Her instincts told her to trust him. But what about those instincts? She’d been on the verge of marrying a man it turned out she didn’t know at all—and she’d worked here at BioMed for how long and they’d been hiding this horrific secret? How could she put any faith in her sense of anything—

Justlikethat, time snapped out of its stupor and started rolling again, the female commando speaking up.

“Where’s your fucking car?”

Sarah spoke up. “It’s out in the parking lot—”

“Not yours.” The female yanked Kraiten upright. As he sputtered through the blood that ran down his face, she gave him a shake. “His.”

Murhder was struggling to focus. The female he was holding so close to his body was taking up a tremendous amount of his mental bandwidth, in spite of the life-or-death situation at hand: With every breath he took, he was captivated by her fresh, clean scent. Between each blink of his eyes, he was registering new details about her, from her brown and blond hair, the high color on her cheeks, the curve of her face, the pale honey color of her eyes. She was wearing a loose blue bag of protective clothing, and he wondered what her body was like underneath. But whatever she looked like … he was going to want her.

Because he already did.

Except shit, he had to get with the program or this already chaotic situation was going to go nuclear.

“Answer her question,” he snapped at the suited man with the attitude and the now swollen eye.

Man, he’d loved the way that woman had swung her fist like that. Good follow-through. Excellent aim. And who could argue with the damage, given that blood flow? The bastard was going to have a helluva shiner in the morning—if they didn’t kill him outright after they got a vehicle.

Abruptly, Murhder wondered why in the hell he was wasting time with voluntary answers. Plunging his will into Kraiten’s gray matter, he popped the tops off all kinds of memories—and was horrified by what he found …

“You sick fuck,” Murhder whispered. “You motherfucker.”

As everyone looked at Kraiten, the man’s eyes peeled wide, like he knew his secrets had been revealed and he had no idea how. But enough of that.

“Take us where we need to go to get out of here,” Murhder commanded as he inserted the order into the man’s brain and put the gag back in his mouth.

Kraiten mentally fought the impulse, a sign of his intelligence. But he inevitably folded, bested by a higher power than he, as a human, possessed: Wordlessly, he turned around and stared at the door of the office space like it had his name on it.

“You,” Murhder said to the guard. “You tell the others it’s a false alarm on your radio. Then you go to the system and delete the security camera feeds that we’re in. You make it so that none of this ever happened.”

As Murhder spoke, he erased all kinds of things in the human’s mind and replaced them with images of an empty office area, an inexplicable alarm malfunction, and absolutely no strangers in black cruising the halls or removing a small boy from a lab or taking this guy Kraiten hostage. In response, the human rubbed his temple like it hurt. Then he shook his head and went for the shoulder communicator mounted on his uniform’s lapel.

“Five-ten to base, five-ten to base. I have an all clear on that IDD alarm. Repeat, I have an all clear. Returning to base now, over.”

Like a robot, he marched out of the door and took a left.

The human woman spoke up sharply. “How did you do that? What did you …”

Murhder glanced at Ingridge’s young. “Come on, son, let’s take you out of here.”

And then he looked at the woman. Did they scrub her memories and leave her? Or take her with them?

Either way, her mind would have to be dealt with later—he didn’t have time to do that now. They had to move.

“You’re not safe here,” he told her. “You’ve got to know this. You need to go underground. We can help.”

Anything to get her to come with them.

“Are you with PETA?” she asked.

Given that she seemed relieved at the idea, he nodded.

“We gotta go,” Xhex said.

“I’m coming with you,” the woman blurted as she put an arm around the young.

Perfect, Murhder thought—with a surge of possession that frightened him.

As Xhex gave Kraiten a shove, the man in the suit led them out the door and to the right. Motley group they were, three heavily armed fighters, a young in a hospital johnny, the human woman and Mr. Bleeder. As they passed beneath the mounted security cameras on the ceiling, Murhder prayed like hell that the security guard did a good job with his erasing.

This was a highly unstable situation, Murhder thought. Sooner or later, some other security personnel was bound to catch them on camera and wonder about the weapons and the cuffs.

It looked like a kidnapping.

’Cuz it was.

Good news came as Kraiten stopped in front of a door that was not frosted glass, but stainless steel. There was a red sign over it reading “EXIT,” but as Murhder punched the bar, the thing refused to open.

“Give me the code or your card,” he demanded of Kraiten.

When the guy started shaking his head like a little bitch, Murhder had just about had it with delays. Taking two steps back, he kicked the goddamn door with such force, it exploded out of its lock.

It took all he had not to turn around to Kraiten and flip the man off.

As he jumped through into a concrete stairwell, he glanced back. The human woman was staring at him with those wide eyes again and the young was looking up at him like he was Superman. Xhex, on the other hand, was chuckling under her breath like she knew the truth.

So what, he wanted to say. I wanted to show off for the woman. Sue me.

“We had to get through the goddamn door,” he bitched at Xhex.

“Sure,” she said with a wink. “And look, we did.”

When he turned back around, he could have sworn she tacked on “He-Man,” but he wasn’t going to follow up on that. Because he was blushing, damn it.

The group started to follow him down the stairs, moving faster and faster, clomping a descent toward some underground area.

They’d gone a good three levels down when the woman said, “Wait, stop.”

At the sound of her voice, Murhder’s body jerked to a halt, sure as if he had a choke chain around his throat and she held the leash. Worried that someone was hurt—other than Kraiten, that was—he looked over his shoulder … and had an eerie sense that he would never be the same.

As Xhex held on to Kraiten, and John guarded them all with his guns, the human woman crouched down next to the pretrans. The young was trembling and seemed suddenly weak, and Murhder kicked himself for not considering what it would be like for the kid to be rushed through the facility by strangers, even if he knew they’d been sent by his mother.

His now deceased mother.

The woman took the young’s fragile hands and murmured to him. Her words didn’t carry far. Her compassion went around the world: There was a sheen of tears in her own eyes as she reached up and brushed his hair back. After a moment, he nodded.

In response, the woman wrapped her strong arms around him and picked him up, sitting him on her hip. As the young held on to her shoulders and tucked his head into her neck, Murhder knew that the simple act of kindness to a frightened young in the midst of a nightmare was …

Well, it was the sort of thing that told you everything you needed to know about her character, didn’t it.

Unconsciously, Murhder’s eyes dipped to the ring finger on her left hand. Humans marked their matings in that manner. Hers was bare.

That was a treacherous relief.

“You got him?” Murhder asked softly.

Her honey-colored eyes shifted up to his. “Yes. I do.”

Well, brace yourself, he thought. Because I’m very sure you got me, too.

Murhder refocused and shoved at Kraiten’s shoulder, reigniting the march of descent, the lineup moving down the concrete stairwell with more shuffle than alacrity. At the bottom, Kraiten stopped and seemed to want to speak.

Murhder ripped the gag out of his mouth. “What.”

“I need …” Given that the man was still fighting the commands he’d been given, his voice was slurred. “Credentials.”

“Where are they?” Xhex said.

“My breast pocket.”

The female shoved her free hand into Kraiten’s suit jacket and came out with a black alligator-skin wallet, key fob for a car, and a pass card. She swiped the last one through the reader next to another steel door, and after the lock released, they broke out into an underground loading dock and delivery area.

A black Lexus SUV gleamed under the caged fluorescent lights, and as Xhex pointed the fob at it, its running lights flashed.

Thank God it isn’t a two-seater, Murhder thought.

Leading the young and the woman over, he settled them in the backseat, and then looked at Xhex and John.

“I’ll get these two out,” he said. “Kraiten’s yours to play with.”

The man in the suit started blurting all kinds of threats, his survival instincts partially overriding the mind control.

Murhder stepped up and clapped a hold on the guy’s throat. Leaning in, he put his mouth to the human’s ear. “I could tear your beating heart out of your chest and eat it for what you’ve done.” He eased back and measured the true terror in those eyes. “But I’m going to leave you to them—especially her. What she is capable of will be much, much worse.”

As he felt his fangs elongate, he wanted to take a hunk out of the side of the man’s throat, but he was aware of the woman in the car. She was watching him through the glass as she held the pretrans tight.

Backing off, Murhder nodded at John and Xhex, and then he took the car key from the female, the pass card—and for good measure, the wallet. Turning away, he went around the hood of the SUV and got behind the wheel. Glancing up to the rearview mirror, he found the young and the woman holding each other and staring at him.