“Have a seat.”
Kendra jumped at the deep, guttural voice coming from the other side of the room. She didn’t need to see him to know it belonged to the camp’s former head of security, Marcus Roman. She didn’t think she’d ever forget the sound of it as long as she lived. She couldn’t believe she hadn’t seen someone his size in a room this small.
But then a chair on the other side of the table slowly spun around and the hulking hybrid materialized out of the darkness. Even sitting there awkwardly holding a glass of whiskey in his clawed hand, he was an imposing figure, and she had to force herself not to take a step back. She’d almost forgotten how scary looking he was.
He gestured to her side of the table. “You can take any seat—except for the occupied one of course.”
She walked as far away from the dead body as she could and sat down across from Marcus.
He studied her with his glowing red eyes. She expected him to say something about the man she had killed, but it was like he didn’t even know the body was there. “I never knew what they meant when they said an animal can smell fear. But I could smell yours the minute the men brought you into camp.”
She wasn’t sure what she was supposed to say to that, so she didn’t say anything.
His eyes flashed a darker shade of red as he chuckled. She guessed it was a chuckle—with all those teeth, it was difficult to tell.
“You proved so hard to catch, I thought you’d be bigger.”
He said the words so casually, she almost laughed. She’d expected him to say something more along the lines of, “Talk or I’ll rip off your fingers.”
But just because he hadn’t threatened her yet, that didn’t mean she wasn’t in danger. This monster wanted something from her, or he would have ordered one of the lower-ranking hybrids to kill her already. Sooner or later, this conversation would get around to Declan or some other topic she didn’t want to talk about. No doubt, his nonthreatening tone would change then.
She had to engage him a little, though, unless she wanted him ripping off her fingers in the next few minutes.
“Hiding is actually easier to do when you’re smaller,” she said.
His mouth twisted in what he probably thought was a smile, but it only made him look more menacing than he already did. “I suppose it is. But that doesn’t explain how the big man you were with is so good at it.”
She’d walked right into that one. “What big man?”
The smile disappeared, replaced by a menacing scowl. He set the glass down on the table with a thud. “Don’t play dumb. I can smell him all over you. The big man like us, the one who’s part animal.”
It wasn’t hard to figure out what he meant when he said he could smell Declan on her, and she felt heat suffuse her face. But it was the rest of what he’d said that really threw her for a loop. Marcus didn’t realize there was a difference between hybrids and shifters?
“Where is he?” When she didn’t answer, Marcus growled and slammed his hand down hard on the table. “Tell me where he is. Now!”
As if stunned by his own outburst, the hybrid ran his hand over his flattop and took a deep breath.
“I apologize,” he said, all trace of anger gone from his voice. “I just want to talk to him.”
She let out a snort. “Right. You and your men have been trying to kill us for a week, and you expect me to believe that you just want to talk? I don’t think you and he would have a hell of a lot to talk about.”
Kendra knew she should tread lightly, but this guy was too much. He’d kill Declan in a second if he had the chance, just like he was going to murder her.
Fresh flames kindled in the hybrid’s eyes, and she braced herself, expecting him to launch himself across the table at her. Instead, he wrapped his clawed fingers around the glass in front of him, carefully lifted it to his mouth, and took a slow slip. He worked the rim of the glass around his fangs better than she’d thought he would, and by the time he was finished savoring the drink, his eyes had lightened again. This guy’s mercurial mood swings made Tanner’s seem mild in comparison.
He placed the glass down on the table. “You’d be surprised how much we’d have to talk about. Like how he does it.”
Kendra frowned. “How he does what?”
Marcus’s eyes narrowed, trying to figure out if she was being snide or simply stupid. “How he turns it on and off.”
She had no idea what Mahsood or anyone else had said to entice Marcus so he would voluntarily let them inject him with an experimental drug. Probably that he’d come out the other side like some kind of Superman. But now he was stuck in this monster form with no way out. A small part of her almost felt sorry for him. But all she had to think about was the casual ease with which he’d ripped out one of his own men’s throats simply because the guys had talked too much. The hybrid process might have given Marcus claws and fangs, but he’d made himself into a monster all on his own.
“It doesn’t work that way,” Kendra explained. “You’re not like him. He wouldn’t be able to teach you anything.”
His lip curled back in a snarl. “Forgive me for doubting you, but I’d rather hear that from him. I’m going to ask you one more time. Where is he?”
“If you were so interested in talking to him, maybe you shouldn’t have sent all those things of yours after us,” she shot back, the words out before she had time to think. “Six of them attacked us below the rapids in that river near where your men found me. They killed him.”
