Kalen (15 page)

“What about their sister? You know they’ll want her brought over as well.” Kalen asked. Not to mention that Bastien’s best friend, Dimitri, would want it also, since their sister was his mate.

“We’ll hold out enough for her as well. However, she will be given the choice.” The expression on his face told everyone present he meant exactly what he said. “I don’t want any coercion, even from her mate.”

An hour later, Kalen watched the MacDonald brothers climb out of their vehicle. It didn’t surprise him that they drove to the house in a vehicle more suited for military use. They
were
retired Rangers, after all.

He witnessed a small scuffle as they made their way to the front porch. He often wondered how much closer he and Galen would have been had they been the twins his mother had wanted. Now, he knew.

“Get off me, you asshole,” one of them said to the other.

Kalen wasn’t sure who was who since they were identical twins. Not only were they twins, they were as large as most weres and taller than others. Around six-foot six inches tall and around two-hundred and ninety pounds, he bet the two were a force to be reckoned with.

He watched, eyes wide as one pulled a Beretta from behind him and drew down on his brother. “I’ll shoot you, dammit!”

His brother just laughed and held up his arms as if in surrender. “You’re so damned touchy, Randy. Maybe you need to go to anger management.”

“Fuck you, asshole.” Randy shoved his gun back into his pants, climbed the porch steps and knocked briskly. “Hey, Bastien, we’re here. Open the damned door.”

“Impatient much?” Bastien asked as he opened the door and let the men in.

“Please tell me our prick of a brother-in-law isn’t here.”

“Not yet.”

Randy groaned. “Why’d you have to call him in? All I’ll hear after he gets here is Junior this, Junior that.” He turned toward Kalen and snarled, “I’ll kick your ass if I hear you call me that even once. Twice will get you killed. Understood?”

Kalen wanted to laugh, but thought better of it. He wasn’t a pussy by anyone’s standards, but he liked to pick his fights, and at the moment, the only fight he was interested in was one with the security at a certain hidden and illegal government lab.

“Whatever you say, man.” He held his hands up, palms out. “I don’t have a beef with you.”

“Don’t ever call me Junior and you’ll never have one with me.” Randy turned his attention back to Bastien. “What’s this good news you’ve got?” He looked around the room as though looking for someone specific. “Have you found that sick sonofabitch?”

“No.” Bastien shook his head then waved toward Kalen. “But Kalen has found something almost as good.” Reaching over to the table next to him, Bastien picked up the silver case and opened it. “We have this and we have syringes along with information that half of a syringe will be enough to change a human into a were.”

“Awesome,” the twins said together.

“Tell me you’re going to let us be your guinea pigs.”

“One of you—yes.” Bastien closed the case. “You choose.”

The twin shook their heads. “Uh, uh. It’s both, or nothing.” Again, they replied together.

They looked at each other for a minute as though they could communicate without words. Randy then stepped forward. “And don’t even think about trying that shit on our sister before you try it on us, or you’ll see exactly how good your guys will be at killing us.”

Kalen wondered if he
ever
had balls as big as these guys had. He shook his head, wondering who would give in.

“Okay,” Bastien said, rubbing the back of his neck. “But I can’t guarantee it will change you. Hell, I can’t even guarantee it won’t
kill
you.”

They both shrugged. “Hell, Alpha, if you counted some of the missions we’ve been on, we should be dead already.”

“Cameron’s right,” Randy agreed as they both began to roll up their sleeves. “If something goes wrong, just tell our sister we did it for her. We know how much she wants to be a true mate to that asshole Dimitri.”

Bastien reached down, pulled two syringes out from behind the case and handed them to the twins. “Here you go. You two can inject yourselves. Just remember one thing. When you feel yourself start to change, it’s going to hurt like hell. Don’t fight it. Reach for the change and it shouldn’t be as bad as…” He left off there and glanced at his mate.

Carly stepped forward and smiled. “When they first injected me, I fought it and it was the worst thing I could have done. It hurt so bad, I begged them to kill me.” She rested a hand on each of their forearms. “Please don’t fight it. I’m not sure I could watch someone else go through what I did.”

The two men looked at each other, then used the alcohol swabs Bastien handed them with the two needles. They each took a deep breath, looking like mirror images of each other, since they even dressed the same. “Here goes, bro,” they said together, then grinned. Reaching out at the same time, they both injected the other’s left arm.

With a shrug, they smiled then turned when someone opened the door. Standing just outside the door was Dimitri, and if Kalen had to guess, the woman with him was Charity.

Dimitri, a tall, dark-haired Russian with green eyes, looked down at the woman and smiled. “After you, my love.” He shifted his gaze to Bastien. “Tell me why we’ve left our son with his grandparents to rush over here, old friend.”

Kalen could tell the man had already seen the syringes in the twins’ hands.

He put himself between his mate and her brothers and raised a dark brow. “Is there any reason you two idiots are holding syringes? If you plan to inject us with something, be prepared for a fight. I will not go down easily.” He backed toward his mate. “Back your way through the door, love.”

“No one plans to inject you with anything, asshole,” Randy said, practically snarling the words. He held up the syringe. “It’s empty. See?”

Cameron followed suit, showing that his syringe was also empty. “We just injected ourselves.”

“With what?”

Their sister stepped forward, her blue eyes filled with fear. She was blonde like her brothers, but that was where the resemblance stopped. A great deal shorter than her siblings, she stood staring at them, biting her lip, her eyes filled with fear. “What have you done?”

“We’ve injected ourselves with what we hope is the serum that will make us like your husband,” Cameron said as he started to pant. “I’m afraid it’s already taking affect.”

“Yeah,” Randy agreed, “and if it works, that means I’ll be on even ground with your asshole husband and I can beat the shit out of him the next time he calls me Junior.” He bared his teeth in what he probably thought looked like a grin, but with his pain, it looked more like a grimace. “Though, I’d rather shoot his dumb ass.”

“You shouldn’t have used yourself as a test subject, my brother.”

Stepping forward, Dimitri caught Cameron as he keeled over unconscious.

“Bite me, dog boy.” Those were the last words Randy said before he fell over in a dead faint.

Dimitri looked down at him and grinned. “Next time it will be me calling
him
dog boy.”

Chapter Seventeen

The two men were out longer than anyone expected. Maybe the serum worked differently on everyone. Ally bit her thumb as she watched the two men finally beginning to stir. At least they were still alive. That was something.

Their sister, Charity, had sat with them the entire time. Tears ran down her face as she rocked back and forth. “How could they do this to me, the big jerks?” She slapped them both on the arm, then took each of their hands in one of hers.

Ally shook her head. The woman had alternated between crying over and smacking her brothers for the last two and a half hours. When they woke up, they would no doubt want to know where all of their bruises came from.

Randy came to, first. At least she was pretty sure it was Randy. “Hi there, little sis.” He smiled up at her.

“Don’t you
little sis
me, you creep!” She smacked him on the arm again.

“Ow!” Reaching over with his free hand, he rubbed his bicep. “How many times have you hit me there? That hurt like hell.”

“Not enough, you big dummy!” She smacked him again. “How could you two do that? What do you think Mom would have said if you’d both just killed yourselves? How could you be so stupid?”

“We did it for you,” Cameron said as he sat up, rubbing his head. “My head hurts.” He looked at Randy. “Does your head hurt?”

Charity reached over and smacked Randy upside the head. “It does now.”

“Ow, dammit! Stop that!” Randy said, rubbing the back of his head.

Ally wanted to laugh, she really did. This family was a bunch of cut-ups. There was no doubt that they loved each other, though.

The woman turned to her other brother. “And don’t give me that we-did-it-for-you crap either.” She poked him in the chest. “
You
two did this for
you
. Don’t think I haven’t known how much you wanted to be weres, you jerks.” She glared at them. “I appreciate the fact that you wanted to go first, but you could have at least waited until I got here.” Tears streamed down her face. “What if the worst had happened?” She smacked them both again. “I hate you guys sometimes.” Standing, she ran from the room, her mate hot on her heels.

“Boy, I didn’t think she cared
that
much,” Randy said as he stood. He looked around. “How long do you think it’ll be before we change?”

Cameron stood, rubbing his stomach. “I think I’m going to change any minute.” He spun around. “Do I have a tail yet?”

“No, you idiot.” Randy gave him a dirty look. “Don’t you dare change before I do.”

“I might not have a choice. They said it hurts like hell if you try to hold it back.”

“Pain is just a weakness leaving your body. Deal with it.”

Ally left the room. She couldn’t watch the two retired Rangers go through the pain of conversion. She didn’t think she could take it. Besides, when she rubbed her stomach she could feel the change coming upon her again.

At least the shifts came farther apart now that she didn’t fight it, but it still sucked that she couldn’t choose when she wanted to change. Milly could choose already. It must have had something to do with her age.

Rushing back to their room, she slammed the door behind her and started to undress.

Kalen opened the door and stuck his head in. “You okay?”

She shook her head. “It’s coming again. Why can’t I choose when I change, like Milly can?” She envied the older woman’s ability. She’d even proven it in the middle of the kitchen after the men left to talk about the MacDonald brothers’ arrival.

“You will, baby.” He entered the room, closing the door behind him. “I thought maybe you ran off because you couldn’t stand the thought of watching them change.”

“That was part of it.”

“Don’t fight it, Ally.”

“I wasn’t planning to.” She smiled at him. “I just came up here because I’m not in the habit of undressing in front of strange men.”

Kalen grinned. “I remember.”

Heat and pain engulfed Ally as she thought of her wolf. She thought of growing hair all over her body, her face elongating into a muzzle and the sensation of her hands changing to paws with the nails growing long.

Before she knew it, she was a wolf looking up at Kalen. He grinned down at her as he began to strip.

What are you doing?

“I plan to join you as a wolf and show you why it’s wonderful to be a were.”

How do you plan to do that? If you’re going to show me how to run free in the woods, we’ve already done that.
She watched as he shifted his shape, then lowered his head to watch her with his keen wolf eyes.

What I plan to show you, I plan to do right here.
Kalen moved closer and Ally backed away.

I am
not
doing that as a wolf.

Kalen chuckled.
Wanna bet?

Two hours later, Ally watched as the men readied to leave. With the twins and their brother-in-law there were twelve men ready to invade the laboratory where they thought Dr. Thornton held the pureblood were. She wished there were more.

“Don’t worry, little sister.” Kalen’s brother Galen leaned down to press a kiss against her forehead. “I’ll take care of him.” He glanced over at his brother. “God only knows he can’t tie his shoes without me.”

“I heard that,” Kalen called over his shoulder. “Don’t make me treat you the same way Randy treats his brother.”

Galen chuckled. “See? He’ll do as I say. It’s in the way he tries to act tough.”

Smiling, Ally backed away as the men loaded their guns into their vehicles. Kalen jogged back to her and pressed a kiss against her lips. “You’ll be safe here, Ally. No one but the people here has ever been to this safe house, and half of them had to be carted in blindfolded to keep it secret.” He held her close and she took a deep breath. She loved the way he smelled of soap, citrus and man.

“Be safe,” she whispered against his neck.

“You, too.” He smiled down at her. “Remember, go into the house, lock all of the doors and windows, then make your way to the bolt hole and lock yourself in there as well. The house could burn down around you and you’d be safe.”

“Okay.”

He turned to leave and it was all she could do to keep herself from following him and begging him to stay. When had she grown so attached to him?

It was just yesterday that they’d met, wasn’t it? How could she go from being
Independent Ally
who answered to no one to this scared quivering crybaby who couldn’t seem to function without her man?

She took a deep breath and went back into the house. “Now, we wait, huh?” She looked around at the other women left with her. The only one of them allowed to go was Carly, and that was only because they needed her to help her mate take out the video cameras.

Chapter Eighteen

“I don’t believe they had this lab here all this time and we missed it,” Randy said as they looked out over the compound.

“Of course we missed it,” Bastien replied. “Who would have thought to look for a testing lab on a cow farm?”