"I have to do this. I may have been forced down this road, but I sure as hell intend to see it through now."
"But - "
"No," I cut in. "I won't change my mind, and I won't back down, no matter what I have to do or who I have to do. These bastards are going to pay for what they did to me."
His gaze searched mine, then he sighed and took my hand from his cheek, squeezing it lightly. "You really are a stubborn bitch."
"Much like my brother," I said dryly.
Rhoan smiled, but his gaze, when it shifted to Jack, was deadly. "If she gets hurt, or killed, I'm coming after you."
"As undoubtedly will she, if you get hurt or killed." Jack hesitated again, looking around. The only other people in the arena were the four guards down near the exit, but Jack wasn't into trusting anyone lately. Especially when we had no idea who else Gautier might be working with in the Directorate. "Report to Genoveve tomorrow at nine."
Genoveve was the lab that had been a major source of clones for several years - though it wasn't the lab that Gautier had come from. It had been purchased by Talon - one of Gautier's clone brothers, and a former mate of mine - some years ago so he could continue his cloning endeavors well away from the Government's prying eyes. We'd stopped that operation, as well as a crossbreeding operation, but we'd yet to find the main lab. That lab was still little more than a name - Libraska.
And the only person who apparently knew the location of that lab was Deshon Starr. Or rather, the shape-shifter who had taken over Starr's body and lite.
"I thought Genoveve was being sold off by the Government?"
"It is, but we're still using it in the meantime."
"Then we're back into the fray as of tomorrow?"
"Yes." Jack glanced at Rhoan. "I've already called Liander. He'll be coming in with his full kit."
Given Liander was one of the top movie effects people in the country, that could only mean we'd be donning our disguises - and moving into our cover lives - from tomorrow. "Which means I'd better make the most of my time tonight." Bruises or no bruises.
"You'd better," Jack warned. "Because from tomorrow, there's to be no contact with anyone you're currently involved with."
I raised my eyebrows. Even that hurt. My sexfest wasn't looking good at all.
"Meaning Quinn's not in on this?"
"No."
Great. It meant I'd probably get harassed even more at night when he realized something was happening he wasn't involved with.
Rhoan lightly squeezed my arm. "You want an escort up to the change rooms this time?"
I nodded. No sense in chancing fate a second time.
We headed up several floors to the change rooms, where I admired the blooming, rainbow-colored range of bruises scattering my body before stepping under the shower to wash away the sweat and blood and the foul smell of Gautier from my skin and hair and mouth.
Luckily, I'd brought some extra clothes to change into after training, because the T-shirt and sweatpants weren't in a fit condition to be worn out in public.
Rhoan dropped me off at home, and I noted with some relief that Kellen's white BMW wasn't in sight. Maybe I had time yet to get myself into some semblance of working order. I climbed the stairs, but after hours of training and then fighting Gautier, the six flights just about did me in. I opened the door with a trembling hand, and discovered fate hadn't finished throwing curveballs my way yet.
Kellen stood at my door.
So did Quinn.
And neither man looked particularly happy to see the other. ing sucked.
Especially when the main aim of that training was to make me something I'd once vowed never to become - a guardian for the Directorate of Other Races.
Becoming a guardian might have been inevitable, and I might have accepted it on some levels, but that didn't mean I had to be happy about the whole process.
Guardians were far more than just the specialized cops most humans thought them to be - they were judge, jury, and executioners. None of this legal crap the human cops were forced to put up with. Of course, the people in front of a guardian's metaphoric bullet were generally out-of-control psychos who totally deserved to die, but stalking the night with the aim of ending their undead lives still wasn't something that had reached my "to-do" list.