Pierce

“There weren’t supposed to be any guards here,” he said angrily. “Not in this number. It’s only been a few minutes at best since the guard tried to call for help. That’s not enough time to set all this up.”

Mila still didn’t respond.

“You knew the plan,” he said, comprehension slowly dawning. “You told me everything, where people would be, what we would do, the route we would take. You knew everything. Had it all planned out.”

Mila looked away.

“Tell me I’m wrong,” he begged her, but she still didn’t speak. “Mila, tell me I’m wrong.”

“You aren’t wrong,” she whispered.

Pierce leaned back against the white metal wall behind him, his head thudding against it dully.

“Holy shit,” he said, looking around in disbelief. “You set a trap.”

It wasn’t a question.

“Yes, Pierce, I set a trap,” she said, rolling her eyes as she stepped away from him.

The armed men moved closer, though they still stayed well out of his reach.

“You set a trap,” he repeated, stunned. “You betrayed me.” His head fell. “And I fell for your lies. Again.”

Pain flashed through Mila’s eyes, but she didn’t relent. “Yes, you did.”

“I trusted you. And you abused that trust. Twice.” He smiled. “I hope you don’t have any intentions of trying to convince me to ever trust you again in the future. Because let me tell you little lady, it ain’t gonna happen.”

“Move it,” one of the guards said, gesturing back down the hallway behind him.

Pierce growled, but did as he was told. His bear wanted to fight, to destroy them all, but Pierce knew the reality of the situation. He’d get three steps before his body was festooned with darts. That much tranquilizer at once would likely kill him, shifter or no shifter.

Plus he couldn’t guarantee that he’d get to them in time. They were far enough away that he’d likely fall to the ground before he got that close.

His gaze swung around to his left as he regarded the person that was still in range of him. Mila had backed off to where she believed she was safe, and was now pacing ahead of him, keeping that distance. She clearly didn’t know as much about his kind as she thought, though. Pierce could reach her, get his hand around her neck and snap it before the men took him down.

At least he’d have the satisfaction of knowing that the traitorous bitch would die with him.

It pained him deeply to think of Mila that way.

“I trusted you,” he said, voicing his hurt. “And you lied to me, all this time. About who you were, then about your feelings for me.” He shook his head dejectedly. “All lies? How could you?” he snarled. “How could you do that to someone?’

Pierce had seen all the holes in her story earlier. Had seen them, and had thrown them aside. He’d wanted so badly to trust Mila, to believe that perhaps they could, in fact, work things out between them.

“It wasn’t my choice,” Mila said, the first time she’d responded to him.

Pierce followed the instructions from the guard behind him and turned right at the intersection, heading down the hallway as if they had never turned off of it, moving deeper into the Institute building.

Eventually they came to another room, marked Studies Chamber. A door slid open. Four guards moved inside, taking up positions in the room, and then he was ushered inside, followed by a silent Mila.

The room had a door to his left, and a desk parallel to him at the far end. Behind the desk were two open hallways, forming a sort of Y-shape to the room.

Guards preceded him to the right, and Pierce just followed this time, figuring they’d yell at him if he was going the wrong way. They went down a corridor to the end. A thick door opened slowly to the guards’ command. Pierce eyed the heavily reinforced steel. It was clearly made for shifters, not humans.

Past that was a semicircular room, with six different doors arrayed in an arch around him. The guards took him to number five.

“Is that where my brothers are?” he asked, looking at the other doors.”

“Yes,” Mila said without hesitation.

Inside door number five was a short hallway, with a cell on the right. He knew it was a cell, because it had thick bars as a door, and was nearly the same size as the one he’d vacated back in Cadia.

“Let me guess, I go in here?” he said as one guard opened the bars.

There was no response, but he moved inside anyway, and the guard closed the bars behind him.

Pierce glared at Mila as she stayed in front of the cell, looking at him, her eyes blank, completely devoid of emotion.

“Was anything you told me true?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said, her voice thick with pain. “Yes, some of it was.”

He laughed. “Is this place even called the Institute? Who are these people?”

“That part is all true,” she told him. “I had no need to lie about any of that. Your brothers are here too. In fact, you’ll be seeing them soon.” She paused. “Maybe, that is. Not yet though. Not until…”

Mila trailed off, looking to her right as the guards shuffled aside.

“What Mila meant to say was, you won’t see them until you and I have had a chance to have an interesting chat, one that might just benefit the both of us.”

Pierce regarded the person who had just spoken.

“Who the fuck are you?” Pierce all but snarled as an elderly but not frail man walked briskly into view.

He smelled like scientist.

“I’m Director Burnatawiz,” the man said in response to the interrogating look.

“Uh-huh,” Pierce said uncaringly as he studied the “director.”

Tall. That was the first thing he realized about him. Here was a human male, in his perhaps late sixties, early seventies, and he still rivaled Pierce in height, without any noticeable stoop about him. Considering Pierce was nearly six and a half feet tall that was no minor miracle for a man of such advanced age.

He had long, thinning gray hair that he had pulled back into a ponytail, of all things. The front of his head was covered by only a few wispy strands, but it was still fairly thick toward the back and on the sides. He wore glasses—of course he wore glasses, what self-respecting scientist didn’t?—and yet still managed to squint at Pierce.

Thank goodness there was no white lab jacket. Pierce might have died of stereotyping if that had been the case. No, the man wore a rather expensive-looking satiny-black dress shirt tucked into a pair of darker-shaded khakis. Black pointed dress shoes finished off the ensemble.

A closer look at the way he wore the clothes told Pierce that this was an everyday outfit for the man, not something he’d put on as an attempt to impress him or anyone else. That was interesting, he thought. What sort of scientist has a fashion sense?

And what person with a fashion sense works in this ugly-ass building?

“I’m also a professor, with multiple PhDs in cultural anthropology, history, and—”

“I get it. You read a lot,” Pierce interrupted.

Scholar then. Close enough, they both start with the same two letters. Damn I’m good.

“Well, I mean, there’s more to it than that,” the man said, obviously flustered by Pierce’s disdain.

So you’re not the head evil villain. No villain behind this sort of scheme gets pushed around this easily. Who’s really running things here?

Pierce wasn’t sure there was an evil villain of course, but somebody had ordered him kidnapped him from his cozy cell back in his homeland.

“What are you a director of?” he asked, directing his query to try and get the man talking, to tell him more about what sort of predicament he was in.

Not that the guards in front and behind him weren’t indicator enough.

“Why, the Bothwell-Ingrim Institute of Theoretical Anthropological Studies of course!” Burnatawiz said, beaming at Pierce, confusing his interrogation for genuine interest.

“The Both…the what?” Pierce asked, stumbling once more over what was absolutely an unnecessarily long, inane, uninformative and probably repetitive name. He’d had trouble with it the first time Mila had told him about it. That, apparently, hadn’t changed.

“We’re a think tank,” the director said, exasperated that he wasn’t able to keep up. “We perform theoretical research on long-term studies of human culture.”

“Right.” He still had no idea what the fuck they did there. “What’s with the rage-inducing décor around here?” he asked.

“What?” The professor was thoroughly lost now.

“All the white,” he said, mimicking the professor’s earlier exasperation. “What’s with all the white?”

“Oh, why, it’s nice and sterile. Easy to clean.”

Pierce’s mouth was open with a retort, but the glint in the director’s eye at the final three words snapped it shut.

A smile played across the other man’s face. “Yes, I’m aware of what you were doing.”

Okay, Pierce thought, quickly re-evaluating things and his initial impression of the old man. Maybe this is the evil villain after all.

“But it’s okay!” Burnatawiz continued.

“It is?” Now Pierce was the confused one.

“Of course. We’re on the same side.”

“We’re on the same side,” Pierce echoed, then looked at the cell behind him, and tapped one of the metal bars. “Doesn’t seem like we’re on the same side.”

Director Burnatawiz rolled his eyes. “Use your mind. Human,” he said slowly, pointing at himself. “Shifter.” This time he pointed at Pierce. “Safety reasons of course. Would you trust me if you were in my shoes?”

Absolutely not, because I’d know how much I’d want to reach out and throttle you right now.

“Maybe, if I hadn’t been kidnapped, lied to, and thrown in here.” He frowned. “”Why do all of that anyway?”

“Everything will be explained in time,” the director said. “But first we need to see if we can work together.”

Pierce glared. “And if we can’t? Because I don’t know if we can.”

Burnatawiz gave him a taut, wintry smile. “Then other arrangements can be made.”

His blood grew cold with ice at the easy way the director had just uttered a death threat. It was covered in nice words and deflecting statements, but they both knew what was truly being said. Pierce wasn’t sure if it was his vision playing tricks on him, but it looked like the director’s pupils gleamed maniacally as he exerted his power.

Note to self: Be careful around this one.

Although Pierce wished to sit back and consider things, that seemed rather pointless with the way things stood. He was trapped in a cell with no way out. He knew now he’d been taken against his will. As far as bargaining positions went, Pierce had figuratively nothing to stand on.

“I’m going to need some time to think about it,” he said, stalling.

“Of course. Completely understandable,” the director said, giving him another once over and then turning to leave, shooing the guards out before him. “Come on Mila, let’s discuss your excellent work.”

Pierce watched the woman he’d thought he loved prepare to leave with his captor.