by Mina Carter
BD-15.
The guy had freaked out, brushing the needles embedded in his arm with something akin to a moan of terror. The blood had drained from his face as he looked from her to the door behind them. It was yanked open, armed guards piling through the gap. Their weapons weren’t held at their sides anymore, but trained on the two of them.
She’d known.
Instantly.
Even though they’d run all the tests and reassured her the virus didn’t take every time—and back in the first days of the camp it hadn’t—she’d still known. As she lay studying the ceiling, she felt the virus moving around her body, like ice circling her blood. Then it had started to burrow into her tissues.
The foot traffic had slowed, the faces around her changing, becoming grim. She’d ignored them, preferring to look at the back of her eyelids rather than see the mixture of pity and scientific interest. So she pretended to doze when guards had entered the room to stand silently by the door.
It had been all downhill from then. Medical personnel had given way to lead scientists. By the time the virus had begun to chew at her insides, turning her guts into a seething mass of fiery snakes, she’d gone from a patient to a subject.
And she’d been a subject ever since.
The slump of her prisoner’s body brought her back to the present. Trying to be gentle, she kept an eye out for movement as she withdrew the needle. He might be sedated but her words to Wilson held true. Out of it or not, he was still a Lycan. While he drew breath, he’d be dangerous. It was dark in the back of the transporter but that made no difference. She could see just as well in pitch black as in daylight.
He didn’t move. His tall, leanly-muscled body was lax and at her mercy as she pulled the sharp point from his flesh. Only the smallest curl of his lip indicated he’d felt her movement. She wasn’t naive enough to believe he was unconscious. Instead, she knew the battle was focused inward, on the drugs racing through his system.
She sat back on her heels and resisted the urge to make comforting noises. What was the point? She was transporting him to base, and the Project knew he’d been holding out on them. The best he could expect was intense interrogation, Project style. Which meant they’d beat the shit out of him while his animal was locked down with silver. The worst was a silver bullet to the back of the head, and then an unmarked grave out in the desert somewhere.
No noble end for a Project soldier.
Her own grave would be out there.
She bagged the used needle with quick movements. No sense in taking chances. Grimly, she ignored the bead of blood which detached itself from the injection site and rolled down his arm. A big, fat ball, bright and luscious. Like a cherry just waiting for her to take a bite. No matter how much she needed to feed, no matter how good that drop of blood smelled, she couldn’t. Had he been human—one of her men—then yes. She’d have been all over him like a bad rash. Wrapped herself around him and rubbed her body against his before sinking her fangs into the thick vein at his throat.
He’d taste good. She knew he would. Despite the fact he was Lycan, his scent continued to taunt and tease. Her lips compressed and she shifted on the hard floor to stop the checker plate from biting into her knees. She should have worn knee pads. But no one had told her she’d be in the back of one of the transporters, shooting up a captured Lycan.
The movement had her brushing against his leg, and his scent billowed up like a sheet to wrap her in its embrace. Reaching deep inside her to reawaken the interest she’d thought dead, like her humanity. An interest she didn’t want to have to deal with at the moment. Not with the possibility of a cure almost within reach.
Shaking her head to banish the maddening scent, she tucked the yellow sharps disposal bag into a side pocket on the med-kit. Leaving the main compartment open, she shifted the kit to the other side of the truck bed. Always aware, even a slight flinch from the guy spread out over the cold metal floor got her instant attention.
As she watched, his muscles bunched and twitched, and his eyes rolled into the back of his head, like a dog in the middle of a running dream. But she knew better. This was no dream. Snarls slipped from his mouth as he fought the drugs, the corners of his lips curled back to reveal canines sharp enough to rival hers.
Her heart skipped a beat and sped up. Energy punched through her system. Should she load up a second shot? He looked asleep now but Lycans could be unpredictable. One moment they’d be so far under that the sandman would have trouble finding them, and the next wide awake and ready to go toe–to-toe with anything standing in their way.
Blood and energy surged around her body. If that happened, she would have a fight on her hands to contain him. There was no way she could let him out of there, not with Wilson and the other members of her team about. She’d seen how he moved when they’d fought—how fast and lethal. They wouldn’t stand a chance. She had to keep him in here. But an enraged Lycan, pissed off with the silver in his veins, in such close confines? Yeah, she’d be in for a world of hurt. Blood she might be, but a bruise was still a fucking bruise and would be just as painful as it had been when she was human. Especially one inflicted with the bone-crushing intensity a Lycan could muster.
Despite all that, despite the fact she knew how dangerous he was, Toni didn’t care. Her heart thundered at near human levels. Excitement, adrenaline and something else—something she didn’t want to name—filled her veins. She wanted this, wanted it all to kick off to ease the restlessness within her.
It wasn’t to be. With a rattling sigh he slumped to the side, like someone had pulled the plug and drained all the life from his limbs. Ever wary and suspecting a trick, she waited, every line of her body tensed and ready for an attack. Ready to defend herself. But the attack didn’t come. Instead he turned his head, as though the slow movement was difficult, and then dropped it back. His long, dark hair spilled over the cold metal beneath his shoulders.
Slowly she leaned forward, extended a finger and prodded his shoulder. He didn’t move. She breathed a sigh of relief. He was unconscious.
Almost.
As she moved back, the energy in her body ebbing away, he opened his eyes to look at her. They were dark, but with a warning ring of amber. Suppressing a shiver, she matched him look for look, not prepared to back down. It didn’t matter how much silver she pumped into him—even if she used all seven shots left in the bag, the creature inside him would still be there. It would always be there. Watching. Waiting.
You’re mine.
Unbidden, his words to Kelwood chased each other around her mind like an over-active puppy chasing its own tail. She tried to ignore them. How did she know this was the Lycan who had pinned Kelwood and issued a warning for her?
He smiled, the smallest quirk of his lips which rocked her to the core, and she knew.
This was the same Lycan, and she’d become the prey.
The journey passed swiftly but time had become relative for Toni. She could zone out for what seemed like five minutes only to come to and find hours had gone by. It had freaked out the medical technicians the first time they’d ventured into her room to see why she’d missed her check-up. They’d found her staring at the wall, hairbrush in hand, frozen in mid-stroke while she pondered the meaning of life, her continued existence and why the hell she could hear a fly on the wall three rooms down.
The rhythmic sway of the vehicle and the darkness helped her semi-trance as she watched the Lycan opposite. Half slumped against the side of the truck, his occasional twitch between periods of blessed unconsciousness told her he still fought the drugs. Admiration filled her. He was a stubborn one for sure. But at least when he was unconscious, he wasn’t in pain. Everyone knew Lycans were monsters, but now she found the idea of him in pain distasteful.
Heat crawled over her cheeks, shame rolling through her with the unstoppable force of a tidal wave. She didn’t like the idea of him in pain, yet she was taking him back to the Project. She planned to trade him for a cure, knowing what
would happen to him. Knowing they would beat him to within an inch of his life to get the answers they wanted, then execute him in the cold light of dawn.
She was taking a man to his death to get what she wanted.
Who was the real monster?
The scent of the forest filtering through the vents on the sides of the cabin gave way to farmland. The wilder smell would disappear when they crossed into the drier, arid wastelands around the camp. Which suited the Project fine. Miles after miles of dry, empty scrubland meant no one could watch the base. Nothing lived out there. Nothing wanted to live out there.
Her prisoner gasped again, twitching in the silver-reinforced manacles before slumping again, and lay still.
Without moving, without blinking, she watched him. He was tall, with masses of dark hair falling to his shoulders. A lock lay across his face. Had she been human, she would have been tempted to brush it away. To feel the texture of the silken strands as it slipped between her fingers. Smooth the hair back to reveal features so hard and masculine even a near-dead Blood like her felt the pull of attraction. But she wasn’t human, wasn’t anything even close, so she stayed where she was. Watching him.
The hair brushed broad shoulders which flowed down into a well-muscled chest and flat stomach. There wasn’t an ounce of body fat on him—his physique ripped enough to give even the most dedicated gym-bunny a serious case of the green-eyed monster. If he had to work out to maintain it, though, she was a monkey’s uncle.
Like Bloods, when the virus entered their system, Lycans were done with needing to exercise. Their metabolisms sped up, they lost weight, got faster and stronger—their bodies running at optimum. Perfect biological function. The fact they turned furry had been unexpected. Her lips quirked. Forget life imitating art, this was science imitating myth and legend.
Civilization was screwed.
Her gaze wandered down across his chest and paused for a moment on the flat discs of his nipples. One was scarred, the small circular indentation familiar. He’d had a piercing at some point. Had to have been before he’d been turned because it took a lot to scar a Lycan. A mere nipple piercing just wouldn’t.
Her attention moved on. It was obvious he liked tattoos—his skin was decorated with them. Tribal designs warred for space with winged daggers on his arms, and the trailing edges of the mystical symbols over his stomach disappeared under the low slung waistband of his combat pants.
Heat threatened her bloodstream again so she yanked her gaze up and fixed on another of his tattoos. Small and discrete, tucked away on the side of his ribcage but visible with his hands above his head—she recognized it instantly.
A meat tag.
His name, serial number and—she tilted her head a little to read—what looked like his blood-type inked into his skin. All the information required to identify him in case his torso parted company with the rest of his body, although the jury was out as to whether or not this was effective with current explosives. Such markings were used by Special Forces, soldiers who went into the worst sort of combat. The kind that meant body bags rarely contained a whole body and two left feet didn’t always refer to dancing ability.
She knew because she had a similar marking on the side of her left breast. For all the fucking good it had done. No meat tag was proof against a virus—she’d learned that the hard way.
The truck rattled across a couple of potholes, the Lycan rolling against the wheel arch with a grunt. The movement stretched the skin over his side so she leaned in to get a closer look at the tag.
D. Foster.
Darcy Foster, Lieutenant.
She rifled through her memories of the pre-op reports she’d read on the Lycan section, the pages laid out in her mind as though she held them. Headed up by Captain Jack Harper, Alpha-Three were a Project success story when it came to the Lycans. They were one of the only groups with a defined alpha, and perhaps because of that had regained control of their new natures within a couple of weeks of infection. A fully operational combat unit, the Project had fielded them again and again, sending them into situations deemed far too hazardous for human troops.
Then something had happened. One of the eggheads had gotten nervous about the ease with which the pack alpha, Harper, could shift and the whole squad had been deemed dangerous and locked down. Given a one way trip to the land of the hug-yourself jackets while the scientists worked out what the hell was going on.
Foster was Harper’s second in command, and classified a potential alpha himself. A Special Forces soldier with a kill rate that would have made the average serial killer glow with pride, and his disciplinary record was just as impressive. He’d had numerous run-ins with authority until he’d been put with Harper. Then nothing. Like the rebel had found God and turned over a new leaf. The last year or two he’d been as quiet as a mouse, even after the squad had been turned, and now deemed “stable”.
As stable as a furry killing machine could be, anyway.
She didn’t believe a word of it. Oh, Foster and his group might be good at playing cute for the eggheads, but she’d seen the files. Alpha-Three hadn’t been volunteers, or even an accident like her. Instead, they’d been so good at what they did—killing—that the Project had decided they were the perfect specimens. And what the Project wanted, the Project got. Alpha-Three had been brought in for “medical assessment”, knocked out, strapped down and infected with LY16.
Toni shivered at the thought. Her own turning hadn’t been traumatic, but she’d seen enough that had been. Not long after she’d been infected, a group of volunteers had been processed. Garry had allowed her to watch to prove how lightly she’d gotten off, to prove that being a Blood beat being a Lycan hands down. But the situation had gone tits up quicker than two shakes of a lamb’s tail.
The cute young soldier in the nearest restraint cage, the one who had been winking and trying to flirt with her, howled in agony and rage when the needle had pierced his skin. Skin which flowed and bubbled, sprouting fur and fangs in all the wrong places while his body contorted. It twisted and writhed, changing shapes as though unable to choose between a humanoid or a lupine form, before settling on something sickeningly between the two. A form too big for the silver-wrapped steel—the bars cut into his fur-covered flesh as his change crushed him to death within the too-small space.
Toni jerked out of her light doze when the vehicle rattled to a stop. Sitting up straight, she blinked sleep out of her eyes and then scowled. The Lycan had sat up and was watching her, his amber-brown eyes steady. Irritation surged through her. She straightened her shirt sharply, as though she’d been rolling around the truck-bed while she slept instead of being propped up against the wheel arch.
What the hell was with that? She never dropped off easily, not even when comfortable and safe in her own bed on camp. So why the hell had she done it in the back of a truck within feet of a dangerous Lycan who could wake at any moment?
“What you looking at?” she snarled, discomforted by his unwavering attention.
While she’d dozed, he’d obviously worked the drugs through his system. Dark marks around his wrist and the scent of blood in the air told her he’d tried to escape his bonds. He hadn’t managed it. Relief rolled through her. At least she’d been woken by the truck jolting, not by the hard body of a Lycan pinning her to the deck as he prepared to rip her throat out.
Or kissed her within an inch of her life again.
“You.”
He took his time replying, his dark-light gaze sweeping over her with a very male expression of appreciation.
“Go on, snarl again. You’re cute when you’re mad. And those little fangs?” He shivered, pulling his lower lip between his teeth for a second and closing his eyes in apparent pleasure. “You can bite me any day of the week.”
“Yeah, right.” She pushed off the side of the vehicle and moved over to drop the tailgate. “Like I’d want to bite a mangy mutt like you.”
“Mange? Lady, you wound me.”
He
shifted position as if to clasp his chest but was halted by the metal around his wrists. It caught one of the raw wounds and a small trickle of blood rolled down his arm as the scent blossomed on the air.
She ignored the pull, the interest in the slender trail of scarlet and yanked the locking pins loose to kick the tailgate down. Metal crunched underfoot, a boot-shaped impression visible for a fraction of a second before it slammed into the back of the chassis below.
“Temper, temper.”
She gritted her teeth as the Lycan snickered. She was letting him get to her. Worse, she’d let him see that he was getting to her. She fixed him with a black stare. One she’d been told was as hard as nails and twice as deadly.
“Shut your mouth. Or I’ll shut it for you. Permanently.”
Chapter Three
Oh, she really was gorgeous.
Darce didn’t bother to reply. Just watched her turn again, her slender figure silhouetted against the open back of the truck before she stepped off with all the unnatural grace he’d come to associate with Bloods. She hit the ground without breaking stride, then stalked toward the small group of men and vehicles behind the truck.
They were a bedraggled group, one who bore the hallmarks of being put through the wringer combat-wise and coming out on the losing side. Battered and bruised, most of them wore field dressings like a new fashion, lines of pain written into their features as they crowded around the woman in their midst. They were all armed, but he’d be surprised if any of them had enough ammunition left to defend the ragtag group of vehicles.
A grin spread over his face. It was obvious what had happened. The Project had gone up against his pack and come off the losers. Hoo-fucking-rah. As it should be. Teach the bastards to mess with Lycans.
He tested the cuffs, yanking on them to see if they would give. What he planned to do if they did, he had no clue since the woman barking orders not twenty feet away held far more interest for him than escaping to rejoin the rest of the pack.
