Act of Brotherhood

Chapter One

Garth Ingersson stood in the center of a room showcasing historic swords, daggers, and various antique weaponry, staring around like a kid in a candy store. The room wasn’t his, and it wasn’t as awe-inspiring as the three Garth had within his primary home, but it was impressive nonetheless.

As an immortal shape-shifter, Garth had centuries upon centuries to add to his collection, carefully seeking out each addition, making sure it was exactly what he wanted and needed. Some saw his love of weapons as worrisome. He didn’t. He thought of himself more as a curator for each piece. From the looks of it, so did the asshole who owned the room he was standing in.

The owner of this home had been carted out in cuffs by one of Garth’s men only minutes before. The guy had a laundry list of offenses against him, the least of which was possessing and distributing illegal weapons.

That in itself was saying something.

The dirtbag was high up in one of the many supernatural organized crime families that currently controlled the paranormal underground, and he’d finally had his number come due.

It was about time.

Garth had seen far too many men such as the one in cuffs over the span of his long life. Hell, he was related to a chunk of them.

The people Garth worked for didn’t operate under the confines of human laws, but they still had to answer to higher-ups. Fancy guys in suits who probably never once put themselves in danger or knew what the real world was like. Men who wouldn’t know hard times or the heat of battle if they were bitten in the ass by it all. They called the shots. Garth didn’t know who exactly they were. The people in charge changed often. He did know that very few humans knew of the agency he worked for—Paranormal Security and Intelligence (PSI). It was a need-to-know thing, and not many needed to know jack crap.

The humans who did have knowledge of PSI were trusted. They knew there were supernaturals who hid in plain sight. Including ones with influential positions within governments and high- powered businesses around the world. Ones who kept the cogwheels turning and the missions flowing. Ones who didn’t have to face down armed guards like those Garth and his teammates had when storming the property.

While PSI made sure the operatives were outfitted in weapons and protective gear, so was the dirtbag, and a number of his weapons were far bigger.

The dirtbag they’d taken into custody—who had a name Garth couldn’t remember for the life of him—had plenty of supernaturals on his payroll, and all had seemed ready to take a bullet for the guy. They’d also been highly trained. Something that was becoming more and more common as of late.

In the end, one of the men from PSI had been wounded. The operative, who was a vampire, had taken a nasty shot through the leg. To a human, it would have required medical attention. To a vampire, it would sting for a while, give him issues walking fast or running, and pretty much just piss him off.

It wouldn’t kill him.

Besides, the guy was technically already dead to start with.

As a born shifter, Garth had been raised to hate creatures of the night. To see them as against the natural order of the supernatural world. His father had launched many a campaign to attack and eradicate blood drinkers from the earth. When Garth was young, he too believed all vampires were evil and that the walking dead should not exist. With age came wisdom and understanding.

Well, understanding for the ones who weren’t Auberi Bouchard, otherwise known as dickhead extraordinaire. That particular vampire operative wore on Garth’s last nerve. While Garth had grown out of the ideals his father had tried to instill, he’d found it nearly impossible to be accepting of Auberi, who also happened to be on the mission with them.

Pampered.

That was what Auberi was. The man had led a charmed life. One of excess. The world his oyster. From the way he carried himself to the way he assumed everyone should bend to his whim. That would never fucking happen. Garth would rather cut off his own arm than kowtow to the French bastard.

Garth’s upbringing had been harsh. There had been nothing in the way of coddling or pampering. The small village he’d been born in was home to a large number of wolf-shifters. His father had been pack alpha. There had been no warmth to the man. No love in his frozen heart. He saw everything in terms of black or white. No shades of gray existed. You were either a warrior or you were worthless.

If you could not fight, you could not live.

Garth couldn’t recall a time in his life when he hadn’t been a fighter. His childhood held only training, death, and war. There was never a point when he’d been carefree. He wasn’t even sure he’d have known what to do with himself had he been permitted to play with other children. Or given something he didn’t have to earn. The idea was so foreign to him that he couldn’t wrap his mind around it. There was no way he’d have survived had he been anything but ruthless.

A harsh climate, a heavy-handed father who demanded warrior sons, a mother who was a warrior in her own right, and a brother who forever seemed to want to win the favor and approval of their father—regardless of the cost— had been what shaped the man he was today.

Nothing more than a glorified warrior and weapons collector.

You could take the Viking out of history, but you couldn’t take the history out of the Viking.

Viking.

The term always made him laugh, as it wasn’t one his people referred to themselves by. It was a name given to them by outsiders. By people who didn’t understand his kind, his culture, his past. So much of what people today thought they knew of the Vikings was simply speculation on their part. He felt no need to confirm or deny.

Though he did find it funny that they were so sure chairs and tables weren’t commonplace when he was young. Of course they had chairs and tables.

Dumbasses.

Garth’s gaze slid from the case with the sword to several bullet holes in the wall next to it. They were from the same type of weapon that had injured the PSI operative. Had Auberi been the vampire who had been shot, Garth would have rejoiced. Hell, he’d have been a tad gentler when cuffing the dirtbag. As it stood, the injured vampire was a man Garth kind of liked.

More to the point, he didn’t hate the man.

He wasn’t going to skip into the rising sun, holding hands with the guy or anything (for more than one reason), but he didn’t want to see him turned into a pile of ash. The injury would more than likely heal over by morning light.

All in all, considering how outgunned Garth and his men had been upon their arrival, PSI had fared well in the mission.

The same could not be said for the other side. While the dirtbag had been escorted from the premises in cuffs that were made for a supernatural male, the majority of the dirtbag’s bodyguards had been taken out in body bags. That meant the streets had thirty or so fewer highly trained baddies running around.

For the best.

The crime family had been causing a stir and pulling too much attention in the direction of supernaturals. Their antics and blatant disregard for human life had gained notice from the human media, making headlines with the rising number of dead bodies and disappearances in the area.

That was a strict no-no.

Sure, killing humans was frowned upon, but having the media attached to it all was considered worse in the eyes of the people in charge of PSI and like-minded organizations.

Most humans weren’t privy to the truth about what was out there. That they weren’t alone in the world. That they weren’t at the top of the food chain. Alerting them to as much would go nowhere fast. There would be mass pandemonium. Garth knew. He’d seen it enough times over the centuries.

Throughout history, more than one attempt had been made to bring humans into the supernatural fold. Each try had ended poorly. Humans feared what they did not understand. And while that was fine, what they did with that fear wasn’t. Some took it to a dark place. A place that left them the bigger monsters in the scenario.

Not that supernaturals were innocent or anything. As a wolf-shifter, he knew firsthand what his kind was capable of doing. Some were pure evil. Others didn’t want to hurt anyone, but their inner demons won out.

Garth’s personal demon wasn’t a demon at all, it was an animal. He and the wolf seemed to have a basic understanding of one another, and that was fine by him. He’d known a large number of men who’d suffered from control issues with their beasts, but Garth rarely did. He had always welcomed the onset of his wolf.

Garth went through his first full change when he was only eleven. That had been early for his pack. Most didn’t go through the conversion until they were in their teens. He and his brother had been larger than normal eleven-year-old boys. The introduction of their shifter sides had come at a much-needed time in their lives. A time when the world around them was kill or be killed. With the presentation of the wolf came a sense of security. The wolf was something the boys could use to stand up for themselves in a pack that had the mentality of survival of the fittest.

There had been no room for the weak.

As shifters, his pack was even deadlier than the average human from that time period. They were lethal and proud of that fact. Warring between packs and villages was commonplace back then. And when his people perfected the art of traveling greater distances by way of longboats, the world became theirs to conquer.

Theirs to take.

And take they did.

He wasn’t proud of the way his people had behaved and the reputation they’d earned. He’d done what he could to minimize the atrocities committed, but he was one man. There had been only so much he could do. Even that had cost him greatly.

His family had a lot in common with current organized crime families. They too had broken many laws and took what they wanted by force. They held little regard for the rules of society and did as they pleased.

And they’d been ruthless.

His brother Grid danced on the edge of darkness to this day.

Though when Garth had read through the reports concerning the crime family in question, he’d found himself appalled at the level of brutality they perpetuated. He’d been raised by what many would term savages. If Garth thought someone was brutal, that was saying something.

The dirtbag in the van was something, all right.

Dirtbag was too nice a term for the guy.

If Garth’s guess was right, the dirtbag was maybe around a hundred or so. Give or take a decade. Just a baby in the world of supernaturals. Garth had undershirts older than the guy.

That being said, the man had amassed quite the collection of rare weapons in his short hundred or so years. He had an entire wing of his massive home devoted to his collection of weapons throughout the ages.

If museums were more like this, Garth would actually attend exhibits. As it stood, they very rarely offered anything he found interesting. Not even when they featured items and artifacts from the time period he was born in. The Viking Age of Scandinavia.

So what if they’d recovered another Viking grave or more cups and pots they assumed were from his time? He didn’t need broken relics or to be reminded of those he had cared for and lost.

What he did need was a sword like the one mounted on the wall before him.

“Look at her,” he said to one of his teammates, his tone hushed, examining the weapon closer. As he did, Garth realized he’d seen the beauty before. It had been one that had come up on the black market for auction. He’d attempted to buy it, but it had gone missing right before the auction had finished. The rat bastard dirtbag had stooped even lower than black market bidding. He’d had the thing stolen. Was there no honor among thieves? “Cheater.”

His second-in-command, an opinionated wolf- shifter who hailed from Scotland of old, Gram Campbell, moved up alongside him and put a hand on Garth’s shoulder. Gram was tall, but just missed being as tall as Garth, who was well over six and a half feet when in boots, as he was now. “You all right there? Looks as if yer caught between wanting to punch something or rub yerself in a dirty manner against the weapons here. If so, we can leave the room. I do nae think I’d be able to shake the image of you yanking on yer cock to the sight of a sword, so I do nae want to witness anything of the sort.”

“Asshole,” stated Garth evenly.

“Aye.” Gram grinned. The man’s Scottish brogue was thick.

Not that Garth could judge. He’d been in America for centuries and still carried a very heavy Scandinavian accent when he spoke. It only intensified when he was worked up in any way. Some of his fellow operatives had a few good laughs over it all. In recent years, Hollywood had taken an interest in Viking culture and Norse mythology. That meant more people were being exposed to it all—or something close to it, anyway. That also meant there was additional fodder for his fellow operatives.

That was all right. He had his fair share of nicknames for them too. Besides, he’d never really tried to rid himself of his accent because he just didn’t care enough to bother. Plus, he surrounded himself with men from around the world. They were a cultural melting pot. He was far from the only person in PSI with an accent when he spoke English. And like the majority of immortals he knew, English was just one of the many languages he spoke. So what if he did so with a heavy tongue?

Garth motioned to the sword in the case, still admiring her. Not to the point he wanted to jerk off, but damn close. “She was to be mine, but this douchebag stole her. Look at her now. Lonely without me. I can tell. Aren’t you, beauty?”

“Och, you do realize you refer to weapons as women? I know you call them girl names too,” said Gram, his arm around Garth’s shoulder. “That is worrisome, old friend. You do nae ever call a woman ‘beauty.’ You save the pet names for yer weapons. Verra concerning.”

He continued to stare at the sword, unconcerned with how his thoughts on the object came off to others. “I’m taking her before we leave. I want her.”

“We really need to get you laid. Then you could…I do nae know…refer to a woman as a woman. Or, you know, actually find one you like enough to give a pet name. Would go far in the gettin’ you laid bit. I’ve heard women talk of you. They say yer handsome. I do nae see it. You’re freakishly tall. You’ve blond hair and yer a Viking. Nae a Scot. A lot going against you there, brother. And let’s be honest. Yer nae as good-lookin’ as me. Not many are. Plus, yer hang-ups with weapons make most of the lasses think yer a homicidal maniac. Does nae do guid things in the getting-a-second-date department.”

“I do just fine getting women,” returned Garth with a grunt. Though, he couldn’t recall the last time he’d had sex. He’d been too busy to stop and notice that it had been a while.

He shrugged, knowing he’d fix that issue at a later date. For now, he’d make a mental list of all the weapons he was confiscating from the dirtbag’s collection. Many were displayed in custom- made cases, backlit for effect. The sight of them made him feel almost giddy.

Maybe Gram was on to something.

Maybe there was something wrong with him.

Probably, but who the hell cares.

He snorted. “This place is great. Aside from the bloodstains all over the entrance and halls from our grand arrival.”

Gram waved a hand about in the air. With the movement came the buzz of magik. Since Gram possessed both the ability to shift into a wolf and wield magik, Garth wasn’t surprised. The Scotsman liked to show off as much as possible. “Aye. It was grand all right—and gruesome. Just think. If the bloodstains do nae come out, you can put in a lowball offer on the place. Get it for cheap.”

Rubbing his scruffy jawline, Garth mulled over what Gram had said. He had several homes as it was, located all around the world. His primary home was near PSI Division B Headquarters. “Hmm, I like his setup for displaying things, but I’m not into the whole gaudy decor he has going.”

Gram blinked several times in a row at him, as if he couldn’t believe the man was serious.

“What?”

“I was joking about you buying it,” returned Gram.

Garth scratched his chin and shrugged. “Oh. I considered buying it for half a second there— bloodstains and all.”

“When was the last time you talked to a head doctor at PSI?” questioned Gram, his expression one that said he was joking this time.

“Last month. She said I was fine.” Garth simply stared at his friend.

“Then we really need to get a new head doctor,” said Gram. His blue gaze moved in the direction of the historic samurai sword that had captured Garth’s attention to start with. “All right, I’ll give you that one. That is cool as shite.”

Garth touched the glass of the case softly, still amazed the sword was within his grasp once more. He’d thought it lost forever when it had gone missing. “I have one similar to this. They were made by the same man. It’s why I bid on her when she came up for auction years ago. I wanted the sisters together. With me.”

“This would be a legal auction?” asked Gram, his voice saying he already knew the answer.

Garth grumbled lightly. “Not so much. I’m a firm believer that rules were made to be bent to suit my needs.”

“You know, with as thick as yer Swedish accent is, I caught like a tenth of what you said… and I’m Scottish. No one ever understands all of what we say.”

Garth flipped off his friend and returned to touching the glass case around the sword.

“The way yer touching that case says I was right the first time. We really need to get you laid.” Gram gave a half snort. “I can bend a few rules in that department for you if it tickles yer fancy. Name yer kink and I’ll find a lass willin’ to make it happen.”

The fact the man had connections with women in low places shouldn’t have shocked Garth in the least. Gram wasn’t exactly a choirboy. Yet, somehow, his friend managed to surprise him. “Right now, I’m more concerned about you heading out into the world on your own. I’m not sure the world is ready for you to be unsupervised,” said Garth, in reference to the fact that Gram was slotted to leave Team Eight within the month.

Gram was taking a position within the Shadow Agents’ side of PSI. That meant he’d go from being part of a team of men to a solo operative.

Garth would have taken offense to the man’s decision to go, but he knew it was time for Gram to expand his wings and try new things. The Scotsman tended to get restless if kept confined in one place too long. And he’d been Garth’s second- in-command for centuries.

He’d also been Garth’s best friend for just as long.

The Shadow Agents Division would be a good move for Gram, and it would advance his career. But, it would mean Garth was losing his right- hand man. Thankfully, he had the perfect replacement in mind. He just had to convince the bullheaded Russian werebear to accept it.

As soon as the thought entered his head, the man in question entered the room as if he’d sensed Garth thinking of him.

Rurik Romanov approached from the outer hall, his weapon over his shoulder and an annoyed look upon his face. No surprise there. The Russian was always pissed about something. It was actually funnier than it sounded.

He, like the rest of the team, was dressed head to toe in black ops wear. Though, Rurik had added a Russian flag patch to his bulletproof vest. The flag was one from the days of the U.S.S.R., or as Rurik would say, the glory days. The man also still viewed America as he had during the Cold War. Living here full-time wasn’t exactly awesome in the man’s eyes.

Garth waited for a smart-ass remark about hating the mission to fall from Rurik’s lips. Usually, he lived for every second he could complain. Not now though. The man was oddly quiet. The look on his face was grim.

Garth eyed him. “What is it?”

“There are taxidermied bears in the den and pictures of the owner on hunting expeditions, standing before dead bears and other big game, gloating. He kills our animal world brothers and sisters for sport. For show.”

Gram cast Garth a worried look. Both knew the Russian’s temper. Combine his temper with the fact he was an actual bear-shifter, and they had the makings of a problem.

A big one.

“Captain was thinking of buying it. He dinnae mind dead bad guy bits all over the place. Wonder if the stuffed next of kin sways him any?” Gram flashed a wide smile.

Rurik’s gaze whipped to Garth. “This house looks as if it belongs in Vegas. It’s so…so…overdone like Americans always do. And the owner is into stuffing animals. He himself is a shifter! He should show some respect for nature. He should—”

Gram sighed and patted Garth’s shoulder. “I got this one, Viking. Least I can do, seein’ as how I’m leaving you to your own devices soon enough.”

Before Garth could comment, Gram had stepped to Rurik. “The bag of dicks is out in the van in cuffs. Want me to take you out so you can knock him around a bit? Maybe bite him in the arse or tear his head off ? I’m guid with either scenario so long as you do nae kill him in any van we have to ride back in. Captain may be fine with pieces of flesh lying about, but I do nae want to have to sit in dead guy bits all the way back to the plane. That shite starts to smell. Besides, the arsehole is a cat-shifter. None of us want to have to smell that for longer than need be.”

Rurik cracked his version of a smile, which was downright terrifying. He looked like a deranged serial killer who just gotten handed a new set of knives on his birthday. He launched into Russian, announcing the plan to be a very solid one.

Groaning, Garth shook his head. “How was that helping, Campbell?”

Gram laughed. “Och, I said I had it. I dinnae say I’d help with it.”

“I thought it was implied,” stated Garth.

“You thought wrong, Captain.”

As captain of Team Eight, Garth was ultimately responsible for whatever his men got up to. Letting Rurik anywhere near a bad guy who made killing bears a sport would certainly lead to nothing but trouble. The Russian’s temper was notorious. There would be no hesitation on his part before he killed the guy they had in the van. A man they needed to use in order to weed out even bigger baddies. That couldn’t happen if Rurik tore him into itty-bitty bits.

Something Garth had seen Rurik do more than once when provoked.

The Russian had once pureed a bad guy. There was nothing else the act could have been called. It was legendary around the office. The cleanup team had been less than impressed, not that Garth could blame them. The act did earn Rurik the not-so-coveted award of Asshole of the Week, as well as a new blender, compliments of the men at Division B.

Seemed like a fitting gift.

Operative Johannes “Hans” Bach joined them in the room. He took his special ops wear to the next level, adding a half-turtleneck to the mix and fashionable boots. Everything on the man was more than likely designer. He liked the finer things in life. Expensive cars, houses, clothes, and women.

Not that Garth could find much fault in the man’s taste in the opposite sex. He’d seen a few of the ladies Hans surrounded himself with. Legs that went on forever, long blonde hair, and well- rounded breasts. Garth was fairly certain the women charged a lot of money per hour. He never saw the same woman twice with the German.

Hans, like the rest of the men on Team Eight, wasn’t into the idea of commitment. They were in the primes of their immortally long lives. None of them had mates to tether them down. They had no one to answer to and no rules when it came to how they spent their free time.

It was perfect.

“Did you finish the sweep of the lower level?” asked Garth as he began the process of taking down the case with the sword. He fully intended to take the weapon with him as a parting gift. After all, he’d been serious. He owned its sister sword and wanted to reunite the pair.

Hans paused in the doorway and ran a hand through his shoulder-length black hair before letting out a long breath. That wasn’t normal for the man. He was generally the poster boy for stoic expressions. “Captain, there is something you should see.”

“If it’s more stuffed bears, we’re gonna want to look away when Rurik has a word with the dick in cuffs in the van,” said Gram, rubbing Rurik’s shoulders as if he were prepping a boxer for another round. “I cannae be certain but from the sounds of it, some of Rurik’s extended family members now decorate a den here. This is goin’ to end with dead guy bits on everything. I’m sure of it.”

“That is not humorous,” said Rurik in a deadpan voice. “He has pictures of himself next to dead wolves. That should make you want to eat him too.”

Hans didn’t budge from the entranceway, nor had his body language changed. Something was wrong. “Captain.”

Garth stopped his attempts to get the sword case off the wall and focused on his teammate. “What is it?”

Moisture coated Hans’s eyes and his gaze darted to the floor. “I don’t have the words to describe it. Landros radioed for a team of medics and additional transportation. It is bad enough that he didn’t wait to talk to you first.”

Team Eight had been paired with another team for the mission. While both teams worked for PSI, one was full of shifters and the other was full of vampires. Philandros “Landros” Mires was one of the vampires. He was also high up within PSI. Garth had known him for centuries, though there had been a time when they’d stood on opposite sides of the battlefield. Those days were long over between them.

The same could not be said for Auberi Bouchard, another member of the Crimson Ops Division of PSI, or Fang Gang, as they’d been nicknamed by the shifters in the organization. The two sides made mocking one another an artform. It was mostly all in fun.

“Captain, this is bad,” said Hans.

Gram stopped smiling. If Hans was saying something was serious, that meant something huge had happened. Hans was famous for his understated responses. Germans were known for such things. Whatever was happening was big enough that it shook a man who generally didn’t show emotion.

Garth wasn’t sure he actually wanted to know what Hans and the others had evidently encountered while clearing the lower levels of the estate.

Chapter Two

GARTH and the others followed behind Hans as he maneuvered through the aftermath of the fight they’d first encountered upon arriving. There had been a lot of gunfire, claws, teeth, and pure alphaness going on—and it showed.

Garth even had a few cuts and bruises. Nothing serious. And he liked a good fight, and wasn’t squeamish, so the aftermath didn’t bother him.

The dead bodies had been removed from the premises, but the cleanup teams had not yet arrived to handle the rest of the mess. That meant it looked like a horror movie had been filmed there. Hans had managed to walk around the pools of blood left behind without stepping in any, despite his obvious emotional state.

The artwork on the walls was gaudy and the dirtbag had more than likely overpaid for it all. Garth wasn’t exactly up on the arts, but even he knew the paintings were terrible and there wasn’t a huge market for them. A small laugh bubbled up from him as he spotted blood splatter on one of the atrocities masquerading as art. It was a painting of one of the guy’s fancy sports cars.

It screamed douchebag.

The entire house seemed to have been decorated by the same person. Whoever they were, they had no taste. Frankly, Garth was shocked he’d not, as of yet, come across any floor-to- ceiling velvet prints with naked ladies on them. He’d not been through the entire home, so anything was still possible.

They went down two flights of stairs, and then entered a small room that didn’t seem to hold much of anything of significance. In fact, the only thing in it was a serving table pressed against the far wall. Two gold vases sat on the table, one at each end. On the wall behind the vases was a portrait of the dirtbag in the van. His smile in the painting was as smug as the one he’d worn when Garth had put the cuffs on him.

Yep. Total douchebag. Just seeing the painting made Garth reconsider allowing Rurik free access to the man.

“Is it me or does this guy have shit taste?” asked Garth as he realized the gold vases had what looked to be phallic shapes etched on them. He’d never seen dicks arranged in a way that resembled flowers from afar, and he’d thought he’d seen just about everything.

Rurik grumbled. “It’s not you. He does have shit taste. He decorates with dead animals.”

Gram eased up behind Rurik and shot Garth a hard look. “You had to go there again.”

Hans said little on the matter. It was easy to tell his mind was on something else and not on jokes.

A second before Garth was about to ask what was so important that he’d needed to come at once, Hans reached up and pushed a small button on the wall. The button had been installed in a way that could have made it easy to overlook, as it blended perfectly with its surroundings.

The next thing Garth knew, a panel opened in the wall and he found himself staring into a stainless-steel elevator.

“Well, I wasnae expectin’ that,” said Gram from behind Garth. “I may put in a bid on the place too. I do nae have a secret elevator in any of my homes. I want one.”

“Where does it go?” questioned Rurik. The edge he’d had to his voice upstairs was gone. Evidently, he felt something big was coming as well.

Hans shivered. “To hell.”

With that, he stepped into the elevator and the rest of the men followed. The fact they all fit with room to spare said something about the size and capacity of the thing. They weren’t small men.

What did the dirtbag need with a secret elevator at all, let alone one that could fit four alpha males with ease?

Garth wasn’t sure he wanted to know the answer.

The farther down they descended, the more dread began to fill him. People didn’t bury things this deep in the earth unless they didn’t want others knowing about them. From the looks of it, this was something no one was meant to see.

Hans put a hand to the cold metal of the elevator wall and lowered his head. A pained cry came from him. As quickly as it had started, it ended, and he righted himself.

No one commented.

There were some things you just let a man have and didn’t talk about. Emotional outbursts were one of those.

The elevator came to a stop and the doors slid open. As Garth exited, confusion came over him.

To his right were five exam tables like one would find in a gynecologist’s office. The kind of tables that had stirrups to put one’s feet in. Although, he’d never seen stirrups come equipped with manacles. These did. His gut clenched. The exam tables were made to hold someone against their will.

“No,” he said in a hushed tone.

“Fuck,” returned Gram, his voice a whisper as well. “I do nae think any of us want to own this place now.”

Rurik stepped past them, staring around the room, his attention going to a wall lined with glass-front cabinets. In the cabinets appeared to be everything from medical tools and devices, to medicines of some sort or another. It was a one- stop shop for the weird, the wacky, and the medically creepy.

There was no mistaking the equipment in the giant room. It was for testing of some kind, and with the exam tables, Garth’s gut told him the testing had something to do with women and babies.

The entire thing was like something out of a horror movie and any minute now, Dr. Frankenstein might walk out with his assistant, ready and willing to commit acts that should not be spoken of, let alone committed.

Hans came to a stop next to Garth. Their shoulders touched. Garth knew Hans had demons in his past that shaped the man he was today. He knew that more than once when a fellow operative had referenced the word Nazi around Hans because he was German, and had indeed lived in Germany during the Nazi occupation, Hans had lost control of his typically even temper.

Garth also knew why.

Hans and his brother, like many others, had been subjected to horrific testing at the hands of Nazi doctors and scientists during World War II— prior to that, even. During a time when most people knew very little in regard to what was really going on in the name of science.

Most assumed eugenics and attempts to change men and women into something else started with the Nazis. That Hitler and his teams of twisted scientists were the first to commit heinous acts under the guise of science. They weren’t. In reality, it went back much further and had many more players than just the Nazis.

America had its own ugly history with it all, but it had done a far better job of burying that information and hiding it away from most textbooks.

The quest for superhumans and super soldiers was hardly new. There were people in the world who would stop at nothing to achieve them. The Nazis were some of the worst offenders by far. Garth had fought in both World Wars, and there were things from the second one that he would never be able to shake from his memory.

As he looked around at the large lab, he was instantly reminded of some of the testing facilities the Nazi’s had during World War II. History sugarcoated the full truth behind the breeding programs, reproduction experiments, and the torture in the name of research. The numbers of dead and the atrocities associated with the Nazi’s quest for racial hygiene had been far beyond what the history books spoke of. It was beyond what many historians even knew or thought they knew.

Garth had been part of a unit of men who had happened upon a number of Nazi testing locations. What he’d seen still haunted him, and those facilities greatly reminded him of the lab he was in now.

Humans who studied the time period in history were under the illusion that there were a set, known number of locations where programs and testing took place. That wasn’t the case. There were hundreds of secret locations, and they weren’t limited to Germany. While some were used for humans, the lion’s share of them were for supernatural creation and reproduction—for trying to interbreed various species.

And while history whispered of Ilya Ivanov’s attempts to create ape-army super soldiers through crossbreeding humans and apes, it didn’t speak of the actual success—or the fact that apes were not the only animals used in the testing. It also didn’t mention the success the Nazi’s achieved in manipulating the makeup of supernaturals and actually creating some from scratch. There was a whole lot of fucked up that the history books didn’t touch on.

Garth’s gut told him that the lab they were currently standing in had ties to it all. That it had something to do with breeding.

Monsters. Fucking monsters.

Garth knew men who had been subjected to the testing against their wills—some inflicted by the Nazis, and some done by governments no one would ever believe took part in it all. He knew men who had been forced to attempt to breed the natural way, no matter that neither participant was willing. He knew some who had been taken, held, experimented on, while also having their seed taken from them to be used later.

To this day, no one could account for where all the samples and test results from World War II had gone. The disbanding of the Nazi labs and testing sites should have closed all the doors, ended all the worry, but it hadn’t. It had opened Pandora’s box—freeing so many villains to go to ground, taking with them the majority of their research and results. In their wake, so many were left dead or damaged.

Hans and his brother Jannick were just one example of the broken left behind. The twins had been playthings for some of the worst scientists in the Reich. Dr. Mengele who was a scientist back then, often referred to as the Angel of Death, had a well-known hard-on for twins. They were the perfect subjects for his fucked-up tests. He could do as he pleased testing wise with one twin and use the other for a baseline of comparison. He could follow the test subjects through every stage of the testing from start to finish—making sure they died at the same time, so the autopsies could be done together.

Bastard.

There had been others like Mengele. Sick fucks who hid behind the label of science, doing as they pleased. Some were brought to justice. Many weren’t. And others were supernaturals who had managed to go below the radar. Garth could only hope time had ended them and that they weren’t still conducting their tests.

One look around the lab told him his hope was pointless. There were simply too many similarities to the past to ignore. And if Garth noticed it all, Hans and Jannick had to as well.

Jannick was also part of Team Eight. Garth had specifically requested the brothers be on his team when they’d come on with PSI after being freed from Nazi labs. Garth knew that even though neither man would ever admit it, they needed to be around one another. That they were each other’s pillars of support.

It was a twin thing.

Garth wasn’t sure where Jannick was at the moment. He’d splintered off earlier with Hans and the rest of the operatives to finish clearing the lower levels, so odds were, he was close. And he no doubt was having as many issues with what they’d discovered as Hans.

Garth knew that during their tragic past, Hans and Jannick, had been held captive in facilities built to hold supernaturals, and the testing they’d been forced to endure would have killed a human within seconds. Yet the twins had been forced to live with the torture and experiments for years. Their hate of Nazis knew no limits. They held no shame for being German, but they held much hate for Hitler and those who had done the man’s bidding willingly.

Garth put a hand on his friend’s shoulder and gave a gentle squeeze, in an attempt to show support for the man, as he could see the inner turmoil the scene before them had caused.

“There is more,” said Hans, his words clipped. “Jannick and the Fang Gang are in the labs beyond this one. Brace yourselves.”

“It gets worse?” asked Rurik, disbelief in his voice.

Hans nodded but said nothing more as he went through the lab and to a large metal door. It was the kind of door one expected to find on a commercial freezer in a restaurant. Not in the basement of a mansion. Of course, there was a whole lot of shit in the mansion no one would have guessed would be there. Hans opened the door and stepped back.

It was Garth who went through the door first. He stood in stunned silence for half a second, taking in the sight before him.

There were rows of metal cribs that resembled cages, like one would see in a hospital, lining one side of the large stark white room. The majority were empty but not all of them. Some held children of varying ages.

Garth fought to keep from being sick at the sight of it all. In that moment, he knew his heart wasn’t totally hardened from life. That it wasn’t frozen as his father’s had been. It could still feel, and it was shattering for the children. In all his life he’d never harmed a child. The very idea of doing so sickened both him and the wolf he carried within him.

Children were to be protected, no matter the cost. They were gifts from the gods.

The Fang Gang operatives were busy listening to orders that Auberi barked at them. Many of the operatives had children in their arms. Auberi had trained as a doctor more than once throughout his long life and was more than capable of taking charge of the dire situation, despite the fact the guy was an asshole.

If memory served, the vampire had also fallen behind enemy lines during World War II. Garth didn’t know the details, but he knew enough to understand Auberi hadn’t been spared torture and testing either. Neither had a number of the men in the Fang Gang.

Landros, who had been shot in the leg during the taking of the estate, held a little girl who looked to be around the age of three or four. Her huge blue eyes were haunted and hollow. Her long black hair was matted in spots and Garth wasn’t sure if it was curly or snarled from lack of care. What he did know was that she was grossly underweight, as were all the children from the looks of it. The neglect was palpable, and made him want to kill every person who’d had anything to do with it.

Rurik wouldn’t need to bother with the dirtbag outside. Garth planned to puree the fucker himself.

The need to step closer to the little girl in Landros’s arm came over him, as did an immense drive to protect the child, no matter the cost.

Landros apparently felt the same way, because his eyes flashed to black and back to brown again quickly. It was a warning from his vampire to Garth.

Come closer to the child and risk its wrath.

Garth wasn’t sure exactly how old Landros was, but he knew the man came from Ancient Greece. He also knew he had a history as a warrior, as did most of the men in PSI, and Landros had personal demons. Ones that didn’t have fangs.

They’d sparred a number of times over the centuries, and they’d even fought on opposing sides during wars in the past. Garth knew what the Greek was made of; a fight between them would be epic.

Still, for the little girl, he was willing to do whatever it took to be sure she was safe.

She twisted slightly in Landros’s arms and buried her tiny face into his chest. She peeked out at Garth and offered the smallest of smiles, instantly calming his stirring beast. “Is she okay?”

Landros shook his head. “I don’t know. My gut says she’s not, and I smell something strange upon her. Do you? It’s sickeningly sweet.”

Taking a deep breath, Garth caught the faint undertones of something else. He couldn’t put his finger on it, but it was there. His beast began to beat at him slowly from within. It didn’t like the scent…or what it meant.

Danger.

Death.

He’d smelled it before. He was sure of it.

Rurik neared, and then paused, sniffing the air. “What is that smell? It’s sweet but it smells a bit like tar.”

Auberi handed a small blond-haired child off to Rurik. “Take him to Blaise in the back. He’ll be fine. He needs fluids. Have Blaise start an IV on him.”

Rurik did as he was asked but looked uncomfortable holding the child. The kid appeared as uneasy about it all as the Russian.

Auberi set about assessing another child.

“Why are they so quiet?” asked Gram. “They’re wee ones. Wee ones fuss. These children make nearly no noise. What’s wrong with them?”

Gram was right. The children were very quiet. With as many as there were and the state of neglect they’d been left in, there should have been noise coming from them. There wasn’t.

Garth’s insides twisted at the thought the children had no doubt run out of tears at some point. They’d probably learned at their young age that crying got them nowhere in their situation.

The need to smash in the face of every person involved in the barbaric treatment of the children was nearly overpowering. His attention returned to the little girl Landros was still holding.

She looked even paler than she had only moments before.

Gram shook his head and wiped the back of his hand past his nose. “What in the bloody hell is that smell?”

It was Hans who answered. “It’s a toxic mix of a variety of lethal ingredients. My guess would be phenol possibly combined with something else —not that it needs to be. It has this smell. It’s what the Nazis used in the T4 Euthanasia Program.”

Garth fought to keep from being sick. The T4 Program had been a policy that basically sanctioned murder. It gave the green light to doctors to kill their own patients if they thought the patient had a life that, in their opinion, was not worth living. Garth had been right when he’d thought of the facility he’d raided during the war.

Hans ran a hand out and over the steel of one of the empty cribs. “Whatever the children have been given smells much like that did. It’s a scent that is seared into my brain. I will go to my grave always remembering it. Those outside of the T4 Program weren’t spared exposure to this drug and toxic compounds. The scientists took something that was created to help others and twisted it, using it to harm, to control, to kill.”

Auberi met Garth’s gaze and nodded, backing up what Hans was saying. “Given in extremely high doses, phenol is lethal.”

Hans continued to touch the crib. “They worked hard to perfect just the right ratio of it mixed with other things to be able to control supernaturals. To keep us unable to fight back but alert and aware enough to function on some level. If the people who orchestrated this are anything like the ones from my past, they intended to hide the evidence of what they’d done here the minute we showed up.”

Gram recoiled in horror. “Och, yer nae tellin’ me they were tryin’ to kill the wee ones when we arrived, are you?”

“That is exactly what I am telling you,” returned Hans, his words clipped. He didn’t take his gaze from the crib. It was as if it was the only thing grounding him to the here and now and not letting him slip fully into remembered pain of the past. “They will stop at nothing to keep their secrets buried and their work private. The children are not children to them. They are not seen as human or lives that are special. They see them as lab rats. Nothing more. Something to advance their cause.”

The wolf in Garth wanted to be free. It would show every one of the people attached to whatever the hell this was exactly what he thought of their lab rat approach. He spun and punched an empty crib, sending it flying into the wall with such a force that it bent partially in on itself. Still, the act didn’t help to lessen the fury Garth felt. The burning need to kill someone with his bare hands and make them pay for all of this.

“Captain,” Hans said, seeming eerily calm. “Throwing things around won’t fix anything. It will just scare the children more.”

Scare the children?

With a gasp, Garth twisted to find the little girl with Landros watching him with wide eyes and a frightened look on her face. Garth sighed. “I’m sorry, beauty. I didn’t mean to scare you.”

The tension eased from her face.

Gram brushed by Garth on his way to a crib with another child in it. “The wee ones are all precious. Look at them. They’d nae hurt a fly. How could someone do this to another person? How could they look at these lil’ ones and nae see the gift they are?”

Auberi’s jaw set. “As Hans said, those who did this don’t see the children as anything more than test subjects.”

“Bastards,” whispered Gram, standing before a crib that held a child who couldn’t have been more than six or seven months old. Garth wasn’t sure if the child was male or female. The giant of a man reached in and lifted the baby in the gentlest of ways. For a split second, Garth could almost picture his best friend as a father. Gram, while wild and rowdy, would one day make an amazing parent. He’d be fierce, yet compassionate. “The wee bairn is soaked through and hungry. I do nae think she’s been given too much of the drugs. I smell them on her, but they’re faint. Still, she’s been neglected. Where are the men who were here? I wish to have words with them.”

“Me too,” added Rurik, his face ashen as he reappeared from the back.

“Jannick and two others took them into the back lab, away from the children,” said Hans, his jaw jutting out. “If I know my brother, the men suffered greatly before death was granted. They may still be suffering if he’s delayed their deaths.”

“Guid,” added Gram as he held the baby close to him as if he moonlighted as a nanny.

“I can smell the chemical on some of the children more than others,” said Landros, still holding the little girl. She reached up and patted the man’s stubble-covered jawline. He stared down at her, his face a wash of emotions.

Hans shuddered. “My guess is they’ve been given varying doses of it over the course of their time here. The scientists did something similar to us long ago. They made sure we had a constant level of it to keep us compliant and easier to control. If we acted out, they would increase the level. If we didn’t learn that lesson, they administered enough to kill. Trust me when I say it does not take one long to learn to obey. Being unable to fight back or function as you normally would because your body is too drugged to do anything is something you never forget.”

Auberi twisted and nodded, his gaze holding concern. “Additional medics are en route. As soon as we secured the labs, I had Landros request all PSI and Para-Regs with medical training in the area. They’re on their way. For now, we’ll use the resources provided here. The lab is fairly well stocked. Blaise is starting a number of IVs for those I feel need it.”

Rurik stepped forward, making his presence known. “Is Blaise qualified to give small children intravenous fluids?”

Landros responded. “There is much about Blaise that he keeps to himself. You can trust that he’s more than qualified to assist. He may act and look like he doesn’t care about anything in the world, but that’s not the truth of it.”

Garth looked around the lab. “I need to reach out to the other teams that are doing raids today. They need to be sure to look for any hidden labs. I’d like to think this is a one-and-done thing, but since PSI is doing a massive sting on linked crime organizations today, it’s best we make sure.”

Landros cleared his throat. “When I phoned for backup medical personal, I was told the other teams have already discovered the same thing at their locations. The operative I spoke with said PSI was in the process of dispatching medics to Team Eight’s location. From my understanding, Corbin Jones and his men uncovered a similar lab as this one at their bust location, too. It sounds as if there are a number of expectant mothers there as well as children. Their condition is as dire as here. Maybe even more so.”

“Other labs?” asked Hans, his voice catching.

Landros nodded. “Details are scarce. This is all unfolding as we speak, and my guess is that all of the other teams are doing the same as us, trying to make sense of it all and trying to save lives.”

Auberi walked over to Landros and bent slightly to look at the little girl the man was holding. Auberi smiled and did his best to appear non- threatening.

Normally, all Garth wanted to do was hit Auberi. Now, he wanted the vampire to ensure the little girl was well and would live.

She put her arms out to Auberi and he took her gently. She instantly wrapped her frail arms around his neck and held tight for dear life. Auberi turned with her, closed his eyes, and patted her back with great care. It was easy to see he was as emotionally affected as the rest of the operatives over the state of the children. The vampire then began to sing softly in French to the little girl. Garth recognized the song as an old French nursery rhyme.

The little girl closed her eyes as she continued to cling to Auberi. He rocked her in place, singing, his tone low. Strangely, in that moment, Garth could imagine the vampire as a parent as well. As if that was even possible. Vampires couldn’t have children, could they?

Rurik went to the bedside of another little one. He tipped his head and then ripped off the top of the crib’s cage-like dome. He lifted the child from the crib tenderly. “Auberi, this one has a rasp to her as she breathes. It’s faint but there.” With their sensitive supernatural hearing, they could pick up on things most couldn’t. “I think she labors for air, and she smells of the chemicals.”

Reluctantly, Auberi handed the little girl back to Landros—but not before stunning the hell out of Garth by planting a kiss upon the child’s forehead. Auberi actually seemed reluctant to let her go. As if he too was drawn to her.

Landros took her once more and she settled against his shoulder. Her little hand darted out and caught Auberi’s before he could pull away fully. She held Auberi’s finger and stared up at him, her gaze as blue as the vampire’s.

The Frenchman leaned close, still permitting her to hold his finger. He kissed the top of her head and whispered in his native tongue, telling her that he would not go far and that he needed to see to her friends before returning to her.

Oddly, the child nodded as if she understood everything Auberi had said. Maybe she did. All Garth knew was there was something about her that had three alpha males worrying over her and hovering.

“Mon petit chouchou,” Auberi said softly to the little girl. “Uncle Landros will watch over you while I help the others.”

That was strange.

“Uncle?” questioned Garth. “And did you just call her a food product in French?”

Auberi ignored him as he stepped away from the little girl.

Landros gave Garth a hard look.

Tossing his hands in the air, Garth shook his head. “Fine. Uncle. Food product. Got it. Someone tell me if she’s okay or not. I feel a bit like I’m standing in quick-dry cement right now. I need to know she’s going to be fine before I can do anything else. I can’t explain why. It just is.”

He wasn’t lying. He did feel stuck.

Rurik returned and looked Garth up and down. “What is wrong with you?”

“I’m not too sure,” said Garth, rubbing the center of his chest with his thumb as pain began there. “Do shifters have heart attacks?”

“I wish,” said Auberi from the sidelines.

Garth nearly gave the vampire a piece of his mind. Little ears were present, so he refrained.

Auberi’s attention was now on the other child. He checked the tiny one over thoroughly and rattled off a list of instructions to Rurik. All Garth caught was “airway” and “fluids.”

The bear-shifter followed the instructions to the letter.

Gram glanced around as he continued to hold a baby. “I’ve seen a lot in my years. This is…it’s… horrendous.”

The rest of the men nodded.

Garth cleared his throat. “I’ve seen something just like this before.”

The men in the room looked at him.

“Germany. Nazi time. I was present when one of the breeding facilities was discovered.”

They all flinched at his words.

Hans gripped the crib nearest him. It was then Garth noticed the man had not touched any of the children. He too seemed stuck in place.

Auberi looked up. “When the Nazis held me, it was not pleasant, but it was not like this. There were no children in the facility I was in. Just adults. All supernatural.” He continued to doctor child after child efficiently as if he were on the battlefield dealing with wounded soldiers in need of fast care. “I don’t know what all was done to these children. What I do know is, they aren’t human.”

Taking another deep breath, Garth caught it then. The underlying scent of varying supernatural types on the children. When he realized the mix of supernaturals was coming from each of them, not just as a whole, he faced Auberi. “They are blends of more than one type of supernatural?”

“My head says no. The rest of my senses say yes,” returned the vampire. “I can run additional tests on them at a later date. And before anyone asks, the tests will not harm them in any way. I’m not a monster. Each time I took the Hippocratic Oath, I meant it.”

The little girl in Landros’s arms stared at Auberi. Garth noticed the vampire watching her from the corner of his eyes as well.

A little girl with matted brown hair came running out of the back with Daniel Townsend, the vampire who headed the team Auberi was part of, running behind her, looking exasperated. The British vampire was usually even-keeled and rarely looked riled. Right now, it looked as if he’d gone ten rounds with a heavyweight champion. Garth strongly suspected the champion in this scenario was the little girl. There was a certain light in her huge green eyes that said she was mischievous. The fact that she was giggling and checking behind her really drove home that Garth was onto something.

She came to a grinding halt and Daniel nearly fell over her. He somehow managed to avoid colliding with her, instead stumbling past her and into an exam table. He stood, did his best to straighten his black shirt, and then cast Garth a look that said he was close to pulling out a white flag of surrender.

Garth nearly laughed.

“She has a lot of energy,” said Daniel, nodding his head in the direction of the little girl with green eyes.

“So I see,” returned Garth.

The little girl blinked up at Landros and the other child. For a moment, she merely stood there, staring at Landros. Her tiny expression hardened for a fraction of a second before a large smile broke over her face. She then pivoted, bolting back in the direction she’d come from.

“Bloody hell,” whispered Daniel as he ran off behind her.

“Townsend will need a nap after this. That one is full of piss and vinegar,” said Gram with a huff. “That’s guid. Means she’s managed to stay strong during this all. That one is a warrior. Mark my words.”

Landros stared off in the direction the child had gone. “She was worried about this one. While none of the children are easy to read mentally, that little one all but threw her thoughts at me. She wanted me to know she and the one with me now are close. And that if I permitted harm to come to her friend, she would hold me responsible.”

Garth snorted—and then stopped when he realized Landros wasn’t kidding. “You’re serious?”

Landros nodded. “Quite.”

“You were just mentally threatened by someone who is like knee high,” added Garth, finding the act amusing.

“I believe the threat was not empty. Can you sense it in the air? Fae magik?” asked Landros.

The operatives each paused in what they were doing.

Gram scrunched his face before a smile burst over him. “Aye, it’s there. Faint but still.”

The girl in Landros’s arms coughed and closed her eyes. Was she sick? Had she been given too much of whatever poison they’d been pushing?

Auberi finished up with another child, but this time the man had the audacity to lift the thing out to Garth. “Take this little one to Blaise. He’s underfed and needs to be cleaned, but he’ll be fine.”

Garth stared at the boy who was around the age of three. Unless the child came with a manual, he wasn’t sure how to proceed. How did one pick up a child without hurting them? They were so small. “I don’t know what to do with a kid.”

Children were not something Garth was used to dealing with. In all his time, he’d never had any of his own—for that, he’d need to be mated—nor had he been around many. He made a point to avoid them.

“Yer embarrassing yerself, Captain,” said Gram. “Just take him and give him to Blaise. It’s nae hard.”

Garth took the child and held him out at arm’s length.

“Christ, Viking,” snapped Gram. “He’s a wee babe. He’ll nae bite.”

As the words left Gram, the little boy Garth was holding snapped his mouth, his tiny teeth lengthening quickly. He growled, and his blue eyes swirled to amber. The smell of wolf along with hints of Fae found its way to Garth.

In a split second the boy had his small jaws clamped down onto Garth’s forearm, where he proceeded to bite hard.

Garth grunted but did nothing to make the child stop. He was afraid he’d hurt the boy without meaning to. It was better to just let the kid continue to bite him.

Gram snorted. “I lied. That wee one obviously bites. Is that magik I smell on him?”

Nodding, Garth tried to hand the boy, who was still clamped onto his arm, to Gram.

The Scotsman shook his head. “I’ve already got one. Take him to Blaise. Warn him about the magik part. There is no tellin’ how strong the wee one’s magik may be. His spirit is fierce, just look at the way he’s holding on to yer arm with his mouth. Another warrior.”

“Great, an army of small children,” said Garth snidely as he carried the little boy awkwardly, in search of Blaise Regnier, a fellow member of the Fang Gang.

A few paces down the hall, Garth found the vampire, who was dressed more like he was about to go clubbing than on a raid. Blaise was tall but looked even more so in his three-inch-soled leather boots with giant silver buckles. The T-shirt he wore had a skull image and the word Misfits across the top. He had a number of piercings and currently had his dark hair back in one long braid.

There were a horde of children in the room with the vampire, who didn’t look the least bit frazzled by them. Blaise actually appeared to be in total control of the situation.

He glanced at the little one Garth was holding, who was still biting him. He snickered. “Auberi cleared him?”

Garth nodded, prying the child’s jaws gently from his arm. It was easier said than done. The kid had the nerve to grin after Garth managed to get him loose. “The boy is a shifter with magik in him—and, oh yeah, he bites.”

Blaise took the boy and smiled down at him, careful to show no fang. “Hello there, buddy. You only bit the mean old nasty man because he’s a Viking, didn’t you? Yes, that’s right. Good boy. Now, what do you say we get you set up over here and get you a cup of juice?”

The little boy blinked up at Blaise. In the next breath, a small cup on the side counter lifted into the air all on its own and began to float in the direction of the little boy. It stopped and then changed route, going instead to the tiny girl with brown hair who had mentally threatened Landros only minutes before. Her arms went up and she took the cup like it was no big deal that it had flown on its own.

Blaise laughed. “Ah, she was thirsty, and you knew that, huh?”

The little boy blinked again before wiping a bit of Garth’s blood from his lip. He then turned his attention to Garth and growled, making Blaise laugh more.

“I like him.” Blaise grinned.

Garth let out a long breath. “Good. He’s your problem now.”

Blaise nodded to Garth. “Try not to kill Auberi while you’re out there. I know exactly how much the two of you like each other.”

With a curled lip, Garth headed out of the room, refusing to make any promise about keeping Auberi alive.

He was just a few steps into the hall once more when another member of the Fang Gang came past. Searc Macleod walked by Garth carrying a small child with a head of shoulder- length red hair. The little girl was paler than any child should be. The vampire, who could rival Gram with his thick Scottish brogue, inclined his head. “Found this wee one locked in a closet. I do nae think she put herself there.”

A growl started in the back of Garth’s throat.

Searc nodded. “Aye, wolf. I feel the same way.”

“Have Auberi look her over,” said Garth as he followed Searc back to the main lab.

Something had changed since he’d gone but he couldn’t figure out what. The compulsion to look at Landros was great. The man had set the little girl down and was talking to another operative.

The little girl stared up at Garth—and he froze.

Something was wrong. It felt as if someone reached out and ripped him from behind his belly button in the direction of the child. He was almost to her when he swayed. Buzzing started in his head and ringing sounded all around him, confusing him.

He grabbed his ears, covering them, wondering why no other ops were responding to the deafening volume level of the noise. He didn’t dare look away from the little girl. He couldn’t. The ear-piercing ringing faded away quickly, becoming dull and faint.

The little girl stumbled and then collapsed onto the floor, her gaze still firmly locked on Garth. He reacted faster than he ever had before. He shot forward and snatched her off the floor before Landros could so much as blink. Deep down, he knew the little girl was in critical condition.

Her eyes closed, and her tiny head lolled back. Garth knew without being told that she wasn’t breathing. For a second, he couldn’t take a breath either. His keen hearing picked up on the fact her pulse was weak and fading fast. It was then he noticed blisters on her and something white on her skin. He wiped his hand through it and it came away, taking part of her skin and leaving red, angry tissue behind.

“Auberi!” Garth rushed the child to a table in the center of the lab. He laid her upon it gingerly. “Something is wrong with her!”

The sight of the small child there, on the table, fighting for life, caused Garth’s wolf to react fiercely. He shook.

Auberi was suddenly there. The vampire thrust him out of the way with a force that sent Garth stumbling backward. Auberi began performing life-saving measures on the child. When he reached the point of CPR, Garth’s wolf roared within him. The wolf understood just how dire the situation was as well.

A line of French shot out of Auberi rapidly. Garth’s French was decent on most days, but Auberi’s state of panic caused him to talk faster than Garth could follow along. Auberi began shouting at Garth, demanding he hunt for items required to help the little girl. The vampire went on and on about her having a lethal dose of the chemicals in her system.

Garth’s brain raced with the list of items Auberi had given, getting stuck on low-molecular- weight polyethylene glycol—whatever the hell that was.

“Look for a three-hundred or four-hundred PEG one!” shouted the vampire, not that any of the men he was yelling at even knew what PEG meant. “Blaise, is there milk back there?”

Garth, along with Rurik and Gram, ran back into the first lab and began scouring the glass cabinets for the items Auberi required. Garth threw containers aside, desperate to find what was needed.

Rurik came up with a plastic tube of some sort and then went to a cabinet that looked to be refrigerated and grabbed two bags of clear fluid. Garth’s search yielded nothing, but then again, his mind was still racing and muddled. Currently, he couldn’t find his ass with both hands. The normal level of clarity he possessed in stressful situations was totally and completely gone.

Garth’s wolf pulsed at him from within, wanting to be free. It caused the muscles in his neck to strain and he had to step back from the cabinets as he tried to gain control once more. It didn’t work. He felt his shoulders increasing in size, another sign that he was losing the internal battle with his wolf side. But what had triggered it? Why was it trying to take control?

He wasn’t in danger.

The child.

She’s in danger.

The words echoed in his head.

“I found what I think is the low-molecular- weight poly-whatever-the-hell-col! It says PEG 300!” yelled Rurik, half in Russian, half in English as he came up with a jug of something clear. He too was panicked. He slammed into Garth on his way past and the act helped Garth to gain something close to control once more. The Russian kept going and took the last of the items to Auberi, who also lacked his normal calmness in stressful situations.

In fact, Garth couldn’t recall a time when the vampire had ever seemed so out of sorts when chaos surrounded him. He typically seized every opportunity to make smart-ass remarks, despite the gravity of the situation. No such quips came from him now.

Garth moved quickly to the side of the table once more and reached out, touching the little girl’s head. The need to lift her and protect her forever nearly took him to his knees. “Fix her!”

Auberi’s gaze whipped to him and filled with black instantaneously. That meant his demon had taken the lead.

And that meant he was a threat to the child in the eyes of Garth’s wolf.

“Captain, yer arms!” shouted Gram.

“He’s going to lose control and shift,” said Landros, coming at him quickly. “Rurik, get him out of here.”

Garth shook his head, his teeth lengthening and his mouth changing shape. The word “no” came from him, but it was nearly unrecognizable.

The Russian seized hold of him, lifted him off his feet, and rammed him back against an empty crib. He then held him as Garth fought, needing to get to the child. He had to help her. He had to keep her safe.

Why couldn’t they see that?

He would never hurt the little girl.

Ever.

Auberi lifted his arm and bit his wrist.

As Garth’s mind caught up with why the vampire would be doing such a thing, a red haze of rage came over him.

Auberi was going to give the child his blood.

His very vampire blood.

“No!”

Garth snarled and broke free from Rurik just in time to be struck head-on with a blow of magik. He was no stranger to the source. It was Gram. The power flung Garth backwards and sent him to the floor with a massive, thundering boom, as if Thor’s chariot had run the Viking over.

Unable to move, still pinned by magik, Garth locked gazes with Auberi as the vampire put his bleeding wrist above the child’s mouth. He’d seen what ingesting vampire blood could do to a person.

Sometimes it healed them.

Sometimes it converted them.

And sometimes, it killed them.

Every threat Garth wanted to issue, every promise of death he wanted to say, fell short as his wolf took total control. He knew then he was powerless to the pending shift. He also knew that without the aid of Gram’s magik, he could kill everyone around him without meaning to.

Desperate to protect the others from himself, he looked to his second-in-command, hoping he’d sense the severity of the situation.

Gram’s attention was currently on Auberi, who had lifted the little girl and let out an agonizing cry as she remained limp and unmoving.

Landros charged Auberi, ripping the child from the man’s arms just as Gram sent magik at Auberi.

The magik knocked Auberi over as well, pinning him to the floor just as the man’s demon took the lead.

“S-stop…me,” managed Garth as his body contorted. He didn’t want any child hurt because of his lack of control.

“Fuck!” yelled Rurik. “Gram, Captain needs a super dose of that stinky Fae crap you’re throwing around!”