The Beast Within. Suzanne Mcminn

him for not believing in the justice system or even PAX. His life hadn’t given him a whole hell of a lot of reason to believe in anything. But that he hadn’t believed in her—That was what she couldn’t forgive.

      And now, she had to wonder if she’d been wrong and naive all along to hold on to even a measure of her faith in him.

      What was he doing? Had the activation serum really burned up? Had Kieran stolen it? Was he recreating the containment serum now? Without it, the activation serum was far too dangerous to utilize. Or was he working to reproduce both serums?

      Why else would he be hiding here, reproducing his work, if not to sell it? Everything she’d never wanted to believe ripped into her heart like a knife. Betrayal seared her all over again.

      “You’re recreating the serums,” she whispered starkly, and she wanted him to deny it. She wanted to beg him to give her some rational explanation for everything. Oh, God, if this was true, she’d have no choice. She’d have to do anything in her power to stop him. “I can’t let you do this,” she said, gazing at him in growing horror. “You’re going to have to kill me. Because if you don’t, I’m going to turn you in.”

      “Paige—”

      “I just thought you were hiding here on this island so you didn’t have to go to prison. I never wanted to think—How stupid could I be? Was the activation serum really destroyed, or did you just make it appear that way? You decided to sell your own research, and leaving part of it behind only meant it would take you that much longer because you would have to recreate it from scratch.”

      Kieran spun on her.

      “What do you mean, left behind?” he demanded.

      “The containment serum was found in our apartment, in your lockbox. They searched everything—”

      “What? Where is it? Where is the containment serum now?”

      “Why? So you can steal it—again?”

      “I thought it was gone. I thought it was destroyed in the fire. I thought there was no hope—”

      He turned away again, made a sound in his throat, a keening groan of horror. Then he swung back, eyes so dead she nearly screamed.

      “I never tried to sell it, Paige. I never tried to sell any of it. I was framed.”

      “If that was true, why didn’t you stay? Why are you here, with this secret lab?”

      The weight of the betrayal in the evidence before her was crushing her. Her heart was dying, right here, right now.

      “Tell me where the containment serum is.” He came back, took a strong hold of her shoulders as he sat beside her. “If you ever believed me, Paige, believe me now. If you ever loved me, trust this one thing. I have to have it.”

      Suddenly she was overwhelmed by a terrible foreboding. The force behind his voice terrified her. She didn’t want to be humiliated, betrayed, destroyed by him again, but she had no choice about asking the next question.

      “Why?”

      A nightmarish beat passed in the heavy silence of the cave. The storm outside might as well have been a thousand miles away. In Kieran’s laboratory, it was utterly, eerily still.

      He finally spoke.

      “That was not a trained wolf.”