More than Truth (Arcane Crossbreeds) Read Free

face, in the power that radiated from him. Very little of the man remained, his humanity no more than a residue that clung to him. The years had seasoned him.
    She had no sympathy for him.
    “Mr. Carrick.” She inclined her head. “I can’t say it’s a pleasure.”
    The corner of his mouth twitched. “No, I didn’t imagine you would. As you probably guessed, I’ve been ordered to persuade you to return. My bosses are rather…determined to reacquire you, I’m afraid.”
    “You mean the Triumvirate.” Brit sneered. Over five hundred years ago, the three Elemental witches had invoked blood magic with most of the Arcane families, creating a blood bond, a magic that had encoded into their very DNA. Now the witches could siphon off the life force of every line that had entered into that pact. It made them unbelievably strong as well as immortal. Unfortunately it left their victims with short life spans. And a host of other medical issues, Brit suspected. It also created a violent and sometime bloody struggle between the Rebels and the witches. As was true with most Elementals, the Triumvirate was power hungry and insatiable. They had wanted to find a way through science to force the rebel bloodlines of each species that did not participate in the blood-magic pact to become victim to it as well.
    And she had helped them.
    The ARSA Project was named for the ARSA gene she’d isolated and connected to the blood-magic phenomenon. Despite her extreme intelligence she still hadn’t been smart enough to truly grasp what they would do with such knowledge. Once she understood they wanted her to synthesize the gene so they could introduce it in the unaffected Arcane, she hadn’t known what to do, so she’d turned to her parents. They’d sacrificed everything to help her destroy her research.
    Brit tilted her head to study him. Her control was absolute. None of the pain from the past touched her. She felt disengaged. Clear. Precise. “I thought ARSA was terminated, but it has come to my attention that too much of it survived.”
    He cocked a pale brow. She couldn’t read his expression, but she knew it wasn’t surprise. “One can’t have everything, Dr. Mahoney. You couldn’t have been so naive as to believe the Triumvirate would give both you and your research up. There was an unexpected substitute willing to do what you would not.”
    Brit crossed her arms over her chest. “Let me make an educated guess, Mr. Carrick. The gene became unstable and your substitute ”—she sneered the word—“cannot find a means to stabilize the mutation. Is that why you sent Katya Schaffer into Incog? You knew I would recognize my own research, be compelled to save her?”
    Katya was mated to one of the agents at Incog—a Drachon, who was very protective of his pregnant mate. Incog found Katya in a Triumvirate lab, and she’d been the subject of a long process of genetic manipulation. In fact, most of her life had been one continuous experiment, one Brit had developed—no, theorized—while working in the Triumvirate labs. The attempt to infect Katya with the blood-magic gene had been successful but unstable. The gene had mutated, and her body was rejecting it. It was killing her.
    “The Triumvirate thought it would play God once again, but this time it’s not working, it’s killing. An innocent woman is dying, Mr. Carrick.” Brit reached into her pocket and pulled out a black-and-white image she’d printed from the security system—one of Katya smiling over her shoulder at Raife, her mate. Brit threw it onto the immaculate crease in his suit pants. “If I don’t get their data and find out what they did wrong, that woman, her mate, and their unborn child will die.”
    Something flickered across Irial’s face as he lowered his glacier-blue gaze to the image. Was there a softening in those flinty eyes? Something very human moved through their depths as he picked up the paper. It was gone as quickly as it had come, replaced