Cravings (Fierce Hearts)

by Crandall, Lynn

  They approached the building in separate groups from different directions. Asher led his team around back, searching for places to climb. He spotted a place where two protruding walls hid utility poles and cables. Small, overhanging design walls jutted from the side like large stairs. He pointed. “That should work.” His breath formed in small clouds in the brisk air.

  A loud banging erupted from outside the front of the building. Asher trained his hearing to the sound, teasing apart the bang from other sounds. Casey and the others were banging hard on the front door. He heard voices yelling and Casey’s voice demanding to see the head researcher. This was the distraction Casey had planned.

  He gestured for Tizzy to lead. She sprinted up to the building then leaped to the top ledge effortlessly. She turned back to them, motioning for them to begin climbing.

  Though Tizzy’s leap was amazing to him, Asher knew he and Conrad were highly capable of making short work of the climb. All were-lynxes would be, thanks to their natural agility and strength.

  First Asher, then Conrad, crept up the side, hugging the wall to prevent detection. They reached Tizzy at the moment she successfully picked a lock on the utility door to the roof. She pulled the door ajar just enough to allow each of them to pass through individually.

  Stairs down opened to a hallway. It stood empty at that moment, so they quickly threaded their way through adjoining hallways in search of the surgical floor’s location.

  Voices coming close sent them down another flight of stairs. A sign on the third floor wall stood out in bold letters, Main Surgical Floor. Asher led them through the door and in search of Kennedy.

  His nostrils flared as he picked up scents—medicinal, mechanical, and human. He flexed his muscles as he also picked up the scents of were-cats. The cloud of scents presented in a jumble not distinct enough to identify.

  But he wanted to pick up Kennedy’s scent. Frustration burbled through him, pushing him to keep searching. If he didn’t constrain his throbbing need to find her, he might do something strategically damaging.

  Asher shook his head, refocusing. He could use this powerful need. Focus it and let it intensify his senses for one purpose. To find Kennedy.

  Sounds erupted from back where they had just come. “Go,” he ordered Conrad and Tizzy. “I’ll find Kennedy. You see if the others need your help.”

  He didn’t have to repeat his orders. Conrad and Tizzy raced down the hall the opposite direction from him and rounded the corner. He put them all out of his mind and raised his nose to filter scents.

  He took a few steps forward, and then his heart squeezed. He’d found her scent. It was subtle, but it was hers. His nerves ringing in his ears, he stepped quietly and slowly down the hall, following Kennedy’s scent.

  Chapter Twelve

  “Where is Dr. Benton?” Kennedy’s mother clenched her teeth and sputtered. “He’s late.”

  Kennedy lay flat on the surgical bed, listening to her mother’s griping. It turned her stomach.

  “It won’t be long now, Kennedy. All I’ve given you, everything I’ve done for you, has been for this moment.”

  The sedative she’d been given was showing signs of wearing off, thanks to the escalated metabolism of her were-cat physiology. Kennedy could pull reasonable thoughts through the fog in her head. She voluntarily submitted to her mother’s will for the sake of protecting her brother’s colony. Images of Asher’s clear yellow eyes gleaming back at her made her breath catch. His sparkling attitude and his lazy grin made her heart hurt. She did this for him. But she probably would never see that face again. And if she did, she likely wouldn’t recognize him as a friend, thanks to her mother’s plans.

  “You didn’t do anything for me.” The words off her tongue were crisp, direct.

  Her mother scoffed. “You ungrateful little bitch.” Her mother’s look was wild-eyed. “You should be thanking me. I’ve trained you to help The Nexus Group repower the world, starting right here in Laurelwood.”

  “Really.” Kennedy didn’t try to hide the sarcasm in her voice. Noises came from somewhere inside the building. Roaring and growling that made her skin dimple. It didn’t sound inviting.

  But her mother ignored it. “Yes, really. You’ll first become a respected aide to Senator Daren Sage. With your special talents, you’ll help him position for the vice presidency.”

  “My special talents? To what are you referring?” Subdued rage began pumping through her veins.

  “You’ll see. After you have the implant, it will all make sense to you.” Her mother smiled down at her. “You’ll help Daren eliminate his opponents. You’ll use your computer skills to help him gain control of financial sectors of the city. You’ll do that and more. And it will bring you prestige and happiness.”

  “I won’t do it. I won’t do anything you demand of me.” She could see clearer now. This woman and her husband and all the crazy people in The Nexus Group were wrong. Wrong about her and all the things they felt entitled to.

  “Oh, but you will. After the implant is inside you, the first time you shimmer it will activate. There will be no going back after that.” Her mother grinned a smug expression that raised reason in Kennedy’s body. She did not belong with these people.

  The door slammed open, and Kathryn’s eyes went wide. “You!”

  Kennedy craned to see who’d entered the room. It was Asher. Beautiful, determined Asher. Hope pierced the terror in her body, replacing it with will to survive on her own terms. But fear for him made her strain against the bindings on her legs and arms. “Be careful!” He traded a long look with Kennedy.

  “Yes, it’s me, Kathryn. Let Kennedy go,” he demanded, punctuating with a rolling growl.

  Kathryn grabbed a scalpel from the surgical tools lying nearby and ran at him. Asher dodged her pass at him and countered with a punch.

  Kathryn burst out laughing, still holding the knife. “Why should I let her go? Because you want her? You don’t deserve her. She’s mine. And she has important things to do. You, Asher, will not last the day. Kennedy will go down in history as a woman who helped The Nexus Group reshape the world.”

  “Hmm. Interesting. Do you want that, Kennedy?”

  “I do not.” She would hug him right now if she weren’t shackled to the bed.

  Kennedy saw her mother dash for a small alarm button on the wall, sending hope plummeting.

  In a flash, Asher jumped at Kathryn, knocking her to her knees. “I have had enough of you!” He punched her in the face; the sound of his fist smashing into her head echoed in the room. She slumped to the floor, unconscious.

  He raced back to Kennedy. “Let’s get out of here, love.” He released her shackles.

  Kennedy tried to swing her legs around to climb off the table, but the room started swimming, and her body tilted weakly.

  “Whoa.” Asher caught her and lifted her in his arms. “Lean your head against me. I’m going to get you out of here.”

  “No, I can manage.” Sounds from down the hall grabbed her attention. “That sounds like fighting. Put me down.”

  “I’ll set you on your feet, but I want to make sure you’re stable. He looked into her eyes and seemed to see inside her head. The clear, piercing eyes saw her. She drew strength from him.

  She put her hands on his chest. “I’m steady. Let’s go check out the activity down the hall.”

  “If you’re sure.”

  She didn’t wait to answer. They raced down the hall, the sounds growing louder and more disturbing the closer they got. She glanced at Asher pacing off steps beside her.

  Suddenly, the hall filled with strange, furred, half-men, half-lynxes. A quick count of them totaled ten. Growling, hissing, and spitting as cats do, but standing upright, fighting with enormous clawed hands. Long, sharp fangs bit the air in fury.

  Kennedy gasped. In the midst of all the chaos were her fellow colony cats, tearing and biting and ripping at their opponents. Each one fighting for his or her life. Quickly in her head, she
ID’d everyone—Asia, Lara, Tizzy, Casey, Conrad, Quinn, and Booker. Their fur was bloodied and ripped, but their injuries did nothing to slow them down. Belief in their fierce hearts swelled in her chest.

  She felt honored to join them. She exchanged a look with Asher, and the two peeled off their clothes and shimmered to join in the fight.

  Instantly, a half-man, half-lynx swiped at her neck. She ducked, missing the blow. But the man wrapped his arms around her midsection, dragging her to the ground. Kennedy stared up into the beast’s eye and held her breath. His eyes emanated mindless rage. She pulled up her feet to rake gouges out of his exposed midsection. She’d never fought such a thing or even fought as a lynx, but memories from a video her trainers had made her watch jumped readily to the front of her thoughts. She yowled and took bites out of the tips of his furred ears, sending him away crying out in pain.

  Scanning the room, she searched for Asher. When she spotted him across the room, fear sliced through her. He stood face to face with one of TNG’s warrior cats. Neither one moved. They stared at each other as though transfixed.

  Realization of what he was up to sparked in her mind. The room was full of snarling, spitting colony cats in battle with TNG’s warrior cats. But Asher was doing battle with the warrior cat’s will.

  • • •

  Asher allowed the warm energy from his center to thrust up and out toward the warrior lynx in front of him. He added strong suggestions wrapped in the energy. You do not want to fight. You want to stop right now and leave peacefully.

  Syncing with the warrior lynx’s mind pushed Asher to work harder. Its mind was a maze, with dead ends and unusual twists that kept it shielded from awareness of reality.

  He nudged harder, all the while his eyes focused intently on the cat’s eyes. Finally, the other cat blinked and relaxed its stance. Walk out of the building peacefully. Walk out now.

  The beast plodded down the hall toward a door without a look back.

  Screams blasted his moment of success, tearing his attention to a standoff between Kennedy and another warrior lynx. Energy surged through him instantly. He leaped toward Kennedy, but shifted his weight to plow into the warrior, inadvertently knocking Kennedy flat.

  Kennedy chuffed at him. She’d sustained a wound at her neck. Blood dripped down her fur. She shook her furred head at him, but he shoved his head up against her, comforting her whether she wanted it or not.

  Kennedy nodded her head toward Asia, who had a warrior lynx cornered. Asia appeared to have its attention, her eyes trained directly on the warrior’s eyes. Asher recognized the look on her face. She was attempting to communicate telepathically with the creature. Its reaction was clear. He wasn’t interested in Asia’s words. Asher could only imagine what her message was, but likely it was something coaxing and demanding.

  Suddenly, the warrior lunged at Asia, grabbing her in his furred arms around her waist and tossing her to the ground. Instantly, Asher leapt on top of it, his instincts driving him to claw at it with no holding back.

  But still, he managed to draw nudging energy up and out to the cat. You don’t want to fight. Leave peacefully, now. Then Asher amped up the nudge and sent it out to every beast in the hall. With all his inner strength, he added the strongest suggestion he’d ever made. Leave now, peacefully. Leave before you die. You don’t want to hurt these cats.

  The will and energy to nudge multiple beings poured strong and warm throughout the hall. He had to keep it flowing. He had to maintain his control of it until he successfully stopped the creatures. Walk quietly down the hall and out the building. Now.

  One by one, the creatures headed into the hall and down the stairs, leaving the battle behind. He padded behind them, training his nudge on each of them. Like obedient drones, the creatures walked down the flights of stairs to the main floor, and Asher shoved open the door to the outside for them as they filed through.

  He led them out toward the parking area. His body sagged from the exertion, but he couldn’t stop yet. He told them to wait. They each sat on their haunches or stretched out on the ground, behaving as one unit under his nudge.

  He waited, too. Thoughts of what could be happening inside the building urged him to return and do his part to ensure the safety of his colony cats. He pawed restlessly at the gravel parking lot, his nerves twisting as the need to protect Kennedy from harm, or worse, tore up his gut.

  Gunshots sounded from inside the building. Asher stopped breathing, but he kept the strength of his nudge flowing.

  Kathryn Novak and a man he recognized from his Internet search as Dr. Benton came running out of the building. Patrick and Gordon followed, guns held ready. They stopped at the bottom of the stairs and stared at Asher. He couldn’t drop the nudge on the creatures, and his strength was waning just enough that to continue as well as add more energy to nudge the four at the stairs to surrender would collapse the whole structure.

  Their attention turned to two vehicles that stirred up gravel as they rapidly approached the building. It was Ben, Jackson, Sterling, and Lacey. They climbed out of their cars, guns aimed at the members of TNG, just as Booker and Quinn, followed by Lara and Asia, burst through the doors, growling and screeching.

  Kathryn led the others, dodging bullets the four humans shot, across the parking lot to SUVs that had just pulled up. Covered by guns firing from inside the SUVs, Kathryn’s group climbed inside. The vehicles squealed tires as they snaked by Asher and the creatures.

  Asher sucked in a gulp of air, expecting gunshots. Suddenly, all the creatures screamed and writhed in pain. And just as suddenly, they silently collapsed on the ground.

  Kennedy, standing with the other colony cats, had already shimmered and dressed. She sprinted toward Asher, leaping over low bushes as though they weren’t there.

  “Here’re your clothes.” Panting, she handed him a pile of his clothes. “Casey and Tizzy are hurt, but they’re okay. What happened here?”

  As Asher and Kennedy checked the creatures lying on the ground, Sterling and Lacey handed clothing to the other were-cats. Asher turned to Kennedy. “No pulse,” he said.

  “The ones I checked are dead, too.”

  “Very strange. It’s like someone just flipped a switch.” He scratched at his head. “Any ideas?”

  The rest of the were-cats, except Casey, surrounded the dead creatures, checking for life themselves.

  Jackson spoke up. “I’m only guessing, but I think maybe TNG implanted devices in these … half-men, half-cats that delivered drugs to their system and made them what we see here. I wonder if Kathryn had a remote device that controlled the implants’ activities. Maybe there was a death switch.”

  Casey slowly made his way, assisted by Sterling and Lacey and limping, to join the others. He winced as he stepped closer. His pant leg was soaked in blood. “I checked the building. Not only are the experimental subjects dead, TNG people appear to have vacated the building. Just like before.”

  Lacey wrapped her arms around her body. “I’m speechless. The Nexus Group really knows how to cause chaos.”

  “Jackson and I will check out the building again.” Ben touched Casey’s shoulder. “I’ll take care of the LPD end of the investigation.”

  Jackson nodded his head and grabbed Lacey’s hand. “And just like the last time TNG vanished, I’ll gather information to find them.”

  Lacey nodded her head. “So will I. I’m sorry all this Nexus Group insanity has struck again.”

  Sterling shook her head and glanced around, catching Kennedy’s gaze. “You can count on me, too. But it won’t be easy to find these bastards. With their connections to organized crime, they can disappear into the woodwork, slip down holes in the ground. Take off in a private jet or yacht. But they seem to have an affinity for Laurelwood.”

  Casey slit his eyes. “Yes, they do.” He turned to Asher. “Great job helping. Your nudging probably saved our lives. Those creatures were brutal.”

  Kennedy dipped her head. “I can’t imagine
what they went through.”

  “You almost found out.” Asher wrapped an arm around her shoulders, grateful to be standing beside her, not bending over her broken and lifeless body. “You were about to get the same treatment. Why did you go to your mother? You did just what she wanted you to do. Why?"

  Kennedy’s eyes avoided his, and she didn’t respond for what seemed like forever. “I had to.”

  “You had to?” Agitation and dismay hardened his muscles. “That’s not an explanation.”

  “Later. We’ll talk more later. Please?” Her eyes pleaded with him for more time. He could nudge her … so easily. But he wouldn’t. He’d have to be patient.

  “This isn’t over. I doubt your mother will stop her plans for TNG’s takeover of Laurelwood.” Tizzy leaned her head on one hand and surveyed the others. Her neck bore bloody gouges where one of the creatures had lashed her. “We can’t let her proceed. I hate to say it, but we need more information. Don’t you think we need an autopsy of a couple of these guys?”

  Asher eyed Kennedy’s face. In her eyes, he saw sorrow and confusion. He didn’t blame her for feeling sad and mixed up. The sooner this business with her mother was put to rest, the sooner Kennedy would begin to live a full life of her own.

  He pursed his lips. Restless quivers reminded him that he couldn’t count on being loved and accepted by anyone, much less Kennedy. Especially when she was fully herself.

  He ached for resolution. She turned to him, the lines of her face sober. “You know what I have to do,” she whispered. Her eyes glistened.

  Asher sighed. “We have to find your mother and pay a visit.”

  She shook her head, and her ponytail bobbed seductively. “Not we, me.”

  “I’m not letting you near her alone.” There was no space in him that trusted Kathryn. The idea of it gave him a sick feeling in his gut.

  She shoved at him. “Don’t be so macho. I can take care of myself.”

  “I know you can. But two of us are better than one.”