Blood Mate: The Project Rebellion, Book 2 (25 page)

“Darce, wake up.” She shook his shoulder as the sound of footsteps and voice’s got closer.

“I understand you had some issues recently? Last night’s feed was cut abruptly and let me tell you, our investors were not happy. Not happy at all. Can you give us some assurances that the same thing won’t happen again?”

“Huh? Wh—” Darce came awake sharply.

She put her fingers to his lips, cutting him off. “Shhh. We got company.”

He sat up, eyes wide and tension coiled in every line of his body. After hauling them both to their feet, he shoved her behind him when a group came into view at the front of the cage. Led by Fitz in full uniform, it was comprised mostly of men, with only one woman in a power suit which looked like it had come right out of the eighties. All wore badges with the initials VIP emblazoned on them in large blue letters. She knew the system. Each badge had a chip in it that allowed the visitor to certain areas, and lord help any of them if they lost their badge.

“Oh yes.” Fitzgerald nodded, his expression calm but a betraying wash of red was at his neck. “We shut that down quickly and dealt with the instigators. Seemed one of our staff was less than careful when dealing with the stock, one got loose…” He shrugged and spread his hands. “This business is dangerous. Some losses are to be expected.”

The woman’s heels rang out as she approached the bars, peering into the darkness. Darce snarled, claws already out and ready to use. Toni put a hand on his arm and locked eyes with the woman. Slender and blonde, her ice-blue eyes swept over the pair with utter lack of compassion. Toni shivered. She’d never seen such coldness on a human before.

“I see. And this pair?”

Fitz looked past her. “A Blood and a Lycan. Part of the breeding phase. The Lycan has bonded so we have high hopes of conception.”

The woman nodded, but her eyes lingered on Darce’s broad shoulders. “This one has been in the ring?”

Not liking the gleam in the other woman’s eyes, or the purely feminine interest, Toni slid in front of Darce, baring her fangs. Strange, they dropped easier into her mouth than they had before, as though they hadn’t fully retracted. Darce’s hand closed around her wrist and stopped her from rushing the bars. One swipe—that’s all she needed—and she’d open a second smile right along the bitch’s throat. Teach her to ogle Toni’s man.

“He has indeed. One of our more successful fighters.”

“I want to see him fight. If he comes up to scratch I’ll take him off your hands. He’ll be a valuable addition to our stable.” The blonde smiled and straightened up. “Unless of course, your breeding experiment precludes a sale. At our previously agreed rate of course.”

Toni’s heart lurched as Darce’s hand tightened around her wrist. Stable? Sale? Shit, they were going to take him away before they got a chance at escape. Ice washed through her veins and she assessed the guards with the little group. Darce caught her looking and shook his head. There were too many guards. If they tried anything, especially with VIPs in here, they’d be dead before they took another breath.

Fitz’s eyes gleamed for a second but he was quick to mask the expression. He shrugged, expression blank.

“Double it. He’s a very popular subject.”

Blondie wrinkled her nose, but Toni already knew what her answer was going to be. “Done. But I want to see him fight first.”

Fitz nodded and clicked his fingers. “Get him out.”

“No!” The cry escaped Toni’s lips before she could stop it. Whirling around, she wrapped herself around Darce, fear pounding through her system like a battalion in hobnail boots. The worry that if he went out there he wouldn’t come back to her drove its claws deep into her gut and wouldn’t let go.

“Shhh…it’s okay, babe.” He cupped her face, thumb stroking over her cheek while the guards unlocked the cage. Darce leaned in and stole her breath with the softest, sweetest kiss she’d ever been given. “No matter what, I’ll be coming back for you. Don’t you worry.”

She couldn’t do anything but nod, holding back tears as they dragged him from the cage. He snarled, about to lash out until one of the guards to the side turned and aimed his rifle directly at Toni. She swallowed and raised her hands.

“I’m calm, I’m calm.” Darce put his hands out to the side, not responding when two guards moved in and cuffed him. “Just don’t hurt her.”

Chapter Seventeen

 
“Fuck. What’s going on?”

Toni paced back and forth in the cage before leaning against the bars and angling her head to try and see down the side of the cage opposite. They’d taken Darce that way in cuffs. The blonde bitch following with a smile like the cat that had gotten the damn cream.

But that had been hours ago. Or felt like it anyway. Probably nearer an hour.

“
Fuck!”

She snarled, slammed her hands into the bars and pushed off them to pace around the cage again. Her claws had sprouted in her anger but they ached like a bitch. A scowl twisting her features, she rubbed at her fingers and tried to get them to retract. But they weren’t playing ball, not even when she pressed down on the floor with the tips—a trick she’d used in the past. Instead they throbbed in complaint, a refrain picked up by the rest of her body.

Defeated, she threw herself into a heap on the meager blankets at the back of the small enclosure. Darce’s scent rose to engulf her, wrapping around her and caressing her senses. Her heart swelled as she grabbed the blankets, and gathered them into her lap to bury her nose deep. Tears welled up so she pressed her face deeper. How pathetic was that? The man was gone less than an hour and she was a sniveling wreck.

He’s not coming back…

She jerked her head up, doing her best to ignore the little voice, and leaned back against the wall. Each cage had a solid back, and was linked to the next in a block of two. She was settled in the corner by the empty enclosure next to her. Harder for the technicians to poke at her. Well, unless they came through the empty cell, which would give her enough of a warning to move into the middle.

Arching her back, she stretched and a groan escaped her lips. Why did she hurt so much? She moved to lift her arms above her head, needing to roll her shoulders to ease the deep ache there, but her claws caught on the blankets. Disentangling them, she frowned and looked at her fingers. Was it her imagination, or did her fingers seem longer than before? Like the bones themselves had lengthened. She shook off the notion, slumped back down against the wall and caught Steele looking at her.

“What?”

He shrugged, broad shoulders moving easily despite the heavy bruising she could see over the left side. Darce’s work probably, defending himself. She shivered. Not that defense was really possible against a creature like Steele. Until last night, she hadn’t believed the base stories about a Hybrid. Like most urban myths, she’d dismissed them as fear-mongering. Now she’d seen him in action in the ring…yeah, fear was one word for it. Lethal was another.

“Nothing. Just that you don’t look so hot.”

Toni barked a short laugh. “No shit, Sherlock!”

He frowned and moved forward, leaving the aide sleeping at the back of the cage. Toni flicked a glance her way. Like her, the girl had been given new clothes, but a quick scent of the air revealed that was it. The smell of blood from the beating the two women had been given still clung to her, but nothing else. No smell of sex or anything. Obviously the Project’s breeding experiment wasn’t going so well over there.

“No, I’m serious. You look like crap. How…what are you feeling?”

Toni leaned her head back against the wall and raked her clawed fingers through her hair. The sharp edges nicked her skin but she ignored the slight sting and concentrated on the clues from the rest of her body. She felt terrible. Every muscle ached, and a soul deep chill seemed to be working its way up from her toes and turning her skin to ice while inside, a fire raged to boil her blood. She hugged herself tighter and used her hands to try and rub some warmth back into her upper arms.

“Ugh…” The sound emerged as a groan. Her guts coiled and twisted like a pit of snakes. Red hot snakes, covered in pepper and hot sauce, grating against her insides while they writhed over and around each other. Oh god, she was going to be sick. Tilting her head back, she swallowed convulsively. Lips pressed tightly together, she fought to keep down the contents of her stomach. She hated being sick. Loathed and detested it.

“Insides feel like they’re on fire? But you got ice crawling over your skin?” Steele’s deep voice broke through her pain-filled semi-trance.

Another wave of bile rose, so she just nodded.

“Drink some water. It’ll help.”

She opened her eyes with what seemed like extraordinary effort and focused on the water-bowl to the left. Her vision swam, three different versions of the steel bowl doing a slow waltz around each other. While she watched, they got fuzzier. Whatever was wrong with her was getting worse, fast. She tried to move toward the bowl but her arm didn’t work properly. Instead of reaching out, the useless thing fell to the side. She followed it down, slumping onto her side as the first wave of convulsions hit.

Her teeth chattered but she rode the shivers out. Fuck. What had they done to her? Poison…in the food maybe? But she hadn’t eaten or drank…unless it was from Darce. Just the smell of food and water had turned her off, so he’d eaten it and his blood filled her belly instead of the meal the techs had thrown into the cage.

“Shit…” Steele’s voice sounded panicked. Toni lay there, curled up into a ball, teeth chattering as the sweat poured from her.

“Someone get some help in here! I think we’re losing her!”

Pain is my friend, pain is my friend. Absorb the pain, work it…be one with it…

As much as Darce tried to convince himself, running the mantra through his head over and over, it wasn’t working. After three bouts under the watchful eye of Colonel Fitzgerald and the VIPs, he had more holes in his skin than in a colander, and he was leaking the red stuff worse than an extra on the
Walking Dead
. Even his damn toenails hurt. How the fuck did toenails hurt?

Blood perfumed the air—his and that of the other poor bastards they’d thrown in with him—so thick he gagged. God knew how the Bloods were dealing with it. One look at the red sheen in the vampire’s eyes clued him in. They weren’t dealing. They were in blood lust.

He eyed the three Bloods circling him. Blood trailed down his arms and torso and his chest heaved from exertion, but it didn’t matter. All that mattered was being the last man standing. Because one thing was for sure: once they cracked the cage to let him out, he wasn’t taking this shit lying down anymore. While getting beat up and battered around the cage, he’d analyzed the positions and armament of the guards, and where they were in relation to the VIPs. If nothing changed then he would take out the two guards on the door and get to the blonde who wanted to buy him before anyone could even blink.

“Come on, you bunch of pussies!” he snarled, opening his arms in invitation.

The Bloods rushed him at once. Fury and energy rolling through him in equal amounts, he turned and launched himself at the side of the cage. One step, two. He leaped and planted a foot in the middle of the mesh in front of him and pushed off. He twisted violently in midair, curled one leg under him and snapped the other out. The toe of his heavy boot, the ones the guards had made him put on before he stepped into the ring, connected with the first Blood’s jaw. There was a sickening crunch as bone gave, shattering within the skin and shoving the broken ends of jaw out the other side of the face. The guy spun like a top, splattering the sand with blood, and collided with one of the others. Both went down in a heap of limbs.

The wolf within roared and Darce tipped his head back, letting the creature have free voice. The door between them was fully open now, the man feeding the beast and the beast feeding the man. For once the creature didn’t push to gain control or go for a shift. Instead, it pumped feral rage through Darce’s human body until he thought he’d burst from it, and allowed him to make all the decisions. Animalistic power and human intellect to drive it. The perfect symbiotic relationship.

Thinking human.

Jack’s favorite phrase and finally,
finally,
Darce understood.

He dropped his head back as the final Blood rushed in. He didn’t give it a chance to land a blow. Instead, he dodged the lightning fast swipe of claws, and then slid in to wrap a hand around the back of the guy’s neck. His other hand grabbed at the shoulder and he shoved his face right into the Blood’s, then jerked him down. The Blood snarled but Darce’s grip was good, solid. This was going down. Now.

Kicking his feet out from under him and backward, he took them both down. Pulling his head back, he used the momentum to drive his opponent’s face hard into the sand. Unlike before, it was just a thin covering over the concrete beneath, offering no protection when the Blood hit at full speed. Scarlet mingled with the pale gold granules, snaking out from beneath the Blood’s head like the hair of Medusa. On a human, such a move was a finisher—end game—but not with a Blood. The fucker would be up and kicking back in minutes.

Darce didn’t give him the chance. Levering himself up from the prone position, he shifted his hold and, gritting his teeth, snapped the Blood’s neck.