Chapter 12
Chapter
Twelve
WE WERE YOUR ALLIES
Thirty-five naked men—not all of whom were actually human—tromped up the narrow stairwell with one snake-man, a mini-Godzilla, and a centaur who, I swear to god, was going to break all four of his legs on the steps.
As it was, two guys were pulling his arms, while two others were pushing his giant horse ass.
He maybe should’ve taken the elevator, but I totally understood why he didn’t want to do anything alone at the moment.
That the others had shifted into their human forms seemed mostly because the stairwell was so small, though some of them could’ve done it to heal, too.
I had to assume Snake, Godzilla, and Centaur didn’t have human forms and where the ones who’d been living and working at the Parnell headquarters.
“Hey,” I said and gave Hamilton’s bloody hand a tug. “Should some of us go down and look for more captives? Like, is this everyone?”
“We can do that after we take the ship.” He paused on a landing to look left and right before continuing up. “You’re right that it’s possible there are more.”
“Everyone from Parnell is here,” Row said beside us. “Dude,” he snapped and elbowed the guy behind him.
Quillan, now in giant human form but who has still hella furry, blushed red. “Sorry,” he mumbled and backed off from taking the next step until there were a few more between them.
“Oh, come on,” I grouched at Row. “Stow your homophobia, Sergeant.”
“I’m not homophobic!” he said with a blush and full affront. “I just don’t want anybody rubbing up on me. Not after…what I thought was going to happen.”
Before I could retract my accusation, Quillan said, “You’re safe now, Sergeant. I promise.”
The two shared a look, Row nodded, and my little heart started shipping the hell out of them. If Hamilton and I could make a love connection in a secret government lab, then why couldn’t Row and Quillan get all mated up, too?
“Oh, my god!” I hollered and accidentally stopped everyone in their tracks. “Uh, sorry. I didn’t mean to—”
“What’s wrong?” Hamilton asked with a frown as he scanned the stairs like I might’ve seen something dangerous.
“Well, um…” Oh, fuck it. I stepped up on the same level as him and took both of his hands. “I love you, too.”
Hamilton chuckled, a couple other guys did as well, and somebody totally unromantic groaned. My mate pulled me into a hug and kissed me, but I was way too conscious of the fact that he was smearing blood all over me from my face down to really appreciate the smooch.
“I know you do,” he said and gave a brief attempt to wipe the blood off my chin. “Once we’re safe and clean, we can show each other how much love we feel.”
“Deal.”
I gave Row a haughty sniff before everyone got moving again. He rolled his eyes at me, but I knew he was jealous because, when Quillan got right up on him again, Row didn’t say anything.
The stairwell ended in a thick door that the men at the front threw open and rushed through. I gulped a bit, worried that anything could be out there. When I didn’t hear gunshots or shouts, the line moved forward, and I followed Hamilton out.
We were on the main deck with huge cargo containers, giant barrels, and stuff wrapped up on pallets creating what looked like a maze in front of us.
The soldiers did their thing by scoping the area and taking cover, while the rest of us followed their lead.
That we were all naked was seriously distracting to me, so it was probably good that no one had returned my gun to me.
I could hear distant voices shouting about a boat, but nothing that sounded like they knew we were here.
And then I caught sight of the fact that the sky was getting lighter. Sunrise.
“Hamilton?”
“I know.”
There was probably no way he was going to sit this out in a dark corner somewhere, so I just hoped he knew what he was doing to keep himself safe.
Row rushed back to us. “They’re leaving.”
Hamilton growled, but I didn’t know what Row meant. “Who’s leaving?”
“Barnabas and all the top brass he had visiting. Witnesses to the success of the program,” he said with obvious disgust.
Hamilton didn’t hesitate. He shifted and shot into the air a second later. Row shouldered his gun and ran back to wherever he’d been, and I followed him. I couldn’t contribute—I knew that—but I wanted to be the new witness, the one who watched the end of this entire nightmare.
I didn’t have to wait long. A helicopter was taking off from the deck.
It was huge and black and stuffed with people in uniforms. I couldn’t say which branches they represented let alone what their names were, but I assumed they had to be folks who’d get off on having super soldiers at their disposal since they were here.
Whoever they were, Hamilton made sure they wouldn’t be leaving any time soon by throwing a metal rod through the thing that made the blades turn. The helicopter hadn’t been more than ten feet or so up, but it dropped right back onto the deck with some smoke and an awful screeching noise.
With a gasp, I looked behind me as gunshots sounded. I couldn’t see anything around the other end of the cargo container I was hiding beside, but the shouting let me know someone was being apprehended.
“That’s Ramirez,” Row said. “We’re winning.”
“Oh, good.” I refocused on what was happening around the helicopter.
All of the supernaturals were in their other-than-human forms and surrounding the chopper.
I grinned in wicked delight, hoping the people inside were about to piss themselves.
It didn’t look like anyone was being dragged out and slaughtered, which I supposed was a good thing.
So far they’d only killed in self-defense, and I didn’t see that change—
Oops, spoke too soon. Given the snarls, growls, and general show of murderous intent, the guy who just stepped down from the helicopter was someone the supernaturals absolutely hated.
Barnabas maybe? Had to be. So that was the face of evil.
He made me think of the rich guy who’d funded the Nazis in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, because he stepped down onto the deck with a smile on his face.
I couldn’t hear him, but I fully expected he was over there saying that this had all been a big misunderstanding because he was only trying to do good for the world.
I crept closer. Unfortunately, in order to hear everyone over the wind, I had to stand like a foot away from Hamilton and Quillan. They definitely didn’t notice, though, because someone else stepped forward.
“Gentlemen,” he said with a greasy smile, “I think there’s been a misunderstanding.”
Of course he’d go there. This was the dude who was probably running every hateful campaign the administration had. I’d once seen a photo of him being compared to an anal polyp, and now I could see just how true a comparison it was.
Meven Stiller. I’d go to my grave hating that weasel.
Row put a hand on my forearm, and I looked at him only to realize I’d been growling. Like guttural, deep in my throat, growling. That was a first…but well aimed, I thought.
The snake guy rose up so he was towering over tiny Stiller. “A misunderstanding?”
“Yeah,” mini-Godzilla said, “which part did we misunderstand? The kidnapping? Being locked in cages? Or was it the order to assault a bunch of men to—”
“No-no,” Stiller said. “See that’s where communication broke down. All those men were volunteers. They were happy to—”
“The fuck we were!” Row yelled, and now it was me putting a hand on him to keep him where he was. He nodded at me and swallowed hard, and his words were echoed by others ringing around us.
Nobody had volunteered. Nobody was happy.
“Well, that’s not what I was told.” Stiller made a show of turning around and holding out a hand to the guy I’d suspected was Barnabas. Stiller hadn’t lasted long before throwing someone else under the bus.
Barnabas’s smile was worse than Stiller’s because there was a sparkle to his eyes. Religious fanatics smiled like that…right before they hit you in the head with a bible.
“My dear ones,” he said with just a hint of a German accent. “Don’t you want to push talentless humans to become more?”
“No.”
My mate. He could ramble when he wanted to, but he also knew that was a complete sentence.
Barnabas took a step closer, that smile still fixed on his face. “You have the opportunity to force an evolution. To bring humans to your level of greatness! Why would you deny them?”
“Because it’s fucking torture?” the centaur said with a stomp of a hoof.
Quillan shook his head. “Because it’s a privilege reserved for our mates.”
“Oh, good point,” I whispered and glanced at Row, still shipping those two inside my pitter-pattering heart.
“Ah!” Stiller said. “See there? You’re gatekeeping these abilities. Leaving it up to fate to choose who advances? Come on,” he scoffed and looked at the others like they’d back him up.
Not one of them even blinked.
“Look here,” Barnabas said jovially…and pointed at me. Shit. “Scrawny, unskilled, useless—but you breed him once and he can heal from bullet wounds. Have you continued to breed him? What can he do now?”
I wasn’t going to show offense or cringe at his word choice—though it was totally cringe-worthy and I was offended—because Barnabas had made the mistake of dangling Hamilton’s mate in front of him. The very air vibrated with his growl.
“Might he soon grow his own wings?” Barnabas went on, oblivious to the danger. “That is a dream for so many of us. To fly. And you would keep this away from us? You would truly deny humans the ability to fly?”
“Oh,” Hamilton practically purred in the worst way, “I can make you fly.”
I gasped and Row cursed when Hamilton grabbed Barnabas and shot straight up into the air like a fucking rocket! His wings took the two of them higher and higher, and I just knew flying wasn’t what Barnabas was about to do.
“Oh, shit,” I whispered as Barnabas started falling, his screams growing louder the closer he got to the deck until— Splat!
I had to close my eyes as Row made a gagging noise.
Barnabas was a popped water balloon of blood and guts that had splashed every single one of us standing here watching.
They were horrified. I was kind of horrified.
And then Hamilton landed like a goddamned superhero and his voice carried easily over the silence.
“We were your allies until him! Now you’re on the brink of war with all of us. A war you have no hope of winning! Choose wisely. Your species depends on it.”
Holy shit. I shivered from more than the chill of being naked and hoped very much that those military dudes believed him.
“That’s murder!” Stiller screamed, blood and guts all over him. “That’s your act of war! Kill him!” He pointed to Hamilton, his crazy eyes on the military men behind him. “Kill them ahhhh!”
That giant snake man had literally backhanded Stiller with his tail, sending the weasel flying off the side of the ship. I didn’t hear a splash or a thunk, but the screaming stopped abruptly.
All of a sudden, two of the military dudes stepped forward with their hands out. I couldn’t hear a thing either of them said, but they shook Snake’s and Hamilton’s hands with smiles on their faces. I assumed they were thanking our guys for killing that little Nazi because nobody liked Stiller.
I heard several feet padding up behind me, but couldn’t tear my eyes away from Hamilton as he walked my way. The rising sun was making his back and wings begin to smoke just enough to notice, but he made for one hell of a sight as he stalked over.
“You’re amazing, and I love you,” I gushed when he got close enough.
He smiled, all fangs, and looped me under his arm to face those behind us.
A naked man with a really big gun—an actual gun; we were all cold out here—looked to Row before addressing Hamilton. “Sir, we’ve secured the rest of the crew, soldiers, and scientists. We’ve also freed all other captives from the lower levels. Two of, um… The, uh…”
“Supernaturals,” Hamilton offered.
“Yes, sir. Two of the supernaturals are too big to come up the stairs and can’t, um, shrink? At all, so we’ll need to dock in order to offload them from their level. Some of the crew know how to make that happen.”
“Too big?” I asked in astonishment since I assumed everyone had been here for the same reason. “Like, how big?”
The guy looked at me with wide eyes. “I think they might be dinosaurs.”
“Dragons,” Hamilton said. “There are a few breeds that don’t shift.”
But I was still trying to imagine dinosaur dicks and human asses and how that could ever possibly work. Where there’s a will?
“Let’s get underway then,” Hamilton went on. “Get everyone washed, if possible, and clothed in shifts so that someone’s always covering the crew.”
“Yes, sir.”
That guy left, and I started tugging Hamilton around to the shadow of a cargo container to get him out of the sun. “It’s alright,” he insisted. “Just a mild sunburn.”
“Then do the shifting thing to heal yourself.”
He complied, turning human and staying that way as he wrapped his arms around me. “How are you with all this…death? Can you forgive me?”
“Forgive you?” I squeezed him. “If you hadn’t, I would’ve. And it’s all been self-defense.”
“Barnabas wasn’t—”
“Yes, he was. Everyone here knows that he might’ve gotten a slap on the wrist to appease you all, but he’d be right back to his work soon after.
Just more secret. Thicker glass and shit like that.
And Stiller would’ve been bankrolling it all or whatever assholes like him do to hurt people. You just saved lives.”
I felt him rest his head on top of mine and assumed he was smiling because I was right.