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Then, they had tested his blood He had immediately been restrained, the paralytic pumped into his body, and then, they had killed hiurney, as he screaes found

in his blood The additional strength he’d acquired over the years had been strange enough, even to him But after he’d died on that table beneath their scalpels, after they’d transfused hi the blood they had taken fro

Not that they had found answers after cutting hi there No reason for the ano brief episodes of full-blown feral fever

The thought of death had been wiped away The pain that clawed at his insides didn’the had never wanted He hadn’t wanted to live, to develop a fever so agonizing the animal inside him had been forced free to pull him back from the brink of insanity

As the man huddled in blessed silence within his body, the anied and roared; it had clawed at the walls and snarled at the guards It had stared at the scientists, reirl, the blood the scientists had used as they laughed at hieance

Her blood had destroyed hione He hadn’t been able to find her in ten years, and several times, he’d actually searched for her and Judd, then for Honor once he’d learned of her disappearance

It was as though they had simply ceased to exist

When he had returned to the wilderness where he had left the night he’d awakened after that first transfusion, there had been no sign of them He had brief , a cremation vault and the bloodied bodies he’d thrown inside it There were flashes of iuards, looks of horror on their faces, the taste of blood overriding his senses

The ani, Gideon had never been certain

When he’d finally come to himself and made his way back to the scene of their escape, it was to find it all gone The wrecked vehicle, the two guards, Judd and Fawn

It was only later he’d begun to suspect the lie of it Only later that the aniun to dream of dark eyes in an adult’s face But the features of that face he never saw in the animal’s dreams

She would pay for that demand that he live For whatever her blood had done that had changed him, that had stolen the time he needed to ensure she was never found She would pay for the additional agony And when he was finished with her, maybe, just maybe, he would put them both out of their misery

•CHAPTER 15•

A

Diane stood next to her sister at the end of the crib and stared at the sleeping child In just a few brief days, even she could see the changes Tiny, so very tiny, for her age