Flashes of light pierced the tree line as the moon broke through the clouds, but he couldn’t make out any shapes, just blurs of light and shadow.
Deeper, familiar voices sounded. They’d found the rest of the team. Zack’s panic worried him, though Ace’s senses were far more acute than the others on the team. He could smell emotions, like the tangy scent of fear, the heady smell of arousal, the intoxicating scent of pleasure.
Fear assailed him, a bitter spore coming from several directions. Not just from Zack, but from the entire team.
“What’s…happening?” he slurred. That was unlike him. He couldn’t wait for the answer. Following the darkness even deeper, he passed out.
Cape May, New Jersey
Kelly Malloy stared in horror as the team carried Ace past her toward the elevator leading to Doc’s underground lab. Though she normally had no part in the Circ aspect of life here on the compound, she refused to ignore an unconscious and bloodied Ace.
“What happened?”
Roane, Hale, and Derrick looked grim as they held him between them. Zack had shut down, his face a mask of stone as he forced his way to Ace’s side
“Kelly,” Roane, the leader of the group, said as he hedged. “Ah, you might want to steer clear --”
“Don’t give me any bullshit.” Angry, and knowing it stemmed from fear, she took a deep breath, fought for calm, and tried again. “Please. Tell me what happened. What can I do to help?”
“Doc’s waiting for us,” Hale answered. Normally the easygoing charmer, he didn’t seem able to summon a smile. Kelly saw the worry in his light blue eyes. She felt her stomach drop. This wasn’t good. “We ran into some trouble on this last mission. It got ugly, and Ace took the brunt of it.”
“He’ll be okay,” Derrick repeated again and again. He lightly jostled Ace. “Wake up, jackass. You still owe me from that stupid bet you placed on the Knicks.” The giant African American reminded Kelly of a stuffed bear. A grizzly on the outside, he rarely allowed people to see the softy he really was on the inside. Right now, she sensed him on the verge of panic, though he masked it well.
“I’m coming with you.” Kelly wormed her way between Zack and Ace, sandwiching herself between the two men she could never stop thinking about. She touched Ace’s hand, panicked at how cold he felt.
“Me too,” Caitlyn Chase said as she met them by the elevator doors. “I’ll take the next one down.”
Kelly saw her look at Roane and could see relief on her face that her lover was all right, mingled with anxiety because Ace had been injured.
Hale and Roane maneuvered Ace into the elevator. Zack and Kelly stepped in while Derrick, unable to fit in the space, waited with Caitlyn for the next one.
As the elevator connecting the first floor to the lab dropped, Kelly couldn’t stop touching Ace, needing to reaffirm that he still lived and breathed while they raced him down to Doc.
“In here.” Doc held open the door to one of his lab rooms. “Put him on the exam table.
Roane, remove his clothes. Kelly, I’ll need your help.”
“Tell me what to do.”
She gathered the supplies Doc asked for as Roane and the others stripped Ace’s clothes from him by changing their fingernails into claws. Kelly watched in both awe and fascinated horror, having never witnessed them change before.
Circe’s Recruits, the five men who all lived here with Doc, were members of an elite fighting unit. Once members of the United States military, they’d undergone some experimental drug therapy. Or so Doc had told her. In the process, they’d become super soldiers. Each could shift into a tanned, Hulk-like person, with enhanced senses and a physically imposing body. She’d once seen Caitlyn, their newest Circ, transform her hand into a claw. That had been for show. Kelly’d never personally seen the damage it could do.
She leaned forward. Were those claw marks in Ace’s ragged flesh?
His lower body seemed undamaged; she thanked God for small favors. Doc laid a white sheet over that exposed part of him and got to work.
Kelly sucked in a breath as she watched Doc furiously labor to clean and patch Ace’s wounds. The stomach injuries required stitches. Doc patched the hole in his shoulder with a large bandage. The teeth marks on Ace’s hand, however, commanded a more serious focus.
Doc lifted Ace’s palm toward the light.
“Most of these wounds are superficial. Nothing’s punctured -- nothing vital, anyway --
so why is he still unconscious?” He glanced up. “Zack, tell me again how you found him.”
Zack remained motionless as he stared at Ace.
“Zack,” Roane barked. “Tell Doc what happened.”
Zack blinked at Roane, looked back at Doc, and answered in a soft monotone. “I caught scent of the bastards too late. One of them set a trap for me in the woods. Took me a while to get through it. By then I scented Ace’s blood.” His raspy voice deepened. “By the time I came on the scene, one of the bastards was dead, shot twice through the head and several times through the gut. The other fucker was on top of him. He…” Zack paused, glancing at Kelly.
“Tell him,” she said softly. “Doc needs to know to help Ace.”
Zack cleared his throat. He was pale, probably in shock, Kelly noted with dismay.
Nothing much ever bothered Zack. He looked at Ace, then returned his attention to Doc.
“The rogue was on top of him, caught in what appeared to be an odd type of mating heat.”
“Shit.” Roane wiped a hand over his face.
“Hell, no.” Hale swore.
“Penetration?” Doc asked, his voice calm.
Kelly’s eyes widened as she realized what Zack had said. The mating heat, a circumstance that befell the Circs at odd times, caused them to spiral into an out-of-control lust. She didn’t know much about it, only that Doc had warned her repeatedly to stay away from the team when it happened.
“No.” Zack gritted his teeth and fisted his hands by his sides. Kelly couldn’t look away as his nails changed into claws again, into inhuman weapons. She was mesmerized by this side of Zack she’d always wondered about but had never seen. His gaze remained glued to Doc’s, but as if he sensed her stare, he flexed his hands, and they were once again normal.
“I pulled the rogue away before he could do anything. Ace had lost consciousness. The rogue did some damage to his stomach and shoulder, but that wound on Ace’s hand concerned me. The fuck bit him. This rogue was anything but a normal Circ. His skin was black. Not brown, but tar black. And his tongue was split down the middle with barbs on either tip. Like a goddamned mutant snake.” He glanced at Ace and studied his lifeless body.
“I think he might have injected Ace with something.”
Doc frowned. “I’ll do some tests on Ace’s blood, but it would help if I had --”
Zack tossed a baggie at him. To Kelly’s disgust, it looked like the tongue they’d been talking about. Holy crap. Zack had cut a man’s tongue out! She stared at the tongue, then at Zack, but he was oblivious to her shock as he continued to watch Doc.
“There it is. I made sure to keep it free from dirt as best I could.” Zack wavered on his feet and blinked.
Kelly noted the blood pooling at his feet and darted to his side, just as Hale met her there. “Zack! What happened to you?”
Doc swore, which he didn’t often do. “Hale, Derrick, get him into the next room and let’s find out where he’s bleeding.”
“We’ve got him.” Hale moved under Zack’s arm. Derrick took his other arm, and they walked him slowly to the door. “What the hell, Zack?” Kelly heard Hale hiss at him. “Why didn’t you tell us you’d been nailed?”
“Booby trap in the woods. Not a serious wound. I just lost a lot of blood is all.” Zack tried to move out of their hold, and Derrick snapped at him.