“Now then—we’ll be nice and private in here.”
Samantha’s attacker had dragged her down a long, empty corridor and into one of the fancy birthing suites. She had fought and kicked to get away, but he’d slapped a pair of handcuffs on her wrists and a piece of duct tape on her mouth. Then he shoved what she was certain was a gun in the small of her back. So she was silent and helpless when he finally shut the suite door behind them and pulled off the surgical mask he’d been wearing to conceal his features.
Though she’d been half expecting it, Samantha’s eyes still widened in shock when she saw him.
Lounds!
Samantha shook her head. How was he still alive? She would have bet almost anything the wounds he’d sustained and the amount of blood he’d lost would have finished him off—especially cut off, as he was, from any medical aid.
“Bet you’re wondering how I’m still alive after you made me shoot off my dick and left me bleeding on the floor,” he spat, glaring at her.
Briefly, Samantha nodded.
“My little secret. You see, my Shifted form may look Hyena—and it is, for the most part. But I have Cougar blood in me too. Not enough to look like one of those mangy Cats or smell like one, but enough to have some of their healing abilities.” He gave her an angry grin. “So even though it hurt like hell, I was able to Shift and keep myself from bleeding out after you left me for dead.”
Samantha shook her head, knowing there was nothing she could say to appease him. Not that she could talk with the damn duct tape on her mouth.
“Shifting has a wonderful way of healing you, even after a serious injury,” Lounds went on, in a conversational tone of voice. “But you know what it can’t do? It can’t regenerate lost body parts.”
Still holding the gun on her with one hand, he fumbled to unfasten his trousers and yanked them open. Where his penis should have been, there was only a stubby, scarred lump, less than an inch long.
“Do you see?” Lounds screamed in her face. “Do you see what you did to me, you fucking bitch?”
Samantha flinched. She wanted to protest that this wasn’t her fault—he’d shot himself, after all. What did he expect her to do—sew his dick back on so he could rape her with it?
I don’t think so, asshole, she thought, glaring at him. You did this to yourself.
“Well?” Lounds raved, waving a hand in front of what was left of his penis. “What do you have to say for yourself?”
Reaching out, he grabbed the corner of the tape over her mouth and ripped it off.
Samantha gasped at the sudden pain. It was like having her eyebrows waxed, but about a hundred times worse.
“Well?” Lounds shouted.
She knew she ought to say something conciliatory—try to talk him down or quiet his rage. But she was too angry.
“What do you want me to say?” she demanded. “That I’m sorry you shot your dick off? Because I’m not—you were planning to rape me right after you finished ‘harvesting’ the weird nectar stuff you forced my body to produce. I’m glad you can’t hurt me or anyone one else like that ever again.”
“Just because I’m minus my equipment doesn’t mean I won’t hurt you, Samantha,” Lounds snarled, refastening his trousers. “But as for breeding you, it appears that someone has beaten me to that particular privilege.” He frowned. “It was Keller again, wasn’t it? I suppose he’s your ‘mate’ now.”
Not anymore, Samantha thought, and wished desperately it weren’t so. If only she could call on Keller now for help! But when she reached to the back of her mind where his presence had once been, it was still cold and empty. It was like looking at a garden where all the plants had withered and died.
“It won’t do you any good to call him,” Lounds said, as though reading her mind. “I know he’s at his lab in New York. I called yesterday to be certain before I laid this little trap for you. And now that your sister and her fool of an herbivore mate are gone, you’re completely unprotected.”
“What do you even want with me?” Samantha tried not to let her voice tremble.
“A very good question.” Lounds gave her an unpleasant grin. “Why should I bother with you when I’ve recently ensured that I’ll have so many more subjects in the near future? Very soon, there are going to be latent Shifter Genes waking up all over the country—maybe even all over the world! A bountiful harvest indeed.”
Samantha didn’t know what he was babbling about and she didn’t care.
“You can see I’m through Rejuvenation, so there are no more, uh, fluids to harvest from me,” she pointed out. “And you missed your chance to breed me—not that you could now anyway,” she added.
Lounds’s face turned dark.
“Just because you’re no longer flowing doesn’t mean there’s nothing left to harvest. Your very blood has compounds in it that will be useful in my research. Not to mention your rejuvenated organs. Your ovaries will be especially useful, I think—and I might as well take your uterus while I’m at it. Hope you don’t mind being on the receiving end of the scalpel for once.”
He took a step toward her and Samantha took a step back. The thought of him draining her blood and cutting her open to harvest her organs was beyond horrifying. But even worse were the particular organs he planned to take.
No! The baby! she thought, and her hands, which were cuffed in front of her, moved to cover and shield her lower belly, almost of their own accord.
Lounds’s small, piggy eyes widened and then narrowed as he saw the protective gesture.
“Well, well, well . . . it seems you might have something even more valuable than nectar for me to harvest: Shifter stem cells,” he growled, advancing on her. “The breeding took, did it? Does Keller know you’re carrying his baby?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Samantha said, lying as convincingly as she could. “I’m not—”
“Pregnant? Knocked up? In the family way?” A hateful smile twisted Lounds’s thin lips. “Oh, but I think you are, Samantha. Why else would you try to shield your little bundle of joy from me?” He put out a hand and Samantha drew back from him, eyeing the door.
Need to get away! Have to get out of here! Even if I could just get out in the hallway and start screaming. . . . It wouldn’t do much good to scream in the birthing suite. The rooms were made to be nearly soundproof, to keep the noise out in the corridor down and allow for a quieter, more peaceful birthing experience.
But Lounds was suddenly between her and the only exit.
“Oh no, Samantha—I don’t think so. You’re not leaving until I get that baby out of you and harvest its cells.” His eyes flashed yellow and he grinned, showing teeth that had grown long and deadly and sharp. “The only question is, will I cut it out . . . or bite it out?”
* * *
“Fiona, I need your help.” Keller raked a hand through his hair as he turned in a circle in the center of a busy hospital hallway.
The call from Sadie had driven him back inside Tampa General Hospital for another look—or in this case, another smell. He’d been horrified to find that he hadn’t been imagining things earlier—the scent he’d picked up was definitely from Lounds. When he’d come back in and had done a more thorough sweep of the area where he’d first caught it, Keller had become absolutely certain the Hyena Shifter was alive and well and right here in TGH.
There was only one reason for the Hyena to be here in the hospital where Samantha worked, and it wasn’t to bring her a bouquet of roses and wish her happy surgeon’s day.
He’s after her—he wants to hurt her! Maybe even kill her.
Keller knew it was true beyond the shadow of a doubt. He had to find Samantha quickly, before Lounds got to her. Except, if Sadie’s feelings about her sister were accurate, the Hyena Shifter might already have her in his clutches.
But where? Did he take her somewhere? Kidnap her? Or was she right here in the hospital?
Keller was desperate to find Lounds, but unfortunately, he had lost the scent in the confusing array of smells coming from all over the hospital.
After losing Lounds’s scent, he tried tracking Samantha this time, starting in the cafeteria. But her sweet, familiar scent was covered by the multitude of hospital food and cooking smells, providing yet another dead end.
His next thought was to tear down the barrier he’d erected in his mind when he blocked Samantha and track her using their bond. But such mental structures, which took only moments to erect, were hard to take down. Though he leaned against a hospital wall, closed his eyes, and mentally tore at the bricks he’d put in place between himself and the place where they were bonded, he could only partially destroy it. And even when he managed to make a hole large enough to “look” through, everything he saw seemed dead or withered beyond hope.
He’d done a thorough job of killing his bond with Samantha. And now she might literally be killed, all because he’d wanted to save himself some emotional pain.
Keller cursed himself again and again. Never should have blocked her in the first place. My God, what was I thinking? Now she’s in danger and I have no way to find her! What am I going to do?
He’d thought of calling Sadie, but though she and Samantha seemed to share a strange, unclassifiable bond, it wasn’t specific. The sisters knew when one of them was in trouble, but they couldn’t track each other in any way. He would only succeed in upsetting her. Likewise it would do no good to talk to Mathis—the other Shifter was too far away to help. Keller needed to find Samantha now, before Lounds hurt her or took her someplace else for who knew what horrible reasons.
Lady Moon, he prayed silently, ignoring the people passing by him and giving him strange looks. I’ve allowed my wounded pride to put the female I love—the female you sent me—in danger. Please, if you’ll only help me find her before it’s too late, I swear I won’t be too proud to tell her how I really feel. Even if she rejects me again, I’ll at least try to bring her to me, even if I have to beg. Please!
No trumpets rang from the clouds and no light shone down from the heavens, but he heard a quiet voice whisper in his ear, Call Fiona.
Which was why he was on the phone now, explaining the whole awful business to Cougarville’s resident pharmacist and wise woman.
“So I don’t know what to do,” he finished in a low voice. “I can’t track either of them—I don’t even know if they’re still in the hospital or if he’s taken her someplace else. I only know she’s in danger because Sadie had one of her feelings.”
“I believe she’s still there in the hospital.” Fiona’s voice was warm and calm as always. “Since you cannot trace her scent and you’ve decimated your life-bond, you’ll have to find another way to track her down.”
“I know that, but how? What way?” Keller felt like tearing his hair out. Hearing Fiona confirm what his gut told him was making him crazy. “She could be dead! He could be torturing her!” he growled. “But how the hell do I find her?”
“You feel for your bond,” Fiona said.
“Feel for my bond? But I just told you—I blocked her! The bond is as good as dead. I—”
“Not that bond,” Fiona interrupted quietly. “Not your bond to Samantha—another bond similar to it, but much weaker and newer.”
“Another bond? What . . . no, she’s not . . . are you saying she’s pregnant?” Keller’s voice was hoarse in his own ears. “But that can’t be—she told me she wasn’t.”
“Samantha might not have known herself. In fact, that was the impression I got when I spoke to her—that she had no idea she was carrying new life inside her. Although perhaps she suspected.”
“So you’re saying if she’s pregnant—”
“You should still have a bond to the baby, even if your bond to Samantha has withered,” Fiona finished for him. “You just need to close your eyes and feel for it. It will be tiny and nearly hidden—like a single candle flame in a huge forest. You have to find that little light and let it guide you.”
“Yes. Yes, all right.” Keller took a deep breath. How well he remembered the tiny spark of life he’d felt inside Rachel so many years ago. And how devastated he’d been when that little spark had been snuffed out. “I understand,” he whispered. “I know what to look for.”
“Good. Then go find them as quickly as you can. They are, indeed, in dreadful danger.” Fiona hung up without saying good-bye, and Keller clicked off his phone and put it in his pocket.
Retreating to a part of the main hospital corridor that wasn’t so busy, he closed his eyes. Breathing deeply, he opened himself, searching for the tiny spark that was his child, hoping and praying that he could find both the child and Samantha before Lounds did something awful to them.
Before it was too late.