Mikal (Second Wave Book 3) Read online

  Two held her hand over his mouth as she plunged the dagger into his jugular and held him as he fought. Seconds later, she removed the dagger and allowed his lifeless body to drop to the ground before she took to the skies again and moved to the side yard.

  She’d taken out five of the men outside the home before she dissolved into the air and slipped inside the house through a small opening in the bathroom window. She moved through the air in the upper part of the ceiling, hoping to remain undetected for as long as possible as she marked the locations of the targets inside.

  There were only three bedrooms and one bathroom in the small, cluttered home, and a security member was in each one. Three more stood in the living room.

  Including the head of security, she noted with a frown. She hadn’t counted on him being here, but she wouldn’t allow it to affect her plans either.

  Two headed into the back room first and easily slit the throat of the man in there before heading across the hall into the next bedroom and doing the same. She lowered the second man quietly to the floor when she heard Barry try to contact the men who’d been stationed outside the house.

  Knowing she’d been discovered, Two rushed down the hallway and materialized behind the man in the kitchen, slitting his throat before she dissolved again.

  “God damn it! She’s here! Get to the doctor!” Barry yelled as he watched Mark’s body drop to the floor in the kitchen, blood pouring from a wound in his neck.

  Two waited for one of the men to run down the hallway towards the doctor before she materialized behind him. She was getting ready to slit his throat when Barry appeared at the end of the hallway.

  She heard the door open behind her and knew the guard with the doctor had come out of the room and was pointing a weapon at her.

  Most likely a dart gun, she thought.

  Two quickly calculated her options, and instead of slitting her captive’s neck, she plunged the knife into his throat and dissolved as he began choking and staggering towards the other guard.

  With the second guard distracted by his dying buddy, Two headed down the hallway towards Barry just as the midnight skinned man appeared behind him with a large blade leveled across his throat.

  “I suggest you drop your weapon,” Mikal said, growling into the armed man’s ear.

  Two was startled long enough for the guard to get away from his dying team member, and she turned just as he leveled the dart gun at her. She dissolved instantly and reappeared behind him, using his body as a shield as she faced Mikal and his own hostage.

  “Why are you here?” she yelled at him, her body trembling slightly from the adrenaline and fear running through her.

  Mikal didn’t look up at her, his attention on the still-armed man that he was holding on to.

  “I said, drop your weapon,” Mikal warned as he pulled his blade close enough to the man’s neck to draw some blood.

  “Who the fuck are you?” Barry asked as he dropped the dart gun he had aimed at the female creature.

  Mikal chuckled and removed his blade from the small cut he’d made on the man’s neck, but still held it close enough to finish him off if he had to.

  “Who I am is none of your concern. Let’s just say I’m a friend. Obviously not one of yours,” Mikal said with a sneer before he looked up at the female version of himself.

  “If you’re going to kill them, get it done now. I have a feeling they will have backup coming the moment they don’t hear from these fools,” Mikal warned her.

  Alpha Two looked stunned and was a little unsure of what to do. She had no idea if she could trust the stranger with the head of security. If he let Barry go, the man could have them both drugged and helpless in seconds.

  Two shook her head at him.

  “You don’t understand! They are part of the lab! If you let him go, he’ll drug both of us, and we’ll both be caged again if not killed!” she said, trying to figure out what the stranger was doing.

  Mikal sighed, wishing she wasn’t so stubborn. With a quick motion, he flipped Barry onto the floor, knocking the wind out of him. Mikal put a heavy boot in the center of his chest and stared down at the man.

  “Tell the nice lady the truth. What am I?” he asked, wondering if the man did know.

  Alpha Two looked on is shock as Barry’s eyes widened fearfully as he looked up at the beautiful man, his hands fighting against the large foot on his chest. When Barry didn’t answer, Mikal sighed and briefly pressed down harder on the man’s chest.

  “I said, what am I?” he asked, his voice dangerously low.

  Barry’s breath wheezed as he struggled against the stranger’s foot.

  “I don’t know what you are! Where did you come from?” he asked in fear.

  Barry knew there were males being kept in a separate lab, and he’d never seen one that unique color. He knew that his employers hadn’t created this one. He would have heard about it.

  Two sifted Barry’s energy and knew that the fear and puzzlement he felt was real, and it only confused her more. If the lab’s head of security didn’t know who the stranger was, then there was only one other person who would know.

  With a flick of her wrist, Two slit her captive’s throat and dissolved before sliding under the door into the room where the doctor was hiding under his desk.

  It took only a few seconds to pull the man out from under the desk and stand him up just as the stranger pushed Barry through the door in front of him.

  Two watched the doctor closely and was stunned when he looked at the dark stranger with open-mouthed amazement.

  “Oh . . . my . . .” Dr. Mussberger said as he stared in awe at the dark creature in front of him.

  Mikal chuckled at the surprise on the doctor’s face.

  “I’m guessing you don’t know what I am either,” he said with a grin and a wink at Two.

  The doctor reached out a hand as if to touch Mikal, but stopped when Alpha Two yanked on his neck.

  “Where did you come from? How were you conceived?” the doctor asked Mikal in a shaky voice.

  Two shook her head to clear it. It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered but why she went to the home. Stranger or not, she was going to do what she set out to do.

  Keeping the doctor between her, the stranger, and the security guard, she pushed the doctor into a chair, turned it so his back was facing the stranger, and she leaned down to look at him.

  “Tell me how to get in the lab,” she demanded.

  When the doctor tried to turn his head around to look back at the stranger, Two grabbed him by the neck and lifted him several inches off the seat.

  “Tell me or die; it is your choice,” she said with a cold, hard edge to her voice.

  When the doctor just open and closed his mouth without sound, Two squeezed harder until he gasped for air.

  “Tell me now,” she said before relaxing her grip on his neck so he could speak.

  Barry struggled uselessly against the large stranger to no avail.

  “Don’t tell them shit!” he yelled before Mikal clasped a hand around his throat and shook him into silence.

  “Shhh, no one needs your opinion,” Mikal said as the man went limp in his hand.

  Two tried to ignore the men and focus on the doctor and the answers that she needed.

  “Tell me how to get inside!” she asked him again.

  “I . . . I . . .” Dr. Mussberger muttered, his eyes trying to see the stranger behind him.

  Mikal, seeing that the doctor was too distracted by him to pay attention to the female, decided to help. With one smooth move he easily knocked out the security man, dropping him to the floor before he vanished into the air and reappeared to the side of the female.

  He stared down at the doctor with an evil grin.

  “I am free born. Not that it will matter to you. Now tell her what she wants to know, or I will show you what I’ve learned of the cruelty in the world during my travels,” Mikal said, his anger rising at the man.

  “Tell me ho
w to get in!” Two yelled at the doctor again, shaking him.

  The doctor looked between the two of them for a moment before swallowing hard.

  “There is an outside air vent hidden half a mile away from the east entrance. It’s the fresh air supply for the facility,” he said with a heavy sigh before turning to Mikal.

  “I know you will kill me, but please, before you do, tell me where you came from,” he asked, desperate to know.

  Mikal just grinned as Two shook the doctor again.

  “What have they done to my sisters? Are they still there?” she demanded, trying to refocus the doctor on what she wanted to know instead of his own curiosity.

  Harold looked up at her in surprise.

  “How did you get to know them well enough to call them sisters? You were kept separate, you were almost never together and certainly never alone,” he said, studying her to try and figure out what she’d meant.

  Mikal wanted to wring the doctor’s neck and make him talk, but he didn’t want to do anything else that would distract him from telling the female what she wanted to know. Besides, he really wanted to find out what the hell was going on, and he’d learned more in the last few minutes than he had from her in both of their encounters.

  Alpha Two shook the doctor by his throat again.

  “Where are my sisters?” she asked before pushing him back into the chair.

  Harold gasped and wheezed for a moment, clutching his throat.

  “They are still at the lab,” he admitted.

  Mikal watched the doctor carefully and knew that something wasn’t right. The energy was all wrong.

  “They’re expecting her, aren’t they?” he growled, taking an angry step towards the doctor.

  Alpha Two saw the slight widening of the doctor’s eyes and knew that the dark stranger was right. She leaned down, putting her hands on the arms of the chair as the doctor leaned back as far as he could to get away from her.

  “This was all a trap? You knew I’d come for them?” she asked, her voice cold and deadly.

  Dr. Mussberger shook his head vehemently.

  “No! No! I . . .” Harold sputtered.

  Mikal took another step closer to the doctor and kneeled down so that they were eye level, though he still kept his distance from the female so he wouldn’t frighten her.

  We both need our wits about us right now, he thought.

  “Are they watching all of this?” Mikal asked.

  The panic that overcame the doctor could be felt pulsing in the air around them, and Alpha Two looked worriedly at the dark stranger. Unsure why she would do so, she quickly looked away.

  It must be that he is a male of our kind. I’m used to listening to and following Alpha One, she thought, trying to explain to herself why she would look to a stranger for help-especially one that she knew nothing about and couldn’t trust.

  Mikal, using the same energy path in his mind that he’d used to find her, spoke to her mind.

  “It is all a trap. Until now, they didn’t know you were coming for your sisters. They assumed you were coming for the doctors and guards. If we frighten them, they will kill your sisters. If we stay, they could catch us. Whatever you are going to do, you need to decide quickly. I will watch your back,” he said, keeping his energy calm and even.

  Alpha Two tried to hide her shock that the stranger had been able to breech her mental barriers and speak to her. Only Alpha One or her sisters had ever been able to do that, and it was rattling her confidence as much as the new turn of events.

  She tried to push her emotions aside and concentrate on what to do and how to do it now that they knew she was coming. She was a fool. She should have known that they’d be watching.

  The sick bastards watched everything, she thought.

  Mikal saw her struggling with her decision and could feel the wavering of her strength and conviction. The first scared look she gave him when she found out they were watching told him what he needed to do next.

  Mikal stood, walked behind the doctor’s chair, and looked at the female. His eyes held hers as he spoke.

  “If you want to see your doctor alive again, you’ll not harm her sisters,” he said to the room, knowing that others were listening.

  With a wave of Mikal’s hand, a huge gust of wind blew through the bedroom door, shattering the window outward behind the female. She turned to look at the window, and when she turned back the dark stranger and the doctor were gone.

  “Follow my energy. And hurry, before they catch you,” Mikal said in her mind.

  Alpha Two didn’t even think about it. She immediately dissolved into air and followed the strange energy path in her mind that she hadn’t known was there before. She was even more stunned and frightened when she followed him directly to her abandoned cabin in the woods, her main hiding spot where she’d planned to bring her sisters.

  She landed in the small clearing and stormed into the open door. She immediately noticed the stranger had lit the lantern and tied the doctor to a chair. Before she could say anything he turned to her and spoke.

  “We need to find out if he has a chip or tracking device on him or in him somewhere, or keeping him will be too dangerous. As far as how I got here, I took your advice and followed the colored strands in my mind, and they led me to you. I have no idea why, but we don’t have time to figure it out now. We need to deal with him,” he said, motioning to the doctor.

  Alpha Two was only a little surprised that he’d found the same strands that she had just used in her own mind that allowed her to follow him. She knew the clock was ticking on her sisters’ lives, and she would have to take a chance on the stranger in order to try and salvage any part of her mission to save them.

  “They had an explosive charge in my neck, near my jugular. We should probably start looking there or any other sensitive areas that would provide guaranteed death,” she said, pointing to where she’d removed her own charge before she’d gone rogue.

  Mikal nodded and moved towards the doctor just as the man began hyperventilating.

  “No . . . no! There’s no charge or tracking in me! They only bug our houses and cars. I swear . . .” Harold said, looking at Mikal with fear-filled eyes.

  Mikal snorted and grabbed the man by the neck, pushing on the skin to see if he felt anything that wasn’t supposed to be there.

  “I wouldn’t believe anything that came from your mouth. If I were you, I’d be thinking about answering whatever questions she has for you. Questions she should start asking right now,” he said turning to give a pointed look at the female.

  Alpha Two had to mentally shake herself. The sight of the beautiful stranger in her cabin—helping her—was so beyond her comprehension that she was having a hard time with it. In all her years, every time she’d dreamed of this mission, it had never included a gorgeous, strange male of their species helping her.

  “What will they do to my sisters if you aren’t returned?” she asked.

  Dr. Mussberger shook his head, twisting in the chair to avoid Mikal’s probing hands to no avail.

  “They won’t do anything to them, I swear. They will try to recapture you. Both of you,” Harold said, studying Mikal as if excited by the thought of capturing him.

  Mikal crossed his arms over his chest and laughed.

  “Good luck with that,” he said to the doctor before turning to look at the female.

  “I’ve done a physical check and an energy one. I’m not seeing anything, but you really need to check it yourself to make sure. I’m not familiar with these devices and could easily have missed it. We can’t take any chances that I did,” Mikal told her as he stepped behind the doctor and stood against the wall.

  Alpha Two noticed immediately that the stranger had moved to the perfect spot for her to inspect the doctor and still be able to see him clearly. She gave him a slight nod of thanks for the courtesy he was showing her. When Mikal gave her a short nod in return, she approached the doctor and began a thorough inspection.

>   Several minutes later she stood and looked at the stranger.

  “You’re right, I don’t see anything either,” Two admitted, a little surprised that he had been telling her the truth.

  Dr. Mussberger sighed and looked up at her with pleading eyes.

  “Alpha Two . . . please listen to me. I’ve never done anything to hurt you . . .” he began.

  Two saw the look of shock flash across the stranger’s face seconds before she held the doctor’s throat in her hand.

  “Don’t you dare think to tell me what you’ve done or haven’t done to me or my sisters,” she said between gritted teeth, her white eyes pulsing with muted light.

  Mikal was more than a little shocked. He had a few answers and a hundred more questions, but he knew if he kept his mouth shut he would learn a lot more. He fought to appear casual, but inside he wanted to beat the hell out of the doctor himself.

  What kind of person calls someone by a name such as Alpha Two, he wondered. No wonder she doesn’t believe I have a real name.

  Alpha Two let go of the doctor’s throat and stepped back from him so she wouldn’t be tempted to do it again.

  “How many of us do you have? Are there other labs?” she asked, noting the stranger’s energy spike when she said the last.

  Dr. Mussberger twisted his head around to try and look at the stranger, but he was standing at an angle where Harold couldn’t see him. With a heavy sigh he turned back to look at Two.

  “Alpha Two . . .” he began.

  In a spurt of rage that she couldn’t seem to control, Two slapped him so hard his head snapped back, the sound echoing around the cabin. Mikal didn’t even flinch, he grinned instead. Two didn’t notice, her attention focused on the doctor.

  Two was still in a rage and struggling to control her desire to slap the doctor again. She clutched the arms of the chair and leaned in towards him, her face inches from his.

  “You must think me stupid. You speak of causing no harm in one breath, and in the next call me by my assigned designation. Even your car has a name you bastard! Those fucking mice you keep injecting with your chemicals have names!” she yelled in his face as she tried to control her rising anger.