“Well?” the one on his right said to the other, “open it.”
“You open it!”
“Here,” the first one said to Forest, “you open it.”
He pressed a key card into Forest’s hand and indicated the card reader beside the door. His heart pounded and his mouth went dry; these guys were armed and far more muscular than he. What could possibly be on the other side of the door that would scare them?
“I can’t,” he rasped. “My wrists...”
The green-eyed man pulled out a wicked-looking knife and sliced the rope from his wrists. His hands shook as he passed the key card through the reader and turned the handle. His captors snatched the key from him and shoved him through the door, slamming it shut behind him. He fell to the floor, narrowly avoiding breaking his nose on the metal. He scrambled quickly to his feet, preparing for an unknown attacker.
He saw a set of bunks in one corner, and a metal toilet and sink in the other just like a typical jail cell, but nothing else. The hair on the back of his neck prickled. He slowly turned around, his balled fists shaking in front of his face. He barely had time to register the yellow eyes and glimmering white teeth before he was slammed to the ground by a massive canine with hands where its front paws should be. The last thing Forest saw were the gnashing teeth, then his head hit the metal floor and everything went black.
Forest heard the beep of a heart monitor. Someone was screaming. People were pushing against his shoulders. Who was screaming? They were loud, too loud, it was hurting his head. And his throat, somehow... he realized it was him. The scream became a gasping sob as he caught his breath.
“Damn it, Jane, will you please sedate him?!”
He felt a needle stab his arm, and Forest lost consciousness once more. Faint voices faded in through the murky darkness of Forest’s addled mind.
“I told you not to put him in forty-three,” someone grumbled.
“Got it done, didn’t it?”
“Savagely. That... thing nearly killed him.”
“And we’ll have our answer sooner than we would have otherwise.”
“It was a risk.”
“A calculated risk.”
“What are you going to do with him now?”
“It, Frederick, it. We’re going to keep it here until it’s recovered, then we’ll see.”
“If it doesn’t recover?”
“Then we put it down.”
“Yes, sir.”
Forest heard them walk away. He opened his eyes slowly and found himself in a small curtained-off room, lying on a hospital bed. His arms and legs were free, but when he tried to move off of the bed, he found himself restrained around the throat by a thick leather strap attached to a heavy metal chain. His chest hurt. He touched it, and felt the prickle of stitches against his fingers. He looked down and nearly fainted. Massive gashes crossed his torso from hip to collar bone in four parallel lines. He’d been pulled back together and patched up like a rag doll with skin grafts.
“I must be on some heavy painkillers,” he mumbled.
His neck was burning under the strap, and he slid his fingers into the small gap to try to figure out why. His skin felt rough and scarred, and he felt more stitches. They ran from the middle of his neck down to the top of his shoulder in a crescent shape. There was a matching crescent on the back of his neck. Whatever that thing was, it nearly ripped him apart. So why hadn’t it hurt more? He examined the wounds he could see as closely as he could and was shaken by a sudden realization.
These wounds had to be days or even weeks old. They were already beginning to scar over, and the skin grafts were faded and blurred at the edges. There was nothing in the little room to tell him how long he’d been out, or even a clock or a window to tell the time of day. The loss of time was utterly disorienting, as the entire ordeal had been. As silly as it was, he worried about his birds. He knew they would have had to replace him at the aviary, and that someone would be taking care of them. But his favorite macaw had been brooding, and he worried that she might reject her offspring if she was too stressed out. A change of caretaker was sure to upset her.
Thinking about caretakers made him wonder who was charged with taking care of him. Surely these people, whoever they were, had been taking care of him at least a little or he wouldn’t have survived the attack. He wondered what became of the monster in forty-three. He hoped he’d never have to face it again, but he did wonder what exactly it was, and why it was being caged in a cell built for humans.
“Ah, lookie there, the pup’s awake!”
A round, red-faced woman bustled through the curtain and took his pulse. She strapped a blood pressure cuff around his arm, hushing him when he tried to talk to her. She clucked her tongue disapprovingly as she read the dial on the cuff, then whisked it off with brutal efficiency.
“May I talk now?” he asked.
“Make it quick,” she said briskly. “I have other patients, you know.”
“Where am I?”
“Can’t tell you that, can I? If you were to know where you were, you wouldn’t have been blindfolded now, would you?”
“What was in room forty-three?”
She shuddered furiously and shook her head. “The devil himself, I’m sure. Now don’t worry, love, you’ll know everything you need to know quick enough. I think you’re strong enough now. I’ll go have a chat with the man himself. You just lay back and relax. There’s a good pup.”
“Thanks for nothing,” he muttered as she hustled away.
He swore the next person he saw would give him answers one way or another. He clenched a fist, then let it drop limply to the bed. He’d never been a violent man, or a particularly assertive one. If he tried to fight with anyone who looked like the thugs that brought him here, he’d be doomed. He played with the strap around his neck, trying to unfasten it, but it seemed to be a solid ring. He wondered how they’d managed to get it on his neck in the first place, but he didn’t have time to figure it out. Footsteps were coming down the hall toward him and he needed to prepare himself for what would come next.
Chapter Two
The curtain was drawn back to reveal a face that Forest had seen every day of work for the last five years. He stared in shock, wondering if he was hallucinating, but there was no doubt about it. He was a little older and sourer than his photo, but the person standing before him could be none other than the illustrious H.P. Animus, founder and sole proprietor of the Vilks Acres Zoo and Research Facility.
He glared down at Forest with a haughty, disgusted look. Forest had a million questions, all rushing to his lips at once so not a single one could break free. He stared dumbly as the nurse bustled around doing things just outside the curtain.
“I see you recognize me,” Animus said thinly. “Though I shouldn’t be surprised. I didn’t want to bring you in, you know. You are so good with birds. But, alas...” He fluttered a papery hand dramatically, as if it would explain anything.
“Why am I here?” Forest finally found the words to demand.
Animus chuckled. “Why, dear boy... the same reason everyone is here.” He leaned forward slightly on his cane, glaring severely into Forest’s eyes. “Because I commanded it.”
A small part of Forest’s brain argued that he hadn’t explained anything, that Forest needed to stand up and demand real answers, but the rest of his mind was paralyzed with fear. This papery, thin man with his thin, papery voice was the second-most frightening creature Forest had ever encountered. The nurse—or doctor, he couldn’t be sure—returned at that moment with an IV bag and a cart filled with various needles and syringes.
“Little poke, love,” she said as she jabbed a needle into his arm.
He winced and grunted, but a severe look from Animus kept him from crying out. He felt the thick, heavy purity of saline swim into his blood. He tasted it in the back of his throat, and it recalled to mind the many, many times he’d been hospitalized as a child. He’d been weak and helpless then, and he wasn’t
much better off now. That fact made him furious, in the tiny, safe corner of his mind that was still capable of feeling anything but fear.
“Is he strong enough?” Animus asked.
“He’s as strong as he will be this century, sir.”
“Go ahead, then.”
She took a syringe from the cart and shot it into his IV. Within seconds a hot, spiky tingle ran through his arm. He felt it move through his veins. The instant it hit his heart, the world went mad. He screamed, his scream became a growl, and the growl became a wild whimper as his bones began to crack. His face exploded outward while his knees shot backwards. He was ripping and folding and breaking all over. His senses were haywire. He saw new colors, then none at all. He heard bugs crawling in the dirt on the other side of the wall, then he couldn’t hear anything. But the smells... the smells were the worst. He gagged on them before his nose quit working. He prayed for death as his spine snapped and stretched.
Slowly, excruciatingly slowly, the world began to right itself. His vision sharpened. He could count the threads in the far curtains, and hear whispers down the hall. The scents were still overwhelming, but bearable. But something was still wrong. Though the shattering pain was gone from his body, it was shaped wrong. He was curled into the fetal position, but it didn’t feel right. He looked down at himself and knew that he must be hallucinating. He had paws where his hands should be, and he’d sprouted thick silver and black fur all over his body, from head to... tail. He had a tail. Where the devil did he get a tail?
“Excellent,” Animus said. “Domesticate him.”
Domesticate? What was he talking about? The nurse pumped another syringe into the IV—which was somehow still attached at his elbow—and he tensed, expecting another violent reaction. Contrarily, the drug that hit his system felt like syrup in his vein, and tasted like cotton in the back of his throat. He felt it when it hit his brain. He felt his vocabulary drain away, along with everything he knew, from reading to mathematics to the name of the male human at the foot of the bed. Something told him to panic, but he was too tired. The drug made him feel like he’d been rebuilt out of lead.
She pumped two more syringes into the IV, and Forest couldn’t react. The first made him tense, the second made him sleepy. He gave over to the fatigue and went to sleep with his brand new snout tucked snugly under his impossible tail.
DOWN THE LONG CORRIDOR, in a cold, lonely cell, a man scratched another mark on the wall. He didn’t bother counting them anymore. If it ever looked like he might be headed for death or deliverance, he might take the time. For now, it was just another notch in another row on the wall.
He heard them coming. It wasn’t mealtime, nor was it time for his dosage. He tensed. There were only two reasons for them to change the schedule. To pump him full of adrenaline or to dump a fresh catch in the cell next door. Both options filled him with dread. He heard the door next to his creak open, and his question was answered. He heard them dump the body on the bed.
“That didn’t last very long,” Animus commented in his thin little voice.
“First round never does, love,” Nurse Jane replied.
“Mm, well. As long as it works.”
“Should work like all the rest. This one don’t seem to have much fight in him. What’re you gonna do with him?”
“That depends on him,” Animus told her ominously. “If he remains docile, we’ll put him in with the bitches. If he doesn’t, well... I’ve been considering letting Uriel out to play.”
“You wouldn’t,” Jane gasped, sounding genuinely terrified.
The man in the cell grinned evilly.
“Oh, not with us, you silly woman. In the tank, with the fresh meat. I’ve been waiting for a fighter to pair him with. Would make for an interesting study, don’t you think?”
“Aye, but... I don’t think you’ll find that with this one. Look how skinny he is! Boy’s never done a bit of fighting in his life, I guarantee it.”
“We’ll see. How long will he sleep?”
“Until he wakes up,” she said sassily. “There’s no way to predict how the first dose will act, Animus.”
“Very well. Keep me informed.”
“Of course.”
Uriel’s heart leapt at the possibility of moving. Not that the “tank,” or whatever that was sounded any freer than his cell, but movement provided opportunities that he didn’t have in his cell. For example, the opportunity to rip his captors’ spines out of their skinny pathetic human backs. His blood boiled, and he shifted, making the bars of his bed object with a squeal. He didn’t bother shifting back. He had no use for any of his forms now, so it really didn’t matter which one he spent his time in.
“I’ll make him a fighter,” the wolf told himself. “I’ll make him ache to get his fangs wet.”
FOREST’S EYES FELT as though they’d been glued shut, and his head was drumming a fierce rhythm in his temples. Groaning, he dug the heels of his hands into his eyes. It took a moment for him to realize that it wasn’t right. He hadn’t had hands when he’d fallen asleep, had he? He pried his eyes open with immense effort and looked down at himself. The light was dim and grey, but it illuminated the fact that he was, once again, human.
“Did I dream all that?” he wondered out loud.
His voice echoed dully and his heart sank. He wasn’t in his own bed, as he’d first thought. He was lying on a thin, uncomfortable cot in a concrete cell. He looked around. There was a toilet and sink directly across from him, a thin blanket scrunched up by his feet and an equally thin pillow under his head. In the opposite corner lay a large dog bed. He glanced around for the intended user, but he was alone in the cell; it was utterly empty apart from those items.
“Maybe I’m still dreaming,” he muttered hopefully.
“‘Fraid not,” an echoing voice floated in.
“Who’s there?” Forest asked.
“Your next-door neighbor,” came the wry reply. “Look up.”
Forest looked and saw a vent in the wall. He moved the cot so he could peek through, but all he saw was a limp spider web blowing lazily in the weak breeze. Everything else was pitch black.
“Where are we?” Forest asked him. “Why are we here?”
“I haven’t quite figured out that first bit,” he replied. “We’re definitely underground, though. Some kind of research facility I think. Possibly military, but more likely private.”
“What makes you think that?”
“The uniforms,” he said. “There are no insignias and no fatigues. It’s all that expensive black fabric. Which is another reason I think it’s private. The human government probably wouldn’t pay for ultra-soft t-shirts.”
“The human government? Is there any other kind?”
“You aren’t real familiar with your natural history, are you?” I could hear the man laughing after that comment.
“I am!” Forest told him defensively. “I work at the zoo. In the aviary. I have a degree in natural history!”
“Then you know that virtually every species has a governing system,” he pointed out. “And the smarter the species, the more complex the government.”
“Well, yes... but I don’t see how that applies to our situation.”
Low, rolling laughter bounced through the vent in response. “There’s a bit of natural history they gloss over in school,” he said. “In fact you’re more likely to encounter it while pursuing a literary degree.”
“What are you talking about?”
“We call ourselves shifters, but the humans have given us many names over the years, the most common being werewolves.”
“Werewolves,” Forest repeated in disbelief. “You think you’re a werewolf?”
“Not just me,” he replied, and Forest could hear the grin in his voice. “You’re one now, too, or you wouldn’t be in here.”
Forest got a flash memory of the brutal attack he’d sustained. “That thing that attacked me... that was a werewolf?”
“I’d say so.
These people... they have injections for everything else, but I think they take some kind of sick pleasure in forcing werewolves to turn humans naturally. Maybe they’re studying the healing factor, or maybe they just get off on making people bleed.”
“What healing factor?”
“Werewolves heal much faster than humans do,” he explained. “And the one wound that heals fastest of all is the first bite; that first attack that turns humans into werewolves. A human can be near death immediately after an attack and be fully healed within a couple of days.”
Forest looked at the scars on his torso. They had faded even more since the last time he saw them in the hospital bed, and he was sure he hadn’t been out very long this time. He didn’t know how he knew, but he felt in his bones that less than a day had passed.
“How long have you been in here?” Forest asked through the vent.
“Oh... hard to tell in here. I’d say more than three months, less than a year.”
“How do you know so much about werewolves if you’ve only been one for a few months?”
That rolling laugh touched his ears again, sending a warm shiver through his belly. “Oh, I’ve been a werewolf far longer than that. You were turned here. I was brought here.”
“Oh. So... how long have you been a werewolf?”
“My whole life,” he said. “Coming up on my two hundredth birthday, I think. Hard to keep track after the first century.”
“Right, you’re centuries old,” Forest said sarcastically. “The werewolf thing I can almost swallow, just because it’s either that or I’ve gone completely insane. But you sound like you’re thirty at most... there’s no way you’re two hundred.”
“It’s that healing factor again,” he said, and Forest could almost hear him shrug. “The usual things don’t kill us. Radiation, bullets... well, silver bullets will kill you, but regular bullets are a bee sting at best. You’re essentially invulnerable now.”
Wild Ride: An M/M Shifter Mpreg Romance Bundle Page 47
