“I need your help.”
“Why would I help you?” He grumbled, rising to his feet. “Why do I feel so hungry?”
“Because you've been sleeping for two days, Sleeping Beauty,”
“Two days! How could I sleep for two days?” His eyes narrowed at her as he stomped over to the bars. “You drugged me.” He stated accusingly.
“More like I compelled to sleep until I woke you.”
A look of pure rage came over his face as he tried to grab her through the bars. Sparks shot against his skin as they brushed against the bars, causing him to leap back with a gasp of pain. While he paced the length of his prison, she could see the skin of his forearms bubbling with a painful burn.
Time was running out.
“Look; I know you hate Malca as much as I do. I need to find her. You know where she is, right?” she asked with a pleading tone.
He scoffed at her. “First you escape and now you want to run right back?”
“She has someone I...” Love, she had nearly said. “Someone I care about and I want to watch her face as I destroy her. But I need you to do that.” She replied. When his face showed no spark of interest she continued, “You help me and I promise to help you get that freedom from her that you want so badly.” She indicated at the explosive embedded in his chest. “If you don't I will walk out of here and leave you to rot. We'll see how forgiving the rest of these guys will be when they find out your people killed one of their own.”
Slowly Raoul turned his back to her. Releasing a disappointed breath, she turned to leave. Walking to the door she felt her chest tighten with pain. Had she lost Doyle forever? Deep down she knew his family had no hope in standing up against Malca. Her eyes began to burn with tears—tears that she would never let fall. As her hand closed around the door knob, Raoul called after her.
“Wait.” Turning around she glared back at him as his eyes met hers. “All I know is that Malca told my brother to deliver you alive to some abandoned lumber yard. But there is another place she may be waiting. We would sometimes deliver recruits to Malca for processing there.”
Taking a step closer to the cell, she raised a curious brow at him. “Recruits?”
“Where do you think Malca got all her lab rats? Craigslist?” He scoffed. “Malca would send her most trusted soldiers out to bring people to the labs, mostly homeless people and runaways. She may be holding your friend there.”
Moving closer to the bars she held the keys dangling from one finger. “If you betray me—”
“Listen here; doll face.” Opening his torn shirt he showed her a blood crusted bullet hole near his collar bone. “Why would I betray you when you're helping me get vengeance against my brother who shot me and left me for dead? I have no need to betray you as long as I get what I want.”
“Likewise,” She uttered in a low voice as she moved to unlock the cell door.
It was time to save her mate and bring Malca to her knees. She'd never let Doyle forget this.
Who needs protection now?
* ~ * ~ *
Blinking against the stabbing lights that suddenly were turned on above him, Doyle struggled to open his eyes. The light sent sharp needles of pain stabbing at his eyes as his head felt too heavy to hold up. Reaching for his beast for more strength he was surprised to find his bear could not comply. Again he tried to draw on his animal but was greeted with a dark silence. What was wrong with him?
“Is he awake?” A rough, inquisitive voice asked near him. A clicking sound echoed around the wide room as someone moved closer. His eye sight was fuzzy and prevented him from seeing much of anything.
“Leave me with him. I want to study him alone, without distraction.” The voice was female with a strong resolve of someone that was used to being obeyed.
Shaking his head against the heavy veil that smothered his senses he struggled to put the pieces together of where he was. All he could remember was taking Aria to his pack's compound and then with his brother and Mark they went to ambush Malca at the lumber yard. Then to their surprise, the ambush quickly reversed on them.
A man identical to Raoul had suddenly appeared with twenty other armed men and surrounded them. With guns aimed at him, Doyle did the only thing that he could; he called his bear and charged. The sound of gunfire replayed in his mind as he fought to recall the rest of the memory. But all he could recall was the sting of a bullet and nothing beyond that. Had Robert and Mark been taken as well? All he knew was that he was at the mercy of the very person that wanted his mate.
“I must confess; I imagined something of your caliber would have been harder to capture than it was.” The same sneering voice commented as he felt a cold metal touching his heated skin.
“Who are you?” He asked as his voice sounded weak and thin to even his own ears.
“I am the one you were looking for.” Malca answered with a tone of pride.
Bending over her desk her eyes looked over the new test subject's file with a small grin. Pulling her pen out she began writing a note down on his current status for later review. Inside her inner scientist was dancing with glee. Her first predatory shifter! Though she had encountered their kind before; she'd never before been this close to a class five—the most dangerous and perfect killing machine alive.
Dreams do come true...
Setting her notes aside she approached her new specimen. The sedatives she'd given him during transport to their processing facility were beginning to wear off. But it would still keep his shifter strength out of his reach. She was confident the thick steal chains circling his wrists and arms would hold.
“Where am I?” Doyle asked with a low growl.
His eyes suddenly began clearing as he took in his surroundings. His body was suspended off the floor with all his weight hanging from thick chains that coiled and bit into his forearms and wrists with a long meat hook speared through the chains. His bare feet hovered just a few inches above the cracked cement floor. The walls seemed to be covered in some type of thick metal sheeting. The room he was in had one way out through a guarded door. More thick, sickly looking meat hooks hung from the ceiling along with rusty chains. Wherever he was—it wasn't the labs where they had held Aria prisoner.
Aria.
He fought against the pain that echoed through his chest as he reached again for his animal, still nothing. Closing his eyes he summoned an image of Aria's face. He could almost see her flowing, golden hair pillowing around her face, the sexy curve of her lips and how red they'd blush after molding them against his own. The one thing he couldn't bring to mind was her voice. He would do anything to hear her voice right now.
A slap to the area that his pain radiated from caused him to jerk his eyes open. Glaring down at the thin woman in front of him he wished more than anything that he could unleash his bear upon her defenseless throat.
“Wake up!” She ordered. “I knew those idiots gave you too much.” She mumbled as she turned from him to walk back to her desk. Her heels clicked annoyingly against the blood stained cement with every step she took.
“Answer me!” He shouted after her. “Where am I?”
Turning her wiry frame to face him, she smirked at him. She very much enjoyed having such a specimen at her mercy—and one with such rage as well.
“You are at my processing facility.” Turning back to her desk she plucked up a large syringe, eyeing it with unnatural eagerness. “Where we bring new test subjects for processing.”
“What does that mean?” he bit out, jerking experimentally on his chains.
Sighing as if she were annoyed, she turned to face him. “It means; you will be processed. I plan to get blood and tissue samples from you, plus anything else useful that I can. After that you will be shipped to a different facility for further testing. Just like all the rest.”
“Like Aria? You kidnapped her off the street and kept her prisoner? Once I am free I plan on ripping your throat out with my teeth.” He hissed out with unrestrained rage. How could
she speak about kidnapping people and experimenting on them like it was no big deal?
“Aria? You think I kidnapped Aria?” She snickered while approaching him with the empty syringe in hand. “Is that what she told you?”
“Yes and I will see you in the ground for what you did to her and countless others.” He threatened, jerking his bound hands in promise. Again she laughed at him.
“Here's a history lesson, animal.” Reaching up, she stabbed the syringe into the side of his neck, slowly drawing blood from his jugular vein. “Many years ago there was a military facility in the Thailand, where only the best soldiers were chosen to participate in an undercover assignment. It was there that multiple terrorist cells were regrouping and resurrecting for another chance to bring down the United States government. Unfortunately we didn't perceive that we had a mole within our undercover unit.” Withdrawing the needle, she returned to her desk. “A few days after arriving the unit and a small village that they were hiding amongst were attacked. Not by a gun or bomb; of course, but by chemical warfare. Some of the soldiers survived—for a few weeks after.”
“What's the point?”
“The point is; this new weapon—if used on the American people would have wiped out countless lives. The soldiers died because their bodies were not strong enough. That was when the government devised a plan, to discover a way to push forward the evolution of mankind. But as you can guess; test subjects were hard to come by.”
“So you kidnapped people.”
“Yes.” She replied, pointing a finger at him like a student that had given the correct answer. “The Secretary of Defense offered me unlimited funds, but he left the matter of test subjects to me. We took only people that would not be missed.”
“Like Aria?”
“You are like a dog with a bone—or should I say a bear with a bone. Here's the juicy truth; Aria volunteered.”
Doyle's eyes widened with disbelief. Aria worked for Malca? No, that couldn't be true. Her hatred for Malca ran too deep through her to work for Malca even unwillingly.
“Aria was a one of my soldiers and the best blood thirsty female that you will ever meet. She would help lure in new subjects and bring them to me.”
“Let’s just pretend I believe you. Why would she do that?”
“Because of Tyler; her brother, he led the Thailand undercover mission and was one of the casualties. Filled with so much delicious anger she offered to test out anything that I could come up with. Anything that would give her the strength needed to avenge her beloved brother.” Malca smiled as her mind was caught in a memory. “She was able to push her body further than anyone I met; she could fight against a troupe of soldiers with little difficulty.”
“What went wrong?”
“There were setbacks. The serum wore off eventually and she returned back to an average soldier. After we developed a new drug there were side-effects as well. Subjects suffered from neural overload, memory loss and death. Aria was the first to survive and it made her perfect, but she suffered tremendous memory loss and fought us countless times.”
“So you locked her up and treated her like an animal?” His hissed out.
“In the name science—yes, however she escaped before we could test the effects of the new drug.” Stepping towards him she narrowed her eyes at him curiously. “Tell me; what did you witness from her? Has she demonstrated any abilities and strengths?”
Glancing away, Doyle held onto his poker face like a lifeline. Giving nothing away that would enable this heartless creature to bury her claws deeper into Aria. Malca clicked her tongue at his silence.
“Don't worry about answering. I'll be finding out first hand anyway. Soon she'll be here right next to you.”
The chains around his wrist tightened as he jerked to free himself. As soon as he was back to his full strength back he planned to render this woman into a pile of bloody ribbons. “I'll kill you if you lay a hand on her.” He growled out menacing.
Malca laughed low in the back of her throat. “You won't be the last one to say that,” pausing, she held up a finger. “Just for information sake, Aria is not her name. It's Arianna Koski.”
Snapping her latex gloves off her hands she tossed them onto the desk. Pulling her cell phone out, her bony fingers struck a few keys before returning it to her lab coat pocket. Not a moment later, the heavy steel door swung open as two males in lab coats entered the room, one of them carrying an interment tray with them. The tray held an assortment of sharp and deadly looking tools.
“What's this?” He scoffed. “You're going to torture me now?”
Mockingly Malca shook her head in denial. “Of course not; I've already taken what samples I can from you. However these two—” She pointed to the cold looking men, “—are here to finish the job.”
“I'll never tell you were Aria is, so you can forget it.”
Smirking, she moved closer to his bound form, her heels slowly clicking against the floor with every step. Her cold eyes looked up at him as her thin lips quirked upward. “I don't need your help to find her. I will find her with or without your help. Despite what you did to her tracking cuffs.” She said with a knowing look.
Doyle's upper lip curled with smug humor. While Aria had been unconscious he'd made the decision not to chance that Malca could track her. After cutting them off her he had given orders to the pack's metal worker to melt them down and dispose of them. Malca wouldn't be able to get to Aria without help from him and not matter what they did, he wouldn't tell them anything.
“Begin.” Malca stated dispassionately. While one doctor approached him with a collection of open vials another approached with a surgical knife. “Wait.” She lifted a hand, forestalling the two butchers. “He looks too comfortable with the way he’s tied up. I think he needs to understand who hold’s his cards now.”
“What would you like to do about it?” The doctor holding the sample vials asked as he turned to look at her with a grin.
“Unchain him.”
“Dr. Malca, we don't know how long it will be until he's back at full strength.” The second one stated with a worried look. “He could attack us in the process. He needs to be restrained.”
“And he will.” She hissed out, glaring at the questioning doctor. “Use the meat hooks.”
“Doctor?”
“The meat hooks. Hang him from them.” She replied, pointing at the extra meat hooks that hung from the ceiling.
“The chains aren't that long.” The second argued. Glancing past the two doctors, Doyle's lips thinned as he met her cold look.
“Don't use the chains.” She said with a tilt of her head, “Once you obtain the samples I need, do it. Use the hooks.” Crossing her arms over her chest, she turned her attention to Doyle as he held his face impassive. “If you're a screamer, please don't disappoint me. After all, we need to make sure Arianna knows where you are.” Lowering herself down into a chair by the desk, smoothly crossing one leg over the other she waved dismissively at the waiting doctors.
“Proceed.”
18
“Keep up.” Raoul grumbled as Aria ran a few paces behind him.
“Do me a favor,” she huffed out. “Shut up.”
Glaring at his back she resisted the urge to kick the man sprinting in front of her with an abundance of self-satisfaction. They'd been on foot for nearly a full day. After escaping in the dead of the night from the pack's compound Raoul had made it his mission to make her legs fall off from overuse. She was so tired that she could really use a five minute break—hell, she could use a five hour nap. She would rest later. She needed to get to Doyle. He'd been in Malca's clutches for three days already and there was no telling what had been done to him since.
“How much further?”
“Nearly there.” He answered with evident irritation. Every now and then she'd see him reach up to cup at his collar bone with a painful inhale. Coming to a stop, she leaned her back against the rough bark of a tree as Raoul seemed to be lookin
g for something above and all around them.
“What happened to you?” Out of breath, she pointed at his ripped, blood stained shirt. Turning his mistrusting eyes on her, he reached up to rub at the sore area above his heart.
“I got shot.” He answered stonily.
“Did your brother do it?”
“I don't even know if he actually is my brother. Thomas and I are clone soldiers—that's why we look identical.” Crossing to stand beside her, he let out a pent up sigh. “I just wanted to deliver you to Malca and receive my freedom, but Tom wanted to play out some sick game of cat and mouse with you. When I stood in the way of him doing that—he shot me. I only survived because I was wearing some prototype body armor underneath. Since the body armor wasn't properly tested yet, it only managed to slow the bullet down. Luckily it hit my upper chest instead of my heart. After Thomas took off, I dug the bullet out and came after you before he could.”
“So you aren't on Malca's side?”
“I’m not on your side either. I'm on my side. Our deal is that I get you to where I think Malca is and go after Thomas. I won't rest until he is six feet under. After that—I'm a ghost.” Shrugging his shoulders he turned away.
“You could help me.” Aria offered.
“I thought I was.”
“Help me to bring her down. Stop all of this.” Her arm swept out in a wide arch from her side.
Laughing, Raoul turned to look back at her with his arms folded across his chest. “Bring her down? Are you really so stupid to think that you could do anything to Malca? Malca is just the knight and you're the pawn on this chess board. To bring down Malca you would have to attack the figure head of this country, the very people she works for. Besides putting a gun to her head and blowing her brains out across her desk—there's nothing you can do.”
Shoving her freezing hands into her pants pockets she took a slow step towards him. Looking squarely up at him, she whispered softly, “There are others like you and I; others that would fight against her. We could bring her down—but not without your help.”
Bearing It All (Grizzly Affairs Book 1) Page 23