Page 39 of Spooks & Specters

“Suck my dick.”

His cell door flew open, and the line of guards flooded into his room.Here we go.His heart pounded as his adrenaline spiked. For the briefest of moments, he felt his wolf stir under his skin. Power rose in him, and he gloried in it.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough to help him shift, and he knew it wouldn’t last. It never did. It couldn’t.

The riot shield hit him square in the chest, knocking the breath out of him, and he flew backwards. But that wasn’t enough to keep him down long. He might not be the alpha werewolf he used to be, but he wasn’t going down without a fight.

Since he was already on the floor, he grabbed the guard by the legs, knocking him off balance, then managed to slam his head into the nearest wall. That one was down for the count. Staggering to his feet, Axel grabbed the second guard by the neck as the guard rushed him. Stupid of him to let Axel get his hands on him. Axel twisted, and there was a satisfying pop.

Axel smiled as he dropped the dead guard.

He was still smiling when a bat slammed into his stomach. Bent over, a knee connected with his jaw, and he saw stars. Pain arrowed through his body, and he stumbled back into the wall, head spinning.

Stupid guard followed him. Grabbing the asshole by the arm, Axel bent it back the wrong way until it broke. Throwing his head back, he roared out his victory as the guard’s screams echoed around him. Then the small burst of power drained out of him.

“Taser, taser, taser!”

Oh shit.It appeared he’d pissed the guards off as his muscles locked up. Every nerve ending lit on fire as intense electrical pain shot through his body. Down he went, screaming through his clenched jaw.

“Fucker killed the new guy!”

Good. One less asshole to deal with.

He was still convulsing on the ground from the electrical shocks when someone stabbed a needle into his neck.

AXEL LURCHED up in bed. Panic swirled in his brain as phantom pain screamed through him. Every instinct he had screamed to fight.

That he was in danger.

That he had todosomething.

Chest heaving, he stared wildly around the room. Where were the guards? The doctors? Why wasn’t that big bright light not shining down into his eyes? After the needle in the neck, he always woke up to that bright light blinding him.

Frantically he looked around again. Wait. Wait. Something wasn’t right. Where was the lab equipment? There was no equipment. And, and… he wasn’t restrained.

They always restrained him because they knew he’d do his dead level best to kill anyone he got his hands on. Even though he was shaking like an addict in withdrawal, he raised one of his wrists and stared at it. There were no cuffs. And he wasn’t wearing that hideous gray jumpsuit prisoners were required to wear.

This wasn’t the lab.

His breathing slowed. Being in the lab meant being in pain. Although being in the cell also meant being in pain, and speaking of that, where were the bars? There were always bars. And why wasn’t he hearing whimpering and crying? There wasalwayswhimpering and crying. Confusion swept through him, filling his head. Wherewashe?

He looked at the bedding—it was actual bedding and not a thin, raggedy blanket. And whatever he was sitting on was soft, which was a definite improvement over that cheap mattress on his bunk in his cell.

This was not his cell.

His gaze swept the room. His heart rate spiked when he finally noticed that there actuallywasequipment in the room, but it was equipment found in a… hospital room. Not a lab.

“Oh fuck.”

A nightmare. He’d been having a damn nightmare. Again. Axel dropped his head into his hands as it all came roaring back once more. He’d been saved, and by none other than Kage, his ex-boyfriend. Of all the unlikely scenarios.

The trembling in his limbs slowly receded as his breathing settled. Safe. He was safe. Well, he wasn’t entirely sure he’d go that far. But at least he was out of that cell. His nose started to burn as his eyes watered. He wasn’t going to die in that damn cell, something that he’d not only accepted but had been waiting for.

A hundred years.

He had lost a hundred years to the hunters. The conversation he’d had with Kage replayed in his mind. Kage. The man that he had loved at one time had moved on and found the love ofhislife.

Tears leaked through Axel’s fingers, but he didn’t cry because he’d lost Kage. Axel had sabotaged that relationship all on his own. No one else. Everything that had happened to Axel over the last hundred years directly corresponded to that last fight, which Axel had started.

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