by Zoe Chant
Okay, now he felt smug.
“I wish I could say it was nice to see you again after all these years, Hendricks.” Seth managed to keep his voice light, despite the pain he was in. “But it isn’t.”
“Dr. Benson,” Hendricks said in a stifled voice. “Do you know who this is?”
“Not at all.” Benson sounded startled. “I was assuming you’d been briefed. He broke in last night, no identification—”
“I have been briefed, you idiot! I just find myself unable to believe that no one recognized him.”
There was a pause. Then Benson said carefully, as though he knew the answer was going to be trouble, “Why should someone have recognized him?”
Hendricks turned away from Seth to loom over Benson. “Because that is Seth Rowland.”
Benson’s eyes widened. “Rowland?”
“Yes. As in Rowland Global Solutions, the company we both supposedly work for.” Hendricks’ index finger stabbed toward Seth. “That right there is Max Rowland’s younger brother, and if you think he’s here without his brother’s knowledge, you don’t know Max Rowland.”
“He’s not happy with you, Hendricks,” Seth broke in.
Hendricks turned back to Seth. “Well, Seth, I have to admit it’s mutual. Do you know what a mentor I was to that boy? What a friend I was to your father? Do you know how much of my life I have poured into this company? And to discover only a few months ago the secret that had been kept from me for all these years?”
“So you just had to start a torture lab?” Seth didn’t bother trying to keep the sarcasm out of his voice.
“I had to know.” Hendricks’ voice went low. “All of you shifters, you’re completely ignorant of your own biology. ‘Shifter healing,’ you say, like it’s magic, like there’s nothing science could discover about you. ‘I was born this way,’ you say, as though your DNA doesn’t hold the code for learning why.”
“Scientific curiosity doesn’t give you the right to kidnap people and experiment on them!” Seth’s voice rose to a shout, and he tugged at the straps holding him down.
“The world needs to know,” Benson broke in. Seth looked at him. His eyes were bright, in a disturbingly intense way. “You’ve been hiding in the shadows, keeping us from learning about you, but now we’re learning anyway. You can’t hide anymore.”
“Neither can you.” Seth looked back at Hendricks. “You said it yourself. The fact that I’m here means that your whole operation is blown. It’s over.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” said Hendricks. “Can it be over when I have such an excellent hostage for Max’s good behavior?”
Seth laughed. Hendricks’ face changed from smug to confused.
“I don’t know if you understood me correctly,” he said. “I was informing you that your life will be the tool for controlling your brother.”
“You’ve known Max his whole life,” Seth said. “You know how he responds when people try to manipulate him. He doesn’t do what they say. He annihilates them.”
“Even when his own brother’s life would be the consequence?”
But Hendricks looked suddenly nervous.
“You don’t know me as well as you know Max,” Seth said. “But I promise you: I can take care of myself.”
Hendricks smiled. “The good doctor has just spent an hour or more disproving that, I think.”
Seth let the growl rise up in his throat, and watched the nervous look come back.
Hendricks turned to Benson. “Is it time for another dose of the anti-shifting serum?”
“Nearly.” Benson looked at his watch. “It’s quite delicate, you know, and I haven’t had time to experiment with how it reacts to his particular physiology. Too much too soon could kill him.”
Seth kept quiet. He didn’t think it was too soon.
Because he could feel his lion coming back.
***
Even though she was overwhelmed with worry about Seth, there was a tiny part of Cassie that was enjoying being the boss for a change.
She’d ordered Dave to call the lab and tell them he was coming in with some extra security, and he’d done it without question. She felt like she was getting revenge for all the unreasonable things he’d made her do over the last few months.
Max had revealed that he’d brought a team of RGS elite security with him from New York, and they were waiting just outside the office parking lot for them.
“They’ve been briefed on the existence of shapeshifters and authorized to use force,” Max had told her. “Secrecy is no longer the priority.”
“What do you use elite security teams for when you’re not breaking into secret labs?” Cassie had asked dubiously.
Max just smiled. Cassie decided not to press the question any further.
“Now tell us exactly what the purpose of the lab is,” Cassie said to Dave.
He stared at her. “I thought you knew.”
“I know you kidnapped Seth. I know it has something to do with shifters. Are you—”
Cassie suddenly realized what the answer was.
“You’re experimenting on them,” she breathed.
Dave’s voice was sullen. “The world has a right to know. What these people can do is insane. Everyone should know about it.”
“What about their safety?” Cassie’s voice rose. “Oh, you don’t care about that, I guess, since you’re doing science experiments on them!”
“They’re not really people!” Dave shouted. “They’re animals! You should see them when you lock them up, how crazy they go...”
“Are you listening to yourself?” Cassie yelled at him. “If you locked me up, I’d go crazy too! They’re people!”
Then Max stepped in and led Dave off to talk to his security people, presumably for his own safety.
Cassie stayed behind, catching her breath by herself in the parking lot, and thought about Seth in that lab, being experimented on.
Rescue him! the mate bond shouted.
I’m on it! she shouted back.
When Max came back with Dave, he said, “We’re ready to leave. Mr. Crews has agreed to open all the doors for us.”
“Or else,” Cassie muttered.
So they all got in their cars. Cassie was driving Dave’s car, Dave was in the passenger seat, and one of Max’s security guys was in the backseat.
Max was riding with the security in one of their vehicles. Cassie suspected that this was less for safety reasons and more because riding in an unmarked black SUV was more appealing to him than going with Cassie in Dave’s aging Camry.
It was really hard to believe that he and Seth were brothers.
The drive out was silent. Cassie was tempted to start another conversation with Dave about what exactly was happening to Seth right now in the lab, but she didn’t. She suspected that if he actually told her, she’d have to stop driving and punch him in the face.
She’d never punched anyone before, or even wanted to that badly, but she was discovering new things about herself today.
Feeling protective was something new for Cassie. She’d never really had anyone to be protective of.
Other people were protective of her much more often. Like her parents. She wasn’t used to feeling this fierce concern, this determination that Seth had to be okay or else.
Seth was protective of her, too. But it wasn’t like her parents. He hadn’t insisted that she had to stay in her apartment with a blanket pulled over her head while he went alone to investigate the lab.
He’d been careful to keep her as safe as possible, but he hadn’t tried to tell her that she couldn’t do something she needed to do.
And a good thing, too, Cassie thought. After all, if she hadn’t been there, Seth would’ve been captured and she wouldn’t have known about it until he didn’t come back. She might not have called Max for hours and hours, and God knew what could’ve happened to Seth in that time.
God knew what could be happening to him now.
Cassie drove faster.
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They parked in the little pull-off where Cassie had left her car last night. Max nodded at the security team, and they fanned out through the woods like they were ninjas, disappearing almost immediately. They were all wearing woodland camouflage and it was like they vanished completely.
“Why couldn’t you have done this right from the beginning?” Cassie asked Max, watching the last member of the team become one with the forest.
“Because my priorities were wrong,” Max said softly.
Cassie looked at him. “What do you mean?”
“I didn’t want to send a whole team of security, because I knew Hendricks was researching something to do with shifters. I didn’t want to reveal the existence of shifters to any more people than absolutely had to know. I also didn’t want to cause any more of a public stir than I had to. So I sent Seth, because he’s relatively anonymous, I knew he was competent enough to get in on his own, he’s unquestionably loyal, and he’s a shifter himself so there was no danger of the secret getting out.”
“But you didn’t think about what might happen if he was found out.”
“I did think about it,” Max said. His voice was almost too low to hear, now. “I convinced myself that Seth would be able to handle any trouble on his own. He’s always been independent to a fault.”
He looked at Cassie. “I used Seth to serve my own ends and now he’s been hurt as a result. I promise you that I will make it right.”
Cassie nodded, not trusting her voice.
Max turned to look at the woods again. “They’re in position.”
For the first time, Cassie noticed the earpiece in Max’s ear. He was listening to the security team’s communication, she guessed.
“We can move forward,” Max reported. “They’re ready to go in.”
When they got to the lab, it looked very different from how it had the night before. Now, instead of a couple of bored guards patrolling slowly around the building, there was armed security crawling over every inch.
Cassie frowned, worried. Would Max’s team be able to take down so many guys? Especially without an alarm being raised?
“Don’t worry,” Max said calmly, apparently reading her mind. “Just watch.”
And as Cassie watched, Max’s team flowed out from the forest as though they were a pride of lions themselves, descending on the surprised gazelles with ruthless efficiency.
In five minutes, there wasn’t a single security guard left standing.
“They’re just tranquilized,” Max reassured her. “There’s no need to kill all of those people for just doing a security job they were hired to do. Let’s go.”
Cassie glanced behind her. Dave was fifty feet back, crouching in the underbrush with a scared expression on his face. “Come on,” she snapped.
He followed them in.
As they walked forward, though, Cassie forgot he was there. She forgot about Max, about the security guys, about everything and anything but finding Seth.
He was in that building, and she was going to get him out.
***
“We have to lock down the facility and move everyone to a more secure location,” Hendricks said to Benson.
“A more secure location? Where? All of the equipment is here—all of the servers—”
“I have a place I set aside for this contingency,” Hendricks snapped. “We have the manpower to move everyone. The guards will tranquilize all of the prisoners and shift the equipment. You need to triage what’s essential to move and what can be replaced in the new facility. Everything left behind will be destroyed.”
Benson sputtered an objection, but Hendricks clearly wasn’t listening.
Neither was Seth. He was waiting, wondering what the best opportunity would be.
He needed to be absolutely certain that he really could shift. He could feel his lion inside him, the familiar strength and fierce power, but he didn’t know if he’d be able to become the lion yet or not. His head was still spinning from the drugs, and it was hard to concentrate.
“—irreplaceable equipment!” Benson was yelling.
Seth flexed his hands. He thought hard about pouncing, about raking his claws over his prey. About climbing a tree, digging his claws into the bark and pulling himself upwards.
His fingernails started to lengthen. The hairs on the back of his hands thickened.
Benson turned back to gesture at Seth, waving his arms, and Seth quickly shifted his hands back to human.
But he’d done it.
He didn’t think he could fully shift quite yet. Normally, a partial shift like that would leave the lion roaring in his chest, waiting to break out. And he didn’t feel that tightness, that readiness to burst free of his skin.
But he could give himself claws.
He was just about to see what he could do with those claws when the phone rang.
Hendricks snatched it up. “Yes?” he barked.
His expression changed. “What?”
A long pause while someone explained something. Hendricks was slowly turning red. “Take care of it!” he shouted, and slammed the phone down.
He turned to Benson. “Change of plans. Someone’s staging a frontal assault on the lab. And I’m sure I know who it is.” He glared at Seth. “How did your brother know to come in? Did you have a prearranged check-in?”
Seth smiled. “You caught me.”
“Yes, we caught you, that’s not what I’m—”
“You caught me,” Seth continued. “But you missed my mate.”
“Damn it,” Hendricks hissed. He turned back to Benson. “There’s no time. Leave him for now, he’s not going anywhere. Go to your office and get your hard drive. Destroy the rest. We’re leaving.”
They exited the room together.
Seth was alone.
Shifting his hands back into paws took concentration, but not as much as it had a few minutes ago. His lion was rising back up into its usual place beneath his skin.
And the roaring anger of a wild animal contained was coming back.
Once he had his claws back, he ripped through the restraints on his wrists in a matter of seconds, then bent down to shred the bands around his ankles. He hesitated for just a second, because his lion wanted badly to tear through the room and destroy all of the equipment.
That wasn’t a priority, though. He forced the urge down, and went for the door.
They weren’t going to get away with this.
Searching for Hendricks and Benson, he turned a corner and saw a big door with a guard in front of it. He ducked back around the corner immediately.
Seth didn’t know what was in there, but if it was being guarded, it was probably important. He could take one guard, especially since he had the element of surprise.
He still couldn’t shift all the way, but he shifted his hands again, took a deep breath, and charged around the corner to the guard.
It was only fifteen feet or so down the hallway to the guard, and the startled man barely had time to get his gun up before Seth hit him hard. They went down, sprawling, and Seth raked him with his claws and then grabbed the gun when he flinched.
He fired a tranquilizer into the man’s neck. “See how you like it,” he muttered.
The big door was locked, and there was no keypad. Seth searched the guard and found a keycard. This place must be doubly secured, so that just knowing the passcodes or having a keycard wouldn’t get you all the way in—you needed both. Seth grabbed the card and inserted it into the door’s slot.
He opened the door and saw the cellblock where he’d been kept. He smiled.
"Who's that?" Seth recognized Kevin's bored voice immediately. "Going to tell us what's going on anytime soon? When all the guards start freaking out and run away, it's a pretty solid clue that something's up.”
"It's me." Seth walked forward until he was in view of Kevin's cell. Everyone was standing up in their cells now, staring at him.
Kevin blinked once. "You got out. How'd you manage that?"
<
br /> "I had help from the distraction that made all the guards freak out."
Seth looked at the cell doors. They all had key card locks. He looked at the guard's key card, still in his hand.
"Let's see if this works," he said to Kevin, and inserted the card into the slot in Kevin's cell door.
There was a click, and the door came open easily.
Kevin stared at him. "I don't know how you managed this," he said, "but I am buying you a drink once we're all out of here."
Seth grinned at him and went down the line of cells, opening each door in turn. A couple of people looked hurt, but when he came to help, they flinched, and he stepped back.
Almost everyone shifted the second they were out of their cells. They probably felt safer that way, Seth thought, venturing out to where there might be guards.
The prisoners were all sorts of animals. He saw a rabbit, a housecat, a raven, a border collie, and an alligator in the general flow toward the exit. He felt like he should be trying to direct them, but in truth, he didn't know which way to go any more than they did.
Left behind in the cells when everyone was gone were Kevin and the woman in the cell next to Seth's. She had braced a hand on the wall, and was staring at the open door like she didn't know what to do with it.
"Hey," Kevin said gently to her. Seth remembered him saying that the two of them had become like brother and sister while they'd been captives. "Can you shift?"
“Not sure yet,” she said. Her voice sounded like she was speculating about the weather, distant and neutral.
“Can you walk?” Seth asked. “You guys need to get out of here.”
She let go of the wall and wobbled a bit.
Seth was just trying to decide if she’d bite him if he offered to carry her when he sensed something.
Cassie.
***
Once they were inside the building, Cassie stopped trying to ignore the Help Seth! that was constantly running in the back of her head.
The compulsion was so strong that she’d had to put a ton of effort into blocking it out, because if she’d given in, she would have started running and not stopped until she reached Seth’s side.
But now she didn’t have to block it out. I'm helping him now, she thought. So where is he?
Astonishingly, all of a sudden she thought she knew. She could feel him, a warm leonine presence, somewhere off to her left.