Genetically Altered Complete Box Set

by Sarah Noffke

  Published in the United States by One-Twenty-Six Press

  ASIN:

  For Tommi Ann,

  for being such a loyal supporter and a lovely friend.

  BORN BAD, Book #4

  Prologue

  A tortured scream filled the lab room. Mika slammed his fist into the arm of the chair where he sat.

  “How much longer?” he said through exasperated breaths.

  Drake eyed the IV bag hanging on the rack next to Mika, no urgency in his eyes. “I’d say at least another minute,” he said with an indifferent shrug. “Maybe two or three.”

  “Ahhhh,” Mika said from the back of his throat, clenching his eyes tightly shut. If he pressed them hard enough maybe that pain would distract him from the fire pouring through his veins. This time was worse than the last, which made no sense. A few years ago Mika underwent the process for increasing his speed, making him as fast as the werewolves were now. However, the drugs, according to Drake, had worn off. That’s why the speed Mika had enjoyed when moving around Olento Research had gradually dissipated until he returned to his normal pace.

  “This is the same formula as before, correct?” he said with his eyes still pressed shut.

  “Yes, you said you didn’t want to take a risk by increasing the dosage,” Drake said, sounding irritated by having to answer the same question a second time. If Mika could get into the scientist’s head then he’d find out if he was in fact hiding anything. Something wasn’t right, but Drake was all he had at the moment. Finding someone to replace him would be impossible, so he’d just have to trust that the German was only more grumpy lately and therefore unable to control his attitude. Mika would punish him for his tone later, but now the burning in his blood owned his attention.

  The drug sank deep into his tissues, spreading along his blood, carrying its fire with it as it did. Mika held his breath when it arrived to his lungs, bathing them in flames that he was certain had the capacity to split open his chest. He’d never felt this kind of agony when undergoing a procedure. Was it because he’d done so many things to his body? Was his body rejecting the drugs?

  “Breathe,” Mika heard Drake say in front of him and he let out a hot breath that burned his nostrils.

  “Just another minute,” Drake said, his tone still mechanical.

  “You said before that I only had a minute,” Mika said through clenched teeth, losing his breath on the last word.

  “Not much longer,” Drake said, and Mika could hear him flick his fat fingers against the bag of drugs that were intravenously being delivered into his body. A rush of the drug shot into Mika’s arm, and unable to control it he let out a scream that echoed off the empty lab walls. He gripped the arm of the chair with his other hand, feeling close to breaking it off.

  Soon he’d make himself super strong, like Rio. That’s why he was doing all this anyway. He was going after the werewolves himself, if necessary. The night he discovered that Kris helped Rio to escape from Olento Research he’d torn the place apart. That little bitch was going to pay for what she did. Rio and Kris were Mika’s property and he was going to get them back and beat them until they were compliant. The Lucidites thought they could win against Mika, but he’d only just begun to fight. Soon they’d be begging for mercy. But it would never come. He was going to recapture his werewolves, steal everything of use from the Lucidites, and then kill them all. And Mika knew that his victory was imminent. Soon he’d be more powerful than any of the werewolves. He was the true alpha wolf and his pack would bow to his reign.

  Mika growled as Drake withdrew the needle from his arm, bandaging it as he did. The pain receded with each steadying breath. When Mika pulled his eyes open he noticed a strange look on Drake’s face. Was it a smile? With a speed he hadn’t felt in many years, Mika yanked his arm away from the scientist’s reach. He then bolted to a standing position and sped through the lab and across the Olento Research facility, making it to his office in record time. He in fact had enhanced speed, and therefore Drake could live another day.

  Chapter One

  “Dream Travelers are a rare race who can travel to any place and time with their consciousness using their dreams.”

  - Dream Traveler Codex

  He slipped his fingers across the fibers of the white handkerchief. It had a blue stain on one corner, probably from a ballpoint pen. The life of the handkerchief displayed in Connor’s mind through a series of images. Usually they flipped through his mind in a quick, random show, only pausing on one or two long enough for him to make out details. His eyes sprung open so he was staring straight at Zephyr.

  “What did you see this time?” Zephyr said, leaning forward.

  “There’s over two dozen guards on duty at any given time,” Connor said, remembering seeing the employee roster that Haiku reviewed every morning, sometimes while wiping his brow with his handkerchief. He was the person who had owned the object which Connor was using his psychometry to read.

  “Why in the hell would an organization need that many guards?” Rox said, more as an aside. She was sitting next to Zephyr, as she normally did, but backward in the leather seat, her legs straddled around the chair. From the way Adelaide kept eyeing the girl, she didn’t approve of the casual way she was sitting. Connor didn’t think it was because Addy was mad at Rox’s disrespect of the office furniture.

  “There’s video surveillance in all the hallways and lab rooms,” Connor said, closing his eyes and trying to recall the images.

  “Okay, so after an hour of this bloody shit all we know is that Olento Research is heavily guarded. Can you offer anything more helpful so we know more than to be careful?” Adelaide said.

  With his eyes still closed, Connor released a slight smirk. She just couldn’t be nice. He didn’t think that kissing her would change that. At least he hoped it wouldn’t. Others might be turned off by Adelaide’s brazen nature, but Connor found it endearing. He found everything about her attractive, but he was also certain that she’d run if he told her that. Still, she’d allowed him to kiss her and now that was all he could think about, even though she liked to pretend it hadn’t happened.

  “Mika isn’t at Olento Research on Monday mornings. Drake has been clocking in later on those days, but Haiku allows him to change the security records to reflect otherwise,” Connor said, swiveling around and facing Adelaide, who was standing at her usual place at the end of the table.

  “So now we know Mika parties on the weekends and has a human resource issue. Thank you so very fucking much,” Adelaide said, swiveling her eyes away from Connor’s as soon as he looked at her.

  “You’re absolutely welcome,” Connor said, almost enjoying that his gaze obviously made her nervous. She’d come around to him sooner or later. He’d be there when she did.

  “I think this will add up to something we can work with to create a strategy,” Zephyr said, sketching down notes on a pad of paper.

  “You’re bad at math,” Adelaide said.

  “Why don’t you just give me the address and I’ll stop time, walk in there, and release Rio and Malcolm?” Kaleb said. He was sitting on the other side of Connor, propped up on his elbow, like he was considering taking a nap on the conference room table.

  “Damn! Why didn’t I think of that?” Adelaide said with mock shock. “Case closed. Let’s all go home.”

  “Although I appreciate your bravery at stepping up to the challenge, I think what Adelaide is so thoughtfully trying to say is that might not work,” Zephyr said. “You can only stop time for a couple of minutes and from the information Connor has supplied on the layout, that probably won’t give you enough time to get in and out of there.”

  “So I go in there. Time continues. I stop it again and then get the weres out of their cages,” Kaleb said, like it was a done deal.

  “How?” Adelaide said, sticking her hands on her narrow hips. “How do you get them out? Where are the keys? How do you get to them? How do you get through security? Where’s your badge?”


  Kaleb slid his head down and laid it on his arm. “Oh, right. Never mind. Just wake me up when you have a plan and need me to save the day,” he said.

  “Now that the sleeping idiot has gone to bed, I have some other business to discuss,” Adelaide said.

  “Shouldn’t we focus on strategy?” Zephyr said. “Nothing is more important than getting Rio out of Olento Research, and Malcolm as well.” Since Rio had been taken, Zephyr had been more unnerved than ever before. He didn’t stop working, always drilling Connor for more information. Connor understood completely though. The loss of Rio’s presence wasn’t just a blow to the pack, but it also reminded Connor how vulnerable the werewolves were as long as Olento Research was hunting for them. They’d never be safe while Mika was out there.

  “Yes, that’s my main objective, but currently Connor is supplying us with an address to Olento Research and also the information that it’s too secure for us to break into there. Until he can offer something a bit more substantial, we’re at an impasse,” Adelaide said, turning to look at Connor with a dissatisfied stare.

  How does she do that? Pretend so well? Everyone thought she was so hard, but nothing could be further from the truth. This was a girl who just wanted to be loved. To feel deserving of that love. And if anyone ever told her how incredibly brilliant and beautiful she was, inside and out, then she’d feel a lot different about herself. Still, he’d never change a thing about her. This was a part of her path, and the journey to her had become something Connor appreciated.

  “You are so right. I’m the problem. And therefore, I’ll go meditate with my hanky, and only return when I have information of use,” Connor said, standing from the table and offering a wink to Adelaide, who returned the gesture with a beautiful scowl.

  “Well, now that that misfit is gone,” Adelaide said, wondering if her cheeks were burning red, because they felt on fire. What the fuck? She hadn’t realized that Connor wanted her to kill him. Why else was he flirting with her? “Aiden has created a drug that he says is mostly safe and could give us exactly what we’ve been looking for.”

  Zephyr’s gray eyes shrunk with hesitation. David’s death was still in the front of his mind, and probably something he was continuously blaming himself for. “You mean, a drug that takes the wolf out of us?” he said.

  Adelaide shook her head. “No, I realized after learning about Hunter that reversing the conversion was the wrong approach. We don’t need to sever you from the wolf, but rather build a stronger link. We need to fuse the man and the wolf, making them almost equals,” she said.

  Zephyr licked the tip of his thumb before squinting at Adelaide. “Well, I never expected to hear you say that.”

  “And I never expected to say it, but it makes sense if you think about it, which I know is hard for all your tiny brains to do,” Adelaide said.

  From beside her Kaleb slapped the table. “She went a whole minute without insulting us. I almost believed she was a changed person,” he said with a laugh.

  “Go back to sleep, Runt. Your elders are conversing,” she said.

  “K,” he chirped and slid his head back onto his arms and pretended to sleep.

  “If this drug makes it so the man and the wolf are fused then the idea is that you can change at will. There wouldn’t be any sudden changes, but rather more of a partnership. The wolf wouldn’t take over, because it would be more a part of you. I suspect you’d have to listen to it, feed some of its demands, but in return you could control the change,” Adelaide said.

  Zephyr pushed back in his seat, his thumb now resting on the side of his mouth. “That’s a plausible theory,” he said.

  “When the men changed, would the wolf be in control with the impulse to attack innocent people? Because that’s still a problem for them now when changed,” Rox said.

  “Maybe,” Adelaide said, thinking back to her discussion with Aiden about the research. “But the opposite could also true. In essence, the drug makes it so you are in charge. The wolf will feel more a part of you, but you’re its owner. Right now there’s an unfair balance, both when you’re men and when you’re werewolves. This might fix that.”

  “But how will we be in man form? Will the wolf make us have impulses and aggression?” Zephyr said.

  “Probably,” Adelaide said indifferently. “But you’ve said that’s already the case and you all work to maintain a rational mind. I think you’ll just have to try harder. And there’s a possibility that this will help you to tame the wolf. Right now you’re constantly battling for control, man and wolf. Hunter didn’t have this problem because he embraced the wolf, made peace with it. This drug could do that for you all.”

  “I’m liking this idea more than I thought I would,” Zephyr said.

  “Because it’s brilliant,” Adelaide said, giving herself an internal pat on the back. “So now the question is, who takes the drug first?”

  “That’s easy,” Zephyr said. “It has to be me. If anything goes wrong, I’ll be the only one who suffers.”

  Chapter Two

  “All Dream Travelers are gifted with one or more psychic or super powers.”

  - Dream Traveler Codex

  Los Angeles Gazette

  If a picture says a million words then this one is full of horrifying screams and inaudible sounds associated with disbelief. Marianne Magner, the person at the forefront of the werewolf protests, acquired this photo from a young girl in Los Angeles. The girl reported that she snapped the photo from her phone while sitting on her front porch. “I saw a werewolf and a man fight. I took a picture at once, and then watched as the man won the fight. Before my eyes the werewolf shifted back into a man. It was the craziest thing I’ve ever seen,” the girl stated in an interview, standing alongside Magner.

  This is absolutely one of the most bizarre images ever recorded, and the forensic team who studied it said it doesn’t show evidence of being photoshopped. To see an actual image of a man with fangs and claws is the stuff of movies.

  Most of Magner’s campaigns have been debunked by authorities, including the FBI, who reported that her claims didn’t match up with their records. However, it appears, based on this photo, that Magner might be telling the truth and that her son, Kaleb Magner, is in fact a werewolf. If this photo is to be believed then werewolves are real and according to the protestor, they are dangerous and responsible for the death of her husband.

  In the past six months there have been over a dozen deaths that were linked to the same serial killer, whom authorities named the Rabid Wolf. In each case, a woman was savagely cut and in some cases she looked to have been maimed by teeth. The LA police force has been reluctant to report that the women were eaten by something, but that might be exactly what happened based on this new evidence.

  Are werewolves real and prowling through the streets of Los Angeles? That remains to be confirmed, but if this photo is to be believed then something incredibly sinister might be out there in the city. Citizens, especially women, should be cautious. Travel with others, be vigilant, and be careful of what lurks in the shadows.

  Chapter Three

  “Middlings are the race that possess no gifts and aren’t able to dream travel.”

  - Dream Traveler Codex

  It hadn’t been hard for Derek Chang to find a job after he escaped from the sinister lab that did incredibly horrifying things to him. The twenty-eight-year-old had simply gone back into his old work, but with a different company. What had been hard was getting back to his hometown of Ontario. It actually had presented itself as pretty impossible and so Derek gave up and settled for Seattle. Passing over the Canadian border never seemed like a good idea, thinking he’d get stopped and asked for papers he couldn’t supply.

  More than anything, Derek wanted to return home, but his instinct told him that wasn’t a good idea. It was always the wolf’s insistence, telling him they needed to be with their pack. His mother and father had been the only pack he’d known, since he didn’t have siblings and d
idn’t have many friends. Writers never had many friends, or at least that’s what Derek had always told himself. Maybe it was that he just didn’t have friends and happened to be a writer. The manuscript he’d been working on since he was a kid was locked away in his parents’ basement, too far away for him to finish.

  The moist Seattle air traveled across Derek’s cheeks as he traversed across the support beam of the unfinished building. Construction was something that Derek kind of fell into as a young adult and now he was glad for it. When he’d told the foreman of his experience, the guy was impressed, but still a little reserved about giving him a job, one that would pay him under the table. However, when Derek spoke of his confidence working up high, the guy warmed to the idea a bit more. The current project involved construction on a nineteen-story building and even the most seasoned worker got a bit of vertigo. To make things worse, the foreman had just experienced an accident with his crew resulting in an injury from a long fall. Now the men had a bit of trepidation, which slowed down the work.

  Maybe it was because Derek was low to the ground at five foot, five inches tall, that he didn’t mind balancing on support beams. Or maybe it was because his thoughts were always off somewhere else, which distracted him from the fact that he was up high. Lately he thought about the new story idea in his head. It involved a wolf and a man. They became one in a beautiful union. This wasn’t just the story he wanted to tell but also the one he’d wished were true for him. Each night, Derek felt tortured by the wolf. He’d always thought of himself as a good person, a gentle person. However, the things the wolf wanted, that it barked about in his head, they didn’t seem nice. They were wrong and violent, but more and more he found himself wanting to do them. To hunt. To hurt the innocent.