Mind blank. No reaction. “Yes.”
Her lashes lifted, and her gaze met his, hard, determined. “And?”
“And I won’t let you infect me. I won’t talk to Mia for you.”
He expected her to erupt, to strike at him, something, but all she did was fall back into her chair, severing contact. She drummed her fingers against the arms.
“I’ve never encountered this much resistance before, and I admit I’m at a loss.”
“We’re in what’s called a Mexican standoff, baby, so one of us has to cave. On something. And it’s not going to be me. So tell me what you want with Mia, and we can go from there.”
That sunken gaze hardened a little more. “I could just kill more agents of yours as I planned.” Cold, so cold. “I believe I promised to visit the vampire next.”
Mind f**king blank. “But you won’t because you realize that will only cause me to resist you more intently.”
Trinity sighed. “Very well. I will tell you … something I want … and that is … Mia’s body.” She watched him, waiting.
He couldn’t mask his surprise. “I don’t understand.”
Trinity licked her lips. “I want to possess it.”
Sexually? “Still don’t understand.”
She tensed. He thought she meant to leave, but she surprised him by saying, “Every time I go to a new planet, I need a new body. One already adjusted to the temperature, the atmosphere, the … everything. My … essence leaves the old one and enters the new.”
Now they were getting somewhere. “What would happen to her?”
“Her essence would enter the body I left behind.”
Not good. Not good at all. “So how does the disease follow you? I mean, there would be no blood exchange in essence-switching, right?” God, he couldn’t believe he was discussing essence-switching, whatever the hell that was, as easily as if they were discussing switching T-shirts.
She flashed her teeth. White, sharp, almost sharklike. “My essence is the disease.”
“So, what? You’d take over her body and no one would know Mia was actually you?”
“Exactly.”
“And they’d follow you,” he said, finally understanding. With understanding came a sick, cramping stomach. “They’d do whatever you said, thinking you were their beloved leader.”
“Yes. That’s the way it always goes. And by the time they realize something’s different, wrong, they’re already infected and serving me.”
“Cold,” he said.
“Necessary,” she countered.
“Selfish.” By telling him now, she’d ruined the element of surprise.
Gray cheeks pinkened with fury. “No different from anyone else. We all do what we must to survive. Didn’t you just say that?”
Before he could reply, a sharp pain exploded through his temple, and he grimaced. Damn it. He knew what that pain meant. A vision of the future wanted to open up in his mind. He fought it, held it back, because he didn’t want Trinity seeing it, whatever it was.
“We’ll find a way to stop you,” he gritted out.
She sighed, a little sad. A trick, surely. “No, you won’t. I’ll have this planet as I’ve had so many others. I will stop AIR before they can hinder me in any way.”
“Is that what you want more than anything?”
“No. I want … I want a cure.” One confession making way for another?
Another trick. She enjoyed what she did, the power she wielded. “And if the only cure is death?”
The sadness melted away, revealing her true emotion. Calculation. “I wanted to rule this planet with you,” she said, refusing to answer. “I like you, but again, you’ve given me no choice. I will find someone other than Mia. Someone who will willingly trade bodies with me.”
So. She’d sensed his long-ago desire for Mia and had thought to use it against him. “There’s no one who would do anything so stupid.”
She laughed, the calculation giving away to another wave of sadness. He simply couldn’t keep up with her mood changes. “Someone is always willing.”
“Not here. Not on Earth.”
“Love is all the motivation people need. I threaten one of their loved ones, and they give me whatever I want.”
The sickness intensified, but like the vision, he beat it back. “Then why didn’t you threaten Kyrin, the man Mia loves?” He knew he wasn’t planting ideas into Trinity’s head. He knew she’d considered all the angles, all the players. “Why did you threaten me?”
Slowly she eased to her feet, peering down at him. “I told you. Because I like you. And because Kyrin is a man so deeply in love he would kill himself before allowing himself to become a weapon used against his woman. If he died, Mia would never agree to anything I asked.”
Or maybe Trinity simply couldn’t infect Kyrin.
A muscle twitched under her eye. Had she read that thought? “There are other couples within AIR that might be willing to bargain.”
Mind blank. No reaction. “Like?”
“Like time will tell, sweet Dallas.” She didn’t wait for his reply. She disappeared.
Fuck. Dallas leapt from the bed, but before he’d taken a single step, his vision busted past his mental block and slammed into vivid focus. Ava and Noelle, fighting the Schön. Ava, falling. Blood spilling. Her body, motionless. Her … death.
Unchangeable.
Fuck, f**k, f**k! He was panting as he came back to the present. He couldn’t tell her, he thought. He couldn’t risk being the one to drive her to that point. That had happened to him before. He’d had a vision, done everything in his power to stop it, but because of his actions, the vision had come true.
So, while there was nothing he could do for Ava—damn it!—there was something he could do about Trinity’s threat. Dallas raced from the room, uncaring that his hospital gown was split in back and revealed every inch of his bare ass. He was going to contact every f**king AIR agent who was dating, married, or in love and warn them. Which meant he had to contact every AIR agent working for Mia. Even Ava. Before it was too late for the rest of them.
Twenty-seven
McKell found himself standing in front of the most exclusive apartment building in New Chicago, a towering monstrosity of gold-veined marble and rising columns. Mia and Kyrin lived in the penthouse—and that’s where the Schön queen’s men had visited after leaving Johnny’s.