Ezekiel raked both hands through his hair. "There's a part of me that wants to go into that place and kill them all for this. The idea that someone would do such a thing to a baby sickens me. On the other hand, I have this need to take out threats to my family, and that includes you, Wyatt. That child in there is a ticking bomb. We both know that." He gestured toward Pepper. "And this one. She's pure poison. I can feel her working us all against each other."
"Zeke." Wyatt sighed and sank down onto the floor, his back to the low-slung couch Pepper rested on. "You could no more kill a baby than you could kill Malichai. Nor could you kill a helpless woman. You're tired. I'm tired. This is all one hell of a mess."
"Yeah. I know. But that baby is a little freaky. On the other hand, I just wanted to pick her up myself after I heard what the woman said, and hold her close. That's not like me."
Malichai nudged his brother with his foot. "You used to hold Mordichai and me at night and rock us back and forth and tell us stories."
"I did not," Ezekiel denied hotly. "I told you to shut up and go to sleep."
Malichai handed his brother a cup of coffee. "There's a pot of some kind of fish stew on the stove and it's good. Don't listen to him, Wyatt. He's a master storyteller. He can do all the voices and make the stories come alive. He'll be a great babysitter."
"Go to hell, Malichai. I never told you a story in my life."
Wyatt grinned at him, suddenly knowing things were going to be all right between him and the others, even with Pepper sitting between them all. "Ezekiel. The big bad wolf. You did. You did tell him stories. I always know when someone's lyin', and you're lyin' your ass off right now."
"Yeah, well, both of you can go to hell," Ezekiel snapped.
"Boys." Nonny raised her voice from the next room. "This young'un is still awake and can hear your foul words. I have a bar of soap ready and waitin'."
Ezekiel went to the door and peered into the darkened room. "Sorry, Grand-mere. I have a problem when someone starts harming babies. I feel like I have this rage inside of me and there's nowhere for it to go."
"Don' you worry, none, Ezekiel," Nonny said. "You and my boy will get those other babies out of that place and when they're safe, I have no doubt you'll go back there and read 'em all from the good book."
Ezekiel studied the small child curled up in Nonny's arms. She was very small with her mop of wavy dark hair and fair skin. Her eyes were different, yet almost familiar to him. He was certain he could see a hint of the snake - and something else - something that pulled at him.
He turned back to Wyatt. "I didn't think, when I signed up for the psychic enhancement program, how they ever arrived at the engineering. The experiments that would have had to go before us."
"We were told it would make us enhanced, better soldiers as well as stronger psychics," Malichai said. "We skimmed a bit over the genetic parts of it, mainly because that's not our field of expertise."
Wyatt didn't have that excuse - and worse - he hadn't considered the experiments either. How had they come up with the perfect cocktail to enhance muscles, hearing, eyesight and to make them so much stronger and faster? No one ever got it right the first time. There were always mistakes.
What had Pepper said? She denied being like him. She was one of the mistakes. The children had been slated for termination. Had she been as well? Was that what Wilson Plastics really was? A disposal site? They could do their last experiments out in the swamp, kill whatever had been created and use the ocean and swamp to get rid of the bodies. A thought struck him. If they cremated the bodies on site, they wouldn't even have the issue of hiding their tracks.
"We're goin' to have to get inside that compound," he told Ezekiel and Malichai. "We need to see for ourselves what's goin' on."
Chapter 4
He was dreaming. He had to be. The night sky was strewn with a million stars and he floated through them, drifting with the scent of jasmine filling his lungs. Candles flickered among the stars and the stars spun until they became small, fragrant flowers, thousands of them, falling on his face and bare skin.
He turned over, a slow, lazy roll that had him against the softest skin he'd ever felt in his life. She was there, smiling at him. Sultry. Sensual. Her long hair sliding over his body, inflaming it more as she crawled over top of him, her full breasts teasing the muscles of his chest.
She was hot. So hot. He wanted her more than he'd ever wanted anything in his life. He would have done anything to have her. She leaned close, her mouth nearly on his. He could feel the warmth of her breath.
"Are you awake?"
Of course he wasn't awake. Hot, sexy women didn't crawl all over him, teasing with hands and teeth and tongue.
"Wyatt?" Her teeth nipped his earlobe. Her tongue dipped into it. "Wake up."
Hell no. He wasn't waking up. He caught at her waist, her small, tucked-in waist fit perfectly into his large hands. His hands came together, and she was gone.
"Wyatt? Are you awake?"
Her soft voice came out of the night and moved over his skin like the caress of fingers. His body reacted with an instant savage ache, reminding him it had been a very long time since he'd been with a woman. It didn't help that she'd haunted his dreams with that body of hers. And her voice. He'd always been susceptible to a certain type of voice. When Joy sang, most any man would follow her anywhere. He had to admit, although he didn't want to, that Pepper's voice was even more enthralling.
He rolled over and stared up at the ceiling, breathing deep to rid himself of the giant hard-on for a woman who had been snake bit. She'd held a knife to his grandmother's throat. She was one of Whitney's experiments - failed experiments at that. She was too much of a lure not to be all about sex. That meant she wasn't a prize by any means. He was just that damned hard up. "Yep." And he'd probably be for the rest of the night thanks to her.
"I can't seem to slow my heart down. This part always scares me."
Damn the woman anyway. Now he felt like a first-class jerk. She was suffering real pain and his foul temper had kicked in just because she could stir him up with three little words - "Are you awake?" Now that would conjure up erotic images for any man. That voice. The knife. Her body. What the hell did one expect? He wasn't a saint. It hadn't helped that he'd been dreaming about her.
"Breathe slow." He nearly groaned aloud. Great advice. Breathe slow. What kind of a doctor was he? She was reaching out to him, needing help, and he couldn't move because if he did, his body, still as hard as a rock, might shatter into a million pieces.
He tried not to think about what she'd look like without clothes. Or what she'd feel like, skin to skin. What the hell was wrong with him? He detested women. They were sultry creatures bent on a man's destruction. She was just proving to him that he'd been right about them all along.
He didn't want to talk to her and soothe her, he wanted to strike out at her. She was going to be a handful. He knew that. He knew every man in the bayou was going to be panting after her. Damn her to hell, he knew what was coming. "You sing, don' you? Your voice, you can use it to seduce, right?"
There was a small silence. His tone had been harsh. Accusing even. He took a breath and let it out, willing his body to stop. Willing his mind to forget everything Joy had said to him. Willing himself not to hear those sensual notes in Pepper's voice.
"Yes."
He hadn't expected her soft admission. Or the way he felt the small confession slip inside of him, spreading through him like bubbles from the finest champagne. "So what? You were engineered to be the secret sexual weapon? The one used to lure the enemy close so you could stab them through the heart? That's why you have that skin? That body? And that voice? Nature and a fuckin' scientist gave them to you?"
Again a small silence. He felt his own heart accelerate. He stared up at the ceiling, his cat's eyes able to count every knot in the wood.
"Yes."
His lungs filled and refused to continue. He ached. Everywhere. It was all he could do not to op
en his jeans and find some kind of relief. "What went wrong? Why did they change their mind and start usin' you for snake bait?"
He was being a bastard. An utter and complete bastard. He knew it, he just couldn't stop himself. He wanted to punish her for being a seductive woman - one that could put a spell on a man without even trying. He wanted to punish her for his own weakness.
"They overlooked one important detail," Pepper replied softly. "One serious flaw in their plans for me."
"I can't see any mistakes," he admitted.