Page 36 of Jarran

“I taught you nothing,” Jarran said. “Pella Rin taught you.”

Durik waved this off. “Same brain.”

Evie’s grip on Jarran’s arm shifted. She pressed her fingers into his skin, a small signal. I’m here. Stay with me. He didn’t look back at her, but his arm moved a fraction, pressing closer to her hand.

“Now.” Durik uncrossed his arms and straightened. The amusement faded from his face and what replaced it was hard and businesslike. “There’s something else I want you both to understand.”

He gestured at the bathroom. The wide tub. The polished tile. The bedroom visible through the archway behind him, with its oversized bed and soft lighting and fine clothes hung in the wardrobe.

“This suite. The comfort, the privacy, the one bed.” His mouth curved. “Did you think I was being generous?”

Evie’s chest tightened. She knew exactly where this was going, and she hated him for it.

“I put her in here with you on purpose, Pella Rin.” Durik’s voice was conversational. He might have been discussing supply logistics. “A comfortable room. No guards watching. Time alone with a pretty female whom you were already besotted with. Someone warm and soft and sympathetic.” He spread his hands. “All I had to do was create the right conditions and let nature do the rest.”

Jarran’s breathing changed. Evie could hear it. Shallow and tight through his nose.

“You fell for her.” Durik nodded toward Evie without looking at her. “Predictable. Useful. Because a male in love is a male with a pressure point.” He smiled. “I have two leashes now. The implant.” He tapped the back of his own head. “And her.”

The silence in the bathroom was total. Evie could hear her pulse in her ears.

Fact: Durik had engineered their intimacy as a weapon.

Fact: Of course, it had worked. She was Jarran’s vulnerability. She’d known that since the cell. She’d known it when he kissed her and when he told her she was worth everything to him. She’d known it was dangerous and she’d let it happen anyway.

Fact: Knowing this didn’t change how she felt.

Jarran nodded. “Pella Rin would have done the same thing.” His voice was quiet and controlled and it scared her more than shouting would have.

“You’re starting to get it.” Durik grinned. “You can feel him close to the surface, can’t you? Knocking to get in. To take control again.”

Even though her view of Jarran’s face wasn’t full, she could see his expression change. It was quick, and masked before she could name it. Disgust, maybe. Or worse, worry.

“Enough.” Durik clapped his hands together once. A sharp, decisive sound. “We’ve had our little talk. Time to move things along.” He looked at the two females flanking him. “Take the human female. Put her in holding cell four. Separate quarters from now on.”

Evie’s stomach lurched.

Jarran shifted his weight. His body squared toward the doorway and his hands came up. “No.”

“It’s not a request,” Durik said, bored.

The first female moved. She stepped around Durik and reached for Evie. Jarran blocked her arm with his forearm, knocking it sideways.

Evie felt the heat coming from him. It was sudden and unmistakable. His skin had gone from warm to burning in the space of a heartbeat. She yanked her hand away from him.

“Jarran.” She said his name and he didn’t respond. He was staring at the female, whose face had shifted for the first time from blank composure to startled. She stepped backward.

Evie looked at Jarran’s arms. Beneath the dark lines of Sifter tattoos, his veins turned dark red and bulged prominently, like thick rivulets of lava. The air around him wavered and distorted.

God, no. She’d read every file, every case study, every firsthand account from the other human women. She knew what this was: the primal form. It was a transformation that happened when a Virilian male was pushed to his breaking point, when the person he would give his life for was being threatened.

But Jarran wasn’t transforming. The heat flared and held. The red lines glowed faintly along his tattoos. His breathing was harsh and fast. And then the glow faded. The heat pulled back a degree. The shimmer around him settled.

Whatever it was, it wasn’t ready. Something inside him had reached for the shift and couldn’t quite get there.

Durik’s eyes had gone wide. For the first time since Evie had met him, he looked genuinely caught off guard. He recovered fast, but she saw it. The flash of surprise, followed by a hard calculation behind his pale eyes.

“Interesting,” Durik said quietly.