Kelly gave him a stiff nod and left. Evan picked up the phone, sighing at the mess on his expansive mahogany desk. Hell, he couldn’t see the desktop anymore. Time to let Kelly organize again, as she’d been threatening to do for weeks.
“Hale?” he said into the phone, recognizing the number. “Fill me in.”
“Sorry, had a bit of a…distraction here.”
“I heard.”
Hale sighed. “I’m not sure what happened. We spotted her with two of the PPA’s assholes, Hoff and Dunn. They tranq’d her, but she managed to escape. We caught her and brought her in, but not before she ripped Roane a new one.” Hale chuckled. “We were halfway here when she lit up the vehicle with the sweetest perfume you’ve ever smelled. She went into heat in a split second.”
“I have nothing on file that she’d changed before.”
“I got the impression it was new to her, too. She looked panicked when we took her, and we overheard her complaining about being sick when Dunn and Hoff found her.”
“Where is she now?”
“In the shower with Roane.” A wealth of meaning filled that small statement. “We’ll be bringing her in shortly. I don’t think she’s rogue, just confused and afraid.”
“And?”
Hale paused. “Nothing. We’ll be there in an hour.” Hale disconnected.
Evan stared at the phone as he hung up. In the shower with Roane? Since when had Roane ever personally cared for anyone outside of his squad? Then again, Caitlyn was the first female Circ -- hell, the first Circ period -- they’d encountered who hadn’t been feral.
Evan could only imagine what the squad went through when the mating heat overcame them. Seven years to the day after they’d been given their injections, they’d experienced their first heat. Since then, every few weeks the men were flooded with hormones that made it virtually impossible to resist the call to procreate. Unfortunately, they could only go to another mature Circ. And Circe’s Recruits were all male.
He shifted uncomfortably, frowning at his lack of professionalism. The men didn’t need his lurid interest, though he blamed most of it on scientific curiosity. Instead, Evan concentrated on the girl. Caitlyn Chase. She’d been under Pearson Labs’ care for more than half her life. Then three years ago, they’d told her to leave, without reason. He could only guess that Elliot had lost his patience. The owner and head scientist at Pearson Labs, Elliot Pearl had a reputation as brutal and coldly efficient. Whatever the man’s motivations, he had every intent of making them real.
Eight years ago, when the military had okayed Project Dawn, Evan had been as excited as anyone about being on the team. They’d actually created a formula to build super soldiers, men able to carry out tasks for Uncle Sam with an almost certain degree of success, thanks to manufactured preternatural abilities. Using his own idea to carry the serum to their subjects on the backs of a genetically altered virus, Pearson Labs had successfully outfitted two platoons of super soldiers.
Circe’s Recruits -- seventy-eight men who were stronger, faster, and more intuitive than their fellow soldiers, airmen, Marines, and sailors. For five years, they’d carried out dangerous missions with resounding success. They manifested their abilities by changing, physically transforming into hulking beasts with slashing claws, fangs, and hardened skin.
And then the virus inside them, thought dormant, mutated the Circe serum, eroding their mental processes.
Many Circs suffered from psychotic breakdowns and became savages, with no thought other than to satiate their base desires.
Of the seventy-eight men, fifty had fallen into psychotic breakdowns, death their only means of control. Of the remaining twenty-eight, they’d lost twenty-three while tracking down and combating their out-of-control brethren. Only Roane, Hale, Derrick, Zack, and Ace had survived.
Elliot Pearl had conveniently ignored his failures and concentrated on all the good they’d done. The government hadn’t seen it that way. Project Dawn had been disbanded.
Pearson Labs moved once again into the private sector. And Evan -- “Doc” to his men -- took over their small squad of Circs.
With his substantial fortune, he put his all into helping the men who’d survived -- they were his responsibility. There had been plenty of time for self-recrimination while they’d battled the government’s interest. Evan had used every connection he’d ever made to force the United States military to leave Circe’s Recruits alone. Not to mention threats of blackmail and political fallout, should the public know what the government had sanctioned.
The squad faded away, no longer on anyone’s radar but Elliot’s. The bastard thought he could recreate Project Dawn, conveniently ignoring the madness that had befallen them just three years ago. In that time, Doc and the squad worked to control new variations on the “super soldiers” Elliot and the other scientists had created. In so doing, they also strove to eliminate all of Elliot’s mistakes.
Evan sat at his desk, pushed aside a stack of fallen folders, and dug out his keyboard. He reviewed his data. Since the project folded, the squad had uncovered and killed forty-six Circs. Four lived in anonymity, but Evan kept his eyes on them. As much as he wanted to bring them in for testing, they deserved to live as best they could before full maturity set in.
From what he’d determined, the Circe serum increased all the senses, enhanced intuition, and made stronger, quicker, more effective fighting machines. Once full maturity blossomed, the mating instinct took over at monthly and sometimes bimonthly intervals.
Hence the squad’s mating heat, which threw even these solid, dependable warriors into manic, lust-filled states.
“In the shower with Roane,” sounded in his mind again. A female Circ in heat. The possibilities that allotted for intrigued the hell out of Evan. He had no hope that the men might let him observe their next heat with Caitlyn, but perhaps he could ferret more information from them and her when they arrived. Anything they told him would remain in strictest confidence, and it might help explain a few things. Such as why the PPA was after Caitlyn, and why Roane was suddenly acting very unlike himself.
Caitlyn groaned as awareness returned. Her body ached, her teeth hurt, and her head throbbed. She felt as if she’d been beaten with a two-by-four all over the place.
“Hold on. We’re almost there.” The gruff voice sounded familiar.
She opened her eyes and found herself carried by a giant, dark-haired male. She wore an overlarge T-shirt and shorts -- not her own -- under a bright blue sky. The sun beat down on them, as hot as it had been in the outdoor plaza. In seconds she made the connection. He was one of the he-men from the alley.
“What do you want with me? Are you PPA?” She squirmed in his arms, uncomfortable at how much she wanted to stay near the steady thrum of his heart.
The man paused. The group with him slowed as well. Caitlyn shifted to see four more men as muscular as this one surrounding them. A sandy-haired man smiled and winked. A Native American and his gray-eyed friend nodded at the same time. The fourth male, a large African American, gave her a grin that made her feel surprisingly safe, despite being given by a man who could crush her like a bug with those large hands and huge biceps.
“We’re not PPA.” The man holding her said in a harsh voice. He stared down at her with dark brown eyes, his gaze intent.
“Well, somebody beat me.” She swallowed loudly and tried to appear in control. But damn, how could she maintain that facade while in this giant’s arms? “I feel sore all over.”
Her captor didn’t blink. “What’s the last thing you remember about today?” The others grew still.