She screamed, slinging her bound hands at the man like a bat. The struggle was a frustratingly short one. Before she’d managed to club him more than twice, someone else seized her arms. The soldier that had tackled her grabbed her legs. She kicked at him, managing to free a foot long enough to really piss him off by kicking him in the face. He lost his cool, leaping to his feet and kicking her several times before the guy holding her arms released his grip on her and shoved him back. “Stand down, soldier! We’re supposed to bring her back.”
She hadn’t managed to recover the breath he’d kicked out of her when both men grabbed her and hauled her to her feet, half carrying her and half dragging her back the way she’d just come.
She saw Dr. Wagner as soon as they’d rounded the cabin and crossed the ‘yard’ toward the dock, where the helicopter had settled low enough to disgorge the bastard onto the cypress planks. He looked so pleased with himself, she saw red as fury replaced the sense of defeat that had swallowed her when they’d captured her and begun dragging her back.
She caught the soldiers off guard. Pulling free, she closed the short distance that separated her from Wagner and slugged him with her bound fists. “Where is he, you son of a bitch? What have you done with my baby?” she screamed at him, pounding him several more times before the soldiers caught her and dragged her back.
Chapter Six
Stunned by her attack, Wagner merely stared at her blankly for several moments, examining his bloody nose. “Any sign of the beast?” he asked finally, transferring his gaze to the guards.
The soldier holding her right arm shook his head. “He heard the chopper. He’s probably miles from here by now.”
Wagner looked enraged for several moments. “You said the tracker we implanted in her would lead us to him,” he said angrily. “What use is the damned tracker if you were going to scare him off with the chopper?”
“You tagged me?” Erin screamed furiously, disbelief momentarily distracting her. She realized then with a sickening feeling in the pit of her stomach that Jesse had been right. She had led them to him.
She hadn’t escaped. They’d let her go so that she could help them capture him again.
Bait. The bastards had used her as bait.
“I’ll kill you if you’ve hurt my baby,” she ground out.
Wagner frowned at her. Feeling around the pockets of his lab coat, he produced a syringe. “You won’t be in any condition to do anything,” he said almost pleasantly, stepping up to her and stabbing the needle into her arm.
Pain lanced through her and she winced, feeling despair fill her as the drug began to circulate through her. “Take me to him. Please! He needs me!”
“He’s in good hands,” Wagner said easily, his voice beginning to slur in her ears and grow distant as the sedative kicked in and her knees turned to jelly. “Take her to the chopper. This is a bust. We’ll have to think of another way to trap a specimen.”
* * * *
Jesse emerged from the reeds slowly as the chopper lifted off, struggling against the temptation to leap onto the dock and hitch a ride on the helicopter’s pontoons. While he internally debated the pros and cons of giving in to the urge, the chopper gained altitude and the moment was lost.
Frustration surged through him for several moments, threatening to further disrupt his ability to think. After a moment, he tamped it. Summoning his beast, he loped after the chopper, trailing it with his keen senses, praying they wouldn’t turn toward sea where he would have no way of following.
His prayers were answered. They followed the coast line for miles and finally turned inland. He shadowed them until they reached the edge of the swamp, watching from the concealment of the trees until the helicopter was no more than a speck in the sky.
A sense of purpose filled him as he saw it begin to descend.
He had hoped that they would not go far. He hadn’t expected that they would, but there had been a risk in allowing them to leave without him. He stayed to listen a while, reaching out with his senses until he could no longer even hear the chopper.
That didn’t mean it had landed, but the swamps were where their prey lived. Knowing that, they wouldn’t have set up shop far from the source.
He’d wondered if he was mad to give Erin the second mark, virtually sealing his own fate.
He was fiercely glad now that he hadn’t been able to resist the impulse. Their tie was stronger. He could follow her.
After a time, he melted back into the swamp and lifted his head to summon the brethren. Ordinarily, he would not have been able to contain his impatience to go, but it was different now. There was more at stake and he couldn’t risk harm coming to them.
He would need help to take back what had been stolen from him--his woman and his son.
* * * *
It took an effort to throw off the after effects of the sedative. Erin’s first awareness was of discomfort, minor aches that nevertheless discouraged her from coming fully awake. Memories began to intrude, however, making it impossible to seek oblivion again.
She opened her eyes slowly, staring up at the ceiling for many moments before she allowed her gaze to sweep the room she found herself in.
It could’ve been the same room she’d been imprisoned in for nearly a year. It had the same institutional look to it, clean, cold and impersonal.
The inevitable sense of loss swept over her as she became fully conscious, aware of the aching tightness of her breasts, and she placed a hand over her flat stomach. Joshua was gone. For weeks now she’d thought of little beyond finding him. She’d thought, or at least made herself hope, in the beginning that they were only running tests on the baby and they would bring him to her once they’d satisfied their curiosity.
When one week had dragged into another and then another, the hope had dwindled and the determination had grown in her to find her baby and take him back. She’d refused to allow herself even to think of the possibility that she might fail, struggling to pump her breasts the best she could to keep her milk in production so that she could feed her baby when she had him back.
She’d been so focused on escaping and rescuing Joshua, she’d blinded herself to the ease with which she’d finally won her freedom.
They’d let her go in hopes of recapturing Jesse--or another Lycan, anyway. It was possible they thought he was dead considering how many times he’d been shot while escaping.
And she’d led them right to him.
Before the full implications of that could set in, she pushed herself upright.
She saw she was wearing one of the ugly gray shifts they had provided her with since she’d been imprisoned. Once she’d studied the room thoroughly, she was certain she was in the same cell, not just another one that looked like the one she’d occupied for so long.
Looking back, she realized her naiveté was almost pathetically laughable. Even after they’d drugged her and used her to collect the specimens from Jesse, she had been screaming the house down when she’d been brought here and imprisoned, demanding her rights, threatening to sue, threatening to bring charges against them.
It wasn’t as if they didn’t know they were romping all over her rights as an American citizen. Jesse, whatever he was, had those same rights and that hadn’t deterred them one iota.
They were the government. She had no rights unless they gave them to her, unless they upheld them and they weren’t the least bit worried about consequences.
She’d been afraid when she’d first come to the conclusion that they didn’t care about her rights. That the reason they were so unconcerned was because they didn’t intend for her to live long enough to make waves. It had dawned upon her after a while that that wasn’t necessarily the case. She couldn’t prove any of the things that they’d done to her. Even if they finally decided to let her go, it was much more likely that she’d find herself institutionalized for paranoia than that anyone would actually listen to her.
The sense of impotence made her blood boil. She ta
mped it. Raging wasn’t going to get her anywhere.
Throwing her legs over the side of the cot, she got up and used the facilities, then washed her face, brushed her teeth to get rid of the horrible cotton mouth from being drugged, and combed her hair.
They were watching, she knew. They were always watching.
As if in answer to her thoughts, a panel in the door slid back and a tray scraped along the floor as one of the guards pushed food in to her. She turned at the sound, just in time to see the arm disappearing again. The panel slid shut.
She had little interest in the food, but she retrieved it anyway, taking a seat on the cot with the tray across her lap.
As she nibbled at the tasteless food, she considered her situation. They’d brought her back and they hadn’t given her her baby, so it had nothing to do with any anxiety about his health. She refused to consider that they might have no reason to be concerned about it because he was beyond the need for care. He was alive. She felt it in her soul and she didn’t believe that was only because she wanted it to be true. She felt certain that she would have sensed it if he was dead. Maybe she was lying to herself. Maybe that was something every mother believed deep down, that they’d just know because the link was so strong between them and their child, but she refused to consider that it was only hope.
And if she was right, then there was only one reason that she could think of that they’d brought her back. They expected to have use of her.
Either they meant to use her to breed another hybrid.
Or they meant to try using her as bait to catch another Lycan.
Possibly both.
Either way, they weren’t going to allow her to escape. They’d already tried that and failed to capture the Lycan they wanted. If that was the agenda, then they would try something that gave them more control next time.
Unwelcome, thoughts of Jesse crept into her mind.
Guilt had swamped her for a long time after she’d orchestrated his escape, because so many had been killed, but mostly because, by releasing him, she’d been his executioner. She wasn’t certain how she felt about the fact that he’d survived. Relief was part of it. That she needn’t shoulder the guilt of having a hand in his death, and the death of her child’s father.
Her feelings went beyond that, though.
In the first months after she’d been imprisoned, she’d had nothing but time and her thoughts. As reluctant as she’d been to relive that time, she hadn’t been able to help it and every time the memories had replayed, she’d discovered some nuance in his expression and the things he’d said and the way he’d behaved that she hadn’t noticed before.
She’d convinced herself she cared for him and mourned his loss. She was no longer certain that it was anything else beyond a need to convince herself that what she’d been through hadn’t been the clinical nightmare she’d thought, though. Maybe some, or even most, of it was true. Maybe not.
It didn’t really seem to matter now one way or the other. If she had guessed right and he had had feelings for her beyond lust, he hated her now and she doubted she could change that even if she wanted to.
That thought had no sooner crossed her mind than she realized she did want to. It didn’t really matter how she’d come to care for him, it seemed, whether she’d fallen for him by way of fantasy, or because of who and what he truly was. The bottom line was that she did care--enough that it hurt to think he hated her and the need filled her to try to make him understand that none of the things that had happened were things she’d done or even had any control over.
It seemed unlikely she would get the chance. The agency wasn’t through with either one of them. If they captured him again, particularly if they used her to do so, he would hate her all the more and she didn’t think it was likely that he would allow his desire for her to influence him in her favor.
She wasn’t even certain he desired her anymore for that matter. It seemed to her that he had been pretty damned good at teasing her and remaining aloof. In the end, he had given in--just long enough to discover her secret--and he probably hated her even more for that.
It was hopeless, she realized. If there had ever been a chance, there wasn’t one now.
Worse, she didn’t know how he might feel about Joshua. If he’d been human, there was probably at least a 60/40 chance in her favor that he wouldn’t give a damn about the baby one way or the other--certainly not enough to challenge her for the child. He wasn’t human, though. He was Lycan, and she had no idea how strong his parental instincts might be. If they were strong enough to goad him into going after his child, he would take Joshua and she would never see her baby again because he hated her, because she was human and she knew that as much as he despised humans in general and her in particular it was very unlikely he’d allow her near his young.
If the worst case scenario was that Jesse would find Joshua and take him away from the agency, then she could rest easier with that than to think the agency had their hands on her baby.
What were the chances, though, that he could find Joshua when she hadn’t been able to? He hadn’t even been able to find her. If she’d understood what she’d heard correctly, he had had to rely on her returning to the lab.
God only knew where they’d taken Joshua, she thought, swallowing against the knot of misery that formed in her throat.
He could be in the same facility where she was, but she didn’t think so. She’d been transferred to the current facility after his birth. He was either still at the hospital where he’d been born or they’d taken him to a different facility altogether to prevent any chance that she could get near him.
When she’d finished eating, she got up and set the tray on the floor in front of the panel on the door. They hadn’t given her anything to eat with. She’d used the utensils before to destroy the cameras and tried to work the lock open. Since then, she’d gotten nothing she couldn’t eat with her hands.
She searched the room for the cameras anyway, squirting a good dollop of mustard on the lens of each--there were three, two in plain sight and the last ‘hidden’. She would’ve used the catsup except that she liked catsup. She wouldn’t be getting any more mustard.
It was a lame rebellion, but the only thing she could do at the moment. For now, she had a little privacy at least.
She moved back to the cot and settled on it, trying to jog her memory of her outward trip the day she’d escaped. Assuming she was in the same facility, she had to be on one of the lower levels, which meant underground. The walls were poured concrete. She wasn’t going to be able to dig out.
There was a dropped ceiling in the room, but she knew the metal was only strong enough to support the tiles, which meant they wouldn’t support her. The vent in the ceiling was no better. The opening was so small she doubted anything bigger than a rabbit could climb through the duct work.
That left the door, and unfortunately, electronics wasn’t her field. She might be able to beat the panel off of the lock, but she didn’t have a clue about changing the wiring to open the door. If she had time, she might manage it by trial and error, but she knew that if she disabled their ability to see what she was doing, she wouldn’t have much time before they came to check on her.
A sense of frustration and urgency washed over her. She had to figure out some way to escape and find Joshua.
* * * *
“Dis is an ant hill, mon ami. How we supposed to sneak in and grab the female? I count ten guards around the perimeter. I guarantee we stir dis ant hill, gonna be a lot more pourin’ out of the hill.”
Jesse glanced at Tavian. “Which is why I’ll need help. It’s gonna take a hell of a diversion to pull this off.”
Tavian exchanged a look with Billy Ray. “Dynomite? I don’t mind rock’n roll, but there’s only three of us. Gonna take some big noise to create the distraction you talkin’ about,” Billy Ray muttered.
Jesse frowned but shook his head. “I need to have a look inside first.”
Tavian and
Billy Ray exchanged another speaking glance. “How you gonna have a look in the ant hill without sneakin’ in? I ain’t seen no way in or out but the front door,” Tavian put in.
“There’s always a back way, mes ami,” Jesse said, smiling grimly. “No matter how secure, any place with people, ant hill or not, gotta have air, gotta have power, gotta have water supply and sewage. I found the air shaft. I’m goin’ in the back door, see if I can tie in to their computer system and have a look see. When we know what we can expect inside, you two gonna convince the pack to help with the diversion.”
Tavian looked troubled. “I doan know, Jesse. The pack is pissed about these doin’s, but it’s gonna take some fast talkin’ to convince them this is somethin’ we need to do.”
“Then you’ll have to make them understand that I ain’t the only one these bastards are after. They got it in mind to use the Lycan for some kind of war toy, make no mistake. They stole my seed to breed half-breeds. They ain’t gonna stop there. If this is where the research is being done, it’s a threat to the whole pack--and not just this pack. I ain’t just talkin’ about retrievin’ what’s mine. I’m talkin’ about protectin’ the brethren from the humans. This is ain’t just personal. It’s all-out war.”
There was only one guard within sight of the mouth of the air shaft. Jesse studied him a while. It wouldn’t take much to take the guy out, but then they would know something was up and they’d beef up security at the very least. The place was already swarming with security. He didn’t want to make it any harder to crack the nut.
Dark Wrath Page 8
