Primal Kiss

PROLOGUE

FELINE BREED HOME BASE

SANCTUARY

BUFFALO GAP, VIRGINIA

The secured communications and defense bunker sat inside the base of a mountain less than a quarter of a mile from the main family residence in the valley now known as Sanctuary.

The main level was mission control, outfitted with the most technologically advanced electronics, satellite tracking equipment, and mission communications available.

The main level was also the entry level, with the first entrance winding through the various workstations from which orders were transmitted and Breed missions tracked throughout the world.

Sanctuary was the main mission base that the Breeds, the ultimate fighting machine, the balance between man and beast, were hired from and sent around the world to fight in the wars the non-Breeds began.

They were extraction experts, the perfect spies, assassins, trainers, commanders, and the best logistics experts in the world, and they were in high demand.

Mission control was never silent.

The second entrance was further around the side of the mountain, hidden from the main house and sheltered by a thick grove of trees. It opened into a serene lobby that could have graced the most expensive, most exclusive resort but was actually the site of the single most state-of-the art security system ever created. Breed guards manned the entrance both inside and out, while advanced surveillance apparatus scanned, identified, and logged even the stray insects that managed to breech the glass and metal doors.

The lobbylike setting was in fact the entrance to the Breed labs, and thus the security employed was even greater than that for mission control. In the past six months, the entrance had been all but welded closed and buried in an attempt to ensure an impenetrable defense against unauthorized access or exit by any Breed daring to betray the community fighting to save Breedkind.

Breed traitors weren’t unheard of. There had been more than one in the fourteen years since the feline pride leader, Callan Lyons, had announced to the non-Breed world the existence of the Breeds.

He was both cursed and revered for his decision. There were days he wondered if he had made a mistake that would eventually destroy them all, or if history would see him as a visionary who had taken the only path the Genetics Council had left him.

Now, as he swiped the security card through the reader, then laid his palm on the electronic identification plate, he cursed himself.

Leaning closer for the retinal scan, he waited.

“Hello, Pride Leader Lyons, may I have your passcode?”

“Lyons, alpha, niner six, point seven three eight.”

“Thank you, Alpha Lyons. I detect you have guests. Please pass alone. Each guest must pass verification before being allowed access into the inner lobby.”

The electronic security couldn’t be ordered, manipulated, or bribed. It could be programmed, but even that programming had so many damned safeguards that just setting the passcodes for today’s meeting had taken more than thirty-six hours. He almost grimaced at the necessity of it.

As the doors slid open, he passed into the lobby, stood back, and waited as each of his “guests” went through the same security. Standing in the lobby, he could feel the faintest wash of heat over his flesh, a warmth most humans wouldn’t detect but any Breed would sense.

To complete its verification function, the bio-scan system would compare his blood type, any unique internal anomalies, and the scan of his brain to the ones on file for him, just as it would for each of those coming behind him.

Taking this entrance into the labs wasn’t the quickest way in, but it was the quietest. If they entered through the main house, family, Breeds, the human soldiers assigned to Sanctuary, and most especially any Breed spies still left within the base would be aware of it. Going through mission control held the same lack of discretion. And a few of those meeting today were men and women the feline, wolf, and coyote Breeds had gone to great lengths to hide.

They were there for a job, to make decisions that none of them were truly prepared to make and the additional security allowed for this meeting, and would give the participants the ability to make the decisions needed based on a live scrutiny of the situation at hand.

Feline Pride Leader Callan Lyons was certain that those with him today were, like him, unsure how to handle what they were about to face. The director of Breed affairs, Jonas Wyatt; the wolf Breed alpha, Wolfe Gunnar; and the coyote Breed alpha, Del-Rey Delgado, were accompanied by the scientist Jeffrey Amburg, a human Jonas had managed to capture nearly two years before. Others that must remain hidden included a human geneticist known for her advanced research in genetic anomalies, Amelia Trace. Alexi Chernov and Katya Sobolov, coyote genetic and physiological experts, stood next to her. Behind them stood Dr. Nikki Armani, council trained and human and one of the foremost experts on wolf biological, genetic, and physiological attributes. One by one they moved to the scanners, gave their passcodes, and stepped inside.

The feline Breed genetic expert, Elyianna Morrey, waited in the labs below with Jonas Wyatt’s latest captive and the scourge of the Breeds.

The arrival of the other alphas and scientists was a closely guarded secret. The heli-jet that had flown them in was listed as delivering medical supplies and had landed in the secure area outside the labs to offload the fictional medical supplies.

Every precaution had been taken, but Callan had no doubt rumors of the visit were already swirling. No matter their attempts, it still seemed Sanctuary was plagued by too many eyes and ears that reported to either the Council fighting to destroy them, the pureblood groups determined to imprison them, or simply a host of other enemies that believed the Breeds were a sign of the destruction of humanity.

The fact that there were Breeds still betraying their own was an acid eating at his soul. The cruelty the Breeds had suffered in the labs hadn’t been enough for some, it seemed. Compelled by bald-faced greed, the Breed traitors would send their fellow Breeds back to the labs and see them destroyed.

Once the final member of the group had passed the entrance, Callan led everyone to the lobby’s large elevator and entered first. He stood at the back of the cubicle, his eyes narrowed, his gaze touching on each scientist as he prayed, God how he prayed, that despite the horror of what they were facing below, that some hope for the Breeds would come of it.

His gaze lifted as the elevator lights dimmed and a hovering blue light began to swirl around each individual. Unlike the bio-scan upon entry into the lobby, this DNA scan was unconcealed, overt. This final scan would identify the members of the party once again and ensure each person matched the criteria and identity the computers had been given.

Along with the automated check, a Breed enforcer of each pack as well as a feline would watch the monitors and compare the identities to known individuals before the elevator opened ten floors below the base of the mountain.

“Welcome to Sanctuary’s labs, Alpha Lyons,” the wolf Breed on duty spoke through the intercom. “All identities have been verified and access granted.”

The double doors to the elevator slid soundlessly open, revealing a silent, steel-lined hallway.

Sanctuary had once been an unnamed lab in the control of the Genetics Council. The labs below ground had seen the countless births, tortures, and deaths of Breeds. Now, it was home to the hope-filled research that could possibly save them all.

At least, that had been their hope when they had taken the compound after arguing successfully that the Genetics Council owed it to them. A small partial payment for the horrors they had suffered. Breed financial accounts were still being contributed to by the countries and financial empires that had been found to have contributed to the Genetics Council’s work.

But who could they sue now for the horrors they were still suffering and the extreme prejudice building around them?

“How is Ely doing, Callan?” Jonas asked, his voice quiet as they walked down the hall, scanners quietly humming as they did a final check for weapons, weapon components, or any conceivable manner of threat to the facility.

“She’s doing better,” Callan stated. “The past year has been hard on her, but she’s coming out of it.”

She had been used against the very Breeds who trusted her to ensure their health and well-being. A mind-control drug had been slipped into her system, creating in her an addiction and an inability to refuse the orders of those who had initiated the reprogramming of her delicate mind.

She had almost died as a result. And she had almost taken Jonas and one of their best enforcers with her, and Callan knew she still suffered the guilt of it, a guilt that might torment her for the rest of her life.

“The past year has been hard on us all.” Jonas sighed.

For the past month, it had been especially hard on Jonas and his mate, Rachel, as they watched the changes in the child a monster had managed to get his hands on.

Callan felt his chest tighten, felt the ever-present fury that rumbled just below the surface and the animal genetics that roared out in rage.

Amber Broen Wyatt, the child Jonas had adopted after his mating to her mother, had been injected with a serum that was presently destroying the monster who had attempted to use Amber against Jonas.

That serum was eroding Phillip Brandenmore’s mind, destroying it a cell at a time as it forced his body, his organs, his very cellular structure to change.

The monster, Phillip Brandenmore. For decades he had conspired with the Council. He had destroyed Breeds, spilled their blood, filled them with such agony that they had begged to die, that they had bled out, howling with the need to escape.

The same monster the Breeds were now fighting to save. That they were risking their own secrets to attempt to end his agony when he had never had a moment’s mercy for the agony he had caused.

“Can she handle this?” Nikki Armani paused to glance at them, the long black braids she wore in her hair flowing around her as the dark chocolate brown of her eyes gleamed in concern. “Brandenmore is her own personal nightmare.”

“She’s handling it.” Callan kept his expression calm, his gaze, if not serene, then at least, composed.

What else could he say? Ely no longer talked to him as she once had. Hell, she no longer talked to anyone about anything but the most mundane topics these days. She was more reserved than ever, more focused on her research and, it seemed, more determined to cut herself off from everyone who cared for her.

As they neared the end of the hall, the double doors there clicked open, and the stoic faces of the Breeds behind the heavy clear shield at the side of the doors watched them carefully.

Wolf, lion, and coyote Breed enforcers worked together here as they did nowhere else except perhaps the labs in the wolf Breed base of Haven in Colorado. The enforcers, who were charged with the protection of the labs, the research, and their futures, were specially selected and rigorously tested before being assigned to the most sensitive areas of the Breed strongholds.

Callan and his group passed through yet another sensor before heading down a shorter hallway to the observation room where Ely awaited them.

It was a journey that seemed to take a lifetime. Each step of the way Callan was too aware of the fact that what they were doing here was a slap in the face of every Breed living and dead. Because the assignment charged to the scientists moving ahead of him was to save the life of a man who had taken so many Breed lives.

As another enforcer stepped from his post in the hall and opened the doors to the observation room, Callan nodded back at him. This enforcer was human. The only human allowed into the compound, and this one only at Jonas’s insistence.

Jackal had been a part of a specially trained Special Forces group when the Breeds had first revealed themselves. His loyalty to the Breeds stemmed from his commanders, Callan’s brother-in-law, Kane Tyler, the man who had saved Jackal’s life and the life of his sister.

He was Ely’s personal guard, whether she liked it or not. And the fact that she didn’t like it was voiced by her often.

Entering the meeting room, Callan moved to the far end and stood at the head of a long conference table. Chairs were placed around it, but no one sat. Instead, they turned and stared through the window that looked down on the padded cell Phillip Brandenmore had been confined to for more than a month now.

What they saw was shocking, horrifying.

He was a seventy-five-year-old man, but he now had the appearance of a man in his fifties. His hair had grown back; his skin had lost that dry, parchmentlike appearance. The dark age spots that had once covered his face had almost disappeared, and he wasn’t stooped as he had been the night he was taken captive after Jonas’s attack on his mountain cabin retreat.

He sat against the wall, his head tilted back, staring up at the deceptive appearance of a mirror, a sneer on his face.

He knew the mirror was more than a one-way reflection, that eyes watched from the other side. Someone was always watching, both from this room as well as from the room that the video cameras fed into.

“My God, he looks ten years younger than he did the last time I saw him,” Dr. Armani breathed out roughly.

Ely stepped from the shadowed corner of the room then. “As indeed, physically, he’s nearly thirteen years younger than he was the night Jonas brought him in,” she stated. “And the metabolic and cellular changes are only increasing. As is the degeneration of his brain. As his youth returns, we’re seeing parts of his brain actually dying off, and any sense of morality or right and wrong deteriorating. At the same time, his sense of cunning and self-preservation seems to be growing.”

Drs. Chernov and Sobolov moved closer to the window, their expressions still and silent as they stared down at the deceptively unassuming man that stared back at them with hatred and demonic rage.

“He came several times to the Chernov labs,” Katya Sobolov whispered, her gaze somber and filled with shadows. “We often had to hide our girls there for weeks to ensure he did not see them. The Council would have given him whatever, whoever he requested for his research.” Coyote females, one of the least created species of the Breeds. They were incredibly rare, and when found, usually killed.

Breeds. Phillip Brandenmore’s research had been on Breeds.

“True evil filled this one long before he took whatever serum he created from the mates he destroyed,” Chernov said then. “Better to let him die, to study him as he has studied those he tortured and killed. I would say it is no more, perhaps much less, than he would have done.”

“But we’re not monsters, nor are we evil.” Ely stepped closer, her gaze tormented, large brown eyes so saddened they had the power to break Callan’s heart. “And Jonas’s daughter Amber isn’t a monster. If we don’t figure out what’s causing this, and how to reverse it before he dies, then Amber could potentially suffer the hell Phillip Brandenmore is suffering now.”

Only Callan saw Jonas’s expression shift, saw the agony that pierced his icy, silver gray eyes. The infant was a sore point with Jonas. Greatly loved, treasured, and experiencing a subtle change within her own cellular makeup.

“What do you need from us, Dr. Morrey?” It was Dr. Sobolov who finally spoke, her pretty face tightening, becoming cool and composed as the scientist emerged, dedicated and willing to find the answers she needed.

Beside her, Alexi Chernov gave a tight nod, his expression less determined, but his gaze hardening as he too began to slip into the skin of the scientist he was.

“We have weeks perhaps.” Ely sighed as she turned back to the sight of Phillip Brandenmore sneering up at them. “If we don’t have the rest of the puzzle by then, we face losing not only Amber but also the opportunity to find the answers we need to continue hiding mating heat. It’s our opinion the information has been contained so far. It’s better to contain the truth as long as possible.” To ensure world opinion and prejudice didn’t turn against them. Their positions, as well as their safety, were still in a precarious state where fickle human fears were concerned.

“And his accomplice?” Chernov questioned. “This Horace Engalls the press has spoken of? What information might he have?”

“Engalls has been able to avoid us so far,” Jonas drawled, and the look on his face had Callan making a mental note to press Jonas on whatever plans he might have with regard to Engalls. He had a feeling this was going to be one of those stories that would leave him with a very bad taste in his mouth.

“Phillip claims Horace only has the results of the tests and the drugs the research arm developed,” Ely stated. “But, when he’s not as lucid, he’s very smug about the fact that Engalls is involved.” Ely gave a shake of her head. “It’s too hard to determine truth from lie with him, and even if we could, we can’t reveal he’s ever been here or use anything he’s said to prosecute Engalls.”

“If he will not be leaving here, then why save him?” Chernov asked cynically. “Merely study his dead body for the answers.”

Jeffrey Amburg gave a little snort. “Because, like me, the bastard is of more use alive to Wyatt than he is dead. We have an expertise, you see. An ability, information, or contacts that Director Wyatt would like to make use of.”

Amburg had been one of the Genetic Council’s leading genetic scientists in regards to cellular and genetic mutations and manipulations. And he had practiced his craft well on the Breeds he created as well as those he was ordered to experiment upon.

Jonas turned, his dark brow arching arrogantly as his gaze raked over the other man. “After three decades of creating and torturing Breeds, you owe us at least that much,” Jonas drawled as though amused. “And it seemed to me a better alternative than death.” Then Jonas smiled, all teeth, canines flashing dangerously. “Or worse.”

“Worse” being a volcano on a remote Pacific island that was rumored to have already tasted the flesh of others whom Jonas had deemed critical threats to Breed society. What more would he do to save the daughter that the animal inside him had accepted as its own?

Jeffrey stared back at him for long moments, in no way cowed by the look. Finally, though, he gave a small nod, realization seeming to cross his face. “I never considered the alternative perhaps.” His lips almost quirked. “But, I have considered what I owe the Breeds, Mr. Wyatt. I rather doubt Brandenmore or Engalls will see the subject in the same light, though.”

“I guess it’s all according to the threats required to convince them to look at it from my perspective,” Jonas answered mockingly.

Oh yes, Callan thought, he was definitely going to have to have a little chat with his little brother.

“Dr. Morrey, could you give us a clearer timeline for completing our agenda of re-creating the serum and reversing it, should Engalls not cooperate?” Amelia Trace stepped forward, her exquisite, gamine features so void of human emotion that Callan could well imagine a robot existing beneath the living flesh.

Ely breathed out roughly. “Best case scenario, perhaps a month,” she stated. “Worse case, less than fourteen days.” She gave her head a hard shake. “I can’t get any closer than that.”

“Then we should begin, yes?” Amelia asked with a slow, uncaring blink of her eyes. “We have a child to save.”

And Callan was certain the others missed it. That flicker in her eyes. That betraying spark in a wash of brilliant, explosive blue.

For the first time, he saw emotion, and he sensed something more, something that was there, then gone, so quickly he couldn’t analyze it or decipher it.

But still, it was emotion.

“And I have Engalls to deal with.” Jonas turned to Callan, his lips quirking with cool mockery. “I need to discuss that with you.”

Which meant the plan was already in motion.

Better to apologize than to be told no. That was Jonas’s philosophy. Callan hoped it didn’t end up biting his brother on the ass. Better yet, he prayed it didn’t end up biting him on the ass.