New Regime (Rune Alexander Book 5)

by Laken Cane

  She clenched her fists. “You’re planning on doing the same thing the Shop was going to do.”

  He lifted an eyebrow, then dusted the arm of his suit. “I assure you, I will do nothing of the sort. I’ll study them, certainly. I will not raise them to be mindless, unthinking killers.”

  But she wasn’t at all sure.

  “We need the information,” he told her. “We need to know how the Shop managed this.” He turned and stared at the entrance of the compound. “How did they do it?”

  He didn’t expect an answer from her, maybe, but she gave him one. “Magic. Some powerful mix of magic.”

  He looked at her, curiosity in his eyes. “Explain.”

  But that was all she had. “I don’t know. I don’t know how, or whose. I just know magic was one of the ingredients in that tank. Those babies were created of…”

  She hesitated when a distant voice echoed through her memory. What had Llodra said?

  “There is magic inside you. Now you must do what you were born to do. Destroy the evil. For that is why you exist.”

  There is magic inside you.

  Magic.

  “Rune?” Raze was frowning down at her. “What’s wrong?”

  She shivered. “Nothing.”

  Eugene eyed her for a second, then glanced at something behind her. “Owen. Lead me inside.”

  “I’ll take you,” she said, uncomfortable with her possessiveness over the babies but unable to help it. She turned to Owen, unaware he’d followed her out of the building.

  “You’re supposed to be guarding the babies.” Then she relented. He was close to collapsing. “Have someone take you back to River County.”

  “I’ll catch a ride with you when you’re ready to leave.”

  “No. You need to go now before you fall over.” She looked around at the dead who hadn’t gotten past her men. “Fucking town of Shop and slayers. It’s hell on earth.”

  “Rune,” Eugene said. “Let’s go.”

  “How is Nine?” she asked, walking beside him.

  He shook his head. “She didn’t make it. As soon as the baby was out, she died.”

  Her stomach tightened. “And the baby?”

  He hesitated. “It was…deformed. Monstrous. It lived for five minutes before we lost it.”

  “Fuck,” she whispered.

  “Yes,” he agreed. “But the deaths were not unexpected. And now with these new discoveries…”

  “How are you going to get them out of there?” she asked.

  “I’ll decide that after I see them.”

  “You have to be careful. One mistake and those kids could die.”

  “They’re not exactly kids,” he replied, his voice even. “And they could probably survive things even adult Others could not.”

  “You seem to know a lot about lab-grown Others.” She paused. “You’ve experienced this before?”

  “I get close,” he offered, “but it never turns out well.” He stopped inside the doorway and surprised her by reaching out to squeeze her arm. “This finding is magnificent. I knew I needed you on my side.”

  None of his words reassured her. Uneasy, she frowned. Something was not right. “Eugene—”

  But he interrupted her, beaming. “Come, Rune. Show me our beauties.”

  She caressed her stake scars, not even blinking when she felt the wetness there. “Something isn’t right,” she murmured.

  But the ops and Eugene urged her onward, and unsure but confused by that uncertainty, she led them to the lab.

  To the babies.

  The magic scared the fuck out of her.

  At the last moment, she straightened her spine. She was not vulnerable, and she was not weak.

  She was Rune fucking Alexander.

  She turned to the Annex ops. “Don’t take them out of here until you know exactly what the fuck you’re doing. If those babies die because of you, I’ll slaughter you sons of bitches.”

  They looked at Eugene, their faces paling.

  “Rune,” Eugene said, his voice soothing. “I want those Others alive more than you do. I will take care of them.” He seemed to think better of allowing her to lead him to the lab, because at the door he stopped her. “I’ll take it from here. Wait outside.”

  “Dude.” She curled her lip, then strode into the room.

  And stopped.

  “God,” she cried. “How?”

  The tops of the large tank had been pried up and placed in a careful stack upon the floor, then the tank had been upended.

  The tiny Others, not quite ready for their hasty birth, had been poured out onto the floor and then neatly beheaded.

  Their heads had been thrown callously into a corner.

  Rune stumbled to the still bodies, grief washing over her.

  The sheriff must have sneaked back to take care of the tank babies. The Shop wouldn’t have wanted their creations to end up in the hands of the Annex.

  She might have ignored Eugene, had he been someone else. His roar of rage would have been totally understandable if he’d been a different man. But he was Eugene Parish, man of few emotions, so she turned to look at him as he screamed in rage and anguish.

  “Sir,” one of the ops said. “Are you—”

  Eugene interrupted him by yanking the man’s blade from his belt and sticking it through his throat.

  The other ops backed away as their coworker fell to the floor.

  Then Eugene knelt beside Rune, and there they sat, full of grief and rage and frustration, until finally the berserker strode in, pulled Rune to her feet, and led her from the room.

  Chapter Forty

  “One of them is still alive,” Rune said, lying against the berserker’s back, her lips moving against his bare skin. “She’s out there and I have to find her.”

  “She’s not the same as the tank babies.”

  She was quietly glad he hadn’t fallen asleep. “Yes, she is.”

  She didn’t want to explain that the magic animating the tank babies had lived inside the one she’d delivered. She felt it.

  To everyone else—everyone except her and maybe Eugene Parish, but really, who knew what the fuck he thought—the tank babies lacked something that made them…loveable. That made them real.

  And the natural born baby hadn’t been like them at all.

  But she had been.

  They were the fucking same.

  Rune had no idea what that meant, except she had to find the baby she’d pulled out of the dying girl.

  She had to.

  Strad turned toward her, his face shadowed and smooth in the semidarkness. His eyes held the shine of worry. Not only for her, but for Fie.

  They couldn’t get the child out of the netting.

  They’d tried cutting, smashing, even burning the individual strands. The entire net reacted each time by threatening to squeeze the life out of the girl.

  Elizabeth was sitting in the Annex hospital at Fie’s bedside, and she wouldn’t leave the girl.

  Strad had brought in the dog he’d been keeping for the little necromancer, glaring at the nurse who told him she could not allow animals in the room.

  “You’ll allow this one,” he’d said.

  She hadn’t argued.

  “In the morning,” Strad said then, pulling her against his chest, “we’ll help the Annex with the search.”

  She released a tired breath. “We won’t find her, Berserker.”

  He ran his thumb over her lips. “I know why Parish wants her. Why do you?”

  “I need to find her,” she whispered. “I need to.” She darted out the tip of her tongue to taste the rough flesh of his thumb.

  He lifted her, his hands hard on her body, and set her on top of him. “Then we will find her.”

  She leaned forward and buried her face against his warm neck. “I have a bad feeling. I don’t think we’ll find her. Not in time.”

  “Doubt yourself if you must, Rune. Don’t doubt me. I will find her.” He wrapped his arms
around her. “For you.”

  She shivered at the tone in his voice. The complete confidence. And she believed him. “Okay,” was all she could say.

  He tugged her hair until she lifted her face to stare down at him. “There are many things to worry about. You’ll worry about them tomorrow.”

  “Yeah.” But her laugh was sharp and despairing.

  He cupped the back of her head, almost too hard, and pulled her face to his. Just enough for her to feel his lips move against hers when he spoke. “I’ll stay inside you. There won’t be room for anything else.”

  She closed her eyes when he ran his tongue across her lips.

  “You can’t fuck me forever, Berserker.”

  “Yes,” he murmured. “I can.”

  He gripped her hips and lifted her enough to force himself inside her, and she dug her fingers into his chest at the sudden hard invasion.

  She groaned.

  He flipped her over, and she cried out at the pain, a pleasure all on its own. And when an image of the slayers tried to gain purchase in her mind and she tensed, Strad pushed her mouth against his throat, fucking her hard, so hard, and held her there until she dropped her fangs and bit him. She fed on his blood, his sweet, strong blood, as he kicked that image the hell away.

  Because right then, there could be nothing but the berserker.

  He wouldn’t allow it.

  “You’re mine,” he murmured.

  She didn’t think he was aware he’d said it aloud.

  It didn’t matter. Right then all that mattered was the blood and the berserker. They both would protect her—even from herself.

  Later, wrapped in his arms, she drifted, then finally found the fuzzy world inside her dreams.

  Damascus was waiting.

  “I know you. How did I forget?”

  “God,” Rune screamed, and jerked awake as her cell phone shrilled beside her.

  “Rune?”

  She shoved her hair out of her face. “Nothing,” she mumbled. “It was a dream.” And she grabbed her phone.

  It was daylight.

  Time to go to work.

  Chapter Forty-One

  She buckled on guns and shivs, dragged a comb through her hair, and then opened the bedroom door to go face her crew.

  The kitchen, the center of her home, smelled like bacon and coffee and was full of her people. It would have been better only if Z had been there with them.

  Levi sat at the table, and though he wasn’t back to normal, he looked better. He shot her a quick smile. “I left the clinic two hours ago,” he told her. “I’m okay, Rune.”

  “Of course you are.” But they all knew he wasn’t.

  “Fie wants to see you when you go in.” Raze spoke to her, but his mournful stare was on Lex.

  Rune put her hands on her hips. “Raze, are you ever going to tell Lex you love her?”

  Shit.

  She groaned, wishing she could snatch the words back as soon as they left her lips.

  The silence was immediate. Levi and Denim grinned, Lex’s jaw dropped, and Raze…Raze turned and stomped from the room. Fast.

  Lex was not amused. She marched across the floor and stabbed a stiff finger into Rune’s belly. “Stop trying to control everything.”

  Rune stepped back and rubbed her abdomen. “Ow. I’m sorry, Lex. I want everyone to…” She glanced at the berserker as he leaned against the wall, his arms folded. She silently cursed as heat climbed her cheeks. “To have something good.” She swallowed. “There’s no time.”

  Not for them.

  But Lex wasn’t mollified. “Don’t try to control me. Don’t do that. My love life is mine. And my demon is mine. Just…fucking don’t.”

  And that was the crux of the problem. Rune could—and had—forced out Lex’s demon. Not a good thing. Not something Lex was going to get past anytime soon.

  “I won’t call your demon again.” But she’d wondered if she’d be able to keep that promise.

  Lex jabbed her stomach again. “Mean it when you say that, Rune. Mean it.”

  Strad pushed himself with an almost lazy slowness away from the wall. “She’s got it, little one,” he told Lex. “That’s enough.”

  Rune frowned at his protectiveness. “You don’t need to—”

  “Let’s go to work,” Jack said from the doorway, “before Rune gets pissed and kicks all our asses.”

  Lex hesitated, then stepped back and grinned. “If she can. The berserker has made her soft.”

  Rune snorted. “I am not soft.”

  Was she?

  She couldn’t let her emotions make her weak. And she couldn’t let the berserker make her soft.

  She looked at Strad. His stare was hot and intense and ate her up. It took her breath and made her stomach tighten with need.

  Neither of them said a word.

  He lifted the corners of his lips in a tiny smile as he watched her, and unable to resist, she returned that smile.

  “See?” Lex said. “Soft.”

  Rune ignored her and strode from the house, the berserker at her back. It was time to visit their necromancer.

  She pulled into the Annex parking lot and left her car, staring up at the building as she waited for Strad to park.

  “Are we ever going to get her out of that net?” she asked, when he stood beside her.

  But he had no answer. “Come on. She’s waiting.”

  “Rune,” Fie called, as Rune neared the room.

  “How does she do that?” Strad asked.

  Rune shook her head. “I don’t know.” Then she pasted on a not entirely genuine smile and walked into the room.

  Elizabeth sat behind a small desk she’d had installed, peering into her computer screen. In that large room, with Fie, was where she’d work as long as Fie was confined in the net. She slept in the cot beside the child.

  Fie would have it no other way. No one knew what all she’d been through. Elizabeth refused to allow the child to be questioned.

  Eugene walked into the room. “How are you this morning?” he asked Fie.

  Though he tried to frown and shake his head with doleful regret, he was too curious about the net, too intrigued by it, to fool anyone.

  And maybe his conscience was stricken over his attempt to use her to destroy his enemies.

  He turned to Elizabeth. “If—when—I get her out of that net, she’ll be taken care of her entire life. She’ll want for nothing.”

  Yeah, he felt guilty.

  “I’ll hire specialists in necromancy and magic to make sure she’s prepared for her future.”

  “It’s the least you can do,” Rune said, glaring.

  “I don’t like it here,” Fie told Strad. She knew he was wrapped around her little finger. “I want to go outside.”

  Elizabeth rose from her chair and hurried to the other side of Fie’s bed. “Now, Stefanie, we talked about that.”

  “She wanted to go outside at dawn,” Eugene said, at Rune’s questioning look. “She called half a dozen zombies and then lost control. She’s tired.” He spoke in an undertone, as though Fie had no idea what she’d done and he didn’t want to be the one to tell her. “They ate two techs and a nurse before ops put them down.”

  “I can’t move my arms,” Fie cried. “I want out.”

  Rune didn’t bother telling Fie they’d get her out soon. Fie knew those were empty words. She’d leave soothing the child to Elizabeth.

  Eugene cleared his throat, then walked from the room without saying anything else to any of them. Rune wondered if he missed Iris. How could he not?

  “Get it off,” Fie pleaded. She looked at Strad, who stood clenching his fists, his blue eyes full of misery. “I can’t pet my puppy.”

  “I’m sorry, sweetheart,” Strad said.

  The netting was a womb, cuddling Fie, feeding her, absorbing her waste.

  Suddenly noticing something, Rune jerked her stare to Elizabeth. “What—”

  Elizabeth gave a quick shake of her head. �
��Rune, let’s get coffee while Strad is keeping Fie company.”

  “It’s moving?” Rune asked, as soon as they were in the hallway. She kept her voice low.

  “It’s climbing,” Elizabeth said, closing her eyes for a second. “I expect in a few weeks it will cover her face. Her head.”

  “Shit,” Rune said. Her claustrophobia kicked into high gear at the mere thought and she put a hand to her chest, trying to take a deep breath.

  “The netting is also closing up the gaps,” Elizabeth went on. “But I’m not afraid she’ll suffocate in there. I’m afraid she’ll lose her mind.”

  Rune swallowed. “Shit,” she said again, weakly. “We have to get her out of that fucking thing.”

  “It’s some sort of membrane, and it’s…” Elizabeth shook her head. “It’s attaching to her—not just enveloping her.”

  “The net is a monster,” Rune said.

  “Yes. Yes, it is.”

  Then they looked at each other, neither of them knowing what else to say. Fie’s situation, always dire, was growing quickly worse.

  “Elizabeth,” Rune said, finally, “bring George in.”

  If Elizabeth had been the type to gape, she would have right then. “She tried to kill him, Rune. I’m not bringing him to the Annex.”

  “There’s more to that than we know. Besides. Fie can’t get to him. She’s a fucking mummy.”

  Elizabeth turned to go back inside the room, and before Rune could follow her, her cell buzzed. “Yeah?”

  “Rune Alexander?”

  “Who’s this?”

  “I’m a friend of Leon Lafitte. He’s—”

  “Karin’s dead?” Her heart began to thud with a hard, painful intensity.

  “No, she’s not dead, but fucking Annie is.”

  “What?” She backed against the wall, watching as the berserker walked toward her, barely seeing him. “How?”

  “Well, see,” the man said, “Karin Love killed her. Killed her in a really bad way. Leon, he wanted me to call and let you know.”