Eric 754

by Donna McDonald

  “Yes. We should just be grateful.” Eric reached out and pulled Lucy up close to him. “I would be more grateful if Marcus hadn’t been on the list.”

  Lucy put an arm across his chest and threw a leg over his thighs. When his hand came down to rub her leg, she wanted to purr like a happy kitten. There was a constant dichotomy within her—the bossy military woman versus the cuddly companion who wanted to wrap herself like a vine around the man beside her. It took some effort to answer as the one Eric seemed to want to talk to most in that moment.

  “Rachel will never let Marcus do it. I saw her face when she heard he was a candidate for it. He’ll lose her if he volunteers. They only need two. It would make more sense to pick two who didn’t need to be rewired.”

  Eric nodded. “Do you think Peyton is right? Is building a better cyborg the only way to truly fight Creator Omega?”

  Lucy released a ragged breath as she formulated the most logical answer she could. She could tell Eric needed reassurance. She wished she could give it to him.

  “Is it the only way? I wish I could say no. Look what happened with Bradley Smith, and he wasn’t even a real cyborg, at least not like we are. If his goal had been something other than killing me, he could have easily made those AI units kill hundreds of innocent people with those pulse cannons. There wouldn’t have been a damn thing anyone could have done to stop him outside of killing him… and even then it wouldn’t have stopped what he’d set in motion with those machines. I got lucky, Eric. No doubt about it.”

  Eric frowned and hugged tighter. “I hate that Kyra has to build a better cyborg than Creator Omega. Getting the neural implants alone would be torture enough for any of us…”

  “…unless you’ve already got them,” Lucy said, interrupting.

  Eric nodded. “Like you… or William.”

  “Yes. William is on the list,” Lucy said softly. “So are Meara and Aja. Any of them volunteering would negate having to wire someone like Marcus who doesn’t have a neural controller already.”

  “Will Aja and Meara volunteer?” Eric asked.

  Lucy hugged him tighter. She really didn’t want to talk about this anymore, but she couldn’t stop him from worrying about his friend. She sighed as she answered.

  “Yes. They’re going to tell Kyra Winters in the morning. Both will volunteer. They want vengeance for what was done to us… and for all the women who didn’t survive. Maybe they want it too much. I can’t say I’m any different. But I have my own ideas about how to serve the cause.”

  Eric rolled over until he was looking down into Lucy’s face. “Is it totally selfish of me to be glad you’re not on the list? You just got out of cyber guinea pig hell. I don’t think I have what it takes to watch you go back.”

  Lucy lifted a hand and brushed back his hair. “Yes, Eric Anderson. You’re being totally selfish to want me to be free and happy. Now ask me if I give a fuck? It’s only flattering that you want to save my ass. How could I see it any differently? It would not be logical.”

  Eric lowered his forehead to Lucy’s as he laughed. “Do you really expect me to kiss that dirty mouth?”

  “Yes… and every other part of my body until I can’t think about anything but the orgasms you’re going to give me.”

  “Gee. I love you too, Lucy.”

  She laughed beneath him, feeling his answering laughter in every cell. “I didn’t say anything about love. Who talks like that these days? With you, I always give as good I get. And I always want to.”

  Eric pulled her human hand away from his body and brought it up between them. The red heart had faded, but the imprint remained. So did the sentiment. He grinned as he turned it to where she had no choice but to stare at it.

  “I noticed you didn’t wash this off. That’s got to be love, otherwise it would be silly to keep it, right?”

  “I couldn’t wash it off. It’s permanent ink,” Lucy exclaimed, choking back a giggle when she heard him snorting.

  “Bullshit. The Miss Sexy Pants part of you wouldn’t let you wash it off. I damn well know she loves me. She told me so. Pretty soon, you’ll be saying it too, Captain Hard-Ass Pennington.”

  “If I say the frigging words back to you, will you get off my ass?” Lucy demanded.

  “No,” Eric declared firmly, lifting her thighs apart so he could settle where he belonged. “But I will kiss your ass whenever you ask me to nicely, which is the best offer you’re going to get from any man. Lucky for you, I’m an accommodating kind of guy.”

  The giggle she’d been holding back escaped just before his mouth closed hotly over hers.

  “I love you, Eric,” she whispered when her lips were free.

  “I know. Welcome home, Lucy.”

  When Eric’s lips came back to hers, she felt like she really had come home at last.

  # # # The End # # #

  NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: If you enjoyed this ebook, please consider leaving a positive review or rating on the site where you purchased it. Reader reviews help my books continue to be valued by distributors/resellers and help new readers make decisions about reading them. You are the reason I write these stories and I sincerely appreciate you!

  Many thanks for your support,

  ~ Donna McDonald

  Follow this link to all the books in the Cyborgs: Mankind Redefined series.

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  KEEP READING in this ebook for a sample from ARIEL: NANO WOLVES 1.

  Genetically Turned Into A Werewolf * Scientist Meets Her Animal Side

  Excerpt from ARIEL: NANO WOLVES 1

  Click here for more information.

  Description

  Being a living experiment wasn’t part of the scientific career she’d planned for herself.

  Despite her sharp scientific mind and her degree in bio-molecular genetics, Dr. Ariel Jones hasn’t figured out how her life changed so much in a single day. Before she can blink and ask about what is going on, she is injected with a billion nanos and some very potent wolf blood.

  Now she can suddenly turn into a giant white wolf with the bloodlust of a starving animal. And she’s an alpha…or so she is told by the even larger, very male, black wolf who was used to create her. Hallucination? She wishes. Whether human or wolf, Reed talks in her head and tells her how to handle things…or rather how to kill them…starting with the men who hold them all captive. Too bad he can’t tell her how to put her life back like it was.

  Admittedly, there are perks to being a werewolf, such as meeting sexy werewolf guys like Matthew Gray Wolf. She also doesn’t mind learning about a side of herself she never knew existed.

  It's great changing into a real wolf whenever she wants, but being a living experiment wasn’t part of the scientific career she’d planned for herself. Neither was falling for the local werewolf alpha, but what else is a newbie werewolf caught in her burning time going to do?

  Chapter 1

  Dr. Ariel Jones blinked at the bright lights overhead as she woke. Finding herself naked and strapped to some sort of gurney, she turned her head and saw two women similarly strapped to gurneys beside her. One was weeping steadily. The other was glaring at a fixed spot on the ceiling.

  Her scientist brain got busy immediately, trying to figure out what had happened since she’d come to work that morning. Her typical day at Feldspar Research always started at five in the morning to accommodate the light limitations of living and working just outside Anchorage, Alaska.

  She had processed the new set of blood samples waiting for her in the lab and instantly reported the unusually rapid cell mutation she had seen happening under the lens of her microscope. Then at about ten o’clock, she’d gone for a direct meeting with Dr. Crane, who had asked to speak with her in person about what she’d found.

  One minute she had been drinking coffee and talking with a colleague. The next she was waking up nak
ed in…where was she anyway? Looking around more, she finally recognized the place. It was where they had brought the giant wolf.

  Sniffing the air, she could indeed smell the pungency of the trapped animal. It was what had bothered her most. From what she knew, he’d been here longer than she had worked for Crane. The one and only time she’d seen the wolf in person had been more than enough. He was the biggest animal she’d ever seen and bigger than any she could have ever imagined.

  Now she was here—in the same room where they had kept him. The discovery brought her back to her own pressing problem of waking up naked and restrained without knowing why. A thousand thoughts raced through her mind, none of them pleasant.

  “So good of you to join us at last, Dr. Jones. I’ve been delaying things and waiting for you to wake up. I didn’t want to start the injections while you were still under the effects of the mild sedative we gave you earlier.”

  “You put drugs in my coffee this morning,” Ariel stated, somehow sure of it even before her bastard employer nodded and smiled.

  “The sedative was the fastest way to obtain your physical cooperation. Time is critical. We don’t know how long the window of opportunity from your findings will remain open. You told me several weeks ago you had come to Alaska because you craved more out of life than sitting in a lab doing research. Well, I’m about to make your dreams come true in a way you have never imagined.”

  Ignoring her accelerating heartbeat, Ariel decided she wasn’t going to get emotionally alarmed until there was a greater reason to do so than simply being naked and unable to free herself. She was used to thinking her way out of bad situations. She just needed to remain calm, ask questions, and figure out what was really going on.

  “I would like to know the purpose of your actions. Are you planning to take physical advantage of my helpless condition? Who are the two women next to me? What role do they play?”

  Dr. Crane smiled. “So many questions. Of course, I expected someone like you would have them. You’re going on a scientific adventure or at least your body is. The three of you are about to become the next step in the evolution of our species. But I guess it’s rather bold of me to theorize such a result without any proof yet. Part of the excitement is considering all the possibilities. Now I know your circumstances are a bit alarming at the moment, but if this experiment works, you’ll become an extremely valuable asset to our military. Even the most highly trained K-9 units won’t be able to compete with your animal skills. Alaskan wolves are quite superior to canines in nearly all areas. Everyone studies their predatory actions for just this reason.”

  “I still don’t understand, Dr. Crane. I thought Feldspar was testing wolf fortitude to glean survival information for living in extremely harsh environments,” Ariel said, discreetly testing the restraints around her wrists again.

  “Oh come now, Dr. Jones. That sort of work is barely fit for a second year university student. You are here because you personally possess several strands of DNA in common with our latest Feldspar wolf acquisition. He’s been rather solemn since we informed him of your findings. He’s glaring at us steadily which I take as the highest compliment about your discovery. It’s as if he senses what we are about to do to the three of you.”

  “Dr. Crane, are you saying you’re communicating with a wolf? Don’t you think that assumption is a bit odd?” Ariel asked.

  “Not at all. I sincerely wish we could be communicating with his human side, but we’ve purposely kept him from shifting back to his human form by the silver collar around his neck. I think it helped greatly to leave the six silver bullets someone put into him too. He was initially impossible to capture in his wolf form. If his pack had been nearby, I doubt we would have. In fact, I don’t know who exactly did capture him. I found him both shot and tranquilized with a note pinned to his collar when someone activated the alarm on the back door of the lab.”

  “I’m sorry Dr. Crane, but you sound like some crazy mad scientist out of a movie. What are you going to do to us? Seriously? You don’t have to make up such wild stories. I assure you I won’t be reduced to hysterics by hearing the truth,” Ariel demanded.

  “Still the skeptical scientist, I see. In just a moment, I’ll happily explain the rest to you. Since what’s going to happen to you is beyond your control, I don’t see any benefit from not telling you the whole story.” Dr. Crane waved at the man assisting him. “Proceed with injecting the weeping one on the end. I cannot tolerate a weeping female. She is highly distracting. I can’t talk to Dr. Jones over her constant whining.”

  Ariel’s head whipped over, straining to see the gurney at the end. She saw the woman’s body arch when a plunger was placed at her neck directly on the carotid artery. Whatever was in the injection, they wanted it to hit all parts of her body quickly. To her surprise, the man rolled the woman’s head, and shot a second plunger directly into the woman’s brain stem. The woman seized, strained at her straps, and then fell silent. If the second injection didn’t paralyze her spine, its content would be in every brain cell in less than ten minutes.

  “Now administer the sedative and move Heidi to the last cage. Come straight back and process Brandi next. I’ll take care of Dr. Jones personally.”

  Ariel looked back at the man speaking so calmly. He looked at her and offered a shrug.

  “The sedative is to help keep you calm during the worst of your genetic transmutation. We’re not completely without conscience. I see no need for any of you to suffer more than necessary. Since you’re the first of your kind, we don’t exactly know how much the transpecies mutation process hurts. Our captive wolf shifter has been quite unwilling to share any information, assuming he can still speak in his wolf form. We haven’t been able to ascertain it one way or the other.”

  The woman directly beside her was still as quiet as ever. So far, she had not made a sound. Ariel listened to the gurney with the now unconscious Heidi being pushed to the far end of the room. She listened to a cage door being opened and straps being undone.

  “Please continue your explanation, Dr. Crane. Did I find something important this morning?”

  “Yes, you did. I applaud you for being as smart as your resume indicated. People usually lie on those you know. Somehow I knew right away when we met that you were being honest. It was quite the stroke of luck your blood also showed excellent—most excellent—counts of nearly everything required for the experiment. When I personally saw the metamorphosis strand in your DNA, I was literally as giddy as a schoolboy. The strand is missing from your fellow subjects.”

  “I did my doctoral thesis on the metamorphosis strand. Most in the scientific community don’t even think its real. But I’ve seen it. People who have it tend to die fairly young. It’s one of the reasons I left New England and came here. I wanted to explore the world a little before I came down with some disease I couldn’t survive.”

  “Yes. Human subjects with the strand do tend to die young. But extending your doctoral hypothesis, I also believe the strand has a higher purpose in those who possess it. So when I saw from the extensive health exams Feldspar required that you personally had the strand, I just couldn’t pass up the opportunity. Roger, I said to myself, what would happen if someone extremely intelligent suddenly became a wild animal? Would the person be able to control their carnal nature enough to use their intelligence in their animal form? The chance to discover the truth was just too much to pass up. Now you get to benefit from the very discovery you made this morning, Dr. Jones. It’s too bad the global medical community will never know anything more about you except for the unfortunate accident which burnt your body to ashes today when you went into Anchorage for lunch. Alaskan winters can be terribly challenging on vehicles, as I’m sure your gurney mates can also attest to since they suffered the same fate.”

  Ariel flinched when she heard the woman beside her hiss and swear at the depression of the plunger at her neck. When her brain stem was shot, the woman shrieked loudly and nearly broke the stra
ps with her arching. The sedative calmed the woman instantly, but it had the opposite effect on Ariel. Starting to panic at last, because she knew the same fate would be hers, Ariel renewed her efforts to escape and twisted against her restraints. Unfortunately, she lacked the strength to break them.

  She listened to the second gurney being wheeled down the hall. Again a cage door opened. Moments later, she heard it close and a key turning in a lock.

  “Who gave you the right to do this to us, Dr. Crane? I came to Feldspar to do research for you, not to be your research. What you are doing is illegal and immoral.”

  “I know. I do feel a little bad about hiring you under false pretenses, but your discovery this morning stacked the odds in favor of your participation. My benefactor is most anxious to see some evidence that the transpecies mutation process can work. If even one of you survives the change, he will fund me for at least another two years.”