Rise to Fall

by Lynn Hagen

  The deep guttural roar that rumbled through Salvador’s chest was the only warning Freedman got before the vampire’s cock slammed into him and scorching hot liquid flooded his ass, burning Freedman in a sensual wave that made his entire body tremble.

  He didn’t even mind the claws digging into his hips.

  Chapter Thirteen

  “Is that all you have?” Miguel challenged as he stood in the backyard. “My dead cat can hit harder than you.”

  Dorian narrowed his eyes, pulled back his muzzle, and charged Miguel. The changeling moved so fast that Dorian hit air and fell on his face.

  “Guns are fine, Dorian. But there are going to be times when teeth and claws are needed. Get up and show me you know how to take an enemy down.”

  Temper flaring, Dorian sprung from the ground and went after Miguel again. This time he anticipated what the man was going to do and changed course, tackling the guy. He clamped his teeth down on Miguel’s throat, but didn’t use any pressure.

  “Uncle!” Miguel shouted and then laughed. “About damn time.”

  Dorian pushed away and stood. Miguel was in his human form, Dorian in his werewolf form, and the man had still given Dorian a run for his money. He had to admit, being a changeling wasn’t half bad. He had protested from the start that he wanted to remain human. If he hadn’t been speared to the wall, he would have.

  But Dorian knew Rick had no choice. It was the only way to save him. Thank fuck he wasn’t converted into a vampire, although he needed to drink blood.

  Dorian was still trying to get used to that. He shivered in repulsion as Benito took Miguel’s place. He was in his human form, giving Dorian a big, goofy grin. “Come on, juvenile. Let’s see what you got.”

  Narrowing his eyes, Dorian rushed the smart-mouthed man. He was stunned when he tackled Benito on the first attempt. But his victory was short lived. Benito had his claws out, pressing into Dorian’s gut, his teeth attached to Dorian’s throat.

  Fuck.

  Benito eased back. “I just showed you that even though you took me down, I can still do some pretty serious damage to you. Don’t underestimate your enemy, Dorian. I may be a little on the short side, but that only gives me better agility.”

  Dorian wanted to knock his head into a wall. This was so damn frustrating. He thought once he was converted, this shit would come naturally.

  It hadn’t.

  Dorian had learned that even changelings needed to learn how to use their teeth and claws. But changelings learned at a young age. Dorian had a lot of catching up to do. Miguel and Benito had been fighting in their shifted form for years.

  Dorian hadn’t.

  “Now comes the hard lesson.” Benito held his palm out, and to Dorian’s horror, extended a claw and sliced his palm open. The coppery scent of blood filled his lungs and Dorian almost forgot how to breathe. He wanted to chase Benito down and eat him. He wanted to lick the wound and then feast on the man’s soft underbelly, eating the man’s organs.

  Dorian paused in thought, feeling as if he were going to be sick at what he had just thought, but the blood made him forget the grotesque thought. The blood made him forget his human side.

  Crouching, Dorian snapped his teeth at Benito, seeing only prey in front of him.

  “Clear your mind, gatito,” Rick instructed from the side of the porch where he had been standing and watching the lessons. “Don’t let the need overwhelm you. You have to learn to think past the hunger.”

  Dorian pushed from the ground with his feet and was on Benito in seconds, taking the man down and biting at his hand. Strong arms wrapped around him, pulling him away, but Dorian struggled to get free, to taste, to bite, and to eat that which bled.

  Rick pulled Dorian further away, his strength unparalleled. Dorian couldn’t break the hold and Rick looked as if he wasn’t breaking a sweat as he held a wrestling werewolf changeling.

  “You’re still becoming accustomed to this life, Dorian. You’ll learn. Sometimes it’s still hard even for an alpha to resist the scent of blood.”

  Dorian wasn’t listening. He was gnashing his jaws and still trying to get to Benito.

  “I think you need to seal that wound,” Rick advised, “before Dorian eats you.”

  “Sure, now he learns how to attack.” Benito rolled his eyes as he licked at his hand.

  Dorian whimpered.

  Rick chuckled. “Take a deep breath, gatito. The lingering scent is almost gone.”

  It was true. Dorian’s mouth was no longer watering and the urge to eat Benito was fading. Okay, this part of being changeling was not cool in the least. Dorian shivered thinking about eating the man. It was gross as hell.

  “Trust me,” Rick said as he pressed his lips to Dorian’s ear. “It may seem gross, but once you taste the blood for the first time…” He trailed off, leaving the details to Dorian’s imagination.

  “I don’t want to eat anyone,” he admitted.

  “We never do.” Rick released him, taking a step back. “Shift so we can get ready to head out.”

  Dorian narrowed his eyes at Rick. The man was messing with him. Rick knew damn well Dorian was not going to be naked in front of Miguel and Benito.

  “Prude,” Rick teased as Dorian made his way into the house to get dressed. As Dorian walked through the door, he flipped Rick off over his shoulder.

  Rick laughed harder.

  Dorian not only made it to their bedroom and shifted, but he dressed and then made sure he gathered their belongings so they could get going. He was nervous as hell to be heading to one of Sellers’s labs. True, the place wasn’t a detention center, but there were experiments going on. That made the lab an ominous place.

  As he set the duffel bags on the bed, Dorian felt that niggling inside of him. That feeling that had started to take root ever since he his encounter with the Death Squad at the first detention center. He still felt like a coward, even though he was a changeling now.

  And that shocked him. Dorian would have thought the feeling would have gone away by now, but it hadn’t. He also had put off thinking about what was going on with him now. He didn’t know the wolf inside of him, and now he was one of the hunted.

  Sitting on the edge of the bed, Dorian ran his hand down his face. Realization dawned on him that he was fine with fighting next to Rick, as a human, because he knew he was human. Now that he was changeling, a suffocating feeling began to settle in his chest. He was a part of a hunted species now.

  His stomach knotted.

  This was how changelings felt. This was how his Rebellion group felt. Dorian was terrified someone would check his blood and find out he wasn’t human. He was terrified of being hauled off and experimented on.

  How in the fuck could the changelings live like this?

  “Panic was not something I expected so soon,” Rick said as he leaned against the doorframe. “The scent is thick in the air.”

  Dorian glanced at his mate and knew beyond doubt that he would die to protect the man. Enrique Marcelo had picked up the torch and led the way to a Rebellion that was soon going to spill on the front steps of the White House. “How can you be so…brave in all of this?” Dorian asked. “Why did you agree to lead the uprising? You could have just taken off and went into hiding. How can you smile or laugh when you know humans are hunting you down?”

  Rick moved into the room and took a seat next to Dorian. His light-grey eyes held years of wisdom Dorian had never noticed before.

  “You’re feeling that fear inside of you about being changeling and hunted down, aren’t you?”

  Dorian felt like crap for admitting the truth, since Rick had been changeling his entire life and was very familiar with this hunted feeling. “Yeah.”

  “Remember that feeling, Dorian. That fear is what makes us fight. Humans aren’t afraid of leaving their home or going to work. I want that same privilege. I want to be able to walk from the grocery store to my car without wondering if someone discovered I’m changeling and has their sight trai
ned at my head from a distance, ready to take me out just for being different. The color of our skin, the species that we are, or gender—none of those should matter when it comes to judging a person’s character. Being different is what makes us all unique.”

  “Or hunted.”

  Rick nodded. “Or hunted.”

  “Ever since I couldn’t protect Trisha and Peanut, I’ve felt like a damn coward.”

  Rick slid an arm around Dorian’s shoulder, pulling him close to Rick’s warm and strong chest. “I know.”

  “You’re not going to give me a speech about that?” Dorian asked.

  “We’ve already talked about it, gatito.”

  Yeah, they had.

  Dorian sighed. “We need to get going.”

  Rick leaned down and kissed Dorian’s temple before turning and grabbing a duffle bag. “Let’s start packing the trucks.”

  Dorian watched Rick leave the room and wished he had half the man’s courage. He wasn’t feeling sorry for himself. Not in the least. Dorian was just recognizing his strengths and weaknesses.

  Grabbing the other duffle bag, he walked from the bedroom and closed the door behind him.

  Omar glanced at the bed Salvador was fast asleep on. “I don’t feel right leaving him here. What if someone breaks in and opens the curtains?” Omar felt his skin flush when he thought about the sex he had just had with these two gorgeous men. He couldn’t believe he had gone through with it.

  His parents would be mortified if they ever found out Omar had had what amounted to an orgy in their eyes—and with a human and a vampire. They would probably disown Omar.

  Did he honestly care?

  No.

  Was he feeling the morning-after awkwardness?

  Yes.

  Being with Freedman and Salvador was actually a little liberating. It was as if the blanket of parental control had been lifted off of him and tossed aside. His parents weren’t around to dictate to him how his life should go or what he needed to accomplish in order to be not only socially accepted, but a winning scholar.

  He almost felt giddy with his liberation.

  Omar hated being an intellectual.

  He hadn’t wanted to go to those boring parties. He had wanted to hang out and have fun, something any young twenty-year-old would want to do. Omar had wanted to shrug off his responsibilities and boogey his butt off at some damn nightclub, not attend all those tedious, mind-numbing functions and listen to the people around him brag about what they had accomplished or what they had planned to accomplish.

  He hadn’t given a rat’s ass about any of that.

  “I secured the curtains so they are hard to pull apart, and I set traps throughout this house just in case someone does break in.”

  Omar snapped his head up, forgetting that Freedman was even there. “What about the owners? You can’t booby-trap their house.”

  “It’s nothing lethal,” Freedman reassured him. “But I had a choice to make. Keep Salvador safe or render whoever walked inside the house helpless.” Freedman shrugged. “I choose Salvador.”

  Omar wanted to argue the ethics of hurting the people helping them, but knew Freedman was right. If there was a choice to be made, Salvador came first. He still didn’t like it though. Freedman headed toward the bedroom door and Omar followed. He gave one last glance to Salvador’s sleeping form and then stepped out into the hallway.

  Freedman closed the bedroom door, and then fixed a thin wire around the frame of the door and then over the handle. The wire was so thin that it was transparent. “What is that for?”

  “It’s a little gift just in case anyone gets past the other traps. They’ll wish they stayed at home if they open this door.”

  Omar frowned. “What if it’s Salvador who opens the door?”

  Freedman grinned at him, and the smile was filled with a mischievousness that made Omar’s stomach knot. “Then he’ll be paid back for poking around in my head uninvited.”

  “You can’t do that,” Omar said heatedly.

  “I’m just kidding,” Freedman said. “I left Salvador a note and told him to go out the bedroom window if he didn’t want to be knocked out cold.”

  “Oh.”

  “Come on, everyone is probably waiting on us.”

  Omar glanced at the door and had an urge to open it just to see what would happen. Deciding that wasn’t the best idea, he pivoted around and then remembered that Freedman had said he booby-trapped the house. He was afraid to take a step.

  “I’ll walk you through the house,” Freedman said and surprised Omar by grabbing his hand and leading the way. Before Omar’s capture, Freedman had been this tough-as-nails soldier who was quiet and deadly.

  This was a side he never thought the man possessed.

  Once they navigated through the house and made it downstairs, Freedman walked them to the truck.

  “Ready?” Rick asked.

  Omar stood there and watched the playfulness bleed from Freedman’s eyes, replaced with the hard-ass soldier Omar remembered. Freedman gave Rick an inflexible glint and a short nod of the head, his jaw tight. “The trap is set and we’re ready to go.”

  Boy, talk about a one-eighty turn.

  Omar shook his head as he crawled into the truck. He wasn’t going to try and figure the man out. He had enough going on inside his own noggin—like trying to figure out just how many breeds he had camped out inside of him.

  Omar’s head snapped up when Rick shoved Dorian into the truck and slammed the door closed. He wasn’t sure what was going on, but Dorian’s eyes were glowing. Looking over his shoulder, Omar saw a car pull into the driveway.

  Nobody should know the Rebellion group was there.

  The driver’s door opened and Corrigan got out, glancing at the group. Omar slipped from the truck. He hadn’t seen the guy since the rescue on the first detention center. Why was he here and how did he know where they were?

  “Corrigan?” Freedman said. “How did you know we were here?”

  Omar’s balls clenched when he saw the look in Corrigan’s eyes. This was not going to be good.

  “They killed Jordison.”

  “How?” Freedman asked. “What happened?” He began to walk toward Corrigan, but Omar grabbed Freedman’s arm and pulled him back.

  “Something isn’t right,” Omar whispered. Corrigan’s body language was all wrong. The man had just lost a good friend of his, yet in Omar’s opinion, the guy didn’t seem too distraught. He had stated Jordison’s death a little casually.

  Either the man was numb, or a very bad actor. Omar had a feeling Corrigan wasn’t numb. “What did you do?” Omar asked, placing himself in front of Freedman. There was something in the man’s eyes, something unsaid.

  “What do you mean?” Corrigan asked, sounding offended. “They killed Jordison!”

  “Who is they?” Rick asked, moving toward the door of the truck where Dorian was sitting. Omar was glad no one looked at him like he was crazy for not believing the man. He wouldn’t have been able to explain how he knew. It was just a gut feeling.

  “Mercenaries!” Corrigan shouted. “They tortured him for weeks!”

  The hairs on the back of his neck stood. If Jordison was tortured for weeks, why didn’t Corrigan look roughed up? Why hadn’t he contacted Freedman before this? And how did the man know where they were? Omar looked around and lost all the air in his lungs when mercenaries came walking out from between houses, from the cover of the graveyard, and trucks began to pull down the street, blocking them in.

  There were so many of them that Omar knew they weren’t going to escape.

  “You betrayed us?” Freedman asked with a mixture of astonishment and rage. “How the fuck could you do something like that? I thought we were friends. I thought you hated what the government was doing just as much as we did?”

  Corrigan curled his lip. “But hating what the government is doing doesn’t pay the bills.”

  Everything happened at once.

  Benito pulled h
is gun from the holster around his shoulder and shot Corrigan between the eyes. The mercenaries shot over their heads in warning, and a van pulled in front of the house. Omar was readying to fight—even though he wasn’t the best fighter, but one of the mercenaries snuck up and grabbed Selene, holding a gun to her head.

  “Get in the van, all of you,” the man said as he pulled Selene away from the Rebellion group. “Or I’m going to paint the sidewalk with her brains.” The man licked the side of Selene’s face, pressing the gun harder into her temple when Selene elbowed him with a growl. “Or maybe I’ll take her inside and have fun with her.”

  “Be very careful of what you say,” Sasha said as he stepped forward. “And be damn careful of what you do. Trust me, I will find you when we get free, and I’m going to slice you open and let the changelings eat your fucking entrails.”

  The man laughed. “You aren’t getting free, cat. You’re going to the detention center.”

  Omar gasped as so many guns were pointed at them that he knew they were fucked. And so was he when Dr. Formente got ahold of him. The scientist was probably steaming mad his project escaped.

  There was a distinct sound of a shotgun being pumped. He turned to see one of the mercenaries moving just a little closer. “Get out of the truck.”

  Rick spun, growling low. “Stay away from him.”

  The changeling raised the shotgun and aimed it at Miguel. “Everyone, in the van, now!”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Rick could not believe that after all this time they were caught. He had to find a way out of this. Dying in the detention center was not something he was going to do. Letting any of his Rebellion group die in here wasn’t an option either.

  He just currently had no clue how to get them out of this fucked-up situation. The van was driving past a guards’ station, heading straight for the place. He knew they should have come back and blown this place sky-high. Rick had planned on doing just that after they hit the labs.

  It looked like someone was rearranging his schedule. Glancing over at Dorian, Rick prayed his mate didn’t shift. Dorian seemed to be holding it together pretty well, but he could see the fear in the man’s Peruvian-brown eyes.