by Laura Taylor
“John! Med kit!”
“John can’t shift,” Andre said quietly, from where he was shining a light in Tank’s eyes and assessing his reflexes. “He was injured.”
That got Baron’s attention. It was hardly surprising that some of the Den had been hurt, but if John was flat out refusing to shift? Generally that meant the injury he’d sustained as a human was life-threatening. Baron felt his heart lurch in his chest. “What happened?”
“Mad scientist threw acid over him. He’s going to need a cold shower to wash it off, and I’d strongly suggest you get him under the water before he shifts. Either way, he’s going to have some nasty burns.”
“Fuck…” He looked over at John, locking eyes with ones that were almost as familiar as his own, and the wolf just stared back at him stoically.
“We’ll get you fixed up at the house.” It was a completely unnecessary statement – of course they would. What the hell else were they going to do? But he needed to say it, to let John know he hadn’t been forgotten. Crazy boy was unpredictable that way, sometimes wanting to be left alone, other times throwing tantrums if he was ignored.
Baron quickly released him from his armour, then reached for the med kit himself, taking out antiseptic, wound dressings, and a bottle of local anaesthetic.
“Hold on!” Heron yelled from the driver’s seat, and they all did – all except Tank, but Andre anticipated his lack of response and held him steady as the tyres squealed and the van fishtailed as it flew around a corner. The motor revved, throwing them all backwards as the vehicle shot forward, then around another corner.
“I think we’ve lost them. But I’m going to take the long way home, just in case.”
“Home,” Tank said suddenly, blinking at Andre with a frown, then turning to see Baron leaning against the seat beside him.
“We’re going home, buddy,” Baron told him, putting a gentle hand on his shoulder. “Hang in there. We’re taking you home.”
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
The van Mark was travelling in was the first one back to the estate. The manor was dark – they’d left before nightfall, and no one was left inside to turn on the lights. It was both heartening and eerie. Heartening, because the entire Den had pulled together to rescue one of their own, and succeeded, with a few injuries, but no fatalities. And eerie, because for as long as he’d lived here, Mark couldn’t remember a single night when he’d seen the place looking so deserted. This was home, the only one he’d had in a very long time, and he felt a lump in his throat as the reality of the day hit him. He was a traitor to Il Trosa, and might very well be put down because of it.
Gabrielle was still out cold, and Alistair stopped the van directly in front of the manor. “Help me get her out,” Caroline barked, throwing open the door. The three women gently manoeuvred the girl out the door, Caroline taking her in her arms to carry her into the house. “Alistair, tell Baron we’re plus one the second he gets back. This one’s going to be messy.” Alistair nodded once, then eased the van down the driveway to the garage.
Dee, Raniesha and Mark followed Caroline through the house and down into the cage room, turning on lights as they went, which made the house seem more welcoming, but no less empty. Caroline placed Gabrielle on a cot in one of the cages. “Raniesha, you stay with her. I need to head up and debrief whoever arrives back. And Dee, go get your wound treated properly, then get some sleep. Mark?”
Mark nodded, expecting the inevitable.
“Into the cage,” Caroline said shortly, pointing to the one beside Gabrielle’s.
Mark didn’t argue. In Baron’s absence, Caroline was in charge, and as things stood, he was a criminal. Jail time was entirely appropriate. “Could someone bring me a change of clothes?” he asked, heading into the cell and shutting the door behind himself. His current set was splattered with blood, and besides being uncomfortable as hell, he didn’t think Gabrielle would appreciate the sight when she woke up. He didn’t even bother suggesting that he go get them himself before being locked in the cage. The answer would have been no.
“I’ll send some down,” Caroline said, her voice gentling just a touch. Then she gave him a long look… and strode away. Dee gave him a hopeful, worried gaze, and fell in behind Caroline.
The chaos just wasn’t going to stop, Baron thought, as Heron pulled the van up in front of the manor. They were the last ones back, the other three vans already parked in the garage, and before he and Andre even had Tank out of the van, there was a line-up waiting to talk to him. Caroline was front and centre, but she took one look at Tank and apparently decided to make her report quick. “We’ve got a new shifter in the basement,” she said shortly. “A girl we took from the lab. She’s contained for now, but she’ll need attention sooner rather than later.” With that simple declaration, she stalked away, leaving him to manhandle Tank across the driveway.
Skip was next. “Radio silence from the Noturatii,” she reported. “Two vans were tailed, but lost their pursuers, the lab blew up in a big, pretty bonfire once we were out, and so far there’s been no reaction from any international division. There will be, but it looks like it’s going to take a day or two for them to regroup. So yay, we kicked arse.” With a girlish bounce, she dashed off into the house, probably to go back to monitoring her computer feeds.
Caleb was the last one, with an injury report. He was clearly taking his position as 2IC seriously until Tank was back in the game. “Plenty of injuries, five serious, but none fatal. Nate’s going to be out of action for a while. George is treating the injured in the kitchen. I’ve put a list on your desk. Is there anything you need?”
“Hold the fucking door,” Baron ordered, guiding Tank to stagger up the stairs into the house, Andre supporting him on his other side. “And put some blankets on the sitting room couch. Tank’s not going to make it up the stairs tonight.”
“On it, boss.” Caleb dashed away, while Baron steered Tank in a slow shuffle across the foyer.
Half an hour later, Andre sat in an armchair, watching Tank sleep. The assault on the Noturatii lab had been tense, fraught with potential disaster, and he’d been impressed with the depth of Baron’s planning. And even more impressed with the smoothness with which the entire operation had been carried out. Injuries had been inevitable, and casualties very likely, but they’d come out the other end with no one killed. It made Andre’s job of reporting the entire incident to the Council far more pleasant than if he’d had to report a failed assault or a list of fatalities. The entire Den had been a credit to their species, with intensive training and strict discipline coming together to deal a significant blow to their enemies.
And now Tank was resting, his injuries treated, his mind soothed by Andre’s peculiar talent for hypnosis, and Caleb was watching over him with all the attentiveness of a mother hen.
Caleb glanced at Andre. “You want to go take a shower?” he asked. Both of them were still splattered with blood – a minor inconvenience, given the stakes of the battle, but a change of clothes would be nice, nonetheless. And the brief respite would give Andre the chance to check in with the Council, not just to report on the battle, but to give them the unfortunate news on Mark’s betrayal and update them on Dee’s status as Fenrae-Ul. They were not going to be pleased about that one.
“Call me if you need anything,” Andre said in a tone that would brook no dissent, before he let himself out of the room, heading for his quarters.
At the top of the stairs, he passed George’s room – silence from inside as he was presumably asleep – then Silas’s room, hearing faint swearing from beyond the door. The man was probably having his wound treated again, though Andre doubted the foul language was the result of pain. Silas was too stoic for that. More likely he was pissed off at whatever fuss was being made over him and trying to shoo his nurse out of the room.
Baron and John had headed upstairs a while ago, after Tank had been settled on the couch, so that Baron could treat John’s acid burns, and Andre passed thei
r door next.
He stopped as he heard yelling from inside. Before coming here, he’d been briefed that Baron and John were in a sexual relationship, and he’d taken the information at face value, thinking nothing more of it. Now, though, he caught a few choice words through the door, and stopped to wonder just what the nature of their relationship was-
The door burst open and John leapt out into the hallway, naked aside from the bandages on his arms, an angry red burn on his right leg stretching from ankle to groin, and a look of panic on his face.
“You keep your hands off me, you mother-fucking dog shit!”
Baron appeared in the doorway, looking tired and fed up. “Go back inside, John.”
“You stay away from me!”
Andre looked from one to the other. Baron spared him a brief glance, while John seemed totally oblivious to his presence. “John,” Baron said, as if talking to a child throwing a tantrum. “I need to treat your burn. Your leg is injured. Go back inside.”
“Uh…” Andre wondered if he should intervene. And if so, what the hell was he supposed to do? Baron was right, John needed the wound treated, but the younger man was reacting like Baron had just tried to rape him. “John?”
John’s eyes swung round, seeing Andre standing there. He swung back to Baron with bared teeth. “Oh, so you’re going to get your lackeys to hold me down again? You sick fuck!”
Andre opened his mouth to protest the accusation – just what the hell was going on here? But without warning, Caroline appeared at his elbow. “Could I see you in your room?” she asked brusquely, and when Andre didn’t move, she actually reached out and grabbed his wrist to pull him along. It took all of Andre’s will power to not retaliate, perhaps twisting her arm behind her back and pinning her to a wall, or perhaps kicking her legs from under her and toppling her to the floor. No one had dared touch him in so forceful a manner in years, and he stopped dead in his tracks, his greater weight and strength pulling Caroline up short.
“John?” he tried again. “You okay?”
“Leave them alone,” Caroline said abruptly. “I need to see you in your room. Now.”
Okay, so Andre might be out of the loop here, but he wasn’t an idiot. Clearly there was more going on than met the eye, and if Caroline was on board with it as well as Baron… He could at least spare her the time to explain. Ignoring John and Baron’s ongoing argument, he followed Caroline down the hall to his own room.
Once inside, he turned to Caroline with folded arms, not at all happy about lacking what was apparently important information. He’d expected a swift explanation, Caroline not the type to waste time with idle chit chat, but once the door was closed, she seemed suddenly lost for words.
“Well?”
She chewed on her lip, apparently thinking things over. “What have you been told about John?”
Before coming here, Andre had been given a dossier on each of the Den’s members – details of their background, their conversion, any known physical or psychological issues they might have. But John’s file had been all but empty. And the lack of detail was more telling than a thousand idle platitudes could ever have been.
“Nothing. His information is all on a need-to-know basis. And apparently I don’t qualify.”
Caroline looked momentarily surprised by the news. “Ah.” And now she was obviously reconsidering telling him whatever it was she had been going to say. “Look, they’re complicated-”
“If Baron is abusing a member of his Den-”
“John can get a little out of control. Baron keeps him in line. The alternative was putting John down, and we agreed a while ago that that wasn’t the best option. It was a decision with the full support of the Council.”
A serious issue, then, and one they hadn’t bothered briefing him on. But then again, he hadn’t come here to deal with Baron and John. He’d been sent to assess Dee, nothing more.
“It’s not comfortable for the rest of us, but it’s important that you leave them to themselves.”
Andre waited a moment for more information, then realised it wasn’t coming. “I will have to report this to the Council,” he said. He was a touch more annoyed when Caroline merely shrugged.
“As you see fit. But I doubt they’ll have anything more to say about it than I already have.”
Melissa sat in the Noturatii’s medical bay in their headquarters in east London. Though larger than the laboratory complex that had been destroyed earlier, this base was far less equipped for scientific endeavours, and Melissa was distraught over all the equipment that had been lost and the data that had been destroyed. Some of it, of course, had been uploaded to the Noturatii’s central database, but their most recent experiments on the test subjects had been lost. Months of work down the drain because of those damnable creatures.
Melissa flinched as the doctor placed another careful stitch in her leg. After a hefty dose of local anaesthetic, removing the bullet had gone fairly smoothly, but the amount of blood all over the place had left her pale and trembling – not from blood loss, but from a strange kind of terror over her own injuries. She’d never been shot before...
Melissa fixed her eyes on the far wall and tried to ignore what was happening to her leg. The focus of this base, likely her new post, was a split between recruitment, fundraising and media control, the administrative backbone of the Noturatii’s British presence, with another base on the south coast dedicated to training new recruits and security personnel, and a third in Liverpool which served largely as a weapons development and storage facility.
After she’d been shot, Miller had hauled her arse out of the hallway and down through the emergency escape tunnels. Not many of the staff had escaped, most of the scientists killed in the lab, ninety per cent of the security staff cut down by the shifters, and a handful more killed in the explosion that had totalled the complex just minutes after Miller had got her to safety. The bastards had detonated their explosives after they’d got clear of the place and anyone left inside…
They’d met up with Jacob here, the wily leader having vanished like a ghost in the middle of the fighting, and Melissa had mixed feelings about how quickly he’d abandoned ship. From a purely pragmatic perspective, he’d made the right choice. Jacob was a vital part of their operation, and without him, they’d be floundering for weeks until the international division could send a replacement. With the breakthroughs they’d made in the lab, such a delay was inexcusable.
So she was trying to ignore the feelings of hurt and betrayal that kept playing through her mind. They were more a consequence of his cool greeting when they’d arrived here at headquarters than due to the fact that he’d cut and run in the first place. A sardonically raised eyebrow had been sent her way, along with a curt “Well, I suppose that’s better than nothing,” before she’d been sent to the medical bay, while Miller had received a much warmer welcome. A grin. A warm-toned “I knew I’d hired you for a reason” as his gaze had lingered on the blood stains on Miller’s clothes. Then, when Miller had declared himself fit for duty, he’d been hustled off for a debrief, Melissa forgotten about immediately.
Melissa winced as the doctor tied off the last stitch and began dressing the wound. True, she hadn’t come here for cuddles and warm, fuzzy feelings, but she’d expected a little more concern from her boss when she’d spent the last few months working herself to the bone to try and understand the experiments on the shifters and how to make the next breakthrough for their cause.
The door opened with a thud and Jacob stuck his head in. “Still here?” He glanced at the wound on her leg. “It won’t kill you. Come on, into the office.” And with that, he was gone.
The doctor finished his work and gave her a nod, his persona as cool and disinterested as any of the staff here, and Melissa hopped gingerly to the floor. The wound still stung, but the anaesthetic was still working for the most part, so she ignored the pair of crutches the doctor thrust at her and headed for Jacob’s new office.
Inside, t
he man was at his desk, already typing furiously at his computer. “Well,” he said when he saw her, and then pressed his lips tight together, a sure sign that he was in the foulest of moods. And it was no wonder, Melissa reminded herself, counselling herself not to feel put out. He’d had his entire lab destroyed, lost dozens of his staff, and she was upset that he wasn’t pleased to see her? Grow up, she told herself sharply.
“Phil’s dead,” Jacob said bluntly. “Which is a serious setback, given how much he knew about the conversion process.” Melissa wanted to remind him that she’d worked alongside Phil for the entire operation and knew almost as much as he did. But she held her tongue. Besides, with Phil out of the way, they would be needing a new Head of Science, and she was the most experienced person left from the Conversion Project. “So I’m sending for a new research team from the USA,” Jacob said, stunning her. “Doctor Evans will be leading the team. She’s got over twenty years’ experience in the Noturatii and two degrees from Princeton. I expect you to make her welcome.”
Melissa nearly choked on her own tongue at the news. A new boss. From America. Poker face, she reminded herself, knowing how much Jacob hated theatrics. At least he’d hired a woman, though. The men in the lab had always treated her as a bit of a tag-along, rather than a real partner.
“Yes, sir,” she agreed, since there was no other real option. “How soon until a new facility will be set up?”
“That’s the spirit,” Jacob said sarcastically. “Get right back in the saddle. I’ll send you a report with the full details.”
He turned back to his computer, as clear a dismissal as she was going to get, and Melissa let herself out of the room.
She hesitated a moment, not sure what to do next, and then headed for the offices in the eastern wing. Hopefully she’d be able to find a computer to use and she could review the data they’d managed to save on the latest experiments. New research team aside, seeing the shifters up close and personal, seeing the thing her brother had become, had only strengthened her resolve. The shifters were a blight on humanity and needed to be wiped off the face of the planet.