“The succubus who went missing weeks ago?” asked Casey, his voice rising.
“Yes.”
“I didn’t get into it on the phone with Weston, but if it was my mate, and she thought one of her friends was still alive and needed help, she wouldn’t let the topic die.”
“Paisley isn’t letting it die. She asked me to keep looking into it all. No body was found and until there is one, Paisley isn’t going to believe her friend is dead. Neither am I,” said Bane, unsure why he cared so much about a woman he’d never met.
“You okay?” asked Casey.
“All right, I’m going now. I’ll take these two back to my place with me, and I won’t let them get into any more trouble.”
Casey snorted. “Good luck with that.”
“Shouldn’t be that hard, right? I mean, they’re only humans,” said Bane, hanging up and looking at the men. He didn’t believe his words. They were trouble for sure. “Someone has some explaining to do, and since helmet-head doesn’t talk, it’s on you, Wild Bill.”
Pride welled on the wiry-haired man’s face at the use of his nickname. It had been well earned. During the Vietnam War, DARPA had decided it would be a great idea to build mechanical elephants for use deep in the jungles to aid in the war efforts. The machines had been an issue from the word go, and if the rumor mill was right, one had gone on a stampeding rampage, and Bill had scaled the thing and ridden it before managing to subdue it. He’d worn the label Wild Bill ever since, and, of course, DARPA denied ever having implemented the mechanical elephants in the first place.
The Ops knew better.
DARPA had put a lot of crazy shit into effect over the years and owned up to very little of it. Bane couldn’t blame them. He wouldn’t want to take credit for most of the crazy shit either.
Gus spun around in a circle and then hit the helmet on his head several times in a row. Bane just let the man do his thing, already knowing it was unwise to try to touch him.
Bill had a different sort of relationship with the guy. He boldly grabbed Gus’s arm, eliciting no dramatic reactions. “Take it easy. We got here in one piece.”
Gus looked away in another direction.
Bill kept going as if the man had spoken. “Hey, my driving is excellent. Most days. And we made great time. Even outran some coppers on the way. Lightweights.”
Bane let the two continue before realizing they might never stop with their back and forth. He cleared his throat. “Someone tell me what it is you’re doing here. And please tell me you aren’t my contacts.”
Bill raised a bushy brow. “Your contacts? Uh, no. We’re not them. But we are here for you. Well, not you, so much as your mate.”
Bane couldn’t hide his laughter. “I don’t have a mate.”
Gus slapped at the helmet more, his agitation showing. Bane wasn’t sure if the guy would pass out soon or if he’d be fine.
It took several minutes for Bill to get him settled. When he finally did, Bill eyed Bane for good measure, as if he’d been the reason Gus had lost his shit. “You do have a mate. All of you guys do. Some of you are just smarter about it, that’s all. Can’t really fault you. Alpha males tend to be complete dumbasses in the women department. If you need some tips on how best to handle the ladies, let me know. I’m really good with them. They tend to get attached and want marriage out of me, but I’m a free agent and don’t want to be tied down.”
Bane stood there, his patience waning. “Give me the keys to the car and get in my SUV, gigolo.”
“Casey will be mad if we leave his car here,” protested Bill.
“He’ll be fine with it. I’ll have someone pick it up within an hour or so. Get in the damn SUV.”
Gus surprised Bane by hurrying to the back of the SUV and letting himself in. Apparently, the guy had had enough of Bill’s driving. From the way Bill had made an entrance, Bane couldn’t blame Gus.
He motioned with his hand for Bill to join Gus. Bill shook his head, holding the car keys out behind him, as if that would somehow stop Bane from getting them. With a snort, Bane took a few steps and reached Bill and the keys without any effort. He plucked the keys from the man’s hands and glowered down at him. “Get in the damn SUV.”
“You’re mean, monkey-boy,” said Bill, his eyes wide.
“Monkey-boy?” asked Bane, refusing to budge.
Bill gulped. “You’re a weremonkey, aren’t you?”
Bane’s temper tried to poke through, but he managed to hold it at bay. “I’m a weregorilla.”
With a shrug, Bill walked around him in the direction of the SUV. He stopped and went back to Casey’s car, pulling a large black duffle bag from it. He eyed the bag and jutted out his chin, as if he had no intention on allowing Bane to touch it. “Same difference. Bet you fling shit when you’re feeling frisky.”
“No, but I’m willing to fling you somewhere far.”
Bill carried the bag to the back end of Bane’s vehicle, loaded it in, and then hurried into the SUV. He stuck out his tongue while also giving him the finger.
“Little man, I will break you and enjoy it.”
Bill added his other middle finger to the mix.
Deciding it wasn’t worth losing his temper, Bane ignored the man, turning down the sound system in the car before shutting it off. He set about gathering any personal items the two had in Casey’s car and then locking the vehicle. He headed to the SUV with an armful of what looked more like Halloween costumes than travel clothes. If Casey weren’t so damn attached to the man, Bane would have given in and at least hogtied Bill and taped his mouth shut. As it stood, he only glared at him.
For now.
Chapter Four
Galiena tried to take another step, but hunger left her falling to her knees on the unforgiving alley asphalt. It was a far cry from the luxurious room she’d been forced to call home for so long. That being said, it was wonderful to be free. If only the pain would stop.
“Keep going,” she said to herself, needing encouragement.
She still couldn’t believe her escape had actually worked. It wasn’t as if she’d formulated a plan or anything. No. She’d merely grabbed hold of an opportunity when presented and she’d exploited it for all it was worth. That had been nearly a week ago, though the days were starting to run together for her.
Helmuth’s men wouldn’t be that far behind, but for now, she was free. And she’d resisted him, even with the experiments he’d subjected her to.
Her hate of him grew as she thought about her time in captivity. About what he’d had Krauss and others do to her.
She pulled at the sleeves of the sweater she’d taken from the wardrobe Helmuth had provided her. It was now far too big. The sundress she wore was too thin for the elements and was also too big for her now. Another sign of how far she’d fallen physically. How far he’d permitted her to tumble into the abyss by denying her basic needs. Had he stopped lording his power and control over her head, she’d have given in and fed from him. But he’d gone too far, and he’d permitted Krauss to do horrible things to her.
She’d die before she ever fed her succubus side from Helmuth.
Pain radiated throughout her body, her hunger clawing at her from the inside out. She needed to feed again soon. If someone had told her months ago that she’d become a murderer, a killing machine, she’d have scoffed at the absurdity of the idea. While her natural-born gifts had always been powerful, they’d not been something that were cause for real concern.
Not unless you considered having an orgasm something to be alarmed about. She’d never had any complaints before. Then again, everyone used to leave her bed alive.
So much had changed.
She was a stranger even to herself.
Krauss’s injections had altered her to the point she didn’t recognize her inner darkness, or herself for that matter. The changes hadn’t been just physical; they’d been mental as well. Gone was her happy demeanor, replaced by bone-weary sadness. She was no longer whatever the
gods had intended her to be. She was now a man-made monstrosity and murderer. They’d taken what she’d been born to do and twisted it into something horrible and toxic.
Something she had no control over.
Lives had been lost by her hand. There was no way to paint that with a positive brush. No amount of spin could make it sound like anything other than what it was. She’d tried enough to know. All the rationalizing in the world didn’t make her feel at ease with what she’d become.
A monster.
“I used to love myself,” she mused softly, remembering what the transition stage had been like for her when she’d first come into her natural-born gifts. She’d been in her late teens when the changes really kicked in. She’d always known she was different, more than human, but it was then that she’d understood just how different.
“Not different,” she reminded herself. “Unique.”
Unique was what she’d liked to call her oddities before Krauss altered who and what she was. Her gifts weren’t what they were now. They weren’t death, like they were now. Whatever the people holding her had done had left her a shell of her former self. She’d had great control over her succubus side since her early twenties, but not anymore.
While she’d always needed to complete the full act of sex to feed that side of herself, her feedings had left her bed partners fully sated, not dead. Now she killed anyone she touched in a heightened state of arousal, or while trying to feed, which were often one and the same. She was also able to kill when scared. No matter the reason, the end result was the same. Whatever they’d given her had made her control of her succubus side nearly nonexistent. In addition, the shots had caused more changes.
The joke had been on them in the end.
She lowered her head and let the tears free that she’d held tight to for weeks. Even crying hurt. Her body was that worn down, that emaciated, that denied of the sustenance it required.
Sex and actual food.
She’d been unable to eat while her succubus hunger was out of control. It had always been that way, but had never been this severe.
The tears continued, and she closed her eyes, hoping death would finally arrive for her. She’d knocked on its door more than once since the tests started, but so far, no one had answered. Death would be welcome at this point. It would mean an end to the suffering. An end to her killing streak.
When she’d broken free of the room she’d been held in, she’d assumed that without the injections from Krauss, her body and her succubus side would return to normal.
She’d been wrong.
Very wrong.
Nothing was the same.
Her powers grew more and more fatal.
Sex was a deadly weapon for her now.
It used to be something she enjoyed greatly. Hell, she’d made her living from it, servicing supernatural males in need of release, all the while feeding her own darkness. She wasn’t that same woman anymore. She feared sex now. Feared what would happen if she engaged in it.
She’d killed one of the men holding her with nothing more than a sensual touch to his cheek, and his death had taken mere seconds. He’d fallen to the ground, a shell of himself, before bursting into a pile of ash at her feet. The sight of it was still etched into her brain. She’d never be rid of the imagery. Never get the taint of what she’d done out of her head. And he’d not been the only causality by her hand.
The supernatural hybrid males her captors had sent into her holding room had died horrible deaths as well. She’d been so hungry, so desperate for something other than food that she’d given in and had intended to use the guards for sex, only to find she was toxic now. That she couldn’t even start to feed as she normally would. Any skin-to-skin contact with her left the other person a pile of ash.
Everything about her was lethal.
Her touch.
Her kiss.
Her sex.
She was walking sin, dipped in death.
She held little remorse over the death of the hybrid males or the guards who had held her captive at the command of Helmuth. They’d been mean, nasty men who had tasted of evil as she’d fed from them during her escape. They’d done horrible things on the orders of their boss. Their deaths had been too fast.
All she knew was, her hunger was still there, stronger than ever, demanding more. She slapped her hand against the ground and cried harder, her will to keep fighting what was happening to her all but gone.
The scent of evil, not far from her current location, caused her to stir, the monster in her coming to life, curious to know more. While she’d always been repulsed by evil before, now she had a certain draw to it. Galiena pushed off the ground slowly, nearly falling again. It took some doing, but she remained upright. Walking hurt, but she did it, following the smell of evil.
She walked with her hands pulled up to her chest, partly from shivering and the rest from the hunger gnawing at her. It felt as if she were being ripped apart from the inside out—as if something was inside her, raking its nails over her organs, trying to break free.
In some ways, there was.
She wasn’t sure of anything anymore.
She shivered more, the weight of the last couple of weeks sitting upon her like a ton of bricks. She managed to stay on her feet, the smell of evil growing with each step she took. As she walked past several shop windows, she paused, glancing at her reflection. It caught her off guard. Where she’d once been voluptuous a nd curvy, she was now skin and bones. Her skin, normally olive in undertones, was pale white, so much so, she looked sick.
And her eyes, once a vibrant green, were now purple. They’d never done anything of the sort before. Lifting her pale hands, she examined them, noting just how much weight she’d lost. It wasn’t healthy.
Nothing about her situation was.
She no longer just hungered for sex. Now her cravings included blood.
She’d never had a problem servicing vampire males who needed her help, and had allowed a number to feed on her during intercourse over the years. But now that she was fighting the same hunger, she wasn’t sure she’d been wise to permit them such liberties. Though, the men she’d taken care of were centuries old and had immense control over their demon sides.
She didn’t have control over anything anymore.
Her succubus side was never full now, and part of it was, she couldn’t actually have sex anymore. Merely touching another left them dead. And while she used to be able to soak up the energy from them being sexually aroused, she couldn’t even do that. She’d never killed anyone she’d fed from before Krauss’s experiments. At most, she’d left them heavily sated and sleepy for a day following their time together, but not now.
And the bloodlust she was subject to only made matters worse.
She lifted her upper lip; fearful she’d sprout fangs then and there. She didn’t, but it wouldn’t surprise her any.
Nothing would.
She wasn’t safe to be around, and going back to the apartment she’d shared with her best friend for years wasn’t an option. If Paisley was there, and not being held in a secret location, Galiena couldn’t risk harming her. Paisley was good, sweet, and innocent, having never taken fully to the succubus side. Her friend was able to feed simply off sexual energy. Galiena had never been afforded that luxury. From the moment her succubus side had shown itself in her late teens, she’d needed to have full intercourse to sate the hunger.
That was before Helmuth and his doctors.
She was never sated now.
Already the hunger beat at her, always there, always wanting someone else to feed on.
At first, she didn’t hear the man behind her, and when she did, she gasped and spun around to face him, fearful he was one of Helmuth’s men. Taking a deep breath, Galiena held tight to her fear, searching for the scent of rotting flesh. So many of Helmuth’s men smelled of it now.
She’d heard Helmuth and Krauss use the word hybrid when talking about them. Several of the men she’d known pr
ior to being taken, and they hadn’t always carried the scent of death on them. It was new, overpowering, and distinctively absent from the man behind her.
He was tall, but then again, most were compared to her. He was on the thin side and didn’t smell supernatural in the least, but he did smell of evil. The smell of it turned her stomach.
He eyed her and then glanced to the left and right. When it became clear he was looking to be sure they were alone, Galiena didn’t try to run. She couldn’t even if she wanted to. She didn’t have the strength. She also wasn’t afraid of the man, despite the smell of evil coming from him. Whatever Helmuth’s doctors had turned her into was far worse than a human with an evil streak.
“You lost?” he asked, licking his lower lip, a sinister expression coming over his face.
Galiena remained in place, knowing he’d come to her and she wouldn’t have to expend any more energy. She didn’t have to wait long. Each step he took toward her brought about a wave of evil that poured off him. She didn’t completely understand the new gift she’d developed during her time being held, but she knew enough to comprehend it was letting her know the man before her had taken lives.
Many lives.
Innocent lives.
Her power built rapidly, wasting no time in coming to the surface. Gone was the slow build. It surged up, causing her to sway. It felt as if she’d spent hours walking across carpeting in a pair of socks, and the minute she made contact with someone, an arc of electricity would shoot forth from her to them.
But she knew better. She’d gotten a firsthand glimpse at what she’d become. This would not end with something as simple as the expelling of a static charge. This would end with the man’s essence filling her as his life force drained completely.
She couldn’t have stopped it if she’d wanted to. Not with how far gone she’d already been when he’d happened upon her. Besides, the swell of evil coming from the man told her that if she didn’t stop him, he’d continue to hurt others. She also knew, deep down, that she was supposed to be his next victim—at least in his mind. It was kill or be killed.
Isolated Maneuver Page 4