Page 110 of Fanged Embrace
While he sermonized, I studied the other members seated around the table. None of them looked inspired. They looked invested. Their cold, clinical expressions, contrasting with Marcus’s rose-tinted view on the subject, were starting to make sense. Marcus was wealthy, and a well-connected public figure. That’s probably why they turned him in the first place.
They wanted his power and influence to execute their own plans.
While Marcus rambled, my eyes drifted around the figures at the table—all of them sitting aloof and uninterested in his vision. He had no idea he was being played for a fool, but it was so obvious. All the evidence was right in front of him.
They’d used his fortune first—to buy up old factories, private clinics, waterfront silos. Then his connections: senators, researchers, newspaper editors. When the labs needed subjects, the board “helped.” They targeted people who were vulnerable, offered medical care to the terminally ill, and made use of foster-care loopholes. The rest of their gruesome tactics I already knew from my time on the inside.
But Marcus? He believed every child “rescued” would thank him one day. In his mind, he was curing mortality, leading humanity into a bold new dawn. The others simply watched the stock price of power climb.
My stomach knotted as puzzle pieces clicked together in my head.Thiswas the organization: They had their charismatic billionaire out front waving the banner, and this cold committee behind him pulling the strings. They had the hybrids they created…
Their plan wasn’t a brighter future, it was a city-wide coup.
They were building a supernatural army, and had been foryears now. I had no doubt that when the dust settled, when their hybrid creations razed the city to the ground, these cold, uncaring supernaturals would place themselves at the top of the food chain. They would erect themselves leaders of a new world order—and they were doing it all right under Marcus’s nose.
I schooled my features into blank indifference, but inside, fury spread like wildfire down a dry valley. Marcus wasn’t the monster I’d pictured. He was something worse: he was a sincere believer of his own delusions, blind to the red flags staring him in the face.
Behind me, the door cracked open and I whipped my head around to see the lobby guy from earlier step quietly into the room. He hurried up to the head of the table and whispered to Marcus, bending his body away from the board. My gaze snagged on my gun, still secure on his belt, and my fingers itched to reach out and snag my weapon back.
There was no way I could cover that distance without one of the board members catching me first, so I settled for deciphering Marcus’s sudden shift in expression—the gray shade his face had adopted while the lobby guy murmured in his ear. The chair beneath me creaked as I shifted, straining to hear the hushed conversation going on across the table.
I needn’t have bothered. Marcus abruptly lifted his head, his eyes narrowing to slits as he stared down the table at me. “It would seem someone is causing trouble at several of our facilities. My sources say these are coordinated attacks—instigated at the exact hour you returned to us.” He rested both palms on the table. “Care to explain, Ms. Montgomery?”
I balked, caught off guard by the statement because who the hell would be so bold as to?—
Oh.River.
River had launched an attack. It had to be her, because who else would respond to my sudden disappearance with suchextreme measures? I stared back at Marcus, stunned into silence. I had expected River to be upset, heartbroken, and probably angry. I hadnotanticipated her orchestrating a full scale operation to get me back.
“I…” I faltered, words lodged tight in my throat, completely taken aback. I had never expected her to come after me. The Leyore coven was outnumbered, she said so herself. But she’d managed to wrangle them together anyway—for my sake. My heart gave a hard, painful thump against my ribcage but I forced my expression blank. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Marcus wasn’t buying it. “Oh, I think you do.” The whimsical spark had vanished from his eyes and now he watched me with quiet suspicion. “Did you not heed the letter, Ms. Montgomery? I was very clear in my instructions. You were to return to us willingly—no tricks, and no foul play—and your friends would be spared.”
A chill ran through me and the room fell silent. My eyes flicked to the gun again—out of reach, and useless to me now. They suspected a trick. Marcus assumed I had orchestrated this somehow, that I had planned this attack in advance. He caught the quick flick of my gaze, and that was all the confirmation he needed that I was not to be trusted.
“Ezekiel.” He turned to the lobby man at his shoulder and waved a hand in my direction. “Take her to the labs. Keep her contained until we sort out this crisis.”
No.I jumped to my feet, standing so abruptly the chair tipped over behind me. No, this was not how this meeting was meant to go. They were supposed to trust me. I was supposed to make my demands to keep Riversafe. This wasn’t how things were meant to play out.
“I had nothing to do with the attack!” I backed away from the lobby man—Ezekiel—who crept toward me with a hand on his belt, fingers hovering over my gun at his hip. I turned wildeyes on Marcus, who looked back with grim disappointment. “I did what you asked—you can’t do this!’
Ezekiel’s hand clamped around my arm.
“No!” I kicked out uselessly, shoes skidding across the floor as he hauled me toward the door. It couldn’t end like this. My sacrifice could not have been for nothing.
I twisted, lurching sideways—reaching for my gun, but Ezekiel anticipated the grab and shoved me backward. Blood burst along the inner lining of my lip when his elbow rushed up to catch my face; pain rocketed down my jaw and stars burst behind my eyes. I sagged, head spinning in a sudden daze while Ezekiel dragged me towards the door.
Marcus observed the entire ordeal with pursed lips. “One day you’ll understand the magnitude of what we’re achieving here, Lorelai. I hope you’ll come around eventually.”
“You’re a monster,” I spat back, bucking against Ezekiel who yanked both of my flailing arms behind my back. I tasted coppery blood on my tongue. “They’re manipulating you—and you’re blind to it all. Go to the facilities yourself, look at what they’ve been doing! All the lives they’ve ruined in your name?—”
“Necessary sacrifices,” Marcus cut in diplomatically, and I understood then that there would be no convincing him. He was content to stay willfully ignorant of the cruel methods of his associates. He was willing to turn a blind eye to all the terrible things they were doing if it meant seeing his vision come to fruition. He was convinced he was the hero in his own bullshit fantasy.
“I’ll kill you,” I hissed through clenched teeth—and I meant it. “You better hope you’re not around when the Leyore coven comes for me, because the moment I’m free, I’ll be coming foryou.”
I reiterated the vow I’d made two years ago, when I had first laid out my plans for revenge. Whatever Marcus Bream’sintentions, whatever well-meaning fantasy had set him on this path, nothing could excuse his methods. No promise of a brighter future could excuse the monster he’d become. For what he’d done to me—to me, and to so many others—and for what I’d lost, I would kill him myself.
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