Perfect Mate

by Mina Carter

  “Keep this up and you’ll spark some new urban legends. The Lycan Whisperer. You’ll be famous!” Palmer chuckled. At her look, he shrugged. “Not even the doctors back at base can work out who’s who when we’ve shifted. Well, apart from Nic and the boss-man. Our gal’s coloring is too distinctive to be missed, and the captain’s too big. The rest of us are too similar in wolf form.”

  She lifted an eyebrow, surprised at that, and looked back at Sanders and Darce. “But it’s easy to spot who’s who. It’s in their eyes, the way they hold themselves.”

  Before Palmer could add more, the sound of running feet echoed down the corridor. Richards, sent to spy on the troops outside, skidded around the corner, hopped neatly over the pile of bodies and came to stop between the hulking forms of Sanders and Darce, followed at a run by the remaining two members of the squad, who’d introduced themselves earlier as Blake and Thom. She wondered what their wolves would look like, what aspect of their human appearance or mannerisms would cross over to their lupine forms.

  “Move your big ass, LT,” Thom quipped as he almost collided with Darce, and the trio looked at Jack.

  “Still got the commandos out there, and that female Blood. Choppers show no sign of giving it up either…” Richards stopped and looked around the small group. “We’re trapped.”

  She froze, picking up her cue from the silent men and wolves around her. Trapped wasn’t good. They’d already sent zombies in, so what were they going to send next? Dracula? They’d already said there was a vampire out there, so…Bride of Dracula?

  Jack dropped his head and slid out from under her arm. Feeling an immediate sense of loss, she tried not to pout and stepped away as he started to change. Like before, it was like a scene out of a cheap horror movie as his fur receded, swallowed up into his skin as bones popped and skin stretched. Unlike with Darce in the cell, this was quick. Under the influence of silver, Darce had seemed unsure about what shape he needed to be, but Jack certainly knew. Within seconds, he’d shifted forms, and a familiar figure crouched where the big wolf had been.

  A familiar and very naked figure.

  Oh my. Her eyes widened as he uncurled himself and stood. She knew the ripped physique, the toned muscles. She was even visually acquainted with his tight-as-hell ass. The light smattering of hair that followed the center line of his toned abs, teasing her earlier by disappearing into his pants, was fully revealed now. It arrowed down his flat stomach and beyond to thin out just before it reached his groin. Her eyes widened as she got a glimpse of his cock, but before she could blush, or even look away, Palmer moved and a bundle of cloth hit Jack in the middle of the chest.

  “For fucks sake, put it away, boss man. Some of us don’t want your one-eyed staring us in the face.”

  A grin twisted the Alpha’s lips as he started to pull the pants on. “Button it. We all know you’re just jealous.” The banter slid from his lips without apparent thought because the next moment Jack’s expression was serious.

  “Now, listen up,” he said, his voice calm and collected. “Because I’m going to make this short and sweet.”

  The squad moved closer, even the wolves. Lillian found herself between the furry bulk of Darce and the smooth-skinned heat of Jack’s half-naked body. The absurdity of the situation hit her as as he started to talk. She was stuck between a wolf and a guy who looked like he’d stepped out of a Hollywood blockbuster. Oh yeah, and they were about to battle zombies and could die. It sucked to be her.

  “We’re trapped like rats in a cage, and the enemy is knocking on the door. They sure as fuck ain’t here to borrow a cup of sugar. Oh no, they’re breathing down our necks with a Blood, flamethrowers…”

  The three wolves pulled their lips back and snarled at the word. She guessed that even though they were human some of the time, the instinctive fear of fire was still strong.

  “And a couple of gunships. You know why? Because we’re different. They made us what we are, but they can’t control us. They opened Pandora’s box, and now they’re shitting themselves because they can’t close it. So they made themselves judge, jury and executioner…and our numbers are up.”

  Jack paused for breath as he finished buttoning his pants. “But you know what? Fuck ’em.” His snarl echoed along the tiled walls of the corridor. “They might be Project, they might be human—most of them—but they are now the enemy, and they should be in no doubt we are their nemesis.”

  Her breath caught at the power and conviction in his voice. It sounded very much like one of those “we’re outnumbered, behind enemy lines, let’s take as many of the enemy with us” speeches from just about any of the war movies she’d seen.

  “I know I’m not going to make it. But this has been coming since they shoved that virus in my veins and made me into what I am. But that’s cool. I just didn’t make it out this time.”

  “Hmmm, Jack?” she tried to interrupt, but her soft query fell on deaf ears, buried under his impassioned speech.

  “But the line must be drawn. Here.” He pointed savagely at the ground. “Here and no further. Here they learn what pissing off a Lycan pack means. If we’re damned, then let’s be damned for what we really are.”

  “Jack,” she tried again, her voice louder this time. “You don’t need to. I think I have—”

  He wasn’t listening to her, too caught up in the drama of the moment.

  “We’ve got to get mad to fulfill that promise, to fuel the fire and prove to them that they do not want to fuck with us. That they can start the fight, but we will finish it.”

  “Jack, there’s a way out.”

  “This is our time…this is our day. This is—”

  “Would you shut up and listen, you stupid mutt?”

  The silence after her shout was so complete that the sound of a pin dropping would have deafened. All eyes swiveled toward Lillian, the stunned expression on their faces so comical that, if the situation hadn’t been so bad, she’d have burst out laughing.

  Nic slid to the floor and covered her nose with her paws. Beside her, Darce’s gold-amber eyes sparkled with amusement. Jack was the first to find his voice.

  “Did you just call me a mutt?” he asked carefully.

  “Yes! Fur, paws…” she gestured vaguely in his direction. “Selective deafness. Just like my aunt’s lab. He always ignores me unless I have food for him. So…mutt.”

  A sense of amusement rippled through the pack, Palmer putting voice to it. “A lab. Yeah, I can see that… Boss does look kinda lab-like. It’s around the ears, I think.”

  If looks could kill, Palmer would have keeled over from the furious glare Jack shot him.

  “Well, darling, you have all my attention now. What’s so important you have to call me a mutt?”

  “Don’t forget the lab part.” Richards grinned.

  Jack ignored the muttered comment in favor of looking at her. His eyes were solid amber. She sucked a breath in, not in fear, not entirely. There was something almost hypnotic about him. She knew he wouldn’t hurt her, not really, but the element of danger thrilled her right down to her toes.

  “Oh, yes!” Fighting the pull of his unusual eyes she forced herself to remember what she’d been going to say. “There’s a way out. There’s an old maintenance tunnel, leads to the old boiler house. It’s gone now, the boiler house, but the tunnel’s still there.”

  “And you’re sure this isn’t on the modern plans?”

  Jack still couldn’t believe his luck as, back in their impromptu war room, Lillian spread an old map over the architect’s plans they’d been looking at earlier. Part of him wanted to howl in frustration. If she’d just told him about this earlier, they could’ve gone before the RAs got here.

  “Nope, not at all.”

  She shook her head as she finished spreading the map out and leaned over it. Her ample breasts pressed against the thin blouse she wore. His gaze riveted to the delectable sight. The swell of the luscious globes winked at him, peaking above the deep vee of her ne
ckline. His mouth watered, his body reacting in an instant.

  Jack ignored the reaction and forced himself to concentrate on the map in front of him. It was old, the paper beginning to yellow, and hand-drawn in the style of a bygone era. He traced the lines with his finger. There was a whole level missing from the new plans.

  “The architect who came to survey the place was a sleaze…more interested in hitting on the female staff and making cracks about funny farms. Since he was only interested in the other wing, I figured he didn’t need to know about the sub-basement level in this one. Besides, I’d have been tempted to lock him down there and throw away the key,” she admitted with a wry grin.

  He followed a narrow set of lines, which cut off with a wavy symbol. “The tunnel?”

  She nodded. “Yeah. It re-appears here, coming up under the old boiler house. The structure’s gone now, there’s a little copse out in the gardens to provide visual interest for the patients instead. The tunnel itself should be sound, though. I checked it out about six months back, and there were no signs of damage or imminent collapse. I think… I’m no expert, though.”

  A combined mixture of relief and admiration, he allowed the grin that had been lurking to emerge and spread across his lips. They had a way out. He could get his men, and Lillian, to safety. Heat filled his body as he slid a caressing glance over her curvy figure again. When they were somewhere safe, he was going to take her to bed. Claim her, mark her, make her his and his alone.

  Chapter Thirteen

  “Shhh, sound carries well through the ventilation ducts,” Lillian scolded as the wolf pack crowded past her, chattering between themselves as they congregated on the small landing. Below them, the stairs reached down into the darkness. Not one of them seemed willing to move off the top step without their petite, human guide. Jack’s lips quirked. Big, scary werewolves, afraid of the dark.

  “Unless you want our friends up there figuring out there’s another way out of here, I suggest you all keep it shut.”

  She pulled the door closed, slender muscles standing out under her delicate skin. A pang of guilt hit Jack; he hadn’t realized how heavy the thing was. At least three wolves, himself included, started to step forward to help, but she’d already managed it. The door hit the frame with a resonant clang.

  “Shit.”

  Everyone in the small corridor froze. Jack expanded all his senses. Around him, he could hear the thunder of Lillian’s heart, a rapid counter-point to the slower, deeper beats of the wolf pack; the sound of water rushing through the pipes that ran under their feet; and somewhere overhead, the metallic tick-tock of an old-style clock.

  Nothing happened. No shouts. No thunder of running feet. After a few long moments, he released the breath he’d been holding.

  “I think we’re good. They must be too far away to have heard it. And human hearing is crap anyway…no offense.”

  Lillian shrugged. “None taken. At least I don’t smell like wet dog.”

  On cue, the wolves around her all started to sniff their armpits, trying to hide what they were doing with coughs or running their hands through their hair. Apart from Nic, who just glared at the shorter woman. Jack grinned as she caught his gaze, her eyes alight with amusement. He didn’t know how she’d done it, but she’d figured out his pack quicker than he had. From scolding them to teasing insults, she was spot on.

  “She’s just messing with you. Quit screwing around and get moving. After you, my lady.”

  Primly, she stepped past him. Pausing at the top of the stairs, she looked at the heavy, baton-like flashlight in her hand. A flick of her thumb on the switch later, the stairwell was bathed in strong, white light.

  “Arrrrgggghh!” Darce warbled. “Bright light. Bright light!”

  Jack sighed. There was always one.

  “Ignore him,” he advised when Lillian looked back in concern. Reaching out, he swatted his second in command around the back of the head. “He’s an ass.”

  “Ahhh, okay.” She started down the steps, the flashlight highlighting the steps in front of her. “Watch how you go down here, some of the steps are wet.”

  Lillian led them down the steps and into a short tunnel-like corridor. Although it only had one door, the tunnel continued into a dead end. At Jack’s curious look, she shrugged again.

  “There were some notes on the old plans about extending this section, but then the original owner died. His son decided not to continue with the development.”

  She paused with her hand on the door in front of her and looked over her shoulder. “He’s the one mainly responsible for all the things we keep down here. Equipment,” she clarified as a couple of the wolves frowned. “From the darkest times of the hospital’s history.”

  She pushed open the door and ushered them inside. Jack was last through the door, making sure that no one could creep up on them from behind. Lillian might have locked the door, but they had a Blood up there and Jack didn’t trust those things as far as he could throw them. Bloods and Lycans, born from the same research but enemies as soon as they’d come into existence.

  As soon as he stepped through into the storage room, he stopped, eyes wide and all senses open as he looked around. It was full of medical-type junk, leaving only a few walkways through the clutter. Lillian pulled the door to behind them and panned the flashlight around. Shackles hung next to straightjackets on the wall, near a bathtub with a barred lid that left only a gap for someone’s neck.

  “Ice-bath therapy. Non-consensual.”

  Lillian’s voice was quiet and composed as she explained each item the light fell upon. “Restraint chairs…restraint box. Patients were locked into these things for hours. You can still see the scratches they left on the arms of the chairs.”

  She moved farther into the room, the wolves spanning out around her, unable to resist having a poke around. Jack paused by one of the chairs to look at the gouges in the wood of the arms. A dark stain farther down caught his attention. He knelt and ran his hand over it. The scent of old blood rose like a fetid cloud. He coughed to clear his lungs and stood. Someone had died in that chair, beaten until their blood ran down the legs and stained the wood.

  He shuddered. And the project called him and his men animals.

  “What are these? They look like ice picks.”

  He turned to find Darce holding up a small metal pole that did indeed look very much like an icepick. In fact, it looked so much like one that he flicked a glance at the stuff around Darce, expecting to see some snowshoes or crampons.

  Lillian moved to his side to look. Unlike the wolves, she didn’t have enhanced night vision. With the residual light from the flashlight, the room was lit up like daylight for Jack and his men.

  “Ah, yes. That’s a nasty little surgical tool. It’s an orbitoclast.”

  Darce looked puzzled, turning it over in his hand and testing the point. “Surgical? It’s not even sharp.”

  “Doesn’t need to be. It’s for performing lobotomies.”

  Nic, over the other side of the room, chuckled. “Well, Darce’ll be safe then. His brain’s in his d—”

  “Bite me.” Darce cut her off, shooting a glare across the room hot enough to flay even wolf flesh from bones. Jack sighed. Great, the female wolf was even getting to the normally levelheaded lieutenant.

  “Nah, you’d enjoy it too much. You and your fan—”

  “Enough!” Jack’s snarl cut across the forming argument. “In case you two hadn’t noticed, this isn’t a walk around the local museum with tea and fucking cookies afterwards. Now get your shit together and let’s move out.”

  Neither wolf would look at him, turning their faces away as he walked between them. As he expected. Neither were ready, or wanted, to challenge his authority as Alpha. That was a decision that would land them in a world of hurt and they both knew it.

  “What is up with you?” he turned to hiss at Darce. “Nic I can understand. She’s been on the edge since she was turned, but you? You’ve got more freak
ing sense.”

  Before Darce could answer him, there was a low snarl from behind him. Jack turned, expecting to see her squaring up to Darce, only to find Nic backing up with sheer terror on her face. She tripped and fell on her ass but carried on backpedaling, her feet scrabbling on the slick flagstones. A low-level keen of distress escaped her throat.

  “Shit!” If there was anything he recognized instantly, it was a wolf about to lose it. “Sanders, grab her.”

  Jack moved like lightening, sliding his bigger body between Nic and whatever had set her off. In the same instant, Sanders hauled her to her feet, easily wrapping the woman in his arms.

  Cool, calm and collected, Sanders had always been able to deal with the volatile female. Jack suspected it was because the guy preferred men. There was no question of him being interested in her on a male-female level.

  She turned and buried her face against his neck, her shoulders shaking. She was crying. Nic, the queen-bitch of the pack, was crying. Eyes wide, Jack turned to find out what had made her crack.

  At the sight of the wooden box, he drew a sharp breath. Instinctively his wolf snarled within, yammering to get away. To run from the foul thing before he could be caught and forced back inside it. The size of a coffin, its sides were made of bars, and the base a thin mattress over yet more bars. Cramped, there was enough room for an adult human to lie down but not turn over when the lid was closed and locked.

  That was the point. It was designed to hold its victim immobile and helpless for however long deemed necessary. The Project used them when they made his kind. A newer version, not like this wooden one, but one made of silver and steel. They locked their “subjects” within the things, and with just one drop of LY16…that was all it took.

  Jack closed his eyes as memory threatened to overwhelm him. A room with row after row of metal cages…fighting both the drugs and the guards as they fought to trap him in one…flat on his back, looking through the bars as the needle came closer…the power and pain as the virus raced through his body…screams of agony as the injection forced some of the subjects to change right there, the metal bars not giving as their suddenly larger forms were crushed within.