Chapter 12

Tate crouched down beside Chase in the woods a quarter mile away from a gorgeous house on the west shore of Sebago Lake. The sun was just coming up over the calm body of water, burning off the morning haze. Except for the occasional bird sounds, the place was quiet.

“See anything?” Chase asked softly, like he was worried someone would hear them out here, even though it looked like there wasn’t another living soul within five miles of the place.

Tate looked through his binoculars, scanning first the forest and lakefront surrounding the house before focusing on the home itself. But there was nothing to be seen and hadn’t been since they’d gotten there ten minutes ago.

“Nothing.” Tate lowered the binoculars. “If Mahsood is in there, he’s playing possum.”

“If I had as many people after me as Mahsood does, I’d be playing some serious possum, too.”

It had taken the better part of two hours to collect all the photos and critical data from Bell’s basement, drive into Lewiston and break into a full-service UPS store, then scan and transmit the stuff to Kendra at her house. After that, they’d had to sit in Chase’s patrol car outside the store for another hour while Kendra dug through the data and got them the address and directions for this place. It had been owned by the Brannon family for close to seventy-five years, and Rebecca used it as a private retreat when she wanted to get away from Washington politics. Or maybe hide an old boyfriend.

The crazy thing was, the house was ten miles from Hiram and the cabin Bell had been found dead in. It made Tate wonder if the man had been heading here to check the place out and make sure it was safe for Mahsood when he’d been grabbed by the people who’d killed him. Kind of ironic if that was the case.

“We going to go take a look around?” Chase asked. “At least see if Mahsood has been here?”

Tate glanced at the deputy. “You seem to be getting awfully comfortable with this breaking-and-entering thing. First Bell’s house, then a UPS store, and now the house of a sitting member of Congress. If your sheriff hears about this, you’re toast for sure.”

“I’ll just claim you told me you had federal warrants. Nobody up here trusts the feds. So they’ll have no problem believing me over you.”

Tate couldn’t find fault with that logic.

They moved slowly through the woods, using the trees for cover and coming at the house from a direction they hoped provided cover if Mahsood happened to be in there looking out a window. It took a few extra minutes, but they were able to slip all the way up to the back of the house and onto the deck overlooking the lake without raising an alarm. Tate considered that a fair trade.

“You’re damn good at picking locks,” Chase pointed out softly as Tate opened the French doors leading into the fancy house. “Homeland teach you that?”

“They wish,” Tate whispered before moving into the huge living room that looked out over the deck. “But I owe it all to my misspent youth. Maybe I’ll tell you about it someday.”

Chase didn’t say anything as they spread out to search the house. The place was eerily quiet, making Tate think there was no one else there. Once again, he wished he had Declan with him. The bear shifter’s nose would have told them in a flash if they were wasting their time.

While Chase headed toward the kitchen, Tate moved down a long hallway to a room that was supposed to be a library, then a large office. He thought “supposed to” because the floor plans Kendra had gotten for the place had been a decade old. A lot could have changed since then.

He peeked his head into the first doorway on the left, relaxing a little when he saw that it was indeed a library. Well, their intel was right. Unfortunately, the room was empty, and there was no sign anyone had been there recently.

He kept one ear cocked for sounds of trouble from the other side of the house as he made his way down the hall. Not that he was too concerned about Mahsood getting the drop on Chase. He didn’t see that happening.

The office was an interior room, which made it darker than the library. But he saw enough to know there wasn’t much reason to check it out. Mahsood wasn’t in there unless he was hiding under the desk. But then a glow on the surface of the desktop caught his attention.

He flipped on the overhead light and moved around the desk to check it out. The glow he’d seen was from the computer monitor sitting there. Specifically from the six black-and-white camera images displayed there in two even rows. Even as he watched, the images changed, showing him different views of the outside of the house, including the lake and the woods surrounding the home. One of those places was where he and Chase had been standing as they surveyed the property.

Mahsood had been here and seen them coming. Since they hadn’t seen or heard a vehicle speed away, that meant their doctor was trying to get away on foot.

“Shit.”

Tate ran out of the room and down the hall. Chase was just coming out of the kitchen as Tate reached it. He motioned toward the front door.

“Mahsood picked us up on security cameras before we even got close,” he shouted. “He’s probably hauling ass through the woods right now!”

Tate expected the deputy to immediately head for the door, but instead, Chase shook his head and slowly walked across the living room, lifting his hands at the same time.

“I don’t think so,” Chase said. “In fact, I’m pretty sure he’s still in the house.”

Mahsood stepped out of the kitchen behind Chase. He was dressed in jeans, loafers, and a cardigan, a small automatic pistol in his hand, pointed at the cop’s back.

Tate stopped to stare at Chase incredulously. “Are you shitting me? You let a guy in slip-on loafers sneak up on you? That was the marines you were in, right, not your high school marching band?”

“Stop right there, or I’ll shoot!” Mahsood warned, shaking his weapon in Tate’s general direction, while still attempting to keep it aimed at Chase, too.

“Hey, if you haven’t noticed, loafers can be really quiet,” Chase said angrily as he moved, putting more space between him and the doctor. “And if you think I’m going to let you badmouth the marines, buddy, you are so fucking wrong.”

Mahsood was trying to interrupt the argument when Tate darted past Chase and knocked the doctor’s right arm—and the gun—to the side. Then he flipped the older man over his hip, ripping the weapon out of his hand at the same time. Mahsood crashed to the floor and lay there groaning as Tate unloaded and cleared the .380 auto. At least the man had remembered to take the safety off before threatening them with it.

“Why the hell are you pointing a gun at us?” Tate demanded before tossing the empty weapon on one couch and the full clip on another. “We’re not the ones you’ve been hiding from. I’m with the DCO.”

Chase gave him a confused look at that, but Tate shook his head. Explanations would have to wait until later.

“How was I to know that?” Mahsood winced as he sat up. “When I saw the two of you sneaking up on the house, I naturally assumed you were with the people who’ve been hunting me for weeks.”

“People,” Chase echoed. “Ashley Brannon isn’t the one after you?”

Mahsood seemed a little surprised—and worried—to hear the name. “Ashley is here, too? I didn’t know that.”

“Yeah, we ran into her a few hours ago,” Tate said. “She implied she’d love to get together with you and talk about old times, but something tells me you’re not nearly as eager for a reunion.”

Mahsood slowly got to his feet and moved over to the couch, careful not to get too close to the empty weapon Tate had tossed there as he sat down. “Ashley is an unstable woman who believes I’m responsible for separating her from her adoptive parents and keeping her away from her mother as well. She doesn’t like me, and I do not think meeting with her would be very beneficial to me.”

Chase chuckled. “I agree it probably wouldn’t be beneficial, but it would be entertaining as hell. Considering you held her prisoner in a mental institution for years while conducting all kinds of painful experiments on her, I imagine she has hundreds of wonderful things planned for you.”

The doctor gave the deputy a dismissive glance. “The woman fails to understand the significant role she has played in the advancement of genetic science.”

After hearing something like that, Tate found himself wondering how difficult it would be to let Ashley know where they were. Maybe they could give her a few minutes alone with Mahsood.

Unfortunately, that wasn’t something they could do, even if they had a way of reaching Ashley. Landon would want Mahsood brought back to the DCO so they could question him about Rebecca and her role in his hybrid research. But before Tate could think about getting the man back to DC, there was one other issue they had to deal with first.

“Tell me about these people hunting you,” Tate said. “Who are they?”

Mahsood shrugged. “I have no idea who they are. I’d been safely off the grid for weeks in Quebec City, but then four men and two shifters appeared out of nowhere and tried to grab me. I was fortunate enough to escape and make my way back here, but they found me again, killing someone very important to me in the process.”

“McKinley Bell,” Chase said softly.

Mahsood nodded, his dark eyes filling with sadness. Tate had to admit the man seemed genuinely devastated. He supposed even demented psychopaths could have a place in their hearts for someone. It didn’t mean Mahsood was any less of a monster. It simply reinforced the old saying about there being someone out there for everyone, including psychopaths.

“Yes,” the doctor murmured. “I’d been staying at his place, but I was worried the people who were after me would come there at some point. I knew I had to find another place to hide and decided on this house. I’d been here many times in the past and knew it would be empty at this time of the year. But McKinley was concerned for my safety, so he insisted he come out here first and look around. He even promised to drive a circuitous route so he’d know if he was being followed. Unfortunately, he never came back. I understand they tortured him as a way to get to me.”

Tate had a stupid urge to say something consoling, like McKinley’s death had been painless. Before he had a chance to lie, a soft chime from somewhere in the house caught his attention.

Mahsood’s head snapped up sharply, his wide-eyed gaze locked on the hallway behind Tate. “That’s a security alarm in the office. It means one of the sensors on the property has been activated.”

Leaving Chase to deal with Mahsood, Tate turned and ran for the office. Several more of the chimes had gone off by the time he got there. That couldn’t be a good thing.

He slid to a stop behind the desk, cursing when he saw the intruders moving quickly through the woods behind the house, tripping multiple alarms as they went. The two shifters were in the lead, while four heavily armed men spread out behind them. No doubt, the shifters knew they were setting off the alarms and didn’t care. They knew no one Mahsood called would be able to get here in time to help.

Tate cursed as the team of well-trained operatives converged on the house. His gut told him they’d followed him and Chase since the fight at Joanne Harvey’s house. They’d led the hired guns right to the man they were after.

“What’s the word?” Chase walked into the office with Mahsood. “Do we fight or make a run for it?”

“That depends,” Tate told him. “Do you consider six against two bad odds?”

“I can help fight,” Mahsood said. “Let me have my gun back.”

Chase snorted and shook his head. “We run.”

* * *

Tanner knew he’d made a lot of stupid decisions in his life. In fact, it wasn’t a stretch to say his life—at least recently—was nothing more than a collection of one terrible decision followed by another. But deciding to stop being a moron and tell Zarina how he felt about her wasn’t one of them. It might just be the smartest thing he’d ever done.

Zarina was sleeping contently on his chest, her perfect naked body lightly coated with a sheen of sweat. They’d made love for hours, and it had been incredible. He’d never been with anyone like her. He was so in love, it hurt to even think about being apart from her for more than a few minutes.

Folding his arm under his head, Tanner glanced at the cabin’s lone window with its makeshift curtain. The sun would be coming up soon, and he and Zarina would be facing another day. But for the first time in forever, he was looking forward to the day and what it might bring.

While they’d made love, he’d shifted as far as he’d ever gone, and Zarina hadn’t flinched once. But as far gone as he’d been, he’d never felt the urge to do anything other than love the hell out of her. He and the beast had both been consumed with a single goal—making Zarina feel more pleasure than she’d ever experienced. Coming to accept that his hybrid half would never be a danger to the woman he loved was a life-altering moment.

Zarina murmured something in her sleep, cuddling closer to him. Tanner was about to snag one of the blankets they’d pushed around on the bed, sure she was cold, but then her eyes fluttered open, and the look she gave him took his breath away. Her blue eyes were so captivating, it felt like they could take possession of his soul with a single glance. He was more than okay with that.

“Ready for round two?” she asked, pressing her lips to his chest and making him shiver. She’d been doing a lot of that over the past few hours, but he was sure he’d never get tired of it.

He grinned. “Technically, it would be at least round four. Or five if you count that thing you did with your mouth.”

Zarina smiled, pushing herself up on her elbow and putting her beautiful breasts on display. His cock immediately went hard at the sight of all those curves.

“Only if we count by the number of orgasms we’ve had, which I don’t,” she said. “I prefer to go with how many times I pass out from pleasure, which has only happened once. So, in my mind, we’ve just gotten started.”

He chuckled. “You’re amazing, you know that, right?”

She slipped a warm thigh across his hips, gracefully climbing on top of him. “Yes, but feel free to keep telling me. I promise I won’t get tired of hearing it.”

Tanner shook his head as he grabbed her hips, getting her settled carefully on his shaft. “I’m never going to stop letting you know how amazing you are or how much I love you. I can promise you that.”

Zarina leaned forward, pressing her breasts against his chest as she kissed him. “It’s a promise, then. We never stop saying I love you, no matter how crazy things get in the future.”

He slid his hands down and cupped her ass. “Deal.”

Tanner had just leaned in to nuzzle Zarina’s neck when a pair of familiar scents reached his nose. It took him a moment to place them, but when he finally did, they had him flipping over so fast, he almost spilled Zarina onto the floor.

“The camp is under attack,” he said. He jumped off the bed, scrambling for his jeans and boots as he strained his ears for the sound of gunfire. Spencer and Peter were out on the perimeter somewhere. If he was smelling the assholes, they should have, too.

As Zarina hurriedly put on her clothes, Tanner had to clamp down on the impulse to tell her to hide under the bed until the fighting was over. But he couldn’t do that, no matter how loudly his instincts demanded he do so.

Not wanting to take the time to bother with looking for his shirt, he snatched up the AR-15 he’d leaned against the wall last night. “I’m picking up the scents of at least two of the men who hit the camp up north. I have no idea why Spencer and Peter haven’t raised the alarm yet, and that scares the hell out of me.”

Zarina stepped in front of him as he started for the door. She already had her shirt, jeans, and boots on. The sight of the revolver on her belt stopped him cold. It was terrifying to think Zarina might have to shoot someone, mostly because he wasn’t sure she had it in her. But he had to respect her right to protect herself and others.

“Be careful out there,” she said, going up on tiptoe to kiss him. “And don’t get so wrapped up in worrying about other people that you don’t watch out for yourself.”

He kissed her back, closing his eyes for a second as worry almost overwhelmed him. Then he nodded and reached past her to grab the doorknob. “The same goes for you. Focus on protecting people, not going after the men attacking the camp.”

Then he was out the door and running for the north side of the camp, letting the scents of the men attacking the camp lead him. There were at least half a dozen men moving in from the north, and they were already well within the perimeter of the camp. That meant there was a good chance they’d already taken out Spencer and Peter.

He pointed his weapon skyward and popped off three rounds. “The camp is under attack!” he shouted at the top of his lungs. “Inbound from the north!”

Wishing he could do more to get the camp’s residents moving but knowing he’d already done as much as he could, Tanner turned his attention to the men intent on taking them by surprise, using his nose to pin down their location. They must have regrouped long enough to get reinforcements so they could hit Chad’s camp right before dawn, when the people who lived there would be caught unaware.

Around him, the camp came to life. Tanner prayed it wasn’t too late.

His first instinct was to go after the four men circling around the camp from the west. But then he picked up Spencer’s and Peter’s scents the other way, along with those of two men. He veered that way, remembering how he’d seen the men trying to kidnap the tranquilized preppers up north. He had to make sure they weren’t doing that to the hybrids.

Tanner’s body shifted as he ran. No shock there. He always lost a little bit of control when the battle adrenaline started flowing. However, he was surprised that this time, even though he was worried as hell about Spencer and Peter, not to mention Zarina, he was able to keep the hybrid in control. Was it because of the acceptance he’d found in Zarina’s arms? Maybe. Regardless, he was able to limit the changes to his muscles and his senses, things that would help him in the coming fight while still letting his human mind take the reins.

Tanner found Spencer and Peter three-quarters of a mile outside the camp, just as two men in tactical gear were loading them in the back of one of the same SUVs he’d seen earlier. He could make out their heartbeats, so he knew the hybrids were alive, but they’d clearly been tranquilized. He had no idea how these men had been able to dart the hybrids with enough of the drug to knock them out before Spencer or Peter could sound the alarm. Ultimately, he didn’t care. He wasn’t letting them kidnap his friends.

Tanner could have stopped and taken a shot at the men, but he didn’t want to risk hitting Spencer or Peter. So instead, he growled and let his body shift further, putting all his effort into closing the distance between him and them as fast as he could.

The men must have heard him, because they both turned at the same time. The NVGs they wore hid their expressions, but they both brought their weapons up quickly, as if they weren’t shocked at all to see a man running at them through the dimly lit forests at thirty miles an hour.

Tanner dodged to the right to avoid the incoming submachine gunfire, sure they’d missed him. But then something smacked into the center of his chest, and for a second, he’d thought he’d been hit. Then he realized the sting didn’t feel like a 9mm. He glanced down to see a metal dart tube sticking out of his chest mere inches from his heart.

Shit.

He slapped it away but knew it wouldn’t help. The damage was done.

His mind raced. He might only have seconds before he ended up in the same condition as Spencer and Peter. He growled, letting the beast inside out all the way, praying it would help him fight off the drug for a time. It might not have helped the other hybrids, but maybe being partially shifted before getting hit would make a difference.

He avoided more darts, letting his claws and fangs extend completely as he lunged at the men. They tried to line up for another shot with their tranquilizer guns, but Tanner was on them too fast to let that happen.

Both men scrambled backward, suddenly desperate to get away, but the SUVs blocked their way, and they had no choice but to deal with him. Tanner didn’t even consider pulling the trigger on the weapon he was carrying. That wasn’t the way his inner beast chose to fight. It was the one disadvantage of letting his hybrid half take the lead.

He roared loud enough to shake the trees around him, hitting the first guy between the eyes with the butt of his AR-15, delighting in the crunch of cracking bones as the man dropped like a sack of potatoes. Then he spun and threw himself at the second one.

That’s when he found out just how much the drugs dumped into his system had already affected him. The leap that normally would have taken him ten feet barely covered five. He came up far short of his prey, giving the man time to get his dart gun up again.

Tanner moved a little to the side, hoping to make the man miss. It worked. A little. Instead of getting Tanner in the chest again, the dart clipped his right arm. But Tanner still felt some of the drugs pour into his bloodstream before he plucked the dart out.

He snarled, and the man with the dart gun stumbled back a little in fear. But while the guy might be scared, he wasn’t giving up. Grabbing the automatic pistol holstered at his hip, he pulled it out with the practice of a man who handled weapons for a living. Tanner didn’t think. He took two strides and slashed out with his claws, raking them across the man’s throat.

Tanner stopped and looked around, wondering what he should do next. His thoughts were getting fuzzy as hell, and it was all he could do to keep from dropping to the ground right on the spot.

A sound filtered through his muddled head, and after a few seconds, he realized he was hearing gunshots from the camp. He forced his mind to clear, remembering the four scents he’d smelled from the west. Shit. Those men had reached the camp.

He glanced at Spencer and Peter. He couldn’t leave them out here like this. He’d grab them and hide them in the woods. That plan proved much more difficult than he’d imagined. The tranquilizer had made him so weak, he could barely drag Peter out of the back of the SUV, much less carry him. By the time he finally got the big hybrid shoved under the low-hanging branches of a fir tree, he was gasping for breath. Cursing, he walked over to get Spencer.

He’d only gone a few feet when a woman’s scream echoed in the air. That was Zarina. He knew it in his soul. She was in trouble.

Leaving Spencer where he was and hoping the brush would hide him, Tanner started toward the camp. His head spun as he ran. He was so dizzy now, he wasn’t sure he’d be able to help once he got there. He brutally shoved the doubts from his mind. Zarina was in trouble. He’d do anything he had to do to save her.

He stumbled into the camp, his arms and legs feeling like they weighed a ton. But he was still moving, honing in on Zarina’s scent, and that was all that mattered. She was somewhere near the main building.

But as he rounded the corner of one of the cabins and headed that way, another scent smacked him in the face hard enough to stun him. Not because it was so strong, but simply because it belonged to someone he knew. That couldn’t be right. The tranquilizer drug had to be playing tricks on him.

Tanner was still trying to convince himself of that when a pair of black-garbed mercenaries stepped out from the next cabin ahead of him, dragging an unconscious woman between them. Tanner smelled the blood before he even saw the red streak running down her face.

Growling, he lunged at the men in full-on shifter mode. It felt like he was moving through molasses as he crashed into them, only realizing as they all went flying that the girl was Lillie, not Zarina. A part of him felt horrible for being relieved it wasn’t Zarina, but he pushed that guilt aside as he fought to save the younger girl.

One of the men came up with a .40-caliber pistol in his hand. Tanner knocked it aside and slashed the man across the face as hard as he could. The guy shouted in pain, and Tanner’s inner beast roared in approval.

He spun for the second man, scrambling over Lillie’s unconscious form in the process. But as he closed one clawed hand around the man’s weapon and the other around the guy’s throat, something thumped into his back. It wasn’t hard enough to knock him forward, but it stung like a son of a bitch.

The man twisted away from his grip and punched him in the face as he fell against him, but Tanner couldn’t feel a thing. Then his whole body went limp, and he was on the ground, doing everything in his power to get back to his feet despite the tranquilizer dart. When that didn’t work, he tried to sit up, but that wasn’t possible either. His whole body was one solid chunk of lead now, and none of his parts would do what he told them. Breathing was even getting to be a chore.

A man suddenly leaned over him, his face a blur. But Tanner didn’t need to see the man to know who it was.

“Ryan?” he rasped.

Tanner tried to force his numb mind to focus, to come up with some rational reason for his old friend to be here. But no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t make sense of what he was seeing.

“Damn,” Ryan said. “I’d always thought you were a little screwed up, but I guess I underestimated just how fucked up you are. You really are a freak, aren’t you?”

Tanner tried to tell the other man to go to hell, but he didn’t have the energy to even speak now.

Ryan turned and looked at Lillie. “Get her up and back to the vehicles. I don’t know what we can do with her, but I’m sure I’ll come up with something.”

Tanner’s eyes locked on the .40-caliber he’d knocked out of the man’s hand earlier, lying on the ground nearby. Gritting his teeth, he strained to reach over and pick it up. It took all his strength to get the weapon pointed toward the blond man scooping Lillie off the ground, but the guy merely slapped the weapon aside and threw the girl over his shoulder like she was a sack of Christmas presents.

“What about Everett?” the man asked, motioning with his chin at the guy Tanner had slashed. He was still rolling around with blood pouring between the hands he had clapped over the shredded remains of his face.

Ryan looked over casually, as if just noticing the man. “Don’t worry about it, Anton. I’ll take care of him.”

The blond man hesitated but then shrugged and headed toward the woods.

“Once you get her tucked away, come back and help me drag this big bastard through the woods,” Ryan called after him. “He’s going to weigh a metric ton.”

Anton grunted and disappeared, leaving Tanner lying there paralyzed and nearly unconscious with Ryan and the injured man.

Ryan gazed down at Tanner for a long moment, then shook his head. “That tranquilizer has been in you for at least five minutes and you’re still conscious? What the hell are you?”

Tanner couldn’t tell the asshole who used to be his friend that he’d been hit three times, but he enjoyed the displeasure his continued consciousness brought the man. There was still shooting going on all around the camp. Maybe if Tanner was able to stay awake a while longer, Malcolm or one of the preppers would stumble over them.

Ryan must have heard the shooting, too, and thought the same thing Tanner had. “Guess I’ll need to start dragging your ass to the truck myself.”

The man on the ground—Everett—groaned again, maybe trying to remind his boss that he was still there. Ryan frowned at the man in annoyance, then pulled out a .45 and put three rounds point-blank into the man’s chest without blinking an eye.

He looked at Tanner. “Don’t worry. You’re too valuable to shoot.”

Smirking, Ryan lifted a heavy, booted foot and kicked Tanner in the face, leaving nothing but stars followed by darkness.