Forbidden Call (New Breed Novels, Book 1) (17 page)

“Wait!” Dee called, as he blew past.

He turned in the direction of the scream at the same time as he picked up on the fresh scent of blood. Following it, he pushed open the door to the examining room on the left. No doctor. And no Adriana. A squat little nurse with Christmas trees on her scrubs lay in a pool of blood beside the examination table.

“Fuck!”

He raced back down the hall toward the back of the building and hooked a right. He slammed his foot against the double doors of the back entrance, popping them open just in time to see an unmarked, white van pulling out onto Beacon Street.

Screw the whole phasing discouraged in public shit.

The war spilled out into daylight as X phased into Tiger on the fly and took off in hot pursuit. The van took a right on Harvard Avenue and he followed, ignoring the screams and yells of onlookers assaulting his ears.

As he dodged in and out of traffic, he almost got clipped twice as the van ran several red lights. Running in Boston traffic was a high-risk sport any day of the week, and these motherfuckers weren’t about to make it any easier. Finally, he got the break he needed. The van’s driver had no choice but to stop for a B train as it crossed over Commonwealth Avenue.

X phased back and kicked the door with everything he had. “Adriana!”

“X!”

His New Breed hearing picked up her scream through the noise of the passing train. He quickly assessed the situation. The cocksucking van had no windows and use of his gun would be too risky with Adriana inside anyway. He grabbed onto the metal ladder on the back just as the van jetted forward, slamming over the tracks and lurching wildly. It was clear the punk ass ladder wasn’t made to withstand the force of his weight being thrown around at high speed. Seconds before it fell off the van, he climbed to the roof and grabbed the steel ladder racks
.
His body slid back and forth as the van sped down the street, dodging cars and squealing from lane to lane, but he managed to hold on until the next red light. The back door of the van suddenly opened and a Toltec shifter leaned out and fired his pistol.

With nowhere to go but down, X rolled off the top of the van, landing low on the concrete. He pulled his Glock and returned fire, but the light changed, resetting the game. Once again, he phased into his second form and took off after the van. As it turned right onto Cambridge Street, X had a new enemy—the Mass Turnpike. If the van made it to the highway, they would easily outrun him. He put everything he had into his sprint and for the first time in his life, he prayed for traffic.

A banging on the bedroom door woke SE.

“SE? What’s going on?” Ana asked sleepily.

He pulled on his boxers. “I’m not sure.”

When he opened the door, the male standing in front of him was panting and covered with sweat.

“X?”

“It’s Adriana,” he answered, “Toltec has her. Got her and her doctor from the office.”

“Oh, my God,” Ana said from behind him.

“Is Richard back?” SE asked, already pulling on a T-shirt.

X nodded. “He just got here. Everyone’s gathering downstairs. He needs you, SE.”

“X, you’re bleeding,” Ana said. “Come in and let me take care of that.”

“The bullet just grazed me. I’m fine, Ana.”

SE threw on his sneakers. “Don’t argue with the female. You won’t win. Thanks for taking care of him,
ihkweea
.”

“Of course.”

He gleamed down to the drawing room and materialized in a war room. The long central table was piled with weapons. Pax and Diesel were getting ready to distribute them. Reyn and Troy were looking at a map projected on the wall from a laptop. Dimitri was trying to get Richard to calm down.

Soaring Eagle headed straight for Richard and took him by the shoulder. “
Yoohi netai
. I’m here, brother.”

Richard and SE started heading for the door at the same time. They hung a left down the hall and went into the study. Richard turned around to face SE, his pupils ringed in bright blue, sweat pouring down his face. A low growl emanated from him as he breathed.

SE closed his eyes, sending Richard his
nagual.
Slowly, the brother’s eyes dimmed down as the protective instinct lessened.

“Better?”

He nodded and bent over as he tried to slow his breathing.

SE put his hand on Richard’s back.

“I can’t lose her, SE. I can’t. I know I won’t survive it. ”

“Easy, bro. We’ll get her back. You have to focus on that. Anything else is wasted energy right now.”

“I should have been there. I should have been in that room with her. She’s more important than anything else. What the fuck was I thinking?”

“Look at me. You have to concentrate on getting her back. Stay focused on the present. That’s the best way you can help her right now.”

Richard stood up and nodded, but SE still didn’t like the way he looked. He recalled his
nagual
and hoped to hell Troy would be around to help him keep the brother calm enough to get through whatever came next. When they walked back into the drawing room, the rest of the brothers were deep in discussion.

Reyn rubbed his eyes. “Look, we have the location of their headquarters, but there’s no way of knowing whether they took her there or someplace else.”

“We’re losing time here,” Diesel argued. “We gotta move now and at least check it out. The longer we stall the less chance we have of getting to her while she’s alive.”

“How do you plan on infiltrating their ranks? It’s not like they’re going to mistake a New Breed for one of their shifters or
hellions
,” Pax said.

SE looked over at Richard who was slowly becoming the palest white guy he’d ever seen.

“Wait.”

He heard his mate’s voice and looked up at the closest doorway. The first thing that hit him was that she was dressed in her leathers. His heart nearly fell through the floor.

“Wait!” She yelled.

Troy looked up. “Whoa, should she be down here, man?”

“Shut your hole,” SE growled.

“No!” Richard hollered. His eyes were glowing, his hands flexing and unflexing at his sides. “She’s the enemy! She shouldn’t be here. She could still be one of them! Think about it. How do we know she isn’t part of this? She knew what time the appointment was. Maybe she tipped them off!”

“Troy,” Reyn said calmly.

“I’m on it.”

Troy raised his palm slightly toward Richard and the brother slowly started to calm down. Dimitri handed him a stiff drink, led him to a chair, and got him to sit down.

Reyn turned to Ana. “What is it?”

“I saw something when I was translating Victrixa’s file. I didn’t think anything of it at the time. I didn’t even write it down. There were references in there to mutant breeding…” One by one the brothers began staring at her. “I don’t think they were after Adriana, at least not directly. I think they’re after the baby.”

Adriana sat curled up on a dirty mattress shoved in the corner of a room. The air smelled of dirt, mold, and every bodily fluid she could possibly imagine. The smells were assaulting her shifter senses and giving her a headache. She focused on breathing through her mouth as much as possible. The only light came from a small window just below the ceiling. She was almost glad the light was so dim. She wasn’t so sure she wanted to see what else was in the cell with her and Helen…or even exactly what she was sitting on. Or in.

At least Helen’s here.
Oh, God, she felt guilty for even thinking it. But what if something went wrong with the baby?

The baby.

Adriana knew her abduction wasn’t done at random. They’d gone to the one place outside of the compound she frequented and they’d even gone to the trouble of kidnapping her doctor instead of just killing her. They wanted the one female pregnant with a New Breed offspring. That had to be it. She knew that the Order would be looking for her, but she wasn’t sure what kind of time she had.
Damn.
If only she knew what Toltec was planning.

Suddenly, she heard the locks on the door snap open.

“Helen,” she whispered, “wake up. Someone’s coming in.”

When the door opened, the light of the hallway revealed only a long, dark silhouette. “Well, well, Adriana, it’s certainly been a while.”

Victrixa. What a surprise.

Adriana sat up as tall as she could. “What do you want, Trixa?”

“My guess is you’ve probably already figured that out. You won’t have to wait long for the specifics.”

I can hardly wait.
“Why don’t you tell me now?”

Victrixa laughed. “And spoil all the fun? So…Richard’s a New Breed—hand-selected by the Goddess Akina herself. You must be so proud. You know, I never would have thought it. He’s just so, well,
dull.
But then, I guess that’s why I’m not working for your side.”

Adriana squinted. “Side? You mean Akina’s side, don’t you? What are you up to?”

“I just stopped in to make sure you’re comfortable. Mattress okay? I’ll have some food sent in later. We want to keep our fetus healthy.”

The door was slammed and then locked again.

“Who the hell was that?” Helen asked from behind her.

Adriana was trembling in anger and fear. “That’s the female who’s going to take my baby.”

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Ana physically felt the shock of energy that went through the room. She looked around as all the brothers no doubt picked up on it. This was a male’s worst nightmare. She gave them as long as she could to process…

And then she dropped the bomb.

“It has to be me. I have to be the one to go in after her. I’m the only one who knows the complex. I can infiltrate deep enough to find out where they’re holding her and get her out.”

Richard’s head jacked up. “No way. Not gonna happen. There’s no way that female is going anywhere near my Adri.”

Ana eyed the weapons on the table. “There’s no way a large offensive is going to get her back. This has to be done covertly. I’m telling you, it’s the only way.”

Reyn looked her, then across the table. “Diesel?”

“We have maps of the interior of the main complex. We may be able to use them, but—”

“—Look, we don’t have time for this!” Ana hissed. “I don’t think she’s even been taken to their headquarters.”

Reyn rubbed his eyes. “Fuck. Okay, how long would you say we have?”

“I think they’ll inject the fetus sometime within the next twelve to twenty-four hours.”

A soft moan escaped Richard’s lips.

“It has to be me,” she repeated, “and I have to go
now.
”

“She’s right.”

Ana looked up at the sound of her mate’s voice. He was pale and his eyes were like gold gems, but his face was set. God, she hated what this was doing to him, but there was no way she was going to let her mother hurt another innocent child. And every second they spent dickering over this shit was costing Adriana time.

“Look, Richard, I’ll take someone with me if you want. Pax, you’re the only one they won’t recognize. What do you say?”

“Jesus, Ana. I don’t know. I’ve only made the change successfully once, and I had, like, the entire Order to help. I could totally fuck up the mission. Or hurt you.”

“What if I can promise you SE will be there to help?”

Soaring Eagle put his hand on the brother’s shoulder. “I can still send my
nagual
to you, Pax. You have to try. I don’t…I don’t want her going in there alone. Please.”

Pax looked at him, then Ana. “Okay. Let’s do it.”

Reyn turned to Adriana’s mate. “Richard?”

He nodded without looking up.

“Let’s hit it,” Reyn said. “Ana, give X and Dimitri the address. We can’t risk gleaming Adriana while she’s pregnant. They’ll meet you in the Navigator. The rest of us will hang back in case you need back-up.”

Ana turned to her mate and put out her hand. “Ready?”

“Lead the way.”

Dr. Helen Sussman slid across the grimy mattress to her patient and took her hand. She turned Adriana’s face toward her. “Adriana, I want you to drink some of my water. You have to stay strong for this baby. Do you understand that? You have to stay strong until the Order comes for us.”

Adriana shook her head. “They don’t even know where we are.”

“Your mate is a New Breed. Believe me, he will find us.”

“You don’t understand, Helen. Toltec is pure evil. If they take my baby, they’ll do horrible things to it.”

Helen would not let herself go there. “If they think they’re going to take that baby they’ll have to get through me first. My guess is they brought me here to be sure they’ve got help if there are any complications. They’re not counting on
me
being a complication.”

“What are you saying?”

“I’m saying that I will do everything in my power to hold things up until the Order gets here. And if that doesn’t work, I’ll do whatever I have to. Please, drink some of this. They aren’t giving you enough.”

“But what about you?”

“Don’t you worry about me,” Helen said, “I’ll be fine.”

Ana, SE and Pax materialized inside Bastian’s shop.

“You think he’ll cross us?” SE asked.

“I doubt it,” she said. “He doesn’t have any loyalties.”

Her techie turned in his swivel chair and gasped. “Ah, Ana…”

“Hey, Bastian. This is my mate, SE. And this is Pax.”

Bastian stared at SE. “Your mate is a—”

“New Breed? Yeah. Did I forget to mention that? Guys, Bastian, here, is my techie.”

SE gave a nod and then threw a glance at his mate. “I think you’ve mentioned him.”

Ana looked at Bastian. “We need your help. The mate of one of the New Breeds has been taken by Toltec. I’m going in after her and I need a favor.”

Bastian crossed his legs. “Now there’s a shock.”

Ana felt SE start to step forward, and she put her hand out to stop him. “Pax can copy the forms of other shifters and I wondered if he could borrow yours.”

SE threw up a hand impatiently. “What? Ana, why this male?”

“Because everyone knows he belongs here and that’s what I need,” Ana said through clenched teeth.