Marie Harte: Hale

Avalon, New Jersey

“This is insane.” Hale Rogers scowled. “We've got better things to do than search for a woman who doesn't exist.” He'd been looking forward to visiting Nina and her hot friend again. The things they'd done the last time they'd met definitely called for another go-round. So why was he freezing his ass off in his truck on a brisk Friday night?

“Suck it up, Hale.” Roane Weston, Hale's best friend and squad leader, sat beside him looking bored. “Doc thinks this woman is his long-lost niece. It's worth a look.”

“Don't you mean another look? This is the fifth 'Paige' we've visited in the tristate area over the past three months. Do you really think Doc's niece lives this close to us?

And come on. Elliot Pearl was a dick, but even he wouldn't experiment on his own daughter.”

He paused, not needing Roane's look of disbelief to correct himself.

“Okay, so maybe he would. But he's dead. Why are we still fucking around with Pearson Labs? Let's just torch the place and call it a done deal. We've dealt with this asshole for eight years. Enough already.”

Eight years ago, Pearson Labs had worked with the government to create Circs—humans genetically altered to be the world's first super soldiers—under the umbrella of Project Dawn. Except something had gone horribly wrong. Of the seventy-eight men initially injected with the Circe serum, only five men now remained—Circe's Recruits.

Empowered with enhanced abilities and incredible strength and now civilians, Hale, Roane, Derrick, Zack, and Ace fought rogue Circs bent on destruction. Regrettably, Elliot Pearl had never known when to quit. The newest batch of rogues—the mutants—barely resembled anything human. And they were twice as lethal.

“I'm with you,” Roane said. “With Pearl dead, you'd think rogues would no longer be an issue. But we both know someone else, someone higher up, is running the project. My question is, where the hell has the PPA gone? I haven't seen one damned agent since we got Sabrina back.”

He had a point. The PPA, the Project's Protection Agency, did Pearson Labs' dirty work. Normally, they did their best to screw with Circe's Recruits, trying to save their labs' new experiments for further study, disregarding the damage their monsters did to innocent life. Hale was tired of watching rich assholes get away with murder in the name of science. Pearl and his kind needed to be stopped.

His inner beast roared his fury, and Hale gave over to the frustration seething just below the surface, accepting a slight change to his body chemistry. Unfortunately, the minute his hormones surged, he caught scent of Roane's needs. Roane had a huge sexual appetite—one Hale's beast liked sharing. The familiar itch to change burned beneath Hale's skin. Being a Circ had its perks, but this incessant need to mate bugged the shit out of him. He glared at Roane, the source of these current, out-of-control pheromones. “I swear, you're as bad as Derrick around Sabrina. They're newly mated, so I get the constant horniness. What's your excuse?”

“Sorry, man.” Roane flushed. “Kelly's pregnancy is pushing Caitlyn's hormones all over the place, which have the strangest effect on me. I can't help these surges of…need.”

Hell, Kelly's hormones had thrown all of them out of whack. Her mates didn't know if they were coming or going and would surge into uncontrollable rages at the drop of a hat.

“You're not the only one with problems. This morning I made the mistake of saying hi to Kelly. Ace almost ripped my arm off.” Roane sighed. “Yeah, well, thank God you're not mated yet. Caitlyn's been all over me lately. I'm not complaining, but sometimes when she looks at me… It's like I'm a piece of meat.”

Hale snickered. The dark look Roane shot him made the comment that much funnier, and he laughed even harder. “Thanks, man. I needed that.”

“Glad somebody's happy about my shredded ego,” Roane muttered. He shifted in the passenger seat of Hale's 4Runner, his scent both comforting and familiar…and laced with Caitlyn's musk. Shit . The woman was ovulating. I should tell Roane, but then he’ll want to know how the hell I can know that.

Ever since his meeting with that prick McKinley, Hale's sensitivity had skyrocketed. When changed , he could see, smell, hear, and taste things a mere human never could. But lately, his keen senses flared supernova even in human form. Which was to say nothing of those odd dreams he kept having.

He glared out the window at the small house on the edge of the beach. Damned woman. What were the odds he'd dreamed about a blonde named Paige, and she just happened to be Doc's formerly presumed-dead niece? Something odd was going on, and it had McKinley's name written all over it.

“Earth to Hale.” Roane elbowed him hard in the side. “I said, pass the coffee.” He sighed. “So much for an early spring. Fucking ice on the ground in the middle of March.”

Hale shoved the thermos at him without taking his gaze from the woman's house.

“This is bullshit. No one's home. I'm going in. If this Paige Masters is Subject 31 and Doc's niece, I'll find proof of it inside.”

Hale left the truck before Roane could tell him not to go. He jogged around to the back door, facing the beach, and had just put his hand on the black box housing the alarm system when Roane yanked him back.

“Wait for me, you little shit.”

Excited at the prospect of some action, finally , Hale grinned, exposing the tips of his extending canines. “Sure thing, boss.”

Roane mumbled under his breath as he located and disabled the house alarm. At his nod, Hale used a set of tools to unlock the door and pushed his way inside. He automatically adjusted to the darkness, his preternatural vision turning everything brighter as he moved through the small kitchen toward a spacious living room.

The place looked lived in. Bookcases, a couch and side chair, a small television set, and a few other odds and ends decorated the living room. Nothing on the walls, which Hale found strange. Women usually liked to decorate. At least, all the women living at their compound did. Even Sabrina, as cool and bitchy as she could be, had put a vase of flowers in the room she shared with Derrick.

Roane motioned to the stairwell. Hale nodded and walked up the stairs, being careful to be quiet, and continued his search through the small cottage.

He didn't smell anything odd, nothing to alert him to intruders. He also found little with which to identify the resident of the house. A strangeness in itself. No pictures, frames of loved ones, or saved correspondence with anyone. Just bills and the occasional magazine. A few entertainment rags, a women's style issue, and…a Popular Mechanics? A sudden mental image of McKinley appeared in his mind's eye, and he threw up an internal shield on the off chance the freak showed. He had no reason to suspect as much. Nothing tied Doc's niece to the man. And after barely escaping from Pearson Labs several months ago, Hale hadn't seen McKinley since.

Still… Something about this empty house smacked of that dickhead. Hale's curiosity about the male irked him to no end. Unlike the other rogue Circs at Pearson Labs, McKinley didn't fit the mold. He hadn't changed into a giant human with thicker, harder skin. His flesh hadn't darkened, and he'd remained normal looking, if somewhat huge, even for a human. The guy had to be close to seven feet. Hale hadn't seen him but for that one time, but he couldn't forget him. Short black hair framed a masculine face, hard and unforgiving. But those eerie, inhuman yellow eyes with elongated pupils proclaimed McKinley's differences even more than the occasional glimpse of his fangs or claws. A real freak of nature with as much strength as a true Circ, McKinley had even put Derrick on his ass, and Derrick was a monster when changed.