She’d thought several times of trying to run from him or flag down a passing car and beg for help. Unfortunately, Lounds must have thought of the same things. He strapped her bound hands down firmly with the seatbelt and kept a gun trained on her the entire trip. When they stopped for gas, it was at nearly abandoned stations where they were the only car, and he always paid at the pump—there was no way to get away.
Now, looking around the stainless-steel lab filled with high-tech equipment, some of which even she didn’t recognize, Samantha wished she had tried harder. How much of this stuff was going to be used on her? What exactly did Lounds intend to do with her?
“So—the lab?” she asked again, since he hadn’t answered.
“Let’s just say there is someone high up in the Pfizer organization that saw vast possibilities in my research and was willing to fund me. He had all this built just so I could continue, waiting for the day when I would have a breakthrough.” His small black eyes, which reminded Samantha of a rat’s eyes, sparkled with pride. “And now that day has come.”
“Your research? I thought you were a drug rep.” She frowned at him.
“That was what I wanted you to think, Samantha. I used my little fiction to gain access to you and hundreds of hospital files. You don’t know how many blood samples I’ve tested for DNA, looking for the elusive Shifter Gene. Of course, there are pockets of us around the country, and the world for that matter, but I wasn’t looking for those with a working Gene—I was searching for the latent Gene. And I found it in you and many others.”
“Wait—you said pockets of ‘us’?” Samantha frowned. “So . . . you’re a Shifter too?”
Lounds gave her an extremely unpleasant grin.
“Don’t you recognize me from our little meeting in your hotel room the other night?”
“So that was you. You were the Hyena who attacked and mauled me—you asshole.” Samantha glared at him. She’d had her suspicions, but she hadn’t been completely sure until now.
“Of course it was me. I had to inject you with the Gene activator I developed.”
Samantha remembered the “bug bite” Keller had seen on her shoulder earlier. That must have been the injection site. But of course she hadn’t noticed Lounds had given her a shot—she’d been much too focused on his savage attack to bother with a little needle stick.
“So you shot me up with your own personal chemical cocktail, and you decided to maul me just for the hell of it? I nearly lost the use of my hand—I never would have been able to operate again, you son of a bitch!” Samantha wanted to strangle him. Unfortunately, he still had the snub-nosed pistol aimed squarely at her chest.
“The mauling was necessary.” Lounds said loftily. “I don’t enjoy violence against women, of course—even when they’re asking for it. But I do what I have to in order to fulfill the demands of my research.”
“You seemed to be enjoying it plenty the night you attacked me!” Samantha accused him. “And why was it necessary? To let in the, uh . . .” She tried to remember the Hyena myth Keller had told her. “To let in the Ya-la—the animal spirit?”
“You know about that?” Lounds looked surprised.
“Keller told me while he was healing me,” Samantha said shortly. “We were trying to figure out why anyone would break in my room and . . . do what you did.” She shivered, bile rising in her throat as she remembered the vicious attack.
“Well, as I said, it was necessary—though not for the reasons my ancestors believed.” His voice took on a lecturing tone. “You see, my formula was able to activate your latent Shifter Gene and begin the antiaging part of Rejuvenation, but it was necessary to first wound then heal you, to trigger the sexual aspect of the process.” He frowned. “Of course that bastard Keller healed you before I could get around to it—more’s the pity. But it doesn’t matter in the long run since I will be the one to breed you.”
“What?” Samantha felt a shock of fear and horror that quickly turned to anger. “You just try it, asshole. See how far you get toward ‘breeding me’ with my foot up your ass!”
He gave her a malicious grin.
“Brave words, Samantha, but your feisty attitude won’t do you a damn bit of good once your first Shift starts and you feel the breeding fever.”
“That’s impossible,” she said, wishing her voice sounded stronger and more certain. “I may not know much about Shifters but I do know that they don’t go through their first change until the full moon, which isn’t for at least three weeks from now.”
“That’s only for Shifter females with a naturally active Gene. Yours has been artificially stimulated and activated—which means you might enter your first Shift at any time of the day or night, regardless of the phases of ‘Lady Moon.’” Lounds spoke the name of the Shifter goddess with causal distain, as though his people’s religion meant less than nothing to him.
“I . . . I can’t. I won’t,” Samantha denied desperately.
“Yes, you will—it’s inevitable.” He laughed, an ugly sound that made her wince. “You seem to think I want to rape you, Samantha—I’ll do nothing of the sort. I won’t have to because you’ll be begging me to take you. To fuck you and breed a baby in your fertile womb.”
“You make me sick. I’d never let you near me—not even if you were the last man on the entire fucking planet,” she spat.
Lounds’s narrow face darkened.
“You know, I had many choices when I was deciding which latent female would be the first to receive the full benefits of my formula. I settled on you because I felt you needed to be brought down a peg.” He waved his gun casually at her. “I watched you every time I came to Tampa General—ordering men around, acting as though you were better than the superior sex. You need to learn your place, Samantha.”
“The ‘superior sex’ being men, I suppose?” She glared at him. “And where is my ‘place’ as a woman? Barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen?”
“No, barefoot and pregnant in my lab. Which you soon will be.” He gave her an ugly smile. “Remember how you said you wouldn’t let me touch you if I were the last man on earth? Well for all intents and purposes, I am. Or at least, I’m the last man in your immediate vicinity who can help you when you start to Shift. In fact . . . here.”
Reaching out with one hand, he quickly untied the cord binding her wrists.
“You’re letting me go free?” Samantha stared at him.
“I’m untying your hands to prove a point—there’s no use in keeping you bound because there’s no place for you to go. This lab is located deep in the middle of the Everglades. There’s nothing for miles around us but swamp and snakes and alligators.”
Samantha had been afraid of something like that—after all, there really wasn’t much past Miami but swampland. But hearing him say it out loud made her stomach clench like a slick fist.
“Stay away from me,” she warned him.
“Oh, I will . . . for now.” He grinned. “I have work to do, after all. I’ll come check on you periodically and tend to you when you start to feel the breeding fever.”
“Don’t hold your breath. I won’t feel it,” Samantha denied hotly.
“Don’t kid yourself,” Lounds said flatly. “You’ll feel it in the next twenty-four hours, if not sooner. I bet you’ve already got some of the symptoms—say, a headache that won’t go away?”
Samantha opened her mouth to deny it . . . but found she couldn’t. She did have a headache—a dull thudding in her temples that had been with her for the last part of their drive through Miami and beyond. It wasn’t as bad as the migraine she’d had when she got off the plane, but it still wasn’t pleasant, and it seemed like it was getting worse.
“I thought so.” He eyed her speculatively. “You know, the touch of an Alpha can help alleviate that pain.” His eyes grew greedy with lust. “Do you want me to touch you, Samantha?”
“No!” An involuntary shiver of disgust ran down her spine, and she couldn’t help remembering the way
just shaking his hand back at the hotel in Vegas had made her feel like slugs were crawling all over her skin.
“Very well, then.” Lounds shrugged. “I can wait. You’ll come around eventually.”
“Why are you doing this?” she asked, hearing a note of desperation creep into her voice. “Because you want a mate? Someone to bear your children—give you heirs?” It was the only reason she could think of—certainly it had been Keller’s reason for wanting her.
To her surprise, Lounds laughed.
“Hardly! Why would I want a bunch of brats running around interrupting my research?” he demanded. “No, Samantha, I’m afraid my interest in this business is purely commercial. Purely monetary.”
“Monetary?” She frowned. “You think you can make money out of activating the latent Shifter Gene in some women and turning them into Juvies?”
“Of course I can. Think about it.” His little black eyes lit up. “Rejuvenating Shifter females produce some of the most rare and valuable hormones in the world. Chemicals which can literally turn back the clock! Just think what a regular human female would pay for a pill that would make her look five . . . ten . . . even as much as twenty years younger!”
“A lot,” Samantha whispered through numb lips. “They’d pay a hell of a lot.”
“The profit margin on this is going to be huge.” Lounds’s little eyes practically glowed with greedy delight. “Which is why once you start coming into heat, I’m going to harvest some of your blood and . . . shall we say . . . other fluids before I breed you.”
“I told you,” Samantha snapped. “You’re not getting within ten feet of me. I don’t give a damn if my head feels like it’s going to split open and the rest of me is on fire, I don’t want anything to do with you, you twisted asshole!”
His eyes flashed and he seemed to finally lose his temper.
“You’ll be singing a different tune once you need an Alpha’s seed to quench your heat,” he snarled. “And you’d better behave yourself or I’ll Shift before I perform your first breeding. How would you like that?”
Samantha had a sudden, vivid memory of how Lounds looked in his Shifted form. The huge, shaggy body, the reek of wet dog, the hot, slavering mouth filled with razor sharp teeth . . .
God—just the thought of it made her sick to her stomach. She had to fight not to retch with fear.
“No,” she whispered in a dry, hoarse voice. “No, you . . . you wouldn’t.”
“I would.” His eyes glowed with the satisfaction of having the last word. “And what’s more, it wouldn’t matter if I did. You’d still beg me to do it, even in my Shifted form. Once the breeding heat comes on you, you won’t care who or what is doing the breeding, as long as you get your itch scratched.”
“You’re lying,” Samantha whispered, but she was horribly afraid he wasn’t.
“You’ll see.” Lounds waved his gun at her. “Now strip.”
“What?” Samantha clutched at the bathrobe she was wearing, which was all he’d allowed her to put on before they left for their trip.
“You heard me,” he snapped. “I’ve wasted enough time talking to you. I want you out of that robe now.”
“But why?” Samantha demanded stubbornly.
“So I can keep an eye on you and see the signs of the artificially induced Regeneration, of course,” he said, as though it were obvious. “When your breeding heat gets near, your nipples and outer labia will turn a dark pink—almost red. Then I’ll know you’re ready to harvest.” He waved the gun again. “Do it now.”
Unwillingly, Samantha slipped out of the fuzzy bathrobe and let it pool around her feet.
Lounds frowned as she covered her full breasts with her arms.
“Spread your arms and legs—let me see you.”
“No!” Samantha glared at him.
“Now.” He waved the gun menacingly, but Samantha refused to be intimidated this time.
“Or what? You’ll shoot me? I’m no good to you dead,” she pointed out.
“I won’t shoot to kill—I’ll shoot to wound.” Lounds gave her an evil smile. “You can still Shift and breed with a hole blown in your arm or leg. Now open up and let me see.”
Reluctantly, Samantha spread her arms and parted her legs. She told herself she would die if he touched her, but mercifully, Lounds only looked.
“Hmmm . . . your pigmentation is a little darker than it was when I first picked you up in Tampa, but not much. Still, the change will come as you ripen. You’ll see.” He gave her a lascivious look that made Samantha feel like her skin was crawling right off her body. “It’s going to be a pleasure breeding you when the time comes. You don’t know how often I watched you in the hospital and fantasized about putting you in your place—on your hands and knees in front of me, begging for my cock.”
“You—” But Samantha couldn’t think of anything bad enough to call him. She just stared at him, trying to put every ounce of hate and disgust she felt into her expression.
“Come on.” He motioned with the gun again.
“Where?” Samantha asked through tight lips.
“You don’t think I’d give you the run of the lab, do you?” Lounds demanded. “Just because I untied your hands doesn’t mean I’ll let you run around free. I have a lot of very delicate equipment here. Also, your Juvie scent is . . . distracting.” He inhaled deeply, and to Samantha’s disgust, a bulge began to grow in the front of his cheap black slacks. “I can’t work with you around,” he decided. “So you’ll have to be locked up.”
“Locked up where? Can I at least have my robe? It’s cold in here.”
“It has to be kept cold for the equipment,” Lounds snapped. “I want to be able to chart your progress, so you’ll stay naked. It won’t kill you even if it does make you uncomfortable.” He motioned again. “Now come on.”
Samantha had no choice but to start walking, leaving the fuzzy bathrobe behind on the cold tile floor. It felt like she was leaving her only friend. They went past several more rooms filled with complicated-looking equipment that must have cost a fortune. Whoever Lounds had sponsoring him must have been very generous.
Finally they came to a room which was divided into two sections. One had a strange harness with glass suction cups and tubing attached to it. The harness was strung carefully over a metal framework with metal cuffs at all four corners.
For holding me down, Samantha thought, feeling sick. But once Lounds had her strapped down, what would he do to her? She eyed the glass suction cups with sick fascination.
The other side of the room held a metal cage, kind of like a holding cell. There were floor to ceiling bars, a small cot with a bare mattress, an exposed toilet, and nothing else.
“Seriously?” Samantha demanded. “You’re going to put me in there?”
“That’s where you’re going.” Keeping the gun trained on her with one hand, Lounds produced a set of keys with the other and opened the jail-cell lock. “Get in. And no back talk.” He gave Samantha a warning look.
Samantha gave him a long stare. She thought of lunging at him, trying to go for the gun. But though he was skinny, he was also strong. And he could change into a huge, shaggy, prehistoric Hyena any time he felt like it.
Even if she could get the gun away from him and shoot him, he might be able to heal himself by Shifting. He probably wouldn’t be as quick to heal as Keller had been because he wasn’t a Cougar, but unless she dealt him a truly mortal blow, she would have to worry that he might come after her.
There was nothing else to do—she went into the small cell and winced as Lounds banged the metal door shut behind her.
“There you go.” He turned the lock with a snick and gave her a satisfied look. “Now you’re exactly where you belong. I’ll be back to check on you in a little while.”
“Wait!” Samantha exclaimed. “You can’t just leave me here. I don’t even have anything to read! And I’m hungry!”
“I’ll feed you later.” Lounds waved dismissively. “I’
m busy now. Stalking you in Vegas and taking you from Tampa has eaten up too much of my valuable research time already.”
He pocketed the key and left the room, humming. Clearly he had filed Samantha away in a neat little box, and she was no longer a concern to him.
She glared after him, helpless to do anything else. She was stuck here—trapped until her body betrayed her and cried out for something only Lounds was available to give.
God, the idea of him mounting her . . . breeding her . . . It was more than disgusting—it was repugnant to her. Samantha felt like someone had told her she would have to let a bunch of roaches crawl all over her. It would be worse than rape if Lounds used her body against her that way—worse than anything she could think of.
She clutched her arms around herself, feeling violated and sick. God, how she hated him! Lounds was a monster—a sick bastard, and she didn’t want him anywhere near her.
But would she feel the same when the breeding fever came on her? Would she be able to resist the call of her body? Of the new forces growing inside her?
I have to, she told herself desperately. I can’t let him anywhere near me. Even if it kills me or turns me into one of the Unformed, I have to resist!
But how?
Chapter 13
“He was here, all right. I can smell his stench.” Keller felt a growl rising in his throat as he stalked around Samantha’s bedroom. He had arrived to find her house empty, but all of her valuables intact. Her purse with her cell phone and wallet was still sitting on her kitchen table. Clearly she had been taken by someone who only wanted her and didn’t care about robbing the house.
“Do you think it could be the Shifter your driver saw sniffing around her in Vegas?” Mathis asked.
Keller frowned. “It could be. Unfortunately, even if it is, Jakes didn’t get a name or any information about him. But I know for a fact that this is the scent of the one who attacked her in her hotel room.”
Cougar Bait Page 13