by Mina Carter
The guards all looked the other way, the set expressions on their faces telling her they’d seen it all before. And ignored it. Let it continue. She knew not one of them was going to stop the Colonel from abusing the poor woman.
Disgust flared as the guards dragged her into the center of the room. She wanted to rip the “didn’t see nothing” expressions off their faces, but she’d settle for ripping their faces off period. What was it about assholes and scumbags which made them run in packs? Was there some kind of secret code—perhaps a silly handshake with a rubber chicken—that they used to recognize each other?
She sagged in their hold deliberately, making them bear her weight. Why should she make it easy for them? This was bad shit all round now, and the only way she might possibly make it out alive was to use every weapon at her disposal. Right now, that amounted to the fact she was thinking, and that her right knee was kind of beginning to talk to the rest of her body again. Go her.
“McCoy, keep her shut.”
Fitzgerald’s snarl made Toni snap her eyes open again to find the Colonel advancing toward her, his pet Blood moving in behind him to grab the crying aide and hold her still with a hard hand in her hair. “Well, well, well…Major Fielding. So nice to see you again.”
He shot a look at the guards while she struggled to her feet. “Where did you find her?”
“Between the SARA holding area and the main,” one of her captors replied, shoving her back down to her knees in front of the colonel. “Looks like she was the one who trashed the cutting and broadcast room.”
“Oh really? What makes you say that?” Fitz asked, his voice casual, like they were discussing the Base summer fete. He reached out and stroked a chubby finger down Toni’s cheek. She growled at the touch, and snapped at the hand but her movement was slow, sluggish, and easily evaded. Fitz chuckled and grabbed her jaw in a punishing grip, something he’d never have been able to do if she wasn’t sedated. “And she made it past the SARAs? Alive? Interesting.”
“Yeah, had to have been her. Not the new RAs. The bodies weren’t—” The guard cleared his throat, shifting from foot to foot. “They weren’t chewed up or eaten. Clean kills. Well, kind of.”
“Hmmm.” He forced her chin up and made her look at him. She hissed, flashing her fangs. No point playing nice now.
Fitz backhanded her, the blow catching her by surprise. The ring on his right hand cut her cheek. Pain lanced through her face as the scent of thick, black blood blossomed on the air. Her blood.
“Behave, or else,” he threatened and nodded to the guards.
She sprawled across the floor, letting her body weight take her down. Her muscles were heavy and her limbs hard to control. Frustration rolled through her when her right knee gave in again.
Fitz grabbed her by the hair at the back of her neck and hauled her up against him. She recoiled, pushing against him but her struggles were weak. What the fuck was happening? The drugs should be wearing off by now.
“Yeah, you like that?” He snarled, expression twisted. “It’s a new blend of sedative cooked up by the scientists in the SARA labs. Virus-based delivery, so it works its way through the vic’s system and finds the best way to fuck them up. By the looks of you, it’s a raging success.”
His voice dropped softer and he looked down at her, something else replacing the hatred in his eyes. Frustration? Lust? The thought made her sick to her stomach.
“You always were the best and fastest we had. I remember when you arrived on base.” He trailed almost tender fingers down the side of her face. “So beautiful…all the guys wanted you, I could see it. Filthy perverts. I was going to ask you out…”
His expression twisted, his hold becoming harder in her hair. Her head was forced back and tears sprang to her eyes. Was he going to kiss her? She bared her fangs as he bent his head. Not a fucking chance. She might be drugged up to the eyeballs but if he put his lips anywhere near hers, she’d take them off at the damn skull.
“But you had to go and get yourself infected. Now you’re fucking useless. I won’t touch anything that’s not human.”
He turned and threw her over the desk. Pain shot up her forearms as she got her hands up in time, but didn’t do anything to protect her hip when it slammed into the edge. Immediately Fitz was on her, the thick swelling pressing against her ass proof his claims of immunity were bullshit.
His hand tangled in her hair again. He yanked her head up, and pain tore through her scalp. She caught the eye of the aide, tears streaming down the girl’s face as Brent held her. His eyes were fixed on Toni though, sick eagerness in the black on black depths. He wanted Fitz to hurt her. Bastard.
“Then you go and fuck me over? Ruin my little side enterprise?”
He moved, the pressure of his cock sliding between her ass cheeks. Bile rose and she swallowed painfully. God, she was going to throw up. There was a click and something pressed hard against the side of her head.
She froze, recognizing the feel of a muzzle. Fear ran a hot tide through her limbs. Since her infection, she’d known it would end this way. A bullet to the head. Unmarked grave. Her breath whispered from her lungs and she closed her eyes. A wave of peace washed over her. She regretted nothing…except the fact she’d only kissed her Lycan. Her Lycan, no one else’s, despite all the rules that said she should want to rip his heart out, not screw him senseless.
Her mind filled with memories, each locked away carefully and provided without hesitation. The feel of his lips on hers. The slide of skin over wet skin. The prickle of his stubble against her jaw, her throat. The rush of pleasure that turned her limbs to mush and her body compliant to his when he covered her. Heat and need slammed through her with the force of a grenade, and was overlaid with grief. He was likely dead now, cut down by the guards like the Lycan in the corridor.
Pain took her breath away. She should never have brought him back here…should have let him go. Gone with him. In a split second her mind supplied her with endless erotic might-have-beens—the life they might have lived, and her heart ached with it. In that second she’d have traded everything she had, an eternity of pain and suffering for one more moment in his arms.
“Fucking bitch. Even being hot won’t save you now.” Fitz snarled and moved, jamming the pistol harder behind her ear. This was it. He would pull the trigger and end everything. The pain, the loneliness, the constant struggle against the darkness with her, would all be gone.
Someone cleared a throat behind them.
“Sir, if I may?” The voice was cultured, and sounded well educated. Certainly more so than the average grunt Fitz chose for his guards. “She’s a highly viable subject for our…other program?”
The breath hissed out between her teeth and the pressure behind her ear eased. She could practically hear the cogs turning in Fitz’s head. He pushed away and she sagged against the desk in relief. Every cell in her body screamed in pain, protesting the presence of the drugs in her system.
“Right. Yeah…good point.”
He yanked Toni back up and shoved her toward McCoy, who dropped the aide like a hot cake to catch Toni. He then yanked her up hard against his taller form, retribution and sick eagerness in his eyes. She hissed weakly at him but her struggles were easily contained.
“Put ’em both in. The sniveling bitch as well. And McCoy?”
The Blood looked up, his hand hard around Toni’s throat. “Yeah?”
“She doesn’t have to be a looker, but she has to be fully functional for the program. Understand me?”
McCoy growled, the angry sound soft in the back of his throat but he nodded.
“Yeah, I understand.”
Brent dragged her toward the door, one of his bully boys following with the sobbing aide. She ground her teeth and tried again to clear the drugs from her system. Then gasped as her head pounded and her lungs burned. Then her knees began to shake.
Fuck.
This was going to hurt.
Chapter Fifteen
Eve
rything. Hurt.
Darce groaned, rolled onto his side and cracked open an eyelid.
“Fuck. Shit. Crapping hell!”
Pain drove hot knives right through his skull as he lay on the metal floor. What the hell had they hit him with? He remembered the fight and the Hybrid beating the ever-loving crap out of him. Then the lights had gone out, Lycans and Bloods crashing through the doors to tear into the crowd gathered around the cage baying for blood. His blood. In the end, it had been theirs washing over the concrete floor.
The second the screaming had started, the Hybrid had laid off him. Instead of pounding Darce into a bloody mush, he’d simply sat down in the middle of the cage and started to meditate. Fucking meditate, of all things. Darce had staggered against the cage for a second. Simple relief at not being attacked anymore had surged through his veins while he quietly dripped blood on the floor. He’d managed to recover and was trying to get out of the cage when the soldiers had come pouring in.
Shots had filled the room, the thrown grenades chugging out thick clouds of greasy black smoke. Each breath had been like inhaling razor-blades, whatever was in the stuff eating him from the inside out. Infiltrating his blood, making his body sluggish and even sending his wolf into slumber.
Then he remembered nothing.
“Breathe.” A deep voice advised. “Sickness’ll pass in a while.”
Darce rolled his head until he rest against his temple and risked opening one eye again. There in a cage opposite was the Hybrid. Still sitting cross-legged, he rifled through a bowl in front of him, nose curled as he sorted the contents. His claws clicked against the sides each time he reached in and selected a morsel. Darce grimaced. Even from here, whatever the Hybrid was eating smelled terrible.
“Ugh, if you say so.” Darce swallowed. His throat felt like sandpaper. “Wanna keep it down to a dull roar? What happened?”
Darce rolled his head forward again, resting against the cold metal. His limbs felt heavy and strange, almost like they didn’t belong to him. Felt…disconnected somehow. He reached for his wolf but the creature grunted back sleepily, the merest trickle of energy coming back when before the thing had been a powerhouse, throwing out more heat than a furnace. No help there. Shit. He racked his memories, thinking back to all the other times he’d been drugged. Had he ever felt so weak…so human again before?
“Hit us with some kind of new gas. Dropped us like stones.”
Click-click-click. The Hybrid continued to ferret in the bowl, each little tic like nails jammed through Darce’s skull.
“I swear to God, man. If you don’t stop that noise, I’m gonna ram that bowl up your fucking ass.”
A deep chuckle answered him, followed by the slide of metal over metal. “I was done anyway.”
A grunt of effort escaped Darce’s lips as he rolled onto his side. The simple movement left him weak and his head pounding. This time when he opened his eyes, the light didn’t feel like someone had taken a jackhammer to his brain. He lay for a while, head turned to watch the technicians and guards outside the cage. They were twitchy, the technicians constantly looking over their shoulders while the guards stood by with their fingers resting on their trigger guards. A door banged and at least three whirled around, rifles on their shoulders to scan for the threat.
Darce chuckled and dropped his head back. One woman had done that. His woman, and he had to find her. Although he’d told her to leave, to go and find his pack, he knew she wouldn’t have. He’d seen it in the flash in her eyes. Damn stubborn woman.
He closed his eyes. Concentrated. Marshalling every ounce of his energy, he wrapped it around the trickle of power from his sleeping wolf, pulling more from the creature and feeding back in a perpetual loop. Slowly at first, but gaining in speed, the charge in his body built and built until his blood sang and the tiny hairs on his skin lifted. Pain warred with the power. His teeth chattered and his bones ached but he held all the energy in at the core. Drew it tight. Then, in one almighty rush, he released it, dumping the whole lot into his veins.
Power rushed through him— a Juggernaut on a seek and destroy mission for every last drop of the sedative in his body. Hot and cold chills raced over his skin like butterflies in spiked boots, drawing sweat up and through his pores. The sharp stink of chemicals and medication filled his nostrils. He turned his head away to try and escape the stench but it was no good. The stuff crawled from him. Even the skin between his nose and his lip was wet with the stuff.
“Nice trick.”
Darce opened his eyes to see the Hybrid watching him. Of course. With both Blood and Lycan combined, he could probably scent a flea fart at six hundred meters.
“Thanks. Hurts like a bitch though.”
He sighed in relief, feeling the last of the stuff slough off his skin to evaporate within seconds from the metal underneath him.
“Hey man, what do I call you?”
The Hybrid grunted, moving farther back in his cage at the sound of a door somewhere behind them opening. The sound of boots approached. Darce groaned and scooted back. Anything to make the bastards work for it more.
“Name’s Steele. You?”
“Foster.”
“Cool. Nice to meet ya. Heads up, they’re bringing injured in.”
Darce craned his neck to see, not arguing with Steele’s assessment of the situation. The guy had been here a lot longer than he had. Four soldiers walked toward them, boots loud on the concrete. Each pair dragged a woman. The first was on her feet, terrified and shaking, but walking. The second was slumped between the two men, head down, feet dragging on the floor behind. Blood dripped steadily, leaving a deep black trail.
His heart stuttered in his chest and he slammed against the front of the cage before realizing that he’d moved.
“Oh fuck…no no no.”
It was Toni.
“Back up, dog.” One guard held a weapon covering the door as it opened and his partner bundled Toni through. Darce got to her before she hit the ground, catching her slender form and wrapping her up in his arms. She whimpered in pain. He cradled her close to his chest and scooted to the back of the cage. In the darkness, away from prying eyes.
“Shhh, sweetheart. I got you,” he murmured, trying to keep his voice soft. No hint of the panic rolling through his bigger frame in his tone. Shit, she was covered in blood, and the rich, deep scent filling his nostrils told him it was hers.
“You’re safe now. I promise. I got you. Where does it hurt, sweets?”
She didn’t reply, a whisper of a moan passing her lips. Her head lolled against his shoulder and he winced at the bruises across her face and throat. Blood trickled down her jaw and neck from a deep cut on her lip. He lowered himself to a sitting position, holding her carefully. Even her breathing was labored, each intake a struggle that ended with a rattle.
Arm supporting Toni’s back, he set her in his lap and used his free hand to lift her top. His breath hissed from his lungs. Her sides and abdomen were black and blue. Whoever had done this had worked her over good and proper. Anger boiled in his veins. His brain listed all the internal injuries and problems such a beating could incur. But almost as fast, his mind went blank. Shit. What did he do to help her?
Her lips pursed and she made a small sound. He lifted his head to find her looking at him, but her eyes were off focus–even when she tried to smile—and he knew she wasn’t really seeing him.
“Hey!” He pitched his voice to carry, catching the attention of a nearby guard. “She’s hurt bad…”
The guard swept a disinterested look over the bruised and battered woman in Darce’s arms. “Yeah, and?”
Darce grit his teeth. “She needs to see a doctor.”
The answer was a short bark of a laugh. “Yeah, right. For a Blood? Bitch needs a vet, not a doctor.”
Darce snarled, in a crouch with Toni pulled protectively beneath him. One hand was still in her hair, cradling her head while the other one sprouted a set of claws any movie monster would envy
. Just one hand shifted, not the one in her hair. Something he’d never been able to do before but he wouldn’t risk a hair on her head.
“Whoa!” The guard stumbled backward, snatching at his rifle to aim it at them. “Back off, dog. Or I’ll blow both your brains over the back of that cage.”
“Foster!” The Hybrid barked from the cage opposite. “Do it. You’re no use to her dead.”
Sense filtered through the red haze over his vision. The claws retracted and the snarl trailed off, his lip dropping back to its normal position. Steele had a point. Pushing the guard was only going to get them dead. Fast. It would solve the problem—Toni wouldn’t be in pain anymore—but wasn’t the solution he was looking for.
“Yeah, that’s right.” Emboldened now, the guard surged forward, shoving the muzzle of the rifle through the bars threateningly. “You back down, or I’ll put you both down.”
It almost killed him to bow his head deferentially but Darce managed, hand up in the universal gesture of surrender. “I’m down, honest man. Don’t shoot.”
“Woods,” a voice shouted from farther down the room. “Stop fucking about and leave the subjects alone. Or I’ll have you shifted topside.”
“Yes sir!” Woods gave Darce a warning glare, then pushed away and walked off.
Darce watched him until he was out of sight, then turned his attention back to Toni. She lay under him, unmoving. His heart stuttered again and he shoved his fingers against her throat. Crap, no. She couldn’t have left him. Not yet. Panic threatened to overwhelm him, the darkness rising.
Then he felt it. The smallest pulse against his fingers. Her heart still beat. Slow. Weak. But still there.
“Hey, doll. Hang on for me. Let’s get you more comfortable.”
He laid her down gently, then reached over to the ratty pile of rags in the corner that had once been a blanket. A quick sniff assured him that they’d been clean when they’d been shredded and there was nothing objectionable on them. He made a soft bed of sorts, and moved her carefully. His heart wrung with every small sound of pain she made, but she didn’t fight him. Luckily. He didn’t think that his heart could take hurting her, even if he was only hurting her to stop her from hurting herself.
