Blood Mate: The Project Rebellion, Book 2 (6 page)

“What’s this?”

“Nothing. Leave it.”

Nic squeaked, trying to pull the holdall away and clamp her hand over the opening but he was too quick for her. He drove through the shake packets, searching for the scrap of pink fabric he’d caught a glimpse of. His fingertips grazed something soft. With a crow of triumph he grabbed and pulled. Nic swore, shake packets spilling from the bag as Sanders held up his prize.

And realized he was holding a bra. In hot pink.

“Fuck.”

Heat hit his cheeks and Nic snickered. He avoided her gaze and stuffed the bra back in the bag like it had burned him. He wasn’t interested in women…mostly. He’d seen Nic naked more times than he could recall and nothing, despite the fact she was a damn sexy woman. So why did the sight of female underwear have him coloring up like a kid on his first date?

“Honey, if you were interested, I’d already be doing you.”

He dropped his head to try and hide his blush and looked up at her through his bangs. He needed them cut, but they grew so quickly there wasn’t much point—not when there were more important things to do. “Thanks, I appreciate the vote of confidence. If only others…”

He trailed off, zipping the bag up to avoid the subject, but she knew what he meant. He’d had the hots for their unit sergeant since he and Nic had been transferred in, way back when they were all human. But Leon was as straight as they came—a real ladies man who wouldn’t look twice at Sanders. No matter how much his heart and body ached to tell the bigger man how he felt.

Understanding and sympathy flowed over Nic’s features in place of her usual pissed off expression and she reached out to pat his shoulder. Anger and frustration rolled through him. Why couldn’t he find Nic attractive instead of Leon? She had more screws loose in the head than he did, wouldn’t let a guy near her other than him. They could have been each other’s salvation.

“I know, sweets. I know.”

Letting go of him, she resettled the bag and looked around them. Dawn had started to break with a vengeance now so they couldn’t stick around. Not without getting spotted by the locals and having to answer some interesting questions about why they were wandering around in the ass-end of beyond without any shoes on.

“Let’s split, shall we? Long run ahead.”

He didn’t need telling twice. He motioned for her to precede him, then they slipped out of cover behind the store. They ran low and fast along what passed for the main street before they turned and ducked into cover behind a fence which ran parallel to the local diner. The trees of the surrounding forest loomed large behind the small building.

Letting Nic take point, he turned and cast a glance over his shoulder. An automatic reaction from his soldiering days, to ensure that no one had followed them. The little alley was empty. At this time of day he hadn’t expected anything different. Turning again, he followed his patrol partner into the forest.

Even barefoot and laden with heavy holdalls, the run back to the pack’s base camp deep in the forest covered mountains was nothing arduous for the two wolves. As soldiers, they’d been used to carrying more weight over rougher terrain and their conversion to something more than human—to Lycan—had only made them stronger and faster. Between them they could have carried a small car back to camp if it would have fit between the trees as they dodged and wove through the closely packed trunks.

The sky lightened while they ran, the sun making its way higher above the horizon. It was fully raised by the time they neared the camp. Sanders once again brought up the rear. The breeze ruffled his hair, blowing it back from his face as he scanned back the way they’d come. It was a habit—a holdover from the days when he’d been human. These days sight wasn’t his strongest sense, but with the wind behind them, he knew they hadn’t been followed.

A dark shadow moved in the undergrowth. Leaves parted on a whisper of sound to reveal the glint of an amber eye deep within the shadows, focused on them with an intelligence and perception not found in the animal kingdom. Movement rustled in the undergrowth, releasing a wave of damp earthiness. A set of hulking furry shoulders became visible through the leaves before the huge wolf settled again.

Sanders squinted, trying to make out more detail. But while the LY infection had cured him of the need to wear glasses, it hadn’t given him the vision of a hawk. The early morning sun didn’t penetrate all the way through the thick leaf canopy overhead and the male had hidden himself well, like he’d been trained to do.

Another shift. Sanders’s eyes narrowed, piecing the slight variations in shadows together. The male was tucked under a fallen log next to a large outcrop of rock, just his eyes visible…if you knew what to look for. Members of the pack were masters of camouflage. A human could walk right on by and never know that a creature from a nightmare lurked in the shadows. Watching. Waiting.

From the size and coloring, it had to be Thom or maybe Blake. Only the Lieutenant and Captain were bigger, but the fur color was wrong for it to be either of them. One way to be sure. Sanders took a deep breath to catch the scent. Thom. The other male’s familiar scent filled Sanders’s sensitive nostrils. He nodded at the wolf while Nic stomped past without acknowledging the well-hidden guard. They stepped from the trees into the small clearing currently serving as the pack’s impromptu base of operations.

“Please tell me you got something decent to eat,” a voice begged.

Sanders swept a glance around the clearing, empty apart from the two of them and the tall man rising to his feet to greet them. They hadn’t started a campfire, but he wouldn’t expect them to. With the Project out looking for them, they couldn’t risk the smoke giving away their position. They didn’t need another couple of gunships on their case, especially without the backup of the heavy weaponry on the hummers they’d had to ditch in the foothills. Which was a bitch because Sanders had sure enjoyed
that
show. Even if he’d had to be careful Richards didn’t catch him looking. Acres of naked male skin and muscles and…

Sanders suppressed the shiver trying to roll down his spine at the thought.

Blake—Thom’s patrol partner—was across the clearing and rooting through Nic’s bag as soon as it hit the dirt.

“Meal bars and protein packs. Tastes like shit but they’ll keep us going for now,” Nic commented, watching Thom with amusement.

Sanders kept his own bag firmly looped across his body and looked around. “Where is everyone?”

“Richards and Palmer are out on Recon, following the Blood bitch who took Foster. Apparently they split off, didn’t meet up with the rest of the Project forces.”

Blake sat back on his heels, disgust in his eyes at Nic’s meager haul, and eyed Sanders holdall with a speculative look. Sanders caught the glance, and backed up a step. Then another. They all knew he had a sweet tooth and a partiality for donuts.
 

“Oh no, these are mine. All mine.”

Blake grinned, showing sharper-than-human canines. “Hand them over. Or else.”

“Or else what?”

Sanders cocked his eyebrow and swung the bag on its strap to rest against his back. He might have been one of the smaller wolves in the pack but that didn’t mean he was a pushover, not where the donuts were concerned. They were one of the two things he would fight to the death over. Them and his pack…his family. It muddied the waters when his
family
wanted to fight him for the donuts.

“Oh, break it up you two.” Nic reached out to cuff Blake behind the ear. The big man sidestepped, grinning at her as he advanced on Sanders, making a “bring it on” gesture behind Nic’s back.
 

“Where’s the captain?” she asked. “How’s Lillian doing?”

At the female’s rapid-fire questions, both men paused. The last twenty-four hours had been a whirlwind of action. From their barracks-stroke-cells being stormed by armed commandos, their drugged-up incarceration in the nuthouse right through to their escape from said nuthouse, none of the pack could forget the slender, delicate human who’d helped them. Despite the fact the Project had sent a vampire and a horde of zombies. A human who’d turned out to be the most precious of gifts. A wolf-mate. The Captain’s mate, to be precise. The first one they’d found and a discovery which gave them all hope there could be someone out there for them all.

Even for Sanders…

Before Thom could answer, a howl ripped through the quiet air of the morning forest. The three went on alert, dropping into a crouch to listen. Eyes wide, Sanders opened the connection to his wolf, feeling the prickle under his skin as he held the change just beneath, ready to burst through it within a second.

The three wolves bunched together, backs to each other in case the Project had sent another team after them and they needed to fight. Determination welled up, joining the energy rolling through Sanders’s system. It would be bloody and brutal but they could do it. The three of them could beat whatever rag-tag team of newbie wolves the Project sent after them. Since the pack had gone native, and the previous two teams had been terminated, the Project was running out of options. All they had left were the teams below Alpha three, wolves not long out of their conversion and too weak to pose a serious threat to the pack.

Hopefully.

The howl rang out again, closer this time. The voice was unfamiliar but it wasn’t the sound of fury and battle he’d have expected for a wolf tracking them. Instead the sound welled up with wonder and joy, as though being alive and able to make such a sound was the best thing in the world. Then the howl altered, the sound dropping from the wolf into a very human, and female, “Woohoo.” Sanders turned, a grin on this face. Nic and Thom beamed from ear to ear.

“I guess that means Lillian made it through conversion.”

Chapter Five

What the fuck was wrong with her?

As the unconscious wolf slumped on the truck floor pan in front of her, Toni drew a shaky breath. The movement reminded her of the syringe in her hand, and her fingers clamped around it as a drop of pinkish fluid fell from the sharp point. It splashed on the metal beneath her knees in what seemed like slow motion to her altered senses. With a curse she threw the syringe, and the small tube shattered, then released an acrid stench of silver that made Toni’s lip curl into a snarl. Fuck. She’d never get used to using that stuff.

Jerkily, her gaze returned to the man sprawled out on the cold metal. At least this time he hadn’t had convulsions. Movements stiff, she climbed out of his lap and backed up. But she didn’t take her eyes off him, alertness humming through every cell in her body like a chain reaction. As if, despite the silver-laced sedative she’d just pumped into him, he might jump up at any moment and bite her.

Or kiss her.

Her hand shook when she lifted it to her lips. Lips which tingled from his kisses and her cheeks prickled from the rough caress of his whiskers. Fuck. He hadn’t just kissed her. She’d kissed him back, all but crawling into his pants to assuage the heat that rolled through her veins. A heat that only now had banked to a dull roar, her skin feeling too tight and itchy to contain the need within.

Her breathing shaky, she tore her gaze from him. Just the sight of his lean, hard body was enough to send all sorts of unnatural thoughts cascading through her head. Like what would have happened if they hadn’t arrived at the base, if they’d had a little bit longer. What that thick, long cock she’d felt pressed against her belly would have felt like as it slid to fill her completely.

A tiny whimper of denial escaped her lips and she pressed cool hands to her burning cheeks. Fucking hell. Was that a blush? An actual blush to go along with the first reaction she’d had to a man, any man, since her accident. Despite her mortification she couldn’t help the snort of amusement. Reaction? That was such a bland word for what had happened. Reaction didn’t cover the fact that she’d almost gone up in flames and begged him to fuck her. There and then, on the floor of the truck.

“Yeah, we got separated from the rest tracking down one of the Lycans.”

Wilson’s voice filtered through from outside the truck, a little muffled as he spoke to whoever it was on the gate. Toni tilted her head to try and make out the response but it was too faint behind the bulletproof glass installed in the gatehouse. Unbidden, the corner of her lip curled in derision.

Fitzgerald had beefed up security on base, which was just plain dumb. The Project was so secret that only those in the higher echelons were aware of its true purpose and she had no doubt that any recording or data was set to self-destruct in true Hollywood style once viewed by the recipient. As far as anyone else was concerned, the base was just a supply depot in the middle of nowhere, guarding nothing more exciting than a bunch of toilet rolls and some canned beef. Either those toilet rolls were freaking gold-plated or the machine gun towers and patrols gave the game away.

 
“Yeah, tell me about it…” Wilson sighed. “I’m starving. We’d have been in hours ago but we got stuck on a dirt road and ended up digging one of these fuckers out. Keep telling ’em heavy wheels like this are no good for the area but will they fucking listen?”

She cocked her head to listen. A lie about the reason for their delay. Interesting. Why would he lie and cover her ass? Comradeship…with a Blood? She shook her head. Wilson was a good soldier but there she knew better than to get attached. The last human she’d gotten attached to, or even had more than a passing conversation with, she’d just burned in an orange bag on the side of the road.