Chapter One
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Only humans would take two beautiful three-story brick manors and turn them into houses of horror.
Toolbox in hand, Darcy MacCormac stood on the front steps and looked across the grounds of…hell…or whatever this place should be called. Her friend Barbara who liked the old language called it a prìosan. A prison.
If run by the government, the place would be termed a detention camp. But their captors, the Scythe, weren’t with the government. Much to the contrary. Their mission was to manipulate the governments of the world. Holding hostages was one of their favorite techniques.
H Hall on the west held human hostages from all over the world. They’d been kidnapped to ensure their influential family members complied with anything the Scythe demanded.
Z Hall, which the guards called the Zoo, held the female shifters from Darcy’s village. They were also hostages, not to keep CEOs and politicians in line, but for their fellow shifters.
Darcy walked down the front steps.
Encircling the entire property, ten feet tall, thick stone walls muffled the noise of Seattle and blocked any view of outside. Her shoulders rounded against the claustrophobic feeling.
It could be worse, though, couldn’t it? When the shifters first arrived, they’d been confined underground in animal cages. The adults, then babies had sickened and died before the Scythe realized the fatal effect of confinement and proximity to metal. Finally, they’d let the surviving children out of the basement, given them outside tasks, and housed them on the third floor of Z Hall. There they’d been imprisoned for over a decade.
Each year, each day, she felt more trapped.
Each year, each day, she grew weaker.
Stop. This was where she was—and no one escaped the Scythe. She pulled in a slow breath. The scent of cut grass hung heavy in the humid air, mingling with the briny breeze off Puget Sound and the overripe smell of late September apples that had fallen into the brambles. The years of captivity had taught her to ignore the stench of gasoline, metal, and other putrid odors from the surrounding city.
A cry of pain came from the right.
Hand to her cheek, twelve-year-old Alice, the youngest shifter, cringed from a uniform-clad guard. Long blonde hair pulled back, the youngster wore the Scythe-assigned garb of white T-shirt and cheap cotton pants.
Palms sweaty, Darcy headed that way, moving quickly without looking as if she hurried. “Can I be of assistance, sir?”
After so many years, maintaining a polite tone was habitual, despite feeling as if she was strangling down her shouts. Interrupting an abusive guard was never safe, but sometimes…sometimes she could redirect their anger from a cubling and toward her instead.
With a relieved look, the girl spoke to Darcy. “Manager said I can’t have supper unless all the grass is cut. The mower was working, but I had to stop it to clear the blades, and now it won’t start. Can you fix it?”
The guard grabbed Alice’s shoulder and gave her a brutal shake. “You don’t talk with other dirty beasts. Shut your mouth.”
The girl’s eyes went glassy with tears.
Darcy clasped her hands in front of her waist in an appearance of servitude…and to keep from belting the guard. Once, only once, had she hit a guard, trying to save a friend from a caning. Both she and Margery had been beaten into the ground with fists and boots and canes, thrown in separate cells, and left for days. Darcy’s intervention had turned a common caning into an unspeakable nightmare.
No hitting. No shouting. Humbly, she looked at the guard and bowed her head to keep him from seeing the hatred in her eyes. “I could look at the motor if you wish. Sir.”
After a second, the guard snorted. “Fix it, freak, or I’ll take it out on your hide.”
She kept her gaze lowered until he’d stalked away. Her mum would have called him a stupid, sprite-brained boggart. Being imprisoned had taught Darcy other terms—the fucking, dickhead asshole.
A sigh escaped her.
“You can fix anything,” Alice whispered, trust glowing in her big blue eyes.
“Most mechanical things, yes.” Not the important things, like illness, heartbreak, and imprisonment. She couldn’t fix the slow wearing away of her life force. All the older captives from their village were weakening. Barbara had collapsed yesterday and been taken away.
Had she been taken to the ghastly research labs in Z Hall’s basement? Despair filled Darcy. The Mother keep you, my friend. Because there was nothing anyone could do.
Do what you can, tinker, for the little one here, instead. Pulling her gaze away, she reached in her pocket and pulled out a wrapped piece of cake she’d snitched when fixing the dishwasher.
A quick look around showed no one was watching. “Here, munch on this while I work.”
The girl’s eyes grew wide, and she turned so no one would see her stuff the treat in her mouth. Shifters received only enough food to stay healthy—never sweets. The cake had been baked for the staff.
Alice’s eyes filled with tears. A treat. And kindness. Both were unknown in this place.
After patting the cub’s shoulder, Darcy knelt beside the mower. It had gas, and the gas wasn’t old. The air filter was clean enough. The spark plug—ah-hah—was wet. During the summer season, Darcy’d learned to keep extras in her toolbox. After replacing the plug, she gave the pull rope a firm yank.
The mower sputtered, and she adjusted the throttle for a healthy roar.
Alice hooted in glee and threw her arms around Darcy. The hug was bittersweet. The child should have been preparing for her first shift, should have been running in the mountains with her littermates. Should have been home. But their Daonain village was blackened rubble.
Although the Scythe’s human hostages might eventually be freed, the shifter females would never be released. They’d slowly weaken and die in this grim institution, surrounded by stone walls, far from the forest.
Across the grounds on the west, the human hostages worked in their garden. Shifter females were restricted to the east side, human hostages to the west. Darcy, however, was allowed everywhere. She’d worked hard to become an indispensable handyman. She was always polite. Always obedient.
They thought her thoroughly cowed. Of course, it helped that the Scythe avoided bringing in outside repairmen.
There were other visitors though. Even now, a car pulled up to the closed wrought-iron gate. Darcy watched as a uniformed guard walked out of the discreetly placed guardhouse and spoke to the driver.
At Z Hall, Director hurried down the manor steps to greet the arrival.
So the guest was important and obviously approved since the car hadn’t been shot into little pieces.
With a little smile for Alice, Darcy continued on her way. In front of the manor, she neared the first of the three semi-sunken guard posts that created hillocks in the front lawn. Anyone at the entrance would see only a dark slit behind which was a camouflaged machine gun “pillbox”.
During her brothers’ visit last week, Patrin had eyed the gun embrasures and said the interlocking fields of fire created a killing field. Anyone coming in the front gate to free the hostages would be easily slaughtered.
A narrow stairwell led down to the concrete box’s rear door, and Darcy hurried past, then turned left between the two manor houses toward the rear of the property. The equipment building and generator shed stood near the back orchard. The last of the apples lay rotting, since no one could get to them. The orchard trees circled the inside perimeter of the stone wall, and a thirty-foot mass of blackberries and huckleberries had been allowed to grow wild around them. The thorny tangle created an effective barrier to escape or rescue. The only way in and out of the property was through the front gate.
Maybe.
She glanced to the west at a walnut tree near the side wall. The fruit trees were shorter, their top branches skinny, but the full-sized walnut had wide, strong limbs. If a super-coordinated male came in over the wall, he could possibly jump to the walnut. Over the years, she’d visually picked the sturdiest tree branches above the ocean of thorny brambles. So this imaginary male could…maybe…leap from branch to branch, around the perimeter of the wall, and eventually reach the apple tree that grew closest to the lawn. Even she could make the leap from the grass into that tree.
Next time she saw Fell and Patrin, she’d point out the zigzag route.
It was a shame she didn’t have the skills to use the route. Then again, she couldn’t. If the Scythe didn’t have her as hostage to keep her brothers in line, they’d kill Fell and Patrin.
Focus on today, tinker. Don’t think about what can’t be.
After doing routine maintenance and running the emergency generator, she went into the equipment building to work on the chainsaw. Gathering oil, lubricants, and sharpeners, she set the chainsaw on the table and started to work.
She’d barely finished sharpening the chain when a foul scent came through the door. Darcy tensed and glanced over her shoulder.
Huber. The human who’d raped Fenella. Hatred roared up within her.
Sneering, the guard swaggered into the building and pulled his cane. “Slacking off again? Lazy cunt.” The blow sliced across her shoulders, her cheap cotton shirt providing no cushion.
The long line of pain flared. Gritting her teeth, she didn’t move.
Huber’s smile was ugly with pleasure—and frustration. “The Director might let you run around like a real person, but we all know you’re just an animal. A freak. One of these days you’ll fuck up, and then I’ll deal with you.”
She didn’t answer. His open lust nauseated her, but he wasn’t allowed to do more than beat her.
A decade ago, after he’d molested Fenella, the girl’s male littermates visited, went berserk with rage, and killed human after human before being shot down. With the loss of the littermate bonds, Fenella turned feral and attacked the Director himself. Unwilling to risk losing more shifter-soldiers, sex with shifter females was prohibited.
And this human male salved his thwarted lust with violence instead.
When he drew back for another swing, Darcy dodged and ran outside where those in the gardens, including the other guards, could see her. As a handyman, she was useful enough the Director wouldn’t want her incapacitated.
Huber knew it. With an annoyed sound, he followed her. “Fucking unnatural freaks.” Backhanding her to her knees, he attached the cane to his weapons belt and sauntered past her to continue his rounds.
The desire to tear at him with claws was a furious drumming in her blood. Her fingers curled…uselessly. She had no claws.
Had never shifted.
She couldn’t trawsfur to animal form; none of the females could. The sense of loss drained away her anger.
When captured, she’d been twelve years old, wondering what animal she would be when she first shifted. She didn’t know what her father had been, but she’d hoped to be a cougar like her mother.
She had daydreamed of running the forest trails with a beloved lifemate on each side, dancing in the moonlit meadows, and playing tag the tail. She’d live in a big house with her mates, all sleeping in a pile in a huge bed. And she’d someday swell with their cublings. She’d known she would be cherished and protected and in turn, would give her mates all the love in her heart and soul.
But her dreams of a sunlit forest trail had turned to an ugly concrete road. One she would travel alone.
Even if she were free, even if she could shift, she would never lifemate. Love required trust. The starry-eyed cub had matured into a scarred, realistic survivor.
The only person she could count on in life was herself.
*
Lights were out, and each female’s cell door was locked. In her tiny space, Darcy sweated as she completed another set of squats. From watching the guards’ daily sparring sessions, she’d learned how to exercise, how to fight, and the very best curse words. From working on equipment around the human hostages, she’d learned current slang.
Her legs trembled as her muscles failed on the last squat—one less than she’d completed last week. Each week she lost more strength.
Why did she keep trying? The other females had given up hope.
But, as her mum had often said, Darcy was a tomfool tinker—and she never gave up.
Using the jackknife she kept hidden in her sock, she manipulated the old-fashioned window lock until it clicked open. Thanks to frequent waxing, her third-floor window slid up silently.
The security lights had come on at dusk, flooding the wide front lawn. Thank the Mother, she had a room in the rear where the spot lighting illuminated only the sidewalks and patches of the perimeter fence. The ivy-covered manor walls lay in darkness.
After shoving the jackknife back in her sock, she looked up. Black clouds covered the almost full moon.
What nice sneaking weather you have, tinker.
Carefully, she climbed onto the narrow ledge and gripped one of the vines covering the aged brick walls. After a forceful tug to check if the ivy would hold her weight, she swung out and curled her legs around the sturdy trunk. Vine by vine, she worked her way along the wall before moving downward to the second floor. The staff apartments.
She passed the library window and hesitated. Book lust caught her every time. But no, she’d already “borrowed” every book in there at least once. And it was too dark to read now anyway. Summer was the best season when the days were long enough to read far into the evening.
But it was fall, and she had snooping to do. She climbed to the window outside Director’s lounge.
Soundlessly, she balanced on the ledge and peered in.
In the sitting area, Director sat across from the visitor. An older, rotund, balding human, Director was in charge of the entire prìosan.
Darcy didn’t know Director’s real name. High status Scythe used simply their titles or ranks.
Reminding her of an ugly vulture, the visitor had a shaved head, sharp nose, and dead eyes. From the flurry of activity after he arrived, he was what the human girls called a big shot.
Perhaps the big shot had interesting news. Taking her…liberated…stethoscope from around her neck, Darcy pressed the bell to the glass and heard light conversation about politics and the weather. No problem. She’d wait…as patient as any cat at a mouse hole. A very cold, shivering cat.
Years ago, she’d risked much to steal black leggings and a black, long-sleeved T-shirt from the staff laundry room. Unfortunately, frequent contact with the rough brick walls had mangled the fabric, leaving holes for the frigid night air that blew off Puget Sound.
This high up, Darcy could see the faint glimmer of the Olympic Mountains, and her body hungered to be free of the enclosing walls. If she could only trawsfur and run the forests on four legs.
But, even if she could escape, she was stuck in human form. She’d hoped to be a cat shifter like Mum, but whatever the Scythe had done to her and the other captured females, none of them could trawsfur to animal form.
The bitter loss of that ability was…what it was. Perhaps having a cat shifter mother was the reason she enjoyed sneaking around. Of course, mountain lions ruled the forest and wouldn’t be caught dead in a city. She was more like a cowardly rat. That hurt.
Louder voices brought her attention back. The humans had finally reached the reason for the visit. Keeping her grip on one vine, she listened to Director.
“That’s right, Colonel. We don’t know why Barbara died.”
Died? Darcy froze, her chest tight with grief. A few months older than Darcy, Barbara had just turned twenty-four and was—had been—the oldest of the survivors. Tears prickled in Darcy’s eyes. Barbara had been her one real friend in here.
Eleven years before, Darcy had been carrying moving boxes into their new Dogwood home and hating Mum for making them move. She’d felt so lost.
“Hi. I’m Barbara.” The slender blonde had walked right up to Darcy. “I’m so glad you’re my age. There aren’t enough female cubs here. We’re going to be friends, you know.” And they had been.
As a drizzling rain began, Darcy bowed her head. Even the heavens should mourn when someone so special passed on.
Tapping the table with a finger, Director continued to talk. “For some reason, the creature wasted away, year by year. Nothing halted the progression, even though the doctor could find nothing wrong.”
The colonel frowned. “Was this wasting similar to how the Dogwood adults died?”
“Exactly. However, Barbara’s death took years. The adults were gone within a few months.”
Darcy’s jaw tightened. Mum had died in a cage. All the grownups had, one by one. Only the children between one and twelve had survived.
“How about the other females?”
“The older ones are weakening and growing thinner.”
And they were giving up. I won’t. I can’t. As the rain soaked her clothes and ran down her face, Darcy shivered in the growing chill.
Director scratched his round chin. “You knew Barbara had died almost before I did. How?”
“Her cougar siblings tried to escape.” The colonel’s smile was grim. “None of them ever tried before—not since we made that demonstration video years ago. It proved most effective.”
“That video.” Director’s mouth twisted. “Although they’re beasts, the girls still look human, and effective or not, the way that child was tortured…”
Darcy snarled silently. These humans were the true beasts.
“They’re abominations. We can’t show weakness. Now each shifter-soldier knows that if he doesn’t obey, we’ll skin his sister. The threat is what keeps them in line.”
A grumbling sound came from Director. “It’s a useless threat without a hostage.”
“True enough—and the cougar brothers somehow knew their sister had died. Next time a hostage is near death, tell us so we can dispose of her siblings first.”
Dispose. If—when—Darcy died, these humans would dispose of her brothers. Would kill Fell and Patrin. Her hand on the stethoscope shook as she remembered her littermates as children. Blue-eyed, brown-haired, light-skinned Fell, all lanky and tall. Patrin with black hair and dark eyes like hers and a wicked sense of humor.
Now, her beloved brothers were hard-eyed, bitter soldiers. Shifter-soldiers. Yet, the over-protective Daonain males were vulnerable when it came to their loved ones. That was why Mum had told her to watch out for Fell and Patrin.
But how? How, Mum? As she turned her attention back to the conversation, a rumble of thunder drowned the two humans out.
Director refilled the glasses. “Did Barbara’s brothers get away?”
“No. Although their disposal was a bit tricky.” The colonel made an annoyed sound. “The GPS devices pinpointed them, but they’d entered the forest. Even with tracking devices, it’s almost impossible to catch the mutant beasts there.”
Director gave a short laugh. “Well, that is one reason the shifters are useful. How did you catch them?”
“We didn’t try.” The colonel sipped his drink. “They’d entered a box canyon. We set the trees on fire and shot the cougars when the heat forced them into the open.”
Tears burned Darcy’s eyes. She’d played with Barbara and her littermates in Dogwood. The boys had been sweet and funny and always telling jokes.
“Hell of a waste,” Director said. “Don’t the idiots know you can track them? The female freaks here are fairly clever.”
“Oh, they know. They sliced their biceps open to remove the trackers.”
Feeling sick, Darcy ran her hand over her rain-wet upper arm and felt the round nodule. The foreign thing in her own body. How often had she wanted to cut it out?
“Then how did you locate them?”
“They’ve never learned that each shifter has two location devices.” The colonel’s smile was cruel. “The smaller is implanted deep in a thigh muscle. The animal would have to know it was there to palpate it and remove it.”
What? Two? Dear Mother of All, she needed to tell the others.
Barbara had only been the first. All the females were failing in health…were dying. With a female’s death, the bond between littermates would break as it had between Barbara and her brothers.
Darcy bit her lip. When she died, Fell and Patrin would know she was gone. They must be able to flee and not be tracked.
“Two devices. Nice.” Director smiled slowly. “Such a shame you had to waste the cougar pair.”
“Annoying, too.” No grief showed in the colonel’s dead eyes. “I had to give their mission to the MacCormac brothers and their team.”
“Where’s the mission?”
“Russia.”
Darcy felt like wailing. Her brothers…so far away.
“Really. What’s going on?” Director asked. Over the years, she’d learned he loved being in the know about the Scythe undertakings.
“Since our new US president is starting negotiations on commerce, the MacCormac team will create “incidents” to show how unpopular the US is with the populace. When the Secretary of State visits, it’ll appear Russia has turned hostile. Then our nervous president and Congress will agree when we push for increased military spending.”
Both men chuckled.
As the buzz of their conversation and clinking of glasses was drowned out by thunder, Darcy growled. Over the years at this window, she’d heard the Scythe big shots boast of manipulating everyone from presidents to helpless shifters. The organization steadily grew more powerful, the members richer.
The urge to break the window and tear them to pieces made her hands shake.
“I hope the MacCormac wolves make it back. In the past few years, we’ve lost too many of the creatures.” The colonel poured the last of the alcohol into his glass. “I’d hoped we could manage to breed them or locate more.”
Director frowned. “Are we searching for more?”
The rain increased to a downpour, making it difficult to hear. Darcy pressed closer to the glass, keeping the stethoscope on it.
“We haven’t spotted others, and searching takes manpower since they blend into their surroundings so well. However, if we lose this batch, we need to find replacements. If there are any. For all we know, that village had all the mutants.” The colonel pulled something out of his jacket pocket. “By the way, I brought you back something from Cuba. You mentioned you have a fondness for a good cigar.”
“Fantastic.” Smiling, Director shoved to his feet. “Smoking is discouraged in the building. Just let me open the window.”
He headed straight for the window where Darcy was perched.
Oh no. She shoved the stethoscope behind the vines and dove off the window ledge into the ivy. And her grip slipped from a rain-slick vine.
Falling.
Desperately, she raked through the foliage for another hold. Caught one. The smaller vine tore loose from the wall. The next one did, too.
She dropped several feet—and a thicker trunk scraped her fingers. She caught it and jolted to a stop, gasping for air. Rain pattered around her on the leaves.
Shouting came from above her. Director had poked his head out the window and spotted her. “Guards!” he bellowed. “Guards. A freak is loose! On the house wall!”
Heart hammering, she half-swung, half-fell to the ground. A strident alarm blared over and over.
Guards charged out of their quarters in Z Hall and into the rainy dark.
Panting, Darcy dove into the narrow gap between the building’s wall and the four-foot privet hedge. She crouched there, trying to think. Her skin was clammy with fear, her mouth dry.
Have to move. The lava rock mulch around the bushes crunched as she crawled along the side toward the back. She reached the rear and turned the corner. The jagged lava rocks ripped her leggings—then her knees.
Thunder echoed off the stone fence and brick walls as she wiggled into a hollow under a big bush.
What now?
Turn herself in? They’d suspect she’d heard about the GPS devices. But if they killed her while Fell and Patrin were in Russia on that mission, her brothers would break free. The Scythe couldn’t risk that. No, the bastards would take her alive and cage her in the basement where she couldn’t tell anyone about the second tracker.
She stared up at the third floor windows where the other shifters were. They needed to know what she’d discovered. Over her head, window after window came alight. The staff must be checking and securing the rooms.
A guard rounded the corner, and Darcy tried to press herself lower.
She couldn’t get back to her floor.
More guards moved around the lawn.
If she stayed, she’d be caught.
She had to try to break free. No choice. Even if Fell and Patrin were overseas, maybe she could find their forest compound and warn the other shifter-soldiers about the trackers.
How could she escape?
She could climb over the front gate easily enough, but the entire front was flooded with light. When the guards spotted her, the machine guns would spray the entire area with bullets.
Forget the front. How about the back?
Darcy studied the grounds. In the heavy downpour, the floodlights on the rear lawn were reduced to smaller circles of light, leaving pools of darkness between. It was the only way.
After smearing mud on her face and hands, she crawled out. Every time a guard looked her way, she froze. When she, Fell, and Patrin had played wolves-and-rabbit as cubs, they’d learned black-on-black disappeared and movement would be spotted.
She gained another few feet.
Terror shook her arms, and surely even human ears could hear her heart slamming against her ribcage.
Her hand came down on a thorny blackberry vine, and she barely suppressed a cry of pain—and victory. She’d reached the thorny hedge that circled the inside of the stone wall. Crouching, she crept along the edge of the bramble-filled orchard and stopped.
There was the apple tree that stood closest to the lawn.
As she straightened, a pair of guards trotted along the back sidewalk, flashing their lights.
No! She flattened herself on the ground in the shadows, presenting no silhouette, nothing to catch their attention. Fear clogged her throat as she waited for their shout of discovery.
They walked on.
Now. Do it now. Oh, Mother of All, she didn’t know how to leap into trees; she only knew how to do slow, careful creeping.
Now, tinker.
She ran along the edge of the blackberry thicket, building up speed, and leaped. Her hands slapped against the low branch of the apple tree—and slipped. Terrified, she convulsively swung one leg up and over—and caught herself.
Gods, Gods, Gods. Heart hammering, she clambered onto the branch. The foliage was shaking, so she waited, trembling all over.
No one had noticed.
Next. She had the route mapped out in her head. But jumping in the dark?
No choice.
Suppressing her whimpers, she jumped to the next tree. In the dark and wet and cold. Oh Gods. To the next. And the next. Branch by branch, she worked her way to the walnut tree.
Her panicked breathing hurt her chest as she slowly climbed the walnut. There was the branch that extended toward the top of the wall. But…from this angle, she could see the distance was too great. Tears filled her eyes. She couldn’t jump that far. She couldn’t.
No choice.
Balancing carefully, she walked out on the branch. It sagged ominously, and a wave of fear shook her. She was tired. Weak.
And out of options. The Mother and the God held no sway in human cities, but she sent them a prayer anyway. And leaped.
Failed.
She landed belly down on the edge of the wall, knocked her breath out, and she slid downward. Frantically, she stretched her arms across the wall, trying to claw a hold into the rough stone and concrete.
Her fingernails caught. Her motion stopped.
Gasping for air, she clung with all her might. Ever so carefully, she swung her leg up over the edge and, inch-by-inch, wiggled onto the wall.
The streetlights revealed a grassy patch down below. She jumped—and landed on her feet. Maybe she would have been a cat shifter like Mum.
But…ow. Her ankles felt as if she’d crunched all the bones together.
Ignoring the pain, she broke into a run, darted across the wide avenue, and sprinted down the Seattle streets, turning left and right at random. Blindly running…always heading roughly east toward the Cascade Mountain Range where her village had been.
The guards wouldn’t dream she’d escaped the grounds. Not for a while. They’d search the compound for at least an hour or two, and surely delay admitting to the higher-ups she’d gotten out. But the higher-ups would call in the people who did the tracking.
If she had the GPS devices in her body, they’d find her. So that was her next step. Go somewhere quiet and use the knife in her sock.
Being caught was more terrifying than cutting herself open.
Mostly.
*
They didn’t find her for a whole twenty-four hours.