He snapped to, his attention on the room. The gunfire came from the other side from a cluster of guards who were herding a group of people out the door. Non Project, by the quick flash he got of their clothing—smart suits way above the pay-grade of anyone apart from the Colonel shouting orders as he, too, disappeared out of the door.
Sanders’s gaze slid from them to the cage in the middle of the room. For a moment shock froze him to the spot. Blood splattered the sand within the cage in decorative yet gory patterns. A woman crouched to one side. Arms wrapped around herself, she screamed over and over. Foster was slumped near to her, the sand around him scarlet. Sanders’s breath caught in his throat when he took in the still lines of the Lieutenant’s body. Sanders had seen death many times, in Iraq and Afghanistan before he’d been moved to the Project and that kind of utter stillness…that wasn’t good.
Foster coughed, groaning as he filled his lungs. Blood blossomed in the air again, thick and metallic. Breathing a sigh of relief, Sanders raced toward the cage, Jack and Lilly on his heels. His claws skittered against the concrete as he slid to a stop. A slash took out the bolts on the mesh door and then the thing was open, thrown aside by Jack. Sanders barreled through, toes digging into the sand as Foster struggled to his feet.
The guy was in a bad way—punctures, lacerations and deep claw marks scattered over his body. He wore blood like it was the new black, a grisly shirt that said more than words about what he’d been through. But it was the look in his eyes. The utter horror and pain as he looked past Sanders at the final two in the cage. Sanders recognized the woman. She was the Blood who had come after them at the hospital, but the man he didn’t know. The pair was locked in a fatal embrace, the man’s claws in the woman’s gut while hers pierced his chest.
Mutual kill. No winners in that game.
“God no…please, no.”
Darce shoved Sanders out the way to race past, making the other wolf stumble backward against the mesh. The Lieutenant yanked the guy off the Blood and hauled her into his arms, a terrible keen of utter despair ripping from his throat. It was a sound that raised the hackles on the back of Sanders’s neck and reached right down through his body and into the connection he had with his wolf, touching both their souls. The sound of a pain and loss so complete anyone hearing it knew the owner would never be whole again.
“Please, Toni…sweetheart. Wake up,” Darce begged, his voice a broken whisper, the once proud man humbled. He held the slender body of his mate in his arms, tears running down his face. “Please…don’t leave me. You can’t leave me.”
Oh f**king hell, the poor guy. Tears of pity for Darce’s pain welled in Sanders’s eyes. No one deserved that. To find their mate, the one special person who completed them utterly…only to lose them. To not be able to save them. Sanders let his wolf recede, the bigger form folding back into his human body.
A moment’s pride filled him that he’d finally found the key to the change, but it was quickly gone at a new sound. The guy Darce had pulled off his woman groaned, and rolled to his back with a cough. Blood stained his lips and dribbled down his cheek. Training took over and Sanders was down on his knees next to the guy in a heartbeat. Tall and broad, with a head of dark hair and heavy stubble, the injured man had a strange scent. Not wolf, not Blood but somewhere in between. The Hybrid, it had to be.
Sanders checked the guy over, his movements swift and efficient. He was breathing, which meant his airways were open. He’d turned over himself, one knee bent up, and even now his toes wiggled against the sand so his spine was good. Reaching out, Sanders placed his hands on the guy’s chest to sweep down and check for broken ribs that might compromise the abdomen, but things didn’t go quite to plan. The moment Sanders’s hands touched down, black-on-black eyes snapped open to focus on him with pinpoint accuracy.
Sanders’s fingertips stilled just below the collar-bones. Silken skin over muscles that seemed carved from steel invited him to explore, but Sanders kept the temptation strictly in check. Lower down, terrible wounds marked where the female Blood had ripped into him to get to his heart. Literally through his stomach. So much damage…surely even whatever-he-was couldn’t survive that?
“Hey there, bud.” Sanders smiled in reassurance. “You’re safe now. I’m Joe… Just gonna check you’re okay to move, then we’ll get you out of here. Sound good?”
Whatever response Sanders had expected, it wasn’t the one he got. Between one breath and the next, the Hybrid moved. Hard hands closed around Sanders’s arms, and a second later Sanders was flat on his back, pinned under a hard, very male body.
“Better.”
Shit shit shit.
Sanders froze at the feeling of razor-sharp claws across the front of his throat. No one should be able to move so damn fast, especially not wounded like this guy was, but somehow he had. Within a heartbeat, he had Sanders locked down and immobile under him. One arm hooked under Sanders’s shoulder, a hand clasped around the back of his neck to both brace the Hybrid and control Sanders’s upper body at the same time. Sanders’s legs were pinned down just as effectively. Hard thighs covered his and the Hybrid’s feet hooked into his ankles. He wasn’t going anywhere fast.
“Holy crap.”
The pack around them froze, tension and wariness high in the air. As if they hadn’t had enough to deal with recovering Foster, tangling with a wounded and pissed off Hybrid was just an extra kick in the balls.
“Joe…you okay bud?” Jack asked carefully, the others fanning out in a loose semicircle around Sanders and the man hunkered over him. The pack would go to war and back for one of their own and he knew they would willingly take on a host of Hybrids. Whether Sanders himself would survive such a confrontation was another matter entirely.
The Hybrid crouched over Sanders, his lips curling back to reveal vicious fangs just inches from Sanders’s throat—like the smaller man had become his new favorite possession. Sanders just hoped he hadn’t been cast as a chew toy. That could end badly. But the claws didn’t slice. Instead, callused fingertips stroked over the skin of his throat, almost like a caress.
Sanders waved the pack off with his free hand. The Hybrid moved with him, reaching to capture Sanders’s wrist and tug the limb back in against his side. The Hybrid then hissed at Jack and covered Sanders with his own body. Almost like he were protecting the smaller man.
Sanders closed his eyes, a wave of longing washing over him. This must be what having a mate would be like. That was the dream—to have someone there to protect and be protected by, to have someone to lean on… To have a guy feel like that about him.
The Hybrid’s scent wrapped around Sanders when he crowded closer. Warm skin, male sweat and blood overlaid the feral smell of a Lycan, but it was laced with something deeper and darker, which stole Sanders’s breath. Liquid heat flooded his body, racing down his spine to circle his balls then drive into his cock. He was stiff in a heartbeat—the rampant length of his dick pressing up into the other guy’s toned stomach. The hairs there teased against the tip of Sanders’s c*ck and he bit back a whimper, wincing when the Hybrid drew back to look at him.
Dark eyes met his, a question in their black on black depths. Sanders held his breath. Fuck. He was so getting the shit beat out of him now. Possibly worse given the claws that had stilled on his throat, right over the jugular. In his experience, even men who said that they were cool with the g*y thing struggled when it was up close and personal. And it didn’t get more personal than another guy’s dick rubbing a trail across your stomach.
Then, impossibly, heat filled the darkness in the stranger’s eyes. Heat and a feral lust so intense it sent a shiver of weakness from the top of Sanders’s head all the way down to his toes. A weakness which turned to an inferno as a small growl rolled up from the depths of the Hybrid’s chest. Strong fingers closed around Sanders’s throat and turned his head to the side. Bared the length of his throat. The Hybrid leaned down, his warm lips whispering over the pounding vein under the skin, the prickle of stubble making Sanders bite back a whimper.
“God…yeah,” he whispered in agreement, wanting nothing more than to feel this man’s fangs in his throat even though the thought of being bitten by a Blood, even a half-Blood, should have filled him with revulsion. Suddenly he realized what Foster must have been going through. He needed it more than he needed his next breath and he’d do anything to have a guy—this guy—look at him in that way again. With fascination and wonder, as though he was everything.
The Hybrid struck, his fangs piercing Sanders’s skin and into the vein beneath. Sharp pain sliced through Sanders, drawing his spine into a hard arc. The fangs retreated and warm suction took its place. Each hard pull rolled through his body like a locomotive, drawing a direct line right down to his cock. He groaned and tried to stop the automatic roll of his h*ps but it was impossible. The Hybrid growled and pulled Sanders closer but gently, not like a rag doll, and continued to feed. Shouts and the scent of panic clued him in that the pack was freaking out. Unable to do anything about it, Sanders closed his eyes and opened himself completely to his fate. Even if the guy killed him, it didn’t matter—he’d already given Sanders a taste of heaven. And that was all he’d ever wanted.
Chapter Nineteen
Agony. Numbness. Despair.
Darce felt all three and more as he rocked the limp body of the only woman he’d ever really loved in his arms. His heart shattered right there in his chest, the ache so complete it felt like there was a physical hole in the center of his body and soul, the jagged edges seeping his lifeblood out onto the unforgiving floor beneath. He rocked back and forth helplessly, not knowing what else to do.
Toni was clasped close in his embrace, her body cold and lifeless. The eyes that had flashed with heat and humor, or irritation with his cocky answers, were now closed. The energy which had made her seem larger than life was all gone, leaving him with nothing more than a delicate shell to hold. Fresh agony stole his breath. He bent his head over her, burying his face against the slender curve between her shoulder and neck, not caring who saw him cry.
“Oh God, babe. Why?” he whispered against her skin. The Hybrid had had him beat, a few more blows and it would have been all she wrote, but Darce hadn’t cared about that. He’d have done anything—would do anything—to ensure her safety. But instead she’d given up her life for his. Taken on the Hybrid when he was down and it had killed her.
He slammed his head back against the mesh panel, hot tears scalding his face.
It should have been him. Not her. What kind of man was he if he couldn’t protect the woman he loved?
No man. Nothing worth the name.
Darce drew a shuddering breath. He was done. There was nothing—no fight, no anything left in him. They’d just have to leave him here to die. At least then he could finally be with her.
“Fuck! He’s feeding. Joe…shit, Joe!”
“Someone get the bastard off him…he’s gonna kill him!”