Bound (11 page)

“Burns!” I screamed. He didn’t answer with his voice but with his gun. The Nevermores nearest me dropped as he emptied his clip. There was still nowhere for me to run. The pack pushed me up against the tall fence, and Donavan and his men were on the other side, guns in hand, waiting for me to be eaten. Burns scrambled to his feet and ran in the opposite direction, back towards the cliff, his gait unsteady but keeping him upright.

I pressed my back into the hard wire, my heart galloping as gun fire went off in the distance. I hoped that Marks made it in to the compound, but even if he did there was no way he would make it to me in time.

The pack circled around, leaping in to push, poke and pinch me. I didn’t understand at first why they weren’t attacking me. I was on the ground now, my legs tucked under me as the pack continued to close ranks on me.

One young female came close enough that I was able to land a solid punch, catching her jaw and knocking her backwards. The pack stilled and removed their hands from me.

“What are you doing, eh? Or more importantly, what are you?”

I didn’t answer Donavan, didn’t have time to think about much of anything, when what I had to assume was the Alpha of this pack pushed his way through to me. He was at least as big as Sebastian, maybe even a bit taller, and easily as well muscled. With a single swift move he hauled me to my feet and stuck his nose against my neck, breathing deeply. I tried to think back to the last time I’d showered and knew it had been since before Seraphima came into the world, however brief her stay might have been.

I held perfectly still, but as the Alpha got more aggressive with his sniffing, and that turned into licking, I struck out, hitting him the chest. “No!” I snapped at him. He dropped me with a startled look.

Gunfire suddenly roared around us and two Jeeps came flying into view with men I didn’t recognize in them. My heart sunk; Marks hadn’t breached the compound and his Jeeps had been hijacked—that was the only answer to what I was seeing.

The Nevermores began to fall as Donavan’s men shot them; I hit the ground, covering my head, a large body landing on top of me.

Soft, warm breath tickled on the back of my neck and my knees trembled. A large, very familiar pair of hands wrapped themselves around me and circled my belly, pulling me tight against a hard body I was intimately familiar with.

“Sebastian,” I breathed.

“Love too,” he rumbled at me, holding me close. I have no idea where he’d come from, or why he’d stayed away so long—and at that moment I didn’t care. The Jeeps went roaring by and shot through an opening in the gate that was quickly closed by the men standing guard.

Sebastian jumped up and pulled me to my feet. He wasn’t fast enough. The Alpha male roared a challenge that Bastian couldn’t deny and he spun, placing me behind him, as they launched at one another.

Hands grabbed me and I spun to see Buck pulling at me. I followed him, dodging the bodies and using the smoke for cover as the sound of gunfire reached my ears. A bullet whizzed by, and then a few more for good measure.

Buck dragged me along until something bit into me and I stumbled, my left leg suddenly numb, followed by a brilliant haze of pain that forced me to my knees.

I buckled when my left leg touched the ground, the world around me fuzzing over, the noises dimming, and the lights flashing, but I felt nothing but the agony of fire in my leg.

I didn’t realize I was screaming until hands slapped over my mouth and a pinch in my arm competed for my attention.

“Well, well, well. Beauty loves her Beast, but will the Beast follow her into the depths of hell?” Donavan leaned over me, his grin securely back in place.

It was at that point I knew I was caught and the world around me went black, silent, as I slid into unconsciousness.

17

I floated in a strange fog between wake and sleep for some time, trying to figure out where I was and why I was here. My eyelids flickered open and I found myself staring up at a chandelier that was swaying ever so slightly.

“I’m telling you she’s infected and we should keep her with the rest of the animals downstairs. It’s only a matter of time before she changes, you know that.” I didn’t recognize the voice.

“You don’t understand Clint, the pack was trying to protect her, like she’s one of them but she’s obviously human. This could be the breakthrough in our research if she’s taken the drug and her system has overcome it. This is what could save Juliana,” Donavan said.

A shuffle of feet. “I still don’t think it’s a good idea. Either one of those big bastards might break in to get to her.”

That made me groan and, though I didn’t feel strong enough to sit up, I croaked out, “Sebastian, is he okay?”

A face came into view—Donavan’s—and I got an up close look at his bright blue eyes. He smiled down at me, but the smile didn’t reach anything but the edge of his lips. Marks had said Donavan was crazy and, staring into his face, I believed it. Donavan’s eyelids twitched as he looked down on me; his eyes flicking first one way and then the other, seemingly unable to be still.

“I don’t know a Sebastian. I’m glad to see you’re awake. Do you have a name?” He asked, offering me his hand to help me sit up. I didn’t take it, forcing myself into a sitting position with a hiss of pain, my leg protesting the movement.

“Mara. Do I have a bullet in me?” I touched the bandage wrapped around my upper thigh.

Donavan smiled at me. “No Mara, what hit you is a type of tranquilizer dart used to drop the Nevermores at a safe distance so that they can be brought in without damage to them.”

“Will the drugs hurt my baby?” I asked, my hand going to my belly, my eyes searching his face, not trusting him to tell me the truth.

He tipped his head from side to side, his fingers flicking at unseen things. “They shouldn’t. We will run some blood work and perhaps do an ultrasound.” He twitched and his smile tightened. I swallowed hard. I was not safe here.

I knew that part of the blood work he wanted done was to see if I’d taken Nevermore, to see if my system had the antibodies or whatever it was he was looking for, but I didn’t care. “That would be good, I’m about twelve weeks along now, I think,” I said, as I started to get up. “I need to go see where my husband is, he was in the pack too.”

Donavan shook his head. “No. There is no contact outside the gate. Lay back down and we’ll bring the ultrasound in. Perhaps you could describe your husband to me. Maybe he’s in the morgue already.” Donavan patted the bed beside me as if that was some comfort, but otherwise didn’t touch me. Chills swept through me but I refused to buckle under the possibility that Sebastian dead.

“Sebastian is 6’4, dark hair and built like a tank. He’s was the new male fighting the Alpha of the pack.” I watched his eyes and recognition filtered through the madness in them. “Yes, he’s still alive and quite pissed the last time I saw him, circling the compound and pounding on the gate.”

“Please don’t hurt him,” I whispered, remembering the explosion all too vividly, the spray of bodies on the ground. “He’ll listen to me; I can bring him in. Please let me go get him.”

Donavan’s jaw twitched. “We brought most of the pack in; we don’t shoot them like Vincent’s crew does.”

I frowned. “Then what was that explosion, all the smoke and the bodies everywhere?”

“A canister of tear gas, a light bomb and then a spray of fast acting sedative darts. The other explosions were from Vincent’s crew.”

“What do you want with the pack?” I asked.

Donavan bobbed his head while he smiled and steepled his fingers, a veritable Mr. Burns. “We’ll run blood work on all of them, see if there are any anomalies. It’s the only way we will be able to find a better cure. The sedatives are not working on the two big males, not at all.” He grimaced, then his eyes brightened and I had a very bad feeling wash through me.

“If you think he will let you draw blood off him perhaps that could change things.” He lifted an eyebrow at me. “Perhaps I could let you go if you were of enough help to me.”

I frowned and thought quickly. I couldn’t trust Donavan, that much was certain, but what if there was a cure? Something better than what Vincent had used on Adam and Eve. It was the best I could do at this point, and I would take it for what it was worth; at least Sebastian was alive. I nodded, my eyes glued to a dark stain on the floor.

Donavan and Clint stepped out of the room and a woman came in, the first I’d seen that wasn’t a Nevermore. Her name tag on her starched white nurse’s uniform said, “Lucy”. She wrapped my arm with a plastic band and flicked at a vein until it came to the surface. I stared up at the ceiling and the sparkly chandelier, wincing as she jabbed me with the needle.

“You didn’t take Nevermore?” I asked, just wanting to speak with another woman that wasn’t pumped full of the supposed miracle drug, even if she was on Donavan’s side.

She frowned down at me, her face a twist of unhappiness. “I hadn’t put together enough money for it when the true nature of it reared its ugly head. Pure dumb luck. You?”

“I’m allergic to scotch broom. The doctor said it would kill me if I took it. Kind of squashed my plans of getting pregnant.”

Lucy stared at me, and then pulled up a chair, all the blood drawn. “But you’re pregnant now? That seems beyond stupid to get knocked up at a time like this.”

I gave a half laugh that nearly tumbled into a sob. “My husband took the drug when the fertility tests came back that he was the problem, not me. I didn’t know he took it. We were trying but not really.” I didn’t care that she was being rude to me; it was just nice to have someone to talk to.

She reached around me and grabbed another empty vile that she plunked on to the end of the needle. After three more vials full she pulled the needle out of my arm and pressed a cotton ball onto the open vein.

“Hold here for at least two minutes; I’ll be back to put a bandage on in a few minutes.” She stood to leave, her frazzled brunette hair tied into a messy bun.

“Can I ask you a question?”

“You can ask, I’ll answer you if I can.” She turned at the doorway, impatience highlighted in her hand on her hip, the arch of her eyebrow. I wondered if perhaps we were the only human women left on Vancouver Island. That was a horrible thought.

“Is Donavan as bad as Vincent made him out to be?”

“I don’t know how Vincent made him out to be. But genius often comes in the guise of madness. Right now we need a genius to make this mess right again, to get our people back.”

“Is there a cure?” I asked. Marks had thought so. I prayed he was right.

She shook her head. “He’s close to a breakthrough, but that’s all I know.”

Lucy left the room, the door locking behind her. My eyes closed slowly, in what I thought was a blink, and when they opened, she was back in the room puttering.

“Mara, they’re bringing the ultrasound in now. Drink this.” She held out a glass to me and I took it, grateful for the cool clean liquid. “Was I asleep?”

Lucy grimaced. “You slept right through the night, didn’t move a muscle, not even when I put a bandage on your arm. I should know, they made me sit in here and keep a watch on you.”

I swallowed hard. A lot of things could happen in one night; I should know. “Is Sebastian still acting up?”

“The big boy? Donavan’s tried to talk to him, see if he can get a response out of him like you said you could.”

“How’s it going?” I asked, as I sat up slowly, the room spinning slightly.

She shook her head, her earrings catching the light and throwing rainbow prisms around the room. “Not as well as he’d hoped, not as bad as he thought.”

“That’s enough now Lucy.” Donavan stepped into the room and Lucy swallowed hard, her face blanching. What was it about him that kept people here helping? It couldn’t just be the cause for the greater good, could it?

Donavan sat down in front of me, his eyes twitching, muscles in his face spasming. “Your Sebastian wouldn’t talk to me, but last night when I said your name he calmed right down and stopped the rioting. Fascinating, really, very unusual for the species to behave in such a manner.”

“I don’t know if your Sebastian made it through the night.” He lifted an eyebrow, watching my reaction as one would inspect a strange insect, a morbid mixture of curiosity and revulsion.

I closed my eyes and held my breath, letting it out slowly. I would not believe that Sebastian was gone until I saw the body myself; until then I chose to believe he was alive and well. Lucy came to stand over me, a tube in her hand. “I’m going to put some gel on you and then we can take a look at the baby.”

Donavan held up his hand. “No. If you want to see your baby and make sure it’s alright then you must go down and bring in your pet. I want to run tests on him and the sedative darts haven’t worked. If he’s dead, then call in the other big male, he seemed taken with you as well.”

My stomach rolled at the thought of Sebastian being dead, the possibility higher than ever before with the matched size and strength of the other male. I licked my lips and nodded slowly. “Okay.”