Titus: Luna Lodge #2 (9 page)

“Titus,” she said softly and turned to look at him. “Can you see me?”

He sighed and turned toward her.

“Yes.”

She smiled at him. “What about outside?” she whispered. “How far can you see outside?”

The room was quiet for a moment, and she wondered if her question had made him angry.

“It isn’t really like that,” he said. “I can see well up close, but the further away things are, the less clear they become.”

She propped herself up on her elbow and strained to see him in the dark.

“That doesn’t seem very helpful,” she said bluntly.

He chuckled, and she couldn’t help but smile. “It’s not by itself. I would be able to see if someone was in the woods but might not be able to tell if they are a friend or not. That’s where my sense of smell comes in.”

She perked up at the mention of smell. It seemed like such a large part of who the hybrids were.

“How far can you smell?” she asked excitedly.

“About two miles,” he said. She could hear the smile in his voice.

“What is it like?” She scooted a little closer and gasped when his arm came out to pull her to his bare chest.

“It’s…overwhelming.”

“What do you smell right now?” she asked.

Her head rested warmly against his shoulder. She sighed as his hand rubbed absently at the underside of her arm.

He breathed in deep, and she smiled.

“I smell soap, the wood from the house, lingering coffee, the honeysuckle from outside, the earth and grass.”

She smiled and sat up a little. Her hand rested on his chest as she turned toward his face.

“I love the honeysuckle,” she said.

He shifted, and his face was closer than she expected.

“It’s why I wanted my house out here,” he said.

“That and you’re more the solitary sort of guy,” she said quietly.

The room fell silent as they thought about that.

“Titus,” she said quietly.

He sighed and placed a hand on her head. It was comforting to have him slip his fingers through her hair.

“What do I smell like?” she asked.

His hand stilled on her face.

“Kate,” he growled.

“If I’m a Vestal, shouldn’t I get to know what I smell like?” She stared where his face should be. “Wouldn’t you want to know if you smelled like a cheese burger or something?”

She smiled at his laugh.

“Definitely not a cheese burger,” he said.

“Titus,” she whispered. “What do I smell like?”

He groaned and didn’t talk for a moment. She started to wonder if he was just going to ignore her.

“Sex,” he said. “You smell like sex.”

She blinked at him a few times.

“You wanted to know,” he said defensively.

“Does it smell good?” Her pulse hammered in her throat.

His chest rumbled under her fingers. “It’s perfect,” he groaned. “It’s like flowers and sex all rolled into one.”

She felt him suck in a big breath.

“Do I smell like that to all the hybrids?”

His arms tightened around her. “No,” he said harshly. She listened to him steady his breathing before he spoke again. “Well, mostly not. No one else seems to have this strong of a reaction to you.”

Kate swirled her finger on his chest as she thought about what he had said.

“What’s in the woods, Titus?” She knew it had to be more than he was letting on.

He shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know. I hope a bird or rodent.”

She shuddered as she remembered those eyes. “And if not?”

“If not then we have big problem,” he said quietly. “The kind my nightmares are made of.”

“You’re not going to tell me are you?” she asked.

She felt him shake his head. “Not if I don’t have to,” he said quietly. “Now go to sleep, Kate.”

Kate placed her cheek against his chest. “Goodnight, Titus.”

* * *

Titus groaned when his phone rang in the quiet room. He glanced at the time. Four hours. Better than he normally got.

“Yeah,” he said, trying to keep his voice down.

Kate was draped halfway over his body, and if she moved her leg any further over, it would have been a very different sort of wakeup.

“We’ve got the go ahead,” Carter said over the phone. “Can you be ready in thirty?”

Titus looked down at Kate.

“Send one of the men over to get me in twenty,” he said quietly.

“Roger,” Carter said. The line went dead.

“Who was that?” Kate asked.

“Major Carter,” he said. “They found another installation where hybrids were being kept.”

Kate sat up with alarm.

“Is anyone still there? Have they caught the men at the top? When are they going to go public with this?”

Titus put his hand on her thigh, and she quieted.

“We don’t know much of anything,” he said and stretched. “We’re leaving here in thirty to check it out.”

“You’re going with them?” She twisted her hands in her lap.

He slipped his hand into hers and pulled her to him.

“I need to,” he said. “If there is anyone there, they are going to need someone to lead them.”

“And you’re that guy,” she said softly.

“It’s in my blood,” he said and tilted her head so she looked him in the eye.

“Maybe a day or two,” he said.

She nodded.

“You’ll be fine,” he said. “The men reported last night that there wasn’t a trace of anything in the woods, so it was likely just some animal.”

The worry at her brow stayed creased. He was surprised when she threw her arms around him.

“Be careful,” she whispered.

She gripped his shirt and pressed her lips hard to his. No gentle pecks, this was brutal and burned him to his very core. She slipped her tongue into his mouth for just a moment and then pulled away.

They stared at each other for a moment before she spoke.

“Something to remember me by,” she said.

It seemed like it was supposed to come out as a cute joke but instead seemed far more important.

“I’ve got to pack,” he said and gathered his clothes off the floor. When he was dressed and standing at the door, he looked back to her. She seemed so delicate and fragile sitting there.

“I’ll find you when I get back,” he said softly and walked out of the room.

Chapter Ten

For the last hour, they had been holding the same spot, watching to see if anyone came in or out of the installation. Titus was tired of waiting but held his position regardless.

“How long are we going to wait here?” Apollo buzzed in his ear from the other side of the complex.

“Until Carter gives us the go ahead, we don’t fucking move,” he growled to the younger man.

Apollo was the best damn tracker they had, but his recklessness was going to get one of them seriously hurt one day if he didn’t learn some discipline. Titus cringed. The thought struck a little too close to what he had experienced.

“Let’s move,” Carter said in his ear.

The plan was that he and Lucius were to come in the main entrance. If there were guards, they would be the first to know and could better disable them. Then half of Carter’s team would enter the back with Apollo. They would meet in the middle and go from there.

Titus and Lucius raced down the side of hill until they came to the side of the building. They had debated if they should go at night, but after the recent sightings of the Pale Man, it just seemed less of a risk to go during the day.

They slowly walked to the front door. Titus spied the cameras and pointed them out to Lucius.

“Operational?” he asked.

Titus stared at them. The light didn’t seem to be on, but maybe that was just to reduce their visibility at night.

“Hard to tell,” he said quietly. “Keep an eye out.” He raised his weapon.

Titus twisted the handle and was surprised to find it opened without resistance. He was fairly certain they were going to have to break down the door.

Lights flipped on automatically as they stepped into the silent building.

“Is it all automated?” Lucius asked as he stepped in a little further.

Silent white hallways greeted them, along with a mixture of a few glass-doored offices and large, empty rooms with blacktop counter spaces arranged in large islands covered with shelves filled with bottles and boxes, undoubtedly laboratory spaces.

Titus nodded to Lucius. It was much nicer than the place they had been kept. That meant it was a newer facility, maybe with better hybrids. As much as he hated it, the idea chilled him. If the Horatius Group was able to make more like the Pale Man, there would be no help for them. Any of them.

“We’re clear,” he said into his headset. “Doesn’t look like anyone has been here for a bit.”

“Damn,” Carter replied. “We were afraid that was the case.”

They pushed in further as the men came down the hill.

“Looks like housing,” Lucius said to him as they walked down the hall. There were dozens of rooms with two sets of bunk beds in each room.

“This could house a lot of men,” Lucius mumbled.

Titus stared at the rows of doors, wondering where they had all gone.

“You guys are going to want to see this,” Apollo said over the radio.

“Location?” Titus said.

“Far north corner,” he replied.

Titus checked his watch. “We’re on our way.”

They continued along the hall until it opened up into a larger room. Mats lined the walls, and some seemed to have been ripped up a bit.

“This is a sparing room, but we never had these sorts of issues,” Titus said. “What sort of hybrids have they made now?”

Carter’s men filtered in the room with their commander close behind.

“Have you ever seen a place like this?” Carter asked.

The hybrids shook their heads. “This is nothing like the place we were in,” Titus said. “Apollo has something. Maybe it will shed light onto things.”

Titus led them to the other side of the room and through another long hall.

“These are more offices,” Carter said to his men. “I want these rooms stripped of any and all paperwork. If there are computers, we’re taking them. I don’t want one sticky note being left.”

Several of the men nodded, and they split off to start loading things.

Titus could hear Apollo just down the hall. He was surprised when they reached the end. It looked to be some sort of command center with a viewing window into a large holding room.

When they walked up to where Apollo and a few men were standing, he noticed the screen.

“You men help the others load up,” Carter said to the solders standing around.

“What is this?” Titus asked. The screen was playing an old feed from the room they were in front of now.

“It’s dated a month ago,” Apollo said, his face void of emotion.

They watched on the screen as a normal man was strapped onto the table in the room. Several people in coats stood around the man drawing blood and measuring other vitals. Another man came onto the screen. When the others finished, he pulled out a syringe and stabbed the man in the heart, injecting some sort of vile liquid.

“What the fuck?” Apollo said.

Not even bothering to pull the needle out, the man ran for cover on the other side of the window.

Carter and the hybrids watched, just as the scientists must have, as the man began to change before them.

His muscles grew so rapidly they almost seemed to inflate. The skin split in areas, and blood dripped around him. They watched him silently scream as he transformed into something else.

“Good lord,” Carter said. “Fast forward, I don’t need to see this.”

Apollo hit a button, and they watched as the transformation completed. The man ripped the shackles that had held him down and tore the needle from his heart. With a snarl, he snatched a nearby scientist and smashed his head several times against the table.

The feed cut out and seemed to skip a few days.

“His arms are healed,” Lucius said. “Look at the deep grooves in the skin though.”

They watched as the scientist brought in cattle prods, trying to make the man comply. His eyes darted about, his expression bestial.

“Fast forward,” Titus said.

They flipped forward through the days. Much of it was the same for weeks until the last week before the current raid.

“A woman,” Carter said.

A knot grew in his stomach as Apollo hit play. Titus watched as the scientist pushed the poor woman into the room and locked the door.

“Bona Dea,” Lucius whispered and started to shake.

“Turn it off,” Titus said. “We can guess how this ends.”

Apollo turned off the screen and pulled out a stack of notebooks tucked under the command center.

“I don’t think we have to guess,” Apollo said.

Titus took the first book from the top of the file and skimmed to the date. He read the writing to the other.

“Vestal was not a viable match. The infused hybrid rejected the match much like the others. Vestal was lost in the process.” He looked up at the group in horror. Things were far worse than he could have ever guessed.

“I want this faxed to Doctor Miller and Doctor Fisher immediately,” Titus said, holding the books. “These hold they keys to their whole project.”

“Good,” Carter said. “Maybe we’ll be able to find those bastards and shut this down.”

“Maybe,” Titus said. “But why leave all this to be found?”

The men looked to one another and shrugged.

“This was more than just a mistake.” Titus looked at the books. “But who wanted to make sure we got these?”

* * *

Titus flipped through the documentation on the plane and dialed up the doctors at the lodge.

“This is amazing,” Rachel answered, jumping right in. “I don’t know who you had to kill to get this, but it is so worth it.”

He sighed and leaned his head back.

“Doctor Miller, I didn’t have to kill anyone.”

“Whatever,” she went on. “These reports are so detailed,” she said excitedly. “There’s just so much to look at.”

“You do realize that actual people died for us to have this data.”

Silence followed on the other end. “You’re right,” she said quietly. “It’s so easy to read this on paper and forget that these aren’t just numbers.”