Page 42 of Protector

She hesitates for a fraction of a second—barely long enough to be noticeable—and when she speaks, she sounds as calm as if she were reading statistics off a spreadsheet.

“Then the extraction team came. They were Russian. Four betas. They put me in the trunk of a car. Drove for hours. Then took me to an airfield. I only heard small-engine machines before they carried me aboard an aircraft. That’s when I knew they planned to take me out of the country. I… panicked. Eventually they injected me with a sedative. When I woke, I was in the bunker.”

“Did you pick up anything they were saying before they sedated you?” Welsh asks. He flicks his eyes up to hers, but she’s looking straight through him.

“No. They only spoke in Russian at that point.”

“And after you woke up?”

“The only one who spoke English around me was…” Her throat bobs as she swallows. “The alpha.”

“Tell me about him,” Welsh urges, voice still soothing. “What did he say to you?”

She is silent for several, long moments.

“Dr. Thompson?”

Under the table, a shaking, cold hand fumbles for his thigh. She anchors her fingers into his muscle, drawing strength from the solidity of his presence by her side. He feels it in their bond even as she refuses to so much as glance in his direction.

“Mostly instructions.” Her words are quiet, but the tremble he feels from her fingers don’t carry to her voice. “Expectations of my behavior. He didn’t tell me what they wanted with me beyond that.”

“Are you sure? Please, take your time. Men lost to pleasure will often spill secrets without thinking.”

Pleasure.A vivid memory flashes through AX2’s brain—of her chained to that stained mattress, broken and bleeding. The thought that her other alpha got pleasure from her despair is sickening, but he knows he did. The proof was smeared over her stomach and between her thighs.

He only registers the snarl rumbling out of his throat when Welsh’s eyes widen on a flash of fear, an instinctive response the officer swiftly hides behind a grimace.

“Until we know for certain who is behind your mate’s kidnapping, we won’t be able to bring them to justice,” the officer says, tone still soothing. “That’s the only reason I’m asking, Mr. Thompson.”

“I highly doubt the NSA intercepted a three-star general to ensure an unsupervised interview in order to bring the culprits tojustice.”Though her hand stays clasped to his thigh, there is a thread of steel in her voice. “Considering what my work is and where I was taken, it’s not exactly a leap to guess that the intention was for me to give them the technology behind the AX soldiers. Once I’d become… obedient.”

Welsh expels a slow breath and gives her a small smile. “You are correct, of course. We do knowwhatthey wanted with you, Dr. Thompson. The alpha who claimed you—he was a scientist employed by the Russian state. It stands to reason his task was to bring you to heel, then work with you on the development of soldiers for their military.

“Our interests are in the key players behind your kidnapping, and more importantly, how they got access to our military secrets. It’s a select few who know what your work entails.”

She blinks, the only outward sign of the jolt of anxiety jabbing through their bond when the weight of his words sets in.

Her voice is barely a whisper. “It was an inside job.”

TWENTY

AX2

Officer Welsh nods. “We strongly suspect as much. Which is why we are the ones conducting this interview—not the people in your direct chain of command.”

She is silent for a long moment, gaze fixed on a point on the smooth table between them. Eventually, adopting a monotone, she says, “He’d been told I’d be difficult to tame. He’d seen a picture of me, and he’d read my PhD thesis. And…” She sucks in a breath, as if the memory comes to her from the fog, and clutches AX2’s thigh harder. “One time… he said…the West likes to claim superiority in all things, but you would never find a Comrade selling their own.”

She’s trembling by his side, calm exterior cracking as the dark reality seems to fully set in. She was given to be abused and broken by people who know her. People she’s seen. Talked to. Perhaps even trusted.

He should feel no empathy for her. What was done to her is no worse than what she’s inflicted on him. And yet…

Swallowing a curse, AX2 lets his hand find hers on top of his thigh and squeezes her fingers.

“Who is it?” Despite its shakiness, there’s still bite in her voice. “You must be suspecting someone. Who?”

Welsh watches her for a moment, a sliver of sympathy in his otherwise shrewd eyes. Then he turns his attention to AX2. “Could you describe the circumstances with which you were tasked with Dr. Thompson’s extraction?”

“General Thompson gave me the order,” he says, not oblivious to the officer’s lack of response to the doctor. “He said the Russians had kidnapped his daughter, that he’d located her whereabouts, and that I was to save her no matter the cost.”

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