by L. L. Raand
“And if Nicholas is successful in weakening her, even forcing her to change her platform?”
“Well then, we will have won, won’t we?” Francesca kissed Michel’s throat, teasing her tongue along the undersurface of Michel’s jaw. “This is one of those circumstances, darling, where we need to be on the side of the winner, no matter who that might b—”
The car skidded and screeched to a halt. Michel grasped Francesca and pushed her down on the seat, covering her with her body. She shouted to the driver, “What is it?”
“There’s a…a wolf out there.”
Michel hissed. “We’re in the middle of Were territory. Of course there are wolves.”
“This one just jumped onto the hood of the limo.”
Michel released her grip on Francesca and swung around to stare out through the windshield. A white and brown wolf stared in at her, legs spread, lips pulled back in a warning snarl. Something in the fiery gold gaze made her breath catch. Despite the heavy fortification of the limo, she smelled her. Her focus narrowed until all she sensed was her prey—her prey. She opened the door and stepped out. Holding the door ajar, shielding Francesca, she said to the driver, “Keep driving. The backup car is waiting at the entrance to the Pack land. They’ll escort you home.” She glanced at Francesca. “I won’t be far behind.”
“Do be careful, darling,” Francesca murmured. “These are dangerous hunting grounds.”
Michel grinned. “That’s what makes them interesting.”
The limo pulled away and the wolf disappeared into the dark. As Michel drifted to the edge of the forest, the wolf jumped from the brush and padded after her. Michel stopped beneath a tall pine, moonlight filtering through its branches like the bars of a prison. She leaned back against the tree and stared at the wolf. “You were looking for me.”
The wolf shimmered, flickering in the moonlight like an ethereal dream, and then Katya rose from a kneeling position and stood inches from her. “I felt you in the Compound.”
She was naked as she had been when Michel had first seen her, strung up in the lab and helpless. She’d been gorgeous even then, but now she was far from helpless. She was glorious in the moonlight—tight-bodied, full-breasted, and exquisitely beautiful.
“I’ve been looking for you.” Michel slid her fingers into Katya’s hair and drew her forward, covering her mouth with her own. She kissed her, slowly, letting her teeth glance over the inner surface of Katya’s lip, exploring the hot, firm slope of her tongue, the sharp points of her canines. She didn’t enthrall her. She didn’t have to. She’d drunk from her, and some of Katya’s blood still flowed in her veins. She’d filled Katya with her hormones, and they would share a connection until the feeding bond disappeared or she fed from her again, renewing their connection.
“I need you.” Katya pressed Michel back against the tree, rubbing against her, her hands in Michel’s hair, her mouth hot and hungry.
“You remember,” Michel murmured.
“Only you.” Katya pulled at the buttons on Michel’s shirt. “I remember you. I remember you holding me. I remember you being inside me. I remember you saved me.”
Michel gripped Katya’s wrist, stopping her before she opened her shirt completely. “What are you doing out here?”
Katya shuddered. “I don’t know. I felt you. I needed…” She shivered uncontrollably. “I need you.”
“No,” Michel said roughly, recognizing the sex frenzy. “You don’t need me.” She gripped Katya’s hair and tilted her head back. “You need this.” She sank into Katya’s throat and Katya came with a strangled, exultant cry. Michel drank and pretended Katya’s blood was all she wanted.
Chapter Twenty-seven
Sylvan stepped into the small holding room in the far corner of her headquarters, closed the door, and folded her arms across her chest. She said nothing, surveying the man who sat shackled to a plain, straight-backed wooden chair ten feet away. The window behind him, unlike every other window in the Compound, was shut. The moon, nearly full, glided just above the treetops, cutting a silver swath across the black sky. Its clarion call was a sweet, sharp pull in her blood. He didn’t look at her.
She didn’t know him, could never remember having seen him anywhere before. He was big by human standards. His thick brown hair covered the collar of the khaki camo shirt that matched his BDUs. His eyes were a flat, even blue, the color of the sky at midday—unbroken by the slightest fleck of gold or green. His cheeks were windburned, dusted with dark stubble, his skin above the beard-line ruddy and faintly pebbled. A purplish bruise covered his left cheek, underscored by a single claw mark.
Dasha Baran had shown admirable restraint in taking him down. He was undamaged, other than the bruise. Dasha had reported he’d carried no weapons, only binoculars and a radio. Unusual for a mercenary to be without weapons.
Sylvan rumbled softly and he blanched.
“Who are you?” Sylvan asked.
“My name—” He broke off, coughing, his voice sounding rusty and unused. He straightened. “My name is Martin Hoffstetter.”
“All right,” Sylvan said. “Now I know your name. Tell me who you are and make it quick. I have little patience for those who torture my wolves. If I didn’t think you had information I wanted, you’d already be dead. If I find that you have nothing to tell me, then you will be.”
He wisely dropped his gaze to her shoulder, pressing his trembling hands flat against his thighs. His breath came quickly, shallow breaths, anxious and fearful. His Adam’s apple bobbed in his thick neck as he swallowed several times. “I didn’t torture them.”
“What did you do?” A cold fist centered in Sylvan’s chest. He had been there. He knew what had been done to Katya and Gray. Her wolf wanted retribution, wanted his blood, wanted his guts spilling out onto the floor, steaming and red—the color of her rage. She held back the wild wolf, even though she wanted the same.
“I tried to protect them—when I could.”
“But not free them.”
“I couldn’t!” He looked up into her face, then quickly away. “I tried to get information to you. I called the reporter.”
Sylvan studied him. No one except a trusted few knew Becca had received an anonymous call about the captive young. “Why not call me or the police?”
“The police?” He grimaced. “No thanks—some of the security guards were off-duty cops. And I figured if you didn’t find them, a reporter might dig out the truth, eventually. This goes beyond those prisoners—it’s bigger than that.”
She knew that now—the human females added another layer to the conspiracy. “Who do you work for?”
“I’m not sure,” he said. “The name on my check was Biotech Research Center. I don’t know who owns it.”
“Who do you report to?”
“We got our assignments by e-mail, usually only twenty-four hours in advance. We moved around a lot. I wasn’t in any one installation for more than a few days at a time, then I’d be transferred somewhere else and cycled back again. I don’t know who is in charge.”
“Someone on-site must have been giving you orders.” Sylvan took a step closer, and he flinched. She could feel the bones in her face shifting and her pelt slicking down her torso and abdomen. She couldn’t keep her wolf at bay, not now, not thinking about the enemies who had taken and tortured her young.
“Please,” he whispered. “I did as much as I could.”
“I hope you’re right,” Sylvan murmured, stopping a foot in front of him. “Otherwise, you’re dead.”
“I was a guard,” Hoffstetter said. “I got my orders by radio while I was in the installation. I worked with the same team of guards most shifts, so I don’t know how many are involved. I rarely saw anyone else, except a few lab technicians when we delivered the”—sweat broke out on his forehead—“the subjects.”
Sylvan growled, and he squirmed in his chair. “You know their names.”
He shook his head. “They wouldn’t tell us. The bigger
one, the one with the dark hair, she was subject number one. The other one, the blonde—subject number two.”
“Gray and Katya,” Sylvan said. “Those are their names. Those are the ones you tortured.”
“I’m not one of them.”
“You kept them prisoner. That makes you one of—”
“No.” His voice was stronger. “I was trying to help stop it. I’m not one of them. I don’t want to hurt any of you. But if we don’t know who they are, we can’t stop them.”
“Who’s we?”
His gaze shifted away from her shoulder to the far corner of the room.
“Now is not the time to keep secrets,” Sylvan said with lethal softness.
His shoulders sagged, as if he’d decided his fate was already sealed. “I belong to a group that supports your goals. We believe that all the Praetern species should be given equal rights and protection under the law. That the sovereignty of your territories and governance should be preserved. We’re on your side. We know there’s strong, organized public opposition, but we also have proof now that there’s an even more dangerous covert opposition. We’re trying to find out who they are—just like you.”
“You want me to believe that you were there to help us?”
“When I went undercover, we didn’t know what was happening—not for sure. We’d heard rumors of experiments, of secret labs, and some of us used contacts we had to get jobs inside. I didn’t know enough at first to stop them from taking your…your Weres. I tried to protect the subje—Gray and Katya. I swear to you I tried to help. Ask them.”
“Oh, I will.” Sylvan considered that her public persona might have prevented her from learning about this group—and the secret labs. Perhaps she had distanced herself too much from the needs of the Pack while playing politics with humans. Guilt burned in her belly. “How long were you undercover?”
“Seven months.” He sounded bitter. “The longest and ugliest seven months of my life. It made me sick to go there every day, but I was afraid if I stopped going, they’d all be dead.”
Sylvan turned abruptly and paced to the far wall. She gripped the windowsill so tightly her claws made dents in the wood. Her wolf’s solution was simple—protect, fight, kill. She had to think. She pushed the window up so hard the glass rattled in its frame. Breathing deeply, she let the scent of mountain air and wildlife soothe her wrath. She watched the moon slide across the sky, flirting in and out behind banks of clouds, and ached to feel pine needles under her paws and the night breeze rustling her pelt. She breathed again and thought of all Gray and Katya had suffered, of how they had fought to survive, and her desire to escape disappeared. She sensed Drake across the Compound with Elena, felt the heartbeats of her Pack—even the thin, distant pulse of life in the infected girls. She couldn’t run from the pain, or turn away from the ugliness of hatred and prejudice. She was the center, born to duty—the duty she willingly embraced. Leaving the window open, she turned back to the prisoner.
“How big is their operation?”
“Big, I think. I was in at least four different labs.”
“And all of them held captive subjects?”
“I only had direct interaction with prisoners in two.” Martin winced. “But that doesn’t mean they weren’t there. Just that I didn’t see them.”
“Were they all wolf Weres?”
Martin nodded, as if he was afraid to speak.
Sylvan growled. “Can you tell me where the other labs are?”
He shook his head. “No, we were transported by bus from a central loading area each night. The windows were blacked out, and we weren’t allowed to have any kind of electronic devices. There was no way to track our location or even compute the distance. I do know we were usually riding about an hour.”
Sylvan believed him. She smelled fear, but also outrage, when he spoke of the torture. He did not smell like the enemy. “I want to meet your leaders.”
“I think my cover is compromised, and if I’m seen with any of them, I’ll endanger them.” His jaw tensed. “I won’t do that.”
Brave man, and Sylvan was in his debt. “Will your organization provide sanctuary?”
“If they can.”
“What were you doing in the woods tonight?”
“I escaped when you raided the place the first time and kept watch today. When I saw the trucks moving heavy equipment out all day long, I realized they were evacuating the place and called the reporter again. I wasn’t certain, but I thought there were others still in there. Then when all the employees, including the guards, left at sundown, I knew something was going down.”
“Were you in communication with anyone?”
Martin shook his head. “No one, then. I’m supposed to report in tomorrow at seven.”
“If we can corroborate your story, then perhaps you’ll still be able to.” Sylvan left the room. She needed her mate before she lost the last of her control.
*
Sophia followed the moon, running without destination, surrendering to the primal call. Leaves danced above her on silver threads, the ground shimmered with shifting shadows, the air bit and teased at her nose. Breath burst from her lungs in ragged pants, her shoulders strained, and her hindquarters stretched and thrust as she drove her body hard and fast, slicing between trees, leaping over rocks and fallen branches, skating down mossy slopes. Surrounded by beauty, she ran until her heart hurt with every pace, but she could not outrun her sorrow.
A scream shattered the steady thrum of blood in her ears, and she skidded to a stop, chest heaving. Shaking her head from side to side, she lifted her muzzle and searched the wind for the scent of danger. A keening cry cut through the night, and she caught the scent of Were from the forest to her left. One of the Pack was in trouble. She smelled blood and her wolf raced toward the source.
She broke into a clearing and saw Katya at the edge of the forest, naked, bleeding, in the grip of a Vampire. Protect. Defend. Kill.
Snarling, every fiber set to kill, she streaked toward the enemy. She launched herself to strike at the throat, but an unseen blow struck her while she was still in the air, bludgeoning her body, blasting awareness from her mind. She yelped, an explosion of pain detonating inside her head.
*
Niki had plenty of practice tracking enemies through the dark, dense forest. Following Sophia’s trail was easy. Her blood surged in time to Sophia’s, her heart beat in synchrony. She felt her, knew her in her deepest reaches, as clearly as she knew her duty to the Pack and her place at Sylvan’s side. Chest heaving, lungs screaming, she raced to find her. Her wolf couldn’t remember what she had done to drive Sophia away, but she knew she had to bring her home. She couldn’t leave Sophia alone. She needed Sophia. She couldn’t be alone anymore.
Blinding pain struck the back of her head and she stumbled, rolling over and over on the ground. Staggering to her feet, she whined and searched in vain for an enemy. She was alone. Gait faltering, senses dulled, she lost the trail. She dropped to the ground on her belly, whimpering, scrabbling in useless circles, unable to escape the horrible assault.
Sophia. Sophia was hurt. Niki forced herself to her feet and pushed forward into the wall of agony. She had to find her. Someone, something, was hurting her mate, and she would make it stop or die trying.
Chapter Twenty-eight
Drake let herself into Gray and Katya’s room and took in the two Weres on the bed. Misha sat facing the door with Gray reclining between her spread legs, her back to Misha’s chest. Misha loosely clasped Gray’s waist and rested her chin on Gray’s shoulder, at once protective and possessive. Gray was as relaxed as Drake had seen her since the rescue, despite a fading bruise on her jaw and a cluster of scratches on her chest that might have been from a tussle or a tangle—probably both, from the way the two of them were wrapped around each other. “Are you two going to stay put for the rest of the night?”
“Yes, Prima,” Gray said. Misha nodded.
“Where’s Katya?”
> Gray hesitated, and Misha murmured something in Gray’s ear. Gray took a deep breath. “I don’t know. She was restless, like she needed to tangle, and then she shifted and disappeared.”
“She didn’t say anything? Is there someone she’d been tangling with she might have gone to meet?”
Gray shook her head. “No one I know about—but she acted as if she’d been called.”
Drake kept her worry out of her eyes—the Compound was still on alert, and if Gray sensed Katya was in trouble, she’d go looking for her, and Misha would likely go along. Bad enough one of them was roaming around—she didn’t need a whole passel of hot-headed, hot-blooded adolescents roving the woods.
She’d find Katya as soon as she’d seen to her mate. “You two get some sleep.”
“What about Katya?” Gray said. “I should look for her.”
“The Alpha and I will take care of her. I want you both to stay here. That’s an order.”
“Yes, Prima,” Misha said instantly, and Drake had a feeling she would see that Gray complied.
Drake left them and headed for headquarters. Sylvan was on her way, and she was agitated. Sylvan had insisted on interrogating the captive before anything else, even though she needed to shift to heal the burns, and she needed to tangle to blunt the adrenaline and stress. As soon as Drake found out what was driving Sylvan’s wolf to a near frenzy, she would make her run.
“What is it?” Drake asked, pushing open the wide front door and intercepting Sylvan as Sylvan jumped up onto the porch. Sylvan grabbed her shoulders and pulled her into the shadows. She pressed Drake’s back to the wall and took her mouth, kissing her hard, probing deep, covering her with hot, hard flesh. Drake grazed her claws lightly up and down Sylvan’s back, slicing the back of her shirt to stroke flesh. She lifted her chin and let Sylvan feast on her throat. “Tell me. No one can hear.”