Page 40 of Under a Wicked Moon
“They couldn’t get much from you, Ky. I respect your will to deny them after all they tried, which was substantial. In addition to drugs, they tried hypnosis to implant Sigge’s method on you. I think their failure doesn’t have to do with your curse. You’re right, they could never reprogram you to work for someone else. You’re the strongest being they’ve ever tried to manipulate. Maybe it’s because of the rewiring inside your head from that spirit.”
“What rewiring in his head?” Vivi asked. Her eyebrows folded inward, and her nose crinkled.
“Not right now,” Roman whispered to her.
“Did I give in to what they wanted?” Ky asked, hating the vulnerability in his voice.
Humor crinkled the edges of Dom’s eyes. “If they’d wanted someone easy, they chose the wrong Lanzo brother.” Was it his imagination, or did Dom’s gaze wander to Flynn? “But fate may have chosen the right brother for this mission.”
A chill slithered through Ky’s shoulders as both he and Dom stared at Vivi.
Dom asked her, “Ready to see if they might have been more successful with you?”
“What is this about Sigge?” she asked.
Dom said to Roman, “Your future depends on her being a part of this. Secrecy has its place, but not here.”
“What are you talking about?” she asked.
Dom said gently, “Those facilities where you were kept are not simply about experimenting on your kind and trying to produce a next generation for them to manipulate. They’re programming lycan super-soldiers whom they can control and sell to the highest bidder. I suspect they haven’t been very successful raising any young lycans. If so, after three decades of trying this, they wouldn’t have been so desperate to make you and Ky…work.”
“You think FenCor is involved?” Roman asked.
Dom nodded. “Mad Sigge started FenCor. Founded it way back in the 1970s.”
“How do you know that?” Ky asked.
Dom shrugged. “I know many things. You didn’t specifically ask.”
Roman compressed his lips before speaking. “If they get the mind control to work, it’d be highly profitable. That’s what FenCor looks for in projects.”
“There was one they got,” Vivi said. “One baby. I heard them take it from the mom and kill the mom. Who knows if it survived?”
“What?” Roman’s head recoiled.
Ky whooshed out against pressure squeezing his lungs to the point he could barely breathe. An uncontrollable shudder ripped through him.
“They have lycan babies they’ve stolen? Who they’re raising?” Flynn blurted.
Roman’s head moved slowly back and forth. “So much worsethan I thought.”
“They…how could they…do you think I might’ve had…?” She gripped her throat, then pressed a hand against her breastbone. Hoarsely, she asked, “What did they do to me?”
Ky’s body turned cold. She’d been there for years. It was reasonable to assume she might’ve had a child who was taken from her. Adrenaline coursed through his body with the need to annihilate every human involved in the facilities.
“Do you want to find out?” Dom held out his hand to her. “Move, Ky.”
Ky wanted to touch her as she walked past him, but he held back. Because his body vibrated with need for revenge against what they’d done, even though he didn’t know yet exactly what that’d been. For what had been taken from her. And from him. He didn’t trust his grip on the violent energy coursing through him.
She drew in a shaky breath as she sat, careful to keep as much space between her and Dom as possible on the settee.
“This won’t hurt. I’m simply going to read…” Dom frowned as he cocked his head to view the raised pink sigil behind her left ear, similar to so many of his own. He scowled. “What powers do you have? Specifically?”
“I don’t do magic anymore.”
“You can try to disregard it all you want, but you can’t shed what you were born with. You’re an elemental. Like—”
Roman coughed, catching Dom’s attention with a wide eye and headshake.
