by Renee Rose
And if he lives—then I still won’t see him?
Does that even make sense? Wouldn’t I be happy he lived and want to savor a few more days, months, or even years with him?
Was I just being stubborn? Yes. My mother always said it would be my downfall. I thought I was choosing what’s best for us, but… I think I made a huge mistake.
For the first time in forever, I have no interest in throwing myself into my research. I’d rather put my head under the covers and cry.
I miss Sam already.
If anything happens to him, I’ll never recover from the heartbreak.
A knock sounds on the door. I give my face another splash and pat it dry. It’s probably Laurie coming by to see if I’m okay.
“Coming,” I call, whipping my hair up in a ponytail. Sam’s mating bite is a shiny red weal against my pale skin. My gut twists. I hope I get to know what it means to be mated to him.
That’s my last thought before I open the door and the Data-X guards shoot me in the chest.
~.~
Sam
Nash and I unload equipment from my van. The drive to Temecula took place in silence, mostly because my lips have forgotten how to move. Not that I’m much of a talker, anyway. And Nash clearly isn’t.
I turn on my comms unit. “Testing. Alpha, do you copy?”
Nash touches his ear piece and nods.
I tuck a gun in the waistband of my jeans. Nash takes two.
There’s no stopping this train now, but if I had it to do over, I’d be back at Laurie’s place, begging Layne’s forgiveness.
She was right. I chose reckless revenge over love.
What kind of idiot am I?
The most I can hope for is to get out of this alive so I can somehow convince her to let me in her life again.
And I don’t know how I’ll do that, but I’m not going to give up until I do.
14
Layne
Lights flash in my face as I come too. My head throbs and my chest feels achy, tight, but I’m not dead. So they didn’t hit me with a real bullet. A tranq gun. Maybe they were expecting Sam.
“Ahh, you’re awake.” A familiar voice, blurry face. Smyth.
Revulsion hits me as it always did. Even when I didn’t know about the atrocities he was committing, I hated his leering mug. Guess my instincts were right about him all along.
I take no satisfaction in this.
“Where am I?” I groan, working my jaw. My mouth feels cottony.
“You don’t recognize it?” He peers around the room. “Of course you wouldn’t. You’ve never been to the base of the Alpha Project.”
The white walls, silver equipment, beeping computers—I’m in a lab. I come awake fast.
“One of the bases,” Smyth corrects himself. “The last one was destroyed by fire some months ago. Your compatriot made sure of it.”
Oh right. They think Sam and I are working together. All the fights and tracking—this was the lab Sam wanted to find. At least he wasn’t with me when the thugs grabbed me.
Not that I’ve forgiven him for leaving.
I lick my lips, trying to work saliva into my mouth. I’m strapped to a gurney of some sort, raised up like a hospital bed.
“I had nothing to do with that,” I say. “But it doesn’t matter. What you’re doing to these shifters, these people. It’s wrong.”
“Oh Layne.” He laughs. “You always wore your heart on your sleeve. Compassion gets in the way of real scientific breakthroughs, you know.” He shakes his head. “No matter. We will rise from the ashes. Ironically enough, you will be the one to lead the way.”
He points, and I crane my neck to see the large pouch of fluid on a stand beside me, green liquid running down the tubes to the needle in my arm.
~.~
Sam
“Alpha, you there? Come in, Alpha.” I crouch in a stairwell after infiltrating Smyth’s lab. “Nash? You there?” Dammit. Nash has gone offline.
“Trouble in paradise?” A familiar voice crackles in my ear.
“Kylie?” I press my finger to the earpiece to confirm.
“Who else knows how to crack this comm?”
“How—” I can’t even believe this.
“Oh Sam, when will you stop underestimating me?”
I just shake my head.
“I see you’re at Smyth’s lab.”
I don’t ask her how she knows that. “Yeah. Gonna take him down. You wanna help?”
“I’m with you, Sam. Every step of the way.”
“All right. See if you can locate Nash. I don’t want him going rogue.”
“On it.” The rush of Kylie’s typing sounds like a waterfall.
I check my weapons and wait. Nash could be hiding from the enemy in a bad signal area.
Of course, it’s totally possible he also saw the enemy and lost control of his lion. In which case, I just hope I wouldn’t end up another dead body.
“No signal on Nash,” Kylie reports.
“Damn it.”
“I have more bad news.” The sharpness in her voice makes me tense. “I just hacked the security cameras at Data-X.”
“Do you see Nash?”
“No,” Kylie’s voice sounds weird. I touch the earpiece, but it’s not the device. It’s her voice, filled with horror. “It’s Layne. Smyth’s got her. Sam, she’s in the lab with you.”
~.~
Layne
“What are you doing?” I twist in my bonds, but they hold fast. Smyth walks around the gurney, smirking.
“What’s the matter, Layne? Scared of becoming part of a research project? I thought the plan was to find a cure for your disease all along.” He gives the IV a playful flick. “This should cure whatever ails you.”
“What is it? What are you giving me?”
“Don’t worry, Layne.” His eyes suddenly shine otherworldly bright. “I’m going to make you better. I’m going to make you more.”
~.~
Sam
Kylie’s words reverberate through me.
“Where?”
“She’s strapped to a bed of some sort. She’s alive.”
Fuck. Forget all my plans. I have to get Layne.
“Did you find a blueprint of this place?”
“No, but I can piece together a route from the security cams. I also have depth readings from a satellite.”
I don’t question further. Jackson and Kylie love buying each other crazy gadgets as gifts. I wouldn’t put it past them to own some sort of black ops satellite.
“I need you to guide me. Tell me how to get to Layne.”
~.~
Layne
“Damn it, Smyth,” I struggle like mad until I’m out of breath. My chest feels bruised.
“Calm down,” Smyth says. “This is happening, whether you like it or not. One day you will thank me.”
His eyes glitter yellow. Just like Sam’s. But the only reason they’d shine like that is…
“You’re a shifter,” I gasp.
“Such a bright girl. Shame to waste such potential. Another reason to hope my little experiment goes well.”
“But…” my mind races. “Why? Why would you do this to your own kind?”
“They are not my kind,” Smyth snaps, leaning over me. “Weak degenerates.” Spittle flies from his mouth.
“That’s not true.” I tug at my hand, wondering if I can pop it through the cuff. Gotta keep the madman talking. “They aren’t weak.”
“Not all of them, Layne. Some of them are worthy. Nash Armstrong, the lion.”
I try to blank my expression but Smyth nods. “I see you’ve heard of Nash. Fine specimen, isn’t he?”
Until you tortured him, I almost mutter, but my former boss is still raving to himself.
“Out of his line, a Master race will be born.”
Why the fuck did I ever go to work for this guy? I always thought he was creepy. I guess I put my research above all. But no longer. Sam was right, and in the few days
I knew him, he gave me the strength to stand up for myself. The new Layne would punch Smyth’s lights out for leering at her.
Smyth is still talking about his “Master race.” Meanwhile, the weird green liquid is running into my veins. I jerk on the cuff until my eyes water with pain. Nothing. Whatever’s in the IV is going in my arm, like it or not. “You’re insane.”
“I’m a genius. A visionary. Like you, Layne. Do you know the whole race of shifters is in danger of dying out? More and more children are born defective. Unable to shift. I’m going to fix all that.”
I shake my head. Someone’s been eating Delusion muffins for breakfast.
“It’s possible, you’ll see. You can help me.”
“Never.”
Smyth smiles. “You already have. Your decoding the DNA was exactly the help I needed. And now you’ll help me with the next phase of the project.”
“No—”
“When the serum takes effect, you won’t have a choice.”
~.~
Sam
“Turn left here. Then right,” Kylie’s instructions keep me moving. Originally, I planned to have more time to explore, hack their data. Find Smyth. Now none of that matters. I have to find Layne.
The power goes out. That was part of the plan. I can only hope Nash is all right.
I turn on my comms unit. “Nash, whatever you’re doing, stand down. They have Layne. I repeat, they have my mate. I have to get her out.”
Generators kick on almost immediately. The hall stays dark, but ahead, light streams out from under a door. The lab.
I hurry as alarms blare. After what happened at the other lab, they probably upgraded the emergency systems to put this place on lock down in the event of a black out. They’re not messing around.
The lab has a window for me to peer in. Layne’s there, strapped to a seat, an IV flowing into her arm.
“I found her,” I tell Kylie.
“Roger that. Mapping escape routes.”
The lab door is locked. Reinforced steel—to keep shifters out. Or in.
Fortunately, I have just what I need to blow the door.
In the smoky aftermath, I storm inside.
“Sam?” Layne’s eyes go wide.
“It’s okay, I’m here,” I rush to her as she cries “No! It’s a trap—”
“Well, well, well, look who it is.” A man steps out from behind the operating room curtain, holding a gun to Layne’s head.
Smyth.
“Stay where you are,” he says, and I stop short as Layne’s face twists in pain. “What the fuck are you doing to her?”
“It’s just a little insurance. A culmination of my life’s work. I knew someone was trying to stop me, Sam. I never thought it would be you.” His gaze flicks over me. “I didn’t think you were strong enough.”
“Let her go.” I snarl. My wolf doesn’t know why I’m not across the room, tearing Smyth’s throat out. The one thing I’ve dreamed of for the past eight years. But I can’t. I can’t harm Layne.
“I’m almost done. If you move, I’ll blow her brains out. These are silver bullets designed to kill a shifter instantly. Imagine what they’ll do to her.”
“Shoot her and you’re dead.”
Layne shakes her head. “Sam, leave me. I’m dying anyway. Go and live.”
“I’m not leaving without you.”
“Isn’t this cute?” Smyth mocks “Sam has a girlfriend. That explains the bite on her shoulder. You marked her. How quaint. It’s such a male thing, isn’t it? We like to mark our territory.”
I tune Smyth out. He likes to talk, I remember that. Beads of sweat stand out on Layne’s forehead. Whatever Smyth is pumping her with is killing her.
“Why did you do this?” I blurt, without taking my eyes off Layne.
“She’s dying anyway. You know about her little disease? Hereditary. Like the shifter gene. That’s what drew me to hire her. I’d never seen someone so dedicated to research.”
“No, I mean why did you do all this?” I jerk my head to take in the whole lab. “Capture shifters, torture them. Breed them.”
“I needed to solve the problem of the defectives. Shifter numbers have dwindled to near extinction, all because of interbreeding with humans. To solve that problem, and create the master race, I needed to decode the DNA of a shifter. That takes a lot of samples. Data. Analysis. Fortunately, I had Layne to do the analysis piece for us.
“Us? Who’s us?”
His lips curl maliciously, but he shakes his head. He’s not naming his conspirators the way criminals so neatly reveal everything at the climax of a TV special.
“As for Layne, I figured we had to kill her anyway. But I do so hate to see a good mind go to waste. As for you, Sam, do you remember this place? You were born here. Must feel like home.”
“This isn’t home.”
“No? You spent more time here than any foster home.”
“You would know. You kept me prisoner.” I stare at Layne, trying to think of a way out. She bites her lip, meeting my gaze. How could she ask me to leave her? Does she know how much I love her?
“I just realized,” Smyth starts up again. I wish I could rip out his throat, just to shut him up. “this place is also your birthright.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
“Oh. You don’t know. Did you ever wonder who your parents were? I selected the finest DNA to create you. You were to be the first of a master race. A bit of a disappointment in the end. But surely you want to know who sired you?”
I suck in a breath.
“You might have guessed.” Smyth cocks his head to the side. “I think on some level, your wolf knew. That’s why it tried as hard as it did in the experiments. That amount of torture, you should’ve died. But you didn’t, you had such a strong will. A shame about your weak body. You’ll never be an alpha or even a beta. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.”
“No,” I breathe. No. “It can’t be.”
Smyth’s eyes flare wolf yellow. “It’s true. I wiped the records, but I can’t deny it, disappointed as I was in you.”
I swallow against the pain in my chest. Smyth’s right. On some level I always knew. That’s why he was the singular focus of my revenge.
“You?” Layne cries. “You sired Sam? And then you tortured him? Your own son?”
“I made him strong. He survived the tests, as you see. Turned into a wolf and ran. And now we’re all here. A nice little reunion. My legacy and his mate.”
I feel sick. My blood is dirty. I’ll never be clean.
“Join me, Sam. Together we can remake our species into what we were meant to be.”
I can’t speak.
“A master race,” Smyth crows. “Soon I’ll have the serum. We can be Alphas, Sam. The world will fall at our feet.”
“That’s it,” Layne says. “That’s why you did this. You’re a shifter who can’t shift.”
Smyth’s face reddens.
“Careful, Layne,” I say. “He holds all the power here.”
She turns her head.
“I love you,” I say. “No matter what happens, remember that.”
“Sam, no,” she jerks her head, and her body follows, spasming.
“Stay where you are,” Smyth waves the gun. I stay frozen, as much as it kills me.
“What’s happening to her?”
Layne convulses on the table. Saliva foams in the corners of her mouth.
“It’s all right. A natural side effect. Her body is undergoing the change.”
Her body arcs as far as it can against the straps holding her in as she gasps for breath.
“What the fuck did you give her?”
The building shakes.
A bomb. Fuck. Nash is still doing his part to bring the place down.
I didn’t give Nash an explosive device. I’m not that much of an idiot. He must have improvised. Crazy lion. I know—pot, kettle.
“Stay where you are,” Smyth snarls, backing up.
I have to do something. I put on a blur of speed almost reach her side when a blast of pain explodes in my chest.
Smyth shoots me.
~.~
Layne
I watch Sam fall. My vision blackens around the edges, I claw my way back to consciousness. Someone is screaming. Me. I snap my mouth closed.
The building shakes again and vials of glass fall.
Smyth grunts next to me, rising from the floor.
“Let her go.” Sam. He’s down, leaning against the fallen desk, face pale. Black blood pours from a wound in his chest, but he’s not dead yet.
Smyth fumbles to reload his gun, heading toward Sam.
Heat blasts through me. My head snaps back, slamming into the gurney so hard I almost black out. My spine arches, body contorting with agony as my ears fill with Sam’s worried shout.
“Layne? Layne!”
~.~
Sam
Something’s wrong. Not with me—bleeding out on the floor is perfectly normal response to getting shot by a silver bullet.
Fuck, my gut hurts. Thank God, Smyth can’t shoot worth a damn. Otherwise I’d already be dead from a bullet in my heart.
Layne’s body goes still. I call her name and her eyes snap open with a bright green light.
“It’s working,” Smyth breathes. He turns, the gun loose in his grip. If I reach for it, I might be able to grab it.
A horrible noise breaks from Layne’s mouth. Wild, inhuman. Her body trembles. The straps holding her tear clean through as an animal rips out of her.
A giant Bengal tiger rears up off the table, and slams into Smyth.
Guess the serum worked.
The tiger roars, drowning out Smyth’s scream. The great cat has her claws deep in Smyth’s chest. I’d wince, if I wasn’t already bleeding out. I know what cat claws feel like.
When she’s done roaring, the only sound in the lab is a gurgle from Smyth’s compressed chest and the drip, drip, drip of blood.