Rinehart digested that piece of reality as comfortably as a blade in his gut. “Okay.” He scrubbed his jaw. Scrubbed it again. Thinking. “Let’s detail the obstacles, because it’s a hell of a list. First off, the patients have to be told what is going on and accept our help. If anyone resists leaving, we’ve got that to deal with on top of everything else.”
“Blake doesn’t trust us,” Lucan said. “He could be an issue.”
“He’s scared shitless over what happened in the woods,” Max countered. “He’ll go if Laura says to go.”
“Agreed,” Rinehart said. Blake was darn near shaking in his shoes just talking about those snakes. “Next hurdle. We can’t allow Laura’s research to fall into the wrong hands. The records have to be destroyed. Something Laura and I will deal with, while I get the medication needed for the patients.” He glanced at Lucan. “They had their injections today?”
“All but Carol,” Lucan confirmed. They all knew Carol was a lost cause. Convincing Laura to leave without her was going to be another nightmare—something Rinehart would contemplate later.
Rinehart continued, “We’ll retain our original extraction time and split up into the separate shelters that we set up, then converge at the extraction point.” He was damn thankful they’d prepared, scouting out possible escape locations. “That way if some of us are captured, everyone won’t be lost.” Again he spoke directly to Lucan, knowing he’d studied Laura’s work intently. “How long can they go without the shots?”
“They’ve never gone more than twenty-four hours.” He glanced at his watch. “Extraction time is six hours beyond that.” He got out the next words with effort. “Kresley is the only one who is a true risk to others without the medication. Another reason to keep her separated. I’ll take responsibility for her.”
“I’ll get your back,” Max offered, and grinned. “That way if you wanna fight again, I’ll be handy. Besides, I have the most direct line to communication. The faster we get answers, the faster we can undo whatever they did to her.”
Anger slid from Lucan’s eyes, but Rinehart continued before he could respond. “I’ll take Laura to collect the medication. The twins can go with Des and Rock.”
“Check,” Max said. “And I’ll contact Jag and update the other Knights.”
Which meant the ball was in Rinehart’s court. His gaze shifted to Laura. “I’ll have her talk to her patients.”
She seemed to sense what was coming; her gaze lifted to his, their eyes colliding in a turbulent connection of pain and dread. He’d never felt anything like what he felt with her, the preciseness of shared emotions, the depth of instant understanding between them.
Laura spoke to Kresley and then pushed to her feet, her eyes holding his as she walked toward him. Lucan and Max faded away, leaving him to tell Laura that a journey was beginning. But to get to the end, they might just have to climb through hell.
Laura thought she had digested the information about the mark on Kresley’s wrist with remarkable calm. The scientist in her, the person of reason and hard facts, said Demon snakes didn’t exist. That whatever had attacked Kresley and left that mark had been a military creation, perhaps a device to insert tracking chips. But the darkness she felt on this island, the danger, spoke of more than a military operation gone south. It spoke of evil beyond that of man’s making.
With Rinehart by her side, his silent strength flowing into her, Laura had delivered the speech about their situation to her kids, after having practiced the words a million times in her mind. They were in danger. Someone wanted to misuse their abilities. Rinehart and his men had come to take them to safety. It was a reality they lived with every day of their lives, a reality she’d prepared them for and had hoped would never come. But it had. That day was today.
Laura hugged the twins goodbye. Then Blake. “I want to stay with you,” he argued, struggling with being sent away.
“You can’t,” she said, noting the flush of his cheeks. She hugged Blake again and said a few more words to him before turning away in search of Kresley.
The minute they looked at each other, Laura’s promise to herself about not crying faded. She pulled Kresley into her arms. “Be safe.”
Lucan stood over her shoulder, and Laura pinned him in a stare. “Take care of her, damn it.”
“She’s safe with me, Laura,” he said, the intensity of his vow a surprisingly welcome comfort.
Emotion lodged in her chest, and Laura couldn’t find her voice. Rinehart’s hand touched her back. “We should go.” He spoke with gentle urgency, and she nodded. With one last long hug, she turned away from Kresley.
Not looking back was the hard part.
Chapter 17
How she had acted calmly as she hugged Kresley goodbye, Laura didn’t know. Perhaps it had been the absoluteness she’d felt in Lucan’s promise to protect Kresley. Or perhaps it was the man now walking by her side across the parking lot toward the lab—Rinehart. The quiet strength he offered had done more for her than a million words. He’d been there by her side as she talked the kids through their fears, helping her stay strong for them.
They paused at the bottom of the stairs. “You’re sure Walch doesn’t know anything is wrong yet?” Rinehart asked. She looked at the building and reached out to it, feeling the life within it, the emotions.
“I’m sure,” she said bringing Rinehart back into focus.
“All right then,” he said. “We’ll get in and get out, and leave this place behind forever.”
“Just walk in like nothing is wrong,” she said, reminding herself of his instructions.
“That’s right,” he said, his hand brushing her lower back as he urged her to start making their way inside. “Simple as baking a cake.”
She laughed. “Since I’ve never baked a cake in my life, that’s not the best comparison.”
“Really?” he asked. “Never?”
“What?” she challenged. “I’m a woman, so you think I have to bake?”
“Never known a woman that baked,” he said. “I was hoping you might be the first.”
Unbelievably, she was laughing as he held the door open for her. A good thing considering that two soldiers exited at the same time. She punched the elevator button. “Sorry to disappoint you.”
“You are many things,” he said softly. “But a disappointment is not one of them.”
Warmth climbed through her body as she allowed herself to fall into the depths of his eyes, melting into a place where the danger of their present circumstances didn’t seem to exist. Why that was, how he delivered her there, she didn’t know. Nor was it relevant. It simply helped—he helped.
The elevator dinged, the sound of reality calling her back into action. Together they faced forward and stepped inside. Together they hoped and prayed it wouldn’t be the last ride of their lives.
Thirty minutes later, Laura pulled the flash drive from her computer and slipped the drive’s lanyard around her neck, tucking it beneath her dress. And then, heart racing, she punched the key to destroy all remaining data on the computer.
It was done. The only documented record of her work was hanging around her neck. Legs more than a little wobbly, she pushed to her feet and grabbed the bag on her desk. Rinehart sat a few feet away at the lab table, pretending to look at samples under a microscope. He looked up from what he was doing and smiled. “Do I finally get you to myself now?” he asked, referring to the facade of a dinner date they’d started talking about in the elevator for anyone who might be watching on the monitors.
“I feel guilty for leaving,” she said, playing along. “You’re sure Lucan can look in on the patients?”
“Absolutely,” he promised, stretching languidly as he rose—the facade of being in no rush whatsoever. But he was in a rush. Laura could feel the urgency beating at him, pressing him to grab her and run. They both knew that at any moment, Walch could discover her patients weren’t even in the building. He studied her a moment, his hot inspection sliding dow
n her body with such precision, she was almost certain he wasn’t in a hurry after all. His attention lingered on her feet and lifted to her face. “Let’s stop by your room and get you into something a little more comfortable.”
Translation—shoes she could run in without injury. Check. She was eager to get out of here, but equally as eager to survive. A thought that had her anxiety spiking, as she remembered the menace she’d sensed in those woods. She’d just sent her patients, the closest thing she had to family, out into those very same woods. The woods that she and Rinehart were about to travel, as well. The only safe place seemed to be no place at all.
Walch walked into his apartment to find Carol sitting at the head of his dining table, a wineglass in her hand. With supreme effort he shut the door with an easy, unaffected nudge, restraining the anger that the audacity of her actions created. He’d made her; her soul had been claimed by him.
“So glad you’re home, darling,” she purred, as if she were his woman, as if she belonged anywhere but beneath him in bed.
He took a step toward her, his gaze brushing her throat, his hand touching the knot of his tie. He loosened it, and contemplated wrapping it around her neck and torturing her. But then, she was the pet to Lithe and Litha, and facing them again gave him pause.
“I take it by your presence that you’ve completed your duty?” Another step and he hesitated, sniffed. The air was filled with the scent of fear instead of the arrogance she’d acquired from the guardians. She was without their protection. This realization would have pleased him if not for the formidable message that scent disclosed. Something had gone wrong and he would pay the price, not her.
Her response came slowly, her actions proof she was in avoidance mode. She sipped her wine and painted on a smile. Her lips quivered. “I can’t wait to see Laura panic over her darling Kresley’s meltdown.”
Skeptical in light of her nervousness, he pressed her. “So then, Kresley has been marked?”
“Oh, yes,” she confirmed, perking up with pleasure lighting the evil in her soulless eyes.
“And the others?” he asked, closing the distance between them, one slow step at a time. “What of them?”
Her chin lifted with uneasy defiance. “Why are they necessary?” she challenged. “Kresley is the only one Laura truly cares about. If you have her, you have Laura. If you have Laura, they will all follow.”
“You fool!” Walch blasted. “They will run.”
He charged across the room to the kitchen and turned on the monitors while already dialing his phone. “Lock down the building,” he said, flipping through the channels. In a matter of seconds he quickly verified that the patients were absent from their rooms. He dialed the phone again, gave orders to hunt down Laura and Rinehart and everyone associated with the two of them, and bring them to him.
“You’re upset over nothing,” Carol said from behind him.
Rage shifted him from man to Beast as he whirled around to find her in the doorway. “Do not think Tezi will not hear of this. And do not think I will not ensure he knows it is the guardians that failed.”
Her eyes suddenly flashed with anger; whatever fear she had been harboring slipped away. “You do not want the guardians as enemies any more than you want Tezi as one.” She hissed the threat, standing taller now, confident again. “As for the patients, in case you forget, this is an island. If they were stupid enough to run, they cannot go far. We will find them through Kresley’s mark.”
Walch knew the empty rooms confirmed they had, indeed, run. “Then do it,” he challenged, thinking of the human survival instinct. He’d once seen a man cut off his own leg to save his life. Leaving behind medication was nothing in comparison. “Call Lithe and Litha to you. Have them find Kresley.”
Her bravado melted instantly, and he realized that the source of her fear came back to this moment. “Lithe and Litha were forced to go underground to replenish. Lithe was injured while marking Kresley.”
Interesting. So fire was the weapon to use against the guardians. Stupid woman was full of useful information. He schooled his face into a blank expression. “What of Litha?”
“They function as two parts of one existence.”
“So they can do nothing to aid our efforts,” he said flatly, his mind processing.
“They can,” she insisted.
“When?”
She swallowed hard. “Soon.”
He turned away from her, processing, planning. The guardians were manipulative. They offered him aid, but he knew it was all part of the game they played. They’d help him if they received a favor in return, but only if it cost them nothing with Tezi. And soon, they would all face Tezi, and someone would fall. That someone would not be him.
He turned back to Carol. “If you want to live,” he said, “come with me.”
Rinehart wasn’t sure which one of them reacted first, but as he and Laura stepped out of the building, warnings rushed though his head, and his nerves tingled with the threat of Beasts ready to attack. One quick look at Laura confirmed she felt it, too. In silent agreement, they launched into a run, down the stairs, only a second before shouts came from behind them.
Soldiers charged at them from the left and right, at least five or six from each direction. “Damn!” he yelled, with no option but to keep running. He had no weapons, and hand-to-hand with Laura to protect wasn’t going to work.
“Over here!”
Rinehart looked up at the same moment that Des tossed him a sheathed sword and Max stepped from the woods, already matching blades with another Beast. With a fast cut of his blade, Max beheaded a Beast. The head fell to the ground. A second later, the Beast burst into flames.
Laura gasped, but Rinehart didn’t have time to respond, rotating to catch the weapon Des had thrown his way—and not a second too soon, as a Beast charged at him, a sword in hand.
Rinehart shoved Laura behind him as Rock and Des fell into a line with him, creating a wall protecting Laura from the ongoing attacks. He could only pray no one came from behind. “You aren’t supposed to be here,” he yelled at Des, who stood to his left.
Des sliced his blade through the air in an attempt to disarm one of his attackers, casting Rinehart a sideways grin as his efforts paid off. “You thought you could have a party and not invite me?” He ripped his blade through the air and took the Beast’s head.
“He had another vision,” Rock said, from the right.
As even more Beasts charged their way, Rinehart wasn’t complaining about the help.
“Want to tell me what happens next?” he asked Des.
“Nothing you’re gonna like,” Des said. “So just keep on fighting.”
Stunned by what she had just seen, Laura found herself shoved behind Rinehart and two of his men. She was living a nightmare in some sort of alternate universe. There was no other explanation for saber-toothed monsters and chopped-off heads that turned to fire and ash.
But the evil was all around her, oozing from all directions, seeping into her pores, through her mind, into her senses—screaming with how very real this was. Fight. She had to fight the monsters. No one was coming at them from behind, so she whirled around to face forward, then sidestepped to get a good view. Her heart raced like a pounding drum, chased a rhythm straight to her throat. She was out of practice, afraid she would fail. She watched as one of the creatures cut Rinehart’s arm, and she gasped; fear for his safety driving her to act. Her hand lifted and sliced through the air. The attacker’s weapon flew to the ground.
Relief over Rinehart’s safety filled her with the will to continue.
Five more Beasts were charging in their direction. Laura raised her hand again. Their weapons ripped from their hands. Confidence filled her.
“Laura!” Rinehart yelled in warning, as an attacker charged at her, obviously trying to take her captive rather than killing her. She whipped her hand in his direction, and imagined a great force. He flew through the air and hit a tree. The Beasts began to retreat.
Rinehart grabbed her arm. “Let’s go.”
She glanced up at him for only a moment, but still saw the shock in his expression at all she had done, felt it in the others—Des, Rock and Max.
Laura prepared to run, stilled by the familiar voice that lashed through the air.
“Laura!”
“Carol,” Laura whispered, turning to see her approaching. Walch was by her side and he looked human, but the two soldiers with them were beastly and horrid, like the soldiers Rinehart and his men had killed. One side of their face was human, the other, animal, each with a huge eye and ragged features. Fangs snarled over their lips. Laura couldn’t look at them, didn’t want to. Instead, she focused on Carol—her patient, her friend, part of her family—trying to find something human beneath the taint. Her eyes were darker, her skin whiter. Clothes tighter, more revealing. Hair, wild.
“This isn’t the Carol you once knew,” Rinehart warned her, eyeing the speed at which Carol and the others approached. “We have to go while we can.”
“I know,” Laura said, not taking her eyes off of Carol, noting the two long blades in her hands. “But I have to try and find her again.” Somewhere inside of this Carol was the gentle woman Laura had once known.
“You can’t. Think of the others. Think of the research in our possession that is at risk.”
Carol stopped abruptly, and, to Laura’s horror, the blades the other woman held flew through the air, not thrown by her hands but launched with her mental abilities. The steel rocketed toward Des and Max.
Laura raised her hands, and the blades fell to the ground. There was a moment of shocked silence, all eyes on Laura. The hatred in Carol’s eyes sent chills down Laura’s spine. Walch shoved Carol behind him, as if he feared Laura would connect with her.
“If you think your grand abilities surprise or frighten me,” he drawled, “they don’t. I’ve always known you were more capable than any of your subjects.” He eyed Rinehart. “I know who you are now. I’ve heard stories of the Knights with their grand swords. But hear this, Knight. Know this.” Anger lashed through his words. “You picked the wrong enemy. Your deceit has done nothing but seal my will to see every one of your kind destroyed.”
Captive of the Beast Page 17
