Tears glittered in her eyes as he took a stumbling step toward her. She rushed down the steps as he sank to his knees in the red dust. Her hands reached out to touch him.
“Oh Simon,” Tory whispered as she frantically brushed her fingers over his cheeks. “Where are you hurt?”
“My ribs,” he breathed heavily. “I think a few of them are cracked. Give me a minute… to heal.”
Tory caught him in her arms as he fell forward. She carefully rolled him over onto his back. She mumbled a healing chant under her breath. She wasn’t very good with magic, but she was pretty damn good at healing.
She glanced up at Simon’s face to see how much pain he was in. Her breath caught as she saw the tears glistening in them. She caressed his cheek with trembling fingers.
“It will be alright,” she whispered as she brushed the dirt from his face. “Everything will be alright.”
Simon’s hand raised and he captured her hand in his own. He pulled her fingers to his lips and pressed a tender kiss to them before pulling it down to his chest. His eyes remained locked on her face as he started to talk.
“I love you, Tory,” he whispered. “I love you so very much. I knew before he took you that I loved you. I can’t let you go.”
Tory smiled down at him. “You silly Werewolf, whoever said I’d let you? I love you, too, Simon. You just knocked the stuffing out of me. I was coming to get you back as soon as I could.”
“Tory!”
Tory looked up as her mom and dad suddenly appeared. A reassuring smile lit her face as she stared up at her dad’s look of apprehension. She turned back to Simon when he suddenly sat up, wincing slightly as his still healing body protested the sudden movement.
He stared back at her father who was hurrying toward them. Her dad, seeing Simon’s unclothed state, muttered a quick spell. A pair of loose fitting trousers and dark blue T-shirt suddenly clothed Simon.
“Daddy, this is Simon Drayton. He’s a Werewolf and he is all mine,” Tory said as she and Simon rose to their feet. “I love him, daddy.”
Charlie stared at the huge Werewolf standing protectively over his little girl. For a moment, he remembered a time not so long ago when he had stood over Sophie and stared down her father much the same way.
Sophie had been right. It had been time to let his little girl spread her wings. His lip twitched as he noticed the possessive arm around Tory’s waist. He also wouldn’t be surprised if he wasn’t a grandfather in less than nine months.
“Tory, where’s Alexandru?” Sophie asked as she walked back from where Nonny and Aura were talking with a dazed, but healed Youssef.
“Uh-oh,” Tory whispered with wide eyes.
“Oh dear,” Sophie sighed. “You cast your far, far away spell, didn’t you?”
“He was hurting Simon,” Tory replied, defensively. “I’m sorry, mom.”
Charles laughed and wrapped his arm around his beautiful wife. “Well, it’s a good thing he knows magic, isn’t it? Let’s go inside. Simon, tell me a little about yourself, son.”
Tory grinned up at Simon as he wrapped his arm around her waist. His face softened as he gazed back down at her. Unable to resist, she rose up on her toes and brushed a kiss across his lips.
“Only twenty-four days until the next full moon,” she whispered.
His soft laughter filled the air as they followed her parents into the house. He hadn’t realized that when he decided to take on Tory, that he would be inheriting a whole town of magical creatures. The once lonely world he thought he lived in was suddenly filled with Vampires, witches, trolls and more. He was looking forward to discovering what else was in store for him.
***
“So, what do you think?” Fortune asked Destiny as she held up two identical pairs of blue baby booties. “Twice the fun?”
Destiny laughed. “Tory should have known better than to tempt the Fates!”
The End
About the Author
S. E. Smith is a New York Times, USA TODAY and #1 International Amazon Bestselling author who has always been a romantic and a dreamer. An avid writer, she has spent years writing, although it has usually been technical papers for college. Now, she spends her days and weekends writing and her nights dreaming up new stories. An affirmed “geek,” she spends her days working on computers and other peripherals. She enjoys camping and traveling when she is not out on a date with her favorite romantic guy.
www.sesmithfl.com
Broken Communication
by Mandy M. Roth
Immortal Outcasts
Part of the Immortal Ops Series World
Genetically altered into a super soldier who can shift into a wolf, Casey Black should have been the perfect asset—but that wasn’t to be. The scientists who conducted DNA splicing experiments on him put a little too much wolf in his cocktail. Considered a danger to society and a risk to the survival of the secret project, the government tried to eliminate him. The former Immortal Operative has spent the majority of his life on the run and off the grid from the very government who’d helped him be ‘all he could be’. When the sassy, headstrong woman who makes his body burn with need vanishes, he realizes it’s not his head, but rather his heart that is broken. And he’ll do whatever is called for to mend it.
Dedication
To my readers: For loving my genetically altered alpha bad boy ops for over ten years now.
Note from the Author
Broken Communication is book one in the Immortal Outcasts Series, a spinoff from my bestselling Immortal Ops World which has been available to readers for over ten years now—spawning many books and spin-offs. I hope you love this glimpse into the genetically altered men the government classified Outcasts.
Chapter One
Sweat-soaked and in a panic, his body shaking, Casey Black sat up on the edge of an old cot in the center of a sparsely furnished room, his head hung in defeat. A quick check of his watch revealed he’d been asleep less than an hour. Denying himself much-needed rest over the past week had left him exhausted and his mind a muddled mess. Not that his mind hadn’t been heading in that direction on its own for a long time.
While the sleep had been required for his body to continue to function, it had not been welcome. He’d dreamt of horrors from long ago—ones he could no more change the outcome of than he could control the weather.
With his forearm, he wiped the sweat from his brow and stood, stretching his sore muscles. The bathroom off the bedroom wasn’t anything that anyone sane would want to use, let alone drink from the faucet, but Casey wasn’t what anyone would term of sound mind. He bent his head and put his mouth under the old faucet, unconcerned with the rust and grime coating the sink as he turned the handle. The water tasted heavily of rust and sediment, but it was cool and quenched his thirst, so he paid it little mind. He’d had worse.
He had bigger matters at hand than the quality of his drinking water. He had to find Harmony. She’d already been gone a week. His gut said she was still alive, but he suspected that wouldn’t last long. If he knew anything about the woman, she was full of spit, vinegar and probably caviar or some other fancy food.
“Don’t,” he said to his reflection in the bathroom mirror. Mold coated the bottom corner of the mirror, leaving only a portion of Casey’s face visible, but it was enough for him to see just how far he’d fallen. He looked like a crazed mountain man rather than the high-society gentleman he’d once been, long ago, before deciding to serve his country—before he signed away his life. Before he agreed to be reinvented.
Re-imagined, even.
He snorted and half-laughed at the sight of himself there. “Furball.”
Harmony had called him that more than once over the years. It was strange how much he missed her annoying names for him and her cutting remarks. How much he missed her.
He splashed water on his face and left the small bathroom, making his way across the room. He tossed on the overhead light and the single, suspended bulb did little to cu
t through the darkness of the room. The damn thing was practically an antique, and he wasn’t sure how it didn’t burn the whole fucking place down. Exposed wires on the frayed cord signaled the mice were back. They’d leave now that he was at the safe house again. They knew when to avoid a predator, and he was the biggest around. And like the many times before, once he stopped bothering to do more than check in on the place every couple of months, they’d resurface, sensing the big bad wolf was gone.
The light from the bulb barely made a dent in the quest to illuminate his findings. Some human habits died hard. Lighting a room was one of them, even though he preferred it darker. His eyes, having been genetically altered long ago, were sensitive to light.
Ever since the unfortunate mishap.
“Yeah, if that was a mishap, then the Hindenburg was a hiccup and the Titanic sinking was kind of bad for the boating industry,” he said softly, though he wasn’t sure why he bothered whispering. The safe house was secure and remote. All his safe houses were. It’s why he’d picked them over the decades.
He had homes all over the world. Some were fancy. A lot were barely standing. He had money. Most immortals did—even the ones on the run. There had been a time and place when he’d thought all life’s questions had answers found in fortune.
He’d been wrong.
Nearly dead wrong.
He bent his head in remembrance of the life he’d been forced to leave behind over a century ago. His mother would have been horrified at the state of disrepair the safe house was in. He rubbed his shaggy beard, just under his chin, knowing she would have forbidden such an unsightly state. As much as he’d loathed her demanding nature, he missed her. Missed all his family. They’d passed long ago.
“You have Laney now,” he said softly, reminding himself that, in reality, his enemies had given him something of a family again when they’d used his DNA samples, taken against his will, to help in the creation of other supernaturals. Laney was a good girl who was mated to a man who could protect her. Casey had passed that baton to him a week prior, after carrying it faithfully for years.
So much had developed in such a short period of time. Casey had foolishly permitted himself to be lulled into a false sense of security. Into believing his life of living on the run was behind him. He’d known better. Deep down. But that hadn’t stopped hope from burning strongly within him.
His emotions welled. Letting them free was a bad idea. He wasn’t allowed to have extreme emotions anymore. Doing so left him weakened against his inner beast.
“My own fucking demon,” he said, venom dripping from every word. He’d never, as of yet, completely mastered the animal side of himself. Over the years he’d met natural-borns, men and women born with the ability to shift forms into animals. He’d even run into those who had been attacked by a natural and lived to tell the tale—getting pretty fucking furry the month following. They all seemed to have a better handle on their animal sides than he did.
Special.
That was what the scientists had called him way back when he’d been their pet project.
“Special, my ass.”
They’d gotten lucky with him. Unbeknownst to Casey and the scientists at the time, he had supernaturals in his family history somewhere, which left his body in a better position to accept what wasn’t natural to it—wolf DNA, among other things the group had thought up and used.
Straight humans weren’t so lucky.
He almost laughed at the idea of what had happened to him being anything other than a nightmare. It had been nearly one hundred years since he’d volunteered to help better his country. Since he’d agreed to try to make a difference and better the future of mankind.
Since he’d said yes to becoming a lab rat. A human test subject for twisted scientists who wanted to better the human race.
Spoon-fed lines of total and utter bullshit.
He was living proof of that.
Sure, their goal eventually worked, but that meant little for the good men and women who had been used to further the cause of science and died because of it. And it sure the fuck meant little to those who had been subjected to testing against their will—by some of the very same doctors who pioneered the first attempts at creating super soldiers. The brains of the eugenics movement.
So many thought, wrongfully, that the Nazis were the ones who’d pioneered eugenics. Their quest for a Master Race was all over history books and etched in the brains of many, but they’d not been alone in the beginning.
Far from it.
The roots of eugenics hit much closer to home. Hell, it was in people’s backyards to this day, but they didn’t know. The government liked to bury its ugly history and point in another direction to divert attention from themselves.
His existence solidified the statement. Though, had the men and women in charge of it all had their way, he’d not be living proof of anything. The others like him—the ones whose bodies rejected the doctors’ tests and experiments in some form or fashion and who were lucky enough to survive the ordeal—had been relinquished to a secure location to live out their days in peace.
“More bullshit,” he said, his voice harsh.
Casey thought back to his time in what the higher-ups had taken to calling a “long-term care facility”, when in reality it was a prison. Bars were on the windows, armed guards at each entrance and exit, and the men were locked in their rooms at night. None of that added up to a cushy place to lay low and live out their immortal lives.
Far from it.
They’d really been sent there to be held until the government could figure out what to do with them. Apparently, the age-old question of “What do we do with our mistakes?” hadn’t been fully thought out prior to the start of the testing. In the end, the government decided termination and elimination of any evidence of their spectacular failure was necessary.
They wanted no trace of the Outcasts—the genetic rejects. And they’d nearly gotten their wish.
Ironically enough, the doctors were the reason Casey had survived the first attempt on his life. They’d altered his DNA and changed his genetic make-up, making him something much more than human, but thankfully not totally animal, as he’d seen some of his brethren become during the testing stages. The doctors had paid particular attention to increasing Casey’s ability to heal, attaining a level that was relatively unheard of, even in the supernatural community.
He looked down at the back of his hand, remembering the smell of burning flesh, as if the explosion had happened just yesterday, rather than decades ago. He could vividly recall that his flesh looked like wax, melting, leaving muscle and bone painfully exposed. He’d not stopped what he was doing. Men—lab rats like him—had still been in the building during the explosion. It didn’t matter that he’d been burned badly. He’d done what he had to in order to get them out.
As many as he could.
Getting to safety had needed to wait when so many were still trapped.
When he’d gained consciousness a week later and found himself in the care and treatment of a tiny elderly woman gifted in the arts of Chinese medicine, there had been no regrets. Didn’t matter that his body hadn’t, at that point, fully recovered, or that every second of every hour he’d lived in excruciating pain. He’d freed his brothers-in-arms. That was all that mattered to him.
What bothered him most wasn’t even the attempt to wipe them all out, it was how they’d been forced to scatter like rats in the wind, losing contact with one another after they’d gone through so much together. He missed them and regretted not being able to locate any of them. They’d been trained well in the art of escaping and evading. They were ghosts and would only be seen and found when they wanted to be. As far as Casey knew, none of the Outcasts wanted to be found.
He couldn’t blame them. They not only had to worry about their own government still wanting them dead, they had to worry about new enemies over the years—sick fucks who wanted to create supernatural armies, and they’d do anythin
g and hurt anyone to see that come to pass. They were as bad as the men who had turned him into what he was.
“Bastards,” he said as he reached to the wall and touched one of the sketches of the main scientist who had been in charge of Casey’s treatments so long ago. Casey had drawn the picture from memory, the man’s features forever seared into his mind. Hell, the guy still haunted Casey’s nightmares.
Others had picked up the baton the doctor dropped and the testing continued in secret, hidden from the public after the shock and horror of Hitler and his scientists came to light. To this day, the war conducted under the noses of humans continued. Though, it was getting harder and harder to hide from them all.
Forensic science advancements continued to grow daily, and at some point hiding would become nearly impossible unless every supernatural in the world went totally off the grid. As Casey had done.
It would never happen.
His attention went to the laptop a geek buddy of his had assured him couldn’t be tracked by anyone. The information pulled up on the screen spelled out everything that had been done in the creation of the Immortal Ops and what so many humans and supernaturals had been subjected to over the years.
Torture.
Testing.
Death.
A small piece of Casey was happy the information had gone public on the internet, despite having gone to great lengths trying to keep it from coming to light. When he’d destroyed a computer running some sort of program that was decrypting files on the creation of the ops, he’d assumed that was the end of it.
Hardly.
He’d never thought about a backup system. He wasn’t clueless about technologies, and was skilled enough to be dangerous, but he was out of his league in certain areas.
Taming the Alpha Page 14
