Caged with the Wolf (The Wolves of the Daedalus Book 3)

by Elin Wyn

  The wary, smart operative disappeared when she talked to him, her eagerness to please the man who had saved her from a childhood on the streets shining through.

  I didn’t like it, it made me nervous. But I couldn’t tell if my reaction was logical, or just because I’d decided to hate the guy.

  “I’ll come in tomorrow.” Zayda’s voice snapped me out of my thoughts. “Yes, I’m sure I don’t want to take the earlier run.”

  Connection broken, she turned away from the comm booth.

  “Everything alright?” That sounded light, disinterested, didn’t it?

  “Yes.” She pushed her hair out of her eyes. “Stanton is just a worry wart. Thinks I should head back right away.”

  I hated to admit he might be right. But she took my hand and tugged me back to the outer ring of the market. “We need to finish what we started.”

  “I couldn’t agree more.” I failed to keep the growl from my throat.

  “What?” She blinked, confused. “I’m talking about our favor for Granny. What do you mean?”

  Ah. I scrambled for a reply, anything that would explain my gruffness. “Sorry, just hungry.” I patted my stomach. “I’m a big guy, can’t help it.”

  She glanced at the lights, judging the time, and then headed the opposite direction.

  “We’ve got time for a quick bite, I’m sure. Then we’ll head back to Granny’s.”

  And when we were back, I’d find out what she was keeping from me.

  Zayda

  Even from a row away, I could smell the noodles of the little restaurant Granny had introduced us to the day that we took out The Queen.

  My hand clenched around the data chip in my pocket. I had it. I finally had it back.

  I felt light, like I couldn't stop bouncing. This hadn't been the longest mission I've been on, or the most dangerous, really.

  But it was the first time I thought I really might fail.

  Finally, I had the files and...

  I glanced at Mack and crashed to the ground again.

  It was for the best. Once I was out of his way, not distracting him, he'd find the rest of his family, his brothers. And maybe, whoever else was waiting for him. He’d pick up his life without me and all of my chaos.

  The dull ache in my chest was something I could live with.

  “I don't think we saw the menu, Granny just ordered for us last time,” I chattered to fill the silence. “Do you want to try something different, or just stick to what we had last time? Or…”

  We turned the corner, and Mack’s answer was cut off.

  A Hunter stood before us.

  I started to back up, turned around.

  Another was behind.

  A glance down the narrow alley on the left showed only a flash of light on a domed helmet.

  “Mack…”

  “I know. Sorry, darlin’, I think you're still tied up in my mess.”

  “I don't think it’s you they’re after.” The chip weighed heavy in my jacket, but he wasn’t listening to me.

  “Stay down if you can. I'll get us out of this.”

  He shoved me against the cloth side of the booth to the right, the closest thing to cover there was, and launched himself at the Hunter before us to fight them alone.

  Not happening.

  I waited until the other Hunters’ attention seem to be fixed on Mack, then flipped around the corner, scanning up and down to see what booths were here, what they sold, what might be useful.

  There was nothing, no weapons, no knives, no… Void, that was a stupid idea, but it was all I had.

  I ran up to the man at the junk booth. “Can I have a length of that, and three of those?”

  I slammed all the credits I had in my pocket down on the counter.

  “Well,” the old man started “let me go make you some change. You got someone to help you carry that?”

  His movements were maddeningly slow, contrasted with the quick staccato of blows from the fight.

  “Keep the change, just give me the things!” He moved slowly towards the items I had picked out and, with a scream of frustration, I grabbed them myself.

  This would never work. But it was try, or do nothing.

  And doing nothing wasn’t an option.

  I’d bought a length of cable, frayed at both ends, and small plates of predrilled permasteel, probably for patching hives, joining extensions, hell, I didn’t know, didn't care.

  I turned away from where Mack fought against the three Hunters. He stood his ground, throwing one after the other off him into the surrounding stalls, but they kept coming back at him.

  Without a weapon, I couldn’t match their strength or speed.

  Hands shaking, I laced the cable through the snap holes of the panels. Up and around, up and around, swearing at my clumsiness.

  Take a breath Zayda. You can't help him if you can't get it together.

  I glanced over.

  The battle wore on. One of the Hunters lay on the ground, leg twitching mechanically, but the other two were still on Mack. Blood ran down his face. He had to be slowing down.

  When the last knot was done, I gave my makeshift weapon a test spin and was pleased with how the edges whirled through the air.

  “Back off, you bastards!”

  I whipped the length of cable over my head, circling it, and the panels flipped out like blades. It picked up speed and I flicked it towards the back of the Hunter closest to me.

  As the sharp edges of permasteel cut into its back, it gave off an unearthly squeal, then fell away from Mack.

  Good first step.

  I gave a flip to the cable to shake the panels loose, and then another tug.

  It wasn't coming out.

  Dammit.

  But at least Mack was only dealing with one opponent now.

  Because the Hunter I’d wounded was slowly headed towards me.

  Fine. I could work with that.

  I looked around for something to wrap the cable around. A support beam, a pylon, something.

  And then there was the prick of something cold at my neck.

  “Void, you’re more trouble than you're worth.”

  I knew that voice. Had recorded it for hours on the chip hidden in my coat.

  “Tell him to stop fighting.”

  “Like hell I will.”

  Governor Tyon Valsi. Couldn't see him, but I knew what he looked like, gray hair that somehow always looked greasy. Tall, strong body that had turned to fat years ago. Dressed in the richest of fabrics, yet somehow always looked messy. And the undisputed despot of Orem Station.

  The sharp pain dug deeper into my neck.

  “Tell him to stop.”

  “No,” I whispered.

  He sighed. “I really don’t like shouting, it’s so exhausting.” That didn’t seem to stop him when he bellowed past my ear. “Hunters, stop!”

  Both the dark figures left standing froze immediately.

  Mack crouched, his eyes feral, ready to destroy his enemy.

  Valsi’s voice dropped to a more conversational tone. “Hey, Wolf, stop, or your girlfriend pays the price.”

  I stiffened. He knew what Mack was?

  My thoughts cut off as Mack’s eyes snapped clear.

  “Stand down. You might survive this,” Valsi jabbed what felt like the tip of a needle gun into me again and I bit my lip to keep from yelping in pain. “But she won’t.”

  Mack’s eyes lasered on to mine. Then shifted to the figure standing behind me.

  “I will kill you,” he growled.

  “I don't think you're going to get the chance. Surrender or she dies in front of you.”

  “Don't do it!” I cried, but it was too late. Mack dropped his arms to his side, his eyes still fixed on mine.

  I should've left, I should've taken a shuttle far from the station the moment I had the chip. He would've been safe.

  “Hunters, retrieve.”

  This time, when the two Hunters reached for Mack ,he didn't fight
back.

  “You’re useful after all,” the oily voice behind me remarked blandly. “Who knew?”

  Then there was a sharp jab at my neck and Mack’s frantic howls of protest were all I heard as I slid into darkness.

  I woke up in a blindingly clean white room. Confused, I started to get out of bed and then panicked.

  My wrists were strapped to the bed, a drip line attached to my arm. I looked around again, details emerging from the blankness.

  Sterile cabinets, a small tray of instruments. Dimmed lights.

  I glanced down to see I was in a plain white smock.

  Medical bay. I breathed out. I was just in med bay. Soon Mack would come in and tell me how we got out of the fight, and all would be well. My head ached, and when I rolled my head to the side I could feel the pressure of a bandage against the pillow. Must have taken a blow at the end there, but I couldn’t remember it.

  The door swung open, but it wasn't Mack who stepped through.

  “Stanton!” Relief swept through me, then a gnawing worry. “Did you get it, do you have it?”

  My throat felt like sandpaper, hoarse and gritty. “How long have I been out?”

  “Two days. I asked them to keep you under until I got here.”

  “Two days?”

  “Relax, kiddo. It's all taken care of now.” He pulled up a chair, looked at me. The lines on his face deepened, and he shook his head.

  “Not sure how this got so tangled up. But it’s straightening out in the end.”

  I sank back into the pillows, ashamed. “I don't know where I messed up. I would've sworn no one was following me, I made no contact with anyone but you. But someone knew enough to call me in.”

  I thought back to everyone I had encountered in my first stay on Orem. Klayson, it had to be Klayson. Somehow I'd been made, somehow, he knew what was on the chip. I ground my teeth together.

  No matter. Now that I had returned to the arms of the Agency, it’d be easy enough to run his record, figure out how he had been turned

  Stanton’s voice cut through my thoughts like a laser.

  “I thought I trained you to think better than that, kiddo. Nobody on Orem set you up. I told the governor what you’d found.”

  I jolted against the restraints. “What?”

  “The whole thing was a bit of a fishing trip.” He leaned back in the chair, long legs stretched before him.

  I couldn't turn away from his face, this couldn’t be Stanton. This was a nightmare, a concussion, a reaction to the drugs, but not Stanton.

  But Stanton or not, he continued on.

  “There were concerns that Valsi had gotten lax with his security. A mutual friend asked me to send someone over, see how much could be dug up.”

  He nodded towards me. “So, I did. Man, Valsi really had gotten sloppy. No matter. We've got the chip now, we’ll know what to look for, what to tighten up.” He patted my shoulder. “You did a good job.”

  The ache in my head blurred my thoughts. “This was just some kind of security test? The files I found were just plants? Then why was I arrested?”

  “That was a colossal screw-up.”

  I relaxed a fraction. It wasn't my job to question missions. If Stanton had sent me to scout something, there had to be a good reason.

  “I told that idiot to wait, let me come pick it up, but he had to panic and snatch you.”

  He told that idiot… Stanton was working with Valsi?

  “And then we realized you didn't have the chip on you.”

  “But I was bringing it to you, before I got spooked,” I whispered. “If you had told me this was a security exercise, I would have just handed the chip to you.”

  “Like I said, he panicked. By the time I knew anything about it, you were already up on Minor and we had no idea where the files were, or how much was on them.” Stanton’s warm voice had turned cold, dripped with derision. “Valsi thinks he’s smart, decided he could play the game. Since you were already in his little prison, he’d get one of his informants to cozy up to you, see if you’d spill.”

  “But you had to get mixed up with that animal.” His nose wrinkled. “And it all went to hell.”

  “You know about Mack?” I whispered.

  “Of course we do. Another failed project that I’ll need to dispose of.” He stood up, brushed off the front of his pants.

  My mind reeled. “But why not just let me come in, bring you the chip myself?”

  Stanton headed to the door. “You’d have been logged entering the Agency. No, you needed to disappear in the field.”

  The door opened to his touch. “And now you will.”

  Mack

  They killed her.

  Even in the worst of my nightmares the torturers had failed to inflict this much pain.

  This room was white, not gray, but the doctors in their masks and their Hunter guards were all the same.

  But I didn’t care.

  For two days, all I saw were Zayda’s eyes widening with shock as the needle gun fired against her throat in the bazaar. Her fragile body collapsing to the deck. The spill of hair falling over her face.

  Over and over, I watched her perish in my mind, as they cut and burned and prodded me, not realizing I’d already died.

  “And here’s another fiasco.”

  The voice taunted me with its familiarity. I knew it from somewhere.

  “All we wanted you to do was go find the rest of your miserable pack.” A tall, thin man, face lined with age, paced into the room. He didn’t smell like a doctor. Didn’t smell like much of anything. “But no, you led us straight back to your den. The Daedalus. Obviously, we’ve already acquired that.”

  A growl broke through my chest as I placed the voice from the comm booth. Stanton. Zayda’s trainer. Her savior.

  Her betrayer.

  He wandered to the front of the tilted slab I was strapped to, and I lunged at him, the thick restraints cutting into my forearms.

  “You killed her!”

  “Who, Zayda?” He raised one elegantly suited shoulder with indifference.

  “You weren’t ever supposed to cross paths. Another one of Valsi’s screw-ups. I’ll be reporting him to the Compound, suggesting a replacement is found. Clearly, he’s no longer capable of being even nominally in control of this sector of operations.”

  “The Hunters, the kidnappings… this is an Imperial operation?”

  Stanton smirked. “Doctor Lyall didn’t build you creatures for smarts, did she? The Empire can’t handle its affairs next to its own heart, much less out here. Besides, the pay is lousy.”

  I could only stare in disbelief. Zayda had believed in this man, in the job he’d recruited her for. And it had all been based on deception.

  “By the way, she’s not dead. At least, not yet. Valsi thinks she’ll be useful for keeping you in line. I don’t really care.”

  He circled around the table again, his cold eyes absorbing everything, discarding information deemed useless.

  “I think your entire breed should be eradicated as uncontrollable, a futile experiment. You’re breed isn’t a valid research path.” He smiled, a mouth full of knives and lies. “And I have just the way to demonstrate it to the others at the Compound.”

  Not dead yet.

  “She’s not dead,” I whispered to myself.

  “Not yet, but I expect she will be soon.”

  Silently, I strained against the restraints until he passed in front of me again.

  I lunged at him, the sudden force breaking my left arm free.

  “You first.”

  My fingers wrapped around his throat, but he just raised one hand and snapped his fingers.

  Out of the shadow of the doorway a Hunter fired a small gun twice, the impact against my chest no more than an irritating pinch.

  Stanton didn’t fight, didn’t claw at my hand, just stared calmly as the Hunter fired three more darts.

  Waiting.

  The first wave of vertigo hit, and my grip slip
ped.

  Stanton stepped away, straightened his collar.

  “Thank you. I’ve won a small bet with Valsi. All of his security is weak.”

  “What is this?” I slumped back against the table.

  A new team of doctors, faces covered with surgical masks, swarmed the room.

  “We’ve made some interesting discoveries from your other “brothers” in the last few weeks. It turns out it's not that difficult to suppress your higher reasoning, such as it is, and enhance your more bestial traits.”

  The room swam before me, the white uniformed doctors melting in and out of the walls.

  “What did you do to them?” I thought I said the words, but everything was fuzzy. It might have only been in my mind, but Stanton answered.

  “They refused to cooperate. Base Control decided it would be an amusing punishment to make them fight each other. Make the survivors watch.”

  My stomach clenched, and not only from the drug raging in my veins. Flickers of memory, faces of men I would kill for. Had killed for. Now treated like puppets.

  “They wouldn’t do it, would they?” I ground out the words. It wasn’t a question. I knew better.

  “Annoyingly, they killed themselves, rather than fight.” His teeth flashed, and, for the first time, the smile reached his eyes. I wished it hadn’t.

  “That’s why I had them double your dose.”

  I sank back, eyes closed. “There’s no one here for me to fight. Unless you’re volunteering.”

  His voice faded away as I fell under the dark waves of the drug. “There’s always Zayda.”

  Zayda

  Wake up, girl.

  The voice followed me into my exhausted sleep. Every fiber of my being was worn out, shredded, done.

  “I didn't take you for a quitter, and these vents are less comfortable than I remember.”

  I struggled back to the surface, but saw no one else in the room.

  “Up here.”

  In the tiny ceiling vent, I could see something flickering. No, someone holding something dark against the light mesh.

  “Granny?”

  “Hold still, child. A sheath would have been better, but then you’d have to deal with it on your end.”