Savage Hunger: Savage, Book 1 (36 page)

Sienna reached to open it, ready to flee, but it didn’t budge. Damn, he’d put on the child lock!

Rafferty climbed in and turned the wheel, swerving around Quinton’s body as if he were nothing more than roadkill.

“Why are you doing this?” she asked hoarsely.

“I couldn’t take the risk of your remembering.”

“Remembering what? Please, let me help Quinton.”

“You can’t help him, Sienna. He’s
dead
.” Rafferty gave a harsh laugh.

Her stomach heaved and she closed her eyes. “Which is how you’d prefer I be too?”

“Don’t worry, it’s not your night to die, Sienna. A memory wipe is much cleaner. Besides, you were going to have me do it earlier tonight.”

“I’ve changed my mind!”

“You’re so damn against having your memory wiped, Sienna.” He shook his head and tsked, turning the car off the back road and onto a main street. “And you don’t have a fucking clue that I’ve already done it to you once.”

Her heart nearly stopped. Done what to her once? “What did you say?”

“You heard me. It’s wonderful to know our technology works so well. Yes, you dumb bitch.” He lifted his gaze to the rearview to look at her. “
Last week
you stumbled upon the feral shifters and Leonard and me working in the lab. Fortunately I was able to wipe all that from your mind.”

No. He had to be lying. Her hands began to tremble and bile rose in her throat. Was it possible? Had she already been wiped once?

“
Unfortunately
,” he continued, “Leonard Perkins had a change of heart and decided he didn’t like being the bad guy anymore. That the money wasn’t worth it. After he gave you that jump drive and got you involved, again, I knew he had to die.”

Oh God. She didn’t want to believe him, but it was becoming harder not to. It all made too much sense. Why Leo had come to her with the jump drive. It sounded like he’d been involved initially with the ferals’ imprisonment, then had changed his mind. Hoping she’d be able to get her father’s help.

Shit.

“I kept hoping you’d die naturally,” Rafferty said, almost conversationally. “I sent that feral wolf after you, and then fucking Warrick just had to go and kill it.”

“I didn’t remember. Why are you telling me this now? Just to wipe me again?”

“Because I can’t take the chance that someday it’ll all come back to you.”

“And how is that different if you wipe me now?” she argued. “Isn’t there chance I could still remember all this someday?”

He was quiet for too long, and Sienna realized maybe she shouldn’t have been so quick to point that out.

Oh God.
He’d already killed once tonight, how hard would it be to do it again?

When he pulled off the highway, she knew she was in trouble. More trouble than she had been in a minute ago.

“Actually, a memory wipe wouldn’t be so bad,” she muttered, trying the handle again, hoping she’d been wrong about the child lock and that the door might open this time.

No such luck.

“You’re right, Sienna. A memory wipe probably won’t be enough.” Rafferty sighed and shook his head. “I guess it
is
your night to die.”

Chapter Twenty-Two

She was awake. Angry. And frustrated.

Warrick stilled from where he knelt beside Grace, the feral female agent. His palm rested against her forehead as he checked her temperature. But the emotions he was channeling weren’t from the shifter he touched. They were from Sienna.

Ever since he’d marked her, he’d started to sense her emotions and had been gaining the ability to read her—no matter the distance. The ability had only increased since the poisoned dart had shot her yesterday.

She was at home still, with Quinton, and she must’ve woken. He could feel her anger. Her pain.

Damn, he should go back and be with her. He hadn’t expected her to wake from the tranquilizer this early. But then, they probably hadn’t given her enough. They seemed to keep underestimating how much of the shifter gene was in her system.

“It’s done.”

Warrick glanced up in surprise as Kevin entered the room. He pushed aside his mental connection with Sienna, knowing her anger at Quinton was something best dealt with alone.

“You found the antidote? Already?”

For the past hour Kevin had been working on finding a way to help the shifters. Warrick hadn’t for a moment let himself hope for a cure in less than a few days. But then he should’ve, because Kevin wasn’t your average scientist.

“I’ll admit it was more difficult than I originally thought,” the older man admitted, and glanced at the glass vile full of a clear liquid in his hand. “Took far longer than I expected, and I can see why Sienna struggled. The ferals will be given the antidote in the next half hour by one of my assistants. After that, it shouldn’t be long.”

“You’re a brilliant man.” Relief slid through Warrick and he stood from the shifter to move toward Kevin. “How are you holding up?”

Kevin gave a slight smile, but there was exhaustion in his eyes. And a heavy sadness that reflected in his every step.

“As well as can be expected, I suppose.” He shook his head, looking a little lost. “All these years, I suspected something wasn’t right.”

“How so?”

“Our marriage was not a happy one. I always assumed I was the problem. Never being home—working too many hours at the lab. Keeping too many secrets from her about the shifters and my life with them. And we never had that chemistry so many people seem to believe in. I never believed in it. Never felt it was needed. We’d always been compatible and good friends. This is as much my fault…”

“You couldn’t have known,” Warrick said quietly, his gut clenching with sympathy.

“I should’ve. We’ve memory wiped enough people, maybe I should’ve picked up on the signs.”

“There
are
no signs.”

“Aren’t there?” Kevin challenged. He let out a resigned sigh. “It doesn’t matter right now. What matters is that I have a chance to speak with Sienna. She needs me.”

“Yes, she does.” Warrick hesitated to tell him she was at Kevin’s house with Quinton watching over her.

Terror slammed into him. Stark. Sudden. All coming from Sienna again.

“
What the fuck
?”

“What’s wrong?” Kevin asked.

“It’s Sienna,” he muttered, moving toward the exit to the building. “Where is she? Something’s happening.”

“She’ll be here soon.”

Warrick froze, turning back around to face Kevin. “What do you mean? She’s coming here?”

“Yes. Didn’t you request that she be brought down here?”

No.
Ice slid through his blood.

“Who went to pick her up?” he rasped.

Fear and realization swept across Kevin’s face. “Oh dear God. Agent Rafferty has her.”

Fuck.

“I need to find her.” Terror slid through him, but this time it wasn’t hers, but his own.

He closed his eyes and pressed a hand to his temple, struggling to make that connection with Sienna again. He called out to her in his mind, not for one second imagining she could hear him.

Warrick.

With crystal-clear clarity, he heard her scream his name. Saw what she saw. Rafferty. Dragging her from Kevin Peters’s car.

“Do you have a connection with her?” Kevin asked anxiously at his side.

The distraction almost snapped the delicate link Warrick had somehow established. He forced a nod out, but didn’t open his eyes, fearing the connection would sever.

“Hold on to it, Warrick. We’ll find her.” Kevin grabbed his elbow, ushering him toward the door. “All shifters have this ability with their mates, but many don’t take time to develop and hone the skill.”

“I’ve got her.” And he did. Seeing everything she saw, feeling the terror that she felt.

Helpless. He was so damn hel—
Quinton
!

“Quinton just showed up,” Warrick muttered, some of the tension easing from his muscles as he and Kevin climbed inside the van outside of headquarters. “He may be able to stop this jackass in his tracks.”

“Let’s hope so.” The worry in Kevin’s tone hadn’t eased. He started the van and pulled away from the curb. “Do you have a sense of where they are?”

“Not far from your house. A few blocks.”

“All right.” The van surged forward.

Thank God. Quinton had stalled Rafferty, and Sienna was fleeing back to the car. But, shit—
no
.

Warrick’s stomach clenched as if a fist had surged into it. He gripped the door handle and squinted his eyes closed, momentarily letting the connection slip.

“Quinton’s down. Stab wound to the chest. Rafferty’s got Sienna.”

“Oh no. Please, no.” Kevin’s voice dropped. “Don’t lose the connection. I’ll place a call for someone to retrieve Quinton. Do you think he’s…?”

“I would be surprised if he survived.” Warrick opened his eyes again, staring blindly out the window, and sought to reconnect with Sienna.

It was like trying to get an old television with a bent antenna to focus. The link with her would flash in and then fizzle out. He focused harder. Silently calling her name and trying to lock on to her thoughts.

Bam! And there it was.

“Something’s changed.” His gut kicked. “Rafferty was going to try and wipe her, but now he just wants her dead.”

Kevin let out a string of curse words that he’d probably never before used in his life.

“Where are they now, Warrick?”

“Trees. I see—they’re heading toward the Fells.”

“All right. Perfect. We’ll get to her in time. We have to.”

Warrick tried to keep his breathing steady, trying not to think what the consequences would be if they didn’t.

The Fells.
Sienna knew this place like the back of her hand. Had hiked here with her dad and brother lots of times growing up.

Maybe, just maybe, if she got out of the car first she could have an advantage.

“I didn’t want to have to kill you, Sienna,” Rafferty muttered. She could hear the scowl in his voice. “It’s so much messier this way and going to make it hard as hell to cover my ass.”

“They’ll know it’s you. It’s not too late to—”

“It
is
too late, dammit! I should’ve killed you the first time, Sienna.”

Fear clogged the air in her throat and she bit her lip to stifle a whimper. Dammit. She couldn’t die like this. Not now. She’d fight. She’d fight with every last bit of strength she had.

Hang in there, Sienna.

She bit back a hysterical giggle. Great, now she was deluding herself into thinking she heard Warrick. Still, delusion offered a little bit of comfort. Strength.

“Besides, I’ll pin it on Quinton. I came across him attacking you in the woods. I tried to save you, but sadly wasn’t able to.” He gave a quiet laugh. “And when I followed Quinton back to the city, we struggled and I came up with the knife first. Presto. Quinton ended up dead. Two for one. I really should’ve thought of this earlier.”

“That makes absolutely no sense and has more holes than Swiss cheese, you sick bastard,” she screamed. “They will
know
it’s you!”

“Well, I’ll take my chances anyway.”

“Of course you will. Why did you do it? Lock up your own kind? Experiment on them in ways that was basically torture.”

“For money, Sienna. It’s always about money. Someone approached me with a wonderful offer, an amount of money that could hardly compare with the P.I.A.’s salary and pittance of a pension. In the end I didn’t really want to work with them. I kept the money, and will allow them to keep the blame. I made sure the trail of the shifters’ imprisonment would lead back to them.”

Sick. So absolutely sick and wrong. But then why should she have expected anything else from him at this rate?

“And who paid you? Who’s the other person you’re betraying.” Answer. Dammit, if she was going to die, she was going to know who was pulling the strings on this damn experiment.

“Jocelyn Feloray.”

Sienna’s stomach sank and her mouth dried out. The owner of Feloray Laboratories? This really went all the way to the top? She’d assumed maybe some rogue employees, if it was even anyone at the company. But not the woman who was responsible for the lab’s creation. They’d always been credited for saving lives, not taking them.

“What does she have against shifters?” she whispered.

“I didn’t really ask. It’s better that way.”

“You’re just plain evil. Turning against your own kind.”

“Your kind too, Sienna. Or have you forgotten already?” He slowed the car to a stop on a dark, deserted road at the edge of the forest, and then turned to face her. “But then you’ll never really be like us. You’re just a half-breed. Can’t even shift. The runt of the fucking litter who is never quite good enough. Trust me, you’re better off dead than living the existence you’d be forced to have.”

The pain that had been in her stomach earlier today returned with a vengeance, and the headache grew more vicious than ever.