In spite of the circumstances, Camellia burst out laughing. “You might already be a little insane.” She took a step toward him, but Jonas reached out and caught her wrist, anchoring her to him, holding her in the safety of the trees right at the edge of the clearing.
She glanced up at his set features. She felt the slightest of warnings moving from his nervous system to hers, yet other than that strange vague threat moving toward them, still very much in the distance, she couldn’t find any danger directed at her.
“Answer Kyle’s first question,” Jeff suggested. “Why would you think we would have anything at all to do with Peter Whitney after what he did to us? Not only did he completely ruin and betray us, but he set us up to be murdered because we weren’t his perfect soldiers. We’re an embarrassment to him.”
“He did pair you with his women. And he paired Lily, the one woman he still calls his daughter, with a member of your unit. I have to say, that doesn’t sound like he wants you all dead,” she replied, doing her best to keep the sarcasm out of her voice.
Jeff arched a brow and narrowed his eyes consideringly at her. “You have to know he thinks Ryland is inferior to Lily’s intellect and wants to make her a widow. He’d like to pair her with someone else. Now that he has his near-perfect and perfect teams, he would also like to rid himself of the embarrassment of his mistakes, particularly Team One.”
“Do you have proof of that? I escaped some time ago,” Camellia admitted. “I haven’t heard much after I left. I didn’t dare try to contact anyone. It was too dangerous.”
“Would you believe me?” Jeff challenged back.
Would she? She could hear lies. Middlemist Red could hear lies. Red had protected herself for centuries. “Depends on whether or not you tell me the truth. Try me and see.”
“Whitney wants their son, and he’d like to pair Lily with someone else. Whitney has made three past attempts to acquire their son, and we know of at least two attempts he’s made to pair Lily to one of his supersoldiers. And yes, we did find proof that Whitney has been trying to send Ryland and the rest of us on suicide missions as well.”
Camellia turned that over in her mind. That would be like Whitney. He wouldn’t just kill the soldiers outright. They were his creations, and he would want even their deaths to be useful. He would put them in highly dangerous situations in order to test them. To see if they measured up. He would want them to succeed, and yet he would also want them to fail so he could go forward with his agenda.
That’s the reason it’s important for you to learn to create the fog and to use the mycelium network when you need it.
One of many reasons, Jonas said.
He pulled her closer to him. As always with her, in spite of his obvious strength, he was gentle, barely tugging, but he put enough pressure on her to force her to take the couple of steps to cover the distance between them. Immediately, his arm swept around her waist, locking her back to his front. That now-familiar sizzling sensation began along her nerve endings and moved to her veins, igniting a slow burn that spread through her body. He dipped his chin onto the top of her head and rubbed it so strands of her dark hair mixed with blond stubble, connecting them together.
Both Kyle and Jeff noted the way Jonas held her close to him, Jeff with a slight grin, Kyle with a lift of his eyebrow.
“My biggest fear is that Whitney will send someone after me,” Camellia answered the question posed in the first place. “And he will. There’s no question that he will. I’ve done my best to stay ahead of him and keep a warning system in place at all times so I have the ability to run. I’m prepared to fight if I need to do that. He underestimates women. I’ll admit, I’m counting just a little bit on that. Jonas has warned me that he can track me through the tattoo on my ankle. I’ll have to find a way to keep that from working, and I will.”
“Is there a reason you don’t want to throw in with us?” Kyle asked.
She shrugged, having anticipated that question and prepared her response. It was one thing to reveal her real reasons to Jonas, but she didn’t want to talk about Marigold to anyone else. “I’ve been alone for so long now that I’ve become uncomfortable in the company of people. I also don’t want to risk anyone giving me orders or performing more experiments on me.”
Kyle frowned and then jerked his chin at Jonas. “Do you honestly believe the man standing behind you would allow anyone to perform experiments on you?”
Camellia hesitated. She knew these men could hear lies. Jonas was completely connected to her. Still, she didn’t trust anyone completely. “I just met him. It’s clear Whitney paired us, but I still just met Jonas. I want to spend time getting to know him before I make decisions that will change both of our lives. I would hope he would want the same thing.” She didn’t dare look up at him.
“I need to know how you made me so sick,” Kyle said before Jeff or Jonas could say anything. “I really do. And why I’m the only one who reacted to what you did.”
She didn’t know how to answer him without telling him too much about herself and the underground network. Maybe it didn’t matter so much. This was Jonas’s team after all, and she really didn’t believe they presented a danger to her.
Everything was happening so fast, but the connection between Jonas and her was so strong, it was as if they’d been together for years and she knew him intimately. She knew there were parts of him she couldn’t quite see yet, just as he couldn’t see all of her, but total transparency was close if they continued to spend time together. And there was no hiding his true character. He might be a natural predator, enhanced into an aggressive, dominating killing machine when necessary, but his protective traits shone through.
“There was an actual reason we came to get the two of you.” Jonas intervened before she had a chance to decide how much to reveal about herself before she was comfortable. “The threat I felt, Camellia feels as well. And it’s now gone from a vague feeling to a definite threat, meaning it is coming closer. We both thought it might be a good idea to go find it rather than wait for it to get to us.”
Jeff, the smiling surfer with the deadly blue eyes, nodded. “Still not feeling it myself, Jonas, but you’ve never been wrong. We’ll have to send word to Rye. Just in case. Wouldn’t want to be taken prisoner or go down in a blaze of glory and have no one know where to start looking.”
Camellia turned her head so she could look up at Jonas. “You’re sending a message to your commanding officer?”
“To Ryland? Yes. We have to let him know there’s a real threat to the others, and we’re going to check it out and intercept it if necessary. Jeff and Kyle will come with us. We’ll leave signs for our team so they can track us in case we don’t make it back in a few days.”