Page 38 of Spooks & Specters

A daemon could not change a human into what they were, but they could share their blood, which increased the human’s senses and stopped their aging. Kage had done that with a few of the humans in his clan. And of course Austin… because Austin was Kage’s mate.

“I thought I would just open a portal.”

Which sounded like an excellent idea. Parts of his body were beginning to itch because they’d rolled around in the grass. “Aren’t Maia and Denisha waiting on us?”

“I, ah, told them we had plans and not to wait.”

“Oh greeeeat, more raised eyebrows!”

“You should be used to that.” Kage laughed as he wrapped his arms around Austin. “Besides, they know us.”

“That’s not the reassurance you think it is!” Austin exclaimed, giggling as shadows raced toward them.

He was still laughing as shadows enveloped them.

Torn and Tattered

Chapter One

RAISED VOICES. The hurried squeaks of steel-toed boots against concrete floors. The clang of metal doors retracting as bodies rushed through.

Shit.

It was enough to drag Axel out of his restless sleep. Why did they always come at night? If he didn’t know better, he’d think the damn doctors were vampires. But they weren’t. At least the doctors weren’t. He wasn’t entirely sure what the guards were, but they were definitely not human. They were much too strong, and some even smelled like wolf.

But their scent was off. Wrong. Unnatural. In the beginning he hadn’t known what was going on, but unfortunately, now he was afraid he did… and wished like hell he didn’t.

Shoving all thoughts out of his head, Axel prepared himself. He’d done this song and dance enough to know what the hurried steps and low voices meant. Rolling off his cot, he surged to his feet, fists up, ready. Someone in another cell whimpered.

Axel’s stomach dropped at the sound.

“Let’s move. Go! Go! Go!”

Men in personal armor, wearing riot helmets and holding batons and riot shields, surged down the hallway as screams and cries from the surrounding cells rose in volume.

When there were this many guards, it was usually for an extraction. If these assholes were there to harass certain prisoners, only a few showed up, and definitely not in riot gear. Axel had no idea who they were coming for this time. It could behim, or it could be another prisoner. Or it could be that several of them were about to be dragged out for… tests.

Tests. Right. More like fucking experiments.

Axel took a deep breath and let it out slowly as the guards lined up outside of his cell. “Yeah, let’s go,” he taunted. “Open the damn door. I dare you.”

“Back! Move back!Now!” the guard at the front of the line screamed at Axel.

“Make me.”

Axel knew how this was going to end, of course. It was the same way it always ended—him getting his ass kicked. This wasn’t a battle he could win, not when he was outnumbered and so damn weak.

Didn’t matter.

He had no idea how many times they’d done this. It was years, though. Many, many,manyyears. Time had ceased to have any meaning. He couldn’t remember the last time he shifted, thanks to whatever they injected him with.

He was losing his wolf. All he wanted was the peace of eternal sleep, but even though he couldn’t shift, his damn wolf refused to let him give up. To pass on. There were those here who were weaker than him who needed help.

Could he stop the experiments? No. Could he sometimes distract the guards when they came to play with prisoners? Yes—by drawing their attention to him.

Him. Fighting for weaker paranormals. Who would’ve believed him capable of such?

“Turn around and kneel!”

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