She kissed him, then again, longer.

Even though the hybrids were close by, he could not stop her, he could not break away, it felt too good.

“I’ve loved you so much,” he said. “So much!”

She drew back. Her eyes searched his face. He saw in them a brightness unlike anything he’d ever before seen.

“Mark, you’ve been my life. I’ve died a thousand times up there watching you go into danger. My life, Mark. Damn you, why didn’t you say something? What’s the matter with you?”

She kissed him again, a little wildly. No, more than a little.

More hybrids were joining the first few. They were edging closer, looking to surround.

“Come on,” he said gently. “We’ve got work to do.”

Chapter Seventeen

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

THE TRAITOR

She had not expected to find him alive. Perhaps she had even come to mourn him. But now all of her suspicion and all of her anger were swept away by the anguish of love written in his face. But her love had changed, she knew it immediately. She couldn’t love a—well—a thing. Yet, he was fair to see, with his rocky good looks and the sense of inner brilliance that brought such life to his eyes. But not human brilliance, no. Not human. She thought she could see a subtle difference in the way he moved, also. When she’d met him, his grace as he came across the restaurant had been thrilling. Now that same grace imparted a curious sense of the mechanical.

As she’d ridden behind Kelly, leaving the mayhem of San Francisco, she had understood that the mission she had set herself was now moot. The president wasn’t going to need any evidence gathered by the likes of her to decide what to do. If the White House was still standing, or he was safe in one of his bunkers, he was going to see all of this.

During the attack on the helicopter, she’d thought she could not survive. What had happened was so unexpected and so bizarre that she’d simply sat there waiting for the end, watching the scrabbling metallic legs as they fought to enter the cockpit, and the glaring—dear heaven—human eyes of what appeared to be huge insects, which stared at her with fixed rage.

Ending up like that was unthinkable, but she wasn’t absolutely sure that even suicide could prevent it. This was all about genetic manipulation on a level that had never before been known, and as she followed Mark out of the woods, she felt her passion for him withdrawing further and further into the closed room of her heart.

After talking to Dr. Turner, it had seemed clear that he was a traitor, but seeing Mark and being with him even for these few moments, she was far less sure.