by Godiva Glenn
He couldn’t hurt her. Would rather die. Even though he couldn’t communicate with his wolf, he knew that part of him felt the same.
“What’s going on?” he asked gently.
She opened the door. “I need a sample.”
“A sample of what?”
She walked forward until the scent of her overwhelmed him. Her fragrance unlocked memories and urges and emotions he could barely contain. But the urge to cherish the moment died as she lifted her face and revealed a bright red and swollen cheek.
“Someone hit you,” he ground out. “Who? I’ll tear them apart!”
She touched her face as if in a trance, but still, her eyes didn’t meet his. How he longed to see her dark gaze, but it didn’t come.
“Talk to me, Sky,” he begged.
She reached out and dragged a finger down his chest, leaving a visible crease in the fabric. His own clothing was gone. Confiscated. Now he wore an over-sized white t-shirt and matching sweatpants. Clothing easy to remove and replace when it inevitably ended up covered in blood and whatever else.
“Don’t touch me, babe. I’m disgusting,” he groaned. “I’m just glad you aren’t locked up too.”
She stepped closer until he could lean down and bury his face in her gorgeous auburn hair—which he did with great relish. She smelled clean. Definitely not a prisoner like himself.
“You shouldn’t…” Her voice trailed off. She lifted the hem of his shirt and tucked her fingertips into the waist of his pants. “I need a sample.”
The words frustrated him, but as she tugged the worn elastic band, they hit him with full force. “No…” he snarled. “Don’t tell me they sent you to jerk me off.”
She didn’t reply, but her hands stopped moving.
Stud. Perfect stock. “Holy fuck. Are they… trying to breed me somehow?”
Her eyes flickered up and her lips pursed. “It won’t hurt, Kalle.”
“We’re being watched, Sky. Those perverts sent you in and now they’re watching. You know that.”
“I just need—”
“No, you don’t.” He lowered his voice. “What happened to the woman who captured me? Where is that strength? Where is that will?”
“It’s for the greater good,” she muttered. She sounded empty.
“If you do this, if you collect this sample, they’ve made you into a whore. You realize that, right? And given that they are watching and enjoying this, why the fuck are you playing along? You’re better than this.” He yanked at his chains in vain and she flinched. “They have the technology to collect a sample without your participation. Fuck, they can slice off my balls at any time and have all they want. They’re using you for entertainment. Maybe to put you in your place. Teach you a lesson. But either way, they are using you.”
She closed her eyes and cupped him through his pants. “Kalle, I…”
“If you need it, you know you can have it,” he confessed. “I can’t stop myself from reacting to you. I’m too fucking weak and my body is desperate for you. But what does it mean of us if this happens? While they watch?”
She tugged the fabric down an inch and stopped. She met his stare, unshed tears sparkling over the deep chocolate of her eyes. She cleared her throat. “The specimen is being uncooperative,” she said loudly. “Retrieval will have to be postponed.”
He longed to kiss her. His hands clutched at air, needing to touch her. Reassure her. “I’m going to save you,” he promised in the barest whisper. “I don’t know how. All I need is one lucky moment and I’ll save us both.”
But she didn’t respond or even acknowledge his words. The moment she’d finished speaking, she’d turned and walked away. His words were likely lost beneath the sound of her footsteps as she walked out, punched the button to release the hold on his chains, locked the doors behind her, and left.
The lights in the room turned off, leaving him in the dark. Without the gentle hum of fluorescent lights, he was alone with no white noise to calm the tumble of his thoughts. She’d be back. They’d make her return. But he’d rather die than have her touch him while those monsters watched.
* * * *
Sky came back before the night was over. The lights kicked on and Kalle glimpsed the clock. Either he’d slept over a full day, or only a few hours had passed. One seemed more likely than the other.
It was the same as before. The chains pulled him to the wall, though this time he didn’t fight it and wasn’t surprised.
Sky moved through the lab, searching under the counters, moving in and out of his line of sight. He pulled at his chains, leaning forward to see what she was up to, and discovered he had more slack than before. He couldn’t take more than a few steps from the wall, but it was something.
The faucet squeaked open and water flowed through old, shaking pipes. Sky walked away from the sink, still rummaging. Kalle waited.
After a few minutes, she appeared at the door and opened it. It closed behind her, but he didn’t hear the usual click of the lock. She carried the bucket and a hand towel with her into the room.
He didn’t move. Unless her mood had changed, she wasn’t going to talk to him. As she got closer, he could smell something sweet yet musky and noticed that the bucket had frothy white bubbles.
“You’re going to clean me?”
Her face lifted, eyes scanning him with no visible emotion. “It’ll make this easier.”
“This being… I see.” The plan still remained, then.
She dunked the towel into the water and gently squeezed most of the water out. “Strip?”
He glanced up at the camera in his cell. He usually ignored it. He assumed they were always on but that didn’t mean someone was always watching. Right now, they were definitely watching.
He pulled off the shirt and shoved his pants down before kicking them to the corner. It felt good to not have the dirty clothing against him. Nudity didn’t bother lupine. Before a full moon pulled the pack down, they’d all be waiting, naked.
Sky pressed the cloth against his chest, sending warm water dripping down his body. He instantly perked up.
“Fuck,” he muttered. Even if her touch and intentions were chaste at the moment, his cock couldn’t tell the difference.
She moved close, and he could at least take comfort in her blocking the camera from seeing his lower body. She bent down to freshen the towel and came up with the bucket.
“Hold this,” she instructed.
He did, wishing she’d say more. “I forgive you,” he whispered. “At least this cell is bigger than that cage, right?”
Her lips twitched and she met his eyes for a second. She squeezed the towel over one shoulder then the other, wringing the warm contents onto his skin. The water cooled as it streamed down but it felt amazing.
She rose up on her toes and carefully repeated the process on his head. Her fingers blocked the stream from running into his eyes and her touch lit him on fire. Past the flowery body wash and the stale scent of the room, he detected her own sweet aroma. And as before, it changed. Not quite human. Nothing he recognized fully. But a fragrance his blood welcomed.
“You look lovely today,” he said keeping his voice low. “No one else makes jeans and a t-shirt look edible.”
Her cheeks flushed and she shook her head. Was that a smile he detected before her hair got in the way?
“We’ll get out of this,” he whispered.
She worked up a lather and scrubbed his arms. The towel was rough, but he didn’t care. It’s not like the lab assholes kept soft washcloths on hand. They’d never been concerned with his unkempt state.
Everywhere she rubbed, he felt invigorated. She cleaned his upper body then took a step back, appearing to contemplate. She dunked the cloth again and moved close enough that she was nearly hugging him so that she could wipe quickly across his back.
“You don’t have to do that. I feel great. I’m sure that’s enough.” He realized the dilemma. She couldn’t clean his back without exposing
him to the camera. Given his semi-erect state, that would be awkward. Truthfully, he didn’t care too much. Let them see and give them ten more inches of reasons to hate him.
“How do you feel?” Her voice was less than a whisper, though he doubted the microphone of the camera could have been strong enough to pick up her normal soft tone.
“I said I feel great,” he replied.
“Really?”
“Yeah.”
She pulled away and brushed the wet towel across his hips. Avoiding his swollen length, she squeezed the fragranced wash over his thighs. She repeated this until he was dripping, and the sudsy water clung to the hair on his legs.
She took the bucket from him and tossed the towel into it before setting it aside and kneeling in the water pooling on the ground. There was a drain in his floor, but the water had to travel to get there.
“Sky are you sure—”
She pressed her bare cheek to his left thigh and the proximity silenced him. Her eyes were closed but if she opened them, she’d be staring at his cock and he was once again reminded of the voyeur perverts watching this unfold.
Her right hand snaked up his leg, brushing warm fingertips over his calves and tracing up until they tickled the crease where the back of his leg met his ass. “Uh…”
“You have one shot,” she whispered.
“Huh?”
She stabbed him in the ass with a needle and he snarled in pain. Whatever she’d injected burned like a fire sweeping through his veins and combusting every cell. He stared down at her, for a brief second horrified by her betrayal, but even as the accusation crossed his mind, his vision cleared and focused.
His weakness and pain melted away. The colliding scents in the room became dozens of distinct odors and aromas he could sort and—Fuck. His wolf was back. He howled and transformed over the span of breaths, his large form snapping the chains around his wrists and ankles.
He frantically reached to the collar on his throat, having forgotten the threat of it, but found it had popped open.
“You didn’t even notice me open it,” she mused. “But we have to go!”
He scooped her into his arms and crashed through the unlocked hallway and into the lab. The door flew open and men rushed in, guns up, but he barreled over them and slammed the door shut behind him.
“Which way?”
She squirmed out of his arms and ran down a corridor, giving him no choice but to follow. One of the doors she sped past opened but he tossed the man stepping out back into the room like a doll. Once he caught up, she slammed her palm against a silver pad and the hallway closed off behind them, sealed by thick metal doors.
“I need some things. Supplies,” she yelled, running off again.
An alarm blared through the speakers above them. “Do we have time?” he asked. “This doesn’t seem a good idea!”
“We just have to beat the lockdown.” She yanked open a door and tossed things around, pulling out her bag, a familiar and somehow reassuring sight. It was already full, and she tossed it over her shoulder. “One more thing.”
He followed her through a maze of intersecting hallways to a locked door. She cursed and slapped the handle.
“Allow me?” he asked.
She stood back and he kicked it down.
“Perfect.” She ran through the room, head turning side to side as she scanned rows of desks. She grabbed a laptop and tucked it into her bag. “Okay. That was the easy part.”
“Let me guess. Hard part is actually getting out?”
“It will only take them about two more minutes to remove my security clearance,” she said rushing out into the hall again.
He picked her up. “Just say the way.”
He raced forward, following the directions she called. Gunfire echoed in the hallway, but he ignored the ominous sound and spray of plaster around them. It was coming from behind. Sky was safe in his arms.
They came around a corner and people were milling about, confused and panicking. “Trainees,” Sky explained. “Try not to kill any.”
He used his body as a weapon and simply ran through them at top speed, knocking them to the side. He didn’t share her concern for their safety. They reached a metal door that looked a lot like the one they’d closed earlier. He carried her to the touchpad, and she placed her hand on it.
She held her breath as it scanned, the piercing alarm seeming louder by the second and the shouts of men chasing them growing closer and closer. The door gradually creaked open without a care in the world, and he squeezed through as soon as he was able. Sky twisted out of his grip and he blinked as his eyes adjusted to the dark night pierced by a spotlight burning down on them.
The air was impossibly warm for a Spring night. He credited it to whatever Sky had dosed him with. His heart was racing, and he had too much energy. So much that it almost pained him to stand still.
He glanced down at Sky, whose bare hands dug through the ground, revealing another touchpad which she used to close the still meandering door.
“Break this,” she said.
He walked over and ripped the metal box from the ground. “Is that going to work?”
“It wouldn’t normally, but I reprogrammed this door. Only this door. I didn’t have time to do them all.”
“You—”
“We need to keep running,” she hissed. “West.”
He lifted her again and took off into the dark, navigating through the unfamiliar trees as fast as his legs could carry him. One lucky moment. She’d made it happen. She’d saved them.
TWELVE
Kalle always dreamt of running beneath the moon with a beautiful female, but this wasn’t how he’d pictured it. Instead of enjoying the crisp air and sounds and scents of the trees and nature, he was hauling ass for his life through a heat wave.
And he couldn’t go any further.
His pace slowed as his legs cramped and threatened to crumple below him. He released Sky and hissed at the pain that flooded his arms. He’d held her tight the entire time and after several hours he was paying the price.
“Are we far enough?” he asked, bending over and sucking in deep breaths.
“A hell of a lot further than I thought we’d get,” she admitted. She dug through her bag and pulled out a small bottle which she shook before spritzing over herself then him. “This will mask our scents.”
“What?” He took a deep breath. He could still smell her. And himself. Fuck but he was a sweaty mess.
“Wardens track numerous ways, largely by the chemical trails that paranormal types leave behind, including scent.” She held up the unlabeled bottle. “This is what we use to hide ourselves when tracking. Meaning it works for our current purpose quite well.”
“I still smell you.”
“Probably because you know I’m here. Your brain already associates a scent with me. But trust me, the Wardens won’t find us by scent.” She tucked it away and rubbed his back while he continued to heave. “It’s how Tommy snuck up on you that first night, and how Cliff and Roman slipped into the cabin.”
He nodded to himself. He’d assumed his desperation had camouflaged Tommy. He’d been so horny and unfocused thanks to Sky, a comet could’ve landed on him without flagging his attention.
And Roman. That would be the name of the mysterious dead-man-walking who’d had a gun on Sky. The one that was a spitting image of the good doctor himself.
“So many questions,” he admitted. “Like why the fuck did you have to jab the needle into my ass?”
“It needed to disperse into your muscles,” she said with a gentle chuckle. She massaged his arms and shoulders. “I really didn’t think you’d last more than an hour. This is insane.”
“I needed you to be safe.”
She sighed softly. “We’re going to be fine. There’s no way they could have kept up, and now they can’t find us easily. And as much as I wish you could rest now, you need to keep moving or your muscles will likely seize.”
He shuffled
forward. Only minutes before, he’d felt like he had energy for days. Strength beyond his normal lupine standards. Now he felt like he’d been hit by a car. Sore everywhere and dead tired.
“Wait,” he begged. He took a deep breath and as it released, shifted back to his human form. He stumbled against her, dizzy and lightheaded. “I couldn’t keep it going.”
“It’s okay.” She supported him with an arm around his waist. “Except… shit. Don’t kill me.”
“What?”
“I thought ahead for a lot of things but not… clothing you.”
He groaned but shook his head. “I’m not chained to a wall anymore. We’re out of that fucked up compound or whatever you call it, I’ll live.”
“At least it’s not a pine forest,” she offered.
He winced and didn’t respond, having just stepped on a particularly sharp rock. And judging by the air, there were pine trees somewhere around here, but yeah, he wasn’t currently stepping on needles.
“You’re only going to get weaker,” she said. “But you got us much closer to civilization than I expected, and we can get a hotel room.”
“I can’t walk around like this,” he pointed out.
“I know this town. I can grab a room, and I’ll make sure it’s not overlooking any bright lighting. You’ll dash in, and I can find clothes for you in the morning.”
“You’ve got cash?”
“Yeah. Enough to last a little while.”
He blinked at the trees moving slowly past them. His energy was waning fast. It felt like he could fall down any minute and hibernate. “You have to keep me awake if that’s the plan.”
She shifted the bag on her shoulder and got closer to him, hugging his side as they walked. “I’m sorry about how you must be feeling right now. Coming down is going to be harsh, to say the least.”
“Coming down…”
“The injection. Sometimes in science and experimentation, you create things that have the opposite of the intended effect. Case in point, the cocktail of drugs I gave you was supposed to instantly kill lupine—but instead, it’s more like… meth.”
“I don’t know what meth is.”
