Chapter Seven
SETH DROPPED onto his bed, every ounce of energy wrung from him. He closed his eyes, waiting for the numbing blanket of sleep to settle on him and take him away from all this.
I wish it could take me to Aric and—
Damn, he really wanted to know their mate’s name.
“Seth?”
Jake’s voice came as a shock, until he remembered.
They moved him in here yesterday. Seth still wondered about that. Why, after all this time of keeping us apart? To paraphrase a line from a favorite movie, the Gerans didn’t take a dump without a plan. For all he knew, they could have Seth’s bed wired for sound, unseen cameras focused on them right this second.
I’m getting paranoid. Little wonder, he was so freaking tired.
“Go away, Jake. I’m exhausted.” Then he realized how rude that sounded. Seth opened his eyes to find Jake kneeling beside his bed. “I’m sorry, but that was the longest session yet, and I’m so far beyond tired, it’s ridiculous. They’ve really had me jumping through hoops today.”
The guys in the experimentation building had come up with a whole new trick for Seth to perform.
“You had me worried, you were gone so long.” Jake stroked Seth’s hair, and the comforting touch brought tears to his eyes. He wiped them away.
“I’m okay. Well, as okay as you can be when they dish out electric shocks to make you comply with instructions.”
Jake let out a low growl. “My tiger wants out.”
Seth managed to sit up. He glanced around the sleeping block. Apart from a couple of guys at the far end, they were the only occupants. Everyone else was outside.
Seth didn’t blame them. Sunlight was infinitely preferable to the dark interior of the cabin where thirty inmates were housed with barely enough room to swing a proverbial cat.
That woke him up a little. At least my kitty is out of this. The thought that Aric was safe was all that kept him going sometimes.
He took Jake’s hand, noting the lines around his eyes, the dark shadows under them, the perpetual air of fatigue that clung to him.
“Tell your tiger to stay put. I can cope with whatever they throw at me.” He peered at Jake. “Today was a first.” Usually he and Jake were taken to the block at the same time, both of them wired up to some machine or other.
This time Seth had been alone.
Jake huffed, pulling his hand free of Seth’s grasp. “I was there, only in another room. And they had me doing a few new tricks too.” He scowled. “Today is brought to you by the word ‘psychometry.’”
He frowned. “What’s that?”
“Another ‘skill’ from the list of extrasensory perception abilities. The dictionary definition would be the ability to obtain information about a person or an object by touch.” He shook his head. “They’re working their way through the goddamn list, and I’m their performing seal, except there’s no fish waiting for me when I do well.”
Seth gazed at him with renewed awe. “And how many of these ‘abilities’ do you have?”
“So far—well, as far as I’m willing to share with them—there’s telepathy, which you already know about because that’s an ability you and I share, and clairvoyance.” Jake snorted. “When I was a much younger man, ESP was frowned upon as being hokum, and telepathy was dismissed as a trick. Take psychometry as an example. Scientists claimed there was no such thing.” He snickered. “Those same scientists would have shit a brick if they’d witnessed my testing today.”
“What happened? And please, sit on the bed. That floor is hard on the knees, and you’re not getting any younger.”
As he hoped, Jake chuckled. “Didn’t anyone ever teach you never to poke the bear?”
“Sure, but they never mentioned not poking the tiger.”
Jake’s eyes gleamed. “Same result, believe me.” He got up and perched on the edge of the thin mattress. “They kept handing me different objects—a book, a robe, a pen, you name it—and asking me what I could tell them about it.”
“And?”
“I played dumb at first, claiming I couldn’t tell them a damn thing.” His scowl was back. “Except you know what happens when they think you’re lying to them.”
Seth knew, all right. “So you played ball.”
“Eventually.”
“How does it work?”
Jake shrugged. “It’s as if each object has an energy of its own, and that energy is what I pick up on. For example, that robe… I knew it had belonged to an older man. Then when I concentrated, I knew more about him. The fact that he was in pain. Not to mention desperately sad.” His brows furrowed. “Yeah, that made them really happy.”
Jake fell silent, but the faraway look in his eyes didn’t fool Seth for an instant.
“What’s on your mind?” he asked quietly.
“I guess I’ve never really questioned why they grabbed me in the first place. I always assumed it had something to do with their fucked-up idea of a breeding program.”
“And now?”
Jake studied his clasped hands. “Remember I told you I was taken during a trip to Italy? Well, it occurs to me that maybe my being locked up has something to do with that. I never thought about it before, but all this testing brought it back. And that worries me.” He blinked, then patted Seth’s hand. “So what new tricks did they have you perform?”
“They called it Remote Viewing.”
Jake chuckled. “Yet another ability disclaimed by all good scientists. What did they have you do?”
“They gave me a picture of a man, told me to focus my mind on him, then tell them whatever I could glean about him.”
“Were you able to tell them much?”
Seth frowned. “Not much, and it took me a while to be able to do that.”
“How long is a while?”
He snorted. “An hour. And all I could tell was that he was sitting in a chair, reading. That wiped me out. I thought they’d be angry with me for coming up with so little, but it was quite the opposite. They appeared delighted. I caught some of their conversation after, while I was being unstrapped from the chair. Apparently the reading guy? He was in another camp, and although they didn’t say where it was, I did manage to hear the distance I’d crossed.” He met Jake’s gaze. “More than four thousand miles from here.”
Jake stilled. “Oh my God, that’s phenomenal.”
Seth frowned. “Okay, so it’s phenomenal. Now tell me what exactly they can do with that ability. Or with me, for that matter. What am I going to be, some kind of psychic soldier?”
“They can use you to find someone they’re after. You could eventually be able to tell them where they are exactly, and then they’d send someone to….” Jake’s voice tailed off.
He didn’t need to say another word. It was suddenly all too obvious what that power could be used for.
The thought horrified Seth. “What makes them think I’d do that?”
Jake’s gaze grew thoughtful. “You might—if they threatened to harm someone in your family unless you cooperated.”
He let out another snort. “My mom? Yeah, right. She just handed me over to these fuckers. They can roast her for all I care.”
“I wasn’t thinking of your mom.” Jake’s low, deep voice sent a chill through him.
Aw fuck.
“Jake, we have to get out of here.” No way was he going to let them harm Aric. Not because of Seth.
“I keep telling you, it can’t be done. Don’t you think I haven’t thought the same thing? How many camps have you been in? Two? Because I’ve been in a damn sight more than that, and if there’s one thing they’ve all had in common, it’s their security.” He grasped Seth’s hand around the wrist. “But you have given me an idea.”
There was an undercurrent of excitement in Jake’s words, a tingle through him that Seth could feel all the way through Jake’s fingers.
“Tell me.”
“Maybe you should conduct a little experiment of your own.”
Seth blinked. “What kind of experiment?”
“You’ve tried to connect with Aric telepathically, and so far that hasn’t worked.” Jake gazed into his eyes. “But what about dream telepathy?”
“Communicate with him through dreams?”
He nodded. “You don’t know where he is, but that doesn’t matter now, not if you can cross such amazing distances. Wherever he is, you might be able to reach him.” Jake tightened his grip on Seth’s wrist. “Maybe even both of them.”
“You could do the same. You might be able to reach Dellan.”
Jake shook his head. “I don’t share the kind of connection you and Aric have. You know him. You can focus on him.” He let go of Seth. “Besides, your skill in this far outstrips mine. So try it tonight.” He smiled. “But don’t kick yourself if it doesn’t work the first time. You can always try again.”
“That assumes we have the time to try again.”
Jake frowned. “What do you know that I don’t?”
“Nothing. A feeling, that’s all.”
“Of what?”
Seth shivered. “Impending doom.”
The door opened, and a guard poked his head into the room. “What are you doing in here? Get your asses outside.”
Seth glared at him. “I’m recovering, that’s what I’m doing. I’ve just spent a couple of hours in the experimentation block.”
The guard stared at him for a moment; then his eyes widened. “Oh. It’s you.” He straightened. “Well, I guess I can let you sleep a while.” He withdrew quickly.
Jake chuckled. “You’re getting bolder. Good man.”
“I’m getting pissed, more like.”
Jake inclined his head toward the door. “Magnanimous bastard, wasn’t he? He only said that because he knows they’ll have his ass if he messes with the prize guinea pigs.”
Seth gazed at the door. “No, it’s more than that. Haven’t you noticed? The guards leave us alone.” He grinned. “They’re afraid of us.”
“That might prove useful in the future,” Jake acknowledged.
Seth didn’t dare utter the words that were right there at the tip of his tongue. To do so felt like tempting fate. But he could still think them.
That assumes we have a future.
ARIC OPENED his eyes… and knew he was in a dream. It could only be that because he was standing in the middle of the compound at the Bozeman camp. What made it eerie was the lack of inmates, or guards for that matter. The wind whistled through the fences, and the sound only added to the spookiness of the dream.
Then he heard it, a low-pitched wail. Someone in pain.
Never mind someone —that’s Brick.
But was Brick in Aric’s dream, or was Aric in his?
Aric raced toward the mournful sobbing that grew louder with each step, the sound pulling him, tugging him to it. Behind the block where he and Seth had once slept, Brick stood over a guard lying on the ground, his face bloody, his body beaten to a pulp. There was blood smeared on Brick’s face, his hands too.
“Where is he?” Brick hollered at the dying man.
Aric walked over to him and touched Brick’s arm. “Brick, you need to stop this.”
Brick shrugged off Aric’s hand. He whirled around, his eyes huge. “What the…? How can you be here?”
Aric gaped at him. “You’re asking me ? I have no idea how this works.” He gestured to the guard. “Why did you do this?” He knew it was only a dream, but he also knew what Brick was capable of.
“Get out of my head, Aric. It’s not a place you should be right now.”
As if Aric was going to listen to that. He stood his ground.
“It’s the place I have to be. You’re our protector—mine and Seth’s—and that means you need to keep calm. What good would it do any of us if you died?” He touched Brick’s arm once more, but this time, Brick didn’t shy away from it. “Use your head for something, would you? This anger isn’t doing Seth a damn bit of good.”
“He wouldn’t tell me where Seth is!”
Aric forced himself to speak calmly. “Look where you are. It’s the camp where you found me. Seth isn’t here. Seth was gone before you even arrived to save me.”
Brick let out a growl that made Aric’s blood curdle. “I want to kill every last Geran. I want to make them suffer the way they made you and Seth suffer. Except I want to make them suffer even more.” He gripped Aric’s shoulders. “They killed my parents, and I was helpless to stop them. They tortured you and Seth, and I couldn’t do a damn thing about it. All I have left is this rage. It’s the only thing keeping me going.”
Aric reached up and caressed Brick’s cheek. “You have me,” he said in a gentle voice. “And we will get Seth back, but only if you calm down. Being angry all the time might make it harder to find him, and that helps neither of us.” He pointed to the now-dead guard. “Okay, so what if he isn’t real? So what if you’ve just killed a figment of your imagination? How does it make you feel right now?”
Brick gazed at the body. “Guilty for not controlling my emotions. I could’ve interrogated him instead of biting his face off.”
“What you should feel is remorse.” Aric pressed his finger to Brick’s lips. “I know you find that difficult, and I totally get that, but this guy was still a person, and you killed him. This wasn’t in battle, was it?”
Brick stared at him, and the seconds ticked by.
Come on, Brick. Be the protector I know you can be.
Finally he shuddered, and Aric knew he’d gotten through. “You’re right. Even if it is in a dream, it was still wrong.”
Aric beamed. “ That’s the Brick I love. That’s our mate.”
“So that’s his name. I like it.”
Brick scanned their surroundings. “Who said that?”
Aric gasped. “I know that voice. It’s Seth!” He scanned their surroundings. “Seth! Where are you?” His pulse quickened.
“How can it be Seth?” Brick demanded. “This is my dream.”
“And I’m in it, so why not Seth too?” Aric’s heart felt as if it was about to explode. “Seth! You still here?”
“Hey, baby. Still here.”
“Then why can’t I see you?”
Seth chuckled. “I’m working on it, okay? And obviously I need to work a little harder.”
“But—”
Whatever else Aric had been about to say was lost when Seth sort of faded into view. He was thinner than Aric remembered, and he seemed exhausted, but it was definitely him.
Aric rushed over to him, only stopping a foot away. “Can I… can I touch you?”
Seth groaned. “Oh Gods, I hope so.” He held his arms wide, and Aric was in them in a heartbeat.
“I wish I could smell you,” Seth murmured, pressing his lips to Aric’s forehead, nose, cheeks, and at last his mouth.
Aric still couldn’t believe this was happening. “It’s really you,” he said with a sigh. “You’re here.”
“Do I get a hug?” Brick asked from behind them.
Aric sprang apart from Seth, grabbed Brick’s hand, and hauled him toward them. Seth gazed up at him, his eyes glistening.
“Oh wow. You’re huge.”
Brick chuckled. “All over, sweetheart.”
Seth’s cheeks pinked. “Good to know.”
Brick enfolded Seth in his arms, and Aric’s heart leaped to see them together. Seth appeared even thinner against Brick’s frame, and Aric tried not to think about what had brought him to that state.
Brick held Seth to him, his eyes closed. “Can’t believe this is real.”
“You and me both,” Seth whispered.
Aric joined them, his spirits soaring when both his mates pulled him into their embrace.
Brick stroked his hair. “Seth, where are you? I’ll come for you.”
“I’d tell you if I knew. All I do know is that it’s another camp, and we were brought here in darkness. We think it’s near the Canadian border, but that doesn’t narrow the field much.”
“Are you okay?” Aric couldn’t rein in the question a second longer.
Seth kissed him. “I’m fine, baby. But this is wearing me out.” He smiled. “Not bad for my first time, though.”
“You’re asleep too?” Brick asked.
Seth nodded. “But it takes so much energy, even when I’m sleeping.”
“Is your dad with you?”
Another nod. “He’s okay too.” Seth frowned. “I have to leave you.”
“Tell your dad we’re at Dellan’s home,” Brick said urgently. “And don’t lose hope. We will find you, okay?”
Seth gave them a tired smile. “I believe you. I’ll try again in a day or two. Brick….” He stood on his toes and kissed Brick on the lips. “Take care of our mate.”
“I will. Can’t wait to meet you.”
Aric leaned in for one last kiss while he had the chance. “Be safe. Love you.”
“Love you too.” Seth’s image grew faint, grew transparent, and then he was gone.
Aric woke up to find Brick sobbing beside him in the bed.
“Don’t cry. He’d hate us to cry.” Aric’s own tears threatened to spill over his cheeks.
“He was in my arms,” Brick said, his voice cracking.
Aric nodded, snuggling against him. “And he will be again. We have to believe that.” A thought came to him, and he smiled. “And in the morning, we can tell Dellan his dad is okay.”
A little drop of joy in an increasingly scary situation.
“Close your eyes,” Aric whispered. “Let’s go to sleep and dream of Seth holding us.”
That sounded like the sweetest dream ever.
SETH OPENED his eyes. The room lay in darkness. He brought his fingers to his cheeks and found them damp.
I did it. I fucking did it.
And if he could do it once, he could do it again.
He debated waking Jake to tell him what had transpired but decided against it.
Dad needs his sleep too.
Then he realized that was the first time he’d referred to Jake in his thoughts as his dad.
Well, he is , isn’t he?
Seth couldn’t wait to see his dad’s face in the morning when he learned Brick and Aric were with Dellan. The connection felt… right.
Whatever else it felt escaped him as Seth struggled to keep his eyes open.
One thing was certain. He would be careful not to let anyone know what he’d accomplished, with the exception of Dad and Jamie.
I don’t want to give these bastards any more ammunition.
Who knew where they would use it?