Saved by Wolves (Shifters Meet Their Mate Book 1) (21 page)

She shoved Marcus’s restraining arm away and went to Jackson. “Let me see,” she said, trying to get a look at the wounds.

He shook his head and spoke through clenched teeth. “No time. We’ve got to go.”

“You can’t go like that! We need to clean them up before you lose too much blood or they get infected. Marcus, tell him.” She glanced at Marcus, but his grim expression told her she wouldn’t get the support she was looking for.

Jackson’s right hand slowly shifted into a clawed paw, and the bones in his face moved under his skin.

“Not yet,” Marcus said, crouching on the step above Kirra. “Let’s get these off first.” He ripped Jackson’s shirt from collar to hem, avoiding touching the area around the bullet wounds. “You’re lucky. The one in your arm went straight through.”

“What are you doing?” Kirra asked as Marcus reached for the waist of Jackson’s pants and Jackson forced himself to his feet to make it easier to strip them off.

“He needs to shift. It’ll help stop the bleeding, and we heal faster in our Wolf forms.”

“Why didn’t you say so?” Kirra took over for Marcus, tugging Jackson’s boots off, then easing the pants down his legs.

In agonizingly slow motion, Jackson’s body rippled and shifted. White stress lines creased his face, and Kirra felt the ache in her own bones as she watched him suffer. Quinn set Francesca down, moved the guards’ bodies out of the way, then picked her up again, impatience radiating from him.

As soon as Jackson was fully in Wolf form, he got his paws under him and began moving down the stairs. Blood matted the fur of his right front leg, but it looked as if the shift had stemmed the blood loss. The serious wound—the one on his side—was out of sight. Kirra lightly rested her hand on his back, needing to touch him, reassure herself he was going to be okay. 

The alarm abruptly cut off, leaving them in blessed but slightly disorienting silence as they went down the final stairs to the main floor. The outer door was wide open, and the sounds of fighting came from the grounds outside. Kirra hoped those they’d freed were doing the smart thing and heading for the nearest exit, not sticking around to try to exact revenge or getting mowed down by angry, panicked guards.

“Wait. We can’t go,” Francesca said. “There are others.”

Marcus shook his head. “Kirra fried the security system. That’s the best we can do—people will have to get out on their own.”

“No, that’s not what I mean,” Francesca protested, pointing deeper into the building. “We need to go there. Stop moving or let me down,” she said, thumping Quinn’s shoulder.

“Francesca, calm down. What are you talking about?” Kirra asked.

“I told Lokston I’d watch this place burn to the ground someday, and he just laughed. Said in a few months, he’d help me do it. They’ve been planning to close this facility for a while because they’ve moved to bigger, better ones.” She paused and took a deep breath, as if having to brace herself before saying the next words. “There are other labs, Kirra. At least two, maybe more. Lokston and the head researcher have their offices on this floor. There must be something in their files that says where the other ones are.”

All Kirra wanted to do was run out the door with her sister and her friends and never look back. They’d already sacrificed enough, and were barely getting out themselves—and that wasn’t even a done deal yet. It was useless to argue with Francesca when she’d made up her mind, though, especially when she had morality in her corner. Besides, Kirra had no desire to have guilty “what if” nightmares for years to come.

She turned down the hall and threw open the first door she came across. A janitor’s closet.

Marcus took the next one, holding out his arm to keep her back as he jerked it open and stood to the side of the doorframe. That was probably a good move. Considering Jackson had just been shot, she’d forgotten about the risk of armed guards pretty quickly.

The room was empty save for a large oak table and six chairs. Some type of conference room.

The third one turned out to be an office with a desk, a computer, and a wall of file cabinets. When she went in, Kirra flicked the light switch out of habit. The room stayed dark save for the small emergency light above the doorframe.

“Uh, I think we forgot something,” she said. “No power, remember? No power, no computer.” She crossed to the desk and picked up the nameplate set prominently in the center, holding it up to the light to read the name. “It’s Lokston’s office.”

“We’ll have to take the hard drive with us,” Francesca said.

Marcus took in the bulky tower of the computer with a raised brow. “Quinn’s carrying you, and Jackson and Kelvin are shifted. I don’t think I should have my hands full. We might need to fight our way out of here. Plus, I’m not sure it’ll survive being thrown over the fence.”

“Thrown over—never mind,” Francesca said, waving his objections aside. “Just unhook it. I’ll do the rest.”

Marcus unhooked everything while Kirra pulled files out of the drawers at random, squinting to read the contents. Names, dates, detailed observations of experiments, all sorted by the number issued to each “Subject.” Heart in her throat, she found the files for subjects nineteen, thirty, and thirty-seven and pulled them out. The first, her mom’s, only contained a few sheets, but hers and Francesca’s were over an inch thick. Just touching them made her stomach lurch and her fingers go numb. “They have backups of everything,” she said. “On everyone. Even if we take the computer, they’ll still have these, and they probably backed up everything on the internet, too.”

“We just want the info,” Francesca said. “Although... they might not have everything computerized. I get the feeling Blackstone’s been experimenting for a long time—since before computers were common. If we destroy everything here, it might make a difference.”

“Anyone have a match?” Kirra asked, glancing at the open file drawer beside her.

“Think bigger,” Francesca said. “Remember when you were nine and they wouldn’t let us see Mom for a whole week?”

Of course she remembered. She’d cooperated with everything they’d wanted her to do and it still wasn’t enough. Finally, she’d snapped and sent a surge of energy into an electrical grid while on a job, and instead of just shutting down the power, she’d started a fire. An out-of-control fire that had blown the job. It had also earned her a week in solitary. Over the years, she’d fine-tuned her control over her power so she wouldn’t accidentally set her own apartment on fire.

Kirra closed her eyes and reached out with her senses. Although the main power was off, electricity still flowed from the backup system and from another source—maybe a phone line? Whatever, it would be enough to do the job.

She ran out of the room, Marcus on her heels, and went to the janitor’s closet. “Take these,” she said, handing him two large jugs of industrial-strength drain cleaner. She searched through the shelves for anything else that was flammable and came up with rubbing alcohol and a container of bathroom cleaner with a big skull and crossbones warning label. Perfect.

“Splash a trail along the walls in the offices, especially on and around phone jacks,” she ordered. Marcus nodded and took off for the end of the hall. Quinn and Francesca entered the hall, the computer hovering in the air above her sister’s shoulder. Quinn set Francesca down next to the tiger, who had his attention trained on the exit, but kept one ear cocked their way. He disappeared into the closet and returned with his own cleaning supplies. Quinn dealt with the hallway while Kirra dealt with the offices at their end of the hall, taking special care to thoroughly douse the files.

Once the jugs were empty, they gathered near the exit. “Everyone should get out,” Kirra warned. “I’m not sure how quickly the fire will spread.”

With the exception of Marcus, the others filed a few steps outside, where they waited. “No way I’m leaving,” Marcus said. “Not after what happened last time.”

“This shouldn’t be as bad,” Kirra said, but he wasn’t going to budge, and she gave up trying to convince him to. Instead, she closed her eyes and narrowed her focus until she could trace the power in every phone line in the building. Overloading the circuits was child’s play.

She opened her eyes, expecting to see fire racing out of the rooms, but the hallway was clear. Maybe it hadn’t worked. Maybe she should have worked with the generator instead—

As if choreographed, flames leaped around the edges of four of the doorframes, two on either side of the hall. A wave of heat blasted her face, and then fire raced along the walls, heading straight for them.

It was a beautiful sight.

L
ess than twenty feet from the building, Kirra stumbled over something. No, not something—somebody. A body face down in the dirt. Even in the dim light, she could see jagged tears across the back of the yellow-and-green uniform of a guard. An animal had taken him out. No one was around, but there must have been at least one other shifter being experimented on besides the tigers, maybe a lot more.

“This way,” Marcus said, grabbing her hand and tugging her away from the body. As they crossed the open space between buildings, heading for the fence, she half cringed at every sound, expecting bullets to come flying their way any second. Rounding the corner of the last building between them and freedom, she caught movement on the other side of the fence.

“Watch out,” a familiar voice called. Daisy was waving her arms, trying to catch their attention. “Behind you.”

Kirra whirled around, but didn’t see anyone. Then a figure, backlit by flames, jumped off the roof of the nearest building, landing in a crouch directly in front of her. She staggered back a step, and felt something poke her in the back. The gun. She’d forgotten all about it.

Jackson growled, long and deep, and Marcus stepped forward, placing himself in front of Kirra. “Give it up, Lash. Can’t you see it’s over? You’ve lost.”

“Nothing’s over. You’re going against the council,” Lash countered. He gazed at the group, assessing, and halted as if he ran into a brick wall when he saw Quinn. His eyes narrowed. “Quinn? Is that you? What are you doing here? I thought you were in Europe.”

“Europe?” Quinn gave a harsh laugh, setting Francesca on her feet and facing Lash squarely. “Who told you that fairy tale? Your father?”

Ignoring the question, Lash switched his attention to the prowling Cat in front of him. “So that’s—”

“Kelvin. Yeah. We’re both still here. Dad didn’t make it past the first year, though.”

“What are you talking about?” Lash’s stance was still aggressive, but confusion and a touch of uncertainty tinged his voice. Kirra withdrew the gun, keeping it down by her side, ready. He’d pay if he tried to lay a hand on her, or anyone else, for that matter.

“As if you don’t know. I’m talking about how your father felt threatened by my father because he was going to challenge him to become alpha. To get him out of the way, he sent us to patrol the far borders. When we got there, twenty humans ambushed us.” Quinn’s lips twisted. “We didn’t go down easy, but this is where we ended up.” He made a broad, sweeping gesture with one arm. “Home sweet home for the last four years.”

“That’s not true,” Lash said. “He’s faced challengers before. He wasn’t afraid of your father. And he would never sell out to humans, not even—”

“Open your eyes, man. He sold out long ago. You think we were the only ones here? Think again. You must have noticed people disappearing. Harlon? Jessel? The Franklin boys?”

Recognition dawned on Lash’s face with each name listed, but he still shook his head. “They went to Europe... to find mates...”

“Again, who fed you that lie? The alpha. He got rid of competition, and from what I hear, made some pretty nice deals for the mineral rights in the western mountains—one of the head researchers liked to describe how our own people betrayed us, in detail, while he took our blood and flesh and treated us like livestock.”

“I don’t know about Vincent,” Daisy called from the other side of the fence, “but there were definitely shifters here. Ash is with some of them, leading them away. I saw a Bear and three Raptors. At least one was injured. Badly.”

“The alpha is a hard man,” Lash said, voice grim, “but I have a hard time believing him capable of this.” He held up a hand when Quinn began to protest. “I will look into it, though, and if what you say is true, I will deal with it. For now, we should go. Vehicles approach.”

Kirra strained, but couldn’t hear anything over the pounding of her heart and the crackling and snapping of the spreading fire. Nevertheless, she felt the others’ urgency as she followed them to the fence, tucking the gun back in her waistband to free her hands. Jackson was favoring his right front leg. Kirra winced in sympathy. Her wound still twinged whenever she moved too quickly or bent over, and hers was only a flesh wound. Jackson had to be in agony, especially with the wound in his stomach.

“Is he going to be able to make it over?” she asked Marcus in a whisper, tilting her head at Jackson.

He gave a short nod. “He’ll make it. Even if I have to throw him over myself.”

At the fence, Quinn and Marcus looked at each other, then at Lash, and Kirra could almost see their thoughts churning. Neither one wanted to go over the fence first, leaving those they cared about in the other’s care, but they equally didn’t want to have Lash go over first.

“Go,” she said, shoving Marcus forward. “I’ll be fine. Just don’t drop me when I come flying.”

He gave a grim nod, drew her in for a quick, firm kiss, backed up about ten steps, and took a running leap. He landed beside Daisy and turned with his arms already outstretched.

“Francesca first,” Kirra said to Quinn. “And be careful of her leg,” she called over to Marcus. Vehicles rumbled somewhere behind them—likely reinforcements called in by security—and in the distance, she heard the wail of a fire truck.

“Don’t worry about me,” Francesca said. “Just give me a sec first—I don’t want to drop the computer.” She sent it sailing over the fence, and both Lash and Daisy started as if they’d been goosed. As soon as it settled on the grass beside Daisy, she nodded at Quinn. “Okay, go for it.” She closed her eyes, and he tossed her up. Kirra held her breath until Francesca landed safely in Marcus’s arms. Daisy helped her hop out of the way, and Quinn turned to Kirra. “You’re next.”