Chapter 3

“Keep your eyes closed and just relax.”

Tanner Howland frowned even as he said the words. He wasn’t sure he was the best person to help another hybrid get a handle on their inner animal, especially since he was still trying to figure it out most of the time himself, but Sage Andrews, the woman the DCO had rescued from a lab in Tajikistan a while back, was in a really bad way. Besides, he couldn’t say no to anything Zarina Sokolov asked him to do. Meeting the beautiful Russian doctor had been the only bright spot in his dark existence since he’d been captured and turned into a beast over a year ago. If not for her, he probably wouldn’t even be alive right now.

He, Zarina, and Sage sat on the floor in the small living room of Sage’s dorm room/prison cell on the DCO complex while two armed men stood guard outside the door.

“That’s it,” he said. “Breathe in and out, nice and slowly.”

As Sage inhaled and exhaled, Tanner looked for any sign that the beast inside her might take over and she was about to lose it. Beside him, Zarina did the same. He would have preferred her to watch this exercise from farther away, like on a closed-circuit television in another room. But Zarina insisted she needed to be close in case Sage lost control.

When he’d tried to argue, Zarina had folded her arms—a sure sign he wasn’t going to change her mind no matter what he said. “Who taught you how to control your inner beast?” she asked. “Me, that’s who.”

But while that was true, Tanner didn’t like the idea of Zarina putting herself at risk. He’d been watching out for her ever since she’d saved his life in Washington State after a pair of psycho doctors had injected him with a serum that turned him into a hybrid like Sage. He wasn’t about to stop now.

Across from him, Sage’s brow knit, like she was fighting for control. Tanner tensed, but after a moment, she relaxed again. While he’d had more than his share of episodes since being turned into a hybrid, sometimes it seemed like Sage was more beast than human. If there was any doubt of that, all a person had to do was take a look at Sage’s living arrangements, and the truth was obvious.

Since she was prone to violence, staying in one of the normal dorm rooms like he did was out of the question, so John Loughlin had turned one of the outbuildings into a small efficiency apartment of sorts. Her bedroom, bathroom, kitchen, and living room took up the back half of the building while the front was part medical facility, part guard station. In between the front and back sections was a wall of steel bars as thick and heavy as anything you’d expect to see in a real prison.

It wasn’t the nicest way to treat a woman who’d never asked for any of this to happen to her, and Tanner hated it more than anyone, but there wasn’t anything else they could do. Sage gave in to her animal rages once every few days. The deep scratches along the walls and floors were a testament to that. A petite, slender girl with long, wavy, dark hair and expressive gray eyes, she looked like she wouldn’t hurt a fly. But when the animal inside took over, Sage turned into something extremely dangerous.

That was why Dick kept two armed guards there 24-7. Currently, both men were standing outside the steel bars of Sage’s cell watching them, disdain on their faces. They both hated and feared Sage. The only reason they treated her halfway decently at all was because the DCO might be able to use her later. That said, the thought of Sage escaping and going on a rampage through the training complex terrified the new director.

Honestly, it terrified Tanner, too. If she got out of here, it would be up to him to stop her, and he wasn’t sure if he could stop a raging hybrid without losing control of his own inner animal.

“We’re going to do the door exercise again, Sage,” he said quietly. “Just like we’ve been doing for the past few weeks, okay?”

Sage gently wrapped her graceful fingers around the silver cross on a chain around her neck, her lips moving in a silent prayer. She’d told Tanner that she had grown up in a very religious family and that her father was a pastor of a church back in her hometown. In fact, the first things she’d asked for after she’d calmed down enough to talk to anyone were a cross and a Bible.

After a few moments, Sage nodded, letting him know she was ready.

“I want you to imagine that you’re standing in front of a door in a dimly lit room. It can be any kind of door you want. It doesn’t matter, as long as it’s something you can easily remember.”

She frowned, then relaxed again.

“Do you have the door set in your mind?” Tanner asked.

“Yes,” she said, the tips of her fangs clearly visible.

“Relax, Sage,” he said softly. “We’re in no rush. Take a minute and center yourself. Concentrate on the door as you breathe in and out.”

That was the thing with Sage. All it took was a word or a noise or a bad memory, and the beast was off and running.

“Can you describe the door for me?” he asked.

Sage nodded. “It’s a white door with a pink unicorn hand-painted in the middle like the one to my sister’s bedroom. I can see it so clearly I feel like I can reach out and touch it.”

Tanner glanced at Zarina. She looked just as concerned as he was about Sage’s choice of imaginary doors. This wasn’t the one Sage usually described.

He didn’t know much in the way of details when it came to what Sage had been through during her captivity, because she refused to talk about it, but he was almost certain she’d watched her younger sister die a painful, horrible death as a result of being injected with a previous version of the hybrid serum. Focusing on her late sister’s bedroom door probably wasn’t a good idea for a hybrid who wanted to stay in control, but there wasn’t anything Tanner could do about it now. With the image already in her head, there was no way Sage would be able to forget it, even if she wanted to.

“That’s good, Sage,” he told her. “Remember that on your side of the door, you have a handle that you can open or close. On the other side, there is no handle. That’s where the beast is. It can’t get through the door unless you open it. You’re in charge, okay?”

Sage nodded.

“Can you feel the beast on the other side of the door?” he asked.

“Yes,” she whispered, her fingers tightening around the cross. “It’s always there.”

“It’s okay,” he said soothingly “You’re in control. And to prove that, I want you to open the door a crack.”

Sage tensed visibly but kept her eyes closed. “I thought you were going to show me how to keep it locked away forever?”

“That’s not something I can do,” he said. “You need to learn how to get the beast under control.”

“I can’t,” she said brokenly.

“Yes, you can.”

Sage chewed on her lower lip. “Maybe we should wait until Derek is here.”

Staff Sergeant Derek Mickens was the Special Forces soldier who had risked his life to save her from a burning building in Tajikistan. She only seemed truly in control of her animal side when she was with him or even talking to him on the phone. But Derek was deployed more than he was home, and he couldn’t be around as much Sage needed him. Even calling regularly could be difficult as hell for him.

“Sage, you need to learn how to do this on your own,” Tanner said gently. “Derek can’t be with you all the time. Now that he’s on deployment, he might not be back for a long time.”

Tanner realized he shouldn’t have said that the moment the words were out of his mouth, but by then, it was too late to do anything about it. Sage’s heart rate spiked immediately, and her body went as rigid as if she’d been hit with a live electrical wire.

Oh shit. She was going into full hybrid mode.

“Zarina, get out of here!” he ordered, jumping up.

Across from him, Sage did the same, claws out and eyes glowing bloodred.

“I can help,” Zarina insisted, getting to her feet.

“Get out,” he growled. “Now!”

He hadn’t intended the words to come out that way, but knowing Zarina was trapped with him in a prison cell with an out-of-control hybrid made his control slip a little.

Zarina looked like she wanted to argue but then turned and ran for the door. Tanner expected the guard to immediately jerk open the door, but when he glanced that way, the man was still fumbling with the keys on the ring, searching for the right one.

“Open the door, dammit!” Tanner shouted.

A flash of movement coupled with a growl had Tanner spinning around to see Sage rushing toward him, her curved claws ready to slash him to ribbons.

Tanner tried to stay in control, tried to let just enough of the animal out to allow his feline reflexes to kick in, but with Zarina still in danger, that control slipped away like sand through his fingers.

Claws and fangs coming out, he blocked Sage’s right arm, then shoved her back, knowing he had to put some distance between them before he shifted all the way and lost complete control. Sage charged at him again, rage filling her glowing red eyes as she yowled in frustration. While she would probably never hurt him, the beast in charge at the moment sure as hell wanted to.

He blocked another slash, fighting the urge to strike back. If he landed a blow with his larger claws, he’d tear the smaller woman nearly in half. Instead, he reached deep down and found the control to retract his claws.

Sage blinked at him, like she was almost as shocked as he was that he’d done it. He thought for a moment the move would be enough to get her to calm down and back off. But then something behind him caught Sage’s attention, and her eyes went feral again.

Tanner glanced over his shoulder, and his heart lurched. Both guards had come into the cell, one holding a Taser, the other a dart gun that Tanner knew was loaded with a sedative. The only problem was that the idiots had left the cell door open behind them. If Sage got past the men, she’d be through it in a flash. Then the only thing standing between her and freedom would be Zarina.

Zarina, heaven help her, was standing resolutely in the open doorway like she thought she could stop Sage by sheer willpower.

As Sage poised to leap at the guards, the guy with the Taser froze, while the one with the dart gun was shaking so much it looked like he was about to wet his pants. Sage was going to get through those two before they could blink. Then she’d be on Zarina.

Fury overwhelmed Tanner like a tidal wave. One moment, he was standing there, wondering what the best move would be. The next, he’d shifted completely and let out a roar loud enough to shake the walls. Claws extended to their full length, he went for Sage.

She backpedaled, the red glow disappearing from her eyes.

At the same time, Dart Guy dropped his weapon and really did piss himself, while Taser Man jerked back and fired his stun weapon into the ceiling, burying the high-voltage electrodes in the soft acoustic tiles.

Sage ran for her bedroom, sobs tearing from her throat instead of growls, while both men made a beeline for the cell door.

Zarina ran past Tanner, hurrying after Sage before he could stop her. Now that Sage was back in charge of her body, all she’d be interested in doing was hiding away from the rest of humanity in horror and shame. Tanner knew what it felt like to lose control, especially in front of people you considered friends. Hopefully Zarina could console Sage and remind her that she’d done well—right up until Tanner had slipped up and mentioned Derek.

He took a deep breath and got himself under control. A few moments later, his fangs and claws retracted, leaving him feeling drained and weary. Outside the cell, the two guards stared at him in revulsion. Abruptly realizing he was aware of their attention, the men turned and headed outside. But the distance wasn’t great enough to prevent him from hearing what they said to each other, especially the part where they muttered about having to babysit those damn freaks.

Those two might have been total d-bags, but it still reminded Tanner that in the eyes of most of the people left at the DCO, he and Sage were little better than poorly behaved animals. It made him wonder how much longer Dick would tolerate their presence.

* * *

Tanner was still sitting on one of the benches overlooking the obstacle course when Zarina finally came out of Sage’s cell an hour later. He’d spent the time thinking about all the ways the situation in Sage’s holding cell could have gone wrong—and there were a lot of them. Worst among them wasn’t the possibility of Sage getting past those guards but the fact that he might have been the one who put the men down—right before he lashed out at Zarina. The thought chilled him to the core.

Zarina walked over to join him, sitting down on the wooden bench with a sigh. Some of her long, wavy, blond hair had come loose from its bun to hang down around her face, and it was all he could do not to reach out and gently take the silky strands between his fingers.

“How’s Sage doing?” he asked.

“She feels horrible. But at least she’s not sobbing uncontrollably now,” Zarina said. “I told her that she did very well on the exercise, but she’s still upset she lost control and attacked you.”

He shrugged. “She got her animal side back under control pretty fast.”

Zarina pinned him with a look. “You know that’s not true, and so does she. Sage only gained control because you roared at her. If not for that, she would have tried to attack those two guards and probably me, too. She’s terrified she might kill someone while her animal side is in control.”

Tanner didn’t say anything. He knew exactly how Sage felt. He was afraid of the same thing.

“It’s so strange to see the obstacle course completely empty,” Zarina said in that soft, beautiful accent of hers. “It’s like this place is falling apart in front of our eyes.”

Tanner couldn’t help but think that there was more to Zarina’s words than the literal interpretation. While the facilities were already showing signs of neglect, it was like the soul of the DCO was rotting away from the inside out as more and more good people left to be replaced with dirtbags. Soon, there’d be nothing left to show for all the work John had put into this place. Over a decade of hard work gone in the blink of an eye.

“The new teams don’t do a lot of training,” Tanner said.

Zarina let out a delicate snort. “The new teams don’t do anything but sit around and eat. And the only time they leave the complex is to go traipsing off to some far corner of the world chasing after Ivy and Landon or one of the other teams. If Dick and Thorn knew just how close they really are to the DCO complex, they’d go crazy.”

Tanner chuckled. She was right. Dick in particular would pass out if he knew that almost all the shifter teams were hiding less than two hours away from the Washington, DC, area.

“Speaking of Ivy and the others,” Zarina said, glancing at him, “do you think you’ll be seeing Kendra and Declan anytime soon?”

Kendra MacBride and her bear shifter husband were expecting twins any day now, so it wasn’t really the best time to be on the run. Tanner looked around before answering. He doubted anyone could have snuck up on them without him knowing, but he checked anyway. “I won’t risk going to see them. Not unless they call me, which I doubt they will.”

Zarina frowned. “I’d feel a whole lot better if I could give Kendra a checkup myself. She’s a week past her due date already. I should be with her.”

Tanner sighed. Zarina still wasn’t thrilled that he was the only person in the DCO to know where Landon, Ivy, and the rest of the fugitives were hiding. Or that he was the only one who’d gone to see them. She knew they were somewhere close by, figuring out the amount of time Tanner had been gone the last time he’d taken Kendra something to help her deal with muscle spasms related to her overdue pregnancy.

“You know that isn’t possible,” Tanner said as gently as he could. “They’re watching you too closely. While you’re an amazing woman, you’re not a covert agent. Thorn’s people would find you.”

It was Zarina’s turn to sigh. “I know. It’s just hard thinking about Kendra and the others being out there on their own. I hate that Thorn’s goons are always following me.”

Zarina wasn’t the only one being watched. Thorn had people following some of the other DCO employees as well, including Trevor. The coyote shifter was under almost constant surveillance.

Fortunately, Dick and Thorn ignored Tanner. For whatever reason, they considered him nothing more than a dumb animal, too out of control to be trusted to do anything covert or complicated. That was fine with him, since being invisible made it easy to slip away and get messages to his friends whenever Dick was closing in on them. It also made it simple to snoop around Dick’s office, talk to his secretary, and listen in on private conversations that people had no idea he could hear so he could figure out what the hell Dick and Thorn were up to. With John out of the way, Thorn would be making his big move, but no one had a clue what it was.

“Can you at least tell me if Ivy is with Kendra?” Zarina asked. “If Kendra goes into labor without a doctor there, I’d feel a lot better if Ivy were around to help.”

Tanner shook his head. “You know I can’t tell you anything. It’s safer for everyone if you don’t know.”

She made a face at him, sticking out her tongue. He chuckled, unable to help himself. Clearly, living in the United States was having a profound effect on her. She would never have done anything like that when she’d first arrived here.

“Why?” she demanded, her blue eyes flashing. “Because Adam says it is? What do we even know about this guy? Hell, he doesn’t even have a last name! He popped up as a voice on the end of the phone a couple of days after John died, and we all did exactly what he told us to do. How do we know we can trust him?”

Zarina was only echoing what Tanner had thought the first time the mysterious shifter named Adam had called. He’d given Landon, Ivy, and the others places to hide, new identities, money, and even burner phones Tanner used to keep in contact with them.

“We know we can trust him because Landon and Ivy trust him,” Tanner said. “According to them, Adam had been working behind the scenes with John for years trying to find something to pin on Thorn. Adam hasn’t done anything to steer us wrong yet.”

Zarina’s mouth tightened. “So Ivy and Kendra aren’t together?”

Tanner lifted a brow but didn’t answer. Zarina rolled her eyes and turned her attention back to the obstacle course again.

The funny thing was that Zarina was right. The DCO agents had split into three groups and were hiding out at separate locations. Ivy and Landon weren’t with Kendra and Declan.

“Are you going to tell me what happened in there?” Zarina asked after a moment. “I haven’t seen you lose it like that in a long time.”

That was only because she hadn’t been in Costa Rica when he’d completely gone animal during a rescue mission and had run off into the forest like a lunatic. When his team found him, they’d had to tackle him, then practically sit on him for thirty minutes until his rage subsided.

Since then, Tanner had thought he had his inner animal well in hand. Now, he realized any semblance of control he’d been experiencing was nothing more than an illusion. The moment he’d thought Zarina was in danger, he’d completely lost it. Even now, he could feel the beast in the back of his mind, prowling around, looking for a way to slip out again. It was like the thing had been encouraged by that minor bout of freedom.

“Sometimes I imagine this is what an alcoholic or drug addict must feel like,” he said softly, staring down at the grass in front of their bench. “Knowing that there’s this monster inside you, ready to slip out and attack the second you give it a chance.”

“You’re not an alcoholic or an addict,” Zarina said firmly. “You were given a serum that made drastic changes to your DNA and your hindbrain, which is the part that controls our most primitive functions, including survival instincts, aggression, and your fight-or-flight response. That’s why you sometimes lose control in stressful situations.”

He appreciated how Zarina always tried to make it seem as if all his issues were related to the hybrid serum he’d been given, but they both knew it was more than that. He’d already been a basket case long before he’d been given those drugs. The rage issues, memory blackouts, and panic attacks had started somewhere between his fourth and fifth deployment in the army and had only gotten worse once he was out of the Rangers. That was why he’d been living alone in the woods of Washington State to begin with. So he wouldn’t lose it and hurt someone.

When he didn’t say anything, Zarina reached out and rested her hand on his jaw, turning him to look at her.

“Tanner, the things that are happening to you aren’t your fault. But you’re dealing with them. We’re dealing with them.”

The touch of her hand on his face was enough to warm his whole body, and it was all he could do not to turn ever so slightly and press a kiss to her palm.

He wished he could tell Zarina exactly how he felt about her, because right now, he was happier than he’d ever been in his life. But it would have been unfair to tell her that he loved her, then in the next breath admit he was almost going to have to walk away from her.

“Sometimes I think it would be better if I went back to the forests where you found me,” he said quietly. “So I could get away from all of it.”

Zarina looked confused at first, but then an expression of overwhelming pain filled her eyes. “Away from me?”

Seeing the sorrow on her face hurt him worse than anything he’d ever experienced, even the searing agony he’d felt as the hybrid drug had first burned through his bloodstream all those months ago, tearing his DNA apart from the inside out.

He loved her more than his own life. Which was why what he was doing felt so completely right.

He gently trailed his hand over her cheek. This was the first time he’d touched Zarina like this, and it almost took his breath away.

“Away from you more than anyone,” he said. “I’d die if I ever lost control and hurt you.”

“You’d never hurt me.”

“You can’t be sure of that.”

“I am sure. Tanner, I’m close to finding a cure.” She reached up to grab his hand and squeeze it tight. “The serum I gave Jayson wasn’t perfect, but it counteracted the effects of the crap Dick gave him. All I need is a little more time, and it will be ready.”

“You’ve been working on that antiserum for almost a year and a half,” he pointed out. “You might be close, or you could be another year or two away.”

She shifted on the bench so she could face him squarely, shaking her head vigorously. “It won’t take that long. I’m sure of it. You have to promise you won’t leave before I have a chance to finish it.”

That wasn’t a promise he could make. He had no idea when he was going to leave, since he still needed to help Sage, but he couldn’t ignore the risk he posed to Zarina and the other people around him. At some point, he’d lose control at the wrong time, and someone he cared about would pay the price. He refused to stay here and let that happen.

But before he could tell Zarina that, she suddenly leaned forward and wrapped her arms around him, squeezing him tightly. He froze, shocked by the move. But after a moment, he enfolded her in a hug.

“Don’t answer right now,” she whispered. “Just think about it for a while…before you do anything.”

Tanner closed his eyes, holding her like he’d wanted to for so long, torn that it couldn’t always be like this. But he wasn’t the man Zarina needed in her life. At some point, she was going to have to figure that out.