Tempting Evil

'Nerida tried to kill Merle. Only he was ready for it. Waiting for it. That could only have happened if he'd been warned.'

And the fact that the kitchen had been bombed then the entire power grid had gone down had absolutely nothing to do with his readiness. These two might have been good rangers but they couldn't have been leaders. They weren't forward thinkers.

I shook my head in disgust. 'Let me guess. You were treating Merle as an ordinary target, weren't you?'

'That's because he is a normal target, even if he is a half-breed.' She took a step forward, her huge paws clenched and ready for action.

I held up a finger in warning. 'Don't even think about it, Berna, because I'll break your fucking neck. Then who will be left to rescue that stupid fox bitch?'

'In an even fight I can take you, wolf.'

I snorted softly. 'You have no chance, Berna, just as Nerida had no chance.'

'A fox-shifter will always beat a half-breed who has not been warned. It is the way of the world. Full bloods are stronger, faster—especially when the half-breed is part human.'

'That might be true if we were actually dealing with a normal half-breed. But in the case of Moss and Merle, we're not. They're genetically engineered humans who have been implanted with the DNA of several races. They aren't normal in any sense of the word.'

She blinked. 'What?'

'I warned you there was more to this. Starr is not only the leader of one of the nastiest cartels in Melbourne, he's also the head of a lab that has been playing in the DNA gene pool for several generations.' Her eyes widened as the implications of my words hit her. 'Did you honestly think those winged things were a product of nature? Did you really think the zoo was nothing more than a collection of misfits?'

'Well, I've seen stranger things—' She stopped. 'Why should I trust anything you say?'

'Because as a former ranger, you were trained by the military to see beyond the surface. You must know things are not what they seem in this place.' I shifted my stance from one foot to the other. I needed to get out there, to hunt down my brother and beat the crap out of whoever it was causing him pain. 'I don't really care if you believe me or not. But I promise you, if people I care about die because of your interference, you will pay.'

'You can't know of our military service. Our files are sealed against public perusal.'

'Who said I was public?'

She blew out a breath. 'We've walked into the middle of a major operation, haven't we?'

'Yeah, and might well have blown it.'

'Fuck.' She thrust a hand through her short hair. 'What can I do?'

I held up my hand rather than answering. From down the hall came the rough voices—the guards were doing a bed check. I grabbed a blanket and wrapped it around myself to hide my bloody state. We waited in silence until our turn came, answering accordingly when our names were called out. They didn't ask about Nerida, so they obviously knew her rate.

When the guards moved away, I said, 'Help me rescue my partner, then together we'll see what we can do about yours. But if we do get her free, I want you both out of here.'

'Your partner has been caught?'

Caught, tortured, and on the move. But not under his own steam. 'Yes. I need to get him out of here.'

'How? They have guards on all exits at the moment. No one is getting in or out.'

'Let's concentrate on one problem at a time.'

I threw the blanket to one side, then turned on my heel and walked out. Berna followed, her larger feet slapping heavily against the floor, drowning out any noise my footfalls were making. I pushed open the exit door and stepped into the cool night air. The guard looked at us, but didn't say anything. He was human. He wouldn't have seen or smelled the blood and sweat and fear riding my body.

'Where'd they take Nerida?' I asked, as we moved away.

'To the pens, wherever they are. She's slotted in as the after-dinner entertainment.'

'Against those winged things?' I followed the path around to the left, following instinct and that tenuous, fragile thread that linked Rhoan and I.

'Yeah. If she happens to survive that, she wins the right to fight Merle.' Berna's gaze was grim when it met mine. 'We both know that isn't going to happen, but Nerida can't or won't see reason. Revenge has blinded her.'

I opened my mouth to say it was stupid, but the truth was, I could understand it. If something happened to Rhoan, hell itself wouldn't stand a chance against my desire to get even. To make someone pay.

'Which means she won't want to leave, even if we do rescue her.'

'She'll leave. I promise you that.'

It was a promise she had better keep, or Jack would have both their heads. He didn't have much patience for those who got in the way of Directorate operations.

We padded along the path, heading toward the front of the house. Guards watched our progress, and, after a few seconds, I felt the return of my watcher. This one was a wolf, meaning he would track me better than the first one.

How the hell was I going to rescue Rhoan when I had a tail that would report all suspicious actions back to Starr?

Unless, of course, a little distraction was provided.

I stopped near the end of the house. An old green truck with canvas sides was being loaded near one of the machinery sheds. Though I couldn't see my brother, the link between us said he was there, already inside. As we watched, the last few boxes were loaded, then the back of the truck lifted and locked into place. No one got in the back. Two men got into the cab. Time to get moving.

'We have a tail,' I said, as the driver started the truck's engine.

'Where?' Berna's gaze was also on the vehicle, her voice was as soft as mine.

'He's stopped near the last door.'

'That's a hundred yards back.' Her gaze met mine, speculation rife in her brown eyes. 'A wolf shouldn't be able to scent someone that far away when the wind is blowing against them.'

I wasn't actually relying on olfactory senses, but she didn't need to know that. 'A moot point when this wolf can.'

She grunted. 'You want me to distract him?'

'Yes, please.'

'Consider it done.'

She spun and walked back. I waited until the truck lurched into action, then slipped around the corner, wrapped the night around my body, and ran like hell for the back of the truck.

It was faster than I thought it would be, forcing me to leap in a desperate effort to get on board before it got away. I hit the backboard hard enough to rattle it, hooked an arm over the edge of the tray, and hung on for grim death as the road swept by inches from my toes. Not a position I was overly enamored of, so once I'd caught my breath, I twisted, hooked a leg over the tray, and dragged myself inside. My hip caught the end of one box as I dropped down, and I bit back a yelp, barely daring to even breathe as I lay there, listening. The rumble of the engine flowed across the air, joined by the hum of the tires on the road surface. The aroma of spice and leather hung in the air, but the relief that shivered through me was tempered by the fact that Rhoan's scent was heavily interlaced with the sweet, metallic odor of blood. They'd really done a number on him.

Anger rose, anger that was all wolf, all territorial need to protect the pack. Rhoan was my pack, all I had, and whoever had done this to him would pay.

Oh yeah, I could more than understand Nerida's reasoning.

Underneath Rhoan's scent came the twin scents of pine and ocean. Though I could smell them, I couldn't 'feel' them, meaning they were human rather than nonhuman. With the way the old truck was rattling, they wouldn't hear me creep forward. Human hearing wasn't that astute.

But I kept the shadows wrapped around my body as I edged around the first box. They might not hear me, but it would only take a glance in the rearview mirror to see me. I was naked, after all, and a naked female of