Page 43 of You Only Love Twice
Obsidian's lashes fluttered half-closed as he watched it all unfold emotionlessly.
There was something wrong with his conditioning. He'd suspected it for weeks.
It had something to do with Gemma Townsend.
Whatever the doctor did to him, his failsafe's began to collapse the second he'd laid eyes upon her.
Even now his head began to ache right behind his left eye, as if the mere thought of her shattered something inside his brain.
One last constraint, perhaps.
The conditioning is necessary, the doctor had told him.
It helps to control the rage inside you, Ghost had assured him.
Don't you want to forget the pain?
Don't you want to make it all go away?
Obsidian didn't know what he wanted. He didn't know what the hell he believed in anymore. Too many patchwork memories.
Who are you? The Wraith? Obsidian?The thought slithered through his back brain like a sibilant whisper.
Or...
She'd called him Dmitri.
And he had a sudden flash of remembrance of a warm body in his arms, Hollis's laughter in his ear, as he tumbled her onto a fur rug in front of a blazing fire, careless of the world around them. Careless of anything other than the feel of her skirts crumpling beneath his hand, and the smooth kiss of her skin beneath his fingertips....
The pendulum swung again as his lungs expanded sharply, but Obsidian was the only one who noticed.
"It doesn't... matter—" the doctor choked out, "—what you do to... m-me. Without me—"
Ghost let him collapse against the bench, where the doctor sputtered and coughed, grasping at his throat.
"Without me," Richter wheezed, "you can't... control them. Lord Balfour... gave me... jurisdiction over... these matters." He pushed himself up into a sitting position. "If you push the reconditioning too far, then you will kill them. And then...youwill deal with Balfour's rage."
Obsidian stared thoughtfully at the doctor. The mere thought of Richter's rooms made him flinch, as if some part of his subconscious knew more about what the doctor did to him, than his conscious mind. But the man seemed to be arguing on his behalf.
"So be it," Ghost spat. "But if he slips his leash, then you shall be the one who earns Balfour's wrath. Not I."
What were they truly doing to him with the reconditioning?
Obsidian felt like dozens of pieces of memory floated around him like obnoxious jigsaw puzzle pieces, refusing to slot into place. He was missing something. Some important piece of the puzzle that would make all those memories become whole.
And it had to do with Russia.
Gemma held the key to his past.
To his identity.
Could he trust her to tell the truth? He barely recalled St. Petersburg. Only fire. A pair of scorching kisses. A smoking pistol.
And the sound of someone screaming.
Someone who might have been him.
Gemma Townsend is a liar and a seductress, Ghost's whisper taunted him.
