He should have allowed her to die. Her childhood had been a series of experiments so excruciating she still had nightmares of it. Once escaping that, she’d been restrained once more and forced to watch life pass by as Claire Martinez in the hopes that by doing so, she’d be there when he came for her.
She’d ached to run, to hunt. To train and fight. The few times she managed to escape Raymond to do so had been so exhilarating it had been actually painful to return to that gloomy house. And each time she’d escaped into the night, she’d searched for her G, wondering if he’d finally found the clues she’d sent to reveal to him where she was and the identity she was using.
Now here she was, watching the night, enclosed by walls and being monitored by cameras once again. Damn. When would it end?
Finishing her wine and returning to the house, she locked up, checked the windows and doors one last time and moved upstairs to her bedroom. For the first time since moving there she closed the balcony doors and locked them.
She felt restless, on edge. The rapidly maturing Breed genetics were being a bitch. She couldn’t seem to find a balance at all, especially since Linc and Raymond’s little visit.
A long shower later she crawled into the overly large bed, one of the lacy little nighties Graeme had bitched over covering her body.
Bastard. She told herself the decision to wear the sexy little gown was to torture him. She was terribly afraid the truth was far more primal. He’d wanted her to wear it. And at one time nothing had mattered more than pleasing her G.
No doubt he was watching her.
Where else would he hide cameras that she hadn’t thought to look? she wondered as she yawned and snuggled into the bed. She’d have to go through the house again tomorrow and see if she could find any other likely hiding places.
An instant, raging alarm clashed through her senses with such abrupt speed she was instantly awake. And it was too late. She sensed the breeze drifting past the balcony doors, but something else moved much faster, with far more deadly accuracy. The second the pressure syringe injected the drug into the vein at her neck, Cat knew the restlessness she had felt earlier for the warning it had been.
“No!” Her ragged snarl was one of rage as everything began shutting down, even as knowledge flashed through her mind.
That agonizing burn along her nerve endings—every nerve ending—a pain no Breed had ever been able to fully describe began shutting down her ability to move, to speak. To protect herself. Animal instincts honed to perfection surged forward, giving her just a moment to jump from the bed.
She nearly fell instead.
A fiery lash of agony began tracking through her body, spreading through her. The burn raced beneath her flesh, moving steadily to her brain.
No. This couldn’t be happening.
The paralytic was fast acting, taking the ability to move, to speak . . . to scream.
She had to escape.
Dammit, she shouldn’t have destroyed so many of the cameras. What if there were no more in the bedroom to alert Graeme of what was going on?
She was screwed. It was that simple.
She made it as far as the middle of her bedroom floor, only halfway to the door before she crumpled. Unable to cushion the fall, or the wrist she felt break as she went down. The pain would have been agonizing if she hadn’t learned long ago what true agony was.
The burn was moving through her brain now, the rest of her body was sensitized, pain receptors heightened and awaiting the next lash of sensation.
Helpless. Far too vulnerable and with no defenses whatsoever.
How had her balcony been breached without the alarms going off? She hadn’t touched the cameras or the security sensors there.
Unless it was Graeme.
Would he be so cruel as to inject her with the paralytic? To hurt her this way? No. Graeme would find a far more effective way to punish her. This wasn’t something he would do.
The drug, created by Genetics Council monsters, was amazingly efficient. There was nothing she could do while under its effects. No Breed had ever been able to fight past it, no matter how strong their will.
A faint creek of the floor outside the bedroom had her fracturing senses pausing for a moment, waiting, feeling the danger coming.
Lying on her side as she was, she could see the bedroom door moving slowly, opening as though in slow motion, making her wait.
He thought all she knew was the shadow moving toward her through the entrance.
His scent reached her even before the door opened, filtering through the animal’s senses.
It wasn’t Graeme.
She watched as Raymond moved steadily closer, the scent of his malevolent hatred sickening. With the door opened, other scents reached her as well. She could smell the scent of the Jackal Breeds now. The few to have survived were used by the Genetics Council only when absolutely necessary. So few survived the creation process, but those that lived were vile, brutal soldiers with instincts that had amazed the trainers.
“Fucking animal.” Raymond’s curse was followed by a hard kick to her undefended ribs.
Agony erupted in the point where his boot met her body. She could do nothing to show her pain, nothing to escape it. It made the animal inside her crazed.