Page 16 of Dark Gambit: The Play

"Of course. Thankfully, it's close to the surface, so the incision will be minimal."

Eleanor snorted. "I had a plastic surgeon take out the tracker in my arm without an anesthetic, and I only took Motrin for the pain."

Leon arched a brow. "Why did you have a tracker?"

"Everyone working for Simmons had one. Heck, I think that everyone in that damn underground city was implanted with trackers. The only difference was that I knew I had it. The others didn't." She rubbed her arm. "Lucky for me, I turned immortal, so there is no sign of it left. Sofia is not that lucky."

Maybe she was.

Julian's words from before still reverberated through Marcel's cerebrum. What if Sofia was a second-generation hybrid that was fully human? What if he could activate her?

It didn't seem likely, but on the other hand, the Fates were known to weave a complicated tapestry and steer events toward the outcome they were after.

What if this entire brouhaha was about him and Sofia meeting and falling in love?

Marcel stifled a bitter chuckle.

If that was so, the Fates had a twisted sense of humor. They made Sofia both attractive and repulsive to him at the same time. She'd manipulated him, used him, and he'd sworn never to fall victim to those exact two things ever again.

Couldn't they have given her a different character flaw?

Except, unlike the one who had scared him off love for centuries, Sophia hadn't acted in self-interest. She'd been coerced, and she was probably protecting loved ones as well.

Leon got to his feet and walked up to Julian. "Are you sure that's the only tracker on the girl? What if there are more? A tracker the size of a grain of rice can be easily missed."

"I'm sure. After I found it, I double-checked, but I'll look at the slides again if you want."

"Please do. Toven did us a great favor by coming out here to release Sofia's mind, and my job is to make sure that no harm comes to him. We don't want to lead the compeller straight to him."

11

SOFIA

As Sofia rubbed over the spot where Julian had found the tracker, the feeling of violation was even worse than what she'd routinely experienced in Igor's office. At least there she'd been aware of what was being done to her, and even though she would have never agreed to it voluntarily, she kind of understood the need for the compulsion, and if that was the price she had to pay to be allowed out of the compound, she was willing to pay it.

Igor was protecting his people, and he had to make sure that she couldn't reveal the Kra-ell's existence and the location of the compound.

But implanting her with a location device without her knowledge was a different story. It had nothing to do with keeping his people safe, but it had everything to do with his need for control. He had tried to make sure that she could never escape.

The question was how and when he'd gotten the device implanted. He could have made her forget, but there would have been a mark, and the area would have been tender for a while. She would have noticed it.

When the door opened, and Julian walked in with Marcel, Sofia forced her hand away from her thigh. "I don't remember this being done to me. How could that be?"

"The tracker is very small." Julian turned the screen toward her so she could see it. "It could have been injected. Did you receive vaccinations or antibiotic shots?"

"Not in my thigh. They were always done in the arm."

"You might have been compelled to forget," Marcel said. "Usually, that's not how compulsion works, but some compellers have an extra ability that enables them to do that."

"Can Emmett or Eleanor compel memories to be forgotten?"

Marcel shook his head.

"What about Kalugal?"

He nodded. "Kalugal can do that, but he has an extra talent that enables it."

"Then that's how it must have happened to me."