Fuck. What’s going on?”

Toni paced back and forth in the cage before leaning against the bars and angling her head to try and see down the side of the cage opposite. They’d taken Darce that way in cuffs. The blonde bitch following with a smile like the cat that had gotten the damn cream.

But that had been hours ago. Or felt like it anyway. Probably nearer an hour.

“Fuck!”

She snarled, slammed her hands into the bars, and pushed off them to pace around the cage again. Her claws had sprouted in her anger but they ached like a bitch. A scowl twisting her features, she rubbed at her fingers and tried to get them to retract. But they weren’t playing ball, not even when she pressed down on the floor with the tips—a trick she’d used in the past. Instead they throbbed in complaint, a refrain picked up by the rest of her body.

Defeated, she threw herself into a heap on the meager blankets at the back of the small enclosure. Darce’s scent rose to engulf her, wrapping around her and caressing her senses. Her heart swelled as she grabbed the blankets and gathered them into her lap to bury her nose deep. Tears welled up so she pressed her face deeper. How pathetic was that? The man was gone less than an hour and she was a sniveling wreck.

He’s not coming back…

She jerked her head up, doing her best to ignore the little voice, and leaned back against the wall. Each cage had a solid back and was linked to the next in a block of two. She was settled in the corner by the empty enclosure next to her. Harder for the technicians to poke at her. Well, unless they came through the empty cell, which would give her enough of a warning to move into the middle.

Arching her back, she stretched and a groan escaped her lips. Why did she hurt so much? She moved to lift her arms above her head, needing to roll her shoulders to ease the deep ache there, but her claws caught on the blankets. Disentangling them, she frowned and looked at her fingers. Was it her imagination, or did her fingers seem longer than before? Like the bones themselves had lengthened. She shook off the notion, slumped back down against the wall and caught Steele looking at her.

“What?”

He shrugged, broad shoulders moving easily despite the heavy bruising she could see over the left side. Darce’s work probably, defending himself. She shivered. Not that defense was really possible against a creature like Steele. Until last night, she hadn’t believed the base stories about a hybrid. Like most urban myths, she’d dismissed them as fear-mongering. Now she’d seen him in action in the ring…yeah, fear was one word for it. Lethal was another.

“Nothing. Just that you don’t look so hot.”

Toni barked a short laugh. “No shit, Sherlock!”

He frowned and moved forward, leaving the aide sleeping at the back of the cage. Toni flicked a glance her way. Like her, the girl had been given new clothes, but a quick scent of the air revealed that was it. The smell of blood from the beating the two women had been given still clung to her, but nothing else. No smell of sex or anything. Obviously the Project’s breeding experiment wasn’t going so well over there.

“No, I’m serious. You look like crap. How…what are you feeling?”

Toni leaned her head back against the wall and raked her clawed fingers through her hair. The sharp edges nicked her skin but she ignored the slight sting and concentrated on the clues from the rest of her body. She felt terrible. Every muscle ached, and a soul deep chill seemed to be working its way up from her toes and turning her skin to ice while inside, a fire raged to boil her blood. She hugged herself tighter and used her hands to try and rub some warmth back into her upper arms.

“Ugh…” The sound emerged as a groan. Her guts coiled and twisted like a pit of snakes. Red hot snakes, covered in pepper and hot sauce, grating against her insides while they writhed over and around each other. Oh god, she was going to be sick. Tilting her head back, she swallowed convulsively. Lips pressed tightly together, she fought to keep down the contents of her stomach. She hated being sick. Loathed and detested it.

“Insides feel like they’re on fire? But you got ice crawling over your skin?” Steele’s deep voice broke through her pain-filled semi-trance.

Another wave of bile rose, so she just nodded.

“Drink some water. It’ll help.”

She opened her eyes with what seemed like extraordinary effort and focused on the water-bowl to the left. Her vision swam, three different versions of the steel bowl doing a slow waltz around each other. While she watched, they got fuzzier. Whatever was wrong with her was getting worse, fast. She tried to move toward the bowl but her arm didn’t work properly. Instead of reaching out, the useless thing fell to the side. She followed it down, slumping onto her side as the first wave of convulsions hit.

Her teeth chattered but she rode the shivers out. Fuck. What had they done to her? Poison…in the food maybe? But she hadn’t eaten or had anything to drink…unless it was from Darce. Just the smell of food and water had turned her off, so he’d eaten it and his blood filled her belly instead of the meal the techs had thrown into the cage.

“Shit…” Steele’s voice sounded panicked. Toni lay there, curled up into a ball, teeth chattering as the sweat poured from her.

“Someone get some help in here! I think we’re losing her!”

 

 

Pain is my friend. Pain is my friend. Absorb the pain, work it…be one with it…

As much as Darce tried to convince himself, running the mantra through his head over and over, it wasn’t working. After three bouts under the watchful eye of Colonel Fitzgerald and the VIPs, he had more holes in his skin than in a colander, and he was leaking the red stuff worse than an extra on the Walking Dead. Even his damn toenails hurt. How the fuck did toenails hurt?

Blood perfumed the air—his and that of the other poor bastards they’d thrown in with him—so thick he gagged. God knew how the bloods were dealing with it. One look at the red sheen in the vampire’s eyes clued him in. They weren’t dealing. They were in blood lust.

He eyed the three bloods circling him. Blood trailed down his arms and torso and his chest heaved from exertion, but it didn’t matter. All that mattered was being the last man standing. Because one thing was for sure: once they cracked the cage to let him out, he wasn’t taking this shit lying down anymore. While getting beat up and battered around the cage, he’d analyzed the positions and armament of the guards, and where they were in relation to the VIPs. If nothing changed, he would take out the two guards on the door and get to the blonde who wanted to buy him before anyone could even blink.

“Come on, you bunch of pussies!” he snarled, opening his arms in invitation.

The bloods rushed him at once. Fury and energy rolling through him in equal amounts, he turned and launched himself at the side of the cage. One step, two. He leaped and planted a foot in the middle of the mesh in front of him and pushed off. He twisted violently in midair, curled one leg under him and snapped the other out. The toe of his heavy boot, the ones the guards had made him put on before he stepped into the ring, connected with the first blood’s jaw. There was a sickening crunch as bone gave, shattering within the skin and shoving the broken ends of jaw out the other side of the face. The guy spun like a top, splattering the sand with blood, and collided with one of the others. Both went down in a heap of limbs.

The wolf within roared and Darce tipped his head back, letting the creature have free voice. The door between them was fully open now, the man feeding the beast and the beast feeding the man. For once the creature didn’t push to gain control or go for a shift. Instead, it pumped feral rage through Darce’s human body until he thought he’d burst from it, and allowed him to make all the decisions. Animalistic power and human intellect to drive it. The perfect symbiotic relationship.

Thinking human.

Jack’s favorite phrase and finally, finally, Darce understood.

He dropped his head back as the final blood rushed in. He didn’t give it a chance to land a blow. Instead, he dodged the lightning fast swipe of claws and then slid in to wrap a hand around the back of the guy’s neck. His other hand grabbed at the shoulder and he shoved his face right into the blood’s before jerking him down. The blood snarled but Darce’s grip was good, solid. This was going down. Now.

Kicking his feet out from under him and backward, he took them both down. He pulled his head back and used the momentum to drive his opponent’s face hard into the sand. Unlike before, it was just a thin covering over the concrete beneath, offering no protection when the blood hit at full speed. Scarlet mingled with the pale gold granules, snaking out from beneath the blood’s head like the hair of Medusa. On a human, such a move was a finisher—end game—but not with a blood. The fucker would be up and kicking back in minutes.

Darce didn’t give him the chance. Levering himself up from the prone position, he shifted his hold and, gritting his teeth, snapped the blood’s neck.

“Bravo!”

Blondie crowed with excitement and clapped her hands. Nearing the mesh, she smiled broadly as Darce climbed to his feet. He kept a sharp eye on the three forms prone on the sand. The one he’d dropped lay still. Dead probably. Hard to tell for sure with the creatures the Project produced.

“Oh, yes. He’s perfect.” The blonde turned to Fitzgerald with a wide smile. “Can he run well?”

Fitzgerald snorted. “He’s a lycan—full lupine—so he should do, yeah.”

She spun back around, watching Darce watch her.

C’mon, bitch. He rolled his shoulders, tensing all his muscles and posing. Ask to take a closer look. You know you want to. And the instant they let me out of this cage—

“I want to see him against the hybrid. Just to be sure.”

Wait, what? No. He didn’t want to face Steele again. Not in here. Not anywhere.

“Sounds like an excellent plan.” Fitzgerald nodded to the guards and Darce centered himself. He’d have less than a second to put his plan into action, grab the blonde and get claws in her throat. If she had enough clout to start making deals with Fitzgerald, Darce would bet the shit would hit the fan if she so much as mussed her hair up.

But the guards, instead of clearing the cage, left the bodies with him and disappeared. Shit. They weren’t clearing the cage yet. He watched the blonde move farther away from the door.

“So…why me?” He sidled to the mesh near where she was, eyeing her up and down with an interest he didn’t feel. But he knew women, and he knew how women saw him—had seen the way she’d looked at him. Underneath whatever other purposes she had, there was female interest too. Interest he could use to his advantage, even if the thought of touching a woman other than Toni made him feel physically sick.

“Why you what?” she asked, stepping back from the mesh as he approached, fear flashing in those baby blues.

He flicked a glance at her badge. Karla Armstrong, Lowery Industries. Who the fuck was she, and what did she want him for?

“Valuable addition to your stable? Doubling your offer? Stop me when I get to something familiar.” He leaned one shoulder against a support post and looked at her through the mesh with one eyebrow raised.

She shrugged but flicked him a flirty glance from under her lashes. He suppressed the shudder. Focus. He needed to get out of here and she was his meal ticket to both freedom and Toni.

“We’re looking for a lycan. I wanted the hybrid but the good colonel won’t part with him.”

“Oho, I’m second choice then, am I?”

She didn’t reply, looking toward the door as it opened. Darce grunted, cast a glance over his shoulder and the blood drained from his body. They had Steele, yeah, but behind him two guards had Toni and the other woman, the one they’d thrown in with Steele. But they weren’t dragging them this time. Instead, both women were walking. Just. Toni was almost bent double, being helped by the other woman, gripping her stomach with agony written all over her face.

“Shit.”

He was across the cage the instant the door opened and they shoved the two women in. He got his arms around Toni before she hit the floor and cradled her in his lap while he checked her over. Paler than a corpse, her skin was waxy and sweat beaded to roll down her skin. She shivered, but when he put his hand to her forehead it was like touching a radiator. Another convulsion hit her, a moan slipping from her. He held her tight until it passed, and she opened her eyes. They were dark, unfocused. Her gaze skittered over his face and onto the cage around them before returning to him. He doubted she knew where they were.

“What’s the matter with her? How long has she been like this?” he demanded, looking up at the woman hovering next to him. Her scent said human, almost. Steele’s scent was all over her, but there was something else—something wild and feral, buried deep down. Not fully human, but he didn’t have time to work out what else she was. Not when his mate looked like death warmed over.

“I d-don’t know. He…” She jerked her head toward where Steele was arguing with one of the technicians. Unlike the two women, he was bound hand and foot, just a short chain between his wrists and ankles allowing him to move. “He said she was ill. Tried to get help, but then they came for us.”

Darce nodded and froze when one of the doctors plunged a needle in Steele’s arm. The hybrid roared and swiped at the needle, tearing it away and backhanding the technician into a cluster of equipment.

“Quick. Get him inside!” Fitzgerald ordered, but the guards were already moving. With their Taser batons sparking, the guards herded the big man into the cage and slammed the door shut.

Steele stumbled and went to one knee with his head down. His shoulders shook, his fist opening and closing in a reflex action. Instinct plucked at Darce, all his wolfy-senses going batshit as he eased Toni to the ground behind him.

“Look after her,” he shot to the woman hovering next to him and stood. “Steele, man…you okay?”

At his question, the hybrid’s head snapped up. Darce swore.

His eyes were totally red.

 

Her blood was on fire.

Toni groaned and rolled over, grinding her forehead into the sand beneath. It hurt so she did it again, anything to distract her from the pain in her guts. The scent of blood and sweat—and other less pleasant aromas—rose to clog up her nostrils when she disturbed the grains. The heated blackness rolled back, and her hearing returned. The sounds of battle filled her ears, along with terrified sobs.

Where was she? What the hell was going on?

Another wave of fire stole her breath but she rode it out, eyes pressed tightly shut. When it receded she gathered herself, and—arms clutched tightly around her middle—got her knees under her. The sand abraded her forehead but she didn’t care. That was pain, a normal pain, not like the agony that attacked her through her own blood.

“Oh god, please… He’s going to kill him. You have to get up!”

Hands pulled at her arms, trying to yank her up from her forehead-down, ass-up crouch. Toni hissed in reply and concentrated on not hurling. Crawling around on the floor and rubbing her forehead across what amounted to sandpaper wasn’t the most dignified thing but she didn’t care. Pain was good. Pain was her friend. It cleared her mind and helped her think.

She slammed her hand into the sand by her head. Hard. Agony stampeded up her arm, fighting back the fire in her blood. She hit again and again, until the skin on her knuckles split and the scent of her own blood filled her nostrils. A roar left her lips and she pushed herself up, grinding the open wounds into the floor. To the knees—knees were good. Now if she could just up that to being on her feet, she’d be cooking with gas.

Her head rocked back on her neck and she opened her eyes, trying to focus on what was going on around her. The cage. This time from the inside. Crap, that wasn’t good. The mesh panels zoomed in and out as her vision tried to get with the program. Myriads of snarls and the sound of fists on flesh brought her head around and she frowned, trying to bring the combatants into view. Someone was getting a pasting—that was for sure.

The fighters were out of focus but she could make out a bigger man pounding on a smaller one. Animalistic snarls clued her in. Two lycans for a guess. The bigger one knocked the other off his feet with a brutal elbow and backhand combination that made him stagger into the mesh with a clatter. Her vision cleared in time to see Darce slide down the mesh into a crumpled heap.

“Shit…no…”

Toni lurched to the side, hooking her fingers into the mesh and hauling herself upright. The metal burned and bit when she touched it. She gasped and used the pain to fend off the fire blasting through her. She wanted to curl up into a little ball and sob, to give up and let the agony overwhelm her, but she wouldn’t. Not with Darce in danger. No way would the fucking Project win, not while she had breath left in her body.

Darce staggered back to his feet as she managed to reach hers. The aide was right next to her, sliding in under Toni’s arm to keep her upright.

“Thank god. I thought you were a goner for sure. How are you feel—oh…”

Toni clung to the other woman, using the stranger’s strength to stay upright while Darce launched himself into the attack again. As he ran, he changed and another form exploded from his body. The snarl rolling from his lips deepened and transformed as his chest expanded. A muzzle punched out of his human face, filled with sharp fangs, and fur flowed from his nose outward like an oil slick covering his skin. Bones snapped sharply, grew and reformed in an instant. The structure of his legs shifted mid-run. The claws already present at the ends of his fingers lengthened, his hands changing shape to become more like claws but he wasn’t wolf—not fully. Instead, he was something else. Humanoid…a wolf-man.

“Yes! I knew it!” Fitz’s voice rang with triumph from somewhere the other side of the cage but Toni paid it no mind. That bastard would get his comeuppance even if she had to come back from the dead to send him to the afterlife.

The two women caught their breath as Darce charged across the sand. He changed direction, angling himself at the mesh, and then ran up it. In mid-air, he twisted his body and lashed out with a foot. Claws sliced through the air and across Steele’s face. Blood splattered across the sand. The bigger man spun around and went down.

“Holy shit.”

Toni wasn’t sure whether she or the aide had spoken, but it didn’t matter. That had finished the fight. No way could even Steele get back up after such a blow. No way could anyone get up after something like that.

Darce dropped back to his feet, dancing lightly while he studied the prone body on the sands. His eyes were the full amber of his wolf, but sparkled with a human intelligence that was disconcerting.

Pride filled Toni. She straightened, ignoring the claws of fire in her gut. Somehow Darce had found a way to combine the most powerful elements of his two natures into one lethal form. Love blossomed, warming her from the middle of her chest outward and fighting the pain that wanted to tie her in knots.

And he was her man.

She pushed off, needing to get to him. To wrap her arms around him and reassure herself he was actually there, living and breathing in front of her. Before she could take a step, Steele groaned. She paused, unable to believe her eyes. The hybrid moved, the muscles in his big shoulders and arms popping into high relief as he pushed up. Then he got to his knees before climbing to his feet. A snarl rolled from Darce’s lips. He flexed his hands, making his claws flash in the lights trained on the ring.

Steele threw back his head and roared, the sound rebounding off the walls. Darce’s claws had opened his face from ear to jaw in three vicious slices. But as the two women watched, the skin knitted and turned black. A darkness spread out over his skin to flow over the rest of his body. His nose and lips changed, pushing out like Darce’s but then scrunching up. Becoming something else…not lupine, even though he had lycan blood.

His ears elongated and became bat-like. A series of cracks like gunshots echoed through the silence. With each sharp sound, Steele’s body jerked like a marionette. Bones snapped and reformed within his skin. His hands changed, broader and longer, like paws tipped with vicious talons. Not lycan and not blood, but something in between. His legs cracked and changed shape, the movement sickening and painful looking as his lower limbs reformed with the backward “knee,” like a wolf.

Darce backed up, wariness written in every line of his body. Silence fell and anticipation drew the air taut. Everyone in the room held their breath and waited to see what Steele had become, what he would do.

That question was answered when he lifted his head, eyes glowing red. He looked around. Spotted Darce. The hiss which emanated from his throat was low and full of malevolence as he launched himself at the lycan. Darce had no time to block. He tried, but barely managed to stop every second blow. Toni screamed. More and more holes from Steele’s claws appeared in Darce’s skin, bright trails of scarlet staining the fur.

He howled in pain, lashing out with claws and teeth as Steele circled him, but it was easy to see he was outmatched. For every blow Darce tried, Steele came back with three, pinning the lycan into the corner until there was no escape. An audible wince went through the crowd outside the mesh when Steele hissed, claws flashing before he drove them deep into Darce’s abdomen. Darce stiffened, head thrown back as Steele let go and he slowly slid to the sand.

“Nononono!”

Toni didn’t stop to think. Ignoring the pain curling through her gut, she launched herself across the cage. Something inside her broke, shattering into a million pieces and releasing the blackness in her soul. It flooded through her veins, extinguishing the fires that had raged there and filling every inch and every cell of her body with icy darkness.

Three running steps took her halfway over the sand. On the forth she bunched her legs under her and launched herself into the air. She left the ground and her body changed. Bones popped and snapped, reforming at the speed of thought. She reached out in front of her, redness filtering over her vision as she homed in on her target.

Steele.

One thought filled her mind.

She wouldn’t let him kill the man she loved.

She accepted the thought finally. She was in love with Darce. In love with the irritating, cocky, sexy-as-hell lycan who’d told her she was his the first time they’d met. She was his. She always had been—she just hadn’t known it. He was a lycan, sure, and no match for a blood. That side of her rebelled against the thought, even while the other half, the half that was whatever the fuck was wrong with her right now, accepted it immediately. It felt right. Perfect. Meant to be. Which meant she wasn’t going to let this piece of shit hybrid kill him. Just like in chess, the queen protected the king.

Even if it meant laying down her own life.

Perhaps feeling death coming for him, Steele looked over his shoulder at the last minute. Surprise flowed across his altered features but she was on him. Snarling with rage, she pummeled, stabbing through the thickened hide with her talons. Longer and stronger than they’d ever been, they slid easily even through the blackened skin of this new form. The hot rush of his blood flowed over her fingers and tantalized her with its heady scent.

She ignored it, snarling again when Steele dropped to the floor and started to roll. They tumbled and the air was knocked from her lungs as he tried to throw her off his back. It didn’t work; she wasn’t going to be dislodged. She had her legs locked around his waist and a full set of talons buried deep in the fleshy part of his shoulder as she used the other to give him more ventilation through his ribcage. He howled and staggered to his feet. Turning, he surged backward a few steps and then slammed her into one of the support struts for the cage.

The back of her skull connected sharply. Stars exploded over her vision, her blows weaker as she was forced to cling on for grim death. She couldn’t let go now. If she went down, Darce and the poor little human aide were dead.

She couldn’t let that happen.

“Blood… Try blood!” she yelled to the other woman, desperate for anything to get Darce back on his feet and into the fight. Between them, they might have a chance to take this fucker down. After Steele, getting out of here was going to be a walk in the park.

After Steele, anything would be a walk in the park.

She didn’t get chance to see if the other woman got the message. Steele reached over his shoulder, his claws tearing through her arm and up to snarl under her collarbone. His talon scraped along the underside, dragging a cry of pain from her lips. With a roar, he yanked her off his back and threw her with ease against the side of the cage. She closed her eyes as she sailed through the air, her body limp to try and limit the damage.

The theory was good, but the execution failed.

She crashed into the mesh—or rather her shoulders and her legs did, but the center of her back hit one of the concrete pillars holding the whole thing in place. There was a crack, the wrong sound loud in the sudden silence, and she dropped to the sand.

She tried to scramble out of the way but warmth and numbness spread over her lower body. She couldn’t move her legs, not even to move out of the way as Steele raced toward her, his claws outstretched and glinting under the lights. Death came for her with sharp fangs and red eyes.

She had seconds to react, but fuck if she was going out without a fight. Setting her back against the mesh, she hissed in defiance. Steele rolled into her, hands extended. His claws pierced her abdomen at the same time she drove hers through his ribcage.

Blood poured over her hand. Hot. Wet. Thick.

His heart beat against her claws, like it was irritated by the intrusion. At the same time his sliced through her gut, tearing like a dull knife through warm bread. The red eyes above hers started to dim, the weird bat-like features receding to leave a ravaged human face in their wake.

He was dying. Her blow had been a mortal one. Her vision started to gray around the edges. So had his, but she’d achieved what she’d set out to do. Darce was safe and that was all that mattered.

She’d saved the man she loved.