Chapter 29 #2
I laughed. "I have a seven-foot-tall bodyguard with horns."
"Oh good," she returned my laugh. "Mine isn't as tall, but he came with wings."
"You bonded with a different supernatural." I let that sink in.
"Yep." She popped the p. "A gargoyle."
That wasn't what I expected. I'd been so focused on the wyrfangs—the target of the trial—it never occurred to me that the engineered bond might not discriminate.
"At first, I felt like I was being watched. Then I got a glimpse of him out of the corner of my eye. I don't know why I didn't run screaming. I just stopped and turned toward him. I couldn't get near him at first. Every time I tried, he'd fly away. He said he was terrified of hurting me.
"He finally let me get close enough to reach out. Haven, it was the best feeling in the world. We spent the rest of the night talking. The next morning, I confronted my boss."
"What did they say?"
"They said I was delusional." She snorted.
"What did you feel?"
"Like I'd found my other half." She sighed happily and a humming noise filled the background.
It reminded me of Quin's growl. "What happened then?"
"They fired me. Said I was unstable. I spent a few days in my apartment, wondering if I'd imagined the whole thing. Then he came for me. Showed up on the fire escape at three in the morning like something straight out of a gothic novel. Said I'd called for him and he wanted to make sure I was okay.
"I was just glad I wasn't crazy."
"What did you do next?"
"I moved to a different city to get away from Novagen. Zuno explained that our relationship was unusual. Gargoyles don't usually form this type of bond, but we're making it work. I learned how to reinforce floors." She laughed.
"They probably kept tabs on you."
"Oh, they did. But this city has a big gargoyle population, and we live smack in the middle of it. They can't touch me."
"I'm working on dismantling Novagen."
"You're going to stop them?"
"Yes."
"Good. Keep in touch, okay?"
"I will," a promise I intended to keep. "If you need anything, I have friends who are very handy with a computer."
She laughed. "And if you ever need to get behind a stone wall, I have those kind of friends."
A smile tugged at my lips. "I'll remember that."
I set the phone down and a glass of water appeared in front of me.
"She bonded?"
"Yes, with a gargoyle."
"Then they had some kind of marker to identify humans who were predisposed to bond. Who they chose wasn't random."
"No." I agreed. "It wasn't random." I let myself rest against his side while I sipped the water. "They didn't create us." I cemented the knowledge in my brain. "They just tried to weaponise what was already there."
I'd learned to find Quin's almost constant growl comforting.
"They will regret that."
I looked back at the list. Three names down. So many more to go.
I reached for the mouse to scroll to the next name, but Quin's hand covered mine.
"We can stop."
I blinked up at him. "What?"
"The files. The calls. All of it." His voice was tight, almost pained. "You don't have to carry this tonight."
"But the others—"
"Will still be there tomorrow." He said it like he was bracing for an argument. "You will not be, if you keep doing this to yourself."
I opened my mouth to protest. To tell him I was fine. That the women deserved to know and I was the only one who could tell them. That stopping now felt like failing them.
But the words wouldn't come.
My hands were shaking. When had that started? My throat was raw from holding back tears. My chest felt like someone had hollowed it out with a melon baller.
Quin crouched beside my chair, his massive frame somehow making itself small. His eyes searched my face with an intensity that made my breath catch.
"Haven." My name was a rumble. A plea. "Let me take care of you."
No one had ever said that to me before. Not like they meant it. Not like my wellbeing mattered more than whatever task was at hand.
I looked at the screen. At the endless list of names. At Leah Clark's entry, still screaming that she'd been murdered for not bonding correctly.
"Okay," I whispered.
Something in Quin's shoulders released. He closed the laptop with a gentle click and lifted me from the chair like I weighed nothing. I didn't protest when he carried me to the bed. Didn't argue when he wrapped himself around me like a living blanket.
"Tomorrow," he promised against my hair. "We'll face it together. But tonight, you rest."
I let him be right.
And for the first time in hours, I took a breath that didn't hurt.
MORNING CAME TOO FAST.
I woke wrapped in Quin, his chest rising and falling beneath my cheek in a steady rhythm. For a moment, I let myself stay there—warm, safe, not thinking about trials or dead women or the weight of what I still had to do.
Then I opened my eyes.
"You're awake." His voice rumbled through me.
"Unfortunately."
His arms pulsed before releasing me. "Are you ready?"
I wasn't. But the women on that list deserved answers more than I deserved comfort.
"Yeah." I sat up, scrubbing my face with my hands. "Let's finish this."
He had coffee waiting by the time I reached the laptop. I took a long sip, steeled myself, and read the next name.
When I reached the last name on the list, the sun had set. My voice was raw from emotion and tears. I'd made eight calls. Out of twenty women. Twenty lives disrupted by men in lab coats who thought they could play god.
It was a small sample size. I dug through the files to see if there was a 56B, but didn't see any mention of one. I was the last name. I guessed they were waiting to see what would happen with me before moving on.
The non-viable designation sat in my stomach like glass. Twelve women would never know the truth.
Only two of the eight women had formed a bond with a supernatural. Alice with her gargoyle, and a woman named Petra who found herself with a bear shifter in Arizona.
The other six were designated indeterminate. They all experienced symptoms similar to Marisol without knowing why. Dreams. A sense of longing they couldn't explain. I told them all I'd work on a remedy, but there was no cure.
Three out of twenty. A fifteen percent success rate. Really, it was only a two percent success rate, since I was the only one who'd bonded to a wyrfang.
Quin stood behind me through all the calls. Brought me water. Wiped my tears away.
"Today was rough."
I turned to face him. His ears were pricked toward me, and his eyes held none of the fire that they'd had all day.
"They deserved to know." It didn't matter how hard on me it was.
"They did. It was still hard for you."
I stood and my legs protested after hours in the chair. His arms wrapped around my waist when I swayed.
"Bed."
I almost smiled at the growl in his voice. He was just as fierce protecting my health as he was defending me. His hands stayed on my hips, steadying me, until I settled face down on the mattress. He turned to leave and I reached for him.
"Quin."
He hesitated. "You need to rest."
"I need you with me."
He stretched out beside me, careful of my back. It broke my heart to see this massive creature, this engineered weapon, treating me like I might shatter.
I pushed up on my arms and crawled on top of his chest, settling myself on Quin like a body pillow. His fur was soft against my skin, and I could hear the steady thump of his heart.
I could tell he was trying to keep his breath even, but every so often it would hitch.
"You're thinking too loud."
"Sorry. My brain doesn't have an 'off' button. If it did, my brothers would have found it years ago."
"Are you sure?" I teased.
"I'm sure." The backs of his fingers drew nonsense patterns against my side.
That was the moment that I knew. The moment I admitted to myself. The moment I decided.
I'd fallen in love with him.
I lifted my head to look into his eyes. "I'm sure, too."
His head tilted. "Hmm?"
"I know I said I wanted to wait. Until I knew what they'd done to me. Until I was sure."
He went still. Not a single muscle twitched.
"I'm sure now."
His silence was deafening, but his heartbeat raced under my chest.
He shook his head. "You're exhausted. Today was emotional. You shouldn't make a decision—"
"Today was exactly what I needed. Hearing Alice and Petra talk about their bonds." I willed him to listen. To hear me.
To believe me.
I knew my life would never be simple again. I knew I wouldn't miss simple at all.
"They're at peace. Alice laughed when she talked about Zuno. Petra called her bear shifter the best thing that ever happened to her. That's not something you can manufacture."
I held his muzzle in one hand. I traced the ridge of his jaw to his cheek, over the edge of his ear and to the tip of one horn.
"They didn't create what I feel for you.
They just unlocked it. They made it possible for us to find each other.
" She huffed. "Trust me. If they could have manufactured love, they would've sold it by the vial.
What I feel for you wasn't engineered. It's mine. "
"Haven. Little moth, I... I can't hurt you."
"You won't. I love you, Quin."
His hand tightened on my hip. "I've waited for those words. I've loved you from the first moment I saw you. Even when I thought you were an agent of BioSynth. Even when I thought you would be my ruin."
I rose and fell with his deep breath.
"But I need you to be sure about the bite. It's not something that can be undone."
"I'm sure." No hesitation. "I want to be connected the way Kendal and Drym are. I want to feel the way Jade feels Thurl."
Something snapped in his expression. The control he'd had fractured, and he looked at me with raw desperation and want.
"If we do this, you'll be mine, little moth. Forever."
"Good."
Two heartbeats. That's all it took for him to believe me.
Then his tongue dragged across my bottom lip.