Captive of the Beast

by Lisa Renee Jones

  “Why would the injections cause this?” Kresley asked quickly. “I’ve taken them for a long time now.”

  “Extra testing is a precaution,” Laura assured her, although she thought it might be a good idea all the way around. Carol was showing signs of, well…of something, she didn’t know what. Something was off with her. Dark. Unsettling. She shook off the thought and refocused on what she was telling Kresley. “Being cautious is a good thing.” She pursed her lips. “Now let me do my job, and don’t you dare keep something like this from me again.”

  Kresley’s hands balled in her lap. “I’m sorry. I just…I’m sorry.”

  Laura hated to see Kresley upset, but had she not known what was going on, Kresley’s lack of honesty could have been a serious issue. She didn’t comfort her, couldn’t. Not about this.

  A few minutes later, samples drawn, Laura tossed the used supplies into the contaminated-waste container on the wall. “Now go to bed,” she told Kresley. “I’ll check on you in a bit.”

  “All right then,” Kresley said. “Laura—”

  Laura waved her away. “Go rest. What’s done is done.”

  Kresley nodded and shuffled from the room, head bowed.

  Rinehart’s cell buzzed, and she glanced up to see him snap it off his belt to read a text message. His expression was indiscernible, his jaw a hard line, his tension palpable. So much so she couldn’t help but question him.

  “Problem?” she asked, as he replaced the phone on his belt.

  He pushed off the wall. “Nothing I can’t handle. Is Kresley okay?”

  “I need to run some tests on her and the other patients. Should take an hour to get a preliminary idea of what I’m dealing with.” She hesitated, afraid of seeming obvious, but deciding to go for it. “Needless to say, this will delay your plans. I can’t allow my patients to be subjected to anything new until I find out what’s going on with Kresley.”

  To her surprise, he made no argument. “Understandable.”

  Laura’s eyes narrowed. She knew she couldn’t have bypassed his scrutiny so easily. He simply wasn’t fully in the room anymore; his mind was elsewhere. And something about him had changed. He’d taken on a rigid, soldierlike persona.

  “I’ll check back in an hour,” he added shortly. And then he left. Nothing else said. He was simply gone, leaving Laura staring after him. There was more to Rinehart than met the eye, but Laura couldn’t put her finger on what—she sensed it though, felt it deep in her gut. Felt it in her heated reaction to him.

  Now she had to figure out what to do about it.

  For thirty minutes now, Lucan had been sitting at the crappy metal table in the tiny, empty room he’d been left in, pretending to read patient files. But he knew he wasn’t here to read patient files. There was nothing here he hadn’t seen before. Nothing here that he couldn’t have read in his room, or in the lab with the others.

  Lucan might be a lot of things, but a fool wasn’t one of them. Or maybe he was. He’d known joining this mission had been a risk, but he’d come anyway. He’d come knowing he was too close to the dark side, a weak link in the Knights’ armor. And now here he was, alone, about to face a gaggle of Beasts. The minute that Walch’s soldiers had shown up at the lab, Lucan had surmised he was headed for trouble. No, this wasn’t about files. He was going to get a working over, his gut said, and a good one at that.

  There was a time when he would have welcomed the pain that was surely coming his way, embraced it for the humanity it reminded him he still possessed. But now…now, he feared the pain. He feared it because with pain came the rage of his dark side, the Beast that lived inside him. A Beast that could expose him, and his fellow Knights, to these Darkland Beasts. He could get them all killed.

  Lucan inhaled, tapped the file that sat open and pretended to read. But inside…inside, he reached for human memories, pleasant times he could focus on when he was being tortured. Memories that were now so stained by time, he struggled to recall them. No images came to him. Nothing. He shut his eyes, squeezed them tightly together, strained his memory banks. He needed something positive in his mind when they tortured him, something human. Please! Give me something.

  When nothing came to him, he stared down at the picture of Kresley, the firestarter, and imagined that she was his sister. Imagined her smiling and laughing, happy as she had always been. But a mere second later, the vision shifted, turned into the memory of a Beast grabbing his real sister and killing her. And the tortured expression he’d seen on her face as she had died.

  And in that moment, the doors opened; two of Walch’s men appeared, ropes in hand. Without a word, they charged at him. Lucan grabbed the arms of the chair, willing himself to contain his fury while they tied him down.

  Do not fail the Knights.

  Chapter 5

  “I thought you knew the code to the elevator,” Rinehart demanded as he, Max and Rock watched Des punch numbers into the keypad for the fifth time. Des had managed to tune into the place where Lucan was being held. Rock stood guard at the only door in or out of the place—in other words, they were sitting ducks.

  “I’m trying,” Des muttered, punching in yet another failed code. He ran a hand along the back of his neck. “Obviously I’m not completely in tune with these visions yet. I was right about the elevator.”

  “It’s now or never,” Rock asserted. “We got company.”

  Rinehart tensed. “How many?”

  “Two,” Rock reported.

  Rinehart acted without waiting for input. He stepped up to Rock’s side and grabbed the door, yanking it open and meeting the soldiers head-on. “About damn time,” he said. “We’ve been waiting fifteen minutes. Walch is expecting us down below.”

  They stopped in their tracks, stared at him. “How did you get here?”

  “I followed the yellow brick road,” Rinehart retorted sarcastically, instinctively knowing that the other Knights had taken position behind him—their unity always a source of confidence. “How do you think I got here? Walch told me to get my ass down here and I did. I’ve been standing here waiting for your kind escort services for fifteen minutes. If he’s pissed, it’s on your heads.” The two soldiers exchanged skeptical looks, and Rinehart pressed onward, jerking his cell from his belt and eyeing the names on their shirts. “Rogers and Miller. I’ll just call Walch and let him know you two are the holdup.”

  Miller responded instantly. “That won’t be necessary.” The look on his harsh features reeked of hatred.

  Rinehart hesitated, glanced at his phone and back at the two Beasts. He snapped his phone back onto his belt and motioned them forward. “Lead the way,” he said, motioning the Beasts forward.

  The Knights followed in their wake, exchanging a few meaningful looks. They sized up the two guns hanging on each Beast’s belt. Rinehart and Rock silently agreed to be the ones to act—they were the ones without mates, with the least to lose. Unexpectedly, a voice rang in the back of his mind, a voice that said Laura was his mate. Inwardly, he cursed the distraction. Now was a time for war, for battle, for focus. Not female distractions. He’d gotten his men killed because of that once before, and he wasn’t doing that again.

  In the elevator, the Knights stood to the back, while the two Beasts stupidly placed themselves in front, in a position vulnerable to attack. And attack the Knights did—the instant the Beasts stepped outside of the elevator, Rinehart and Rock acted. Before the enemy ever knew what happened, they’d lost their weapons. Each Knight held a gun pointed at a Beast in soldier disguise. The two Beasts whirled around to face them. A snarl escaped one soldier’s lips, and Rinehart knew the Beast was struggling to maintain his human form.

  Rinehart cocked the gun in his hand. “A well-placed bullet will hurt like hell,” he said, his voice cutting like the blade he wished he held. A bullet wouldn’t kill a Beast any more than it would a Knight, but it damn sure would cause pain. One of the soldiers dared a step forward. Rinehart lifted his gun slightly. “Make my day. Keep co
ming at me. Give me a reason to shoot.” The soldier stopped in his tracks. “That’s what I thought,” Rinehart said. He cut his gaze ever so slightly to Des. “Lead the way. Where is he?”

  Des motioned with a slight lift of his chin. “Third door on the right.”

  “We’ll cover you,” Rock said, as he and Max stepped forward, assuming more aggressive stances in front of the enemies.

  Rinehart was moving toward the door before Rock finished his sentence. All he could think about was getting to Lucan before it was too late, before they pushed him over the edge. It didn’t matter that Lucan might be perfectly fine, bullshitting about nothing with Walch. It mattered that he might not be—that Rinehart would be the reason if he wasn’t. It mattered that Des’s visions had said Lucan was in trouble.

  Rinehart reached the door a second before Des and found it locked. Without hesitation he leveraged his weight on his back foot and kicked in the door, putting every bit of supernatural strength behind the action, determined he would not be kept out of that room. The door fractured under the pressure, and the two Knights stormed the room. They found it empty.

  Both Knights rotated around and aimed at the door, fearful of being trapped. “Where is he, Des?” Rinehart demanded.

  Des cursed. “This is the room,” he insisted. “This is it. He was here.”

  A television hanging from the ceiling flipped on, and Walch appeared on the screen. “Violence really isn’t necessary, gentlemen. Lucan won’t be detained nor has any lasting harm come to him.” Rinehart glanced at the door and back at the screen in time to see Walch smile. “This time, that is,” Walch added. “Next time might be another story. Let Lucan’s visit serve as a warning. I will not be crossed, nor will I kiss anyone’s ass, most assuredly not yours, Mr. Rinehart. You will serve me and me alone until you leave this island.” The screen went blank.

  Rinehart quickly quelled the guilt over his role in whatever had befallen Lucan. He and Des exchanged a look, and in unison, lunged for the door, neither comfortable staying inside a room that could still become a trap. The minute they’d cleared the room, another door opened directly in front of them.

  Lucan was shoved forward; his shirt had been ripped open and blood was dripping from several stomach wounds. Wounds that were meant to induce pain, not death. Wounds that induced anger in Rinehart.

  Lucan wobbled, his legs unsteady beneath him. No one spoke, no one moved. Tension laced the air with an elastic quality, calm before chaos. But Rinehart didn’t feel calm. He felt the Beast inside him rising, felt it pressing him into rage, into action rather than calculation. He inhaled deeply to calm himself and willed his Beast into submission, almost shaking with the effort. Good Lord, he was further gone than he’d thought. Here he was concerned about Lucan snapping, and he himself might well be the threat.

  A soldier walked through the doorway behind Lucan, violently shoving him again. Lucan stumbled, crumbling to his knees. Rinehart flexed the fingers of his free hand, an edgy readiness for battle thrumming through his veins.

  Seconds passed, the silence thicker now. Silence that brought only one question—who would act first? And then abruptly, that silence was broken, an unexpected sound filtering through the air. That sound was Lucan’s laughter. A pained, bitter laugh, laced with defiance.

  “Take him,” ordered the soldier standing behind Lucan.

  Lucan pushed to his feet—when clearly his captors thought he could not—and walked to stand beside the Knights of White. Together they faced the enemy, staring them down. They wanted to stay, wanted to fight, but Rinehart struggled with the need to walk away, struggled with the darkness that made him burn for vengeance. There was no doubt he was shaking now, shaking from the effort to hold himself in check. There was more at stake than one fight and a few Darkland Beasts, so why couldn’t he pull away?

  A hand came down on his arm, and Lucan’s voice rumbled to his left. “Walk away,” he hissed in a half whisper. “Walk away.” And with those words, with the realization that Lucan had taken a beating and still had the will to walk away, Rinehart felt a slap of reality.

  “Walk away,” Lucan repeated. Rinehart swallowed hard and managed a step backward.

  And as often they did, the Knights instinctively moved together, taking the next step away in unison. One by one, they took positions inside the elevator. And as those doors shut, and he stood amongst his closest friends, his brothers-in-arms, Rinehart faced his inner Demon. He was in trouble. He was losing himself. But he vowed he would not destroy this mission, though now he had to end it sooner rather than later. No one else would be hurt under his command. No one.

  Hours after Lucan’s rescue, Rinehart sat in a chair near the Knight’s bed. Fortunately, they were now able to speak freely in select locations where Max had rigged a discreet static device that could be switched on intermittently to cover critical conversations. Even so, no one had spoken of the way Rinehart had come close to snapping; it was in the air, an unspoken concern they all held. He was leading this mission. He should be the strongest, the most prepared. Instead, he was a risk to be monitored. And Rinehart didn’t know what to do about it. He clung to the hope that Laura was indeed his mate, that she might hold his salvation in her hands. But with that hope came doubt. He’d heard stories about how mates instantly felt more than desire—they felt trust. Laura certainly didn’t trust him. Rinehart’s plan was to talk to Laura, to try to win that trust he didn’t have, that a mate should already have offered.

  “We’ll check back in an hour,” Max said, as he, Rock and Des headed to the door on scouting missions. Rinehart didn’t respond, nor did anyone seem to expect him to. Instead, he sat unmoving, lingering by Lucan’s side, not sure why. Lucan had long ago given his account of the events he’d encountered, and Rinehart had asked his questions and received his answers. But still, he remained unable to get out of the chair. Guilt seemed to be a weight pushing him down, holding him in place. It had been a long time since Rinehart had relived the past, but tonight it had crashed down on him like a tidal wave and for no apparent reason. Every day, he went to war against the Beasts. Every day, he and his fellow Knights risked their lives, risked each other’s lives. Why was the past resurfacing now from the black hole he’d buried it in? And why did he somehow think Lucan held the answer to that question?

  Lucan stretched, stifling a moan in the process, his movements pulling Rinehart out of his reverie. A moan slid past the bandages covering Lucan’s bare midsection, bandages that served two purposes—hiding the rapidly healing wounds from the cameras while also allowing the medicine, a special formula created by their Healer, to aid his body’s regeneration.

  Adjusting his position on the pillows, Lucan cut Rinehart a sideways look. “Stop watching over me like I’m dying or something. Because I have to tell you, man, if you hang out by my bed much longer, I won’t respect you in the morning.”

  Another time, Rinehart might have laughed, but not now. Suddenly, he knew what he wanted from Lucan. He wanted answers beyond what was happening in the moment, beyond Walch and this island.

  “I know how close to the edge you are,” he said, thinking of the flash of red he’d seen in Lucan’s eyes during battle, a sure sign his humanity was slipping away. “Yet you kept it together in there. You didn’t break.”

  A long pause ensued before Lucan awkwardly pushed himself farther up the headboard. “I’ll make sure I die in battle before I allow myself to turn.” His voice was taut, a bit hoarse, and Rinehart wasn’t sure it was from pain.

  “Is that what happens? You simply turn into one of them?” It was the question every Knight wanted to ask but wasn’t sure he wanted answered. Lucan had been among the previous generation of Knights, nearly three hundred years ago, and he had witnessed many of those first Knights turn to the darkness, lost without a mate to bind their inner Beast.

  A look of shock registered on Lucan’s face at the question, before his jaw tightened and he barked a bitter laugh. “If you ever saw one of
your brothers-in-arms snap, you wouldn’t call it simple.” His gaze slid into the distance as if he were reliving the past—perhaps also describing his present.

  “I’ve watched far too many Knights I considered friends slip away. Now I know what they went through, man. I know and I wish I didn’t. At first, you feel the taint of the Beast slowly begin to grow. It slides inside your soul and eats away at it. You fight to keep it at bay, struggle to beat it down. Then you do anything you can to feed your primal urges. You go looking for battles when you might have waited for them to find you. Sex becomes an outlet. Sex and more sex. But then sex gets dangerous. You begin to feel the Beast hunger for more than pleasure from the woman—it wants to devour her, and you fear you might just let it. Every minute of every day, you fight in this internal struggle between man and Beast, you fight to stay in control or snap. It’s excruciatingly intense.”

  Lucan’s attention abruptly shifted back to Rinehart. “But you know all of this.” He hesitated, then said pointedly, “Those of us fighting the darkness sense when another is doing the same. I feel your struggle. But at least we have something the others didn’t. We have a chance to find a mate.”

  Rinehart digested Lucan’s final words with skepticism. Yes, they all wanted a mate to bind the Beast within and set them free of the darkness. But what if that mate didn’t want them? What if that mate turned away and just left them to self-destruct? “Some of us are stronger than others,” Rinehart murmured, tormented by his own weakness. Lucan was three hundred. He was ninety-two. “I won’t make it to three hundred.”

  Lucan waved off the declaration. “If I can do it, you can, too.”

  Rinehart wanted that to be true, but he knew he was slipping, knew all the same desperate feelings that Lucan had described. And he knew them centuries sooner. Lucan seemed to read his thoughts and added, “We have to hang on. We’re needed.”