Trey planted his free paw in the doctor’s chest and shoved him away, propelling him halfway across the basement and bouncing the man off the glass case holding his struggling son. Jamison reached out and grabbed at his father, electricity continuing to sparkle across his goo-covered skin. Louis successfully shook off his son’s grip, making the glass tank rock. The liquid inside sloshed dangerously as Jamison grabbed onto his father’s lab coat.
Louis’s knees gave way and he collapsed to the floor, dragging his son out of the tank, red liquid splashing everywhere. Jamison’s cries of pain as he hit the floor made Trey’s stomach twist into knots. But for reasons Trey didn’t even attempt to understand, Jamison quickly jumped up and began to fight against his father, punching him.
Kyson suddenly came flying over the table, almost crushing Rogi in the process. Kyson bounced and slid across the floor, but immediately jumped to his feet, throwing himself right back into the fight with the vita. The battle was pure violence and rage, hisses and shouts filling the air and reverberating off the stone walls of the basement. Kyson and Nadia were both covered in blood, but they both healed as fast as the other tore them apart. Several times, he saw Nadia try to get her hands on his friend, probably to try to suck the life from his body. But every time she got that close, Kyson smashed the creature aside with one of his fists.
Trey was so worried about Kyson that he missed Rogi charging at him again. Trey didn’t even have a chance to move before the jackass slammed the scalpel into Trey’s chest, wedging the thin blade between two of his ribs before it snapped off. The pain was beyond description, but at least it gave him something to focus on besides the insanity all around him.
He used that focus to complete the shift, sliding out from under the leather straps before tumbling off the table and onto the concrete floor. The fall ripped out the catheters and remaining electrodes, ending those sources of pain at least. He was on his four paws immediately, off balance and unsteady, weak from blood loss, the electric shocks, and lack of practice. He looked around to figure out if he should help Kyson, try to free Samantha and Shaylee, or take down Rogi.
Kyson seemed to be holding his own, and even as much as Trey’s instincts screamed at him to go to his soul mate, he knew he’d never get through the lock of the cage in his present form. It was the sight of Rogi scrambling for the remote, obviously realizing it was the only thing that would keep him safe from Trey’s fangs and claws, that ultimately made the decision for him.
He launched himself at the man, reaching Rogi just as he found the remote under a bench full of surgery equipment. Trey dragged him out by his left leg, chomping down on his hand with the remote before he could push the button. Rogi dropped it with another whimper, the plastic device shattering into half a dozen pieces on impact with the floor.
Rogi jerked away, ignoring his damaged arm, and grabbed up the first weapon he could reach—a long surgical drill bit at least six inches. He plunged it into Trey’s shoulder. Rogi didn’t pause to see the results of his handiwork but, instead, turned and ran for the door at the end of the basement and the stairs beyond, shoving his way between Louis and Jamison in his effort to get way.
Louis stumbled backward, aided by a shove from his son, who barely seemed to be acting human at this point. The wounds that had been covering the kid’s body were only partially healed, but it was difficult to make out the fresh blood from all the red goo drying on his skin. But it was Jamison’s eyes—spread wide and filled with hatred and pain—that caught Trey’s attention. Hatred and pain that were aimed straight at his father.
Louis sailed through the air, falling into the rack of electrical gear along the back wall. His eyes widened as sparks erupted all around him. A split second later, he exploded in flames. Louis screamed, scrambling away to escape the pain, but he fell to his knees in front of the tank that had recently held his dead son. The fire spread quickly upon coming into contact with the red goo and the tank exploded, sending glass everywhere. Flames leaped up Jamison’s legs, sending him rolling across the concrete to the far wall, wailing in even greater pain than he had before.
Trey’s fur began to curl from the intense heat, and it struck him then how insane it was for Louis to have preserved his son in a vat of flammable liquid for almost three years.
Smoke filled the basement, flames racing up the heavy wooden columns and across the ceiling. Kyson roared in, his friend’s eyes filled with panic. Since getting burned in Afghanistan, Kyson had been deathly afraid of fire. Now that fear had left him paralyzed, cringing back against the wall even as the vita charged at him again.
Once more ignoring the instincts screaming at him to go to Samantha, Trey leaped, putting himself between his friend and the pale creature. Nadia hissed and came at him. They met in a fury of snarls and growls, fangs and claws.
The vita threw herself on Trey’s back, trying to latch her hands around his thick neck. He felt the slight tremor as she tried to pull the life out of him like she’d done back in his apartment, but his thick fur kept the creature from getting close enough to his skin to do it right. He slung her off his back, lunging forward to close his jaws around her forearm, crushing down until he heard the crunch of bones. The flavor of her blood was bitter and nasty, making him want to gag. She slashed his face open, freeing herself, then taking a quick step back.
They circled each other, the vicious wound on her arm healing within seconds. Fire was eating into the ceiling beam and planks like a living thing, smoke quickly filling the basement. As he and the vita danced around each other, he heard Samantha and Shaylee coughing and calling out for Kyson to help them. A quick glance in his friend’s direction showed that was a useless hope. Kyson was hunkered down against the nearest wall, eyes wide with terror and locked on the flames around him.
Trey knew he didn’t have much time. If it were just him, he could have handled the smoke and flames for a while. Kyson probably could have, too. But Samantha and Shaylee? No way.
He was about to launch himself at the vita again when the creature let out a shriek that practically shook the walls of the basement. A second later, Nadia spread her arms wide and the space around her was filled with an enormous pair of frigging wings. Pale gray and leathery, they were wide enough to nearly touch each wall and had sharp, curved claws at the very tips and another set midway along the upper side.
Vitas had wings. Like a frigging bat! Why hadn’t that “expert” at STAT known that? Of all the things to leave out, it had to be the wings?
The creature charged him, wings buffeting the air like a hurricane, roiling the smoke, flames, and loose pieces of lab equipment into a swirling storm of chaos. Heat scorched some of his fur away, blistering his skin. Then she was on him, wings and claws working together to savage him, slicing into him and ripping hunks of fur and flesh right off his bones.
He howled but ignored the pain, fire, and smoke—even the fear that his soul mate would die any second if he didn’t get her out of here—and attacked. He lunged forward and latched his jaws on the vita’s throat, twisting and jerking as savagely as he could. The inky fluid pouring out of the wound nearly drowned him, but he didn’t let go, continuing to yank and tear at the screeching creature. They rolled around on the floor, Nadia trying to yank him off her and Trey doing his best to rip out her throat.
She got her hands on his blistered skin, where the fur had been burned off and the agony of his life being ripped out of him felt worse than the electricity the doctor had dumped into him earlier. He felt himself weakening even as the vita began to get stronger. Trey swore he could feel the creature’s throat healing under his fangs even as he continued to twist his head back and forth, digging them in deeper and deeper.
Trey’s vision began to blur, and he knew he was close to passing out.
Suddenly, there was a loud roar above him, followed by a bloodcurdling scream. The vita fought to get away, apparently unconcerned about the fangs Trey had buried into her neck. He chomped down as hard as he could, figuring he’d do as much damage as possible in his last few seconds. The vita only struggled harder then, until one last savage yank pulled her away from Trey’s hold, leaving most of her throat behind.
The life-sucking sensation disappeared immediately, and Trey shoved himself upright, woozy but ready to attack again. Then he saw the vita lying dead on the concrete floor, head almost completely separated from its body, and Kyson holding a bloody pair of floppy leathery wings in his trembling hands. Kyson didn’t seem bothered by the smoke that was scorching Trey’s lungs. Instead, he stood there staring at Trey in his wolf form.
Trey had no idea how long he and Kyson stood there, but it felt like forever as his friend gazed down at him with one emotion after the next crossing his features. Confusion, fear, suspicious—they were all there. But the one that worried Trey the most was the anger. It was bubbling right there below the surface, waiting for the slightest provocation to come roaring out.
Trey would have said something to calm his friend, but that clearly wasn’t an option at the moment. And he sure as hell couldn’t attempt a shift back into his human shape, not until he knew whether Kyson was done ripping things apart.
It was the sound of screaming and coughing that shattered the stalemate, and Trey looked over to see Samantha and Shaylee kneeling close to the floor, trying to find breathable air as they attempted to get either of their attention.
Trey ran to the door of the cage, avoiding the pieces of burning wood falling from the ceiling, reaching for the hasp only to discover yet again that he didn’t have frigging hands. He considered tearing at the hasp with his jaws or physically smashing his way through the metal grating with his claws and the weight of his body. But at the last second, he turned and looked at Kyson, with eyes that he prayed communicated what he needed his friend to do.
Kyson hadn’t moved at all since Trey had turned away, his attention locked now on the fire raging all around them, his whole body shaking in fear. Seeing the terror in those eyes and knowing where it came from tore Trey’s heart out. And there wasn’t a damn thing he could do to help the man.
Then a soft voice intruded into the madness.
