Oliver

by Catherine Lievens

  “Hey, what kind of shifter is he? He doesn’t smell like any of you cat guys,” Oliver whispered, and Sebastian saw the smile on Isaiah’s face. Oliver had taken care to keep his voice low because he knew that shifters had a very good hearing, but he didn’t know that Isaiah’s was even better due to his animal part.

  “That’s because I’m a bat-eared fox.”

  Oliver looked at the man before whispering back to Sebastian, “What’s that?”

  Isaiah laughed and his fingers danced on his keyboard, an image of his small animal counterpart appearing on the screen. “That’s a bat-eared fox,” he said, pointing at the image.

  Oliver leaned in and looked at the screen. “That’s cute.”

  “Why, thank you,” Isaiah said with a chuckle before his face became serious again. “I’m guessing you’re here to see if I found something out in those lab’s files?”

  “Yeah. What can you tell us?”

  “That stuff will give me nightmares, man. I know that humans and shifters are cruel races, but I never even dreamed of some of the stuff they did in the name of scientific progress and all that crap.” Isaiah typed something and the image of the fox disappeared, leaving in its place what looked like a list of names. He highlighted one before explaining, “So, I found pretty much everything. I don’t know if it’s because they’re getting cocky or because security varies from lab to lab, but this one was a piece of cake. I have a list of shifters and humans they experimented on, what they did and why, and a list of the scientists and guards that worked there, even their rotations with other labs.” He glanced at Oliver. “I...you know one of the scientist we have in the cells.”

  Sebastian watched his mate, waiting to see how he was going to react. He wanted to tear that man apart just for breathing in Oliver’s direction.

  “Who? I’ve been in more than one lab over the year they had me.”

  Isaiah pointed at the screen. “You recognize the name Kadner?”

  Oliver paled, but his voice was steady when he answered. “Yeah, I know him. I think you should also tell Jamie.”

  “What did he do to you, love?” Maybe Sebastian could work on doing the exact same thing on the man, now that they had him. No one would blame him, right?

  “He took blood and stuff, opened me a few times, then he had to move to the lab Jamie and Finn were in. That was how I ended up there, but he didn’t have the time to do anything more, since we escaped.”

  Sebastian remembered what Jamie had told them about the guy, and he was suddenly giddy to have him here. He wasn’t usually this blood thirsty, but that piece of shit had hurt not only his mate but his friends’ mates too. He couldn’t wait to tell Bryce and Ward exactly who was in their little jail.

  “Hey, I don’t think Dominic gave you the authorization to actually hurt the guy,” Oliver pointed out.

  “He doesn’t have to know.”

  Oliver sighed and leaned into Sebastian’s body, his arms sliding around Sebastian’s waist. “Don’t, please. It’s not worth it. I don’t want you to lose yourself for that guy. What’s done is done, and now the only thing we can do is try to help the other shifters and human they took hold of, so you’re not going to hurt any of those guys. Promise me.”

  Sebastian couldn’t say no to his mate, as much as he and his lion wanted to hurt the man who had experimented on him. He huffed, making his disapproval known, but he knew why Oliver was doing this. “Fine.”

  He was still telling Ward and Bryce, though.

  * * * *

  Oliver’s nerves were on edge. Kadner hadn’t actually been the one to make him a shifter, since that was Adrian, but Adrian had only spliced his DNA. Kadner had taken care of everything else, from the blood work to the operations that had come after. That was why Oliver had ended up with Jamie and Finn. Kadner had had to change labs, and he had wanted Oliver to go with him.

  Really, it was weird how Oliver had had no problems forgiving Adrian while he hated Kadner with a passion, but that man...he had no conscience. It wasn’t even the fact that he thought shifters were somehow inferior. He just didn’t think any life was worth it if not his own. Everyone else was expendable if it was for his advantage, and he had shown it using humans for his experiments.

  Oliver didn’t really want to see the man, but he wanted him to pay. He just didn’t want Sebastian to be the one doing it, and he wasn’t sure the lion would be able to keep his calm in front of the scientist, especially since he was going to be alone in the cell with Kadner and Jared. Jared might be a shifter, but he was smaller than Sebastian, so he wouldn’t be able to stop him if he tried something. Oliver, on the other hand, would be big enough if he shifted, but he wasn’t actually sure he could shift at will, and above all he didn’t want Kadner to know that he could shift.

  “You don’t have to come in,” Sebastian insisted. He had been trying to make Oliver change his mind since they had found out who exactly was in the cells, but Oliver needed to do this. He needed closure. In his mind he’d always imagined Kadner as an ominous presence that threatened to hurt him, and most of his nightmares rotated around the man. He needed to see for himself that Kadner was not the menace he thought he was.

  “I’m coming. Try not to lose your calm, because I don’t want to shift in front of the man, but I will if I have to.”

  Sebastian studied him for a while, but in the end he nodded, even if reluctantly. “Fine. But if he raises one hand to you, if he touches you in any way, all bets are off.”

  They had already talked with another two scientists without finding anything new. They might have been ruthless and ready to do anything for money, but they didn’t know much. It was obvious Kadner was the one in charge, probably of more than one lab. They needed to find out if there were other groups of shifters that were selling their members and where the other labs were, and above all what they were trying to achieve.

  The small jail Dominic had to have built a few months before was deep in the woods, and Oliver shivered as they stopped in front of the cell in which the man who had tortured him for months was being held. It was still cold outside, and it seeped inside the building, but Oliver knew that wasn’t the reason for his reaction.

  Sebastian opened the metal door and stepped inside, controlling the room before gesturing to Oliver and Jared to enter. Kadner was exactly the way Oliver remembered him, a short, chubby man with glasses, his thinning hair graying and the white lab coat he still wore dirty. He had been in the cell for only a few days, but it showed, and Oliver could even smell it. That was something he could have done without.

  “Hello, doctor Kadner. I’m Jared, the pride’s doctor, and I wanted to ask you if you could tell me what you did to the humans who were in the lab we found you in.”

  Oliver’s eyes widened at Jared’s polite tone, but then he wouldn’t have expected anything different from the doctor. Jared was a sweet, measured man, and it would have seemed weird to hear him talking harshly or demand answers.

  “Oliver. I see you’re doing well.”

  Oliver mentally cringed, but he tried not to let Kadner see it. He didn’t want the horrid man to know how much he affected him. “Yup, I’m fine. Never been better, actually.” He could see the calculated glance Kadner was giving him, as if he was trying to understand how Oliver could be fine if he hadn’t had his injection for six months.

  Sebastian growled from where he was standing next to Jared and slightly in front of Oliver. “Just answer the question.”

  Oliver looked at the dirty, small man in front of him. Far from his lab and his scalpels, Kadner didn’t seem so terrible anymore. The image Oliver had of him had deflated, and he wondered why he’d been so scared of the man in the first place. Of course he’d been wounded and weak, and Kadner had had all the power, but now the situation was reversed and he saw him for what he was—a coward who used those weaker than him just to exercise his power. Oliver wouldn’t have any problems beating the guy if he just tried to hurt him now, and it eased something
inside him to know that. He felt finally free after a long year and a half of fear.

  “Do the humans we found in the lab need the same serum as me?”

  “Why should I answer you? It’s not like they’re going to be useful to me now.”

  Shit, they needed something, anything to help those guys. The bobcat had been so abused that he was catatonic. They didn’t even know his name yet.

  Troy was another problem. The human was fine, for now, but he probably was in the same situation as Oliver. From what they had gathered his DNA had been spliced, but they didn’t know with what. He said that he could feel something sharing his body, but he couldn’t identify what it was, and he was terrified.

  “What are you going to do if they need it? Give them your own? Are you willing to sacrifice your life for someone you don’t even know?”

  Jared answered before Oliver could. “He won’t have to. We have enough serum for everyone.”

  Oliver could see they wouldn’t get anything out of Kadner, at least not with words. He knew some of the members of the pride could and probably would use more persuasive methods, and he didn’t even care. They were doing this to help people, to save them, and if they had to sacrifice Kadner...the world would be a damn better place without him anyway.

  “I’ll tell you what you want to know if you let me go,” Kadner said in a rush as the three of them were about to exit the cell. Oliver would have bet that something like that would happen. Kadner wasn’t loyal to anyone except himself, and right now his best shot at freedom was to talk. He wasn’t sure they should let the man go, though. Who knew what he could do once he was free?

  “We’ll have to talk to our Alpha. Why don’t you start talking in the meantime, to show us how willing you are?” Sebastian said, his voice little more than a growl.

  Kadner hesitated, but clearly figured he really didn’t have any other option. “Mind you, I don’t know everything. I’m just one of the many scientists who work with the Glass Research Company.”

  “Go ahead.” If Kadner knew what was good for him, he would just spill the beans instead of needling Sebastian that way.

  “I can tell you about the location of the labs I’ve been in and what type of experiments we do on shifters and humans and who I answer to. I can even give you my password for the general database.”

  “What’s in the general database?” Sebastian asked.

  “Everything. Names, species, what was done, where we got them, where they are. There’s a list of our suppliers, another of the scientists and what they’re specialized in, and one of all the labs in the States and those outside the country. I don’t have access to everything, but I’ll give you what I can.”

  Oliver was feeling queasy. He had no idea the operation was so big that they had labs in other countries, and he could only imagine what they would find.

  As Kadner started talking, Oliver felt sicker with every word the man spoke, with every experiment he described, and suddenly the idea of letting Sebastian have a go at him didn’t look so bad.

  * * * *

  Sebastian felt sick to his stomach after the hours they had spent in Kadner’s cell. The man had been very thorough in describing exactly what he had done to whom, and it was obvious he was damn proud of what he had achieved. Sebastian wasn’t sure if the man even realized that he had been telling all this to shifters, or if he just thought they wouldn’t hurt him. He knew that whatever he had said to the scientist, Dominic would never release the man. He could do too much harm, and they couldn’t afford it.

  Jared had spent the time taking notes and asking questions while Oliver had been silent, but now that they were out he could see how pale his mate was. Even Jared looked a little green. The man was a doctor, he lived to help and heal, and Sebastian could only imagine how hard it had been on him, but most of all on Oliver. He was proud of his mate, both for having the guts to see Kadner and listen to what the man had to say, and for not showing fear in front of him.

  He knew he should go and find Dominic, but he wanted to go to Isaiah first and see if the man had been able to use Kadner’s password. Since there was a camera in the cell, he would already know about the general database, and hopefully he could find something.

  “What do you have?” he asked, slumping down in the chair next to Isaiah’s and pulling Oliver onto his lap.

  “I used the password, and it’s legit. I got in the general database and I’m pretty sure I’ll be able to hack the thing to have access to everything, but we can start from what we have. I’m trying to copy the whole thing because they’re bound to find out Kadner isn’t dead sooner or later.” He pointed to one of the screens on his right, his fingers flying on the keyboard. “That’s a list of labs. As you can see, there are a lot of them, and I’m not even sure Kadner had access to all of them, so there might be more. These are the ones he has been in and the ones in which similar research is done.”

  Shit, the list was huge, and the pride would never be able to raid them all. They didn’t have enough members to do that, even if they involved the wolves. The network Dominic was trying to put in place between the various groups of shifters was even more important now, but he was having problems convincing some of them. Shifters traditionally kept to their own species, but maybe the list of shifters in the labs could help. If those groups wanted to help their own, everyone could help. It was time shifters started to organize themselves, because the fact that the humans were able to find and capture so many of them without anyone knowing it was a clear sign they were too vulnerable isolated like this.

  Isaiah pointed to another screen. “That’s the list of shifters and humans Kadner used, plus the ones used in similar experiments, with their species and how they were captured. The other list on that screen is a list of people who provide shifters and humans to the company.”

  “We don’t have the manpower to free everyone.”

  “Yeah. We need to talk to Dominic and see if he managed to convince at least some of the other groups, because we’re going to need help if we want to take the company down.”

  “It’s not even a question of liberating the prisoners,” Oliver said from Sebastian’s lap. “We have to kill the guy on top of everything.”

  Sebastian had to take a double take at his mate. Even if he knew Oliver was right, he didn’t think the man had it in him to be so ruthless.

  Isaiah called Dominic and asked him to get to his office, and Sebastian tried to calm Oliver. He could feel how agitated the man was, and it was natural, but he didn’t like it. He wanted the world to be all roses and candies for his mate, and instead they had experiments and death.

  The Alpha soon arrived and they started plotting. “What happens if we take out the head of the company?” he asked.

  “Rayford Ernest Glass, thirty-nine years old. He doesn’t have a family, but I’m sure he has a backup plan if that happens,” Isaiah answered as he read the screen.

  “Yeah, but we could destabilize the company enough to take care of the labs and erase their database.”

  “We need help, though. Even with Kameron’s pack, we don’t have enough manpower to do it. We could send someone to kill the guy, but I think we need to plan the rest of it so that we can raid and erase at the same time, like a three front attack,” Dominic said, clearly thinking over how they could manage to do that.

  “Uh, guys, what’s a Krsnick?” Oliver asked from Sebastian’s legs, and he had to look at what his mate was looking at. Oliver pointed to the list of shifters. “Look, we have shifters and humans, but there are also werewolves, Nix, kitsune, and what the heck is a dryad?”

  Sebastian looked at the list and noticed other species, some of which he knew and thought were myths, like harpies and dryads. Where the fuck had they found those?

  “It seems there are way more paranormal creatures than we thought,” Dominic mused as he went over the list. “Okay, so the majority of people here are humans and shifters, plus some werewolves and Nix. Krsnicks are only mention
ed so I guess they don’t actually have any of them, and they have a few harpies and kitsune, and one dryad.”

  What the fuck was this, a melting pot of mythical creatures? How had the company managed to get their hands on creatures that were so rare not even other paranormals knew they existed? And if those did exist, did it mean that there were also dragons and vampires and all that stuff? God, Sebastian could feel the headache growing in his skull at the infinite possibilities. “Can we concentrate on shifters and humans?”

  “I think it would be best. If we do manage to find a way to contact the other species, I’ll tell them where they can find their missing ones, and if we find them when we raid the labs we’ll liberate them, but shifters are the majority here, and it will be easier to contact them,” Dominic answered, and Sebastian let out a relieved sigh. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to help those creatures, but they already had so many things on their plates that they would be overwhelmed if they tried to do everything.

  “What do we do now?”

  “We work even harder on the network. We’re going to need all the help we can find to do this.” Dominic raked his hands in his hair, and Sebastian felt sorry for the lion. He already had so many responsibilities, being an Alpha and a particular one at that, and now he had taken this huge task too.

  “We can help you. Give us the location and the phone number of the groups of shifters that live in the area, and we’ll go there and try to convince them. We can’t do it for every pride or pack, but it’s worth a shot,” Oliver said.

  Dominic thought about it, but he finally surrendered. “You’ll take the list with you,” he said, indicating the screen where the shifters names were displayed. “Maybe helping them find their lost ones will push them to help us in return.”

  Sebastian couldn’t help but think that this might be a task too big for them, but they had to try and make it work, and fast.