by Lora Leigh
Gideon tilted his head to the side curiously. “Really?”
He wasn’t lying. Greedy little fucker. He’d thought he could capture them himself and gain the reward, no doubt.
“Who was it?” he asked.
“There was a girl the Council killed when they learned she mated one of their Coyote soldiers,” Scott rasped. “It was over twenty years ago. Morningstar Martinez. She was taken from Window Rock, Arizona, because of the suspected psychic talents that ran in the family. I know her brother, Terran Martinez, was in the area at that time, but no one else knew. And I never told a soul.” His gaze was tormented. “I let it lie, Gideon. I helped them escape.” He sobbed. “Doesn’t that count for something?”
“For something,” Gideon agreed, lying as easily as the Council trainers had taught him to lie while he was under their less than tender care.
This information was interesting, though. Very, very interesting. The Genetics Council had always searched for breeders who had shown, or whose families had shown, a high rate of psychic or other paranormal talents.
Gideon considered the information for several long moments, wondering if he could satisfy his need for vengeance without spilling blood now. Without hearing Scott Connelly scream in inhuman agony.
Why was he bothering? he wondered. Why did he care if the son of a bitch believed Gideon had lied to him or not, once he began torturing him?
Because, Gideon admitted, he had made a promise.
He’d promised mercy.
Cutting into the man’s guts as he lived wouldn’t be considered merciful, he thought in resignation. And unfortunately, Gideon couldn’t think of a worse death that he could use to assure Scott that the vivisection would be less painful.
And that sucked, he admitted to himself.
Scott had given him something no one else had, though—he tried to appease the animal that snarled restlessly inside. That counted for something, for mercy at the very least.
The researcher had tried to aid his escape, Gideon hadn’t known that. But what he knew, he would tell anyone who tortured him. Gideon couldn’t allow that.
Unfortunately for Scott, it didn’t count for a reprieve.
Gideon finally nodded slowly. “No vivisection for you, Scott. You did what the others haven’t managed. You gave me something useful.”
Relief mixed with distrust filled Scott’s eyes.
There was nothing Gideon could do about the distrust, because he couldn’t explain that he would indeed die.
“I have to be going now.” Gideon tossed the scalpel aside as he rose to his feet and glanced around the room.
The small pillow on the couch caught his eye. Moving to it, Gideon picked it up before returning to his victim.
“Here. I’ll lift your head so you don’t choke on your own snot.” He snorted. “That wouldn’t exactly be a comfortable way to die.”
“Gideon.”
He paused as he stared down at the helpless, vulnerable monster that had once filled his nightmares, but would no more.
“Yes, Scott?” Arching his brow mockingly he stared down at the tearstained face as he remembered the sneers that had once covered it.
“You’re after the girl, aren’t you?” Scott’s lips quivered as more tears fell. “You’re after Fawn.”
Gideon bared the sharp incisors in warning. “I’m after all of them, Scott. Every last one of them. And I’ll have what’s owed me. Never doubt that.”
“I’ve done everything to keep them hidden.” He swallowed tightly. “To help you. I didn’t know they would use the vivisections on you. I wasn’t there the day the decision was made. They didn’t warn me in time.”
“No one warned me either.” Gideon shrugged as he moved once again to place the pillow beneath his head.
“Gideon, if they find her first . . .” Scott swallowed tightly. “They’ll find out what I’ve hidden all these years.”
“And that is?” He really didn’t care.
“She’s special,” he whispered. “The last time I tested her blood there were additional hormones in it. Changes that didn’t make sense. Changes the scientists would have killed her to understand—and still will.”
“And why did you care?” Gideon lifted Scott’s head to adjust the pillow beneath it.
Crouched behind him, he pushed the pillow in place.
“She’s my daughter,” Scott whispered.
“Liar!” Gideon snarled at the same moment he twisted Scott’s head with brutal force.
The sound of Scott’s spine cracking clashed with the scent of instant death as Gideon closed his eyes and fought back the shock, and the regret, he insisted on feeling.
He refused to even consider Scott’s final words because they didn’t matter. Nothing could make him more determined to exact his vengeance, not even the paternity of his prey.
He should be able to kill easily, he thought instead, without remorse or guilt. He should have never felt the need to keep his promise for mercy when he himself had never been given mercy.
He settled Scott’s head upon the pillow and stared down at the limp form. Gently, he closed the empty eyes that still reflected the abject relief he had been feeling at the moment of his death.
Gideon refused to acknowledge that glimmer of resignation he had heard in the other man’s voice, though. As though he had known he would die in that second.
“I couldn’t allow you to live,” he said softly as he stared down at the lifeless face of the man that had tortured him for so many years. “Monsters can’t be allowed to live past their usefulness, Scott. And your usefulness ran out.”
Then his gaze was caught by that damned family photo.
Son of a bitch. He didn’t want to see that. He didn’t want to see nor consider the family that would return later.
Yet his conscience refused to allow him to do otherwise.
He re-dressed his victim before picking him up and carrying him to the couch where he laid him against the cushions as though the man were napping rather than entering hell. Then he cleaned the floor of the urine and excrement, disposed of the rags he used and carefully returned the room to its pristine condition.
Connelly’s wife was considered a kind, compassionate woman. The week Gideon had spent watching the family and learning their habits, he’d found reason to believe it.
The two young men who were his sons were considered friendly and generous young men who laughed and enjoyed life with an apparent sense of humor and a love for people.
Even for Breeds.
They didn’t deserve to find their father laid out naked and so obviously tortured. It would be a sight they would never forget. One Gideon would have regretted leaving for them.
Though where he’d found the ability to care, he wasn’t quite certain.
Scott Connelly hadn’t given a damn about anyone or anything in those labs, except the girl whose big, dark eyes watched the world with somber resignation. Gideon had shown the scientists he’d found over the past months the same lack of mercy they had shown him. But as he’d watched Connelly’s family over the past week, he’d found himself feeling sorry for the wife and the sons who lived beneath the tyranny of the bastard who was rarely home and who cared little for their feelings.
They would be at peace now.
If only he could find a moment of that peace as well.
Stepping from the living room he shut off the lights, then slipped through the house as silently as he had entered it. Leaving through the back door, he left the security system disabled and didn’t bother worrying about any fingerprints that could have been left.
He had none.
Those had been burned and peeled off long ago, leaving only calloused, roughened flesh in their place.
Moving through the shadows of the backyard, he made his way to the small park several blocks from the house and then to where he had parked the black pickup he’d stolen the week before.
Tossing the bag of cash and other items onto the passenge
r’s seat, he started the vehicle and pulled from the darkened slot he’d parked in.
He would use his own fake ID and buy a vehicle when morning came and ditch the stolen truck. It would make the trip ahead safer.
If he drove day and night, he would reach his destination quickly.
Window Rock, Arizona, the home of Terran Martinez and his family.
Gideon had heard of Morningstar Martinez and knew well the story of the Coyote Breed who had mated that lab’s favored Breeder. The information found during their vivisections had been used in Brandenmore Research for the serum created there.
And apparently her girlhood home was also now the home of the girl that, for a while, he’d only known as subject number 4. The girl who would now pay the price for the last two years of agonizing experiments Gideon had suffered.
Once he found her, she too would find herself inflicted with the same pain, the same torment and the same overriding agony Gideon suffered because of her.
Her time was coming.
But first, first, there was one small problem he needed to deal with. The four-man, one-woman mercenary team searching for the girl as well.
He could kill them. Or, he could find a way to make contact with the commander, the only member of the team he trusted, and use her to ensure he got close enough to take possession once the girl was found.
There was no doubt his prey would never trust him. He remembered in his pain, in his fury, the threats he had made as she watched him with those dark, tortured eyes.
“I’ll find you.” The growl that left his throat was animalistic and enraged as her blood flowed into him, burning him, awakening the animal genetics his loss of blood had silenced. “You will both pay. I’ll ensure it.”
“You’ll have to find us first, Gideon.” Judd’s voice had spoken softly from a point behind his head. A point Gideon couldn’t see, because he couldn’t turn his head. He couldn’t strike out. He could only speak.
“I’ll find you both,” he had sworn to her as she sobbed.
“And I’ll make certain you don’t,” Judd had promised. “We’ll hide you before we leave, make certain you’re safe. But you won’t know where we are. And you’ll never have a chance to harm either of us.”
He would find them both. And he would keep the promise he made. They would both pay.
•CHAPTER 3•
There were few things Diane Broen hated worse than she hated late night landings and forcing her tired body to yet another hotel room.
One of these days, she promised herself as she entered the lobby of the exclusive, expensive hotel Jonas Wyatt sent them to, she was going to have her own bed, her own apartment, and her own clothes to fill it.
Rather than whatever she had in her suitcase, whether it was dirty or not.
“Boss, don’t forget about that meeting we have with the accountant while we’re in town,” Thor, the big deep-voiced blond Swede reminded her as they stepped into the lobby of the D.C. hotel and headed for the elevators.
“Do we have an appointment?” she asked, all but dragging her bags behind her as she fought to stay on her feet long enough to get to her room.
Three months. She and the four men who had once fought with her uncle and now followed her command, had been on the trail of one of the most elusive damned targets she’d ever been sent after.
They had gone after terrorists, extracted kidnap victims, provided security for heads of state, kings and even a few shady characters, but never in the history of her time with her uncle’s men had they failed to complete a job. Until now.
It was as though she had disappeared off the face of the earth and the message she had received the night before returning to D.C. hadn’t settled her mind.
An anonymous message left in her hotel room and a warning that there was a spy too close to her. A spy who didn’t care to kill. And with that message was a reference to a possible location that she still couldn’t believe.
Hell, she didn’t need this.
“I’ll get an appointment, boss,” Thor promised. “But you have to keep it.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” she said with a sigh as she punched the elevator button and watched the lit numbers descend as the elevator moved from the upper floors back to the lobby.
She was taking that warning to heart, as much as she hated to. There was too much at stake, and she wasn’t risking her men without more information.
She leaned against the wall and stared back at the four men.
The Swede, Thor, was their moneyman. He kept them solvent and well supplied. He paid the bills and managed to keep their paychecks from bouncing. Next to him was Aaron, their logistics expert, emergency medical needs, and travel agent. Brick was their communications expert and supply tech while Malcolm took care of weapons and, before they’d joined the Bureau of Breed Affairs, he’d scheduled their missions.
They’d lost two of their men after joining the Bureau though. The two Breeds that had fought with them since the team had rescued them from a small lab several years before. They’d moved on to security in Sanctuary, the feline base in Virginia.
Now Diane and her remaining team were expert consultants to the Bureau, a glorified title for gophers she liked to think, but it kept her close to her sister, Rachel, and Rachel’s daughter, Amber.
It kept her close enough that she could ensure she was never again unable to help her sister and niece when they needed her.
The elevator pinged its arrival.
“Hey, boss, want me to haul your gear?” Thor’s voice was softer as she opened her eyes and stared back at him.
