Date: 2019-08-12 00:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Paranormal; Romance
Description: Carter Avoidance had become my norm. After too many tours in Afghanistan and Iraq, I’d checked out—on everyone and everything—on life. Ex-navy SEAL. Totally broken man. I’d hit rock bottom so many times, I was sure I was about to fall straight to hell. It would be a welcome reprieve. Then she found me. Beautiful, insane and more broken than I was. She needed my help. I needed her humanity. How she found me was anyone’s guess. But she had. She needed rescuing. She needed a hero. I was none of those things. But for the first time in many years, I wanted to be. I wanted to be her hero. Georgia Be
Rights: Copyright 2019 Robyn Peterman. All rights reserved.

Beauty Loves the Beast

A Wylde Paranormal Love Story Book One

Robyn Peterman

www.robynpeterman.com

Copyright © 2019 by Robyn Peterman

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is coincidental.

This book contains content that may not be suitable for young readers 17 and under.

Cover by Robwan

Edited by Meg Weglarz and Kelli Collins

Contents

Acknowledgments

Book Description

Prologue

1. Carter

2. Georgia

3. Carter

4. Georgia

5. Carter

6. Georgia

7. Carter

8. Georgia

9. Carter

10. Georgia

11. Carter

12. Georgia

13. Georgia

Epilogue

Note From The Author

Robyn’s Book List

About Robyn Peterman

Acknowledgments

Starting a new series is delightfully frightening. The Wylde Love characters have been inside my head for quite a while and I adore each and every one of them! I can’t wait for you guys to read this book. Beauty Loves the Beast was a blast to write. Georgia and Carter took me on a wild ride that I hope you will enjoy as much as I did.

Anyhoo, as always, I write the book, but it takes a whole lot of wonderful people to make the magic happen. I am a lucky girl because I have a whole lot of wonderful people in my life.

Wanda, thank you for my beautiful cover. You are the bomb!

Kelli Collins and Meg Weglarz, thank you. You are the best editors a gal could have!

Donna McDonald, thank you. You are the most brilliant MYST partner in the world!

My beta readers—Wanda and Susan thank you. I adore you.

Renee, OMG. Thank you for holding my hand with my first formatting on my own. You rock hard.

And to my readers… thank you. I do this for you.

Steve, Henry and Audrey, thank you. I love you and you make everything worth it.

For Nancy, the best sister-in-law in the Universe!

Carter

Avoidance had become my norm. After too many tours in Afghanistan and Iraq, I’d checked out—on everyone and everything—on life. Ex-navy SEAL. Totally broken man. I’d hit rock bottom so many times, I was sure I was about to fall straight to hell. It would be a welcome reprieve.

Then she found me. Beautiful, insane and more broken than I was. She needed my help. I needed her humanity.

How she found me was anyone’s guess. But she had. She needed rescuing. She needed a hero. I was none of those things.

But for the first time in many years, I wanted to be. I wanted to be her hero.

Georgia

Becoming an undercover agent for the CIA had been my dream until everything went wrong—wildly wrong. Trapped in a cage with nothing to do but anticipate more torture from the ones I was supposed to trust, I had no choice but to escape—again. This time I’d succeed or die trying.

They’d turned me into a beast and it was time to show them exactly what I could do.

Finding the beautiful man who could help me end my pain was something I’d never expected—or wanted.

It was a complication for normal people. I wasn’t normal. I would never be normal.

Could two broken pieces make a whole? Could we truly disappear with the government hunting us down like animals?

He was Beauty and I was the Beast. Happily ever afters didn’t happen for people like us.

Or did they?

Prologue

Georgia

A cage? A freaking cage? How had my life ended up in a cage?

Only four short months ago, I was a twenty-eight-year-old woman in my prime with an exciting—albeit dangerous—career ahead of me and a company car.

Now I was trapped in a four-by-four-foot cage in a highly classified lab.

Rattling the bars and realizing they were made out of some kind of electrified metal—I sat back and let the stinging in my hands abate. Taking stock of my life seemed pretty damned fruitless, but what else could I do, given the horrifying situation I was in?

Fine. I’d use my mind so I didn’t lose what was left of it.

Closing my eyes and searching for a serene place to escape to was an epic fail. Meditation had never been my friend. The sandy beach I pictured had sharks in the water. The pond I envisioned was full of alligators. And the peaceful meadow was full of emaciated and starving grizzly bears.

All I could summon up to focus on where I wouldn’t die a violent imaginary death was Scott. Scott, aka Hair Pants, the last guy I’d dated—or some loose definition of the word—before I’d ended up in hell. Whatever. Anything to take my mind off the torture I’d been through and the torture that was yet to come. Digging into my mortifying dating past was far less painful than trying to break out of my cramped prison—again.

So Hair Pants it is. Scott was a nice person—still is, I assumed. It was mean to focus on his flaws since God only knew I had quite a few of my own. But Scott’s flaw had been expertly concealed… by his pants.

Of course, I didn’t discover his alarming, furry secret until he’d disrobed in full light in my tiny government-issued apartment after a booze-filled night on the town. He was a civilian. I should have known better.

Now to be fair—to me—I had no clue that Scott was a man-scaper. I mean, his back was as smooth as a baby’s butt though he clearly trimmed his chest hair. A little weird, but acceptable. Admittedly, I plucked my eyebrows and got my bikini line waxed regularly. I wasn’t the girliest of girls, but I had some semblance of female vanity.

However, when Scott removed his jeans and tighty whities to reveal what I’d have to describe as full-on hair pants—covering every inch of the landscape all the way to his toes—I laughed so hard I almost choked. Guilt still plagued me on that one.

Occasionally, I played back the scene when I wanted to punish myself for something, but right now I was being punished enough as it was.

I had no clue why Hair Pants had popped into my thoughts. Scott couldn’t help being hairy, but I’d think a dude who clearly waxed his back and trimmed the chest rug might have had the foresight to de-hair his ass.

Suffice it to say that evening was the end of our very short relationship. My shocked laughter followed by an absurd amount of apologies mixed with choked-back hysterics killed the possibility of a happily ever after with Scott. However, the hairy irony didn’t escape me. I’d thought Scott was working an animal look, and here I sat in a freakin’ cage.

Actually, if I was being honest with myself—and why not—since I was probably going to die soon anyway,, I’d have to admit I’d never had a real relationship. I was too weird, and now I was completely broken.

Noticing the plate of what the guards thought passed as food in the corner of my cage, I swallowed hard and pushed back the ravenous hunger that had consumed me for a week. I’d only eaten the disgusting rations once, and the next thing I knew, I was in a cage sporting more hideous scars all over my body.

My dear friends clearly had some fun implanting God only knew what inside me. Sabrina Wenbo and Don Jarred were scientists—mad government scientists—and I was their pet at the moment. I was also stupid and shortsighted, but hindsight is twenty-twenty.

There had been six of us—bright-eyed and bushy-tailed brand new CIA recruits. We were clearly interchangeable. I was the only one left alive as far as I knew. The others were gone and I assumed dead. Lucky them.

Methodically pushing the food into the cracks and crevices in the filthy floor beneath my cage was the only power I had at the moment. I would not be drugged again and the first chance I had to make a break for it, I would. The guards—who were walking clichés dressed completely in black—would force-feed me if they knew what I’d been doing.

Wenbo and Jarred had enhanced me to the point they now feared me. I feared myself. I was a monster—a beast. However, as barbaric as I’d become, I had no plans to live out what was left of my life in a cage. I was a fighter. I’d always been a fighter. They’d made me an abomination and a killer. Now it was their turn to reap what they’d sown.

Today was the day I’d take my life back…

Or die trying.

The blood in my veins felt like fire and the sound as my bones cracked and reformed was sickening. My vision grew sharper and my sense of smell was so keen, I could scent the soap or lack thereof on the two guards with tranquilizer guns aimed at me.

They’d gotten cocky and I’d gotten smarter. It was unusual that only two guards would be on me. Normally it was four. Sadly, the scientists hadn’t come for the party. Whatever. I wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth. I was out of my cage. It would be far easier to destroy only two.

“Not as feisty today, are ya?” The main guard laughed as he carefully placed the large syringe he’d just pulled from my shifted body onto the tray.

My skin was now shiny black fur and my eyes were slits of yellow gold. Paws with razor-sharp claws had replaced my hands and the teeth in my mouth were positively obscene. I resembled a black panther—a deformed, part-human black panther.

A monster.

The monster was ready to show the enemy exactly what she could do. Today would either be the last day of my miserable life or the beginning of my freedom.

As the poison made its way through my system, I lurched forward onto all fours. It would be better to die. Something like me should not exist—should never exist. But if I died, they would keep destroying others.

“Are the cameras on?” the second one inquired as he glanced over at me in disgust.

“No,” the first confirmed with a sadistic grin. “Thought you might want to get back at it for making you piss your pants the other day.”

“Fuck you and thank you,” the second one grunted as he traded his tranq gun for a Taser wand.

The tranq gun I could handle. As long as I was fast enough to turn and take it in my shoulder, I could rip it out before the sedative went to work. My claws would tear into my arm, but it was a better alternative than being knocked out cold. The Taser? More of a problem.

Rolling into a ball and cowering on the floor was the beginning of my plan to make sure death paid a visit to the icy-cold lab that I’d called home for far too long. I just hoped it wouldn’t be mine. My demise would come by my own hand soon enough. I still had some business to take care of.

“It’s no fun if it doesn’t fight back,” the guard with the Taser complained as he warily approached.

“Sure it is,” the main bastard grumbled and kicked my spine. “As long as we don’t kill it, no one will be the wiser.”

I could smell their fear and their psychotic excitement. Now what I wanted to smell was their blood. Giving them the confidence to get sloppy was going to hurt like hell, but pain had become my norm. No pain. No gain.

“Start on low. Make it last,” the main guard snarled as he kicked me in the head. “It hasn’t eaten in a while. It’s weak.”

“This is gonna be good,” the second said as he pressed the Taser against my back.

The volt of electricity shot through my frame and my grotesque body flailed and contorted. A hiss of agony escaped through my teeth, but I lay still and took it. I could last through at least three shots—four if they kept the power on low or medium.

“Don’t draw blood,” the main asshole advised. “It’ll still be bleeding when it shifts back to human.”

“This abomination is not human,” the second sneered as he slammed the wand against my neck and electrocuted me again. “I don’t get paid enough to deal with shit like this. You hear me, monster? If you ever try to make me look like a fool again, I’ll kill you. Say it was a fucking accident.”

One more. My body could take one more. I eyed their positions. They stood side by side and grinned at each other. The lack of reaction on my part made them bold. My heart thundered in my chest and I asked a God I wasn’t sure existed for forgiveness for what I was about to do.

The third time was the charm—for me, not them.

Their end was bloody and it was fast. As my claws raked their shocked and surprised faces, I knocked the weapons from their hands. The metal instruments of death shattered the bottles of poison lined up on the metal counters on the far side of the room. The glass exploded and the shards glittered in the harsh fluorescent light of the room.

Their screams of pain echoed through the chilly lab, and I growled deep in my throat as I pinned the bloody pieces of shit to the floor. None of what was happening would ever be caught on camera. No. My horrifying captors had made sure no one would witness the beating they’d planned on giving me—hence, no one would ever have the displeasure of viewing their deaths.

The begging didn’t move me. I’d begged for my own life far more eloquently than these two and it had fallen on deaf ears. Even though hatred consumed me, I felt sick and raw inside as I stared at the fear on the faces of the men who had kept me trapped and took pleasure in torturing me for months on end. I wasn’t born a killer. I was made one.

And sadly it was easy.

All too easy.

1

Carter

The room was dim. My head was pounding. My mouth felt like sandpaper.

Get a fucking grip. Panic gets you nowhere except six feet under. Dead is not on my agenda today.

Closing my eyes, I pushed aside the excruciating pain that racked my six-foot-four frame and focused my mind. My name… what the fuck was my name?

Carter. My name was Carter… is Carter.

Wait… was it? Yes. My name is Carter. Carter Wylde. Former Navy SEAL. Four tours in Afghanistan and many more that weren’t on any government record book. Hell, I was fairly sure I didn’t exist anymore, according to dear old Uncle Sam.

I was no longer in the game. I had enemies, but I’d been off the radar for several years now. As far as I knew, Sean was the only man from my old life who had a vague idea where I was and what I used to be. And that loyal son of a bitch would never give me up.

Was it day? Was it night? Fuck…

My body felt like it had been run over by a Mack truck. Opening my eyes took extreme effort. However, the frantic lavender-eyed woman was gorgeous enough for me to make the effort. She paced the room like a caged tiger—long limbs, wild dark blonde hair and a completely freaked-out demeanor.

What in the hell was going on?

“Ohthankfreakingod,” she choked out on a single breath, wringing her hands and peering at me with red-rimmed amethyst eyes. “You’re not dead.”

“Debatable. Do I know you?” I asked in a pained voice that sounded like I’d swallowed gravel.

She’d clearly been crying. Why?

“Umm, no,” she replied haltingly with shaking hands as she tidied the blankets that covered me. “Not really—not yet… I mean no. No, you don’t know me.”

“Where am I?” I asked, attempting to move my arms. They felt like they weighed a ton. What the fuck?

Had I been poisoned? Kidnapped? The woman smoothing the damp hair from my forehead didn’t seem remotely dangerous or the type to kidnap, but…

“Name?” I demanded roughly, narrowing my eyes while slowly and painfully moving myself to a seated position with Herculean effort. “Location?”

“What the hell? You sat up,” she pointed out, dumbfounded.

Raising my brow and taking in my surroundings, I gave her a curt nod. “Apparently,” I snapped. “Answer my questions before I decide to stand up. I can promise you that won’t end well.”

During my time as a SEAL, I’d been shot, tortured and had gone for weeks without solid food. I was familiar with the side effects of those situations. What I was feeling now?

Well, it was fucked up.

“Georgia.”

“Is that where we are? Or your name?”

“Actually, both,” she said with a giggle that didn’t belong in this particular conversation. At all.

“How about this, Georgia from Georgia… you tell me what’s going on—all of it—and you’ll leave this room alive.”

“Is there another option?” she asked, wrinkling her nose and tilting her head.

Goddammit, she was stunning.

Inhaling in through my nose and breathing out through my mouth, I gave myself a second to reconsider suggesting she could get naked and crawl into the bed with me. Clearly, I’d lost a few necessary brain cells when I was beaten to a pulp… or run over by a truck… or poisoned… or God only knew what. At least I was in still in the state I’d chosen as my temporary home.

Home was a vague term. I hadn’t had a home in years and that worked for me just fine. Being tied to anything for longer than a month or two made me uneasy. Quite honestly, this situation was making me uneasy. The woman running the show at the moment wasn’t working on all cylinders.

And why in the hell wasn’t I wary of Georgia from Georgia? I wasn’t in any position to be threatening anyone, even a small woman at this point. She could end me with a needle, a gun, or possibly just by leaving me here to die.

Not being in charge was not my idea of a good time. “You have three seconds,” I growled as she watched me like I was a science experiment gone awry.

“Okay,” she said, expelling a long sigh and gingerly sitting down on the edge of the bed.

For a bad guy—or girl—she smelled awfully good.

“I’m waiting.”

“I’m forming my dang thoughts,” she shot back, running her hands through her wild hair and rolling her eyes at me.

Unbelievable. She’d clearly done something to incapacitate me and was now acting the victim? If I could just stand, I could get my bearings and get the hell out of here. Since that seemed beyond the realm of possibilities at the moment, I’d have to listen to her story. However, the longer she paused, the less likely the truth would fall from her mouth… a mouth that was made for sin.

Damn it, I didn’t do the enemy. Right now, Georgia from Georgia was the enemy until she proved otherwise.

“Now, this might sound a little weird, but…” she said while twisting her hair in her slim fingers.

“Did you just say weird?” I asked.

Was I being punked? Was this some sort of fucked-up joke compliments of my former unit that I’d avoided like the plague since I’d been stateside?

She nodded and then jumped up and began to pace again. “Yep, weird.”

The room was small and her movement made me dizzy. There wasn’t much to the room—more like an afterthought—a bed, a dresser, a chair and a braided rug that had seen better days.

Was this her home? A motel? Shit, as my body began to regain strength, my mind became more muddled.

“Go on,” I said, not letting on that I was able to move my arms and legs with more ease now. I had no clue if my beautiful Georgia was working alone.

“Okay, so Sean told me to find you.”

“Bullshit,” I interrupted her. “Not possible. He doesn’t know where I am.”

Her pacing stopped, and I watched her search for her next lie. “True,” she agreed. “He didn’t know exactly where you were, but… umm…”

“Listen lady,” I snapped, quickly losing what little patience I possessed—which had never been much. “Get to the point. Now.”

“I picked you up in a bar because I’m a… well, I suppose the fastest way to explain it is I’m a government experiment. You weren’t hard to pick up at all. I figured you’d be… you know…”

“Clearly, I don’t know,” I said, closing my eyes for a brief moment and shaking my head. Georgia from Georgia was missing a few screws. A government experiment?

“I thought you’d be old and ugly.”

“Because?” I asked, somehow finding this bizarre exchange amusing.

“I don’t know,” she replied with an annoyed shrug. “Sean said you were a deadly killer. I need a deadly killer and someone who can help me disappear. He didn’t mention you were hot and ripped and really freaking tall. Anyway, I don’t want to live on an exam table or in a cage for the rest of my life. So since it would take a nuclear explosion to kill my abnormal ass, I decided to escape. But escaping from the government when they’ve spent millions of dollars on you tends to be a bit difficult. Plus, I’m pretty sure I might have accidentally had to kill a few people on my way out. I didn’t want to, but… you know, they weren’t too keen on me busting out. Plus the Taser wand really hurt.”

“Are you right in the head?” I asked, trying to follow her ridiculous story. I did have to admit I enjoyed the hot and ripped part, but she was unkillable? Living in a cage? Accidentally had to kill people? The Taser hurt? If her goal was to confuse, she was succeeding.

“Well, no, probably not. But really, who is?” she asked.

“Fine point. Well made,” I said, sarcasm dripping from each word. “Please do go on, I’m sure this gets better.”

“It does,” she assured me, either ignoring my cynicism or letting it fly right over her insanely sexy head. “Well, umm… so after the shit show of my escape and a brief detour, as I said, I picked you up and then…”

She stopped, let her head fall back on her shoulders and stared at the ceiling.

“Clock is ticking,” I reminded her.

“This was a bad fucking idea,” she muttered, turning away and lightly banging her head against the wall. “Such a bad idea. Never should have listened to Sean and now I’m stuck with him. Bad, bad, bad idea.”

“Georgia,” I said harshly.

She paused her self-flagellation and glanced over in surprise, as if she was shocked I was still in the room with her. She was off her rocker, but unfortunately, I was attracted to trouble that looked like her. And she was clearly going to be a lot of trouble.

“What exactly is the bad fucking idea? And while you’re at it, explain why I can’t move my limbs.”

“Should I start at the very beginning?” Georgia asked.

“It’s a very good place to start,” I replied, trying to bite back the grin that was pulling at my lips.

Her delighted laugh filled the small, dingy room and she clasped her hands together in glee. “I didn’t take you for a Sound of Music fan.”

“And why not?” I asked, pretending to be insulted.

What the hell was I doing? Playing von Trapp Family trivia with a lunatic who I secretly wanted to bed? Her laugh was like a breath of fresh air and for a moment I forgot all of the ugliness in my past. My gut said she was for real, and my gut had served me well, but far too many puzzle pieces were missing at the moment for me to break into Edelweiss.

And trust me, I could. Reciting that movie almost word for word had kept me sane during some of the most horrific moments of my existence.

“Back to the story, Georgia. Now,” I said, getting serious. I would not be seduced by a laugh. I was too far gone for normal.

“Right. The story… You’re not going to believe me.”

“Try me.”

2

Georgia

He’s going to think I’m insane. Actually, he’d be correct, but I wasn’t always insane—or at least not this insane. They’d made me this way, and now I might have made him the same.

Sean was an idiot. No… Sean was my brilliant friend. He’d been trying to help me and I’d screwed it all up—royally. Although, if Sean had really been my friend, he would have warned me how beautiful Carter Wylde was—all blue-eyed, black-haired, muscle-bound, dangerous beauty. He should have sent me to someone old, ugly and mean—or hairy like Scott Hair Pants. Being attracted to Carter Wylde was going to be a problem. To be fair, Sean probably didn’t really notice how smoking hot the man was.

Well, wait. I suppose Carter Wylde could be mean even though he was gorgeous. I was fairly certain he was going to get mean when he figured out what I’d accidentally, possibly, maybe done to him… but his lips. He had such beautiful lips and he smelled so damned good. And his ass. You could bounce a quarter off of it. I should know. I’d been staring at it for days.

“Let me start off by apologizing,” I said with a forced smile on my face.

“For?” he asked suspiciously.

“I’ll get to that in a few,” I assured him and began to pace the small room again. “We’re safe here. I mean, we’re in a safe house that Sean told me about.”

“And why do we need to be in a safe house, Georgia from Georgia?”

“Because it’s safe,” I told him, wondering if his brain had been affected.

His eye roll and grunt of disgust made me realize his brain was fine. Mine? Debatable.

I was very aware he’d regained use of his limbs even though he was playing as if he hadn’t. And why should he trust me? I sure as hell wouldn’t. I could have a whole posse of bad dudes with me.

I didn’t.

Instead, I had a whole posse of bad dudes after me—two seriously bad ones in particular. Which is where Carter Wylde was supposed to come in and help, but…

“You’re a government experiment?” he questioned with doubt, prodding me out of my very busy and jumbled internal thought process.

“Well, I was CIA, but then it all went a bit wrong,” I replied, relieved to tell the truth.

“And by a bit wrong you’re referring to the government experiment part?” he asked, looking as skeptical as I would if someone laid the bizarre tale in my lap.

“Yes. A bit wrong is kind of mild, but clusterfuck of epic proportions is over-the-top dramatic—even if it’s accurate,” I muttered.

The truth will set you free or get you killed by a pissed-off ex-SEAL. Which honestly, might not be a bad way to go all things considered.

Folding his arms over his massive and beautifully bare chest, Carter raised an annoyed brow and waited.

Fine. He had every right to know everything, especially since I might have ruined his life.

“I speak ten languages,” I explained, barreling right into my freakish abilities—well, some of them. “I can hack any computer, build a bomb with my eyes shut, hit a target from a spot that isn’t humanly possible… and I can bake. Cakes. I bake really great cakes. I was a savant as a child and my parents had no clue what to do with me. I scared them, myself, and pretty much most people. My parents liked my cakes, but that was all they liked about me. They sent me off to a school with others like me and it sucked. But that’s not important—at all. Basically, I’m a scary freak.”

“Who bakes cakes,” he added, squinting his eyes at me in what I thought might be amusement.

It was more likely fear. “Yes. I bake cakes,” I confirmed.

“You don’t scare me,” Carter replied with an exasperated grin. “You annoy me and confuse me, but you don’t scare me.”

“Thank you. That’s actually really nice to hear,” I told him with my first genuine smile in a long time.

“Welcome. So how does a bright, beautiful, multilingual, annoying CIA agent who bakes cakes and makes bombs end up as a government experiment who needs to disappear?” he questioned.

“That is an excellent question,” I told him as I pulled a chair up and sat next to the bed. I stayed on the side of the room nearest the door in case I had to make a run for it. “I’ve wondered that myself.”

We sat in strained silence for a few moments while he stared at me. God, how I wished I’d met this man under normal circumstances. However, normal was no longer in my wheelhouse. Ever.

“Don’t you want to know why you can’t move?” I asked, deciding to get some of the hard stuff out of the way first before he had complete use of his body again.

“I figured that’s what you were apologizing for,” he shot back.

“Umm, yes,” I replied, trying really hard to give him a reassuring smile. I was quite sure it came out like a pained wince.

“You want to be a bit more specific?” Carter asked.

Bizarrely enough, the beautiful man seemed amused. “Yes, I do,” I told him. “But there’s more weird stuff before I can get to that part.”

Again we stared at each other in awkward silence. I knew it was my turn to talk or come clean as it were, but it was really fun looking at someone so pretty. I’d only seen evil nerds in lab coats for so long now that a real man was an incredible treat.

And in a matter of minutes, he would no longer be amused.

“Okay, hear me out before you kill me,” I bargained.

“Thought you were basically unkillable,” he replied flatly.

“Pretty much,” I agreed. “However, if you decapitate me, I’m sure that would work. I mean it would have to… right? There is no way I could survive being headless. At least I don’t think I could. It would suck so hard being alive and headless. You feel me?”

The look on his face told me I was losing him fast.

“Okay, you don’t have to reply to that one. Just keep it in mind if we need to kill me. I’m ninety-eight percent sure if you behead me, I’ll die. I will not go back. Death is very preferable to being strapped to a gurney and shot up with poisons.”

“Keep going,” Carter said, staring at me like I was the nut job that I was. “But I’d like to know why I’m naked.”

“That’s a fair question.” I nodded and wondered how much I could leave out of the answer and still tell some of the truth. “What do you remember from three nights ago?”

“Three?” he demanded. “I’ve been here for three days?”

“And nights,” I reminded him. “But like I said, we’re safe here.”

“Georgia,” he growled, narrowing his eyes and trying to stand.

“Don’t,” I told him, gently pushing him back down. “I promise I’ll explain. I don’t think you’re strong enough yet. Took me weeks. At least I didn’t kill you. I call that a plus.”

“Not sure I agree,” he said, pressing his fingers to the bridge of his nose and expelling a frustrated breath.

“I got your scent from Sean and found you,” I said, holding up my hand so he wouldn’t interrupt. “Let me finish and then you can kill me or help me. Cool?”

He nodded tersely and waited. It was clear he still thought I was insane.

“You were in a bar drinking. Alone. You’d had a lot and I bought you a few more rounds. I figured it would be easier to get you to go along with me if you were a bit fuzzy,” I explained, staring at my shaking hands. “So you know… one thing led to another and we were making out in your car because you’re so freakin’ hot and you were biting on my neck.”

The room suddenly felt way too small.

“If you hadn’t bitten my neck, I don’t think I would have bitten you back.”

“Not really seeing a problem here except I don’t remember it,” Carter said easily.

If only this was easy.

“Normally,” I said, stressing the word, “a little neck biting and a hickey or two—or three— wouldn’t be a bad thing, but…”

“But?” he asked, sitting totally upright and easing his legs over the side of the bed, revealing his mind-bogglingly beautiful private parts.

Immediately my eyes shot to the ceiling and I pinched my nose shut. His scent alerted me he was aroused, and I knew I would jump him instead of doing the right thing and explaining why he should probably kill me dead.

“I don’t smell,” he said with a chuckle. “And I still don’t know why I’m naked. Did we…?”

“No,” I shouted, startling both of us. “And you don’t smell bad. You smell good—which is bad. And I would greatly appreciate it if you would cover your thingie.”

“It’s a dick, not a thingie. Remember that,” he said, draping the sheet over his now growing thingie.

“Right. Sorry. Dick,” I replied, mortified. “Do you want to hear more?”

“Please,” he said sarcastically. “Especially the government experiment part.”

“Your tone is kind of rude,” I pointed out.

“Yeah, well, you clearly did something to incapacitate me. You called my dick a thingie and asked me you decapitate you. Can you see why I might be a bit annoyed?”

It took everything I had not to roll my eyes. Carter Wylde didn’t get it. Honestly if he did get it, he was crazier than I was. “While you make excellent points, I didn’t mean to incapacitate you and I’ve called dicks thingies since junior high school—which is a difficult habit to break. And when I’m done with my story, you’re most likely going to want to tear my head off. I just don’t think you need to be a butthole.”

“My apologies.”

“For real?” I asked.

“No. Finish the damned story,” he growled.

“Fine. I thought I was going in for a round of shots because I was being sent overseas,” I said with my voice void of emotion. I’d gone over the story so many times in my head, I felt like I was talking about someone else. It was far more fun to banter back and forth with a beautiful man than to tell my sad, ugly truth.

“That’s normal protocol,” Carter pointed out.

“Normally I’d agree.”

“And?”

“The government is making super soldiers—of a sort,” I whispered.

“Again,” he ground out through clenched teeth.

“They’re taking men and women and turning them into high-tech killing machines,” I said, feeling light-headed. “Messing around with DNA, and I’m not even sure what else. I have scars all over my body. I was in blackout mode for a long time.”

“How long?”

“The better part of a year,” I admitted.

“And you’re one of them?” he asked with a look of what I was certain must have been revulsion on his face. Or maybe it was pity. I couldn’t tell and I really didn’t care.

“I’m one that survived,” I told him as I stood and moved closer to the door.

“How many of you exist?”

“Exactly like me?” I asked, my stomach churning.

He nodded and watched me closely.

“Only me—and now maybe you.”

“Explain yourself,” he barked, no longer amused.

“I bit you,” I choked out. “They screwed with my DNA, and now I might have screwed with yours. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to get so carried away.”

The bottom felt like it was falling out from underneath me and I wanted to run, but Carter Wylde was more my responsibility than I was his at this point.

“They’re making super soldiers with DNA alterations?” he demanded, standing and letting the sheet fall from his magnificent body.

“No, they’re making animals.”

“Repeat,” he said so softly I wasn’t sure I’d heard him.

“Animals. They’re creating humans who can shift to predatory animals to kill in situations that humans couldn’t survive in.”

“And you’re one of these animals?” he asked with a laugh.

Words failed me so I simply nodded. I was an animal—a true freak of nature. It was monstrous. I was a monster—a beast.

And I might have made Carter Wylde one as well.

3

Carter

Georgia from Georgia was right out of her ever-loving mind. My brain said to get my shit together and get the hell out, but my gut said to stay. Not to mention my dick—or thingie, as it were—was also in favor of staying. But I refused to listen to my dick. It had gotten me into trouble before.

Now my gut? I always listened to my gut.

Did Sean really send her to me? And how did she find me? I didn’t for a moment believe she was an animal. Super soldier? That was definitely in the realm of possibilities. The CIA was always up to no good in my opinion. It would also make sense that she would know of Sean if she truly was some kind of enhanced fighting machine. But an animal? No.

“Honey, you’re gonna have to come up with a more plausible story if you want my help,” I said, finding my jeans and yanking them on. Where was my damn shirt?

“Look,” Georgia said, sounding desperate. “Forget about making me disappear or helping me. If you would just be so kind as to kill me, we can call it a day. I have money hidden overseas. I’ll give you the account numbers and you’ll never have to worry again. Ever. I can pay you. Cool?”

“Not cool,” I snapped. “What the hell is wrong with you? You truly think you’re an animal?”

“Do you think I like having to tell a hot, deadly killer guy that I’m an animal—and not the good kind?” she shouted, twisting her hair in her fingers and rocking back and forth on her feet.

“What are you talking about?” I asked, shaking my head and swearing I would never drink again.

“You know,” she yelled, throwing her hands in the air. “Like an animal in bed—the good kind of animal. Not the kind that can smell something of yours that Sean had and then be able to track you by your scent. Not the kind that can be dropped in a jungle and survive. Not the kind that accidentally bites a guy who wants to get in her pants because she can’t control her fangs. Not the kind that’s been strapped to a table and kept in a cage so they can be experimented on. Not the kind they throw into a fucking pen with real wild animals and I come out alive because I managed to kill every single one of them with my claws and fangs. That kind of animal isn’t good. Do you feel me?”

“You’re insane,” I said, and then paused. Wait. How had she found me? No one had been able to track me. Ever.

“Tell me something I don’t know,” she said, dropping to the chair and letting her head fall to her hands.

“Where’s my shirt?” I asked as I found my wallet, car keys, dead burner phone, socks and shoes on the floor at the base of the bed next to my gun and ammunition. I was surprised the weapon was still among my possessions. She either trusted me or was hoping I’d use it on her.

“I threw it out,” she said without looking up. “There was so much blood on it, it made me hungry.”

“Okay, that statement is just wrong,” I muttered, searching for my shirt.

Georgia from Georgia needed to be institutionalized. Sean was going to be hearing from me very soon.

“Yep,” she agreed, still staring at the floor. “I have some shirts in my duffel bag, but I don’t think they’ll fit you.”

I sat down on the bed and looked at her. She was a beautiful tragic mess. Georgia from Georgia made me feel things. I didn’t feel things. Ever. And I didn’t like it.

However, I believed something had happened to her. Whether the government had done it or she was simply unbalanced, I wasn’t sure. However, if she knew Sean, the military was probably involved.

Maybe she’d been brainwashed and honestly believed she was an animal. I’d seen PTSD do all sorts of things that were horrifyingly unimaginable.

Goddammit, there was something about her that sucker punched me. Yes, she was ungodly beautiful, but that wasn’t it. Beautiful women were everywhere. This one was…

“Okay, for argument’s sake, let’s say I believe you.”

“Do you?” she asked, looking up and pinning me with those lavender eyes.

“Possibly.”

She nodded and a small smile pulled at her lips but came nowhere near reaching her unusual eyes.

The desire to hear her laugh again almost overwhelmed me, but I pushed it right out of my head. Compartmentalizing was a strength of mine—had kept me alive years longer than I should have survived. “What kind of animal are you?”

“Panther,” she replied hollowly.

“What happens?” I asked.

“I take on the physical traits. My senses are enhanced and I become a dangerous predator. My skin becomes fur and my bones reform. However, when I’m not being shot up with poison, only my hands, teeth and eyes shift.”

Holding back my laugh took effort, but she looked so sincere and sad, I swallowed it. New for me to be so careful with someone else’s feelings.

“What brings on this change?” I asked, staring at my hands so she wouldn’t see my doubt.

If she really believed this load of shit, my disbelief would make her run. For whatever fucked-up reason, I didn’t want her to run. Maybe I needed a goddamned hobby. Getting tangled up with stunning insanity wasn’t going to do much for my own mental health. And God knew I probably needed some help with that. I was still trying to figure out how to live in polite society and it wasn’t working out too well.

“Well,” Georgia said slowly, squinting her eyes in confusion. “I thought it was the violence. I mean, in the past it was always violence that brought it on. Kind of a fight-or-flight response, except I don’t fly away. I can’t. Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t.”

“So your reaction to me was violent?” I asked.

“Umm, no,” she said with a small laugh. “It was not violent. Well, it was violent, but not in a harmful way… although I might have harmed you. Shit. I can’t do anything right.”

“So arousal brought it on?” I questioned her.

Her blush was as alluring as the rest of her, but I wasn’t going there.

“Apparently,” she whispered, closing her eyes and running her hands through her hair. “Only my claws and teeth—maybe my eyes. I didn’t look in a mirror.”

What was I going to do with the crazy woman who thought she was a member of the cat family? She was definitely in trouble, but I was still unsure if it was mental or physical.

Sean. I needed to talk to Sean.

“Do you have a burner phone? Mine’s dead.”

Nodding, she stood and grabbed a duffel bag that was sitting next to the door. Georgia dumped the contents on the bed—laptop computer, jump drives, jeans, two shirts, change of underwear, a few toiletries, four protein bars, two knives, three guns, a sniper rifle and about ten burner phones.

Fuck. She was definitely military.

“I’m about to call Sean. Anything else you want to tell me before I do that?” I asked, picking up one of the phones and checking it.

“Umm… tell him hi.”

“Seriously?”

“Is that bad?” she asked, confused, and then froze.

She sniffed the air…

Then she began to frantically shove her belongings back into her bag. Her terror was real and her eyes grew wild. She handed me one of her guns and a knife while breathing in short gasps of air.

“Georgia,” I said in a calm and commanding tone, making her pause for a brief second. “What are you doing?”

“They’re here,” she whispered as she carefully made her way to the window and peeked out the corner. “They’ve come for me—five of them.”

“Five of who?” I asked, arming myself, getting low to the floor and moving to the window.

“The men in black—faceless evil bastards who always wear black. They want to take me back to the cages. I won’t go,” she choked out, loading her guns and strapping her knife to her belt. “You have to promise to kill me if they get me. Promise me,” she demanded harshly.

“How about this? We eliminate the men in black, borrow whatever vehicle they arrived in. Then I take you to a real safe house and you tell me the rest of the story,” I suggested, scanning the area in front of the not-so-safe house we were hiding in and counting five men in black. She’d gotten that right.

I almost laughed at the cliché, but the bastards were packing and clearly had a mission and a target. Right now, no one was getting Georgia except me. I had no intention of keeping her, but my instincts had kicked in. I was going to make sure the crazy cat woman stayed safe.

She stared at me as if I were nuts. I was, but I was also completely serious.

“There’s five of them and two of us,” she stated flatly.

“Your point?” I asked, making sure I was locked and loaded.

“No point,” she replied, still staring at me. “Just facts.”

“You’re a trained killing machine, right?” I asked, with a smile pulling at my lips.

She paused and ran her hands through her wild hair as she pursed her sinful lips in thought. “Well, I’m a killing machine, but I wouldn’t add the trained part to the description.”

Shit. I could take out five men in black, but I couldn’t cover Georgia from Georgia at the same time. I really hadn’t planned on dying today, but it was as good a day as any to go if my time was up. I’d simply remove the threat and leave Georgia alive. However, my guess was that the bastards were carrying tranquilizer guns, if Georgia was worth as much to the government as she said she was.

“But you can hit targets?” I pressed, forming a plan as I spoke.

She nodded and giggled. “I can.”

“Fine,” I said with a grin and a shake of my head. She was every kind of insane to giggle at a time like this. “Can you hit three in the space of fifteen seconds?”

She nodded again, dropped to her knees and silently pushed the window open.

“I’m gonna two-hand the two sons of bitches on the right at the same time,” I told her as I got to my knees and placed a loaded gun in each hand. “You pop off the three on the left on Mi.”

“Mi?” she questioned in confusion.

“Do, re, mi,” I replied.

A smile lit her face, and I drew in a sharp breath. Sean knew exactly what he was doing when he sent her to me. I was as crazy as she was. Georgia from Georgia made me feel alive again, and I was going to make sure she stayed in one piece.

“You ready?” I questioned quietly, as I scanned the area once again.

They were awfully sure of themselves, only sending five men. However, I was certain there were more in the area.

“Born ready,” she whispered as she sighted her weapon and waited for the go ahead. “The hills are alive.”

“Not for long,” I replied with a chuckle. “Men in black don’t deserve the sound of music. The only sound they’re gonna hear in these hills is the explosion of gunfire.”

“That’s the most romantic thing anyone has ever said to me,” she said, gazing at me in wonder.

Time seemed to stop for a brief moment as her gaze met mine. Unsure of what was happening, I nodded and glanced away. I was a hardened husk of a man. My soul had been destroyed years ago and I had nothing left to give. I barely had a hold on my own sanity, yet this unbalanced puzzle of a woman had me feeling real emotion.

However, it wasn’t a real good time to get in touch with my feelings. Maybe I’d have time for that later—after we disposed of the men in black. Feelings were something I didn’t do. Not even for a beautiful mess of a woman who could quote the movie that had saved my life.

“If that’s the most romantic thing you’ve heard, you need to get out more,” I replied gruffly, dismissing her and my ridiculous inner turmoil.

Focus. What was needed here was razor-sharp focus. The rest could wait—probably forever.

Breathing in slowly through my nose and expelling it through my lips, I gave her one last glance. She was ready. Gone was the giggling woman and in her place was something I recognized—a calculated killer.

“Do. Re… mi.”

And the party started. They fell in time with the rest of the musical line… fa, so, la, ti, do.

She was as good as she said she was, and so was I. They went down quick and clean—never even got a shot off. Clearly, the CIA employed idiots. I felt nothing but relief that they were no longer an issue. However, Georgia was clearly shaken.

“Time to go, Georgia from Georgia,” I said as I grabbed her pack and her arm.

“You sure you don’t just want to kill me and take off?” she asked in complete seriousness. “I think I’m going to be a lot of trouble—a real problem.”

“Like Maria?” I couldn’t help myself. She was the first person in my life who recognized my Sound of Music references.

Her laugh was what I was going for. I won.

“Maria was a nun—not a beast,” she reminded me, still smiling. “Your life would be simpler if we offed me. Just saying.”

“Maybe I’ll off you tomorrow,” I replied, kicking open the front door as I steered her toward my car that miraculously hadn’t been hit by gunfire. Figuring theirs had a tracking device on it, I was relieved mine was good to go. “But today, I’m finding complicated quite interesting.”

“You’re insane.”

“Pot, kettle, black,” I replied as I started the car and sped away from the carnage.

Her laugh rang in my ears and my gut as I floored it.

She was definitely going to be a problem. My problem. And I was going to figure out how to solve her.

4

Georgia

Carter Wylde was beautiful and he’d just killed for me. I mean, I’d helped, but he’d defended me even though I knew he didn’t buy my story. My mind raced and my heart beat so loudly in my chest I was certain he could hear it.

What was I thinking? I was a freakin’ idiot. This wasn’t a date—not even close. Offing bad guys didn’t qualify as romance. Sure, the man was all kinds of nuts. However, I was sure I was more nuts than he was—not to mention I’d just offed three bad guys, which never made me feel good about myself. I was a far better baker than killer.

In another life we might have been made for each other, but not in this one. I was far too broken and dangerous. He was the personification of beauty and I was a beast.

“How do you know Sean?” Carter questioned as he pulled into a crowded parking garage and parked the car.

We’d been traveling for an hour at speeds that made me grip the seat of the car in fear for my life. I was fairly sure I’d punctured the leather. And I had no clue where we were headed. It was random town after random town, but Carter seemed to know where he was going. I knew he didn’t completely trust me or even believe me, but I felt totally safe for the first time in my life. However, I wasn’t sure why we’d stopped in a parking garage.

“Sean was tight with my uncle—the man who was more of a parent to me than my real ones.”

“And your uncle is?”

“Dead,” I replied flatly.

My uncle Tim had been everything to me. He was my hero and my de facto father. He’d never married or had any children of his own. My freakish abilities had never scared him—Tim made me feel almost normal. He was basically married to his job. His job was the CIA. It was why I’d joined up. Worst decision of my life, but again… hindsight is twenty-twenty.

“My uncle was CIA and he loved me like a daughter. Died of a heart attack four years ago, and so to honor his memory, I wanted to become just like him. Pretty stupid,” I muttered as I watched Carter clear out the glove compartment of his car and grab my duffel and his own.

“You still didn’t answer my question,” he pointed out, pausing a moment and pinning me with his intense blue eyes.

God, he was so otherworldly beautiful, I almost forgot what the conversation was, but then the ugly reality of my life came roaring back. “My uncle Tim gave me a number for Sean before he died. Told me to use it if my back was ever up against a wall. He said Sean was a good man and would help me. My back was definitely up against a totally fucked-up wall when I contacted him.”

“Keep going.”

“Umm, okay, but why are we in a parking garage?” I asked, confused. I didn’t think it was real safe to be out in the open considering what had gone down just an hour ago.

“We’re upgrading. Can’t be sure they didn’t tag my car,” he replied and shrugged. “More story.”

“You’re kinda smart,” I told him with a smile.

“So I’ve been told,” he shot back. “Talk.”

“Right. So I contacted Sean. He hid me for two weeks while I got some strength back and then sent me on my way to you.”

Carter’s eyes narrowed as he stared. I knew he was trying to detect bullshit, but there was truly none to be found. I’d left out a few facts—like Sean running tests on my blood and asking me to prove my insane story. I had. He was floored. Seeing a human shift to an animal was not something one saw every day… or ever.

We’d spent the better part of a week hacking into CIA files and I’d hit pay dirt. Sabrina Wenbo and Don Jarred had kept meticulous records of their fucked-up experimentation on their subjects, as they like to refer to them. Not people—subjects.

It was also very clear they’d gone rogue and were working for themselves at this point. The systematic and methodical way they were enhancing people and destroying lives was a project outside of what the CIA was doing. Not that the CIA was innocent. Ever.

“Leave stuff out much?” Carter questioned, getting out of his car and looking around the lot.

“Yep,” I replied, hightailing it after him as I had no freaking intention of getting left behind.

Quickly and quietly, he jimmied the lock of a black SUV and hotwired the car. Tossing our bags into the backseat, he went around the back of the truck, took down the license number and tucked the paper into my hand.

I had no clue what he was doing. Sean said he was different. I was different. Different didn’t bother me, but this was bizarre.

“Umm, why did you give me this?” I asked, hopping into the front seat and strapping on my seat belt.

“You tell me the rest of the story and I tell you why I gave that to you,” he replied easily, taking his burner smartphone and plugging it into the charger.

“I really don’t want to be dropped off on the side of the road,” I said. “I was thinking I would share the rest when you couldn’t get rid of me so easily.”

“Stop thinking. It’s overrated. Start talking or I will drop you off,” he said with a lopsided grin that made my heart skip a beat.

I was pretty sure he was joking about dropping me off, but the rest of it was no joke.

Shit.

“I have proof of what they’re doing—to me, to others. I hacked in and it’s far more fucked up than I ever could have imagined. They killed about forty new agents during the experiments and plan on recruiting new ones.”

“Where’s the proof?” he asked, pulling out of the garage and out of yet another random small town.

“Sean has it. I have it. Plus, I saved it on a shitload of jump drives.”

“Smart and pretty,” he muttered with a grin.

“Don’t forget crazy,” I said, feeling warm inside that he’d called me pretty. I might be pretty on the outside, but that was simply luck of the draw. On the inside, I was broken and ugly, but letting myself pretend for a brief moment that I was a normal girl felt so good I almost cried.

“And crazy,” he agreed with a chuckle. “Get your computer. I need you to hack into a little something.”

“Don’t have internet,” I said, leaning into the backseat and grabbing my laptop. “Maybe we can go to a library or something if you need me to hack.”

“Not wearing a shirt here,” he said, as if I needed to be reminded of the distracting fact. “Don’t think that’s gonna fly in a library. As soon as my phone charges, we’ll have internet.”

“Hmm,” I said with a giggle. “Smart and pretty. You’re Beauty and I’m the Beast.”

His glance over at me was sharp and it startled me. His demeanor had turned on a dime.

“What did Sean tell you?” he questioned.

“Not following.”

“About me.”

“Not a lot,” I admitted. “He said you were damaged by what you’d been through, but he would trust you with his life. Always. He said you would help me… and…”

“And?”

“And that I might end up helping you,” I replied quietly. “But I didn’t. I hurt you.”

His hands gripped the steering wheel lightly and he didn’t seem bothered at all by what I’d just said. I could only assume that he still didn’t believe me and had no clue how much I might have damaged him.

“Let’s chat about that,” he said as if we were simply discussing the weather. “You bit me with your… fangs… and I passed out for three days?”

“I know it sounds like some really stinky B-movie plot, but yes,” I said with a wince. “Do you still feel weird?”

“You like that word,” he observed.

“It’s accurate,” I replied.

“I feel fine,” Carter said as he maneuvered the vehicle onto the highway and glanced over. “What do you think happened? And while you figure out what half-truth to placate me with, put the license plate number into the computer and find the name and address of the owner.”

“The owner of the car we just stole?”

“Yep. Need to send unmarked bills to replace the vehicle we borrowed.”

“You mean stole,” I corrected him while falling a little more for the man with every new thing I learned.

“Semantics. I don’t steal.”

“Got it,” I said with a laugh.

We rode in silence while I found the owner and the address. Also, just to be ahead of the game, I researched the make and model of the car to get the value. I took a bit more time than necessary to avoid the conversation that needed to be dealt with. Because I was terrific at avoidance, I pulled up a site that I’d missed desperately during my year in hell.

“What are you doing?” Carter asked, glancing over. “I thought you were an expert hacker. Shouldn’t take you this long.”

“Umm, it didn’t,” I replied sheepishly. “I’ve had the info for twenty minutes. I was just…”

“Just?”

Inhaling through my nose and letting the air escape in a huff, I let my chin drop to my chest. “I was playing Soda Candy Crush,” I whispered.

“Repeat.”

“I. Was. Playing. Soda. Candy. Crush. And it’s kind of devastating. I was up to level nineteen hundred before I was turned into a freak of nature and now I have to start over. It’s all kinds of sucky. I mean, I know how to cheat to get more lives, but that only works on a phone and my burners are flip phones—totally prehistoric. So now I have to wait to get more lives because I can’t have a credit card online because it’s fucking traceable. I spent months on end trying to imagine the damned game in my head to stay sane. Do you feel me?” I asked, and then purposely banged my head on the passenger window.

What in the ever-loving hell was wrong with me? I had crazed government scientists after me, I’d killed men in black today, and I might have turned my deadly knight in shining armor into an animal like me. Now I was bitching about a mindless video game? Stupid. Stupid.

“I feel you,” Carter replied quietly. “And you really need to stop banging your head on things—gonna give yourself a concussion.”

“You get it?”

“I get it. The Sound of Music saved me more times than I can count,” he replied, keeping his eyes on the highway. “Weird, huh?”

My giggle startled me and made him grin. He did get me, and I got him. I had no clue if I was going to end up dead or alive. But I was going to enjoy this bizarre and strangely beautiful time in my life however long it lasted.

5

Carter

In the space of a few hours, I felt more comfortable with Georgia than any other person I’d met in my entire life. Of course, it shouldn’t surprise me that the person was right out of her mind. Someone as damaged as I was would never be attracted to a woman who was sane. And a woman who was sane would never be attracted to me.

Georgia from Georgia was not sane, and for the moment, that suited me just fine.

There was no future for us, but there was now. Right now we were alive. That could change in a heartbeat.

“So what did they do to you to make you an animal?” I asked, keeping my eyes glued to the road.

“You believe me now?” she asked.

“I believe you believe it.”

Her sigh made my chest tighten. I actually found myself wanting to believe her absurd story just to make her feel better, but it was too far fetched and I wasn’t good at faking polite behavior. Georgia put her laptop on the floor and pulled her legs to her chest. Rolling up the sleeve of her t-shirt, she moved her arm next to the steering wheel and held her breath.

Thin, still pink scars covered the skin. Silvery-white older scars were mixed in, making her arm look like a macabre jigsaw puzzle. My sharp intake of breath made her jerk her arm away in shame. I knew she thought I was repulsed by what I saw, but she couldn’t have been more wrong.

I was simply too furious to speak. However, my silence was being misconstrued and that was unacceptable.

“Is your whole body like that?” I asked through clenched teeth.

Keeping my eyes on the road to give her some space and to protect her from the rage burning in my eyes, I waited until she was ready to speak. I gripped the steering wheel tight and kept my foot on the accelerator. What I really wanted to do was pull over and take the damaged woman into my arms. However, I wasn’t the one to save her. I could make sure she was safe, but I was more broken than she was. I would only destroy what might be left of her.

“Yes, mostly my arms and back. They gave me injections, and then slit my skin and used something topical,” she replied tonelessly. “I’m a hideous beast.”

Done. I was done. It wasn’t a brilliant move to pull over, but we were traveling past wooded areas—plenty of cover. Turning the wheel sharply to the right, I eased the car off the road and pulled into a grove of thick pine.

Leaving the ignition on, I gathered my thoughts and tried to tamp down my anger.

“You are not a beast,” I said slowly, trying to find words she would believe.

She shook her head and put her slim hand on my arm. The feel of her skin on mine calmed my seething rage.

“I am,” she whispered. “I’m broken and that’s just the way it is. I’m sorry I’m disgusting to you, but it’s okay. I’m disgusting to myself, too. Please don’t feel bad.”

Turning to face her, I grabbed her hand as she tried to pull it away. Easing the sleeve back up, I examined the marks, and then raised her arm to my lips. Gently kissing the thin, angry lines on her skin, I felt her tremble and heard her start to cry.

“Please don’t,” she whispered through her tears.

“Am I hurting you?” I asked, still holding tight to her arm.

She shook her head and closed her eyes. “No. Not physically.”

“You are not a beast,” I repeated. “You’re a beautiful woman.”

“Not even close. I’m barely human,” she muttered almost inaudibly. “You don’t know me.”

“I know pain and I know torture when I see it,” I replied. “I know bravery and I know desperation.”

Georgia said nothing. It was clear she didn’t believe me, but the words had been spoken. I was many bad things, but I wasn’t a liar. She might not know that yet, but in time—if we had time—she would. I wasn’t sure why I cared, but dissecting my feelings would be a waste of minutes.

The ringing of a phone from her bag snapped both of us back into the moment.

“Who the hell is that?” I asked, realizing I was too comfortable with a woman who possibly had more baggage than she’d let on. However, my instincts were still fine with all of the craziness.

“Has to be Sean,” she said, reaching into her duffle. “He’s the only one with the number.”

“Put him on speaker.”

She nodded and followed my command. This would be interesting—or at least telling.

“Sean,” she said as she laid the phone on the dash.

“Georgia,” his gruff voice came through the line. “And Beauty.”

“I don’t go by that name anymore,” I snapped as I felt Georgia’s gaze fly to my face.

“You never did,” Sean said with a chuckle. “Never stopped any of us from calling you by it. How are you, boy? Been a long time.”

“If you’re calling to shoot the shit, I’m a little busy right now,” I replied with a small smile pulling at my lips.

“I don’t shoot the shit, boy,” he said. “Never have. Never will. You okay, Georgia?”

“Define okay,” she said with a small giggle.

“Well, you’re alive and so is Beauty, so I’m guessing that will do for now. You two need to stay deep. You’ve got a fiery hell storm on your asses.”

“Wanna be more specific?” Georgia asked, checking her weapons and loading her guns.

“Apparently the men in black you two popped off earlier were wearing body cams. Got excellent footage of the two of you leaving the scene. For two people who don’t exist on any government roster, you’re real damned popular right now.”

“And you know this, how?” I asked through clenched teeth as I pulled the car back onto the road and floored it.

We were about an hour from where we were headed and needed to get there quickly. If what Sean said was true—and I was sure it was—the CIA fuckers would start closing roads all over Georgia and the surrounding states.

Sean simply laughed at my question. I knew it was a ridiculous question. The man had skills that were fucking magical. His hacking ability and connections were what the CIA and FBI could only dream of having. It was clear he’d viewed the footage—in the end, it was irrelevant how. If he’d seen it, many more had as well.

“As I was saying,” Sean went on, ignoring my question. “I’d suggest you hightail it somewhere safe. You want some addresses?”

“The house you sent Georgia to was supposed to be safe. It wasn’t,” I said, trying to keep my foot from pressing the pedal all the way to the floor. The last thing we needed was to get pulled over by some local cop for speeding.

“Yeah, that surprised me,” Sean admitted, sounding perplexed. “Were you tailed, Georgia?”

She shrugged and then remembered Sean couldn’t see her. “I don’t think so, but that’s not my specialty. I was pretty scattered after I bit Carter and he passed out. He’s kind of heavy to drag. If I was being followed I wasn’t aware of it. Sorry.”

“Apologies are for pussies—it is what it is. Just have to keep moving until we can figure this shit out,” Sean said, and then paused. “You bit Beauty?”

Her blush of embarrassment was so alluring, I turned away. Save her and leave her. That was the only thing I could do to keep her truly safe.

“Umm… yes,” she whispered. “We were, well… It was my fault. I’m worried about it—terrified actually. He was out for three days. Do you think…?”

Sean was silent while he digested this new wrinkle. He was a man of few words, but a few words would be helpful at the moment. The puzzle was still missing too many pieces for my liking. Was he being careful with her sanity? Did he buy the animal thing? Did he think it was PTSD as well?

Damn it, it would have been far better to have had a private conversation with him.

“Beauty, have you sprouted fangs?” Sean asked without a hint of humor in his voice.

“Are you fucking serious?”

“As a heart attack,” he replied without missing a beat.

I was struck dumb. Had everyone lost their fucking minds or was Georgia really an animal?

“No,” she answered for me. “He hasn’t.”

“Georgia, did you go animal when the men in black came?” Sean pressed.

She too was now silent, and she stared at me.

“Did I lose you?” Sean asked.

Pulling herself together, Georgia found her voice. “I didn’t. And I don’t know why.”

“Interesting,” Sean said. “Is it because you felt safe with Beauty or have you lost the ability?”

“I don’t know,” she whispered, confused.

Confused was mild for what I was experiencing at the moment. I felt like I was living in some fucked-up alternate universe where everyone was in on the joke except me.

“Beauty, are you headed where I think you’re headed?”

“Depends on what’s in your head, old man,” I said. “But most likely, yes.”

“Fine. Have your blood and Georgia’s blood tested and get back to me with the report. It will tell us… well, not real sure what it will tell us, but I can check it against what I have.”

I couldn’t look at her. I had too many questions and I wasn’t feeling polite. Had she turned me into an animal? Honestly, how much different would I be from the animal I already was? My humanity was lost years ago.

“So you believe her? You believe she turns into a fucking panther?” I asked Sean. I heard Georgia’s swift intake of breath and watched as she turned her head to stare out the window.

“I do. I saw it.” Sean’s voice was clipped and his displeasure with me was clear. “However, I understand it’s hard to fathom. I’d heard whispers of the program for years, just never knew if it was true.”

“And it is?” I asked, still trying to wrap my mind around something so fucked up. I mean, I’d seen fucked up, but this was a new level.

“It is,” Georgia said before Sean had time to confirm.

Taking my eyes off the road for a brief moment, I stared at her. She was pale and resigned and I hated myself for pressing the issue. But I was who I was and changing wasn’t an option. Facts and orders I understood. Blind faith? Not so much.

“Fine,” I said, turning my focus back to the road. “Can you get us out of the country? New identities? No traces?”

“Give me forty-eight hours. Sit tight and I’ll try to make it happen,” Sean said. “And just so you know, there’s a shoot-to-kill order on you and a capture-alive order on Georgia.”

“Forty-eight hours,” I repeated so he knew I was on the same page. The rest of it didn’t surprise me at all.

“Forty-eight hours,” Georgia whispered to Sean. “Thank you.”

Glancing over at her, I was again struck by her beauty. But more than that, I was amazed that she was still a functioning human being if all this was true. It was going to be an interesting two days—very interesting.

6

Georgia

“Just drop me somewhere and leave. For real,” I said, hoping my voice sounded stronger than I felt inside. I’d created a clusterfuck for Carter and it made me hate myself more than I already did. “It’s me they want. Not you. If I’d known it would go down like this, I never would have gotten you involved.”

“Little too late for that,” Carter said, expertly navigating the winding back roads we were traveling.

We’d hit North Carolina about thirty minutes ago. Carter was driving fast.

“I’m so sorry,” I said, picking at my fingernails and trying not to cry. “I swear to God I didn’t think I was going to get a government bounty put on your head.”

He nodded curtly, and then glanced over with a lopsided grin that made my tummy flip. God, he really was Beauty—inside and out. He might not believe it, but I could see it clearly.

“I kinda like being a fugitive. Keeps the boredom at bay,” he said.

“I guess that’s one fucked-up way to look at it,” I muttered with a small giggle. “You’re nuts.”

“Pot, kettle, black,” he shot back with a laugh.

Being alone with him for forty-eight hours was going to be a challenge. I wanted this man more than I’d ever wanted anything in my life. He thought my scarred body was beautiful. Of course, he wasn’t quite right in the head, but then again… neither was I. We were two severely broken beings. Maybe…

“Just follow my lead when we get there.”

“Get where?” I asked, pushing aside the pathetic romantic notions I had about Carter Wylde. He was just being kind when he’d kissed my ruined arm and I was a fool to hope for more. Hell, we might not even live to see tomorrow.

“To where we’re going,” he answered cryptically.

I was aware he still didn’t completely trust me, and I wasn’t sure if he believed I turned into a version of an animal, but I couldn’t fault him. I was a disastrous tornado of trouble that had shown up out of nowhere, bitten him and put him on the government’s hit list. Not exactly trustworthy material.

“I can do that,” I told him.

“That’s my girl.”

God, if he only knew how much I wanted that to be true—his girl. I knew it could never be, but a girl can dream, right?

“Oh my God,” I said with a surprised laugh. “There are three of you?”

“There is only one of me,” Carter said in mock insult. “The other two are just cheap imitations.”

“Interesting,” the male who looked identical to Carter yelled from about three hundred feet away. “The prodigal son comes back from the dead.”

We’d arrived at what I could only describe as a fortress built into the side of a mountain. It was rustic and beautiful—all stone with sweeping teakwood porches. It was surrounded by enormous trees and expertly manicured grasses and shrubs. We’d driven for what felt like five miles along a rutted dirt road and then it opened to this. Magical, majestic and definitely in the middle of nowhere.

Carter got out of the car, came over to my side and opened the door. I stepped out and stayed slightly behind him.

Due to my enhancements, my vision was incredible. The side effects of turning into an animal made my human vision almost bionic. The man stood with a woman who was also the spitting image of himself and Carter, but feminine and gorgeous. There was no missing that they were all related and most likely triplets. Even down to the dimple in the left cheek that the three of them had when they smiled.

“Turn off the land mines,” Carter yelled. “I only have nine lives and I’m down to two, you ugly son of a bitch.”

The woman hadn’t spoken yet. She stared at Carter as if she were seeing a ghost and her eyes kept skipping over to me in shock. Pulling a remote from her pocket, she typed in a command and then glanced back up.

With my eyesight, I was able to make out the combination. I was a freak of nature—a killing machine with skills to survive almost anything. If the remote was made up of numbers, the combo was 66633. If it was something else, I’d seen the pattern and could figure it out.

“Drive in,” she instructed. “If I know you, and I suspect I still might, we need to hide or destroy that car.”

With a nod and a salute to his sister, Carter led me back to the car and restarted the ignition.

“They have land mines?” I asked, wondering what kind of normal people planted explosives all over their property.

“Yep. This is what you could call a real safe house—as in a very safe house.”

“Are they fugitives too?” I asked, wondering what I was walking into. Not that I had a problem with fugitives since I was one myself.

“Umm… no,” Carter said with a laugh. “Although I’d pay money to hear you ask them that. My brother and sister are what you might call insane with conspiracy theory issues.”

“You’re triplets?”

“We are. However, I’m the oldest and therefore the smartest, best looking and the wisest.”

“And the most humble?” I added with a laugh.

“Most definitely,” he replied with a grin.

“Are your parents here, too?” I asked.

“No. They’re dead.”

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“I’m not,” he replied without emotion. “There’s a reason I spent too many years as a SEAL who took the sure-death assignments repeatedly and these two are living in a prison of their own making. Normal upbringings don’t produce the kind of fucked up we are.”

I nodded, unsure how to respond. My childhood had sucked. I was the freak no one wanted, but I wasn’t abused—at least not physically. However, I was pretty sure I could give all of them a run for their money in the fucked-up department.

“My brother’s name is Caleb and my sister is Nancy,” he said as he slowly maneuvered the vehicle to the garage on the side of the house. “Caleb is a computer genius and likes to detonate things.”

“Things?” I questioned with a laugh.

Carter looked at me with a grin. “Buildings, cities… bad guys. He started when we were young—messing with refrigerators and microwaves before he graduated to larger-scale material.”

“Cars?” I asked, trying not to laugh. It wasn’t really funny, but at the same time it was.

“Definitely cars,” Carter confirmed with a shake of his head. “He makes me feel almost normal.”

“And your sister?”

“Nancy is a doctor—or she trained as one. She didn’t do too well with the authority figures in the medical system and left to do research on her own. She’s paid the big bucks. Her mind is as brilliant as Caleb’s is destructive.”

“What does she research?” I asked.

“Whatever strikes her fancy,” he replied.

“Okay,” I said, taking the information in. “If Caleb is destructive and Nancy is brilliant, where does that leave you?”

Carter turned off the car and moved his body to face mine. “I don’t exactly know, Georgia from Georgia. Why don’t you tell me? Where does that leave me?”

He leaned in. His lips were inches from mine and his delicious scent made me dizzy. Was this certifiable man coming on to me? God, I hoped so. I was definitely out of practice at this game since I’d been living in a cage for the better part of a year. The timing was a little off as his brother and sister were sure to be here any second, but…

“Are you flirting with me?” I whispered, longing to close the distance between us and taste his lips.

“And if I am, Georgia from Georgia?” he questioned in a voice that sent happy chills all through me.

“If you are,” I said with an unsteady giggle, “you’re really good at it.”

“So it’s working?”

“Yep. It’s working,” I replied with my eyes glued to his full lips. “But I’m not a real good bet.”

“I’m a worse bet. We get one life and one heart,” he said. “Even if it’s just some stolen moments with you, I’ll take them.”

“Why aren’t you taken already?” I asked.

“Hold that thought,” he said, with a quick peck to my lips as his siblings entered the garage. “I’d like to revisit it later.”

I nodded without saying a word, everything inside me tingling. Maybe it was because we could die tomorrow and I was the only girl available, but I didn’t care. Even if I’d had the choice of a million men, I knew without a doubt I would want only him. I wasn’t a great deal at all, but again I didn’t care. If he didn’t care, then I was going to pretend he truly wanted me.

“You staying?” Nancy asked her brother, still looking at me strangely.

“For forty-eight hours,” Carter said. “Is that a problem?”

“No. We haven’t seen your sorry ass for five years, but you’re always welcome. Does your friend have a name?” she asked.

“I’m Georgia,” I said, extending my hand to her. “Thank you for letting me stay.”

Nancy’s smile was slow but grew wide. “Any friend of Carter’s is a friend of mine. Although I’ve gotta say that I’m shocked he has any friends. Carter’s a dick.”

“No, he’s not. He’s a good man,” I said, miffed she was insulting her brother. And he was a good man. He could have dropped me off a hundred times, but he hadn’t.

Nancy’s laugh matched Caleb’s as they stared at me with wonder and delight.

“You either have her fooled, or she’s as crazy as you are,” Caleb said, whacking his brother on the back and handing him a shirt to put on.

“I’m crazier—completely insane,” I told them with a small smile. I was sad that Carter would be covered up, but it would be far less distracting. “Pretty sure I would beat all of you, hands down.”

“Is that a challenge?” Nancy asked with a twinkle in her eye.

“It’s the truth,” I replied.

“Hmm,” she said, still staring and grinning. “We’ll have to see about that.”

7

Carter

This wasn’t a fucking movie with a happy ending, but watching Georgia with my brother and sister felt so right it made me uncomfortable. Flirting with her in the car came as easy as breathing. I wanted her with everything I was.

However, that was wrong. I knew it was wrong. Yet I was pretty sure I was going to ignore that fact.

“So it’s Carter, Caleb and Nancy?” Georgia asked as my sister plied us with food and drink. “Why don’t you have a C name too?”

“I do,” my sister said with an eye roll to Caleb and me. “It’s Catherine, but those bastards call me by my middle name, Nancy, because they know I hate it.”

“You hate it?” Caleb asked in mock horror as Nancy tossed a spoon at his head.

“I’m used to it now,” she said with a chuckle. “After thirty-five years, I’m numb. But I’ll bet Georgia would love to hear your middle names.”

“Absolutely not,” I snapped, giving my sister the raised brow that she knew meant I was serious. I fucking hated my middle name. Honestly, Nancy was a fine name. She’d gotten lucky. Caleb and I hadn’t fared quite as well.

“Mine’s Norman,” Caleb said, with his hands on his heart and his face contorted into an exaggerated expression of deep sorrow. “I freely admit it. The truth will set you free or appall your friends, neighbors and girlfriends.”

“You don’t have a girlfriend,” Nancy pointed out.

“This week,” he said. “Last week I had three.”

“Whatever,” Nancy said, and then turned her attention to me. “I’ll hold the information close to my chest for the moment, but if you piss me off, I will sing your middle name from the rooftops.”

“You’re a hard woman,” I said with a laugh. Looking at my sister made me realize how much I’d missed her. Maybe it had been a mistake staying away.

“Tell me something I don’t know,” she shot back, and then took a seat across the table from Georgia and myself. Popping a grape into her mouth, she chewed slowly then rested her elbows on the table and placed her chin in her hands.

“I’m assuming there’s a story here. You going to tell it?”

“Never assume. It makes an ass out of you and me,” I replied with a tight smile. “However, yes. There’s a story and we need your help.”

“Can I blow up the car?” Caleb asked with a gleam of excitement in his eyes.

“Eventually,” I told him. “Right now, I need you to listen.”

“Roger that,” he replied as he took a seat next to Nancy and waited.

“Georgia, do you want to tell it or would you prefer I talk?”

My beautiful, damaged girl placed her hand over mine and gently squeezed. “I’ll tell it.”

And she did.

My brother and sister listened with rapt attention to every detail for over an hour. They asked questions and Georgia answered them. It was horrifying to hear, but Georgia told the story as if she was speaking about someone other than herself.

I understood her detachment completely. It was a survival mechanism that I’d used as well. My sister began to take notes about five minutes in and my brother grabbed a laptop and did the same. Georgia’s voice was clear and emotionless for the most part, but she came to life when she spoke of me.

Feeling a sense of pride and ownership that I had absolutely no right to feel, I sat next to her and pressed my thigh to hers. I wasn’t sure if I was giving or taking comfort, but I wasn’t going to think too hard about it. It felt right and that would have to suffice for now.

“Jesus H. Christ,” Caleb said when she was done. “You might actually have been correct about winning the fucked-up contest.”

“I know, right?” she said with a weak giggle that hit me somewhere deep inside.

After everything she’d been through, she still had joy left—her humanity was still intact. It amazed and humbled me. I’d left my own behind years ago, but for a moment I wished I hadn’t. I wished I had something to actually offer this tragically beautiful woman.

I didn’t. It was a fact. And I was a fool to long for something that would ruin what was left of her sanity. I wasn’t good for anyone.

“What does the H stand for?” I asked, wanting to deal with nonsense. It was more appealing than having to deal with my shortcomings.

“What H?” Caleb asked, confused.

“Jesus H. Christ,” I said. “The H. What does it stand for?”

Caleb thought for a moment then shrugged. “No clue.”

“How about Harry?” Nancy suggested as she wrapped a blood pressure sleeve around Georgia’s arm.

“Nah, too British,” Caleb replied. “Herman?”

“Too awful,” Georgia said, watching Nancy nervously.

Clearly, doctors were not a welcome sight for Georgia, but she stayed remarkably calm. Her body language was tense, but she let Nancy examine her.

“How about Hesus?” Georgia proposed with a laugh. “I saw it on Twitter.”

“A little rhymey, but I like it,” Nancy said, grinning. “Are you going to be comfortable with me taking some blood?”

Moving silently and standing next to Georgia, I put my hand on her shoulder. Her body relaxed slightly at my touch, but her muscles were still taut with stress and fear.

“You don’t have to,” I told her.

Looking up and giving me a sad smile, she refocused on my sister. “If you take my blood, can you compare it to Carter’s and rule out that I’ve made him a monster like me?”

“You’re not a monster,” I growled, walking over to the wall and putting my fist through it. The pain felt good. What I really wanted to do was find the fuckers who’d shot up and sliced Georgia and tear them to shreds. Since that was an impossibility, the wall would have to suffice. For good measure, I made a second hole. I considered a third, but I was a guest in my siblings’ home. Two would work for now.

Everyone was silent for a moment and then went on as if nothing unusual had just occurred. My siblings and I had grown up around horrific violence. Nancy had taken the pain of her childhood and become a healer. Caleb had taken his agony and lost himself in the emotionless mechanics of the hacking world while blowing up things for pleasure on the side. I’d simply steered my own torment into becoming a trained killer. None of it was pretty, but it was what it was.

“I can test blood, saliva and urine from both of you,” Nancy confirmed. “But Carter is correct. You’re not a monster.”

“You haven’t seen me,” Georgia whispered.

“I’d actually love to see your change,” Nancy said with a clinical detachment. “But I don’t want to put you into a simulated extreme circumstance to achieve it. And I really don’t want to see you get amorous with my brother to achieve it, either.”

Georgia face turned a delicate pink and she scrunched her nose in embarrassment.

“You wouldn’t be invited,” I said flatly, giving my sister a death stare.

Of course, Nancy laughed. Not a surprise. She was my sister after all. “I’d like to see the results Sean has, though,” she said. “I’d like something to compare these to.”

“I have them.” Georgia reached into her duffle and handed Nancy a jump drive. “All Sean’s findings are recorded there.”

“Speaking of jump drives,” Caleb said, noticing what Georgia had handed over. “You said you had proof of what was done to you and others. Correct?”

Georgia nodded.

“On a jump drive?”

Again she nodded.

“You want to hand one of those over? I will assure you that if anything happens to you or my brother, I can have that information out to every major news outlet in the world in five minutes flat.”

Normally I wanted to punch my brother senseless, but right now I wanted to hug him. It would be so outside the norm of our behavior, and I was certain he would give me shit for the rest of our lives. But the smile and look of astonishment on Georgia’s face would be worth the pain of Caleb busting my chops for decades.

Quickly, she handed him another jump drive. “Thank you.”

“Not a problem,” he said, winking at her. “Think of it as an insurance policy.”

And now I wanted to deck his fucking ass. She wasn’t exactly mine, but she definitely wasn’t his. The winking had to stop.

“All right then,” Nancy said, watching my reaction with amusement. “I’ll take the blood, and then give me an hour or two for results. Deal?”

I felt Georgia’s body tremble as she lifted her sleeve and held her arm out to Nancy. My sister’s furious intake of breath matched my own and my brother’s as we all looked at the scarring. My girl held her head high and gave us a sad smile.

“I know,” she said softly. “It’s horrible to see.”

“Not even a little bit,” my sister said in a clipped and enraged tone. “It just makes me want to kill the fuckers who did this. It’s totally inhumane and wrong.”

“It’s really okay,” Georgia said weakly, trying to make us feel better.

Nancy glanced over at me with a hollow expression, and I nodded slowly. I knew what she was going to do, and I was floored. My chest felt tight and old anger burned inside me—almost consuming me. Breathing was difficult and I had to focus to keep from growling. I’d been so wrong to stay away from these people.

She turned her back to Georgia and lifted her shirt. Caleb turned away with a vicious muttered curse, but I stared at my sister’s back. It was covered with small circular scars—burn marks from cigarettes—at least a hundred. They were faded, but unmistakable. It still killed me to see what they had done to her. Death had been too kind for the fucks who had given birth to us.

Georgia gasped and shot out of her chair. Lying her cheek against Nancy’s pitted skin, she held my sister tight. The room was eerily silent except for Georgia’s quiet crying.

“If you’re a monster, I’m one as well,” Nancy said flatly, lowering her shirt, turning and taking Georgia’s hands in hers. “What doesn’t kill you…”

“Should be killed,” Caleb hissed.

“I agree,” Nancy said to Caleb. “What was done to Georgia should be avenged.”

“I’d be delighted to blow them up,” Caleb offered sincerely.

“They’re mine,” I said through clenched teeth. “I get the honor of tearing them limb from fucking limb.”

Georgia’s eyes filled as she gazed at the three of us in surprise. She swiped at her tears and gave us a watery smile. “You people are insane. I’ve never felt so included and understood in my life, but they’re mine. They trained me to kill, and I’m going to thank them by showing them exactly what I can do.”

“Actually, I might have to blow the bastards sky high,” Caleb pointed out. “If Sean can get you two fugitives out of the country that leaves me with the honors. And trust me, it would definitely be an honor.”

“The idiot has a point,” Nancy said as she prepared the syringes and swabbed both of our arms. “However, I’d just like to add for shits and giggles that I’m outstanding with poison.”

“And that’s supposed to make me feel calm?” Georgia asked with a wince and a lopsided grin that seemed to delight my sister.

Nancy nodded and laughed. “Yep. I’m an evil genius and I’m on your side. You want to turn away while I do this?”

“Umm, no,” Georgia said, shyly glancing over at me. “I want you to sing Edelweiss.”

“Jesus Hesus Christ,” Caleb shouted. “Can I record this? Please let me record this.”

“No,” Nancy snapped. “You may not record this, you asshole.”

Of all the things she could have asked of me, I understood this like no other. I wasn’t a good singer, but that wasn’t the point at all. It was what had saved me, and she was asking me to save her. I knew the request meant far more than helping her at the moment. I also knew I would fail her miserably at some point, but…

“I will,” I said. “I will sing for you.”

Her smile melted through the exterior of my cold, dead heart, and I realized I’d felt more alive in the last twelve hours than I had in decades. She was the light to my consuming darkness. I wondered if she realized that the Edelweiss flower was known for its beauty and purity. It was fitting in so many ways.

And I sang.

It was simple. It was terrifying. It was right.

8

Georgia

Waiting for the results was excruciating. Carter had gone off with Caleb after they’d taken me to a beautiful guest room to shower and change clothes. Nancy was my size and had loaned me a pretty floral sundress that floated around me, along with some fabulous jeweled sandals. Looking in the mirror, I felt like a girl without a care in the world. My eyes appeared bright and my hair was clean and silky. It was a true luxury and I felt like a princess. All of it was a lie of course, but I wanted to hold on to the fantasy for as long as I could.

Wearing a spaghetti-strap dress wasn’t something I ever thought I’d do again, but these amazing people had scars of their own and mine didn’t scare or repulse them. The marks on Nancy’s back had horrified me and made me want to hurt the people who had done it to her. They were old scars that I was fairly sure had been burned into her skin by her parents, from the little Carter had shared and Caleb’s reaction. For the first time, I was grateful I’d simply been ignored by my parents. I’d wanted to ask Nancy more but would wait until she chose to tell me.

However, it really didn’t matter if she ever did. Nancy had made her point. What hadn’t killed her made her stronger. She’d become a doctor—the exact opposite of someone who causes harm.

If I got out of this shit show alive, would I be able to turn my pain into something good? Could I become something whole or would I forever be broken?

“You didn’t infect Carter,” Nancy announced, walking into the room and sitting down on the bed.

Relief made my knees buckle. I dropped onto a chair so I didn’t hit the floor like a sack of potatoes.

“Are you sure?” I asked, feeling light-headed and wildly grateful for at least one small favor in the enormous mess I’d made.

She nodded and spread her notes on the bed. “That’s not the way it works. He’d have to be injected like you were. The surgeries and drugs they forced on you are what changed your DNA. Honestly, I’m not sure how you survived it.”

“I’m not sure it’s a good thing I did,” I muttered as my mind raced with memories of being strapped to a table and begging for my life. Behind my closed eyes, all I could see were needles and blood. My fury at my situation was compounded by the fact that I would give anything to be a normal girl even for just one day.

My fangs involuntarily dropped and my claws popped out from my fingertips.

“Oh God no,” I gasped out, turning away and trying to hide my fucked-up deformities.

“No,” Nancy said harshly. “Don’t hide from me. Ever. This is not your fault. It’s simply a fact and you need to accept it. Relax and visualize what you want to happen right now.”

Breathing in slowly through my nose and letting the air escape just as slowly through my mouth, I calmed myself. I pictured myself normal—or as normal as someone who was as fucked up as I was could possibly be.

My fangs retracted, as did my claws.

That was a first for me. The ability to control my shift felt powerful. Until now, it dominated me. Maybe I could master it… and maybe not. “I shouldn’t exist,” I whispered. “I’m a sin against nature.”

Nancy moved to where I sat, lifted my chin and forced my eyes to meet hers. “Stop. I can’t say that things happen for a reason because I don’t believe it. There is no way to explain away the horror of what was done to you… or me and my brothers. However, I do believe there’s a reason we survive. Occasionally, we realize what that reason is and sometimes it remains a mystery,” she said with a small smile. “But the silver lining here is that you didn’t infect Carter.”

“But he was out for three days,” I told her.

Nodding again, she went back to the bed and studied her findings. “You have traces of poison in your system, Georgia. It’s the same concentration as when Sean evaluated your blood. Your bite put some of that poison into Carter’s bloodstream, but it never would have caused him to turn into a panther. That would take far more than a bite. It could possibly have killed him, but my brother is a tough motherfucker. I’m sure the vaccines he’s had for going overseas to fight helped.”

“So my bite is poisonous?” I asked, feeling ill.

“Probably,” she confirmed. “Although I’d hazard a guess, since you’re off the regimen of shots and ointments, you’re losing the poison. Therefore losing the ability to fully shift. But you may always have the claws, fangs and eyes of a panther in extreme situations. Your DNA has been permanently altered.”

“Are you sure?”

“About your DNA? Yes. About the poison in your system becoming weaker? It’s an educated guess from a very overly educated person who happens to be a whiz with poison. Not a hundred percent sure, but that’s doctor speak. As an MD, I’m never allowed to be a hundred percent sure about anything,” Nancy said with a shrug and a laugh. “However, as a human being and the sister of two annoying assholes, one of whom likes you a lot… yeah, I’m sure,” she admitted, and then gave me a sly little grin. “So my advice to you is not to bite Carter again anytime soon, but everything else should be okay. The poison is only passed through your fangs—not other bodily fluids or saliva.”

I felt the heat crawl up my neck and settle squarely on my face. Mortified didn’t quite cover how I was feeling. How freaking uncomfortable was it to talk to the sister of the man you’d only known for twelve hours about possibly getting intimate with him?

Very.

Very uncomfortable.

“Look, umm… Nancy. I’m not, you know…” I mumbled, wondering if I should insert my foot all the way down my throat and pull it out of my ass or just stop now. Knowing when to call it a day wasn’t one of my stronger points and, to my horror, I kept speaking. “I think your brother is a wonderful guy. I mean, he’s kind of rude and a little weird, but he’s nice, too… and hot. Wait, you don’t want to know that.”

I slapped my hand to my forehead and tried to drive the horrible conversation back to something more manageable. “I’m not exactly good relationship material with a bounty on my head and all—not to mention the whole fucked-up animal thing. I really wouldn’t be good for him—or anyone.”

“He’s not good for anyone, either,” she pointed out, amused by my apparent misery. “Seems like a pretty good fit to me.”

“I’m the reason the government wants him dead,” I reminded her. “Kind of hard to imagine him wanting to be near me at all.”

“Trust me,” Nancy said with a laugh. “I’ve never seen him like this. He sang for you. Carter Wylde doesn’t do that. Ever. He’s got it bad.”

“We’ve known each other for less than a day,” I insisted, more for my benefit than hers. I mean, how could this be happening? And was it happening? And if it was, what the hell was it?

Nancy gathered her paperwork and slipped it back into a thick folder. She stood up and approached me with a small, sad smile on her lips.

“Tomorrow isn’t guaranteed, Georgia,” she said, looking me straight in the eye. “Timing is rarely right and falling for someone never makes sense. I’ve only known you for a few hours yet I would trust you with my life. Does that make sense? No, it doesn’t. But this is what I know. My brother’s life has been filled with sadness and violence I don’t want to even try to imagine—as has yours. Our upbringing was a fucking real life horror movie. I rarely sleep through the night even now. You make Carter smile. Instead of running when he didn’t like what you said, he punched a wall. You might not realize it, but that was an improvement for him. My brother is a jackass, but he’s not a liar and he can’t fake his emotion. What you see is what you get. Enjoy what you can, while you can. Always. You deserve it, and my brother deserves it.”

With that, she kissed the top of my head and left the room.

Oh. My. God. I was just given permission by Carter’s sister to do him—after she saw my claws and fangs. How freaking weird was that? My life had jumped from boring to fucked up to terrifying to flat-out weird. And this new weird was the scariest of all. I wasn’t good for him and he probably wasn’t good for me, but…

For the first time in my life, I cared about the person I wanted. It was strange and heady and frightening. In fact, I was very sure I was falling for him.

Fast? Yes.

Ridiculous? Yes.

Absolutely true? Yes.

And that’s when I knew I couldn’t let anything happen between us.

As much as I wanted to pretend I was normal, I wasn’t. I never would be normal, and who knew what the long-range effects of what the mad scientists had done to me would be? The most loving, mature and responsible thing I could do was to leave him alone. That was going to be harder than hell, but doable.

We had forty-eight hours here, and then hopefully Sean would be able to get us out of the country. Once we were safe, we would part ways, and Carter could find someone who wasn’t a fucked-up mess like I was. The thought of that made me want to tear the pretty guest room to shreds, but it was the right thing to do.

I was fine. No. I wasn’t fine. I was dying inside, but that was just too damned bad. It was time to pull up my big girl panties and be selfless. I’d survived being an experiment and living in a cage. I could survive giving up someone I was falling in love with because it was better for him to be without me. Eventually, I would bring him down. I was sure of it.

Great. Decision made.

And then he walked into the room and I forgot my fucking name.

“Did you talk with my sister?” Carter asked.

He was wearing loose-fitting sweats and a t-shirt that hugged every gorgeous muscle in his broad chest. Tearing my eyes away from his beauty was impossible, so I didn’t even try.

Nodding my head yes was all I was capable of. If I spoke, I was terrified I’d beg him to take me immediately.

“I liked what she had to say,” he said, pinning me with a stare. “Did you?”

Again, I nodded—still didn’t trust my ability to speak.

“Also spoke to Sean,” Carter went on. “He’s having a little trouble so we might be here a bit longer than forty-eight.”

“He can’t get us out of the country?” I asked, finding my voice now that we were discussing life and death—his and mine.

“Not yet, but he will. Sean hates losing even more than I do. However, I can think of a few things we can do to fill the time.”

“You can?” I asked in a voice that sounded foreign to my own ears. It was breathy and full of need. I was the absolute uncoolest in this sexy little cat-and-mouse game we were playing. I needed to keep to silent communication or I was going to ruin what might be happening here.

His smile was slow and filled with so much erotic innuendo, I actually laughed. He was every kind of crazy and it was hotter than hell.

“Would you like a tour of the house?”

“The house?” I asked, confused. Maybe I’d misread everything. Or maybe he’d changed his mind. I wouldn’t blame him at all and everything would be easier if he had.

“Wait. Did I say house?” he asked, shaking his head and biting back his grin. “Sorry, my bad. I meant room—my bedroom.”

“You’re not scared of me?” I asked, pissed that my voice still sounded so girly and breathy.

“Nope.”

“You should be,” I warned him.

“Right back at ya, Georgia from Georgia,” he replied, grabbing my hand and leading me out of the guest room. “I’m the scariest thing you will ever come across.”

And that’s where this beautiful man was dead wrong. He was Beauty and I was the Beast. I was far scarier than he was, and I always would be.

9

Carter

Georgia was the loveliest being I’d ever laid my eyes on and was definitely too good for the likes of me, but she wanted me. It was mind-boggling. I knew my outside package was pretty, but my insides were as black as death. She’d witnessed it and not run.

Georgia from Georgia was insane, but then again, I was too.

Bedding women had always been easy for me. It was the feeling part that was missing. I’d trained myself at an early age to feel nothing. It was the only way to survive. The only two people I’d let myself feel emotion for were my brother and sister… and I’d even stayed away from them for years on end. I was toxic, but this woman made me feel human—alive—not defective.

It was every kind of selfish to make her mine, knowing it was only temporary. As much as I wanted to be the man for her, I wasn’t. Eventually, I would destroy her. But today? Today was a wrinkle in time—a Climb Every Mountain moment. It was a perfect scenario where I was the Captain and she was my Maria—the light that made everything clear and beautiful.

She followed me willingly. Her breathing was unsteady, but so was mine. It was insanity to pursue something that couldn’t last, but I wanted her more than I wanted my next breath. I wanted every broken, sad, hurt and joyous part of a woman I barely knew but felt like I’d known forever. Romantic notions weren’t in my jaded wheelhouse, but today they were.

Today was ours. It would end like everything always did, but right now I needed to show her—in a way I knew how—what she had done for me.

Stopping outside of the door to the bedroom my siblings had designated for me, I put my hand under her chin and raised her lavender eyes to mine.

“We don’t have to do this.”

“I know,” she said with a small smile pulling at the lips I was dying to kiss. “I’m afraid of hurting you.”

“Honestly, I don’t care about that,” I told her. “Just keep those chompers to yourself and we’ll be fine.”

Her laugh rang out and I tried to memorize it. It was everything that was missing from my fucked-up existence.

“That’s really not funny at all,” she said, narrowing her eyes and trying not to grin. “I mean, that just sounds awful.”

“We are awful—completely fucking terrible,” I teased her. “Don’t you think two horrible people deserve a little fun?”

“Is that all this is?” Georgia asked, growing serious.

Her question took the wind out of my sails. In another world—another time, another place—the answer might be different.

“It’s okay.” She placed her cool hands on my cheeks and her head on my chest. “It’s better this way. No expectations. I mean, we hardly know each other and tomorrows aren’t guaranteed.”

Her hair smelled of what I would guess heaven might smell like and her body felt perfect against mine. Closing my eyes, I let myself feel. It was more frightening than all the horrors I’d been through in the last decade, but at the same time it was so simple, so right. I wanted to tell her this was only the beginning, but I would never lie to her. As much as I wanted it to be true, happy endings didn’t happen for people like us. Silently, I thanked Sean for giving us more time. Once we left the safety of my siblings’ fortress, I knew everything would fall to pieces. It always did. But for now…

“I know you,” I whispered into her hair. “And I want to know more—need to.”

She leaned back and smiled up at me. If I’d had her smile and laugh to think about in my darkest hours, I wouldn’t have needed The Sound of Music. She made what had saved my sanity pale in comparison.

“Come with me,” I said, opening the door and waiting.

“Always. I will always go with you.”

10

Georgia

“Umm… this is probably a weird thing to say, but you don’t have to worry about birth control or anything like that,” I said as my voice got so soft I could barely hear it.

This was mortifying. I mean, I’d bitten the man and poisoned him into a coma for three days, and now I was acting like this was a normal conversation that two normal people should have before sex. There was nothing normal about either one of us. I wanted to ease out of the room and pretend I hadn’t started the discussion.

His chuckle lessened my embarrassment, but I still wanted to hide—and die.

“I’m clean. Haven’t been with anyone for a long time and I’ve always used condoms. Are you on the pill?”

“Umm… no. I was sterilized,” I whispered. Shit. How much more broken could I be? “I can’t have children.”

“I’m sorry,” he said softly, taking me into his strong arms. “Was it awful?”

I shook my head and let my body mold to his. It wasn’t remotely sexual. It was comfortable and protective. Carter was so wrong about being cold and dead inside. “I don’t remember. I was out for so long. They told me months after they did it. It’s better that way. I’m not fit to be anyone’s mother.”

“You would be a good mother,” he argued. “A child would be lucky to have you, Georgia.”

My name on his lips was the most wonderful sound I’d ever heard, but his words tore at my heart. He was wrong about me being a mother. I’d had no positive maternal influence in my life and I’d never been a regular child. But this was not what I wanted to discuss. It was useless and moot and it made me sad. Right now I wanted him—all of him. I wanted to steal my moments of happiness. Changing the subject was necessary. Sobbing about lost opportunities was not sexy—at all.

“So umm… we’ve had the talk. Which was every kind of horrifying,” I said, wrinkling my nose and trying not to laugh with embarrassment. “What should we do now?”

“Impatient?” he questioned, his brow raised in amusement.

“Possibly,” I shot back with a smirk.

“Pretty sure I can do something about that,” he replied in a tone so sultry, it made my heart skip a beat as he lazily pulled me toward him.

Carter’s hand slowly moved to my breast and his eyes sought mine for permission. A soft moan and happy sigh from my lips was all the encouragement he needed. My brain flashed warning signals, reminding me about my earlier selfless decision, but when Carter moved his other hand to my ass, pressing his hard body flush with mine, all thoughts of selflessness evaporated.

Visualizing my hands without claws and my mouth without fangs, I let myself go and hoped for the best. So far so good. I knew my eyes had changed, but since I couldn’t see my own eyes, that was more difficult to control.

My head dropped back and his lips brushed the tender skin of my neck, sending a shudder of delight through my body. My breathing came faster and I pressed my body even closer to his. Carter’s hands tangled in my hair and his mouth came down over mine—hard and needy.

He sucked at my lips and his tongue demanded mine with an urgency that stole what breath I had left. I responded as if being with him was the most natural thing in the world—inviting him in and making damned sure I didn’t use my chompers on him. Having him pass out right now would be every kind of sucky.

Without thought, I wrapped my arms around his neck and whispered his name like a prayer. His hands caressed my breasts and pinched my nipples through the thin fabric of the dress.

“So fucking sexy,” he muttered as he stepped back and yanked the dress over my head, tossing it to the floor.

My first instinct was to hide—to cover my ruined body—but he was having none of that.

“No,” he said in a harsh tone. “Don’t ever hide from me.”

Holding my arms at my sides, he replaced his hands at my breasts with his mouth, and I was sure I was going to faint. With each pull from his lips, my body clenched with a desire so fierce I knew I could orgasm from what the man could do with his mouth alone. The sensations racing through me were intense and freeing. I felt like I was flying.

“Oh God, this is a bad idea,” I said, not meaning a word of it. I was certain my happy little gasps didn’t really back my protesting, either.

His smile was wide as he checked in to make sure I was still on the same page. My frown of displeasure as his lips left my breast made him chuckle.

“It’s a very good idea,” he shot back, pulling his t-shirt over his head and then making quick work of his sweats. Stopping my giggle with a kiss that made my toes curl, he managed to sweep me into his arms and walk us to the bed without missing a step.

“However,” he informed me, “this is a better idea.”

He tossed me on the bed and laughed when I squealed. His stare was so full of unabashed need and lust, I all but forgot about my damaged body. Carter Wylde made me feel beautiful—wanted—desired.

His huge hands made short work of my panties and his boxer briefs. I literally gaped at his beauty. Every inch of him was lean, delicious muscle. And as my eyes moved down, my entire body tingled with burning desire. Crawling to my knees, I ran my hands over his chest and arms. Carter stood still and watched me through hooded eyes as I explored him. The light sprinkling of dark hair on his chest tickled my fingertips.

His breathing grew labored, and I was well aware of the control it took for him to stand still and allow my exploration. The tension in his body and the carnal look in his gaze made me feel heady with power. The fact that I could give this beautiful man pleasure with my tattered body and soul was electrifying.

My hands grew bolder and wandered down his body. His sharp intake of breath delighted me, and I ran my fingertips over his erection and cupped him in my hand. The low moan from deep in his chest was the sexiest sound I’d ever heard and my smile grew wider.

In a jolting rush of awareness, I realized my fangs still hadn’t dropped and my claws were nowhere to be found at the moment. I froze. My mind raced and I was torn between wanting to scream with joy or sob with relief. There was no stab of pain in my gums. No burning pinch in the tips of my fingers to alert me that my nails would soon become weapons that could kill. However, I knew my lavender eyes were definitely gold. My vision was sharper and clearer when my eyes changed.

“Don’t stop,” he begged. “Feels so good.”

“I’m a freak,” I choked out on a whisper as his eyes met mine and his brows went up in surprise.

“Not even close,” he said, gently pressing his forehead to mine. “The gold is as beautiful as the lavender. You’re just a little broken, and I’m pretty fucking close to irreparable.”

He was right and he was wrong. I was broken, but he wasn’t irreparable. I was sure I could help him be less broken like he was helping me. He just had to let me.

“Let me show you,” I said, realizing this could end what was happening very quickly.

“Show me,” he whispered, not moving an inch.

“Umm… you might want to back up.”

“Nope, I’m good,” he said with a grin. “Gotta say I was a little jealous when Nancy told me she saw your gifts.”

“My gifts?” I choked out. “Are you insane?”

Carter laughed. “Actually, yes. You have a problem with that?”

“Umm… no,” I said slowly, loving the man more if that was possible. “But I’m insane and broken.”

“I sure know how to pick ’em,” he said with a wink and then sobered. “Show me, Georgia.”

And I did. As easily as I was able to retract my claws and fangs when I was with Nancy, I was also able to bring them forth.

Carter’s eyes grew wide and his smile grew wider.

“Goddamn, those would have come in handy in the jungle,” he said, running his fingers carefully along the sharp talons that protruded from my fingertips.

He wasn’t appalled. He wasn’t scared. He wasn’t disgusted. He was impressed and awed.

Carter Wylde was definitely crazy, and I was the luckiest screwed-up girl in the world.

“I’m broken,” I whispered again as I retracted my deformities.

“Nope. You’re perfect. You’ve got built-in weapons,” he said in a serious tone with a nod of approval. “And if you think you’re broken, then I’m demolished.”

The man was not demolished. He was nowhere near it. However, I was very aware that he believed what he said.

“Maybe together we could be broken pieces that make a whole,” I told him softly.

Carter cupped my face and his eyes met mine. For what felt like an eternity we stared at each other—not moving a muscle. Slowly, a smile pulled at his lips, and I released the breath I wasn’t aware I’d been holding.

“I’m a really bad bet, Georgia from Georgia.”

“I’m even worse,” I replied, wiggling my claw-free fingers.

He paused and reverently ran a calloused fingertip across my kiss-swollen lips. “Then maybe you’re correct. Maybe two wrongs can make a right—or maybe not.”

“For today, I’m going with yes,” I said, letting my hand travel back down his naked body until I found what I was searching for. My mouth replaced my hand and my tongue darted out and tasted him. My golden eyes stayed glued to Carter’s. He swore when I wrapped my lips around him and sucked. His hips began to move involuntarily.

“You have a very nice thingie,” I said, coming up for air.

His laugh filled the room and I went back to work. Taking him as far back into my throat as possible, I felt sexier than I’d ever felt.

“Stop,” he said gruffly, backing away. “As much as it pains me to make you stop—and trust me, it pains me—the first time I come today is going to be inside you.”

“The first time?” I asked with a raised brow and a grin.

“You heard me,” he growled, reaching between my legs and teasing me with his talented fingers. “I do believe you’re wet, Georgia from Georgia.”

“It’s your fault, Carter Wylde,” I said on a moan as I rubbed my body against his hand.

“Bet I can make you wetter,” he said, laying down next to me on the bed.

“I dare you,” I challenged with a giggle.

With the heel of his hand on my clit, he pushed two fingers inside me and curved them, finding the spot that made stars dance across my vision. I gasped and was pretty sure I was going to implode.

“Need you now,” I begged, taking him into my hand and stroking him.

“Not a problem,” he replied, sounding sexier than hell.

Pushing me back, he used his knee to part my legs.

“Put me inside you, Georgia,” he directed.

Guiding him, I felt the head of his cock enter me. Gasping in pleasure, I lifted my hips and silently begged for more.

“Tell me what you want,” he rasped into my ear.

“You,” I moaned. “I want you.”

“You’ve got me, baby,” he said as he thrust into me, burying himself to the hilt.

His hands moved to my ass so he could hold me exactly where he wanted, and I was totally on board. He made me feel so good I was having a hard time keeping my heart to myself. I was ready to hand it to him on a platter. I knew he didn’t want my heart, but he already had it. I felt whole with this broken man and it was more erotic than the sex act itself.

“So fucking perfect,” Carter ground out as his hips began a lazy rhythm of filling me and teasing me.

I was falling apart in the best way possible and I tried to memorize every single moment.

“I’m close,” he said as his eyes went unfocused with lust and the speed of his thrusts increased. “Come with me, Georgia.”

He didn’t have to ask twice.

My back arched to meet his body, thrust for gorgeous thrust. His muscles were taut and his lips were pressed together in concentration.

“Kiss me,” I begged on a gasp.

And he did. My insides contracted in an orgasm so powerful, I thought I might faint. Carter swore as his body went rigid with pleasure.

“Jesus Christ,” he hissed as he continued to come.

I held him like a vise inside me and wanted this moment to last forever. But all good and beautiful things must come to an end.

“Never in my life,” he mumbled as he buried his face in my neck.

Our bodies were slick with sweat. Little aftershocks rolled through me as he stayed inside my body.

“Perfect,” he whispered.

His lips found mine, and he pressed little kisses all over my face. For a badass, broken killer, he was as soft and as romantic as they came.

“Nope. You’re perfect,” I said with a giggle.

“Noooo, you are,” he shot back with a wide grin, looking like he didn’t have a care in the world. “How about we take a little water break and then try that again?”

“Seriously?” I asked.

His smirk of pure male ego was almost as sexy as his foreplay skills. “Very seriously. Completely and totally seriously. Deadly serious.”

Holding up my hand to stop his serious talk, I laughed. “I’m in.”

“I was hoping you would say that.”

“And tomorrow I’ll bake you a cake,” I promised.

“I’m in,” he shot back with a wide smile.

“I was hoping you would say that,” I repeated his words, and then squealed when he grabbed me and tickled me. This was the best night of my life, and I was going to savor every single moment.

Tomorrow wasn’t guaranteed, but tonight was.

It was the hardest decision I’d ever made in my life, but it was also the easiest.

Watching Carter sleep in the predawn hours was something I would carry with me to my grave. He looked so innocent and carefree in slumber. No signs of his painful past. No evidence of the hurt he’d endured in his life.

What I really wanted to do was crawl back into the bed and fall asleep in his strong arms, but I was in love with him. And because I loved him, I had to leave.

I went into the mode of methodical, super soldier killer freak that I’d been trained to be as I silently searched the house and found what I needed. The most important was the land mine remote, which Nancy had left on the kitchen counter. Pocketing it, I found my laptop, duffle, and a few remote cameras I borrowed from Caleb. After gathering my stash, I went back to Carter’s room. It was lucky that Caleb hadn’t blown the vehicle sky high yet—also good I knew how to hotwire a car, considering we hadn’t borrowed the keys.

If Carter woke, I could say I was indulging in my addiction to Candy Crush and then remake my plans, but it was very clear he was a heavy sleeper. Part of me wished he wasn’t—wished that he would wake up and stop me from what I was about to do. But most of me was grateful that he would live to see many more days in his life—even if they were without me.

Sean having problems getting us out of the country was very telling. Sean never had problems, from what I knew about him. The fact that he did meant the government surveillance for us was enormous—and therefore as dangerous as hell on fire. I comforted myself with the thought that Carter was with people who loved him and whom he loved back. He would be okay… I hoped.

Honestly, I had no clue if his feelings matched mine. While I wanted him to have fallen for me as well, it would be far better if what we’d shared had only been sex for him.

Hacking into the CIA’s main board was easy. Sean was good. Caleb was good, but I was outstanding. I knew I could end the careers of Sabrina Wenbo and Don Jarred. That would be easy and most certainly a kind of living death for the egomaniacal monsters, but I wanted more.

I wanted to end their lives, and if I died in the process, so be it. If they had me, I was sure they would leave Carter alone. And they would no longer be able to harm innocent people like I used to be. Plus, if I were out of the picture, it would be easier for Sean to get Carter safely out of the country.

Uploading all the damning material—the test results and the death count of the innocents who had been murdered at the hands of Wenbo and Jarred—took me all of ten minutes. It was going straight to the top. Even if I died before I could kill the bastards, it would be over for them. I was sure the CIA would handle the punishment severely; not as severely as I would, but I’d still accomplish my goal of stopping the atrocities.

My next move was riskier and I had to figure out a safe, unpopulated place to put the rest of my plan into motion, but after a few tries I’d hit pay dirt. It would take the monsters about two hours by plane and then another forty-five minutes by car. And just because I was nice, I booked their plane tickets and rented their car—with their own personal credit cards. Hacking freakin’ rocked.

While I was at it, I emptied their many legal and illegal bank accounts into the accounts of underfunded charities for children, and smiled as I did it. I was sorely tempted to dig into Carter’s past to understand more about him, but I didn’t need to know what had happened before. I knew him right now, and I loved the man he had become. He might look in the mirror and see a monster, but I could see him clearly. He was as beautiful on the inside as he was on the outside. If I’d given him hope of living a somewhat normal life, then I could die a happy woman.

I also dumped all of my bank accounts into Carter’s. Dead women didn’t need money and mine was spread all over the world. But now it was deposited into Carter’s account. That made me happy in the midst of my heart being torn to sheds.

Focus. No time for emotion.

It would take me an hour and a half to reach my destination by car. I’d get there in plenty of time to have it ready for my guests. Alerting them to the plan and stipulations was kind of fun. They’d run my life for two horrific years. It was time for me to be the boss.

I’d specified they had to come alone. Although it didn’t really matter one way or the other. They were done. I just hoped to see their faces when they realized it. However, there was a very good chance they’d arrive alone. Their sense of entitlement and ego and the fact they thought the CIA was unaware of their barbaric practices gave me hope that I could have an intimate meet, greet and kill with the two people who had turned me into an animal.

Was I even an animal anymore? Even without being able to completely shift to a panther, I would always be an abomination with fangs, claws and golden eyes. But Carter had made me feel like a beautiful, desirable woman, not an atrocity, and for that, I would always be grateful. I knew now that arousal didn’t cause the complete shift anymore, but I wondered if extreme, dangerous circumstances would.

Only time would tell me that.

I could feel my heart tearing as I watched his chest slowly rise and fall in sleep. Carter’s outer beauty was obvious, but his inner beauty was what I’d fallen for. For a brief moment, I was paralyzed and almost started to panic, but remembering why I was doing what I was doing gave me peace.

I had two more things to do before I left—steal a vial of poison from Nancy’s lab and write a note to the beautiful killer who had permanently stolen my heart.

There were no happy endings for beasts. I just prayed that there would be a happy ending for my Beauty.

11

Carter

“Goddammit,” I shouted as I picked up a chair and threw it across the room, smashing a lamp, vase, and painting in my fury. “She was supposed to make me a cake today.”

I sounded like a lunatic, but I was so unhinged I couldn’t see straight.

“Stop it,” Nancy snapped as she righted the chair and tried to make sense of all the broken pieces of glass and pottery scattered on the floor. “Being a jackass is going to get you nowhere fast and it’s pissing me off. What did the note say?”

I paced the room and tried to tamp down the rage that was threatening to consume me. I wasn’t winning. “How could she be so fucking stupid? I can’t protect her if I can’t find her,” I snarled.

“What did the note say?” Nancy ground out through clenched teeth as she moved her laptop to safety. “Any clues to where she went?”

“None,” I growled, wanting to take the house down with my bare hands.

“And?” she pressed, ignoring my rage.

I paused and closed my eyes. “She said she loved me,” I answered my sister in a hollow tone that sounded dead to my own ears. “That she loved every broken and fucking beautiful piece of me. Why would she do this?”

Nancy leaned against the wall and pressed her fingers to the bridge of her nose. “It’s right there in the note. You just answered your own question. She’s letting you go because she loves you. If you want my opinion, Georgia’s as fucked up as you are.”

“I don’t want your opinion,” I snapped, feeling like the world was dropping out from under me. Was this what love was supposed to feel like? If it was, it was fucking awful. “And that is the stupidest goddamned reason I’ve ever heard.”

Why in the hell hadn’t I told her what I was feeling? Would she have stayed if she knew? Why hadn’t I trusted her with my cold dead heart? I didn’t deserve her love and God knew she shouldn’t want mine, but I’d be damned if I was going to let her walk right into her death.

“There’s a vial of poison missing from your lab,” Caleb informed Nancy as he joined us in the den. “And the SUV you stole is gone.”

“Borrowed,” I corrected with a muttered curse.

“How did she get through the land mines?” Nancy asked, perplexed.

“Georgia is a fucking super soldier,” I yelled and kicked a leather ottoman across the room. “She’s been trained not to miss anything. She probably saw you reset the mines with the remote.”

“That was from three hundred yards away,” Caleb pointed out.

Nancy shook her head and sighed. “I forget she’s been enhanced. Even though the ability to completely shift has probably left her, her senses are still off the charts. Sabrina Wenbo and Don Jarred fucked with her DNA to the point of no return.”

“What about her lifespan?” Caleb asked.

Nancy shrugged. “I’d have to do more testing to figure that out. Actually,” my sister said thoughtfully, “she might just accomplish what she’s set out to do.”

“And she might not,” I said, pacing the den like a caged tiger. “I have to find her.”

“Why?” Nancy demanded. “She left you because she loves you and wants you to live. You’re not going to respect that?”

“Fuck no.”

“Why?” Nancy challenged again, as Caleb’s eyebrows shot up at her persistence. “Why won’t you respect that?”

I wanted to deck my sister. I would never lay a hand on her in violence while I had life in me, but I really wanted to kill her right now. Instead of acting on my base instinct, I ripped the flat-screen TV off the wall and hurled it out of the bay window.

Caleb watched my violence with interest and dismay. “Shit,” he muttered. “That was a great TV.”

Ignoring him, I turned on my sister. She stood her ground and stared at me with her arms crossed casually over her chest and waited.

“Because I love her,” I said, so softly she had to lean in to hear me.

“What was that?” she pushed.

“I said, I love her,” I snapped. “I’m the worst thing in the world for her, but she is the best thing in mine. I love her.”

“That’s all I wanted to know,” Nancy said, putting her arms around me and hugging me tight. “Go get her.”

“I don’t know how—don’t know where the fuck she went,” I admitted, breaking the embrace, dropping to the couch and letting my head fall to my hands.

“Actually, you do,” Caleb said.

I glanced up at my brilliant brother and narrowed my eyes. “I do?”

“She was with Sean for a couple of weeks. Right?”

I nodded, not following.

Caleb smiled and walked over to where I sat. “I’m gonna put money down that Sean chipped her for location. It’s something he does to keep the ones he cares for safe.”

I barely waited for Caleb to finish talking. I was on the phone to Sean so fast it made my head spin. My smile grew as Sean confirmed what Caleb had surmised.

“Bingo,” I said. “I’ve got her.”

“We’ve got her,” Nancy countered. “Or rather, we’ve got your back if you want us.”

I stared at my siblings—the two people who looked so much like me it was eerie.

I’d always worked alone… maybe that was my problem.

Nodding slowly, I bit down on my bottom lip. “Are you sure? This could get seriously ugly.”

“Ugly is good,” Caleb said, grinning from ear to ear. “Let me grab some explosives and my laptop.”

“I want to get an antidote to the poison Georgia grabbed. I have a bad feeling about this,” Nancy said, sprinting from the room.

I refused to think about losing. It wasn’t acceptable. Arming myself to the teeth, I grabbed the keys to Caleb’s SUV and centered myself.

“Georgia from Georgia, you are in big trouble,” I whispered. “After I kiss you senseless, I’m going to yell at you for a few days… or weeks… or years. You’d just better stay the fuck alive for me to do it.”

A song came to my mind as I made my way to the truck.

Love hurts.

Love scars.

Love wounds and marks.

But it also was something I’d realized very recently I didn’t want to live without—no matter how badly it hurt.

12

Georgia

The enormous barn was empty and the surrounding area was deserted. It was perfect for what I needed. I expected the monsters within the half hour. Strapping my weapons securely to my body and making sure the poison and the camera remote were safely tucked in my pocket, I looked around for items that would pass for chairs. I wanted my guests to feel like I’d gone to a little trouble to make them feel welcome.

It was an old, long-abandoned tobacco warehouse. The dust was thick and the rotting wooden tobacco stakes littered the dirt floor. About five thousand square feet of filthy nothing—very appropriate for the meeting. It reminded me of an enormous version of my cage.

Glancing down at the black combat pants, long-sleeved black t-shirt and incredible shit kickers I was wearing, I felt a small twinge of guilt. I had borrowed Nancy’s clothes, but I’d left a wad of cash in her closet to replace them. I’d chosen black on purpose. No longer was I the prisoner in a dirty white hospital gown. I was now the woman in black—a trained CIA fucked-up killing machine. A monster.

Whatever.

I’d made it all the way here and there was no backing out now.

Thinking of Carter made me physically ache, but what I was doing was important and right. Right wasn’t always easy. Sometimes it hurt. This time it was devastating, but I smiled through the agony, knowing he would live and I was about to stop the fuckers who’d destroyed me from hurting anyone else. What I refused to think about was what Carter had done when he’d realized I was gone, but that I would never know. Although it did make me smile a little to think there might be a few more holes in the wall.

Sitting down on a grimy wooden crate, I placed my back against the wall. Didn’t matter if they entered from the door at the south end of the building or the door at the north. I would see them.

“Do, re, mi, fa, so, la, ti, do,” I whispered, and then began to softly sing The Lonely Goatherd. My yodeling sucked, but no one could hear me. Amazingly, it calmed my nerves and made me feel closer to Carter. It still boggled my mind and would always delight me that The Sound of Music was the movie he’d chosen to numb his mind from pain. I wondered who his favorite character was and regretted not asking him. I would hazard a guess that it was the Captain.

My other regret was not knowing his horrible middle name. I knew it had to start with an N. Maybe it was Ned or Nate. No, those were too normal, if Caleb’s middle name was anything to go by. Norman was not good—at all.

Early morning sunlight peeked through the dilapidated slats in the barn, creating a flickering hazy light. It would be enough light for Wenbo and Jarred to see. I had no problem. My vision in the darkness was almost better than my vision in broad daylight, thanks to my vicious benefactors.

My body tensed and I closed my eyes for a brief second as I scented them… and only them. Their fear smelled putrid and sweet—like three-day-old garbage from a bakery on a ninety-degree day in August. I pictured Carter in my mind and blew a kiss to the air, hoping he would know how much I loved him and how sorry I was to leave him.

They entered through the south end of the building, and just as I’d suspected, they’d come alone. Fine by me. I was slightly surprised that they’d followed my directive and came without backup, but their egos knew no bounds. Honestly, it wouldn’t have mattered if they’d brought others. As long as they admitted what they’d done I was good to go. Whether they killed me or I ended my own life was irrelevant. I didn’t plan on leaving this warehouse alive.

Thankfully, I’d had time to set up cameras that I’d borrowed from Caleb all throughout the barn. They were hidden well and the video was set to be delivered to the CIA and Sean when I pressed the remote in my pocket. Caleb was a very smart guy. I would have loved to play with all of his toys, but this would have to do.

“Long time no see,” I said in a flat tone as their eyes adjusted to the lack of light. “So nice of you to come. I’ve missed you.”

“Your sense of humor never fails to amuse,” Sabrina said in her nasally voice that made me want to scream.

They were armed with tranq guns and pistols. I was unsure how adept they were at using them, as they’d always had muscle to do their dirty work. I could smell their fear, but outwardly they were as cool as cucumbers. Impressive.

Tamping down my desire to run for my life was one of the hardest things I’d ever done. I had to keep reminding myself I wasn’t in a cage or strapped to a table under blinding lights. I wasn’t being forced to bear the searing, burning pain—slice after precise slice being carved into my skin while they jabbered about the brilliant legacy they would be known for someday.

I was not enduring the poisons shot into my body that made me dry heave for days on end while they stood by emotionlessly and took notes. I wasn’t about to be thrown into a pit with hungry feline predators to see if I would come out alive.

No, right now I was relatively safe. I was never going to let the horrors I’d been through happen to me or anyone else ever again. Wenbo and Jarred didn’t need to know this quite yet. I wanted their performance to be caught for posterity’s sake. After all, it was an important part of their legacy.

Don Jarred was quiet. He’d always been the quieter of the two, but he wielded a scalpel like a serial killer and didn’t like to use anesthesia. Just looking at him made my chest tighten in fear and revulsion. His beady eyes were a dull, watery blue. His thin lips were turned down slightly in the corners, giving the balding son of a bitch the appearance of always frowning.

Sabrina Wenbo was a disaster of a woman—overly made up and curvy in all the wrong places. She most definitely had gone a few rounds with lipo, and then continued to eat like a horse. Fatty deposits in the oddest places bulged out all over, making her look like a circus freak pincushion. But her goofy appearance belied the unholy sadistic streak she hid from the public.

To the world they were lauded, brilliant scientists—had even been nominated for a Nobel Prize for their work in eradicating certain airborne diseases. I wondered what the world would think when they realized how many people they’d murdered trying to create human animals.

“So you want to come back?” Wenbo sneered, keeping her hand on her gun. “Got a little hard in the real world for you?”

“Yes and no,” I shot back cryptically.

Her hand shook slightly on the weapon and I smiled.

“You do realize you have no choice,” she said, trying to sound reasonable.

Jarred leaned over and whispered in her ear. Were they fucking stupid? I could hear every word he uttered. He’d made me this way.

“I killed him,” I said, startling both of them. “No need to whisper. I can hear you. My friend is dead. I turned on him and killed him. I lost control and tore him to shreds. It’s one of the reasons I’ve reached out to you. I’m a danger to society. I need to be eliminated.”

Just for shits and giggles and to test if I truly had control of my gifts, I let my fangs drop. Both of the reasons I was like this stepped back in fear. It felt nice for the shoe to be on the other foot. Retracting them just as easily, I continued to stare at them.

Wenbo’s eyes grew wide with psychotic excitement as she stared at my mouth. “In panther form? You killed him as a panther?” she demanded.

Jarred looked as eager and delighted as his deranged partner. With a careless shrug, I nodded. They weren’t going to leave this barn alive. My lie was for the CIA and Sean, although Sean would know what I was doing. For a brief, sickening moment, I wondered if Carter would ever see the footage, but it was neither here nor there. I’d be gone. He would realize the same thing as Sean. I was going to protect the man I loved until I was no longer able to do so.

“What do you want?” Wenbo asked, feeling more secure that they were going to leave with what they wanted.

“I want to know why. I want to know why you’ve done this to me.”

Wenbo shook her head in staccato little jerks and pursed her lips in condemnation. Jarred simply chuckled like I’d made a polite joke at a formal dinner party. They were both batshit crazy.

“Please,” Wenbo purred and smiled at me like I was a child. “We’re making history. There will be no elimination for you. You will make us very rich and very famous.”

“You’re killing people,” I reminded her harshly.

“Collateral damage,” she hissed and then reined it back in. “You’re still alive. You’re our greatest accomplishment—a scientific miracle.”

“I’m a freak of nature,” I said flatly. “You made me into an animal and killed at least forty people that I know of in the name of your fucked-up brand of science.”

“Irrelevant,” Jarred said, flatly.

“What?” I snapped. “Seriously?”

Wenbo removed her tranq gun from the holster and pointed it at me. “You will drop your weapons and you will come with us. We were so close, and you almost derailed the greatest scientific discovery in history,” she snarled with an expression so ugly, I almost laughed.

“If you don’t come willingly, we will make this very difficult for you,” Jarred informed me, pulling a knife from his belt and brandishing it.

“You guys are like a fucked-up B-grade horror movie,” I said, calmly removing the weapons they could see and tossing them to the ground.

Wenbo’s sigh of relief at my acquiescence was wildly premature, but who was I to correct her misconception?

“However, I do have an ace in the hole,” I said with a smile.

“You don’t,” she said, with a laugh that made my skin crawl. “You can’t turn anymore without the injections. You’re little more than a human with a few enhancements at this point.”

“Are you sure about that?” I asked.

I didn’t miss the concerned look they exchanged. It would have been humorous if the situation wasn’t so tragic.

“How about this? Why don’t we chat for a few minutes? I have a few things I’d like to get off my chest before I live out the rest of my life in a cage. You feel me?”

Nodding warily, they stepped closer. Wenbo still wielded her tranq gun and Jarred now had a knife in each hand.

“Have a seat. I had to look for a half hour to find something that would hold your weight without caving in,” I told Wenbo in a polite tone.

“What did you just say?” she demanded, her cheeks coloring in fury.

Ahhhh, my buddy was a narcissist on top of being certifiable. Awesome.

“Nothing,” I said. “Please sit.”

They did.

“So what would you say if I told you I’d hacked into your precious data and have a copy of it?” I asked. “Hypothetically speaking, of course.”

The silence was golden and their slightly open mouths a true delight.

“Impossible,” Jarred mumbled. “Impossible.”

“Right,” I agreed, nodding. “Definitely impossible. But just for shits and giggles, let’s pretend that my hacking skills are so damned good that I was able to weasel my way in there and retrieve all twenty-two years and seven months of your research?”

“Liar,” Wenbo growled, lifting her gun and aiming it at my face.

“It will take exactly thirty seconds after the tranq hits me for me to go down. In that time, I can press the remote in my pocket, sending your precious, murderous, fucked-up research to the director of the CIA. It will also be sent to a really good buddy of mine who would just love to send it to every single news organization in the civilized world… hypothetically speaking, of course.”

“What do you want?” Wenbo shrieked, standing up and backing slightly away from me. “Money? Name your price.”

“Such a silly thing,” I said, shaking my head sadly. I wasn’t about to share that I’d already sent the info to the CIA—didn’t think that would go over too well. “What would you say, again hypothetically speaking… Or, since you two are so brilliant, I’ll change up the terminology to keep it interesting—theoretically or speculatively speaking, if all of your accounts, even the offshore accounts, the six that you illegally funneled CIA funds into and the three in the Caymans, were suddenly drained and donated to children’s charities?”

“She’s bluffing,” Jarred insisted, looking incredibly unsure of his statement.

“How does she know about the Caymans and the money we stole from the CIA?” she hissed, pointing the gun at Jarred. “You must have told her.”

“I told her nothing, you bitch! You had to have slipped up,” he shouted.

God, would they take care of each other while I got to sit back and watch? Nothing would make me happier.

“Prove it,” Wenbo grunted, re-aiming the gun at me.

“Prove what?” I asked with mocking innocence. “It’s all conjecture.”

She began to pace, waving the gun erratically. Easing up to a standing position, I made sure to stay out of the line of fire. More than likely she’d never even shot it before.

“Never should have gone with someone so smart,” she said, talking to herself and pulling on her bleached hair with her free hand. “This is all your fault,” she screamed at a seething Jarred.

“She’s the only one who survived. How is this my fault? It’s your fault,” he growled. “And I still say she’s bluffing.”

“Definitely,” I said. “Definitely bluffing. Nine-four-seven, A-G-V, three-three-two, F-J-O.”

“You gave her the code?” she screamed at Jarred, aiming the gun at his head in irate fury. “You stupid fuck!”

She fired with shaking hands but missed her soulless partner in crime by a long shot. Wenbo’s skills with weapons sucked. Clearly, her forte was murder in more controlled settings.

However, Jarred’s expertise definitely went beyond the operating room.

Without a sound, Jarred jerked his body to the left to miss her next wild shot and threw both knives at Wenbo. His aim was as impeccable as his surgical skill. Both knives flew and embedded themselves into Wenbo’s eye sockets. The sound was horrifying and her scream of shocked agony was one I would never forget.

She dropped to the ground with a thud and began to writhe on the filthy dirt floor as she bled out. For ten minutes, Jarred stared at her dispassionately while the blood gushed from her head. Yanking the knives out was fruitless as he’d implanted them with the skill of one who knew how to kill. As Wenbo’s body stopped jerking and the life drained out of her, he calmly turned his attention back to me.

“Neither one of us is going to leave this place alive—and that’s not conjecture,” he said flatly. “Wasn’t that your plan?”

“What’s my name?” I asked him.

“What?” He squinted at me in confusion.

“My name. Do you know my name?”

He paused and tilted his head. “Why would I know your name?” he asked, completely perplexed. “You’re not a person—you’re number two hundred and ninety-nine. You were a means to an end, and now you’ve destroyed that. Are you happy?” he shouted, showing his crazy.

I really hoped he was out of knives.

“You win, number two hundred and ninety-nine. Nothing you’ve said was even remotely hypothetical. Never should have used one so smart. I was hoping two hundred and sixty would live, but he was worthless and just up and died one day. I had my hopes pinned on him.”

“He was a person, a human being,” I said, pulling a pistol from the back holster I was wearing. “He had a name. All of us had names.”

“Irrelevant,” he said, shaking his head and chuckling. “All of you were nothing. I could have made you into something special, but you ruined it.”

“No, you’ve got it wrong. You ruined me. You killed… God, I don’t even know how many others.”

“Three hundred and thirteen,” he said with a smile that was so disconnected, I felt physically ill. “Two died this morning after we put them into the pit with a lion. Such a shame. Such a mess. So much wasted energy, money and time on them. Just terrible.”

“And I always thought I was the monster,” I whispered, trying to discern if there was even a speck of humanity in this man.

If there was I couldn’t find it.

“If you’re the monster—and trust me, you are—I’m Dr. Frankenstein and she was Igor,” Jarred said, pointing at the dead body of the woman who had been his partner in crimes so heinous, they were almost unspeakable.

He began to laugh at his horrendous analogy. His pasty face turned a mottled red and his bellowing grunts of joy overcame him. Don Jarred rocked back and forth in hysterics and then staggered over to the body of Sabrina Wenbo. He removed his knives from the eye sockets of her slain body, cleaned them off with her dress and slid them back into their sheaths.

My hatred for him was so intense, I was shaking. Nothing was funny about any of this. I knew what I had to do, but as much as I wanted the man dead for what he had done to me and so many others, I didn’t know if I could do it. I was trained to kill and I despised it. He was a murderer. I wasn’t.

Or was I?

I had the poison, but that’s what I was going to use for myself. I felt like I was a million years old. I was going to hell if it existed. What was one more death on my tally sheet? I’d offed three men yesterday and two when I’d escaped my prison.

As I raised the gun and aimed, Don Jarred held his hand up and grinned at me vacantly.

“No, no,” he said. “Let me. Much more fitting.”

In a flash of movement so quick I almost could follow it, he pulled a pistol from his holster, put it in his mouth and fired. The back of his head blew right off and splattered all over the dead Wenbo. He fell with a thud on top of her.

I turned away and vomited.

This was not what I had planned. I dry heaved until my stomach was empty.

I’d had no intention of recording myself drinking the poison. I never wanted Carter to have a chance to see that. But I’d sent the proof to the CIA to ruin Wenbo and Jarred and, in doing so, I’d made myself one of the biggest targets in the world. My death needed to be recorded as well.

I knew I would have a few seconds to hit the remote before the poison incapacitated me. It was all I needed.

Sitting down on the ground, I let my head fall to my hands. How had my life turned out this way? Visions of my lonely childhood raced through my brain. Thoughts of my uncle Tim and how he laughed at my terrible jokes clouded my sad walk down memory lane, and I smiled. If there was an afterlife, maybe I would see him again. My mother’s cold smile and my father’s constant absence had made me indifferent to trusting others, but my uncle had cracked a hole in the walls I’d put up. And then Carter Wylde had knocked my shield wide open.

My only regret in leaving this world was that I would never see the man again who made me feel beautiful—inside and out. He was my Beauty and I was his Beast. Only fairy tales had happy endings—not real life. The von Trapps had made it over the mountain, but my mountain was too high to scale.

Inhaling deeply and slowly letting the breath hiss out through my teeth, I knew it was now or never. The longer I waited, the more I might be able to convince myself to take a stab at my mountain.

Uncapping the poison and staring at the deadly amber liquid in the vial, I knew there was one more thing left to say. Dead people didn’t talk. I wasn’t dead yet. “I meant to make you a cake,” I said to the camera. “I’m a really good baker—but I told you that already. I love you and I’m sorry. So sorry.”

“I want chocolate. I want a fucking chocolate cake with chocolate icing. If you even take a sip of that shit, I will take you over my knee and spank the living hell out of you. Not really into that crap, but I’m going there.”

Carter’s voice boomed through the empty warehouse, and I dropped the vial in utter shock at his arrival.

“How did you…?” I started, only to be cut off by a pissed-off kiss so passionate it made me dizzy.

“Sean chipped you, thank fucking God. I am so mad at you,” he snarled, taking in the carnage in the vast room and pausing in surprise for a moment. “Did you do this?”

“Umm… no. They kind of offed each other. Made it really easy on me,” I told him, unable to meet his furious gaze.

“Holy shit,” Caleb yelled, entering the warehouse at a clip. “This is a fucking mess. Great work.”

“I didn’t do it,” I told him as I saw Nancy enter behind him.

“I call bullshit,” Caleb said.

“No. Seriously, I didn’t do it. They did it.”

Nancy checked the pulses of both of them. It was slightly unnecessary since Jarred was missing most of his head, but Nancy was thorough. “Are those my clothes?” she asked with a smirk and a raised brow.

“Yes,” I whispered. “I borrowed them.”

“You mean stole?” Carter asked, not letting me off the hook for a second.

“Borrowed,” I corrected him with a tiny giggle even though we were standing in a warehouse with two dead bodies. “And I left cash in her closet. And umm… while we’re—or rather, I’m coming clean… Caleb, I also borrowed some of your cameras. All of this was recorded.”

“Where’d you send it?” he asked, wildly impressed.

“Nowhere yet,” I admitted. “It’s set to remotely go to Sean and the head of the CIA. Should I send it?”

“No, not yet,” Carter said. “Caleb, pull down the cameras and let’s take them with us.”

“Roger that,” he said—and then froze.

We all froze.

Just when we’d thought we were home free, the shit show increased to epic proportions.

Thirty men in black stormed the warehouse. They were armed and surrounded us with military precision.

“Drop your weapons. Hands in the air,” one of them yelled.

Following orders, we did what they said.

“Motherfucker,” Carter muttered. “Could this day get any worse?”

“Yep,” Nancy whispered. “Here comes the big guy.”

“Is that the head of CIA special ops?” I whispered as my eyes went wide.

“Fuck,” Caleb said.

Well, at least I knew Carter loved me, and I was sure he knew I loved him. I was glad for that, because I was pretty sure none of us were leaving the warehouse alive.

“What’s your middle name?” I whispered to Carter.

Biting down on his lip, he tried not to laugh. “Are you serious?” he whispered back, keeping his eyes on the enemy.

“Yes,” I told him. “I really want to know.”

He shook his head and shrugged. “Norbert.”

I was silent. It was worse than Norman. It took all I had not to giggle in the face of the sure death we were facing.

“You happy?” he hissed between his teeth.

“I am. I love you, Carter Norbert Wylde.”

“I love you more, Georgia from Georgia. I still want my cake.”

“Umm… okay,” I said. “Not sure I can make that happen.”

“Oh, I am,” Carter said with a grin and a wink.

He was nuts. I was nuts. Nancy was nuts and Caleb was definitely nuts, but we were outgunned and outmanned. Sadly, Carter was dead wrong.

But if a miracle occurred and we got out of this mess, Carter could have a cake every day for the rest of his life.

13

Georgia

I only knew him as The Reaper. I’d never lain eyes on the man, but if it was who Nancy thought it was, we were in a shit ton of trouble. He was huge, even larger than Carter and Caleb, who were by no means small men. He was too harsh to be considered good-looking, but there was something scarily arresting about The Reaper. The shit load of trouble we were in increased with his very presence. Not to mention we were completely surrounded by armed lackeys ready to fire on command.

“Beauty,” The Reaper said, acknowledging Carter.

“Asshole,” Carter said in return greeting.

Confusion didn’t begin to define what was going through my head. Carter knew The Reaper? Was that why he thought I was going to be able to make him a cake? I was pretty sure that being acquainted with The Reaper wasn’t going to get us out of this deadly mess.

“Seems to me we have a little problem here,” the man said, eyeing the four of us. “Which one of you sent the information on the research to the CIA?”

“I did,” I said, stepping forward. “No one else had anything to do with it. I’m the one you want.”

“Bullshit,” Carter hissed, pulling me back against his body. “State your case, Reaper. But know if any of us die tonight, your ass will be dragged.”

“Interesting,” The Reaper said, turning his attention to Nancy. “And how are you, Nancy?”

His voice was smooth, and Nancy’s color heightened. She raised a brow and lifted her middle finger. What in the ever-loving hell was happening here?

“It’s nice to see you haven’t changed,” he said.

“And it’s pathetic to see you haven’t changed, either,” she replied rudely.

There must be a hell of a backstory that was missing right now, but I had a plan. It was a little flimsy, but…

“The information wasn’t just sent to you,” I said.

“I assumed that,” The Reaper replied, tearing his gaze from Nancy. “I’d very much like to know who else you sent it to.”

“And I’d very much like to shove your head up your ass,” Carter said.

The Reaper’s muttered curse didn’t really bode well for us getting out of here alive. Carter needed to be quiet.

“That’s information you’ll have to kill me to get,” I told the huge, imposing man. “However, the information is set to go to every major news outlet in the world if anything happens to any of the four of us. It’s damning, and will bring the CIA to its knees. You’re also implicated in the recordings I made this evening.”

Holding the remote out in my hand, I pressed the button and smiled.

The Reaper’s eyes narrowed to slits. Caleb chuckled softly. Nancy smiled. However, Carter laughed—loud.

“That will be on the CIA main board shortly, along with several other locations,” I informed him.

The Reaper inhaled sharply and then smiled. It wasn’t a pleasant smile at all.

“What do you want?” he asked, staring daggers at me.

The idea had a few holes, but it wasn’t half bad. “I want to die in an explosion tonight,” I said flatly. “Carter Wylde and I will die in the explosion. After tonight, we will be erased from every fucking dossier you have—forever.”

“No money?” he inquired tightly.

“No money.”

“And what explosion are you referring to?” The Reaper asked.

I glanced over at Caleb, who nodded and grinned.

“The one that will be set after you and your men leave. The two bodies that will be found are the bodies of Carter Wylde and myself,” I explained, nodding at the dead bodies of Wenbo and Jarred.

“And how am I supposed to explain the disappearance of Wenbo and Jarred to the public?”

“Not my problem. That’s for you to figure out. I mean you are The Reaper, aren’t you?”

“You’re certainly a piece of work,” he said dryly,

“She’s mine,” Carter said with such pride, I laughed. “She’s my piece of work.”

I’d been through unspeakable things, but this day took the cake for surreal.

Nodding and giving a silent command to his men, The Reaper continued to stare at me. His men filed out of the warehouse just as quickly as they’d stormed it.

“Are you really an animal?” he asked.

“I don’t exist,” I shot back. “What I may or may not be is of no interest to you.”

His laugh almost made him attractive, but he was too terrifying to really be handsome.

“You will be living on thin ice for the rest of your lives,” The Reaper pointed out once we were alone with him.

“Been doing that for a decade,” Carter said. “Not a problem. Now on the other hand, if that ice gets too thin, you’re going to be the one with the problem. You feel me?” he inquired, using my phrase.

“I feel you,” The Reaper said with a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “I will make this happen, and I don’t ever want to hear about you or see you again for the rest of my living days. Am I clear?” he snapped, looking straight at Carter and me.

I sucked in a swift and inaudible breath as I stared hard at The Reaper’s mouth. I could have sworn I saw a flash of a fang, but that wasn’t possible. Was it?

The man glared at me and raised a brow.

“Cat got your tongue?” he inquired in an icy tone.

“Does it have yours?” I shot back.

His laugh sent shivers up my spine, and Carter glanced at me in confusion. I took his hand and squeezed it. We would talk later.

“I repeat,” The Reaper ground out. “Am I clear?”

“I can work with those terms,” Carter replied. “However, I think it’s time for you to leave. You can find our bodies tomorrow.”

With a curt nod and a last look to Nancy, who didn’t so much as blink in response, The Reaper turned on his heel and walked slowly out of the warehouse.

We stood in shocked silence for at least ten minutes after he’d left.

“There is a lot of story there I’m pretty sure I don’t want to know,” I said, glancing at Carter in question.

“Trust me. You don’t want to know,” he said. “What did you see?”

“He has fangs,” I whispered.

“Impossible,” Nancy said, looking at me like I’d finally lost it.

Maybe I had finally lost it. Maybe I’d imagined it. And maybe I hadn’t…

“Are you sure?” Caleb asked, glancing over at the door where The Reaper had exited.

“No,” I admitted. “I’m not positive.”

Nancy stared at me for a long moment, nodded curtly and turned away. She clearly had a past with the man and would possibly know if he was as fucked up as I was.

“We’ll discuss this later,” Carter said, pulling me into his arms and holding me close. “I believe you,” he whispered in my ear, and then raised his voice for the benefit of his siblings. “Let’s do what we have to do and then get the fuck out of dodge.”

Nodding, I began to pull down the cameras and pack them away. We needed to contact Sean and tell him what had gone down, but that would have to wait. Right now we still had work to do.

“You have enough explosives to blow up this whole structure?” Carter asked Caleb, eyeing the enormous barn.

“Does the Pope wear a pointy white hat?” Caleb asked with a wide grin.

“That he does,” Nancy said, pulling her eyes away from the door that The Reaper had left through.

“Then I guess you have your answer,” Caleb shot back. “Let me do my work. You freaks wait outside and get the cars all warmed up. We’re gonna have to drive like bats out of hell once I detonate this shit.”

“I want my cake. Tonight,” Carter said, taking my hand and leading me out of the warehouse. “Chocolate.”

“You can have a cake every day forever,” I told him with a giggle.

“You all heard that. Right?” he yelled. “I get cake forever.”

“You gonna share?” Caleb asked as he started wiring the barn with explosives.

“The cake? Yes. Georgia? No. She’s all mine.”

And I didn’t want it any other way. Carter Norbert Wylde was the broken piece that made me whole, and I was his.

Forever.

And Ever.

And Ever.

Maybe fairy tales do come true after all.

He was my Beauty and I was his Beast.

Epilogue

Carter

I was nervous. I wanted the gift to be perfect. I wanted to make her cry happy tears. I wanted to be her hero. Damn it, I wanted to be her everything, just like she was mine.

“Carter, can you tell your sister to turn off the land mines? I’m almost ready to leave,” Georgia yelled from the kitchen.

“On it,” I yelled back as I looked around our new home.

My brother, sister and I owned over a thousand acres in the deserted mountain area of North Carolina. After the explosion we’d died in, we’d lived with Nancy and Caleb while our own house was built a mile down the road. It wasn’t as large, but it was equally as beautiful. It made Georgia happy and that was all that mattered to me.

I hadn’t had a place to call home in years—never wanted one until my crazy cat woman came into my life and turned it upside down. Of course, it wasn’t all sunshine and roses. I was a pain in the ass and working on forms of communication that didn’t include holes in the plaster. But Georgia said I was a work in progress. I could live with that.

“Can I wear tennis shoes? Or are we dressing up?” she yelled again from the kitchen.

“You can go barefoot, babe,” I shot back with a chuckle. “It’s my brother and sister—no formality required.”

We were never going to be a white-picket-fence kind of couple, but what we had was perfect for us. Every day we somehow became a little less broken. Waking up with her in my arms calmed my raging soul and brought light into my dark world.

Georgia’s blood had lost most of the poison, but her enhanced senses were probably always going to be part of her. The destruction to her DNA was indeed permanent. She was slowly coming to terms with that fact. To me, she was perfect. Gazing into her golden eyes when she was aroused was one of my favorite things. Her claws, on the other hand, had ruined a few couches and numerous sets of bed sheets, but I didn’t give a damn. Shit was replaceable. Georgia was not.

“Carter. I’m not going barefoot,” she said with a giggle, poking her head out the door of the kitchen. “I might not be a girly girl, but I have a few manners.”

Georgia had talked about having plastic surgery on her scarring but decided against it. I loved her scars as much as I loved her. They were her battle wounds and I worshiped them on a regular basis. My battle scars were more internal, but with time and talk, I was beginning to heal as well.

As for whether or not Georgia had imagined The Reaper’s fangs—that was an ongoing debate with my siblings. Nancy was in adamant denial. Caleb was unsure. Me? I believed my girl. Unfortunately, The Reaper was a mystery that would have to be solved. The promise to stay away would eventually be broken. If there were more like Georgia, we needed to know.

“Your sister wanted a vanilla cake with chocolate icing,” she said with a bright smile and frosting on the tip of her nose. “I think this is a good one.”

“All of them are good ones,” I replied, wondering if the time was right. “I’d like to give something to you.”

“I have something for you, too,” she said in a rush of excitement. “Let me get it.”

She tore off to the bedroom, her wild blonde hair flying behind her. Her beauty still stunned me. I had more than half a mind to blow off my siblings and chase her to our bedroom. I couldn’t get enough of her—would never be able to get enough of her.

“Here,” she said shyly, handing me a large envelope.

Taking it in my hands, I handed her my gift that looked alarmingly like the gift she’d just handed me. The confusion on both of our faces would have made me laugh if I wasn’t so edgy about giving her this particular present.

“Should we open them at the same time?” she asked with eyes shining.

“Yep,” I said. “On mi.”

Her laughter filled the room and every dark corner of my heart.

“Do, re, mi,” Georgia said and tore into her gift.

She was faster than I was, and she froze when she discovered what I’d done.

“Oh my God,” she whispered, grinning like a loon. “Finish opening yours. Now.”

I did.

I shook my head and started to laugh.

“No fucking way,” I said.

“Way,” she shot back, as her eyes filled with tears—happy tears. “Can we go twice?”

“We can do whatever the hell we want, Georgia from Georgia.”

I held airline tickets to Austria in my hands, along with chalet reservations and tickets to The Sound of Music tour. And Georgia held the exact same packet—different dates—in hers. What were the odds? But then again, I suppose it shouldn’t surprise me. She was my soul mate—my other half—the light to my dark. The Maria to my Captain.

Sucking in a huge breath, she squared her delicate shoulders and gazed right into my eyes. “Wanna get married?”

“Are you asking me to marry you?” I inquired with a grin. “I’m the man. I’m supposed to do that.”

“Whatever,” she said with an eye roll and a giggle. “I beat you to it. So?”

“So?”

“You gonna marry me?”

“Hmm, can I think about it?” I teased.

Her second eye roll was enormous. It was fucking delightful and hot.

“No. You can’t think about it. You will answer me now or I’ll never ask again. Unless you say no, and then I’ll ask again. Probably every Tuesday.”

I had no clue what I had done to deserve this second chance at life, but I was going to grab it for all I was worth and hang on. “Yes. I will marry you. I will marry you a thousand times if that’s what you want,” I told her with a laugh. “But how about this?”

“What?” she asked as she threw her arms around me and kissed me until I was definitely sure we wouldn’t be seeing my brother and sister tonight.

“Let’s get married in Austria,” I suggested.

“Yessssssss,” she squealed and kissed me again. Pulling back, she scrunched her nose in thought. “Do you think Nancy and Caleb would be upset if we didn’t go over there tonight?”

“I was just thinking the same thing.”

Wrapping her legs around my waist, I moved us to our bedroom in record time. My dick—or thingie, as Georgia was still fond of calling it—was so hard I was in pain. All she had to do was look at me and I was hard.

“You want to climb every mountain tonight?” I whispered as she giggled at my ridiculousness.

“Until we find our dream,” she said in a voice so sexy I was sure we were going to be busy all night long.

And that was fine by me.

In fact, it was more than fine. Georgia was everything I was missing in my life that I didn’t think I’d find and then some. There would be no so long, farewells for us. There would only ever be something good.

The End… for now

Note From The Author

If you enjoyed reading Beauty Loves the Beast, please consider leaving a positive review or rating on the site where you purchased it. Reader reviews help my books continue to be valued by resellers and help new readers make decisions about reading them.

You are the reason I write these stories and I sincerely appreciate each of you!

Many thanks for your support,

~ Robyn Peterman

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Robyn’s Book List

(in correct reading order)

HOT DAMNED SERIES

Fashionably Dead

Fashionably Dead Down Under

Hell on Heels

Fashionably Dead in Diapers

A Fashionably Dead Christmas

Fashionably Hotter Than Hell

Fashionably Dead and Wed

Fashionably Fanged

Fashionably Flawed

A Fashionably Dead Diary

Fashionably Forever After

Fashionably Fabulous

More coming soon…

SEA SHENANIGANS SERIES

Tallulah’s Temptation

Ariel’s Antics

Misty’s Mayhem

Madison’s Mess

SHIFT HAPPENS SERIES

Ready to Were

Some Were in Time

No Were To Run

Were Me Out

Where We Belong

MAGIC AND MAYHEM SERIES

Switching Hour

Witch Glitch

A Witch in Time

Magically Delicious

A Tale of Two Witches

Three’s A Charm

Switching Witches

HANDCUFFS AND HAPPILY EVER AFTERS SERIES

How Hard Can it Be?

Size Matters

Cop a Feel

If after reading all the above you are still wanting more adventure and zany fun, read Pirate Dave and His Randy Adventures, the romance novel budding novelist Rena was helping wicked Evangeline write in How Hard Can It Be?

Warning: Pirate Dave Contains Romance Satire, Spoofing, and Pirates with Two Pork Swords.

About Robyn Peterman

Robyn Peterman writes because the people inside her head won’t leave her alone until she gives them life on paper. Her addictions include laughing really hard with friends, shoes (the expensive kind), Target, Coke (the drink LOL) with extra ice in a Yeti cup, bejeweled reading glasses, her kids, her super-hot hubby and collecting stray animals.

A former professional actress with Broadway, film and T.V. credits, she now lives in the South with her family and too many animals to count.

Writing gives her peace and makes her whole, plus having a job where you can work in only your underpants works really well for her. You can leave Robyn a message via the Contact Page and she’ll get back to you as soon as her bizarre life permits! She loves to hear from her fans!

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