“Besides, I’ll pin it on Quinton. I came across him attacking you in the woods. I tried to save you, but sadly wasn’t able to.” He gave a quiet laugh. “And when I followed Quinton back to the city, we struggled and I came up with the knife first. Presto. Quinton ended up dead. Two for one. I really should’ve thought of this earlier.”
“That makes absolutely no sense and has more holes than Swiss cheese, you sick bastard,” she screamed. “They will know it’s you!”
“Well, I’ll take my chances anyway.”
“Of course you will. Why did you do it? Lock up your own kind? Experiment on them in ways that was basically torture.”
“For money, Sienna. It’s always about money. Someone approached me with a wonderful offer, an amount of money that could hardly compare with the P.I.A.’s salary and pittance of a pension. In the end I didn’t really want to work with them. I kept the money, and will allow them to keep the blame. I made sure the trail of the shifters’ imprisonment would lead back to them.”
Sick. So absolutely sick and wrong. But then why should she have expected anything else from him at this rate?
“And who paid you? Who’s the other person you’re betraying.” Answer. Dammit, if she was going to die, she was going to know who was pulling the strings on this damn experiment.
“Jocelyn Feloray.”
Sienna’s stomach sank and her mouth dried out. The owner of Feloray Laboratories? This really went all the way to the top? She’d assumed maybe some rogue employees, if it was even anyone at the company. But not the woman who was responsible for the lab’s creation. They’d always been credited for saving lives, not taking them.
“What does she have against shifters?” she whispered.
“I didn’t really ask. It’s better that way.”
“You’re just plain evil. Turning against your own kind.”
“Your kind too, Sienna. Or have you forgotten already?” He slowed the car to a stop on a dark, deserted road at the edge of the forest, and then turned to face her. “But then you’ll never really be like us. You’re just a half-breed. Can’t even shift. The runt of the fucking litter who is never quite good enough. Trust me, you’re better off dead than living the existence you’d be forced to have.”
The pain that had been in her stomach earlier today returned with a vengeance, and the headache grew more vicious than ever.
Images of Quinton, bloody and dying, flickered through her head and she gripped her knees, sucking in deep breaths.
That raw, primal feeling inside her grew, and her vision sharpened. As she stared down at her hands, she saw her nails lengthening. Sharpening.
Rafferty slid out of the car and jerked open her door. “Get out.”
Sienna slid out of the car, her body trembling.
“Now,” Rafferty brought the knife up between them. It was still shiny with Quinton’s blood. “I suppose it’s too much to ask that you make this easy on me?”
“Yeah.” Fight or die. She’d been here before. Just days ago. Only this time she knew Warrick wasn’t going to save her. She’d have to do it herself. “That’s way too much to ask, asshole.”
His mouth twisted into a humorless smile. He pressed the knife against her chest, not hard enough to draw blood, but enough to indicate a warning.
“Turn around and walk into the woods.”
She could either get stabbed right now, here on the side of the road, or try and make a run for it in a few seconds. Uh, no brainer.
Sienna turned and stepped off the road into the trees. There wasn’t a clear path, but she narrowed her eyes, amazed at how much she could actually see. Part of it had to be because of the moon, but more so, she suspected it had to do with the drug having wakened her shifter genes.
“Any last words you’d like me to pass on to Warrick?” Rafferty smothered a laugh and cleared his throat.
The bastard thought this was hilarious.
A tingling swept through her body, and it was almost as if she floated up, staring down at herself as something else seemed to take over.
“No? Well then. I’ll think of something creative.”
Red swept through her vision and something exploded inside her, even as she heard the blade slicing through the air.
Instinct took over and she lunged forward and away from him. Running. Harder. Faster than she ever had in her life.
A thick, heavy fog filled her head. Threatening her as her legs carried her between trees and deeper into the woods. Pushing at her ability to think, threatening to take over.
Until it finally did.
“There’s my car.”
Kevin had barely put the van in Park before Warrick was out the door, shifting and tearing into the woods.