Dark Wrath

by Anwar, Celeste

  “They caught us with our pants down, trapped between the jungle and the beach. The end results woulda been the same.”

  “I would’ve been willing to fight to the death,” the man groused.

  “We came to rescue my son and destroy their research. Dyin’ wouldn’t have helped our clansmen.”

  “And this will? They’ll be expecting us now. There won’t be no sneak attack.”

  “They will be diminished now,” Jesse growled. “They are too arrogant to resist the temptation of assaulting this compound. They’ll throw everythin’ they’ve got at it. When they do, we’ll use the distraction to escape … and the panther army will become part of our army, whether they agreed to help us or not. While the clansmen and the Feds are busy slugging it out, we’ll take the facility and take care of our business here.”

  Tavian grinned abruptly. “Good thinking, mon ami!”

  Billy Ray studied Jesse thoughtfully. “What if they’re not interested in rescuing Dr. Wagner?”

  Jesse grimaced. “Then we’re up shit creek without a paddle. Anybody else got any suggestions? I’m wide open.”

  A man near the back spoke up. “So they come and they distract de panther clan. We’re stuck in this cell. What den?”

  Jesse shook his head. “This cell cain’t hold us once we shift.”

  Everyone looked the cell over a little doubtfully. “The walls must be two feet thick, solid stone.”

  “The door isn’t,” Jesse said dryly. He glanced at Billy Ray. “I suppose it’s too much to hope they didn’t scuddle the yacht?”

  “It’s on a sand bar in a little cover maybe six miles north of here. The tide was out when we hit it, though. It shouldn’t be too hard to dislodge it once the tide rises again.”

  Jesse frowned in thought. “When we make our break, I want you five,” he said finally, pointing to Tavian, Billy Ray and three other men, “to take Erin back, and get the yacht out into open water again.”

  Tavian and Billy Ray immediately began to protest.

  “This ain’t a democracy. It’s an order,” Jesse said tightly.

  Erin sat up. “What about the baby?”

  “We’ll get him.”

  “Sneak in, you mean, and then out again?”

  “I don’t think we’re going to have to worry too much about stealth--the bulk of the soldiers will be here, unless they don’ take the bait.”

  “But all the noise will scare him,” Erin pointed out. “I’m the only one here that has something to keep him occupied and quiet.”

  She was almost sorry she’d mentioned it. The comment drew all eyes to her breasts. Suddenly self-conscious, she sank against Jesse’s chest again. When she looked up at Jesse, she saw that he was studying her with amusement. “Point taken. Billy Ray, take two men with you to retrieve the ship. The rest of us will hit the lab together, but you’ll stay out the way. Clear?”

  Erin nodded.

  “And you’ll follow orders.”

  Erin gave him a look. “For the raid, right?”

  His lips twitched. “Chère,” he murmured warningly, and then stopped abruptly as if he’d just realized they had an interested audience.

  “Let’s not fight about it now. Later you can explain what Carlos meant about the marks,” she added in a whisper.

  He nuzzled her ear. “You’re wasting your time whispering,” he said low near her ear. “Lycan hearing is extremely acute … and fighting wasn’t exactly what I had in mind.”

  Erin felt her face catch fire.

  Several of the men chuckled.

  She tried to convince herself it was because of something someone else had said that she hadn’t overheard, but she had a bad feeling she was wrong.

  * * * *

  The Feds announced their arrival at dark thirty with a bomb blast that shook the walls around the captives so hard debris rained down all over them. The concussion rattled Erin’s teeth together. She bit her tongue, wincing as the coppery taste of blood filled her mouth. Jesse curled around her until the chips of stone, splinters of wood, and sand had stopped showering them and then set her away from him abruptly and came up on his hands and knees.

  Wakened so abruptly from a doze and still disoriented, Erin lolled groggily against the wall, watching in growing horror as the men in the cell began to shift into their beast forms. Within moments, all signs of humanity vanished from them and surrounding her were snarling man-wolves.

  Jesse launched himself against the door, battering it with his shoulder. It splintered with the second blow and burst outward with the third, falling into several pieces. The men poured through the opening. Erin had pressed herself against the wall to avoid the stampede. When the men had cleared the door, Jesse reached inside, grabbing her arm and hauling her behind him as he strode down the corridor.

  The noise outside the main structure was almost deafening. Explosions and gunfire mingled with the hoarse cries and screams of men and manbeasts. The air was a suffocating soup of dust, smoke, and gunpowder. Blinded by the smoke, Erin stumbled along in Jesse’s wake, trying her best to keep up with him, her heart pounding so hard with fear her lungs labored all the harder to provide her with oxygen, making her dizzy.

  Before the group could clear the building, a knot of the panthers burst inside.

  Both groups halted abruptly at sight of each other, tensing to battle.

  “This way,” the leader of the group bellowed. “There’s a passage beneath the mission that leads to the caves. It exits at the falls about a mile from the coast.”

  The Lycan all turned to look at Jesse questioningly. He nodded. Turning, they followed the panthers down the narrow hall that led to the cell where Erin had spent her first hours at the encampment. The door opposite her cell door opened to a narrow flight of stairs that led almost straight down, more like a ladder than stairs. Swinging Erin up into his arms, Jesse held her tightly to his chest as he raced down into the darkness below the mission.

  The cool air below soothed Erin’s eyes, but she could see no better in the darkness. One of the panthers lit a torch. “I am Carlos’ second. I cannot go with you, but Juan will show you the way. There are caves beneath the island fortress, as well. The gringos thought they had sealed them off, but there is another way inside that he can show you.” He grinned suddenly. “You should hurry and find your son before we send these gringos scurrying for home.”

  Jesse motioned for his men to follow Juan. When they’d passed, he held out his hand to the man who’d helped them. “If you ever find yourself in need of a friend, I am your man.”

  The beastman took it in a firm clasp. “I will remember … in case of need, señor Lycan.”

  “Jesse.”

  The man grinned. “Guillume.”

  Jesse grinned back at him. “Good hunting, Guillume.”

  When Guillume had headed back the way they had just come, Jesse set Erin on her feet. As she stared at him blankly, he knelt on the floor. “We need to move fast, chère. Get on my back and hold tight.”

  Disconcerted, Erin nevertheless didn’t argue. The faster they went the better as far as she was concerned and she knew she couldn’t possibly keep up with him on her own. To her stunned amazement, he began to shift once more when she’d climbed onto his back. In the blink of his eye, he was no longer manbeast, but a great wolf that looked like any other save for the fact that he was far larger than most wolves.

  She was nearly unseated when he launched himself into a run. Burying her face against his back, she tightened her arms around him, unable to focus on anything beyond hanging on for all she worth. When Erin finally nerved herself to open her eyes for a look around, she discovered they’d left the smooth artificially formed corridor behind. The walls that closed in far too closely for her peace of mind on either side of them were pock marked, as if they’d been blasted.

  The sound of rushing water grew louder and louder as they traveled until it became a deafening roar. She could see no sign of it, though, and finally decided
that the water must be following some other channel in the rock.

  As the flickering light of the torch the lead man was carrying finally sputtered and went out, the cavern descended briefly into blackness. Erin realized after a few moments that it wasn’t a total absence of light, however. Lifting her head, she saw in the distance a lighter patch. As Jesse raced toward it, the area around them grew brighter and brighter and she realized they were nearing the mouth of the cave.

  The narrow stone corridor they were following widened abruptly into a tremendous cavern. Water rushed along channels on either side of them now, splashed and trickled down the walls, gusted from natural spouts here and there. Within moments Erin was soaked to the skin with the fine mist rising from the water, her hair plastered to her skull and dripping rivulets of water along her cheeks and forehead.

  She didn’t dare loosen her grip on Jesse even for a moment, though. She was still trying to blink the water from her eyes so that she could see when they emerged from the mouth of the cave. The night sky was like a great, midnight blue bowl above them, sprinkled liberally with winking silver specs of light. Rising just above the trees, the full moon was a huge golden-orange globe of light that lit everything beneath it like dawn.

  The water rushing through the cavern burst forth into nothingness and dropped below them to drop some fifteen to twenty feet to form a round pool. The others had vanished when Erin opened her eyes, but she saw them swimming toward the banks.

  She had just enough time to utter the words, “Jesse don’t you dar--,” when he leapt from the ledge toward the water below. Her arms and legs tightened around him spasmodically. She sucked in a breath to scream and strangled as they hit the water and plunged beneath the surface. Releasing her grip on him, she pushed off of him and swam frantically upward. By the time her head broke the surface of the water, she could do nothing but cough and splutter, pounding the water around her desperately to stay afloat.

  Two very human hands caught her around the waist, hauling her against a hard chest. “Are you alright, chère?”

  She couldn’t stop coughing. “I think I filled my lungs with water,” she said in a hoarse, choked voice.

  “Next time close your mouth. It works better.”

  She would’ve slugged him if he hadn’t been holding her from behind. She had to content herself with elbowing him in the ribcage. He grunted, but she was fairly certain that was more to appease her than because she’d actually managed to knock the breath out of him. The resistance of the water was working against her.

  Without another word he began towing her toward the bank where the others had gathered to wait for them. The moment they saw Jesse nearing the water’s edge, however, they took off once more. Three of the pack split off and followed the bank of the stream. The others plunged into the jungle headed southeast.

  By the time Erin had managed to expel most of the water from her lungs and drag in a decent breath of air, Jesse had shifted into the form of a wolf once more. She would’ve far preferred to walk at this point, but Guillume had suggested they should hurry and she had a feeling that he was right. The Feds were sure to pull back to the island the moment they realized they were taking the worst of the beating.

  Without complaint, she climbed onto Jesse’s back once more, clutched him tightly and prayed it wouldn’t take them long to reach the shore. Guillume had said it was only about a mile from the fall.

  The first fifteen or twenty minutes was rough going as Jesse plowed through the undergrowth, bounding over some of the brush, pressing through other areas. In time they landed upon a narrow trail and the going was easier. As the trail began to take a more northerly turn, though, Jesse left it, pressing through the thick jungle growth again.

  Erin was exhausted just from the effort of holding on while Jesse ran. By the time they finally emerged from the jungle onto the beach she could barely cling to him. The tide was in and very little beach was visible. Grateful that that much of the ordeal was over, Erin slipped off of Jesse’s back and sprawled in the loose sand. She didn’t get the chance to actually rest, however. The other Lycans had already retrieved the dingy and pulled it into the water.

  Jesse shifted from full wolf to manbeast, rising up on two legs. “Get into the dingy, chère, and lie on the floor.”

  Erin nodded. Pushing herself to her feet with an effort, she followed Jesse across the narrow stretch of sand, waded water until it was almost to her knees and yelped when Jesse yanked her off her feet and deposited her in the dingy. Juan and the Lycans surrounded the boat and began moving deeper. “You’re not getting in?” Erin whispered uneasily when they made no move to do so.

  “It’s not designed to hold so many. Don’t talk. Sound carries on the wind.”

  Erin fell silent, staring up at the stars and trying not to think about the possibility of sharks. Lulled by the rocking of the boat and the soft splash of water, Erin found some of the fear that had gripped her since they’d fled the panther compound dissipating. As it did, a sense of excitement began to grow in her. Soon they would have Joshua.

  She couldn’t allow herself to think otherwise and could not bank her rising excitement. She knew he was alive. She didn’t know what they’d done to get the information out of Dr. Wagner, but she didn’t doubt for a moment that it was true.

  It flickered through her mind to wonder what they’d done with the man, not that she particularly cared what happened to him as long it was something bad. He might not have been able to stop the research. He might not have been able to prevent anything they had done to her and her baby, but the fact was he hadn’t tried. He had treated them all as if they were of no more importance than lab rats.

  When it seemed to her that enough time had passed that they must be nearing the island and she’d grown bored with imagining what it would be like to be reunited with her baby at last, Erin turned over carefully and lifted her head just high enough to peer over the edge of the boat.

  She caught a brief glimpse of a rock looming upward from the sea and then a hand landed on the top of her head and shoved her flat again. Fuming silently, she lay still, but the resentment didn’t last more than a second. Her heart was pounding with joy and excitement. Almost there! Only a little while longer and they would have Joshua!

  The sound of waves crashing against the shore finally overshadowed the noise of lapping water around the boat. Erin tensed, listening as it occurred to her belatedly to worry that they might be spotted.

  That was why Jesse had made her lie down in the boat and why the others had swum the distance, buoyed by the boat they guided through the water, because Jesse knew there was still danger that they might be spotted and come under fire. She felt like an idiot. She knew nothing about war tactics, or soldiers, or security. From the sound of the battle at the compound she’d assumed they’d thrown everything they had at them, but they wouldn’t have done that. They might have taken most of the men and left only a small group to guard the island, but they would have left armed men to guard the facility.

  Her joyous excitement deflated like a popped balloon as visions of Jesse running through the halls dodging bullets with baby Joshua in his arms rose to her mind’s eye.

  He could be killed. They both could.

  Would Joshua be better off if she left him alone and didn’t thrust him into danger by trying to free him?

  She was still weighing years of torturous tests and the lack of any affection or attention that would be her baby’s life against the possibility of harm coming to him, when a dark shadow fell over her. Her heart felt as if a giant hand squeezed it. When she whipped around to see what had caused the deep shadow, though, she was relieved to discover it was no more than an outcropping of rock.

  With the wet squeak of something rubbing against rubber, the dingy slipped under it into an inky blackness. Sound echoed around them, intensified by the water and with nowhere to escape.

  They were in a cave.

  And the entrance to the cave was virtually comple
tely submerged.

  The scrape of something against rock caught her attention. She rose up and turned toward the sound just as light seemed to explode around them. As the glare died, she saw that Juan had climbed from the water onto a ledge and lit a small lantern. Setting it aside, he picked up a second lantern, lit it and set it on an outcropping of rock at about shoulder level. The dingy bumped against the edge of the ledge. One by one the Lycans released their hold on the rope around it and heaved themselves up onto the ledge.

  Tavian leaned toward her, holding out his hand while Jesse remained in the water, holding the dingy steady. She reached up, clasped his hand and was yanked from the dingy so hard she thought for a moment he’d dislocated her shoulder.

  That was what came from having most of her weight on the ass end, she thought irritably, rubbing her shoulder absently while she waited for Jesse to emerge from the water. Sloughing the water off, he made hand gestures at the other Lycans.

  Erin gaped at him, completely at sea.

  He fixed her with a stern look and pointed to the ledge. She looked at the ledge and then back at him. “Stay,” he mouthed.

  She narrowed her eyes at him, setting her jaw stubbornly. “NO!” she mouthed back at him.

  She heard his teeth grinding and saw a muscle working in his jaw. He glanced around as if looking for help. The others had already followed his silent command, however, and disappeared. Catching her shoulders, he lowered his head until his mouth was by her ear. “Not one shriek or gasp. No blubbering. Not one sound,” he muttered in a low growl.