Marcus surged to his feet so fast that the chair he’d been sitting in flew across the room and smashed into the wall. “You’re lying!”
Kendra jumped. She wondered for a split second if hybrids had the ability to smell when someone was lying. But she immediately dismissed that notion. Hybrids seemed to share only the most basic traits with their shifter cousins.
“You’re right. I’m lying.” She wasn’t sure why she got to her feet. Marcus was way too big for her to ever be able to look him in the eye. But that didn’t stop her from putting her hands on the table and shouting at him anyway. “Because it makes complete sense for me to run around the jungle by myself instead of staying with the man who was keeping me alive out there!”
“If he’s dead, then where’s the body?” Marcus demanded.
“I don’t know. He fell in the river and got carried away. Go look for him somewhere downstream.”
Saying the words hurt her as much as they had the first time, but she was desperate to sell the fact that Declan was beyond their reach. She only hoped Declan was awake and gone by now. She needed to give him every extra minute she could.
The hybrid’s eyes flared so brightly they seemed to light up the room more than the sun that was starting to peek in the windows. His claws dug into the conference table, and she thought he was going to tear right through it to get to her. She backed away, not caring if he could smell her fear.
“I guess I have no further use for you then,” he said, the words a low, rumbling whisper.
Oh crap.She’d pushed too hard and blown the only chance she had to get away. This hulking killer was going to end this right here and now.
“Ruiz! Madsen!” he shouted.
The door jerked open behind her, and the two hybrids who had escorted her there strode into the room.
“Take her to the lab and give her the serum.” Marcus’s hellish gaze seared into her. “It’ll be interesting to see what a woman looks like after going through the transformation process.”
Kendra’s blood turned to ice. She tried to run, but the two hybrids grabbed her arms and picked her up like she was a rag doll. She kicked and dragged her feet, but they ignored her struggles as they carried her across the camp.
Crap. She’d imagined Marcus doing some pretty horrific stuff to her, but she never thought he’d turn her into a hybrid. This was worse than anything she’d imagined.
Chapter 13
“What the hell is the problem now?” Tate demanded.
Angelo ground his teeth as the DCO operative squared off against Ivy and Clayne. He knew Tate was scared shitless about Declan and Kendra, but so was everyone else. On top of that, they were all exhausted, thanks to pushing hard through the night. If anyone should be given a break, it was Ivy and Clayne. For whatever reason, Declan and Kendra’s trail had gotten harder and harder to follow throughout the night. Ivy and Clayne had practically been crawling through the jungle on their hands and knees for the past four hours. They looked like a couple of zombies.
“We’ve lost Declan’s trail again,” Clayne said.
“How the hell is that possible?” Tate frowned. “We’ve been following it the whole night.”
Clayne barely muffled a growl. “We’ve been following Kendra’s, not his. If you’d been paying attention, you would have remembered me saying Declan’s scent got all muddy and disappeared way back at that shelter we searched.”
Angelo could understand why Tate might have missed that detail. The scene they’d found at the shelter had been confusing and scary as hell. First, there was the shredded uniform top covered in Declan’s blood. Kendra’s uniform top had been right beside it, covered in hybrid blood. And then, if those two things hadn’t been bad enough, there was that patch of torn-up trees no one could explain. It looked as if a small bomb had exploded. By the time Ivy had announced they couldn’t find Declan’s trail anymore, hardly anyone had been paying attention.
It hadn’t helped that neither Clayne nor Ivy had been able to explain what they meant when they said that Declan’s scent had gottenmuddy.
“Declan’s scent just disappears right here in the middle of this mess,” Ivy’d told them.
“So, now you’ve lost Kendra’s scent, too?” Tate asked. “What happened, did her trail get all muddy, too?”
Clayne’s eyes glowed gold in the early morning light.
Angelo stifled a groan.Shit. If Tate didn’t shut the hell up soon, Clayne was going to clock him.
“No, it didn’t get muddy,” Clayne growled. “She was picked up by a hybrid and carried out of here.”
“Then why the hell don’t you just follow the fucking hybrid?” Tate shouted.
“Which one?” Ivy’s eyes glinted green. She looked like she was angry enough to take a swing at Tate herself. “There’ve been at least half a dozen hybrids stomping through here in the last few hours, all moving in different directions. Which one do you suggest we follow?”
Tate’s eye’s narrowed. “How about the one that captured Kendra? Because I’m pretty sure that wherever she is, Declan won’t be far away.”
