Retribution (Moonstruck Genesis #4)

Chapter 11

DJ STARED, her mouth gaping. No words came out, just a gagging cough. She swayed, suddenly convinced she needed to plant her ass on the ground. She pitched sideways. Antoine caught her and scooped her into his arms. She allowed herself to feel deeply feminine for a brief moment then forced her eyes open to regain her equilibrium. Her feet remained planted, not quite firmly, on the ground and she continued leaning against Antoine.

“Nate! No. Stop!” Jacey ran after the wolf, both disappearing into thick foliage.

“What the—” DJ said again, shaking her head. “Holy hell. What did I just see?”

Everyone but Antoine ignored her. Hannah grabbed Mac’s arm and tugged. “Go after him.”

“He won’t hurt Jacey. I can’t say the same for the rest of us.”

Other women appeared, along with a boy DJ guessed to be thirteen or fourteen. They gave her a cursory glance but were more concerned with what had happened. DJ too.

“The PTSD is getting worse,” Sean gritted out.

“I thought Jacey said he was handling it.” Liz Lightfoot joined Hannah and Mac. “We’ve talked about his episodes.”

“Episodes?” DJ’s voice quivered. “That was an episode ? What are you people?”

Mac turned on her and she considered running…or hiding behind Antoine. The man looked like he wanted to tear her apart.

“You want to know why we went after Black Root? That’s why, Deputy Marshal Collier. Nate has a recessive gene. Black Root’s fucking scientists manipulated that gene and forced him to change into a wolf. When we went back to save the others, we got to see what their motherfuckin’ experiments had done. Nate executed one of his own men because the guy was caught in mid-shift. Not a wolf. Not a man. A gawddamned, fucked up monster made of both. Trapped and kept alive with drugs. You’re damn straight we blew that travesty of a research facility to hell.”

Hannah pushed between them as Antoine snarled. “They kidnapped my son and brought him to the Radix Lab here in Louisiana to continue their sick experiments. A little boy, Collier. And others have gone missing. We’ve checked with Wolf families all over the country.”

“I…what the hell are you saying?” Mac growled and DJ backed up a half-step. She couldn’t go further because her back collided with Antoine’s chest.

The big man ripped off his T-shirt as he kicked off his boots and then shucked his cargo pants. She had just a flash of a well-shaped ass to go with the thought that the guy went commando before her world was rocked for a second time as the man contorted for about a minute. Muscles and bone stretched, reformed covered in fur. In place of the man, a sleek black wolf stood.

“Go,” Hannah commanded. “We’ll hold down the fort.”

The wolf loped off, headed after Jacey and Nate. DJ didn’t face plant, as much as the thought appealed. Antoine slipped an arm around her waist. She locked her knees and leaned back against him for support. “Holy Jesus.” She gulped and raised her eyes to the angry blond standing in front of her. “Please tell me I’m drugged or something. This is a dream, right? Hallucinations?”

“Not hardly. These men are Wolves, Collier. Lupi versi pellis to be precise. Their DNA isn’t quite human. They are unique and special and those bastards at Black Root are hunting them. That’s why we went off the grid. That’s why we’re staying off it until we can take them down.”

“You can’t.”

“The hell you say!” Hannah squared off in front of her. “We can and we will.”

“No. That’s not what I meant. They’re Washington power brokers.”

“Yeah, we know. I’ll take out the fucking president himself if he has a hand in this.”

DJ blanched. “You…you don’t mean that.”

“What? That makes me a traitor? You gonna call the Secret Service and sic ’em on me?” Hannah glanced up at Antoine before returning her gaze to DJ. “See, here’s the deal, girlie. You’re mated to a Wolf. They’ll hunt you now. They’ll hunt your children. Just like they hunt ours.”

Stunned, DJ couldn’t even blink away the black spots swimming in her vision. “Mated? Children?” Her stomach roiled and bile burned up her esophagus. Warmth touched her back as Antoine pressed his chest to her back and wrapped her in his embrace.

“I told you, chère . You are mine. Always.”

“Wolves mate for life, Collier.” Hannah took perverse pleasure in dropping that little bombshell. “Like it or not, you’re one of us now.”

WEYLIN RESISTED the urge to crush the cell phone in his hand. The voice on the other end continued to ramble, but he’d stopped paying attention. He’d walked away from the concrete block building to clear his lungs. The odors inside the place were an affront to his senses. Vomit and piss. Fear. Stink that no amount of antiseptics or bleach would ever combat.

The voice snapped, recalling his focus. “Do you understand?”

“Yeah, got it. Find the bitch. Kill her. Kill or capture the bloody Wolf who took her. Can I fuck her before I slit her throat?”

“Do whatever you want. Just get it done.”

He ended the call before the man on the other end could. A group of his so-called soldiers sauntered through the door. A couple lit cigarettes. One retrieved a flask from his hip pocket, took a swig, and passed it around. Flaming idiots, all of them. And far too human for his tastes. Especially since he now knew who they were up against. The bloody boss better be adding zeroes to his paycheck. The Deputy US Marshal was human. She’d be easy, even though she was now with a Wolf. He was rogue—or had been. Nothing more than a country bumpkin raised in the bayous. But the others? He’d heard of Command Sergeant Major Ian McIntire and his team. The 69th Special Operations unit was legendary in the rarefied world of SpecOps.

He was bloody well fucked coming and going. Part of him wanted to simply walk away. Problem was, Black Root had a long reach. Wouldn’t matter how often he changed his name and moved on, he’d forever be looking over his shoulder. Even with his talents. Luckily, they hadn’t tumbled to his little secret. If they had, he’d likely be locked up in one of the six-by-six cells inside that building, like the pitiful bastards already incarcerated.

First things first. He had to take out the nosy deputy marshal. Which meant killing the Wolf who had claimed her. He’d caught her scent and as intriguing as it was, mating wasn’t for him. Women were for fucking. Anything else just complicated matters. He glanced over at his men. Sacrificial lambs. The smile curling his mouth didn’t reach his eyes as he strode toward them.

“Saddle up, bully boys. We’re going hunting.”

DJ’S HEAD was still spinning as Antoine led her back to his cabin. She peppered him with questions, but he remained stoic. Even though he held her hand with infinite gentleness, she might as well have been handcuffed to him. He wouldn’t let her go.

“Look, I have a right to know.” She tried to stop, digging in the heels of her borrowed rubber boots. They didn’t gain much purchase in the spongy mulch of the bayou path. Taking a page from a two-year-old, she sat down and was fully prepared to launch into a full-scale tantrum.

Antoine simply pulled her hand. His incredible strength jerked her off the ground and before she knew it, she was draped over his shoulder staring at the very finely sculpted twin globes of his ass covered in soft denim.

“Put me down!” She sputtered the words and then tensed as his palm settled on her own butt.

“Peace, chère . We will talk when we get home.”

Home . Something warm blossomed inside her. She’d never had much of one. Her parents divorced when she was six, and she spent the next twelve years shuffling between households, feeling on the outside as new spouses and half-siblings entered the picture. College was transitory and while she loved the Marshals Service, relationships were transitory as she transferred from assignment to assignment.

Family. Family went with home. She didn’t have much personal experience with either. But if she’d learned anything during her stint as a deputy marshal, it was to read people and situations. Those people back at that campground? They were a family even if there was no blood relation. And she got the impression it didn’t matter where they were or how they lived, whatever happened, they had each other’s backs. They were more than a finely honed military unit. Home and family. They had it in spades. And now she had the opportunity to claim the same for herself.

Except. The man who insisted she was his mate turned furry. She hadn’t dreamed the wolf that had herded her to the very cabin they were walking toward. A hysterical laugh escaped and she clapped her hand over her mouth. Antoine gave whole new meaning to animal magnetism. His palm caressed the curve of her butt and her thigh muscles clenched instinctively. How could she be so horny? How could she want this man so much her mouth dried up and her heart rate kicked up to heart attack levels?

“It is the mating heat, bébé . I feel it too.”

Wait. Had she been thinking out loud? His laughter jittered her stomach where it was draped over his shoulder. “Uh, could you put me down?”

“Will you walk without a tantrum?”

She obviously waited too long to answer because he simply broke into a jog, bouncing her along until she braced her hands on his fine ass, a total mistake because now all she could think of was griping his naked skin as he pushed into her over and over again.

His step faltered slightly then picked up speed. “I can smell your arousal. You want me so bad, ma chère . I am going to strip you bare and kiss every part of your body. Then I am going to fuck you until you cannot see.”

His crude words should have pissed her off. She melted instead. Oh, lordy, but she wanted his thick cock buried deep inside her.

“Yes, bébé . Soon. I will give you what you desire most.”

FOUR MEN sat in shadows despite the noonday sun shining beyond the heavily curtained windows. No one bothered to turn on a light.

“Our position has become tenuous.” The man sounded like he should be conducting a class at an Ivy League school.

“I figure it’s time t’cut our losses.” From Tennessee originally, the speaker’s voice still held hints of his home state.

“No. We’re close.”

“Close to what? Getting discovered? Having our names linked to kidnapping and murder? I’m done.” The fourth man shoved back from the table and strode to the door. “You three do whatever it is you plan to do, but I’m done. Leave me out of it.”

The third man, the one sitting at the head of the table in the deepest shadows shifted slightly. “I said we were close.”

“I don’t give a good goddamn. I’m through.” He reached the door and jerked it open. A swath of light highlighted his patrician features and hand-tailored suit as he turned to face his former compatriots. “What happened in this room stays in this room, but I’m finished. Don’t contact me again.” The door closed behind him with a hard click.

No one spoke for several minutes as the man at the head of the table perused the others. “What about you two? Do you wish to follow the gentleman from Oregon?”

The other men exchanged uneasy glances before shaking their heads.

“I’ve put a lot of money into this deal. I’m not walking away.”

“I still believe in the cause.”

“Good.”