Savage Hunger (Project Nemesis) (3 page)

Cutting off any further conversation, Zach dropped down into the hatch and landed lightly.  Darkness swallowed the small space, but it wasn’t a hindrance to him.  One of the gifts they’d picked up after their infection was the ability to see in the dark with little or no light.  Better than human.

Inhuman.  Even if they didn’t want to admit it to themselves, they all knew it was the truth.

And they might not ever be human again.

He didn’t want to share his fears with the others.  They were on edge enough.  God knew he didn’t need them flipping out any more than they already had.  The risk of infecting innocents was too great.

Zach thought about flipping the light switch, but he didn’t really need it.  Better to keep the boat in darkness than possibly alert their pursuers their position.  A single light in the dark space of ocean would be like a beacon to anyone if they were looking.  If they were lucky, they wouldn’t have them on the radar.

Zach looked around.

He found her sleeping underneath the table in the center of the room.  Seeing her small body curled up beneath a blanket, he thought at first she’d been hit by a bullet and killed, she was lying so still.

He was sure they’d scared the shit out of her.  Anyone with any sense would’ve been.

He hesitated about waking her up.  She was like a caged animal, liable to hurt herself more than him if he scared her.

Dimly, he remembered grabbing her, having her beneath him.  She’d been clad in nothing but a tiny scrap of cloth—a bikini.  Her honey brown skin, full lips, and short hair reminded him a lot of that actress him and every red-blooded man had always had the hots for—Halle Berry.

The terror in her big brown eyes came back in his mind first.  He hadn’t liked the look she’d given him.

Carefully, he lifted the blanket she was under to see if his mind had played tricks on him or if she was just as tempting as he’d remembered.  It’d been forever since he’d even been around a woman and would probably be a lot longer until he was near another one again.  Maybe never at the rate they were going.

His throat constricted when he saw that caramel, even toned skin covered every inch of her.  Thick, black curly lashes rested against her cheeks.  Her lips were shaped like a bow, slightly parted and inviting.  She had muscles carved into her stomach and arms, and curves in all the right places.  Her breasts were an overflowing handful, and his palm had a sudden itch to cup them and see how soft and heavy they were.

His cock swelled, going semi-hard with thoughts of burying himself inside her, and he chalked his reaction up to going too long without a woman and coming across one as sexy as this in a place she damned well shouldn’t have been.  Maybe it was just that animal inside him that wanted to rut with any available female, willing or not.

Maybe she was some rich old bastard’s daughter, out slumming.

He didn’t dare touch her.  He couldn’t know how infectious they might be.  It hadn’t taken much to get them all infected, but maybe it only passed through blood.  Whatever it was, air hadn’t killed it or lessened it potency.  He couldn’t know if it would pass through saliva or semen or not.

The scientists in the facility had collected all of their bodily fluids for repeated testing.

Anger seeped into him at the remembrance.  He was still warring with himself when Dante, who’d been behind him, finally released a pent up breath that awakened her.

Slowly, she opened her eyes, staring up at them for several moments before she finally comprehended what she was looking at.  Her eyes widened.  She sat up, looking ready to fight if they touched her.

“We ain’t gonna hurt you,” Dante said, his voice rough with desire.

When she didn’t scream her head off, they took that as a good sign.

Looking annoyed at Dante and his transparency, Zach figured she must not have noticed their cocks trying to tent their pants and escape to the first warm hidey hole they encountered.  She was too busy looking at their faces to notice anything else.

“What do you want with me?  Who are you?” she asked, pulling the blanket up to cover her chest.

Hell, maybe she had noticed them drooling all over her.

“Sergeant Zachary Cooper.  US Marines.  This is Corporal Dante Jackson,” he said, pointing a thumb at Dante.

“If you’re US military, why are you here?  Why were you being chased and shot at?  Were those Cubans?  Are we at war with Cuba?”

Zach looked at Dante.  From the way she was acting, she had no knowledge they were scheduled to come aboard her boat.  She certainly didn’t have enough supplies to take care of them all.  They’d managed to scrounge up some clothing, but that was about it.

She was obviously innocent, or else, she’d been setup the same as they had.  Either way, she was in over her head.  Way over her head.

The less she knew about it all, the better for her safety.  God knew they didn’t need to have an innocent civilian’s life on their hands.

Zach gave him a look.  “No.  Why would you think that?”

She swallowed.  “Hell, it felt like world war three out there.  I just thought maybe it’d make more sense than what I thought at first.”

“And what’s that?” Zach said, motioning Dante to be quiet.

“You’re prison escapees.  But they shouldn’t have US military imprisoned down here.”

“No, they shouldn’t,” Dante said.

She audibly swallowed.  “Look, I’ll let you use my boat.  Just drop me off at the first port and I won’t tell anyone what I’ve seen or where you’re going.”

“And where are we supposed to do that?  We’re miles away from anywhere.”

“No, don’t tell me where we are.  I don’t need to know,” she said, covering her ears.

Zach sighed exasperatedly.  “What’s your name?”

She dropped her hands and gave him a frightened look, as if weighing her options.  Apparently she decided on the truth.  He assumed.

“Jasmine Roberts.  Are you…are you going to let me go?”

“Why are you down here?”

She was quiet for several seconds.  They could almost see the wheels turning in her head.  “I was supposed to meet someone.  They didn’t show up.”

“Who?”

She frowned.  “Is it really that important?  Why do you want to know?”

“We’re just trying to figure out why you’d be docked here in the middle of nowhere like you were waiting on us.”

“I certainly wasn’t waiting on you guys!  That’s just crazy.  I’d have to be insane to want to go through this.”

The two men studied her for a long moment.  “You really want to get out of here?”

“Yes.  Just don’t…just please don’t hurt me,” she said quietly, her brown eyes wide with fear and tearing in the corners.

Just looking at her big, soulful eyes filled with fear made him feel like the biggest piece of shit in the world.

“We’re not in the habit of hurting women,” Zach said.

She didn’t look like she believed him.  Her small frame was just as tense as it’d been since they’d first woken her up.

“You can have anything you need.  There’s food.  Some of my dad’s clothes.  Oh, you’ve already gotten into those, I see.”

Her nervous babbling put his own nerves on edge.  It annoyed the shit out of him that they’d scared her so badly, but there was nothing he could do about it.

“If you’ll just drop me off somewhere, I’ll go on my merry way and we can forget this ever happened.”

Zach and Dante looked her over, maybe a bit too long.  “You’re crazy if you think we can drop you off anywhere looking like that.  I don’t want to make you nervous, but there’s a dozen men up there that ain’t seen a woman in months.  Not to mention one that looks like you.  Fuck….”

So much for honesty.  She looked torn between bursting into tears and fighting them all off of her.

She moved to stand.  Dante, reacting on a baser level, or maybe just primal instinct, grabbed her around the waist and hauled her to her feet.  Once he had her in his arms, he didn’t seem to want to let her go, as if touching her body had been his goal the whole time.

“Let her the fuck go, Dante.  That’s an order!”

Zach punched him in the arm, making him release her.  He peeled his fingers free of her warm honey skin with an effort.  Dante bared his teeth but quickly realized he’d been out of line and almost hit his commanding officer.  He backed away, flexing his black fists in an effort to control his tumultuous emotions … and the desire to fuck the pretty little yellabone until she was screaming in ecstasy and he’d drained his body of all its fluids.

“Get a hold of yourself, Dante,” Zach growled, pushing him back.

Slowly, Dante regained control, breathing slowly with an effort of will.  He wondered what was wrong with him and blamed it on the woman.  Something about her was wreaking havoc on his control.

The woman, Jasmine, looked at him like a frightened doe, making him swallow against a surge of disgust at himself.  She pulled away, going back to one of the guest cabins.

“Don’t go, baby girl,” he said, looking after her.

The click of a lock as she slammed the door was audible in the silence.

“You scared the shit out of her, Dante,” Zach said, looking at him angrily.  “What the hell is wrong with you?”

He ran a shaky hand over his face, scrubbing at the stubble along his jaw before returning a worried look to his superior.  “Fuck if I know.”

Zack frowned.  “Well I know.  Don’t pretend we’re the same as we used to be.”

“She’s beautiful.  I want to fuck her so bad I can practically taste it.”

Zack grunted.  “If you think it ain’t this virus, you’re badly mistaken.  I feel like a dog in heat.  You do too.  I can tell.  We might need to keep her down here.  I’m not so sure the others wouldn’t feel the same.”

“Sorry, Zach.  You think Lucas would feel this way too?”

“I’m not so sure she’s gonna give us the chance to find out.  I’m pretty sure she doesn’t fancy getting gang-raped by a bunch of prison escapees—whether she believes we’re military or not.  You didn’t help shit.”

“Do you…do you think it’s affecting us all the time now?  Even when it isn’t a full moon?”

Zach thought back to when the change had first come over them.  The unexpected rage and power that had coursed through him, the thirst for blood and battle.  “I think it’s been like this all along.  We just didn’t notice it because of the bloodlust and then imprisonment.”

“I think I’d rather be dead.”

“Better suck it up, soldier!  You’re gonna have to deal with it.  Like it or not.  We’re in this shit together and we’ve only got each other to rely on,” Zach growled.

Dante collapsed on the couch, looking haggard.  “You think we could infect her?  Those scientists seemed to think it was a virus.”

Zach sat on the opposite couch.  “I’m not so sure this wasn’t planned out from the beginning.  I never told y’all, but I spotted wolves on the island when we were collecting the drone.  They disappeared pretty quick, but it’s damn strange they were there, watching us, and then we got attacked.  They could’ve been the first batch of infected.”

“What do they want?” Dante said.

“I caught them saying something about Nemesis.  My feeling is they’re trying to make the perfect soldier.  I’d like to think I’m wrong, except for the sheer glee they had in collecting fluids and performing tests.”

“Yeah.  Makes sense.”

Both of them remembered the seminal fluid that had been stolen from their unwilling bodies.  That bitch, Freda Dallas, had taken delight in jacking them off into a cup, despite their fighting and resistance.  She’d gone so far as to beat them when they resisted her efforts.  He’d wanted to tear her fucking head off.  Sadistic, twisted bitch.  She more than anything else, had made their time there a living hell.

“Anyway, given the way they walked around in masks and gloves all the time, I’m not sure so it isn’t highly contagious.  Maybe it’s just spread through blood.  Maybe saliva.  Maybe through sex.  It could be like HIV or something a little tamer.  We have no way of knowing until it happens again.  If it happens again.”

“I hope it doesn’t.”  Dante snorted.  “Maybes.  Fuck maybes.”

“Yeah, well, I’d like to be fucking her, but she probably ain’t got any condoms on board and she didn’t look too keen on the possibility anyway.  I just hope we’re not a threat to everyone we come across.  Maybe we can keep this contained to just our squad.”

Shaking his head, he stood and moved to the door, knocking on it rapidly.  “You dressed yet?”

He heard a grunt from the other side.  “No!  Give me a minute!”

Feeling suspicious, he kicked the door in.  There was a small escape hatch in the middle of the floor that led down to a different part of engineering.  She’d just managed to drop halfway inside when he busted the door down.

He strode across the room and pulled her out of the hole  “There’s no way out through there.  You’d be pinched or crushed by machinery?  What were you thinking?”

She cursed and growled, sputtering like a wolver defending its home.

He caught her wrists and pinned her to the wall.  She immediately began kicking his shins and thighs, anywhere she could reach with her legs.

Her ferocity and strength surprised him.  He grunted, struggling to control her without causing her any injury.

He moved and dropped to the bunk to get a better hold of her.

He pinned her arms above her head on the bed, shackling her writhing hips by locking his legs around her.  Sitting over her, he looked down at her angrily.

“Just what the hell made you think you could find a way out through there?”

“I wasn’t thinking about it at all!  I thought if I went through there I could go out through the main engine room and get to the water without being seen by anyone.  I thought I could get a life raft and just abandon ship!”

“I can’t tell you how much it pisses me off that you’d try to run and risk your life out there in the open water.”  He took a deep breath, willing himself to calm down, to control the beast beneath the surface that he could feel clawing to get out.  “You don’t want to see me angry.”

It wasn’t his words or the rush of adrenaline that put a stop to her useless fighting.  The look on his face and the abrupt pushing of his cock against her scantily clad sex was like a dousing of water on her body—shockingly sobering.