Lil’ Duke stayed by her side as did Striker, looking at her every once in a while and shaking his head. “Duke won’t let you keep him.”
“I never even thought to keep him,” she said. “He needs to be in a rehabilitation facility or perhaps a long-term care facility for others like him.”
Striker watched her carefully. “Yer not like most girls.”
“Thanks. I think.”
Two other chimps appeared down the hallway and Lil Duke darted away from her, heading in their direction. She made no move to stop him. He was headed away from the gunfire so it seemed like the safest place for him.
Striker tapped her shoulder. “They’re ready for us.”
“Why are you my babysitter?”
“Because I have the most charm,” he said without missing a beat.
They were all in serious trouble if Striker was their charmer.
He laughed and winked, motioning for her to come closer. She did and all of a sudden there was an explosion next to them. Striker dove to the ground, taking her with him, pining her down. He made an odd noise and jerked above her, never moving from her.
Everything seemed to rattle for a moment and Striker sounded very far away for a few seconds when she knew he was actually on her. Then he wasn’t.
Duke was there, bending, yanking her up and shaking her lightly. His mouth was moving but she heard no sound.
“What?” she demanded.
“Are you hurt?” he asked. This time she made out what he was saying. It was faint but there.
Whatever had happened had been loud enough to temporarily affect her hearing. She nodded and touched his forearm. “Are all of you all right?”
“Yes.” She stilled. “What was that?”
“Boomer tried to access the next station’s scanners. It didn’t go well.”
She gasped. “Is he hurt?”
“He’s fine. Except for his pride. He still has all his fingers and toes. Win in my book. And this would be just one example of how he earned his nickname.”
A scowl moved over her face. Did the men have death wishes? She’d been very clear with them that she was the one needed to bypass the systems. She opened her mouth to say as much but Duke bent, kissing her silent.
“I already yelled at him, Doc,” he said, grinning. “Now, we need your help.”
“I’d say so,” she added with sass.
Duke put a hand out to Striker who was still lying on the floor, looking like he had the wind knocked out of him. Mercy glanced past him and noticed a door. One that wasn’t hooked to a doorframe and also one that didn’t belong in the area. As she realized Striker had protected her with his body from getting hit with a flying door she bent fast, touching his arm.
“You are charming.”
He laughed and then groaned, getting to his feet. He cracked his neck and stretched his arms above his head. “That’ll get the blood pumpin’.”
She looked to Duke, who was laughing.
The men were totally and completely hopeless.
In her attempts to stop madmen, she’d somehow been paired with a group of reckless immortals who would no doubt bring the entire building down on all of them if she didn’t supervise them closely. Suddenly, she felt a lot like a mother hen in charge of a shifter den.
And not one of them knew how to listen worth a damn.
She eyed Duke and he blushed, shrugging as he did. “What?” he demanded.
She scowled. “Nothing. Try not to break anything.”
He pointed in Boomer’s direction. “Hey, he broke it. Not me.”
Yep. Children.
They moved with ease through the next level, and when they were finally to Jimmy’s level, it stopped being easy. As they entered sub-level eleven, everything changed. One second she was standing and the next Duke had her pinned under his hard body, his cock digging into her low back.
“Stay down,” he said, as a hail of gunfire went past them.
Boomer and Corbin were up front, returning fire as Striker tossed a grenade. Mercy watched the events unfold from her position under Duke as if it were all happening in slow motion. Duke covered her ears with his hands and drew them both into a tighter ball. He protected her as the room rocked, heat licking past her.
When it was done, he eased off her only to pull her around a corner, and pretty much shove her into a seated position. “Don’t move!”
She gawked. He was still ordering her around and she hated it. If he thought for one minute she was the type of woman to obey a man’s every command, he had another think coming. He could keep playing games with the guards. She was going to get to Jimmy come hell or high water.
She bolted away from him, rushing past the shooting, trying to stay low in hopes she’d avoid getting shot. Duke yelled for her but she ignored him, her entire mind centered on getting to Jimmy.
Chapter Fifteen
Mercy ducked and then crawled through what seemed like a storm of gunfire. Everything was so loud she soon stopped hearing anything. It was as though her body naturally adjusted her hearing volume to protect her ears. Single-mindedly, she kept crawling until she reached the doors to the cellblock. She knew better than to attempt to scan her retinas. The Corporation had probably attempted to lock her out of here as well. No matter. She had a way around it, as with all the scanners.
She popped the front of the unit off and worked as quickly as she could to handle a hardwire bypass since her tablet was damaged. It took longer than a soft bypass would, but she got it to click and the doors to slide open. Staying low, Mercy kept going, the need to get to Jimmy and keep her promise burning bright inside her.
Duke would be angry.
He’s always angry.
She made it a few feet into the cellblock before she was snatched off the ground with so much force that it knocked the wind from her. The back of her head hit the wall and for a moment everything around her blacked out and then faded into view again.
Dr. Bertrand had hold of her and was slamming her against the wall repeatedly. She grabbed at his wrists, his very hairy, very misshapen wrists, trying to get him to stop. He was strong. Much stronger than a human should be. And his features, they’d changed. They were almost animal-like.
Ohmygod, he’s a supernatural.
The very idea that he’d treated his own kind the way he had nearly made Mercy be sick. It explained so much. Like how he was able to inflict so much damage on Jimmy and the others when he was by himself. Only a supernatural could hurt another supernatural in that manner and with that amount of force.
“Bitch!” he spat, his face close to hers. “I told them to kill you months ago. We had what we needed from you. We had no more use for you.”
She clawed at his arms to no avail. He hit her against the wall again and the pain was so great she had a hard time staying conscious. Hot energy seemed to quicken in her belly. She kicked at Bertrand but it did nothing to stop his assault. Desperate, Mercy gave in to that tiny portion of herself that wanted to be free. One second Bertrand held her suspended off the ground and the next she was falling onto her side with a hard thump while he staggered backwards.
His beady eyes seemed to ignite with rage as he stormed at her. He drew back his booted foot and kicked her so hard she slid nearly all the way down the cellblock corridor, coming to a stop outside of Jimmy’s open cell door.
Pain pulsed through her but she pushed thoughts of it away, thinking instead about the cell door being open.
He killed Jimmy. I’m too late.
She cried out and tried to push to her feet. It didn’t work. Bertrand was on her in a flash, banging her head against the unforgiving floor.
“Stupid fucking bitch!” he shouted as he hit her over and over again.
There was a blur of motion near her and then Bertrand’s weight was removed from her. Everything on Mercy hurt to the point it took real effort to lift her head. Something wet ran over one eye, blurring her vision. It took a minute or two for her brain to register
it was blood.
Her blood.
None of that mattered. She’d wanted to save Jimmy.
She’d failed.
Mercy closed her eyes and pushed with all her might to get up. She’d not let the Corporation win. She’d burn their damn building to the ground first. That was, if she could get up.
“Doc?” a soft, familiar voice, asked. “You’re hurt. Stay still.”
“Jimmy?” she questioned, pushing at the blood over her eye. There he was, looking like she felt. He’d propped himself against the wall and was close to her, his hand on hers.
“I’m here. Hold on, all right?”
“Bertrand?” she asked, fearful he’d kill Jimmy.
There was another flash and a growl. She reached into her waistband and without thought, pulled out the stun gun she’d tweaked. She pushed it at the mass coming at her. She understood that by stunning Bertrand, she’d stun herself and possibly Jimmy too. Still, she did it. Pain radiated through her.
“Mercy!” Duke’s voice rent the air as the pain won out and Mercy found herself welcoming the darkness slipping in around her field of vision.
Chapter Sixteen
Duke rushed into what had at one point probably been an all-white corridor. Cells lined the sides. They were fancier than any cells he’d ever seen and he’d seen his fair share. Blood smeared the wall and the floor. There was a direct line of it, and as he took a breath in, he instinctively knew it was Mercy’s blood.
She’s hurt.
“Mercy!” he yelled again, desperation making his head fog. Red seemed to close in on his field of vision. His mouth burned for the change. He wanted to attack something, anything, but he saw nothing but blood.
Her blood.
“H-Here, Duke,” responded a voice belonging to a man he’d not heard in a decade—James. “She’s hurt. It’s bad. She’s out cold because she stunned us. Bertrand is rattled but running the other way. He’s been injecting himself with various supernatural DNA, he’s something I’ve never seen before. Stop him, Duke!”
“James?” Duke ran, nearly slipping in the blood on the floor, reacting nothing like the super soldier he’d been trained to be. Not one ounce of suave remained. Only the baser need to see to his mate survived. He reached the end of the long hall and found James partially in a cell, his back against the wall and Mercy on his lap, being held protectively.
She was still.
Too still.
Oh gods, no!
His heart thumped madly as he felt his grip on reality slipping from him fast. He tried to hold tight to it but the sight of Mercy there, a broken, bloody mess, was too much for him to handle. He snapped. Duke swayed and red eased into his vision. The human in him lost control of the beast. He knew he was shifting forms and that it was about to get ugly. He didn’t care. They all needed to pay for hurting his woman.
And pay they would.
The shift was normally painless. This one came with nothing but pain. So much so that Duke screamed as his bones cracked. The rational part of his brain told him this was different—that he was going to do something he could never take back.
The rest of him didn’t give a shit.
His paws hit the bloody floor and the wolf in him howled, mourning his mate. Duke looked out from the eyes of a predator and spotted five additional guards running in from the other direction. There was a man in a white lab coat behind them, pointing. Mercy’s blood was on the man. The wolf could smell it even with the distance between them. He’d hurt the wolf’s mate.
Mercy.
Rage consumed Duke and the wolf. Duke made no effort to temper the wolf. He let it be free, let it control his every action, the man in him losing his grip on the situation more and more. Soon enough, he’d lose his ability to find his way back. He understood as much but didn’t care.
They had to pay. And the wolf was only accepting blood and flesh as currency.
He charged forward, leaping in the air, his jaws clamping around the neck of one of the guards. The man’s hot blood filled the wolf’s mouth, doing nothing to quench the thirst for more. When he felt the man slipping away, he released his hold on him, moving to the next. The wolf the knowledge of the man who was now buried deep inside. The man whispered the shiny object held by the man was bad and should be handled first, before killing the man. The wolf leapt, knocking it up and away, causing it to make a loud sound.
The wolf bit the man’s arm first and then released, going for the man’s throat as well. Blood filled the wolf’s mouth, rushing over its tongue, filling its throat with coppery goodness. Too long the wolf had hungered for the taste of the kill and now he was finally allowed to do as he wished—to savor the moment. Sweet freedom spurred him onward, the want for more blood overpowering. They stopped being people to the wolf and started looking like prey.
And he was an expert hunter.
The game was nearly too easy yet the wolf took pleasure in it all the same. He would take the kills where he was permitted them because it was what he was created for.
The others were no match for him. He had nothing to lose. They had everything. He would make them pay for causing the man deep in him pain. They would know what it was like to hurt, to suffer and then to die by the wolf’s hands.
Chapter Seventeen
Jimmy pulled harder on the tiny doctor, getting her all the way into the cell before kicking at the door, trying to trigger it to automatically shut. Everything on him hurt. The doctor’s stun gun was unlike anything he’d been stunned with before. It was packing a hell of a punch. He couldn’t feel his feet just yet and he strongly suspected that was for the best. That way, he couldn’t sense the pain. He had a feeling when the effects wore off he’d be wishing for numbness again.
He pulled Mercy onto his lap more, wanting to keep her safe. Duke wasn’t himself. He’d gotten lost in the blood lust and rage. In his current state he could hurt Mercy without meaning to and the little doctor had been through enough.
She’d done as she’d said she would months ago.
She’d gotten help.
But at a great cost to herself.
Jimmy had spent the last ten years trying to make amends for past sins and he couldn’t help but think that if she didn’t make it, he’d spend the rest of his life trying to make up for that.
He drew her onto his lap, everything on him hurting and nothing wanting to work as it should. His left arm was rendered totally useless. He wasn’t sure he’d ever regain use of it. The full extent of his injuries were unknown to him.
Mercy moaned softly and began to come to. She nodded off again and Jimmy gritted his teeth. Dammit. She should have left him.
She shouldn’t have come for him. She should have left him to die. He deserved death. She didn’t.
The sounds of Duke’s snarls filled the area. Screams from the guards echoed. Jimmy couldn’t find it in himself to feel remorse over their passing. They were all sinister to some degree. Some more than others.
The scientists had been that way as well. All but a select few.
Mercy was one of those exceptions. There had been another. She was gone now. She’d gone before Mercy had arrived, and James wondered about her often.
Corbin appeared just outside the cell. He took one look in and Jimmy knew the sight he and the small doctor presented. It wasn’t pretty.
Swallowing hard, Corbin nodded to him. “J-James.”
“We’re fine for now. Stop Duke. Blood lust took him.”
“Shit,” said Corbin.
Striker was next to appear. His hair was longer than James remembered it being. The Scotsman pressed a smile to his face. “Good to see you, though you look like shit.”
“Thanks.”
“The doctor?” asked Striker.
“Not good.”
Corbin tapped Striker. “Duke is shifted and the blood lust has him.”
“Fuck.”
“You got her?” asked Corbin.
“I’ll protect her with my last breath,�
� returned Jimmy. They needed to worry about corralling Duke before he took the place down in wolf form.
Chapter Eighteen
Mercy opened her eyes, her head feeling heavy but her body pain free. Strange, she’d only just nodded off, or so she thought, and she’d been riddled with pain. What had happened?
She turned her head, surveying her situation. The white walls around her made her breath catch. They looked similar to the walls of the laboratories at the Corporation. Had she been taken by the Corporation? Was she now a test subject?
Ohmygod.
She nearly screamed. Her mind raced with all the horrible things the Corporation would do to her as punishment for the trouble she’d caused. They would show her no kindness and whatever Bertrand was now—whatever monster he’d turned himself into—he would kill her slowly. She was sure of it.
She didn’t recognize this room as being part of the facility she’d worked at but she knew the Corporation had more than one location. She’d never be found. She could be anywhere. No help would ever come because the Corporation could make someone vanish without a trace.
And Duke, oh, Duke. She’d never see him again.
Another thought jarred her. Had he survived? What if he’d been captured or worse, killed?
A primal scream threatened to rip free from her. She shook to maintain control. She wouldn’t give the Corporation the satisfaction of knowing they’d won.
“There you are, lass,” said a deep, familiar voice, its burr a welcome sound—alerting her to the fact she was not being held by the Corporation. There was no way Striker would sound so calm otherwise. “Been wonderin’ when you’d wake up, sleepyhead.”
“Striker?” she asked, her mouth dry as the panic eased from her chest.
The giant of a man moved next to the bed she was in. He held a glass of water for her. She sipped from the straw. She noticed his right arm was bandaged and he had a black eye. It looked like he’d seen one heck of a fight. “Where are we?”
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