An Ellora’s Cave Romantica Publication

www.ellorascave.com

Carnal

ISBN 9781419914683
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
Carnal Copyright © 2008 Nathalie Gray

Edited by Mary Moran.
Cover art by Syneca.

Electronic book Publication February 2008

This book may not be reproduced or used in whole or in part by any means existing without written
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3502.

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This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales
is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the authors’ imagination and used fictitiously.

L

YCAN

W

ARRIORS

:

C

ARNAL

Nathalie Gray

Nathalie Gray

Prologue

Dex Solomon and his team of lycanthrope mercenaries fight dirty, play hard and

love harder. They’re the ones called when the death toll starts to rise.

After a momentous mission that split the team in half, expert marksman Dragana,

tech specialist Liberty and her self-appointed bodyguard, the shy, giant lycan Cupcake,
have become stranded on a corrupt space station. Each must fight their own inner
demons, Dragana most of all if she’s to learn how to live without her beloved twin Ivan,
another casualty of the division running deep within Earth government.

But Cupcake’s dark past quickly comes back to haunt him and after an explosive

escape, they return to Earth to find a civil war brewing. Not one to shy away from
trouble, Solomon plays the data clip his team had been tasked to retrieve—at all costs—
and its damning message effectively topples Earth’s brutal regime, which is hurriedly
replaced with a shaky alliance of former enemies.

The lycan mercenaries’ victory came at a cost, for the resistance’s charismatic leader

Cristoval and the team’s sniper and viper-tongue extraordinaire Dragana are both lost.
The former taken by the Iron Conclave, the true leaders behind the regime, and the
latter killed in a hail of volter shots.

But in a place where lycans and other genetically enhanced people walk the Earth

and demand a rightful place beside their fellow humans, in a time where research
conquers new territory better left in peace, nothing is what it seems. And no wound
beyond repair.

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Carnal

Chapter One

13 December 2534 Era Vulgaris, 0421 hours

Iron Conclave research complex

Sokcho, Gangwon Province, United Koreas, Earth

She woke screaming.
Up until then she’d been dreaming. Or she thought she had. Couldn’t be sure of

anything. Except the pain racking her body. Now of that, she was sure.

Last shreds of her dream made her smile. Sobs tightened her belly, made her chin

quiver. She didn’t care if everyone saw her crying. It’d been worth it. She’d seen him.
His big smile, the twinkling blue eyes. It had to have been a dream. He’d been killed,
hadn’t he? Because of her. Because she’d let her guard down for one fucking second.

Just a dream.
Otherwise, it’d undermine everything she’d always believed in about life, how one

lived, how one ended and what happened afterward. The dead were gone forever. They
didn’t stick around and wait for the living to join them, but instead stopped
functioning, just like any other living entity would after being blasted by a volter, after
having half their blood slowly seep out of them while the one person who needed them
frantically tried to stem the crimson torrent. They died and left the living to face the
world alone. Halved. Incomplete. Lost.

So that dream in which she’d seen him, in which she’d felt warmed by the smile

she’d known all her life, held in familiar arms, rocked to a known heartbeat, that dream
had perhaps been more. How? She was dead. So was he.

Before she could ponder the experience and its ramifications, something had

abruptly pulled her back, ripped her from his arms and the blessed warmth of his smile,
yanked her back from peace and light with the force of a hurricane and the speed of an
angry thought.

And then the screaming had begun. All that screaming. Pain everywhere. And cold.
And loss. All over again. She was in a tunnel, spiraling backward. Alone.

* * * * *

“Do you think it would grow back?” the man asked. He put his handkerchief to his

forehead, dabbed the pearls of sweat there. Obviously, torture was hard work. Ha.
“How long would it take, I wonder? Mm?” Incredibly, the man looked earnest in his
pondering. With scalpel resting against skin, he waited. Blood seeped from beneath the
razor-sharp blade. After a quick slice that burned like scalding water, he pulled away.

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Nathalie Gray

Sweating himself and shaking with repressed fury, Cristoval made a fist of his

bleeding hand then extended his middle finger. “You mean this one?”

His tormentor didn’t appreciate the humor. He dug a hand in his jacket, produced a

small object. Under the sputtering light, his impeccably tailored suit gleamed with the
oily quality of wet ink. The silver implement Cristoval knew too well glistened like a
wet skipping stone. A single tiny green light flashed slowly. It was about to turn red.
An angry robotic Cyclops beetle.

“You know how I abhor crude humor. You give me no choice.”
Always the same refrain. No choice.
The green light turned red.
Suddenly a searing pain flashed in his wrists and ankles, tore a cry from Cristoval,

who thrashed and arched so violently the triple-stitch webbed belts holding him tore at
every anchor point. The destructive force of his struggle knocked the gurney over and
spilled him onto the pitiless concrete floor in a panting heap, choking on the bile
bubbling up his throat. He collapsed on his side, could barely move. Pain numbed his
limbs. He felt paralyzed yet aware of everything.

The hated voice sounded nearer. Hot breath grazed his cheek when he was rolled

onto his back. Blue eyes like chips of ice looked down at him. “Always defiance. It is
getting rather tedious.”

“Fuhhh…”
Killen tut-tutted. “Now, now, Mr. Vonatos. Language is what separates us from

beasts. Although, maybe not in your case.”

Pain still lanced to the rhythm of his heart in each of his paralyzed limbs. He felt as

though someone sat on his chest.

“Change for us willingly and spontaneously and I might consider a reprieve. A

payment for good behavior.”

“Fuck you, old bastard.” This time he managed to push the words out.
“With a genetic makeup as colorful as yours, Mr. Vonatos, I would not call someone

else a bastard. At least, I am human.”

Cristoval puffed in rage and frustration. The old insult. “You? Human? Barely.”
Killen shook his head. “Why complicate your life? You are alone, the last lycan alive

among all the rest of the genetic deviants. Why not enjoy my hospitality and cooperate
with us a little more? You might find life here less…unpleasant.”

The last lycan alive. Liar. “There are more. You’ll never catch them all. The rest

either.”

“I care little for the anomalous riffraff populating this planet. They are naturally

occurring freaks and inconsistent at best. Lycans, on the other hand, interest me greatly
since they were created specifically for violence—well, before they scrapped the
program—with every predatory trait thinkable. Size, physical attributes, heightened
senses. I want to learn everything I can about them.”

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Carnal

“You’re losing your edge. You said they were all gone.” And now he also knew he

was still on Earth.

The older man smiled. “But I have you.”
“Enjoy it while you can, old man.”
Killen’s grin crystallized. Cristoval only had time to cringe when renewed fire

burned his veins. Then again. And again. Killen kept his thumb on the trigger. Pain. In
myriad colors then bright white.

Fear and panic squeezed Cristoval’s throat. As much as he hated himself for it, he

didn’t want to be the last one left. What about Asia, his self-appointed niece? What
about those who depended on him? Without him or other lycans, who would protect
the rest? Killen couldn’t have killed all the lycans, especially not Solomon’s vicious
mercenary team. It couldn’t be. He didn’t want it to be.

Cristoval needed to cough but couldn’t. He was passing out. Dots like black rain

falling into his eyes. His cheeks going numb.

Then a woman screamed. Somewhere. Not far. He wasn’t alone.

The woman’s screams must have woken him from his recurring nightmare. His

heart still beating like a war drum, Cristoval raised his face and closed his eyes in silent
prayer. It pained him to think this way, but in a sense, he was glad to finally hear
someone else’s voice aside from his. And to have had the old nightmare interrupted.
Because up until now, at four twenty-one in the morning according to the dirty clock
high above his cell door, at the dawn of his fourth month of imprisonment, he thought
he’d been the only prisoner. Well, the only one screaming anyway. Shameful, yes, but
Cristoval Vonatos was glad to hear another human voice. The ones who came to him,
who hurt and humiliated him with their tests and sordid interest in his genetically
tampered half, never spoke to him. They did unspeakable things to him. In the name of
science. In the name of research. Yet never spoke a word directly to him even if they
talked amongst themselves. As though he were invisible. He didn’t count, right? His
kind, genetic deviants, not just lycans, didn’t count. Still, they wouldn’t even do to stray
dogs what they’d done to him. There were laws protecting animals. But none protecting
those who were different.

But then again, Killen regularly spoke to him, tortured him with words that cut

deeper than the sharpest scalpel. Now this one, Cristoval wished he’d just shut up.

Those tests… He shivered despite the fever gripping him.
How many volter shots would it take to trigger a transformation from human to

lycanthrope? Four.

How long could a lycan in human form stay submerged in glacial water before

showing signs of suffocation and-or hypothermia? Then how long while in lycan form?

How long could they keep him in said hypothermia before his body started to shut

down? Exactly twenty-one hours and fifteen minutes. Give or take a few seconds spent

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Nathalie Gray

wrecking the machines and killing two of the technicians. That had cost him. Dearly.
Killen had kept his thumb on the trigger for what felt like an eternity. In the end, one of
the researchers had distracted him with a question and Cristoval had been allowed to
pass out in peace.

Would a minor appendage regenerate should one be severed? He’d come close to

finding out, hence the recurring nightmare.

Would his semen be sterile? No. Could it be used to create life in-vitro? He’d

guessed not as they came to “harvest” more. He’d come to view the electric gun with
more dread than the injector, which they’d use on him on a regular basis to keep him
more “manageable”. So many questions, so few answers since DNA-tampering had
become outlawed.

No one knew how or why the lycan gene manifested itself—or not—or even

skipped generations. He had heard the researchers talking amongst themselves,
wondering about this seemingly erratic DNA leapfrog and how they were trying to
isolate it so they could fertilize a woman, preferably lycan to maximize chances of
success. His stay had been very informative so far. But they had no female lycan to test
with. Thankfully.

The thought of a child being born in this place… He thanked heaven every single

day for the small grace.

Cristoval changed positions on the cold concrete floor. Bones stuck out where

muscles had once covered them. He must have lost at least thirty, maybe even forty
pounds. His entire body felt the drastic change. His pectoral and abdominal muscles
showed like cords under the thin skin and though he’d always been big and was still
tall, he’d lost most of his muscle mass. His starving body fed the only way it knew
how—muscles first. He leaned his head back against the wall, closed his eyes.

The woman’s voice presently swelled to nightmarish proportions. She spoke a

language other than English. He understood neither her supplications nor her threats,
although he did get the gist of them, and from the caliber of her tone, Cristoval knew
they’d caught a tough one. Yet judging by the swells and peaks of her cries, whatever
they did to her wasn’t any less repugnant or painful than his own treatment. Maybe
they’d caught another genetic deviant to test, maybe even another lycan, despite
Killen’s cruel taunts about his being the last of his kind. Or perhaps she was just some
unfortunate soul, a homeless or transient they’d caught whom no one would miss. Like
him.

Dex Solomon and his motley crew of lycan mercenaries must have stopped looking

for him by now. They must have thought he’d died in the blast that had simultaneously
destroyed the parliament building and his murderous father. That Chancellor Vonatos,
his father, had ended up the way his rival had—murdered—was only part of the irony
since he too hadn’t seen the bullet coming. Not from his “trusted” head of security and
Iron Conclave director Hector Killen. Neither could he have predicted his oldest son,
the shameful “freak” in the otherwise perfect Vonatos family, was in fact the resistance
movement’s shadowy leader, the one everyone had been hunting for years. His

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Carnal

disappointment must have reached new depths when he’d seen Cristoval enter the
office, flanked on either side with the fearsome lycan mercenaries Solomon and a giant
of a man everyone called “Cupcake”.

Outside his cell, the woman’s cries deepened as if the human throat could no longer

contain the sheer fury. He’d heard that sort of change before. His heart skipped a beat,
resumed arrhythmically.

“No.”
Cristoval stood, waiting for the telltale sound that would follow should his worst

fear materialize.

The woman’s cries stopped abruptly. The voice died down. Cristoval waited with

bated breath.

Please god.
When nothing followed, he looked up in silent thanks. Only to groan in despair

when a howl like a dragon ripped the air, dislodged age-old dust from the doorjambs,
rattled the stainless steel toilet bolted askew in the concrete wall.

Cristoval rushed to the door to press his face against the dirty tempered glass in

case he could see something. From the sound, they had to be close. A chorus of voices
rose. Gunshots. Yelps and keens, both human and otherwise. The sound of things
breaking, furniture, heavy objects, loud thumps and crashes. Another long howl ended
in a pitiful whimper then died altogether. His heart broke at the sound.

So they’d caught a female lycan after all.
The sound of shuffling footsteps, cursing and strained male voices intensified until

Cristoval spotted several heads bobbing behind the window and stopping. What did
they want with him? He backed into the farthest corner of the cell. He knew the price of
rebellion. The implants, the size of a grain of rice, under the skin of his wrists and
ankles would send a vicious jolt that could floor a man three times his size. Plus, he
wouldn’t try anything until—if—he stood a good chance. They hadn’t broken his spirit,
but they’d made him a prudent man.

The bleep of the access panel heralded the door opening to reveal several men in

Iron Conclave security forces uniforms. More like hired guns and thugs. Some of them
were vicious. Others worse.

They trooped inside the narrow cell, torn uniforms and missing hats testament to

the fight the woman had just put up, something dangling amongst their midst. The
research—if it could be called that—complex director followed. With an assortment of
grunts, the men dropped whatever they’d been carrying. The woman thudded against
the unforgiving floor. Her hair was such a matted mess that he couldn’t even tell what
color it was. Except for remnants of tape and tubes dangling everywhere, she was
naked.

Hector Killen, the one who’d betrayed the chancellor—his father, though he’d long

forsaken his oldest son—smiled at Cristoval, who stared stubbornly at the hated face,
but inside, fear gripped his innards in a cold, clammy fist.

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Nathalie Gray

“Good day, Mr. Vonatos. I thought you could use some company. For a short while

anyway.”

“What…” Cristoval had to clear his throat. His voice, rusty from disuse, sounded

strange, alien. “What have you done to her?”

“Nothing her enhanced genes cannot fix, rest assured.” His British accent, so

smooth and elegant, belied the man’s odious nature.

Cristoval ached to go to the woman and see if he could do anything for her, but

wanted to wait until they were alone. He shook his head at Killen. “Some day.”

Killen shrugged. “Perhaps. But not today.”
He turned and nodded at a pair of researchers whom Cristoval hadn’t seen until

they crowded into the cell as well. One of them had an injector. Before he could prepare
for the sting, the researcher pointed the gun-like injector at him and fired. Tiny,
degradable crystals pierced the skin of his chest. He didn’t even try to brush them
away, only rubbed the tender spot while killing them with his eyes. Whatever the
crystals had been laced with would enter his bloodstream within minutes. He’d tried to
counter the effect the first few times they’d injected him, but had quickly realized how
futile it was. Cristoval looked down at his chest; tiny red marks indicated where the
crystals had lodged. He didn’t do anything but look at the researchers then Killen. He
was saving his strength for whatever was to come. He’d undoubtedly need it.

“What now?” he asked, feigning ennui. If he ever got his hands on Killen…
Some day.
“Now we let nature take its course,” Killen replied after a gesture for the rest of his

little entourage. The security guards retreated, as did the researchers.

Cristoval took a step toward the woman. “This has nothing to do with nature.”
“On the contrary. Mating is right alongside shelter and nourishment in the scale of

needs, supersedes much of everything else in some circles.”

On the floor, the woman stirred slightly. Her leg twitched. Cristoval would’ve

smiled when the guards, suddenly fidgety and tense, seemed in a hurry to leave the
cell. One of them bled from the mouth and another favored a leg.

“Mating?” The word left a taste like metal in his mouth. “I’m not that kind of man.”
“You are not even a man,” Killen replied through a wide grin. “Well, barely one. But

be that as it may, because I know you would not take advantage of the situation—not
that I blame you since you have yet to see her clearly—I made sure to add a little spice
to your life. Enjoy.”

“Spice? What spice?” Suddenly dizzy, Cristoval put a hand out to the wall. His

mouth was dry.

“Think of it as a tonic. Part lutropin, part amphetamine, part sildenafil citrate. It

should pack a good punch, if I may use such pun.”

“What the hell are you saying?”

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Carnal

Killen sighed. “You have just been injected with an industrial-grade aphrodisiac,

Mr. Vonatos. Have a good night.” He turned to leave, gasped and turned back to
Cristoval. “I almost forgot.” He fished inside his suit jacket, pulled a slim silver object
shaped like a skipping stone.

Cristoval barely had time to flinch when the implants in his wrists and ankles gave

him a nasty jolt that rocked him back against the wall. He collapsed, panting, his teeth
all but fused together.

“Sometimes the tone is just as important as the words, Mr. Vonatos.” Killen left

without a backward glance. The rest trooped out of his cell. The door closed.

It took him a little longer than the first few times Killen had jolted him to get back

on his feet. He was growing weaker. Remnants of electricity made his thighs and arms
twitchy and sore.

On the floor the woman stirred, raised a shoulder to try to roll over. Damn them.
They might have thought he was a beast, but he sure as hell wouldn’t give them

credence and act like one. Whatever they’d given him, he’d fight it.

Cristoval knelt beside her, with shaking hands helped her onto her side so he could

wrap an arm under and hold her close. He knew exactly how it felt to wake this way,
naked on the floor, cold, scared and angry for allowing them to catch him in the first
place, angry that being a lycan allowed for such inequities, angry he couldn’t do a thing
about it.

“It’s okay, they’re gone now.” But they’ll return. This he left unsaid.
She snarled something he didn’t understand. Weak and shaky himself, Cristoval

somehow managed to find the strength to bring her stout frame to his chest, gently
began to rock her, murmuring soothing words under his breath. She grew quiet,
stopped trying to sit and pull his hand away.

He had to grit his teeth to keep them from chattering. Whatever they’d given him

had started to work. His vision fluctuated between coronas of blues and purples to
foggy black and white. So he kept his eyes squeezed shut. Every nerve ending fired
messages to his brain. His skin tingled. Hers felt smooth and warm…

No.
He wouldn’t let them make a lusting beast of him.
To keep his mind on the right track and his drugged body focused, he began to

recite the name of every person he knew then each of their family members. He quickly
ran out so concentrated instead on numbers, did mental math drills, replayed the
lessons Asia gave to younger members of his little underground nation, the one place
where everyone had a home, no matter the genetic makeup. The girl’s smiling face, that
caustic sense of humor. His self-appointed niece and Commander-in-chief of
Everything as she’d once called herself. Cristoval grinned despite his predicament.

They began small.

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But each tiny quiver drove a stake in his heart. The tremors in the woman’s chest

traversed his, linked them, joined them in her sobs and his silent prayers. He didn’t
know how long she cried in his arms, at times clawing at his shoulders to bring herself
closer still, other times just resting against his chest as if too weary to care. Moisture
coated his skin. Still the drugs made him want to do things, made him hard—to his
great shame. He fought it.

The woman’s sobs subsided, stopped. “Thanks.”
He nodded because he didn’t think he could talk without grunting. His veins felt on

fire. His brain could barely process simple thoughts. In his ears, his heart whooshed
more rapidly than ever before. For a second he feared having a heart attack. Whatever
they’d given him worked like a charm. It was all he could do not to start humping her
leg.

“I’m…s-sorry,” he pushed through his teeth.
“Drugs. I heard him.”
A great shiver shook her. Cristoval held her closer, to offer comfort and because he

couldn’t stop himself in time. Such soft skin she had. He’d always wanted to lie with a
woman who had good muscles and soft skin. What color was her hair? Pale brown?
Dark blonde? Her eyes?

“Fight it,” she murmured as she wrapped strong arms around his torso and pressed

herself hard.

Cristoval felt her naked breasts against his chest. Fever took him. He started

panting. The timid light of his cell haloed everything in psychedelic purples and greens,
even with his eyes squeezed tight.

He grunted. Pain in his teeth and gums became the catalyst to the fear that he was

losing the battle. The lycan in him, triggered by the spikes of adrenaline, wanted to claw
its way out. Cristoval wouldn’t let it.

“Fight it,” the woman urged, louder. Her voice was hoarse.
The cries he’d heard not long ago ripped into his brain. He focused on that, on what

it’d taken to produce them, what they’d done to this woman. Anger replaced lust. Old,
seething anger. He breathed slowly, deeply, encouraged by her whispers.

“It’s…it’s strong. What they’ve given me.”
How could he even talk when he could barely breathe? What if he convinced her to

let him take her? Leisurely, gently. He was no brute. Her flesh around his cock would
feel just right. She could make it all go away. Maybe just a kiss?

It’s the drugs talking. Focus, for Christ’s sake!
He felt her nod against his chest. He still hadn’t seen her face. “You’re stronger than

them.”

“Yeah.” He didn’t sound as triumphant as he would’ve liked, but it’d have to do.
“We’ll wait it out,” she murmured, those strong arms of hers never relenting

despite the tubes coming out the crooks of her elbows.

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Carnal

He returned the embrace, put his cheek on the top of her head. “We’ll wait it out.”
Tears welled his eyes, rolled down his cheeks and seeped into her hair. He realized

her hair hadn’t been matted but wet. In fact, she was wet all over, not sweaty. But he
was. His thigh pressed against hers, the muscles there made Cristoval all but push her
down to take her. She’d feel perfect, anchored by the hips, those strong hips and
muscled shoulders, her rosy flesh stretched around his cock. Built as she was, she must
have made one vigorous lover.

“Fight it,” she growled.
Cristoval realized his right hand was wrapped around her thigh, slowly caressing

it. He snatched it away, balled a fist so the itch of his recently healed palm would pierce
the drug-induced sexual stupor assailing him. It worked.

“Forgive me.”
“It’s them, not you.”
She sounded so sure. She didn’t even know him.
Sweat and tears linked them, created a bond he knew would never be broken. A

relationship born in a dingy cell, god knew where, amidst suffering and privations
because they were different than the average human. Lycans.

For hours they held each other, prey to their own demons. Perhaps the woman’s

proximity relieved some of the sexual tension the drugs had triggered for soon the fever
left him, spent and weak, but left him nonetheless, and this, above every other fight
he’d won, left him buoyed and feeling invincible. He’d battled them and won. With her
help.

“I’m better now…” He took a deep breath. “I think.”
Cristoval pulled his chin from the top of her head and helped her kneel. He didn’t

meet her gaze or try to see her face through the bangs as he gently worked the tubes out
of her. She had them everywhere, stuck with tiny clamps or sutured to her skin. These
required extra care as he pulled them out using his fingernails—clean since they hosed
him down on a regular basis. As they would an animal. He had no idea what all the
tubes could have been for. She must have broken out of whatever had been holding her.
The skin around each entry point was colored like old bruises, yellowed and greenish.
In fact, she was one big bruise, especially her back, where a collection of fresh scars in a
circular pattern reminded him of volter shots. Except that the shots needed to create
those scars should’ve killed her. Strands of hair had begun to dry on her V-shaped back.
She was a blonde then.

With shaking hands, she raked her hair back, turned to look at him. Blue eyes like

windows to a summer sky riveted him to the spot.

He knew her.
Had known someone who looked just like her. But it couldn’t be her. That woman

had sacrificed herself to allow Solomon, Cupcake and him to penetrate deeper into the
parliament building where ultimately they’d been supposed to kill his father and

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liberate the people. Only Killen had showed up and everything turned to shit. He
couldn’t believe she’d survived the wounds he’d seen on her.

Yet those eyes were the same. The gaze just as he remembered it. She’d piqued his

curiosity—and interest—the second he’d laid eyes on the Valkyrie as she knelt beside
his dying brother Reyes, demanding to know who he’d worked for.

“Dragana?”
She nodded before tears welled those lovely blue eyes rimmed red and puffy. They

were still lovely to him.

“They yanked me back,” she murmured, chin quivering. “I was there, I could see

him, and they yanked me back.”

Cristoval nodded. He didn’t know what she meant but would lend support any

way he could.

He knew he shouldn’t feel this way. He barely knew her. But what they’d shared

couldn’t be surpassed in any “normal” settings. Nothing would ever break what
presently crystallized in his heart, the closeness, the kindred spirit, the affection deeper
than any he’d felt before. Cristoval Vonatos, the only remaining member of his family,
the lone wolf, long-hunted underground resistance leader and lycan, had fallen in love
with a woman who should be dead.

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Carnal

Chapter Two

Dragana could still taste that awful fluid in her mouth, feel it in her ears, her eyes,

her lungs. It coated everything. The terrible moment of awakening inside…whatever
it’d been sent a shiver up her spine and left her dizzy with fear and rage and horror at
what had been done to her. Because she knew. She couldn’t have survived the volter
shots she’d taken, especially not the last one, right in the back, which had undoubtedly
done massive damage. So they’d pulled her back. Somehow they’d resuscitated her.
How she hated them.

When she’d woken in that awful place, suspended in some clear liquid inside that

tank, seen all those people through the glass staring at her with round eyes and
mouths—they obviously hadn’t been prepared for her timing—she’d taken an
instinctive, deep breath. Big mistake. Fluid had seeped into the mask covering her face
and choked her. Coughing and thrashing and kicking, she’d broken free of most of the
tubes hooked into her, which had made blood seep out in thin swirls to mix with the
clear fluid. She’d clawed up at the domed cover where a multitude of tubes and wires
disappeared into a lid that looked like a red iris. Chaos had erupted outside. People ran.
She couldn’t hear them but could tell they were yelling. Someone was frantically trying
to open the tank, but it was too slow. So damn slow. Thankfully, the fluid level had
receded in the tank until she’d flopped down at the bottom, a quivering, hiccupping
heap. Cold air had seeped inside. Hands had grabbed at her, pulling, wiggling the
needles in her flesh. More hands. Everywhere. Until she’d been dumped to the floor, so
cold, so hard. People talking. Sharp things being stuck into her. What the hell was
wrong with these people? She tried batting them off but they kept coming back.
Someone was trying to hold her down. The smell of male sweat stung her nose. Panic
seized her. She started screaming like a banshee, couldn’t stop herself. The strength of
her voice shocked her. The raw quality of it.

The pain and panic, the fear had been too much. She’d changed.
Then her world had become one of red and black and blinding white lights, of

hands clawing at her, of pointy things being jabbed in her sides, her lower back, and the
overwhelming feeling of loss. The all too familiar ache. All over again.

Dragana wished they’d left her alone.
The man presently holding her. What was his name? She remembered his brother’s

name, that backstabbing little shit, Reyes. But not the big brother. Why could she clearly
remember every detail of the despicable one when she couldn’t even recall the good
one’s name? How wrong was that?

Long arms wrapped around her back and gently stroked her head, murmuring

softly. Any other day, Dragana Bjelić, Ivan’s younger twin by two whole minutes—how

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Nathalie Gray

she missed him—and Dex Solomon’s expert marksman, would’ve pushed the solicitous
man away with a sharp rebuke and some yo-bitch attitude. Who did he think she was,
some goddamn doll with a broken fingernail? Any other day, she would’ve fought
back. She wouldn’t have bawled her eyes out. But that woman had died, hadn’t she?
She was gone. Who’d replaced her? Dragana wasn’t sure. So she took the consideration
and solace of this man’s embrace. She took it and held the feeling close to her heart, for
the first time too weary for bravado and too afraid of solitude.

“Cristoval.”
It’d come to her just like that. Relief warmed her entire body. She could remember

the man’s name, the older Vonatos brother. The good one.

“Yes?”
“It’s your name, right?”
“It is.” EET-eez. His accent took certain syllables and lifted them above the rest.

Verbal lace.

“I remember you. You’re the resistance’s big boss.”
A gentle chuckle made her want to grin. He could do that? With only a chuckle? He

could make her smile? Wow. Lassitude returned a hundredfold. She just wanted this to
end. She’d been glad in a way to have been dying. Dead. The pain of Ivan dying in her
arms had been just too heavy to bear. Even watching Reyes, the one responsible for all
the grief, take his last breath hadn’t brought the satisfaction she’d expected. Not even
close.

“What do they want with us?” she asked, not really caring for an answer. She just

wanted to hear another voice.

“Tests.”
She shivered in spite of the fever engulfing her body. Dragana pulled away, sat on

her heels. Damn, they were both naked. Cristoval didn’t look the way she remembered,
much less ripped and built like a bunker. In fact, he could be called lean now, with
hollowed cheeks and haunted eyes. Although the eyes had always looked haunted to
her, only much more so now. His black, wavy hair had grown almost to his shoulders
and a thin black beard darkened the bottom half of his face. To Dragana, he resembled a
Spartan warrior from antiquity, complete with proud nose and scars all over. His arms
were covered in them.

“They worked you good.”
He shrugged, scratched his throat. “These aren’t all from here.”
She noticed his right hand, the long gash recently healed. A fresh wave of rage

gritted her teeth. “That too?”

“It’s not important. They took nothing of value to me.”
He flexed his fingers, the pinky bending only slightly. They had cut through nerves.

Bastards.

“Yeah, who needs flexible pinkies, right?”

16

Carnal

They shared a quiet smile.
“So,” she went on, trying not to notice or care that she was a wet, naked mess. Her

skin looked and felt as if she’d lain in the bathtub for hours. Pasty and clammy. And all
those little pinpricks where the tubes had been. Ugh. “Are they looking for something
specific or just like to hear lots of screaming?”

Wisecracking didn’t feel the way it used to. She sighed. What had they done to her?
“It’s mainly scientific pursuits without morality.”
“That’s the scariest thing I’ve heard.”
He nodded, stood, raked his hair back with both hands. They shook badly.

Whatever they’d given him must have still had some residual effect. He no longer
sported a hard-on though.

Dragana stood as well. She’d forgotten how tall Cristoval was. What, at least six

and a half? Almost as tall as Cupcake, although not nearly as big. Especially now after
who knew how long in this place, starving, being tortured by some excited scientists
with brand-new scalpels. Christ, what a mad world.

She hadn’t missed it in the few…however many days she’d been dead. Half dead.

Quasi dead. Post dead? What was she now anyway? A zombie? She chuckled despite
the situation. It was either that or start crying again. Crying made her head hurt like a
bitch and she was tired of hurting.

“So what now?” she asked, looking around at the concrete box they stood in. A

stainless steel toilet in one wall. A clock above the door. A vent in the ceiling. Nothing
else. Maybe her deal hadn’t been too bad, considering. Cristoval had taken all of it
awake and aware.

“How long have we been in here anyway?”
“A little over three months.”
“What?”
He nodded. “How long did you think it’d been?”
“I don’t know,” she replied with a one-shoulder shrug. “A couple of days, a week.

Man, three months.” Had she been dead all that time and they’d only brought her back,
or had she been living in that tank for three months? Either hypotheses made her skin
crawl.

“We’re getting out of here.”
He shook his head. “Don’t talk about that.”
“Why not?”
A tic pulled at his eyelid. He avoided her gaze as he drew near. Shoulders and pecs

that were once round and thick with muscles had become leaner, defined with
striations and cords more like a runner’s build than a boxer, even if he was just as
intimidating. If he’d reminded her of a bear before, he positively resembled the human
equivalent of a wolf now. Wiry, spare and sharp. A lone hunter.

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Nathalie Gray

“We can’t escape. It’s no use.”
Dragana’s danger antennas picked up all kinds of signals from him. Hairs on her

arms stood in waves. “Like hell we can’t.”

Cristoval planted a hand on the wall by her shoulder, boxed her in, leaned closer.

“They’re monitoring us,” he whispered directly in her ear as a lover would.

Heat spread to her cheeks. Slowly she was warming again, both physically and

emotionally. Adrenaline levels rose—a tiny peak compared to the supernova-grade
spikes she could usually reach. But it brought her closer to her usual self. Closer to life.
Ha. As if she were alive at all. She was dead. They’d only brought back a body with no
one in it. A shell. Nobody home.

The smell of his sweat tickled her nose. New sweat, not reeky old stuff. So they kept

him clean? Hosed him down like an animal once in a while? Before or after the torture,
she wondered.

His lips grazed her earlobe when he whispered, “The drugs are still working.”
“And?”
“They’re expecting a show. For their research.”
“Oh.”
“It’d make a perfect diversion.” Cristoval’s growth of hair tickled and teased her

hypersensitive skin. She shivered.

“We’re not going all the way.”
“I’m not that kind of man, Dragana.”
Her name was like velvet against her skin. No one had ever said it quite that way

with a mix of quiet strength and… Was that resignation she heard in the whispered
words? Resignation and regret?

With her eyes closed, she tilted backward until her shoulder blades connected with

the wall. So cold and grainy with concrete dust sticking to her skin. She felt as if she’d
become this bundle of knotted nerve endings, nothing but one big ball of raw flesh
unable to turn it off, fighting through the slew of impulses firing every which way in
her stupefied brain. Ultra aware yet numb. Hot and cold. Alive and dead.

“Just pretend,” he breathed slowly.
Cristoval’s hand touched her gently on the wrist, grazed upward along her arms,

which twitched in spite of herself—the man was good with his hands—up over her
shoulder so he could wrap his long hand around her neck and bring her closer against
him. Instead of kissing her directly on the mouth, his lips landed near her jaw. But she
heard the labored breathing just the same, felt him become hard once more. He was
fighting it with all he had, that much was obvious. His entire body shook.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. He obviously tried to tilt his hips back so his cock

wouldn’t rest against her belly, but couldn’t move too far for fear their little show
wouldn’t be convincing. Had to make it look as if they were engaged in sex. Had to fool
the cretins with the needles watching.

18

Carnal

“It’s all right,” she replied in kind. “Nature made us that way.”
With one hand, she fisted his hair, kept him put while she hooked her foot behind

his ankle. Her body took over. With shock, she realized their bodies all but clicked
together when he pressed her against the wall, impeccably espoused to her form.
Perfect fit. His cock pressed at the juncture of her thighs.

He took long, ragged breaths. “Don’t take this the wrong way…but you’re making

this more difficult.”

“I’m doing this once. Has to be convincing.”
He nodded, nibbling her jaw, passing a whisper away from her mouth before going

for her other side. She gasped when he trapped her earlobe in his teeth and pulled
gently.

Amazingly, juices coated her despite the situation. Animal instincts were hard to

suppress especially with such a fine male specimen rubbing up against her. Her heart
beat faster, harder. With his hand cupped at her nape and his other low in her back, he
must have been able to feel her nipples against his chest, even if she did all she could
not to graze him with them. Hypersensitivity made them hard and tingly. Cristoval’s
hands pressed her harder against him. She could barely suppress the urge to roll her
hips and crush her pussy against his glorious cock. But she did. She fought it. Through
focus she didn’t know she had and control dredged from years of sniper training, she
channeled the energy, the raw sexual tension playing havoc with her nerves and
released a long breath.

Big mistake.
Her breasts pressed harder against his chest. Cristoval gasped softly before his

mouth landed on hers. She was sucking his tongue in before she knew what she was
doing. A moan escaped her. Then another when he forced her spine to concave.

Oh god, oh sweet god.
A faint sensation tickled the back of her neck. She felt Cristoval tense against her.

By the corner of her eye, she spotted a couple of heads bobbing behind the window,
curious eyes looking in. As Cristoval widened his legs, curled his pelvis in, Dragana
made sure to hide his cock so they wouldn’t know he wasn’t taking her for real. She
wrapped her left leg, the one closest to the door, around his hip.

His lips brushed against her ear. “Are you ready?”
“Yes.”
He stabbed his hips forward. Faking a gasp, Dragana tilted herself so his cock

would rub along her inner thigh even as the feel and warmth of him brought on some
pretty amazing sensations down there. Like tingling for starters. She didn’t fake that.
Couldn’t have faked it.

Like pistons, Cristoval’s long legs pumped. The feigned penetrations must have

been convincing enough because the faces in the window approached until they were
literally pressed against the dirty glass. Through partially closed eyes, she spotted only

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Nathalie Gray

one guard. The rest were lab coats. They must have thought one was too weak to pose a
threat while the other couldn’t possibly recuperate fast enough from death to fight back.
Perfect.

She made her voice loud enough but not too much as Cristoval “took” her harder,

his arms around her waist while she held his head close to her chest. Timing was
everything. They must want to get her back to the lab while Cristoval’s semen was still
inside and usable. She’d show them they shouldn’t have messed with lycans. With her.

A faint click. A subtle change in the air. The door had just unlocked but was still

closed. They really had learned nothing, had they?

“Wait,” he whispered between thrusts. “Wait.”
She mmm-ed louder, threw her head back.
His cock rubbed her pussy hard, all the way back, retreat, then again. Heat then

moisture announced Cristoval’s performance was convincing even her libido to kick
into high gear, and if that just didn’t make her want to bite his shoulder, lick his neck,
murmur all kinds of dirty things in his ear until he’d repaid her with more glorious hip
work. He was good. Really good.

Cristoval pushed hard. Good god, what would it be like if he did it for real? Heat

spread to her belly. What she would’ve given for a lover like this back when… Before
they’d…

Fuck.
Anger and the old fire replaced the happy place the towering lycan had brought her

to. She hated them even more. For ruining her life—Ha, now that’s a good one—for
ruining her death and now for ruining a good lay.

He must have felt her tense because he growled, kissed her throat, made a big show

of taking her until he threw his head back, let out a long grunt that filled the small cell.

Showtime.
They must have thought the “lovers” were too busy coming to notice the lone

guard cracking the door open so he could squeeze the muzzle of his injector in the
embrasure.

Everything happened at once.
Cristoval yanked himself away, used his greater reach to wrench the door wide

while Dragana hurled herself at the guard, tackled him before he could even pull the
trigger while making sure she gripped his wrist and aimed it away from either her
companion or herself. Voices rose in shock. Tools fell to the floor in a collection of
metallic clatters. She heard the injector going off followed by a muffled grunt then
someone dressed in white fell across her in a tangle of limbs. The smell of urine wafted
to her. The guard had pissed himself. With a grunt, she cocked her fist back and
smashed it, hammer-like, on the man’s nose. He whimpered, tried to kick at her. With
blood pouring from his ruined mouth and nose, Dragana rolled him facing outward,
went for his belt.

20

Carnal

“Damn!”
Cristoval’s voice pierced the murderous veil that had descended on her. She’d

wanted to hurt that guard. Hurt him bad. He was part of the mad machine and she was
going to throw a serious kink in their gears.

The guard’s volters, both of them, were in her hands by the time she pulled up to

one knee, fired at the back of a lab coat who’d started running down the hall toward a
yellow box with a black screen on its face. She mentally cataloged the yellow box as
either a controls panel with comms capability or some sort of warning mechanism.
They couldn’t afford to lose the element of surprise.

She used the butt of one volter to knock the guard out cold with a good whack

against the nape. He went down without a sound. She shot another as the woman tried
to scoot away, an assortment of metallic tools on a tray in her hands. Why hadn’t she
just let the thing fall? Dragana’s shot hit the woman squarely in the chest. No use
making it last. She shuddered when the static-charged nickel bead hit, melted a hole in
the stark white lab coat. A crimson stain spread before the woman slumped back, the
tray slipping, the tools she’d protected with her life falling pell-mell on the floor. Glass
tubes shattered, metal implements clattered.

Behind her, she heard grunts then the sound of falling bodies. She turned just in

time to watch Cristoval stand with two men in headlocks. One held another injector.
Abrupt jerks that snapped their necks and both fell limp to be discarded by the lycan.

A stainless steel surgical gurney along the wall raised her blood pressure. Whatever

they’d been planning had involved her on her back and strapped down. Disgusting.

“Down the hall to the left,” Cristoval snarled, retrieving the injector from the floor.

“There’s a couple of decon rooms and a chute.”

Dragana nodded, standing. She still tingled all over from pretend sex with the guy.

“Where does it lead?”

“I have no idea.”
“I like how you think.”
Better to go down a chute to who knows where than stay in place and face certain

armed opposition. She threw him one of the volters. He caught it, nodded then rushed
by. Cristoval checked the corner first then turned down the corridor. More concrete. A
piss-yellow line of peeling paint along the floor led the way to the decon rooms where a
bunch of orange HAZMAT suits on hooks made it look as if a dozen men had been
hung while wearing them. It creeped her out. Colors were too bright. Smells too strong.
Everything assaulted her senses. The place gave her the chills. She wanted out. For the
first time since she could remember, panic tried to make a fool of her. She forced her
heartbeat to slow, her breathing to regulate. She was in charge here, not hormones, not
nerves.

Keep your eye on the target, your finger to the trigger.

21

Nathalie Gray

Cristoval turned to her and said something she didn’t hear because a shrill siren

chose just that moment to wail its little heart out. Dragana spotted the offending device,
shot at it only to realize the sound came from all over. They were so fucked.

A grimace twisting his face, Cristoval shouldered the stainless steel door to the

decon unit as though it were cardboard, held it while Dragana rushed by, sweeping the
place with her volter.

“There!” he yelled above the siren.
Movement from the corner of her eye made Dragana whirl on the spot. One volter

shot was sufficient. The static-charged nickel bead shot out of the muzzle with a blue-
white glow, struck the guard’s shoulder, created an electric arc that reduced it to red
pulp. He shuddered, collapsed. Another replaced him at the corner. Inevitable. Other
bad guys always replaced the ones she shot. For a split second, she felt like just giving
up. Had she been alone, she just might have. But Cristoval expected her to hold her
own, not sit on her ass and wait to die. So she placed the shots with the deadly accuracy
that’d made her notorious.

Volter beads thudded against concrete by Dragana’s head. She yelped, fired back.

One less guard to contend with. She’d been an expert marksman, the reason why Dex
Solomon and his team of lycan mercenaries had kept her onboard despite her
“charming” personality. No one could place a shot like she could. Man, she missed the
team right now. Solomon and his special brand of dark humor, the witty and classy
Liberty, the shy Cupcake who could break a door down just by pushing against it with
a hand. And of course Ivan, her twin, whose function in the team had been
twofold…keep his sister under control and take care of the bigger guns. He’d always
loved the heavy stuff—machinery, things like that. He’d wanted to be a construction
worker when growing up. But being a “genetic deviant” had quickly killed his dream.

Cristoval presently yelled something. That damn siren drowned everything else.
Dragana realized she’d been standing there like a moron, reminiscing instead of

firing. She quickly rectified the situation with a long volley that created ricochet scuffs
on the concrete wall and some satisfactory groans of pain from around the corner.

“Come on! Hurry!”
She turned just in time to see Cristoval fisting a big red button shaped like a

mushroom. A chute near the floor irised about three feet wide. He stood beside it and
kept his foot on the edge so the sensors along the rim would keep the chute open. Firing
one last shot, Dragana back-ran to the chute, sat on the floor and, one last look at her
stern-looking companion, slid down the darkened metallic tunnel.

It didn’t last long. A second or so later, she shot out of the tube like a meat rocket,

landed directly on concrete floor—goddammit. She snarled when she chafed both
knees, an elbow and the knuckles of the hand holding the volter. Still the siren wailed
above her head. She kept the nickel for the guards, even if shooting every fucking
speaker felt like a grand idea right about now.

22

Carnal

She moved out of the way just in time for Cristoval to shoot out of the shaft. He was

so tall he had to crouch to get out from underneath the chute opening. He’d landed
with much more grace than she had.

“Now what?” she said, eyeing the small room filled with tanks and other

containers. Huge industrial-grade washers lined along one corner looked like steel
monsters with their maws opened. She averted her gaze. Her skin tingled all over. She
was hungry, thirsty, horny. She felt like shit.

Cristoval ran to a door with a faded yellow placard where the word Terminal made

her shake her head. How appropriate. Exactly how she felt.

“This way. There’s an emergency exit sign.”
She followed him out through an empty cubicle and emerged on a galvanized steel

gangway with yellow handrails and overlooking a hangar filled with gleaming black
“golf carts” sporting some logo the color of kiwi flesh on their hoods. They looked wet.
What resembled a steel elevator shaft rose in the center of the garage. The thirty-foot-
wide shaft disappeared through the ceiling about a hundred feet above their heads.
Underground then? Made sense. Defense research and development complexes were
always underground. So people wouldn’t hear the subjects scream.

The elevator doors were wide open, revealing a spacious cabin inside with seats

and other furnishings. Deep underground then if the ride’s length warranted such a
luxurious cabin. Water pooled in puddles around the shaft and farther in the garage.
Actually, everything looked wet.

“Look!” Cristoval yelled above the siren, pointing down in a corner.
A few people in dark blue coveralls ran for revolving doors. The siren wailed here

too. Damn it. No one seemed to notice them up on the gangway, so they must have
been running because of the siren. Good, then they could get to that elevator and—

Cristoval cursed and backpedaled too fast for her to avoid. He ran into her, sent

both of them crashing in a heap back against the wall. She was about to start cursing
when a volley of nickel beads hit the wall right where their heads would’ve been had he
not tackled them down. So they weren’t necessarily to be caught alive. Good to know.
The concrete pitted with the hundreds of tiny eruptions. They reminded her of
firecrackers. Voices. The clack of feet. Many feet.

She disentangled her legs from his. “Christ, they were waiting for us here!”
“I doubt it!” he yelled to be heard. He pointed to the elevator. “I think they just got

off!”

She understood then. “Ah, the new shift coming in!”
He nodded.
That fucking siren!
“We have to find another way out!”
Dragana shook her head. If these guys had come in using that thing, she was going

out through it. Plus, she didn’t care if they killed her while she tried to escape as long as

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Nathalie Gray

she got Cristoval out of there first. She wasn’t staying here. But then again, maybe she
wouldn’t mind if they did kill her. Period.

Still, they needed a diversion.
“Meet you at the elevator!”
Cristoval’s dark eyes flared in shock and horror when she stood and sprinted along

the gangway. Adrenaline still fired her up, even if she knew her minutes were counted.
She wouldn’t last long. Her plan was stupid and dangerous. Hell, it was no plan at all.
Just long enough to give him a good chance. As good a chance as could be expected in
this place. He’d helped her in her time of vulnerability and need, had held her while she
cried her loss and rage. She’d return the favor and go down in a hail of bullets. Dragana
Bjelić didn’t intend to die at the end of a bunch of needles and scalpels.

Solomon would’ve been proud.
With the momentum, she ran the length of the gangway, aimed a volter at the first

golf cart. Her aim was true. Like a giant crow losing all its feathers in one shot, the cart
exploded in a geyser of mechanical parts, twisted metal and other debris that thudded
and clanged and clacked in a wide radius. Heat buffeted her. Someone screamed. That
was pain. She could recognize the sound of pain. Well, she was about to dish a hell of a
lot more! Plenty of pain where that came from. In a quick succession, she fired at the
other carts, all except one. She needed that last one by the wall. They exploded at
regular intervals, burst like overripe black metal melons. Metallic death sliced the air in
every possible direction.

She yelled something. She didn’t even know what. It just felt good. She only wished

she had some cool outfit for her last stand instead of running around butt naked. Oh
well.

Instead of using the stairs going down along the far wall, Dragana pulled a long

jump from her repertoire and leaped directly over the railing and caused air to whip her
hair back from her face for one instant of brilliant clarity. While she arced in midair
above the railing, her ankles together to absorb the shock when she’d landed thirty feet
below, her arms out and wide, volter blazing. She saw it all, felt suspended over
everyone and everything. Suspended over her life, watching from above.

Men hiding under the gangway, thirty feet below, huddled around the two with

volters. Workers then, not guards. Still cogs to her, part of the machine. She fired as she
started to fall back down, gravity being the bitch she was already pulling at her.

Bracing for the impact, Dragana landed with both feet directly on the hood of the

last golf cart. She yelled partly because it hurt like nobody’s business and partly because
it felt good to let it all out. She didn’t know how they could’ve missed her, standing
there five feet off the floor on a goddamn cart barely twenty paces in front of them. Bad
shots missed her by at least a foot. Economically, she placed a shot in each of them. As if
they stayed facing her waiting for their turn. Didn’t they have any preservation instinct?
Couldn’t they tell she was going to kill them all without a thought? Didn’t they see it
coming?

24

Carnal

She’d seen death. It was warm and nice and gone now. They’d be luckier. They’d

stay dead.

A voice she recognized well yelled something. She jumped off the cart, landed in a

roll then snapped back to her feet to spot Cristoval jumping down the last half of the
staircase. He landed like a panther would, all fluid strength despite what they’d done to
him. She hated them even more.

Well, damn, what do you know?
She’d actually survived her little stunt. Despite a couple of men still cowering or

running around, no one seemed interested in shooting at her or coming anywhere near
her. She charged for the elevator at the same time Cristoval did, his long legs taking him
there first. He plastered his back against the stainless steel shaft, volter trained outward
and sweeping. He knew what he was doing.

She passed him, for a split second could smell him, sense him with all her being.

She felt his presence. A spike of adrenaline and sexual energy sliced through her body,
created visions in her mind. The basest needs gripped her. Her on her back with the tall
man wrapped tightly between her legs. A hurried, disorderly fuck. He’d make it all go
away, wouldn’t he? All that pain. Man, she wanted him.

Great timing.
“Hurry!” he yelled. Rs rolled at the back of his throat. Sexy.
Volter beads clinked inside the cabin along the steel wall. Dragana, on pure instinct,

ducked out of the way as she charged inside. Cristoval followed, slammed his hand on
the access panel. Air whistled when the doors squeezed her view of the garage into a
narrow strip then to nothing at all. A lurch forced her to spread her feet.

“Do you even know what you’re doing?” she demanded. Oh, that was a bit of the

old fire coming back, wasn’t it? It felt good to be bitchy, back to normal. It only lasted a
second though. So she’d made it out in one piece. So what? Next time would probably
be it.

Another lurch forced them against the wall. She noticed some of the interior panels

were made of transparent thermoplastic, interspersed with gray polymer paneling and
chrome “holy shit” handles. Dark bedrock outside the portholes looked sweaty and
slick. She grabbed the closest handle to weather out the next series of heaves. Deep
clunks reverberated under their feet. What the hell was going on? Through vents in the
ceiling, cool air started coming in. A faint breeze caressed her face, made her nipples
hard.

“What’s that?” she asked, pointing at the far wall where a high seat, bolted to the

deck, faced a console and a couple of joysticks.

“Don’t know.” Cristoval marched to the seat, swiveled it. “It looks like a piloting

station.”

“What the hell for? We’re in an elevator!”

25

Nathalie Gray

The distinct sound of boosters charging somewhere underneath made both of them

stop and stare at each other. Was he gorgeous or was he gorgeous? That short growth of
hair clinging to his jaw made him even more dark and dangerous and Spartan-like. And
those sad, dark eyes. Any other time, Dragana would’ve required heavy machinery to
pry her hands off this fine specimen of man. He was big, he was smart and he was
armed. Just how she liked her men.

Cristoval offered her a splendid view of his tight butt when he leaned over the seat

to take a better look at the console, which had powered up and flickered to life.
Everything seemed to be on automatic around here.

“I think we should sit.” His voice sounded tight and subdued.
“Why?”
“Because this is not an elevator, it’s a craft.”
“What?!”
Dragana joined him by the seat, tried to ignore how the heat of him pleasantly

warmed her arm when she planted her hand on the backrest. True. She could see what
looked a lot like a craft’s nav console, even down to the environmental controls there
along the bottom. A piece of tape under one of the buttons made her scowl.

“What does that thing say?”
Cristoval used a long index finger to roll down the piece of tape. “Fathoms.”
“Fathoms? Like depth? Yeah, makes sense, we’re underground.”
“Not underground,” Cristoval replied, turning to face her. “Underwater.”
“Oh shit.”
With a deep tremor, the elevator—the sub—shot up, buckled their knees in the

process and sent them on their asses a good five feet back as the momentum only
accentuated, reached the “woo-damn” on her Holy Shit Scale, rattled and shook before
complete silence and the sensation of just…floating. Through the portholes, utter
darkness replaced bedrock. Ugh. She forced her gaze away.

Cursing, Cristoval floundered to his feet and sat in the pilot seat.
“Do you even know how to pilot the damned thing?”
“No.”
Economical with his words. She liked him even more.
Don’t like him. Don’t mess things up with feelings. He doesn’t need a bitch like you in his

life. One with a death wish.

She knew what had motivated her back in the garage. She’d wanted to die. Not

only had she not cared if they shot her, she’d actually, honestly wanted to be killed.
Had offered herself up on a platter. Morons hadn’t even been competent enough to
finish the job. Selflessly saving Cristoval’s gorgeous ass had only been a cover for her
real motives.

She’d gone looking to die. Die again. Hopefully for good this time.

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Carnal

Dragana watched him focus on his task, leaning over the console, his back bearing

too many scars to count. Some of them old. Others older. The rest too fresh. No, he
didn’t need a fucked-up lycan like her messing with him. He was a good man. And she
wasn’t—had never been—a good woman.

“I’ll go strap in then,” she said.
“Good idea.”
For some inane reason, tears stung her eyes. She swallowed the lump growing in

her throat, crossed her arms and sat in one of the seats. If she’d been hot only a few
minutes before, cold now filtered into her, numbed her muscles, seeped into her bones.
Her heart too. She hardly felt a thing. Still tears welled her eyes. She blinked, felt one
roll down her cheek. Good thing Cristoval was too busy piloting to see her silent tears.
She hated herself enough already and didn’t think she’d deal well with pity on top of
things.

Why hadn’t they just left her be?

27

Nathalie Gray

Chapter Three

He clearly saw the tears rolling down her cheeks, the silent sobs shaking her strong

frame, but Cristoval knew if he tried to offer succor, reached out to her with compassion
and empathy, she’d probably push him away and call him an assortment of not-so-nice
names in at least two languages. Cristoval didn’t know her well, but he knew that
much. Despite everything that had undoubtedly been done to her, she neither wanted
nor needed pity. Only he didn’t pity her, just wanted to make the pain go away. If she’d
let him. She wouldn’t. So he made his peace and focused on piloting the small sub,
which, according to the nav console, tickled the 1663-fathoms-deep mark several miles
off North Hamgyong, the United Koreas’ northernmost province.

The tiny subcutaneous implants in his wrists and ankles burned. He tried not to

scratch at them too much. Killen wouldn’t be using them on him anytime soon. A
twitch pulled at his biceps just thinking about the electrical jolts he’d received over the
course of his imprisonment. From what he could tell, they hadn’t implanted Dragana.
At least there was that.

After awhile, he realized whatever he did with the controls made not a stitch of

difference to their heading. The sub must have been on autopilot with a course preset
for the surface. It made sense. In case something happened to the occupants, the craft
would make its own way up. The problem was, he didn’t want to surface where
Killen’s goons would be waiting. The Iron Conclave now knew Dragana and he had
stolen the sub and would obviously be waiting for them wherever the thing usually
surfaced. So they had to somehow find a way to force the little craft into a different
route. A safe one.

He cleared his throat, stood from the console and made sure to keep his back to

Dragana, who hurriedly wiped her nose with the back of her hand. He saw it all out of
the corner of his eye. He just didn’t want her to know he could.

“It’s on autopilot?” she asked after awhile. Her voice sounded raw.
He nodded. “We’re still too deep to worry about surfacing, but soon we’ll have to

find a way to pilot this thing ourselves.”

A collection of compartments along the bulkhead revealed a foldaway medical cot,

a pullout stainless steel sink, instant meals in bright yellow packets, enough water
pouches to last several days, half a dozen emergency diving tanks with masks. Not a
single weapon.

“Thank god.”
He reached inside a compartment, retrieved a clear plastic bag bearing the name

“C.L. Brogan”. Inside were toiletries items and the one thing he’d missed more than
anything else. A toothbrush. He didn’t care if it belonged to someone else. He wouldn’t

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Carnal

have cared if he found it floating in a sewer. He hadn’t brushed his teeth since his
capture and would be damned if he’d let the glorious chance go by.

Bent over the sink, he closed his eyes to better savor the moment. In the tiny mirror,

he spotted Dragana watching him with the intensity of a bird of prey.

“Want a turn?”
“Yeah, I guess I should.”
She joined him at the small sink, watched him in the mirror while he finished,

rinsed the toothbrush with his thumb. He faced her, toothbrush in hand.

His physical reaction to her proximity startled him. He’d never been nervous or

twitchy around women. In fact, he’d mostly never been popular at all with them
because he was so busy with the resistance. It’d taken all his time, energy and passion.
There just hadn’t been anything left for lovers. Until now. The male pride in him loved
how Dragana’s blue eyes looked from the angle, how she had to raise her chin to meet
his gaze. He couldn’t help it. A tingle of sexual awareness tightened his balls. He
hurriedly focused on her face so he wouldn’t get lost in her nakedness and embarrass
himself. Remnants of the drugs still needled him.

“You got some toothpaste there,” she said in a low voice, sticking her tongue out

one corner of her mouth to show him where.

She had nice lips, well formed. In fact, Dragana embodied the ideal of female

beauty in his eyes. Strong, obviously healthy and fit. A blue-eyed Valkyrie. Her blonde
hair had begun to dry in places and stuck out in straight strands. Men must have
viewed her as a curvaceous, blonde bombshell. Until she opened her mouth, which
surely broke the spell for even the hardiest guy. The thought of other men not “getting”
her—while he did, completely—satisfied him for some reason he couldn’t identify. Why
should he care? But he did, and that was that.

He wiped one side of his mouth with a thumb. “Thanks.”
Before he could let his hand fall by his side, Dragana cupped it, brought it up so she

could inspect the recent cut on his palm near the base of his little finger. Killen had
wondered if Cristoval’s lycan half and enhanced genes would heal him quickly and
thoroughly enough to make a small appendage grow back. His researchers had voiced
their doubt, which had thankfully settled that subject. But if this macabre theory had
never been tested, plenty others had.

She turned his scarred hand back and forth, traced the lines in his palms. This was

one of the most sexually stimulating experiences in which he’d been involved. His cock
thought so too. He was getting hard again and not just from vestiges of the drugs.
Damn.

“What’s that?” she asked, rubbing a finger on the bump in his wrist.
“An attitude adjustor.” He showed her his other wrist and ankles too. “Don’t be

fooled by the size, they give a good jolt.”

She grimaced.

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Nathalie Gray

Cristoval watched her as she took the toothbrush, applied paste from the tiny tube

in C.L. Brogan’s bag. Saliva and water rendered her lips strips of pink satin that he
found hard to disregard and even more so not to touch. Minty smells mixed with that of
soap and other goodies inside the bag. She bent over to spit in the sink, offered him a
pitiless view of her back where hideous scars competed for room on her pale skin.
When she straightened, their gazes met in the mirror.

Like a physical punch to the gut, Cristoval felt his belly constrict. Needs

overshadowed good judgment and restraint. Overshadowed everything.

“What?” she asked, grinning a fake smile. “Did I miss a spot too?”
He nodded. He couldn’t even talk.
When she raised her hand to wipe her mouth, he intercepted it, caught it in his and

slowly reeled her in. She didn’t resist or push him away.

Dragana cocked her head to look up into his eyes when she stood in front of him.

“The meds still working, huh?”

“It has nothing to do with that.” Why did he feel the need to whisper?
He had to do it now. Taste her. She’d feel so right.
A kiss. Demanding, burning, crushing.
She breathed hard against his face. Like a pair of vise grips, she wrapped both

hands behind his nape to hoist herself up against him, his cock trapped between them,
upward along her belly and his, with rings of pleasure radiating along the shaft. Hot
skin. Her breasts. His tongue in her mouth. Their lips in turn besieged and conquerors.

She made room between her legs for one of his. The bulkhead connected against his

elbow when he used his greater weight to pin her against it with a thigh between hers,
an arm wrapped around her shoulders and the other still gripping her hand, which he
raised to his face so he could kiss the knuckles. When she rolled her pelvis against his,
Cristoval saw stars bursting behind his eyelids. Fever gripped him. Urgency narrowed
his vision.

They belonged together. He could see it clearly. Not only because they each were

“genetic deviants” in the eye of the law, or simply “lycans” to the more liberal-minded
and his followers in the resistance, but on a deeper level, the most profound of them all,
they’d been meant for each other as a man and woman. Surely she could see. But if she
thought otherwise, he’d wait. He’d hope. No matter what she chose, a life elsewhere or
one with him, he’d make sure to keep her safe.

Dragana moaned against his mouth. He sucked it out of her. Her breath, her

tongue, everything. With a violent buck, she crushed her hips against his, trapping his
cock between them both. Where had his legendary cool gone?

Inferno. All-consuming. He was lost. In her. In them both.
Cristoval came.

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Carnal

He hadn’t had human contact—well, except the kind separated by sharp objects—in

awhile. She could understand his reaction. In fact, it was kind of flattering. That this
towering lycan, born to wealth and privilege, a Vonatos, yet living the life of a selfless
underground resistance leader, would spontaneously come just by contact with her. It
flooded her radar screen with all kinds of pings. She could do this to him? Make him
come just like that?

Dragana put more urgency in her kisses. She wanted to come too. Feel him move

deep in her. Replace the pain with pleasure.

With burning semen linking them by the bellies, she snaked a hand down and

fisted his slick cock so she could tear a groan of satisfaction from Cristoval with a few
brusque pumps. She felt at once powerful and desperate, satisfied and ravenous with
her need to get him inside her, force the pain away by filling herself with a hot,
passionate lover. Take him all. Flood her body with his fire so she wouldn’t have to
stare at the abyss in her soul…an abyss she feared stared right back at her. She could
fall into it. Easily. But while Cristoval held her in his arms, she stood steady on the
tightrope of sanity. Safe. For now.

“Do it, do it, do it,” she urged under her breath. The mantra became a metronome

to the rhythm of her heart. Do it. Do it.

Rivets dug in her shoulder blades when he pinned her against the bulkhead,

crushed her there with his body, with his kisses, with the heat of his labored breaths.
Displaying incredible strength, he hoisted her then kept her put, practically suspended
on one of his thighs. She remembered how he’d looked before his imprisonment, thick
and hale, almost as big as Cupcake. It didn’t surprise her that after months of torture
and tests, a leaner physique should supervene. Surprisingly since she preferred big
men, Cristoval’s lean body electrified her, every striation in muscle a carburant to her
revving engine. He must have known it too because he cramped his thigh and rolled his
hips to crush her pussy against him, roll her hardening clitoris, denude it so he could
make the pain go away with a blinding orgasm. She knew he could give it to her. She
wanted this from him. A good lay would set her right. It had to.

“Come on,” she whispered against his chin. Bristles chafed her lips deliciously.
His cum still slicked her belly and made his hip work that much more stimulating.

“Shh.”

Burning, his mouth claimed her throat. Teeth and tongue made her loll her head.

With little regard to his scalp, she dug her fingernails behind his head and crushed his
face against her chest. He spared a hand to grab a breast, which he squeezed and felt,
massaged and gripped hard, imprisoned in his large palm and long fingers. She hissed
when he let it go but bit her bottom lip as he instead claimed her pussy, went right for it
with two fingers that he kept apart so her clit would surface in between. Oh god, that
was good. Up and down, long fingers with wonderful, thick calluses sparked off a deep
urge to have the pain fucked right out of her, to have this man nail her to the goddamn
wall and keep her there with the force of his cock alone. Impalement. That’s what she
wanted!

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Nathalie Gray

When his handling triggered the precursors of one hell of an orgasm, Dragana

squeezed her vaginal muscles as hard as she could to milk his fingers, to make a fist of
her pussy and squeeze him hard enough to hurt if she could. Cristoval grunted in
response and accelerated the cadence. She’d always enjoyed finger-fucking and she was
getting a fine episode of it now.

“That’s it,” she snarled, bit his earlobe. “That’s it. Come on. Come on.”
Sweat made Cristoval’s hand slip on her hip. She slid down the bulkhead and bit

her tongue. But it wouldn’t stop her! She clung to his waist with first one leg then the
other. She waited while he pulled his cock from between them both and tapped it
against her pussy. She didn’t need to be cued twice. Dragana released one foot to the
deck so she could use it as leverage then angled her pelvis forward so he could take her.
And take her he did.

A long whimper deflated her when his cock slid in. Smooth. Slow. Way too slow.

With a brusque tilt, she took him in to the hilt.

He groaned her name. “Dragana.”
It sounded so damn good in his mouth.
“Hold on,” he warned a split second before he jackhammered her up with a few

powerful thrusts.

The edge of a dormant screen provided the perfect anchor and Dragana let go of

him to “Hold on” as he’d told her. She needed it too.

His impetus was enough to lift her not-so-slight frame by several inches as he

pushed inside her, so smooth and hot, so thick and perfectly fitted for her. In and out.
In. Deeper. Then out almost to the glans. Each penetration’s apex seemed to become the
starting point of another more profound one. Each retreat was like a small death. An
abandonment. She didn’t want him to leave.

Sweat plastered his curly black hair to his forehead, so high and proud. Such raw

masculinity. Power oozing. Male vigor. And those haunted, sad eyes.

She closed her own. “Deeper.”
“Dragana,” he murmured in her ear with a roll to his hips that tore a gasp from her.

Her name mutated into a groan then a growl. Each R deep and rich in his chest. Each A
long sighs.

She needed to come. Drown the pain in salvoes of hormones.
Soon his voice drowned hers. It rose proportionally to his shoves. A countertenor to

her rising falsetto. She felt his chest expand with a deep inhalation. He froze. Time
slowed. And still he held his breath, let it build, the power to dip her into a whirl of
ecstasy where nothing would ever hurt her again. She wanted that release. She wanted
that blinding, split-second peace.

On a long, pure, pristine note, he gave it to her.
Stinging heat filled her distended pussy and color swirled her mind’s eye.

Rhythmic, liquid heartbeats drowned everything else as did the taste of mint when he

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crushed his mouth to hers. Cristoval simultaneously instilled warmth in her cold body
and emptied her head of the darkness there.

She wanted to say something. To tell him how good he’d made her feel. How much

she loved what they’d shared. All she could do was grin and let him kiss her to his
heart’s content.

He pulled back abruptly yet still managed to keep her in his arms, swore under his

breath. Dragana opened her eyes to catch him looking down at her with regret and
something else she didn’t want to see there. Affection. She just wanted some
companionship, a strong and able man to hold in her arms. And between her legs. She
didn’t want anything more. She couldn’t give back anything more.

33

Nathalie Gray

Chapter Four

The bliss he had put in her gaze slowly hardened. The cold, unyielding expression

returned to her face. When he thought he’d helped put together a couple of pieces of
herself, they fell back again in a handful of shards.

“What’s wrong?” she asked as she let him slip out of her. The last bit of heat left

when he did. He hadn’t come again.

“There’s something going on with the sub.”
When she craned her neck to see over his shoulder, he turned as well and a small

yellow light blinking at the very edge of the console caught his eye.

“Shit.”
Cristoval raked his hair back, blew air through pursed lips. His heart still drummed

madly. “Shit is right.”

“I’ll go—”
“No, I’ll go check,” he cut her off. Sadness and a rage he could only guess at had

filled her eyes once more. So he wasn’t the only one for whom something had just
broken.

“I think that’s the exterior sensors,” he said after a quick check on the console.
“They got something?”
A violent lurch propelled them both against the bulkhead. The bleep-bleep of an

alarm filled the small craft.

Dragana hit the deck hard. “Fuck!”
“Yeah,” Cristoval snarled as he floundered to his feet and rushed for the pilot’s seat.

“I guess the sensors got something.”

Through the narrow windows, blades of light swept back and forth in the darkness

pressing against the thermoplastic, invaded their sub and raped their ephemeral sense
of safety and bliss that had just been installed between the Valkyrie and him. Whatever
was out there had their search lights on and was going over their sub. They’d been
found out.

A deep clunk reverberated overhead, followed by a long grating sound that ended

abruptly.

“They’re firing on us!” Dragana pressed her face against the window so she could

see up and to the side. “Can’t we kill our lights?”

“I think they’re trying to tow us!” He shook the joystick, cursed when nothing

happened. Two of them and they couldn’t even figure out how to operate a small sub.

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Carnal

He’d been convinced they’d have a couple of hours to get their bearings and learn

how to safely operate the craft, but it seemed as though Killen was in a hurry to get
them back.

“They must want us alive,” he said, “otherwise they wouldn’t have sent a craft with

grappling hooks.”

“Maybe they have both hooks and guns. I wish we had something. Don’t we have

some kind of vidscreen on this thing? We’re a goddamn Christmas tree with all these
lights.”

Another god-awful metal-on-metal moan resounded inside when something heavy

and hard raked the exterior from one end of their craft to the other. Shit, they were
going to suffer some serious damage. If they lost hull integrity at the depth they were in
and with four thousand five hundred PSI pushing in, it’d be an ugly death indeed.
Cristoval didn’t even know what three hundred atmospheres would do to a human
body. Unless the hull gave all of a sudden, then they’d die quickly, that was for sure.

She joined him by the console, bent over the controls for a better look. “There! That

looks like a light switch to me.” She flicked it before he could read the tiny inscription
below it.

At once, the lights went out, plunging them in complete darkness.
“How am I supposed to pilot now?”
“You weren’t even piloting,” she retorted.
Despite the darkness, he knew exactly what expression was on her face. And loved

her for it. As if he’d known her all his life. After the first few seconds of blindness,
Cristoval realized the console was still illuminated, the dials, buttons and controls acid
green in the gloom.

“We have to get them off our ass,” she went on. Shadows over the console indicated

she’d started rashly poking around the controls. A complete opposite to his style.

“Be careful, we don’t—”
“Whoooaaaaw!”
The sudden change in speed and heading caught him by surprise. Either they’d

been grappled by whatever craft chased them outside or they’d actually disengaged the
autopilot. For once, recklessness actually paid off.

He pawed for the seat and swiveled it his way. “I’ll pilot.”
“And what do I do, bite my bottom lip and wring my hands?”
Cristoval grinned in the darkness. He liked her much better all fired up. “For this

one time, yes.”

She snarled something in a language he didn’t understand.
To his left, a long handle with a warning sign caught his attention. He leaned over

to read the label. Telerobotic Mining. He slowly pulled on the handle, watching for signs
of change, breath bated in case he’d just made their situation worse.

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Nathalie Gray

After a couple seconds, a hiss and a whistle erupted overhead. Despite the lack of

proper light, Cristoval saw he’d just triggered a chain reaction inside the sub, which
was slowly transforming the cabin’s left corner into…

“What the hell is that?” Dragana asked, clearly awed. Her shadow moved closer to

the corner where a slender seat had risen from the deck, a console flipped down from
the bulkhead and a wide screen dropped from the deckhead. A logo rotated on the
screen then it lit up. It resembled a blood-red handprint with an eye in the middle. A
word was inscribed in the bottom.

“What the hell is Inu?”
“The sponsor maybe? I don’t know! That’s a station of some sort, what does it do?”
“3-D imaging,” Dragana read the list of what Cristoval understood to be a status

bar. “Telerobotic drills, loaders, magnetic gyrocompass…shit, Cristoval, this sub is used
for undersea mining.”

“But for mining what?”
“Don’t know,” she snapped with finality. “Don’t care.”
Despite the situation, Cristoval wanted to smile. Such fire.
In front of her, an image a ghostly shade of amber filled the screen to relay what

appeared to be their exact location, along with their surroundings, down to the smallest
crack in the ocean floor thousands of feet below. A perfect bird’s-eye view. A small
yellow dot in the middle glowed like a firefly. Two other dots hovered not far, both acid
green. Her screen bathed the entire cabin in an eerie light.

“That yellow dot,” Dragana pointed with her finger. “That’s us. It’s like we’re

watching a video game, only badder.”

Cristoval wanted to reply, but one of the dots moved and almost simultaneously

search lights invaded their small cabin again. A thunk resonated under their feet
followed by a deep grinding noise that jarred the teeth and rattled the compartment’s
content.

Dragana’s screen relayed what had happened to their sub. According to the

blinking numbers, the scale was 1.48, so one quarter inch equaled one foot. So what
happened on Dragana’s screen basically represented a scale model of what their
surroundings and their sub must have looked like from the outside. It reminded him of
a crab.

“How did you do that?” Dragana asked, sitting at that new console and buckling

up. The amber screen silhouetted her strong shoulders. He wanted to reach out and
squeeze them but abstained. Patience had always been a virtue of his. Probably his only
one.

“I didn’t.”
“I hate automated stuff. I like to place my own shots, thank you very much.”
“Now would be a good time too because I think they got us.”

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True. On the screen, the enemy sub had joined theirs and, also resembling a metal

crab, was trying to “pinch” them with pincers. Each try felt like a giant hammer blow
under their feet. The noise was deafening. And scary. “There’s another coming in.”

Now two crablike subs glowed amber on Dragana’s screen, one with a pincer

around theirs, the other obviously about to do the same with the other.

“They’re trapping us!” Cristoval snarled. Damn, they were not getting their claws

back into Dragana or him. He yanked on the joystick, thumbed the smooth button on
the apex.

At once, their sub pitched forward then rolled lazily once.
“Jesus, Cristoval, next time you mind telling me first?”
While she cursed at him, he saw she’d grabbed her own joystick, much smaller and

covered with tiny knobs, and leaned over the control in a study of complete focus.

“Come to Mama,” he heard her mutter.

If there was something Dragana knew, it was how to fight. She’d been born

fighting—her mom would tell the tale every time she had a bit too much slivovitz—had
grown up thus and with any luck, would go down with a clump of someone’s hair in
her fist.

“You turn that thing around,” she said without taking her eyes off the target. Or

targets—plural.

“We don’t have weaponry,” Cristoval replied, but gave her a nice gentle roll just the

same.

“Hell yeah, we do. Two of them.”
“Our pincers?”
“Nope. Them.” She pointed to the enemy subs on her screen.
After a few tries, she managed to work their own sub’s free pincer. She used her

screen to practice, maneuvered the ball-and-socket articulation so she could open and
close, rotate, extend. Good. The ugly little brutes clawing at her ass wouldn’t know
what hit them.

While one of the subs still held her by a pincer, Cristoval managed to twist their

craft around to allow her other a greater angle of approach. She stretched it out as far as
it’d go. The bad guy must have guessed she wanted to do the same to him and
hurriedly rolled out of the way…offering her a nice view of its belly.

“Gotcha.” She yanked on the tiny joystick.
On the screen, her pincer closed around the other’s “wrist”.
“What are you doing?”
“In grappling, that’s called an ‘armbar’. Power up.”
She felt herself come up in the seat and press against the belt when Cristoval slowly

flipped them forward, which on the screen looked as if their crabbish sub was doing a

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Nathalie Gray

cartwheel on one pincer. Unable to counter the move, the other tried to follow, its
pincer becoming bent right over its hull, far, too far. Dragana sucked her teeth when a
jolt rocked them. On the screen, her “crab” had just maimed the other, tore its pincer off
right at the shoulder. Blue waves rolled over the other’s failing hull, indicating electrical
parts had just been exposed to water. She’d probably caused some internal damage as
well. Good. Before the other could break away and regroup, she extended her free
robotic claw and caught the guy’s remaining “arm”. On her screen, the “video game”
showed three little metallic crabs—their sub and the two baddies—wrestling around
against an undersea background.

“You tore its pincer off,” Cristoval said. She didn’t need to turn around to know he

was smiling.

Any other day, she would’ve had some to-the-point remark for him, some bravado

pearl of wisdom, at least a sense of pride, something. But that’d been the old Dragana.
Now she just shrugged, content she’d ripped the nasty little thing’s arm off. But it had
another.

Cristoval kept them nice and close so she could do her thing, which she did.

Keeping the other sub’s pincer in hers, she told Cristoval to power up as much as he
could, which he did without question. He apparently trusted her. That made one
person.

A violent heave jolted them. The second sub, the one she still had to tackle, wanted

to try her trick and had missed, knocking its robotic pincer against their hull. The god-
awful sound made her grimace. Well, she’d taken that one’s number too.

“Get ready,” she warned.
The screen relayed in amber what went on outside. Like a parody of a couple

holding hands and running, Cristoval gunned the engines, the maimed sub in tow,
made a complete circle around the second sub, which spun in crazy circles trying to
keep up.

“Aim at him!”
Cristoval did.
The violence of his handling pressed her against the seat. Her feet came off the

deck. She grunted at the accumulating Gs. Not as bad as up above but still enough to
pull at her guts.

On the screen, she saw their craft aiming directly at the second sub, maimed one in

tow. He trusted her completely. Without question. If they kept going the way they
were, the hit would mash all three.

For a split second she thought about ending it all. With their speed and the violence

of the hit, they wouldn’t suffer. Not long anyway. Much less than going on knowing
she was a walking, talking corpse brought back to life for who-knew-what-why. She
could end it. Now. No more pain. No more loss. Back to her lost twin Ivan and his
warm smile. She cut a quick glance over her shoulder. Cristoval held steady, hand on
joystick, other gripped along the console ledge. His black wavy hair—man, he really

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looked like those Spartan warriors from old history books—looked deep copper in the
amber light.

He wouldn’t pull away until she told him to…because he trusted her. With his own

life. Now that was faith.

“Pull!” she roared. “Now!”
An expert snap-roll followed. She’d make sure to comment it later on…if they

survived the crazy stunt.

A grunt left them both when their sub veered violently, made her ears pop, her

belly quiver and her teeth clack together hard. At the last possible moment, she
thumbed the tiny knob on the end of the joystick, released the maimed craft she still
held by a “wrist”.

It kept going. Going.
The ghostly little crab on her screen was projected headfirst into its waiting cohort.

Both hulls smashed together. Like silvery eggs colliding and bursting. The maimed sub
burst first, followed by its companion. Overripe melons.

“Shit!”
An oxygen-rich ball, sparkling with electricity, expanded rapidly toward them

despite Cristoval’s frantic—and fine—piloting.

Shit.
As though someone had kicked them in the ass, Dragana whoa-ed when they rolled

forward several times, each spin bringing her stomach closer to her throat, her feet
knocking under the console while she tried all she could to remain upright in her seat
and not flop around like a broken doll. The shock wave propelled them up, sideways,
down. It was hard to tell which direction. Behind her, Cristoval grunted but managed to
avert total disintegration by breaking out of the momentum with a sharp twist. They
settled, right-side-up, relatively intact except for a couple of alarms bleeping.

“Well,” she started, turned back to look at her companion. “That was fun.”
A spark of life lit in her heart. She returned Cristoval’s grin. Her elation was short-

lived though since when she turned back toward her screen, the view had changed
dramatically. They must have neared the coast in their dogfight because that was a
forest of construction pillars right there—skyscrapers or bridges, hard to tell
underwater—and they were going right for them.

Cristoval’s smile turned upside down. He two-handed the joystick and jerked it

toward him just in time to avoid the first pillar. But not the second.

“No!” Cristoval’s rich tenor filled the cabin.
A curse left Dragana. Her screen filled with static the color and texture of orange

cotton candy. It flickered, died. Just in time to pitch them in complete darkness a split
second before they hit. At least, they wouldn’t see it coming.

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Nathalie Gray

Violent contact. Ricochet. The world turning upside down. Metal moaned.

Something clunked underneath, a hiss drowned everything else. Water started pouring
in from the deckhead. Right above her head of course. It was cold and tasted of tears.

Strong hands caught her by an arm, swiveled her a quarter turn. The harness came

loose on her lap. She felt herself lifted, yanked back. Slapped.

Slapped?!
“Hey!” She pushed out of Cristoval’s grip. “What the hell?!”
“Snap out of it,” he replied as he thrust a breathing apparatus at her. “Hurry!”
Out of habit, she put it on, followed orders, instinctively responded to the implicit

leader of their little two-man mission. She’d never been the leader-type. Her job on
Solomon’s team had been to bitch and shoot. Sometimes simultaneously. Making
decisions for more than herself had never been her strength. She hated when people
looked at her to tell them what to do. She was no one’s mother!

Mask over her face, harness and tank in place, she watched Cristoval trying to pilot

their crippled sub straight up so they wouldn’t be reduced to blobs of jelly when the
hull breached. And it was close. Water started rising above her ankles. Smoke poured in
from the vent overhead. Great.

“I’ll do it,” she said, cursed when the mask mangled her words. “You get the hatch!

I’ll do it!”

He didn’t even turn to her as he extended an arm and imperiously pointed at the

pair of steel hatches. The left one still showed scuffs from volter shots. She got the hint
and made her way there, waiting for the sign. Not that she held any hope, but if
Cristoval managed to get them close enough to the surface, they might stand a chance
of actually coming out of the crab-shaped, metal coffin alive. Maybe.

Water crept up. Higher. Glacial. So cold it numbed her feet. The exterior

atmosphere mustn’t have been too high because even though they’d obviously lost hull
integrity—two leaks had sprung along the deckhead—they hadn’t been crushed like a
beer can.

“How far?” she yelled.
“Twenty…” came the reply.
Twenty? What? Feet, fathoms, miles?
Before she could ask him to repeat, Cristoval abandoned his post, charged across

the deck toward her a split second before the front end of their sub disintegrated like
gray papier-mâché. On his heels, an angry fist of water plowed into the cabin.

Dragana reached out. His hand, much larger, closed over hers. Their gazes met.

When the sudden spike of adrenaline hit, she wasn’t prepared for the effect. Her gums
ached, every articulation felt on fire. Something snapped in her neck.

Oh crap.
She was changing.

40

Carnal

Cristoval barely had time to brace for the immediate and dual violence of the sea

gutting their little sub and Dragana changing into lycan. The mask ripped from her
changing face, its bone structure adapting to that of the beast, and rose to her full
height. Semi-lupine, a blonde Egyptian jackal-goddess, her hair standing almost on end
in a wide Mohawk that came down her back, her shoulders becoming even more
muscled and rounded with curled-in claws instead of fingernails. She rose, blue eyes
like laser beams, all fangs and animal strength. Looking at him. Into his soul. Just as in
human form, she was formidable. Beautiful. Deadly. An intoxicating mix. An irresistible
cocktail.

Before he could force his mind to clear, before the notion one of them had to remain

human and lucid, before the spike of sexual energy and adrenaline hit him like a fist, he
changed as well.

Tendons along his neck and shoulders snapped, the burn terrible but nothing

compared to what awaited him. As though he’d exploded from within, fire licked his
skin as it tore in long gashes along his shoulders, his thighs, his back, in his face, which
always hurt the most, especially his jaws. When bones broke, crunching sounds filling
his ears, Cristoval’s yell of pain mutated into an animalistic roar. Primeval. Senses
extended beyond reason. Smells hit first. Blades of smells into his nose, his brain. Then
sounds. Overwhelming. His voice mixed with the rest. Visual acuity doubled, tripled,
proportionate to his diminishing mental faculties. His vision sharpened. His mind
darkened. Cristoval forgot who he was.

Female musk mixed with salty water. A roar, part human, part ocean, ripped the

split-second silence. Water everywhere. Bubbles tickled up his body and became
trapped in every recess, in his nose, under his arms, between his fingers. A heavy
weight connected and sent him back. Hard and hot. Female. A bite burned his throat.
He returned the favor. Blood seeped onto his tongue. So sweet. Darkness enveloped
him and the female and, for the lifespan of a spark, his human psyche pushed through
to make sure—damn sure—he held on to her with all he had, somehow knowing that
should he let go, his life would mean nothing but emptiness and regret. His body
reacted to the impact and physical contact. She felt hot. Hot and hard. So was he. Claws
dug in his back when she curled a muscled leg around the back of his. His body reacted
violently. Fever. Urges. He was inside her. Around her. Throaty groans. His lungs
burned like fire. He held on as she bit him and he bit her. Held on as water turbulence
pushed them up, tumbling, spinning, lost, pushed them up, he thought, up, higher until
light hit in long knives that stabbed into water. Brilliant light.

Then air.

Cristoval emerged from within himself just as their heads broke the surface.

Dragana still clutched him but with human arms now. Her eyes were closed while her
head lolled back and forth. Both their very human sexes were still coupled with a fit so

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Nathalie Gray

perfect he was loath to move at all. But it wasn’t as though he could stay this way
forever.

He pulled out without letting go of her limp form. Around them, massive concrete

pillars and the underskirt of buildings surrounded them on all sides. A forest of
concrete trees with a canopy of metal framework for sky. Waves echoed as they hit the
buildings and roared in surround sound. Sunlight managed to hit at an angle between
structures overhead. And far to his left, the concrete docks and the underside of a long
and graceful bridge connecting the cluster of maritime buildings with the shore.

Cristoval felt himself grin despite the situation. They’d survived the sub’s

destruction. But he was cold. So cold. And growing weak. He hadn’t been in his top
shape for months, starved and tortured and deprived as Killen had kept him.

With Dragana tucked under an arm, he started swimming backward. He stopped

counting the times waves crashed him against one pillar or another, the times Dragana
almost slipped from his weakening grasp, the times his heart practically stopped
beating for fear losing her.

After what felt like hours, he finally approached the bridge’s supporting

framework. Timing himself with a wave, Cristoval let water lift him up to a metal I-
beam so he could grab it and hold on steady while the surge receded and left him
hanging. In his arms, Dragana sputtered and coughed, swore. She nearly slipped when
she tried to turn around.

“Hold on,” he growled with the effort of holding her to him while she moved.
“What—shit!”
He breathed a sigh of relief when she reached up, clutched the beam and hoisted

herself so she could slip her elbows over. The release allowed him to hook a leg over the
beam then sit astride it. She did the same, panting and cursing.

“What the hell happened?” she demanded, eyes flashing. Then cursed again. A

colorful one that almost made him smile. Almost.

“Shit. I changed.”
“So did I. I think it saved us.”
“Yeah. Great for us.”
He cupped her chin. “We’ll make it out of here.”
Why he felt the need to make her this promise, he didn’t know. Maybe years of

people looking to him for answers had made him feel he ought to make everyone
believe they’d do it, they’d break the chains and someday be free and safe.

Yet her face betrayed no emotion. She nodded, raked her hair back. “I know.”
Why didn’t that make him feel any better?
“We will,” he repeated with more force this time.
“I said yeah, fine, we’ll make it out of here, yay.” She pulled her chin out of his

hand to look up at the bridge spanning over their heads. “How the hell do we get up
there?”

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Carnal

“The old-fashioned way.”
“Old-fashion way is a bitch.”
Cristoval’s heart swelled at her tone. That fire burning in her gaze, even if it lasted

for a split second, made him wish he’d known her better before… Before she’d died. But
she’d come back. She’d heal. And he, well, he’d wait.

43

Nathalie Gray

Chapter Five

Why did he have to be so damn solicitous with her? It’d be much better if he were a

prick. An ugly one too. But no. He was hot, sharp, levelheaded. The kind of man any
woman would want. She was a woman too. Did she want him? Of course she did,
physically anyway, but she doubted she’d put up with him—or the other way around—
long enough to develop anything more. She knew she wouldn’t! Hadn’t she caused all
her boyfriends to run for their lives at one point or another? Literally run for their lives.
Her longest relationship had spanned a whole four months. More stubborn than brave
or devoted, Gabriel had lasted a hell of a lot longer than anyone else. She still wondered
why. Maybe the sex had been too good to give up easily. Her “flings”, interspersed with
months of celibacy wondering at mankind’s common sense in general and at men’s in
particular, she’d come to the realization she was meant to have one-night stands or
short-and-sweet liaisons. Live off fast food, so to speak, and stay away from seven-
course meals. Cristoval definitely was a seven-course meal. Hell, he was entire months’
worth of groceries.

By her side, Cristoval used his hands like anchors while he lifted himself up so he

could stand on the I-beam. Muscles played under his skin when he straightened, found
his equilibrium with his arms outstretched, face raised to the metal framework above.
Distant sounds reached them in between the ocean’s dragonlike grumble. Shuttles,
horns, sirens, sounds of the city.

“I think I found a way up to the bridge.”
Eye theenk Eye found ay way oop to da brrreedge. She loved his sexy, Mediterranean

accent. Made everything sound hot and sticky.

She followed him, stood on the beam. Rivets the size of her fists kept the metal

skeleton from collapsing under the mammoth concrete city set above sea level. Rust in
dripping patterns made it look as if the beams bled from old-fashioned gunshot
wounds.

It took them a couple hours, if she’d have to guess, to reach the underskirt of the

bridge. By that time, sounds of life overhead drowned everything else, even her mad
heartbeat. She was growing weak, knew Cristoval must have been weaker still. They
had to find a safe place to crash. At least for a little while. Until they hooked up with
allies. Friends.

She froze, sitting astride the topmost I-beam. “What happened after I, er, after I was

shot? Did we win? What happened to Solomon and Cupcake?” Just saying their names
out loud hurt. What if they were all dead? Cool Liberty, that sneaky little bitch Eva?
What if she’d been brought back to nothing?

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Carnal

Cristoval turned to her and held her in his haunting black gaze. Well, not

“nothing”.

As if he could read her thoughts. Had she become that obvious? Had she always

been?

“When we reached my father’s office, Killen showed up. He killed him. Combat

drones came in right after, started shooting into the parliament. I changed. I don’t
remember much after that.”

Someone suspending her over a bottomless pit wouldn’t have felt different. Her

world vacillated.

“So we escaped to, what? Get gunned down when we set foot up top?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know the state of affairs. We’ll find a safe place first.

Everything else can wait.”

“Fuck that, that everything else can wait! We don’t even know how people will

react if we show our mugs somewhere and the detectors pick up our lycan signature.
Well, that’s great.” They might have escaped Killen only to face more persecution from
the Gene Purity police. Or being shot on sight like the rabid dogs they’d been portrayed
in the media. The fun never ends.

“It’s not that bad—”
Dragana raised her hand. “I don’t care, okay.”
Cristoval seemed about to say something but snapped his mouth shut, shook his

head and kept climbing until he reached the underbelly of the bridge. “There,” he
pointed at a man-sized pipe protruding from the fortresslike building against which the
bridge was attached. “We can get in through that pipe.”

“Crawling around in the sewers,” Dragana mumbled but followed Cristoval’s

delicious butt as he advanced like a veteran tightrope walker.

Soon they reached the sewer pipe, out of which spilled a constant flow of greenish

water. Whatever city they’d happened onto at least had a decent waste disposal and
incinerator. She wouldn’t have wanted to crawl around old-fashioned sewers filled
with, well, shit.

Cristoval cramped his legs, pounced. He made it look easy. For a split second,

Dragana looked down the several hundred feet under her at the ocean crashing against
the bridge pillars and those of the closest buildings. Letting herself fall would be easy.

“Come on, let’s hurry.”
Cristoval broke her dark chain of thought. She’d never felt this way, walking

around with a constant longing for death. Only she’d been there and it was nice. Much
nicer than life without Ivan, that was for damn sure. Gloom swallowed Cristoval’s V-
shaped back when he ducked and placed his hands flat on either side. She wouldn’t
touch anything she didn’t absolutely have to. Ugh.

So instead of pulling a swan dive from her collection of moves and plunging into

the ocean below, she leaped from the I-beam directly into the opening of the pipe. She

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Nathalie Gray

could tell Cristoval’s first instinct was to give her his hand but he aborted the gesture,
nodded then turned his back on her so he could walk up the tunnel, hands on either
side. The guy had the wingspan of a shuttle!

They walked for what felt like hours. By the time they reached some sort of

connecting station with myriad pipes coming in from every directions—including up
and down—Dragana’s mood had darkened even more. Lying down and never getting
back up again would be nice, but it’d be even better if she could take as many Iron
Conclave fuckers down with her as she could. Now that would be a fitting end. A plan
formed. A crazy, reckless plan. She shook her head at her own idiocy and pushed the
stupid notion away. But it stayed there, nagging. Like an aunt who kept offering advice
when everyone wanted her to shut the hell up. Except no one ever said a thing and the
aunt just kept nagging.

“I hear someone,” Cristoval murmured, an arm flexing out protectively in front of

her.

Dragana snorted a laugh and walked around it. “What did you hear?”
“Voices.”
“Voices? As in plural?”
He nodded, put his index finger to his lips.
Dragana couldn’t help bits of the old fire from tingling. She rubbed her hands.
Turned out, the voices in question was one guy with a comms relay strapped to his

chest and a small vidscreen in his hand. Some technician or something. The relay
looked as though a black polymer squid clung to the guy’s chest and throat with one
tentacle snaking up into his ear. Dragana shivered. He was bitching about something.
She couldn’t hear what. Another voice crackled over the airwaves, made the skin on her
arms crawl. Since her return, certain things, quite innocuous before, now filled her with
a deep malaise she couldn’t define. Most smells made her want to gag, too-bright light
stabbed at her brain, and now a voice crackling out of a comms relay made her want to
scratch her arms until they bled. What the fuck had they done to her?

Bitching Betty, as she’d named the guy, walked right in front of their hiding place—

a pipe about ten feet off the ground and on which they stood, leaning against the wall
for support. Water plopped in his wake, made crazy patterns in the opaque puddles.
The color of fuel mixed with water. Aqua light lit his face. Young. Twenty-something.
No weapon that Dragana could see. She could take him on blindfolded and with a
whole bottle of her cousin’s šljivovica in her. No one did to plums what her cousin did to
them, and no other slivovitz could take a man down as fast either. She hadn’t touched a
drop of the brandy from her native Balkans since her teen years, but could still
remember it clearly. Ivan had laughed hard enough to hurt himself. Before she’d hurt
him.

Cristoval tensed by her side yet didn’t move. That was a perfectly good comms

relay walking by just now, not to mention boots and clothes. All of which they needed.

Dragana hit the ground running.

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Carnal

The guy barely had time to whirl around, eyes the size of slot machine tokens,

before she punched him in the throat, ripped the sub-voice activator from his neck so he
wouldn’t warn his buddy up the link. To his credit, he managed to place a well-aimed
backhand. The corner of his vidscreen hit her lip. Her cheek stinging, she wrapped her
arm around his head, forced him back when she buckled his knee with her foot and was
about to finish him off when a hand like a vise grip encircled her wrist.

Cristoval’s face occupied her entire field of vision when he leaned into her. “What

are you doing?”

She grimaced when he squeezed her wrist for emphasis. She let the choking guy go,

who collapsed in a wheezing heap. The comms relay hung on his lap, the voice hissing
demands, wanting to know “What the hell is going on”.

Calmly, Cristoval switched the thing off and pulled it from the man. “Your clothes

as well please.”

Please?
Cristoval picked the vidscreen off the ground, wiped it then motioned for the guy

to start peeling his clothes off.

“What do you want?” he asked in a small voice.
Dragana cursed. “Your clothes, goddammit. Didn’t my friend already tell you?”
He stripped to his undies, which showed with pitiless clarity just how scared he

was. Dragana ignored the dark look Cristoval shot her as she wrestled the black canvas
jacket on. It smelled foreign and weird and she hated it. Cristoval claimed the pants,
which fit around the waist but came high on his calves.

“Are you armed?” Cristoval asked.
The smell of urine made her want to roll her eyes. For fuck’s sake. She’d barely

touched him. So she wouldn’t change her mind and finish the job, she grabbed the
vidscreen from Cristoval and quickly formed a mental picture of where they stood and
where they ought to go next. She wanted fresh air.

Her companion claimed the comms relay. “You can leave now.”
She heard the man run away but didn’t even look up from her work. She’d already

gauged and dismissed him as a non-threat. Still, she didn’t like loose bits.

“There was no need to hurt him.”
She shrugged.
“Look at me.”
With a dramatic sigh, she planted her gaze on his. “I hope you’re not about to

lecture me, man. It’s war.”

“There is no war, Dragana.”
“Like hell there is! We’re at war, Cristoval, at war with our own people, those who

think we ought to be ‘humanely euthanized’, those who keep us under their thumb. It is
a war.”

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Nathalie Gray

His dark gaze threatened to swallow her whole if she didn’t look away.
“You take down as many as you can for as long as you can,” she couldn’t help but

adding.

“He’s not with the Iron Conclave. You didn’t need to kill him.”
“Well, I didn’t, now did I?”
“Only because I stopped you.”
“I fight. That’s how I stay alive.”
“That’s what got you killed, you mean.”
The words sliced like a razor. She couldn’t say anything for the lump of rage and

pain squeezing its way up her throat.

Cristoval closed his eyes briefly. “That was unfair. I’m sorry.”
She stomped away to the pipe that, according to their stolen vidscreen, would take

them up to the surface, which was surprisingly close above their heads. Water gloop-
gloop-gloop-ed all around them. They walked in silence until they came to an iron door
partly open to let daylight spill into the narrow aperture. Fresh air caressed her face. In
spite of herself, Dragana smiled wide when she pushed the door and stepped out into a
rainy day. She didn’t care if storm clouds approached to her left in a sliver of sky she
could see between shiny glass, concrete and steel buildings that reached too high to
make out their height. She didn’t care that a glacial draft cut her at the ankles, that her
toes were almost blue from the cold, or that horns and sirens and the cacophony of life
pressed in all around them. People walked across the alley far to her left and right. They
didn’t look into the narrow space between buildings where the technician’s shuttle
rested like a giant blue beetle, its three skids retracted all the way so its belly touched
the ground. She felt invisible.

When Cristoval walked past her, his eyes lingered for a moment and she found she

couldn’t even hold on to the rage gnawing at her. She felt numb and cold and too weak
to care. She’d hated him with fire, the way she ought to feel, only a few minutes before.
It would seem she couldn’t even hold on to her feelings anymore, that everything
leaked out of her through the numerous volter shots that had done her in, seeped out to
leave her an empty husk covered in bruises and scars. Full of nothing but pain.

He lifted the hatch, stooped under then motioned for her to join him. “The controls

are on,” he announced.

She nodded.
“I said I’m sorry, Dragana. I truly am.”
“It’s okay. It’s not as if I didn’t have it coming.”
Solicitous? Her? Solomon’s bitchy sniper? Since when had she forgiven anyone

anything?

“No, it’s not all right. I never meant to hurt you.”
Hot hands grabbed her from behind, muscled arms encircled her around the

shoulders, forced her against a chest she’d come to love leaning on very much. Cristoval

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Carnal

stood behind her so couldn’t have seen the silent tears rolling down her cheeks. She’d
die rather than show them. Die again.

The first nickel bead hit the shuttle’s raised hatch, ricocheted off the plating and

created a scuff against a nearby cement wall.

“Fuck!”
The second bead hit the pavement right between her naked feet. By the time the

third shot hit, Cristoval had pushed her underneath the hatch hard enough to propel
her a good two paces. And that was saying a lot. She was no featherweight.

“How the fuck did they know we’d be here?” she growled, hand instinctively going

for Peanut. Her trusted silvery volter—big enough to get its own weather report—
wasn’t there. She couldn’t dispense death at two hundred nickel beads a second. She
didn’t even know who had it. Or if it’d been tossed in the garbage like its owner.

“I have no idea!” he snarled in reply. He tried to chance a peek out over the hatch

but received a hail of nickel for his trouble. “We have to get out of here!”

“Yeah, that’s becoming our motto.”
Solomon and his wicked sense of humor would’ve had some to-the-point remark

for such a situation. He always had good ones. She missed her crude, morose, shoot-
’em-up-ask-questions-much-later boss. She missed a lot of things.

The look of hurt in her blue eyes had horrified and shamed him. Why had he said

such a hurtful thing to her? He couldn’t explain his reaction other than she’d caused his
hackles to rise out of fear. Fear had made him lash out at her. She’d horrified and
shocked him by abruptly jumping off their hiding place and attacking the unsuspecting
sewer technician. She’d scared him to his core. What if the man had been armed? What
if he’d killed her?

Not that it’d change anything right now. Someone was taking shots at them! Every

second would bring them closer. If they weren’t already there. It’d been too easy
finding the surface, coming across a lone technician. He should’ve known. Killen would
have no qualms about pulling strings to use live bait to reel them in. Live bait had
always been his preferred method. Cristoval should know. In the many years Killen had
tried to get his hands on the resistance leader—unknowing it was his boss’s, the
chancellor’s, own son—he’d resorted to draconian measures, even baiting parents with
their young ones.

Dragana jumped in the shuttle, grabbed the handle to slam the hatch down and

turned back in his direction. With the sun coming in slanted through the narrow
horizontal window, a halo had formed over her head.

“Fire that thing up and let’s roll!” she snarled, cursed then flopped into one of the

seats. So he’d be piloting again.

His Valkyrie, his angel of death.

49

Nathalie Gray

Cristoval slammed the hatch down, bolted it then joined Dragana up front where

she’d powered up a few systems, checked the gauges and gave him a thumbs-up. Her
hand didn’t shake.

So they now sat at the controls of yet another stolen craft, but this time, the ride was

much bumpier and interspersed with nickel beads thudding against the windshield and
along the bulkhead. He hoped no shot would take their exterior sensors and antennas
out. Nickel ammunition had long replaced gunpowder. Nowadays, the pea-size beads
would rip out in all directions, pierce almost anything and, if meeting a conductive
substance—say, a body—trigger an electric arc that would melt a nice big hole. Take out
a shuttle’s entire electrical grid or its windshield. He needed both of those.

Cristoval pulled on the joystick but kept the shuttle’s nose pointed low so he

wouldn’t give the shooters a view of the cabin and its vulnerable windows. Left pedal
down, pitch control lever up, he brought the small craft up between the buildings butt
first, nose down and rotating as fast as he dared. Heat from the thrusters rattled the
buildings’ glass windows and created heat patterns. Finally they crested the roofs.

Dragana craned her neck to see out the narrow window. “Fry me those fuckers!”
Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted a few dark shapes scattering along the ledge

and taking cover.

“With pleasure.”
Cristoval gave a brusque yank and aimed their thrusters at the roof, blasting it with

the exhaust’s intense heat. Warnings chimed in the cockpit. He ignored them. These
people had shot at Dragana.

Half a rotation took them to the roof across, which he blasted too, gunning the

engine and balancing their craft’s aft portion right over the concrete ledge. Despite the
shuttle’s roar and the warnings, he distinctly heard human voices rise in pain. Good.

Before their luck ran out, Cristoval flew up and over a twin set of glass spires filled

with glittering advertisements exhorting commitments with promises of long health
and smooth skin. Out of the multitude of shuttles flying every which way, three seemed
to take a particular interest in them and converged like black carrions.

“Those ones,” Dragana pointed at the view screen then out the window. “They’re

after us.”

“I know.”
“Aim for the bridge, we’ll lose them there.”
Both lifted off their seats when he violently jerked the joystick to the right then to

the left to swerve in the opposite direction, toward the bridge, over it, then in a move
that had to rank highest on the danger scale, Cristoval banked in a tight roll. Of the
three tailing shuttles, only two managed the crazy stunt. One disappeared over the
bridge. Only fire and a rain of smoky debris emerged from the other side.

“Hang on!” he grunted at the sudden Gs accumulating.

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Carnal

Left, right, up, left again, between building-thick pillars of concrete supporting the

city, flying like a crazy bat, an out-of-control kite tangled in its lines. Behind them, both
shuttles matched their moves, crept closer.

By his side, Dragana had tapped another view screen and zoomed in on the closest

shuttle.

“They’re armed! Shit! Cristoval!”
A blue flash indicated their pursuers had pulled out the arsenal and begun shooting

at them. Pulse cannons could be mounted on shuttles, although only the Global Alliance
of Nations—GAN for short—was allowed to. Cristoval doubled his efforts to lose them.
If a shot touched their shuttle, the electromagnetic burst would fry everything. They’d
plummet into the sea like a dead bird.

“How much fuel do we have?” Dragana demanded, twisting in her seat to check

the gauge.

“It’s full,” Cristoval replied, grunted when he pulled the shuttle almost too close to

a pillar. A warning flashed that one of the exterior sensors was malfunctioning. He’d
probably just sheared it off by flying too close to the pillar.

“Slow down then,” Dragana snarled, bent over her portion of the console.
“What?!”
“Trust me! Slow the hell down!”
Cristoval couldn’t even spare a look at her. He hoped she knew what she was

doing.

Contrary to every fiber in his body telling him to keep the pedal to the metal and

hope for the best, he released some of the pressure on his foot, lowered the lever and
gritted his teeth. They were sitting ducks flying this way. In the view screen, both
shuttles closed in fast.

“Fly low! Aim for the water!”
He did without question. They no longer had time for any. He understood too late.

Dragana meant to destroy the enemy even if it meant sacrificing herself in the process.
And him along with her. He should’ve seen it coming. All this for nothing. Christ.

“Slow,” she chanted several times. Her tongue stuck out the corner of her mouth.

Complete focus. He wanted to laugh.

Behind them, one shuttle flew diagonally to the other, barely a hundred feet apart.

The wings practically touched.

“Wait for it…wait.”
He meant to ask “For what” but focused on piloting their flying coffin instead. At

least he’d go down in a fight instead of being prodded and poked to death by mad
scientists. Both tailing shuttles leveled one on top of the other. Probably wanted to shoot
at the same time. Sure hit that way.

“Get ready to gun it!” Dragana tucked her bottom lip in.

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Nathalie Gray

What the hell was she—?
“Now!”
Simultaneously he gunned the engines, forced a roar from the shuttle’s dual

thrusters that plastered him against the seat while Dragana rhythmically poked two
fingers at the fuel mix pushbutton. Behind them, fuel mixed with their burst of exhaust
fumes and the heat of their thrusters. Within a split second, everything ignited, creating
a long tail of white fire behind them. A tail that detached, flew at the pursuing shuttles
and splattered their prows with flaming rain. Neither pilots could maintain altitude,
pitch or yaw. In a geyser of sparks and fire, the shuttles collided against one another,
and while one went straight down to crash into the ocean beating at the city’s
underbelly, the other struck and ricocheted against several pillars before literally
disintegrating.

His heart hammering against his chest, Cristoval turned to Dragana, who’d leaned

back in her seat with her arms crossed. A shadow of a smile played on her lips. He’d
never been so turned-on!

She had to admit, their little stunt had put some welcomed fire back in her veins.

Man, nothing beat kicking the bad guys in the teeth. Made up for the rest of the shit out
there that natural justice wasn’t taking care of.

But how the hell had the bad guys caught up to them so damn early?
“You know,” she said after awhile. He flew them out from underneath the city,

cleared the mainland’s airspace then aimed southward. Hopefully they’d reach Seoul
later that day. “We have to figure out how they tracked us so damn quickly.”

“I think I know.” He showed her his arm. “The implants. They must have put a

tracking device in them too.”

“That’s practical.”
They shared a quick grin.
Man, she loved being around him. Everything was so easy, so comfortable. Safe.
“Take the controls for a while,” he said, standing.
She replaced him in the still-warm seat, for some inane reason feeling as if someone

had stolen something from her when it started to cool.

“What are you doing?”
“There has to be some tools here.”
She heard him rummage around the shuttle then saw him kneeling on the deck,

bent over a foot.

“You’re not—?”
A muttered curse announced that indeed he’d taken out one of the implants.

Dragana shivered.

“Are they deep?”

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Carnal

“No,” came the tight remark.
“Still…” she fought against the rest of the sentence. Wow. Such a pity. She’d been

about to say “be careful”. Maybe he would’ve liked hearing that.

He returned awhile later, bleeding from both ankles and wrists, the tips of his

fingers inky red too. She tried to fight the nurturing gene down with all she had. She
was a lycan, for Christ’s sake. A sniper on a team of soldiers for hire. He was Cristoval
Vonatos, a lycan as well, the underground resistance leader no less, and didn’t need a
nurse to hover around his head. Right? Then why did she have to grip the joystick hard
enough to make it creak just to keep from buzzing around him and offering to pat this
or dab that? Goddammit.

“You okay? No nasty surprise?”
He shook his head, sighed. “I flushed them out the garbage chute.”
“Good,” she replied with fake levity. “Let them scour the place for a while.”
He nodded but said nothing. The pain must have been a bitch.
“What now?” she asked, flying over a densely populated area that glowed like

silver worms in the dying afternoon sun. The deep green of protected forests
surrounded the megalopolis. One of many in the United Koreas.

“There,” he pointed at a huge sign rotating slowly above one of the circumferential

buildings. Its exhaust pipes created snaky heat patterns. “We should stop for the night.
I can’t even think straight.”

“Yeah, me neither.”
She blamed fatigue for her Worried Nurse moment.
With land a thousand feet under them in a patchwork of gray concrete and the

occasional green park, they entered one of the many “corridors” alongside other
shuttles of every known color and size then landed on the hotel Cristoval had spotted—
hard to miss with its giant blood-red flashing logo of a moon overlooking a plump
pillow. Even the sign looked comfortable to her. She shivered and realized she was
shaking badly. With exhaustion, with remnants of their little stunt back underneath the
coastal city. With lust.

Once on the peeling concrete roof, they paid for their room with the credits they’d

found inside the man’s jacket, which Dragana wore like a wrap-over cardigan. The
machine accepted their credits, spat out a tiny plastic token for a key.

Cristoval took it. It was grimy from use. His upper lip curled. He undoubtedly

realized they shouldn’t expect luxury, but Dragana guessed he couldn’t forget his
lineage. He’d been born to privilege and had chosen a life spent underground, dodging
his father’s goons and unspeakable laws. Although after however many weeks at
Killen’s hands, the humble hotel would probably feel like a palace to him.

He unlocked their door, stepped inside and flicked every light on. Dragana knew

what he was doing. Scoping the place for trouble. As if she couldn’t kick her way out of

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Nathalie Gray

it. Still, his attention touched her feminine side, which she didn’t even know she had.
What would Solomon say to that!

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Carnal

Chapter Six

Their cube turned out to be much nicer than Dragana had expected. She felt as if

she were inside an old-fashioned train wagon, complete with rectangular window
overlooking a smoke-spewing factory, two beds that folded out of the wall and a tiny
bathroom. No sheets. No towels. But that was all they could expect from a place like
this, a place that only accepted untraceable cash-credits for payment instead of the
conveniently traceable ID chips. A place where patrons and their “companions”
probably rented rooms by the quarter hour.

Cristoval stood in the middle of their small room, gazing out the window before

lowering the steel curtain outside. His blood made red dots on the blue vinyl floor.

She couldn’t take it anymore.
“Show me the wounds,” she said tersely.
His hand felt nice and hot when she slid hers in to get a better look at his bleeding

wrist. He’d made a small cut right where the face of a watch would be. Lots of pain
sensors there. Had to hurt like a bitch. A big one.

“You made a mess. Sit on the bed.” She pointed to the one closest to the bathroom.
Cristoval complied, sat on the bed while she opened the door, checked both ways.
“Where are you going?”
“There was a vending machine down the hall. I’ll go see what they have in there. I

have the credits anyway.”

She left him in the room, looking half amused, half annoyed. She didn’t care. If she

didn’t do something for his injuries, she wouldn’t sleep all night. Liberty usually took
care of booboos on the team, not her. Dammit. But she’d try her best because one, she
wanted to make him feel better, and two, she needed her beauty sleep, thank you very
much, or risk becoming an even bigger bitch. She didn’t do well sleep-deprived.

With the few remaining credits, she found what she needed—she couldn’t believe

they had to buy the damn sheets in this place—returned to the room to find him on his
side, obviously sleeping. Blood trailed in a long line over his foot.

An urge to go out there and empty Peanut into every Iron Conclave asshole she

could find burned her hands. They’d done that, put their crap in this man’s body so
they could torment him from a convenient—and safe—distance. Remote-control
torture. How wrong was that?

You get them back, Dragana Bjelić. You get those fuckers back. All of them. For Ivan, for

Cristoval. For what they stole.

The scenarios played in her mind’s eye. It’d be easy finding the guns once Cristoval

took them back to his home underneath Seoul where the Global Alliance of Nations

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happened to be. GAN HQ was right in town. GAN, who had sponsored the Iron
Conclave for years. The puppeteers behind the mad scientists. Killen. She’d get him
back. Wouldn’t rest until she did.

She fisted the two pouches of instameals, the last vacuum-sealed, wallet-sized sheet

package in the machine, and the packet of pantyliners. The creaking plastic felt good in
her fist.

“Are you all right?” Cristoval asked, cracking an eye open then sitting up on the

bed. He looked dead tired.

“Yeah. I’m fine.” She showed him the single remaining sheet she’d bought from the

machine. Peach-colored, for fuck’s sake. “One hundred percent cotton, my ass.”

In turns, they ran their hands under the water, Cristoval keeping his under a while

longer to rinse the blood off. They shared the instameals, ate them right from the pouch
instead of heating them in the tiny heater. Neither could wait. After the quick meal, he
carefully peeled from the package and unfolded the sheet over one of the beds, ran his
large hands over the creases. Took him ages.

“It’s okay,” she said, rolled her eyes when he didn’t listen and kept smoothing the

edges. He’d bled over the corner of it.

“Are you sure you’re feeling all right?” he asked. “You look angry. I already

apologized twice.”

“It’s not that. I’m just tired. I’m fine—really.”
And she was. A new sense of direction had taken hold of her. She knew what to do,

how to do it and to whom. No revenge better than that. Fuck. She’d make them hurt
long and hard. One by one. Killen, she’d keep for last.

Cristoval made room for her when she sat on the bed by his side. “You should hit

the shower first, the bandages won’t stick if you get them wet afterward.”

“No, you first.”
The old Dragana would’ve argued. The new one just shrugged. “Sure.”
Showered and naked—she wasn’t putting that jacket back on after a nice hot

shower—she sat and waited until he’d had his turn. Plus, she’d become accustomed to
being butt naked around Cristoval. Another weird thing. She usually liked her space,
thank you very much, and never let boyfriends into the inner sanctum, which
comprised her bedroom and bathroom. No one needed to know which products she
used, that she preferred to wax than shave, that she liked her things just so on the
vanity counter, or how she wore nightgowns with matching underwear. Her men, once
they’d found her little house nestled in one of the last wooded areas outside Seoul,
would be allowed in the living room—mostly for the sex—and even the kitchen if she
liked them. But never deeper than that. Ivan had thought she was just a bit weird in that
regard. He’d let his girls roam his downtown apartment as they pleased. But then again,
he’d always been the trusting social butterfly. Not her. No way.

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Water beaded on Cristoval’s wiry frame when he emerged from the steaming

bathroom—her broom closet was bigger than that—and sent her systems into
supernova mode. Hot didn’t do him justice. His former physique, thickly muscled—as
delicious as it’d been—didn’t quite compare to the wiry, spare, predatory silhouette.
He’d been a bear of a man. He was now a wolf. Went well with his genetic makeup.

He proffered an arm for her. It had started bleeding a bit again and mixed with the

water beads dotting his skin, the blood turned pink. He’d really made a mess of things
on his left wrist. Fresh rage swelled her. She’d make sure to repay Killen in kind.

“What the hell did you use to carve those things out?” she blurted, hoping to hide

her uneasiness behind the good old attitude. “A plastic spoon?”

He kept staring at her, right through her. “I’m a left-hander.”
With a strip of sheet to hold it and a slim pantyliner—Cristoval didn’t even make a

face, good man—she patched him up as best she could. Not bad considering their
situation.

He looked at his bandaged wrist then up at her. “You’re good at this.”
“No, I’m not.”
Her? Good at nurturing and bandaging and, fuck, what now? Trusting and loving?

The effrontery!

Unyielding in his inner strength, his innate authority, Cristoval’s gaze riveted her to

the spot. A woman could get lost in those obsidian orbs.

“You are good at this.”
There’d be no denial or argument. He wouldn’t tolerate it.
“Yeah, rub it in.”
“With pleasure.”
“And here I thought you had no sense of humor.” She pushed against his shoulder

so he’d lie down, but he wouldn’t budge. “Didn’t you say you wanted to sleep?”

He nodded.
“So what’s the holdup?” Would he ever stop staring at her that way?
“I want to make love to you.”
She felt her throat and cheeks flush. Words—they usually left her cold. Her old self

would’ve snorted a laugh at a man using such sissy words. Make love. Come on! Screw,
fuck, have sex. Make love? What man spoke like that? But the new Dragana enjoyed
“making love” a whole lot more than “having sex”. This new, strange woman who was
rapidly falling for her Spartan warrior with the haunted eyes and gentle hands. He’d
held her while she cried her loss, matched her kick for kick, shot for shot and then
some. So words could mean something after all. He had a way with them and she told
him so.

“I live in the present,” he replied simply.

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As opposed to her, who lived in the bitter past. And the future? Well, she wouldn’t

have any, now would she? Took care of that.

“How is it you were falling asleep on the corner of the bed just a minute ago and

now…well. This.” She pointed to his cock, straight up.

He didn’t look down or move his gaze away from hers. “I’d find a way to postpone

death to have another minute with you.”

“As I said, you have a way with words.”
Cristoval sat closer to the edge and spread his knees a bit. “Come.”
How could the man modulate his tone to make a request out of one word? He must

have known her hackles would rise if he’d used any other tone.

His cock, so smooth, bobbed with each breath. He only needed to raise a hand,

palm up, fingers slightly flexed, for Dragana to walk in between his feet and let him rest
his head against her belly. No man had ever had that effect on her. And he’d said only
one word!

“I want to kiss your breasts,” he whispered against her belly. “Tell me if that’s

okay.”

“It is.”
Cristoval raised his face to her. “Hold your hands back. I want to see you that way.”
She did, clasped her hands behind her, which elevated her breasts and raised the

twin pink nipples right in front of his eyes. He took his time visually exploring her.
Dragana was dying to ask him if he liked what he saw. But she didn’t care either way.
Why would she? Right?

“They’re beautiful.”
She shrugged. She thought they were asymmetrical and not much else, but what

did she know?

“You want me or not?” Now why the hell had she opened her big mouth?
A frown creased Cristoval’s forehead, a deep line between his arching eyebrows.

Another woman would’ve probably started backing away then. She could hold her
own. She wasn’t going to give an inch.

“I do want you, but not like this.”
“Like what?”
He made a “beak” with his hand and tapped the tips of his fingers repeatedly to

show she was talking too much.

“Like your women quiet?”
“Why are you trying to antagonize me? Do you think I’m so easy to ditch?”
“I’m not trying to ditch—”
A triumphant glint darkened his eyes. Oh, he’d had her exactly where he’d wanted

her. “What are you afraid of?”

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“Nothing scares me,” she retorted as soon as it was polite to reply. “There isn’t a

thing in this mad world that scares me.”

“But you hold back from me. I think you’re scared.”
“Hey, don’t get all emotional on me, okay?” In case he dug up something she’d

rather stayed beneath the surface. Like how she was starting to develop a big ol’ crush
on him.

“That’s the exact opposite of what—I think—women want.”
She couldn’t help it. She snorted a laugh and shook her head, movement that

dislodged a strand of hair from behind her ear. It tickled her mouth so she blew on it.
Cristoval seemed to enjoy that a lot because he sat closer to her, used his hands to frame
her hips while he ran his cheek against her breasts, eyes half closed.

“But you’re not like other women, are you?” he whispered.
There was a slight possessive ring to the way he’d said that and Dragana, as much

as it shocked her, kind of liked it. “Are we going to do this tonight?”

“We will.”
“Well?”
“Close your eyes.”
Her lids had just closed when something hot and wet began tracing serpentine

shapes on her belly and under her breasts. She took a deep breath of satisfaction. She
was dead tired—dead tired, ha—but this would be worth it. She could feel it building in
her pussy but also in the rest of her, the tension, the needs, the expectation. The
emotions.

On the surface, she tried her best to remain calm, focused on the physical pleasures

he was giving her, but underneath it all, she could feel the emotional wave rising to his
handling, yes, but also to his words and the way he said them, to his tone and what he
left unsaid. Cristoval Vonatos, the man behind much of the resistance’s progress, one of
the most feared and hunted lycans, had a way about him that made people listen and
take note. And as a bed partner, well, any woman would want a piece of that pie. She
may be a stubborn bitch—and an assortment of other names according to Solomon—
but she wasn’t made of ice. Not around him anyway.

From her belly, Cristoval moved to her hips then thighs, licking his leisurely way

over her skin, which had begun to pebble with goose bumps. “That’s good,” she
breathed. A spasm tightened her pussy. Juices slicked her. “That’s so good.”

Cristoval replied with his mouth. He claimed a breast with his lips while he rolled

her other nipple with demanding fingers. The mix of soft and wet mouth and calloused,
hard fingers created the most potent shivers. They rocked her tight frame from head to
toes then back up again until she literally quivered every time Cristoval would suck
back or merely lip her nipple. Her toes curled of their own volition. Damn, he was
good.

She couldn’t resist anymore and fisted his hair. He froze.

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“You keep that out of my way,” he said while taking her hand and planting it

firmly against her butt. “The other too.”

Dragana was reduced to waiting for pleasure, something she’d never done before.

When she wanted something, she usually went ahead and took it. Pleasure from a lover
among them. But Cristoval, he was going to take his time and make her wait for it. In
the back of her mind, she knew he’d be worth it even if it hurt her feminist pride.

He sucked harder. Dragana gasped.
Nothing for a few seconds. He no longer touched her. “Keep your eyes closed.”
Then his tongue landed against her pussy. She felt him parting her, wide and high.

Then his tongue again, that magnificent organ, that smooth, hot, wet strip of satin.
Another gasp left her, one that lasted a long time. Then a sigh. Followed by a low
whimper. Cristoval worked her hard and gentle then hard again. Her thighs shook by
then. Stars popped behind her eyelids.

“Let it come,” he whispered between licks. “Let it come to me.”
Another rapid series of hard licks brought her there, to that place where everyone

could go screw themselves, where the planet could burst in half and she wouldn’t give
a damn because she was elsewhere, in heaven, in the clouds, rising higher with her
lover’s handling, his attention. Cristoval literally launched her. A missile, a bullet aimed
at someone’s heart. Her own. He’d shown her the way, given her the codes to her own
heart so she could let herself feel good again. At least for a short while. Seconds really.
But fuck if it was a hell of a ride! She came like a bomb.

Dragana barely felt him move. The next thing she knew, he’d plastered her against

the wall, face first, and pushed inside, movement that with the tight angle produced
one fine peak. Groaning, she pumped back against him. He took her first as a lover then
as a desperate man would. But she wanted more than to just stand there with her legs
apart. With a mighty push, she dislodged Cristoval from her—his cock left her with a
wet pop—whirled around then dropped to her knees so she could fist that splendid
organ and shove it down her throat. Her own taste mixed with his, salty like tears,
sweet like some exotic nectar, two essences that made one lethal cocktail. Lethal to her
defenses. Lethal to her heart. But she pushed the notion back so she could focus on
sucking Cristoval’s delicious cock until his balls concaved. He’d remember this time. If
they had nothing else together, he’d have this and she’d make sure—damn sure—he’d
have something to remember her by. The best blowjob ever.

With more saliva she rendered his penis a glistening rod of dark pink marble. Fists

working hard, she pushed against him, plastered him against the wall—how the tables
had been turned—and rolled her eyes up so she could watch for his reactions. His
bottom lip was tucked behind his teeth. His chin trembled. A man caught halfway
between pleasure and despair. A sweet little torment.

“I’m…”
She pulled back with a noisy, wet sound. “Let it come.” His exact words. Back to

him.

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Displaying incredible reach, he flexed out his arms and planted his hands, palms

down against the polymer compound walls and created heat shadows then widened his
stance until she could kneel directly between them.

Dragana knew she could give good head. But with him, it’d become more than just

oral pleasure. It meant everything she couldn’t say to him with words. That yes, he was
special because of what they’d shared back at the Iron Conclave undersea compound,
because he’d been there when no one else had, because he hadn’t judged her or tried to
figure her out. For letting her be the bitchy, moody lycan who missed her twin and her
gun, and who walked around with a death wish over her head like her very own little
thunderstorm cloud. Cristoval had accepted her. Warts and all. And so she’d accept
him in kind. His body, his affection. His cum.

With great spasms tensing his thighs, he came right as she was pushing her

forehead against his belly. She barely tasted him. For what felt simultaneously like
eternity and the lifespan of a muzzle flash, she kept him in her this way, sheathed to the
hilt, together at least physically if nothing else. She couldn’t give him her heart for she
no longer had one. Not one worth anything anyway. She was convinced of this.
Cristoval could like her all he wanted. Great. Really. But she couldn’t return that level
of affection. It was no longer in her—if it’d ever been there to begin with. It’d been
stolen. The potential of it anyway.

His large hand cupped the back of her head while he pulled out of her. When she

looked up, she met his dark gaze. Without a word, he led her to the bed, gave her more
than her share of space on the narrow mattress then spooned behind her with a long
arm draped over her hip. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d spooned with a
lover. It was nice. Very much so. His breathing in her ear proved as thrilling as it was a
comfort.

Sleep pulled her down into its warm embrace. She dozed for a while, minutes,

hours, hard to tell. When she surfaced, she cleared her throat. “What now? What’s
next?”

A long silence indicated he’d snoozed for a bit as well. “You.” The mumbled word

sounded like “mmyoo”.

“I meant, when we get to Seoul, what’s next there.”
“I knew what you meant.”
He yawned, which created a hot, familiar-smelling wave of heat to wash over the

back of her head and cheek. She even liked his breath. A long finger traced her thigh,
hip then flank. Shivers coursed in his hand’s wake. From dormant, her sex pulsated
back into demand mode. She pushed her butt against him and felt the lump there.

“You think you have another go in you?” she asked, teasing. “Or maybe you want

to save yourself for later on?”

He tensed behind her. “Excuse me?”
Shit. Solomon had always said she had a big mouth.

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She turned to find him looking back at her with eyes narrowed to dangerous slits.

Oh, the man had pride too. But she’d never been one to back down, even when she
ought to like right now. “You do or you don’t?”

“Do you?”
“Of course I do,” she retorted. “What? What did I say?”
He shrugged then lay supine with his cock looking as ready as she felt.
“Well?”
He didn’t look at her. “Well what?”
“You know.” She reached for his shaft but he twisted his hips away. “Aww, don’t

be like that. I’m sorry I ran my mouth.”

“Maybe I’ll ‘keep myself’ for later on.”
Christ. She wanted to say something except nothing but frustrated, great puffs of

air came out.

Cristoval yawned wide and rolled to his opposite side. “You know,” he said, his

voice muffled by the arm he draped over his face. “We’re going to need clothes.”

Dragana squeezed her thighs to relieve some of the tension building in her pussy.

Damn. He was just going to leave her there with a good throb and no place to put it?
“To hide?”

“No. To focus.”
His breathing deepened not longer afterward. He was actually sleeping! The tease.
With nothing else to do and cursing her big mouth, Dragana watched his back, his

butt and long legs. How beautiful he was. To her anyway. She knew his type didn’t
attract female attention or affection much, too prickly, too big, his facial features too
trenchant. She would’ve known what to do with a man like him. Maybe she could find
that in herself again. Even for a little while.

But first, she’d have to keep her big trap shut. Sometimes.

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Chapter Seven

Reaching Seoul took less time than he’d originally expected. No border patrols to

evade, barely a few police cruisers to avoid once they reached the city limits. He landed
their stolen shuttle at the mouth of one of the abandoned subway tunnels, noticed there
wasn’t a sentry to guard the vulnerable entry. He’d have a word with whoever had
been put in charge in his absence.

“No welcoming party, huh?” Dragana quipped. She reached for a volter that wasn’t

there and crossed her arms. She was right, she didn’t do well at idle. Some people
thrived in conflict and didn’t know what to do with themselves during times of peace
and quiet. She was such a person. The men’s faded gray coveralls she’d scrounged from
the shuttle’s lone cargo compartment pulled at her hips.

“I’m sure they posted someone deeper in.”
She mumbled something in that other language he should do well to learn. If only

to catch her unawares someday.

They entered the subway system proper, reached one of the many guarded

entrances and finally the smell of a presence alerted him. He felt Dragana tense by his
side.

“Show your mug before I lose my cool,” she called loudly.
Cristoval grimaced. “That was discreet.”
“Fuck discretion.”
“Cristoval?” A young man dressed in bits of GAN body armor and street clothes

stepped out from a portion of broken-down wall, a pair of volters trained on them. “Is
that you?”

Dragana threw her arms up. “No, it’s the goddamn Easter bunny!”
“It’s good to see you again, Allan.”
“Man,” Allan began, threw a nervous look at the fidgety Dragana then shook his

head as a big grin spread. “Man, this is something else! Everyone’ll freak out!”

Allan crossed the distance separating them with the usual spring to his step. His

auburn hair was cropped very short. Asia’s doing no doubt. Cristoval could recognize
his self-appointed niece’s handiwork.

After a bone-crushing hug—Dragana scowled Allan into just shaking her hand—he

accompanied them into the deeper areas Cristoval had over the years made more
habitable with diverted electricity and water, some subterranean crops and even the
occasional well of natural sunlight from high above in hidden recesses. Only a handful
of people were there to greet them when they reached the old main station, among
those Asia, in full combat garb, complete with a…volter?!

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Cristoval’s heart skipped a beat. “You shouldn’t be armed.”
Her smile turned upside down quicker than anyone else he’d ever known. A storm

brewed in her green eyes. The curly black hair seemed to stand on end in her anger.
He’d missed the seventeen-year-old more than he’d realized.

“Welcome back to you too, Cristoval Vonatos,” she snapped.
How could a teen sound so much like a mother? Not that he could remember what

his had sounded like. He’d always wondered if she would’ve stopped her husband
from treating her oldest the way he had, or if she would’ve gone along to protect his
illustrious career. Another answer he’d never get.

“Asia,” he replied, opening his arms.
She dropped her portable decoder on the worktable, rushed to him with welled

eyes. The slim body still packed a hell of a punch when she collided against him,
hugged him in her wiry arms. Her hair smelled of grapes.

If someday he had children—which he doubted very much since the only female

lycan who interested him didn’t seem the motherly type—he’d want them to have
Asia’s spirit, if not her tendency to meddle and too big a mouth. He would’ve loved to
have her as a little sister. He could see himself beating up anyone who’d mess with her.

He pushed Asia back at arm’s length so he could look at her. “You look well. You

remember Dragana.”

Asia’s eyes flared. “Huh? I thought she’d been killed. Solomon, kept going on

and—”

Cristoval’s scowl must have silenced her. That or Dragana’s narrowing eyes. Ah,

the bluntness of the young.

“Sorry.”
“We’ll get to Solomon later on. For now, Dragana and I will get a shower and some

sleep. Food would be nice too.”

It only took a look from Asia to send Allan hurrying down the corridor, announcing

he’d get them “a feast fit for kings” and looked glad to do it too. Cristoval wondered
when the two would finally become a couple. Unless they had while he was gone. In
which case, he hadn’t had the chance to take Allan aside and put the fear of god into
him should he have less than honorable intentions toward Asia. Although he was
patience incarnate with the foul-tempered girl and obviously worshipped her.

Cristoval caught Asia watching Allan’s departure with an affectionate expression

he’d never seen before. What he’d missed in such a short time. Another thing Killen had
stolen. “Has anyone moved into my place?”

“Nuh-uh!” she retorted. “I’d like to see someone try! Your place is yours. I only

went in there to clean up and air it out once in awhile.” She quieted, the color left her
pale cheeks. “I counted the days, Cristoval. Ninety-seven and a half.”

And a half. His heart nearly broke. He nodded because he didn’t know what to say.

By his side, Dragana seemed to be studying her naked toes.

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He drew near Asia, wrapped an arm around her shoulders then leaned her against

him. “I’m glad to be back, Asia. I missed you.”

With a gasp she grabbed his wounded wrist and brought it up for a better look.

Blood had saturated the thin feminine hygiene product she’d used as a gauze pad, had
even seeped all the way through the bandage Dragana had put on him.

“Whoever hurt you, I hope you kicked their asses.”
“He did,” Dragana replied. “We did.”
Asia nodded, wrapped both hands around his and led them to the habitats,

greeting the few they encountered, calling out names into darkened corridors as they
went, exchanging hugs and parading Cristoval and Dragana as though a child prodigy
had come back. He couldn’t help the feeling she was embarrassed by something.

They stopped by his door, which still read Staff Room—Knock First in red and black

on the metal panel. Remnants of centuries long gone. Asia had once put a lenticular
print poster of some twentieth century animated male character with claws coming out
of his knuckles. Depending on the angle or if one moved side to side, the character both
snarled and took a swipe with his clawed hands. Funny girl. The poster was long gone
now. He hadn’t thought it funny at the time. But he would now.

“Where’s that poster you put there once?”
Asia grinned. “Nice and safe for when you grow a sense of humor.”
Dragana muttered something then leaned a hand against the steel door. “Is it

locked? I need to pee bad.”

Looking both shocked and pissed off, his self-appointed niece dug into her cargo

pants and retrieved a strip of plastifilm, which she swiped into the decoder bolted to
the concrete wall. The green light flashed once then the door opened. She was right, she
had come in to clean up. His room looked spotless.

“The only other key is on your desk.” Asia superbly ignored Dragana, gave him a

hug then declared she had some “stuff” to do and would have Allan bring them back
something to eat.

“Does she always talk to you like that?”
“Like what?”
“She has a big mouth for the rest of her. Bossy little shit.” Dragana waited by the

door but wouldn’t follow him in.

“Didn’t you have to ‘pee bad’?” Cristoval asked, trying too late to smooth his tone.
Visibly bristling, she stomped into the room, slowed uncertainly until she’d spotted

the narrow door at the back then aimed for it with the air of a soldier marching to war.
Both grim and determined. She was such a contradiction. Strong but equally vulnerable.

His things were there. All of them. Memories of another man who once lived here.

A lonely man, who willingly kept himself from others so he could plan their liberation,
plot against the oppressors, contact his many, many informants and moles. Always
with a map on the worktable—empty today, which was about to change, so much to

65

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plan still—some coffee in a thermos that either Asia or Allan kept regularly hot, with
his people trouped around him to discuss logistics and strategies. Living underground
wasn’t a normal state of being for humans. It required infinite planning and forethought
for even the simplest things like food and refuse. But then again, they weren’t “human”
now were they? Only genetic deviants according to the law.

Dragana interrupted the darker chain of thoughts by coming out of the bathroom.

She’d splashed water on her face. Droplets still clung to her skin. Diamonds against
pink satin. He swallowed and looked elsewhere so he could focus, but grew
increasingly harder just thinking about her skin.

“Sorry I ran my mouth at the kid. I’m just dead on my feet, you know?”
He nodded. “No harm done.”
A wicked kind of smile tugged her lips to one side. She approached, slid an arm

around his neck. “So,” she murmured, her azure gaze riveted to his. He could lose
himself in those eyes. “Do I sleep here too?”

“It’d be my honor and pleasure.”
“In that order?”
“Yes.”
She cocked her head. Strands of blonde hair spilled from her muscular shoulder. He

loved the change in her, the myriad angles to her personality. Loved how she could go
from Valkyrie to affectionate lover. Perhaps she’d finally let go of some of the rage
inside. Temporarily at least. He was glad she had. He couldn’t give her back what she’d
lost—he too had lost a brother, even if there’d been no affection between them—but
he’d love to build something new with her. A new life for both of them. Maybe she’d
decided to give them a chance?

“You know,” she said after a quick nip on his chin. “You left me hanging back at

the hotel. So that food better get here fast. You’ll need the fuel.”

A new life with a woman he loved. A second breath.
He cupped the back of her head, angled her chin up at him. “What if it doesn’t?”
Dragana made room for one of his thighs between hers. “You tell me.”
“Okay,” he replied, becoming hornier by the second. “I’ll tell you. First, I’ll tear all

your clothes off. Second, I’ll push you onto that bed. And third, I’ll make love to you
long and hard.”

“That’s the sp—”
The rest of her sentence came out as a gasp when he yanked the coveralls wide to

denude her chest. Those gorgeous breasts rose and fell rapidly. Good, he liked her
panting and ready.

“You stay right there.”
He slowly backed to the door, slid the bolt without taking his gaze off her. “Take it

off.”

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The coveralls fell to the floor with a small rustling sound.
How beautiful she was. Tall and strong with curves aplenty and attitude to boot. “I

want you on your knees and elbows,” he said, hoping for a reaction. Her nostrils flaring
and eyes narrowing made him want to pump his fist.

Dragana raised her chin. Those eyes! Like blue laser beams. “What are you waiting

for?”

She humph-ed when he charged for her and didn’t stop until he’d more or less

tackled her into his arms then dumped her on the bed. If he’d had any doubt as to
whether or not she’d just lie there and wait for him to make his move, Dragana quickly
put his mind to ease when she nimbly rolled off and stood.

“What?” she said, taunting. “You think I’m that easy?”
Cristoval was sure his balls were about to explode. He clawed out of the tight pants

and discarded them without thought. All his focus was on the woman and the
confrontation waiting for him.

He’d never been so turned-on.

It wouldn’t be her finest moment, tricking him this way. Although it wasn’t

pretense. She did want to spend this night with him, part of it anyway. But she’d come
to the realization that the longer she stayed with Cristoval, the more pain she’d cause
when she left. And she was leaving. No way around it.

He looked so fired and ready, excited even, something she’d never seen on the

usually stoical lycan. It made her feel even worse about what she intended to do. To
force her mind to clear, she focused on his body. Easy for a gal to do, the guy was
statuesque.

“And?” she asked, teasing. How she loved seeing that fire in his dark eyes! And it

was there for her.

Dragana tried not to squeal like a girl when Cristoval lunged at her. Teeth gritted,

she evaded his long reach—the guy really did have the wingspan of a shuttle—circled
the bed to taunt him more and smiled wide. “You want a break, you just say so, okay?”

His scowl deepened. Oh, he wasn’t playing anymore.
Damn, it was good to feel alive!
With a mocking laugh she slapped his hand away but couldn’t parry the incredibly

quick swipe for her leg. He caught her by a knee.

“Come here,” he growled as he reeled her in and used his shoulder to tackle her

onto the mattress and roll over her. He kissed her. A quick, demanding kiss. “You’re
staying right here.”

“Make me.”
Nothing like a good splash of oil on a raging fire.

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A quick little punch to the gut took his mind off her wrist and she pulled away,

knelt on a corner of the bed, arms cocked and ready to fight. She noticed his injured
wrist had started to bleed again and forced herself not to focus on his treatment at the
hands of the Iron Conclave lest it kill the mood. All she wanted right now was to be
with Cristoval, to give him pleasure, enjoy his body and revel in what he did to hers.
The rest could wait. It’d all be there waiting anyway. Her life wasn’t going anywhere.

Not like I have one to begin with.

“I’m serious, Dragana,” Cristoval said. He sat up and pretended to study his

bleeding wrist, but she could see the muscles along his thighs twitching, his jaw
bulging. “You’re staying here with me.”

To diffuse the suddenly serious mood, Dragana snorted her trademark unladylike

laugh. If that didn’t convince him to run like the wind—away from her—then nothing
would. He just stared, moistened his lips with the tip of his tongue. Sexy with a capital
S.

“What do you want with me anyway?!” she retorted. “I’m not a good kisser, I own

a custom-made volter I named Peanut. I’m bitchy on a good day—hell, on my best
days!”

“Don’t you know by now?” His eyebrows arched the way she liked.
“I wouldn’t ask otherwise, Cristoval. I don’t play games.” Liar.
“Because you’re tough,” Cristoval replied, raising himself to his knees, slowly, like

a predator about to pounce. “Because you’re smart.” He widened his knees. With the
luster of hard candy, his cock hung heavy over his thighs. She’d like nothing better than
suck on that candy all night long. “And because you own a custom-made volter you
named Peanut.”

Despite the instinctual warning flags coming up that six feet six and two-hundred-

and-forty pounds of lycan was about to leap at her, all Dragana could do was just kneel
there and replay those last words in her head. And her heart.

He hadn’t mentioned her looks or her positive attitude—beauty and kindness were

so fucking overrated in her book! No. He’d called her tough first and foremost then
smart then well-armed. Why the hell couldn’t she have met him years before? Liberty
had tried so many times to find her a boy. And when all else had failed, she’d tried to
find Dragana a girl because she’d thought she had to be a lesbian if she’d sent all her
suitors home crying for their mommies. Poor Liberty. They’d been needy little boys,
most of them. She wanted a man, a big one. A guy who could hold his own, who
wouldn’t go weird on her because of her job. She was no one’s little missus and sure as
hell wouldn’t start getting all lovey-dovey around them, feeding them and cosseting
them. What next, fix them some svadbarski kupus?! She wouldn’t be preparing Serbian
wedding cabbage for any guy any time soon. What did those men want from her? Only
Solomon and his team had ever tasted her cabbage and sausage recipe, handed down
the centuries from her Serbian side of the family. Her dad had made it. Ivan had too.

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Liberty would be glad to know Dragana had finally found a man she could honestly say
she liked. As a friend and lover. And she was about to ditch him. Great timing, Bjelić!

She yelped when Cristoval suddenly gripped her by the forearm, twisted it behind

her then wrapped his other arm around her shoulders so he could pin her beneath him.
His weight and heat produced one fine thrill down in her belly. Shit, she’d let her guard
down! Just for one second.

He tut-tutted in her ear. “That’s not like you. What were you thinking about?”
She couldn’t very well tell him she’d been considering it, living here, even cooking

for him, for Christ’s sake! She meant to shrug but couldn’t move. “Nothing important.”

“Mm, let me change that.”
Cristoval shifted behind her so he could press his cock against her butt, right along

the cleft until the tip of it pressed against her pussy. Holy shit, he was hot and hard! She
would’ve raised her butt for some seriously rowdy sex but couldn’t move that either.
He really had her pinned!

She puffed in frustration, tried again. “Argh, you big bully!”
“What?” he whispered, nipped her earlobe. “Are you telling me you don’t want me

in you? You don’t want me to make love to you right here, right now?”

“Make love, pfft!”
Cristoval bucked his hips forward. His cock pushed against her sex but didn’t

penetrate. “Not ‘make love’? Mm? Fuck? Is that better?”

“Much,” she growled with another futile attempt at forcing him into her. “Just go

for it.”

Cristoval gripped her other hand, which she’d used as an anchor to raise herself off

the mattress, and soon was holding both behind her back in only one of his. Manacles of
flesh. “Go for what?”

She could feel him, so close yet too far for any real pleasure. His glans felt smooth

against her flesh, which throbbed demandingly. Just a few inches would be enough to
take him inside. Her juices coated them both. He must have known the effect he had on
her. Damn. Another impotent push. “Go for this.”

“I said I wanted you on your knees and elbows, didn’t I?”
“And you think I’m just gonna kneel there and wait for it?”
“I hope not.”
Oh.
Her systems revved up to the max, she twisted and thrashed, arched and kicked,

nearly dislocated a shoulder when Cristoval gathered both her wrists in a hand and
raised them high behind her. Thrill zinged down her spine to her anus and pussy. She
felt so exposed. Deliciously exposed.

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Heavy breathing announced imminent contact. She yelped when he mock-bit her

shoulder. After he forced a knee between hers, his other hand clamped on her cleft,
rubbing up and down then in teasing little circles. She aah-ed loudly.

“What was that?”
So she gave it to him louder. He countered her groans with more vigorous

handwork. Fingers both gentle and unyielding found her clitoris and forced it out of its
recess. He wasn’t going to receive her pleasure. He was going to take it. Anticipation
made her pant.

Cristoval, growling deep in his chest, snaked his hand completely under her and

raised her by the force of his biceps alone. She could feel it bunching up between her
thighs. Her juices made his arm slick. She had no choice but to kneel up, her shoulders
still deep in the mattress due to the implacable hold he had on her wrists. With
undulating movements, he brought his cock right against her distended pussy and
rubbed, rubbed. Closer. Like marble heated from the inside, his member felt hard and
thick and would fill her perfectly when he’d get on with it already! Dammit!

“Come on!” she urged, whimpered when he rolled his hips. That’d been close.
Another roll. Then figure eights. Then quick, teasing stabs along her vulva. A jolt

rocked her. She’d nearly come! The wave receded, temporarily lost.

“Come on!”
Cristoval straightened behind her. Loomed. A lycan man-god towering over a

prostrate supplicant. With a long moan, she waited for it. For release. For blinding
ecstasy. For him.

Then he took her. He answered her every plea and demand, request, command and

hope. Like a flag unfurling, he filled and stretched her. A penetration that reached the
end of her channel and her soul. She cried out. Long and hard.

In tandem they entered the oldest dance. A dual deliverance. Cristoval pulled back

to stab in again, a thrust that elicited a crescendo of keens she didn’t know were in her
register. Fury and pleasure intermixed. The bed rocked under his wild assault. And
how she loved every second of it!

“That’s it!” she whimpered, repeated it until it was all she could say. Moaned it,

growled, cried it out. “That’s it! Yes! Yes!” Make the pain go away.

Cristoval pushed, retreated, stormed back in. He still had an iron grip on her wrists,

raised high behind her, while he held her put with his other arm around her waist,
pulling her back against his belly for even more forceful penetrations. Her knees left the
mattress. His balls slapped against her clitoris, another stimulant. He was pounding
now. Hard. Fast.

Oh god.
“Yes!”
Dragana snarled a curse when Cristoval leaned completely back and popped out of

her, kept going until he lay supine with her wrists still trapped behind her.

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“Sit on me,” he growled. “Fuck yourself on me!”
Unable to use her hands, she twisted and straddled him facing his feet, kept him in

place with her knees then bore down all at once. She didn’t care that she sank down at
an angle, that his cock stretched her impossibly wide, that the burn reached her anus
and beyond. She wanted it this way. To fill herself with Cristoval Vonatos until there
was room for nothing else.

Despite the fact she sat on him, he managed to run the show and pumped upward

with astonishing force and stamina. She bit her bottom lip hard enough to taste blood. It
was close. Another one. A big one. She let it roll over her, take her with it in its mad
dance. A climax ripped through her.

Her roar filled the room, matched by his. Together they came.
Like a jackhammer in her skull, her heartbeat seemed to match his cum jetting out

of him then slowed until she could breathe normally again. Cristoval released her
wrists then massaged them to get circulation back. She didn’t care. She just sat there
sweaty and panting, slick with their cum, his cock in her, sheathed and safe, filling and
comforting, and wasn’t going anywhere. Not for a while anyway.

“Stay with me,” he whispered. “Stay here with me.”
When she turned to watch him, Dragana saw he had his eyes closed, a content smile

curving up that glorious mouth. So beautiful and carnal.

“Shh,” she replied. She didn’t know what else to say. Tears welled her eyes.
With a hand he ripped the covers off one corner, bunched them underneath her

knee and lifted his hips up—with her still sitting on him—so he could flap the sheet out
and over his legs. Such strength.

“Come here.” His voice sounded raw and thick.
Dragana rolled her hips a couple of times before she let him go. Once by his side, a

long, muscular arm draped over her chest, she took a good look at him. For the first
time since she’d met him, his eyes didn’t look haunted. A new life sparkled in the
obsidian orbs. Because of her? She didn’t want to think about how he’d look in the
morning. Not after what she planned to do. An ache spread through her chest.

It must have showed on her face for he scowled and kissed her wrist bone. “Let it

go.”

So perceptive. “I can’t.”
“Just for a short while at least.”
Could she do that? Forget dying at the end of Iron Conclave volters only to

reawaken at the end of their needles? Forget Ivan’s empty death? Forget the hole in her
chest that Cristoval appeared ready to fill if only she’d let him?

“It’s all I have left, Cristoval.”
“That’s not true. Maybe it was once, but not anymore.”
She sighed, turned her head away so he wouldn’t see the tears accumulating. For

fuck’s sake!

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“Can’t we just have a good time and leave the rest for…later?”
He didn’t reply for a while, enough that Dragana thought he’d gone to sleep. His

voice sounded pained when he spoke. “You medicate yourself with sex, Dragana.
You’re using it to keep the pain away.” Not a reproach. Just a statement. Accurate too.

“And that’s wrong how?”
“It’s wrong when you know how the other feels.”
“And how do you feel?”
Please don’t answer that.
“You know I love you,” he murmured. “You’ve known all along.”
She had.

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Chapter Eight

Dragana figured she had less than eight hours—provided Cristoval slept at least

that—to get in touch with Solomon, reach the surface and get her hands on some gear.
Lots of gear. Lots of big gear. Then she’d fly below radar for the rest—the last part—of
the journey. Alone. No need to have anyone else involved in her affairs. She’d need a
shuttle too. Amphibian transportation to the target, grenade-launcher for her
welcoming party—they’d surely get her ping on their screen—plenty of nickel and
spare volters, some powerful depth charges for the infrastructure. Some loose ends, bits
and pieces. But most importantly, she needed to keep a few volter shots for Killen.
She’d start with his kneecaps.

Cristoval snored softly. She yearned to stay and bask in his warmth. She hated

herself as much as she enjoyed being near him. Tricking him this way wouldn’t be her
finest moment. Although it wasn’t all trickery. She’d meant every word, every kiss.
She’d relished this one last time with him and would keep it close to her heart when she
pulled the trigger. Because even if she wanted with every fiber in her body to stay with
Cristoval Vonatos and build something—anything—with him, she wanted revenge
even more. She couldn’t let it go. She couldn’t forget, forgive or move on. She had to
make them pay. All of them. Anyone who stood in her way. He’d understand in time.
He might hate her but she’d no longer be around to be hurt by it.

You’ve become such a whiny chickenshit, Bjelić.
True. She’d rather sneak around, which nauseated her to the nth degree, than take

the chance Cristoval would discover what she intended to do, and so was presently
slipping out as soon as she’d been able to go on the hunt. She’d contact Solomon first.
He’d understand. He’d get her the intel she needed. Maybe his sneaky little bitch Eva
The Spy would even contribute something, seeing as how anyone with half a brain
would realize Dragana wouldn’t survive her endeavor. That ought to satisfy the
backstabbing little shit. Finish the job, finish the other twin. Ivan was dead partly
because of Eva.

Hence the sneaking around Cristoval’s back.
It’s better this way.
She couldn’t live with the disappointment in his haunted gaze, the hurt she might

cause. It would’ve been much simpler if he’d been a jerk. Everything would’ve been
easier that way.

She closed the door to his room only to notice a tray of victuals on the floor and two

pairs of military boots. She should be hungry. She hadn’t eaten in almost a day. But
aside from her hands shaking, she felt nothing. Nothing at all. What the fuck had those
mad scientists done to her? But the boots looked divine and she put them on. Not a

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perfect fit but close enough. She adjusted her coveralls to give herself something to do.
She needed clothes, dammit. Real clothes. Denim and leather for starters. She’d prefer
to go down in style, not dressed like a dockworker. Her hands itched for Peanut, her
custom-made volter, all two and a half feet of glorious silvery titanium moving parts
and tungsten alloy base. She could mow Iron Conclave fuckers down at two hundred
shots a second with that baby.

“Your food is cold now,” a young female voice said behind her.
Dragana froze with her hand still on the lever. “You shouldn’t sneak up on me.

Ever.”

“Yeah, well,” Asia went on, walking around Dragana to lean a shoulder on the

wall. “I was here first.”

If there’d ever been a loaded comment, it had to be that one. “What? You jealous?”
Asia grimaced, which crinkled her long and narrow nose. “Argh, you mean…? Yuk.

Old men aren’t my thing, if that’s what you meant.”

Cristoval an old man? At what, thirty-five, thirty-six? She wanted to laugh but

forced herself not to. Couldn’t give that sort of satisfaction to the little shit. “I need to
get in touch with Solomon. You know how?”

“You leaving?”
“For a while, yeah.”
Asia crossed her arms. “Good.”
“Right back atcha.”
“Come with me.”
Dragana followed the insolent little thing down the corridor, which opened out

onto the main transfer station. A couple of people milled about, looking bored.

“This place is different,” she remarked, not really looking for answers. She didn’t

care if they’d painted the walls hot pink since she’d been there last.

Asia shrugged. “Things are different now. The war is over, GAN doesn’t breathe

down our necks anymore. No more raids either. There.” She pointed to a homemade
comms booth in a corner with a plastic folding chair to add that extra sense of luxury.
Dragana shook her head and muttered all the way there. She tried Solomon’s number
but it didn’t work.

“Hey, what’s wrong with his number—”
A narrow hand had just appeared under her nose, holding a slip of plastifilm with

numbers on it. “Eva’s private line.”

Just the name gave her a rash. Muttering “Thanks”, Dragana grabbed the slip then

punched the numbers with too much force. Almost at once, the tiny, dirty screen
blinked and Solomon’s face appeared in blue and green. Stubble covered his square
jaw, his dark blond hair, already in a constant state of chaos, stood on end in places.
Obviously, she’d pulled him out of bed. What? At four in the morning? He looked
pissed.

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“What the fuck?!” he demanded, took a look at his vidcaptor then stared with his

mouth open.

Dragana let him get a good long eyeballing. “You look like shit too, in case you

have something to say.”

“Dragana?”
She’d never seen that expression on him. Confusion. Bewilderment. Shock. Feeling

self-conscious for no good reason, she hooked a strand of hair behind her ear and
cocked her head. “Yeah. We need to talk. Come pick me up.”

“Where the hell are you?” He craned his neck to see behind her. “With Asia?”
Tears welled her eyes. Fuck, fuck, fuck. She couldn’t let him see that. “Just come,

okay. I’ll be up top, by the old subway mouth, the Sungnyemun.”

Solomon, the man she would’ve followed to hell with a grin on her face and

peppering the demons all the way there, pointed at her in the screen as if he could use
the force of his index finger to keep her put. “I’m there. Don’t move.”

She didn’t return Asia’s nod as she left Cristoval’s underground home nor did she

care all that much how the few people up and about at this ungodly hour would look at
her, try for a smile but end up averting their gaze instead. Yeah, Dragana Bjelić the
Walking Corpse. The Bitch That Hell Spat Back. She would’ve found that funny. In
another life, she would’ve laughed at that. Not anymore.

Half an hour later, a sky striped in brown and purple, and a cold, misty dawn that

smelled of humidity and mildew greeted her when she reached the surface. A shuttle
already waited on the empty street, thrusters at idle, the soft amber glow creating heat
patterns like snakes that floated up from its aft portion. Its tail hatch was down. Hands
in her pockets, she was about to approach when the sound of a volter’s safety switch
being flicked off then on froze her to the spot followed by a faint, high-pitch whirr.
Volters being charged. The accepted warning sign.

“Who the fuck are you?” Solomon’s voice asked from somewhere behind.
Sneaking up on someone? Things had changed. The Solomon she’d known and had

come to view as a friend would kick a door down, fire at will then demand answers of
whoever was left standing. He wouldn’t sneak up to someone and point his volters
between their shoulder blades. Too much time spent with his precious little spy.

“Dragana Bjelić, your marksman for the last, oh, seven years. Am I so easy to

forget?”

“I saw her get half a dozen volter shots in the back,” he retorted. His voice sounded

tight. “I’m the one who had to sign her off and zip the bag over her face. Dragana is
dead.” The voice moved behind her. Solomon stood by her right, both volters trained on
her. He wore his greatcoat and utility belt, only no assortment of grenades and other
weapons hung from the many clips and pouches. “If you know me, then you know
where I’ll shoot if you fuck me around. So I ask again, who the motherfucking hell are
you?”

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“You’d shoot me in the legs, to make sure I’m a nuisance to at least a couple of my

guys, which is much better for you than if I were shot and killed on the spot.” Dragana
grinned. “It’s good to see you again, you grumpy old man.”

The volters’ muzzles wavered for a second then lowered. He stared at her through

narrowed eyes, and when he slipped his weapons back in their respective holsters at his
belt, she finally took a deep breath. Dying hadn’t bothered her. But doing so before she
could take Killen with her had kept her docile.

“Where’s your little shadow?”
Solomon scowled. “I might be glad to see you again, Dragana, but you watch your

mouth when you talk about Eva, okay?”

He looked completely shocked when she shrugged and crammed her hands in her

pockets, letting him have the last word. The look on him!

Managing a smile, Dragana cocked her head. “So, we’re going to stay here all

night?”

“Freezing my balls off for you in the middle of the night and you complain about

my manners?” He grinned wide, came over and punched her on the shoulder. “Man,
it’s good to see you again. Everyone else is so damn politically correct.” He’d said the
last words as if they tasted bad. Which they did as far as both of them were concerned.

“I need a favor. A big one,” Dragana said.
“And I need a beer. A big one.”
“I thought you’d quit that.”
A tic pulled at his jaw. “I had.”
He escorted her to the shuttle, let her climb onto the tailgate first then pulled the

hatch closed behind them, which warmed her hands instantly. She’d been so cold. She
was always cold, ever since waking inside that tank. That viscous fluid seeping in
everywhere. Ugh. She shivered. Actually, she wasn’t always cold. Whenever she was
with Cristoval she was warm. Comfy and warm. And she’d just thrown that in the
garbage. Such a waste.

Solomon sat at the lone pilot seat but didn’t pull the console to him. A message

blinked silently on the comms console. He ignored it as he began to grind his teeth,
which he did a lot. Got on her nerves then and did now. Still, Solomon rekindled a bit of
life back in her. She’d missed even that.

“Where the hell have you been? How…” He shook his head. “Someone fucked up

big time and I’m gonna have a piece of their ass diced up and on a platter with those
fancy toothpicks. Fucking right. They pronounced you dead. Eva closed your eyes
herself. Told me so. Liberty saw it—”

Dragana put up her hand. “It’s NTK, my good man. Need. To. Know. And I don’t.”
“You were dead.” He’d always been stubborn.
“I was dead, Solomon,” Dragana snapped. How could she say that without

sounding melodramatic? “Somehow the Iron Conclave got a hold of me. Killen brought

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me back. Some cryonics shit or other. I don’t know. I don’t care either. Cristoval and I
escaped just last night—”

“Vonatos is with you?”
“He’s underground right now. Asia’s there with him.”
Solomon shook his head, clearly unable to wrap his brain around this one. “So he’s

alive and so are you, and Killen had you two all this time?” He leaned back in his seat,
raked his hair back then pursed his lips. “Well, fuck me! And all this time, we’ve been
‘discussing’ and ‘parlaying’ and whatever lame-ass word they use for fucking around
and wasting goddamn time, and the Iron Conclave had you both? GAN had to know
this. They had to.”

“It’s like being fucked with your pants on, huh?” For a split second, it felt like old

times. It didn’t last. “I’m going after them. Killen. Iron Conclave. All of them.”

Just saying it felt good. All of them. She was going after all of them and taking no

prisoners. Fuck them all.

She nodded when Solomon’s expression turned menacing. “I don’t like being

fucked with my pants on.”

“Neither do I. So I’ll need guns. Lots of them.”
“No,” he replied, pulling the console to him. The comms light still winked and

bugged her. Why couldn’t he just click on the Receive button and read the damn
message? Couldn’t he multitask? “We will need guns and lots of them.”

“This isn’t a team—”
He turned to her. The look alone silenced her. “They fucked with lycans one too

many time, Dragana. You’re not going there alone and getting killed…” He cleared his
throat.

“Killed again, you mean?”
“You’re not going alone. Period.”
Even if part of her was slapping her thigh and calling for some good old-fashioned

butt kicking with the team, goddammit, Dragana’s heart still sank. She didn’t want
company. This was supposed to be her final moment, her one last “fuck you” at the
establishment. She wanted to do this on her own with nobody as collateral, or to make
her play safe and lose sight of the ultimate target—Killen. Dammit. She hadn’t expected
Solomon to just jump on her little vendetta wagon. With a heavy heart, she realized
she’d have to use him then ditch him too. An old friend. A boss she respected. A lycan
she feared. The single thing that frightened her—Solomon changing. The three times
Dex Solomon had changed, carnage had followed in his wake. He couldn’t control
himself and as far as she knew, no one else could either.

As much as it made her feel like shit, backstabbing an old friend like Solomon

didn’t sting half as much as betraying Cristoval.

“So,” Solomon asked, ignoring the blinking console and cracking his knuckles.

“Where was it that Killen kept you? I wanna know how many clips I should bring.”

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* * * * *

“What?!”
“She’s gone, that’s all I know. I’m not her mom.” Asia tossed the stylus on the

worktable and glared up at him. The last word sounded like an insult.

“You didn’t wake me?” Cristoval demanded. “You just let her leave?”
“Why not? Why argue with her? So you two could go at it again? Everyone could

hear you. It was gross.”

“What I do in my bed is none of your business,” he snapped, took a long breath.

“Where is she now?”

“She contacted Solomon before she left. I figure she’s gone with him.”
“When was that?”
She checked her watch, shrugged. “About three hours ago.”
“Three hours!” He took another long breath before he said something he’d regret.

The sensation his world was unraveling pushed the beast closer to the surface. His
gums ached as did his knuckles. He squeezed the handle to his volter strapped at his
waist and made the resin squeak in protest.

Calm. Calm. Calm. The mantra did nothing for him this time, he, the master at self-

discipline.

“Where is everyone?” he asked to change the subject and ease the tension coiling

between them. He cared for Asia deeply and didn’t want to take out frustrations on her
that had nothing to do with the teen and everything to do with a certain stubborn lycan.
“There’s hardly a soul here.”

Asia didn’t meet his gaze.
A sinking feeling invaded his gut. “Where are they?”
“Gone. Up top to live with them.”
“Them” being regular humans with no funny DNA, no bioengineered parts. The

“normal” ones.

Cristoval didn’t want her to see the disappointment in his eyes. It wasn’t for her but

for those who’d so easily forget the fight, the cause, the price of their newfound liberty
and acceptance. If indeed there’d been either.

“Have things changed so drastically? I was only gone for a few months.”
“Solomon et al have big names on their side, allies in the media. I’ve never met her,

the blind lycan chick, but she arranged for a lot of things. Eva’s contacts arranged other
stuff—when it wasn’t Solomon who went in there and threatened someone or other.
Then suddenly, we’re all this big super-happy family.”

The torrent of words belied the hollowness opening in his soul. They’d deserted

him. The home he’d built for them through years of sacrifice and dangerous work. “Yet
you stayed.”

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She nodded. “Someone had to stay with the fort.” Tears welled her eyes. “Only

Allan, Julian and his folks, the Batista sisters and Smiley stayed. Everybody else packed
up and went to live in a nice cube provided by GAN. I wonder if it comes with gas
ducts to take them out in their sleep.”

“Haruto stayed?” Cristoval had never been fond of Haruto or “Smiley” as ironically

nicknamed by Asia. Too much of a loose cannon. He’d already had to confront him a
couple of times about the rumors floating in his wake. No one trusted him. The
resistance survived because Cristoval had early on instilled a sense of family,
established a set of common goals, both of which “Smiley” regularly transgressed or
disregarded.

“Yeah. Allan does what he can, but I needed Smiley for real firepower.”
I needed. So many responsibilities for one so young. He wrapped an arm around her

shoulders, kissed the top of her head. “After we find Dragana, you and Allan should
move in together. Start things.”

“Before either one of us is killed and the whole place blows up in our faces?”
She’d always had a way with words.
“Something like that.”
Thinking of Dragana made him tight and angry, but Cristoval forced himself to cool

down lest he say the wrong thing to the only one—a kid—who’d believed in him
enough to convince others to stay when it would’ve been easier to go. When everyone
else had gone. He couldn’t really blame them, even if in a small, angry part of him he
did.

“I’ll contact Solomon, see what he says.”
She slid the portable decoder his way. He took it, was about to punch the numbers

she gave him when the thing bleeped. He thumbed the Receive button. Eva’s flaming
red hair still cut asymmetrically was the first thing he saw when the tiny screen flicked
on.

“Get out,” she snarled in the screen. “Get out now. They know you’re there.”
“What?” They know? Who was “they”?
Oh, god.
Eva cursed, turned her head sideways as if she were trying to decipher particularly

bad handwriting. “I said get out now, they’re coming. Iron Conclave.”

Cristoval didn’t need telling a third time to realize what had happened. Iron

Conclave had guessed—correctly—he’d come back to his underground home. All these
years, no one outside his people had known their location despite the bribery,
espionage, attempts at infiltration or outright raids throughout the old subway system.
But with the lax security that seemed to have settled during his absence, his kind
moving up top with normal people, GAN had probably infiltrated and mapped the
whole thing.

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He should’ve known coming here was a mistake. He hadn’t been thinking straight.

Hadn’t been thinking at all. He’d only wanted to be with Dragana and forget the rest.
For the first time in his life he’d thought of his own happiness first and look where it’d
landed him. He’d basically given the enemy the key to his home. All for the affection of
one—intransigent and bitter—woman who didn’t even want him back.

What a cretin you’ve been.
How diminished and inconsequent and puerile he felt. If by some supernal force he

managed to make it out of his home alive and not die trapped like a rat in a sewer pipe,
he swore to have a solid sit-down with Dragana, under duress if need be.

“Where’s Solomon?” he asked, grabbing Asia by a sleeve and yanking her behind

him as he ran around the table.

“What—” she snarled, pulled her sleeve out. “Hey!”
“Where?” he demanded loudly. Every second counted.
“I’ve been trying to reach him, no luck,” Eva replied. She seemed to be doing

something else other than using the decoder. He heard thrusters whirring in the
background and realized she was inside a shuttle. “I’ll wait for you where we met for
the first time. Okay?”

Her chemically enhanced purple eyes looked like hard candy when she stared

unblinkingly at him, waiting. The comms were probably monitored, hence the secrecy.
They’d met at an abandoned GAN base on the outskirts of Seoul the night his brother
had brought the team back on Earth to face GAN snipers. Only Cristoval had known
about it too—the entire Vonatos family relied heavily on informants, each for their own
reasons, his being the resistance and freedom for genetic deviants like him. Cristoval
and his fighters had lain in wait. Reyes had been killed that night. It should’ve
saddened him more than it did, even if there had never been love between them.
Cristoval was glad after all that his mother had never known what happened to the
men in her life. A murderous political animal of a husband, a lycan son who’d built and
led the resistance movement, and another who spied and schemed and had opponents
butchered in their sleep.

“We’ll be there.”
Her face blinked out. As much as he usually preferred those frugal with their

words—this woman, in the short time he’d known her, never let a single word go
needlessly—he could’ve used a bit more intel right now. As in where was Dragana?

“We have to leave!”
They started running.
When they joined the few fighters on their way to one of the smaller and less

known entrances, the telltale blue-white flashes of volters from up ahead forced them in
another direction. Dry sounds of explosions reached them. The smell of dust and smoke
tickled his nostrils.

They’d almost made it.

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“Here!” Cristoval snarled as he kicked down an iron grille leading to a narrow and

until-then abandoned tunnel. Old twenty-third century subway tracks made their
progress hazardous, as did the bouncy sliver of blue light coming from Cristoval’s
volter scope, but not nearly as dangerous as staying. Iron Conclave operatives made
GAN security forces look like rambunctious school children with plastic swords.

At the first bend, Haruto, who’d obviously found a way into this abandoned tunnel

without using the grille gate Cristoval had just kicked down, calmly waited for them, a
pile of uniformed bodies lying still at his feet. His long black polymer cloak glimmered
like ink in the gloom. He waved for them to continue while he stood guard, muzzle
facing inward toward the rest of the underground, no expression on his narrow face.
The ever-present mirror goggles reflected only tensed faces rushing by and nothing on
the man behind.

Cristoval threw the man a fleeting look before rushing down the tightening tunnel

until the tracks stopped. Then the tunnel did. To the right, what looked to be an old
maintenance tunnel tiled in yellowed and crackled ceramic tiles shimmered in the
bluish beam of his scope.

“There! Go, go, go!”
The dozen or so souls in his charge rushed by, Asia and Allan bringing up the rear.

A volter that looked too big for her hand gleamed. No child should have to bear arms.

The walls stood too close for him to stretch his arms completely. Maybe “Smiley”

had stayed behind so he could lead the enemy inside. A Trojan horse. Maybe he was
accusing Haruto of things he hadn’t done. He’d never know. If it’d been Haruto who’d
given them to the Iron Conclave during Cristoval’s absence, there wasn’t a thing he
could do about it now. He hated being indebted to someone. Especially to “Smiley”.
Damn. No one knew what genetic trait had branded Haruto a freak in the eyes of the
law, only that he could see in the dark as well as in the light. And that he never took his
goggles off. Ever.

Another explosion made a few old ceramic tiles rattle off the walls. Someone cried

out.

“They’re closer!”
That had been Asia.
A bright flash of light from ahead made him cringe and put his hand out in front of

his eyes.

Then searing pain engulfed him. He heard cries. A female voice. High-pitched.

Asia’s.

Too many stimuli. His gums and teeth suddenly started to crunch and pop, his eye

sockets felt too small. Fire licked at his knuckles, so much so that he dropped the gun,
which clattered with the boom of thunder in his buzzing ears. Muscle spasms hit him
violently, bent him in half, triggered a gag reflex when his ribs felt as though they
wanted to snap outward one by one. His vision sharpened. So did his senses, smell
especially. He smelled fear. From behind. From ahead. Most mental processes proved

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too complex to master and Cristoval felt his world change into one of gray-on-gray
monochromatic madness and violence. The lycan in him howled as it clawed out.

He was changing.

The rush of wind. A presence. Then another and another. Thunder rolled and

boomed. He lashed out, caught something, which he reeled back for a quick sniff.
Onions, cigarette, malice. Enemy. While he held the thrashing form by the shoulder, he
slashed with his other hand, tore the enemy’s throat out. Warm liquid seeped between
his fingers. He let the body fall, stepped over it. More came at him. He discarded them
as fast as he could. With his claws, his fangs—with his rage. They’d made him a
monster. He’d show them just how much! Had to move forward. Onward. Toward the
light. Make room for those behind. They’d followed him, counted on him, they needed
him. Blazing light stabbed into his brain. He was there. More thunder. Louder this time.
Movement, smells, tastes. Of ashes and blood. Something caught his wrist, reeled him
so hard he fell on his knees then onto his stomach. Both his arms were forced back.
Sharp pain needled the back of his neck.

A voice like a bird’s screech jackhammered his skull. A crescendo. Rising. Calling a

name. Always the same. Then silence.

Cristoval didn’t know how much time elapsed only that when he rolled onto his

side then sat, he could see nothing. So dark and cold. Where was he? A deep tremor
made the ground quiver under him, and Cristoval realized he lay on a metal floor. The
whirr of engines somewhere beneath made him close his eyes. A ship. Large, by the
sound of it.

A loud clang preceded a rectangle of light forming in one of the walls. A hatch

opened. Several silhouettes formed Chinese shadows as they trooped inside.

“You gave us quite the scare. I am glad to see your little escapade did not damage

you beyond use. That would have irritated me since I have put so much effort and
funds in your capture. And you do not want me irritated, Mr. Vonatos.”

The British accent was all too familiar.

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Chapter Nine

Dragana played cool as Solomon and she gathered enough ammo for a small army.

With the supposed “truce” between GAN and genetic deviants of all kinds—lots of
wishy-washy political bullshit if anyone asked her—Solomon had free access to their
old headquarters, a small hangar in the old abandoned base outside town. He’d started
their little lycan mercenary business there too, had met Liberty, the Bjelić twins, a few
others. Back in those days, the former chancellor N’Namdi had been a champion of
sorts and given Solomon’s unit the security clearance and means to go out on missions
no one else could do—no one else wanted to do. Until Vonatos had murdered the
charismatic N’Namdi to take his place. Solomon and his team had also returned there
with the all-important data clip containing the chancellor’s dark deed recorded for all to
hear. Only a double welcoming party had waited for them—Reyes Vonatos’ Iron
Conclave goons and Cristoval’s resistance fighters. The former had died in her hands, if
not by them. Not that she wouldn’t have tried. The scheming little shit had tasked one
of his moles to infiltrate Solomon’s team and retrieve the data clip. Ivan had died
because of it. And so had Dragana in a sense. She’d died that day with her twin, except
no one had bothered to bury her. But they’d all been pawns. Reyes Vonatos and his
backstabbing little asshole he’d put on their team. It all went up to Killen. He was the
one behind it all. He’d pulled the strings all along. And he’d be the one she’d keep for
last.

Solomon landed the shuttle behind the abandoned hangars, powered down to

dormant mode in case they needed to hightail it out of there. Or in case his longtime
friend and expert marksman decided to abscond with the gear and strand him. She felt
dirty.

Cool dawn air wafted inside the shuttle when he lowered the tailgate and jumped

off before it’d touched the ground. His greatcoat flapped behind him when he did.
Dragana followed.

“What’s the power supply down there?” Solomon asked as he rummaged in his

pockets, produced a small silver strip that he introduced in the lock. The hangar door
vibrated in its rusty frame then slid sideways to let them pass.

“Most of it is electricity-based. Some fuel-powered vehicles, gel, I think. They’re

doing undersea mining, stole one of the crafts.”

He nodded, opened the first cargo container. “Undersea mining? What the fuck

for?”

“I don’t—”
A small sound made both whirl on the spot. Adrenaline spiked. She nearly changed

from the shock of it alone. A shock of red hair preceded a lithe woman dressed all in

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black. She didn’t smile or greet him when Solomon took a deep breath and shook his
head.

“I could’ve put a hole in you, Eva, damn.”
She joined them inside the hangar. Her narrow face looked tight and…worried?

That was a first. Dragana resisted the urge to slam her fist in the sly little bitch’s face.
She’d contributed to Ivan’s death, her and the rest of GAN’s sneaky, two-faced, lying
sacks of shit. She felt her nostrils dilate and didn’t try to hide it either. Let the little bitch
see what was in store for her if she ever put a toe out of line. Although Dragana knew
she’d have to go through Dex to reach the spy. Not a prospect she relished.

Eva unzipped the top portion of her skintight black polymer suit. “Why didn’t you

answer my call? I was trying to warn you. They got them.”

The flashing console. It’d been Eva’s message. Dragana’s stomach couldn’t have

fallen any lower. “Who got what?”

“Iron Conclave. They raided the underground and got Asia and Cristoval. Others,

too. I warned them, but too late. They were supposed to meet me here.”

Solomon asked a question. There were lots of curses intermixed with the rest.

Dragana could hear nothing above the buzz in her ears. Iron Conclave had captured
Cristoval. Killen had taken Cristoval back. This was like losing Ivan all over again.

“…on a ship…Leviathan class…”
Dragana had to sit on a nearby crate to keep from slumping to the ground in a

pathetic heap. She’d been too late. She could’ve dealt with Killen instead of losing time
following Solomon around. She should’ve commandeered his shuttle, aimed it at the
Iron Conclave’s undersea complex and gunned the engines, hoping they wouldn’t
choke before she slammed the craft into the building. Should’ve. Could’ve. Lots of good
it did her now. Christ.

She saw Solomon walk up to her, but was too late to parry his hit. The back of his

hand connected solidly with her jaw. From up close, his knuckles were the size of
walnuts.

“What the fuck—?!”
She lurched back, momentarily caught off guard, then snapped to her feet, fists

already hard at work. He parried most of it but she landed a good one in the stomach
that bent him in half. She was about to headlock him when he grabbed her coverall
collar in a fist—ham-sized and hard as rock—to drag her down with him. She ended up
underneath the thickly muscled man with his forearm pressed against her windpipe.

“So are you done feeling sorry for yourself or are you gonna get up and move that

big ass of yours?!”

Eva’s eyes flared but she said nothing. Nor did she try to interfere. Dragana

couldn’t help giving her some credit. She was a smart gal.

She meant to tell Solomon to get his hairy arm off her but could hardly breathe as it

was. “Fuhhh…” The rest came out mangled.

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“I don’t think I heard you right?” he growled through his teeth. “Are you done

feeling sorry for yourself?”

She tried for a well-aimed knee to the balls but only met the inside of his thigh.

Asshole.

Was she? Was that what she’d been doing all this time since losing Ivan? Feeling

sorry for herself? But then again, so what if she had? She was entitled! She’d lost her
twin, the one person on this overcrowded, dirty, fucked-up world who understood her
and put up with her. Why the hell shouldn’t she feel sorry for herself for losing him?
Why shouldn’t she feel abandoned? He’d left a great big hole in her chest that nothing
could fill. Tears welled her eyes.

“He’s gone, Dragana,” Solomon went on, none of the fire gone from his dark eyes.

“He’s gone and he’s not coming back. You did. You have a second chance, and all
you’re gonna do is sit on your ass and boohoo ’til you’re blue in the face? You think
that’s what Ivan would’ve done if you’d been the one to go first? Act like a fucking
crybaby?”

“Dex,” Eva began, took a step forward, hand out. “That’s enough.”
“Stay out of this,” he snapped without looking away. “The Dragana I knew, Ivan’s

little sister by two whole minutes, wouldn’t walk around moaning and moping. She’d
get the biggest, baddest motherfucking volter she could and start pumping nickel into
the assholes who messed with her. Is that Dragana dead? Huh? Is she? ’Cause if she is,
then I want nothing to do with the one here.” He released her, stood then backed away
to sit on a crate. He panted. At least there was that.

Was she dead, the Dragana Solomon spoke about? Had she been dead since Ivan

had taken a cheap shot in the chest? Who sat on the floor of some rusty hangar with a
pissed-off lycan and his sly little former spy?

Dragana Bjelić. That’s who.
Ivan’s little sister by two whole minutes.
Dragana ignored Eva’s helping hand as she sat by Solomon’s side. Unshed tears

burned her eyes but didn’t spill over. She was done crying. She was done feeling sorry
for her loss. As Dex Solomon had so succinctly put it—she was going to get off her big
ass.

“Feeling better now?” he demanded.
Dragana threw him a menacing look that made him grin darkly. The guy was

crazier than she was. He pointed to a polymer cargo box about three feet long and one
wide. “It’s in there.”

She dragged the heavy black box by her leg. “What is?”
“You’ll see.”
She ignored the triumphant look in her boss’s eyes when she undid the clasp, slid

the top off and stared at two feet of glossy titanium-plated death.

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Her custom-made volter, all shiny and resembling a giant squid with its tentacles

grouped into a collection of small barrels, obviously well taken care of, looking ready
and oh-so deadly. Her Peanut.

“Welcome back,” Solomon said.
She nodded, unable to talk. Peanut felt smooth and cold under her shaking hands.
“How ’bout we go put some more holes in those asses.”
Dragana couldn’t agree more. She was back.

* * * * *

“What did you do with the others?”
Killen cocked his head. “What others, Mr. Vonatos?”
“If you have harmed them, Killen—”
“Tut-tut. Politeness is paramount to me, Mr. Vonatos, never forget that. I loathe

uncouth behavior.”

“Yet you torture and maim in the name of research.”
“Surely doing research on a genetic deviant will not doom me to eternity in hell?”
“What about Dragana and however many others you still hold? You’ve made a

career out of torture.”

“Who is this Dragana person?”
“The female lycan you brought back. The one I escaped with. She’s still out there.

You lost her for good.” Saying it felt so good.

“I am afraid I do not know who you are talking about. Although a female lycan

does hold much promise for our research.”

Cristoval’s mind did a three-sixty. What did Killen mean, there had only ever been

one lycan? Lying bastard. “Yeah, you hold on to that if you want. She still escaped you.
She’s free and you lost her.” And so have I.

“How could she have escaped?” Vonatos asked, sounding like a parent trying to

calm a turbulent or headstrong child. “How could she have escaped, this woman you
speak of? Mm? Out the window?” He leaned against the wall—bulkhead now that
Cristoval could see a bit clearer—and steepled his fingers, on which he leaned his chin.
A student in portraiture would’ve thought he resembled a twentieth-century genial,
affable older gentleman.

“What do you mean?” He hated how unsure he sounded.
“I only just killed your father his excellence Chancellor Vonatos a few hours ago,

retrieved you while you were in lycan form and am presently on my way to a location I
am afraid must stay secret.” He pursed his lips and shh-ed. “Your father’s blood still
stains my suit, I am afraid. A thoughtless association if I ever made one.”

“I know all about your underwater lab!” Cristoval snarled. Fear crawled all over

him, tingled along his spine. Hours ago? Impossible. He’d seen that underwater facility,

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had tasted the researchers’ curiosity. For fuck’s sake, he’d met Dragana there and had
escaped with her. “I was there, remember?”

“And here I thought our activities were well guarded. But since you are so

thoroughly informed, let us be frank.” Killen shook his head. “My generous sponsor
had it built for their own purposes several years ago, and I can tell you with all
certainty that no one has ever escaped from it.” He smiled. A benign figure filled with
patience and benevolence. “So the story of your escaping with this Dragana woman is, I
am afraid, all in your head.”

“It’s not in my head! You brought her back and then lost her. She escaped you. Just

like I did. You think you can teach me about lies? You should know better, Killen, I’m a
Vonatos.”

“An unfortunate association, as I said. But believe what you will, Mr. Vonatos,”

Killen said, straightening. “Only, do remain polite, otherwise I might have to use coarse
means to make you more docile.” He reached inside his pocket and produced the
silvery implement Cristoval knew well.

“I’ve carved your implants out of me already, you can’t hurt me with that

anymore.”

Cristoval raised his fist to show the detestable man his wrist but found he couldn’t

look away himself. Other than old scars from his many, many encounters with GAN
soldiers or from self-inflicted injury whenever he changed, there were no marks there.
Nothing. Only a small bump where the implants had once been. Were still. As if he’d
never carved them out in the first place. But he had! He’d personally taken a
screwdriver to his own flesh and had dug out the tiny devices shaped like a grain of
rice. He’d done it in the back of the technician’s shuttle while Dragana piloted. There
should be fresh scars there. She’d patched him up. Hadn’t she? How could there be no
marks? He checked his other wrist. Intact as well.

What the hell was going on?
Killen brushed a thumb over the smooth metallic object. The tiny green light

flashed slowly. As Cristoval knew it did. It’d turned red whenever Killen had given
him a shock. He’d tasted it often enough in the last couple months of his captivity.
Remnants from his lycan half clawed at his soul to be let out. He felt it rising. The anger,
the rage. The fear. Adrenaline pumped his veins, fired salvoes of messages to his brain
and nerve endings, messages he couldn’t follow if he wanted to remain lucid. He had to
think. Had to remain focused.

He showed his wrist to Killen once more. “I’ll just carve them out again. You’ll

never break me.”

Killen ran a thumb over the device’s smooth edge. “So you know what these little

implants do. Curious. I do not know how you could have learned of such jealously
guarded Iron Conclave technology. You have excellent connections.” He bowed at the
waist. His hair matched the thing in his hand. A polished smooth, silver shell

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concealing gears well oiled and sharpened from years of research into cruelty. An
elegant instrument of torture. Refined sadism. “But just in case you are mistaken.”

The tiny light turned red.

* * * * *

“It’s Liberty,” Eva announced as she spun the roller, tapped her index finger on her

screen and put whatever message she’d just received on the shuttle’s main speakers and
view screen.

The woman’s face occupied one half of the screen while Dragana performed the

exterior sensors checks. The list scrolled rapidly. Part of a ship’s bridge showed behind
the woman’s shoulder. It looked bigger than a private shuttle. Small cruiser maybe?

“Speak fast,” Dragana said without looking up.
Behind Liberty, a large man with a broken nose and lifeless pale eyes leaned over so

he could nod at Dragana. Cupcake, six and a half feet of silent, deadly, lycan muscle.
Compared to his partner’s elegant, sophisticated mien, a more contrasting couple
couldn’t be found. She couldn’t believe those two were together.

Liberty nodded. “It’s good to see you again. A friend tells me a Leviathan-class ship

is trying to get clearance to leave Earth airspace. From the schematics—or lack thereof—
we know it’s Iron Conclave. Chances are it’s Killen trying to leave orbit.”

Solomon, who popped his head up from the weapons console to let out a

particularly vile curse, slapped his armrest. “Can your friend stall them? What’s their
coordinates?”

“Yes, but he can only detain them for so long. They have proper launch codes and

authority to use any corridor they choose. You have minutes, tops.” Liberty turned back
to Cupcake, who nodded and pushed a series of controls, which triggered a yellow spot
to appear on Dragana’s fractal map, along with tiny text that detailed the mammoth
ship’s tech capability. Transition to faster than light directly from orbit among the
details. In their measly little shuttle, as sleek and fast as it was, they’d never be able to
match the Leviathan’s thirty seconds to FTL. Shit!

“Got it!” Dragana snarled, already leaning back to adjust course and speed to match

the Leviathan-class ship. Her stomach was in a knot, her heart in her throat. Sweat
poured down her spine. “Over and out!”

“It’s armed,” Liberty pointed out. “Well armed. But so are we.”
Dragana couldn’t help a snort of laughter. They had a single pulse cannon. Nothing

else. Damn times of peace and prosperity. “I have Peanut. Just give me a good shot.”

Solomon, grinning, tightened his five-point harness. “No, Liberty means her stick is

as big as Killen’s.” Turning to the main screen, he added, “No offense.”

“None taken,” she replied, shaking her head. “We’ll keep the shroud up until we

rendezvous with the Leviathan and try to keep it put with the mooring clamps until
you board it. Once you do, you’re on your own.”

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“What shroud? What ship is she on?” Only GAN ships were authorized to have

shrouds. Or to use them anyway.

“Remember on Antioch space station?” Eva asked. “The Iron Conclave agents who

were waiting for us there? It’s their ship. Brand-new Iron Conclave tech. Looks like a
cargo freighter from the outside, but inside, it’s like candy land.”

She couldn’t help matching the redhead’s grin.
“Yeah,” Solomon replied with a loving look at his woman. “They fucked my second

career up, so I figured I could borrow their ship for a few years.”

Dragana’s blood already pumped hard, but the mere mention of “boarding” just

fired her even more. And the added notion that Cristoval was on that ship somewhere
and she’d get to take him back from that asshole Killen was just a cherry on her sundae.
And when all that shit had vented itself out, when dust would finally settle down, she’d
have a private talk with Cristoval. She intended, for once, to make a relationship work.
Not that she had one with him, not technically, but she knew he wanted to. And
dammit, so did she! At least try to have one. Cristoval—a Vonatos, of all people—was
worth the try.

“Eva, you get us nice and close to these fuckers,” Solomon said, a dark smile

crinkling his cheeks. Dark blond stubble gave him the fierce air of long-ago Vikings.
“And me and Dragana’ll take it from there.”

Liberty’s face blinked out when Eva switched the lighting to amber and put the

fractal map on the main view screen so both Solomon and Dragana could work from a
common viewpoint. The yellow dot glowed like a single silkworm against the amber
and black screen. 3-D details gave everything a surreal look.

“Are those the coordinates Cupcake transferred?” Eva asked without turning. The

shuttle leaned to one side, accelerated until Dragana’s insides felt as if they’d been
relocated on either side of her spine. The little shuttle packed some serious Gs.

“Yeah.” Solomon grunted when he adjusted the strap between his legs. “Why?”
“Because it’s above the Indian Ocean about to enter the long-range corridor.”
“They’re getting ready to launch from below orbit? Are those fuckers nuts?!”
“No,” Dragana replied, sounding calm even if her hands were slick with sweat and

her saliva tasted sour. “They’re scared.”

“Makes no motherfucking difference to me. You tag them, Eva, and make it quick.”
As much as she hated the sneaky little bitch, Dragana couldn’t help admiring the

woman’s piloting skills. And her recklessness. She managed to push their shuttle hard
enough to catch up with the yellow dot in record time, despite the early morning’s
traffic and steep rate of ascent. Grunts and groans accompanied each of her tight
maneuvers until she’d put them barely a thousand feet behind the Leviathan-class, its
quartet of supercharged boosters blazing white when Dragana switched to normal
view. Still, they weren’t close enough.

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“More juice, baby!” Solomon growled, leaning forward as if he could with the force

of his will make the shuttle go faster. He gripped an armrest hard, knuckles white.
“Come on, faster!”

“We’re too slow,” Eva replied. A bead of sweat pearled at her temple. Dragana

couldn’t remember ever seeing the woman sweat.

“For Christ’s sake, step on it!”
“I am!”
They needed more speed. They’d never catch up. Killen would take Cristoval out of

Earth airspace and to who knew where. She’d never find him again. He’d die at the end
of a scalpel. They needed more speed and reach. If they could get a claw into the
mammoth’s ship’s hide…

Dragana acted on impulse.
She flicked the cover off one of the fist-sized grappling hooks—they had been

designed to help anchor a shuttle after touch-down—and mashed the button hard
enough to jam it down into its little square hole. The red light glowed through her
thumbnail. The tungsten hook might be small but the wire, all fifteen hundred feet of
carbon nanotube, was more than long enough. A hollow thoop announced the hook
shooting out of the shuttle’s prow, right under its nose. A metal nostril shooting spider
web.

Solomon roared “Fuck!” just as Eva bent over low, one control stick at an acute

angle, the other twisted down low and center. For a split second, nothing happened.
The Leviathan continued its blazing ascent too far in front of them. A small signal
announced the grappling hook had hit its mark and latched on to whatever it’d struck.

“Next time you wanna—”
Solomon’s tirade was cut short by a violent lurch that pushed all three hard against

their harnesses. Dragana’s hair stuck out in front. Solomon’s greatcoat lapels lifted
while Eva’s knees rose from the footwell.

“Hang on,” she said calmly.
Dragana let out a groan of pain when the shuttle started veering to the right,

warnings flashed in all colors on various consoles, a robotized voice announced hull
integrity was about to be breached. Well, fuck, how informative! Gs concentrated in her
right side, indicating the shuttle was slowly arcing in a counterclockwise curve, fast,
faster, tied by the grappling hook and its nearly unbreakable line. They couldn’t jettison
the wire either, not at such dizzying speed. They’d basically caught on to the ship, but
like someone latching on to a passing train, they could do nothing but hang on and eat
bugs.

They reached the apex a split second before the Leviathan appeared in all its

monstrous beauty in their view screen, occupied the whole of it, filled the sky with
metal plating and antennas. The wire had acted like a sort of trebuchet with the
Leviathan being the base and the shuttle the tiny little sack to be flung but getting stuck
and about to make a one-eighty and hitting the ground. Hard and fast.

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“We’re going to crash!”
Dragana was shocked to hear the old fire in her voice, as if she were actually

enjoying the ride, was even pretty damned thrilled about the idea they were a second
away from smacking against a Leviathan in their little shuttle like a mosquito on a
windshield. At least, she’d gone down fighting for something instead of lying down
and waiting for it.

“Reverse engines!” Solomon roared, bracing both arms. Just like him to resist the

inevitable to the end. Stubborn lycan.

Eva remained like a statue, bent over, eyes fixed on her console and not on the view

screen. Maybe she didn’t want to see the large ship’s hull coming. Dragana couldn’t
blame her. But she would. She’d stare at death until metal filled her eyes and fire her
lungs.

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Chapter Ten

He wouldn’t let them take him alive. Not this time.
Through the agony of the voltage ripping through his limbs, Cristoval managed to

suddenly extend an arm and catch Killen’s wrist, the one holding the hated device. The
shock on the man’s face would’ve made Cristoval smile had he not been fighting for
consciousness.

“Shoot him!” Killen yelled.
He must have triggered the device again because fire throbbed behind Cristoval’s

eyeballs, under his fingernails, in every muscle and tendon and bone. He growled
incoherently. His heart beat too fast. Much too fast. Stars exploded behind his eyelids.

Thankfully, a violent ship-wide lurch plastered the handful of guards against one

side of the cargo bay, one volter shot hitting the deck head and creating a black scuff. By
the corner of his eye, Cristoval spotted a small item like a silver skipping stone falling to
the deck to clatter a few feet away.

As if time stood still, Killen and Cristoval both watched the device slide a few feet

away. Then the older man looked back at Cristoval. Understanding dawned on his face.
And fear. He could probably see his death in Cristoval’s eyes. Good, because it was
imminent.

He was free.
Another shudder sent him back a few steps. To Cristoval’s jumbled senses, the last

tremor felt as if the ship had struck a hard surface, or been hit by something. But he had
other problems.

Through tears and sweat, Cristoval, still with the man’s hand in his, saw Killen

reach inside his jacket with his other. But too slowly. Cristoval twisted his wrist fast and
hard, felt the other’s bones snap against the heel of his hand. The man’s howl was
drowned by a series of wails from sirens placed outside the hatch. Some of the guards
who’d regained their equilibrium rushed out and started screaming while a couple
stayed inside and aimed their volters at Cristoval, only to stand around looking
confused as to whether they should shoot through their supervisor or wait for a clear
shot or what. Cristoval had no intention of giving them one. He wrapped his arm
around Killen, spun him around and kept him well in front as he backpedaled against
the bulkhead, hit his shoulder blades then made his way to the gaping hatch. A
kaleidoscope of white-red-amber light beams spun and spilled inside. Sirens kept
wailing. The smell of smoke tickled his nostrils. The “normal” humans with him had
probably not even smelled it yet.

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“You make one move,” he growled in Killen’s ear. “And I’ll rip your throat out.”

Killen’s broken hand felt like twigs in a leather pouch when Cristoval squeezed it for
added emphasis. The man let out a pitiful squeal.

“Something hit the ship!” one of the guards, a tall woman with striking features,

yelled into the cargo bay. “We’re losing speed!”

“Put a volter down!” Cristoval yelled back. “Kick it this way!”
The woman didn’t even wait for her boss’s okay and dropped her own, slid it inside

with her booted foot so Cristoval only had to lean sideways and take it while still
keeping an iron grip on Killen’s ruined hand.

“It will not change a thing,” Killen said out the corner of his mouth. He cringe-

smiled in what must have been horrendous pain. “She is dead anyway. Your friend, the
female lycan. We have only bought her some time. Five, six years at most. Then one
day, she will just die.”

His heart nearly stopped beating. Five, six years at most. Then one day, she will just die.
Cristoval felt the man’s suit rip under the fist he kept on the shoulder pad. “Liar!

Shut up!”

“I would not…invent s-something like this,” Killen panted, groaned. “Not when

truth is such a treat.”

“Tell your men to clear the deck. Do it now!”
“Cristoval!” yelled a high-pitched voice that made his heart flutter in his chest.
“Asia? Where are you?”
He shuffled forward with Killen plastered in front of him, volter out front leading,

muzzle pointed steady at the female guard—obviously in charge and the most
dangerous—while he kept his arm wrapped around Killen’s throat with his fist on the
opposite shoulder. Out in the passageway, emergency light stabbed into his brain. He
cringed against the assault. Remnants of his hypersensitive lycan vision and more
adrenaline pumping into his system was trying to narrow his mental processes to fight-
or-flight levels. He could barely think straight. All he could think about was Dragana
and how little time was left for her. She probably didn’t even know. Killen had stolen
her life once, given it back to her only to steal it again. Impotent rage narrowed his
mental acuity even further. An ache spread to his gums. Shit!

“Asia?”
“I’m here! I’m in here!”
The voice came from the left, through a hatch similar to his. Asia’s face occupied the

porthole. Her eyes were huge in her narrow face. She looked terrified.

Cristoval crossed the short distance, stumbled when another violent lurch rocked

the ship several degrees to one side before it righted then put his back against Asia’s
hatch. “Move over!” he snarled at the guards who followed his movements with their
fingers on triggers. “I said move!”

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Killen’s yelp of pain seemed to hasten cooperation as the tall woman nodded,

fanned her arms and cleared a path down the passageway. She obviously knew what
Cristoval meant to do. What she probably didn’t know was that, in all probability, he
wouldn’t make it in time before his lycan half took over—there was just so much grief
and pain a “genetic deviant” could take before his human part gave up the fight.

Five, six years at most. Then one day, she will just die.
He used the butt of his volter to tap the access panel and open Asia’s hatch. The

thick compound panel slid into the bulkhead and out of the darkened rectangle rushed
the teen, all round eyes and disheveled hair. Blood crusted both nostrils.

“Emergency pods,” he told her. “Hurry.”
He felt as if he were back in his underground home when they’d come up to the

surface to wreak havoc in GAN maneuvers or raids then rush back down to their lair to
scheme anew. Not valiant in the least but effective just the same. He’d long ago
abandoned valiance to those who could afford it. To him, such luxury could only come
after ugly, trench warfare, after sacrifices and deceit, courage and sheer dumb luck.
Then maybe people like him could fight clean. But not now. Not when he boiled with
hatred and a thirst for revenge.

Their strange group made its way down the passageway, followed the clearly

marked yellow placards indicating muster points in case of emergencies. They met no
one on the way, which told Cristoval that only a handful of operatives were onboard.
Maybe Killen hadn’t planned on a two-person rebellion. Or being taken hostage.
Finally, a wide arch revealed a series of circular openings low along the bulkhead with
numbers above each in black and yellow against the gray foam ring to ease potential
bumps going into the escape pods.

“There,” he pointed with the volter. “You take the first one.”
Asia didn’t move, only looked at him with those huge eyes that could stare through

a man’s soul. He wondered where Allan was. Where all the others were. Dead
probably. Killen had pretty much killed everything Cristoval cared for.

“Not without you!”
“I can’t…” Cristoval tried to go on but had to stop to grit his teeth. “Take the

volter.” He pushed it in her hand then nudged her back a step. “Don’t look back.”

She took the weapon, trained it on the guards, standing with their volters pointed

right back at her. A single false movement and everything would be lost. Killen shifted
in front of him. Cristoval reminded him to be quiet with a not-so-subtle squeeze that
tore a groan from him.

Asia spread her feet wider. Clearly, she didn’t want to go. “Cristoval—”
“Please,” he growled. His teeth hurt. His face felt about to split in half. Bones

crunched somewhere in his skull. “Don’t…look…back.”

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He abruptly pushed her into the circular hole. His self-appointed niece and

mouthpiece, mother to every member of the underground resistance, all his lost
children, some of them three times her age.

His last reason to keep the beast in check.

* * * * *

“Next time you wanna pull a stunt like that one,” Solomon growled while he raked

his hair back with a hand, “you mind telling me first?”

Eva straightened from the control after pulling one hell of a piloting coup. After

Dragana had latched on to the Leviathan’s hull with the grappling hook, which had
caused their shuttle to play trebuchet, Eva had managed to keep their belly angled to
the other ship so that when they’d come swerving at it, all three extended skids had
more or less dampened the impact and acted as shock absorbers. A second later, she’d
activated the magnetized mooring clamps. Too slowly for Dragana’s taste, they’d
crawled like a spider with magnets for feet until they presently sat on the Leviathan’s
wide back, hatch to hatch, mooring clamps safely in place and ready to board the
mammoth. If she ever had a chance, she’d make sure to comment on Eva’s piloting
skills. And guts.

Solomon was first out of his seat. He stretched a leg then the other. “Fuck. I almost

coughed up my balls.” He slipped both volters out of his utility belt, which made him
look like a twentieth-century Russian soldier, complete with greatcoat, and marched for
the hatch. “Gear up, ladies.”

For once, his acerbic comment applied.
Dragana clawed out of her harness, grabbed Peanut and after checking the gauge to

make sure she had plenty of nickel for the multitude of assholes waiting inside the
Leviathan, joined Solomon by the hatch.

“Like old times? You hose ’em down and I greet them with my two-volter salute.”
Dragana couldn’t help a quick grin. “Like old times.”
With Eva bringing up the rear, they trooped inside the shuttle’s tiny airlock and

waited until the automatic system had stabilized to one-atmosphere before they popped
the seal and pulled on the lever. A quick run through the accordion-like coupling then
Solomon punched the mushroom-shaped emergency trigger that would bypass every
other system and swing the Leviathan’s hatch inward. It did. Without resistance or a
hail of nickel shots. Swung inward all the way.

And revealed a scene of carnage that froze Dragana, who’d been around Solomon—

nicknamed the Big Bad Wolf for plenty of good reasons—for several years and thought
she’d seen it all, froze her right on the doorstep.

“Holy. Motherfucking. Christ.”
Solomon’s murmured observation barely registered in her dazed brain for the wail

of sirens and emergency messages urging occupants to “Prepare for forced landing…

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Imminent loss of depressurization…” and a slew of others. But the scene before her
more than made up for her inability to hear clearly.

An abattoir wouldn’t have looked much better. Bodies lay in pools of blood, some

of them intact, others…less so.

Because the ship’s automatic systems must have still been in emergency mode—

obviously, it wasn’t the crew manning the thing—sirens wailed and lights flashed,
rendering the scene an eerie discotheque of death. Only thing missing was music. And
people. Live people.

“What the fuck happened here?” Solomon yelled above the racket. He grimaced as

he stepped over something then located an access panel. After a bit of fiddling, he
stepped back and shot the thing several times, which immediately killed the sound
system in their part of the ship. Unfortunately, the lightshow remained.

The smell of burned plastic reached her. Dragana coughed then cleared the

passageway to the right before rolling against the bulkhead and facing her companions.
“He must’ve changed.”

Solomon nodded. “You think?!”
“We have to find him,” Eva remarked calmly. Her face looked pale.
Dragana swallowed hard. “Don’t hurt him.”
Solomon only sucked his teeth.
“I said,” Dragana snapped, kicking the bulkhead behind her. “Don’t hurt him. Is

that clear?”

He threw her a menacing glare. “You keep that tone with me, and you won’t have

to worry about me hurting him. It’s your ass I’ll kick.”

“We have to start searching.” Eva, the ever-clearheaded one.
They agreed to stay together and search the ship one level at a time. Only more

bodies greeted them, each bearing claw marks. Not one of them looked as if he or she’d
been shot.

“Well, well, what d’you know. Tasted his own sauce after all, the old turd.”
Dragana followed Solomon’s gaze and spotted Killen, or what remained of him,

slumped against the bulkhead, a look of horror on his face. His suit was in tatters. Blood
had pooled under him, dark like ink. He looked as if he’d met a fitting death. Dragana
didn’t spare a second glance at him. Too bad though, she’d wanted to finish him
herself. But in a way, Cristoval getting to him in lycan form had to be the best example
of natural justice.

Down a passageway that resembled a series of small cargo holds they found two

empty. A small silver item on the deck caught Dragana’s eye. She picked it up, her heart
in her throat. She didn’t know why but pocketed the smooth implement and moved on.

Eva’s lithe form passed to her left, turned around a corner then was seen again

backpedaling furiously, her hand patting the air in a call for silence. She pointed at the
place she’d just left and mouthed “He’s there.”

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Dragana’s heart skipped a beat. Despite the state of things—hell, she didn’t care if

Cristoval had just killed a dozen people with his bare hands…they’d been Iron
Conclave, torturers and thugs who got what they’d richly deserved—she’d been
hoping, even praying, that he’d somehow survived the terrible battle. With a nod, she
padded in front of Eva, poked her head around the corner and spotted Cristoval in
lycan form leaning back against the bulkhead, his head low, looking dejected and lost.
Blood covered his arms up to his elbows. Matted the hair on his chest. Vestiges of pants
still clung to his thick, muscular legs.

He must have sensed a presence for he turned his great jackal-like head and sniffed,

face slightly up and to the side. His chest swelled. She cringed a split second before a
long, soul-rending howl ripped the air. Cristoval pushed off the bulkhead and took off
in the opposite direction.

“Shit!” Solomon yelled somewhere behind her. “That was him!”
He came hurtling around the corner but Dragana stopped him with the butt of

Peanut against the chest. “Don’t you dare! You’ll only make it worse! I’ll go after him.
He knows me.”

“Like hell you will! He’ll rip you apart!”
Eva put a hand over Solomon’s arm. Her chemically enhanced purple eyes

unwavering. “He won’t. He’ll know it’s her.”

Dragana wished she could share a bit of the woman’s certitude as she gave a last

nod to the pair then took off after Cristoval. She felt torn between yelling his name,
hoping he’d remember her voice, or just tailing him until she found a way to corner the
lycan without triggering a violent riposte. She wouldn’t have the heart to fight him. Nor
the strength. He was huge. With any luck, it wouldn’t come to that.

Dragana chased the lycan for what felt like hours. She ducked under low-hanging

pipes and ventilation ducts, around scary corners where two-hundred-plus pounds of
lycan could lie in wait and through darkened hatches left open and bearing bloody
handprints. She began to fear he was wounded and that this was all his blood. Placards
warning of oxygen-poor lower decks flashed by. Sirens stopped their incessant wail, no
doubt Solomon’s doing.

She was padding across an empty passageway on her way across to a set of empty

cargo bays when a yelp of pain brought her swerving back to the right, running hard
for a hatch at the end that opened out onto the engine room. One of them anyway.
Steam hissed angrily from a broken coil. The smell of fuel was thick. She coughed, eyes
blurry, swept the place with Peanut out of habit because there’d be no way she was
using it against Cristoval, even in his state.

She gasped when she spotted him.
Below the metal gangway, a good thirty feet down, stood Cristoval,

immobile…staring back up at her. Fear froze her.

He panted hard, his great chest rising and falling, the sound like a sleeping giant,

his prominent rib cage and sinewy shoulders wet from sweat and steam and matting

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the fine hair into ribbons that looked cut from black silk strewn with diamonds. Except
for his hands and forearms, which gleamed like rubies. The blood of his enemy still
fresh. But Cristoval was in there, right beneath the surface. Those were his eyes, his
forehead and proud cheekbones. Half Spartan warrior, half Anubis.

She didn’t know what made her do it. All she knew was that she left Peanut by the

hatch, crept down the stairs slowly, cautiously until she stood on the embossed metal
deck a mere ten feet from the lycan. A great gash glistened ham-pink in his side, which
he seemed to favor slightly. It broke her heart.

“Cristoval,” she murmured. “It’s me. Dragana.” She didn’t know what else to say.
He took a step forward, his great head cocked to one side. Nostrils dilated, he

sniffed tentatively.

Dragana smiled. “That’s it, get a good whiff—whoa, whoa!”
Cristoval charged.
She barely had time to cringe when he slammed against her, propelled her back

against the stairs, which dug painfully in her ribs and shoulders, and pinned her there
with a clawed hand on the chest. His other rose, arm at full extension, clawed hand
flexed like a five-bladed scythe. At least he didn’t mean for it to last.

Dragana squeezed her eyes shut. She’d always thought she’d want to see it coming.

That she’d spit in death’s face and call her a spiteful bitch on PMS. But not like this, not
from him. She stopped breathing and waited for Cristoval to slash her throat open.

Death never came.
Dragana yelped when instead Cristoval tore her coveralls wide, seemed bent on

destroying one side, slashing again and again until a tiny silver thing flew out and
skittered across the deck. Cristoval visibly cringed. Despite the different bone structure
and facial traits, despite the jackal-like quality of his features, she recognized the flinch
of fear and pain when he spotted the silver thing.

He howled long and hard.
Dragana fought the urge to plug her ears or scream in panic. Primeval instincts

wanted her to fight or fly, to do something. As abruptly as he’d begun, he stopped.
Whimpers accompanied his pants. The hot breaths warmed her cheek and shoulder,
which was denuded—hell, she was half naked from his trying to rip her pocket out.

“It’s okay,” she whispered. The gentle hand she meant to place on his shoulder was

slapped out wide, hard.

He growled, showed the stark white teeth she’d found so attractive. Until then. The

canines were the size of small jalapenos. Great tremors shook his frame, made sweat
tremble at the end of his hair. By small increments, mindless rage once again etched on
his angular face, Cristoval descended on her until his chin rested against her clavicle,
until he covered her like a great predator settling down on its prey after a long hunt. A
small sound by her head made her look up just in time to see his hand closing on the

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handrail and twisting it as if it were licorice. Then his teeth pressed against her throat
and Dragana froze, stopped breathing. Waited.

This was no time for bravado or shooting off at the mouth. As much as she enjoyed

feeling a bit of the old fire back in her, Dragana knew that one wrong move would send
Cristoval into a rage with the consequences of his having to live with what he’d done.
She’d wanted to die. She’d come close to actually doing it too. But no longer. She
wanted her chance with him. Cristoval was worth the risk. Plus, she didn’t want him to
carry the burden of having killed a friend. If that was what he thought of her. Although
he’d alluded strongly of more, had even used the L-word. Only she’d been too busy
feeling sorry for herself to listen. Solomon had been right.

So she lay there on the metal stairs of a Leviathan’s engine room, metal rungs

digging in her back and legs, afraid, hopeful, frozen to the plangent growls of a massive
male lycan crawling up between her legs while her lover decided if he should rip her
throat out or what.

“Cristoval, it’s me, Dragana.”
The low growl that rumbled in his throat and chest preceded his pressing his teeth a

bit deeper. Dragana suppressed the urge to squeal, to make any sound at all. Instead of
biting down, which would’ve crushed her windpipe, he waited there, as still as she,
prey to his own inner battle. Mustering every fiber of gut she had, Dragana raised a
hand and placed it gently on his back. Heat seeped into her palm, which tingled. Every
sense threatened to overload.

She felt something hot and wet touch her throat, tentatively. He was testing her.

Tasting her.

“Dragana,” she murmured. “Remember? We’re friends.”
An ear twitched on his Anubis-like head. He pulled back slightly so he could look

at her. Those were indeed Cristoval’s black eyes, right down to the arched eyebrows
she’d found unbelievably sexy. With his chin he brushed hers, along her jaw, up her
cheek. She let him. One, she couldn’t have stopped him had she wanted to. Two,
something was happening here, something entirely different. Fear receded. Clearly, he
wasn’t going to kill her.

Something popped in his shoulder. She heard and recognized it as if it’d been in her

own body. The hair seemed to be sucked back into the pores, the swelling muscles
receded, the bone structure adjusted to that of a man. He whimpered with the atrocious
pain. She knew just how bad it hurt. So she held his proud head against her chest while
the last shreds of beast left, but not before giving one last stinging jab in his jaw. She
knew it’d be the last thing to change. It was the same with every lycan.

Shaking, he raised his face to hers. His dark eyes from this close reflected her face.

He seemed about to say something but no word came out.

She knew if they said anything, the moment would be lost forever. She kissed him

full on the mouth.

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His breath hot on her face, Cristoval descended on her, returned her kiss tenfold,

drew back so he could lick and kiss and bite his way down to her neck, shoulders, both
of them, down between her breasts, almost entirely exposed in the ruined coveralls. The
mix of cold air and his burning-hot breath created goose bumps, something to which he
seemed to pay particular attention with his nose and the tip of his tongue. That tongue!

Holy mother… Man.
Cristoval had just licked her from nipple to chin. One big pass that created havoc

down in her belly. She’d always believed fighting was a form of sex, that adrenaline
from dodging and dispensing nickel shots or from having sex amounted to the same
result. She was proving her theory right now.

He pulled up, but she quickly pressed her palm to his mouth to silence him. No

words, please, no words. Above her hand, his eyes narrowed. Then he licked her. A
proprietary lick that ended in a quick nip on her wrist. She let him brand her. Make her
his.

His gaze on her, he gave her chest another long tongue swipe, this time slower,

much slower, which rocked her back until she knocked her skull against the metal ledge
of a step. “Ow, shit.”

Cristoval pulled himself up a few inches. Muscles bunched in his shoulders and

chest then along his belly when he lowered himself back again, but this time with his
chin near her navel. She wore nothing underneath the borrowed—stolen—coveralls so
even she could smell the feminine musk. With his senses still sharpened by his recent
change, the scent must have been overpowering to him, which would explain the lump
she could spot in what remained of his pants. If Cristoval’s tongue work had proven
stimulating enough to make her forget her painful position, the sight of his arousal
almost made her forget her name.

Slowly she worked her leg up until her knee rested snugly in the crook of his thigh,

pressing against his trapped erection and feeling the heat of him transfer to her skin, up
her thigh, into her flesh. Still neither spoke, even if both knew what was coming.

He let her press her knee higher. His gaze never left hers.
She’d never been a talker in bed. She’d always preferred quick, hard sex. So she had

no idea where the urge to murmur sweet nothings into Cristoval’s ear could have come
from. But she did. Her voice seemed to have a rousing effect on him as his eyes
narrowed, his breathing accelerated.

“Dragana,” he warned.
After she shifted her weight—those stairs would have to be surgically removed

later on—she hooked her heel behind his hip and cramped her thighs hard.

Cristoval dove for her.
Her shock, her thrill was complete when he curled his tongue out and proceeded to

lave her belly up and down, side to side, hard and fast, as if he were afraid something
might happen to interrupt him, as if he were desperate to taste her all over. With a
moan that should’ve shamed her but didn’t, she fisted her coveralls’ ruined lapels and

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pulled them wide over her chest. Her skin gleamed with his saliva. He spared a hand to
bunch the front of his pants and yanked them down with a brutal jerk. What remained
of his waistband gave with a dry snap. Long and thick he hung over her thighs in
glossy invitation. Dragana meant to fist his cock but never had a chance when Cristoval
used both hands to rip the vestiges of her coveralls clean in half then down her legs.
Strips of it clung to her calves but nothing more.

He froze to look at her, his gaze daring her to say anything. She didn’t.
Dressed only in boots, she hurriedly hooked her other foot over the railing and tried

not to hurt herself when she arched back under the force of his licks.

Cristoval quickly zeroed in on the source of his interest. While keeping his hands

wrapped around the handrails on either side, he licked her cleft in hard, upward passes,
always harder, the wet heat like a strip of fire lapping her pussy. Deep down her cleft
then up above her mons. Her clitoris denuded under the wet onslaught, rolled and
pushed upward, assaulted, ravished and overwhelmed, reduced to a hard little knot of
nerve endings that fired stupefied and confused messages in her brain, as if she were in
any condition to do something about it. All she could do was throw her head back and
push her pussy up against his face. His groan created a vibrato that passed to her
distended flesh, pushed her closer to the edge. He must have sensed or smelled the
difference for Cristoval froze with his mouth clamped against her sex, tongue pressed
along her vulva. And waited.

Varicolored flashes behind her eyelids preceded one hard climax. She released on a

long, hiccupping groan.

Obviously Cristoval wasn’t done with her.
A yelp left her when he seized her by the hips, flipped her on her front and pulled

back until her butt stood in the air, her knees on different steps, hands scratching for
purchase along the handrail, breasts bouncing, heart pounding. She was still coming for
fuck’s sake—

He took her.
From orgasm to carnal fury, from fire to supernova, a scream like a battle cry

deflated her lungs, her entire body, to be replaced with Cristoval. All of him. His cock
in her, deep, rigid, unyielding. To take. To conquer. All his. Each penetration a claim
she willingly granted.

The Spartan warrior hiding an ancient jackal-headed god, pushing in, an arm

around her waist to keep her put, sweat and saliva a wet, sticky bond and soon their
essences as well, a link, a conductor to his lightning. Each thrust deeper than the one
preceding but gentler than those following. He was taking and giving. All of him. To
her.

An explosion of liquid fire filled her. Cristoval quivered like a just-fired arrow. His

cum burned low in her belly. He slowed his cadence then stopped entirely, panting in
great gasps.

“Dragana,” she heard behind her.

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The man’s voice brought tears of satisfaction and joy to her eyes. She didn’t turn so

he wouldn’t see them but nodded to indicate she’d heard him.

From demanding, his arm around her waist turned tender. He pulled out of her, let

his cock rest against her cleft as he waited there while cum made a sticky cocoon of her
pussy.

Several deep breaths were needed to regulate her heartbeat. After awhile, she

patted his hand still clutched around her.

“Did I… Did I hurt you?” he asked, panting. “While I was…?”
She shook her head.
He murmured a short prayer of thanks. He was the only one she knew who did. “I

never would’ve forgiven myself—”

“Shh,” she cut in. “You didn’t, okay.”
Hot breath heralded imminent contact. He kissed her shoulder, lingered for a

moment. “We have to talk.”

“Later.”
“No. Now.”
“It can wait—”
“No,” Cristoval replied, his voice tender if firm. “It can’t. There’s no time left.

There’s only now.”

Her first instinct was to push back and give him the old one-two. Dragana fought it.

Fought it hard. She’d wanted her chance with Cristoval and here it was.

“Let’s talk then.”

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Chapter Eleven

Cristoval’s heart fluttered. He’d emerged from the lycan to find himself deep in a

carnal haze. Momentary fear had frozen the blood in his veins. What was he doing? But
he’d soon discovered not only had their physical contact been consensual, she’d given
as hard as she’d taken. He could’ve roared his joy. Her pussy distended around him
had felt so good, made him feel so at home, Cristoval never wanted it to end. But it had
to. He had to find out how she felt. Because if making love to her was the closest he’d
come to the divine, without her heart, it’d all mean nothing. He had to know. Now.
They had so little time. Because he believed Killen. Those last few words would haunt
him for the rest of his life. Five or six years at most. Then she will just die. He wouldn’t tell
her. In case it wasn’t true. In case it was. He’d carry that burden alone.

But she wasn’t dead yet. She lived and so did he. Regret would come early enough.

Now was time for action.

He reached around her shoulder—those awful scars on her back broke his heart—

and helped her sit on the step. She panted still. Red and purple marks left little doubt as
to what he’d been doing before he’d changed back into a man.

“Forgive me,” he murmured, sitting as well.
“It’s all right.”
“No, it’s not. I’d never willingly touch a friend in anger.”
She threw him a sidelong glance. “A friend, huh?”
“The woman I love can be a friend. Has to be a friend, no?”
She cringed, looked away.
He cupped her chin so she’d look back at him. “Can’t you even hear the word

without grimacing?”

An awkward shrug was all he got.
“What if I told you I’d like to marry you.” He waited until her eyes had shrunk

back to their natural size. “Never mind. No need to make anything official, right?”

“Yeah, let’s just take things slowly, okay? I like being with you and believe me,

that’s a big thing! I’m not exactly known for my warm and fuzzy personality.”

He believed her. “You have to swear to me you won’t go looking for death. Not

ever again. I won’t have it.”

She nodded.
“No, I want you to say it.” He stared into her eyes the color of a winter sky and

waited.

“I’m done looking for it, okay. You’re stuck with me for a while.”

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She wouldn’t take his earlier offer and inside his chest something had crystallized

and broken off from the rest. But at least she wouldn’t throw her life away. What
remained of it. Borrowed time.

Dragana swallowed hard then straightened. “We have to get back to them. Solomon

will get bitchy. I don’t want that and neither do you.”

Cristoval wanted to push his cause but lost his heart. “You’re right.”
“You know what,” she said after awhile. “We should aim this Leviathan at the

undersea complex and blow it up.”

“What if there are innocents there?”
“Bah! No one who works for the Iron Conclave is innocent.”
“Prisoners are. What if there are more?”
Her blue eyes sparkled like sapphires. “Then we go down there and clean the place

up. Right now.”

Cristoval nodded. He wouldn’t push. What man would? She’d suffered. She

needed time. He shouldn’t have acted the way he had in the first place and would
remember the fear on her face when he’d mentioned marriage. That ought to convince
him to wait for a cue from her instead of rushing in like a teenager in love. Plus, what
did it change? Nothing. He just wanted to be with her. Where had this old-fashioned
urge come from?

They retrieved a large, custom-made volter he remembered bore the pet name

“Peanut” then a suit each from the firefighting niches along the passageway, wrestled
the white one-piece on and went in search of the rest of the team. They soon met them
on the bridge, Solomon and Liberty bent over the controls, arguing over a course of
action while Eva used the control stick to scan the ship with the many cameras installed
throughout. Half a dozen screens showed carnage in only black and white, for which
Cristoval was glad. The knowledge of what he’d done was enough. But one person sat
in silence, removed from the rest, her arms crossed, her face downcast.

“Asia,” he murmured, going for her. “I thought you’d gone.”
“I couldn’t leave you.”
A humph of air left him when she threw herself at him, arms wide, hiccupping sobs

racking her slender body. He held her for a long time, even through the momentary
commotion their arrival had caused. She shook badly. Through her broken narrative, he
learned that Allan was dead, as were most of the others, except for Haruto—Smiley—
whom no one had seen. Cristoval felt his hackles rise.

“I’m not surprised we can’t find him.”
“People kept telling me,” Asia cried. “But I didn’t want to believe them. He’s

always been nice to me.”

“It doesn’t make him evil, just deceitful.” Cristoval had a few more choice words to

describe the little turncoat—unless he was sorely mistaken and Haruto had nothing to
do with any of it and lay dead somewhere, forgotten. “Here, sit down.”

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She sat, shaking, tears running down her face. A pouch of water made its

appearance on the console by Asia’s elbow. Dragana left it there, even punctured the
pouch with the straw and angled it at the sobbing teen. With a thankful nod, Asia took
it and drank a tiny sip.

“We have to go back,” Cristoval said to the group. “Where they kept us. If there are

other prisoners, we have to get them out.”

Dragana nodded emphatically. “Then we blow the whole fucking thing up.”
“This Leviathan isn’t equipped for underwater travel,” Liberty put in. Dressed

entirely in white synthleather with her ebony-colored skin and blue-tinted goggles, she
was a striking sight. “But ours is.” She turned to Cupcake, the giant lycan, and nodded.

Solomon slipped his thumbs in his utility belt and played with the butts of his twin

volters. “Hey, you mean my ship. I stole it back on Antioch, fair and square, so it’s mine.
I’m only loaning it to you, remember?” He smiled a feral one. “But the rest of the plan
sounds good to me. I’ve been pussyfooting around for too goddamn long.”

Eva shook her head. “We need someone to stay behind with the Leviathan. We

have to spin this the right way. A lot of dead Iron Conclave operatives on this ship.”

“Uncle Johnnie can take care of that,” Cupcake said. He put a protective bear paw

of a hand over his companion. “Liberty and I will stay.”

It’d been worded like a command but sounded more like a question with a slight

lift at the end. Liberty returned the nod. “We’ll monitor from the air with another ship.”

Cristoval could’ve intervened. He suspected that should he ask her to stay behind,

Dragana would have, that she would do for him what she wouldn’t do for anyone
else—stay out of trouble. So he didn’t ask.

* * * * *

The trip back to the undersea research complex took just too goddamn long for

Dragana’s taste. She’d bitten her fingernails down to the quick by the time Cristoval
opened the hatch and let Solomon and her clear the way ahead. Cristoval’s offer had
served to render her a ball of nerves too. He’d proposed! Literally proposed! And what
had she done? Stood around like a moron and said nothing. Liberty would have her ass
on a platter if she ever learned. But she’d frozen. Panicked. What if she fell in love with
the guy and then he went and got himself blown up? What if she lost him? Like she’d
lost Ivan.

It’s not the same, for Christ’s sake. Just focus on the here and now.
So some moron somewhere near the airlock thought he could disable their volters

with a well-aimed electromagnetic charge? Did these assholes think they were
amateurs? Solomon’s team had volters equipped with dashpots, for fuck’s sake, which
would neutralize any EM attack.

Give us some damn credit.

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She still managed to agonize over Cristoval’s offer while she disabled that EM

charge quick and neat with a nickel shot right in the bearer’s forehead when she found
him perched on a supporting I-beam. She didn’t watch to see which way he fell. She
was too busy shooting down the rest of his friends and thinking about her future with a
man like Cristoval Vonatos. Or lack thereof.

Without waiting for Eva, who had the station’s sketchy schematics stolen from one

of Liberty’s connections on a decoder strapped to her forearm, Solomon did what
Solomon always did, which was run down the landing bay with both volters and
mouth going a mile a minute. His favorite expletive resounded like a war cry.

“Motherfuckers!”
She grinned while she plastered herself against the bulkhead and waited for

Cristoval and Eva to charge past. Those two bore the largest of the depth charges that
would take down the main infrastructure while Solomon and she would take care of the
moving bits—people.

“Clear!” Solomon roared down the passageway. He emerged smiling with both

volters steaming. “They’ve got some heavy gear down front! Let’s go!”

Eva pointed forward, nodding. “There’s a room near the center with a well that

goes down several hundred feet. That’s where the charges would be most effective.
Some kind of harvesting center, I think.”

“We have to get the prisoners first,” Cristoval countered.
For a split second, Dragana thought Solomon would pounce on the man, who stood

a good head taller. But he relented, muttered a curse then grabbed Eva’s wrist so he
could check the decoder. “Doesn’t say ‘prisoners here’, so where the hell do we start?”

Cristoval joined them, took a long look at the tiny aqua screen. “There,” he pointed

to a spot on the screen. “Two levels down, one quadrant east. These rows of cubicles.
They look like where we were kept.”

They met little resistance on their way there. And none once they’d reached the

lower level Cristoval had mentioned. But signs of recent occupancy could still be found
here and there. And blood too.

Dragana wanted out of there and fast. The place gave her the chills. But when they

emerged into a large room filled with empty cylindrical tanks, upright and with a mess
of tubes and water on the deck, she froze and nearly dropped Peanut.

There were others like her.
Cristoval stood by. His silent strength probably saved her from becoming an

emotional wreck.

“We’ll place a charge here,” Eva said quietly. She deposited her huge backpack,

pulled out one black rectangle and set it on the deck where she magnetized the clamps
that would keep it in place. A tiny red light appeared on the charge’s edge, mirrored by
another on Eva’s decoder.

Dragana thanked her with a nod. She couldn’t talk. She could hardly think.

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Cristoval placed a hot hand in her lower back, leaned in and murmured, “It’ll go

first.”

Good. It has to go first. This place shouldn’t exist. These mad fuckers shouldn’t be allowed to

play god and bring people back.

But where were all the people in all those tanks? Like her, walking around? Or

discarded somewhere, unable to come back? Had Iron Conclave taken them somewhere
else?

“Let’s move,” Solomon said brusquely. He cleared his throat, avoided looking at

Dragana when he marched forward. “This place creeps me out.”

Like a four-pronged arrow, they trooped through the station, occasionally firing

back at what little resistance they found, gunned their way through a wide concrete
room, empty except for some broken machinery in a corner, then stormed right up to a
set of double doors where a placard read Danger—Methane Hydrate Deposits.

“What the fuck is methane-whatever?” Solomon asked before kicking down the

door. His greatcoat flapped when the metallic panel buckled then clattered to the deck.

Eva snuck by him, the depth charge in her backpack almost as big as she was. “Gas

that looks like ice. Very powerful but unstable.”

“Well, you don’t say,” he muttered, following her.
Dragana flashed a quick look at Cristoval as he followed the lithe redhead into the

room. He carried a backpack just like Eva, but his was positively monstrous. Good
thing he was a big boy. Her big boy. She quickly shook the silly attack of the lovey-
doveys to focus on the task—which was to shoot down anyone who tried to stop them
from demolishing the place. It was wrong. It shouldn’t exist. And it wouldn’t in a
couple hours.

Bluish light emanated from a large pit in the middle of the room. The team trooped

around it and looked down. Bottomless. Or so it seemed. A well carved out of rock
plunged into darkness some five hundred feet or so down with white crystals clinging
to asperities and outcropping like mushrooms.

“Whoa, fuck.”
Solomon’s description was apt enough.
After another second of open-mouthed inspection, Dragana returned to her spot by

the door while Eva went for the controls set along the wall. She let the backpack slide to
the deck. “Shit.”

“I don’t like that tone,” Solomon remarked, wisecracking as ever. He marched over

to the console Eva was bent over, straightened then whistled. “Well, fuck me.”

“What?” Cristoval demanded, joining them, which left Dragana alone to guard the

door. How well she’d fallen back in her old role. They made quite the team.

“No wonder we only met some half-assed defense,” Solomon answered. “The

fuckers.”

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Dragana spared a quick glance inside, caught Cristoval looking back at her as if

someone had cancelled Christmas. And Easter. And Halloween. “What do you mean?”

“Boom, is what I mean,” Solomon replied. “You’d think the lot of us together

could’ve thought about that.”

“Dammit, about what?”
Cristoval closed his eyes briefly. “About how little value Killen places on human

life.”

“Let’s get the fuck out!” Solomon snapped. “Now!”
Peanut felt cold and slippery in her hands. She kept it turned outward but twisted

all the way in so she could see clearly. “What? Will someone tell me what the hell’s
going on?”

“Run! Back to the ship! Now!”
That’d been Eva, running like woo-damn. Who knew the little shit could be so

damn fast? Cristoval unceremoniously dropped his backpack then raced to the door,
grabbing Dragana by the sleeve as he passed, which didn’t even slow him.

“They rigged the place!”
Solomon had always had a way with words. Boom indeed.

Cristoval ran as fast as his legs could carry him. After a few disorganized steps,

Dragana righted herself and charged by his side, the monstrous volter not even slowing
her down. The thing must have weighted thirty pounds yet she wielded it as if it were
an extension of her arms. How he loved her! Maybe she wouldn’t die in a few years as
Killen had taunted. With their dangerous “lifestyle”, maybe it’d be today. The thought,
the treachery, enraged him. An ache spread to his gums but he forced the lycan down.
No time to change.

Solomon, Eva, Dragana then he followed the same passageways that had brought

them here the first time, slowing only to make sure they didn’t run into a trap. Again.
How had Killen managed that? Obviously, he hadn’t worked alone and neither did he
care if he doomed his own operatives.

The hatch gleamed like a circular portal to another dimension. A place where he’d

have more than a few minutes to spend with the woman he loved.

“Hurry!” Solomon roared, even if he was the last behind.
Then everything happened fast. Cristoval saw it all by the corner of his eye only.

His heart nearly stopped.

Behind him Solomon grunted a curse, slammed against the bulkhead then collapsed

to his knees. Blood dribbled down his chin yet he returned fire with both volters.
Cristoval had already leaped into the ship right after Dragana and Eva, who’d reached
the ship first, jumped nimbly over the hatch’s bottom edge then grabbed the lever. But
obviously the lithe woman would never be able to swing it all the way down alone so

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Dragana had to toss her prized volter and help out. When Cristoval charged right back
out the ship, both voices raised with a mix of languages he didn’t understand.

“Solomon!”
He recognized Eva’s smooth voice made ragged with fear and horror.
He didn’t have time to spare looking back and hoped Dragana had remained by the

hatch to help close it when time came. Maybe he’d be on the other side.

“Motherfucking assholes,” Solomon muttered, wheezing, before discharging a long

volley. One volter stopped flashing blue-white and he tossed it aside.

A hail of nickel shots prevented Cristoval from joining the wounded man. He tried

crawling, leaping, rushing but every time he came near the corner where Solomon was
slumped, nickel beads would click and clack and created cuffs as long as his arms on
the bulkhead.

Solomon turned to him. “Get the…fuck back…on that ship.”
“Cristoval!” he heard behind him.
Dragana. He’d come so close.
The change came so suddenly Cristoval only had time to cringe. Bones snapped.

Tendons ripped from their anchoring points. Skin split over expanding muscles and
mass. His gums shred, unable to contain the massive fangs growing.

The smell of blood. The stench of it. Through it all, the faint odor of…something

like himself. A kindred being. Flashes blinded him ahead. He dove, grabbed the being
made slick with blood then retreated because he could remember this was what he
should do. Not go forward. Not like always. But back. Toward safety. Toward others
like him. One among those smelled familiar. Smelled right. Burning pain in his leg tore
a long howl from him. Still he backed until a great tremor rocked the world. Down
became up. Air became water. He was falling.

Dragana nearly leaped out of the ship when she saw Cristoval going back. She

hadn’t seen Solomon take a hit, only spotted him now, slumped against the bulkhead
while Cristoval bent with the racking agony of the change. Displaying mad courage, the
towering lycan braved the hail of nickel, crouched by Solomon and picked him up as if
he didn’t weigh the two-hundred-plus pounds he must have. She’d wrestled with him
often enough to make a pretty damned good guesstimate. Solomon may not have been
as tall as Cristoval, but he was still a big boy.

At one point when Cristoval shuddered—fuck, he’d been shot in the leg—Eva

nearly ran out but couldn’t pull out of the iron grip Dragana had on her collar.

“Let me go! Let go!”
“They’re coming back! Wait!”
Then a violent tremor rocked the passageway. Rivets along the bulkhead popped.

Water started pouring in. Among the horizontal shower and residual enemy fire,

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Cristoval carried Solomon right up to the ship, bent low then deposited his precious
load right on the deck before slumping beside the wounded man.

Eva and Dragana didn’t need telling and closed the hatch right as a massive

“blister” formed in the bulkhead. Through the porthole as they frantically twisted the
lever down and sealed the airlock, they saw the passageway disintegrate as if it’d been
nothing more than a tube of rubber some giant hand was squeezing from the outside.
Water like a white fury slammed against the hatch.

“Pull out the mooring clamps!” Dragana roared.
Eva let her finish with the hatch while she leaped over the pilot seat, grabbed the

controls and furiously clicked at the screen.

Too late.
Dragana roared a curse when their ship was sent tossing and twirling like a mad

top, signals and warnings flashing and blaring, water seeping inside the hatch to pool
by her feet. Her ears popped painfully. A split second after she’d finally achieved hull
integrity and sealed the damn hatch, a great heave sent the ship back and up. A god-
awful metal-on-metal noise outside—a fork scraping a pan but magnified a thousand
times—drowned even the loudest siren. Cristoval, Solomon and Dragana fell pell-mell
among other loose items in the cabin.

“The clamps ripped!”
Dragana could only imagine the mess. Their ship had torn away from the undersea

complex with clamps still attached and had undoubtedly ripped the station’s airlock in
the process. But she was too busy right now trying not to become a meat missile to
worry about the state of their hatch.

Water sloshed around the base of the hatch, pooled in recesses then snaked out in

several directions with the ship’s crazy momentum. Was it her imagination or was there
more water than just a few seconds before?

“We have to surface! We’re taking on water!”
“I know!” Eva responded.
Dragana realized the redhead stood in a few inches of water down by the pilot’s

seat.

“Thanks for letting me drown,” Solomon snarled a few feet behind her. “Instead

of…” He coughed. Dragana tried to ignore the blood on his chin. All that blood.
“Instead of biting on nickel.”

“No problem, old man,” she replied as she rushed over to the two men—Cristoval

having changed from lycan form—and trying to push and pull and roll them until they
could sit into the closest seats. “Now shut up.”

Obviously dazed with pain and loss of blood, Solomon complied without a word, if

only throwing a loving look at Eva, who had her hands full trying to pilot a ship taking
on water while a piece of undersea station still clung to its hatch. Cristoval looked much

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better, despite the injury he’d received to his leg. She would love nothing better than
repay the asshole who’d shot him.

“I’m fine, think of yourself,” he murmured through a wince.
Dragana still fussed with him until he’d sat in a seat and strapped in. “You know,”

she said, tightening the harness on his naked chest—most of his firefighting suit had
gone to shreds again due to the change. They’d have to start a clothing line specifically
designed for lycans. “That offer you made me sounds pretty damn good. If it still
stands, I’d take you up on it.”

“Which offer is that?” he asked, clearly cautious. But a sparkle danced in his black

eyes.

“Aww, want me to spell it out for you?” she teased. “The M-word.”
Cristoval’s grin couldn’t have been brighter. She’d never seen him smile so wide

and with his eyes as well, which were ordinarily always dark and haunted. He didn’t
say a thing. No words were needed.

“Brace!” Eva yelled.
Dragana hadn’t had time to strap herself in after taking care of the two wounded

men and so went flying back between the rows of seats when the ship lost its
momentum, decelerated to a complete standstill. The landing didn’t prove as painful as
she’d feared when she slammed against the backrest of one seat, toppled over the next
and landed in a heap among some loose cargo netting. Peanut gleamed among the
metal and polymer wires.

“What now?” she growled, coming up and strapping herself in. Tight.
“We lost propulsion—”
As soon as the words were out of Eva’s mouth, the ship went completely black. No

emergency backup, no amber numbers on the consoles to indicate even the time. At
once the air seemed to become heavy, humid and stale.

“That can’t be good.”
“We lost main power. Everything.”
“Ventilation too,” Dragana commented without looking for confirmation. They all

knew it. Dying of oxygen deprivation couldn’t have been terribly painful. Just
prolonged. Oh well. There were worse fates.

“Don’t nobody fart.” That’d been Solomon. His voice, usually so resonant, could

barely be heard.

Some shuffling from up ahead preceded Solomon barking a yelp of pain that turned

into a horrendous bout of bubbly cough. From much closer than it’d been, Eva’s
soothing voice said something in a language Dragana didn’t understand. Russian, if her
memory served. Russian was Eva’s mother tongue. She felt like reverting to Serbian
herself, only not to murmur sweet nothings into Cristoval’s ears but to bitch about
luck’s timing.

“Dragana?”

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“I’m here.” She changed seats quickly in case the ship lurched again and sat by

Cristoval’s side. He smelled of sweat. Good, honest sweat. Her man’s sweat. “What can
I do you for?”

A deep rumble indicated he was chuckling. She’d kill to see that smile. Those stark

white teeth in the tanned rest of him. Her Spartan warrior, all fine six and a half feet of
him.

Great time to be horny.
“Before air goes out,” he began in a whisper. “You have to know this. Come closer.”
Dragana did, followed his scent until she leaned over his shoulder, her ear right by

his succulent mouth. They both needed a shower but she didn’t care.

Cristoval breathed in her scent. Tears sprang to her eyes.
“I’ve loved you from the first moment. When your team landed near that

abandoned base and you climbed down. I was watching you the entire time. Only you.
I fell in love with you then.”

“You didn’t even know me. I could’ve been a bitch for all you knew instead of the

charming girl I am.”

Another chuckle.
Can’t we have a bit of light in this godforsaken place? Too much to ask?
“I wish I could say the same, Cristoval,” she murmured, feeling dorky and

awkward. “But that’d be lying. I only noticed you because you were hot like woo-
damn.” He kissed the top of her head. “Actually, I’m falling in love with you right now.
And it feels pretty damn good. Ain’t that great timing?”

They shared a quiet laugh.
“I’ll take each second I can get,” he whispered, his mouth very, very close to hers.
Their kiss lasted a long time. She would’ve joked about timing if she hadn’t been

looking at death. Again. But this time, she wouldn’t be alone. This time, the man she’d
come to love was right there with her and even if that was selfish to the nth degree and
made her a big sissy, she still preferred going down with Cristoval and old friends than
alone. She didn’t want to be alone anymore.

He wrapped an arm around her shoulders. She nuzzled as she’d never had before

and waited. When it became apparent power wasn’t coming back and their ship would
remain free-floating with whatever ballasts were still onboard, Dragana closed her eyes
and let sleep take her. Air was already heavy and stale. There wasn’t much left. It
wouldn’t take long now.

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Chapter Twelve

She sat across from a teenaged Ivan, an elbow leaning against the table as he toyed

with the queen before making his move and taking another of her pawns. Damn.

Beaming, he leaned back in his chair and crossed his hands behind his head. “Your

turn, little sister.”

“Little sister? By a whole two minutes? I wouldn’t run my mouth if I were you.” But

she couldn’t play. She tried several times to move a piece but couldn’t make her hand
reach over to take it. Something stopped her. A black-haired man with grave eyes
appeared in her mind.

Ivan cocked a blond eyebrow. Man, she hated when he did that. “What’s wrong,

Dragana? Can’t remember how to lose?”

“Har. Har.” She pushed against the table and stood. “I can’t play anymore.”
He nodded, suddenly older with the beard he’d let grow to hide a nasty scar on his

chin from a momentous mission on a lunar station. He said ladies preferred not to see a
man’s scars. She’d always told him that real women wouldn’t mind. “I know.”

“I have to go.”
“I’ll be here when it’s your turn again. I’ll be here when you come back.”
She nodded. “I’m sorry. I wish I could stay.” Tears welled her eyes. “I really do. I

tried.”

“You shouldn’t have. I’ve played my turn. And when it’s yours then you’ll play it.

Not before, okay?”

“Okay.”
Then suddenly she sat alone at the table. Ivan was gone. She looked down at the

pieces and realized he’d beaten her. Again. Damn.

Dragana sprang up in bed with tears still running down her cheeks. Dark gray slate

tiles covered the floor and walls while a large bay window occupied an entire side of
the airy room. Beyond, a sea the color of jade twinkled under the sun. Whoa.
Everything smelled of money. Where the hell was she?

Before she had put her feet down on the floor, the door burst open and Cristoval, a

towel covering him and nothing else, came running in. Literally running in. He skidded
to a stop, fell on his knees and buried his head in her lap. His wet hair tickled her skin.
She was completely naked as a matter of fact.

“What the hell happened?”

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He raised his face, framed hers in his large hands then proceeded to kiss every

square inch of her.

“The others? Solomon?” Her heart skipped a beat at the mention of his name. He’d

been so badly wounded.

“In ICU still, but they say he’s too stubborn to die. It’s looking good so far.”
“How? Our ship lost all power. We should’ve sunk.”
“Liberty said she’d be monitoring from above and they were. They cut through the

hull and retrieved us. Don’t you remember? You woke up when Cupcake lifted you off
me.”

From somewhere came a hazy memory of Cupcake doing just that and commenting

with his quiet smile that she was heavier than she looked.

“Oh yeah, I remember. I think. They came to get us. Grappling hook, right? God-

awful noise, made my teeth want to fall out of my head.”

Cristoval nodded, kissed her lips, moved to her cheeks, came back. “Eva and the

rest are there, at the hospital. I stayed here until your meds wore off.”

“Okay, ‘there’ is the hospital. So what’s ‘here’?”
“Liberty’s house,” Cristoval replied between kisses to her throat. “On the coast, just

outside Seoul.”

Damn, all that kissing was making her horny. Until a vision made her gasp.
Cristoval, in lycan form, risking his life to save Solomon. Him getting shot at.
“Your leg!” She grabbed his hips and turned him sideways so she could check for

herself. She needed to know. A fresh scar, small compared to some older ones already
on him, glistened like a rained-on earthworm. “Damn, look at you.” Another one
graced his flank. “You’ve been through the wringer. Twice.”

“It’s okay.” Cristoval forced her hands up so he could kiss her knuckles. “It’s all

okay now.”

“Hey!” she tried pushing him at arm’s length but he wasn’t having it. “What

happened? Details, man, I want details.”

“Later.” His usually smooth, carefully modulated voice was deeper, his tone more

urgent. “I want to make love to you right here and right now.”

“No, no, no. I need a shower like damn.”
“Done. The medical staff did it.”
“’Kayyy… Since you’ve obviously had one, I guess—”
Cristoval had just crouched and trapped a nipple in his lips, pulled on it hard. It

curled her toes.

“On your back,” he growled with a gentle but firm hand on her shoulder. “You’re

going to lie on your back, relax, and let me love you.”

“Would you just—”

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Cristoval stood towering over her, ripped the towel from his waist to reveal his

muscled lower belly and erect cock. Whew. “I’ve been patient with you. I’ve let you call
the shots long enough, Dragana. I’ve almost lost you. Twice. Do you have any idea how
scary that was? How painful? Watching you walk around with a death wish? Never
again. From now on, you’ll have to contend with me. And I’m bigger than you, if
you’ve noticed.”

And not just a little either.
Dragana didn’t know just what to make of this new attitude but frankly, in a small

recess of herself she’d never admit existed, she kind of liked this damn-the-torpedoes,
dominant approach. She’d seen it in him when he dealt with others, but there’d always
been a difference when he talked to her. He’d always looked as if he made an effort not
to ruffle her feathers. He obviously wasn’t going to anymore. It suited him very well,
thank you very much.

“So I’m telling you again,” he said, those sexy eyebrows arching way up. A Spartan

staking a claim. “On your back.”

“Since you’re asking so nicely,” she muttered, letting herself fall back down.
“I wasn’t.”
“Hey.”
He crouched between her thighs, made room for his wide shoulders then “crawled”

up over her belly and chest. He stared at her the entire time. “You said you’d consider
my offer, if it still stood.”

“So, does it?”
“Yes.”
Dragana grinned then closed her eyes on a long sigh. “Good.”

Cristoval wanted to sing his joy. But the overwhelming urge to lose himself in

Dragana’s flesh drowned everything else. They didn’t have much time. Killen had said
she could die in as little as five years. So he intended to love her as no man had ever
loved a woman. He’d cherish her, treasure every minute graced with her presence,
would rage against every second spent apart. He’d die for her. He’d kill in her name.
But for now he’d make love to her body until they both fell asleep from exhaustion.
Then he’d do it again. And again.

He began by kissing her. Everywhere. Her skin, her mouth, also the one below—

both set of lips so soft he was tempted to bite—those lovely pink nipples so proud and
stiff, her eyelids, fluttering because she kept peeking and grinning like a loon then back
to her mouth, which he devoured and claimed as his own. She was all his. His woman
to his human half. His female lycan to his other half. She completed him in every way
imaginable. Cristoval Vonatos didn’t just love that big, loud, moody, foul-mouthed,
armed-to-the-teeth Valkyrie, he needed her. He also realized something very important.
He trusted her and she him. No small feat for someone who’d lost so much. A proud

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bird of prey coming to rest on his arm for a short while. Trusting. To him, who’d tasted
firsthand the awful tang of betrayal and rejection, Dragana’s trust would be a thing of
reverence. For as long as they had. Always.

Tingles turned into shivers then spasms as Cristoval ate her out, using his thumbs

to stretch her pussy wide and high, denude her hard little pearl to his mouth and
tongue and even teeth. He sucked at her clitoris, flicked at it too. The first time she
came, he probably only noticed her honey accumulating, but the second and third
times, she arched off the bed and fisted the sheets, she lolled her head and moaned
softly. He was so good. So good.

“More,” she sighed.
“Ask nicely.”
Dragana snorted. “More…please? Please, master, O Big Manly Man who’s so tall

and so strong and me who’s just a little—Ow! Shit!”

Cristoval bit the inside of her thigh. “Are you quite done?”
“Nope, O Mas—”
Cristoval drowned her words in a voracious kiss that left her panting and dizzy.

Woo-damn! He pulled back, licking his lips and not smiling. “You were saying?” With
his sexy Mediterranean accent, the words came out like “yoo wurr say-eeng”.

If she became any hornier, she’d start humping doorjambs. “I forgot,” she retorted,

taunting. “Master.”

He trapped a nipple between his teeth, eyebrow arched questioningly. “Huh?”
Dragana meant to fist his hair and force him to her but he intercepted her hand,

twisted it sideways then pinned it by her hip. She could’ve kicked her way out easily,
could’ve showed him who the hell he was messing with, could’ve given him the old
what-for and some chosen expletives to match in the two languages she knew. She
could have. But it wasn’t the point, now was it? She didn’t want to escape him, now did
she? Hell no. What woman would?

So instead when he started sucking at her nipple, she let him. When he raised her

hand above her head and pressed it into the mattress, clearly indicating it wasn’t to
move again, she kept it there. And when he licked his way down her belly to give her
one hell of a fine performance, she was happy to play her part and moan for him,
writhe and twist and show him just how good a job he was doing. And hell if he was!

From domineering and forceful he turned gentle, took his time with her, savored

her, made soft sounds deep in his throat as if he actually tasted her with the tip of his
tongue up behind his upper teeth. She watched him take a deep breath—she’d seen
someone taste wine once, a real connoisseur, and it’d almost been an erotic experience
to watch. Well, it was the same with Cristoval right now. The way he would just work
his tongue in her pussy, come up for a while, eyes half closed, lips wet and glossy while
he savored her essence. Incredible!

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Without warning, Dragana came again. This time, a whole-body fever accompanied

it. She put her hand down on her throbbing pussy. “Ohhh… Just give me a moment,
okay. Whew.”

Cristoval nodded, knelt by the bed and tapped the edge until she’d taken the hint

and slid her butt there. He leaned over, licked her belly in wide upward swipes. The
fever dissipated, the fire died down in her pussy. She sighed when he put his palm
right against her sex and pressed lightly. He knew how women were put together.
Good man.

After a short reprieve, he started moving his hand in a circular pattern, light and

tender and slick with her cum. To her complete delight, he licked his hand from heel to
fingertips then returned to his work. From tiny to large rotations, from light pressure to
teasing, he was quickly bringing her there again.

“What about you?” she asked. “When is it your turn?”
Shaking his head, Cristoval stood by the side of the bed. His touch affectionate but

firm when he seized her knees, elevated them. “I want to see you come again first.”

He gathered her knees, which pressed her thighs close together and forced a moan

of pleasure when Dragana rolled her hips to crush her pussy with her muscles.
Cristoval watched her do this a while before he applied a scarred forearm against the
back of her thighs and bore down. A great humph left her. Stretched wide, her sex and
anus suddenly felt cool with the light touch of air against her tender flesh. With his
forearm still keeping her legs flat on her chest, Cristoval grinned—more like a predator
than a boyfriend, which was great—then proceeded to leisurely lick his way down
toward her cleft. Dark curls stuck to his sweaty forehead. The short growth of hair
clinging to his jaw was just icing on the cake. He couldn’t have looked sexier.

“How do you want it?”
Dragana couldn’t help it. “Anyway you wish, O Master!”
She started laughing a split second before he dove. A long gasp had her fighting for

breath. Stars popped and fizzed behind her eyelids. Holy shit! That tongue!

He positively devoured her. His forearm hurt her hamstrings but she didn’t give a

shit! What he was doing to her…it was…

“Oh yeah!”
An orgasm of cosmic proportions rocked her entire body. She screamed something.

She didn’t know what. Didn’t even know in which language either. How was that for
release? She wasn’t even done coming when he straightened, grabbed her knees in
pitiless fingers then, thumbs digging in her flesh, spread her wide. Dragana made sure
she fisted the sheets for what she knew—hoped, prayed for—was coming. Cristoval
Vonatos was coming, that’s what.

With an abandon she didn’t know could exist in a bedroom, Cristoval angled his

cock right against her pussy, no hands either, and teased her. She’d meant for him to
just—

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He had.
“Oh! God! Yess!”
Cristoval penetrated her completely. Branded her. Molded her to him. He pulled

back, popped out to abandon a knee so he could grab his cock like a heavy purse of coin
and tap her pussy.

“What the hell are you doing?” she yelled, reaching between her legs to fist his cock

and put it back where it belonged.

Oh, but he was a quick one. With a carnal grin, he stabbed right back in. She

flopped back down on the mattress. Happy. Content. Filled with this gorgeous man
who was all hers and she wasn’t sharing, dammit!

Sounds from his forceful thrusts—wet skin slapping against wet skin—produced

the most erotic stimulus, almost as much as his wiry, long and strong body bucking
against her. She loved how he’d trapped her legs against him. Loved it! Finally a man
who could give it to her, who didn’t look overwhelmed by her curves and muscles and
attitude. He knew how to take her. Literally.

Then climax. It lanced in searing licks along her distended lips, up into her vagina

and broadened outward to encompass her legs, belly, a burning swell washing over her.
She bellowed so loudly it left her throat raw and her chest deflated. But he wasn’t done.

With his cock, he pushed, searched and claimed, he crushed, pounded and hunted

every recess in her, every inch and ounce she had to give. He took it all from her, gave it
back with the next penetration.

“Dragana,” he panted, eyes closed. Her name became a chant. A vow. A growl. In

his throat, he rolled the Rs, stretched the As like sighs.

He was fucking her with his cock but making love to her with the rest of him. She

could feel the love in him, for her, passing into her, and it was so warm, so all-
encompassing. She’d no idea it could be this good, this hot, this big!

With a groan, she reached between her knees, really made her abs burn with the

effort but managed to grip him by the nape and pulled him down on top of her. He fell
like a ton of bricks. She gasped because of the incredibly deep thrust his fall had caused.
He gasped because he probably thought he’d hurt her. She wasn’t made of lace. And
she was going to show him. Now.

“Roll on your back,” she snarled, bit his chin. “Hurry!”
When he had and taken her with him in sweaty arms, she rose over his chest, so full

of scars recent and old, sat on him and watched ecstasy play with his Spartan-esque
features. Muscles banded and twitched under the tanned skin.

She started a slow cadence, gyrations, a pendulum, figure eights, keeping her abs

squeezed tight enough to burn. Burn was good. Burn indicated hard work. And he was
so worth the hard work, this man, this lycanthrope with the haunted eyes. He could
surely feel her vaginal muscles along his cock, making a fist around him, squeezing,
milking. He must have because he opened his mouth to speak and nothing but air came

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out. Next she used her abs to “suction” him, up, up to the end of him then rotated down
before doing it all over again.

She accelerated. Faster. Faster still. She started to bump and roll so hard and fast

against him that her breasts bounced wildly, which might have been funny any other
time except now with Cristoval. Faster. Furiously. He clutched at her hips with his long
hands, dug his fingers in. He panted, murmured things to which she didn’t pay
attention. Each time she’d slap down around his base, he’d let out a growl that only
added accelerant to the inferno roaring up inside her. Animalistic coupling was what
she intended and what she got.

Cristoval filled the room with a long groan of contentment that turned guttural at

the end. She was close again. So close. She arched back and gasped when Cristoval
abandoned her hips so he could use a thumb to stretch her nether lips up and wide then
roll her clitoris with his other.

“Ahh!” Her voice surprised her. So high-pitched.
Still he rubbed to the rhythm of her hips. Up high, down hard. Her sex felt as if it’d

melted. Honey spilled out of her.

Underneath her, Cristoval bucked hard. So powerful! Another buck. Then brutal

tremors. He pumped once furiously, urgently. Her knees left the mattress.

Their simultaneous cries filled the room while in burning jets, his semen rewarded

her efforts.

So that was love.
She didn’t know how long they stayed that way, but after awhile, her knees burned

and her ankles felt as if they they’d pop out. She pulled away then lay back by his side
where he made room for her in the crook of his elbow. When he gently draped an arm
over her chest, she spotted a tiny pink line on his wrist.

“They patched you up good. You can hardly see a thing.”
“It wasn’t the doctors who did this. It was Killen’s crew. They must have gathered

quite the research and developed some pretty scary technology to be able to do this, to
repair tissue so well. I couldn’t even tell where I’d cut, even if I remembered doing it
very clearly.”

“He implanted you again? After he caught you at home?”
Cristoval nodded. “Liberty said the doctors are poring over the implants right now

for the tracking technology that’s inside them. She thinks we can backtrack its signal up
the chain.”

“That’d be natural justice if we could use their gear against them. Crazy bastards.”
“He tried to convince me I hadn’t escaped, that I’d just woken up from the

explosion in the parliament.”

Fresh rage welled. “Devious old turd. I can’t believe anyone would ally themselves

with scum like that. What was GAN thinking?”

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Cristoval shrugged. The muscles shifted under her head. “That they could control

him. My father must have thought the same thing. But people like Killen can’t be
controlled.”

“It can’t have been easy growing up a Vonatos. Are you the only one with funky

genes?”

She felt him smile though she had no idea how she could know.
“I don’t remember a time when I wasn’t living away from home, either in boarding

school, or later, after puberty and my lycan traits were taking over the rest, on the street
proper. There never was a home for me at my father’s house.”

Without downright pitying Cristoval, she couldn’t help comparing her situation to

his, not when there’d always been a place for Ivan and her in the Bjelić household,
either at one cousin’s place or another. She’d been raised in a rough but loving home
with politically engaged parents who still believed that “genetic deviants” would
someday be regarded as normal people and accepted as such, even the feared lycans.
They’d flip when she brought Cristoval home, the notorious underground resistance
leader, hunted for years.

“Did you know your head was worth half a million credits at one point? Even if

they didn’t know what you looked like?”

Cristoval chuckled. “That’s what I’ve been told. I thought I was worth more, but

I’m biased.”

“Hell, you’re worth three times that! I’d pay a king’s ransom to get my hands on

you.”

He kissed the top of her head. “For you, it’ll be free.”
“So generous, master.”
“Don’t start.”
He took a long look at her through narrowed eyes. “So,” he began cautiously.

“You’re here for good.”

“With you, you mean?”
“I mean with us. With us all.”
Ivan had played his turn. She’d play hers when it was time. Not before. And now

wasn’t the time for her. Now was for Cristoval Vonatos. “If you’ll have me, I’m here for
good.”

“I can’t replace what you lost, Dragana, and I won’t even try. But there’s a place for

you here.” He tapped his chest with a scarred index finger. So many scars. She wasn’t
the only one who’d suffered. “We can build something new for us. Together.”

“When things settle down, I’ll take you to my folks. They’ll get a kick out of you,

especially my cousins. I hope you don’t mind really loud, obnoxious people who speak
another language.”

“If they’re not talking about me behind my back, I don’t mind.”

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She snorted a laugh. “Oh, they won’t even wait ’til your back is turned, believe me.

Especially the female cousins. They’ll comment on you right in your face. I’ll have to
keep an eye on them. But you wait…when I whip out the stuff for svadbarski kupus,
they’ll know to leave you alone. I won’t even have to hurt them.”

Cristoval twisted until he could look at her. His black eyes sparkled in a way she’d

never seen before. Crinkles at the corner of them gave him a much younger appearance.
“What’s that word you said?”

“Svadbarski kupus. Wedding cabbage. My mom will flip.”
“Wedding cabbage,” he repeated, obviously tasting the words. “Sounds more

potent than wedding cake.”

Her laugh seemed to startle then please him. “Potent? You bet! And then you douse

the intestinal fire with my cousin’s šljivovica, slivovitz to you Anglophones—it’s like
brandy but it’ll burn your tongue off. You’ll love it.”

He smiled. Those stark white teeth were so sexy! “I’ll love it or else?”
“See? Already part of the family.”
With a hand, he pulled her by the back of the head and kissed her forehead. His

eyes were serious once more. The haunted look had returned. “We shouldn’t wait to see
your folks. We shouldn’t wait for anything.”

“Plenty of time, we’ll—”
He kissed her long and hard then pulled away. “No one knows how long they

have. I say we leave tomorrow. Today even. Soon.”

She chose to ignore the serious turn the conversation was taking. She wanted to see

that smile again. “We’ll go soon or else?”

He shook his head, rolled his eyes. After a while of her staring at him, he grinned.
“See? Already part of the family. Men do that a lot at my house.”
“What, laugh at the women?”
“No, shake their head and roll their eyes, but in the end, we have the last word.”
“Oh, do you?”
The carnal glint in his eyes told her she might have the last word, but it wouldn’t

mean he’d go down quietly or wouldn’t sneak back when she wasn’t looking and tackle
her right down. She was so looking forward to that! Because Cristoval Vonatos was a
predator. He was a lycan. Hers.

121

Nathalie Gray

Epilogue

He hadn’t wanted to break her heart. Telling Asia that her beloved Allan had been

the one to contact GAN after Vonatos’ return wasn’t something he’d been able to do. So
he’d just left. Maybe it would’ve gotten him off the hook in the eyes of everyone. They
all thought he was trouble. A liar and a sneak. Maybe it wouldn’t have changed a thing.
He’d never know.

Asia had been the first and only to accept him as he really was. No judgment. No

suspicion. No questions. As long as he pulled his weight, she’d let him be. He respected
that. But his silence had necessitated a hasty retreat while Iron Conclave came knocking
at their door. Not his proudest moment. But he’d made sure to give Asia and those she
cared for as decent a chance as could be expected before he left. Everything. The
resistance movement, the only home he’d ever known, was behind him now. All good
things had to come to an end.

Despite the darkness, he presently stared at the Hwaseong, the supposedly

“Brilliant Fortress”, and made out every tiny detail, every subtle nuance be it in colors,
textures or even heat patterns. He’d always had good eyes. There was nothing brilliant
about it as far as he was concerned. Especially not when he knew firsthand what went
on inside.

He should’ve destroyed it when he had the chance, when he’d fled that place of

madness and silence a decade ago. It was too late now. He no longer cared. Another
domino fallen from the neat rows his masters had carefully placed in him from the
earliest age. First to go had been his sense of devotion and belonging then his appetite
for success. He’d missed his mark only once, had let a goal slip by. It’d been enough. In
that one failure he’d seen his life as it was, wasted on someone else’s goals, someone
else’s gain. Someone else’s secret war. What could’ve broken him had set him free
instead. Free to spiral downward in ennui and numbness. Such a waste. Ha!

Unlike the myriad genetic deviants out there, his “uniqueness” didn’t limit itself to

enhanced DNA or a brutish transformation like the lycans. If it’d only been that. No,
he’d been gifted enough to have been born from third-generation bioengineered
specimens—he’d never call them parents—and at the employ of people with morality as
flexible as their wallet was deep and their honor—pride—large. Born a weapon. A
trigger. Crafted into a fine blade by Inu, an antiquated society that believed in old
qualms and that should’ve died long before.

So Cristoval Vonatos and his little underground army could think what they

wanted of him. He didn’t care. It wouldn’t change a thing in his life anyway. He needed
no one. Haruto worked alone. Assassins always did.

122

About the Author

I am a mother, spouse, older sister, writer, ex-soldier, high school drop-out, dog

owner (or dog owned), half couch potato/half intermittent jogger, wannabe renovator
and avid reader who watches too much television, sinks too much money in clothes,
likes animals more than humans, recycles, wore braces, never downloads copyrighted
stuff, was a nerd without the grades, has a belly laugh that turns heads in theaters, can’t
stand bullying, is mother hawk more than mother hen, votes even if candidates aren’t
that great and thinks formal education is highly overrated (probably because she has
none).

Nathalie welcomes comments from readers. You can find her website and email

address on her author bio page at www.ellorascave.com.

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Also by Nathalie Gray

Bain’s Wolf
DamNATION
Demo Derby
Femme Metal 1: Femme Metal
Femme Metal 2: Hot Target
Femme Metal 3: Cold Fusion
Immortalis
Intergalactic Nick
Lycan Warriors 1: Feral
Lycan Warriors 2: Primal
Shades of Silver
Sinful
Tease
Timely Defense
Wolfsbane

Discover for yourself why readers can’t get enough of the multiple award-winning

publisher Ellora’s Cave. Whether you prefer e-books or paperbacks, be sure to visit EC
on the web at www.ellorascave.com for an erotic reading experience that will leave you
breathless.

www.ellorascave.com