Charming The Beast

by Cynthia Eden

  “Stop!” Duncan yelled.

  The man jerked but he kept going.

  Duncan sighed. “What, does he think I’m going to fight his ass, werewolf to werewolf?” Duncan pulled out his gun. “They’re not the only ones with tranqs. Hell, I think they got the tranq idea from us.” And he fired. The tranq hit the fleeing werewolf and he stumbled.

  Then fell.

  Connor took his time closing in on the guy. One step. Another.

  The werewolf rolled over to face him. And the guy…laughed. “They’ll have…your man…by now…” He spat out blood. Someone had shot the guy with silver. A shot in the face and a shot in the chest. “Why do you…think…they left me? To…distract…wanted you...to follow me…not them.” His eyes were sagging closed as the tranq pumped through him.

  Connor grabbed the guy’s shirt front and hauled him upright. The guy couldn’t pass out, not yet. “Where did they go?”

  “After…after the human…who was here…before…”

  Fuck.

  Connor kept one hand on the guy even as he reached for his phone. He had Eric on the line within two seconds. “Get a team over to Harris Grey’s house, now. He’s the target. They’re going after him.”

  ***

  Connor raced hell fast to Harris Grey’s house, but when he got there, Harris was long gone. The front door had been smashed in, and the small house was filled with broken furniture. Hell, there was even plenty of blood left behind. But no Harris.

  He and Duncan chased the scent of the wolves for five miles, but then that scent vanished.

  He glared at the scene around him. An airfield. Hell, yeah, that would explain the loss of their scent trail. There were choppers there, and it would have been too easy for the werewolves to just fly away with their prisoner.

  “I’ll start talking to folks, look for witnesses, get flight manifests,” Duncan muttered. “The usual routine.” He headed away with part of the team.

  Connor nodded as his brother left, but he wasn’t hopeful. It wasn’t like werewolves would just tell everyone where they were going. This pack had power and pull—and they were using both right then.

  He knew they’d taken Harris for a reason. They’d try to break the agent, try to make him share every bit of intel that he had on Connor and Eric and all those in the Para Unit. If Connor couldn’t find Harris before the guy gave in to their torture…

  Then we are all fucked.

  And not in the good way.

  ***

  By the time Connor returned to the Para Unit base, he was tired, pissed off, and more than ready to see Chloe. Every moment that he’d been gone, she’d been on his mind. He’d been out, searching for clues, but he kept thinking about her.

  As a rule, he didn’t obsess over any woman. His father had been obsessed with his mother—a sick, twisted obsession because his old man had been a sick, twisted bastard. Connor had never gotten close to a woman—well, other than for the occasional fuck. Emotionally, hell no, he hadn’t let that weakness consume him.

  After all, what woman wanted to be tied to a werewolf?

  And…what if he was really as sick as his old man?

  So he’d played it safe. Kept up the walls around him. No one had slipped past his guard, until her.

  Chloe was always in his thoughts now. He felt as if she were consuming him. He wasn’t even sure when the woman had gotten to him. When she’d slept in his arms? When she’d stood by him in the middle of that slaughter of a shoot-out and refused to leave him?

  No one else has stood by me that way.

  He needed to see her. Right then.

  He dropped off his weapons and immediately started marching to the containment area. His first priority was to make sure she was safe and—

  “Ah, now how did I know you’d go to her first?” Eric stepped from the shadows. “As opposed to, you know, debriefing with your supervisor like you’re supposed to do after a mission? Does anyone care about protocol these days?”

  He glared at Eric. Screw protocol. “I talked with you on the phone. Multiple times. I already told you everything I know.”

  Eric sighed. “Yes, you did, but I didn’t tell you everything.” He was blocking the containment area. “I, uh, agreed that no one would hurt Chloe…”

  The bastard. Connor got a sinking feeling in his gut and he lunged forward. He grabbed Eric’s shoulders and slammed the guy against the nearest wall. “What did you do?”

  “I needed to see…how she’d react…to him.”

  To him? To him? “Who?”

  “You should ease your grip, I’m your supervisor—”

  “Like I give a fuck!” He wasn’t some trained agent. He was a criminal who’d been forced into this twisted web and Eric knew that shit. “What did you do to her?”

  “She’s unharmed.” Eric didn’t look even a little afraid. Annoyed, yes. Afraid? No. “She’s in containment. She’s just…not alone.”

  Connor shook his head. “Tell me you didn’t—”

  “David Vincent is in the cell next to her. I needed to see how she’d react to him. I needed to know if she’d been working with David. I was monitoring their conversation, listening for any clue that might give her away.”

  He wanted to pound his fist into Eric’s face. “She has to be terrified,” he said. And he hated for her to be afraid. “It’s not good for her to be scared. When she’s scared, her scent…it gets different. Even stronger.”

  “Yes, about that…I don’t smell anything near her. Neither does Holly and neither—”

  “You’re not werewolves!” Connor shoved away from him. “And I’d already told you that she wasn’t lying. She wasn’t working with her father so she didn’t know David Vincent. She didn’t know anything about what the senator was doing—”

  “How do you know that for certain?”

  “Because she didn’t tuck her hair behind her left ear!” Connor exploded.

  “Right.” Eric stared at him as if Connor had lost his mind. “That seals the deal. The woman is an angel. She didn’t tuck back her hair.”

  He growled at the guy.

  Eric raised his hands. “Easy. I might look human, but we know how deceptive appearances are,” Eric said flatly.

  Connor already knew that Eric wasn’t human. He just didn’t know what the guy was.

  “Before you go for my throat with fangs or claws, how about you come into the observation room with me and just see what’s happening in there, huh?”

  His teeth were grinding together. “Fine,” Connor gritted out. “But then I’m getting her.”

  “Someone sure seems to be getting attached to Chloe.” Eric cocked a brow. “Are you quite certain that intriguing scent you keep mentioning—are you certain it’s not working on you?”

  It wasn’t her scent driving him crazy. Well, part of it was her scent. But mostly, it was just her.

  So Connor didn’t answer the guy. He followed Eric into the observation room, though, and he stood behind the big window that looked out over the containment area. To those in containment, the window would look like a giant mirror. The prisoners couldn’t see him and Eric because the view just went one way.

  Eric leaned forward and pressed a button. Suddenly, the sound-proofing in containment was gone and Connor could hear—

  “You should probably thank me,” David Vincent said. He was pacing in his cell. Glaring at Chloe.

  Connor really didn’t like that prick.

  Chloe sat on the floor of her cell. Her knees were drawn up near her chest and she’d wrapped her arms around her legs. Her head was down. Her shoulders were hunched. She looked defeated. Afraid.

  “I mean, who do you think gave your dad all that werewolf blood to use on you? It’s not like werewolves are willing test subjects, but I still made my pack give up those vials…for you.”

  “I didn’t want the blood,” Chloe said, her voice soft.

  “The hell you didn’t!” David shouted back at her. “You were stuck, caught in b
etween two worlds. You wanted your beast to come out!”

  “No.” Chloe’s head lifted. “How any times do I have to tell you? I just wanted to be human again, that was all.”

  “I’m human!” David grabbed the bars of his cell. He seemed to yank on them with all of his strength. “Because of that damn djinn friend of yours—Olivia Maddox killed my wolf and she made me human!”

  Olivia Maddox. Yes, Connor knew her. And, once upon a time not so long ago, Olivia had been a djinn—a genie. But as they’d all learned, wishes from a djinn were very twisted things. What a person truly wanted, well, he or she didn’t always get.

  Not too long ago, David Vincent had been attacking Olivia’s lover, a vampire named Shane. David had been in werewolf form, and Olivia had made one wish…

  I wish the beast would be a man.

  And just like that, the werewolf inside of David Vincent had died. Only his human part had survived her wish.

  Later, Olivia had made another wish…when Chloe’s own father had attacked her, when Senator Donald Quick had been holding his daughter captive with a knife too near Chloe’s heart, Olivia had wished…

  I wish you’d let her go.

  Chloe’s father had immediately complied. Only, since it was a djinn’s wish—and those wishes could go so very wrong—he’d let Chloe go by killing her. He’d immediately plunged his knife into her heart.

  Then, according to the stories Connor had heard, Olivia had wished for Chloe to live.

  She had. She’d come back from the dead. He’d arrived in time to see her rising—breathing—and so he’d been there when, moments later, Chloe fired a silver bullet right into her father’s heart and killed him.

  “My father’s experiments made me worse,” Chloe said now. “I never shifted fully and I…I felt like I was losing more of my humanity with each day that passed.”

  “Like humanity matters.” David’s lips curled in disgust. “He gave you enhancements that you don’t even know about. Lucky bitch. You got the best one right at the end.”

  Eric leaned in closer to the mirror. “Now things are finally getting interesting.”

  Chloe stood. Connor saw her body tremble a bit. “What enhancements?”

  David laughed. “Noticed anything…different…about yourself lately?”

  “Other than the fact that I’m not rotting in a grave some place, you mean?”

  His laughter faded. “I was supposed to get you.”

  Connor spun for the door. “I’m going in there. Now.”

  “No!” Eric grabbed his arm. “Just wait, okay? She’s safe. David Vincent can’t hurt her. And this is the first time the guy has actually started talking. Hell, even when we used vamps, they couldn’t break through to him. Probably some kind of damn alpha shit stopping them or maybe some enhancement crap that the senator worked. Either way, no compulsions have worked on the guy.”

  Connor didn’t want to wait. He wanted to get Chloe out of there, right then.

  But he looked back through that observation window.

  “You don’t…get…me,” Chloe said haltingly. “I don’t care what my father promised you.” Her laughter was bitter. “And in case you didn’t notice, he wasn’t exactly the most trustworthy guy, despite what he said in his political commercials. He was probably planning to turn on you as soon as he got what he wanted.”

  Fury darkened David’s face.

  Chloe glared right back at him. “What are you going to do?” Chloe suddenly demanded, with her fists clenched. “We’re both locked up here! You can’t hurt me! You can’t—”

  “You don’t have to worry about me. Your scent doesn’t work on me, not anymore. It’s the others you need to be thinking about…”

  Chloe lunged toward the bars. She reached out—as if she’d touch them—but she yanked her hands back before they could make contact. “You know why they like my scent, don’t you?”

  “Oh, sweet thing, they like it because your father made them like it. He wanted you to be safe from the big, bad wolves out there. So every time you get afraid, that scent of yours is supposed to call on the beasts. You see, he thought they’d want to protect you. That the scent would mark you as one of us…so the pack would be there to keep harm from ever coming your way.”

  Chloe shook her head. “He…wanted to protect me?”

  “Remembering that last injection he gave you now, aren’t you? That’s where the new scent comes from. But things didn’t work out the way he planned, did they? Now when you get scared, you smell like prey. Sweet, delicious prey…and that scent of yours drives wolves into a frenzy. They don’t want to protect you. They want to take you. To take and take and take until nothing is left.”

  Chloe clamped her hands over her ears, as if she could block out his words.

  “Take and take!” David shouted at her. “That’s what they’ll do! I bet that new scent of yours really kicked in once you died. Because I’m sure nothing has ever scared you more than that. And that scent won’t stop, not now that it’s activated. The wolves will catch that scent. They’ll follow it. They’ll find you. They’ll break you and nothing will be left—nothing—”

  Yeah, screw going through the proper channels to get into containment. Connor’s beast was clawing at his insides, fighting and demanding that he attack. So he just leapt right for that observation window. Eric’s yell followed him as Connor shot through the glass. It broke, shattered, and rained down as he landed on the floor.

  Chloe whirled toward him. There were tear tracks on her face.

  And David Vincent—the bastard finally stopped his taunts.

  That wasn’t good enough.

  Connor stalked toward David’s cell. David smirked at him. “Did her scent pull you in, too? Like a bitch in heat, right? Want to break her, want to—”

  Connor’s hand flew through the bars. His fingers wrapped around David’s throat and he yanked the guy forward, slamming David’s head into the silver bars. “You’re the one I want to break,” Connor said softly. “You’re the one I want to kill.”

  David was clawing at Connor’s fingers, trying to get free. But David didn’t have a werewolf’s strength any longer, and he was no match for Connor. No match at all.

  “I just need to snap your neck,” Connor told him, “and you’re done.” So easy. One. Little. Snap.

  “No, Connor.”

  Chloe’s voice. Pushing through the rage that surrounded him.

  “Don’t kill him. Not like this, please.”

  David’s face was starting to turn purple. Connor shoved the guy away. He turned to look at Chloe. She was near the bars of her cell, watching him with wide, desperate eyes. “You’re not like him,” she said softly to Connor. “You don’t have to—”

  David was laughing. “You’re right…” He gasped out. “He’s…even worse…”

  The sonofabitch. Connor whirled back to him.

  David scuttled out of his reach. “You think…I don’t know…about you?” His words heaved out, as if speaking hurt him…probably because Connor had come far too close to crushing the guy’s throat. “Word travels…in packs…know what your father did…know what you did…Purgatory…”

  Connor felt a hand curl around his shoulder. He didn’t look to that hand. He knew Eric was there. “Keep your control,” Eric advised him as his hand tightened on Connor’s shoulder.

  Control is over-rated.

  He wanted to shut David up before the guy said anything else.

  Too late.

  Because that asshole David said, “He’s a killer…he’s tortured…lied…destroyed…and you think he’s…gonna…gonna help you? He’s one…drawn to take…”

  “Vincent is being transferred to another facility tomorrow,” Eric promised Connor. “You won’t ever see him again.”

  “I’d better not. If I do, he’s dead.” A simple truth, and Connor saw David shudder under the face of that threat. “Now let her out, Eric. Let her out!”

  Eric pulled away from him. Connor w
atched as he went to the control board and typed in the passcode that would open the door to Chloe’s cell. When she walked out, her steps seemed extra cautious, as if she were afraid of touching the silver.

  “It burned her earlier,” Eric said quietly. “So I guess her…sensitivity…to silver is back.”

  Chloe quickly came to Connor’s side. “If that’s back, what else will return?” Her face showed her worry. “I don’t want to get stuck again. I don’t want to be like that ever again.”

  He hated her fear. And her scent—damn David Vincent, but the guy had been right. Her scent pulled at him just as it did any other werewolf.

  Only now that he’d had her blood, Connor found that he wanted her even more than before.

  “Take me to the doctor,” Chloe said. “To Holly. Let her run those tests of hers.”

  Wait, she was volunteering for tests?

  “I don’t want to go back…I can’t live that way.” Her lips trembled. “I won’t. So get Holly to run her tests. Get her to help me. Please.”

  The desperate plea in her voice pierced through him. Connor looked at Eric, more than ready to trade, lie, threaten—do anything to get Chloe what she needed.

  But Eric nodded. “Holly has been waiting for you.”

  And Connor realized that Eric had played Chloe like a pro. Exposing her to the silver, putting her with David…Eric had wanted Chloe to be afraid, to feel that the only people who could help her were the Para Agents.

  Chloe had fallen right into Eric’s trap, and, well, that just pissed Connor off.

  I don’t want him playing her. I don’t want anyone hurting her. Not Chloe.

  Because…she mattered too much to him.

  ***

  She was poked. She was prodded. She was burned with silver.

  But Chloe kept her lips clamped shut. She didn’t cry out. She just let Dr. Holly Jacobs run every test that the woman wanted.

  Her father had known about Holly. A woman who was supposed to be an expert on paranormal genetics. The senator had even tried to recruit Holly to help him in his research, but Holly had been firmly allied with the Para Unit.

  Chloe wondered why Holly was so loyal to them.