Isolated Maneuver Read online

  So did Bane, but he didn’t voice as much.

  No point getting Paisley’s hopes up.

  He kept his hand on his pocket a moment, thinking of the black-and-white photo in his wallet. It was the only one of Gale that existed. She, like many supernaturals, did her best to avoid cameras and video recorders. From the photo, Bane already knew she was stunning. Though, the photo was very blurry and showed she and Paisley laughing, holding one another in a photo booth, and making faces at the camera. Apparently, they’d had a lot to drink that night and thought it was a good idea to get in the booth.

  Bane hadn’t let the picture leave his side since he’d been given it. More than once he’d looked at it while handling his own needs. He’d folded it so Paisley wasn’t showing, because jerking off to a photo including one of his best friend’s wives seemed wrong. But the other woman in the picture held his attention and turned him on in ways that confused him.

  Focus, he reminded himself. Less attention to a girl who is more than likely dead and more on the current mission.

  Bane returned his attention to the old industrial building on the other side of the darkened lot. The information one of his informants had provided led him to the area, in hopes he’d find more clues that he could pass on to the Ops teams, or act upon himself. The latter was more than likely how things would play out. Bane tended to take matters into his own hands a lot.

  More than any man should.

  So far, all he’d seen was a whole lot of nothing happening in the way of the building. He’d promised a close friend that he’d wait at the location for contacts to arrive that might be able to help shed light on the rash of disappearances within the supernatural underground. Bane had been looking into them since they had come to his attention not long back. He’d assisted Weston, and in the process had his eyes opened wide to the fact their kind was facing a new threat.

  As if their own government wasn’t enough.

  Now assholes wanted to capture them, torture and test on them, and in some cases sell them to the highest bidders.

  “Why not, right?” he asked out loud, despite being alone in the parking lot.

  He preferred to keep his own company. Getting close to others had never ended well for him. The only people he was what anyone would term close to, were the men he’d served with, the men he’d gone through testing with—thinking they’d come out the other side super soldiers, not the monsters they’d actually made out of them. When he’d volunteered for the testing it had been with the idea he’d come out of it a better man, a better soldier. They’d never told him the truth of it all. That they were manipulating DNA. That they were genetically engineering super soldiers.

  And they’d never been honest about the side effects. Men he’d served with had died during the tests. Others had ended up broken shells of themselves. All had endured the same horrors he had.

  Hell, some even had it worse than him.

  Bane had learned all about what had been done to them after the fact. After he’d found freedom. While he wasn’t a scientist, he understood the reality was that DNA testing and manipulations, cloning, genetic engineering, and eugenics started long before the public was made aware of it. Long before Hitler and the Nazi Party became infamous for their testing. Long before Dolly the sheep even. But humans and the general public didn’t want to know the gory details. Didn’t want to know the truth. Didn’t want to know the death tolls amassed in the name of science.

  And they sure the fuck didn’t want to know men and women who could shift into animals walked among them.

  Truth was, shifters had always been and always would be. Most were natural-born, but some, like him, had been man-made. Created in labs. Though, from his understanding, the only reason the testing had worked on him had been because he’d possessed recessive genes and supernatural DNA to start with. Somewhere in his family line was a supernatural. Possibly more than one. That left his body more accepting of the testing done on him. But nothing was foolproof or perfect. He was testament to that.

  He was flawed.

  Seriously flawed.

  His temper and his self-control had always been in question. It had left him more of a liability to the government than an asset, and they’d done to him what they’d done to so many others like him—they’d first housed him in a prison they’d termed a treatment facility, and then they’d tried to kill him.

  Tried to cover up their mistake.

  “Fuck you,” he said sternly. “I’m still standing. Takes more than that to bring me down.”

  It took all he had to keep from sinking into a pit of despair once more. It had taken him over a decade to meditate his way from the bleak oblivion that had been his reality for so many decades before. Returning to old thought processes and self-loathing would get him no closer to his current objective.

  He needed new information on the bigwigs who were collecting supernaturals, and he needed it sooner, rather than later. Lives were at stake. Since Bane had learned of the underground happenings, he’d reached out via the Outcast network and was stunned to realize how many men had fallen out of contact. That wasn’t like them. They all had ways of checking in that kept them off the grid, but a number hadn’t done so.

  That was a major cause for concern.

  Especially since the ones who hadn’t checked in were known to be reliable and didn’t make a habit of vanishing. He had feelers out among those he trusted, but so far, not much information had returned.

  He hoped the contacts he was meeting could shed more light on it all. He’d take any break he could. Checking his watch yet again, Bane made a note of just how late the contacts were.

  His gut told him something was wrong.

  To abort and clear out of the area.

  But he didn’t.

  He leaned back against his SUV, crossed one ankle over the other and folded his arms across his chest. The possible information he’d gain if the contacts did indeed show was too valuable for him to fold up. And he’d been in a jam before, so running because he got spooked just wasn’t in him. His shifter was the type that took threats head on. He didn’t cower. Neither did his beast.

  His mind drifted as more sirens sounded in the distance.

  The city never slept.

  That was part of what he both liked and disliked about it. The shifter side of him craved wilderness and to be free in nature. The human side of him, which he felt as though was shrinking daily, craved people and companionship.

  But that wasn’t to be.

  He couldn’t get too close to others.

  His government had turned on him, making him a monster—something that could never know love. He was a danger to anyone he let too close. Remembered pain took root in him, and he closed his eyes, willing it away. Permitting himself to dwell on the past would get him nowhere. He knew. He’d done so enough in his long life. Hell, he’d spent time in the East, studying meditation and temper-control techniques with a group of monks. During his time with them, he’d taken a look at himself, and he’d not liked the image staring back at him.

  He’d become a bitter, angry man who walked on an emotional tightrope daily. More than once he’d fallen off and crashed hard, and each time people had died. He wanted to blame the government; for what they’d done to him, for what they’d turned him into. But in reality, he’d been a ball of burning rage prior to being experimented on. The testing had only exacerbated it all. It had given him the excuse he’d been desperately seeking—permission to let his rage loose on others. And he’d done just that. He wasn’t proud of the fact, and there was nothing he could do to fully make amends for his past sins.

  The best he could do now was lessen the ripple effects of the testing he’d once been so keen on participating in.

  The other men who had undergone testing and ended up less than perfect in the eyes of the government were also forced to live off the grid.

  A lot of crazy shit had been going down in the supernatural community. Whatever was happening
had the roaches scattering in the daylight, leaving bad guys coming out from all angles. Now his people, the Immortal Outcasts, as they’d been termed, were being hunted by not only the very government they’d once sworn to serve and protect, but by these asshole bad guys as well.

  Of course. Why not?

  His contact was now seriously fucking late. When Bane had put feelers out in the paranormal underground in search of information on men he’d once served with who might have fallen victim to a big-spender collector of supernaturals, he wasn’t sure what would come back. For the first few weeks, intel pouring in was grim, to say the least. The few bits that had reached him that weren’t filled with gloom and doom had proven to be from nut jobs, and the information false.

  Bane had spent years cultivating contacts that most would term seedy. Hell, most would call him a mercenary and question his morals as well. He didn’t give a fuck what they said about him. He knew he wasn’t perfect. He was what the government had made him—flawed and about fifty shades of fucked up.

  “Fifty? Try one hundred.”

  He rotated his head, making his neck crack loudly. His body was tense with need. It had been months since he’d had sex. He’d come close to completing the act not long ago when he and a buddy had gone to a local sex club, but the bad guys had decided interrupting his getting laid was a great idea. It had ended poorly for them, so that lesson had hopefully been learned.

  Probably not.

  He’d never had sex with anyone he cared about. Not once in his long life. When he was in his teens, he’d had sex with the first girl who’d said she wanted it as a way to lose his virginity. He wasn’t proud of the fact. He should have known something was different about himself then. He’d been wild in bed, more so than others had ever whispered of. The girl had seemed stunned but pleased. She’d also been very experienced compared to him at the time. During that encounter, he’d had to fight to keep from being too rough with her. As he’d aged, his loss of control during sex had gotten worse, and then when he’d gone through testing to be turned into a super soldier, it went to hell in a handbasket.

  He didn’t like to think about it all. The effects of the testing had left him damaged emotionally in more ways than one. The biggest being, he no longer trusted himself during sex. He actively sought out supernatural whorehouses, where he could be paired with the type of supernaturals who craved sex the way he had to have it.

  Hard and dirty.

  And he hated every second of it, but denying his manly needs only left his beast side more unpredictable. That was something he couldn’t allow to happen. People ended up dead.

  “Finish this up, and then you can get your rocks off,” he said as he continued to survey the area. He used the alone time to calm himself. The ability to center his focus and keep his once-notorious temper in check to some degree had come after countless hours spent with the monks in a temple tucked away in a far corner of the East. He knew he’d always have to work at keeping his beast side under control, but what other choice did he have?

  Chapter Three

  About to give in and leave, Bane uncrossed his ankles, stood tall, and withdrew his keys from his front jeans pocket. As he did, headlights splashed over the parking lot, temporarily blinding him. He cursed softly but stood his ground as the vehicle pulled to a sudden stop a good fifty feet from him. Whoever was driving had a lead foot and needed driving lessons. They also had interesting taste in music, as rap from the nineties boomed from the car.

  He did a double take when out stepped two men who had the ability to make him tired by nothing more than the sheer hint of their names.

  Gus and Bill.

  His hard-fought-for control unraveled instantly at the sight of the two men. When he noticed they were traveling alone, he glanced upwards, in a way that said he was asking a higher power to grant him patience, and then he locked gazes with the small, wiry-haired man who had exited the driver’s side of the vehicle.

  Bill was barely chest-high to Bane and was wearing a suit that clearly wasn’t his. The pants were cuffed several times on the bottom, indicating the suit’s owner was considerably taller than the man. The jacket couldn’t button and barely fit the man’s potbelly. The tie was done haphazardly as if done in a hurry and in the dark, and the dress shirt had ruffles. A pair of dark sunglasses completed the look.

  “What the hell are you wearing, Bill?” asked Bane.

  Bill looked over his shoulder and lowered the sunglasses. “My code name is zero-zero-sixty-nine. I’m not only cool and covert. I’m good in bed too.”

  “You look ridiculous,” said Bane.

  Bill looked him over. “Yeah, well, at least I don’t have girl hair.”

  Without thought, Bane reached up and touched his long dark hair, which was currently pulled into what he’d heard some term a man-bun. He didn’t much care for the name and didn’t like human males biting on the look. He’d worn his hair that way for decades, since he’d given up the high-and-tight look, not because it had come back around as a fashion statement.

  “Girlie,” whispered Bill, but Bane’s supernatural hearing picked up on it straight away.

  “Turn the music down,” Bane said, his sensitive ears disliking the volume with the mood he was in.

  Bill shook his head. “No way. I’m hardcore. ‘Gangsta’s Paradise’ totally represents me.”

  Bane blustered. “Sure it does.”

  Bill danced in a circle and then tugged at the jacket sleeves. “You’re just jealous that I’m so hardcore.”

  “That must be it. What the hell are you doing here?”

  Bill eyed him cautiously. “You’re really killing my buzz.”

  Exhaustion from dealing with Bill rushed through Bane. “Please tell me that you were not driving while high or tripping.”

  “I live my life tripping, brother.”

  Annoyed, Bane had to force himself to remain in place. “Does Casey know you’re here? And if I’m right, wearing his suit?”

  Bill tugged at the jacket sides, trying to make them meet in the middle, but the attempt was pointless. No amount of pulling was going to make that jacket button over Bill’s rounded stomach. “We borrowed one of his cars, and he wasn’t wearing this suit. The shirt is mine, though. Ladies like a man who works hard to look good.”

  Bane pinched the bridge of his nose and then withdrew his cell, finding Casey’s contact number at once. He pressed the button and waited for his longtime friend to pick up. When he did, Bane spoke. “Are you missing two jackasses?”

  Bill used the moment to help Gus, a tall, skinny, pale man, out of the passenger side of the vehicle. The man had on a T-shirt that was made to look like it was a tuxedo, which was several sizes too big for him, and a football helmet. The bright green plaid pants he’d paired with the ensemble made Bane’s eyes hurt. To top it off, Gus had on a pair of old-fashioned flight goggles.

  “You have Bill and Gus?” asked Casey, relief evident in his voice.

  “I have eyes on them. And let me tell you, they look like they escaped from the fucking circus, man. That or a mental institution. Oh, and did you know Bill has given himself a code name?”

  “Where are you?” asked Casey.

  “Seattle.”

  Casey let out a string of expletives and then covered the phone, sounding muffled as he spoke to someone else in the room with him. When Bane realized Casey was talking to his mate, Harmony, he almost laughed. Poor Casey sounded like Harmony kept his balls in a jar on the mantel of their fireplace. Hell, the woman probably had them mounted above the entranceway to their home for all to see when they crossed the threshold.

  Glad I don’t have to answer to any woman.

  “I don’t know how they managed to get all the way to Seattle,” Casey said, his voice off. “Baby, please. They’re with Bane. I’m sure they’re fine.”

  Bane was about to comment but couldn’t get a word in edgewise.

  “What? No, he won’t eat them like Weston threatens to. Wait—Bane
, will you eat them?”

  Bane snorted. “Nah, the little guy always smells like weed, and that shit gives me indigestion.”

  Casey sounded relieved. “Can you please keep an eye on them? I’ll need a bit to get the jet ready for takeoff.”

  “Why are they here?” he asked.

  “Your guess is as good as mine. They were vacationing with Weston and Paisley in Tennessee at Weston’s cabin, and then they were back here a few hours before they stole one of my cars and some of my clothes. I’ve been looking for them ever since. That was almost a week ago.”

  “Fuck, they’ve been left unattended that long?” asked Bane, remembering all too well what trouble the pair could get into when left alone. He’d met them when he’d gone to help Weston. Bill and Gus had inserted themselves into that situation as well, and while they were good for comic relief, they were a liability. One he didn’t have time for.

  That being said, he couldn’t just allow them to roam about freely. They needed to be looked after, and Casey, a fellow Immortal Outcast and close friend, wouldn’t forgive him if something happened to either man. The men were in Casey’s care and while they were trouble, Casey cared greatly for them.

  “Harmony and I have searched high and low for them. I even put out feelers on the Outcast Network, but there were no bites. When Bill wants to go off grid, he does it. I’m just glad they made it to you—someone I trust.”

  Bane sighed. “Sure, guilt me into not eating them.”

  Casey let out a nervous laugh. “Whatever it takes, brother. I need to call Weston and let him know they’re with you. He and Paisley have been worried too.”

  “Of course they have. Mating made both you guys soft.”

  Casey snorted. “Wait until you find your mate. Same thing will happen.”

  “Doubt I’m one of the blessed guys. I’ll have to stick with calming techniques I learned in the East.”

  “Then we’re all screwed.”

  “Eat me,” said Bane.

  “You wish.”

  Bane cleared his throat. “So, how is Paisley doing? She still think that friend of hers is alive?” His voice sounded indifferent, but in reality, he had trouble shaking the succubus from his mind. His hand went to his pocket, the one with his wallet and the photo of Gale. He didn’t withdraw it, but he did pat the area before removing his hand.