by Kali Argent
He glared at the little spitfire. “I’m perfectly capable of introducing her around.” Taking Mackenna’s hand, he pulled her into his arms. “If she wants that. So, you go away.”
“But…”
“Don’t you have your own mate to annoy?”
Her expression fell, and tears gathered in the corner of her eyes. “Dr. Lancaster took him back for some X-rays. She said she’d come get me when he’s finished.”
Ah, now he got it. She was scared, worried for the man she loved, and this was a distraction. Not unsympathetic, he looked to his mate for guidance. While they couldn’t speak telepathically like vampires, an understanding passed between them when their eyes met, and Mackenna dipped her head a fraction.
“I’m going to go find you something to eat.” It wasn’t just an excuse, either. Whether she wanted it or not, she needed the calories. “Are you good for a few minutes?” If she gave any indication that she wasn’t, he’d stay.
She nodded confidently. “I’m good.”
He kissed her forehead, then patted Roux awkwardly on the back. “Try not to worry. I’m sure he’s going to be okay.”
Roux just nodded miserably.
He started to walk away then, but slender fingers wrapped around his wrist to stop him.
“Cade? Thank you.”
Mackenna didn’t elaborate, but she didn’t need to. There wasn’t anything he wouldn’t do for her, even if that thing was simply getting out of her way and letting her figure it out on her own.
Taking her hand, he unwound it from his arm and brought it to his lips. “Always.”
Chapter Nine
Clouds gathered in the distance, rolling across the tops of the mountains and refracting the moonlight. There was a chill on the breeze, the kind that stole the breath and sent shivers through the body.
Tucked safely under the awning of the hospital’s back patio, Mackenna pulled the blanket she’d brought from her room more securely around her shoulders. The night was still, quiet, the calm before the storm. She hadn’t seen a weather report, didn’t know if such things even still existed, but she could sense it. She could feel the moisture in the air, the shift in pressure.
By morning, everything she could see would be covered in snow.
She heard the heavy footsteps approaching before the back door swung open, bringing with it a rush of warmth. The scent of disinfectant was strong, but not so overpowering that she didn’t detect the rich, earthy fragrance beneath it.
“I was wondering when you were going to come find me.”
She’d been at the safe house for three days now, and very rarely in that time did Cade let her out of his sight. It was sweet, and she adored how thoughtful he was, but she couldn’t rely on him forever. Eventually, she had to stop being afraid. She couldn’t spend the rest of her life looking over her shoulder. She wouldn’t.
“Hey, Mack.”
Strong arms encircled her middle, and a wall of solid muscle pressed against her back. Goddess, he was warm. Steady. He was her rock when the turbulence of life became too much.
And he reeked of anxiety.
“They’re ready to talk to me, aren’t they?”
“They just need some information. You don’t have to talk about anything you don’t want to, but the more you can give us, the better it’s going to be for everyone.”
She also loved the fact that he never lied to her, even when the truth wasn’t something she wanted to hear. “I’ll try, but I really don’t know how much help I can be. I spent most of my time in a cage.”
Moving his arms to her shoulders, he applied gentle pressure to encourage her to turn until she faced him. “You were there for two years. I know it’s not easy to talk about, but I’m willing to bet you know more than you think you do.”
Well, he was right about one thing. She had no desire to relive the time she’d spent in the Hunter camp. Hell, she hadn’t even told Cade all the gory details yet. She’d never be able to forget the things she’d seen, nor the things that had been done to her. Hiding while the same kind of hell happened to others, however, made her no better than the monsters who had held her captive.
“Will it help? If I tell you guys everything—” She gave him a meaningful look. “—and I mean, everything, will it help you take them down?”
Cade stroked his hand down her braid, then cupped the back of her neck to pull her close. “I can’t promise that it will, but I know it can’t hurt. Right now, we don’t know anything. Someone is going to have to run recon, but there’s only so much we can learn from a distance.”
It wasn’t a guarantee, but there was a chance. “I’ll do it.”
He sighed and kissed the top of her head. “I had a feeling you’d say that. Everyone’s waiting in the conference room.”
And when he said everyone, he meant everyone. Mackenna had expected Luca and Lynk, maybe Rhys and Thea. What she hadn’t expected was for at least a dozen heads to snap in her direction when she entered the room.
Luca sat at one end of the long conference table, Lynk at the other, and every seat in between had been filled. Others had taken up positions along the wall, or they’d squeezed in between chairs to pour over the map spread out on the table.
There were even a couple of faces she didn’t recognize.
Cade must have sensed her apprehension, because he stepped in front of her, effectively shielding her from the curious gazes. “Mack, this is Seth Barnes.”
He motioned to a male with the palest complexion she’d ever seen on a living person. His icy blue eyes tracked her across the room, and he dipped his head. Mackenna nodded back at the human.
“And Orin Gaines.”
His hand swung to the right, indicating a black male the size of a freaking mountain with copper-colored eyes so warm and kind she couldn’t help but smile at him. Again, she nodded.
“I think you know the rest of these assholes, so let’s get started.”
Her mate, ladies and gentlemen, the diplomat.
Even Deke was in attendance. He looked as if he hadn’t slept in years, and the simple act of sitting up straight appeared to be taxing, but at least he had a little color back in his cheeks.
She’d learned from Roux that he’d broken three ribs in his fight with the ghost walkers. Not a significant injury in and of itself, but one of the fractures had punctured his left lung and caused other internal bleeding. While he’d mostly healed over the past couple of days, it would be a while longer before he was back to business as usual.
“Good timing,” Luca said, not looking up as he motioned for them to join him at the table. “Based on where Cade and the others found you on the highway, we think we’ve narrowed down where the Hunter camp might be.” He jabbed his index finger at the map of Colorado. “Take a look.”
Mackenna inched closer, choosing to squeeze between Roux and Deke to get near enough to the table. Abby sat on the other side of Roux, and although Mackenna normally felt more comfortable with females, Abby gave her the damn creeps.
Maybe that wasn’t fair. The way she’d heard it, the tiny blonde had been through the gauntlet in recent months. Mackenna knew better than anyone that people didn’t just walk away from trauma without being affected in some way. Still, there was something about the female, something she couldn’t quite put her finger on, but it made her hair stand on end.
“Um, what am I looking at?”
“So, this is approximately where the team found you.” He tapped a squiggly yellow line. “There’s not much around here.”
Mackenna bit her lip and nodded. She still didn’t understand what he was asking her.
“Do you know if the camp was a ski resort?” Cade asked, comforting her by resting his hand against her lower back.
“No, not like that.” The camp had been situated in a valley with mountains on three sides, but not the kind that skiers would find hospitable. “I think it might have been an inn.” She wrung her hands together as she tried to find the words to descr
ibe it. “There was just one big building, then some smaller cabins sprinkled through the woods around it.”
Cade rubbed his hand up and down her spine. “Do you know which direction you were coming from when you found the highway?”
“From the east.” That much she was sure of, but she couldn’t say with certainty how far she’d traveled.
“You couldn’t have gotten far on foot,” Luca said as if he’d plucked the thought from her head. “That puts us somewhere around here.” Uncapping a red marker, he drew a circle on the map that encompassed about three square miles. “There isn’t even a town here technically. It shouldn’t be too hard to find.”
“Okay, kid,” Lynk interjected, pushing to his feet to offer her his chair at the far end of the table. “It’s time for the hard questions now.”
She was twenty-six, hardly a kid, but she accepted the moniker in the spirit in which it had been intended—as well as the seat he’d offered. “What do you want to know?”
Rounding the table to join her, Cade shoved at Rhys’ back a couple of times and jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “Get the fuck up.”
Jesus, they were going to have to work on his people skills. “Why don’t you share my seat?”
He grunted and glared at the male, but eventually, he sat down in her vacated chair without argument. Once she was settled on his lap, he wrapped his arms around her and nuzzled the side of her neck.
“Remember, you don’t have to answer anything you don’t want to, and if you need a break, just say the word.”
“It’s okay.” Taking a deep breath, she held it for a count of three, then released it slowly. “I can do this.”
“We’ll start with something easy.” Deke sounded as tired as he looked, but he smiled kindly when she lifted her head to meet his gaze. “How many are there?”
She’d expected the question, and for days, she’d been trying to come up with a number. “At least thirty that I remember, but I’m sure there were more.”
“Any women or children?”
“A few of the Hunters were female,” she confirmed. “I never saw any children.” If there had been little ones in the camp, they’d been kept far away from her and the other beasts. She didn’t think that was the case, though.
“I’ve never heard of Hunters kidnapping Gemini or holding them captive.”
There was confusion in Orin’s voice, but also a fair amount of anger. As a werewolf—evident by his scent and glowing eyes—he’d likely had his own run-in with the fanatical group of humans. Maybe, like others in the room, he’d lost someone he loved to the Hunters. The one thing she was quickly coming to learn was that everyone had a story, and few had happy endings.
“They wanted to learn about us.” She swallowed hard and pressed deeper into Cade’s embrace. “How to hunt us. How we healed. How much…how much pain we could tolerate.” Her pulse tripped into a gallop, but she pushed down her fear and kept going. “They wanted to know if they could use what makes us special to help humans. Their words, not mine.”
Lynk jerked his head up from where he’d moved to stand by one of the windows. “What does that mean?”
“They were trying to find a way to use Gemini to make humans faster and stronger, enhance their senses, and initiate a rapid healing response.”
“They experimented on you?” The big shifter looked like he might be sick.
Mackenna didn’t blame him. She hadn’t even gotten to the worst part, though. “Not just us. Humans as well. Hunters, I think.” Some she had recognized, but she couldn’t be sure about the others. “None of them survived.”
A chorus of growls and curses went around the table, and there were more glowing eyes in the room than ever.
“How many Gemini would you say are being held?” Luca asked.
He sounded detached, almost bored, but his lack of emotion actually made it easier for Mackenna to disassociate herself from the information.
“Usually around a dozen at any given time, but they were always bringing in new prisoners to replace the ones who didn’t survive their experiments.” Bile rose in her throat, and saliva filled her mouth. She swallowed a couple of times and breathed evenly through her nose until she felt calm enough to continue. “Or the ones who didn’t make it out of the Wild Hunt.”
That last part drew a few quizzical looks, but it didn’t have quite the same impact as when she’d spoken of the experiments. Then again, why would it? She was the only one in the room who had lived through it. She was the only one who knew how sadistic and depraved it really was.
“Every full moon,” she explained when everyone continued to stare at her, “they would drug the prisoners and release them into the forest. They would give them a head start. Ten minutes, maybe?” Considering how every second had felt like an eternity on those nights, her estimate was probably way off. “Then, they hunted them. Hunted…us.”
Some months, they only used the Hunt to train new recruits on how to properly track and identify them. They’d teach them how to stay downwind, how to surround and dominate a frightened, lone wolf. They instructed their new soldiers on how to capture a vampire without killing him or trap a shifter to ensure they sustained only minor injuries.
As she explained it to those gathered in the conference room, she could see the exact moment they realized what had taken her months to work out. The Hunters had been practicing methods of capturing more Gemini to add to their experiments.
That wasn’t to say that no one died on those nights. Bear traps, razor wire, and pike-filled trenches did just as much damage as a bullet. Although, they rarely used real bullets or actual firearms. Those kinds of weapons made a lot of noise, the kind that echoed for miles through the mountains.
Instead, they hunted with knives, throwing stars, and crossbows. They used tranquilizer darts filled with lethal doses of neurotoxins. They deployed grenade-like devices that exploded in a shower of electrical currents.
“And you survived all of this? For two years?”
She didn’t think she was imagining the skepticism in Seth’s voice.
Mackenna nodded.
At the time, she had recognized that she held some value to her captors, but she hadn’t understood why. Now, she knew it was because she’d escaped the devastating effects of the virus and maintained her ability to shift.
She hesitated to reveal her secret. The virus had ravaged the human population, but the paranormal races hadn’t escaped untouched, and the werewolves had suffered worse than others. If they knew that her blood might hold the key to a cure for them, there was a very real possibility that she would end up right back inside a lab.
Oh, they’d call it research, and someone in a white lab coat would tell her how it was all for the greater good. They’d poke and prod her, subject her to scans, exams, and any other battery of tests they deemed necessary.
It wasn’t that she didn’t want to help. She wasn’t a monster. She didn’t want to see people suffer, especially if she had the ability to do something about it, but she wouldn’t end up back in some lab strapped to half a dozen machines. As her mate had said, trust was earned, and at least for the time being, it felt a lot safer to keep her head down and stay quiet.
Of course, Cade was also the one caveat to that. She hated lying to him, even if it was a lie by omission. At the same time, she couldn’t ask him to carry the burden of that knowledge and not share it with the people he considered friends.
“And you were the only one to survive that long?”
Mackenna wanted to be angry. It would be a lot easier to say Seth was just a dick with a chip on his shoulder, but she couldn’t do it. His doubt wasn’t unfounded, and he was right to suspect that she was hiding something. The human’s perceptiveness was still annoying as hell.
“No, I wasn’t the only one. There was a vampire and two shifters who were brought in a couple of months after me. As far as I know, they were still there when I escaped.”
If she’d thought that revel
ation might allay some of his doubt, she would have been sorely mistaken. Seth’s expression didn’t change beyond the slight tightening around his eyes. She could practically see the gears turning inside his head as he studied her.
“You don’t look like you could fight your way out of a wet paper bag, but you somehow managed to survive imprisonment for two years. You escaped but couldn’t free any of the other prisoners, and you can’t even accurately tell us how many there are.”
He hadn’t technically asked a question, but his accusation was clear. Not only didn’t he believe her, but he suspected her of…what? Being a spy?
Cade tensed, his arms tightening around her as he sat up straighter in the chair. Anger flooded his scent and bled into the air around them.
“What exactly are you implying?” he demanded, his tone cold and menacing.
Seth didn’t back down. “You don’t find it even a little strange that she was supposedly held there for two years, and she can’t give us any information about the place?”
“She’s given us plenty of information,” Roux said, irritation flaring in her eyes. “We know where the Hunters are, how many there are, and what kind of weapons they have. What more were you expecting Barnes?”
Mackenna gave her a grateful smile from across the table. She would tell them everything she knew, but the truth of the matter was that she didn’t know much. Despite the length of time she’d been in the camp, she’d rarely left the basement. The only information she held back was the fact she could shift, but that was a problem for another day, and ultimately, had no bearing on the current conversation.
“I’m telling you what I know,” she said to the male. “It’s not like the Hunters brought me schematics and infographics, or gave me a five-point presentation with a mission statement.”
They hadn’t asked her permission, and they damn sure hadn’t needed her approval.
“No one is accusing you of anything,” Roux said, her glare fixed on the pale human.
Seth shook his head, his shorn scalp gleaming in the overhead lights. “There’s something she’s not telling us.”