Chapter Seventeen #2
“Oh please,” he waved her apology off. “I’m not the sort to hold the little things against people.”
But the big things, like annihilation of their species …
She could almost hear the words. She could feel the wall of hatred emanating toward her, thinly veneered with these social niceties.
“I was wondering if we could speak,” she said, keeping the facade of her ignorance up with yet another smile.
“Of course, of course.” He moved aside a little, his arm extended behind him. “Come join us. I believe you know my guest.”
Fixated as she was on the immediate Morphates near her, Devona hadn’t initially noticed the male in the chair just behind Ambrose.
When she finally did, her whole stomach bottomed out, an eerie injection of liquid numbness washing over her at the same time because she couldn’t quite comprehend or accept what she was seeing.
“Doctor Chandler,” Dr. Eric Paulson said smoothly as he rose to his feet. “It’s been a long time. How have you been?”
Too long. Not long enough. God, help her. She was going to kill him. She was going to die. All of these thoughts and more sped through her mind as she stood frozen in place, staring at him.
“Holy shit, she’s in trouble,” she heard Liam announce over the comms. “Move in, people, this charade is finished!”
“I’m fine,” she said a bit dumbly. “Yes, I’m perfectly fine,” she said more strongly, trying to speak to the men lying in wait outside.
She was close enough to Ambrose to do what she had come to do, but Paulson was spinning her for a loop.
Here was the ultimate criminal. Here was a man hunted by every man and Morphate in the world.
In Ambrose’s parlor. As an honored guest. If she had not already known Ambrose to be a psychopath, she would have truly recognized it then.
“I’m glad to hear it. I hope you are not like so many of these other Morphates, holding grudges against their creator.
They thrive in their new condition, yet still curse me.
You are a doctor. A scientist. And though we have disagreed in the past, surely you can agree that there is no value in fussing over what cannot be changed. ”
“Change is just that,” she said, but only the man who had become her lover recognized the strange detachment in her words.
Devona without emotion was like a night without stars.
And here she was, face to face with the man she despised more than life itself, surrounded by enemy Morphates.
It changed the entire game plan for him and he knew it changed it for her as well.
“Fluid. Ever-moving. Ever evolving. Everything must evolve or risk being left behind.” Devona lifted her hand, her flowing sleeve falling back as she pointed her fingers at Ambrose’s neck, and then closed her fist. The darts filled with mercury shot out instantly, pelting the startled Morphate in the neck.
He roared with fury, even as she raised her opposite palm toward Dr. Paulson, braced her feet and shifted her shoulders hard to engage the one weapon she was giving to the humans that meant far more than anything that used mercury.
The micro-wiring ran down the inside of her arm, looking no different from a heavy, translucent vein, until it spiraled in the seat of her palm.
The trigger was along the back of her arm and shoulder joint, connected to specific muscles that only engaged when contracted a certain way.
The pulse that exploded from her hand hit Paulson dead in the chest, a wall of energy and sound that blew him off his feet, sent him crashing back into the stone fireplace behind him. Ambrose barely got his fingers to his throat, had only an instant to claw at the darts, pulling two of them free.
Too late.
Much too late. His people didn’t even twitch as their Alpha evaporated into a gaseous cloud. After he was gone, however, Jacan leapt for Devon, grabbing her in an arm lock that prevented her ability to use her mercury weapon.
“Jacan, careful,” Tansy gasped breathlessly as her lover came so close to such a deadly weapon.
“I’m not here to harm anyone else,” Devona was saying loudly, her palm still facing the stunned Dr. Paulson, even though he was crumpled up into an unconscious pile at the foot of the fireplace.
She heard glass breaking, heard the others arriving at her back, felt the tension in the room ratchet up to a point of violence, forcing her to speak louder.
“The Alpha Council passed sentence on Ambrose alone,” she shouted, trying to be heard over the ruckus.
“All anyone else will suffer is fines if you don’t return to Dark Phoenix or wherever you are from and wait patiently for the Freedom Act to allow us the right to move and live freely in the Federated States.
The Council feels confident that once the humans are armed with weapons like this stunner, they will gain more confidence, be less afraid, and more willing to be fair. ”
Everyone in the room stared at the unconscious man who had started all of this so many years ago with his sick, illegal bid for immortality.
“Let her go,” Liam demanded gruffly, his entire demeanor no-nonsense as he aimed one of Devona’s new pulse guns at Jacan’s head.
Devona looked up over her shoulder and into the dark eyes of the Morphate who held her. This was a very dangerous man. She could feel the power in his body and could see the capability in his eyes. She recognized his face. Jacan. Ambrose’s Beta.
“You are Alpha now. You will be recognized as such by the Council,” she said softly to him. “You can lead very differently from the way Ambrose did. And you can help us pack off Eric Paulson to the penitentiary he has long deserved.”
Jacan looked over her features for a long moment, then slid a glance at Liam.
“How do I know you won’t spray down this entire place with mercury once I release you?”
“Because we would have done it already,” Liam answered for her.
“Instead, your people will wake with headaches from the stunner in an hour or two. An hour after that they will never know they’d been hit.
And like she said, we’re not interested in you or your people as long as everyone remains calm and behaves. ”
Jacan took several beats to think. He took in the situation in which he now found himself.
“I am grateful you don’t assume everyone in Dark Phoenix is of Ambrose’s bent.
You understand I couldn’t overtake him yet.
As much as I would have liked to, he was too well fortified and much stronger than I was.
” Jacan let her go and stepped back. Tansy hurried to his side even as Liam reached out for Devon’s arm and pulled her into the safety of his hold.
Never once did she lower her hand or turn her focus from Eric Paulson’s direction.
“Interesting choice,” Liam said quietly to her, pressing his lips to her hairline and gently rubbing a soothing hand in circles over her lower back.
“When faced with the two of them, it was the only choice. I could have killed Paulson and stuck to my original plans as far as Ambrose was concerned, but the truth is Phoenix needs a new Alpha and Paulson needs to be held accountable for his crimes. ?It would have been selfish of me to deprive a great many other Morphates of the opportunity to see this sick bastard locked in a tiny cold cage of his own. They’ve waited fifty years for this, and he makes, by far, the better choice.
I think Ambrose’s death and Phoenix’s new Alpha makes the point for obeying the Council laws well enough. ”
“I would have to agree,” he said, looking carefully into her eyes. “So let’s bundle Paulson up and get him in front of your Council then, shall we? It’s long past time you got home.”