JOSH RAMMED the cattle prod hard into the gut of the bastard who had been torturing him with it. He shoved it straight into the weird-colored creature and pulled the trigger with a vengeance. He saw the voltage go through the thing. Ripples of burnt color expanded outward from the point of the prod, and the smell was… unsettling. Like burned marine life. But he didn’t care and he sure as hell wasn’t going to stop. Fury rode him in rolling waves of hatred as he jammed that fucker with—
A Mack Truck tackled him. The cattle prod went flying, his bare feet left the concrete, and he landed on his hip, then shoulder, then head hard enough to make his brain rattle. It didn’t matter. He was fighting even before his consciousness caught up to what had happened. Every cell was punching or kicking or biting. If it could move, it was attacking.
Except the truck was fucking huge and the weight was suffocating.
His arms were pinned first, and his hips immobilized. Legs were trapped next, and when his vision cleared enough for him to focus, he saw the weird asshole holding the cattle prod. And all the while, someone was screaming, dogs were barking, and the Mack Truck was saying his name. Over and over.
“Josh, calm down. Josh! Ow! Joshua!”
He didn’t stop fighting. He couldn’t. The fury inside him was too hot for him to rest. But he didn’t have the strength. And though in his mind he might be Wolverine, slashing and bashing his captors, in reality, his body strained to no effect. He gasped for air, his muscles twitched as he still commanded them to fight, and in the background a woman was screaming while dogs were barking.
“Josh, calm down,” the truck was saying. The words came out breathless, and he had some satisfaction that he’d tired out the guy. “You fight like you’re possessed.”
Yes, he did. Always.
“Gelpack, you okay?”
“That was an unusual experience. Should I have experienced pain? I do not have nerves yet to transmit sensations.”
The guy huffed out a breath, dropping his weight more fully on top of Josh. “Be thankful you don’t. Hell—” He turned and looked at something to Josh’s right, then did a double take. “The girl changed back to human. Call Wiz to help her and sedate the other wolves. We can’t handle them right now.”
Josh turned his head enough to see what his captor was looking at. What he saw shocked him into momentary stillness. Cages. Rows of cages, three with barking wolves and one with a naked redheaded woman clutching her head and screaming. She must be the girl they were talking about. He’d been so busy fighting that he hadn’t registered the noise.
God, she had a set of lungs on her. Good. He hoped she was loud enough to bring in the cops, but somehow he doubted it. This had all the freezing-cold feels of an underground laboratory. And didn’t that just make all his body parts clench tight.
“Send us back to Earth,” he said loudly. “It’s not right to experiment on us.”
He felt the truck pull back, and Josh focused enough to see that it was the big warrior guy from the convention, the one with the Roman name. And he was frowning at Josh.
“What are you talking about? This is Earth.”
“He’s not.” He jerked his chin at the see-through guy in board shorts. And what the hell was that red smear in the middle of his chest? It looked too bright to be blood, but then how would he know what blood looked like inside a guy who was made of Jell-O?
“Um, yeah. His name is Gelpack. He’s not from around here.”
No shit, Sherlock.
Then he watched as the weird guy picked up a tranquilizer gun and steadily shot each of the wolves. Pfft. Pfft. Pfft. Three wolves yipped in surprise and then dropped down onto the ground with a thud.
It was chilling, especially when he aimed at the redhead, who had quieted into soft sobs.
“No!” Josh cried out, suddenly pushing himself up so he could stop the creature. But the big guy didn’t budge off him. All he got was a grunt and a renewed grip on his wrists. “Damn it—”
“He’s not going to shoot her.” He cast a glance at the alien. “Right, Gelpack? You’re not going to shoot her.”
The redhead lifted her head to stare at them with huge green eyes.
“There is no dart loaded in the gun. I wondered if the air pressure would be comforting to her. Captain M said this morning that she found the breeze soothing.”
“It’s not—” Nero said, but it was too late. Gelpack had already pulled the trigger… to no effect.
“It appears I have miscalculated,” the creature said as he put the gun away in a locked cabinet. “I will go wake Wiz now.” He paused. “Will you be okay alone with Mr. Collier?”
“Yeah,” he said as he started to peel back off of Josh. “His big ole brain is engaged now, right, Josh? You’re not a mindless lunatic.”
No, he wasn’t, though hatred still boiled just beneath his surface. And to think he had actually flirted with this bastard. “Of course I’m fine,” he said, sarcasm heavy in his voice. “I’ve only been attacked, abducted, and….” Shit. Certain parts of their bodies were intimately close. And damn it, his dick didn’t seem to care about who was pressing against it. It was hot and throbbing, and given that he was stark naked, it wasn’t something he could hide.
It also told him that he probably wasn’t in as much danger as he feared. If the Mack Truck was trying to harm him, Josh wouldn’t be getting aroused, right? Subliminal cues and all that would keep his dick shriveled. Maybe.
And while he was still processing that, the alien left the room, shutting the door with a heavy thud.
“Before you get any bright ideas, the door is locked and sealed. You can’t get out without a handprint.”
Yeah, he’d already figured that from the way Gelpack had pressed his palm on a hand reader. Though that did bring up an obvious question. “Does he have a handprint?”
“I don’t ask questions that make my brain hurt,” Nero answered. Then he gently disentangled himself from Josh’s legs. “So we’re good here? I can get off you?”
“Yeah, sure,” Josh lied. “We’re peachy keen.” He shoved his hips sideways, trying to toss the guy off. It would have been wasted effort, except Nero rolled with the movement and suddenly Josh could breathe again.
He looked around, trying to be covert about it. He needed a weapon. The dart gun would be great if it was loaded and not locked in a cabinet. Meanwhile Nero was talking in a calm, reasonable voice.
“You’re right. You’ve been assaulted, sort of. And kidnapped. And traumatized, I’m sure.” He glanced guiltily at the girl, whom had quieted enough to listen. Then Nero stood up and opened a drawer across from the girl’s cage. He pulled out gray sweatpants and a sweatshirt, which he fed her through the bars. Then he glanced at Josh. “Your clothes are over there. Or you can grab some sweats.”
Josh wanted to argue out of spite, but he felt defenseless crouched naked on the floor. So he went to his luggage and quickly pulled on jeans and a tee. He didn’t see his shoes anywhere, so it was bare feet on the cold concrete. Nero, he saw, was casually attired. Khaki pants, a butter-yellow polo that stretched across his broad chest, and Dockers for shoes. Preppy much?
The girl, however, didn’t move from the back corner of her cage. She stayed where she was, arms wrapped around her knees as she glared through her short red hair. At least she’d stopped screaming. Meanwhile Josh had to think of a way out of this place. For himself and the girl.
But first things first. He needed more data.
“Why have you kidnapped us?” he demanded.
“We didn’t….” Nero grimaced. “Well, okay, we did, but let me start at the beginning.” He took a deep breath. “You are werewolves.” He gestured at the rows of cages. “You all are. I am too, if that makes you feel any better.”
“It doesn’t.” That was a lie. It kind of did. The guy seemed… normal in an evil Hulk kind of way. Josh chose to focus on that rather than the idea that he had turned into a wolf and been trapped in a cage. It wasn’t possible, and he didn’t want to even look at the memory. But it was hard to deny when the cage was two feet away. “How can I… how can we be…?” God, he couldn’t even say the word.
Nero pointed at him. “Romani magic.” He pointed at the girl. “Family curse.” Then he went down the line of wolves. “Native American thing. Family heirloom, we think. And we haven’t got a clue about him. He was an accident.” Then he turned his thumb toward himself. “Lycanthropic bite from an asshole.”
“And Gelpack?”
“He’s his own special kind of we don’t know what.” Nero looked at the bloody gashes on his forearm, then crossed to a nearby cabinet. While he spoke, he pulled out bandages and tape, wrapping up his arm with casual ease. “That’s why we need you guys.” His voice had dropped to a lower pitch, the one that drew Josh’s attention like a bee to a flower. But his next words pulled out of that resonance, enough to make Josh listen even closer. “Whether or not you realize it, you guys were always going to manifest into werewolves. We did it in a controlled environment where we could keep everyone safe. Including you.”
Josh shook his head. “I was perfectly safe. I was doing a show on….” His eyes widened as he remembered what had happened. “You turned me into a wolf in front of the whole con! I worked for a year on that show!”
“And everyone loved it. It just wasn’t the show you planned.”
“No…,” he murmured, memories flooding back. The terror of a body gone insane. The hatred boiling in his mind and body. And then… they’d choked him! And shot him! His hands went to his throat in memory, and fury burst through him. “You fucking asshole!”
He shot forward, going for a grappling hold. He’d had a little martial arts training in college, and he used that in his attack. But whatever little training he’d had, Nero had more. The guy took his attack and rolled through it, sending Josh flying across the floor until he slid against the tranq gun cabinet.
That didn’t stop him, though. He jumped up and ran straight at Nero. He had no plan except to beat the guy senseless. Then he’d figure out how to open the girl’s cage and get them both out of there. Time after time, though, all he did was get tossed onto his ass. And once—as if the whole thing wasn’t insulting enough—Nero flipped him to the floor and protected the back of Josh’s head while doing it. The fucker was looking after him at the same time he was kicking his ass.
Which made Josh all the more pissed off. So he threw all his energy into what he was doing. If he couldn’t beat the bastard with skill, he’d do it with frenzy.
Didn’t make any difference.
Five minutes later he was on his back, sucking air. He tried to get up again but was too dizzy, and damn it, every single joint felt like it was on fire, and his muscles seemed to be weighed down with lead. He tried to roll over to at least crawl, but another wave of vertigo put him flat on his back again.
“Are you done yet?”
The fucker wasn’t even winded. Though he did have to retie the bandage.
“How could you do this to us?”
“You were going to change eventually. We just did it safely.”
It wasn’t possible. It wasn’t fucking possible.
Except he had the memories. He knew it was true. And if he doubted it, all he had to do was look at the cages. And damn it, the redhead was still curled into a tight little ball, her green eyes huge in a very pale face.
“At least let her out. She doesn’t deserve to be caged like that.” And maybe together they could take down the Mack Truck.
“Wiz will take care of her. You’re my problem.” That commanding tone was back, the one that made it clear that he meant what he said. Whatever else was going on, apparently Josh was stuck with Nero on his ass.
Great… not.
“Look, I’m hungry, and you’ve got to be starving. I think I ate a cow after my first shift.” Then, at Josh’s horrified look, he hastily amended his words. “Not literally. We went to McDonald’s and I ate like ten Big Macs.” He rubbed a hand over his face. “We’re not monsters. We’re the good guys.”
“Except when you turn them into werewolves and throw them in cages.” Josh couldn’t keep the bitter tone out of his voice, and he was childishly satisfied to see Nero wince.
“Do you want some food or not?” he finally said.
He hadn’t thought he was hungry before, but at Nero’s offer, his stomach cramped with need. Not hunger exactly. More like fury translated to his stomach. But even as he was struggling to his feet, his gaze caught on the girl. He couldn’t leave her behind. But what the hell could he do here?
“She’s hungry too. We go together or not at all.”
Nero’s brows rose in surprise. Apparently he’d thought Josh was an asshole. Sorry, dude. He didn’t abandon caged girls. Except Nero was shaking his head.
“Wiz has food for her. She’s gluten-intolerant.”
Then, before Josh could respond, the door unsealed and the guy called Wiz strode in. He’d been Doctor Strange when they’d met at the con, and the guy looked tired to the point of being haggard. But his eyes were bright, and they landed heavily on the girl, who Josh had started calling Red in his thoughts. And even better, Wiz had brought a full tray of food that included a rib eye, a few protein bars, a water bottle, soda, flourless chocolate cake, and buttered broccoli. Josh took a step toward it, but Nero grabbed his arm.
“That’s hers. We go upstairs.” Then he turned to Wiz. “You got this?”
“Yeah. How you doing with yours?”
Nero shrugged. “At least I didn’t have to put a bullet in his brain.” It didn’t sound like a joke, and the horror of that slid chills right down Josh’s spine.
Wiz nodded. “Yeah. Looks like I’m good too,” he said with a grin as he turned to the girl, though his smile faded pretty quick when he looked in the cage. “Shit,” he murmured under his breath so quietly that Josh shouldn’t have been able to hear it.
“Come on,” Nero said as he manhandled Josh to the door. “I’ve got a feast for you upstairs.”
Wiz snorted in response, but there was no way for Josh to ask. He could do something for the girl, at least. He dug in his feet and twisted to look at her.
“I’m not abandoning you. Get what info you can. I’ll come back.”
Wiz rolled his eyes and glared at Nero. “Get him out of here. He can come back when you’ve explained the facts of life to him.”
“Yeah,” Nero said as he tightened his grip on Josh. “Come on, hero. Let me explain how you are not prisoners here and that this is a job offer.” Then he hauled Josh out of the room.