Then Ivy and her husband, Landon Donovan, had investigated Keegan Stutmeir, the former East German intelligence officer turned arms dealer. Everyone had thought he’d been kidnapping scientists and doctors to make a new bioweapon. They’d been wrong. He’d been creating man-made shifters, using science to shove animal DNA into humans. Everyone called them hybrids.
While they might share animal traits, hybrids were nothing like shifters. Shifters blended perfectly into normal society. You’d never notice them if they didn’t want you to. Hybrids, on the other hand, were bloodthirsty, violent, enraged creatures almost all the time. It had taken a small army of DCO agents along with a group of completely unauthorized Special Forces soldiers from Landon’s former team to take down Stutmeir and the pack of hybrids he’d created out in Washington State.
Unfortunately, two of the doctors responsible for creating the process had gotten away. Everyone knew it was only a matter of time before the DCO ran up against the hybrids again.
The official company line was that all the new high-tech equipment at the DCO training complex was to help them “understand” the threat the DCO faced, but that was crap. The assistant director, Dick Coleman, was pushing their doctors not only to understand how Stutmeir had created his hybrids, but to also replicate the process.
All Kendra could say was thank God for Zarina Sokolov. She’d been one of the doctors Stutmeir kidnapped, and had decided to work for the DCO to make sure people like Dick could never replicate Stutmeir’s hybrid process—without anyone realizing it, of course.
The Russian doctor looked up from her microscope as Kendra walked in, her reading glasses perched on her nose and a pencil stuck in her messy blond bun. Zarina said something to the gray-haired man beside her, then slid off the stool and came over.
Kendra shivered. “I don’t know how you all put up with this place all day. It’s freezing in here.”
Zarina laughed as she pushed her reading glasses up on her head. “Is that your subtle way of asking if we can do the status briefing outside?”
“If you don’t mind?”
“I don’t mind.” The doctor grabbed her coat from the wooden rack beside the door. “I could use a break.”
Once outside the lab, she and Zarina walked along the sidewalk until they were too far from the building for anyone to overhear—although with shifters on the property who had exceptional ears, there could always be someone listening in. They stopped at a section that overlooked one of the complex’s training areas. Even though it was November, the sun was out and it was an unseasonably mild day. Certainly warmer than it had been in the lab.
“The last of the DNA from the teenage girl found in Canada has been corrupted,” Zarina said softly.
Kendra let out the breath she didn’t know she’d been holding. “Ivy will be able to sleep better knowing that.”
Ivy and Landon had found the girl three months ago in a farmhouse outside Saskatchewan, Canada—yet another victim of the hybrid program Stutmeir had started before his death at Landon’s hands. The fact that the two doctors who’d worked for Stutmeir were continuing to develop the hybrid process after his death was bad enough. That they were using kids as their test subjects was even worse. After Zarina had examined the girl’s body, she’d confirmed Ivy’s worst fear: her DNA had been used in an attempt to turn the teen into a better hybrid.
Ivy had been terrified the DCO would find out her DNA had been taken, and that Landon had violated the DCO’s number-one rule and hadn’t killed his shifter partner when it looked like she’d be compromised. Once the DCO figured that out, it wouldn’t be too hard to piece together that Ivy and Landon were married, which was in violation of rule number two.
Luckily, Zarina was running the lab now. She’d muddied the waters so much the DCO doctors would never be able to even duplicate Stutmeir’s work, much less improve on it.
Kendra watched a group of people navigating the confidence course in the distance for a moment before turning back to Zarina. The Russian doctor was staring off into the distance, too, but she wasn’t looking at the team navigating the course. She was focused on the tall, long-haired man standing off to the side watching. Kendra smiled. She didn’t have to see the guy’s face to know who he was. Just the fact that Zarina was looking at him so intently told her everything she needed to know. It was Tanner Howland, the DCO’s resident hybrid. The former Army Ranger had been experimented on by Stutmeir’s doctors, and while he was a hybrid, he possessed at least some control over the rage that had consumed the others. At Zarina’s insistence, the DCO was trying to help him get his life back together.
She turned back to Zarina. “How’s Tanner?”
A blush colored the woman’s cheeks. “Amazing.”
Oh yeah, the good doctor was all detached professionalism there. Nobody at the DCO understood how Zarina could talk Tanner down from one of his rages with a gentle touch and a few softly spoken words. They all thought she was some kind of hybrid whisperer, but it was obvious Zarina and Tanner had a serious thing for each other. And Kendra for one was damn happy to have her around. Tanner was a sweet guy when he was in control of his hybrid half. When he wasn’t, then look the hell out.
“No problems with anger management?” she asked.
Zarina pushed the hair that had escaped from her bun back behind her ear. “Not since that live-fire training exercise he and Clayne took part in during the summer. I think all those counseling sessions with Dr. Anders are helping. The other day I actually found him meditating.”
The DCO’s psychiatrist, Marlon Anders, had been talking to Tanner three times a week, but Kendra doubted that was the reason the hybrid was calmer these days. No, this was a case of beauty soothing the savage beast. Even Dick had figured that out. Which made Zarina that much more valuable to him. Because if there was one thing that excited Dick more than the prospect of the DCO having hybrids of their own one day, it was having one of their own right now.
“Have you figured out why Tanner acts differently than other hybrids yet?” Kendra asked.
Zarina hesitated. “Maybe. But I don’t want to say anything until I’m sure.”
Kendra was tempted to push, but didn’t. Zarina would tell her once she knew more. They talked for a little while longer about what Zarina was doing to slow down the DCO’s work on the hybrid front before Kendra left to go to the cafeteria.
“Be careful,” Zarina said. “I’ve heard they have bugs as big as your head down in Central America.”
Kendra shuddered. “Thank you. Now I won’t be sleeping for the next two weeks.”
She picked up the pace as she neared the cafeteria. She didn’t want to be late for her first mission.
She sagged with relief when she spotted Declan MacBride on the far side of the crowded room. At six foot eight, he was hard to miss. It didn’t look like he and his team were leaving yet, so she grabbed a cheeseburger and a plate of fries, then hurried over to their table.
