Embracing Carly

by Tianna Xander

  Bastien bowed his head, looking at his feet. A part of him wanted to believe that. A part of him wanted someone to convince him there was nothing he could have done.

  CARLY STOOD UP AND shook herself from her clothes. She prowled around the room, investigating. Robert hadn’t occupied the room long. He couldn’t have.

  His things aren’t even in here.

  Wandering over to the bathroom, Carly wondered how long it would be before she could take a shower this time. If things went the way they had the last couple of times she’d changed, she wouldn’t have to worry about it. She would be back to herself in no time.

  She continued to walk around the room, sniffing the air. Maybe she could figure out a way to find Natalia and Malcolm. After meandering back into the main area, Carly spun around when someone knocked on the door. Preoccupied with her thoughts, she hadn’t seen anyone approach the door through the glass partition.

  Get a grip, Carly. You have to learn to be more observant or you’ll never get out of this place alive. She worried about Bastien, wondered if he’d gotten hurt, or worse, trying to get her out of here. If he even knew weres were here. She sighed.

  The door opened slowly, and Richard walked in, flanked by two guards armed with tranquilizer guns. Her eyes widened when Robert entered behind them.

  Carly glared at her ex-husband and snarled. This is one time that bastard won’t get the upper hand. She didn’t doubt for a second that Richard would have his men turn the guns on Robert if he tried to kill the doctor’s new star test subject. Baring her teeth, she lowered her head and moved toward Robert, stalking him, although the instinct to stalk surprised her.

  Robert looked from her to Richard. “What the hell is this?” he asked, turning back to stare at her. “You said I was going to see Charlene. I see a bitch in here,” he said, laughing, “but not the one you promised.”

  Richard and his guards sidestepped just as Carly lunged at Robert. She sank her teeth into his calf and shook her head ruthlessly.

  Robert screamed. “Don’t just stand there. Help me before this thing eats me!”

  Inwardly, Carly winced as the taste of his blood hit her tongue. She might be in wolf form, yet she still had her human instincts as well. The thought of ingesting his blood disgusted her. Still, some unknown, wild part of her enjoyed it.

  He tried to pull away. That only made things worse. It tore the wound and caused him more pain. She reveled in the fear she saw in his eyes when he realized the other two men weren’t going to help him.

  “What the fuck, man? Are you going to let this mutt kill me?”

  Carly released him and turned her attention toward his groin. When Robert noticed the direction of her gaze, he screamed again and ran through the door, slamming it shut behind him.

  “Were you having fun?” Richard asked, chuckling. “I’ll bet you’ve waited years to get the upper hand with that bastard. Haven’t you?”

  Carly had to admit that it was rather freeing to know that she had been the one to cause Robert so much pain. She couldn’t answer, of course, so she just stared at him for a moment, then walked over to the bed, jumped up on it, circled once and lay down.

  She hoped Richard didn’t expect her to answer, if he did, he was crazier than she knew Robert was, although she’d suspected that from the beginning. Closing her eyes, Carly tried to relax. All of the activity over the last couple of days had exhausted her and she needed a nap. They couldn’t begrudge her that, could they?

  When she woke up and turned back into a human again, she was going to hit them up for information about Malcolm and Natalia. She knew they were around here somewhere. Even though she hadn’t seen either of them, she could feel them. Her stomach grumbled. She would also hit them up for something to eat. She was starving.

  Reaching out with her mind, she tried to speak with them. Malcolm? Natalia? Can you hear me? She waited, hoping for an answer. Please answer, it’s Carly. Still, she heard nothing. Were they unconscious? Carly hoped so. The alternative was out of the question. Unthinkable. They couldn’t be dead.

  “I THINK OUR BEST BET for a hidden laboratory close by is the holding listed as the storage bunker. If we get that one out of the way and destroy it, it will leave them one less place to hide.”

  “You’re right, Dimitri. I think we should start with that one, too. They’re bound to think we’ve written that place off as nothing more than a trap,” Cameron said thoughtfully. “What if they were there all along? They could have had the bulk of their men split between the facility and raiding this place.”

  “That’s quite possible. Luke would have kept them informed of our plans and they wouldn’t have needed to spread themselves over several facilities.”

  “You could be right, Merrick,” Bastien said. “What we need now is a plan to get back into the facility and keep the women safe at the same time.”

  “What about a hotel?” Drew said. “The ladies, Dad, Nathaniel and I could all stay in a hotel. We shouldn’t even need extra guards if we stay in something expensive. They usually have pretty good security, and no one would need to know where we are.”

  Randy nodded. “Okay, that should work. Don’t even tell us where you are. If we don’t know, a traitor can’t leak the information to our enemies and use the rest of you against us. That would leave us free to concentrate solely on the mission.”

  Bastien nodded. “You know, that could work. I wish we had thought of that. If we had, Carly wouldn’t be in their hands now.”

  “Yeah, but before you didn’t know Luke was a traitor either. If we take out the possibility of someone leaking the location of our women out of the mix, we’ll have a pretty airtight plan once we come up with one.”

  “We have one already, Randy. You approved of it, remember?”

  “You want to stick with the original plan?”

  Bastien nodded. “It’s a perfect strategy. Besides, they’d never expect us to use it again.”

  “Anyone want to enlighten me?” Cameron asked, crossing his arms.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Six hours later, after briefing Cameron, they sent the others to get themselves settled in the hotel of their choice. The rest gathered near the targeted area for a debriefing before they hit the compound.

  “Everyone knows what to do now, correct?” Cameron asked, looking out over the assembled weres. He studied the determined eyes of a group of well-trained men. “I’m amazed at how good you men are. I almost feel like I’m going in with another group of Rangers. Well, a group of telepathic Rangers with supernatural powers.” He grinned and shook his head. “I’d better not think on that too much or I might have to see a shrink when I get back to work.”

  The group before him laughed and Randy clapped him on the shoulder. “You wouldn’t dare go see a shrink. They’d have you committed so fast your head would spin.”

  “Yeah, well, it sounds good in theory.” Cameron looked out over the rest of the gathered men. “Are we ready?” At their combined nods, he turned to his brother and handed him a pair of Night Vision Goggles. “Here’s your NVG. I know they don’t need them, but we certainly do.”

  After donning the high tech gear, the two men hugged each other. “Take care, brother,” Randy said with a grunt as Cameron squeezed him.

  “Don’t go and get yourself killed. I don’t know what I’d do if I didn’t have your rank ass around to harass, so keep your head and your ass down.” Cameron turned to the rest of the group. “Okay, let’s do this. We want to take them by surprise. This is a pre-emptive strike to catch them off guard and get an advantage on them.”

  “Move out. Everyone, keep your squad near. Don’t get distracted and keep your eyes on the zone of fire.”

  They moved in slowly, each squad covering the next as they moved through the thick brush. Bastien pointed to a camera mounted on a post fifty or so feet in front of them.

  “They remounted the camera. Why bother to repair it so fast? Or, more to the point, why have such sophist
icated surveillance equipment here at all if this is nothing more than a storage facility?”

  “Yeah, right, and if you believe that I have some of that prime farmland for sale in south central Florida,” Randy said with a snort.

  A burst of static came through the radio and Bastien winced. Reaching down, he turned down the volume on his headset and waited for the message to come. Three clicks, followed by two, then three more, meant three guards hiding in the brush to the east.

  Randy pointed to his eyes and pointed in the same direction the radio signal had warned them to watch. He held up two fingers. He had only seen two of them. Raising his rifle, he fired off two quick successive shots, then grinned, holding up one finger.

  “Two down one to go,” he whispered when Bastien crawled up next to him. “I hope to God this isn’t sanctioned by the Army. I’d hate it if we were taking out friends of mine.” He took a deep breath and closed his eyes. “I just have to keep telling myself that if given half a chance, these men would steal my nephew in a second.” He turned tortured eyes on Bastien. “I have to protect him. He certainly can’t protect himself.”

  “Welcome to our world, Randy. This is how we live every day of our lives. Kill or be killed. Kill or be discovered and hauled away to some secret government lab to be dissected like a rat.”

  “That’s not what it’s supposed to be about, man. We’re trained to protect those who can’t protect themselves. That’s the way I was trained, at any rate, and I have lived my life by that creed.”

  Randy clamped his mouth shut when a rustle came from the cluster of bushes in front of them. The last guard was ready to run. A soft breeze came from that direction, carrying the man’s scent to their hiding place. Bastien smelled the guard’s fear and the pungent ammonia smell of urine. The man’s heart pounded erratically in his chest as he stood and tried to stagger from the brush.

  Randy lifted his rifle. Bastien laid his hand across the barrel and shook his head. Soon, the sound of gasping came their way as the man fell to the ground, clutching his chest in the midst of a massive heart attack.

  “If we ever doubted those men should die, I guess that was our answer,” Bastien said, looking up at the night sky.

  “Heavenly intervention?” Randy asked.

  Bastien shrugged. “It was some kind of intervention, whether it was heavenly or otherwise, only that poor soul knows right now.”

  They moved on the facility. Each of the teams quickly took out the guards and cameras with the help of the others, using nothing more to communicate than the clicks on the radios.

  The reinforced steel door stood solid before them, the heavy lock mocking the group of men and weres.

  “At least one of these guards has to have a key to get back into this place.”

  “One step ahead of you, bro,” Cameron said as he strode through the trees, holding a key card. He swiped the card in the reader next to the door and the lock clicked before the door popped open. Two of the groups followed the lights that led down the long corridor to a large cargo elevator.

  “This is where we’re going to be our most vulnerable,” Dimitri said, looking around. “Cam, do you see an access tube of some sort? There has to be an alternate means of entry.”

  Cameron shook his head. “Not in here there isn’t.” Clipping his gun to his Kevlar vest, he squeezed the button on his radio. “Alexander.” He looked up, his eyes meeting Bastien’s. “That is the big, tall guy’s name isn’t it?” He continued at Bastien’s nod. “Alex, take two of the teams and search for something resembling a ventilation system. There has to be an alternate route out of this place. When you find it, leave a team to guard it and get your ass down the shaft to back us up.”

  “Roger that.”

  “Well, either we’re going in or we’re going to just stand here, shaking in our boots like a bunch of little girls. What’s it going to be?” Randy asked.

  Bastien reached out, pressed the car call button, and gave them all a grim smile. “We’re going in, of course. Let’s just hope this isn’t a trap.”

  “My money is on most of the guards pulling duty outside the facility so they could keep most of them in the dark about what’s been going on inside.” Dimitri jerked his thumb behind him. “Those weren’t highly trained men out there. That kind of grunt is a dime-a-dozen. The kind you wouldn’t want to have to get a security clearance on because he’s all brawn and no brain.”

  The elevator doors opened as the others nodded their agreement.

  “So, this is either extremely good news or extremely bad,” Randy said as they stepped into the elevator.

  “Why do you say that?”

  “I know where he’s going,” Cameron said as they all stepped into the elevator. “The bad news would be that all of their good soldiers are on the inside.”

  Randy held the door open button while he looked around the cubicle. He pointed up at the access panel in the ceiling. “Open that. Bastien, Cam, Merrick, Dimitri, and you other three climb up there and keep your mouths shut. We’re going to go in hot and we don’t need you guys to be targets as soon as the doors open.”

  Bastien waited for the men to climb through the hole and watch from above as he studied the panel, trying to figure out which of the five underground levels to visit.

  Randy shrugged, pushed the button for the first lower level and stepped to the side to make a smaller target. “Get up against the wall, damn it,” he growled at the other three men. “Do you all want to be shot?”

  The doors opened with a chime. The men stood pressed against the walls of the elevator, waiting for an attack and heard nothing.

  “Maybe they’ve all gone, like the first time,” Dimitri said in a loud whisper. “I’m coming down.”

  Bastien stuck his head through the door while Dimitri gathered his things. “Where is everyone? Man, I hate it when they run like scared rabbits when I’m itching for a fight.” He slammed his fist into his hand. “Damn it! I wanted to kill someone tonight.”

  “Me too,” Cameron said, dropping down behind him. “Hey, let’s get out of this damn oversized casket and search the perimeter. There has to be something here.”

  They took a few minutes to search the level, leaving a man to hold the elevator doors open. If they were going to get unwanted company, it wasn’t coming from the elevator. Bastien looked at his friends, then glanced over at the two human men. They were a surprise.

  “Why are you guys helping us, really?” he asked, looking over at Cameron. “Is it really because of your sister?”

  He nodded. “Of course. We’re doing this for Charity, my nephew and any other children they might have locked up down here. Look, it doesn’t matter what Dimitri is. He makes our sister happy and that’s all that matters to us.”

  “How did you find out about him?” Bastien knew Dimitri would never have just walked up to her family and announced, By the way, I’m a werewolf.

  “He was very badly injured in a car accident and Charity was taking care of him. We wanted to take him to the hospital, but she kept refusing. She wouldn’t even tell the police he was in the car when it happened. Finally, we decided to take matters into our own hands and take him whether she liked it or not.” He shook his head, obviously remembering the details quite vividly as he smiled. “She pulled a gun on us. Do you believe it? She pulled a gun on her own brothers.” He chuckled. “I didn’t think she had it in her. Anyway, she told us why he couldn’t go to the hospital and he woke up barely long enough to confirm it.”

  “And you believed them?”

  “Why else would my baby sister not take her beloved Dimitri to the hospital?” He shrugged. “It’s easy for all of us to see how much she loves him. It’s in her eyes whenever she looks at him, talks about him, everything. It’s kind of sickening. I hope I never get that sappy over someone.” He rested his hands on the butt of his rifle.

  Bastien chuckled. “You will one day and you’ll wonder how you ever lived without her.”

  “Ye
ah, maybe.” He turned to call to his brother, “This level is clear. It looks like nothing is here save for the empty laboratory. All of the chickens have flown the coop.” He turned to Bastien. “Any souvenirs you’d like to take with you?”

  Bastien nodded to a few of the men. “You three stay here and find that serum. If you can’t find it, try to find a way to the next level.” He indicated Dimitri, the twins and several other men. “We’re going to work our way down. If you can’t find a way up, stand guard here at the elevator and we’ll stop for you on our way back up.”

  They nodded, accepting their orders without question. “Yes, sir,” they said in unison.

  Bastien and Cameron stepped into the elevator. “Going down,” Cameron said as they met his brother just outside the doors.

  “Didn’t find anything?”

  “Just the laboratory stuff.” Randy made a face. “Why do these scientists always insist on growing nasty shit in Petri-dishes and test tubes?” He stepped into the elevator, then turned to face the front. “Everyone get into position. That means you guys climb back up through the service panel and await instructions.”

  Cameron stepped up to him. “Bullshit on that. I am not climbing back up there and hiding like some little baby while you take all of the chances. That wouldn’t fly on the job and it’s not going to fly here.”

  “Whatever.” Randy pushed the button for the fourth level. “Get ready to take on fire.”

  “Shit, you can feel it?” Cameron asked, gritting his teeth as he got down on the floor. “This is why I didn’t want to go through that damned panel. I hate getting on my knees. I’m too old for this shit.”

  “Yes, I can feel it. There is going to be resistance on this next floor. Get against the wall or get on the floor. Now!”