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  Angelo shook his head. Around him, everyone else did the same.

  “All right then,” Landon said. “Let’s go get Declan and Kendra.”

  As they started running down the narrow cliff trail, Angelo saw Landon quickly reach out and touch hands with Ivy. Just one touch, then his wife was sprinting ahead of them down the slope at a pace most of the others couldn’t match.

  Landon threw a meaningful glance Angelo’s way. That simple look said everything his former captain couldn’t put into words in front of the other men. I put Ivy on your team because you’re going to need her, but you’d better keep her safe.

  Angelo gave him a nod, then sprinted down the slope to catch up with Ivy. He, Ivy, and the guys with them would bear the brunt of the hybrid’s initial onslaught, which meant they’d have to hold their own until Landon figured out how to hit the bastards from behind. People who’d never led troops into a fight wouldn’t understand it, but Landon was sending his best friend and his wife in at the tip of the spear because he knew they were the best assets he had to get the job done. Soldiers understood those kinds of calls and would die for a leader who was willing to make them. Angelo would sacrifice himself before he let something happen to his best friend’s wife.

  ***

  Kendra’s scent was getting stronger. She was scared. He could almost taste her fear in the air. Declan growled low in his throat as he ran down the path toward the buildings nestled in the valley below.

  He’d been running at full speed for the past hour through the rugged, mist-covered terrain that made up this part of the Talamanca Mountains, and yet he wasn’t tired. He was too damn furious to be tired. And his temper had only gotten worse when he’d found her helmet and NVGs a while back. She would have only given them up if she was tied up, hurt, or unconscious. The thought that those assholes had done any of those things to her filled him with so much rage, he could barely see straight.

  The path flattened out at the base of the slope, but he was still carrying all the momentum from running down the hill as he came through the partially closed gate at the entrance to the compound. Three hybrids came out from the nearest building, their heads cocked to the side as if they’d heard the sound of his boots thumping down the path. Their eyes went wide when they finally saw him.

  Declan’s first instinct was to toss his M4 away and rip into the hybrids with his newfound claws. But he resisted the urge and instead fired into the trio while they were busy trying to get their own weapons pointed in his direction.

  The two hybrids in the front staggered back as the high-speed ball rounds hit them in the chest. One slumped to the ground immediately, but the others came at him growling and snarling. Both had been hit and were bleeding, but not enough to go down.

  He felt more than heard the hollow thump as the bolt of the M4 locked back on an empty magazine. He had a single full magazine remaining in his left cargo pants’ pocket, but he dismissed the idea of attempting a fast reload in this kind of situation. The hybrids would be on him before he could even get the magazine out. Also, he wasn’t sure his extra-long claws would allow him to handle the thirty-round magazine with much skill. Instead, he reversed his grip on the carbine and brought it down like a club on the head of the first hybrid he came to.

  The military-grade weapon was never intended to handle that kind of abuse, and shattered in his hands. But then again, the human head was never intended to handle that kind of abuse either, and came apart pretty much the same way the weapon did.

  The last hybrid only slowed down long enough to crawl over his buddy’s body, but that was all the opening Declan needed. He batted the business end of the hybrid’s weapon aside and shoved what was left of his own weapon—part of the upper receiver and the short assault barrel—through the thing’s chest. He must have hit the creature’s heart, because it stopped growling and fell backward to the ground with an extremely satisfying thud.

  The entire fight had taken four or five seconds at the most, and yet he still fell like he was moving through molasses as he followed Kendra’s scent. He couldn’t see her, but he could hear her screaming. Icy hands gripped his heart. They were hurting her.

  He should have scooped up one of the hybrid’s weapons, but he didn’t want to waste the time. He had to get to Kendra before it was too late. He skirted the corner of the building the three hybrids had just come out of and found himself in an open space in the center of the encampment.

  Relief surged though him so fast he almost stumbled.

  Two big hybrids were hauling Kendra between them, each with a wrenching grip on one arm. Their vicious clawed hands lifted her up so high that her toes couldn’t even touch the ground. Not that she was trying to; she was too busy trying to kick them. But the look of terror on her face was clear. Wherever they were taking her, it scared the hell out of her.

  The relief he’d felt earlier disappeared in a wave of fresh fury, and he charged.

  The hybrids tossed Kendra aside with a snarl and reached for the rifles strapped across their backs. She bounced across the rocky ground to land in a tangled heap of arms and legs. The rage rolled up in Declan so hot that he didn’t even try to silence the roar that erupted from his throat as he launched himself at the two hybrids.

  They had no chance to get a shot off before he reached them, not that it would have helped them if they had. He was so mad that nothing would have stopped him from killing them.

  Declan had rarely if ever used his claws in a fight. It had just never seemed natural, and up until a couple of hours ago, he’d never considered his claws long enough to be useful. That had all changed. He slashed his claws in a diagonal sweep across the first hybrid’s chest, from left shoulder to right hip. He put every bit of power that his own muscled shoulders could give him into the strike, roaring again as his blow struck home with a devastating violence he’d never felt before.

  The hybrid was dead before it hit the ground.

  Declan didn’t wonder why this new form of shifter violence felt so right, so natural. He simply reached across the dead hybrid and ripped the other creature off his feet and threw him to the ground.

  The hybrid immediately flipped to his feet, but Declan was just as fast now and had seen the move coming long before the creature even pulled it. The hybrid barely regained his footing before Declan was there to put him back down with a partially closed fist to the left temple.

  As he fell to his knees, the hybrid took a blind swipe at Declan’s midsection. If the strike had connected, Declan would have been gutted. But Declan blocked the strike with a low forearm, then brought another crushing blow down on the hybrid’s head, this time directly on top. There was a sharp crack; then the hybrid slumped, lifeless, to the ground.

  Declan had the urge to hit the son of a bitch half a dozen times for daring to touch Kendra, but he controlled himself. There were more hybrids—a lot of them—coming. He could both hear them and smell them.

  He turned around to look for Kendra, praying she wasn’t hurt.

  She pushed herself up on an elbow and tried to roll over onto her back, but she was having a hard time managing it. As if sensing him, she turned to look his way. Her eyes locked with his, but instead of relief, there was only panic in them.

  Before he had time to figure out what was going on in her head, a door on the far side of the compound flew off its hinges and crashed to the ground halfway across the camp. The huge hybrid Declan and Kendra had seen that first day stepped out of the building. He took one look at Declan, then swung his gaze on Kendra. The hatred in those red eyes nearly stopped Declan’s heart. Mouth twisting into something that might have been a smile, the hybrid charged.

  “Run!” Declan shouted at Kendra.

  He didn’t wait to see if she obeyed, but instead rushed the oncoming brute with everything he had. No matter what it took, Declan had to take down this asshole. Declan didn’t know what had happened between Kendra and the hybrid, but his gut told him the creature would make sure she suffered
if he got the chance. Declan wasn’t going to let that happen.

  Declan collided with the hulk at full speed, smashing into him like a linebacker on a football field. Declan felt something in his shoulder crack but ignored the brief stab of pain. Nothing was going to stop him from killing this monster.

  ***

  By the time Angelo and his team reached the low stone wall along the left side of the compound, hybrids were there to meet them. The only saving grace was that most of them weren’t carrying weapons. Not that it made fighting them any easier. If Ivy and Tanner hadn’t been there, he and the other guys would have been dead a hundred times over. Those two were frigging amazing. If they weren’t up to their necks in hybrids intent on killing them, Angelo would have enjoyed watching Ivy work. He’d never seen anyone move as fast as she did, literally spinning and ducking out of the path of incoming bullets, slashing throats here, ripping out hamstrings there. Hybrids might behave like berserkers, but apparently they weren’t as stupid as Angelo thought, because they quickly began to avoid the section of wall she was on, choosing to try their luck elsewhere.

  Tanner was amazing, too, but in a completely different way. He moved in a slower, almost hesitant fashion, like he was thinking about every move before he made it. But while he wasn’t as graceful as Ivy, he still took down a lot of hybrids, only in a much bloodier fashion. Thank God he was on their side.

  But even with all the advantages they had going for them—a good defensive position, enough ammo and grenades to get the job done, plus Ivy and Tanner—they were still losing. There were simply too many hybrids, and the flanking action he’d been expecting from Landon hadn’t come.

  “Landon!” Angelo shouted into his radio mic as he drilled a hybrid through the forehead. “You can make that appearance anytime now. No need to be fashionably late.”

  This was the first time they’d used the radio headsets since getting to Costa Rica, but he wasn’t sure why they bothered. Landon hadn’t responded to any of his calls for backup except to say he and the guys with him had their hands full and would get there when they could.

  “We haven’t even gotten out of the tree line yet,” Landon yelled back over the open communications line. “I was hoping you’d draw most of the hybrids your way, but I’m guessing that part of the plan didn’t work.”

  Angelo reloaded a fresh magazine before answering. “Your plan worked fine, Captain. We’re facing four to one odds over here.”

  “Shit. We’ll be there. Just hold on five more minutes.” In the silence that followed Landon’s words, Angelo could hear the hollow booming sounds of grenades going off over the radio. “And by the way, I’m not your captain anymore.”

  Angelo chuckled. “You’ll always be my captain. Now get the hell over here and pull my ass out of the fire, would you?”

  “We’re coming,” Landon promised with that same grim determination Angelo had grown to trust. “Everyone okay on your side?”

  “We’re fine,” Ivy answered. Her voice was so soft over the line that Angelo barely heard it. You’d never even know she was in the middle of a firefight. “What about you?”

  “All in one piece,” Landon said.

  “Good. Make sure you stay that way,” she said. “Don’t do anything crazy, huh? We’ll hold out until you get here.”

  Angelo appreciated Ivy’s optimism, but he didn’t think they were going to last the five minutes Landon and the other guys took to get there. He didn’t say that, though.

  “Okay, troops,” he shouted above the din of automatic-weapons fire and snarling hybrids. “Landon needs us to hold out for a little while longer. He’s run into some trouble.”

  Tanner turned and locked eyes with Angelo, and a knowledge that soldiers instinctively understood passed between them. The former Ranger knew they weren’t going to be able to hold the hybrids until reinforcements got there.

  Suddenly, Tanner’s normally brown eyes flickered with a bright red glow. Then his teeth elongated and his claws extended. Shit. Angelo knew Tanner had been working hard as hell to rein in his hybrid nature and force down the violent impulses that took his self-control away, but someone had to slow down the hybrids and back them off, or none of them would be alive when Landon and his team arrived.

  Tanner was over the wall with a roar that echoed in the jungle. On the other side of Ivy, Derek and the other Special Forces guys stared in disbelief, the hybrids forgotten for the moment. Luckily, Tanner’s transformation and animalistic war cry stunned the hybrids, too. Tanner was in their midst before they had a chance to recover.

  Tanner didn’t even attempt to fire his weapon. Angelo wasn’t sure he could with those long claws. Instead, he flipped his grip on the M4 in his hand and swung it like a club. When the weapon fell apart, he went at the creatures with claws and fangs. All Angelo could do was stare. He’d never seen anything like the way Tanner fought, unless you counted watching a show on Animal Planet. Tanner ripped into the hybrids like a lion in the middle of a pack of hyenas, bodies flying everywhere.

  And yet despite the incredible damage Tanner inflicted on the hybrids, it didn’t seem to be enough. He needed help.

  Angelo slapped a fresh magazine into his M4, then stood up from where he crouched behind the wall. “Take it to them!” he shouted as he jumped over the only protection that had been keeping him alive, and ran into the fray.

  He didn’t look back to see if Ivy and the guys were following him. He prayed they were. If not, this was going to be the shortest assault in history.

  ***

  Kendra was on her feet stumbling after Declan even as he and Marcus smashed into each other. The sound was so loud, she was afraid the collision had killed Declan. But then he was back up and throwing himself at the gigantic hybrid again, roaring in a way Kendra had never heard in all the time they’d known each other.

  When she’d first seen Declan, her heart had almost stopped. She had left him in that shelter so he’d be safe from the hybrids. And what the hell had he done? Walked right into the blasted compound and practically hand delivered himself to the monster that ran the place. She’d wanted to shout at him and ask him what the hell he was doing.

  But she knew what he was doing. He was there to save her butt because that was just the kind of big, soft-hearted teddy bear he was.

  Yet, while Declan’s heart was the same as it had ever been, there was definitely something drastically different about the rest of him. She’d recognized it the second he ran into the courtyard. His eyes were blazing so vividly, she had no problem seeing them in the bright morning light. His jaw and fangs were pushed out almost as far as Tanner’s when he was losing it, and his claws were almost as long as Marcus’s. But what made her realize something big had happened to Declan was that roar. She’d never heard anything like it.

  Though she had no idea why it’d happened, she knew what had happened—Declan had shifted more completely than he’d ever let himself shift before.

  She stood there in awe as he squared off against the bigger hybrid and shook off vicious blows that no other shifter in the DCO could have even survived. In return, he laid crushing hits to Marcus’s shoulders and chest. Kendra had always known Declan could be a powerful shifter if he just let himself embrace his inner bear, but even she was stunned at the sheer power he displayed in standing up to the hybrid that had been hunting them for days.

  Despite being terrified that Marcus was going to kill him, she was proud of Declan.

  She knew Declan wanted her to run, but she couldn’t. Besides the fact that she was just too sore right now—getting tossed ten feet through the air by a couple of hybrids could do that—there was no way she was going to leave him here to fight alone. Even though she believed in her heart that Declan couldn’t lose, she had to stay to make sure.

  Then she caught movement out of the corner of her eye that made her think maybe she was being a little too optimistic.

  Three hybrids entered the courtyard, weapons down at their sides. Crap. Decla
n wasn’t in a position to take on more hybrids—he had his hands full with one. If they joined in the fight, Declan wouldn’t last.

  She looked around for something she could use as a weapon. Her eyes locked on the broken bodies of the two hybrids who’d been dragging her to the lab, and the rifles they still had slung across their backs.

  Ignoring the pain, she limped over to the bodies. She dropped to her knees beside the first dead hybrid and grabbed his weapon, trying to yank it off his back. But the corpse refused to work with her no matter how hard she pulled. Dammit. She jerked the sling strap off the front attachment point. She was getting the damn thing away from the creature if she had to drag him behind her.

  Once she had the weapon in hand, she dug through the hybrids’ cargo pants’ pockets until she found all their extra magazines. There weren’t many. Apparently, hybrids weren’t fans of carrying too much ammo.

  She was just dragging the weapon around to get into a shooting position as the three hybrids headed her way.

  Kendra dropped to the ground behind one of the dead hybrids and threw the barrel of the weapon over the creature’s chest, then grabbed the charging handle, praying the gun operated like the ones she was used to. She jerked the handle to the rear, feeling the bolt move with it. When it stopped, she let it go and felt the bolt slide forward with a satisfying thump. She hoped she’d just chambered a round properly. She didn’t have time to aim, so she simply slapped her cheek to the stock and moved the rear of the weapon down until she was staring directly at the oncoming hybrids, then squeezed the trigger.

  She discovered the hard way that she was on full auto, but while there was a solid thump-thump-thump against her shoulder, the rifle didn’t jump around too much. Even better, the rounds she fired hit where she’d aimed, and the hybrid in front crashed to the ground.