Badlands: The Lion’s Den(21)

“Not much I could do when she kept putting me off,” she’d heard Loren say. “Not like I can force her into a mating, when that nosy council bitch checks in with her every month.”

“You had one job,” the man had said, his voice dripping with contempt. “Make her fall for you. Too hard? Do you need lessons?”

“I’ve been sweet-talking the fat bitch until I want to puke,” Loren had retorted. “Don’t worry. She’s one hundred percent set on the mating next month.”

Flora had felt sick to her stomach, and furious. She’d never loved Loren, and she’d felt horribly guilty about it. The Wilkinsons had waged a campaign to convince her that he was far too good for her and she was lucky he’d even look her way. Sweet, handsome Loren who supposedly worshipped the ground she walked on.

“She’d better be,” the man had snapped. “Costing us a god damned fortune.”

“Are you sure she’s even worth it?” Loren had asked him. “She’s being watched twenty-four hours a day here, and nobody has ever seen her start a fire.”

“Those blood tests didn’t lie,” the man had said coldly.

And then it had all made a horrible kind of sense. Six years ago, scientists had come to Flora’s house and taken blood tests from her and everyone else in the family. They’d claimed that they were concerned about contaminated water. But they’d come shortly after that fire in the field – the one that Flora had taken the blame for.

And a few days after the blood tests, her family had sent her to live with the Wilkinsons. At the time, she hadn’t connected the two events. But apparently something in her blood indicated that she was a Firestarter. Most likely, Krystle was the real Firestarter and Flora was some kind of latent, but these people either didn’t know that Flora was latent, or didn’t care. They wanted to force her to breed for them – so they could use her and her cubs, her babies, to experiment on.

Hell, no. Over her dead furry body would she ever let that happen.

She’d fled that day, looking for Krystle. When she’d found out that Krystle had moved to the Badlands a couple of years earlier, she’d headed straight there. She’d needed to get away from those people and warn Krystle. Someone might figure out the truth, and go after her next.

She heard a rattling at the window, and started, her heart hammering in her chest. It was just a gust of wind, but it reminded her that she needed to hurry up so she could get back to safety.

She glanced down at the website. The car that had been parked in front of the Wilkinsons’ house was registered to a corporation called TerraDyne, Incorporated.

An internet search for TerraDyne revealed surprisingly little. They were incorporated in California. Their website was bare-bones, and provided next to no insight into what they did; everything was written in broadly generalized gobbledygook. They described themselves as “a cutting edge research company dedicated to providing a wide range of services and solutions by utilizing the latest in modern technology”. Meaningless. What kind of research?

Sarah stuck her head through the doorway. “There’s a patrol headed this way,” she said urgently. “You’ve got to go.”





Chapter Ten




The outskirts of Darwin were mostly deserted on the northern side. Gusts of wind blew a crumpled, yellowing newspaper down an empty street. Liam, Finn and Jose strode past the shells of burned-out buildings, lost in a fire a dozen years ago, and followed the sounds of deranged howls coming from the tree line. There was a wolf shifter there who’d been living in the woods by himself, and of course he’d gone feral. He’d attacked several people already and then fled into the woods; it was time to put him down.

Finn was in a foul mood. He was trying to keep his distance from Flora, working on the opposite side of the club from her, keeping his conversations with her short and polite and noncommittal.

It wasn’t working. His need for her burned through his veins like fire, distracting him, needling him like a thorn. He’d be standing in the bar watching her clean tables and just a glimpse of her sweet smile, the musical tinkle of her laugh, would make his heart race faster.

And then he’d see Jennifer looking at him with that expression of haunted sorrow on her face, and it would fill him with shame. What right did he have to be happy, to love someone else?

Jennifer seemed to be hovering near him everywhere he went in the club, these days. Just watching him, not talking to him. Was it because of the anniversary? She hadn’t acted like this last year.

“Mind if I offer you some advice?” Jose asked.