by Kari Cole
“Hmm, well,” the doctor said.
“Wait,” Kroll said. “I want to know why your subjects are running around free, without a guard. That is not something I approved. Did you, Caine?”
“No.”
“So, Doctor. Who gave you permission to set your lab experiments free? It wasn’t me or Caine. I know it wasn’t Holt. He didn’t sound too pleased when he heard about Cincinnati. Did you decide to do this on your own?”
The doctor’s expression grew more brittle as Kroll spoke. “Not that I am required to explain my methods to you, but I felt it was time to step up our efforts in order to meet our timeline. All the proper protocols were put in place. Unlike these subjects here”—he gestured to the cages lining the walls—“the ones in the field are volunteers. They are required to check in every day and report their vitals and a number of other factors we are tracking.”
Kroll flicked a hand toward the dead bear. “How can you be sending males out when this is still happening?”
“You misunderstand. The subjects currently in the field-testing stage were all given a limited dose of the serum, over a longer period of time. All exhibited enhanced senses and strength, and demonstrated control over themselves and their beasts. I was asked to send them out sooner than I would have liked, but I deemed the risk negligible. They were needed to help in several projects. I understand there are a few individuals Mr. Holt would like to find as soon as possible, and other less...nuanced projects.”
At Kroll’s baffled expression, Caine said, “He means hits.”
“Goddess take it,” Kroll said. “Doctor, are you capable of speaking without the endless stream of bullshit?”
The doctor sputtered and Caine slashed his hand through the air in front of him. Not that he didn’t sympathize with Kroll—he was about ten seconds away from breaking the doctor’s neck—but they had other things to do today. Explaining to Holt why they’d murdered their lead scientist and finding another would put a crimp in their schedule.
“Tell me about the male you lost in Montana, doctor,” Caine said. The Kaniksu River Pack had already proven to be a pain in the ass. Their sheriff was becoming more so every day. It would be a pleasure to finally get the green light to take them all out.
“I didn’t lose him...precisely.” The doctor picked up a tablet from a rolling tray. His dry, dusty scent grew bitter with his nerves and Caine’s wolf growled in response. The male tapped the screen. Cleared his throat. “Ah, yes. Jeffrey Foy. Coyote. Thirty-seven years of age. A volunteer.”
“Yeah? So where is he?” Kroll asked.
A pinched look came over Hermann’s face. “During check-ins, he presented as a tad agitated, but well within norms for a predatory male lycanthrope in the days leading up to the Thunder Moon.”
Caine ignored Kroll’s snort. “Where is he, doctor?” he asked, growing bored with this conversation and the self-important little male.
“Well, I—I don’t know exactly. He’s missed his last three check-ins.”
“Three?” His voice was barely above a whisper, yet Hermann flinched as if Caine had struck him. “What did his partner have to say? None of the volunteers are supposed to go anywhere alone.”
“You know, I don’t speak to the subjects personally.”
Caine let the wolf come into his eyes.
Up went the tablet as Hermann hunched behind it. After several seconds of tapping and swiping, there was a sharp intake of breath. “Well, hmm, uh, it would seem—”
“Doctor.”
“Uh, Foy’s partner doesn’t seem to have checked in as required either.” He held up a hand and spoke quickly. “I’m sure they’re just overcome by their libidos. Otherwise we’d have reports of violence.”
“Not necessarily,” Caine said. “The sheriff there is a lycanthrope. After surviving the coup attempt this winter, he and his Alpha might not want to attract the attention of the Interclan Authority.”
“It could look like they can’t handle their own affairs,” Kroll said with a smirk.
“That,” Caine agreed. “Or they’ve wised up. We are out to get them after all.”
* * *
Subject 622 curled into a tighter ball in the back corner of his cage, head down. From beneath overgrown, scraggly bangs, he peered at the three Apex males as they passed. The fancy-suited, evil James Bond–looking one named Kroll turned his head toward him. Quick as a cat on a mouse, 622 lowered his gaze to the metal floor of his cage. Don’t look at them directly. Never, ever look at any of them directly. It was always better to play submissive around them. Any sign of defiance or even an inkling of individual thought resulted in pain. Lots of pain. Or worse. He couldn’t contain the shudder that ran through him at just the thought of another injection. He didn’t want to end up like Subject 603.
When 622 was first brought to this hellhole, 603 had been huge and strong, even for a teenager. Now the grizzly lay in a puddle of his own blood and filth. Dead.
Nope. He definitely did not want to be like 603 or the many others he’d seen carted out of here since he’d arrived.
The heavy steel door to this wing of the lab swung shut with a quiet whoosh and then a solid thunk! as the locks engaged. Sometimes he swore he could feel that bolt sliding home like a punch right through the chest, pinning him in his cage. Locking him in hell forever.
Still, the door locking meant the doctor and the creepy muscle were gone. For now. He breathed a sigh of relief and raised his head. His legs ached from crouching for so long and he eased down to his bare ass. The floor was cold, but he was used to that. He rarely had any clothes to wear anyway. His cougar would do better with the temperature, but he was afraid he wouldn’t be able to shift back. That had happened a few times to the other subjects. 612 and 618 had both gotten stuck as wolves—freaky, mangy, misshapen ones. The doctor had come in then and observed them for a while. That’s what the white lab-coated guys called it: observing. Like thinking or being defiant, being interesting was a real bad thing. In his nightmares, 622 still heard 612’s and 618’s screams, and he wished to the goddess he’d never learned what the word vivisection meant.
Around him, cages filled with shifters of all kinds rattled softly as the other experiments shifted position, relaxing a bit.
Kroll and Caine didn’t touch them, though he’d heard some of the more advanced experiments were pitted against them in a training arena. That was probably bullshit. Even if there was such a place, those two males wouldn’t be the ones testing out whatever the hell the experiments were supposed to be. They were big shots. He could tell. Every time they came, the doctor got twitchy. Shifters died when the doctor got twitchy. Poor 603 was proof.
He couldn’t really blame the doctor or his assistants for getting spooked when Kroll and Caine showed up. The look in their eyes... He shivered, and his beast cowered in his dank little hole in 622’s mind. Those two were straight-up killers. At least they were honest about it. The doctor, though, he was worse. Dr. Hermann, the goddamn quack, liked to tell his experiments that they were helping him create a better world for lycanthropes and that they should be proud. 622 didn’t feel proud. He felt pissed, like he could rip the doctor’s eyes right from his freaking head and call it a good start.
Subject 622 had had a name once. A real one. He just couldn’t remember it. It’d started with a D...or maybe a K? Even though it seemed like he’d been here forever, he knew he’d had a life before this, in a place that didn’t stink like metal and chemicals and rank terror. In the few times he dreamed without fear he saw tall, sweet-smelling trees—spruce, pine, willow, and sugar maple—high mountains that dipped into cool valleys with sweet, clear water. There were people, with smiles and kind words. He just couldn’t remember any of their faces.
It gave him a terrible headache trying to remember if any of those people or places actually existed. But he thought they and others like them must. Wh
y else would the doctor and his assistants punish them when they talked about where they’d come from?
622 rolled his shoulders. He just had to hold on. The longer he fought the effects of the drugs they shoved in his veins, the better his chance of survival. He wasn’t a head case. Not yet at least. And this wasn’t some pie-in-the-sky case of delusional wishful thinking. Time was his friend. The longer he lasted, the more time he had to find a way out, or for the doctor to create a serum that didn’t kill him. A lot of his fellow prisoners gave up, some right away, but that was a sucker’s path. Everything was possible. They were shapeshifters, for goddess’s sake. They were proof that magic existed. If that was possible, so was freedom. They just had to survive.
622 would survive. He had to. And one day, he’d look those bastards square in the face.
Chapter Nine
“We’ll go over to the Golden Claw later to pick up your van, Hannah,” Jessie said as she pulled her Jeep out of the medical clinic’s parking lot.
Jeez Louise, her van. She was so discombobulated she’d almost forgotten about the piece of junk. Stupid. That van could be the only thing between her and death if she needed to get out of town fast. Hell, Hannah should beg for a lift over to the pub right now, load Frost into the rusty heap, and hit the gas.
The sheriff was right. It couldn’t be a coincidence she’d been at the center of two violent incidents in less than twenty-four hours. What were the odds? Slim to nil. No wonder he looked at her like a bomb that might blow any second. She was a walking disaster.
Turning in her seat, she looked at Frost in the cargo area. He lifted his head to stare back. The sun glinted off the studs on his ridiculous collar. She sighed and turned forward, her gaze dropping to her gloved hands in her lap. No, they couldn’t go yet. She hadn’t done what she’d come to do.
She leaned back and closed her eyes. How had everything gotten so crazy?
“All right?” Jessie asked.
Hannah took a breath and opened her eyes. “Yeah. How well do you know the local Alpha?”
“Luke Wyland? Not well. I don’t have much to do with the pack. They know what I am, obviously, but they leave me alone. Treat me almost like a mundane human. The Kaniksu River pack is pretty welcoming to all supernatural beings. Can’t say the same about other packs in other territories. Why?”
“Just wondering how big a faux pas it would be if I didn’t show up tonight.” The idea of going to a pack-only run on the week of the Thunder Moon had her heart thumping like a rabbit, but the Alpha had seemed rather insistent.
“You rescued his Beta’s sons and mate. I’m sure Luke feels the need to honor that.”
“I didn’t do anything but get in the way until help arrived. You and Frost did more.”
“Oh, no. Don’t drag me into it. I’m not a werewolf. Besides, it’s Thunder Moon week. Don’t you want to enjoy yourself for a while?” Jessie waggled her brows. “Do whatever it is y’all do under the moon?”
Hannah would love to, if things were normal. If she were normal. But they weren’t. She was supposed to avoid other lycanthropes, not run around the forest with them playing grab-ass.
“I need to focus on learning how to control my abilities,” she said. She flung her hands out in front of her. “I can’t keep going on like this.”
Jessie sighed. “I wouldn’t want to live like that either. I don’t see that you have much choice, though. Luke is the Alpha and you are a wolf visiting his territory. He personally invited you to their run tonight. You have to go.”
“Yeah.” Hannah had been afraid of that. Pissing off the Alpha when she needed to be in his territory was a bad idea.
Jessie flipped her turn signal and pulled into a parking lot in front of Mills Nursery & Florist. She drove around the single-story, aluminum-sided building and down a gravel driveway. A greenhouse was attached to the back of the building. On the other side of the drive was a field lined with several rows of trees and plants waiting for purchase.
“I have to check on things in the nursery,” Jessie said as she stopped her Jeep in front of a screen of flowering shrubs. The roofline of a small house rose beyond them.
Hannah wanted to protest, to demand they get started training and fix her so she could get on with her life. She didn’t. She may look like a pile of garbage, but she still had some manners. “Sorry. You must be busy this time of year.” There were four vehicles parked in the lot in front of the shop already.
“Meh. Spring and fall are worse. Now it’s mostly hanging baskets, decorative pots, fertilizer, and such. The things that keep a blooming yard going. Plus, we have a contract to provide upkeep on the flower arrangements in the public areas around downtown.”
“Wow. That’s fantastic.”
Hannah didn’t really know anything about gardening. She could arrange a perfectly lovely display for a centerpiece, but grow the actual flowers? Not even on her best day. Mama said the green gene must have skipped a generation. Mama, though, could grow just about anything. They had a yard service for the lawn and heavy lifting, but the flowers were her mother’s domain. When anyone asked what her secret was, Mama would only say she “fussed about.” Of course, telling the neighbors she was descended from a long line of talented Earth witches was out of the question.
What Hannah wouldn’t give to be spending a quiet day in the Georgia heat handing her mother garden tools and listening to her ramble on about some bit of gossip.
Jessie opened her door and slid out. “You all right to go ahead and let yourselves in? I shouldn’t be too long.”
“Sure. I appreciate you letting us stay with you.”
She waved away the thanks. “It’s not locked. Guest room is the first door on the left.”
“Okay.”
The door closed and Jessie walked away, back down the driveway toward the retail shop.
Hannah got out, too, hefted her backpack onto her shoulder, and opened the trunk door for Frost. When she moved to help him down, he curled a lip. “Fine. Don’t complain to me when your shoulder hurts.”
As if he hadn’t just been in a tussle with a black bear several times his size, he hopped to the ground and gave her a snort.
She held up her hands in surrender. “You’re right, you’re right. Graceful as a cat.”
He grumbled and she laughed. “Come on, we need to check our messages before Jessie comes back.”
The creamy yellow cottage with white trim sat behind a screen of flowering shrubs. The sweet scent from the lavender and pale pink blooms drew her in as sure as if she were a bee seeking pollen. The whole area smelled clean, fresh, and bursting with life. Even the cars passing on the road couldn’t spoil the glory of a summer in bloom. More flowers spilled from hanging baskets on the tiny porch, pots along the walkway, and shrubs and trees all over the neat yard. An appropriate home for a florist and nursery owner.
Together, she and Frost climbed the three steps to the porch, and as promised found the door unlocked. Crazy. Three werewolves had lived in her house in Atlanta, and they wouldn’t have dreamed of not locking the door when they went out. They even had a full security system with monitors throughout the house and guesthouse behind the garage.
Fat lot of good all that technology had done.
Frost pressed his solid, warm weight against her leg and Hannah blinked back tears. “Thanks.” He nudged her hand and looked into the house. “Right. No time to dwell.”
The interior of the house smelled familiar, like her great-grandmother’s house: sage, lemon, and lavender. Maybe Jessie followed Gran’s recipe for soap?
“Let’s find our room.”
The foyer opened into a light-filled living space painted the same yellow as the outside of the house. White slipcovered furniture, bejeweled with boldly patterned teal, pink, and tangerine pillows and throws, was cozily arranged in front of a gas-insert fireplace. There wer
e plants everywhere—hanging from the ceiling, lined up in little blue pots on the windowsill, and rising from huge urns in the corners.
A hallway ran down the center of the house. Like the bodyguard he thought he was, Frost padded ahead of her, scenting the air, checking out every room. By this point, Hannah knew better than to try to circumvent his efforts. He would snap his teeth and herd her around until she let him confirm everything was safe anyway. To be honest, she wouldn’t have made it past the first month on her own without him. She may be a werewolf, but what did she know about hiding from predators? She’d never considered she might become prey. What did she have to fear? Her father was fourth in one of the most prominent packs in the country. As far as the humans were concerned, they were wealthy and politically connected. Powerful. They lived in a safe neighborhood, went to safe schools, partied and played with other safe people. Safe, safe, safe. Totally and completely safe in their privilege.
Until the day they weren’t.
A natural wolf, on the other hand, learned it was best to avoid other predators. Unless it was with the pack. Then the wolf was king.
It had only taken Hannah a few days to realize that rule applied to werewolves, too. And she didn’t have a pack anymore.
The house wasn’t very big and Frost returned to her side after a minute or two. The first door on the left of the hallway was open, revealing a queen-size bed covered in a robin’s-egg blue spread. Frost pushed in ahead of her, sniffing away. “You already checked this room.”
He didn’t dignify her comment with a response. Instead, he inspected the braided rug at the foot of the bed, apparently deciding against it, and hopped up onto the bed. He turned in a circle, then lay down with his head on a pillow.
“You are so spoiled.”
He flicked an ear at her.
Hannah sat on the edge of the bed. Lord, she was bone-tired. It was barely ten in the morning and she could have sworn on a stack of bibles that it was the middle of the night. Getting shot with silver and fighting a bear took a lot out of a girl. The run-in with Sheriff Ellis hadn’t helped her peace of mind either. The way he looked at her...woo, but that male was gorgeous. And intense, and scary as hell. She didn’t know if she wanted to run from him or screw him. Damn Thunder Moon always gave her naughty ideas.