by Kali Argent
“Why isn’t she healing?” he asked, his gaze going to the deep cut on the side of her neck. “She’s paranormal, right?” He still couldn’t tell the difference between shifters and werewolves, but judging by the inner glow of her eyes, he guessed she was one or the other.
“Werewolf,” all three of his companions answered in unison.
Considering he was the only human in the car, he didn’t bother asking how they knew. “Do we help her?”
Every muscle in his body vibrated with the need to leap out of the SUV and rush to her aid, but in their new world, nothing was ever as black and white as it appeared. She could be Coalition, or part of a rogue werewolf pack. It could be, and probably was a ruse designed to deceive them.
“She’s not healing,” he repeated when no one answered him. For some reason, that really bothered him. “Is she sick?”
Rhys Lockwood cursed under his breath. “She’s weak from blood loss, and she looks like she hasn’t eaten in a while.” Sighing, he dropped back into his seat. “I know the look well.”
“Please!” the female yelled as she began limping toward Cade’s window, still holding onto the hood to keep her upright. “I just need a ride. You can drop me off at the next town. Just, please, help me!”
“We’ve been here too long.” Miles’ fingers squeezed around the leather steering wheel. “Whatever we’re going to do, we need to do it quick.”
Cade had his door open before the vampire had finished speaking. He didn’t understand it, couldn’t explain it, but the need to comfort the female was powerful and unyielding, overpowering both instincts and common sense.
“Thank you,” she sobbed when he approached her. “Oh, thank you.”
“Whoa, easy, I’ve got you,” he said, catching her when her knees buckled, and she fell into his arms. With one arm around her shoulders, he hooked the other behind her knees and lifted her off the ground. “Guys, a little help!”
The back door swung open, and Rhys exited the vehicle. “Come on, in the back.” He waited for Cade to slide into the backseat with Thea, slammed the door closed, then jumped into the passenger seat beside Miles. “Let’s go.”
As the vehicle lurched forward, the female draped across Cade’s lap fisted the front of his zippered jacket and buried her face against the side of his neck. “Thank you,” she muttered. “Thank you.”
“Here.” With a pinched expression, Thea passed him a thin, brown blanket from one of the canvas bags in the back. “We need to get her warm.”
As Thea draped the blanket over the female, Cade unzipped his jacket and spread it open. Then he wrapped his arms around the redhead and pulled her closer to share his body heat. It took a few minutes, but eventually, her trembling subsided, and she began to breathe a little easier.
Jesus, someone had done a number on her, and for the first time since the Purge, it didn’t matter to him if she was human or Gemini. She was suffering, and all he wanted to do was ease her pain.
“We need to get her back to the hospital.”
The Revenant had dozens of safe houses scattered across the country, and the nearest one happened to be a small rural hospital in a nowhere town south of Denver. Not only would she be protected there, but the place had an actual doctor on staff with the equipment and supplies needed to help her.
Thea cleared her throat. “If we do that—”
Cade shook his head, cutting her off. He knew what was at stake better than anyone. As much as he wanted to be there to help rescue Abby from the Ikande lion shifters, getting the female help had to be their new priority. Besides, it wasn’t like they could take her into battle with them.
“So, what are we doing?” Miles asked as he eased his foot off the gas.
“Back to the hospital,” Rhys answered. “We can decide what to do from there.”
If the rest of them chose to go on, Cade wouldn’t blame them. In fact, he hoped they would. The rest of the team needed every abled bodied person they could get, but he wouldn’t be going with them. As much as it pained him, and as little as he understood why, his decision had been made the moment he’d locked eyes with the female in his arms.
“Rest,” he whispered. He stroked her matted hair away from her face and rested his cheek on the top of her head. “You’re safe now. I’m not going to let anything happen to you.” He tightened his arms around her to emphasize his promise. “What’s your name?”
“Mackenna,” she answered after a pregnant pause.
“Mackenna, I’m Cade.” He lifted his head and tilted it to the side. “This is Thea.” He nodded toward the front. “That’s Rhys in the passenger seat, and the driver is Miles. They’re Revenant, so you can trust them.”
Her grip moved from his jacket to his shirt as she looked up at him with a furrowed brow. “They’re what?”
“Revenant,” he repeated, but with much less certainty this time.
The valley between her eyes deepened, and she shook her head. “I don’t…”
“It’s okay,” Thea interrupted. “We’re going to help you.” She placed a hand on Mackenna’s bent knee. “You’re running from something, aren’t you? Can you tell us what?”
“Was it Raiders?” Rhys asked from the front seat.
“Or Ravagers?” Miles added.
Mackenna tensed, and she pressed closer to Cade’s chest. Instinctively, he rounded his shoulders, cocooning her, but his gaze was continuously drawn back to the hand on her leg. He liked Thea, but right then, it took all of his self-control not to growl at her like some feral animal.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Mackenna’s grip tightened on Cade’s shirt, and she began to shake again. “I don’t understand. What Raiders? What’s a Ravager?”
A frightening thought began to take root, and Cade glanced up at the other three members of his team. “It’s okay.” He ran his hand up and down her arm, soothing her. “One thing at a time. What were you running from?”
“Hunters,” she whispered.
Cade thought about the cuts and bruises that covered her body, the blood that coated her skin, and he felt sick. “They took you?”
A single nod.
“How long ago did they take you?”
“I…” She paused, a frown pulling at her lips. “I don’t know. A while ago, I guess.”
“Before or after the Coalition was formed?” Miles asked.
The Allied Races Coalition had risen as the new governing body after the Purge, declaring a kind of martial law across the country. With limited communication, he couldn’t say what was happening in other parts of the world, but Cade figured it was a reasonable assumption to think their reach extended around the globe.
They were meant to patrol the divided territories, guard prominent families, and protect the towns and people under their watch. Mostly, they just made sure humans didn’t step out of line or forget their place.
“The what?” Mackenna asked, a note of rising panic in her voice. “What is that?”
The silence that descended over the vehicle was deafening.
“People were sick,” Thea prodded gently. “Humans. Do you remember?”
It was several moments before she finally responded. “They called it the Purge.”
Cade nodded. “That’s right.”
“It happened so fast. Thousands of humans died.”
“Try millions,” Rhys mumbled from the front seat.
Of course, with her supernatural senses, she had no problem hearing him. “What?”
“Easy,” Cade soothed when she tensed. “You didn’t know?”
Mackenna sniffled. “I don’t understand any of this. How long was I there? How long ago was the Purge?”
Sharing a look with Cade, Thea sighed. “Two years ago.”
Mack froze, her small frame becoming eerily still. “No.”
Cade had been held captive for a matter of weeks, and he was still having a hard time processing everything that had happened. He couldn’t imagine being impr
isoned and tortured for years. The fact that Mackenna could string even two words together without falling apart impressed the hell out of him.
“What can you tell us about the Hunters?” Rhys asked, twisting halfway around in his seat to look at her.
Cade had to bite back a scathing rebuff when Mackenna cringed away from the wolf’s gaze. “No,” he said instead, finality ringing in his voice. “Whatever you want to ask her can wait.” Gently, he coaxed Mackenna’s head back down on his shoulder and brushed her hair away from her face. “Sleep now. I’ve got you.”
A long sigh spilled from her lips. “I don’t understand any of this,” she repeated, “but thank you.”
Her continued gratitude made him uncomfortable, and her very presence raised a lot of questions he couldn’t answer. For the time being, however, he was content to simply hold her and watch the forest whip by through the window.
“Cade?”
Without conscious thought, he dipped his head and pressed a kiss to her temple. “Rest.”
It took a long time for her grip on his T-shirt to loosen and her breaths to slow into an even rhythm. Halfway back to the safe house, however, she finally relaxed into him and stopped fidgeting, drifting into what he hoped were peaceful dreams.
Chapter Three
Quiet, steady beeping lured Mackenna from a fitful sleep.
Prying her eyelids open, she blinked against the bright, golden light that spilled through the wall of windows. She opened and closed her mouth a couple of times, grimacing at the cloying dryness.
She felt like she’d been hit by a bus.
The mattress beneath her was comfortable. The blanket covering her felt thick and soft. A far cry from the cold piece of floor at the back of her cell.
Mackenna jerked upright and shoved her hair out of her eyes.
Clean, white bandages covered her hands and fingers. Another had been taped to her neck where she’d removed the tracking chip. Medical equipment beside the bed proved to be the source of the beeping that had awoken her, and a single saline bag hung from a metal stand, the line connected to her left arm.
Where the hell was she? Maybe more importantly, how had she gotten there?
Someone had gone to a lot of trouble to patch her up and make her comfortable. They’d even gone so far as to clean the blood and dirt from her skin and dress her in a crisp, blue hospital gown.
But who?
The last thing she remembered was nearly being turned into roadkill on the highway outside the Hunter camp. The vehicle had screeched to a stop just feet from her, and she had thrown herself at it, pleading for whoever was inside it to help her.
There had been a man. She couldn’t recall what he’d looked like, whether he’d been human or otherwise, but she did remember the incredible sense of peace and safety she’d felt in his presence. There had been others. They’d asked her questions, but she didn’t know what she’d told them.
That was where her memories ended, and she wasn’t entirely sure if the ones she did have were real or not. By the time she’d reached the highway, she’d been half out of her mind, delirious from pain and fear. Maybe she had dreamed it all. Maybe she’d never actually escaped.
But she had the injuries. She clearly wasn’t in the underground lab. Not only didn’t she recognize her surroundings, but the Hunters would never have given her clean clothes and a warm bed after treating her wounds.
For so long, she’d been on guard, always questioning everything. Despite the evidence that seemed to imply she was safe, she didn’t know if she should believe it.
A wide wooden door opened at the front of the room, and a female dressed in a white lab coat with a stethoscope around her neck stepped across the threshold. One sniff said she was human, and a cursory glance didn’t reveal any weapons.
“Ah, you’re awake.” Her smile was bright and friendly, and it made her tawny eyes crinkle at the corners. “I’m Dr. Adra Lancaster. How are you feeling this morning?”
Politeness dictated she offer her name in return, but Mackenna hesitated.
The female exuded health and vitality, from the plumpness of her cheeks to the radiance of her warm, umber complexion. Even her hair shined in the sunlight, and the dark locks had been styled into artful waves close to her head. There was an artificial pinkness to her lips and added volume to her lashes.
She’d clearly put a lot of time and effort into her appearance. Moreover, she had not only the time but the means to do so. Mackenna didn’t trust it.
“I’m okay,” she said, still watching the doctor warily.
“I somehow doubt that. You had quite the list of injuries when they brought you in.” Her smile didn’t waver as she stepped deeper into the room, closer to Mackenna’s bed. “You’re healing much slower than I would expect for a werewolf, but I think we can attribute that to malnourishment and dehydration. You’ve also lost quite a bit of blood, which doesn’t help, of course.”
It was true that her wounds had begun to heal. The skin on her neck tingled as skin repaired itself. Her hands and feet—the parts of her body that had sustained the worst of the burns—itched like crazy. Yes, the process was much slower than normal, but she was healing. A human wouldn’t know that, though. The doctor couldn’t know that Mackenna was a werewolf.
Unless she was a Hunter.
Moving to the edge of the bed, she swung her legs over the side. “I have to go.”
“I don’t think that’s advisable.” The doctor rushed to her side and tried to push her back onto the mattress. “You need rest.”
Mackenna bared her fangs at the woman. “Get away from me.”
Surprisingly, the move worked, and the doctor reared back with a gasp. “I’m only trying to help you.”
Trying to help her back into a cage maybe. “I don’t need your kind of help.”
She tried to stand, but the needle in her arm prevented her from moving too far away from the IV stand. Curling her upper lip, she gripped the clear tube and yanked. Tape ripped away from her skin, and the needle slid out of her arm with a spray of blood that dotted the white sheets.
“Oh, my god,” the doctor cried. “What are you doing? Please, stop.”
Mackenna didn’t even pause as she ran for the door, wrenched it open, and stumbled out into a stark, barren hallway. She’d known it was too good to be true. She’d known better than to think the nightmare had ended. Damn, she shuddered at how stupid she’d been.
“No,” the doctor yelled as she chased after her. “Please, wait. Come back. Just let me explain.”
Ignoring the calls, Mackenna raced down the empty corridor and past a nurses’ station toward a set of heavy double doors. She was obviously inside a hospital, but she couldn’t be sure if the entire building was a medical facility or just that particular wing. If it was anything like the compound she’d come from, there could be dozens of Hunters waiting for her beyond those doors.
Unfortunately, she didn’t even make it that far before she realized the true extent of her predicament. People started spilling into the hallway from the various rooms she passed. Men and women, some children, all of them wide-eyed and curious as they watched from their doorways.
Two males stepped into her path, both of them large, imposing figures who blocked any avenue of escape. Mackenna ducked the first set of hands that reach for her, but she couldn’t avoid the second male. Arms like iron bands wrapped around her, pinning her own arms to her sides and lifting her off the floor.
“Let me go!” she screeched. When the other man came forward, she kicked her feet out, doing her best to connect with any part of him she could reach. “Get away from me!”
“Christ,” the guy holding her grunted. “Calm down. No one’s going to hurt you.”
They had a pretty funny way of showing it. “Get your fucking hands off me! I’m not going back. I’m not!” She screamed her denial, her voice ringing throughout the corridor. “I won’t. I can’t go back there.” Tears filled her eyes now, streaming hot
and fast down her cheeks. “Don’t make me go back.”
The double doors burst open, and several more people filed into the hallway. Their presence only intensified her panic, and she redoubled her efforts, kicking and flailing, contorting her body in every direction to try to break the hold. When that didn’t work, she jerked her head back, wincing when her skull connected solidly with her captor’s nose. The loud crack and resulting curse said she’d broken it.
The arms around her middle vanished, and she fell to the floor, but there was nowhere left to go. Surrounded, she scrambled across the tiles to a bare space of wall and pressed her back to it. She pulled her knees up to her chin and rounded her shoulders, trying to make herself as small as possible as if that might somehow save her.
“Please,” she sobbed. “Just let me go. I’ve never hurt anyone, I swear. I just want to go home.”
The drone of hushed conversation buzzed in her ears, but she couldn’t focus on what was being said. It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered. She’d failed, and now, she’d never be free.
“Mackenna?”
She recognized the voice, but not from a memory. It felt more like she’d heard it in a dream. A familiar scent accompanied it, cool and earthy, like the forest after the rain. The sense of peace and safety she’d remembered from the previous night surrounded her, warmed her, and eased some of her panic.
“Hey, it’s okay. No one is going to hurt you.” The male crowded closer, crouching just inches away, but he didn’t reach out to touch her. “It’s Cade, remember? We met last night.”
Cautiously, Mackenna lifted her head to meet his gaze. Eyes so dark brown they looked almost black stared back at her, intense but not unkind. Beneath the scruff of dark hair on his face, she saw his jaw tick, as if he wanted to say something but held back. She detected nothing in his scent to indicate fear or unease. No trace of malice or ill intent.
He was incredibly handsome, but that wasn’t why she couldn’t look away. It wasn’t what made her throat tighten or her heart flutter in her chest. Like a siren’s song she couldn’t ignore, everything about this human called to her, lured her in, entranced her. It was primordial, instinctive, a feeling that enveloped both her mind and senses, and it could only mean one thing.
