Chapter Two
What the fuck was he going to do? The gorgeous blonde with the soulful blue eyes and no inner filter was his mate. Even with her disheveled hair, angry gaze, and the stench of death surrounding her, he’d been bowled over by his need for her. She was his fucking mate!
His bear had been pacing angrily back and forth, demanding they get her out of this hellhole for the past two days. But he had a job to do. More shifters lives were at risk than just the one. The one who is...our...mate. His bear rumbled again, threatening to leap to the forefront and maul anyone in his way. Oh no. Not again. Memories came rushing back of losing control of his bear that one day… He groaned and splashed ice-cold water on his face. He hadn’t felt this out of control, this close to fucking losing it since Sam. Shit. He cursed and tried to take a couple of deep calming breaths. His bear wasn’t backing down. His poor, little sweet cousin curled up in a ball, her eyes filled with terror as she trembled on the ground in front of him. He only remembered bits and pieces of that horrible morning, but it was enough to remind him who he was. A monster.
No. He needed to keep his distance. Watch out for her from far enough away to keep her safe—from them and him. Caleb would get the info he needed to his boss. He’d make sure Stone got her out of there with the rest of the shifters, and then he’d disappear before she realized who he was. Yeah, that seemed like the safest bet.
But his bear wasn’t going to sit back and let her get manhandled by these assholes. Hell, it was killing him knowing she was in that cold, dark room. They were barely feeding her. A few of the guards had had fun punching her senseless the night before he started to work at the facility. How long could he last in this job, smelling her fear, hearing her pain, seeing the bruises and caked-on blood?
He grabbed the vial from his pack and pulled out the syringe. One of Stone’s other undercover guys had grabbed a couple of boxes from one of the facilities in Texas, enabling Stone’s group to make their own drug. He had no idea how either had been developed, or how many shifters died to create them. But Stone had been adamant. Use it. Mask his scent. Get the intel. Then get the hell out. This stuff not only muted his scent, it also slowed his shifter side. Kind of like one of those turkey-and-wine-induced lethargies after Thanksgiving dinner. Which was actually a myth. His brain wouldn’t shut off as he injected himself. But this little mixture—a cross between tryptophan and a Prozac derivative mixed with God knew what else—was going to rein his bear in long enough to help him get the job done. He’d watch his mate and get the inside scoop on the facility. He’d work his way up into the ranks of trusted/ignorant thug who was good at making problems “disappear.” Then he’d get her out of there.
What if they hurt our mate? his angry bear slurred, already going two-can-sally from the injection.
She’s a shifter. She’ll recover. He winced at the lie in his words. Would she recover emotionally? Yeah, she was half animal. A really strong one. But you didn’t just roll over in bed and think to yourself, “I’m not going to have this nightmare tonight.” He knew that from experience. Shit. He couldn’t do this. His bear was already relaxing good and deep so the rage and panic building in him weren’t his bear’s thoughts. They were all Caleb’s. His brain was telling him to be logical, do the job. It had already computed the numbers a dozen times. One shifter versus thousands. In his mind, it made sense. She would have to wait on her rescue. Then his heart jolted again, giving him a hard punch in his chest. His heart was telling him only one mattered. This one. His mate. He was so fucking screwed.
He picked up his cell phone and texted the new info to Stone.
<Do your job. Stay back and monitor.>
He squeezed the phone in his hand and watched the screen crack.
<We’ll get her out. Give me a week to get the plans in motion.>
The reply calmed him a bit. Okay. He took a few shaky breaths and sprayed himself with the funky musk stuff which was supposed to help as a final scent deterrent. He could do that. Monitor. Make sure they didn’t kill his mate. Make sure he didn’t kill the filthy excuse for a human running the place. One week. He grabbed another vial and jammed it into his arm. He’d need double doses to get through this fucking week.
~.~
Izzy’s stomach was still rolling from the last session with Frankie. Gawd, the rainbow colors from last week had been jarring to her senses, overloading and frying every nerve in her head, she figured. But at least she knew what they were doing. They were extracting memories and locations while overloading her. She prayed she hadn’t told them about her clan or royal wolves or her special abilities. But she’d kept her mind carefully tuned into silly movies and recited whatever quotes she could, in her head—in case she accidentally spoke thoughts out loud again. Frankie had grown increasingly frustrated and even had her “motivated” with the help of his big guards. The assholes wouldn’t have been able to touch her if she’d been in wolf form. She released a frustrated breath and pulled the white cover back over her semi-naked body. She wasn’t completely nude. Someone had tossed another plain white hospital gown over her head while she was out. Damn. Why’d they have to take her clothes off to beat her and give her those nasty injections?
She carefully touched her body. No achy spots besides the bruises on her back, tummy, and thighs. She was 99 percent sure her virginity was still intact, too. Though she still couldn’t shift, her ability to scent slowly returned. There were no remnants of male bodily fluids anywhere on her body. She heaved a sigh of relief and lay back down, exhausted. She wished she knew what had happened during those five minutes she’d blacked out in Frankie’s lab. The clock had said 9:45 a.m. when they’d injected her again. Thug guard one—okay, his name was Malcolm, but she preferred to call him Thug One—had ripped her paper gown off, and she’d tried to bite him. He’d backhanded her. She’d sworn a few more things about how she was going to kill him first when she got free...throat ripping, eye gouging, yadda yadda...the usual. Followed by a stupid pun involving one of said body parts, because yeah, her filter liked to keep her on her toes. Then she’d blacked out. When she woke up, the lab clock said 9:50.
They dragged her back to her room because her legs were still too heavy to walk. She’d wished for Caleb to carry her back, but he’d been nowhere in sight. Weird, because this was his normal shift for the past three days. Well, at least she knew she hadn’t been de-hymenated. The rest was icing on top of this crazy, fricking roller coaster ride.
The door to her room opened and there he stood, bathed in the glow of the fluorescent lights in the hall. Caleb Johnson, the beefy, humongous guard who should not be setting her hormones so on edge she wanted to reconsider the whole hymen thing. Damn. This was not the time or place to be thinking about sex. She needed to be working on her escape plan, not an orgasm plan. But he was so different from everyone else in this facility. Dr. Frankie, Bossman, the human thug guards...they all wore their hate proudly, their eyes full of a desire to figure out what made her tick and then use whatever info she gave them to annihilate her species. Yeah, that kind of look. It was evil. Yucky. Black.
But Caleb’s eyes never matched his actions. She’d watched him tackle a male bobcat shifter who had tried to escape last week—one of those rare occurrences when her nose came back to full working capacity for a few seconds. But his gaze had been tormented, not gleeful or hate filled. Caleb had talked with her, after taking her back to her room, the past few days. He was hilarious and smart, like killer smart. For those few moments, she saw something more than a guy doing a bad job. She saw him, his light, his downplayed intelligence. Him. Caleb wasn’t a bad guy—she knew it in her heart.
“Are you okay, Princess?” His dark-chocolate eyes were now filled with a combination of quiet rage and concern. For her?
She sat up, pulling her blanket more tightly around her body. Man, her muscles ached like she had done a week of couch to marathon training. “Yeah, whatcha need? Another blood sample?” She winced, checking out the spot where the last injection had been shoved not so delicately into her left arm. “I might run out soon, so maybe you should come back later.”
His eyes flashed with something she couldn’t quite read then his pupils enlarged, and the irises shone with the most brilliant gold she had ever seen. Holy shit! She could play it off as a trick of the lighting, but not the low rumble coming from his chest.
“Are you—”
He held up his hand, stopping her next words as he clicked the door shut behind him. She winced when he barreled straight toward her, huge, long arms extended. Preparing herself to fight back—not that it’d do much good with someone his size—she winced when he reached up above her head. The corner wall above her head. He gave a quick little yank on something and sat down on the bed next to her. “We don’t have much time. The system has a failsafe to turn the cameras back on if they’re off for longer than two minutes.”
“Who are you?”
His features softened, and a ghost of a smile tugged at his full lips. “Caleb Alexander, here undercover to help take down this organization, but my job is over now. I need to get you out of here.”
“Okay, great. But why now? There’s still too much to do. I don’t know about you, but I haven’t gotten much of the inside scoop yet, and I’ve been in on the lab fun.”
He scowled, and another low growl erupted from deep within his chest. Hmmm, a big bad shifter. Something that could kick ass, take names, built like a Mack truck, dark soulful eyes brimming with love and joy until he was pushed into action, gold rims outlining the animal inside. She took a long, deep inhale and begged the Goddess to give her one good scent.
“Bear, grizzly, approximately thirty years old…and you ate bacon and grits for breakfast, right?”
“Almost.” He grinned. “You didn’t mention the pancakes.” His gaze turned thoughtful. “I knew you were special. Royal, huh?”
“Yeah.” She stood. “Okay, let’s get the rest of these prisoners out of here.”
“Can’t do that, Princess.”
“What?”
“You’re more important at the moment, and I only have a five-minute window to get you out. There’s not time to get the rest.” His gaze softened, and he tried to touch her cheek, but she pushed back away from him with a scowl.
“You are not taking me and leaving these poor, defenseless dying shifters here. I won’t go.”
She put her hands on her hips and glared up at the big guy. “Put the camera back on and get out of here. Maybe you should rough me up a bit first.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” He practically roared his words. Yup, definitely grizzly.
“I can stay here undercover with you. We’ll hook up every week and compare notes. I’m not leaving without them.”
Another angry growl.
“So you gonna hit me a bit, or what? You only have twenty more seconds or so before the camera restarts on its own.”
“Shit.” He grumbled and shook his head. He needed her here. They’d be a good team, taking down these assholes.
“Come on. I’ve been punched, kicked, strangled, and poked for the past three weeks. A few more bruises aren’t going to make it worse. Just don’t kill me.”
“Turn around.”
She turned her back to him and squealed when he flung her facedown on the bed. A loud smack filled the room, and heat singed her right bottom cheek. “What the hell?” She tried to massage the sting from her poor booty, but he held her hands against the small of her back.
He leaned forward, his strong body pinning her down, and his warm breath tickled her ear. “That was for suggesting I keep you here. This is going to hurt a bit.”
She winced and waited for another one of those dreadful smacks, but it never came.
“Hold still.” He lifted the gown, and cool air wafted over her naked rear end and between her legs.
The pinch was followed by a pinprick in the same area he had just smacked her. She mewled at the pain of the needle as he removed it.
“Why’d you do that?” She rubbed her sore glutes as soon as he released her.
“I’m getting you out of here, and you’re not going to stop me.”
Lethargy swept through her, and she sagged toward the floor. He swept her up into his arms and brushed a tender kiss to her forehead.
“Seriously? You spank me, poke me, and then kiss me. Who are you again?”
“I’m your mate, and I’m getting you the hell out of here. Good night, Princess.”
“You bast—” Darkness enveloped her, but she heard his sure steps as he opened her door. Mate, huh. Well, that was a smack in the booty, wasn’t it? She’d let him know exactly how she felt about all of this Neanderthal treatment...as soon...as...she…
Say goodnight, Izzy.