by Kit Tunstall
“How many are left besides me that still require trays?”
He hesitated for a moment, his gaze darting around the room, before he lowered his voice. “Two. But I’ve heard there’ll be more soon.”
The protein bar sat like a sodden lump in her stomach as she absorbed his words. “How many are in the facility?”
Once more, he looked around before answering. He took a deep breath. “My guess is they aren’t monitoring your room, or we would’ve already heard from them by now. I’m not supposed interact with anyone. If Caswell knew, he wouldn’t have let me come back today.”
She nodded. “I think you’re right about there not being any cameras or microphones in here. He wants me to have the illusion of freedom to choose him. I know he’s eventually going to get fed up and take what he wants, or try to take it, but right now, he’s playing the gentleman, and he’s trying to woo me. I think he’s decided not to spy on me.”
She was ninety-nine percent certain of that, but not absolutely sure. She couldn’t be after the way he had fondled her while she was slipping into unconsciousness. Those weren’t the actions of someone who was trying to convince a woman to be his mate. They were the perverted actions of someone who had no intention of taking no for an answer. She suspected Caswell’s motives weren’t to convince her that he was a good mate so much as he was toying with her and enjoying the thrill of the game. Still, she didn’t think he was eavesdropping on her conversations or observing her every move, or he would have likely done as Aidan said and already interceded. He wouldn’t want her getting friendly with any of the staff.
With a nod, he said, “One hundred and fifty-two, plus you and the other two who haven’t started the last stage of enhancement yet. That’s when they stop eating, and that’s when who they were disappears.”
Again, she wanted to ask more, to probe and find out how he knew all that. That he knew the exact number told her there was something more to Aidan than a simple civilian contractor. He might have counted them in his daily rounds, but there seemed to be something more, a piece she was missing. She couldn’t wait for an opportunity to find out more, but she couldn’t risk exposing him if he wasn’t just a contractor. “Do you know where the lieutenant colonel is?”
He nodded. “Caswell regenerates from zero-thirty to eleven-thirty every day. From what I can piece together, he requires a longer rest cycle and more nutrition, including real food, because he didn’t have the A.I. enhancements. His body isn’t as an efficient a machine as the rest of the subjects.”
“So those are the hours I’m free of him.” At Aidan’s nod, she asked, “Do you think you could get me out of here?”
He frowned. “I already told you they have way too many guards around. Nobody pays attention to what I’m doing, or how long I stay in a room, but if I try to get you out, or try to escape, that’ll get their attention PDQ.”
Lex nodded. “I understand that, but I’d like to have a look at the subjects in the rooms, to see the process up close. I need that information for when I get out of here.”
Points for him for not arguing with her confidence.
He bit his lip, looking indecisive. “Let me see what I can do. It won’t be right now, but I’ll try to come up with a plan. In the meantime, I’ll need you to act naturally, and remember above all, you can’t shift into the coyote. If he finds out you aren’t taking your suppressor, he’ll force you to take the injections instead, and he’ll kill me. I’m working on a plan, but you have to give me time. Can you do that?”
Though she had no reason to trust him, other than his simple gestures of kindness, the resolve and sincerity in his eyes brooked no doubts. She nodded her agreement, even as she wanted to press him for answers and a more detailed explanation. If, or when, he managed to sneak her out of the room, maybe she’d have a chance to ask him what he knew. In the meantime, she would simply have to endure Caswell’s mockery and her own captivity, while keeping her coyote in check.
She had excellent control over the animal, having learned that as she became a shifter at puberty, but knowing she couldn’t slip into that side of herself filled her with the dull ache of grief, roughened by a sharp edge of anger. The anger was directed solely at Caswell and the black ops group orchestrating the misery of so many humans and shifters, though she was afraid it must have spilled over into her expression, because Aidan stiffened and started to back away, moving toward the door quickly.
She got a handle on the emotions trying to overwhelm her as he reached the door pad, pressing his hand against the biometric panel. “I can do that. Thank you, Aidan.”
He nodded, but didn’t reply, because the door was opening, and the odds of someone listening or passing by increased astronomically as soon as the metal barrier parted. He didn’t look back at her or acknowledge her in any other way, but she saw his hand pat the pocket holding the pills she was supposed to have taken in a discreet fashion as he moved into the corridor, and the door closed behind him.
She could trust him. She was going strictly on instinct for that, coupled with her own observations and how he had treated her so far. Besides, under the circumstances, she had no other choice. There was no one else she could trust in the facility besides herself, and right then, she was Caswell’s prisoner and not going anywhere no matter what she tried.
Chapter Six
Caswell came again that evening, but this time, he brought dinner and insisted on eating with her. Midway through unpacking the take-out boxes that bore a label from an Italian restaurant with which she wasn’t familiar, he froze. His gaze locked on her, and he eyed her from head to toe, frowning. “Where did you get the scrubs?”
A lump formed in her throat, and her stomach jittered with nerves as she realized saying the wrong thing might get Aidan in trouble. She crossed her arms over her chest and strove for a non-defensive tone. “I found them.”
He looked as though he was poised on the edge of arguing for a moment, but then he shrugged. “I suppose it’s for the best. I don’t like the idea of my support staff seeing you in the items you should only wear for me. You have my permission to wear them, but I expect you to dress more enticingly for me.”
She barely resisted the urge to roll her eyes or retort. Instead, she seated herself on the bed while he pulled up the only chair in the room near the tray that doubled as her table. He cursed when he hit his knee on the bar of the tray. “There isn’t enough room for anything in here.”
She shrugged. “You’re the one who stuck me here, so don’t complain. Especially when you invite yourself to have dinner with me.”
Apparently, he was in a good mood, because he simply chuckled. “You can change quarters any time you’re ready.”
She took the glass of wine he poured, holding it in her hand before responding. “Why don’t I believe you?” She didn’t make any move to sip the wine until he had taken a drink of his own, doing her best to ensure he didn’t slip her something that would drug her again.
“No strings attached. Well, not many. All you have to do is accept you’re my mate and beg me to claim you.”
As he dished chicken alfredo for them onto Styrofoam plates, she made a production of looking around the small quarters. “It’s not so bad. It’s cozy really.”
His sigh was tinged with exasperation, but he didn’t seem overly aggravated when he shook his head as he pushed a plate in her direction. “You’re very stubborn, Alexandria.”
It hovered on the tip of her tongue to tell him he was delusional, but she wasn’t in a good place to be fighting back so aggressively. After the way he had drugged her last night, she was uncertain what other pharmaceutical cocktails he had at his disposal, and she couldn’t risk allowing the coyote out until she knew she had an exit plan. If Caswell discovered Aidan wasn’t giving her the pills, he would certainly reassign someone else to the duty of taking care of her, and there was no telling what he’d do to Aidan.
This seemed to be his version of a date, and he spent the meal
peppering her with questions about herself. She answered as briefly as possible, and while she made no move to ask questions of her own, that didn’t seem to bother him. Each time she shared a detail to a question he’d asked—like if her parents were still alive, or her favorite color—he was compelled to share the same. By the end of the meal, she should have known him better, if she had bothered to pay attention to his answers. Instead, she was mentally ticking down the seconds until he left her alone again.
How long would he be content with trying to persuade her to accept him instead of just forcing her to? It was a scary proposition, and it fueled her need to escape. She wanted out of there anyway, but absolutely had to have an out before he lost patience with this charade and took what he believed he was entitled to possess.
As he made motions to leave, she held absolutely still when he loomed over her, bending down to press a kiss to her cheek. It took everything she had to remain immobile and not flinch away, or hit out at him to push him farther from her. When he touched her hair, letting the strands fall through his fingers, she silently vowed to shave it all off as soon as she had the opportunity, just so she could erase his touch. That might be overreacting a tad, but it seemed like a reasonable reaction in the moment.
He sounded disappointed when he said, “I hear you were a good girl and took your suppressor this morning. Your attendant will be in again with the nighttime dose later. Unless you prefer the injection?” The way he phrased the question was an odd mix of hopefulness and resignation, because he clearly already knew the answer to that question.
She glared up at him. “I’ll take the damn pills.” Her stomach fluttered at the news that Aidan would be paying her visit again that evening. He was her only ally here, but he was such a mystery, and whatever he knew remained shrouded in secrecy, so she couldn’t completely trust him either.
Knowing that, it certainly didn’t explain why she got a jolt at the thought of seeing him. Was she really so shallow as to be attracted to him under the circumstances without knowing why he was there, or what his goal was?
After a brief moment of consideration, she decided she was. That didn’t mean she was going to act on it, and she hadn’t completely lowered her guard with him. For all she knew, he could be acting as a double agent or in some other way infiltrating her good graces to gain her trust. She couldn’t quite fathom why Caswell would have him do that, but knowing it was a possibility would keep her on her guard.
Finally, Caswell moved away from her and headed toward the door. He paused with his hand on the panel before turning slightly to look at her over his shoulder. “Don’t forget to wear something more attractive for dinner tomorrow night.”
She ignored those words and focused on the time issue. “Does that mean I won’t have the joy of your company until tomorrow night again?”
He nodded. “I have things to do tomorrow, but I’ll be with you soon as I can, Alexandria.”
She didn’t try to fake a smile or any enthusiasm. She simply nodded in his direction, not breathing again until he had stepped out of the room, the door closing behind him with a hydraulic hiss.
And then she sagged, slumping over the tray with the remnants of her plate and the mostly full glass of wine she had barely sipped at. Unfortunately, it was a plastic goblet, so even if she could break it, it wouldn’t produce sharp enough shards to act as a weapon. Caswell seemed to have thought of everything.
Except Aidan. He didn’t expect the person bringing her meals and seeing to her other needs would actually be any help to her. And while he hadn’t really been much help yet, she was pinning her hopes of escape on him.
She paced around the small room for the next forty-five minutes until she heard the door hiss as it opened. She held her breath for a moment, expecting Aidan but knowing it could still be Caswell. She let out the breath she’d held in her lungs with a small whooshing sound when Aidan crossed the threshold.
It was a bit strange to see him without the wheeled cart, since all he had was a white paper cup in one hand and a bottle of water in the other. He closed the door behind himself with his palm on the scanner before crossing the room to meet her where she stood near the bed.
He held out the water, waiting until she had unscrewed the cap before extending the paper cup to her. In the process of passing it, he tipped it into his palm and made the pills disappear once more. As his hand went to his pocket, she made a show of taking the pills that weren’t there, gulping them down with some of the water from the bottle.
As she leaned past him to place the bottle on the tray, she realized how close he was. The warmth of his body seeped into hers, and when she drew in a deep breath, she could smell the desire tingeing his pheromones. It called to her own, but remembering her vow to stay on her guard, she took a step back instead. “Can you take me around the building tomorrow? Caswell said that he has things to do.”
Aidan’s eyes widened, but he nodded. He still kept his voice low, though surely recording technology would have picked up anything he said if it had been present in the room. If that had happened, they would’ve both already known about it by now, after their conversation earlier in the day. “There’s a group of investors coming tomorrow for a live demonstration.”
He frowned. “They’ll be busy in Sector G, and while there will be some guards about, I should be able to at least show you the facilities. Since no one knows you’re alive, they don’t know your name, I’ll bring you some clothes, and you’ll just need to pretend like you belong. I doubt we’ll be challenged, especially if we go with the cover of being maintenance people. They tend to look right through us.”
She nodded. “I’m hoping we can find a way to escape tomorrow.”
He frowned. “I think that’s out of the question tomorrow. With the investors coming, they’ll have the military base in lockdown, and all the troops will be at their disposal, both in and outside of the facility. They just won’t have much interest in the research side of things. Oh, they’ll get a demonstration of the research in Sector G, but the actual manufacturing facility, if you want to call it that, won’t be of interest to them.”
She frowned. “Investors? I’m really confused. I thought this was a military operation?”
He looked indecisive for a moment before he said, “I’ll tell you what I know tomorrow, but it appears Caswell is looking for an investment from the private sector. An unauthorized investment.”
“You think he’s planning to sell the research to a foreign nation?”
He lifted his shoulder in a shrug. “I don’t know who it is, or what they want, but I’ve been trying to find that out.”
“You know a lot for a maintenance guy.”
He winked at her. “I’ll tell you more about that tomorrow too. I know where the safe places are to talk, where there aren’t cameras or microphones recording everything.”
“Will he see me on the cameras and ask questions?”
He grinned. “I’ll delete all the footage tomorrow night.”
More intrigued than ever, she watched him go a moment later. He couldn’t linger too long, or it might cause someone to ask questions. His sole duty was to bring her pills, and there were more people around paying attention this time of evening.
For the next hour, she read one of the books he had brought her, though her attention kept straying from the pages to veer into speculating what was happening at the base, and what Caswell was up to. Finally, she settled into bed, though she was edgy and tense about tomorrow. She was looking forward to escaping the confines of the room, even if it was only temporarily, and trying to get a more complete picture of what was happening there, but she was also afraid of being caught.
Lex didn’t like having that fear. She was a soldier and a shifter. She shouldn’t be afraid of being captured. She knew she could withstand torture if she had to, but she was certain that if she got on the wrong side of Caswell, she’d learned a new form of torture—one she hadn’t been trained to withstand.
&nbs
p; She didn’t think he would kill her, since he had marked her as his mate, but he would definitely make her wish she were dead. To do that, all he had to do was assert his claim that he was her mate, and she would wish for death.
Chapter Seven
So far, Aidan’s plan had gone off without a hitch. He had brought her breakfast, and he’d also smuggled her in a pair of pants and a shirt that matched his. The uniform designated her as part of the cleaning crew–Support Services, according to the badge he clipped to her shirt. She didn’t ask how he had acquired it, since it contained her picture, but with a different name. She would ask later, but not yet. Her stomach was too twisted into knots to be able to eat, so she left the food untouched as they slipped out of the room that had doubled as her prison a few minutes later.
She looked down the corridor, seeing several doors off each side. “Where are we?”
“Sleeping quarters, though they can all be keyed to act as cells like yours, responding only to biometric data to allow the door to open or close.”
She looked through some of the windows in the doors as they passed, though a lot of the doors were solid with no windows, just like hers. What she saw was basically a repetition of the room she had, and she had no reason to doubt Aidan’s assertion that this was a section for sleeping quarters.
After they exited the corridor, they reached a large antechamber, and he took her to the left. She had been here before, and she recognized the wing from the night they had entered the place to rescue Loris. She went straight to the room where her friend had been housed, standing expectantly in front of it as she waited for Aidan to open it. He frowned. “I don’t have access to that one.”
She put a hand on her hips, cocking her head skeptically. “I get the feeling you don’t have access to everything or much of anything, but that doesn’t seem to be stopping you. Can’t you do your magic to get in here?” She recalled George had known three of the subjects inside.