Isolated Maneuver

Chapter One

GALIENA KORSAKOV MOVED around the ornate room, having memorized it entirely. She'd been afforded ample opportunity to learn every section of it, every inch. She came to a stop in front of a bulky armoire and put her hand to the door. The armoire was made from wood, stained cherry, and had mirrors behind the inlays. The piece was beautiful and breathtaking, as was every item in the room. No expense had been spared.

She threw open one of the doors to reveal a vanity, complete with a Hollywood-style light-up mirror and pullout bench seat. Various makeup containers were organized perfectly on the left side of it all, and on the right were different lotions and perfumes. All were high-end, all were colors that complemented her, and each had been gifted to her, as if giving her items to make herself pretty would make all the bad disappear.

Her lip curled at the spectacle. She hated it, hated the man holding her.

Twisting, she opened a drawer in the oversized, custom-done piece of furniture. Within the drawer were boxes of jewelry. More gifts since her arrival.

More payoffs.

Attempts at bribing her into obedience and submission.

All failed.

Galiena faced away from the mirror, unable to stand the sight of her reflection staring back at her. She no longer recognized herself, and each day she became more of a stranger. She hated that she'd been so foolish as to have ever fallen into the hands of a madman to start with. It was as if she wasn't street smart. As if she hadn't had to make her own way from an early age. More than that, she hated that her time of resistance was coming to a conclusion. She couldn't deny her inner succubus a feeding for much longer. To do so would mean she'd lose control of it. Worse yet, she'd die.

She'd heard of others like her who'd tried to fight nature. Tried to stand against the tidal wave of lust and longing that being a succubus brought. Their attempts to take a stand ended tragically.

Soon, hers would as well.

"Just a little bit longer," she whispered, unsure if anyone was ever going to come for her. She didn't know for sure how much time had passed since she'd been taken. Since she'd been about to enter the apartment that she shared with her best friend, only to have someone grab her from behind. She'd been overpowered quickly, and when she'd come to, it had been here—in the luxurious bedroom.

A gilded cage, she thought.

Concern for her best friend weighed heavy on her. Had Paisley been taken as well? If so, was she being held in a room like the one Galiena was in? She'd asked her captor more than once, but he'd given her a different response each time. He wasn't to be trusted.

She'd been searching for a weakness within the room since she'd woken to find herself in it. The adjacent bathroom was nearly as large as the bedroom, but it lacked any way out as well. While the room's furnishings were extraordinary and worth more than she'd ever earn in her life, the room was nothing more than a glorified prison cell.

Everything in the room represented payment for sex. Or at least, a down payment on sex, as she'd not yet given in to the demands of the man holding her hostage. Soon she wouldn't have a choice. Soon she'd have to give in to his advances or risk suffering the wrath of her darkness and its hunger.

The canopy bed was adorned in red satin sheets. The same red was mirrored in the drapes that covered barred windows. Even if she could manage to break through the glass and the bars, she was several stories up from ground level. And she could not fly.

She found herself in front of the bed, her gaze locked upon the satin sheets. She knew what the man holding her wanted. He wanted to take her on those sheets. He wanted her to surrender fully to him. She would never give in to Walter Helmuth.

He was the head of the paranormal underground in Seattle, and had been making a name for himself outside of the area as of late as well. He'd gone from heading up paranormal fight clubs to dabbling in the trafficking of supernaturals.

Galiena had always known Helmuth was up to no good, but she'd never realized how truly evil he was until she'd found herself at his mercy.

She'd worked in a sex club that catered to supernaturals for a few years, and she'd always decided who and what she did while working. Jinx, her friend and the owner of the brothel, ran a clean club, never forcing her employees to do anything or anyone they didn't want to do.

Most of her employees were like Galiena. They were either fully succubi or incubi or they were part. All required sexual energy to some degree and all wanted to be there. And none of them had been fans of Helmuth when he'd frequented the establishment. There had always been something untrustworthy about him. Something that turned others off from him.

And now she knew what.

He was evil, sick, and twisted.

Jinx had always serviced Helmuth herself when he'd come in, demanding sex with a succubus. She'd never asked Galiena or any of the other succubus who worked for her to handle the man, but that hadn't stopped Helmuth from trying to buy time with Galiena.

From the moment they'd crossed paths shortly after her first month working at Jinx's club, Helmuth had tried to buy her. Tried to adorn her with fancy jewelry, expensive articles of clothing, and perfumes. She'd refused every advance.

No matter how much Helmuth offered Jinx to buy time with Galiena, Jinx wouldn't budge. It had never been about the money for her. She, like Galiena, needed sex and sexual energy to survive. The club had always been about providing what they needed to live while helping supernaturals with their sexual needs.

There were never any issues like those at human sex clubs. If a supernatural was mated, it was for life, and most types of supernatural males couldn't have intercourse with anyone else once they met their mate. There were exceptions, like if the immortal male met his mate while she was underage. But that was rare, and those men didn't tend to frequent sex clubs.

Galiena had worked briefly in a human establishment, and her natural-born gifts permitted her to sense human male lies with ease. She'd lost track of the number of men who had come in, claiming to be unmarried, who wanted to buy sex. She turned every one of them down. While she required sex to live, she also had to live with herself come morning, and she was no home-wrecker.

Thankfully, her kind was immune to any type of human disease, and she could not conceive a child with anyone other than her mate. At least that was the way Jinx had explained it to them when they'd begun working for her. Prior to Jinx, Galiena hadn't known a lot about herself or her abilities. All she'd known was, she needed sex to live—the hell with the consequences.

Galiena hoped Jinx was right about being unable to reproduce with anyone other than her mate. She wouldn't be able to rebuff Helmuth's advances for much longer, and if she gave in to him, she didn't want to dare think about bringing a child into the world with him.

At the very thought of bearing a child, her mind wandered, and she closed her eyes, images of a tall, well-muscled man with long dark hair filling her head. It wasn't the first time she'd fantasized about the hunk—a man her damn mind refused to let her see the face of. All she knew was her brain had invented a man too perfect to really exist. She wanted that imaginary man to father any children she might one day be blessed with.

Not Helmuth.

Helmuth wasn't the man her mind had conjured. Their body shapes weren't the same. No man was built as powerful as her invented one. That was probably why her mind made him up. Her succubus side always drew upon the images of him when she needed to masturbate to try to push off the hunger. She'd clung to her imaginary man over the course of her time being held captive. It was his form she imagined as she touched herself. And while that had helped to some degree, it wasn't enough anymore.

She looked around the room, her body aching for freedom. She needed to feed—and quickly. Masturbation wasn't enough. Soon, she wasn't sure if even sex would handle the burning lust she had to sate. Galiena couldn't wrap her mind around needing to concede to Helmuth and give in to his advances.

She didn't want him in her body.

Didn't want his touch.

The door behind her opened, and she remained in place, watching as the man she'd come to loathe entered. Helmuth wore a designer, tailored suit, and there wasn't a hair out of place. There never was. He looked like an executive who could perhaps model. If she didn't know how black his soul was, she'd have thought him a good-looking man.

Very good looking.

"Gale," he said, calling her by the shortened version of her name. Only her best friend, Paisley, had the right to do that so she didn't respond.

He took a deep breath. "Fine, Galiena."

She turned to face him, impetuous in the see-through nightgown he'd left for her to wear. The only articles of clothing he'd had in the room for her were all lingerie or barely there nightgowns. She'd requested something else, dresses even as she preferred them, and sweaters as the room was cool.

"Let me go."

He slid his jacket off and placed it on the back of the chair near the vanity. "We've been over this. Give me what I want and we can discuss additional freedoms."

The man had been at her to transfer her succubus powers to him; to gift him with the desire that rolled off her kind in waves, the power to make others bend to his sexual whims, all while bringing him to the top of his orgasm game. In addition, her kind could give others greater stamina in bed, as well.

Helmuth wanted it all.

She didn't know how to give it to him.

"I told you that I don't know how to transfer my sexual essence to you. I don't think that's even possible for one of my kind to do," she snapped, the need to feed clinging to her. "Let me go. Please."

He walked over to the chaise lounge and sat, bringing his feet up and crossing one ankle over the other, before putting his hands behind his head. He looked as if he didn't have a care in the world, and that it was no big deal he was holding a woman against her will.

To him, it more than likely wasn't an issue.

Galiena wished she was a fighter. That she was able to wield her power as a weapon, rather than just as something to make a person orgasm.

"And I've told you that I've seen it done," he said evenly. "Jinx was able to do it."

She was? That was news to her.

Galiena turned to face him. "And she did it for you?"

He nodded. "Often. What do you think she and I did behind closed doors?"

"I didn't want to consider it."

He laughed, but it wasn't friendly. "She would give me small tastes of the power your kind holds, and it would last me a few weeks. I need more. I want all of what you have. I want you."

"I'm not as strong as she is."

"You are."

She stared at him. "Are you kidding me? I'm nowhere near as powerful a succubus as Jinx."

"So young," he hissed.

She lowered her gaze. "Why take me? Why not ask Jinx for a bigger dose of her power? Why resort to this?"

She had to believe Jinx and her friends were looking for her. She wasn't sure exactly how much time had passed since she'd been abducted, but it had to be enough to raise red flags and for others to be looking for her. Why hadn't anyone come yet?

Helmuth laughed, the sound grating on her nerves. "You're in your early twenties, yes?"

Nodding, she met his gaze.

"Jinx has you by centuries."

Jinx was that old? She didn't look it, and she certainly didn't advertise the fact.

"She'll come looking for me," said Galiena, lifting her chin in rebellion. "She'll figure out you have me. People whisper at the club about your fetish for my kind. And they know you try to buy time with me. They'll figure it out. They'll come."

He snorted. "Fetish. I like that word for it."

She didn't budge.

He stayed in place, but his expression was cold and deadly. "No one is coming for you. Jinx is long gone. She cleared out of here and closed up shop a month ago."

"You lie," she said, all the while sensing the truth of his words.

Jinx and her friends from the club had really left her behind?

What had prompted them to go at all? Jinx loved the club. She wouldn't leave it willingly.

She took a step back, her emotions brimming. Her darkness chose that moment to surge forward, wanting to be fed. It had been too long since she'd last fully fed it, and resisting Helmuth's advances was getting harder and harder. For as much as she hated the man, she needed what he was offering.

Sex.

And if she was right, he needed her to be able to perform. Without her consent, her succubus powers would get and keep his dick hard.

She'd seen men like him before. Ones who, while supernatural and often immortal, they couldn't get it up to save their lives. They often sought out her kind. Succubi naturally gave off sexual energy to a degree that it often overcame issues. But without her consent, her darkness stayed locked down enough that Helmuth wasn't getting a literal rise from her.

Not unless she approved it.

The problem was, she couldn't go much longer between full feedings. Already she was tired all the time and had started to lose weight. All signs she wasn't caring for her succubus side properly. If she pushed too much more, it would push back, and she wouldn't like the outcome.

It had happened in the past, when she'd first come into her powers. She'd put a young man in the hospital because of her darkness, and letting it get out of hand. She didn't want to be responsible for harming others again.

Helmuth rubbed his groin through his dress pants. "I can see that you're hungry, Galiena. We can both get what we need out of this arrangement."

"Let me go and I'll help you," she said, desperate for freedom.

He laughed. "Now who is the liar? You, yourself, said you don't know how to assist me. That you aren't powerful enough to do so."

She took a step back and clenched her fists, fighting against her darkness. Tears welled, and she hated the weakness she was showing in front of him. He was the type of man who respected strength, only understood that trait.

He stood rapidly and came close, stopping just shy of her. He stared down at her from an imposing height. "Stop fighting it. Give me what I want."

"You're not a good man," she blurted, before thinking better of it.

He snorted. "What does my being a good man have to do with you giving me what I desire? You're a whore. I could take what I want from you."

Whore.

She had always despised the word.

"You can't and you know it," she said, finding her backbone at the worst possible moment. She was already pushing the limits of his patience. She'd seen him attack men who worked for him, just outside the door to the room she was being held in. He'd been brutal and lacked anything close to mercy. He'd beaten one of the men to death, and then had looked up at Galiena and smiled.

He was evil.

And if she was right, he'd aligned himself with men even worse than him.

"I have ways of making you give me what I need," he said tranquilly. "Don't make me use them, Gale."

She stiffened. "Why are you like this? When I first met you, you weren't this way. At least I don't think you were."

"Maybe I've always been this way, but you were too naïve to notice," he returned, lifting his hand and running the backs of his knuckles over her cheek.

"Walter?" she asked, using his first name, hoping to break through his hard exterior.

He eyed her. "My heart is stone, Gale. Like the rest of me soon enough. But I will admit it is less so in regards to you. Don't push me. Submit fully and don't force my hand."

She wasn't sure what he meant by his comment about stone, and she didn't care. She just wanted to be let go. The tears returned. "I don't know how to give you my powers. If I did, I would."

"I believe you," he said, still touching her. "Until we figure out how to make you a stronger succubus, give me something else. Give me what you need, too."

Sex.

She stiffened.

He pressed his knuckles to her cheek harder. "I could take what I want. You have given it to how many other men? Why not me?"

"You taste like darkness," she said with all honesty. "And that side of me doesn't crave darkness."

"I can make it crave any fucking thing I want," he said, stepping back from her, his expression hardening swiftly. "Remember, you picked this."

"I didn't ask to be taken."

He licked his lower lip. "Had you simply accepted my advances long ago, it would not have come to this."

Galiena shook her head. "You can't just keep people against their will. There are laws—even for supernaturals."

"I'm above the law. You have to have figured that out by now. No one is coming to help you. They think you're dead. That's the word we spread and trust me when I say, we left convincing evidence."

Before she could respond, he was out the door, slamming and locking it behind him. The thud echoed through the room, reminding her that this was her new reality. This was more than likely the room she'd die in.

She sank to her knees, the plush area rug cushioning her as she did, feeling defeated. Tears flowed freely, and she bent her head, her shoulders heaving as she cried.

After only a few minutes, the door opened again.

Thinking it was Helmuth, coming to give her another chance to change her mind, Galiena didn't bother to wipe her tears. When she looked up and spotted a man in a lab coat with an old- fashioned doctor's bag, she tensed. Four guards came in behind him, each grinning as if they knew a secret she didn't.

The man in the lab coat was old, but there was something about him that said he was far older than he even appeared to be. There was also something disconcerting about him. The urge to keep distance between them was great. He had an air about him that said he was capable of incredible cruelty, and he derived great pleasure from it.

When he spoke, hints of a German accent were evident. "Ms. Korsakov, let us see all the greatness you have hidden within you, shall we?"

She tried to scramble away from his reach, but the guards apprehended her. They yanked her off the floor and held her suspended in the air as if she were nothing more than a rag doll.

"Let go of me!" she shouted, but it fell on deaf ears.

"Where do you want her, Dr. Krauss?" asked one, glee in his voice, as if he hoped she would put up more of a fight.

Krauss, the man in the lab coat, motioned to the bed. "Hold her down there and bare her arm for me. It's time for the succubus to take her medicine."

The guards shared a laugh at her expense as they did as the man commanded. Galiena bounced up and off the bed from the force the men used. She came down hard on the floor and winced as something deep within felt as if it snapped. The men grabbed her, lifting her partially off the floor, holding her there, suspended as Krauss plunged a needle into her upper arm, injecting her with something that burned. She could feel it as it moved through her body, heating her insides to the point she thought she might burst into flames.

Krauss laughed as she writhed in pain. The men released her and she fell limp to the floor. Krauss then bent and moved her long hair from her face, touching her cheek tenderly. "Look at how you've grown."

She lay there, staring up at him with moisture-filled eyes, her body in so much pain she couldn't speak or move.

The crazed man continued to touch her face. "You know, I created you."

What?

The question must have showed on her face as he touched between her brows. "You are one of my children. One of my creations. I helped to make so many of you. All special, all gifted, all miracles."

She gasped. The sick old man was her biological father?

He laughed again. "I see the wheels spinning, Galiena. While I did not father you, I am the man who perfected the technique that led to your creation. That led to your birth. Myself and my colleagues gathered viable women to carry each of you to term. Though now, we only use women to incubate our young on rare occasions. Or special opportunities, like mating creations." He glanced away and snorted. "I have no idea why PSI continues to refer to all of you as being part of the Asia Project when its reach was everywhere, not limited to Asia. We had labs in every country, in every corner of the globe. We amassed samples from so many supernaturals that our tests were destined for greatness."

She was made in a lab by this sick bastard before her?

No.

He couldn't be telling the truth, could he?

He touched her lips. "You are so special. You took to so many different strands of supernatural DNA, in just the right mixes, to give you extraordinary power. You should have already grown into them all. And your mind didn't break when you developed succubus gifts, as many of my other children's did."

He seemed to go far away in thought for a moment before sighing. "Many were lost to madness or killed themselves. Others had to be put down like rabid animals. But many survived. The Corporation assists in locating them all now, helping me to gather my family once more. I want to make you all even stronger. Even better."

She cried silently as her body continued to burn from whatever he'd given her.

"If you live through this," he said, bending more and planting a chaste kiss on her head. "You will be a force to be reckoned with. You will be unstoppable. And you can then help to birth the next generation of super soldiers. You can help us create our army, for a war is coming. Soon, we will take over the world. We won't live in the shadows anymore. We won't hide who we are and what we can do. Humans are cattle— and must be treated accordingly."

She tried to shake her head no, tried to resist.

He didn't seem to notice or care. "We're so close to perfecting our hybrids. So close to getting the formula right. We're losing less during the conversion process now. It used to be one hundred percent. Now, we only lose around seventy-five percent."

She cried harder. She only had a twenty-five percent chance of surviving what he was doing to her?

"Oh, Galiena, the things I will be able to teach you. Wait until you see everything we've been working so hard for. We are the future, and the future is nearly here. We stand on the dawn of a new era."

Between his accent and his rhetoric, all Galiena could think of was Hitler and what she'd learned in school about Nazi Germany and the man's quest for a master race. Her stomach tightened and the tears came faster.

She wouldn't help Krauss with his plan. She'd do whatever it took to be free from him, his plan, and his new dawn.

Chapter Two

BANE ANTONOV STOOD with his arms crossed over his chest and his gaze pinned on the darkened parking lot before him. While he was motionless, and had a calm exterior, his beast had been restless as of late, as if sensing something was on the horizon. Meditation and reflection had not helped to alleviate the unease. Nothing had quelled the stirring. Already he could hear the blood rushing through his veins, pounding in his ears. His palms itched for a shift, wanting to go to beast form, in preparation for something—but what?

He wasn't sure.

The smell of the city hit him hard, easing his pending change. With as sensitive as his shifter senses were, he had to take a moment to calm his stomach as the stench of the city washed over him. He was overdue for an extended stay in the Congo. His beast side was in desperate need of its natural habitat, but duty called.

Police sirens pierced the night, their lights splashing across the building nearest him as they sped down the larger street off to his right. Part of him wondered what the police might be responding to, but he'd learned a lot in his long life, and the biggest lesson he'd taken from it all had been that humans were capable of incredible cruelty.

So were supernaturals.

He knew.

He'd suffered through horrendous acts at the hands of both.

As an immortal, he'd been around enough to see all types of evil. And often, it came from the most unexpected places—sometimes from within.

He stared off in the direction the first responders had gone and thought back to the seventies, when he'd spent a decade working as a detective for the human law enforcement agency as a member of the New York City Police Department. Keeping his true identity hidden had been much easier back then, before the advent of smartphones and the internet. It was still doable. It just took more work.

Throughout his long life, he'd assumed many different occupations and identities. Gravitating toward professions that had ties to his military training seemed to be something he did often. It was where he felt most comfortable. He'd been a damn fine detective and often considered picking the profession up once more. He'd need to put more time between now and then, though. It would be too easy to accidentally bump into someone who had been around the same time he'd had that identity.

A small part of him tugged deep, wanting him to head in the direction the police had gone to investigate what had happened. His current occupation ran more along the lines of mercenary, though he detested the label. Getting paid to use his skillset made him smart, not a bad guy —as so many enjoyed associating with the word. Besides, what he was doing now was important.

Lives were at stake.

A small niggle in the back of his mind started and worry tugged at him. His hand went to his back pocket, where he kept his wallet. In it was a photo he'd been given from the mate of a friend. Paisley had wanted help finding her best friend and former roommate, Gale, so she'd asked her mate, Weston, to look into it. Of course, Weston enlisted the help of his friends. Bane had been part of the group that had searched for the missing young succubus, only to find the trail going cold. The little bit of information they'd gotten suggested Gale was dead, but Paisley refused to believe as much.

So did Bane, but he didn't voice as much.

No point getting Paisley's hopes up.

He kept his hand on his pocket a moment, thinking of the black-and-white photo in his wallet. It was the only one of Gale that existed. She, like many supernaturals, did her best to avoid cameras and video recorders. From the photo, Bane already knew she was stunning. Though, the photo was very blurry and showed she and Paisley laughing, holding one another in a photo booth, and making faces at the camera. Apparently, they'd had a lot to drink that night and thought it was a good idea to get in the booth.

Bane hadn't let the picture leave his side since he'd been given it. More than once he'd looked at it while handling his own needs. He'd folded it so Paisley wasn't showing, because jerking off to a photo including one of his best friend's wives seemed wrong. But the other woman in the picture held his attention and turned him on in ways that confused him.

Focus, he reminded himself. Less attention to a girl who is more than likely dead and more on the current mission.

Bane returned his attention to the old industrial building on the other side of the darkened lot. The information one of his informants had provided led him to the area, in hopes he'd find more clues that he could pass on to the Ops teams, or act upon himself. The latter was more than likely how things would play out. Bane tended to take matters into his own hands a lot.

More than any man should.

So far, all he'd seen was a whole lot of nothing happening in the way of the building. He'd promised a close friend that he'd wait at the location for contacts to arrive that might be able to help shed light on the rash of disappearances within the supernatural underground. Bane had been looking into them since they had come to his attention not long back. He'd assisted Weston, and in the process had his eyes opened wide to the fact their kind was facing a new threat.

As if their own government wasn't enough.

Now assholes wanted to capture them, torture and test on them, and in some cases sell them to the highest bidders.

"Why not, right?" he asked out loud, despite being alone in the parking lot.

He preferred to keep his own company. Getting close to others had never ended well for him. The only people he was what anyone would term close to, were the men he'd served with, the men he'd gone through testing with—thinking they'd come out the other side super soldiers, not the monsters they'd actually made out of them. When he'd volunteered for the testing it had been with the idea he'd come out of it a better man, a better soldier. They'd never told him the truth of it all. That they were manipulating DNA. That they were genetically engineering super soldiers.

And they'd never been honest about the side effects. Men he'd served with had died during the tests. Others had ended up broken shells of themselves. All had endured the same horrors he had.

Hell, some even had it worse than him.

Bane had learned all about what had been done to them after the fact. After he'd found freedom. While he wasn't a scientist, he understood the reality was that DNA testing and manipulations, cloning, genetic engineering, and eugenics started long before the public was made aware of it. Long before Hitler and the Nazi Party became infamous for their testing. Long before Dolly the sheep even. But humans and the general public didn't want to know the gory details. Didn't want to know the truth. Didn't want to know the death tolls amassed in the name of science.

And they sure the fuck didn't want to know men and women who could shift into animals walked among them.

Truth was, shifters had always been and always would be. Most were natural-born, but some, like him, had been man-made. Created in labs. Though, from his understanding, the only reason the testing had worked on him had been because he'd possessed recessive genes and supernatural DNA to start with. Somewhere in his family line was a supernatural. Possibly more than one. That left his body more accepting of the testing done on him. But nothing was foolproof or perfect. He was testament to that.

He was flawed.

Seriously flawed.

His temper and his self-control had always been in question. It had left him more of a liability to the government than an asset, and they'd done to him what they'd done to so many others like him—they'd first housed him in a prison they'd termed a treatment facility, and then they'd tried to kill him.

Tried to cover up their mistake.

"Fuck you," he said sternly. "I'm still standing. Takes more than that to bring me down."

It took all he had to keep from sinking into a pit of despair once more. It had taken him over a decade to meditate his way from the bleak oblivion that had been his reality for so many decades before. Returning to old thought processes and self-loathing would get him no closer to his current objective.

He needed new information on the bigwigs who were collecting supernaturals, and he needed it sooner, rather than later. Lives were at stake. Since Bane had learned of the underground happenings, he'd reached out via the Outcast network and was stunned to realize how many men had fallen out of contact. That wasn't like them. They all had ways of checking in that kept them off the grid, but a number hadn't done so.

That was a major cause for concern.

Especially since the ones who hadn't checked in were known to be reliable and didn't make a habit of vanishing. He had feelers out among those he trusted, but so far, not much information had returned.

He hoped the contacts he was meeting could shed more light on it all. He'd take any break he could. Checking his watch yet again, Bane made a note of just how late the contacts were.

His gut told him something was wrong.

To abort and clear out of the area.

But he didn't.

He leaned back against his SUV, crossed one ankle over the other and folded his arms across his chest. The possible information he'd gain if the contacts did indeed show was too valuable for him to fold up. And he'd been in a jam before, so running because he got spooked just wasn't in him. His shifter was the type that took threats head on. He didn't cower. Neither did his beast.

His mind drifted as more sirens sounded in the distance.

The city never slept.

That was part of what he both liked and disliked about it. The shifter side of him craved wilderness and to be free in nature. The human side of him, which he felt as though was shrinking daily, craved people and companionship.

But that wasn't to be.

He couldn't get too close to others.

His government had turned on him, making him a monster—something that could never know love. He was a danger to anyone he let too close. Remembered pain took root in him, and he closed his eyes, willing it away. Permitting himself to dwell on the past would get him nowhere. He knew. He'd done so enough in his long life. Hell, he'd spent time in the East, studying meditation and temper-control techniques with a group of monks. During his time with them, he'd taken a look at himself, and he'd not liked the image staring back at him.

He'd become a bitter, angry man who walked on an emotional tightrope daily. More than once he'd fallen off and crashed hard, and each time people had died. He wanted to blame the government; for what they'd done to him, for what they'd turned him into. But in reality, he'd been a ball of burning rage prior to being experimented on. The testing had only exacerbated it all. It had given him the excuse he'd been desperately seeking—permission to let his rage loose on others. And he'd done just that. He wasn't proud of the fact, and there was nothing he could do to fully make amends for his past sins.

The best he could do now was lessen the ripple effects of the testing he'd once been so keen on participating in.

The other men who had undergone testing and ended up less than perfect in the eyes of the government were also forced to live off the grid.

A lot of crazy shit had been going down in the supernatural community. Whatever was happening had the roaches scattering in the daylight, leaving bad guys coming out from all angles. Now his people, the Immortal Outcasts, as they'd been termed, were being hunted by not only the very government they'd once sworn to serve and protect, but by these asshole bad guys as well.

Of course. Why not?

His contact was now seriously fucking late. When Bane had put feelers out in the paranormal underground in search of information on men he'd once served with who might have fallen victim to a big-spender collector of supernaturals, he wasn't sure what would come back. For the first few weeks, intel pouring in was grim, to say the least. The few bits that had reached him that weren't filled with gloom and doom had proven to be from nut jobs, and the information false.

Bane had spent years cultivating contacts that most would term seedy. Hell, most would call him a mercenary and question his morals as well. He didn't give a fuck what they said about him. He knew he wasn't perfect. He was what the government had made him—flawed and about fifty shades of fucked up.

"Fifty? Try one hundred."

He rotated his head, making his neck crack loudly. His body was tense with need. It had been months since he'd had sex. He'd come close to completing the act not long ago when he and a buddy had gone to a local sex club, but the bad guys had decided interrupting his getting laid was a great idea. It had ended poorly for them, so that lesson had hopefully been learned.

Probably not.

He'd never had sex with anyone he cared about. Not once in his long life. When he was in his teens, he'd had sex with the first girl who'd said she wanted it as a way to lose his virginity. He wasn't proud of the fact. He should have known something was different about himself then. He'd been wild in bed, more so than others had ever whispered of. The girl had seemed stunned but pleased. She'd also been very experienced compared to him at the time. During that encounter, he'd had to fight to keep from being too rough with her. As he'd aged, his loss of control during sex had gotten worse, and then when he'd gone through testing to be turned into a super soldier, it went to hell in a handbasket.

He didn't like to think about it all. The effects of the testing had left him damaged emotionally in more ways than one. The biggest being, he no longer trusted himself during sex. He actively sought out supernatural whorehouses, where he could be paired with the type of supernaturals who craved sex the way he had to have it.

Hard and dirty.

And he hated every second of it, but denying his manly needs only left his beast side more unpredictable. That was something he couldn't allow to happen. People ended up dead.

"Finish this up, and then you can get your rocks off," he said as he continued to survey the area. He used the alone time to calm himself. The ability to center his focus and keep his once- notorious temper in check to some degree had come after countless hours spent with the monks in a temple tucked away in a far corner of the East. He knew he'd always have to work at keeping his beast side under control, but what other choice did he have?