Taming the Darkness: Love & Monsters, Book 2 (15 page)

Victor’s world shattered.

In a flash, he thought of her dead, thought of life without her. A huge void opened inside him. It would be so easy to fall into it and never come out. Grief and despair and rage filled him, and it was the rage that drove him forward. The other two guards were wrestling the gun away from the man who’d shot Claire, but that wasn’t enough. Victor was going to kill him, rip him to pieces while the man screamed. His claws ached to sink into the man’s flesh and make him pay. He covered half the distance between them in the blink of an eye. From deep down, a voice screamed at him to stop.

Don’t prove them right!

Because he knew why the soldier had shot at him, the reason Claire was on the ground, maybe dead. It wasn’t because the man had mistaken him for a threat. It was because he believed Victor needed to be put down. No matter that Victor had helped them and showed no signs of breaking down like the others had. No, the soldier wanted to end him simply for what he was. If Victor killed him, he would prove the soldier right and the others might decide he deserved to be put down like a rabid dog.

Like someone that had been infected.

A few feet away from the soldier, Victor stopped. Trying not to kill him hurt. The other soldiers got the gun away from him as he shouted that
it
needed to be killed. So close, and everything but that small voice screamed at Victor to kill him, kill the motherfucker that shot Claire.
Claire, Claire. Is she dead?
Holding back made him want to scream, and a low hurt noise vibrated through his body.

The soldier was shouting, the other two were shouting and all of them finally realized how close he was. The three of them turned to stare, and one of them gripped her gun a little tighter.
Don’t prove them right.
The human voice inside him, the piece Claire had kept from being buried. “He shot Claire,” he told the voice and the soldiers standing there. Victor’s body trembled. He wanted to kill the man so bad.

The woman holding the shooter’s gun said, “We’ll take him inside.” She stank of fear. All of them did. A shudder went through him. It would be so easy to tear them all apart. The other soldier twisted the shooter’s arms around behind his back.

“He’ll kill us!” the shooter said. “He’ll kill all of us.”

I want to. I want to kill all of you so bad.

“Victor?”

He knew that voice instantly and whirled around. Claire lay where she’d landed. The soldier she’d been talking to stood over her, shouting for a medic. Victor was at her side in a few quick strides. “Claire?”

She turned to look at him and his rage evaporated. She was alive.
Alive
.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

“Me?”

“Did he shoot you?”

“No.” He reached out to touch her face and paused. His claws were still covered in blood. “Are you…how bad?”

She smiled, although her face was tight with pain. “Not gonna die.”

He searched her body and found the bullet hole in the right side of her chest. “You sure?” His voice shook. Not her heart, but there were plenty of other things that could go wrong.

Doubt flickered across her face. “I’m pretty sure. It hurts like hell, but I don’t
feel
like I’m dying.” She took a deep breath and winced. “But just in case, I better tell you…I love you.”

It broke his heart and warmed it at the same time. “Love you, Claire.” He fought the urge to kiss her. She brought her left hand up to cup his cheek and he nuzzled against it.

A man with a bright red cross on his arm knelt beside her. “Give me some room.” Victor scooted aside and the medic began removing her armor.

Victor waited all of five seconds before he asked, “She all right?”

“Too soon to say.” He poked at Claire’s wound. “I think the bullet lodged in her rib.” Then he squinted at Victor. “Do you need some help? You look like shit.”

“I’ll be fine. Just take care of her.” He was in a lot of pain, but none of it mattered. Nothing mattered but making sure Claire was safe.

“That’s my job.” The medic turned back to her as someone carried over a stretcher.

Claire grabbed Victor’s arm and squeezed it. “I’ll be fine.”

“You better be.”

They loaded her on the stretcher and carried her to the building. Victor followed and nothing they did or said kept him from staying by her side.

Chapter Eleven

Victor nuzzled her again and she pushed him away with a laugh. “We have to be serious. No lovey stuff in front of the recruits. This is business.”

“I know. Just needed to touch you again.” He loved to touch her. A nuzzle, or a brush of shoulders, or brief touch of her face. That was when they were out. In here, when they were alone, they sometimes made love for hours. Victor took a breath. The apartment still smelled like the sex they’d had just after dawn. They were up late to meet the new recruits. Well, volunteers. It was up to him and Claire if they would actually join the program.

She rolled her eyes, but he knew she liked it. “Come on.”

He followed her out of the apartment they shared. It was one of the concessions Alston had made. Victor, and by extension Claire, had saved him from having to admit to the brass that the program was a failure. Yes, the escape of Patterson and the others, and all the chaos they had caused was a huge clusterfuck, but the program wasn’t a complete failure. Victor had proven the alts could be a very valuable weapon if they could manage to become mentally stable. The problem was finding people that had a high chance of having that stability. Patterson had broken down, even though he was discipline through and through. Victor had figured it out when they got a full report on the escape. The alt he’d seen killed in his cell had been Westerfield. One of the guards that shot him down had reported he put up no fight until they actually started shooting him. He hadn’t run out to join the escape as the others had. Just as Victor had stayed in his cell while everyone else was breaking out.

Westerfield had a son, and when Victor heard that, he’d made the connection. Both he and Westerfield had something to hold onto, someone to love, to give them an anchor to their human side. If they could find recruits with those kinds of connections, a loved one to give them a reason to fight for their humanity, then they would have a good chance of being able to control themselves.

As they walked down the hall to the elevator, he caught a whiff of her nervousness. A lot was riding on this batch of recruits. The people they chose had to be stable, had to prove successful in the field or the brass might revisit their decision to let Victor live. “We’ll be fine. I know what to look for.”

“I hope so.”

Victor gave her a quick kiss as they stepped into the elevator. “Don’t worry.”

They went down one floor to the room where they’d get their first look at the volunteers. Like Victor, they came in knowing what they were volunteering for. These men—and possibly women—had to be hardcore to volunteer for this. Not an attempt at a cure, although the scientists were still working on that, but a deliberate choice to become an alt like Victor, to become a weapon against the nasties.

When they walked in, all eyes turned to watch them, especially Victor. It was time to find the weak ones and get them out of here, then he would bring the rest down to the pens tonight to show them what he could do. Then interviews with Claire to find out the personal stuff, to see if they had a connection strong enough to hold onto their humanity.

“So you want to become me? A half-nasty freak of nature?” He walked down the row of men, and yes, there were two women among them. “A living weapon against the nasties. It drove ten out of a dozen of us insane, and I’m the only one left. You really want to take that risk?” He got to the second to last and caught a very interesting scent. Victor stopped and took a deep breath. The man watched him with a carefully neutral expression, but he caught a hint of fear. That wasn’t all though, the man smelled like…

He took another deep breath to make sure. Yes, definitely. He looked at the man’s name stitched across the front of his uniform. “Everson. Just got off the night shift?”

“Yes, sir.” There was another hint of fear. He was afraid Victor had found him out, and he had. He’d have to get Everson alone soon and have a nice long conversation, but for now…

Victor turned to the scientist standing off to the side with a clipboard. “This one. I want him in the program.”

The scientist blinked but wrote down the name.

Later, when they were heading back to their apartment, Claire asked, “Why him? You were so sure.”

“Because he’s like you. In love with something he shouldn’t be. And like me, that’ll give him something to hold onto.” Victor wanted to meet Everson’s female werewolf too. He could bet she’d have some things to teach them. She might even be able to help with the program.

“What do you mean
something
?”

“I think he should tell you himself. I don’t want to out him. It’s…if anyone else finds out what I know, it might mean his life. So be careful.”

She gave him a long look. “You’re making me crazy curious, but yeah, I’ll be careful.”

“This is gonna work. We’ll find others like Everson and Westerfield, others like me, and we’ll show the brass we’re the best weapons they have. Us and people like you. Strong enough to keep us under control.”

“And crazy enough to love you?” she smiled. “If the program works, this glory hound will finally get her glory.”

“And they all lived happily ever after,” he said with a smirk.

“In this world?”

“Why not?” He wrapped an arm around her waist. “I found you right when I needed you the most. This world isn’t out of miracles. It’s been shitty enough, but there’s hope left. It might take a while, but we can win. Unlikely, but not impossible.”

She frowned at him like she was going to argue. Then she shrugged. “Sure, why not? After everything we’ve been through, we’re still here. So why not hope?”

“That’s the spirit.” He kissed her. “Now let’s get some sleep. We’ve got things to kill tomorrow.”

About the Author

Devin Harnois writes about the strange and fantastic, loves skulls and lives in Minneapolis with a lazy cat and a wild imagination.

Find Devin on the web at
www.devinharnois.com
, on Twitter:
@devinharnois
, or send an email to
[email protected]
.

Look for these titles by Devin Harnois

Now Available:

Love & Monsters

Darkness at Dawn

Letting her live was bad enough. Wanting her is much worse.

Darkness at Dawn

© 2012 Devin Harnois

Love & Monsters, Book 1

Richard Everson has seen too many people die, killed by the nightmare creatures that have overrun the world. Every night he leaves the protection of the walled to hunt the nasties alone. He likes his job. Maybe a little too much.

By day, Jennifer lives in her human skin. By night, the wolf takes over, a legacy forced upon her by the nasties who made her one of them. Everson is a tenuous link to what’s left of the human world. Despite the danger to them both, she hungers for his touch.

Each encounter sends the heat spiraling higher, until it burns away all control. And Richard realizes too late his heart has crossed a line punishable by death…

Warning: This book contains strong language, nightmarish creatures, a violence-loving hero, a very naked woman, werewolves, forbidden desire, and post-apocalyptic monster-killing mayhem.

Enjoy the following excerpt for
Darkness at Dawn:

There were still things out, lurking in the shadows. Everson felt them, but nothing hassled him as he made his way down the street. Sometimes he wondered if the nasties had shifts like the force did and left him alone after sunrise because they were off duty.

He walked through a section of small buildings, two-story brick structures that had once been small businesses—a coffee shop, a convenience store, a flower shop. Everson was a little too relaxed, a little too thoughtful. Mornings were deceiving. When he passed the space between two buildings and saw movement, he stopped dead. His gun came up as a reflex and he stared into the alley, braced for attack.

It was a girl. A naked girl huddled against the wall. The sight was so unexpected it blew his circuits for a moment.

“What the…?” he said. She looked up at him and her eyes went wide. “What the hell are you doing way out—?” Things clicked and he gripped his gun tighter. “You’re one of
them
.”

The fear backed out of her eyes and what might be pride or defiance filled them instead. She shifted a little, enough for him to be sure she was naked, her long blonde hair the only thing covering her. She looked to be about twenty-something. A very fit twenty-something. “You’re off-duty.”

“Never hurts to make a few more kills.” He hesitated. She wasn’t human, but she sure as hell looked like one. A helpless, naked, attractive human. Everson tried to shut his mind against those thoughts.