Betrayed (Wolf Gatherings Book 6) (23 page)

Marcus peeled Heather’s hand off his arm and freed himself from her grip. “Stay here.” His voice didn’t sound like himself even to his own ears. He marched forward until he was less than a foot from the asshole who’d kidnapped his mate, drugged her, and held her hostage in a basement for a week.

Without hesitation he swung his fist through the air, breaking the man’s nose with a loud crunch. Blood splattered everywhere. Marcus’s knuckles hurt like a mother fucker, but he didn’t stop there. He ignored the pain and punched the guy in the stomach next.

When the guy buckled forward, the reserves lost their grip on his. He fell to the ground, landing in a ball with his knees drawn up.

Marcus kicked him this time. “You son of a bitch,” he screamed.

The reserves grabbed for the man on the ground while Heather tugged on Marcus from behind. “Stop it,” she yelled. “It’s over. They’ve got him.”

Marcus kicked again.

“Marcus! Stop. That’s enough. Let the reserves handle this.”

He turned toward his mate, his body tense with anger. “This man kidnapped you,” he shouted.

“I know. And I’m right here. I was rescued. Let NAR do their job.” She pulled his shirt sleeve until he inched toward her.

Staring into her eyes, he finally let his body loosen and slumped toward her. He buried his face in her hair and wrapped his arms around her middle. “You could have died…or worse.”

“I know. But I didn’t.”

Marcus took deep breaths, breathing in his mate’s floral shampoo. She calmed him by degrees as the seconds passed. The shuffling behind him grew distant as the reserves removed the man and carted him away. Marcus could hear the guy whimpering from his injuries. Good. Served him right.

“I’m okay,” Heather repeated.

He lifted his gaze from her head and stared into her eyes.

She was smiling at him, her hand soothing his cheek now.

He nodded. “I’m the luckiest bastard alive.”

She lifted onto her tiptoes and kissed his lips. “Close. Second luckiest.”

•●•

Hours later, after Alex had been taken to the hospital, Marcus sat in his grandfather’s office rummaging through his papers. Heather sat next to him on one side, Jerard on the other.

It had taken nearly three hours to round up and haul away all the captured members of the Romulus. Only five of the Romulus in human form had been killed.

Many of the superwolves were tranquilized. Others had cowered into submission when they realized the odds they faced. Three wolves were shot in the skirmish, but none of the wounds were life threatening. Marcus knew one of the aspects of the supergene was quicker healing. Those wolves would as be good as new before they reached their new prison.

Marcus looked around, realizing this facility was nothing more than a prison itself. It would take months of careful questioning to determine how many, if not all, of those superwolves had been created and held against their will. No one would be trusted in the time being.

After everyone was cleared out and the entire facility had been combed for stragglers, the transport vehicles left in a caravan headed for Seattle.

“Be aware. I believe the shifters in human form have been drugged to keep them from shifting. As that wears off, who knows what they will do,” Marcus told Jerard.

“You did a lot of research in the short time you had here,” Jerard said.

“I didn’t want to risk anything going wrong. I had a vested interest.” He smiled, glancing at his mate.

Two dozen members of NAR remained to continue scouring the place for any evidence to help them piece together the big picture.

Why was the Romulus doing this? It seemed excessive as a means to overthrow The Head Council. And knowing the bulk of their supershifters were in D.C. only made the situation that much more suspicious. Someone had funded this operation. It was certain Melvin Cunningham hadn’t come up with the billions in research on his own. The idea someone in Washington, someone undoubtedly human, was behind this, shook Marcus to the core.

Heather glanced around. “What are we doing in here? This place gives me the creeps.”

“Digging through Melvin’s desk. We’ll hack into his computer later. But I want to comb the entire room for any paperwork that might be useful.” Marcus grabbed her hand and pulled her close again. “I love you.” He looked her in the eye.

“I love you too.” She smiled. “Now let’s get this done and get out of here. I’ve heard a rumor my mate can’t hold down a job, and he needs to start applying elsewhere.”

Marcus chuckled. “I heard a rumor
my
mate has a nursing degree, and she can get a job anywhere in the country and make me a perfectly content kept man.”

Heather swatted at his arm.

Marcus was joking. He’d never do any such thing, but it was good to know they could go anywhere Heather’s heart desired as soon as this was over. Marcus had no intention of ever returning to Iowa, and Heather had expressed no interest in going home to Oregon, so they were free to explore any option.

“What’s this? It has your name at the top.” Heather held up a document and handed it to Marcus. “What’s an Alu element?”

“Shit.” Marcus shook as he read the report. “Looks like it’s the result from the bloodwork the lab took yesterday. He read one sentence aloud. “Marcus Cunningham—excellent candidate for Alu47. He doesn’t have the gene marker for Alu79. Further testing needed to confirm Alu47/79.”

“What does that mean?”

Marcus’s hands shook as he let the page fall onto the desk, as though it were contaminated and might infect him. “I’m not sure. If I had to guess, judging from the past, I’d say I don’t have the gene marker that would allow me to become one of these superwolves.”

“That makes sense. But what about the rest?”

Marcus gritted his teeth. He didn’t want to put a voice to his suspicion.

Jerard looked up. “It means he can’t be converted into a supershifter in wolf form through simple genetic alteration. The forty-seven indicates he could be transformed into a superwolf through alteration of his human DNA with the introduction of a new chromosome. Some of these giant wolves were altered through their human DNA and others through their wolf DNA.”

Marcus stared at Jerard. “How did you figure all that out?”

“We’ve been researching it for weeks. We took blood samples from the hostages we picked up at the ranch last month. It’s all a bit Greek to me, but I’m catching on.”

No one spoke for several seconds. When Marcus realized Jerard wasn’t going to continue, he broke the silence. “What’s the last one mean? The forty-seven, seventy-nine?”

“I’m not sure. We didn’t have evidence of that one. Until you found those vials in the lab, I hadn’t heard of that combination.” Jerard shuffled through the pages on the desk, busying himself with searching for something nonexistent.

“But you have a suspicion.”

He paused, blew out a breath, and lifted his gaze first to Heather and then to Marcus. “It’s nothing more than that. A suspicion.”

“And?”

The head elder held Marcus’s gaze. “There are a couple of possibilities. It could be a new drug that would alter shifters in either human or wolf form.”

“But you don’t believe that.” Marcus knew he wasn’t going to like the other option.

Jerard’s voice lowered. “It could be something entirely different that would convert regular humans into shifters.”

Marcus didn’t move. He’d known it was what Jerard would say. He just hadn’t wanted to voice it out loud himself.

Heather gasped, putting her hand over her heart. “Is that possible?”

Jerard nodded. “After everything I’ve seen lately, anything is possible if you have enough money.”

“Where do you think Melvin was getting the currency to fund this operation?” she asked.

“From someone in the government.”

“The human government? As in Washington D.C.?” Marcus feared that since learning the rest of the supershifters trained in D.C.

Jerard nodded.

“Do you think we thwarted their efforts? My grandfather said most of the superwolves are at a training facility outside D.C.”

“Not surprising. We certainly didn’t pick all of them up today. More than that were captured at the Spencer ranch in Texas. I believe Cunningham upped the rate of transformations in the last weeks. The ones we picked up here today were probably newly converted.”

“So the shifters working in the lab had undoubtedly been kept in a drugged state that prevented them from shifting while they were used as work horses.”

Jerard nodded. “Many were rogue wolves he lured in with promises of a better life.”

“My grandfather is dead now. Maybe there’s a way to locate this training facility and put an end to all this mayhem.”

“I wouldn’t count on it.” Jerard shook his head. “I’m afraid this operation is much larger than we can imagine. I doubt Melvin’s death will be more than a blip on the radar.”

“What about the women you rescued?” Heather asked. “I didn’t see any female supershifters anywhere. What was the purpose of our kidnapping and what drugs were we given?”

“It seems the drugs were various combinations of rohypnol and scopolamine. I believe you were given the shots to keep you malleable and docile while they tested you for other indicators. Those drugs are like date rape drugs. They probably intended to trick you into believing someone was your mate.” Jerard pulled a chair out from under the desk and sat.

Marcus remained standing. “Those date drugs you mentioned are probably the ones I was given last year.”

Jerard nodded. “Undoubtedly. That would have been in the early stages of Melvin’s research. He used you as a guinea pig to determine how far he could take the level of suggestion.”

“It didn’t work.”

“Ah, but it did. You believed both Kenzie and then Kathleen Davis were your legitimate mates. The only fault was they hadn’t received the same drug. Perhaps Melvin didn’t care about the failure of the test. He might have considered it a success that you made the attempt to mate them.”

Marcus shivered. Jerard was correct.

Heather wrapped an arm around Marcus, setting her head on his shoulder. “So what do you think he intended to do with the women, including me?”

Jerard shifted his gaze from Marcus to Heather. “I’m sure Cunningham intended to create a new army from birth. He was probably on the cusp of altering DNA either before or during gestation.”

She squeezed Marcus’s arm tighter. “Breeding? To make more superwolves?”

Jerard nodded. “Reproduction. Yes. I think he was selecting males who had the indicator in their genetic makeup and intending to breed them with the hopes of creating an entire new species of superwolves from conception.”

“I didn’t have the right genes, did I?”

Marcus turned to Heather, confused. “How do you know that?”

“Because I didn’t have a microchip in me. I wasn’t as valuable.”

“Bingo.” Jerard smiled.

Heather gave a sharp inhale. “That means Daniel Spencer’s mate, Allison, did have the right gene.”

“Yes. That’s why she’s under protection. We didn’t want to take the risk she or any of the other six women that had a GPS tracker in them were kidnapped again.”

“Do you think they’re safe now?”

Jerard shook his head. “To be honest, I’m not sure how much good it will do to have made this raid and shut down this operation. We can hope, but the reality is there are other superwolves out there already. Even if we rounded them all up, I don’t think this madness would stop. The infrastructure of the Romulus is deep. So many people work under Cunningham, I can’t guess the number.

“I’d like to think by cutting off the head, we’ve put a stop to this madness, but if someone in Washington is bankrolling the operation, there’s no telling how easy it would be to open up another facility under different leadership tomorrow. They most likely have all the same data we stole.” Jerard shook his head in dismay. “I’m afraid this is war, the likes of which our species has never undergone. And the end to our lives under the radar.

“I’ll be heading back to Seattle now to meet with everyone in The Head Council office. Now that we know who the mole was, we no longer need to tiptoe around. Everyone needs to be informed. Everyone needs to prepare. Including all civilian shifters. We’re going to have to mobilize fast to ensure the maximum number of shifters knows what’s coming.”