PROLOGUE
Somewhere in the near future
Experimental Breed Labs, Mexico
Jacob exited the small shower attached to his cell, a towel wrapped around his waist as he dried the long strands of his hair with another. The hot shower had eased the strained muscles that came with daily training, but did little to ease the tense premonition that had filled him for the last days.
It throbbed in his gut, and tightened his chest. The chill of warning seemed to infuse his being. He couldn’t shake it. It was unusual for his sixth sense to kick in so hard and heavy when not involved with one of the Council’s bloody missions. While incarcerated at the Labs, the highly developed ability to sense danger was normally quiet. Now though, it tightened his chest and sent a prickle of warning escalating up his spine.
The advanced sixth sense was something he kept carefully hidden. The premonitions became stronger each month, the development of once latent talents peeking from the edges of his mind in a way that kept him off balance. It wouldn’t do to let his creators know. The advancement of any of their extra senses could well be the final nail in the coffins of the Wolf Breeds. Life was hard enough as a genetic experiment; he would prefer it didn’t get any harder.
At the rate they were going they would be disposed of before the year was out anyway. Despite the years of bloody training and cruel conditions, the Breeds still hadn’t developed the sense of hatred and bloodthirsty savagery their creators were looking for. Except for their creators. Given a chance, every Breed within the cells would take out the throats of the Council members and scientists and soldiers who wielded their perverted powers.
A silent, hidden snarl echoed in his mind at the thought of his captors as he entered the main area of his small cell. He stopped the moment he crossed the threshold from the bathroom. His head lifted, nostrils flaring as his gaze went immediately to the furious young woman who sat on the thick mattress in the corner of his cell. A woman that should not be there.
For a moment, desire sharp and sudden flared within him. An instinct to possess that he was hard pressed to keep hidden beneath a shield of unconcern. The animal instincts that fought for supremacy each time he was in her presence were becoming harder to hide as each day went by.
His chest immediately tightened in fury as knowledge seared his brain. The day he had feared would come, had hoped to avoid, was now here. He glanced through the glass partition that separated his cell from his Pack Leader. Wolfe stared back at him, and in his furious eyes, Jacob saw concern and anger as the other man watched him.
Wolfe, the Pack Leader of the small group of Wolf Breeds sent him a silent warning, his look shuttered and brooding. Jacob glanced to his left then, seeing Aiden propped against the far wall of his own cell, his expression stoic, his gray eyes furious. The woman in Jacob’s cell was born of the same female that Aiden had been. They were more than just Packmates, they were blood siblings. It was a relationship Aiden took seriously. He carried more than one scar on his back from protecting his sister from the cruelties of the soldiers in the Labs.
Jacob’s gaze went back to the woman. Her fists were clenched, and her eyes swam with tears. He inhaled carefully and almost staggered at the scent of her lust. It was hot and sweet, tempting. In his life he had never known such a potent, though faint scent of need. As though her flesh was rioting with it, despite the anger that poured off her body in waves. It swirled about his senses, stroking them, heating his body. The animal within roared out in demand as he fought to still its ravenous call.
He was shocked, confused. The scent had lust surging through his body. Only with extreme control did he keep his cock from coming to instant attention, the effect was so instantaneous. The blood thundered through his veins, pumping a heady message to sensitive nerve endings and primitive desires. His woman. The thought seared his brain. She was his, and despite his fears for her, for the Pack should he openly acknowledge that claim, he could not stem the rising need to do just that.
She was dressed in the regulation cotton shirt and white pants and beneath the shirt her breasts rose and fell harshly, the full mounds swollen and tipped with hard little nipples. His cock twitched beneath the towel, intrigued with the scent of rising need that infused his nostrils. His mouth watered at the sudden thought of tasting her, burying his head between those smooth thighs that his hidden money paid to keep lotioned and silky. He wanted to thrust his tongue down the cleft of her cunt and lap at the moisture, thick and sweet, that he knew he would find there. His tongue literally throbbed with the need.
He shook his head. He knew her too well, knew she was not ready for his desires. Faith was a Packmate, and trained with him regularly. She was a bit immature for her eighteen years of age and filled with anger, but she was pretty enough with her big black eyes, and thick, shoulder length auburn hair. Her body was delicate, small and graceful, with slender bones and a fragile appearance. She was sleek and conditioned, and stronger than she appeared he knew, but he could not stem his fears that she would be easily broken with the hungers that swept through him.
Jacob turned carefully from her, his gaze going to the outside of the steel bars that made up the door and the front portion of the cell. There stood Bainesmith, the scientist in charge of the Labs, her beady little black eyes glittering with satisfaction, her arms crossed over her miniscule breasts as she watched him. Her harsh, Asian features were pulled into an expression of avid pleasure.
He had fucked her often enough that he could see the rising excitement in her fiendish expression. If Faith’s lusts weren’t so overwhelming, Jacob knew he would smell the stench of the other woman’s perversions.
Delia Bainesmith was the most hated of all the scientists who worked the Breed Labs. Her hunger for power would destroy them all, Jacob often thought. She considered the Breeds her own personal death squad, and her fury in their refusal to kill with bloodthirsty abandon would soon see them all dead. And Jacob knew if he wasn’t extremely careful, then he and Faith could become the first casualties to fall to her demonic punishments.
He lifted a brow. “Is she here for a reason, Bainesmith?”
The scientist’s thin lips quirked in amusement. The Bitch, they called her. Her sadistic pleasures had been known to make their lives hell. They all carried the scars of the whip she applied herself when they displeased her. They had all known the sickening smell of her lust for them. The stench of her depravity.
“She’s a gift, Jacob,” she told him mockingly. “All prepared for you. I expect you to breed her tonight.”
Jacob glanced back at Faith. She didn’t seem so willing for breeding, despite the scent from her body. She looked furious, violent. He scratched at his chest absently, noting the greedy hunger in Bainesmith’s eyes when he turned back to her.