“Aiden, she’s too weak.” Dr. Armani turned on him in angry surprise. “She may not survive the trip. She needs to be stabilized further.”
His mouth opened to snap at her, to reinforce the order, but his gaze was caught by the silent, too pale woman on the bed. He wanted to howl at himself in rage as an unfamiliar weakness rose inside him. She was too pale.Too weak. He wanted her away from here, yet he couldn’t endanger her further. Some instinct he couldn’t deny or fight refused to allow him to test her fragile strength.
“When?”His voice was a harsh, contained growl of fury.
“Not before she stabilizes,” Armani said again, her voice stubborn.“A day, a week, whatever. I’ll let you know when she can be moved.”
Frustration bit at him with sharp, hungry teeth. Charity would soon be in more danger by staying here than she would be if she were moved too early. The implication of her health and the war raging through the jungle with the escaped Council soldiers and Coyotes was a difficult problem. One he needed to resolve quickly.
“We have limited time here.” He gnashed his teeth together, frustration mounting inside him.
“Aiden, do you want her to die?” She turned on him then, facing him with a frown, her black eyes glittering angrily. “It’s my job to keep her alive.Period. Do you think I don’t know what I’m doing? I will let you know the minute I think she can be moved. If all goes well, possibly—and I stress possibly
—tomorrow.”
He raked his fingers through his hair in a burst of anger. “We may not have this time you need, Doctor,”
he bit out. “We must be cleared out of here as quickly as possible. You are aware of this, I assume?” He sneered the question at her.
They couldn’t afford an organized assault by soldiers possibly on their way to free those taken captive. The war between the Council and the Breeds was heating up in ways that left him struggling for the answer to their survival.
Dr. Armani drew herself stiffly erect. Her brows lowered dangerously, a tight smile shaping her lips.
“Don’t push me, Aiden. I am not one of your Enforcers and I won’t be ordered about. You take care of your responsibilities and I will care of mine. We’ll both live that way.” She was beginning to appear decidedly violent.
“Are you threatening me, Armani?” he questioned her then, dangerously. No one had dared threaten him since the day they escaped the Labs.
“Sounds like she is, Aiden.”Faith stepped into the tent, dirt-smudged, and frowning in concern. “We need you outside. Jacob and Wolfe just pulled in the head scientist. It’s Robertson, and he’s ready to talk.”
Robertson. Dr. Andrew Robertson, second only to Bainesmith, before her death. He would now be considered the Council’s top expert in Breed experimentation. Aiden smiled coldly. He glanced back at Charity, promising himself that she would awaken soon, and when she did, she would not escape him or his vengeance.
“Were they able to retrieve any of the records?” he asked her quickly, forcing his mind away from Charity and her fragile health. “We need those records, Faith.”
She shook her head as they rushed from the tent.“Nothing, Aiden. Keegan was able to get into the records room before the explosion. Let’s pray they were destroyed. From what I’ve seen, we don’t want to know what happened here.”
He heard her compassion, her pain. And in many ways he agreed with her. The Lab had been hell, the smell of death and depravity nearly strangling them as they entered it. They had enough nightmares. God knew they didn’t need anymore.
“Let’s go see if we can choke some facts out of him then,” he smiled mercilessly. “I’m in the mood to be persuasive.”
Chapter Three
He was in the mood to be sick. Aiden stood inside the jungle, just out of sight of camp and fought to breathe. It wasn’t the sickness in his gut that caused the problemsthough, it was the emotional turmoil pitching through his soul. He wiped at his damp face and assured himself it was the heat of the night, not tears that dampened his face.
Propping his arm against the tree beside him he buried his face against it, his muscles taut from the tension riding his body. God help him, he wanted to kill them all. There were twenty-five soldiers and nearly a dozen scientists restrained within the tent he had just left and he wanted to rip their throats out. He wanted to hear their screams of pain, see them on their knees begging him a second before he tasted their blood.
His fists clenched in driving fury as he stood there, fighting to control his breathing, his rage. We tied her down. The hormone had to be inserted directly into the womb with the ability to view the resulting changes. We decided rather than going in through the cervix, that it would be easier to make the incision into the womb itself and insert the camera probe directly inside. Easier for them.The growl that rumbled in his throat was a primal protest to the claim. It was no easier. It was more painful. It was a shock to the body when none was needed, and she had nearly bled to death more than once in the process.
Included in the experiments was a hormonal aphrodisiac made from the hormone in his se**n. The arousal it produced was found to have stimulated the ovaries in some way. They were merely awaiting a new ovulation period before attempting to force conception with the few remaining samples they had of his sperm. They had been certain the changes within her womb would allow conception to occur. Her records had revealed the ingestion of his se**n. They had found the perfect specimen for yet more of their monstrous tests. For six months. Six agonizing months where she had wasted away to nothing, driven closer and closer to the brink of death.
And had she died, they would have tossed her body away as yet another broken specimen. She wouldn’t have mattered, only the results of the tests did.Tests that stripped the mind and horrified the soul. He was still reeling from the reports the guards and lower level scientists were more than eager to give in exchange for their lives.
“She lives. This should be all that matters.” He raised his head, staring at the Winged Breed they had been forced to drag from the flames of the Lab as he fought to return and save the woman he knew was still held there.
Keegan was nearly six and a half feet tall though lacking the heavy muscle that most Breeds developed. Not that he appeared weak. He stood tall, his arms crossed over his chest, aristocratic and graceful. His long brown hair fell past hisshoulders, his amber eyes were intent and focused. Aiden shook his head. He still couldn’t believe they had managed to do it. They had given man wings. Full, strong, graceful wings that folded upon his back. They extended from his boot-shod feet to the top of his head with nearly an eighteen foot wing span to hold his human body within the sky. The bone work of the Winged Breeds was less dense and more flexible than those of full-humans and other Breeds. He was a miracle of genetic perfection, and psychic to boot. Son of a bitch, if he wouldn’t be a pain in the ass.
“I should kill every damned scientist sitting in that tent,” Aiden growled. “Eventually they’ll be released, just as the other bastards were six years before. It will never stop, Keegan.”
The knowledge that there was little he could to stop the madness ate at him, just as it always had. The experiments still continued and the Council cruelties seemed to only magnify each time another Lab was found. There was no mercy, no humanity in the men and women who ran those Labs. Only the experiment mattered.