"Y-yes," Ackmeyer sputtered, then suddenly realized what he'd said. "I mean no! That's not what I was trying to say, I - I just mean to say that there is something very wrong here. Whatever offense you think I've committed against you, I swear I'm innocent. There's been some kind of mistake. A terrible mistake . . ."
As much as he wanted to dismiss the human's protests as the desperate denials of a cold, profiteering killer, something unsettling began to unfurl within Kellan's gut. Something that put him on the edge of a deeply disturbing realization.
That something was an earnestness that made him peer at Jeremy Ackmeyer a bit closer, searching for some trace of the lie he was certain had to be there.
With a flick of his mind's power, Kellan released the lock on the barred door of the cell and mentally pushed the metal grate open. Ackmeyer cowered, scuttling back toward the far wall until his rail-thin spine was up against the mold-streaked concrete blocks. Kellan strode inside the dank cell, crowding the human. Moving forward until he loomed over him.
"You want to know why you're here?" He stared down at Ackmeyer, seeing the young man's face take on a hot amber glow in the blaze of Kellan's irises. "It's because of the Breed-killing ultraviolet technology you created."
Ackmeyer shook his head, his voice evidently gone mute with fear now.
"You're here because that UV tech was used to ash a Darkhaven civilian on the street a few months ago. Liquid sunlight, just the kind of equalizer your species would kill to have." Kellan kept talking, ignoring the tears that sprang into the human's widened eyes. "Are you going to stand there and deny that you had any part in this?"
"I don't know what you're talking about. Have I discovered a means of harnessing UV light and converting it to liquid? Yes. It's one of several prototypes I've been working on under my Morningstar project. But none of my data or models has been released to the public. And they're all light-bringing technologies, not weapons. The project's chief purpose is to benefit the planet, to revolutionize energy consumption - "
"They used to say the same thing about nuclear power." Kellan growled. "I don't have time for bullshit. Who'd you sell the tech to?"
"No one!" Ackmeyer dissolved into a shaking, hiccupping lump on the floor of the cell. "It's not even out of testing yet. And besides, I've never sold any of my work for profit. I've certainly never created anything with the purpose of inflicting harm on someone. If anyone claims they have it - if someone has used my work, as you say - they must've stolen it. You have to believe me! You have to trust me when I tell you that I've done nothing wrong!"
No, he didn't have to believe him. Nor did he have to trust.
Kellan had a much more reliable tool at his disposal than ordinary intuition.
He reached out and palmed Ackmeyer's trembling skull.
The jolt of understanding came swiftly, irrefutably.
Kellan's Breed talent stripped through the human's intentions, drilling straight to the core of truth hidden deep within Jeremy Ackmeyer's soul. All Kellan found was honesty, the purest of motivations. The absence of any guilt whatsoever.
Holy hell.
Kellan drew his hand back as if burned. The realization sank in like bitter acid, corrosive and impossible to scrape off now that it had touched him.
Jeremy Ackmeyer had been telling him the truth. He had no idea his work had been used as a weapon for assassination against the Breed.
Kellan had ordered the kidnapping of an honest, innocent man.
"Anything more I should know about the situation?" Lucan Thorne's grim face filled the flat-screen monitor on the wall of the Boston Command Center.
He hadn't been pleased to hear Nathan's report from the field, but where the Gen One leader of the Order had every right to swear and bellow over the simple escort mission gone so terribly wrong, he clearly struggled to accept the fact that one of the Order's own had gone missing from an assignment. That it was Mira, a female raised by the Order from the time she was a child, made the gravity of the loss all the more difficult to deal with objectively, not only for Lucan, but for Nathan and the other pair of Order members gathered with him in the private conference room that morning.
Sterling Chase, the Breed warrior who'd helmed the Boston operation for the past two decades, sat soberly in the room beside his mate, Tavia, his big hand resting over her slender fingers on the table. Tavia accepted the tender gesture, despite that she was no delicate Darkhaven lady, sheltered from the realities of the world.
Born in the same laboratory, of the same alien DNA that had spawned Nathan and a small army of assassins bred and raised just like him, Tavia was an awe-inspiring rarity among the race: a genetically crafted, Gen One female, and a daywalker besides. Where Nathan would perish after minutes of exposure to UV light, his half sister Tavia and her offspring - a set of fraternal twins named Aric and Carys - could sunbathe all day in the tropics without breaking a sweat.
"If anything's happened to Mira," Tavia murmured, her leaf-green eyes sparking with flecks of amber, "if she's harmed in any way - "
"We'll find her," Nathan assured them all. "I won't rest until she and the human scientist are located."
On the monitor, Lucan nodded his dark head. "I know we can count on you. That's why I'm giving this whole thing to you as a solo assignment. It's crucial that we keep this problem out of the public eye. I want a lid clamped down tight on this, and I want the bastards dealt with cleanly and permanently. Your training makes you ideal for this kind of surgical precision job, Nathan."
He inclined his head in acknowledgment. "I will do whatever it takes."