Chapter Four
As they scoured the mountains in their changed forms throughout the day and into the night, Bas did his best not to think about Gray. He’d taken the east side of the hill and Gray the west, and he kept telling himself he wanted the distance. Not talking to the arrogant bastard for the past two days served him right. Who the fuck was Grayson Belle to look down on him?
Top of his class in college and the FBI Academy, a decorated agent who always accomplished his mission, Bas had never been out of his element until he’d been kidnapped and forced to become something less than human. But even his time as a Circ had been measured with success. He took to the lifestyle, embracing his beast and the change while others turned rogue, mutant, or plain crazy. Not ruled by his beast, Bas controlled his actions. Or at least, he had.
He scowled and used his senses to guide him through the trees. The snow didn’t bother his bare feet. When changed, his skin was inured to extremes in temperature and surface. The claws on his hands and toes helped him with traction, and though he wore loose trousers and a sweater, he didn’t actually need the clothing to protect him from the weather.
In one hand he held a Circ2000 fit with a silencer. The weapon could pierce Circ flesh and bone without a problem. Attached to his belt was the radio Gray insisted he take with him. As if Bas didn’t know better than to go on a mission without a means of communication. The bastard.
Arrogant, controlling son of a bitch. Like I need him to play nursemaid. He’s lucky I answer to him at all—
The swipe of claws toward his face preceded the sudden smell of decaying flesh. Out of nowhere, a rogue in the process of turning mutant had appeared and roared at him. Bas avoided his jagged claws, and the thing took another swipe.
He’d seen pictures of mutants, but this was the first Circ he’d seen midtransformation, face-to-face. The rogue had hardened skin, dark and weathered, but black stripes highlighted his mutation. His fangs and claws were overly large, and his eyes, once normal for a Circ, now had black orbs striated with red, no pupil to be seen. The creature’s scent came and went, as if the thing had a faulty Off switch.
When it roared, it conveyed such a sense of unhappiness, pain, and fury that Bas wanted to kill it if only to put the creature out of its misery.
“You Ross?” he asked it as he dodged another blow.
“Need to feed. Hungry.”
It wore nothing but the hardened scales of interlocking flesh that made up its external armor. Bas could see its physical arousal all too clearly. To his disgust, the thing’s cock had spikes and seemed to grow under his study.
“Ah, right. Sure. You’re hungry.” Bas knew Gray wanted him to call the minute he had any trouble. But tired of listening to Mr. Perfect, Bas decided to handle this guy on his own. He looked like a monster, but Bas could handle him.
Unleashing the strength he normally held in check when he dealt with Gray, Bas let loose a torrent of frustration. They battled with claws, bites, and sheer strength, but in the end, Bas won. He pinned the thing to the ground with his weight and leaned hard on its neck.
“Gimme your name, and you can live.” He just had to confirm Ross’s identity before killing it; then he and Gray could leave this place. Bas loved the mountains, but he could do without all the monster battles. Or the relationship drama, as he now regarded his questionable interlude with Gray. He needed to return home and lick his wounds, then decide what to do about his stubborn, sexy, know-it-all partner.
“Need her. Want her,” the thing under his elbow croaked.
“Are you Al Ross? Answer the fucking question.”
The pathetic yearning on the rogue’s face tore at Bas’s heart, but he had to know.
“Not Ross. Want Ross. Mine.”
Not Ross, and thus not Bas’s problem. Despite the things he’d been ordered to do for his country, Bas wasn’t a murderer. They’d been trying to reform some of the rogues, and depending upon how far gone this one was, it—he, he reminded himself—might be capable of rehabilitation.
Bas planned to knock the rogue unconscious and call for backup when another rogue knocked into him and shoved him aside. He swore and rolled to a crouched position, ready to attack, when he noticed not one or two but four rogues looking at him with keen desire. For blood or sex, he couldn’t tell. And from the looks on their faces, neither could they.
Two of them looked like him. Normal Circs who’d gone rogue. The other two resembled freakish half mutants.
Let them have it, his beast demanded. And Bas did, because he knew the danger to him was real. With a hurried press to the radio, he shouted for help as the rogues attacked en masse. A coordinated effort he wouldn’t have credited these monsters.
Slashes to his midsection and back hurt, but he quickly healed. Unfortunately, the half mutants seemed to be playing with him. Shit. Gray was right. They were barely manageable one at a time. In a pack…deadly.
“Pretty.” One of them licked its lips, and a black forked tongue flickered before disappearing into its mouth.
Another growled, “But not her.”
“Who cares?” the other half mutant answered. “Smells good. Hungry.”
They rushed him without warning, and Bas sucked in a breath as two of them threw him into a tree, where he landed hard enough to break a few ribs. Before he could recover, they tore into him. He felt lips and teeth digging into his arms, his shoulder… Oh fuck. His neck.
The blood loss wasn’t as bad as the drugging paralysis invading his system. Fuckers are toxic, he thought as his vision grew hazy. But as one of the stronger ones shoved the others away and raked at Bas’s trousers, no doubt intent on sex, a tantalizing scent froze the group.
“Ross,” a half mutant hissed.
The others agreed as the arousal grew. Like a spring rain, the scent of a female Circ in heat drew Bas from his foggy pain to life once more.
“What is that?”
“Ross. Mine,” another half mutant screeched.
Two of the rogues started fighting with each other before the lead half mutant calmed them with a promise to share the female.
It took Bas a few moments to realize Ross and the female were one and the same. Holy hell, but they’d gotten some really bad intel. So what did the presence of these assholes and their female target mean?
He tried to reason it out, but he soon lost the ability to do more than lust after the woman.
Even the claws at his throat, his thighs, and belly didn’t disturb him.
And then everyone vanished, and she was there.
Dark brown eyes with slit red pupils, her orbs speckled with black, gazed at him with a curious detachment. She blinked as the wind shifted, blowing her dark blonde hair around her face like a silken veil. Full pink lips quirked to reveal small fangs, not what he would have expected of a female turning mutant. The black of her skin seemed to deepen and fade, as if her heartbeat reflected in the dark patches upon the skin of her forearms and neck, areas her thin T-shirt didn’t cover.
“Rogue?” he asked, his word barely audible past his swollen tongue. He tried again. “Ross?”
She didn’t answer. Instead she leaned closer and sniffed his neck. She licked him, and he felt her raspy tongue against the wound at his throat. The scratchy pain faded, and he could feel his skin knit, an amazing recovery that affected his thought processes as well. As if her saliva had an enhanced healing agent, her tongue had brought him back to full consciousness.