The Second Mark
The security barrier slammed shut with a metallic crash that echoed through the surrounding forest. Rebecca instinctively ducked, nearly dragging Damon down with her as floodlights exploded to life along the perimeter fence. Within seconds, the quiet road leading into Blackridge Research had transformed into something resembling a military installation preparing for war. Red warning lights flashed above the loading bay, and somewhere inside the compound, an alarm began its steady, unpleasant wail.
“Oh, wonderful,” Rebecca muttered. “Apparently the welcoming committee has arrived.”
Damon crouched beside her, his attention fixed on the woman being restrained near the loading platform. He had barely reacted to the closing barrier. His entire body had gone rigid, and Rebecca recognized the expression on his face. She had seen it before whenever someone mentioned Elena, but never with this particular mixture of disbelief and fear.
Only weeks earlier, Rebecca had moved into her mountain home expecting a peaceful retirement, never imagining that her handsome, infuriating neighbor was a powerful werewolf Alpha—or that a mysterious silver mark would declare them mates. Damon had already lost his first mate, Elena, supposedly executed nineteen years earlier. But recently uncovered Council records had revealed a classified transfer dated four days after Elena’s reported death, leading them directly to Blackridge Research. Now, instead of answers, they had discovered a woman Damon seemed to recognize, bearing a silver mark nearly identical to Rebecca’s. Even more disturbing was the woman’s ability to speak directly into Rebecca’s mind. Her last words still echoed through Rebecca’s thoughts: He doesn’t know what they did to us. Whatever those words meant, Rebecca was beginning to suspect that the truth about their extraordinary bond was far more dangerous than either of them had imagined.
“Damon.” She caught his arm. “We need to move.”
He didn’t answer.
The woman struggled against her guards, twisting violently enough that one of them nearly lost his grip. Her sleeve had fallen completely away from her forearm, exposing the silver markings beneath. Even at this distance, Rebecca could see the resemblance to her own completed mate mark. The same intricate curves covered most of the woman’s forearm, but something about the pattern was different. Where Rebecca’s silver circle had closed, the woman’s remained incomplete.
Then the voice returned.
Don’t let them see your mark.
Rebecca clamped her hand over her wrist.
“Oh, that’s helpful. Would’ve been considerably more useful before the fireworks started.”
Damon turned sharply.
“She’s speaking to you again?”
“Yes, and apparently we’re having a private conversation neither of us arranged.”
A vehicle roared to life beyond the loading bay. Two guards climbed into a security truck while another began scanning the surrounding trees with a handheld device. Rebecca watched the instrument flash blue as it passed over the vegetation. Whatever they were searching for, she suspected it wasn’t lost wildlife.
Damon finally pulled his attention away from the woman. He caught Rebecca’s hand and drew her lower behind a fallen tree, positioning himself between her and the approaching security team.
“Keep your sleeve down. Don’t let them see the light.”
Rebecca looked pointedly at her glowing wrist.
“Excellent advice. I’ll just explain to my arm that we’re trying to be inconspicuous.”
The glow dimmed slightly, almost as though the mark had heard her. Rebecca stared at it in disbelief. She had spent weeks trying to understand the impossible bond that had appeared when Damon first touched her, and every answer seemed to produce another dozen questions. Now there was apparently a second woman carrying a nearly identical mark, and somehow the two of them could communicate without speaking.
The security truck stopped near the trees.
Damon’s hand tightened around hers.
“Don’t move.”
Rebecca wasn’t planning to. Unfortunately, the silver mark had other ideas.
A sudden surge of warmth raced up her forearm, making her gasp. Across the clearing, the woman jerked against her restraints at precisely the same moment. Both marks blazed brighter, sending a visible shimmer through the air between them.
One of the guards shouted.
“Resonance detected!”
The man carrying the scanner swung toward the forest. His device began emitting a rapid series of electronic beeps, and the guards immediately spread out along the tree line.
Rebecca stared at Damon.
“Resonance? What exactly is resonating?”
“I don’t know.”
“You’re the werewolf. I was hoping that came with a manual.”
Damon gave her a brief, distracted look before turning toward the approaching guards. His eyes had begun shifting toward amber, and Rebecca could feel the restrained power gathering beneath his skin. Whatever Blackridge Research had done to the woman on that platform, Damon was rapidly approaching the point where he would stop asking questions.
The woman suddenly screamed.
Both guards holding her recoiled as brilliant silver light erupted from her wrist. One stumbled backward, clutching his hand, while the other fell against the loading platform railing. The woman dropped to her knees, visibly struggling to remain conscious as the glow intensified.
Rebecca felt the answering surge in her own arm.
This time, however, something else accompanied it.
An image flashed through her mind. A white room. A woman strapped to a medical table. Silver instruments suspended above her wrist while someone in a surgical mask examined the incomplete circle glowing beneath her skin.
Then a man’s voice.
“Termination of the original bond was unsuccessful. Prepare the replacement.”
The vision vanished.
Rebecca staggered backward, catching herself against the fallen tree. Her breath came in short, frightened bursts, and she stared at her wrist as though it had suddenly become something foreign.
Damon caught her shoulders.
“Rebecca! What happened?”
She looked toward the loading platform, where additional guards were rushing toward the woman.
“I saw something. A laboratory. They were experimenting on her mark.”
His expression darkened.
“What did you see?”
Rebecca swallowed.
“They said the original bond couldn’t be terminated. Then somebody ordered a replacement.”
For a moment, Damon looked as though she had struck him. His gaze shifted toward the woman, and Rebecca saw something terrible beginning to form behind his eyes. Nineteen years of grief, unanswered questions, and the belief that Elena had died were suddenly colliding with a possibility neither of them was prepared to confront.
Before he could respond, the scanner sounded again.
“Movement in the western trees!”
Three guards broke into a run.
Damon grabbed Rebecca’s hand.
“We’re leaving.”
“Through what? The enormous metal gate that just locked us in?”
“There’s a drainage channel beneath the access road. I saw it when we approached.”
Rebecca followed him through the trees, ducking beneath branches as the security guards closed in behind them. She wasn’t particularly fond of running through forests in the dark, especially when armed men were chasing her, but she had discovered that arguing with circumstances rarely improved them. Unfortunately, circumstances seemed determined to prove they could get worse.
A gunshot cracked through the trees.
Damon spun, shoving Rebecca behind a thick pine as the bullet struck the trunk. Bark exploded inches from her face. His eyes flashed amber, and a low growl rolled from his chest as two guards emerged from the darkness.
“Hands where we can see them!” one shouted.
Rebecca slowly looked around the tree.
“Would you prefer both hands, or is one sufficient? Because I’m rather attached to the other one.”
The guard raised his weapon.
Damon moved.
One moment he stood beside Rebecca. The next, he had crossed the distance and slammed the guard against a nearby tree. The weapon flew into the undergrowth. Before the second man could react, Damon seized his arm, twisted it behind his back, and drove him to the ground.
Neither guard managed another shot.
Rebecca hurried toward him.
“You know, when I retired, I pictured gardening, afternoon naps, and possibly joining a book club.”
Damon retrieved the fallen weapon and removed its ammunition.
“We need to keep moving.”
“I certainly don’t recall putting armed pursuit on my retirement checklist.”
He almost smiled.
Almost.
They reached the drainage channel minutes later. A narrow concrete opening disappeared beneath the access road, partially concealed by weeds and fallen branches. Beyond it, Rebecca could see the faint outline of another patch of forest outside the security perimeter.
She stared at the opening.
“No.”
“Rebecca.”
“Absolutely not. I have crawled through enough underground passages to qualify as a professional sewer inspector.”
A searchlight swept across the trees behind them.
Damon raised an eyebrow.
Rebecca sighed.
“Fine. But if something with too many legs lives in there, I’m blaming you.”
He entered first, crouching low as he moved through the shallow concrete channel. Rebecca followed, keeping one hand against the wall and the other pressed over her glowing wrist. The passage was barely long enough to pass beneath the road, but every foot reminded her of the tunnels beneath her house. She was beginning to develop a deep personal dislike for anything underground.
Halfway through, the woman’s voice returned.
He must not see the records.
Rebecca stopped.
Damon immediately turned.
“What is it?”
“She’s talking again.”
They didn’t create the second bond.
Rebecca pressed her back against the wall, struggling to separate the woman’s thoughts from her own growing panic.
They stole it.
The silver circle around Rebecca’s wrist suddenly burned so intensely that she cried out. Damon caught her hand, and the pain eased almost immediately. But the light continued pulsing between her fingers, illuminating the passage with an eerie silver glow.
“Rebecca, look at me.”
She raised her eyes.
“Whatever she’s telling you, we can deal with it once we’re safe.”
Rebecca shook her head.
“No, Damon. I don’t think you understand.”
She stared at the complete circle around her wrist, remembering the image of the woman strapped to the medical table. The original bond. The replacement. The experiments.
Then she looked at him.
“I don’t think your first mate bond ended when Elena supposedly died.”
Damon went completely still.
From somewhere behind them came the distant sound of approaching footsteps. The guards had reached the drainage entrance, and a flashlight beam swept briefly across the concrete walls.
Damon pulled Rebecca toward the opposite opening.
“We’ll talk outside.”
They scrambled up the wooded slope beyond the road, finally putting the security fence between themselves and the compound. Damon stopped beneath a cluster of pines, listening for pursuit while Rebecca struggled to catch her breath. For the moment, the guards remained on the other side of the barrier.
Rebecca looked back toward Blackridge Research. Its floodlights swept across the forest, illuminating the loading platform where the mysterious woman had disappeared from view.
Then her mark pulsed again.
This time, the voice sounded frighteningly close.
Rebecca.
She froze.
The woman knew her name.
They told me you were dead.
Rebecca felt the blood drain from her face.
“What?”
The voice returned, barely more than a whisper.
They told me the replacement didn’t survive.
Rebecca slowly lowered her gaze to the brilliant silver circle around her wrist. And for the first time since meeting Damon Cross, she wondered whether their extraordinary mate bond had really been an accident at all.
