Page 72 of Hot Zone

He glared down at her, blue lightning flying off him in all directions. His eyes were black, and violence snapped in them, barely contained. His entire body vibrated with fury, every muscle clenched—whether in anger or rigid control, she couldn’t tell.

She had to admit, Rustam in a towering rage was an impressive sight. Intimidating, even. But then she clenched her teeth and glared back at him.

Their battle of wills howled and blew around them like the mightiest of tempests. It was a silent thing, but no less turbulent for the lack of raised voices. They didn’t even bother to fling words at each other. They threw raw emotion instead until they’d both spent the worst of their fury. Eventually, the energy vortex around them calmed slightly, settling down to, oh, tornado proportions.

Gradually, their separate blue and violet energy streams merged once more into the usual indigo haze whirling around them.

At long last, Rustam glanced away. He looked back at her. Took a deep breath. “I apologize. I did not know your customs. I would have asked, had I known.”

She released a long breath of her own. What was she supposed to say to that? What’s done is done? In this case, it really was. If she was, indeed, pregnant…

Her mind balked at finishing the thought, but reluctantly she made herself do it.

If she was indeed pregnant, what in the world was she going to do? This changed everything.

Athena Carswell opened her kitchen door and stepped inside. A wave of blessedly cool air hit her. It was blistering hot outside today, and the contrast between the 108-degree heat and her house made goose bumps rise on her skin.

She set her satchel down on the kitchen table, her mind on a tall glass of iced tea. She turned toward the refrigerator, and froze.

Something was wrong. The goose bumps on her arms weren’t going away. In fact, they prickled, screaming an alarm at her brain.

She listened carefully. Only the hum of the air conditioner and the quieter sound of the refrigerator broke the silence.

She opened her cell phone and dialed a nine and a one. With her finger poised on the one button for one more punch that would summon help, she eased over to the kitchen door and peered around the corner.

The dining room and living room were empty. She glided through them toward the short hallway leading to both bedrooms and the bathroom. Mental alarm bells clanged wildly inside her head as she did so.

No sound. No movement.

She spun fast through the doorways to all three rooms and even checked the closets. Nothing.

What in the world? Her psychic warning system never went off like this for no reason. Athena closed her eyes and reached out with her mind for the cause of her alarm.

Her bedroom.

She stood in the doorway, gazing around the room. Something was…not right. It was subtle. But things didn’t seem to be in exactly the same place she’d left them. She didn’t remember her hairbrush being that close to the edge of her dresser. And she usually didn’t make her bed quite that neatly.

She frowned. Her bed.

Oh, no.

She shoved at the bed frame with her shoulder, sliding it back to reveal the safe mounted in the floor beneath it. Quickly, she spun the combination, pressed her thumb to the recognition pad and pulled up the heavy door. She breathed a sigh of relief.

All the papers appeared to be there.

She reached in to inventory them, and prickles skittered across her skin again.

She closed her eyes.

A clear impression of a lean, hard stranger handling the files flooded her mind. His energy signature was still fresh on the papers. And then a second image came to her. Another man photographing them. All of them.

Fury and a dose of terror at having her privacy so violated rushed over her.

And a smirk of satisfaction. Yes, they’d gotten some of her proprietary research data, and it might give someone a decent idea of what she was up to. But the bastards hadn’t gotten their dirty hands on the Ad Astra journal.

She cleared her cell phone and dialed Beverly.

“I’ve had an intruder at my house. Some guys broke into my safe and copied my papers. But they didn’t get what they came for.”

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