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  She was so exhausted that it didn’t even elevate her heart rate when a hybrid appeared out of the jungle ahead of her to block her path. She didn’t slow, even as the thing crouched to lunge at her. She simply lifted her M4 and fired everything she had left—two whole rounds—at the second-in-command. Her hands were shaking so much, it was hard to hold her weapon firm, so she wasn’t sure if she hit the thing or not. If she did, it must not have been in a critical area because it didn’t flinch—or stop coming at her.

  A fraction of a second later, another hybrid burst into the clearing from her right. She reversed her grip on her weapon. The short barrel was hot as hell in her hand, but she was ready to go down swinging.

  Footsteps behind her told her that the other two monsters had arrived. Apparently, she hadn’t hit any of them hard enough to put them down.

  Her breathing ragged, Kendra swung her M4 as the hybrid leader in front of her leaped. She braced herself, expecting the hybrid to go for a throat slash and finish her quickly, so she was caught off guard when the thing casually reached out and ripped the weapon from her hand. It followed up with a dismissive shove that sent her sprawling to the ground.

  She scrambled around on the dark, wet ground, looking for something to defend herself with, and came up with a rock about the size of her fist. It wasn’t much, but she didn’t have many options. She’d be damned if she’d just let them just rip her apart without fighting back.

  She looked up, expecting to see all four hybrids descending on her at once, but they only stood there, claws flexing as they stared at her.

  Kendra didn’t think her heart could beat any faster, but it went into overdrive. She’d been scared before, but now she was freaking terrified. Thinking she was going to be killed while luring these bastards away from the man she loved hadn’t taken much courage. But the thought of what these creatures had in store for her now—before they killed her—filled her with fear. What if they raped and tortured her to make her tell them where Declan was? Was she strong enough to hold out?

  The hybrid leader came forward, his red eyes glowing in her NVGs. Kendra scrambled to her feet and lifted the rock she was holding. She wasn’t sure if she should throw it or wait until he got closer so she could bash in his head. She decided to wait. If she pissed him off enough, he might kill her quickly.

  But he stopped just outside her reach and stood there silently regarding her. She tried not to let him see how afraid she was, but it was damn hard. He was absolutely terrifying. His whole jawline was twisted out of shape, no doubt to make room for all those long, curved teeth. His ears were higher on his head, too, pushed there by the muscles on his shoulders. The thing’s neck was equally thick, and she couldn’t help but think of a huge saber-toothed tiger. The thing looked as if it could eat the rock she was holding as a weapon.

  She lifted her chin and hefted her rock higher. “What are you waiting for? Come and get me, you freak!”

  Her barb had no effect on the hybrid. He just kept staring at her. That was when she saw the blood running down one side of his chest. Damn, she had hit something with all that shooting. She supposed it was too much to hope the thing would suddenly drop dead.

  “Where is the big man?”

  Kendra was so shocked that the hybrid could speak with that mouth full of teeth, it took her a second to come up with a lie. All the time she’d spent with Ivy, Clayne, and the other shifters at the DCO had taught her that they could sniff out a liar. She had to assume that a hybrid could as well.

  “He’s dead.” Even though it was a lie, the words were enough to cut her to the core, and her voice shook. She swallowed hard. “He died when your friends attacked us this morning. I’ve been hiding ever since.”

  She expected the hybrid to call her a liar or ask where Declan’s body was. Even ask for details of exactly when and where he’d died. But the second-in-command did none of those things. He simply turned and motioned to the other hybrids.

  “Bring her,” he ordered.

  Then he walked off.

  The three hybrids were on her and had ripped the rock out of her hand before she even saw them move. She pounded at them with her fists and kicked at them with her boots, but they ignored her struggles. One of them simply picked her up and slung her over his shoulder like she was a bag of potatoes.

  Kendra would have continued to pummel him with her fists, but then he started running, and it was all she could do to grab hold of his shirt to steady herself. Hanging over his shoulder made her feel dizzy, and she had to close her eyes.

  Where the hell were they taking her? And what were they going to do to her once they got there?

  She had no answer to either of those questions. But one piece of knowledge comforted her at least. They were moving farther and farther away from Declan with every step.

  ***

  Kendra was practically unconscious by the time the hybrid threw her to the ground. She wasn’t sure how long he’d been running. She only knew it had been too long. It felt so good to have the pounding in her head stop that she didn’t even complain about the pain when she hit the stone floor.

  She didn’t know what was coming next, but she couldn’t muster the strength to care. All she wanted to do was lie there until the earth stopped spinning. She reached up to touch her head and realized her helmet and goggles were gone. She must have lost them while that jerk was hauling ass through the jungle.

  It wasn’t until a hand touched her shoulder that she discovered her survival instinct was more intact than she’d thought. She shoved the hand away and scooted back, only to hit something.

  “Relax,” a male voice said. “I’m not going to hurt you. I just want to make sure you’re okay. It looks like those things roughed you up pretty good.”

  Obviously, the man wasn’t a hybrid. That fact alone was enough to snap her out of the fog she’d been buried in for the last…well, however long she’d been carried around on the back of that hybrid like a hobbit on an orc.

  Kendra pushed her hair back from her face to see a gray-haired man kneeling beside her. He reminded her of her grandfather, except for the bloody rag tied around his forehead. Despite his kind eyes, she scooted back again, but whatever was behind her was still in the way.

  “Slow down,” Granddad said, reaching out to steady her.

  A wave of dizziness swept over her. She shook her head to try and make the fuzziness go away, but that only made it worse. Then she realized the thing behind her was soft, squishy…and hairy.

  She jumped and quickly looked over her shoulder. It was a body. A young guy, who looked like he might have been cute before someone crushed his throat. She scrambled away from the body on her hands and knees—the hell with her spinning head.

  She dragged her gaze away from the dead man and looked around the room. Maybe thirty square feet, it had no windows, no furniture, and hardly any lighting to speak of unless you counted the two naked bulbs hanging from the ceiling. The door across the room, on the other hand, didn’t look that cheap at all. No doubt it locked from the outside.

  Kendra studied the other two men locked in with her and Granddad. Like him, they had graying hair and wore white lab coats. That probably meant they were scientists or doctors of some type. They looked just as abused as Granddad. One was holding his arm pressed against his chest like it was broken, and the other had bruises covering half his face.

  She jerked her head at the body. “Who is that?”

  “That’s Jacob. He was my research assistant,” Granddad said. “He complained about how we were being treated one too many times and those things killed him.”

  Kendra couldn’t miss the sadness in the old man’s eyes as he looked at Jacob’s body, and her heart went out to him. When she’d seen the lab coats, she’d naturally assumed the men were working with Stutmeir’s doctors, but if that were the case, why were they sitting in here with her like prisoners? More importantly, who’d smacked them around, and why was one of their fellow scientists lying dead on th
e floor at the hands of the hybrids?

  “Who are you?” she asked.

  Granddad held out his hand with a small smile. “I blame the stress of the situation for making me lose my manners, forgive me. I should have introduced myself before. I’m Harry Caswell. At one time, I was the assistant director of research at this facility.” He motioned to the other two men. “And these two fine gentlemen are Albert Moline and Lester Tellarson, both senior researchers.”

  She shook each of their hands. “Kendra Carlsen.”

  “You must be one of the people Marcus has been hunting,” Harry observed. “Guess he finally caught you.”

  Momentarily distracted from the other questions she’d been planning to ask—and figuring that this new subject sounded a lot more relevant—she jumped tracks to see where it would lead. “Who is Marcus? And why would he be hunting me?”

  The three men exchanged looks; then Harry spoke again. “I really thought you would know. Marcus Roman was the head of security here. Well, until a couple weeks ago anyway. Now he’s…well, I can only assume you haven’t seen him yet. He’s rather hard to miss.”

  Kendra could only think of one man she’d seen who fit that description. “Marcus is the leader of the hybrids, isn’t he? Seven feet tall, muscles everywhere, and freakishly long fangs?”

  The old man nodded. “Hybrid, huh? Interesting name, but it fits. I’m guessing you met him then?”

  “Only at a distance,” she said. “And that was scary enough. Do you know why he’s after me?”

  The man looked at her in surprise. “Not really. In fact, I was hoping you might be able to tell us what’s going on. All we know is that Marcus has been raging around for the last few days, saying he wanted you and the man you were with captured. We never could get him or any of the others—what did you call them, hybrids?—to tell us who you were or what they wanted with you. But I get the feeling that Marcus thinks you’ll be able to help him with his problem.”

  She sighed. Okay, so much for a quick, simple answer. “And what problem would that be?”

  Harry grimaced. “I thought that would be obvious. He’s turned into a monster with a serious lack of impulse control. I’ve seen him kill two of his own men just for asking him a question the wrong way. And he seems to be having a harder time getting his human appearance to return. As far gone as Marcus is, I think even he knows he’s out of control. I just don’t know how grabbing you or your friend is supposed to help him with that.”

  Kendra had a sinking feeling in her stomach that maybe she did. It hadn’t been Stutmeir’s doctors trying to get their hands on Declan’s DNA in order to make a better hybrid. It had been a hybrid trying to get it so he could make himself better. It certainly explained why these three doctors were being held in this room—to do the research once Marcus had the DNA.

  Thank God Declan was miles away from here, safe and sound in that shelter and getting stronger by the minute. Marcus would never get his hands on him.

  Seated on the floor around her, the men were looking at her expectantly. She chewed her lower lip, trying to figure out what she could safely tell them. Probably not much. But she was going to have to trust them a little if she hoped to get out of here.

  “I realize you don’t know who I am, but I might have a pretty good idea what Marcus is after,” she said after a moment. “I’m going to need to know everything to be sure though.”

  All three of the men nodded.

  “If it helps get us out of here, we’ll tell you anything,” Harry said. “What do you want to know?”

  Everything. But she’d start with something simple. “How did you end up down here in Costa Rica, and where did your hybrid formula come from?”

  Harry shook his head. “None of us signed up for this, I can tell you that. We thought we were coming down here to conduct genetic research for the U.S. military. In the beginning, everything went fine. It was only a few weeks ago that it all went to hell. But before I get too deep into that, I think it’d be better if I started at the beginning.”

  Chapter 12

  Declan woke up feeling like he’d been hit by a train. But that was the way he always felt after coming out of hibernation. However, he was awake and his wounds had closed up; he could tell. That was the important part. But as he lay there getting his bearings, a lingering taste on his lips brought a smile to his face. He licked them and groaned at the delicious flavor that touched his tongue. Kendra had kissed him. Damn, that was something a man—or shifter—could seriously get used to. He closed his eyes and reveled in the sensation of what having her taste on his mouth meant to him.

  Five seconds later, his eyes snapped open. If she’d just kissed him, why couldn’t he smell her? He jerked upright, looking around wildly. She wasn’t in the shelter. Worse, what little scent he could pick up told him she hadn’t been in the shelter for a while—three or four hours at least. If he wasn’t so freaked out by that, he’d marvel at how her taste had lingered so long after her kiss.

  He closed his eyes and concentrated on what his ears could pick up. Had Kendra moved outside the shelter so she could watch over him? That was definitely something he could imagine her doing. But after thirty seconds of intense focus, he heard nothing to indicate that she was anywhere nearby.

  Declan ripped off the bandages she’d so tenderly applied to his chest that morning and grabbed his M4, then shoved his way out of the shelter, ignoring the snap and pop of branches as he pushed them out of his way.

  Once outside the shelter¸ he spun around, forcing his eyes to sharpen as much as he could, trying to pierce the darkness around him and find the woman he loved. But he didn’t see her anywhere. He tried using his ears again, slowing his breathing and kneeling on the ground so that he could pour everything he had into his only real shifter sense.

  But while he heard the stream gurgling nearby, tree limbs and leaves brushing up against each other all around, and animals by the thousands, he didn’t hear anything that would tell him where Kendra was. Or what had happened to her.

  He fell forward onto his hands and knees with a growl. This couldn’t be happening. He’d wasted years waiting for Kendra to finally see him. And now that she had, he’d lost her? The very thought that she might be gone left a dark, twisting hole inside that had him gasping for air and wanting to crawl back into the shelter and die.

  Declan shook his head and pushed back on his heels, refusing to give in to his fear. All he knew at this point was that Kendra wasn’t here. That didn’t mean she was dead. He needed to figure out what the hell had happened before he gave up. Especially when there was a chance she was still alive.

  He ducked inside the shelter long enough to grab his pack. There wasn’t much in there of practical worth besides a few half-empty ammo magazines and the remains of the first-aid kit. But Kendra’s extra clothes were in there, and he refused to leave them behind. When he found her, she’d want her stuff.

  Back outside, he slowly circuited around the shelter, looking for any trace of Kendra’s trail. Why the hell had she left the shelter in the first place? Obviously, the hybrids hadn’t found them. If they had, they would have taken him, too—or killed him. That left only one logical explanation. Kendra had heard or seen the hybrids getting close to their hiding place and had slipped out to lure them away. It tore at his gut to know he’d put Kendra in a position of having to do something like that, but he knew she would without a moment’s hesitation. If he had any doubt that she truly cared for him, he didn’t after this.

  Now that he was calmer, it didn’t take him long to pick up Kendra’s scent. It ran a route almost parallel to the stream. But even down on his knees, the scent was so faint he could barely smell it. And within twenty feet he lost it.

  Declan growled in frustration as he retraced his steps back to the shelter and started again. But the end result was the same. He lost the trail before he’d gone more than thirty feet. His nose simply wasn’t good enough to keep the trail, not with the constant breeze scat
tering her scent and the thousands of other animal and jungle smells distracting him. Worse, Kendra’s boots had still been coated in stinking hybrid blood. Getting past that to find her beautiful smell was beyond his meager shifter ability.

  He dropped to the ground again and roared. Anger consuming him, he pounded the ground with his fists and slashed at the nearby tree trunks with his nearly worthless claws. For the first time in his life, he needed his damn nose to work like any other shifter’s nose, and it wouldn’t. Why? Because he’d spent his whole life refusing to accept that he was a shifter, refusing to learn how to use the talents that would find the woman he loved. Now Kendra would pay for his stubbornness.

  He backhanded the tree trunk to his right, foregoing the use of his claws and instead smashing it with his fist. The crunch of breaking wood was satisfying, but not nearly as much as finding Kendra’s scent would have been. She was gone because he hadn’t been strong enough to be the shifter she’d needed him to be. Not even twenty-four hours ago, Kendra had warned him that his inability to let go and accept his shifter talents would someday bring harm to someone he cared about. She’d been right.

  Snarling, he lunged to his feet to tear into the trees to the left and right of him. It was stupid, foolish, and childish, but he couldn’t stop himself. For the first time since he’d exposed his shifter side to Marissa, he gave into his fear and let the animal inside him out.

  The fury exploded from him, blurring his vision and tearing one long continuous roar out of his throat. He lashed out at anything within reach, aching to destroy something, anything he could. He had no idea how long he raged like that, but when he let the bear inside him go, he was gasping for air in the sudden silence of the jungle.

  He looked around, turning in a slow circle. Every tree within a fifteen-foot radius had been smashed to the ground and ripped to kindling. The uncontrolled violence of his tirade almost shocked him, especially when he looked down and saw that his claws were still extended.