Kamn crept across the moonlit yard a step behind Noretta. His instincts balked at following a girl. It was not the Phylehan way. Females were to be protected, not looked to for guidance. But he was not Phylehan anymore. He was a genetic mixture of Creation knew what and Noretta had effortlessly incapacitated four armed men with her bare hands.

Had she only incapacitated them? The guard she’d dragged into his cell was still alive, but Kamn hadn’t seen the others. Why should he care if she’d killed them? He was free! For the first time in his adult life he was free and Noretta was the reason.

“We must move quickly,” she told him in a soft yet stern voice. Pausing in the shadows of a massive, leafy tree, she placed her hand on his upper arm. Could such a small body house power and ruthlessness? It seemed unlikely. He must have misunderstood what happened at Resistance Headquarters. She was a lab rat, just like him, a Setti captive desperate for freedom. If the famed Resistance fighters were unable -- or unwilling -- to grant them freedom, then she’d had no choice but to take matters into her own hands.

“What is this place?” he asked. She raised her face to the sky and scanned their surroundings.

“If what I’m sensing is accurate, this is the hideout of the last of Garret’s handlers.” She looked up into his eyes, waiting for the significance of her simple statement to sink in. Garret had conducted the research and proposed each hypothesis, but it was his handlers who performed the actual experiments.

“They’re interrogating one of the handlers inside this house?” Kamn could hardly force the words past the tightness in his throat. Every indignity, every horror he’d suffered flashed through his mind in a sickening rush. Pain and isolation stretched into bleak hopeless years until even the fire of fury sputtered out.

“We can wait until they’re finished.” A certain catch in her voice made it obvious she had something else in mind.

“Why did you bring me here if the situation is under control?”

“I don’t fully understand what the Setti did to you, but I know you’re able to create a powerful mental connection, especially while a person is sexually aroused.”

He twisted his arm out of her grasp. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“We don’t have time for games.” She stepped closer and her gaze flashed in the moonlight. “I heard the Setti bitch talking to you before she had Javier brought to her bed.”

That wasn’t exactly how it had happened, but he wasn’t about to split hairs now. “And?”

“I know what you and Javier were engineered to do.”

“We were all engineered for something.” He stalked toward her. Using the growling power of his voice and the brilliance of his gaze, he commanded her attention. “Phylehan males are naturally predatory. The Setti enhanced our ability to seduce, to create sexual cravings both in the physical and metaphysical realms.” He placed his palms against the tree’s wide trunk and caged her with his body. “What’s your special skill?”

“If you’re a very good boy, you’ll never find out.” She shoved him backward with both hands, obviously unaffected by the pheromones swirling around him. Her Setti blood must be stronger than she let on. During the final phase of his transformation a safeguard had been added to ensure that he couldn’t turn on his makers. The effectiveness of his abilities decreased in direct proportion to the amount of Setti DNA a hybrid had incorporated into their physiology. Suspicion rolled through his consciousness like distant thunder. Nothing about Noretta added up. She look like a homeless waif but acted like a seasoned general. Which was the true Noretta?