Haulcon's Revenge (24 page)

Her stomach was cramping and she wondered if she’d injured herself somehow.

But how did I fall? Where did I fall?

Why hasn’t someone in the mansion assisted me? Haulcon will be pissed.

Placing a hand on her belly she felt around and made sure she was alright. The baby kicked her palm hard and she sighed with relief that it appeared all right.

“
This one seems to be coming around finally. Her blood should make for interesting data since it’s pregnant.”

Voices were all around her. People talking about her as if she wasn’t there or couldn’t speak for herself.

Prying her lids open, she squinted at the bright lights. She could tell the sun was still down through the high windows all around the room as she peered through the thick silver bars.

Silver bars?

She sat up quickly at the sight of the thick metal. That’s when some of the fog began to clear from her brain and she recognized where she was—her father’s research lab.

“
Oh, no…nonononono! This can’t be happening.” Clutching the bars she screamed, “Dad, let me out of here.”

She was in a room alone and they were behind a glass observing her like a fish in a bowl. Waving her arms around she attempted to get their attention.

“
A true wild one. Do you think there will be a link with her because she is pregnant that will make a difference in the gene regeneration DNA?” asked Chris, the man she had met when she came to her father’s office three months ago.

“
I didn’t know they were various shades. This one is darker. Her hair is a lot thicker than the males we got brought to us before.” Her father was staring at her but not seeing her.

That distant ‘scientific’ glaze in his eyes broke her heart.

“
I just hope she doesn’t die before we can find out if her DNA will link with ours. It would be a great development in the cure for cancer if we could just get the right regeneration to pair,” Chris continued on.

“
Very true.” Her father looked away from her, back at something on the table before him.

Oh, my God, they think I’m a valf.

It was true that a lot of things about her had changed since she had become pregnant and was taking multiple doses of Haulcon’s serum a day. Her heart was stronger, her body had become more toned in its thickness and she had gained a mild sensitivity to the sun. She could be in it, but it made her tired and break out in a rash if she was directly in it for too long.

Then something else dawned on her—her father was behind the death of Haulcon’s clan members found on the outskirts of the city limits. Her body shuddered with the knowledge and she felt ill. In a way, Haulcon had been right to fear bringing her to his people. However, he had thought the most harm she could inflict on them was putting them in the tabloids. That wasn’t it. Here her father was trying to find a cure for cancer and she had become a cancer in the midst of Haulcon’s people. The daughter of the man using Haulcon’s clan memebers for research. Like rats in a lab. In a way, it was fitting that she was here. The valf were better off without her among them.

Her stomach became tight and her son squirmed inside of her. She placed a hand against the little one in an attempt to calm him. When they made it out of here, they would be on their own.

It was making more sense to her now. The research lab was close to the abandoned warehouse area. Hell, it had once been abandoned before her father got the grant that allowed him to remodel one of the buildings and make them state-of-the-art.

Her father was completely fascinated by gene regeneration, especially for healthy cells that would fight cancer. Valfs had it in spades. No wonder he was taking their blood.

Just as he had hers. The holes in the bend of each of her arms, partially healed, were proof of that.

However, how was he getting to them? She couldn’t see her father tossing on hiking boots and carrying a tranquillizer dart to search them out.

As the remainder of the drug in her system cleared, her mind became flooded with memories of the last events she recalled.

She’d gone to see Hessel. When she was there, he’d told her that her bloodwork showed that her DNA was changing, not to a valf but something else, something new…a type of Hybrid. She had been confused about why it was happening to her. She wondered if it could happen to other humans too.

Hessel had explained that he believed it was happening to her because she was a distant Yupta connection—some sort of latent gene in her DNA.

Adair had told him about her genealogy research and her travels to Alaska only to come away empty handed because the line of Eskimo she was supposed to be connected to was extinct.

The medical man had said they were still present but diluted. Unlike their breed of valf that came from Siberia where they were able to remain pure because they kept themselves away from humans, her strain had mingled and married humans to the point nothing remained of them. But her.

He’d given her a drink and made sure she finished it. Hessel had told her that she would need extra nutrients for the coming birth to survive it.

Since she had no need to doubt his words at the time, she consumed the entire cup.

Hessel had continued, “Seeing that you have become pregnant proves that humans can be the cure for us in so many ways. That human scientist just needs to discover the right connections, answers. Then we will be able to move into the cities. Take over and breed the human woman for a whole new race, a stronger race. It is evident in how fast your offspring is growing.”

“
You’re mad.” She had told him. There was a glaze in his eyes that made them dark and bright. He didn’t appear just lost in his research like her father, he had seemed evil and arrogant.

“
No, Jacin had been mad. He’d just wanted to feed off humans, control and kill them at will. But, my daughter had guided him perfectly and ensured he waited until the right moment. She would have made the perfect Alpha mate. Enough valfs would have come up dead by human hands that the clan would have been angry and more than prepared to follow him into battle.” Frustrated he’d shoved his hands through his hair. “Haulcon had to come back and ruin everything. All my hard work. I’d told Jacin to make sure he got rid of him.” Hessel shook his head. “Too prideful. Not completing the job.”

Hearing enough, she’d gotten down off the exam table. “I’m getting out of here.”

“
You’re not going anywhere.” The door swung open revealing the person who had been standing on the other side the whole time.

“
Sylista.” Was the last thing Adair had said before everything around her went dark.

Adair shuddered at the memory and the ache throughout her body began to return. Groaning she gripped her stomach.

“
I need to get out of here.” No medical doctor had to tell her that her child was on the way. She’d seen enough animals in labor and women on medical reality shows to know the signs.

“
I’m not having my baby in some cage.”
Think
. She told herself. If she didn’t get out of there in a few hours the sun would come flooding through those windows filling the room with light. The rash on her skin would be painful on top of the trials her body would go through giving birth.

Then an idea came to her. First thing she needed to do was tame the wildness of her mane. If she had a mirror, she was sure she wouldn’t be able to recognize herself. Fingering her hair, now down to the curve of her ass, she weaved it into a braid over her shoulder.

Next she kneeled in the middle of the cage and started to sing. It was a song that was ingrained more in her heart than in her memory. Her mother had only been with her a few months but she had sung to her. When she was five, she had been scared and her dad had come in and attempted to calm her with the song. He had explained it was one she loved her mother to sing when she was an infant.

“
Bright morning stars are rising
Bright morning stars are rising
Bright morning stars are rising
Day is a breaking in my soul…”

Closing her eyes, Adair rubbed her belly and continued to sing the song over and over again. She wasn’t only singing it for her father, she was also singing it for the little girl who had lost her mother as well as for the unborn child inside her.

Over and over, she sang the song from beginning to end, unsure of how long she sat there as time seemed to stand still.

“
Rachel? Rachel, I’ve missed you so.”

It was the hesitant wonder in her father’s voice as he called her mother’s name that had Adair opening her eyes. There on the other side of the bars was her father, his face slick with the tears that were cascading down his light brown cheeks. His arm was stretched through the bars as he reached for her.

She continued to sing the final verse as she held his gaze feeling the wetness of her own tears making rivulets down her face.

“
It’s me, daddy,” came her rough whisper.

“
Adair?” His gaze searched hers, for the first time in years he seemed to really be seeing her, taking in every aspect of her appearance. “You’re all grown up.”

Taking hold of his hand, she said, “I am. But I never stopped needin—”

There came a loud crash and then a roar that seemed to shake the building.

“
Haulcon.” She could feel his presence near.

Then she saw something go flying across the window from the small observation room and her mate was there with his large hand locked around Chris’s throat as he slammed him against the wall. “Where is she?” he growled.

“
Haulcon! Haulcon, I’m here!” she called out.

Allowing the young scientist to drop to the floor he turned and stared at her through the glass. As if there was no space and distance between them she felt him caress her.

Sweet mate, are you all right? Have they hurt you?

I’m fine.

She watched his gaze take in her hand linked with the man on the other side of the bar. Then Haulcon was in the room clutching her father’s neck as he held him up from the floor. “Never touch what is mine. I should kill you.” His fangs were elongated and his eyes were so dark green they appeared black.

“
Wait, Haulcon! Don’t hurt him,” she pleaded with him as she pressed herself to the bars gripping a sleeve of his black duster.

“
Why? He has killed many valfs and now he attempts to harm my mate and unborn heir.” He shook her father like a ragdoll.

James Ellis gasped and his light brown complexion became a sickening purple hue.

“
He’s not a murderer. He’s my father.”

Tilting his head, Haulcon stared at her, his brows tight with a frown. “Why would a parent put their child in a cage? Poke at them?” He pointed to the needle hole on her arm that was almost completely healed.

Another sign that his serum had altered her DNA some. A valf would have healed instantly, but her being more human caused it to be a slower process.

“
I’ve changed so much since the way he remembered me that he thought I was valf.”

He growled and squeezed harder.
So, it is okay that he puts my people in a box?

Wrong word.

Her father’s face was starting to swell from lack of oxygen.

“
Please put him down, Haulcon, so he can let me out,” she coaxed.

Haulcon released him.

Her father crumbled to the floor, squirming and gasping for air. Finally, his body calmed and as it shook with an occasional wracking cough.

“
Where’s the key?” Haulcon asked. His voice was still tight, but he wasn’t growling anymore.

James dug the key ring out of his pocket and passed it to Haulcon.

Taking it, the valf Alpha rushed to the cage and unlocked it.