Guerre and Liege came into the room. Acier too. Selena stayed near the door. Perfect. Just in time for his great confession. “For what I did in Colombia. I set a curse.” He looked at Bastion. “And I can’t stop it.”
“You did what we were made to do,” Acier said. “End bad guys.”
“One by one, maybe. That’s legit. That’s honorable. Each bad guy meets his death head-on. But the curse, it’s taken on a life of its own. It exists without me. It’s feeding on people.”
Bastion set his hands on his hips. He didn’t look as disgusted as he should. In fact, he didn’t look disgusted at all. “None of us even knew that was a skill you had.”
“It’s not a skill. Curses are bad.”
Bastion shook his head. “Not necessarily. It’s just karma.”
“Merc’s right,” Guerre said. “Curses always circle back to the person who gave them life.”
“How do you know?” Bastion asked.
“Experience,” Guerre answered.
“Well, in my opinion, it is done and done.” Bastion swiped his hands against each other as if clearing off dust. “And you beat its return to you—that pit almost took you, but you survived it.”
Merc looked at his friends. Time to come clean. “That isn’t even the worst of what I did there.”
Liege went still.
“I skin-walked. I’m becoming Flynn.”
Bastion stepped back. Acier looked shocked.
“Shit.” Liege paced a few steps away and swiped his hands over his face. “Okay. It’s okay.” He turned to face Merc, then looked at the others. “How many times, in that first year, were we presented with abilities that were terrifying, but which are now commonplace?”
“Skin-walking ain’t commonplace, Liege,” Acier said. “It goes against everything the Legion stands for.”
“Maybe it was a side effect of having set curses,” Guerre said. “Some new neural path switched on.”
“How many times did you skin-walk?” Liege asked.
“Once,” Merc replied.
“So it was a fluke,” Bastion said.
Guerre shook his head. “Nothing about our abilities is random. This skill is appearing now because his mental capabilities have developed to allow it. If he did it once, he can do it again.”
Bastion rocked back on his heels. “So if he can do it, we can. The four of us had the same modifications.”
“Flynn’s been doing it for years,” Acier said.
“It’s a lot to digest,” Liege said. “Let’s take some time to consider its uses and dangers.”
Merc straightened. “I have to go back. I have to find a way to stop the curse.”
“Fuck no,” Bastion said. “You cannot go back. You aren’t strong enough to deal with the forces you set in motion.”
Guerre folded his arms and sent a look to each of the guys. “If it comes to a vote, I cast mine for Merc. He has to stop what he began.”
“We’ll make that decision in a few days,” Liege said. “Let’s see how Merc does back on his feet.”
Merc nodded and forked his fingers through his hair. “I’m going to take a shower.”
Guerre did a read of Merc’s energy, which was still low. “You need help?”
“I think I can wash my own balls, thank you.”
“Dieu merci,” Bastion said to Guerre. “I could not stand one more sponge bath. His ass is not as cute as that of un bébé.”
Guerre laughed as the lot of them walked out.
Fuckers. Merc hadn’t given any thought to his personal care while he’d been under Guerre’s forced coma.
Whatever. He was glad to be back to himself. Or almost, anyway. He knew the woman who’d visited his nightmare. She was Ashlyn DeWinter, Summer and Kiera’s friend and therefore under the protection of the Legion, which meant she was hands-off for Merc.
He’d been hungering for her ever since she’d crashed his coma. Figured that he finally had his libido returned to him, only to discover the woman of his interest was both forbidden by his own ethics and preordained to be his by the Matchmaker’s Curse.
Merc sat hunched over on the bench in the shower, his head in his hands as the hot water poured over him. When he’d astral-traveled to Valle de Lágrimas to save Summer’s friend, he had no idea what he was walking in to. He never expected to see a sensitive, beautiful woman covered in dirt, experiencing the echoes of his own death attempt.
Merc ripped his mind from that train of thought. Who she was or how she made him feel was of no consequence. He owed his loyalty to his wife. All he had to do was focus on her to push Ash out of his mind. He’d had his one chance at love.
The Matchmaker couldn’t force another on him.
10
Brett Flynn walked through the scruffy streets of Valle de Lágrimas. It was the closest village to his mining and coca operation, so he considered it his town. His workers had reported some kind of super being that had come to town, a guy with strange skills who was slaughtering Brett’s crew. But he had known, even before their reports, that the Legion had found him; only mutants were skilled enough to take out the ghouls he had protecting his interests in the jungle.
Beyond the gang leaders this particular mutant had killed—three key men Brett had made labor and transportation pacts with for the cocaine produced near his mine—there were dozens more, dead and dying, in the vacated trenches outside town.
So much for Legion’s directive to fly low, off the radar of human observation. Brett smiled. Maybe Liege was losing his grip on his beloved Legionnaires.
Brett had never understood the draw of joining up with a group like Liege’s. Mutants were too powerful to be trusted, even against other mutants, and certainly against regulars. True, Brett was associated with the Omni World Order, but even the Omnis, still mostly regulars, had no idea of his full capabilities. They were easy to use, giving him a foundation that offered rich opportunities to grow his own circle of power.
Now Brett just had to figure out which Legionnaire had been here. Lautaro and his little group of Omni fighters were the closest, but while Lautaro’s energy was here, he wasn’t who had done the despicable things. It was someone whose energy aligned more closely with Liege himself, one of his top four operatives.
Church bells rang, summoning the faithful to services. Perfect. The gathering of residents was just what Brett needed to suss out who knew what about the Legion’s activities without his having to spend days wandering the town, reading minds. He could do a mass scan, see if there was anyone with the knowledge he was seeking. If there was, it wouldn’t be difficult to home in on who needed a more in-depth reading.
By the time he arrived at the church, the doors had been closed and services begun. That wasn’t a problem. He could wander among the congregants while they focused on the service. He jogged up the wide front steps…then almost fell back down when he encountered an energetic block that kept him from approaching the entrance. The damn thing felt like the high-voltage burst of a cattle fence. He could push through it, but he knew the pain he felt on quick contact would only strengthen as he moved into the space it protected.