hard rattle. As his vision slowly came into better focus, he saw a dark head peering in from the hallway at him through the small window in the door.
It took Dante a minute before he finally strode inside. As the door closed shut behind him, he stared at Chase from across the room and shook his head. "You're a fucking idiot, you know that, Harvard?"
Chase scoffed. "Thanks for the concern. I hope you didn't come all the way down here just to tell me that."
"No, I didn't," Dante replied, not rising to his bait at all. "I've been next door, sitting with Tess while she's recovering."
"Tess is in the infirmary?" Recalling the Breedmate's delicate last few weeks of pregnancy, Chase immediately felt like a first-class asshole. "Ah, Christ, man. I didn't know."
"How could you know? You weren't here."
Chase exhaled a short sigh and nodded in acknowledgment. He couldn't say he didn't deserve this cold reception. After all, he'd done just about everything he could lately to make sure he was persona non grata with the Order. Especially where Dante was concerned. "So, how is she doing? Everything all right with her?"
"Yeah. Tess is fine." Dante gave a faint incline of his head. "So is the baby. He's resting next door with her."
Tess gave birth already? The news flash hit Chase with double barrels. He couldn't hold back his surprise, or the regret that slapped him to realize he'd been absent for the event Dante and Tess had been looking forward to for many long months. Hell, he'd been pretty damned eager about the whole thing himself. He'd even wondered on more than one occasion if Dante had been thinking about asking him to be godfather to his son, an honor Chase was hardly worthy of, but one he would have accepted with humbled pride at one time.
A million years ago.
And now a million miles out of his reach.
That's what it all felt like to him, looking at the other warrior's grave, disappointed expression as he approached the bed where Chase was shackled. "Well, congratulations, Dante. To you and Tess both," he said. "When did the baby come?"
"Yesterday morning, a few minutes before noon."
Chase guessed, "So, what is that, December tenth?"
"Seventeenth," Dante replied, his look going even more grim than before. "Shit, Harvard. How bad is it for you now? I mean seriously. Don't bullshit me."
"Bad," Chase admitted. His throat was parched, voice little better than a rough growl.