Shots had filled the room, the thrown grenades chugging out thick clouds of greasy black smoke. Each breath had been like inhaling razor-blades, whatever was in the stuff eating him from the inside out. Infiltrating his blood, making his body sluggish and even sending his wolf into slumber.
Then he remembered nothing.
“Breathe.” A deep voice advised. “Sickness’ll pass in a while.”
Darce rolled his head until he rest against his temple and risked opening one eye again. There in a cage opposite was the Hybrid. Still sitting cross-legged, he rifled through a bowl in front of him, nose curled as he sorted the contents. His claws clicked against the sides each time he reached in and selected a morsel. Darce grimaced. Even from here, whatever the Hybrid was eating smelled terrible.
“Ugh, if you say so.” Darce swallowed. His throat felt like sandpaper. “Wanna keep it down to a dull roar? What happened?”
Darce rolled his head forward again, resting against the cold metal. His limbs felt heavy and strange, almost like they didn’t belong to him. Felt…disconnected somehow. He reached for his wolf but the creature grunted back sleepily, the merest trickle of energy coming back when before the thing had been a powerhouse, throwing out more heat than a furnace. No help there. Shit. He racked his memories, thinking back to all the other times he’d been drugged. Had he ever felt so weak…so human again before?
“Hit us with some kind of new gas. Dropped us like stones.”
Click-click-click. The Hybrid continued to ferret in the bowl, each little tic like nails jammed through Darce’s skull.
“I swear to God, man. If you don’t stop that noise, I’m gonna ram that bowl up your f**king ass.”
A deep chuckle answered him, followed by the slide of metal over metal. “I was done anyway.”
A grunt of effort escaped Darce’s lips as he rolled onto his side. The simple movement left him weak and his head pounding. This time when he opened his eyes, the light didn’t feel like someone had taken a jackhammer to his brain. He lay for a while, head turned to watch the technicians and guards outside the cage. They were twitchy, the technicians constantly looking over their shoulders while the guards stood by with their fingers resting on their trigger guards. A door banged and at least three whirled around, rifles on their shoulders to scan for the threat.
Darce chuckled and dropped his head back. One woman had done that. His woman, and he had to find her. Although he’d told her to leave, to go and find his pack, he knew she wouldn’t have. He’d seen it in the flash in her eyes. Damn stubborn woman.
He closed his eyes. Concentrated. Marshalling every ounce of his energy, he wrapped it around the trickle of power from his sleeping wolf, pulling more from the creature and feeding back in a perpetual loop. Slowly at first, but gaining in speed, the charge in his body built and built until his blood sang and the tiny hairs on his skin lifted. Pain warred with the power. His teeth chattered and his bones ached but he held all the energy in at the core. Drew it tight. Then, in one almighty rush, he released it, dumping the whole lot into his veins.
Power rushed through him— a Juggernaut on a seek and destroy mission for every last drop of the sedative in his body. Hot and cold chills raced over his skin like butterflies in spiked boots, drawing sweat up and through his pores. The sharp stink of chemicals and medication filled his nostrils. He turned his head away to try and escape the stench but it was no good. The stuff crawled from him. Even the skin between his nose and his lip was wet with the stuff.
“Nice trick.”
Darce opened his eyes to see the Hybrid watching him. Of course. With both Blood and Lycan combined, he could probably scent a flea fart at six hundred meters.
“Thanks. Hurts like a bitch though.”
He sighed in relief, feeling the last of the stuff slough off his skin to evaporate within seconds from the metal underneath him.
“Hey man, what do I call you?”
The Hybrid grunted, moving farther back in his cage at the sound of a door somewhere behind them opening. The sound of boots approached. Darce groaned and scooted back. Anything to make the bastards work for it more.
“Name’s Steele. You?”
“Foster.”
“Cool. Nice to meet ya. Heads up, they’re bringing injured in.”
Darce craned his neck to see, not arguing with Steele’s assessment of the situation. The guy had been here a lot longer than he had. Four soldiers walked toward them, boots loud on the concrete. Each pair dragged a woman. The first was on her feet, terrified and shaking, but walking. The second was slumped between the two men, head down, feet dragging on the floor behind. Blood dripped steadily, leaving a deep black trail.
His heart stuttered in his chest and he slammed against the front of the cage before realizing that he’d moved.
“Oh fuck…no no no.”
It was Toni.
“Back up, dog.” One guard held a weapon covering the door as it opened and his partner bundled Toni through. Darce got to her before she hit the ground, catching her slender form and wrapping her up in his arms. She whimpered in pain. He cradled her close to his chest and scooted to the back of the cage. In the darkness, away from prying eyes.
“Shhh, sweetheart. I got you,” he murmured, trying to keep his voice soft. No hint of the panic rolling through his bigger frame in his tone. Shit, she was covered in blood, and the rich, deep scent filling his nostrils told him it was hers.
“You’re safe now. I promise. I got you. Where does it hurt, sweets?”
She didn’t reply, a whisper of a moan passing her lips. Her head lolled against his shoulder and he winced at the bruises across her face and throat. Blood trickled down her jaw and neck from a deep cut on her lip. He lowered himself to a sitting position, holding her carefully. Even her breathing was labored, each intake a struggle that ended with a rattle.
Arm supporting Toni’s back, he set her in his lap and used his free hand to lift her top. His breath hissed from his lungs. Her sides and abdomen were black and blue. Whoever had done this had worked her over good and proper. Anger boiled in his veins. His brain listed all the internal injuries and problems such a beating could incur. But almost as fast, his mind went blank. Shit. What did he do to help her?
Her lips pursed and she made a small sound. He lifted his head to find her looking at him, but her eyes were off focus–even when she tried to smile—and he knew she wasn’t really seeing him.
“Hey!” He pitched his voice to carry, catching the attention of a nearby guard. “She’s hurt bad…”
The guard swept a disinterested look over the bruised and battered woman in Darce’s arms. “Yeah, and?”
Darce grit his teeth. “She needs to see a doctor.”
The answer was a short bark of a laugh. “Yeah, right. For a Blood? Bitch needs a vet, not a doctor.”
Darce snarled, in a crouch with Toni pulled protectively beneath him. One hand was still in her hair, cradling her head while the other one sprouted a set of claws any movie monster would envy. Just one hand shifted, not the one in her hair. Something he’d never been able to do before but he wouldn’t risk a hair on her head.
“Whoa!” The guard stumbled backward, snatching at his rifle to aim it at them. “Back off, dog. Or I’ll blow both your brains over the back of that cage.”
“Foster!” The Hybrid barked from the cage opposite. “Do it. You’re no use to her dead.”
Sense filtered through the red haze over his vision. The claws retracted and the snarl trailed off, his lip dropping back to its normal position. Steele had a point. Pushing the guard was only going to get them dead. Fast. It would solve the problem—Toni wouldn’t be in pain anymore—but wasn’t the solution he was looking for.
“Yeah, that’s right.” Emboldened now, the guard surged forward, shoving the muzzle of the rifle through the bars threateningly. “You back down, or I’ll put you both down.”
It almost killed him to bow his head deferentially but Darce managed, hand up in the universal gesture of surrender. “I’m down, honest man. Don’t shoot.”
“Woods,” a voice shouted from farther down the room. “Stop f**king about and leave the subjects alone. Or I’ll have you shifted topside.”
“Yes sir!” Woods gave Darce a warning glare, then pushed away and walked off.
Darce watched him until he was out of sight, then turned his attention back to Toni. She lay under him, unmoving. His heart stuttered again and he shoved his fingers against her throat. Crap, no. She couldn’t have left him. Not yet. Panic threatened to overwhelm him, the darkness rising.
Then he felt it. The smallest pulse against his fingers. Her heart still beat. Slow. Weak. But still there.
“Hey, doll. Hang on for me. Let’s get you more comfortable.”
He laid her down gently, then reached over to the ratty pile of rags in the corner that had once been a blanket. A quick sniff assured him that they’d been clean when they’d been shredded and there was nothing objectionable on them. He made a soft bed of sorts, and moved her carefully. His heart wrung with every small sound of pain she made, but she didn’t fight him. Luckily. He didn’t think that his heart could take hurting her, even if he was only hurting her to stop her from hurting herself.
He got her settled and she opened her eyes again when he curled around her. This time they were clearer, a soft smile curving her lips before her eyelids fluttered closed again. She reached out, her hand brushing across his ribs before falling as though she were exhausted. A small gesture but his heart leaped. She knew who he was and that eased the ache deep within.
Still he swore under his breath. Why the f**k couldn’t he have been a doctor or something useful? Instead, he’d practically been born a soldier. Which meant all he could do was make her comfortable.
“Make her bite you.”
“Excuse me?”
Darce couldn’t keep the surprise out of his voice as he looked at Steele. The bigger man was in the back of his own cage, arms wrapped around the other woman they’d dragged in with Toni. He cradled her gently against his broad chest, rocking her as though she were an infant. From the movement of her shoulders, she hadn’t stopped crying yet.
“She needs blood,” Steele said bluntly with a quick glance at Toni, his voice at the deep level the humans around them had trouble hearing. “The kind of damage she’s taken, she needs blood to repair. I’m not seeing this lot lining up a transfusion anytime soon so, sorry bud, you want her to survive, she needs to get a little fang happy with your neck.”
Hell. Of course, why hadn’t he thought of that? She was a Blood, she’d need blood to survive—
“Right you lot, who’s up first for the honeymoon suite?” One of the doctors broke in over the conversation, cackling at his own joke and rubbing his hands. “Let’s see if we can’t get this show on the road and get the Colonel some little freak babies to cheer him up after the FUBAR today has become.”
He crouched down to peer in the cage at Darce and Toni, looking owlishly over his glasses. He clicked his tongue against the back of his teeth and pursed his lips.