Page 63 of Legacy of Temptation

“What’s going on?”

“I’m taking over.” Logan put himself between Rade and the desk, and Rade’s eyes narrowed.

“Did Kynan order—?”

“No,” he said, gesturing at the door. “But you can talk to him if you have a problem.”

Rade grunted, probably deciding a pissing contest wasn’t worth it. “Whatever.” He glanced back at Eva. “But you only need to find out where her colleagues are. I already got what she knows about the weapon and bullets.” He paused, clenching his fists and shaking his head. “Fuck, man. Just…fuck.”

A lump of foreboding formed in Logan’s gut. “Stryke?”

Rade’s eyes flashed with disappointment but also acceptance. Like everyone else, he’d probably suspected that his estranged brother’s company had been responsible for the new tech that’d killed their colleagues.

Wordlessly, Rade slipped out, leaving Logan with Eva. His gut took another hit when she looked at him with something akin to hatred.

“What’s next? Waterboarding? The rack? Should I actually regret getting that manicure last week?”

“Nothing so dramatic. But now you know what Rade can do. He’s the best in the world, and he’ll get the information.” He gentled his voice, practically pleading with her. “He doesn’t need to come back. Tell me what we need to know.”

“How dare you?” she snapped. “How dare you pull the good-cop, bad-cop routine on me? I will never, ever give up the location of any Aegis cell or safe house.” She planted her fists on the desk and surged to her feet, practically hissing like a cat. “That demon might as well come back and start slicing up my brain because I will never betray my people.”

Damn her. He understood her loyalty. Admired it. Friends and family were everything. But she was missing the bigger picture.

“Eva,” he said, keeping his voice measured, though it wasn’t easy. Too much was riding on this. People’s lives. Draven’s soul. Logan’s heart. “Please. You don’t think Rade will stop at the local cell locations, do you? He’ll dig around until he finds all your secrets. All the Aegis offices. All Aegis weapons.”

“No, he won’t. He might have been able to bypass the shield protecting my mind, but this”—she tugged down the waistband of her skirt just enough to reveal a knot tattoo—“protects certain information differently.”

Interesting. He knew all Aegi were marked with a glyph that gave them some protection and enhancements, but that wasn’t it. Of course, now he wondered wherethatone was located.

“Okay, so whatcertain information?”

She looked a little smug. “The kind low-level Guardians don’t have. But those of us who know more about the inner workings of the agency get this protective glyph. If anyone tries to access particular areas of the brain, certain information…”

“What? What happens?”

“There are land mines. Booby traps to disable the invader. And, sometimes, the person with the information. Rade was talking about how the mind is like a puzzle. Well, the pieces that hold the most sensitive information will self-destruct if accessed through magical means, and neither of us will get out of it unscathed. We call them landminds. Kinda clever.”

She could be lying, but he doubted it. The Aegis liked martyr shit, and they wouldn’t hesitate to sacrifice their people to protect themselves. Rade was a master mind-bomb defuser, but Logan would rather not put him in a situation where he might trigger an explosion inside Eva’s head.

“Look,” she said, sounding suddenly tired, “I know how important Draven is to you—”

“Do you?” Hearing her use Draven’s name sparked instant, hot anger. It wasn’t logical, and he knew it. But, dammit, she and her colleagues were the reason Draven’s life had been ruined. “Do you really?” He tapped his comms and flicked open the video images file. He found the one he was looking for, and suddenly, the room became a wooded, sunlit park.

“We’re at a barbecue at Draven’s folks’ place,” he told Eva. “Draven just asked Shanea to mate him.”

The couple was alternately kissing and laughing, and then Draven left his new fiancée to come over to where Video Logan stood. Eva watched with curiosity as Draven gave Logan a hug.

“Congrats, man,” Logan said. “You don’t deserve her.”

Draven laughed. “I know. And she wants like, a dozen kids. I can’t wait.”

“Draven loves kids.” Logan smiled at the memory as he spoke to Eva. “He and Shanea were going to have their mating ceremony and then start pumping out little ones as soon as they got back from their honeymoon in the Caymans. They’d have made great parents.”

Cyan came up behind Shanea and tapped her on the shoulder. Shanea, always jumpy,popped her demonas she liked to put it. She sprouted horns and claws as she spun around in surprise. Then she laughed and hugged Cyan so hard it lifted the platinum-haired technomancer off the ground.

“See, Shanea’s automatic response to pretty much anything was to go demon,” Logan told Eva. “But she was harmless. Her skin was tough as titanium, but her claws were kind of rubbery. Her species is hard to kill, but they aren’t good fighters. They have a great defense but no offense. Kind of like armadillos. She wasn’t a threat to your people, but they killed her anyway.”

“I want you to be my best man,” Draven said to Video Logan. “You’re my best friend and my brother, and there’s no one I want more.”

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