So not good.
Gray didn’t mind the thought of one day mating, but he intended to do it the right way. With a female Circ from home, one of those born gifted, like him, to produce children. He’d continue his family’s way of life, protecting the innocent while making sure society didn’t annihilate itself in the name of trying to make life better. Righting science gone wrong had been his grandmother’s agenda since he could remember. And she’d made sure he and his sister understood they had significant roles to fill.
Alicia could see the future, and she’d seen Gray saving lives. His importance in the grand scheme of things gave him purpose. He’d tolerated the unnatural Circs because they could help him where normal humans could not. But to mate at this early stage in his life, and with a male, no less, would ruin everything. No progeny to pass on his gifts. No easing into a more sedate life after the raw urgency of today’s crises. He’d have to drop everything now and cater to a male who needed tending, protection, instruction.
God. Sebastian Decker might be good-looking, hell on wheels in the sack, and as strong as an ox, but in Circ years, he was a toddler. The thought made Gray slightly ill, and he hurriedly changed his train of thought. Instead of dwelling on what might be, he needed to think about what was coming. Al Ross was a problem if Alicia had sent him on the man’s path. And if she planned on benching him if he failed, he had a bad feeling Ross would be more than just a mission, but one of those fucking tests his grandmother loved to throw his way.
He sighed as the hot water in the shower turned cool. No doubt Bas was soaking away his anger in the other shower, hogging all the hot water. The man might be a few scant years younger, but he seemed worlds more vulnerable. His sense of humor, his forgiving nature, his ability to smile when the shit hit the fan, made him not just a decent partner, but a person Gray actually liked being around—a truth he’d take to his grave.
The thought of Bas’s smile warmed Gray and alarmed him, because the notion of Bas forever in his life seemed right. As he let the water cleanse him, he couldn’t shake the idea that no matter what he did, he’d never be free of Sebastian Decker.
Friday afternoon, Ali pulled aside the curtains and watched the sun peer through the green pines and firs surrounding her grandfather’s—her—cabin. Once again she’d routed the scavengers sent to rape and torture her into submission. She glanced down at her scarred and healing arms, wishing she could just end her existence now. But until she took out the head of the labs who’d done this to her, she’d never know peace. Nor would her grandfather.
She shivered as a sensation her grandfather would have called Ross Intuition crept over her. The knowledge that change was coming settled into her blood and bones. The rogues she expected. But this feeling told her something new approached.
She glanced at her dwindling supply of ammunition on the nearby counter and sighed. If she wanted to survive the summer, she’d need to find more ammo. But that meant a return to the warehouse. A place that practically seethed with negative energy.
Granddad Dill had cursed her father up and down, but to no avail. Dan Ross had sold them out. His days in the army had amounted to little, except that his good friend Caleb Trenton had kept in touch after they’d both discharged from the military. Good old Caleb had given him a job, had even let him bring his daughter around after her mother passed. With childcare hard to come by with no money and no job, Dan Ross had been more than willing to do whatever Caleb said. He’d even allowed Caleb to test a special vaccine on his only daughter, his baby girl. She’d been a goner since she’d turned five. She just hadn’t known it then.
Ten years later, when her father had died and she’d gone to live with her mother’s parents, the shots stopped. But the damage had been done. And then in her early twenties, Trenton and his goons had returned with a court order to take her back to the labs. The first two sessions she’d spent there had been odd but not threatening. Months of tests, physical and mental, had bored her but not harmed her. But the last time, they’d kidnapped her grandfather as well. And they’d done…things…to her. Things she didn’t like to think about too hard, or the rage that made her blood mutate faster grew stronger. Her veins throbbed as the black disease spread to her forearms. The palms of her hands grew darker, and she drew in a deep breath and let it out to relieve the tension.
Peace. Find it. Own it. She could almost hear Granddad’s voice, and she smiled. Then the knowing came back full force. Danger, a new path, a new life. She’d have to make some choices in the next few days. And those choices would determine everything.
Tired of all the drama, she dressed, took a nice walk through the woods, and made sure to cover her tracks. She’d seen a few people near the area a few weeks ago. They weren’t like the odd tourist who sometimes wandered too close. She couldn’t put her finger on it, but she’d known to steer clear of the big man, and a good thing. He could, impossibly, change his shape. He’d come in many different forms, but in each he smelled the same.
The others with him called him Jack or boss. She’d wanted him gone, but she’d made sure to secretly unleash her pheromones to steer him and his companions away from the Circ threat in her mountains. Now if only everyone would leave her the hell alone.
With a sigh, she trailed down to her favorite spot—a small lake partially buried beneath melting ice and snow. A copse of pines seemed to lean over her lake, as if the trees protected it for her.
She sat down on her sunning rock, where the sunlight cleared the trees and warmed the rock for hours on end. As she sat and contemplated her life, her gaze caught on the moss covering the base of one tree. The green and brown shades caught her attention until a flash of light startled her into looking at the water. It had appeared blue green a few minutes ago, but now the bright blue color meant something else. Something important…
Her stomach rumbled and reminded her she had yet to eat. Her beast chided her for forgetting, and then another part of her, that darkness she tried so hard to keep buried, scented a rabbit nearby.
It took everything she had to rein in the savage lust for blood and the kill. Running back to her cabin and ruining all the work she’d done covering her tracks, she hurried to her meager stash of food and ate. After she’d finished enough to satisfy her beast, she returned to the forest and erased her footprints. Then she hunted down the rabbit and killed it, no longer a slave to her bloodlust.
Unfortunately, though the kill would suffice as dinner after she cooked it, an odd sensation formed in her chest and belly. What felt like dread mingled with excitement.
They’re coming for me.
The thought grew stronger as the day passed into night, then blended into day once more. She couldn’t think of anything but what the future might have in store.
The breeze blew. The noon sun beat down upon the earth, melting more snow. Summer had come to the mountains. She smiled at the gentle heat warming the plant life to grow.
Then an unfamiliar scent hit her, a scent that promised paradise if she’d follow the trail to its source. Before she could, though, the rotted smell of rogue Circs intruded. Corruption, greed, and lust swirled like smog through the pure air. They shouldn’t have been back so soon. But Trenton must have sent another group to follow the first.
He grew more insistent, more treacherous. She had to kill the bastard.
Danger blanketed her world, and Ali drew on her instincts and her ability to hunt. First she’d take care of the rogues. Then she’d see what smelled so incredibly good. She only hoped she wouldn’t be forced to kill it before she’d had a small taste.