Mating Kendra

by Tianna Xander

  Kendra Mortensen was his match. He could smell it on her. More importantly, he could feel it.

  “Are you ready?” He moved closer. His wolf wanted to rub against her, immediately mark her as his mate. However, his human half knew that the practice would most likely scare her off.

  She was skittish, and for good reason. Kendra had been kidnapped by a lunatic and he’d injected her with a serum that had changed her life forever.

  One step at a time, Tolbert.

  “Are you ready?” Cameron asked as he stuck his head into the cell and looked around. “What’s with that crazy asshole?” He glanced at Kendra and gave her a sheepish grin. “Sorry about the language, ma’am.” He returned his attention to the room. “Yet another compound, and more cells.” He shook his head. “Where is this lunatic getting his funding?”

  “The government—at least he used to get his funding from there. Who knows now? Maybe he spent years skimming off the top just in case he lost the support and wanted to be able to keep his perverted project going. I don’t think he gives a damn about the government anymore. I’m thinking he wants his own shifter army to take over the country, or maybe even the world by himself.”

  “Talk about delusions of grandeur,” Cameron said as he backed up and held the door open for them. “Are we blowing up this place or keeping it?”

  Galen wasn’t sure what Jake’s plans were for the lab, but he knew he never wanted to visit this godforsaken desert ever again. Though his beard still itched, dammit, he refused to scratch it now for fear the woman would think he had fleas.

  “Blow it. I’m sure the asshole doctor has another lab in a more hospitable place that we can appropriate after we chase him out.” He turned to Randy and Jackson as they hurried up. “Speaking of that asshole, Thornton, did you catch him?”

  “No.” Randy shook his head. “He and his hired thug made it out clean again. By the looks of it, they took the hard drives from the office and left through a secret passage. That’s his usual MO.”

  “Well hell, that figures.” Galen stared at the floor and rubbed the back of his neck. “Did we get any useful Intel? I’d like to come away from this with something other than the pretty lady as a prize.”

  “I’m no one’s prize.” Kendra visibly bristled next to him and narrowed her eyes. It was obvious she didn’t like anyone referring to her in such a way. Her outrage made him want to grin, but he did his best to maintain a straight face.

  She was his prize, but he didn’t know if he should voice that opinion or not. Probably not just yet.

  “We think we have a lead to another lab. It was mentioned in some paperwork they left behind. But we’ll have to let Jake’s people look at it and decided on a course of action. We don’t want to overstep our boundaries with the Alpha, especially now that he’s back. We don’t want to send anyone into a trap either,” Randy replied as he tried to hide his grin. He apparently hadn’t missed Kendra’s protest either.

  “Well, then, let’s take our booty and get the hell out of here. These labs give me the fucking creeps.” Cam said as he glanced around the room. “How do those people stay down here day after day, knowing the hell and misery they’re causing these people?”

  “They threaten their families.” Galen moved to block the others’ view as Kendra moved up behind him. He didn’t want any of the team getting any ideas where she was concerned. He planned to claim this curvy beauty for himself. He glanced back at her and smiled.

  “Didn’t you hear me?” Eyes still narrowed, she rested her hands on her hips, exuding attitude. “I don’t care that you’ve come here and rescued me from this madhouse. I am nobody’s prize, mister.”

  “You’re a prize today.” Galen turned and grasping her by the upper arm, guided her toward the exit. “You’re my prize and I intend to keep you.”

  “Excuse me?”

  She squealed and struggled when he pulled her behind him. His wolf was raging at him to get her away from all the unattached males in the lab.

  It demanded that he either get her out of their presence or rip off her clothes and mate her right here in front of the others. The former was a much better choice. Galen had no doubts what would happen if he gave in to the latter, and it wasn’t pretty. He’d seen her expertly trained feet in action and had no desire to be on the receiving end of her ire, thankyouverymuch.

  He’d guess she held either a brown or black belt in whatever martial art style she had studied, and while it wouldn’t help her much while fighting a shifter, it could still hurt like hell if she kicked him in the right spot and he was certain that particular spot would be the first she’d aim at if he pissed her off.

  “Come along, Kendra. It’s time I got you out of here.” He pulled his cell phone from his pocket and called the men they had left behind with the vehicles. Their kind used telepathy when within a mile or so of each other, but any farther than that, and it could be unreliable.

  “Carter, here. Are you ready for extraction?”

  “Yes. We need a ride for everyone. We’ll have to take the lab techs in for questioning. If we don’t have enough room in our vehicles, we’ll have to use one of theirs until we can rent a passenger van or another SUV.”

  “Great. We’re about a mile and a half from the compound. We should be there in about three minutes.”

  “Get your asses moving. It’s over. Just keep an eye out for Doctor Thornton and his thug.” He sighed. “They escaped again.”

  “Figures. The fucking coward.”

  “My thoughts exactly.” Galen said as he studied Kendra consideringly. “Just move it, will you?”

  “On our way, sir.”

  Galen disconnected from the call and stuck the phone back in his pocket. “I apologize in advance, Kendra, but you are awake and I don’t smell any drugs on you, other than the residual odor of morphine that must have worn off hours ago. This is no dream, and it’s no hallucination,” he said, interrupting her as she repeatedly chanted, sober up, Kendra, sober up.

  “This is really happening and you’re not going home.” He grasped her shoulders and stared down into her emerald green eyes. “I’m taking you back to Michigan with me.”

  “To Michigan?” She made a face and tried to pull away. “What the hell is in Michigan besides cold and snow?”

  Galen almost grinned at that. Hadn’t he said something similar about Nevada’s sand and heat? The universe surely had chosen a perfect match for him.

  Her expression turned pensive. “What’s in Michigan that would make me have delusions about it?” Her brow furrowed and Galen sighed.

  “You’re not having delusions.” Still grasping her shoulders, he gave her a gentle shake. “Listen to me, woman. This is not a delusion or, as you more than likely think, a nightmare. This is real. It’s actually happening, and you are going with me to Michigan because that is where we can best help you and keep you safe from the lunatic who abducted you.”

  She glared up at him. “Even if what you’re saying is true, I can’t go with you. I have a class Monday. I’m new at the school and I’ll lose my job if I miss more than a day or two without any notice.”

  “Then you have already lost your position.” He sighed inwardly as he pulled her along next to him even as she continued her struggles.

  “What do you mean, I’ve already lost it?” She stopped struggling for a moment and stared up at him with wide eyes.

  Galen stopped to look down into eyes the color of glittering emeralds. His heart melted a little at her still furrowed brow. “You’ve been in the doctor’s custody a little over four days. This is Tuesday. You’ve missed your last two days of work already and there’s no way we could get you back home before your classes start tomorrow morning.”

  “Four days?” Her gaze darted around the outer compound before finally resting on him again. Kendra looked up at him, her tear-filled eyes searching his for something he couldn’t name. “It’s really been four days?” She shook her head. “No. They picked me up Friday
afternoon during the local high school’s home baseball game. It can’t have been four days. This isn’t happening. This can’t be happening!”

  “How many times must I tell you this is real? Dr. Thornton and probably someone before him has been experimenting on our kind for years. The lunatic has developed a serum to change humans into were-beings.”

  He wanted to shake her a bit to shake some sense into her, but knew she needed his patience now more than she needed his annoyance. Besides, he would never get that rough with a female. A gentle shake to get their attention, maybe, but he would never deliberately harm a woman.

  Reaching up, he stroked her hair back from her face, hoping to give her something real to relate to, something tangible to help her see that what had happened was all-too real.

  “It has to be a hallucination.” She lowered her head, shifting her attention from his eyes to the center of his chest. “People just don’t turn into animals.” She gave a hysterical giggle. “I didn’t—I couldn’t just turn into a dog—like that.” She snapped her fingers. “I’m human. I was born human and I will always be human. Humans can’t do that.”

  Why couldn’t she understand him when he told her about the scientist and his experiments? Why couldn’t the woman come to grips with the fact that this was real, and the doctor’s injection had forever changed her?

  “Believe what you want, Kendra,” he said as he hurried her toward the gate at the edge of the compound. “But it’s the truth. Like it or not, you’re forever changed now. You’re no longer human, and you’re going to Michigan with me. You’ll need someone to help you adjust. Someone who understands what you’re going through. We have that in Michigan. There are other shifters there who have already come to terms with what Dr. Thornton has done to them. They can help you, even if I cannot.”

  Galen wanted to help her. He needed to help her. A part deep inside him needed to see to her safety, her wellbeing. He needed to make her comfortable but how could he do that when the very nature of her problem precluded comfort? When she shifted, she’d feel pain, and lots of it. How could he help her through that when she wouldn’t even listen to him?

  Enlisting the help of others was an abhorrent thought. As her fated mate, helping her, caring for her was his right, his privilege. It was a duty every one of their shifter males gladly took to heart when they found their soul mate.

  But he didn’t know what she had gone through in that asylum Thornton called a lab. Not really.

  Galen had been born a shifter. All he knew was he couldn’t and wouldn’t let this woman out of his sight until he’d gotten her to someone who could relate to her and help her come to terms with what she had become before she did something drastic and irreversible, such as commit suicide.

  If that meant helping her until then, it was his honor. If it meant protecting her, as the man who planned to marry and mate her, it was his right. Last, but certainly not least, if it meant caring for her for the rest of his life, that was Galen’s most fervent hope.

  Chapter Nine

  “If you think I’m just going to follow you to Michigan without a fight, you’re out of your mind.” Kendra jerked out of Galen’s grasp, planted her hands on her hips and glared at him.

  Who did he think he was just proclaiming she would accompany him to some faraway state when she didn’t even know him? She didn’t know how things worked in his world, but things went a lot differently in hers.

  “Do you think I didn’t have a life before all of this? Well, I’ve got news for you, mister. I have a job, a life, to go back to. I can’t just disappear without a trace.”

  It wasn’t as though anyone but her students would miss her. Hell, even some of her students wouldn’t give a damn that she’d disappeared. It wouldn’t surprise her in the least if she found out that a few of the more troubled rich kids in her class had pooled their money and hired the thugs to come kidnap her. What better way to wipe their slate clean if their teacher disappeared before grading their mid-terms?

  Crossing her arms, she up glared at the man before her. No matter what he said, or how tall and good-looking he might be, she wasn’t about to give herself over into someone else’s care. She was an adult, with a college education. She refused to just let a stranger take over her life.

  I don’t care how attractive or sexy the guy is. I’m not following him to Michigan like some lost puppy.

  She almost snorted at that thought. If she were to believe what he and that crazy old man had told her, she was a lost puppy...dog, whatever.

  Galen turned and pinned her with a stare. “By your own admission, you have nothing now. You’ve most likely lost your job because you’ve missed the last two days without calling in and you’ll miss tomorrow as well.” He leaned down, his face coming so close their noses almost touched.

  Kendra tried not to notice his delicious scent and the way his mint-scented breath brushed her cheeks as he spoke.

  “Not to mention the fact that Dr. Thornton already knows where you live. It wouldn’t surprise me a bit if he’s waiting for you to go home so he can snatch you again.”

  Why hadn’t she thought of that? Kendra fisted her hands, wanting nothing more than to strike out at something. What could she do, where could she go if she couldn’t go home?

  She swallowed thickly as she stared up at him. Why did he have to get so close? She fought the urge to lean into him and take a deep breath. He smelled delicious, and she loved the unique aroma that surrounded him. It was a mixture of pine forest, soap and man.

  Even in the middle of the desert, he brought the fresh scent of a pine forest to mind. How did he do that? Shouldn’t he have been hot and sweaty and in need of a shower? Even though it was after dark, she somehow knew he had lain in the sun for most of the day surveilling the compound to monitor the guards’ movements so as to make their incursion more effective.

  Heaving an inner sigh, Kendra had to admit that the arrogant and aggressive stranger was right. She didn’t know how or why that lunatic doctor had searched her out, but he had known her name before she’d been injected. It lent credence to the idea that the doctor already knew where she lived, worked and shopped, for all she knew.

  “Even if that lunatic does know where I live, it doesn’t necessarily mean he’ll try to kidnap me again.”

  Why would anyone think she was worth the trouble? She was frumpy old Kendra, with the too-wide hips and poochy belly that no one had ever wanted to associate with in school.

  It wasn’t any wonder she’d graduated the spring before she’d turned fifteen. With that going for her, it wasn’t surprising that she’d gotten her bachelor’s degree in less than two years and her masters in less than five by testing out of most of her classes.

  “Of course it does, woman!” He stared at her with wide eyes as though he thought her a few bricks short of a full load. “The man is crazy. He’s already lost a good portion of his labs and his test subjects. What makes you think he wouldn’t do almost anything to regain one or two of the people he’s already turned?”

  “How—how many people has he turned?” Kendra brought her hand to her throat, her fingers resting against the side of her neck. The pulsing blood hammered against her fingertips as she peered up at Galen, her eyes wide with concern. She frowned at her question. When had she started believing this kook?

  She glared up at the man who would have her believe that some madman had injected her with a serum that had changed her from human to another species altogether.

  Taking a deep breath, she looked him deep in the eyes. She could see the sincerity, the honesty on his face. If there was one thing Kendra knew how to do, it was spot a liar. This man wasn’t lying. At least he didn’t think he was telling an untruth.

  Great! Just great. Either he’s just as crazy as that barmy bastard who kidnapped me or I really have been injected with something that has changed my DNA and now I’m a shape shifting werewolf from hell.

  “So, what if I go with you to Michigan? What happens
there?” Could they change me back into a human again?

  What was she saying? Was she really considering letting this stranger drag her to Michigan with him?

  “We help you learn to adapt. We teach you how to hide what you are. How to shift on command instead of only when your body demands it and, if you decide to stay, our alpha will see to it that you have a way to support yourself. I would even hazard a bet that he’ll find you a better job than the one you had before.”

  “I doubt that.” Kendra walked over to the gate, threading her fingers through the chain-link fence, and looked out at the cloud of dust heading their way. “Is that your friends coming?”

  They’d said three minutes. Had they only been talking for a minute or so? It seemed like forever, though she supposed it shouldn’t have surprised her.

  “Yes. They’ll be here in a minute. The white SUV is mine.”

  “White, huh?” She turned to Galen, a half-smile on her face as she relaxed and decided to go with the flow, at least until he got her back to civilization where she could escape and head out on her own. “So, what are you then, the proverbial knight in shining armor who rides in on his modern white steed?”

  Chapter Ten

  “Something like that.” Galen quirked one side of his mouth up in a half-smile while he watched the vehicles approach without looking at her.

  He wasn’t sure he agreed with her analogy, but it was as good as any. If it made her feel better to compare him to some chivalrous knight of old, who was he to deny her?

  Even though Galen knew they were so close, the convoy heading toward them almost appeared as though they were moving in slow motion as they drove across the desolate desert road, a dust cloud billowing out behind them.

  “Will you go with me willingly?”

  “And if I don’t?” She still glared up at him as though he were the one who had abducted her four days before.

  “Don’t ask questions you don’t want the answer to, Kendra. I’d rather not lie to you.” Lying was never a good start to any relationship—especially with the one person with whom you had decided to spend the rest of your life.