Page 39 of Legacy of Chaos

Pain awakened him again. The fiery agony of orgasm denial, as if someone was simultaneously crushing and twisting his testicles while driving a red-hot poker through his gut. The pain had blinded him, locking his spine and joints. And in his thrashing, he’d knocked the tray of syringes onto the floor.

Then Masumi was there, and he’d felt a sting in his thigh. Sweet relief flowed through his veins and soothed his nerves as the medicine took effect.

Nausea came on its heels, and he’d barely made it to the bathroom before everything he’d eaten in the last five years came up.

Exhausted, he’d spent the rest of the night on the cold bathroom floor, his body racked by bouts of dizziness andcramps, which Eidolon said would happen more and more often if he didn’t stop taking the injections.

And, as a result of a shitty night’s sleep, he’d awakened at five-thirty instead of five.

Half an hour late.

He was never late to anything, but this was the second time in a week.

Thrown off his carefully plotted course, he skipped the workouts, showered, and went straight to his office. He was early, so Kalis hadn’t put out breakfast.

Not that he was hungry. Nausea still held him in its grip. Besides, she probably wasn’t even at the office yet.

It was another oddity in his day that would affect the rest of it. He didn’t tolerate change well. Never had.

Taking a deep, centering breath, he flicked on his desktop building monitor, which showed the location of every employee in the building. StryTech operated twenty-four-seven, but here at HQ, during the local business hours of eight to five, the number of staff members increased by a third. Right now, at six-fifteen, there were two hundred and twelve workers in the building.

He scrolled through the 3D screen to the R&D department, and his heart skipped a beat when he saw that Cyan was logged in.

So, she’s a workaholic too.

Of course, she was. She struck him as a hardcore Type-A.

She’d definitely been hardcore in his dreams.

His body heated as scenes from the dreams flashed in his head. Man, the things they’d done in his bed. His kitchen. His lab. She was so naughty in his fantasies. Was she like that in real life?

I wouldn’t fuck you if you were dying, were the last man on Earth, and all the dildos were gone.

He knew she’d meant what she said as an insult, but all he’d been able to do after that was picture her pleasuring herself with a dildo.

Son of a bitch. This had to stop. His hours, days, and years were carefully scheduled and regimented, and there was no room for a relationship of any kind. And if he did someday find room, Cyan wouldn’t be in it. She wasn’t his type.

Come to think of it, he didn’t have a type. He just didn’t think about being with females at all. Males, either, so that wasn’t the problem.

Not that hehada problem. Some people were into all people. Some were only into the same gender. Some were into the opposite gender. Some weren’t into anything at all.

Stryke figured that if a shot could take care of what sex could, he didn’t need to concern himself with having a type. Yes, he could narrow down his preferences to the female gender. And he did prefer humanoids. But aside from that, he didn’t care. He didn’t waste his time getting turned on by females. His brainpower was far too valuable and needed elsewhere.

He took another breath to center himself and flicked away the screen. He needed breakfast. And maybe another injection. Hopefully, minus the episodes of nausea that were becoming more frequent and debilitating.

His comms beeped. Grateful for the distraction, he swiped his wrist and sent the call into the air. StryTech’s software ran the comms unit, so his company symbol, an intertwined capital S and T inside an atom, rotated two feet above his desk as the caller’s information flashed beneath it.

ROSS, TARAN, Foreman of the oil platformSea Storm.

“Answer.”

The rotating symbol flickered away, replaced by a two-foot-tall image of Taran Ross, wearing a hard hat and a yellow rain slicker, hovering over his computer screen.

“Taran. Haven’t heard from you in a while. What’s going on?”

The guy didn’t ever call to chitchat. The werewolf was as work-focused as anyone Stryke had known. Other than himself, of course.

“Comms have been unreliable,” he said. “But we’ve got bigger problems. In my last report, I said one of the sensors monitoring the breach went offline.”

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