Blood Mate: The Project Rebellion, Book 2 (17 page)

If they survived the present.

In the ring, the two circled each other, facing off like a couple of rabid dogs. Snaps and snarls rose from the combatants, the audience holding its collective breath in tension and anticipation.

She couldn’t help wriggling forward for a better view. Steele hadn’t been infected despite what they did to him and then he’d been killed in a group suppressing a Lycan fight in one of the pens. Or so they’d been told. Because the guy she was looking at was certainly not dead. Had the Lycan infection taken when the Blood hadn’t? Was it possible that some people could only be turned one way or the other?

It wasn’t until she was over them that the scents rising from the ring hit her. The deep, earth scent redolent of the forest and the outdoors that was Darce, and another equally wild scent. But where Darce smelled of life and vitality, the other scent was different. Still deep and feral, but the scent of the woods in the winter, when almost everything was dead or sleeping, with a thread of something else. Something more familiar. Something she smelled everyday…

Darce attacked low and fast, claws flashing out to rake over Steele’s side. The bigger man howled, throwing his head back as his hands sprouted claws faster than should be possible. Shock slammed into her, stealing her breath when she saw his open mouth. At the heavy fangs top and bottom. Longer than any Lycan ever had.

Shit, he wasn’t
just
a Lycan, he was Blood too.

A full-on Hybrid.

Fuck. The stories had been true. All those months the rumors of a Hybrid on base had been correct. Had he been down here all that time? Forced to do this? Shit. She’d be surprised if he was even sane anymore.

The roar became one of rage and Steele attacked. Panic wrapped its claws around her as she watched the smaller man dodge and block like a maniac while Steele chipped away at him. Her near-dead heart clenched, her chest, back and neck aching with the need to drop from the rafters and slice her way into the cage to help Darce. She fought the feeling, forcing herself to remain where she was. Blood filled her mouth, her gums lacerated by the fangs that burst free in response to the danger to the man she lo—

She clamped down on the thought before it formed. She didn’t…wasn’t going to use the
L
-word. A couple of kisses and a fuck-load of danger didn’t amount to that. Besides, even though Darce was a ferocious fighter, he was no match for Steele. Hell, even against her he’d be pushing it, but Steele was something else. She’d seen him fight when he was human, and with both viruses running through his veins…he was lethal.

He’d kill Darce, no question about it.

And she had to stop him.

Chapter Twelve

Fuckfuckfuckfuck.

The words ran an endless litany in Toni’s head as she clambered and slid down from her perch high above the ring with far less grace and finesse than when she’d climbed up there. It didn’t matter. No amount of noise she made would matter. The audience below was too fixated on the action in the ring, their hoots and hollers loud enough to cover her slipping and sliding down between the metal rafters.

The recording equipment set up around the ring amplified the sound of fists hitting flesh and grunts of pain, sounds punctuated by the scent of fresh blood on the air. Darce’s blood. Anger ripped through her, the urge to drop into the crowd and carve a swathe of carnage and destruction almost overwhelming.

She gritted her teeth around the snarl trying to escape her throat and dropped the last ten feet to the floor. The guards that were supposed to be on the doors were in with the crowd, sick excitement on their faces while they watched the men in the ring try and beat each other to death.

No. Watched Steele beat Darce to death.

The thought spurred her on and she headed for the holding area. Her mind relayed all the options while she ran. She had to stop this, needed help, and she needed it fast. No time to get topside…and who would she get to help her there? McCoy and his goons would throw her in the ring themselves and with Garry dead, the only other option was Wilson. Yeah, right. He was human. She might as well throw a kitten in with a pack of dogs.

She hit the doors running, bursting through them and into the space beyond like a whirlwind. The room was still packed with cages, the ones who had already been cycled through the ring obvious by the bloodstains. But half—new since she’d crept through here before—hadn’t.

She paused in the middle of the walkway and caught the eye of a Lycan in one of the nearest cages. He put his finger to his lips in warning, but she’d already heard the sound of a cage door locking closed and the stench of human sweat.

“Where?”
she mouthed.

The Lycan pointed to the left, then curled his fingers in. Okay, left, and a right.

“How many?”

He held up two fingers, and then lifted his hand, holding it at two levels one after the other. Approximate heights. She nodded, giving him a thumbs up in thanks and padded along the row of cages. Another roar erupted from next door. She closed her eyes and fought back the bile. She had to help Darce. Before there was nothing left to help.

“Fucking things!” A voice burst out, and another metallic screech echoed through the room. “I swear they’ve all got wonky wheels or something.”

Toni flattened herself against the side of a cage. The occupant, another Blood, watched her from the back. She put her finger up to her lips, warning him to be silent. She’d get them out of there. Get them
all
out of there.

Another squeal of tortured wheels signaled the human’s ongoing struggle with the trolley. Toni took a chance and leaned out to snatch a glance around the corner, before ducking back. Two men offloaded the unconscious occupant of a trolley into another cage. No blood, so a newbie for the ring.

The other guard emerged from the cage. “Oh, for heaven’s sake, John. You always ram them in. You gotta
ease
them in, persuade them to go the way you want…gentle. Like you’re persuading your missus to let you see a bit of pussy action.”

“I ain’t seen no pussy for months,” John griped.

His partner grinned and took control of the trolley. “You see, exactly my poin—hey!”

His head snapped up and around when Toni stepped out from cover, pretending to study the identification numbers on the cages so they couldn’t see her eyes. Black on black, there was no way she could pass for human.

“Who are you? You can’t be down here.”

“I’m looking for subject number three-five-seven-zero-alpha. You got him down here?”

The first guard frowned and reached for a clipboard.

“No, we haven’t had any of the alp—”

He started but the other guard was looking too closely at Toni. His breath caught. “Fuck, she’s a Blood!”

She launched herself toward the two guards and the cages around her erupted with snarls and roars. The first guard was as inept in hand-to-hand combat as he was with a trolley. He stumbled backward, fear rolling off him in waves and tried to use his clipboard like a shield. Snarling in rage and blood lust, she grabbed him by the front of his shirt and threw him against the cages behind her.

The occupants were ready. The moment he hit, his fleshy body slamming into the reinforced bars, arms snaked between them. Wrapping him up. Holding him in place. He stiffened, his back arching and eyes rolling back. A muffled scream escaped from under the paw-like hand clamped over his mouth. Thick, fat droplets of blood hit the floor below him as the white tips of someone’s claws erupted from his chest.

One down. One to go.

She whipped her head around, dark hair dancing on her shoulders, to zero in on the other guard. He backed up, fumbling for the pistol in his belt. Toni stalked toward him, shoving the trolley out of the way with a violent push.

The cages around them erupted, all the occupants—Blood and Lycan alike— united in their support as they urged Toni on. A sense of kinship filled her and she prowled forward toward the guard. Then he had the weapon in his hand, finger around the trigger.

She was quicker, crossing the space between them in a heartbeat to close her hand over his on the gun.

“Not happening.” Her voice was soft, but the crack of bones breaking as she tore the pistol from his grasp loud. “
So
not happening.”

He screamed when she twisted the broken wrist and dug her fingers in to grind the edges of the bones together.

“Key code for the cages.”

Her demand was little less than a growl and she started to haul him toward the central control panel for the cage locking system beside a door up ahead. It wasn’t the one she’d come through on the way down, nor the one to the cage room. Fuck knew what was through it, and she didn’t have time to go see.

Pausing with her struggling armful, she kicked the pistol on the floor toward a cage with a Blood in it. He held a hand to his side, blood seeping over his fingers, but his eyes were bright, unclouded by either pain or oncoming death.

“Cover the door,” she ordered. “If it’s human”—
Not one of us
—
“
kill it.”

The Blood picked up the weapon and nodded, setting himself against the bars of the cage and covering the door with a grim gaze.

“Please, don’t hurt me…oh, God, don’t hurt me.”

The guard yammered and whimpered while Toni dragged him along. His booted feet kicked and scrabbled at the floor as he tried to get purchase but, even taller than her, he was human, and no match for her strength.

They reached the control station and she threw him across it. He bounced, pathetic cries transformed into a bellow of rage, and came at her, slamming a hard kick into her thigh. Pain flared along her leg, but didn’t hamper her reactions. Her hand was a blur of speed, she punched him across the face, the blow spinning him around to fall across the small desk again.

On him in a second, she flipped him over and pinned him to the desk. One hand curled around his throat, she shoved a hard knee between his thighs and into his groin. He gasped, eyes bugging out when she pressed against his balls. Just enough to cause pain but not enough to incapacitate him.

“Control code. Now.”

She lifted her free hand and stroked her index finger over the soft flesh under his eye. Her skin parted with a fleshy snick as she extended a single claw. It wasn’t a fingernail, not really, it was more a bony talon hidden beneath the nail. Extensible and retractable, the three inch length shouldn’t by rights have fit in the space between the end of her finger and the first knuckle but it did, and she’d long ago stopped questioning the specifics of her change.

He stilled at the sight of the claw. Throughout their fight she hadn’t flashed them or her fangs for one simple reason: one scratch and the shit the guards pumped into their veins to stop them getting infected would kill him faster than she could. Didn’t mean she couldn’t threaten him with it. She’d heard it was a horrible way to die.

“P-please…you don’t have…”

“
Code.”

Her talon stroked along his eyelashes and he whimpered in fear, babbling something. Toni leaned in. “What? Louder, man.”

“Five-eight-six-five-one-five-Charlie,” he reeled off and yanked his head to the side the instant she lifted her talon. At least he hadn’t pissed himself, which she’d been expecting. On reflection, perhaps it hadn’t been such a good idea to shove her knee into his balls. She reached over to punch the combination into the keypad, hearing the dull tone and then a click when the cages opened.

“Good boy.” Her voice held a faint note of praise as she moved and let him slump to the floor. “If you want to live. Run.”

He whimpered and scuttled off. She didn't bother to see which way, it was no longer relevant.

It was show time.

So why was nothing happening?

The cage doors remained where they were, open half an inch. There was no mad rush for freedom, as though the occupants didn’t trust the evidence of their own eyes. Didn’t trust that she wasn’t some agent of the Project here to torture them with the promise of freedom only to snatch it away again.

Another roar from the next room had Toni’s head whipping around. Darce was taking a beating out there and these pussies were scared of their own damn shadows.

“Out!” she yelled, running along the first row of cages and flinging the doors wide. “You’re free. Get out…”

Another roar from the crowd and she saw red.

“There’s a man in there being beaten to death. Like this one—”

She slammed a cage door shut, the Lycan within deader than a dodo, the scent of death clear from across the room. She spun around and spotted a dead Blood in another cage. Her hands caught the edge of the metal and with a vicious twist of her trunk, she slammed that door too.

“And this one. And that one, and him over there. They’re
killing
us and they’re fucking laughing about it. Now
move you fucking assholes.
Without bars holding us in, what are they?”

The door nearest her edged open, the Lycan within pausing a second before he pushed it farther and ducked down to step out. He straightened up and turned to fix her with a solid amber gaze. He still wore the remains of a pair of combats, but the rest of his uniform and his boots were long gone. Vicious claw marks racked across his stomach, the pink lines almost healed now, and other cuts and bruises scattered over his heavily-muscled body said that he’d survived a couple of turns in the ring.