Marie Harte - Roane

Hell, he’d predicted the massive breakdowns of two-thirds of the first Recruits. The Pentagon hadn’t cared. Not until the Circs’ violent breakdowns had become public. Then Elliot had been routed as a troublemaker and wrongdoer. He huffed. If they’d let him add that genetic fail-safe, a debilitating cancer that would have killed his creations when activated, the defense department could have been spared the PR nightmare of hiding their defective Recruits. Unfortunately, they’d ignored him when they shouldn’t have and blamed him for everything.

So Elliot started a new Project Dawn with the support of powerful, rich backers. He still had problems to work out. What made some subjects stable while others rejected EP12?

Why couldn’t he fix the instability in his Circs once they became psychotic?

Working through those issues meant allowing his troubled Circs to interact with society. A necessary evil in order to see what would set them off and how to correct them, if he could correct them. Situations often grew bloody and then Circe’s Recruits would arrive to help defuse and contain the situation.

Thank you, Evan. Elliot rarely had to clean up his new messes by himself.

Contrary to what Evan thought, the Project’s Protection Agency never killed what Elliot created. They corralled. They shaped. They controlled.

They obeyed.

Elliot needed a force strong enough to meet the remaining Circe’s Recruits full-on, yet expendable enough to lose without harming his real treasures of the program. The subjects no one but he knew about. The four individuals who would change the course of the future.

For everyone.

Pleased with his vision, Elliot turned to one of his hidden cameras, locked on one of the newest Circ females breaking down. She wasn’t alone, nor was she pleased by the male on top of her. Elliot watched with interest, wondering why this one didn’t appreciate the opportunity to fornicate like the others had. Of course, Elliot had never before seen Vincent Hoff engage in such activities. Hoff liked it brutally rough, which actually fit with his personality. Usually it was Simon and a few of the other men who took advantage of the straps holding down the subjects.

As if Elliot didn’t know what really happened on the subbasement floor.

“McKinley, send Vincent up here when he’s done.”

“Done?”

“When he’s finished ejaculating into subject 29. Make sure he’s clean and presentable.” Elliot detested sloppiness, and his nose was especially sensitive to smells.

Silence.

Elliot glanced at the doorframe where McKinley had been standing.

“Back to the grindstone.” Elliot whistled, going over his notes and his steps leading to the Big Discovery. Then he read his secure e-mail messages, which shot his creative process all to hell.

Doc smiled. “I think you’ve finally got the hang of it.” After three weeks of constant practice, Caitlyn could now change at will. Though she couldn’t transform as fast as the others, she could determine how much of her body she changed, and she retained her enhanced senses when in her normal state, though to a lesser degree. If only she could control the sexual animal within her with such ease.

“Nice going.” Roane nodded his approval. He stood with Derrick and Doc in one of the enclosed laboratories as they watched her press four hundred pounds over her head.

“Like lifting a pillow,” she said with a growl, preening before her audience while the rational part of her wondered why she bothered. She had no need to prove herself to Derrick of all people. She had Roane’s attention already, and Doc was beside himself with enthusiasm when studying her. Derrick…he had yet to commit himself to Caitlyn, which bothered her on a fundamental level.

Both her “beast” -- as the guys called it -- and the woman inside still had to work out their differences. Caitlyn accepted the intensity of lovemaking with Roane, but the voraciousness of that need bothered her. Despite Roane’s ability to satisfy her every desire, she still fantasized about sex with some of the others. Confused and alarmed, she’d confided to Doc.

”Your beast instinctively seeks to control others with sex, hence your ability to overpower another with your pheromones,” he explained. “You’re as alpha as Roane, if you will permit the analogy.

“You have to understand. Roane and his men function as a unit. Their transformation into Circe’s Recruits connects them, obviously. But it was surviving the mating heat with one another that truly brought them together.”

“They bonded because of the sex?” She hoped, wanting to blame her other half for her unstable libido.

“In part. It only makes sense that you would need the same physical ties to enact the emotional ones.”

Doc didn’t see her “needs” as a problem. In fact, he’d advised her to talk to Roane about the situation. As if she’d go to the man who rocked her world on a daily basis and tell him she needed more when all she had to was think about Roane and she grew wet.

Admit your beast is a slut, her conscience demanded as she studied Roane out of the corner of her eye. Even now, you want to throw him to the ground and grind yourself over him.

“Concentrate, Caitlyn.” Roane frowned at her. “You’re becoming unbalanced.” More than you know. Try as she might, she couldn’t hold on to the pheromones that tended to waft from her when changed and around Roane for too long. Especially not with an unclaimed male standing so close.

Derrick swore and stepped away.

“Blame him.” She glared at Roane, who ignored her and pulled Doc with him out of the room. Shoot. She wouldn’t be able to hear them, thanks to the soundproof lab.

Caitlyn’s sudden aggression alarmed her. Shit, the beast is coming out to play again.

Roane, if you don’t get your ass in here soon, I’m going to jump Derrick. Much as she tried to remain in charge, part of Caitlyn wanted to let her beast have control, to give in to the impulses she normally held at bay when changed.

Frustrated, she tossed the weights to the floor and growled.

Derrick shook his head. “Pull it back in, honey. You’re making it hard to think past the steel in my dick. I don’t want to see what Roane will do to me if he comes in to find me fucking you against the wall.”

Caitlyn snarled, fighting her beast’s instincts. “Then get Roane back in here, now, before I take the choice from you.”

Derrick took a step toward her, straining. “Fuck. Caitlyn, tone it down.” His nostrils flared. “I’ll just go get Roane, okay?”

She didn’t understand what he meant until she realized the scent in the room had increased. She wanted to master Derrick, to force him to give over to her and concede his loyalty. To claim a part of the male as Roane had. Roane, her mate, the beast acknowledged with satisfaction. So why the hell did she want to fuck Derrick?

“Roane,” Derrick yelled, fisting his hands tight against the ripples along his skin. He fought the change, probably the only thing keeping them apart at this point. “Get your ass back in here, now.”

Caitlyn’s beast grinned, her sharp teeth eager to mark Derrick’s smooth brown flesh.

She liked the idea of him staying normal while she played with him. “Don’t change.” She shifted her scent, controlling him with it now that her beast was in charge. Panicked, she struggled against letting the wildness control her. But it was too late.

Derrick groaned, caught.

“Strip.”

“So you’re telling me she needs to fuck my team?” Roane’s voice boomed down the hallway.

“It’s not that simple. Caitlyn’s going through a rough period. I believe she’s already bonded with you, Roane. But you’re in a dominant position, and your mate is as alpha as you are.”