Things really do happen for a reason. Why else would Kendra have tripped over a mad scientist's feet?
When Kendra decides to attend the local high school football game, a mad scientist who plans to hold her for experimentation snatches her. She’s not sure what to think when a tall, dark, and handsome stranger comes to her rescue.
Imagine Galen's surprise when he finds the attractive red head he's sent to retrieve from Dr. Thornton's newest lab is more than he bargained for. What are the odds of finally finding one's much-anticipated mate naked in a lab?
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Galen
Copyright © 2013 Tianna Xander
ISBN: 978-1-77111-761-6
Cover art by Angela Waters
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher.
Published by eXtasy Books
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Galen
By
Tianna Xander
Dedication
To my readers, as always, I wouldn’t write if it weren’t for you.
To Jay, thanks for always being there and laughing at the parts I hope are funny.
Chapter One
Kendra sat on uncomfortable bench overlooking the football field and watched the band play. At this precise moment, she wanted nothing more than to sit here and watch her neighbor’s daughter march across the field, slamming her cymbals together. Goodness knew she’d heard it enough over the last few weeks to last a lifetime. However, she hadn’t heard it the way it should be heard—with the rest of the musicians.
The sound of the two brass platters crashing together didn’t seem so annoying now. The band brought its final half-time number to a close and Kendra stood. She didn’t mind the first half of the game. After all, it had been a means to an end. However, she hated football enough that she definitely wasn’t hanging around for the second half.
“Excuse me,” she said as she bumped against someone’s legs.
“Certainly, miss. Please excuse my large feet. They are always getting in someone’s way.”
Turning, she glanced at the owner of the sexy, but cultured, English voice. She’d half-expected to see a hot European type sitting there, not a middle aged balding man with a comb-over hairdo, potbelly and a leering grin.
Yech! It’s so not happening, gramps. Kendra gave him a false smile and kept on moving. Whatever he had on his mind was something she would rather not think about. His oily smile gave her the creeps.
Quickly, she moved through the crowd. Being a home game, the school was packed. It was probably a good thing she was leaving now. Otherwise it might have taken forever to get out of the packed parking lot.
Kendra reached her car and sighed. Surrounded by four large SUVs it was blocked in from every side. They didn’t even give her enough room to open her door and sit down.
She bit her lip and glanced back to the stadium. A large cheer went up from the home side and she smiled. At least it seemed as though they might win. As she remembered, it was rather disappointing for the players to lose a game played on the home field.
“Is there a problem, miss?”
Goosebumps rose on her flesh when she heard that misplaced sexy voice. She suppressed a shudder. Had the man followed her, or was it merely coincidence? “I’m blocked in.” Just state the obvious, Kendra. She stared at her car helplessly.
“What a shame.” The man didn’t sound at all sincere. The way she saw it, he wasn’t attempting to sound anything but smug.
That was when she realized the man wasn’t alone. He had friends and they surrounded her. All of them wore black suits like government men. Three of them were of a normal size. She figured she could take them, given her training. She’d gone up against men their size in class. However, the big one gave her pause. The hair on the back of her neck prickled. The man was huge. Body builder huge and he looked mean with a scar that ran from the corner of his right eye to just below his ear. His jacket bulged on the left side where she could only assume he wore a shoulder holster. He appeared to be ex-military, or maybe he was just a mercenary. Whatever he was, his eyes were empty as though he felt nothing for anyone, even himself.
Looking around, Kendra noticed that there was no one in the parking lot but her and the five men who surrounded her. Well, hell. Here we go.
Slowly, Kendra took stock of the men, wondering if she had a chance. After five years of martial arts classes, she should at least be able to do some damage and buy herself some time—she hoped.
“Kendra Mortensen,” the Englishman said. “We have come to give you a gift.”
“A gift?” She turned her head slowly, trying to get a feel for everyone’s position. “If you wanted to give me a gift, you could have just given it to me in the stadium.”
How does this guy know my name?
“It’s not that kind of gift, dear girl.” He chuckled, softly.
The sound gave her the creeps. Somehow she would have felt better had the man threw his head back and tried to sound maniacal. Instead, the low chuckle made him sound just that much more sinister. “This is a magical gift. It will give you the ability to shift your shape into that of a wolf.”
Okay. This guy is nuts. However, knowing that didn’t make her feel any better. “Someone’s been watching way too much TV.” Slowly, she flexed her knees and shifted her weight onto the balls of her feet. She let her arms hang loose at her sides. There was no sense in alerting them to the fact that she planned to defend herself. “You’re stuck in some sort of fantasy world if you believe that.”
“You are mistaken, my dear.” He pulled a small, square black case from his pocket. Long and thin, it almost looked like a bracelet box. “This is all too real, as you will soon see.”
The man took his time opening the long box. Like watching a train wreck, Kendra could do nothing but stand and stare. Why didn’t they teach me that when some lunatic accosted me in a deserted parking lot that I would stand gawking at them with some kind of stunned incredulity? Kendra wanted to do nothing more than run, but her legs just wouldn’t comply. It was as though she had some vague desire to see what it was he planned to do. Why couldn’t she run?
Kendra gasped when the man pulled out a syringe. She wasn’t stupid. She’d read about men drugging and raping women. There was always the fear of being kidnapped and sold into sexual slavery, as well.
Bringing her arms up, she waited for them to attack. Her instructor had always taught her defense, not offense, so she waited for them to make the first move. It didn’t take long. Two of them moved at the same time. Each of them grabbed an arm. First, she struck out with her feet. She knocked the third man out while the other two struggled to maintain their grip.
The crowd cheered in the stadium, drowning out her screams as the balding man stepped forward. “Just a little sting.” Madness shone in his eyes as he reached out and stuck her with the long needle and depressed the plunger.
White-hot pain sliced through her arm as whatever it was entered her body and she screamed again. It burned like hell. If she didn’t know better, she would swear that he’d set fire to her arm. She stared down at it, wondering what the hell he’d just injected her with that could burn so much. She continued to scream as the pain shot through her blood, burning like molten lava beneath her skin.
No one heard her. How could they when the crowd at the football game cheered at every play? Kendra sobbed as the men dragged her into one of the SUVs. They pushed her into a seat and secured a seatbelt around her waist. Whatever the madman injected her with kept her immobile and powerless. For years she had studied the art of self-defense, only to have her hard-won knowledge and experience fail her the moment she needed it most.
Chapter Two
Galen looked up as two of the men assigned to his detail approached his window. Pressing the switch, he rolled it down. The mist of the light rain hit his face, cooling his skin.
“We have new intel on Doctor Thornton, sir.” It was Jackson who spoke. The man was a bit of a nerd with mousy brown hair and glasses that kept sliding down his skinny, adolescent nose. It didn’t make sense that the boy even wore the damned things. He was a werewolf. Werewolves didn’t need glasses. It was absurd—almost as absurd as their leader, Bastien Sinclair, insisting that Galen bring along the MacDonald brothers.
The MacDonald twins were human, for God’s sake. Who gave a shit that they were retired Special Forces? They were human. It was a condition synonymous with weak. The last thing he wanted to worry about was the two men dying on his watch, damn it.
Galen shook his head and sighed as he thought of his unlikely team of shifters and humans alike. “What’s the news?” He sat back in his seat and folded his arms behind his head.
Jackson pushed his glasses up with his finger and leaned closer. Galen couldn’t look at the idiot with those water-covered glasses he didn’t need. Instead, he stared out through the windshield. Rain dotted the glass. The wipers swiped across his line of vision, clearing the mist before resting just above the cowl.
“Dimitri found another of the crazy doctor’s labs.”
Dimitri was Bastien’s chief of security. He was also mated to the MacDonald brothers’ sister, Charity. He was an old Russian agent who moved to the United States long ago, though you wouldn’t know it by listening to the man’s thick accent.
Galen sighed at the news. “How many fucking labs does that madman have?”
“According to the woman who used to be his assistant, the crazy asshole has labs all over the world. Luckily, this one is in the Nevada desert.”
“Luckily?” He glared at the pup. “What’s so lucky about sand and heat?”
The boy turned red and swallowed. The boy’s very prominent Adam’s apple bobbed in his too-thin throat. “I thought maybe we could hit the casinos while we were there.”
“Hit the casinos?” Galen shook his head. “Look, Jackson. I know that this is exciting for you, being a new agent, and all, but this is business. What about this information gave you the fucking idea we would have time to hit the casinos?”
Jesus! God save him from the ignorance of idiots and humans.
“I—I just thought—”
“Thinking was your first mistake. Leave that up to those of us who are good at it.”
“Yes, sir.” The boy pressed his lips together and turned away.
Galen wasn’t sure, but it looked as though the idiot was about to cry. Damn it. Damn it all to Hell! Sighing, he took off his seatbelt, opened the door and followed the boy.
After three long steps, he grasped the kid’s shoulder and turned him to face him. “Look, I’m sorry.” He paused for a minute searching for the right words. Words that wouldn’t make the young werewolf feel like even more of a child than he already did. “I’m an ass. I know this is exciting. Your first assignment always is. It’s just…” Shit. What do I say now?
“You don’t want to be saddled with two humans and a kid.” Jackson shrugged. “I get it. Just remember that it’s not my fault that Bastien and Carly are busy with their new baby and Kalen won’t let Ally step a foot out of their house now that he knows she’s pregnant. Dimitri won’t leave Bastien’s or his mate’s side and everyone else is doing intel or remodeling labs by demolishing the cells where that crazy asshole of a doctor kept his prisoners. You’re stuck with us and you don’t like it.”
The kid very conveniently left out the other shifters on his team. They weren’t any better. He didn’t trust them because he didn’t know them. At least he knew Jackson and, as much as he hated to admit it, the MacDonald brothers had honor down to an art form. Nothing would sway them from the course of action they chose to take once they chose it. And they had chosen to protect their sister and the other shifters now that she was a werewolf like her husband, thanks to the serum they found and reverse engineered.
“Come. We’ll sit in the truck while we go over the map.” He gave the kid a half-smile. “Who knows? Maybe if we can tie this up in a hurry, I can give you a day to hit the casinos. Just don’t tell your mother that I let you gamble away all of your money. She’ll kick my ass.”
“Naw. If anything, she’ll thank you. I have card counting down to an art.”
“Card counting is illegal.”
“Only if you get caught, old man. I don’t intend to let that happen.”
“Old man?”
“Well, you are older than I am.” Reaching up, he removed his glasses and stuck them in his pocket.
“You look different without the glasses.”
“I don’t look so much like an idiot, you mean.”
“I never said—“
“You didn’t have to.” Jackson grinned. “My mom hates that I wear these glasses, but I’ve found that it quickly distinguishes the assholes from the nice guys with little effort.”
“Now that you know that I’m an asshole you don’t need them anymore.” That was harsh, but the kid was right.
“No.” He grinned. “You’re not as much of an asshole as you think. A real asshole would have let me keep walking a minute ago.”
Galen didn’t know why he always felt the need to be an ass. Perhaps it had something to do with finding out that his younger brother, Kalen, had found his mate and hadn’t really even wanted to at the time.
Damned tired of being alone, Galen wanted nothing more than to find a woman, a mate, with whom he could spend the rest of his life. Hell, he didn’t think that was too much to ask.
“Did you confirm the orders to head out to Nevada and eradicate the lab?” The last time one of them forgot to confirm orders, two teams showed up. They had a shootout between them. Each of them lost a few members before they realized that their real enemy had fled and they were fighting friends. “We don’t need another damned cluster fuck like that one in Tennessee.”
“Yes, sir.” The boy nodded eagerly. “We have been confirmed. They want us to go, since we’re the closest.”
“I figured we would be.” Turning, Galen headed back to the truck. “Get to your vehicle. The faster we get there, the more likely it is that we’ll find that lunatic doctor in residence.” And the more likely they would be to find that damned doctor’s newest victim unharmed.
The image of the beautiful and feisty red haired woman flashed though this mind. The video he’d seen of her abduction showed her fighting back as five men surrounded her. One of them was Doctor Richard Thornton, asshole extraordinaire. Now that was a woman he could see himself taking as a mate. The woman fought against them, her strength and resolve turning him on almost as much as her knowledge of martial arts. And it had been a long, long time since any female stirred his interest.
Chapter Three
Silence was the first thing Kendra noticed when she woke. She still wore the seatbelt. She felt it stretching over her shoulder and snaking between her breasts.
Opening her eyes just a crack, she glanced around. She was alone!
Numbness crept up her legs and she moved them to try to get the feeling back. She moved her arms just to make sure they worked. At least she wasn’t restrained. Maybe, if she was careful, she could release her seatbelt, open the door and make a run for it before her captors realized she was awake.
Hand on the door handle, Kendra was just about to push the door open when she heard voices growing closer.
“We’ll lock her in as soon as we get there.” It was the crazy Englishman she heard talking. “By my calculations, she should shift roughly fifteen minutes after we reach the lab.”
Ha! She’s ready to shift herself out of this vehicle right now, you crazy bastard!
Slowly, so as not to draw their attention, she moved her left hand to her seatbelt, keeping her right on the handle, ready to yank it, push the door open and run. She found the latch and pressed the button. The restraint loosened and slid out of the way. In one quick motion, she opened the door, threw herself out of the SUV and ran.
Kendra ran down the side of the road for several hundred feet before she paused, using a few critical seconds get her bearings. Where was she? She bit her lips when she saw nothing but miles of desert in front of her. She turned around and saw the same behind her.
Where could she go? The desert stretched out for miles in both directions. There was no forest, no houses and, more importantly, nowhere to hide. Her shoulders slumped and she turned around. If she ran, they would certainly climb in the SUV and run her down. Maybe the smartest course of action was to get back in the stupid vehicle and hope they took her somewhere where she would have a better chance at escape.
“You aren’t going to run?” the big guy with the scar asked.
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