Circe's Recruits 1: Roane (2 page)

Spotting a break in the heavy beach traffic, she darted between cars, running away from the water along Decatur, searching for police. Not seeing any, she raced toward the Washington Square Mall. The outdoor shopping plaza would provide decent camouflage until she could find a ride and ditch the beach.

She ran through a small, metered parking lot to a narrow alley between stores and stopped to catch her breath, not surprised at the migrainelike throbbing that pulsed behind her eyes. Whenever they’d forced her to perform for them in the lab, she’d felt the same tension, the same ache. Yet this one was worse, and as she touched the sting at her shoulder, she realized part of the pain had been induced by an outside source.

Yanking the small dart from her body, she cursed Vincent, Simon, and the fucking PPA, whatever the hell that was. Caitlyn leaned back against the brick wall and tried to control her breathing, but the slow fog in her mind grew. Panic flared, and a scuffling noise to her left forced her to action.

Fleeing from the intrusion, she had almost reached the entrance to the heavily trafficked plaza when two men appeared, blocking her access to safety. She quickly turned around, only to find two more men waiting at the mouth of the alley, too far away to be an immediate threat, but close enough not to discount.

Caitlyn felt rather than saw the men closest to her near. She jumped back, snarling at them like a wild beast. Scared at the changes in herself, as much as the threat surrounding her, she spotted the nearest avenue of escape and focused on the men to her front.

Both men were as large, if not larger, than Vincent -- the black-haired one taller and meaner looking, while the sandy-haired man wore an easygoing expression and held his hands up, as if to show he was harmless. The brief glimpse of the two behind her had affirmed their threatening sizes as well, and she wondered hysterically if there was a Mr.

Universe pageant nearby that she’d missed.

“Easy,” the most threatening of the bunch growled. Not likely. His brown eyes snapped, his jaw clenched tight, and his biceps flexed as he fisted his hands and began stalking her.

“Back off,” she growled back, dismayed to find she had literally growled, as in, like a dog. “And lose the men behind me, or I’ll tear them limb from limb.” She knew she sounded overly dramatic. But she felt as if she could really hurt them.

After the day she’d had, she wouldn’t feel the least bit sorry for any abuse they might suffer at her hands.

“Shit. Roane, she’s changing now,” the sandy-haired one in front of her said.

“I know, Hale. I’m not blind. What the hell do you want me to do?”

“Hold her down,” one of the giants behind her offered.

She glanced over her shoulder and bared her teeth, and immediately knew she’d made a huge mistake. The minute her head turned, large hands settled over her.

Twisting and flailing, she clawed, bit, and kicked at her attacker. But the acute pain assaulting her body hampered her defenses. Bones popped, and muscles stretched. Her head felt as if it would split in two, and her heart hammered within her chest.

She was dimly aware of rough hands cradling her, of others reaching for but not hurting her. The combination of pain and dizziness finally overrode her stubborn resistance, and she passed out cold.

* * * * *

“Derrick and Hale, post at the exits. Zack, the blanket.” Zack nodded, helping Roane wrap the woman up in an overly large blanket.

“Ace is waiting with the SUV,” Zack murmured.

Moving with a sense of urgency and praying Vincent Hoff and Simon Dunn were the only two assholes the Project’s Protection Agency -- the PPA -- had sent after Caitlyn Chase, Roane hefted Caitlyn in his arms and hurried down the alley toward the parking lot. Derrick held him back a moment, then nodded and shuttled him to the vehicle.

Ace had popped open the back hatch and sat waiting behind the wheel, tapping at it nervously. “We need to fly,” he said as Roane gently set the woman down and slammed the hatch shut. “I’ve got cops looking for me from that accident scene on Beach. The other guy is majorly pissed that I smashed his precious Lexus.” Roane waited for Derrick, Zack, and Hale to enter the vehicle before climbing in the front passenger seat.

“Slow down, we don’t want to draw attention,” he warned Ace as the man pressed the accelerator.

“Talk about your backseat drivers,” Ace mumbled but slowed a fraction. “So what’s the deal with the package?” He looked in his rearview at the back.

“She started changing, right there in the alley,” Derrick said with a grin. “Damned if she didn’t do Roane some damage.”

“Some,” Roane agreed, suddenly feeling the sting of several deep gouges. “The stubborn woman wouldn’t listen.”

“Would you have?” Zack asked with a snort. “She just got mauled by two dickheads from the PPA and has no idea she’s a Circ.”

“And then she had to face you,” Hale added with mock terror. “Hell, I’d have gone for your jugular the minute I laid eyes on your ugly face.”

“Can’t argue with that,” Ace agreed and turned onto Washington Street, heading out of Cape May proper. “Now, how about you idiots shut up while our fearless leader tells me where to go?”

“I’d like to tell you where to go,” Derrick muttered.

“The compound,” Roane said, staring out the window. “Zack, contact Doc and let him know we’re coming. He’ll need to identify what they drugged her with.” Zack nodded and reached for his cell phone.

As they merged onto the Parkway, Roane thought about the woman they’d just saved.

He stared at his arms. She’d raked him with inch-long claws. But despite the low growl when she’d been threatened, he had the impression she’d wanted more to escape than to harm.

Interesting qualities for a lab rat. All of the former patients from the project were psychotic, Circs with no conscience who preyed on the weak. Caitlyn was the first they’d found who seemed fairly normal. Until her untimely change.

Normal. He scowled, wishing he could banish the picture of her voluptuous body from his mind. Her sheer, white cotton shirt had done nothing to mask the perfection straining beneath. Instead, with her every effort to be free, the shirt had either molded to the fullness of her breasts or slid open to accent the slick valley between those bountiful mounds. God help him, but Roane had zeroed in on the heat of her hard nipples as they raked across his chest with more force than her damned claws.

“Doc’s standing by.”

He nodded to Zack and blatantly stared at the speedometer, causing Ace to swear under his breath and slow down. A low, sudden groan captured everyone’s attention from the back.

“She shouldn’t be doing that, should she?” Derrick asked, shifting in his seat. “The dart should have put her down for another few hours, at least. The ones the PPA use normally do.”

Roane narrowed his gaze when he realized the rest of his men were squirming as well.

He took a breath and froze as his dick swelled to a massive erection.

“Shit, she’s in heat.”

All of them groaned. Roane cursed this latest mission of Doc’s. Finding and erasing the PPA’s latest target should have been easy. The last dozen Roane and his crew had taken out had been stark-raving mad, labeled mass murderers by the press when found dead, the evidence of their misdeeds clearly around them. In the three years since Roane and the others had left Project Dawn, they’d only come across one Circ who seemed to be living a normal life.

Caitlyn Chase.

“I’m so hot,” she moaned, and Roane’s own temperature spiked. He couldn’t help noticing Ace’s hard-on. From the cursing behind him, he had a feeling they wouldn’t make it to Doc’s. The few times they’d been caught unaware by the mating heat, he and his team had taken care of the situation. But damn, it hadn’t been pretty, and that had been without a female present.

With no hope now that they might avoid this mess, especially with that fucking unbelievable scent filling the SUV, Roane tried to minimize the damage. “Ace, take us to Kelly’s.”

Ace nearly swerved off the road. “That’s not a good idea, man. Not at all.”

“I’m not asking you, I’m telling you,” Roane growled, his hackles raised as he unconsciously began changing. He ripped though his shirt and toed off his shoes, grateful for the elastic waist of his shorts. His body filled out, his torso lengthening until he had to tilt his head to fit in the vehicle. Frustration increased his rage. Not a good time for Ace to challenge his leadership.

“Roane, not yet. Fuck. Hurry up, Ace,” Hale rumbled. “Kelly’s place is just a mile down the road. Unless you want Roane fully changed before we get out of the car? Besides, your girlfriend’s probably working. It’s barely three.” He ended on a gasp as Caitlyn spiked the air with more scent. Roane heard the sound of cloth tearing and prayed it was one of his men.

The thought of Caitlyn naked had him grinding his teeth. To see her would surely destroy any vestige of control he had left.

Zack scoffed in an inhuman timbre, “Kelly’s not his girlfriend.”

“She will be,” Ace said as he yanked the steering wheel a hard right, his fingernails slowly replaced by claws. “So long as you keep your grubby hands off her.”

“Challenge on, cub.”

“The name is Two Bears, dickhead. It’s Cree.”

“Whatever. Two Bears or not, I’m still going to kick your ass.” Zack flashed long, sharp teeth that Roane spotted in the rearview mirror. “After I fuck it.”

“Challenge later,” Roane ordered, his voice raspy. “We don’t need you two releasing more scent into the air, not on top of hers. Not unless you want a repeat of what happened last time.” Silence filled the car. “Exactly. Get us to Kelly’s.” Roane did his best to contain himself, but the animal within sensed something it needed. The experimental testing they’d endured had more than changed their genetic construct. Not only could Roane shift into a stronger, beastly form that was neither human nor animal but a bit of both, he lived with enhanced instincts all the time. His intuition gave him every advantage, and it was telling him to make the female his. Now.

They pulled into the driveway of Kelly’s isolated beach house just as Roane leaped from the car and changed completely. “Get inside and get ready,” he warned in a low, thick voice.

His men sped inside the house, half of them fully changed and nearly naked. Gnashing his teeth, Roane called on the humanity dwindling within him to go easy on the woman. She likely had no idea what a full-on rut with a Circ could be like. He grimaced at thoughts of his last heat. Thanks to those assholes at Pearson Labs, gender was not a factor when experiencing the need to procreate. Both males and females felt the urge. He and his men could control it, to an extent. Obviously, Caitlyn couldn’t.

His dick throbbed when Caitlyn moaned. Swearing, Roane attacked the back hatch of the SUV. It opened, and to his dismay, he stared down at a nude woman. She hadn’t changed fully, though. Her skin remained soft and tanned, her body the same size as it had been.

Ripe, fertile, and welcoming.

Roane swallowed hard, his need monstrous. Suddenly his shorts, their distance, the cramped vehicle, everything that separated him from this woman was too much. Before he could spread those thighs and fuck her in the back of the SUV, she kicked out at him.

Drowning in lust and taken by surprise, Roane stumbled back. She darted around him and scaled the six-foot fence caging Kelly’s backyard. Roane followed hard on her heels and caught her before she flew over the yard’s back fence. They slammed together against the wooden enclosure, and Roane lost it. His predatory senses guided him as she thrashed, and her scent intensified. As much as Caitlyn might be confused, her body knew what it needed.

Roane pinned her against the wall and ripped through the fastening of his shorts. In seconds, he was pressed skin to skin against her, rubbing against her firm ass with a need so profound, it hurt.

“Turn around.”

She shoved back against him and hissed, digging claws into the wood. “No.” Grinding into him, she panted, “I need…I want…”

“I know.” His fangs made talking difficult. His beast wanted to drive into her; the man within wanted to stop everything. He didn’t know this woman, didn’t know what the PPA wanted her for. And he didn’t like the way she eroded his control, as if he had no will at all.

Hell, he’d changed: grown several inches taller and wider, to include that hungry part of him between his legs. If he took her this way, he might very well hurt her. Yet instinct forced him to acknowledge that she was his, to take her right fucking now.

Roane spread her ankles and lifted her hips, holding her off the ground with ease. He didn’t even take the time to prepare her before plunging deep.

“Fuck,” he swore as he slid through her hot wetness. The combined scent of the two of them cut through any lingering resistance on his part as he pounded into her. His body didn’t care that he didn’t know her. His beast wanted her. She held onto the wooden fence as he took her from behind, his grasp on her hips hard enough to leave marks.

She met him thrust for thrust, gripping him with her tight pussy while slamming backward with as much force as he used to shove inside her. No finesse, no soft words. Just hard, animalistic fucking. He felt the moment nearing as she clamped around him and cried out, milking an orgasm from him. Roane couldn’t help himself as he roared his pleasure. His climax lasted through her hisses and moans, and pulsing jets of cum slid down her thighs.

As his mind cleared, Roane realized she hadn’t experienced enough bliss to satisfy her.

He now had his arms full of a spitting-mad Circ, one who’d fully changed into a beastly goddess.

With a swiftness that shocked him, she pulled up off him and turned around. Slitted pupils, large fangs over plump red lips, and long, shaggy brown hair streaked with gold framed a face no longer human. Her skin had changed as well, still flesh but darker tan and tougher. She’d grown in size and now stood a mere head shorter than him. Her breasts had enlarged with her proportions, and he found himself fascinated with their berry-red tips.

Amazingly, after such an intense climax, his cock stirred. He wanted to bite her, to suck her tits until she came around him again. The vein at her neck throbbed. He could hear the blood rushing as he stared at it, and he wanted to sink his teeth in and hold tight while he fucked her.