Dark Wrath Read online

Apparently Wagner was laboring under the mistaken belief that he wouldn’t die if he held onto the information Jesse wanted. Jesse stared down at the unconscious man speculatively for several moments, realizing that the child would be moved the moment word got out about the assault on the lab and, quite possibly, any information he did manage to get out of Wagner would be useless by the time he could test the truth of it. Even if he’d wanted to, though, he couldn’t leave Erin to her own devices. She’d been sedated. She was still conscious, but her reflexes were sluggish and awkward, and in any case he needed to move her to a secure location for his own reasons as well as her safety before he went after the child.

  Kneeling, he used the restraints he’d ripped off of Erin to bind the scientist, then dragged him into the corridor and handed the prisoner over to Tavian for further questioning.

  Returning for Erin, he scooped her off of the table and left the examination room, following the corridor to the elevator and taking it to the ground level entrance. Even before the doors opened, however, he heard gunfire. The guards had dug in at the entrance. Punching the button again, he went down two levels and got off. The Lycans who’d followed him down the air shaft were still moving from lab to lab destroying the research they could find, but that was their objective. His was to get Erin and the baby, and only that.

  “I can walk,” Erin said stiffly.

  Jesse slid a glance at her. Without answering, he shifted her onto one shoulder and loped down the corridor in search of the main ventilation shaft. When he’d found it, he settled her on the floor and began pounding at the wall until he’d made a hole large enough to fit through. The fans had only been disabled temporarily and were once more churning, but subterfuge was no longer necessary. Searching for the wires that powered them, he ripped them loose. Instantly, the fan motors died and the lights all over the facility began to flicker.

  Lifting Erin again, he hoisted her over his shoulder and began the climb, pausing as he reached the first fan and ripping half the blades out to climb past it. He hesitated when he reached the top, listening, but all of the gun fire seemed to be coming from the entrance. After a moment, he shoved the protective grid from the opening and climbed out.

  Almost the moment he emerged a bullet whizzed past him. It was followed in quick succession by a half a dozen more. Launching into a run, he headed for the cover of the trees. A bullet slammed into him before he reached them, punching a cry of pain from him and causing him to stumble. Recovering his balance with an effort, he gritted his teeth and kept going. He didn’t stop until he was certain there was no pursuit.

  When he thought it was safe to do so, he paused long enough to check to be certain that Erin hadn’t been hit by a stray bullet and then hoisted her onto his shoulder and headed for the rendezvous.

  * * * *

  Erin didn’t even realize she’d succumbed to the sedative she’d been given until she roused and discovered that she was no longer moving, at least not in the miserable position she’d been in from the moment she demanded Jesse let her get around on her own steam.

  The last thing she remembered was thinking she was going to die when Jesse had climbed into the air shaft with her slung over one shoulder.

  Maybe it wasn’t the sedative so much as abject terror that had made her pass out?

  She was almost surprised to discover she wasn’t hog tied when she roused enough to look around and discovered she was wedged into the back seat of a Hummer between two Cajuns--the same two, she thought with a mixture of dread and anger, who’d captured her at the old facility and dragged her through the swamp to hand her over to Jesse.

  It was night, and except for the pale glow from the instrument panel of the vehicle and the faint light from the moon and stars, the vehicle was dark inside and yet she could discern enough to identify the men on either side of her and Jesse.

  Jesse, now once more in human form as the others were, was driving. In the front seat beside him was a man that was a stranger to her but whom she had no doubt was also Lycan.

  A noise behind her drew her attention and she turned to discover two more men in the rear of the Hummer--make that three. Wagner, who was hog tied and gagged, was lying between them in the cargo space. The two Lycans were wearing bloodied bandages and had obviously been wounded in the battle.

  She didn’t flatter herself that the skirmish that had taken place between the FEDS and the Lycan had been because of her--Jesse had made it clear enough that the focus of the raid was to destroy research about the Lycan--but she still felt guilty to see that they’d had casualties.

  The soldiers must have had silver bullets issued, she decided. She’d seen the miraculous healing powers the Lycan had. If they’d been shot with anything else they would’ve healed themselves by now.

  Wagner didn’t look as if he was in great shape, but then she was surprised he was even still alive.

  She doubted he would be long if the looks his two guards were giving him were any indication of the general attitude toward the man who’d so callously chosen their species for his experiments.

  After the brief glance behind her, Erin covered her face with her hands, massaging the throbbing pain in her temples and between her eyes. Her mouth felt as if it had been stuffed with cotton. She swallowed several times, trying to gather moisture into her mouth, realizing it was the after effect of the sedative, as was her swimming, throbbing head.

  Something nagged at her. She frowned, trying to focus on what it was.

  “They’ve implanted a tracker on me,” she said finally. “Jesse! It’s how they found me before. Wagner’s probably got one, too.”

  Jesse glanced at her in the rearview mirror but said nothing.

  The man beside him swiveled around in the seat and gave her a once over that made her distinctly uneasy. “Doan you worry about it, chère. We’re goin’ to take good care of you.”

  Dark or not, Erin was all too aware of the hungry gleam in the man’s eyes and it unnerved the hell out of her. She glanced uneasily at the back of Jesse’s head and then at the two men beside her and subsided, wishing she’d simply kept her mouth shut.

  She was still wearing the hospital gown, but nothing else, and she felt completely naked and vulnerable. Clothing wouldn’t have protected her if the man was serious about what he had in mind, but it would’ve given her the illusion of security, at least.

  * * * *

  By Erin’s reckoning, it was nearly midnight when Jesse pulled the Hummer off the freeway and took to the narrow backstreets of the city. Some forty five minutes later, they pulled off the road and into a small parking lot in front a small block building. Instead of parking in front, Jesse drove around the side of the building and parked behind it beside another Hummer which, as nearly as she could tell in the dim light, was painted jungle camouflage.

  She wondered if it was a custom job or if the vehicle had been purchased from the military.

  A light came on by the rear entrance even as Jesse stepped out of the vehicle. Erin thought at first that the light was motion activated, but at almost the same moment a woman opened the door wide and stepped back, inviting them to enter. As Erin climbed out, she heard the barking of what sounded like a sizeable pack of dogs. The Lycan that had been seated on her right side grasped her arm just above the elbow, urging her toward the door and Erin realized the barking was growing louder as they approached the door.

  Glancing back, she saw that Jesse and the man who’d so unnerved her had helped one of the men from the back and was supporting him between them. The Lycan who’d been seated beside her was helping the second man.

  The stranger was the only one of all of them who showed no sign of an injury she realized, even as she studied the bloody bandage around Jesse’s upper chest and shoulder in consternation.

  As she was dragged inside the building Erin’s attention was snagged by the woman still standing in the doorway. The woman met her curious gaze with a calculating one that didn’t hold so much as an iota of friendly cur
iosity. In point of fact, her gaze was downright hostile.

  Erin couldn’t fathom why until the woman’s gaze lit on Jesse.

  Enlightenment blossomed. The woman had a ‘thing’ for Jesse. Either they had a history, or they were currently involved. Erin wasn’t certain of which, but she knew the two of them weren’t just casual acquaintances and it was also obvious from the deadly look that the woman knew about her.

  Encountering the woman’s challenging glance with a neutral expression, Erin held her gaze just long enough to allow the woman to know she wasn’t intimidated and then assuaged her curiosity about the building they were entering.

  Cages lined the walls. Dogs and cats, every hair bristling with alarm, stood at the door of each, raising a near deafening din as the rag tag group entered the building.

  The woman was a veterinarian? She supposed she had known that in the back of her mind from the deafening racket the animals were putting up from the moment they’d gotten out of the vehicle, but it hadn’t connected in her mind with the bullet holes in the Lycans until now. Horrified at the thought, Erin turned to glance at the men entering the building behind her.

  From what she could see no one was either surprised or disturbed besides her, which, when she added in the fact that the woman had been ready to let them in when they arrived, meant that this wasn’t an unscheduled stop but an arranged one.

  As soon as everyone was inside, the woman closed the door and locked it, then threaded her way to the front of the group and led them down a narrow hallway. The men filed into an examination room. When Erin paused and turned to follow them, the woman took hold of her upper arm, drawing her to a halt. “You’ll come with me.”

  Erin frowned, but the woman’s grip was surprisingly strong. “Where?” she demanded.

  Instead of answering, the woman gave her arm a tug that nearly wrenched it from the socket. Erin was still trying to decide how much of a threat the woman represented when Jesse stepped into the hallway. “We need to lose that chip,” he said tightly.

  Erin glanced from him to the woman and back again. “You might have said so,” she retorted.

  “I suppose you would have considered cooperating if I had?” the woman said tartly, speaking directly to Erin for the first time.

  Erin glared at the woman and then glanced at Jesse again, realizing that, with or without restraints, she was obviously still considered a prisoner. Now wasn’t the time to argue, however. If the FEDS had recovered their cool by now from the assault on the facility, they’d discovered their prize breeding mare and mad scientist were missing. “I wouldn’t have told Jesse about it if I hadn’t intended to cooperate,” she said tightly, following the woman into another examination room.

  The woman shoved her in the direction of a table.

  Pushed off balance, Erin fell against it and turned to glare at the woman’s back as she moved to the supply cabinets. “Get on the table.”

  Erin didn’t even look at the table. “I’m not one of your patients,” she ground out.

  “We need to do a scan to find the transmitter.”

  Erin turned from the vet and glared at Jesse when he spoke. “Maybe so, but I’m not lying on an animal gurney. The floor’s probably cleaner.”

  The female vet turned with some sort of electronic device in her hands. “Put her on the table and strap her down.”

  Jesse’s face tightened as his gave flickered from Erin to the other woman. “That won’t be necessary, Juliette. She’s offered to cooperate.”

  Anger washed over Juliette’s face. “Do you want me to take care of this or not, Jesse?”

  “Just locate the damned thing--or give me the scanner and I will.”

  “You going to extract it, too?”

  Jesse glared at her. After a moment, she moved toward Erin, flipped a switch on the scanning device and moved it slowly down Erin’s body, studying the gauge on it. When she’d reached Erin’s feet, she stood up and gave her a cold stare eye to eye for a moment. “Turn around.”

  Erin didn’t particularly want to give the woman her back. After a pregnant moment, she turned, though.

  The woman found the device in her hip. Figured!

  The needle she stabbed into Erin’s hip to deaden the area made her knees buckle. She had to grip the examination table she was leaning against to keep from falling on the floor. Right up until the woman sliced into her flesh and began digging for the implant, Erin thought it might almost have hurt less to have the procedure without the medicine to numb sensation.

  When she gasped, Jesse stepped around the table opposite her and grasped her arms. She wasn’t certain whether it was to support her--morally and physically--or if he thought she might try to lay the woman out, but it was good for her that he did. It kept her from passing out and crumpling to the floor.

  If she’d been in any condition to do so, she would have knocked the woman out.

  By the time Juliette had finally dug the electronic implant out, closed the incision with a couple of stitches, and plastered a bandage over it, Erin was beginning to wonder if she would puke or pass out first. She was relieved when she did neither, but she was only saved from the latter by the fact that Jesse gathered her against him when the woman was done with her, holding her tightly to prevent her from falling.

  “Fucking bitch,” she managed to mutter when he’d half carried her to a chair and helped her to sit. “You can be damned sure I won’t be recommending you to anybody I know.”

  It occurred to Erin belatedly that she wasn’t really in any better position to defend herself now than she had been when the woman had been torturing her with her scalpel. She hadn’t said anything at the time because she wouldn’t have put it past the bitch to ‘accidently’ cut an artery if there was one handy for cutting, but she was as weak as water, dizzy and nauseated. If the woman felt like stalking across the room and slapping her head off she wouldn’t be able to stop her.

  Thankfully, she decided to pretend she hadn’t heard Erin’s comments. When she’d finished wiping up the blood and dropping her instruments in the sink, she left the room and went down the hall.

  Erin supposed to torture the poor, wounded men.

  Lucky for them they had someone with some medical knowledge and access to medicine on their side!

  As the dizziness finally subsided, it dawned on Erin that they’d been completely prepared to remove the tracking device from her. That not only meant that Jesse had gone with the intention of rescuing, or recapturing, her. It also meant that he knew about the device or at least suspected.

  Was that why he wasn’t being as nasty as he had been before? Had some doubt shaken his conviction that she was a totally cold, insensitive, traitorous bitch?

  Without asking, there was no way to be certain and she didn’t really feel up to a verbal battle at the moment if she’d guessed wrong. Besides, she wanted her baby. From what Jesse had said, she knew he meant to go after Joshua and she wasn’t going to do anything to rock the boat until she had her baby back.

  Erin was half drowsing in the chair where she’d been left when the sound of footsteps coming in her direction roused her. With an effort, she lifted her head and focused her eyes. Jesse filled the doorway on the opposite side of the room. He studied her for several moments in silence but before she could wonder what thoughts were running through his mind, he moved toward her.

  “We’re moving,” he said, his voice brusque.

  Nodding, Erin got to her feet with an effort. Jessie caught her when she swayed on her feet, half supporting her as he escorted her from the examination room. The building that housed the veterinary clinic was strangely quiet as they moved along the hallway. Even the dogs had ceased to bark.

  They set up another alarm as she and Jesse neared the kennel, however.

  Confused when no one joined them, Erin glanced at Jesse questioningly several times, but she didn’t ask him what had become of the others and he didn’t volunteer the information. Outside, she discovered the Hum
mer had disappeared. In its place was a dark late model sedan.

  “A cliché,” Erin murmured with a touch of amusement as Jesse opened the passenger door and pushed her inside.

  When he’d settled beside her in the driver’s seat, she studied him for several moments in the dim pre-dawn light. “What happened to the others?”

  He glanced at her, but he didn’t answer as he turned the key in the ignition and started the car. Frowning, mentally shrugging it off since she wasn’t actually that interested anyway, Erin focused on fastening her seatbelt.

  “They’ve been removed to a safe house for recovery,” Jesse said as they left the parking lot and turned onto the dark nearly deserted street in front of the building.

  Erin’s brows rose. Everyone, including Juliette apparently, had gone to the safe house while she was ‘resting’ in the room where the bitch had removed her tracking device? It was hard to avoid the implications of that, that she was the least important participant if she’d been the last to be moved to safety. “Are we going there, too?”

  “No.”

  So what was she, bait? She thought angrily? Again? He was using her to lead the pursuit away from the others? “Did Dr. Wagner have a devisc on him, too?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did, but he doesn’t now?” Erin persevered.

  “They won’t know that for a while.”

  Erin digested that for several moments, studying the cityscape outside the car windows and absently trying to place her location. “For a while?” she echoed. “You didn’t destroy it?”