The Mating Project (2 page)

"Shift
and run, Maria.
It will help you think, and I'm sure you'll come to the right conclusion. Your
father would never force you into a union you didn't want. He loves you first
and foremost, and he will protect you, but he can't keep you off the council's
radar forever. Anton has already waited several years for you to come of age, and
he…"

Maria didn't
listen to the rest of her mother's speech. She simply shed her clothes and
shifted mid leap into the garden.

There was the
shimmer of tears on her mother's face when Maria turned in her cougar form,
tail impatiently swishing back and forth.

"At least
stay on our land. There's been report of hunters."

****

"I'll have
no part of this."

Malachi Luca
stared down his father and Alpha of his pack, all too aware of the agitated
wolves surrounding them. They had come baying for blood, and that's what the
Alpha was going to give them. Hunting down humans and unsuspecting shifter females
was not something Malachi considered
sport.
Let alone when it took place
on council property.

"You will
do as you're told, boy." His father's snarl joined in with the growls of
the crowd, and Malachi's wolf bared his teeth. Testosterone surged through his
system, and his muscles bulged and grew as he struggled to keep his beast in check.
His wolf was a restless bugger tonight, and Malachi felt the inexplicable pull
to the forest. It was almost as though someone was calling to him, someone who
his wolf couldn’t wait to connect with, but that was nonsense.

Malachi didn't
believe in any of that airy fairy stuff, but he couldn't deny that something
felt off tonight. Maybe it was just the deep seated disgust he felt at this
monthly run his father organized.

"No can
do." He growled his answer, his voice already more wolf than man, and with
a bone jarring crunch his father shifted into his wolf. Much larger than an
ordinary wolf, his black beast snarled at him.

As your Alpha I
command you.

Then I'll leave
the pack.

A stunned
silence followed that announcement in Malachi's head, before the pack all
started shouting at once, and he closed off his mind.

His father leapt
at him, but with the lightning fast reflexes of youth, Malachi dodged the move
and shifted himself. The Alpha's teeth snapped thin air, and Malachi gave his
wolf free rein.

At barely aged
twenty he stood a good foot higher than his father already. Nonetheless the
older wolf would not back down. He charged again and again, and each time
Malachi moved at the last moment. When at last the Alpha tired and shifted back
to human, Malachi bowed his head, and approached the older man he had once
looked up to.

Chest heaving
with the effort to draw in air, his father simply stared at him.

"Fight me,
dammit, if you're challenging my leadership. But no, your mother gave birth to
a fucking pussy,
who
is afraid to get his muzzle
bloody. You're no son of mine, and you're no longer welcome in this pack."

Fury churned
through Malachi's gut at the mention of his mother. The gentle she-wolf had
passed away last year, and whatever slim grasp on reality his father had had,
had died with her. It was only the thought of how much his mother had loved the
man in front of him, and the promise Malachi had made to her on her deathbed,
that stopped his wolf from ripping the man's throat out. That would make him as
bad as his so-called father.

So, instead he
threw his head back and howled his farewell, and without a backward glance he
turned his back on the life he'd known. The forest called
him,
and that indefinable scent in the air that got stronger the more he ran. His
paws ate up the damp earth, and he breathed in the freedom of being on his own.
He didn't need the pack, or the damn council, who turned a blind eye to his
father's escapades, just because he was one of the originals.

Politics sucked,
and they could all go screw themselves. The scent got stronger still, and he
slowed his pace. There was movement to the side. He was downwind, so the cougar
slowly circling her prey hadn't spotted him yet.

The young female
was skilled. He had to give her that, even as his wolf's fur rose at the
underlying scent of cat. There was a far stronger scent that called to him as
though she was a siren of old, and it made his hackles rise.

No Fucking Way!

She couldn't be
what his wolf was panting in his ear. Fate wouldn't be that cruel. With an
elegant leap the cougar made her move, and brought the unsuspecting deer down
in a move he had to admire, until a new scent in the air made his wolf growl.

The cougar, too,
stopped, and raised her head, and across the distance their gazes connected.
For a split second they simply stared at each other, and Malachi felt the
connection between like them like a physical punch to the gut. The stench of
approaching humans broke the moment. The hunters made enough noise for a herd
of elephants, and that was before the rapid sound of gunfire shattered the
quiet solitude of the forest.

Despite his
disassociation, his former pack members came through loud and clear, and
Malachi's wolf whined his distress. Hackles raised he growled and swung his
head round to the young female. Malachi willed her to run, to get away, but she
didn't move.

Tail swishing
from side to side and teeth bared, she looked ready to pounce, and her cat's
hiss joined his own growl at the impending threat. This wasn’t her fight, yet
she seemed poised to defend her territory anyway. A foolish move in the
circumstances, but one he admired anyhow.

With a long howl
he forced himself to turn his back on her and trekked back to his pack. If they
were under attack, he had to join in. It was the right thing to do, after all,
even if it might well kill him.

****

The fierce
looking wolf took Maria's breath away. It stood higher than her cougar, and the
russet colors of his fur shimmered in the moonlight filtering in through the
trees. She could almost sense his thoughts, as her cougar trained all her
senses on this male. Deer forgotten, her heart leaped in her throat, and she
stood spellbound by the pull between them. He seemed to sense it, too, because
he nodded at
her,
and his amber eyes narrowed. She
heard his wolf's whine seconds before the approaching scents made her beast
snarl.

Humans,
and a large
number of them, pursued by a pack of wolves. The large cat inside her snarled
and hissed. Neither one of those approaching ought to be on her father's land.
This was cougar territory, and Maria was as certain as she could be that she
hadn't crossed boundaries. She was close to their territory lines, her beast having
had to run to clear itself of the disgust coursing through its veins at the
thought of being mated to Anton.

How curious that
the mere thought of Anton brought on such a strong reaction, yet this strange
wolf's scent didn't cause her to gag. Rather the opposite, Maria's animal
wanted to rub itself against the male wolf, and roll over in submission.
Perhaps it was just as well there was an incoming threat. It stopped her from
making a complete fool of
herself
. Maria could just
see her parents’ and brothers' reactions to her returning smelling of dog.
After all that's what wolves were—glorified mutts, beneath her majestic
animal's attention—or at least that's what Maria had always been taught to
believe. This lone wolf, however … he had her thinking all sorts of salacious
thoughts she had no business thinking.

Best stop those
thoughts right now, Maria.

Gunfire snapped
her head up, and she noticed her wolf leap and bound away toward the noise.
Her wolf?

There was no
time to process those thoughts, as a lonely, masked human broke through the
tree line, his gun trained on her. Maria crouched and leapt at him, only to be
brought down by pain flaring up in her shoulder. Paralysis spread from the
entrance wound with astonishing speed, and she made heavy contact with the
forest floor. Winded she struggled to get up on all four paws, but her front
leg would not support her weight. Another sharp pain hit her straight in the
chest, and Maria couldn't breathe. The world went black as her tormentor’s
heavy boots appeared in the corner of her vision.

Chapter Two

Maria came to on
a dirty, cold stone floor. The scent of humans and wolves was everywhere, and
she swallowed the bile back down. She wasn't alone in the room, or maybe she
was, but she sensed a presence watching her. Anger poured off that presence,
irritation, and lust aimed at her. It made her cougar want to curl in on
itself. Maria tried to summon her animal forth. Being this exposed would be
easier to deal with in her cat form, but it was useless. Try as she might, she
couldn’t shift. Instead she lay trapped in her human form, naked and shivering,
and chained to the filthy floor. Others’ screams echoed in her ears, and she
winced and curled tighter into herself, partly to keep warm, partly to shield
herself from the evil stare she sensed.

There was
movement, the heavy step of boots and an animalistic growl that sent slivers of
ice cold fear across her skin. She was no match for any man without her cougar,
and the animal just borrowed deeper inside her body. What the hell was wrong
with her, and where in God's name was she?

If only she
could shift she could be out of these chains and do some serious damage to
whoever stood watching her.
 
She raised
her head slightly to sniff the air, to get the scent, but all she could smell
was the stench of fear, urine, feces, and sex. Surely those should never be
used in the same sentence, but here in this dismal cell, and she was in a cell,
a furtive glance around told her that. Here, in this abhorrent place, those
smells were all around her. The ground she lay on was stained with blood, not
hers, but some unfortunate
female’s
. In her befuddled
state she couldn't make out which species, though if she had to guess, she
would have said cat. There was something familiar about that smell, stained
though it was with the fear and pain of whoever had been chained in this place
before.

"She is due
her next dose, boss. We don't want her shifting, do we?"

The nasally
twang brought with it the smell of hyena, and Maria's stomach churned anew, as
a horrible suspicion dawned on her. It would explain her predicament, at least,
but how fucking dare they? Did they not know who she was?

"She's
definitely waking up, and getting mighty antsy. Not often we get the likes of
her in here. I wouldn't mind experimenting on her myself. It would be fun to
send Councilor Anderson a piece of his high and mighty daughter. That'll teach
them to think more of themselves."

His manic
laughter was joined by a deeper, almost growly chuckle that sounded familiar to
Maria. Again that stare that made every cell in her body want to vomit, and she
knew with frightening clarity where she was. One of the many underground cells
associated with the Mating Project. Here, experiments took place that had no
place in shifter society. It was the whispered stuff of nightmares, where
females were forced to mate against their will, in an effort to increase
fertility rates, and all sorts of mutations occurred.

The council
largely turned a blind eye to them, desperate as they were to help cure the
failing birth rate, but to her certain knowledge they had never stooped as low
as to capture a pure blood such as
she
. She hastily
blinked the tears away. Now was not the time for them. She had to think and
think fast. They knew who she was, so that could only mean one thing. Whoever
was in charge of this cell had to sit on the
council.

Unbidden a
vision of Anton de Souza swam into her mind. He had the connections for sure,
and he was in charge of the Mating Project, the official one, at least, but why
would he do this? Sure enough she had snubbed him completely the last time he
had visited with her father, but he had her father's agreement to mate with
her. Why would he risk that by kidnapping her now, unless he'd known that she
would run?

Maria groaned as
a fresh wave of pain surged through her body. Too late she realized that she'd
been darted again. Her cougar whined and withdrew even further, and Maria
screamed as her mind tried to fight the effects of the poison, but it was
useless. She lost consciousness again.

When she came
round, she had no idea how much time had passed. The walls of her prison held
no natural light, only the harsh fluorescent glare of the overhead lighting
strip. Gingerly Maria sat up, as far as the chains would allow her to. The
heavy metal door to her cell gleamed, and there were bars across the window.
She couldn't see through it, but no doubt they could see in. She yanked on her
chains, frustrated beyond belief at her predicament. Apart from the places she
had been darted, which still hurt like crazy, she seemed unharmed—for now. At
least the cloying presence she'd sensed wasn't there anymore.