On paper, Pavel should have come out the clear winner of the battle.
That hadn’t been the case.
Rurik had gained the upper hand. He’d then proceeded to nearly kill him. A man Pavel had once seen as a brother had openly turned on him, nearly being his end. And he’d left Pavel with the scars to prove as much. He’d also stained Pavel’s reputation with those he served—The Corporation.
Absently, Pavel reached up and rubbed his chest through his shirt, feeling one of the many reminders of that day Rurik had left him living with. The scars beneath the material of Pavel’s shirt were still gruesome to look upon. It hadn’t mattered that decades had passed.
Pavel had thought organizing a remote research facility would see him back in his employer’s good graces. The facility was devoted to testing on children in what was often referred to as The Asia Project. It would have been perfect. But fucking PSI had interfered. They’d left Pavel looking like a weak fool to The Corporation, not the soldier they’d invested so much time and money in.
Now, Pavel was sitting in his own version of Siberian hell—fucking America. Stuck pretending to be a professor of literature, wearing clothing he hated, all to avoid drawing attention to himself.
Revenge was within his grasp. Rurik wouldn’t be so high and mighty when Pavel was done with him.
He stopped rubbing the scar through his shirt and went back to enlarging the surveillance photo on his phone screen. Zooming in, he looked for signs of injury on Rurik, but saw none.
Pavel’s brows drew together. He’d been there for the attack on Rurik in Savannah two weeks prior. He’d watched from a rooftop, hoping to see the man’s downfall. With calculated precision, Pavel had lured Rurik from the safety of the clinic. The scent of his mate had been far too much for Rurik to resist.
Just as Pavel had suspected.
Liberty Mansfield was the woman who had quite literally been created for Rurik. Engineered by The Corporation—like so many others—to be a perfect match for supernaturals that they had genetic sequencing on. Rurik was one of those supernaturals. One they had a special interest in drawing back to the fold. They’d had the foresight to know the quickest way to get what they wanted was to use someone Rurik couldn’t resist. Someone his bear and his human side would do anything for.
His mate.
Pavel had been in Liberty’s orbit since she’d been born and always intended to use her against Rurik in some way. He saw her multiple times a week and was in and out of her home often, without her knowledge.
It was almost too easy really.
For as book smart as she was, the bitch was clueless to the number of times he’d been in her home with her there. Hell, he’d shuffled things around on purpose, hoping she’d notice. She didn’t. He’d even gone so far as to leave a bag of pistachio nuts in her kitchen, knowing she didn’t like them. She was as oblivious to what was really going on in the world as humans were.
Having moles within PSI had also proven helpful. After learning about Rurik being in Savannah a few weeks back, embroiled in the middle of a situation involving The Corporation, he’d launched into action. He’d entered Liberty’s house while she and her roommates were asleep and took several items from her dirty clothes hamper that held her scent the most.
He’d bagged the items and then stood in her room, watching her sleep, his hand itching to shift form and finish what he’d started years ago. He’d wanted to forever scar her. To leave Rurik an ever-present reminder of what he’d done to Pavel.
When Pavel had clawed open Liberty’s face when she was a child, he’d thought for sure the wounds would remain obvious. That hadn’t been the case. They were barely noticeable.
He’d been in her home more times than he could count, fighting the urge to kill her and send her body to Rurik in a gift-wrapped box. He’d stood over her bed, fixated on her face—on the area he’d clawed twenty years prior. The urge to slash her face open once again had beat at him from within.
Such easy prey, he thought with a wicked smile.
If the fucking blonde woman she lived with hadn’t woken, Pavel would have lost the battle with his willpower and attacked. But the blonde bitch had not only woken, she’d then headed for Liberty’s room in the dead of night, forcing Pavel to make a quick exit through the window. He didn’t want to take on the blonde. While she appeared mild-mannered, he more than knew what she was really capable of.
He’d seen her in action as a small child. Plus, if she was anything like her sister, she was an extreme threat.
The team of men tasked with keeping watch over the women had seen Pavel jumping out the upper-level window with a bag of women’s clothing. He’d heard their mocking laughs and whispers from the van they’d been stationed in, parked down the street.
They’d already seen him as weak.
The incident hadn’t helped.
Pavel had made sure the bagged items he’d taken from Liberty’s hamper accompanied him to Savannah, where he’d met up with the strike team The Corporation had deployed to the area. Then, Pavel had used Liberty’s scent to lure Rurik from a small clinic he’d been holed up in.
It had worked brilliantly.
His rival had stepped out from the clinic, sniffing the air, looking curious and then confused.
Pavel had ordered the hybrids that had been along with him to do their worst. To attack without mercy and to eliminate the bastard once and for all—or at the very least, leave Rurik as scarred and broken as Pavel.
Of course, the orders had been in direct opposition to that of The Corporation. They wanted their asset—Rurik—back in one piece. Mentally broken, but physically pristine.
The hybrids had failed.
Rurik had managed to cut through a large number of them on his own and
