She couldn’t believe she was crying. Lillian didn’t cry. Ever. She was tougher than that. Tougher than the stereotypical little woman who fell apart at the first sign of danger… Or the mother who couldn’t cope after the death of her husband and hightailed it to her lover with teary demands to “make the nightmare go away”. And conveniently forgot the fact she’d left her baby daughter behind.

She was not that woman, nor anything like her.

Once in the corridor, away from the stench of death and the sight of all that black, wrong blood, she stepped away from Jack and swiped at her tears with the back of her hand. Despite the fact he’d just killed a man, there was something about him that made her feel safe. Safe with a murderer. Okay, now she knew she was losing it. Perhaps insanity ran in her family and they’d just never told her?

“I’m sorry. I’m not normally like this,” she apologized as she looked up and offered a small, teary smile. Her mouth already open to explain, she stopped.

He was gorgeous.

She’d known that. When they’d brought him in, her mind had told her that he was sex on a stick. But he’d been injured, a patient. Even though she was the hospital manager, she was bound by the patient-doctor thing, surely? The one that said “thou shalt not lust after the patients”.

Now though, without all the blood and the ragged uniform—even in the hospital gown that did nothing for anyone—he was so good-looking it took her breath away. She shook her head slightly, waiting for the hidden cameras and some cheesy reality show host to burst out of the supply cabinet in the corridor next to them. He couldn’t be for real. Soldiers just didn’t look that good.

With warm amber eyes set above sharp cheekbones, his face was bisected by a strong, straight nose over sensually full lips. A severe hair-cut merely highlighted his attractiveness, concentrating all attention on his face. He should be strutting his stuff on a catwalk, not getting down and dirty playing soldier.

Her eyes travelled downward, and the rest of him more than fulfilled the promise of his face. He was toned…hell no, he was ripped. Even his muscles had muscles. Tall and broad shouldered, he was built like a quarterback, and his life had obviously been one of violence. Old scars dotted his skin like a mad artist had gone to town with his body as the canvas.

“I know you’re not. You’re strong.”

His words drew her attention back to his face. His eyes were blue again. He smiled, which almost robbed her of reason, but she held onto the thought for grim death. No one’s eyes changed that fast. What the hell have they done to him?

“Your eyes… What the hell are you?”

The smile turned cold, his features freezing around it and locking it into place. In hindsight, perhaps a demand for information wasn’t the best way to deal with this, especially after what had gone on in the room behind them. Walker was slumped, dead, but somehow she knew Jack wouldn’t hurt her.

He moved toward her. Only three steps, but with those blue eyes intent upon her, it seemed more like a stalk. With every movement he made, her instincts screamed “predator”.

She held her ground, tilting her head to look at him as he neared. He stopped inches away from her, so close the heat of his body beat at her skin even through her clothing and his gown.

“We don’t have time for this, Lilly.”

He lifted a hand to tuck a loose strand of hair behind her ear. As though he couldn’t stop touching her, he stroked a gentle finger down her cheekbone to the corner of her lips. It took everything she had not to turn her head and press into the small caress, but she held true to her purpose, her eyes on his.

“Make time.”

His lips quirked, and everything female in her went into meltdown. He had to know the effect he had on women, so she ignored the reaction and met him look for look.

“Stubborn little minx.”

She choked. “What did you call me?”

“Minx,” he repeated, lowering his head and brushing his lips over hers to silence her. As a tactic, it worked. The first touch of his lips, warm and firm over hers, was like setting light to kindling. Heat flared and caught, racing through her body like wildfire.

She moaned, unable to stop her lips parting automatically in invitation. No matter what her mind was screaming about the dead guy in the next room and the possibility the hunk stood in front of her wasn’t just human, her body knew what it wanted, and what it intended to get.

He didn’t pass up the invitation. Groaning, he moved closer and deepened the kiss. With a ruthless sweep of his tongue, he parted her lips farther and slid into the softer recesses of her mouth. She shivered, hot and cold chills chasing over her skin as he kissed her in the darkness of the corridor.

She’d been kissed before and, as she’d thought anyway, she’d been kissed well. This was something else entirely. He kissed her as if there was nothing else in the world. As if she was his sun, his moon and stars…his everything. He didn’t kiss her, he made love to her with his lips and tongue.

Abruptly he broke away, tearing his mouth from hers. With a groan of frustration, he leaned forward to rest his forehead against hers.

“I don’t want to let you go.” The tone in his voice pulled on her heartstrings. “When they brought me in, there was just pain and blood…so much blood. Darkness was coming for me, and I was ready. But an angel called my name… I had to come back to see if she was as beautiful as she sounded.”

His words reached deep inside her. She already thought he was gorgeous, but to have him spouting words that…romantic wasn’t the word. The claim he’d come back just to see her, that hit her deep down and resonated in her soul.

“And…?”

She almost dared not ask the question, and when she did, her voice emerged breathy and hopeful. Like a teen finally meeting and speaking to her film idol in the flesh.

“Oh yes, she was worth it.”

“Hey you, what are you—holy shit! Sound the alarm, the Alpha’s loose.”

 

Fuck…ing hell. Just what he needed.

Jack sighed and stole another kiss. Just one. Nothing more than a peck on her lusciously soft lips. He couldn’t linger, couldn’t risk it. He needed to deal with those guards now. Even after he’d had his guts shredded and pushed a truckload of silver out through his pores, two guards were little more than a light workout. The rest he’d rather pick off one by one, preferably before the call came in from Project headquarters to check in on Walker’s pager alert.

Putting temptation aside, he tucked Lillian behind the steel supply cabinet. What she’d seen with Walker was just the tip of the iceberg. She didn’t need to see this, didn’t need to see the full horror of his animal side. Not yet.

“Stay put. Don’t look,” he ordered in an undertone. “Hey guys.” He held his hands out to the side as he started walking toward the two guards at the end of the corridor. Both looked like rabbits caught in the headlights. “How’s it hanging?”

Adrenalin pumped through his body as he walked, feet cold on the linoleum flooring. Within him, his beast howled and yammered to be free. To burst from the confining human form and race down the corridor free.

Even dulled by this shape, his expanded senses fed him information. He could smell their fear. Hear the pounding of their hearts in twin panicked rhythms. Sense the hot rush of blood just under their skin.

“Stay right there.”

One of them managed to snap out of it, fumbling with the pistol holstered at his hip. When he managed to pull the weapon free, his hand shook.

“I—I’m not kidding. Drop and spread ’em. Or—or else!”

Jack kept walking. His body surged with power, the stresses of the last forty-eight hours gone as if they’d never been. The moon was up, his mate was within reach and he felt good. A low snarl rumbled up from his chest. Forget lean, mean fighting machine. He was lethality in motion.

Not stopping, he reached inside himself and opened the cage that kept the beast confined. Just a little, no more than a crack. Power and pain flooded through him in equal amounts, filling his body and surging through his veins like molten metal.

“Or else what?”

His voice was low, gruff. More like a growl than human. Both guards had been with the Project long enough to know what that meant. The acrid stink of fresh urine filled the corridor as the one on the left pissed his pants.

His teeth clenched, he grabbed the fiery wolf by its tail and molded it, shaping it to his needs and his will. Change, change, change. He forced the shift down to his hands. Bones cracked, breaking as they lengthened. Skin slid and popped over the changing shape. His fingers stretched, talons sprouting until he sported a set that would make any self-respecting wolfman pale in envy.

He didn’t give them a chance to reply. The next step brought him within striking distance. The guard on the right gasped, the muzzle of his gun shaking as he started to squeeze the trigger. The one on the left fumbled with the restraining clip on his holster.

Jack’s eyes narrowed, his world focused on that finger and its progress as it tightened. Time slowed to a crawl, the corridor around them went gray and out of focus. He moved, his motions seeming slow as the seconds spun out. He swept his arm up in an arc, claws fully extended.

The pistol clicked as the trigger reached first pressure. The tiny sound was like a gunshot to his sensitive ears. His human brain fed him what was happening inside the pistol, but his animal side didn’t care. Talons connected, cutting through skin, muscle, sinew, and bone like a hot knife through butter as he completed the arc.

The pistol fired. Screams filled the corridor. The smell of blood blossomed, full and heavy. Cordite joined it, the two blending into an evocative smell that teased his wolf into a blood-frenzy.

Jack didn’t let it. He held onto control by the thinnest of threads, aware of the woman hiding behind the heavy metal cabinet. With bullets flying around as they were, the last thing he needed was her loose and in the mix. It would only take a stray bullet…

Using the power he’d unleashed, he channeled it into action. The guard’s hand bounced off the floor, leaving a red smear as it rolled. Jack ignored it, side-stepping to land a solid kick in the injured guy’s gut. He went down, curling around his damaged arm like a fetus in the womb. Already he was starting to fit, his body stiffening as the drugs in his system reacted to the Lycan infection introduced by Jack’s claws.

Jack didn’t stop moving. Using his momentum, he bounced off the floor and back up into the attack. The second guard didn’t clear leather before Jack was on him. He grabbed the hand covering the weapon and wrenched it loose, holster and all. It slammed into the wall behind them with a dull thud at the same time Jack twisted the guard’s wrist out from his body.

With a quick spin, he had the smaller man in the cradle of his embrace. But even if Jack had been so inclined, this was no lover’s clinch. His free hand smoothed over the guys throat, the razor sharp claws tickling over his Adam’s apple as it bobbed up and down. He babbled unintelligibly, another wave of urine stench washing over him as he lost control of his bladder again. Jack felt no pity. This was the guy who’d laughed in the blood wagon when Jack’s guts were on display.

“Too slow. Way too slow. You should have picked another career,” he whispered and drew his claws lightly across the man’s throat. The cut wasn’t serious—it barely broke the surface. A solitary bead of blood rolled down to the starched uniform collar.

The wound wouldn’t kill him, but it was still a death sentence.

* * *

Even though, she had to be up and around during the day, Antonia was very much a nocturnal creature. She could tolerate the sun, and indeed had to, but for the most part it left her wanting to curl up and sleep somewhere warm.

Garry had told her it was because her body had changed. He’d thrown big words around, but the basics had boiled down to the fact she’d switched to cold-blooded rather than warm. Her metabolism, always high, had gone into meltdown. When active, her readings were off the chart, but if she wanted to she could just stop, shutting everything down until she resembled an incredibly detailed, lifelike statue.

To say it freaked out the medical staff was an understatement, and Antonia was probably the only person ever to have been barred from the camp mess hall.

Ops had only wanted her to sign off on reports. Paperwork never quit, even when you were “dead” to all intents and purposes.  Still fully clothed, she lay on the bed and stared at the ceiling. The room was small but private. At first she’d thought it a luxury; now she realized it was little more than another prison. Sure, the lock on the door had been deactivated now, but it hadn’t always been. In the early days, just after her “accident”, they’d locked her in here from sundown to sunup on the thinking that she and the rest of the Bloods were less dangerous during the day.

A snort of amusement escaped her. Yeah right, the day any Blood was harmless was the day Santa Claus became President.

She went back to counting paint blots above her. She’d been up all day, but sleep was proving to be elusive. Counting paint blots was marginally better than counting sheep. Counting sheep became counting bags of blood running around on little woolly legs. Which made her hungry, made her fangs drop and burn, and soured her temper even more than normal.

She tilted her head…had that been two or three blots? She counted it as two and moved on. Interestingly, since her accident, she hadn’t had PMS or even a period. One of the upsides of being a vampire, because even she wouldn’t want to see a vamp with PMS.

The room lights were off, but she didn’t need light to see. Another benefit of her new existence. At least it would be if normal light didn’t give her a blinding headache. The sort of headache that felt like a spitfire was trying to take off inside her head, and no amount of over the counter medicine could deal with it.

At three hundred blots, a door opened down the hall and footsteps sounded in the corridor outside. Stopping her count, she listened as they approached. Lifting her chin, she scented the air. Human, male and scared out of his wits. The scent of fear clogged the air, like thick incense.

Three doors away. Two doors.

How had they gotten a human to come down here at this time of night? It was bad enough trying to get them to come in here in the daylight, when they were all safe and secure in the knowledge that vampires were “docile” in the day. Yeah right… She gargled holy water and shit garlic.

One door, and the footsteps carried on. Antonia held her breath and waited for the sharp rap on her door.

“Major Fielding? You’re needed in the Operations office.”

Without conscious thought, she was off the bed and headed for the door. The guy the other side, a corporal, yelped and jumped as she yanked it open less than a second after he’d spoken.

“For? I do sleep, you know.”

She glared at him, the look in her eyes deliberately glacial. Even though she hadn’t been asleep and his arrival was a welcome distraction from her contemplation of the ceiling’s paint job, she was still offshift. A familiar resentment filled her. She was fed up with the Project snapping its fingers and expecting her to jump.

“Uhmm…they didn’t say. J-just that you’re needed.” The corporal paled, appearing to realize that he stood in the middle of vampire country, facing down the queen bitch herself. The pissed-off queen bitch.

A bead of sweat ran from his hairline and rolled down his brow. His gaze shifted sideways to the door.

“You’d never make it in time,” she informed him softly, amused that any human thought he could outrun her. He paled even further, his lip quivering. Antonia shook her head and decided to give him a break. He was so scared that baiting him seemed cruel. Like kicking a puppy.

”Operations? We may as well go.”

Stepping out through it, she pulled the door shut behind her and started to walk up the corridor. It was a long walk to the outer door, the expanse of wall broken at regular intervals by doors. Each had a lock. Most were active.

A low moaning sob emanated from the last one as they passed it. A sound of misery and hopelessness that evolved into rage and frustration, then back again. Antonia’s jaw tightened. She recognized the sound of a newly turned Blood suffering their first thirst. Remembered the endless night she woke feeling like her body, her very blood, was boiling. The pain was excruciating, something she wouldn’t wish on her worse enemy.

She’d drunk gallons of water, only to throw it back up. Soda tasted worse—fizzy acid. White wine? Paint stripper. There were only two things even slightly palatable: port and, of course, blood.