“Us assassins can always tell when someone’s been experimented on because of their scent.” Duron seemed to pick his words carefully. “Marvin is a wolf, with undertones of ape and deer. Ben’s mates are cats, and that’s the form they shift into, but they have others in them, too. Some of the experiments can hold one shift, others can partially shift with various animals, but all of the animals—in every case me and my friends have come across, their base animal is furry.”
Stroking his thumb over the back of Duron’s hand, Beaumont said, “You have non-furry animal sides as well, don’t you?”
“Some. But by the time me and Wyatt came along, the scientists were getting bored with the same results, so they added elephant and eagle to me, and a chameleon lizard to Wyatt, among other things.”
“And that’s not all you carry, is it? How many different animal types do you have inside of you?”
“Enough that it gets noisy in my head sometimes.” Duron went back to looking out of the mud splattered windscreen.
Beaumont was angry, not at Duron, or Wyatt, or any of the other poor souls who had been through so much torture—and to what end? A better killing machine?For fuck’s sake.
Keeping his anger from Duron wasn’t easy, though, so Beaumont deflected. “Are you saying, from the way the men in the SUV smelled—that they are newer experiment types again? They have alligator in them?”
“Not fully.” Duron huffed, and Beaumont sensed agitation in the bigger man. “It’s hard to explain. There is reptile, it’s muted, but you know how every single shifter has a unique scent?”
“It’s how many of us know our mates when we meet them.”
“Those three men who got out of the SUV, all smelled the same.”
That can’t be possible.Even with Ben’s mates, two men created from similar genetics, they looked almost identical. It would take a keen eye to pick out the physical differences between Nico and Teilo. But the men had unique and individual scents.
“One of the men had recently filled bullet cases—he smelled more of gunpowder. Another one of the men had been with a woman who used a floral perfume. The third man had new leather boots…”
“You got all that from one sniff?” All Beaumont had noticed was the expensive clothing, and they had guns in rear holsters down their backs.
“You know yourself, from your bad-ass alligator, differentiating scents can be the key to survival.”
He thinks I’m bad-ass.Beaumont’s animal side chuffed deep inside his head. “None of the men even looked enough like each other to be considered family.”
“I don’t know shit about genetics. I just know what I could smell, and my animals are sure those men all have the same underlying scent.”
The ramifications for that were incredible—horribly incredible—genetic engineering at its most sophisticated. Beaumont was seized with the idea that he had to do something. He desperately wanted to know more. He couldn’t impede what Wyatt was doing, but maybe they could do something to divert from any attention Wyatt might get.
“We need to go back to that place—the one where Wyatt went, that the men went to. The one with all those people coming in and out.”
“The drug den?” Duron swiveled around in his seat and started the jeep, putting it into reverse. Within thirty seconds, they were back on the road, actually heading to town this time.
“We assume it’s a drug den because we saw high traffic people and no obvious product.”
“And you just want to walk inside?”
“Why not? What’s the worse they can do?”
“Shoot at us, attempt to capture us, or call the authorities.”
“Odds I can live with.” Beaumont grinned. “What about you?”
Duron snorted.
“Besides,” Beaumont added. “It is more likely that any people we do see, will simply pretend not to understand us, or send us on some wild goose chase if we ask for directions to the police station.”
“Unusual choice of reason to go into the place,” Duron noted, but he kept driving. “So, why are we going?”
“Because I just have to see for myself. I don’t know what, I don’t know who, but I have to see.” Beaumont just hoped Duron would understand. His skin was crawling, his animal alert and restless—which for an alligator was quite uncommon.
His agitation increased the closer they got to the mystery establishment, and by the time Duron parked the jeep, he just had to move.
Barely waiting for Duron to get out of the jeep, Beaumont was out and around on the pavement, banging on a solid wooden door that had seen so much use earlier that day. It opened, not because someone had used the handle to give them access, but rather because the lock for the door buckled under the force of Beaumont’s fist. “I did knock,” Beaumont said as Duron crowded by his shoulder. “You saw and heard me knock.”
