Cat Scratch Fever; Blue-Collar Werewolves V (4 page)

She wanted to pace the confines of her cage
until the right moment came to use her teeth and claws to tear her
enemies to shreds. The remaining bit of her rational thought said,
wait
.
The time will come.
Pacing fed the increasingly
feral animal nature that tried to consume her. All the while, she
wondered if she were waiting out her last moments, allowing her
enemies to kill her when she could fight and die with honor.

The weretiger in the next cell coughed,
distracting her. The scent of panther reminded her of the new
arrival on her other side, though he was quiet. Sympathy flooded
her unstable emotions, tearing her eyes. Confinement was worse for
the males. Twisting she thought she might offer some comfort at
least. Naomi saw her enemy through the silver bars. A fresh surge
of hate and adrenaline toward the white-coated scientist helped her
clear the cobwebs in her mind.

Naomi stared at the dark skinned man, using
her emotions to bring each fact about herself and her people to
come into focus. Her mother Shiar led her clan, her family. Other
animal groups tended to stay close, but the werecats were
independent, their males wandered. They had no need of fickle gods,
kings, life tasks.

The scientist, no better than the Nazis that
‘experimented’ on their own captive subjects, moved to her cell. He
bent in front of the bars, meeting her at eye level. The tease of
air moving through the barrier bringing scents of chemical, fear
and pain, was better than the stifling stillness when the clear
shield at the end of shift, covering the front of the cage. Then
she was locked in a box, a silver lined coffin.

Like any other female specimens, she wore a
cotton gown, to keep the humans’ distraction level down. At least
she was covered from neck to knee, offering her torso a bit of
protection from accidentally brushing against the silver walls and
bars. The male werecats and other supernaturals in the lab were
given cotton pajama bottoms or boxers. Sometimes the air brought
her the stink of singed bare skin along with their whimpers of
pain.

Naomi growled, pulling the sound from deep
in her chest. This scientist was the new one, she remembered,
dragging the memory of the other one’s death from the still foggy
edges of her brain. It hadn’t been long. Just long enough for the
haze of drugs to fade.

He consulted the clipboard in his hand. The
dark skinned scientist had a nice, deep voice. The sound might have
comforted her if she weren’t his prisoner. “Fifiteen-Leo, how are
you feeling today?”

Naomi Lindi,
she reminded herself
again. Sometimes, with the old doctor, she would forget and respond
to the cold designation.
I am not a number. I am a person
.
She rested her gaze on the white-coated scientist and waited. Naomi
could never seem to catch this one’s scent. Instead, she relied on
the tense set of his dark, autocratic features and the concern
hidden behind his black industrial-sized nerd glasses.

He looked back down at the clipboard and
grabbing the attached pen, jotted down some notes with his latex
covered hands. “You are looking better. Backing off of that sample
that Dr. Corban was administering seems to bringing you back to a
baseline. Very good,” he muttered to himself.

He wasn’t sadistic like the others, but that
did not make him a good guy. Not only that, he was the largest
non-specimen in the room. His coat strained at his shoulders, as
did glimpses of the padded shirt underneath. His dark skin and
strong jaw line practically glowed with health. The giant’s doughy
softness was all pretend.

Irritation prickled along her nerves,
causing Naomi to growl faintly. She wasn’t fooled. She vowed that
the scientists were going to die. If not by her claws and teeth,
then he’d die by another’s.

“Dr. Drake, you’re not supposed to talk to
them.” One the other four sadists walked into the narrow view of
her cell. She growled again at the small man, a low warning growl.
She knew him. The small one liked to inflict as much pain on his
charges as possible. “You’re just supposed to figure out what makes
them tick.” With malicious glee, the small scientist twirled his
long silver wand between his fingers, and then poked it through her
bars. “Then kill them.” Despite her swollen joints and hot skin,
Naomi shuffled back to the far edge of her cage.

Dr. Drake snatched the silver wand away in
his gloved fingers. A trick of the light and his ugly black glasses
gave the illusion of feral anger in the scientist’s deep brown
eyes. “
Doctor
Sanderson. Please refrain from antagonizing my
subjects.” The gleam was nothing more than the cold black stare of
an irritated scientist. Dr. Drake blocked the path between the
intruder and Naomi. “The added metabolic stress affects the test
and defeats my baseline analysis.”

“Yeah, Sanderson,” one of the other
white-coats yelled. “Stop screwing around with our guinea pigs or
I’ll report you. Supernaturals are hard enough to come by.”

Sanderson puffed up. His face turned an even
uglier splotchy red. “Up yours fatso. You think you’re so important
because you’ve something to work with. All Mr. Big-Wig, Faust
Kemlec, cares about is results for the Achilles project, not how
nice you treat the lab rats. And I get results.”

“Right,” the other scientist sneered,
loudly. “What kind of results? The kind that infected and killed
Corban? Is that why you haven’t been able to get any more pets to
torture?”

“That wasn’t my fault. I turned in a
requisition. I’ve talked to Kemlec and he promised
me
the
next werewolf.” Sanderson’s unsaid,
so there
, was plainly
understood.

“Wasn’t your fault? You designed the virus
that killed him, you idiot.”

“I said it wasn’t my fault!” Sanderson
yelled back then turned to glare at Drake as if his lack of
prisoners were the newcomer’s fault, then at Naomi through the
bars. She couldn’t help but let out a breath of relief as he
suddenly marched out of sight, mumbling at the unfairness of
laboratory politics and how that ass-kisser Drake got all the new
equipment.

Undisturbed by the outburst, Dr. Drake
slipped a bottle of water into her cell. Unlike the late Dr.
Corban, this scientist didn’t seem concerned that the monsters
might grab his latex-gloved hand or bite him. He possessed a quiet
confidence that she felt herself responding to.

Once, Naomi would have been insulted that he
might think that she was no longer a threat. Then, she might have
proved how dangerous her kind was by hauling the human against the
bars or bitten him. The agent in most shape shifters saliva might
not be able to change psychics any longer, but he’d remember her
sharp teeth while he fought off the resulting sickness from the
failed Change.

“Drink,” The large coffee skinned scientist
said. “You will feel better in short order.” The seal on the lid
had already been opened. None of the food or water given to them
was tamper-free, but again, Naomi didn’t care anymore.

Out of habit, she ran her hand over her
head, feeling that the stubble had grown long enough to be
considered real hair. She mourned the loss of her waist length hair
and dressing up. For now, the new growth stuck out in spiky clumps
around her head. They’d taken everything from her. Her freedom, her
dignity. Every part of them had been poked, prodded, or sampled in
some way. She hurt too much.

From the next cage, she heard the tiger
drink his bottle with the slurpy messiness of someone half-Changed.
A scarred claw tipped hand emerged and flailed in her sight.
Wrestling with the silver bars tended to scar badly after too many
attempts to break out. Yet, the tiger was much better. Just seeing
how close he’d come back to his human form was good. Corban’s
experiments had trapped him into horrible degrees of his
human-tiger form for months.

Dr. Drake passed another water bottle to the
tiger and lumbered back to his workstation. Naomi wasn’t fooled by
soft smart words and bulky clothing. Female werelions were deadly
hunters by nature.
Like knew like— and the scientist was
dangerous.
Dr. Drake was right. After drinking the water, the
next wave of pain was less. Her shape shifter healing was waking up
and metabolizing the toxins that were keeping her weak. She sucked
in a shaky breath, wondering what her new keeper was up to.

She didn’t have to guess for long. Moving as
close to the bars as possible, she watched the scientist take
another bottle to the quiet leopard on her left. The faint scent of
leopard and forest tinted the air making Naomi wish she were closer
so that she could bury her nose in the newcomer’s fur. It had been
too long since she’d smelled freedom. The scientist murmured,
taking notes on his clipboard, absorbed in his work. Losing
interest, Naomi went back to her own mat, and fell into a light
doze.

“
My queen,” Mathais buried his face in
her neck. He pulled her close, his knee between her legs. Naomam
moaned as pleasure swamped her body. She loved it when the day was
at an end and it was just the two of them. No servants, no
responsibilities, alone in their chamber. “My heart.” His large,
battle scarred hands grasped her waist, pressing her down into the
soft mattress. Goddess, she loved him.

Urging her mate’s hands to her breasts, she
arched into the warmth, kneading the fullness before tweaking a
nipple. Naomam blinked to alertness when he paused in the foreplay.
“Tell me what you want, my Lia.” Mathais looked at her, his amber
eyes intent.

Her body screamed for him to fill her, not
play games. She frowned, remembering the rumors of dissention and
bit her lip. The priests, their people, the ambassadors, everyone
wanted a piece of the king. Even her, with her maternal instincts
riding her to procreate, wanted her own part of him growing inside
her.

Naomam pushed at his chest, smiling
wickedly when he gave way. “You know what I want?” Mathais eased
off, his rigid member showing her just what
he
wanted.
Pushing her mate onto his back,
she
straddled him. Tracing a
finger down his whiskered jaw, down his battle scarred chest and
the faint dusting of hair that led to his penis; she watched his
eyes glow with desire. “I want you, my love.”

He watched while she scooted lower. Making
eye contact, she slowly lowered her lips to his twitching sex and
gave a teasing lick. Mathais rumbled, deep in his chest. His
fingers tunneled into her hair. Naomam wrapped her fingers around
him, resisting only slightly as he guided her down. Feminine power
filled her as she took him into her mouth, deep and slow. Mathais
rumbled again in pleasure, bucking gently against her mouth.

She gave into her desire, grasping his
length in both hands as she sucked and nibbled on his cock. Her
mouth slid down, matching the pace he set. Mathais growled, his
hands tightened in her hair as he bowed up, his seed spilling into
her mouth.

The dream shifted.

Mathais, but
not-Mathais
writhed
in pain, but the restraints held him down. Sweat rolled from his
body; one with significantly less scarring. He was leaner and
taller, but her heart still knew him, whatever form Bastet brought
him back as—he was her soul mate. The Leo moaned and yelled, caught
between torture and the Change.

Naomi wanted to help him, but she was
trapped. Tears burned her eyes as she stretched through the bars,
trying desperately to reach him. Grief shredded her at the idea of
losing him again, this time to
his
death. She would pray,
but the goddess abandoned them long ago.

* * * *

“Lia.” Naomi started awake at the tiger’s
respectful address and scooted closer to that edge of the cage. Dr.
Drake had provided a lightweight blanket that she used to protect
herself from the bars. “
Lia,”
the weretiger hissed.

“Shhh. I hear you Tigre.” She pronounced it,
Tig-ree
, recognizing him as a powerful male weretiger. “Let
go of the bars. I can smell your flesh.”

“No,” The tiger rumbled. “The burn reminds
me that I am alive.” She nodded, though he couldn’t see her. Naomi
had her own tricks to keep her sanity. Though, she could do without
the smell of blistered skin. “Lia, if you would give me your name…”
the tiger paused to cough. “ I will give it on to the Leo when I
pass on.”

Naomi smiled. Most cats did not bother about
the gods anymore. Some still followed the Bastet the Egyptian
goddess. Some worshipped the Leo—the cursed king prophesied to
return one day. The cat shifters had a rich oral history, so that
the old stories told and retold over the centuries. The truth was
lost in myth and fantasy.

Her mother claimed that the Leo was Bastet’s
chosen king; he was both lion and tiger. Others campfire stories
said that the king had powers like the psychics. Naomi had heard a
few say that king could change into any cat form at will. The Leo
was a combination Robin Hood, King Arthur, and superhero. Naomi
stopped believing in fairy tales a long time ago.

The panther coughed from her left. “Do not
give up so quickly, Tigre. Where there is life, there is hope.” The
deep rumble of the leopard male’s voice had a raw quality, as if
he’d screamed long and hard before coming here. Torture by the
psychics was nothing new.

“Still a fighter, leopard?” asked the tiger.
“Just wait until they start carving pieces off of you, or infect
you with their virus to see how long death takes.”

“What will be, will be,” said the other
male. Naomi envied the newcomer. A calm surety, as if he were still
the master of his own universe imbued the panther’s words. “I’ll
hold out as long as needed.”

The tiger laughed. The deep sound was full
of all the things that had been done to him. “You’ll die, just like
the rest of us.”