She keyed in the code and pulled the door open. For a moment she considered spinning around and sprinting away, but given that the men in their Grizzly forms could chase her down in seconds and tear her limb from limb, it seemed an inadvisable plan at best.
“Lab’s upstairs,” she muttered, guiding them into an interior stairwell. With every step, her mind reeled with thoughts, theories, plans. She could stall in the hopes that they’d have to stay there until morning, when people started coming in. No, that wouldn’t work. The Grizzlies were bastards, but they weren’t entirely stupid. They’d take her away again and tie her up somewhere, only to bring her back the following night. Besides, if Meg showed up for work, they might hurt her.
Maybe she should concoct a chemical cocktail to inject into their bloodstreams. She could insist that she’d discovered the genetic key to gigantism, but make it the wrong composition. She could probably kill them without much effort.
No, again. Even if they were wretched shite-monkeys, she was no murderer.
In the end, she had little choice but to go along with their plan. She would work slowly, methodically. She would make one small mistake somewhere along the way that would mean that they would never acquire what they wanted. She’d tell them she’d tried her best, and in the end if they killed her, so be it. She would be doing it for her mates.
If she couldn’t live with them, she’d die for them.
By the time she pressed the code into the keypad to get into the lab, she found herself smiling. Somehow, death didn’t seem so awful as it had a few hours ago. She’d lived an experience in the last few days that most humans couldn’t even dream of. She’d enjoyed the ecstasy of utter fulfilment, pure bliss, complete oneness with two other beings. Yes, she’d hoped that her strange relationship with Roth and Laird could last for decades or even longer, but the days and nights they’d shared had already been enough to satisfy her for ten lifetimes.
If she did die tonight, her last thought would be of them. Of their eyes, their touch, of the sweet, sensual moments when her mind had exploded in a cascade of lights, sending her reeling through space.
Suddenly she wanted to laugh. Here she was, in the midst of what should have been the most terrifying experience of her life, yet she was happy.
Perhaps this was the strength that was meant to come to her. This was the power gifted her by the Dire Wolves.
This was life.
19
“Bollocks, we’re too fucking late, for the second time tonight,” Roth snarled, sniffing the ground outside the office building where they’d picked up the scent of Emma’s blood. “They did bring her here, but they’ve left and taken her elsewhere. It seems that they met up with someone else, a third man. Probably some sort of ring leader.”
“So now the Grizzlies have commanders?” growled Laird. “That’s just sodding great, isn’t it? All we need is for the wankers to team up and form an army of psychotic arsehole teddy bears.”
“Well, isn’t that just a pain in my buttocks,” Bertie cursed. “I’m sorry, lads. I thought we’d find them here. I suppose coming all this way was nothing more than a wild goose chase.”
“Actually, not necessarily,” said Roth, his gaze going distant as he pondered something. “Damn it, we should have thought of this sooner. Emma works in a lab at Charing University. If they’re after our DNA, that’s the first place she’d bring them, isn’t it? She’ll have all her equipment there.”
“Right, of course,” Laird replied, looking back towards Bertie’s car, which had transported them the fifteen or so kilometres from the Underground Club. “I suppose we’ll have to drive back through London; it’ll take ages. What I wouldn’t give for a sodding helicopter right about now.”
“You’re in luck,” Bertie said, pointing skyward.
As Roth and Laird looked up, the silhouettes of two Dragons revealed themselves against the clouds. Diving downwards a moment later, they came to a hard landing on the asphalt between the men and the car, their silver-white scales gleaming in the moonlight.
“It would seem that Minach came through, and he’s brought his twin with him,” the Syndicate’s leader said.
“Well, that worked out nicely,” Roth replied, hope making its way to his chest as he stepped forward. “Good timing, lads. Thanks for showing up.”
Seconds later, two identical dark-haired men stood before the Dire Wolf shifters.
“This is Lyre,” Minach said, gesturing to his brother. “He can’t hear you, but he can read lips.”
“Nice to meet you,” Roth responded, taking care to speak directly to the less surly of the two brothers.
“And you two as well,” replied Lyre with impressive clarity.
“We’ve been asked to take you where you want to go,” Minach said. “Lumen’s orders.” He turned to Laird, his eyes narrowing to menacing slits. “Though I’d like to stress once again that we’re not, nor will we ever be, a fucking taxi service.”
“No, of course you aren’t,” said Laird. “Charing University, Science Wing, quick like a bunny now. I’ll tip you generously upon our arrival.”
“Oh, do fuck off,” Minach snarled. Meanwhile, Lyre let out a quiet chuckle and signed a few words to his brother that elicited a quick punch in the shoulder. Both men shifted once again, and the other two climbed astride their silver backs.
“Bertie, do us a favour and find a Dire Wolf shifter named Cillian,” said Roth, catching her before she’d made her way to her car. “He’ll be somewhere in the vicinity of King’s Cross. Tell him what’s happened, and to meet us at the university.”
“Of course,” she replied. “I’ll see you there in a little.”
The Dragons took off into the cold night, shooting towards the Thames as fast as any airplane could have done. Roth pressed himself against Minach’s cold scales, his mind racing with thoughts of Emma. He wanted desperately to reach out to her, to let her know they were coming. Ridiculous to think that in this day and age of modern technology, he and Laird had never acquired her mobile number. Not that she’d have a phone on her anyhow.
She would be frightened, no doubt. She was a fighter in her way, but she could be so shy and reserved, so reticent. Then again, it was probably for the best that she wasn’t combative; challenging a determined Grizzly was never a good plan.
He still wondered why her abductors had gone after her specifically. There were other geneticists in London, of course, and Oxford, and elsewhere. Perhaps they wanted to set an example, a warning to the Guild that no one was beyond their reach.
Well, it wouldn’t work. It was an arrogant move, and foolish. This night would end poorly for those in command as well as for other Grizzlies, who would be shunned, if not outright expelled from within London’s borders. The Guild and the Trekilling Pack would see to it that no complicit shifter went unpunished.
Icy wind whipping against his face, the Dire Wolf Alpha shut his eyes and tried to picture his lover, but instead of seeing her features, those of a man came to him. Tall, broad, daunting, he had strange, green-gold eyes and an odd smile.
Roth knew without a doubt that this was Emma’s captor. This was the man responsible for stealing her away. Their bond had revealed him, if only for a second.
The Ritual, it seemed, was beginning to take effect.
“Don’t let him hurt you, Emma,” he whispered, willing the words to find their way through time and space to his lover’s mind. “Don’t let him touch you.”
“I won’t,” her voice replied. “Don’t worry. I’ll see you both again, very soon, I promise.”
Roth took in a sharp breath. The words were so clear that he felt as though she were right next to him, breathing them into his ear.
His eyes popped open, and then all he could hear was the howling of the bitter January wind.
He looked over at Laird, who was staring at him from Lyre’s back as though he’d also witnessed the brief exchange. The two men nodded to one another, a new determination rising insid
e each of them.
* * *
When they reached the university, the two Dragons set down on a patch of snow-covered grass not far from the science wing. Almost immediately, Roth and Laird picked up Emma’s scent, which seemed to lead towards the building’s rear entrance.
“Thank you for bringing us here,” the Alpha said, turning to face the two other men when they’d shifted. “We should be all right from this point on.”
“Don’t you want some help?” asked Minach. “We could come in with you.”
“Actually, no,” Roth replied. “Stay here and wait for our pack mates, if you would. When they’ve arrived, send them in. I think it’s best for Laird and me to approach alone.”
“We’ll wait out here, then,” Minach replied, and Lyre nodded assent. “You may need us before the night’s through.”
“Yes, we may indeed,” Roth said, though something told him that he knew exactly how the altercation would go. It wasn’t manpower that they needed now, but intellect, patience and cunning. He and his mates needed to convince the Grizzlies that they were no threat, if they wanted to get Emma back alive.
The two Dire Wolf shifters strode towards the nearest set of doors, which they found locked. A small set of rectangular windows embedded in the steel seemed to provide their only chance of entry.
“Do you want to do the honours?” Roth asked, raising his eyebrows at his companion. Without hesitating for a second, Laird slammed a fist hard through a pane of glass over one door handle. He reached through, the opening just wide enough to accommodate his massive arm, and unlatched the door from the inside.
They made their way in, shifting as soon as the door had shut behind them. Their Dire Wolves’ noses were already picking up every aroma that wafted through the science wing’s corridors. Chemicals, cleaning products, Grizzly shifters, and something familiar and enticing.
Roth’s dark Wolf gestured with his muzzle towards a nearby stairwell, pushed his nose to the ground, and began to pad across the linoleum floor, guiding himself and Laird towards their lover.
20
Don’t let him hurt you.
Perhaps Emma had only willed the voice into existence to convince herself that Roth and Laird were out there somewhere. But it didn’t matter if it was real or not.
It was enough to keep her going.
She strode over to her desk and clicked her computer on. As she watched the screen flicker to life, she clenched her hands closed, her nails digging into her palms. Too impatient to sit still and wait for the damned machine to warm up, she stood up, walked over to a nearby table and grabbed a test tube.
“What the fuck are you doing?” asked Lothar.
“I need a sample,” she said, grabbing a needle from a nearby drawer. “Roll up your sleeve.”
Lothar nodded towards one of the men who’d first abducted Emma, the one with the abrasions on his face. “Richie,” he said, “You do the honours.”
“Me? What if she injects me with sodding poison?” the man asked. “She might be planning to kill me.”
“Then I suppose you’re fucked.” Lothar laughed.
“I need you in your Bear form when I do this,” Emma said unceremoniously, turning to her test subject. Her tone was casual, professional, and she knew it irritated the shifters to no end to see that she was no longer scared of them. “I need your déor’s DNA.”
“Oh, for shite’s sake,” Richie said. “Fine.” He backed away, shoving a few nearby chairs out of his path, and shifted into the form of a dark grey Grizzly with three parallel slash marks across his cheek. Emma stared at him for a moment, noting the fear in his eyes. Well, isn’t it amusing how the tables have turned, she thought. For all his bluster, the bastard is terrified of me. I’m just a small human woman, holding a tiny little needle in hand, and he’s ready to wee on the floor out of fear. He’s no monster; he’s nothing but a frightened child.
If all Grizzlies were like this, it was no wonder they wanted enhancement. The plonkers were nothing more than very small fish in a very large pond, which was occupied by much stronger Dire Wolves and Dragons. Sure, the bears went after humans to prove their strength, to prove that they were a threat to London. But the truth was, they were fucking pathetic.
Her head held high, she walked over to the Grizzly’s side and jabbed the needle into his shoulder, inspiring a soft, high-pitched whine that sounded like it should have come from a puppy rather than a fierce predator. When she’d filled the vial with blood, she walked back over to her desk as Richie altered into his human form once again.
“Bitch,” he snarled, grabbing his left shoulder. “Did you have to do it so hard?”
“That’s pretty funny, coming from a sodding bear,” she snarled back, narrowing her eyes at him. “I thought you were supposed to be all mighty and powerful, yet you’re nothing but a bloody whinging sack of bollocks.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake, you two, focus!” Lothar shouted. “We need this done quickly.”
Emma smiled to herself as she inserted the sample into a small machine that was wired to her computer. She clicked open a new window, and within seconds, an image of a DNA strand was rotating before her on the monitor.
“Holy shite,” she muttered softly as she stared at the picture that had begun rotating in front of her.
“What is it?” asked Lothar, leaning over her shoulder. “What are you seeing?”
She shook her head slowly, her eyes locked on the screen. For a moment she managed to forget that she was in mortal peril. The vision before her was enthralling, incredible. It explained so much, yet left so many questions unanswered.
“I’ve seen odd mutations before,” she said, “but I’ve never encountered anything remotely like this.”
“What do you mean?” Lothar asked. By now, the other two had joined him to peer over her shoulder at the screen.
“Most DNA strands look like a helix. But this…it’s as though you exist with two fused strands, separate but braided together in a quadruple helix. Animal and man, coexisting side by side in one body. Two separate entities with one shared identity. I didn’t think it was possible for a being to develop in this way.”
“Yes, well, that’s all very interesting, but how are you going to enhance us?” Lothar asked impatiently. Clearly he wasn’t as fascinated by the extraordinary step in biological evolution as she was.
“I’ll need to use a sample from myself,” Emma said, turning to look him in the eye. “But I should warn you, I don’t think I’m anything special. I’m only a human, remember.”
“A human who has bonded with two Dire Wolves,” Lothar corrected.
“That shouldn’t alter the base of my own DNA,” Emma retorted. “I realize that only one of us in this room is a geneticist, but you should understand that, at least.”
“Just fucking do it,” he said, grabbing the back of her neck to steer her head towards the screen. For a moment she pushed back, resisting his strength, shocked to discover how easily she could do so. She pulled free and turned to look at him again, only to see a brief expression of fear flash across his face, confirming her theory.
The Ritual had begun to enhance her.
Without a doubt, she’d begun to grow stronger.
Even so, she probably wasn’t yet powerful enough to take on a Grizzly shifter, so she grabbed a clean needle and extracted a sample of her own blood, inserting the vial into the same reader she’d used for Richie’s.
When she sat down and looked at the screen again, her jaw dropped open.
She’d just insisted that she was nothing more than a human, but her findings were quickly proving her wrong. Instead of two intertwining DNA strands, there were…
ten.
Four for Roth.
Four for Laird.
Two for her.
Inside her body was a sampling of two men, their Dire Wolf counterparts, and a human woman.
The Ritual really had changed her. Roth and Laird were part of her now, in every way imagin
able.
“There it is,” Lothar said, leaning forward to take in the strange sight. “That’s what I want. Exponential power. I want what you have.”
“But this isn’t something I can offer you in one night,” Emma protested. “I can’t just mix up a cocktail for you to drink. Look, if you give me a few weeks…”
Lothar grabbed her again, his grip on her neck tightening, and she stopped talking. “You take me for an idiot,” he said. “I know full well that those shifters gave you their power, and I know how they did it. Now, I can take it from you in the same way, or you can do as I ask.”
“Don’t you fucking threaten me.” She shuddered hard under his touch, her body bracing. “Don’t ever threaten me.”
“You don’t want threats? Then do as you’re told.”
At that, a dark, insidious rage began to rise up inside Emma, unlike anything she’d ever felt. Heat streamed like lava through her veins.
Fuck you! she wanted to scream. Take your sodding hand off me or I’ll kill you.
But instead, she told herself to calm down. She could feel her body’s strength growing, could feel how close she was now.
But she wasn’t quite there yet.
She began typing slowly.
Tap, tap, tap.
“What are you doing?” Lothar asked, the irritation in his voice palpable.
“Coding,” she said, grinding her teeth. “Setting out the genetic map for you. I’ll be quick, I promise.”
He pulled his hand away at last. “Good.”
When she was finished, Emma rose to her feet and strode over to a nearby sample fridge, deliberately wasting time by rifling through its shelves. The tile floor, which had been cold under her feet when she’d entered the lab, felt warm to the touch now. In fact, her whole body felt warmer, somehow, despite the fact that she knew perfectly well that the room’s temperature hadn’t altered.
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