Tiger Bound (13 page)

He closed his eyes, and Deja’s sweet face rose in his mind, along with the ring he had given her as a birthday present. A new suspicion entered his head, but he didn’t want to believe it. He kept his eyes closed and his voice calm as he asked the question one last time.

“Where did you get the ring?”

Arlo cursed. “If you must know, I got it from some whore.”

The beast stirred within, but Heath tamped him down. “A whore.”

“Yes, she has nothing to do with you. She’s just some dirty slut I found, a black slut.” Arlo’s tone turned from agitated and fearful to conversational, as if the words he chose were directed toward a friend and not to Heath who had every intention of ending him. Arlo went on. “I guess she’d be good to do, though—with protection. I mean, after all, she’s dying. No one would know. If I swung that way, of course. She’s pretty and has long legs.”

Heath had prided himself on being an honest man, a good man who would forge his way in this life within the bounds of the law. If someone crossed him, he sought to handle things legally. However, right now, something rose inside him that operated under its own law, and that rule stated that anything or anyone who threatened what belonged to him would be dealt with in violence until he destroyed it.

“Why. Is. She. Dying?” His tone grew uneven and scarcely discernable as human, even to his own ears.

Arlo, who had turned away as he bragged, spun to face Heath. “
Fuck!
”

He took a step to dart toward the door, but Heath tore apart the strap holding one arm down and caught the little man. He raised Arlo off his feet and dangled him in the air by one hand as he brought him closer. When he’d retrieved the ring from his finger and stuffed it into his pants pocket, he shook the assistant and heard the impact of his head snapping back and forth on his neck.

“Why?” Heath ground out.

A wet spot slowly spread out over the front of Arlo’s pants, and red burned his face from neck to hairline. “Th-th-th-the women are all too weak. All of them die because they don’t survive the experiments. After they change the first time, they eventually die, but she…sh-sh-she didn’t change at all. She’ll go sooner.”

Experiments
. The word echoed in his mind. The dreams he’d had of Deja crying out in intense pain were real. Heath ripped his other arm free and threw Arlo against the nearest wall. His body crumpled on the floor in a heap, unmoving. Heath didn’t give his staring blank eyes more than a glance as he freed his legs. Just as he stood on his feet, the room spun about him. He shook his head, and the familiar scent of the guards who had taken him down that first day reached him seconds before they opened the door.

One of the guards shot off probes from the stun gun in his hand. Heath sidestepped them, caught the wires extending from the probes, and tossed them on the floor. He leaped forward and closed the space between himself and the guards within the blink of an eye and sent them crashing into the passageway wall outside his room. More guards came running around the corner, and he caught the nearest one by his neck and drove him into a few others. He drove his fist into a face and his foot in the groin of another man. They kept coming, and he plowed through them. Nothing would keep him from getting to Deja.

In the distance, an alarm went off, and the sound of running feet reached him. How many of those bastards did they have working for them? He couldn’t rely on the hope that they all carried stun guns, and even if they did, a group shooting off the probes together meant at least one or two would reach their mark.

Heath stalked down the hall, sniffing the air.
This way.
He had no idea how he knew he could sniff her out, but he did. Then again, it wasn’t him. The beast within took charge, almost like a separate entity. He ran full tilt, and when someone in a lab coat rounded a corner, he didn’t pause to see if it was the doctor that worked on him so he could question her just as he’d done when he got there. He lowered a shoulder the way the football players he watched in high school did. The person, a man, cried out and jerked backward off his feet then slammed onto the floor. Heath stepped over him and kept moving.

At the end of the next corridor, he paused and crouched. Voices reached him from the end of the next hall. “He’s not going for the exit,” one guard said.

“Where’s he going then?” Another guard.

“Fools, it’s the girl. Go and wait for him there. Load this formula in your tranq gun to make him docile. Don’t make any mistakes or you will answer to me.” From the arrogance and hint of intelligence of this particular person, Heath assumed he was either a scientist, one of the lowlifes that experimented on human beings against their will, or he was a higher up, the ones that called the shots. Either way, he would not allow this one to escape him. Nor would he let any of the guards get near Deja.

He crept along the hall on his hands and feet, keeping low. They had removed his shirt, shoes, and socks. He noticed claws had formed from his fingernails and the same with his feet. Yet, he made no sound as he crawled along the tiled floor. Blood rushed in his ears, his pulse pounding. Restrained adrenaline coursed through his system, and the anticipation of the kill escalated until he couldn’t wait to drag his claws across the nearest flesh and hear their screams as they died.

Heath drew up within a foot of a guard, but no one saw. He crouched lower and then leaped high and hard, landing with both hands on the back of the man he faced. The guard’s head hit the floor with a sickening thud. Heath didn’t pause to see if he lived. He went after the next and the next. They scrambled to get their guns in position, but he bit hands and swiped using his claws in a powerful blow that sent them crashing into the wall. Before long, one remained standing, and he made sure it was the one in charge. The man backed away, stumbling over his own feet. He held up a hand in defense, and Heath snarled at it.

“Easy, you don’t want to do this,” the man said.

Heath straightened, but the change he’d taken on didn’t recede. He peered at one dead guard and another, then back at his last prey.
How can you think I don’t want to do this? I want to do it. I want you dead, right now.

Heath didn’t speak the words out loud. Somehow, when he allowed more of the beast to take over, speaking human words became harder. Forming sentences in his mind was easier, but in a way not natural.

He took another step toward the man. The scent of blood filled his nostrils, having clotted on his fingers and pooled beneath his feet. Droplets stained his chest, and the raw, metallic odor spurred him to draw more.

“S-s-subject…ah, damn it,” the man stuttered. “Listen to me!”

“
Heath
.” Deja’s voice reached him from down the hall, beyond the man in front of him. He knew she’d called out too low for the human to hear because the man didn’t react. His attention fully on Heath, he seemed to think Heath couldn’t see him sliding a tranq gun closer with his foot. Heath sprang on him and ended it fast.

Here
. He stood outside the door where she was held and tried the handle. The code box above it meant no one got in without authorization, but Deja’s scent made him ache to be near her and to be sure she was safe. He tried the added strength the tiger gave him, but it wasn’t enough. Of course it wouldn’t be. These people were used to dealing with his kind. Only his intense rage and determination to protect Deja had driven him to break the bonds that kept him strapped to the table. Nothing he did now helped.

He stood immobile and pressed his hands to the door panel. Sensing movement behind the barrier, he looked down and caught her shadow. “Deja,” he almost cried out in anguish.

“Heath, help me, please. It hurts.”

“I’m coming, honey. I promise.”

Heath tore off down the hall in search of a warm body. He broke locks where he could and invaded room after room. No one seemed to be in the area, but he didn’t stop searching, even as his throat dried and his limbs ached. At last there was one, a human hiding in a closet. Heath approached him, growling low in his throat. The man cowered. He pushed farther back into his hiding space, although there was nowhere else to go. Against his chest, he held a stack of disordered papers as if they were important to protect. Heath swiped them from his hand, and they scattered over the floor. The man yelped.

“Where is everyone? Why aren’t they coming after us?”

The man frowned, and Heath realized he wasn’t speaking clearly enough. He willed himself to calm down and glanced at his claws. Even without the tiger, he could take down this small nerd. Heath tried again to ask his question. When the man didn’t answer, he jerked him by the collar and dragged him from the closet.

“Answer me now, if you want to live.”

In his thin, long neck, the man’s Adam’s apple bobbed up and down. His limbs shook, but at least he didn’t wet himself like that first guy. “They’re watching you. They want to study—”

Down the hall, a door opened. Heath gritted his teeth. “And they don’t want you telling me their secrets. I don’t care about anything except getting Deja from that room. Now you will undo the lock with your arm attached or ripped off.”

“I―I―I will help you.”

“Good choice.” Heath held on to the back of his neck and guided him toward the door. He stopped just short of the opening, peeked into the hall, and drew back in time to miss the dart. He could put the human out there, but that would mean he’d either be killed or fall asleep before he entered the code. For the time being, Heath had to protect him.

Heath pushed the man down until he knelt and put a finger to his mouth, a signal for silence. He closed his eyes and listened as hard as he could. Having no idea how to call on his enhancements, he waited too long for the tiger’s abilities to kick in. Movement sounded in the hall, too close. He had to roll and barrel into the human in order to avoid the next dart. Now they had no other choice. They had to go all out or risk capture.

Heath directed the man to stay where he was and ran blind into the hall. Five men crouched in dark clothing. He grabbed the one closest to him and jerked him in front of himself to take the shot. The guard sighed, and his chin dropped like a stone to his chest. Heath shoved him at the other four, but his body didn’t go far. The tiger’s strength was absent. He cursed and ran at them. Throwing punches as hard as he could, he fought without strategy or instinct. A dart lodged in his arm. He mis-stepped and fell to his knee. Fog clouded his mind, and he tried shaking it off to no avail.

“Hit him again,” someone commanded.

“Damn it, I’m out,” another said.

“I got one more.”

With his last bit of strength, Heath surged upward and caught the man loading his gun beneath the chin. Pain exploded in his head, but somehow, it was enough to clear his mind. The human fell backward, and his gun went flying one way, the dart another. Several dove after it at the same time Heath did, but even without the tiger, he was faster. He snatched up the gun and used it to render the last three men unconscious.

The nerd tried sneaking off in the opposite direction, but Heath grabbed his arm and all but dragged him down the hall. “No more delays,” he snapped. “Get this door unlocked now!”

In seconds, the door swung open, and his beautiful Deja tumbled into his arms. Heath crushed her in his embrace and kissed her head. He thrust her hair back to examine her face. Lids heavy and her soft cocoa skin too hot, she didn’t look well. He sank to the floor with her and took in the rest of her body to be sure they hadn’t done anything else. Bruises covered her arms, along with scabs from small pinpricks. He cried out in rage. They all deserved to die, every one of them.

In his mouth, he felt his teeth sharpen and the canines extend past his lips on the top and bottom. The words he’d spoken a moment ago became roars as he turned his hatred on the human. Heath was just about to put Deja aside so he could kill the man, but she grasped his wrist.

“Heath.”

He tugged away from her and advanced on the man. Bones cracked along his legs with each step he took. He curled forward and opened his mouth to bare his teeth. The man scrambled backward, sobbing. “I helped you. I helped you! You said if I did you wouldn’t kill me.”

More bones fractured inside Heath as if he they had to break down before they reformed into the tiger. He had no idea if it hurt. He was beyond pain—except the anguish of what they had done to Deja.

Almost on the man, Heath breathed in his terror, and it spurred him on. He roared, and the man cried out, putting hands to his ears. Deja whimpered behind him, the only thing that gave him pause.

“Heath, I’m cold,” she whispered.

He returned to her side in an instant and raised her in his arms. They’d taken her clothes to leave her vulnerable. A shirt dropped in front of him, and he looked up to find the nerd had removed his. Heath put it on her and buttoned it with the quick, nimble movements of his human side. The tiger lay dormant again.

“I’ll lead you out.”

Heath didn’t bother questioning the human about why he would help when Heath had just been about to rip him apart. He couldn’t afford to delay any longer. Deja needed help, and she needed it fast. Her breathing had gone shallow, and she’d passed out. He had to get her to safety now, and he
would
—or die trying.

Chapter Eleven

Heath leaned inside the vehicle, the right side of which he’d just scraped clean of paint when he pulled into the parking lot of the hospital. He unbuckled Deja’s seatbelt and checked her pulse. At first, he thought she didn’t have one, but at last he found it, and she drew in breaths so shallow her chest didn’t rise by much.

“Do you want me to help carry her?” the small man asked.

Heath flicked his gaze toward him, and the man shrank away.

“You shouldn’t be here,” he told him. “You should disappear, because they
will
find you and kill you.” Heath didn’t know why he’d come all this way, but the man had helped guide him through the facility to the parking lot where they retrieved the man’s car. “Thank you for your help.”