She stopped at the sound of moving water.
Frowning, she looked over her shoulder. A small body of water lay
behind the copse of trees where they’d been standing.
“Do you hear that
?” she asked
Hawke.
“What?”
“The water, it’s
moving.”
“Come to me, Asia
.”
“Huh?
” she turned in his
direction.
“Together, remember
?”
She moved to the side of the van and looked in
at the half-breed. “
You can’t take him to the compound. We don’t
know anything about him.”
“He’ll be scanned and checked before
entering the building but this small half-breed knocked me on my
ass. He moved like the wind and I couldn’t scent him. Like you
said, we need to know more
.”
Hawke grabbed the passenger chair from the
ground and propped it inside. He waited for her to step inside.
When she took a seat, he walked to the driver’s side and started
the engine. With the tree removed, they drove uncontested to meet
the main highway.
Leaning against the headrest, her thoughts
settling, Asia heard an old, yet familiar clicking and cursed
herself for not checking before. She grabbed her sword from the
floorboard, turned in her seat and placed the point of the blade in
the half-breed’s neck piercing skin and pinning him to the
floor.
His eyes flew open and glowed yellow. Asia
watched his camera come online. For a moment he lay passive beneath
the blade. Then he howled and tried to push her off slicing his
hand in the process. Hawke stopped the van. Leaving her chair she
pressed down on the blade, the more he struggled the deeper the
blade sank.
“We can do this any way you want. But whatever
they hope to see will be cut short when I cut off your head,” Asia
said, leaning into the sword.
After a few seconds, the color of his eyes
changed to brown. The acrid smell of fear rose from his skin. Pain
and unmistakable terror filled the half-breed’s eyes. He opened and
closed his mouth several times.
“What happened
?” Hawke asked
“I heard the computer chip in his mind when
he came back online
.”
“Ah…okay. So this is Liege
bullshit.”
“That’s my guess. Someone’s controlling him.
The only reason his eyes are brown now is he’s dying, I’m killing
him
,” she said. “
If I let up, they regain control which
means he’ll try to finish his assignment.”
“Assignment?”
“To terminate us
,” she said thinking it
should be obvious.
“Kill him so we can return to the
compound, there are a lot of things we need to do.”
Asia stared into the half-breed’s eyes as they
slowly changed a lighter brown and then yellow. He stopped
struggling and just watched her. The tips of his incisors cut into
his lip as his wolf slowly emerged. Hawke raised his foot and
stomped its knee. The bone snapped, the transition stopped and the
beast gurgled on the blood in his throat from the blade.
“He will attack you when his computer
retakes control
,” Hawke said. “
Snap its neck so we can
leave.”
“I know.”
She raised the
blade.
The half-breed kicked her between the legs and
holding its neck scooted to the side of the van, snapping and
growling. Hawke grabbed it by the hair and threw it against the
other side, rocking the van. As the pain subsided Asia picked up
her sword. The beast kicked out again missed and rolled out the
passenger side onto the ground.
Fast on his trail, Asia jumped down behind him
and swung. He ducked as her blade whistled through the air.
Jumping, he kicked and knocked her back. Hawke tackled the
half-breed, pulled it up and then slammed his face into the side of
the van creating a sizable dent.
He released the beast and went to retrieve
Asia’s sword. Shaking her head, Asia stood. The half-breed had
picked up something sharp and ran at Hawke. Leaping forward, Asia
landed on its back causing them both to fall. It jumped up, drew
back its fist and threw a punch. She rolled, grabbed a stone from
the ground and slammed it into its forehead. Out the corner of her
eye she saw her sword on the ground nearby, grabbed it and swung.
This time she didn’t miss.
“So you finally killed your mate’s seed,”
Lancaster said, a smug smile on his face as he stood on the
opposite side of the road.
Before she could respond, Hawke leapt at
Lancaster and knocked him down to the ground. Somehow Lancaster
escaped Hawke’s hold and the two men threw punches at each other.
Grunts and the unmistakable sounds of flesh hitting flesh again
filled the air.
Asia wiped her eyes. Lancaster punched Hawke?
And knocked him backward? How was that possible? Moving closer, her
grip tightened on her sword. Stunned, she watched the man she knew
as Boris Lancaster morph into a larger version of his human form
and backhand Hawke. Her mate flew backward and hit a tree and
bounced forward. Hawke didn’t stop until his fist connected with
Lancaster’s jaw. The older man ducked the next blow and landed one
of his own. Asia watched as blood flowed from a wound on Hawke’s
side.
Hawke roared from the pain and morphed to his
hybrid, immediately dwarfing Lancaster. But that didn’t stop the
older man from attacking and landing several blows. More blood
dripped from lacerations and puncture marks. That’s when she
realized Lancaster had claws.
“Stop playing with him
,” she said, a
little worried the bleeding hadn’t stopped. Did Lancaster use
poison on the tips like the bluebirds?
Lancaster punched Hawke in the thigh, the claw
tips embedded deeply and then he twisted his hand and drew back.
The tips broke off and remained in Hawke’s thigh. The howl of his
pain snapped her out of spectator mode. She leapt and landed on
Lancaster, her hands wrapped around his neck and she squeezed. He
placed something on her leg. Her heart slammed in her chest at the
light humming sound. Her legs stiffened. She tried to command the
metal to obey her but they were frozen and didn’t move. Next her
right arm loosened from around his neck.
From beneath her, the maniacal gleam in
Lancaster’s eyes brightened as his hand encircled her throat and
squeezed.
Impossible
. The strength beneath the hand cutting
off her circulation stunned her. She tried to move but her legs
were locked in position and her right arm wouldn’t move. Asia tried
to shake off his hand from her neck, even punched him with her left
fist in the face twice to dislodge him. Instead of moving him, the
blows seemed to excite him more.
“Bitch, you’ve been a bug in my ass for too
long. The only way to destroy you is to do it myself,” Lancaster
growled, tightening his grip.
Light-headed, Asia threw another punch but it
didn’t land. Dots floated across her vision as she tried, without
success, to breathe.
“Die, bitch, die,” Lancaster said.
Asia’s thoughts drifted to Hawke, Sarita,
Damian and her parents. “Hawke,” she whispered and said
good-bye.
The next moment she flew through the air and
landed near the van in a heap gasping for air while holding her
bruised throat. Grunts and punches grabbed her attention. Hawke
stood in his largest form and lifted Lancaster from the ground. The
man dangled between the points of Hawke’s claws swinging, trying to
connect.
Hawke stepped back slightly and slung Lancaster
through the air. The man flew backward and hit the van. Hawke
reached the man before he slid to the ground, picked him up and
shook him so hard, two liquid-filled syringes fell to the ground as
well as a couple of pills.
She sniffed. “
Poison, more stuff for the
lab
.”
“How could you turn your back on everything we
built?” Lancaster asked Hawke who stared at him. “We had the world
and you threw it all away, for what?” He looked down at Asia who
tried to pull the device off her leg.
“For her? She just killed your pup,” Lancaster
yelled, his frustration over Hawke’s silence evident.
“Twist that small dial to the right once and
the left twice and it’ll come off. Bastard bought toys I made to
kill my mate
,” Hawke told her.
After her limbs were unlocked, Asia strode over
to Hawke and looked at Lancaster.
Hatred wafted off him in waves.
“No one can outrace the poison, you’ll be dead
in a few…few hours,” Lancaster said suddenly gasping for air. Hawke
had tightened the hold around Lancaster’s neck with each word the
man spoke.
Asia smiled and touched his arm. The bracelet
warmed as she cranked it to the highest level for a full body
exchange which would give her access to everything, his contacts,
his passwords, the Liege plans and knowledge of anything else they
needed to know. The tingle raced down her arm into Lancaster. His
eyes widened as she stole his life and stored his
information.
“No,” he screamed, struggling in Hawke’s firm
grip. “You bitch, don’t you dare. I’ll kill you for this.” Blood
rolled down his nose. His movements lessened as the transfer
continued. His body took on her features and she took on his. The
knowledge locked in Lancaster’s mind fascinated her. She could tell
by Hawke’s expression he wanted to delve into the secret data right
away. A few seconds later, Lancaster went still. His heart stopped
beating and his chest didn’t move.
“That bastard
,” she said looking back
down the road they’d just driven. “
There is a magnet
underground. He and those two tested it to use against the compound
security system. We need to disarm and break that down as well.
Shit! He was behind the bombs the rebels used to kill those
half-breeds and provided them with ammunition. He did all that to
flush me and you out so he could kill us. If he weren’t already
dying I’d kill the bastard again.
”
Tired from the abuse to her body, she moved
slower than normal as they returned to the location where the van
had been attacked and headed toward the trees. Asia walked straight
to the small pond and pointed. “
It’s in there
.” Hawk morphed
to his hybrid and entered the water. When his head disappeared she
moved near the bank and returned to her natural state. The idea of
looking like Lancaster a minute longer made her
nauseous.
“Hawke? Where’d you go?”
“There’s a room and tunnel beneath the
device. I’m checking to see where it goes
.”
Asia looked back at the van, thought of all the
boxes inside that La Patron wanted and decided to remain as
security.
“What do you see
?” she asked after a few
minutes.
“A series of rooms beneath the house that
aren’t on the security system in the lab or anywhere else it
appears. Tyrese and I are trying to see if they connect at some
point. This is how Lancaster and the half-breed hid from us
earlier. There’s a small kitchen with vials in the refrigerator. I
think this has something to do with their ability to hide from us.
I’m taking it with me to the lab
.”
Asia smiled at the excitement in his voice.
“
I’m happy you’re finding new toys but we need to get this
information to La Patron,
” she reminded him. “
Plus I want to
see Damian and Sarita.”
“We’re close to finding a connecting room.
Forensics needs to check this area out as well and disconnect the
magnet,
” he said.
Asia looked at the trees and remembered her
time on the Continent when she used them as security. Climbing the
largest one quickly, she tested a limb, sat down with her back
leaning against the trunk. She saw Ollie Brown’s mansion to the
right, the long winding road they had taken to the main road, the
pond beneath her and the twinkle of lights of homes waking for the
start of a new day.
Inhaling, she prepared to catalogue the
information she had received from Lord Boris Lancaster. His name
left a bitter taste on her tongue. Knowing he died at she and
Hawke’s hand brought her supreme pleasure. Taking all of his
secrets, especially those he assumed would accompany him to his
grave, made her day. Closing her eyes, she peeled back the lid on
his earliest memories and settled in to learn more about his
life.
Chapter 24
The alarm that announced the death of a Liege
beeped in the background. Lord Roderick sat slumped in his chair
watching the monitor, his thoughts conflicted. Dead. Lancaster,
that wily old bastard who always managed to cheat death, finally
died. Through the years the two of them disagreed more than once on
the organization’s direction but Lancaster lived for their group.
Staring at the monitor, he hoped and dreaded the reactivation of
the red light that would announce his council member’s return to
the land of the living.
When nothing happened, he zoomed in on the
location. That fool went to West Virginia, right in La Patron’s
backyard. What the hell was he thinking? Roderick tapped the desk
while looking at the large, wall-mounted screen.
“What was Lancaster working on?” he asked
Prokam, his assistant.