by Paige Tyler
* * *
Landon knew they were screwed the second they blew in the front door of the barracks and found the guards already waiting for them, weapons locked and loaded. But he and Diaz were trained for this shit and didn’t stand there waiting to get popped. They spread out into the big, open room and started engaging targets.
“Watson,” Landon shouted out over his radio as he dived for the floor and popped a round through a big-ass guard who was dumb enough to run right down the middle of the hallway. “We’re facing a lot of hostiles over here. Any chance you two can break off what you’re doing and hit them from the back side of the building?”
Instead of an answer, all Landon heard was the sound of weapons fire in his ear—and the growl of hybrids.
“I’m going to have to get back to you on that request, Captain,” Watson finally shouted back. “This isn’t just an admin building. It’s like some kind of backup lab. There are about a half-dozen holding cells full of hybrids, and unfortunately, someone forgot to lock the cell doors on them. So we’re all a little busy right now.”
Shit.
“Copy that,” Landon said.
He got up and darted behind a square column as one of the guards sent a full magazine worth of rounds buzzing down the hallway. The bullets punched holes in the walls, the furniture, and the ceiling, but fortunately, they didn’t hit anything soft and squishy.
Fuck, he hoped things were better for Ivy and Angelo. He’d purposely put his wife with Angelo, knowing his best friend would do anything to take care of her. But if things were as bad over there as they were here, that might not be enough.
* * *
Angelo swore the moment he, Ivy, and Derek entered the research building. The urge to hurry and find the doctors had taken a momentary backseat at the scene in front of them. Even in the dim light, it was impossible to miss the holding cells along both walls, and the six people locked in them. Of their own accord, his hands slowly clenched into fists and the desire to punch someone was suddenly overwhelming.
He wasn’t the only one. Beside him, Ivy growled as she looked at the abused and broken hybrids.
On the other side of her, Derek was already reaching for his medic’s bag.
Angelo had expected all of the doctor’s test subjects would be locals—Tajiks or Pashtuns—but four of the six hybrids seemed fair-skinned enough to be from Europe or North America. Only two of the hybrids—a woman with long hair and eyes that were completely feral, and a muscular man with deep slashes all over his chest and an American flag tattooed on his right shoulder—were even strong enough to stand and growl at them. The other four were in such bad shape that all they could do was lie there. All of them were chained to the wall or floor by their ankles. The torn, bruised, and bloody skin around the manacles showed how hard they had fought for their freedom.
Anger welled up in Angelo. This was how Minka had been treated. Suddenly, punching the doctors wasn’t enough. Landon had told him in a general way how they had hurt Ivy, but now he really understood it. He decided then and there that he would kill both Klaus and Renard if he got the chance—unless Ivy got to them first, of course.
Ivy ran to the first cell and yanked on the door. Even though Angelo knew she was pulling with more force than he could ever manage, the heavy steel bars barely budged.
The sound of gunfire grew louder outside, and Angelo winced as he heard Landon shouting over the radio that they needed backup…and Watson telling him that backup wouldn’t be coming from their direction.
“The guards must have figured out we were coming,” Watson added. “They’ve unlocked all the cages over here. The place is crawling with hybrids that are acting like they haven’t eaten in months and think we’re dinner.”
Shit.
It was getting heavy out there, and they were taking too long in here. Powell and Moore had peeled off to cover the rear of the building, and the vehicles near the back of the facility. The plan had been for Powell and Moore to come running if he, Ivy, and Derek needed help, but now it sounded like Watson and his team were going to need them instead.
“Powell,” Angelo called into the radio, hoping to be heard over the chatter coming from the other teams. “Can you get to Trevor and Watson?”
Angelo hoped the animosity between Powell and Trevor wasn’t going to get in the way here, or things could get real ugly, real fast.
Powell’s voice came back over the radio immediately. “We’ll try, but it might take us a bit. We’re pinned down by at least four guards back here by the fuel dump. They were waiting for us the moment we came around the side of the building.”
Over the open line, Angelo could hear the sounds of automatic weapons fire. Double shit.
“Landon,” he called. “Powell and Moore are trying to get to Watson’s team, but they’re pinned down. You want Derek, Ivy, and me to break off and give you a hand?”
“No,” Landon answered. “Get those doctors to a secure location first, then come help. We’ll hold on until then.”
“Roger that.” Angelo jogged over to where Ivy and Derek were standing, looking at the hybrid lying on the floor of the first cell. “We need to move.”
“They smell like Minka,” she said. “Like me.”
Angelo ground his jaw. Dammit.
Derek frowned. “What do you mean?”
Ivy ignored his question, instead focusing on Angelo. Her green eyes glowed so bright they practically lit up her face. “You never asked how I knew Minka had been created from my DNA the moment I saw her, but it was the scent. Like any person’s scent, it’s unique, but there are parts that are like mine. That’s how I knew. I’m not sure if the other shifters have noticed, but I did.” She glanced at the hybrids. “They have that trace of my scent, too. They were made with my DNA.”
Derek’s eyes went wide. “All of them?”
She nodded, and Angelo could see the horrible pain in her eyes. “All of them. We can’t leave them here like this. We have to help them.”
Angelo winced as he remembered yelling at Ivy about not wanting to help Minka, how he had essentially called her selfish because he thought she was more worried about keeping her marriage to Landon a secret than helping Minka. But now he finally understood it had never been about the secrets. It had been about not wanting to be responsible for other humans being tortured and experimented on—about not wanting to look at Minka and know the pain she’d gone through was Ivy’s fault.
There wasn’t anything Angelo could do to take that pain away, but there was one thing he could do—make sure it never happened again.
“We’ll come back and get the hybrids out. I don’t know how, but we’ll do it, Ivy. I promise,” he said. “We need to end this. We can’t let Klaus and Renard get away to ever do this again. Can you find them?”
Ivy opened her mouth to argue, but Derek spoke first.
“You and Angelo go find those doctors. I’ll stay here and figure out a way to get these people free. If nothing else, at least I’ll keep them safe, okay?”
Ivy regarded Derek for a long moment, then she nodded. “I’m trusting you to do that.”
Giving the hybrids one more long look, she turned and sniffed the air. “Klaus and Renard are here.”
“In this building?” Angelo asked.
She nodded.
“Then let’s go find them.” He keyed the mic on his radio as he jogged after her. “Landon, I know you’re in deep shit right now, but you need to get somebody over to the research building as soon as you can. Derek is trying to save some injured hybrids, and he’s going to need help.”
On the other end of the line, Landon didn’t even hesitate. “Copy that. I’ll break off here as soon as possible. Keep it together until I can.”
Up ahead, Ivy had picked up her pace to a run. Angelo hurried to keep up, trying to cover every branch in the hallway and every open doorway they passed. Several of the rooms reminded him of small treatment rooms in a hospital, complete with beds and carts of equipme
nt. Other rooms had computers and workstations that seemed more suited to a financial company than a hybrid research facility.
He was just wondering if Ivy was wrong about the doctors being there when she suddenly turned and kicked in the double doors of a random room on the left. She charged inside with a menacing growl that made the hair on his neck stand up. He sprinted the rest of the way, practically skidding into the room to cover her in case someone in there had a weapon.
But the place was empty.
Dim lights on the high ceiling barely illuminated the circular room, but Angelo had no problem figuring out what it was used for. The metal table in the center of the room was highlighted by banks of adjustable lights overhead and surrounded by trays and carts of surgical instruments that could only mean this was an operating room. This was where Klaus and Renard had tortured and experimented on Minka. And if the row of dark, reflective glass on the opposite wall was any indication, people had watched it happen.
For the first time, Angelo wished he were a shifter, so he could growl.
Ivy spun around to stare at the windows. A moment later, she let out a hiss and darted toward the glass. Lights flickered on behind the windows, revealing two men. Angelo had only seen them in the photographs put up during the mission briefing, but he easily recognized them—Johan Klaus and Jean Renard. The doctors should have looked terrified, but they didn’t. If anything, they looked damn pleased.
Angelo’s gut clenched.
He ran forward to pull Ivy back, but she was already ahead of him, spinning around to shove him back toward the door.
“It’s a trap,” she shouted.
They’d barely made it into the hallway when she jerked to a halt. Angelo stopped too, swinging his M4 around just as the doors on the other end burst open. Half a dozen hybrids charged into the building and headed their way.
Angelo squeezed the trigger as he backpedaled into the operating room. Beside him, Ivy did the same. He glanced around for something to take cover behind as the hybrids returned fire, but there was nothing in the room that a bullet wouldn’t be able to punch a hole through—him and Ivy included.
“Kill the man!” one of the doctors shouted from inside the observation room. “But take the female shifter alive.”
Ivy snarled. “The hell you will!”
Damn straight, Angelo thought as he dropped his empty magazine and slapped in a fresh one. There was no way in hell he was going to let his best friend’s wife get captured by these assholes again.
* * *
Minka felt the beast clawing to get out as she sprinted toward the building Angelo, Ivy, and Derek had gone into. She tried to remember what Tanner had taught her about holding on to herself while letting the beast out enough to use its abilities, but that had been much easier to do when she’d been sitting on the couch in Layla’s office. Now that she knew her friends were in danger, she couldn’t think of anything but getting to them. The risk of losing control was worth the speed she gained when she ceded a little more of herself to the beast though, so she opened the door in her mind almost all the way.
She ran faster than she ever had in her life, faster even than any animal she’d ever seen. The feeling was exhilarating, and maybe she would have enjoyed it if she hadn’t been terrified of Angelo, Ivy, and Derek getting killed by those hybrids.
Minka didn’t have any idea what she was going to do when she got inside, but she would do whatever was necessary. Angelo had risked everything to save her. If that meant she had to let the beast completely free, she’d do it without hesitation.
When she reached the building, she charged through the door she’d seen the hybrids disappear through less than a minute earlier, her heart pounding in her chest. She thought she was ready, that she had enough control to do this, but the scene that met her gaze froze her muscles solid and she slid to a stumbling stop.
A dead hybrid was lying in the center of the room, blood pouring from an unbelievable number of gunshot wounds. Angelo was standing over by another set of double doors on the far side of the room, facing down two hybrids. But instead of shooting them, he’d turned his gun backward like a club and was smashing it into the hybrids over and over. His uniform was shredded across the chest and stomach, and blood dripped from his lacerated arms. She briefly wondered why Angelo didn’t simply shoot the hybrids, but then she realized the weapon must be out of bullets.
On the other side of the room, two more hybrids had Ivy pinned to the floor while the really big one had her arms pulled away from her body at a vicious angle. Renard advanced on Ivy with a syringe as thick as Minka’s wrist as Klaus stood off to the side, smiling.
Ivy snarled and clawed at the two creatures on top of her, tearing great, long gashes into every part of them she could reach. But the hybrids seemed impervious to the damage, or at least to the pain.
While seeing Angelo and Ivy in such danger was traumatic, it was those doctors and being in the room where they’d experimented on her that almost made her turn and run out screaming. They had strapped her down to that metal table in the center of the room, shined those bright, overhead lights into her eyes, and injected her with the serum that had destroyed her life and turned her into a monster. This was the place where her months of pain and suffering had begun.
Her legs threatened to give out on her as all the fear and terror came rushing in to crush her under its heavy weight. The beast that always raged to get out so it could claw at anything it could reach suddenly ran back into its cage and cowered.
Minka heard Angelo shouting at her, telling her to get away. She almost did it, too. But the knowledge that Angelo would gladly face pain and death himself if he knew she was safe kept her from running. While every instinct inside her said to get as far away from there as she could, her love for him made her stay and fight.
She locked her gaze on Angelo as she forced herself to take a step in his direction. He shook his head, telling her to run, but she ignored him. Instead, she used the sight of him struggling against the two hybrids to feed the panic inside her, praying it would encourage the beast to come out.
One of the hybrids raked his claws across Angelo’s chest again. Blood spattered against the wall. That was all she needed.
Minka launched herself at the hybrid, her fangs and claws coming out as the beast took over. She didn’t know what to do when she landed on the creature’s back, but her inner beast did, so she swung the door wide to set it free. She bared her teeth, sinking them into the side of the hybrid’s neck.
The hybrid howled in pain, spinning around and trying to wrestle her off. She ignored him, wrapping her legs around the creature’s waist and locking her ankles together over his midsection. Digging the claws of her left hand into his back, she got her right arm over the hybrid’s shoulder and sunk her claws into his chest.
She’d always hated her claws, had wanted them to go away and never come back. But now, with Angelo in danger, she gloried in having weapons she could use to protect him. She urged her beast to extend the long, curved claws as far as they would go, urged it to shred and destroy anything it could reach.
The hybrid fell backward to the hard floor, trying to smash her under his weight, yanking and clawing at her arms and legs. She dug in even deeper with her fangs, subduing the creature. The moment the hybrid went limp, she sprang to her feet, intending to lunge for the other creature still attacking Angelo.
He glanced at her. “I got this. Help Ivy.”
Minka hesitated, torn, then spun around and sprinted across the room.
Renard had the needle already buried in Ivy’s arm and was saying something to her, toying with her before he pumped the drug into her. Minka knew exactly what was in there. It was the same drug they’d pumped into her many times when they wanted her docile for their experiments. The drug had immobilized her while leaving her totally aware of what they were doing to her. The fear that had come with being paralyzed while they did things to her was worse than any nightmare.
Mi
nka wasn’t going to let Ivy experience that.
She leaped on the smaller of the two hybrids holding Ivy down, the claws of one hand digging into his shoulders as she reached out to claw at Renard’s face at the same time. The doctor reeled back, the syringe ripping out of Ivy’s arm and skittering across the floor.
Minka wanted to jump on Renard but knew she had to take care of this hybrid first. But before she could rip into him with her fangs, the big hybrid holding Ivy’s arm grabbed her and yanked her off, flinging her across the room as if she were a kitten. She smashed into the wall, then fell on a cart filled with medical instruments before tumbling to the floor. Ignoring the pain, she jumped to her feet and ran back over to where Ivy was struggling against the three hybrids.
The big hybrid moved to block Minka, growling and showing fangs that were much larger than her own. She darted to the right, hoping to get around him, when a loud boom shook the building. It was immediately followed by a sharp, explosive crack, like lightning hitting. The dark windows positioned over the metal table shattered, and some of the overhead lights crashed to the floor.
Minka’s beast took a step back into its cage in confusion, and she was barely able to keep her feet. She looked around to see that everyone else in the room seemed as stunned as she was. The scent of smoke filled her nose—something nearby was on fire.
She was wondering if the building they were in was on fire too, when the big hybrid suddenly lunged at her. Her beast charged out of its cage, and she ducked under the hybrid’s outstretched hands, slicing her claws deep into his calf as she bounded past him to get to Ivy.
Minka let the beast have a little more control, trusting she’d be able to rein it in later.
She darted up behind the hybrid she’d clawed earlier and swung her hand at the back of his legs. The creature screamed in pain as her claws tore into his muscles. She jumped over him as he fell to the floor, desperate to get to Ivy. But her friend was already slashing at the other hybrid who had been holding her down, her claws moving in a blur as she struck at his face, neck, and chest over and over in rapid succession.
