“You’re still here,” Reaper said in a deadly calm voice even though his insides rocked with an earthquake of memories. He still dreamed about Dr. Winters. Dreamed about her plunging a needle into his arm. About her expressionless face as she stared at him through the glass and recorded every seizure, every twitch, every scream of agony. She had also been the one to pronounce Dawson dead after his body had been unable to handle the rigorous dosing. Cause of death—brain hemorrhage.

Even now the pain of losing his teammate was a fresh bleeding wound, and it took all his control not to contract his finger and put a bullet in Dr. Winters’s forehead.

She arched one blonde brow, as if to ask where else she would be. “And so are you.”

Reaper advanced, stopping only when the tip of his weapon hovered inches from her nose. “So I am. You don’t seem surprised to see me.”

“I’m not,” she said.

The tiniest bit of frustration began to wind its way around him. She had always been so self-assured and completely unafraid of him or his team, even after witnessing the results of their changes. “I don’t have time for more of your mind games. What did you do with the rest of the serum?”

Her arched brow fell and her expression flatlined. “I didn’t do anything with it.”

“Then where is it?”

“It’s gone. Almost every single ounce was used up.”

He watched every minute expression on her face, listened to the slow steady heart rate pounding in her chest without the slightest acceleration. There wasn’t the least bit of worry in her tone, indicating with almost a hundred percent accuracy that she was telling the truth. “You’re lying.”

“We’ve come under new management in your absence,” she said coolly, completely unruffled by his threatening tone. “He’s quite a bit more demanding than the previous owner of this project.”

“The general,” Reaper said.

“He’s cut the incubation period in half and doubled the amount of test subjects, like doing more of the same thing will produce different results.” Dr. Winters narrowed her empty gray eyes in the first show of frustration—or any real emotion—Reaper had ever seen her express.

“You know my men need their doses, Doctor.”

“Yes, I do. I’ve been expecting one of you to show up. In fact, I saved a little unreported extra dosage for you.” Dr. Winters reached into the pocket of her lab coat and pulled out a flat blue pouch, an unmistakable row of needles strapped inside. “There’s enough here to tide over your entire team for one more month, so they don’t have to come in. They’ll have to come back to me if they want to live beyond that.”

Reaper stared at the flat pouch with shock and fury. She was producing their lifeblood, but only in a severely limited amount. There was no way in hell he was leading his team back here. He didn’t want them anywhere near the insidious grasp of Gen. Rainier.

Reaper grabbed for the dosages, but Dr. Winters kept them just out of his reach, brows arched, mouth pursed in a straight line. It was the look a reproving parent would give to a child, and one that Reaper had seen often enough in his imprisonment in this hellhole.

“You need to know that I never intended to harm any person on your team. I accepted this experiment under false pretenses. Like you, I thought it was a simple manipulation of steroids, not altering the human gene sequence. I am just as much of a victim as you were.”

Reaper let out a snarl and ripped the packet from her hand, pressing the end of his pistol into her head. “You were a victim? I didn’t see you falling down with seizures or nosebleeds. I didn’t hear you screaming in agony.”

Dr. Winters’s cool façade didn’t break. “I never wanted to cause you pain.”

Fury barely in check now, Reaper growled out, “You never wanted to, but you did. Every fucking day for an entire year. Excuse me, but I don’t feel sympathetic to your plight.”

“I didn’t expect that you would, but it needed to be said all the same. Regardless, that doesn’t change the fact that your men will have to return to me if they want to live. You can’t kill me. No matter how much you want to.”

Fuck. Her cool, reasonable tone set his teeth on edge. If this truly was the last of the serum, then she was right. He could not take her out. As far as he knew, she was the only one who knew how to produce it.

“How very scientific of you to use our lives as leverage for yours.”

“Not scientific, Reaper, just the will to survive.”

He twitched; his brain short-circuited. He couldn’t let her live, not after what she’d done to them. To so many others. She could’ve set them free in the very beginning, but he’d seen the sick fascination inside her every time she’d stood on the other side of that Plexiglas, staring at him like he was an insect.

There had to be another way. The long rows of fluorescent lighting flashed overhead, bright and dark and bright. He could feel his neurons triggering, sharp knives of pain slicing along his brain. Not now. He couldn’t lose it now.

Fingers trembling, he shoved the serum samples into his pants pocket and forced Dr. Winters back a step. And then another, steering her with his gun into the test room behind her.

“What are you doing?”

Reaper didn’t answer. He didn’t know if he could talk right now and make sense. He was using all his strength not to scream in pain and grab his head. The raw edge he skated on was killing him. He had to find that cool center of calm within him. He wouldn’t let his men down again because of his weakness.

“Subject T. K. Reaper, stop. Now.” Fear flashed in Dr. Winters’s flat gray eyes.

Reaper crossed the threshold into the test subject room, skin crawling from being back inside his former cage. It was exactly like he remembered.

Exactly.

Except this room was already occupied.

His short-circuiting brain focused on its surroundings and the room came into crystal-clear focus. “Caroline.”

“Subject Reaper, I command you to leave this room.”

“He’d already moved her to the new lab,” Reaper breathed out. Caroline lay unconscious and unmoving on the cot against the wall. An IV of clear fluid was going into one arm and another one of dark red blood was flowing out of the other. “You’re siphoning her blood for the serum.”

He’d heard Jack Mankel talk about her blood being the key. Known that Caroline had been kidnapped to be his Guinea pig, but he’d never imagined this sick set up.

“She’s been very well cared for,” Dr. Winters bit out with aggravation.

Reaper kept his gun leveled at the doctor, but he couldn’t tear his gaze away from the girl on the bed. Dr. Winters said he and his team would have to come back here to her to get their dosage if they wanted to live, but with Caroline he’d have an unending supply of the serum. He wouldn’t need Dr. Winters. He could save his team.

“Don’t judge me,” Dr. Winters backed up another step, her voice trembling. “I told you I had no choice. We all have to play a part. It’s supply and demand.”

For the first time since Reaper could remember he felt a smile stretching his lips. “You think I’m judging you? Believe me, that’s the furthest thing from my mind.”

If he could take Caroline and put her up somewhere, he’d have his own personal supply. Maybe one day he’d be able to figure out how to break the need for the monthly injections, but for now his goal was survival.

Dr. Winters’s eyes widened with realization. “You can’t.”

“Wake her up,” Reaper said without a hint of hesitation in his voice.

“But—but she’s in a medically induced coma.”

Reaper had his gun pressed into the doctor’s temple in a split second. “That means shit to me. Do it.”

His men were being held by Col. Gray in the states because the military knew his team had been altered. But they would escape soon. He’d already given the order and the location for the meet.

Dr. Winters still hadn’t moved.

“Wake her up.” Reaper drove the end of his pistol into her head again, forcing her to bend sideways.

The doctor snapped to attention and fumbled in a nearby drawer, yanking out a giant ass needle filled with clear liquid. “Adrenaline. I need to disconnect her IVs first.”

“Hurry up,” Reaper snapped. He wouldn’t have much more time before more guards became aware that their buddies were all dead. God only knew how many guards were on duty since the regime change. Plus, the general was somewhere within the lab, which made the situation even more tenuous.

Dr. Winters stumbled over to Caroline and started flipping levers and buttons on the machines connected to her. Then she withdrew the first needle, the one that was sucking out blood, and quickly wound a bandage around Caroline’s elbow. “She needs pressure on this. Don’t take it off.”

Reaper didn’t respond as Dr. Winters removed the IV from her other arm. “Now, she’s going to need food, plenty of rest and fluids. She won’t be strong at first, but I’ve been exercising her legs and arms daily, so it shouldn’t take her long to get back to strength.”

“Don’t tell me you care about her.”

“You have no idea the level of research I’ve done. I deserve a Nobel Prize. This girl is the key.”

“Of course, none of us are human beings to you.” A fact he had only realized after it was too late. At first, he had simply thought her intelligent. He’d felt lucky and honored to have been chosen for this task.

Then again, back then he’d been stupid, naïve enough to believe every line of bullshit they’d fed him. He hadn’t just taken down the ship either, he’d sunk the whole fleet with his decision to take part in Project Mayhem.

“You can look down on me all you want, but you were just as eager for this to work as I was.” Dr. Winters lifted the long needle of adrenaline, gripping it with one hand while feeling along Caroline’s rib cage with the other. “You’re not the only one who failed.”

Without warning, she shoved the needle through Caroline’s chest and injected the drug. Caroline jerked, her back bowing off the bed. Her eyes and her mouth flew open and she gasped.

---

A sharp pain stabbed her chest, her lungs burning like they were filling with air for the first time in years. Blinding, painful light pierced her eyes, and her blood rang in her ears.

Her heart felt like it contracted and then exploded, leaving her gasping in agony. Only there wasn’t enough air, and she fought to draw more oxygen into her starved body.

Her fingers and her toes twitched uncontrollably; her arms and legs jerked. She had about as much control of her body as a newborn colt in his first moments out of his mother’s womb.

Something suddenly heavy fell across her chest, locking her in place. Flashes of memory ripped into her. She was being held prisoner. She had to escape.

The distant sound of a female voice barely pierced her consciousness, but it was hauntingly familiar and she never wanted never to hear it again.

“Caroline.”

She tried to get her lips to work, call out for help or anything at all. What escaped her throat was a moan, her vocal chords revolting as much as her body.

Caroline gave another heave, but this one exhausted her energy and she fell limp to the table. The weight on her chest lifted and her eyelids slid shut. She had to concentrate on staying awake.

The voices grew louder, but she still couldn’t make them out over the loud roar in her head. Her entire body felt alive, itching and crawling with energy that she couldn’t use. She couldn’t do anything. Dear God—was she dying?

No, she couldn’t. She didn’t want to. She wanted to live; she wanted to experience life and love and laughter.

Her eyelid was ripped open and someone shined a piercing light in one eye and then the other. Her eyes watered instantly, her vision on overload.

“Is her heart supposed to race that fast?” Someone said in a rough and unfamiliar voice.

“Of course it is, I just gave her enough adrenaline to wake up a man twice her size,” said the familiar female voice.

Caroline tried to lick her dry lips, but her tongue had no moisture and it lay thick and unwieldy in her mouth.

“Why the fuck would you do that? Are you trying to kill her?” A man’s gravelly voice spoke with the same harsh reply

“I’ve had her in a medically induced coma for over a month. She’s only been woken up briefly when necessary. So yes, if you want her to walk out of this lab, she needed that much adrenaline.”

Her heart surged even faster in her chest as recognition flooded her entire being. She’d been kidnapped from her wedding after refusing to go through with it. She’d been held hostage in that palace. And then—and then—they had brought her here.

Who was this man? What did he want with her? And why was the lady giving her to him?

The questions whirled around her mind in a terrifying jumble that left her quaking.

Mustering all her strength, Caroline cracked her eyes open and wished she hadn’t. A man with blood splattered over his face and arms towered over her, a huge pistol with a long nozzle on the end gripped in one hand. Muscles capable of crushing steel rippled across his chest. Suited from head to toe in black, he looked like a deadly assassin come from hell to take her out.

She let her gaze wander up to his face, and what she saw there made her gasp. The soulless black eyes that stared back at her held no sympathy. They held no emotion whatsoever.

“She is the key. She holds the answer. If you leave her with me, I swear I can crack the code. I can figure out what’s missing. I can make the change permanent, and you’ll never need the serum again.” It was the female voice again.

The man spoke, “You mean she is your Guinea pig. But not anymore, doctor.”

The female scoffed and Caroline cringed inwardly. Even though her head was pounding with all the precursors of a terrible migraine, she could sense the tension rippling between the two. It was obvious the man hated Dr. Winters.

It suddenly dawned on her: Her father, a United States senator, had the kind of connections to pull this kind of muscle. This man was a soldier to his bones and a killer in his blood. He must have been sent here to rescue her. And that realization put him instantly on Caroline’s side.

Desperate hope had her reaching for him. The cot fell out from beneath her body—her only support, she realized as she plummeted to the ground. But his strong arm was beneath her in an instant, saving her from the pain of hitting the hard floor.

And then her body was suspended over his arm, her naked ass hanging out of a split hospital gown. The realization of her absolute vulnerability sent another surge of adrenaline through her, shocking her system in the movement.

She flailed again, but he effortlessly lifted her up and slung her over his shoulder. The steel band of his arm anchored her legs to his chest, and he must have realized exactly what she had been worried about because he hooked the material of her gown and crossed it over the other side, protecting her bare skin.

Relief swamped her, his simple gesture won her over completely. He had been sent by her father; she was certain of it.

“She needs—”

“I know what she needs, Doctor Winters,” the man said the word “doctor” like it was a curse, like Winters was the vilest creature crawling across this planet.

A wave of dizziness crashed over Caroline. Her head swam with thousands of blurring lights and sound roared in her ears. Her heart raced as she balled her hands into fists. She clutched the smooth cotton material of the man’s shirt in an attempt to anchor herself to the present moment

The man cursed. “Her heart’s beating too fast. She needs something to slow down.”

Caroline moaned, her entire body shaking like a leaf. How could he know how fast her heart was beating?

“If I give her a sedative, it will just knock her out again.”

Fear jolted her vocal cords into action, “no.” She put all of her energy into forcing that one word out, and even then it sounded weak and willowy.

“Did you intentionally harm her?” The man’s anger wrapped around her, coursed through her. Stiff muscles rippled beneath her.

“No—” there was hesitation this time in Dr. Winters’s usually steady voice, “—she’ll need to rest when the adrenaline surge wears off, but her body can handle the drugs. I promise. She can—”

“That’s all I need to know. Now, I need some protection on the way out, and you are going to be that protection.”

The world dipped and rocked as the man walked across the laboratory floor. Hanging upside down over his back, she could only make out a blurry image of their legs, but she saw enough to know that Dr. Winters was a shield in front of them.

Who was he? How had he found her? Oh, her father must be so worried about her. And Celine—where were her friends? They had all been kidnapped together, but she hadn’t seen her and . . . And . . . Caroline fought to recall just how long she’d been gone, but she had no idea.

They’d kept her drugged. Done things to her that she didn’t remember or understand. Celine, the music, oh God, the music. It played over and over in her mind. Sweet Caroline, do, do, do. She jammed her palms into her temples, trying to block out the nauseating sound.

It had been playing the last time she remembered waking up. She’d been too weak to move, to speak. All she remembered was that song and the general’s large, square-shaped hand trailing down her cheek.

The man ripped around the corner, the sharp jolt of movement sending the blood rushing to her head. She blacked out for a moment but quickly regained consciousness.

The tiles blurred beneath her as the man raced down the hallway. She bounced uselessly off his back, but for some reason she didn’t have any doubt he was strong enough to carry her out without her help.

She didn’t need to look to know Dr. Winters was plodding along in front of them. She could hear the steady staccato of her heels click-click-clicking down the tiled hallway. Every jostle, every shift in the man’s body sent a fresh wave of blood pounding into her head until her brain felt like a giant pressure bomb swishing around inside her skull.

The blood that had pounded in her ears earlier shifted mercilessly into a dull, sharp-edged roar like a saw cutting through a thick board. God, this shouldn’t hurt so bad. It shouldn’t be so painful.

Click-click-click. She swayed, strung out and helpless. She had awoken to this terrible reality, not knowing where she was or who had her, only that she needed to get out. And now this man, this warrior, had rescued her like she was some modern-day princess.

Amidst the pain and the sensations flooding her psyche, Caroline was aware of every inch of hard-packed muscle shifting under her tummy. He was so strong, her avenging angel.

Click-click-click. God she hated that sound. It rattled through her head, and memories starting surfacing from her foggy past. How her eyelids had always felt like someone had tied ten-ton weights to them. Paralyzing terror had pinned her to her gurney as she screamed and screamed in her head, not strong enough to open up her mouth.

All the while, Dr. Winters’s bespectacled face had floated above hers, studying her reactions, staring at her as if she were a lab rat.

She remembered seeing the doctor inject her with IVs. But even more gruesome, she remembered the long red tube running from her left arm and the huge bag filling with her blood. They’d leeched her; they’d taken her blood without asking, forcing her to give up part of herself that she’d never wanted to give.

Click-click-click.

Caroline shoved her palms into her temples, trying to stanch out the piercing pain in her head. She wanted to scream at Winters to take off her shoes, but she was too busy fighting back vomit.

Suddenly, heavy, pounding footsteps rushed up from behind them. Men shouted. Gunshots erupted. Her world tilted, and then she was on the ground with her savior crouched in front of her, firing off rounds like a machine. Unflinching and unblinking, he just reacted. Pop. Pop. Pop. The hallway had become a war zone, full of unbearable noise as bullets blasted apart the walls.

She heard the crinkle of material and tilted her head to see Winters curling up into a tiny ball a few feet behind them.

Her warrior never stopped or even paused as he returned fire. Not one bullet had pierced Caroline’s flesh, yet each and every one of the men who’d followed them dropped like flies.

“Caroline, are you all right?”

Caroline kept her hands cupped over her ears and blinked up at him, mute. Was she all right? She didn’t know. They had used her as a damn permanent blood donor against her will, and now her skin felt like it was on fire, her head screamed with pain, and her heart was pistoning in her chest like it had been fueled with nitrous oxide.

He took her shoulders in his hands and the dull roar instantly quieted.

“Caroline, were you shot?” The words, spoken slowly, calmly, penetrated the fog surrounding her mind.

She concentrated, trying to remember how to make her lips form the right shape. “No.”

“All right, I can tell that you can’t stand, so I’m going to carry you again.” His voice was full of command, not that she would’ve questioned him in the first place. He was a professional—the sight of the bodies strewn down the hallway confirmed that.

His arm was gentle as it slid around her waist, but the movement still hurt. And then he was easing her over his shoulder and the bile she’d been fighting burst from her throat, burning up the back of her mouth. She squirmed and pounded on his back, and sensing her urgency, he sat her down.

Kneeling, she bent at the waist and heaved the contents of her stomach, the man’s strong arms holding her up. Oh, God, she was dying. She had to be.

His fingers wrapped around her hair, holding it back from her face. That small comforting gesture brought tears to her eyes. No one had cared about her in so long. She’d grown up with such a loving father, but for days or months or whatever, they’d kept her prisoner. Using her as equipment. A blood bag. Not telling her anything. It had left her empty and hollow.

When she finished, she swiped a shaky hand over her mouth and panted. She wanted to tell him thank you, she wanted to throw her arms around his neck and hug him. She did nothing.

The man scooped her into his arms, cradling her against the massive solid chest, and she let her head come to rest on his shoulder. She took a deep breath, immersing herself in his raw masculine scent. He smelled like a man should. Like guns and grit and glory. She knew logically she wouldn’t be safe until they left this lab, but he made her feel protected—a feeling she cherished.

“Get up. I know you’re not hurt.”

Caroline heard Dr. Winters rise to her feet. She was breathing hard and fast, probably as shocked by the full-out battle as Caroline was.

“You don’t need me anymore. You know the way out.”

“Move.” The man’s chest rumbled beneath her and the vibrations traveled straight through her bones. As they pounded down the hall, Caroline fisted his shirt, trying to keep as still as possible so she wouldn’t distract him. A blast filled the air, the sound sending a fresh wave of pain through her head, as a bullet pinged off the corner right next to Caroline’s head. Concrete shrapnel showered down on them. The man shoved his shoulder forward, shielding her from whomever was firing at them down the hall. He took aim and fired and the barrage of bullets instantly stopped.

They traveled the maze of hallways in silence for the next few seconds before the man came to a stop in front of a single metal door. She had no idea where they were, but she could sense the dense pressure overhead and knew they had traveled deeper into the earth. Why wasn’t he taking her up and out? There was no way this would lead away from the lab.

The man lifted his gun and pressed it into the back of Winters’s head. Caroline watched her flinch with a small measure of satisfaction. It was about time that woman was prodded with something. She’d been poking and sticking her for who knew how long.

“Open the door.”

Winters licked her lips, her normally perfect hair askew and her glasses perched at an odd angle on her nose. “Captain Reaper, you don’t have to do this.”

Caroline glanced up at her savior in shock. He was United States military? And now she finally had a name to put with that savagely beautiful face and muscular body. Reaper. It fit him so well. He was her own personal angel of death.

Right now, all of his vengeful fury was focused on Winters. “I don’t need you alive to open the door.”

Winters’s lips flatlined and she pressed an invisible button on the wall. A panel slid to the left, revealing what looked to be some sort of scanner. Winters placed her hand on the largest panel, closer to the bottom, and leaned her eyes in toward a small scope just above it. Two sets of green lights flashed and the door buzzed open.

They entered a small, windowless room. It was dark but for the light spilling in from the hallway.

The air shifted and Caroline shivered.

She sensed a change in Reaper.

As if in slow motion, Dr. Winters turned to face them, her flat gray eyes free of fear or anger. “You’re making a mistake. You need me. I’m the only one who knows the formula and there’s not enough serum left to maintain your team.”

“Shut up,” Reaper said in a quiet, dangerous voice.

Dr. Winters kept going, completely ignoring the threat. “You volunteered. Your team and yourself. You chose this.”

Caroline could practically feel him trembling beneath her, although when she looked up at his face there was no hint of emotion whatsoever.

“I signed up for something completely different than what you doled out. You changed us. You killed one of my men. Do you remember that day? Do you remember what I said I would do to you?”

Winters’s eyes widened a fraction and Caroline gulped. Something terrible had occurred between these two. Whatever had happened to Reaper’s team sounded far worse than what Caroline herself had experienced. Her heart reached out to him. She wanted to soothe him, but she sensed the absolute fury in him.

Obviously, Dr. Winters did not sense it, because she continued in a scathing tone, “You signed yourselves over to us. Your team member was too weak to handle the change. That’s not on me. It’s your fault. And now you can’t exist without me.”

Without warning, Reaper put his gun to her forehead and fired.

Caroline jerked and buried her face in his neck, wrapping her arms around his throat. Oh God. Oh God.

He’d shot her. Winters dropped like a stone, her glasses flying off her face.

Caroline’s already skittering heart pounded and she trembled in his grip.

“She deserved to die for what she did to my men.”

Too shocked to process the information, Caroline huddled against him, seeking comfort from the death dealer as her mind fought to cope with the situation.

Winters had basically held her hostage and tortured her. Caroline should be ecstatic the woman was dead. But the horrifying image of the black hole forming in the center of the doctor’s forehead played on a broken reel in her mind.

Too much. It was too much. She wasn’t cut out for this. She was a United States senator’s daughter, for crying out loud. Before the kidnapping, the scariest thing she’d ever done was take Taekwondo.

Mercilessly Reaper pried her fingers from around his neck and forced her to lean back and look at him. Tears flowed down her face unchecked, but she had no control over that, Caroline realized she had no control over anything.

“I’m sorry you had to see that, but I’m not sorry she’s dead.”

Her lip trembled, but she firmed up her chin and nodded. The look in Reaper’s eyes left her with no doubt he believed in what he’d done. And after bearing personal witness to Dr. Winters’s evil nature, Caroline had no trouble believing it was true. “I-I’m not sorry you killed her,” she stammered out uncertainly, “I was just shocked to see it happen.”

He stared at her with that hard expression on his face. His jaw could’ve been chiseled from granite, his nose as hard, his eyes black as the shadows that double-crossed his jaw.

He was so handsome it hurt to look at him.

“There’s a tunnel above our heads. I need to lift you up into it. Do you think you can climb out?” As he spoke, he reached above them and grabbed a handle, turning it and pulling open a small, round porthole she hadn’t noticed.

The dimly lit tunnel would be barely wide enough for Reaper to fit inside. She could see the first few feet up, but the rest faded into darkness. Caroline paused. Small spaces had never been her thing. “How far?”

He shifted her in his arms until he was holding her in front of him, her feet hanging straight down. “As far as it takes for you to get out of here.” There was no compassion in his tone this time, just a cold slap of reality. Part of her recoiled from his ferocity, but she sucked it up. If he started treating her with kid gloves right now, she’d probably fall completely apart.

Besides, he was telling her the truth. If she wanted out of this mess, she’d have to enter the tunnel. “Yes, lift me up.” She tried to insert a little bravado in her voice but couldn’t tell if she actually accomplished it.

Whatever she sounded like, Reaper lifted her like she weighed nothing. As soon as her shoulders crossed the threshold, she reached up and grabbed the first metal rung she could feel. The ladder was maybe a foot wide with evenly spaced metal bars disappearing up and overhead. She tried to pull herself up with the strength of her arms but failed miserably. Then Reaper wrapped his hands around her feet and hoisted her higher, communicating his strength in a quick, easy move that left Caroline scrambling to grab the new bars she now faced.

“Lift up one foot and put it on the ladder. I won’t let go until you’re secure,” he said.

His palms felt rough against the bottoms of her feet, but they held her steady. Biting her lip, she lifted her right foot and blindly searched for the ladder. The end of her toe made contact with the bar and she let out a whelp of pain.

“Caroline, you’ve got to move it. They’ll figure out our location before long,” Reaper said.

Caroline wriggled her toe to make sure she hadn’t broken it, and then, biting down on her inner cheek, planted her foot firmly on the ladder. As soon as she levered herself upward, Reaper let go. The pounding in her skull returned instantly. She was bombarded with sounds and could actually feel the weight of the earth pressing in around her. What was wrong with her?

She just felt different. Her skin went hot and clammy and her heart continued to race. And then Dr. Winters’s words drifted back to her and she remembered the adrenaline.

She wasn’t a scientist or a doctor by any stretch of the imagination, but she knew that adrenaline would pump her full of energy. Maybe Dr. Winters had given her so much it was causing all these other side effects.

Caroline gritted her teeth, fighting off the nauseating sensations as she concentrated on lifting one foot over the other. She had managed to climb up four rungs when she heard a thud and felt the ladder vibrate. A quick downward glance revealed that Reaper was hanging directly beneath her. He had jumped from the floor through the ceiling, and the ceiling had to be over ten feet tall. Dear God, the man was strong.

“Come on, climb up. I’m right behind you.”

“How did you do that?”

His brow furrowed and annoyance was clearly written across his face. “I jumped.”

“But that ceiling was over ten feet high!”

“Do you really want to stand there discussing my workout routine?” His gaze flicked from her face to her body and then back to her face. She’d swear his pupils were dilated.

Once more Caroline came to the realization that she was completely exposed in her hospital gown. He expected her to just crawl above him the entire time with her private parts available for his viewing pleasure?

Her body flushed hot with embarrassment and something else. Something warm and tingling. Reaper’s nostrils flared and Caroline tore her gaze from his, staring up into the darkness overhead. She didn’t know how he knew, but he could sense her arousal. She could sense his too. What the hell was wrong with her?

“If you don’t move, I’m going to carry you out on top of my shoulders.”

Her thighs clenched, but his words spurred her into action and she immediately began climbing, ignoring how the darkness grew deeper, colder. And then Reaper pulled the door shut beneath them and any traces of light vanished. Panic wrapped around her throat, thick and viscous, sucking out the oxygen. She couldn’t breathe. The walls closed in, the earth pressed down, everything tightening around her.

How far was it? She didn’t know, and it was impossible to care. She couldn’t move. Her heart drummed so fast she couldn’t even detect a pause between the beats anymore. The scraping and scratching sounds around her rose to a crescendo and her ears started to ring and buzz. Oh God, oh God, oh God.

She’d couldn’t do this. There was no way she’d be able to climb up this ladder. She was going to die here, encased in a tomb underground, and she would never get to see her father again.

Reaper’s hand closed around her ankle. The sounds immediately lessened, but her fear was as sharp-edged as ever. “Reaper, I can’t—” Her throat closed, choking off her words.

“Do you want to die?” Reaper growled.

No, she didn’t. This man was her godsend, and she was letting a useless and completely stupid phobia control her. Resolutely, she reached for the next bar.

“Good girl. Don’t think about the darkness. Don’t think about anything but my voice. I’m right here with you. We’ll get through this together.”

His words wrapped around her shoulders like a warm blanket. She’d borne witness to his lightning-fast reflexes and deadly accuracy; she’d felt his unbelievable strength. With him behind her, she could conquer her fear. With him behind her, she could conquer the world.