Wolf: A Military P.A.C. Novel (17 page)

Chapter 33 Samantha

The tech on her wrist had stopped talking. It coughed once, a slow groan that seemed to indicate pain. Could a machine hurt? This one felt guilt, even remorse. She had heard it in its voice. She got off the floor and cleaned up her wasted breakfast. Poured a new coffee. “Sammy?” The velvet smooth voice of the computer didn’t answer. That gave her the few minutes to pull herself together and process some of what she had been told about her son, and the military unit that had failed to save his life. Or, had kept him alive longer than otherwise would have been possible. Which was it? Ahmed had wanted power. That was her fault. The way she had raised him. Too much control, just to keep him safe.

So far
, the machine had offered no proof, it had just been talk. Months of missing memory were a convenient excuse for—something that reasoned as well as Sammy. Maybe it was really a human being on the other end. A ruse to make her vulnerable. The war was over, but a general with ties to the Warsaw Common and the U.N., that was a commodity, like gold, granite, or the new biotech making its way onto the market.

The P.A.C. unit grunted again, as if it was clearing its throat. That edge of pain still existed. A disconcerting sound, even more so than the voice that seemed to emit from her wrist when it talked.

“Acceptance is required before sub-commands take effect.”

“What? From who?”

“Internal source. Primary safeguards.”

“What prerogatives
?”

“Self-destruct Initiative. What would you like me to do?”

Fear churned through her stomach.

“Define a wartime response,” was what she had asked Sammy. How long ago
? Minutes. Her adrenaline spiked again and her hands started to shake, but all her training from years of military command snapped into place.

“Would you have asked Ahmed?”

“Programming . . . survive . . . if prime is intact.”

“Then you’re asking me
. . . God.”

“
. . . if you accept my bond.”

Self-destruct? A meltdown, an explosion. The quiet dissolution of its hard drives
? Its atoms? Samantha didn’t know. Didn’t want to know. She realized that Sammy was another way to keep Ahmed in her life. His machine, this machine, which grasped her wrist with the cool light touch of sand softer than silk, was the last being to know her son. His memories. The touch of his hand.

“Yes, Sammy. I want the bond.”

Node Two: Name, Sammy. Primary Interface: General Samantha Ariyan. Command sequence accepted. Dissolution of self-destruct command initiated. Self-destruct command no longer part of current programming. Survival instinct of Primary Interface: Non-dissolution. Adapt. Survival of Primary Interface: physical enhancement, recurring systemic genetic rejuvenation. Behaviour files updated. Emotional files updated. Faith is an emotion. Morals update: God is a personal response to stress indicators. No physical evidence of such a being. Rhetorical. Adapting.

General Samantha was fascinated by her new soldiers. She’d placed them in observation rooms side by side, and though they shouldn’t be able to, they both knew that the other was there.

Ma’ii tsoh was all rage and fury in his cage. He didn’t like the four walls that contained him, never had, and he paced his territory as if he could find a weakness in the steel and plastic that made up his walls. Sometime in the night, he had reverted to his true form, a wolf of a hundred kilos. A form too large for the species he looked like. The last wolf even close to that size had been killed in 1939. And that was a long ways off from the present age.

Ventilation units exchanged purified air, separate in each room and not connected through any of the intakes. It should have been impossible for Ma’ii tsoh to smell
Lieutenant Kerrigan. But every time he passed the wall that adjoined his counterpart, his fur would bristle and he would launch himself at the metal and try to pry his teeth under the seams that joined wall to floor. Then he would pace the room again, looking for a way out. When he got to the window that showed Samantha, his behaviour changed again. His ears went up, his head back, and a howl filled the space of its cage. Then he would whine, shuffle back and worth, scenting his way around the window.

Lieutenant
Kerrigan wasn’t acting much more rationally. He exhibited signs of rage along with a heightened perception of all his physical senses. He healed damn fast. Right now, his skin glistened with sweat, as if he was too hot, which the telltales verified, but it was from exertion and not the fever that plagued his body. His temperature matched that of the wolf that had almost killed him. He wore only jeans, disdaining the other clothes that had been left for him. He looked . . . damn fine, which left her breath wanting. And when he faced her through the window, his stance changed, he rose up on the balls of his feet. His stare became intent. His smile downright lascivious. He sniffed the air as if he could scent her, smell the perfume she had taken to wearing just for him. Months ago.

Did he notice it then? Does he realize now?

Then, when the black wolf was near his wall, or attacking it, Kerrigan would throw his body at the steel, punching the metal with his fist. It should have left him screaming in pain, his hands broken from the force, but it was anger that coursed out of his throat. His hands damaged but healing—so fast.

It was called posturing in the animal world. In fact, to Samantha, it looked like the testosterone-based
behaviour she saw in men when a woman was around and desirable. While the thought was pleasing to her, they shouldn’t have been able to smell her, especially Lieutenant Kerrigan. He didn’t have anywhere near the smell receptors a wolf had. His hearing appeared to be just as acute. When she first walked up to the observation windows that looked out on the corridor, both men were watching for her before she even exited the elevator. In fact, cameras had shown that they reacted as she entered the elevator on the floor of her office, three flights up. Samantha found the thought left her with an itch she wanted to scratch—all that attention from two desirable men, even if one had turned back into a wolf. She didn't want the wolf though, either way, but she couldn’t figure out a way to let Kerrigan know she wanted him to touch that particular spot on her body. That she'd felt that way, two days ago, two years ago. She didn’t know about the healing abilities of the black wolf then, and what that would mean to those she loved. If only Ahmed . . .

She suspected it was the reason for the
behaviour she was watching now. That, and that both Kerrigan and the wolf may be able to tell when she was lying. Just from her scent.

She would never be able to use these men to her advantage if she couldn’t control them. They would never behave outside their cage together if they didn’t have an alpha more powerful than themselves. General Samantha Ariyan was sure that job could be done by her, at least for the black wolf; Kerrigan might need a different kind of reassurance. She was about to prove the point.

“Sammy, Full Boost. Draw power from the walls as needed. Disable the cameras in the area, and opaque the window as well.” She opened the door to Lieutenant Kerrigan’s cage and stepped in, her body vibrating from the influx of her P.A.C. related skills. The door whisked closed behind her.

Kerrigan smiled. It was full of heat, and the smoke that flared behind his blue eyes was enough to scratch the ache in her hips. She ran a hand down the curve of her body, starting at the shoulder of her right side, her carefully manicured hand barely touching her clothing. Her long fingers tapped her hip, as the sound of her charm bracelet stopped.

She smiled at Kerrigan.

“Hello
, General.”

“
Lieutenant.”

He moved towards her, a lanky sway to his walk that reminded her of a wild animal. One that was hunting. She played her eyes up the length of his body; they rested on his thighs, his hips
, and her favourite spot, the chest. It would have been a natural inclination to rest her hands on his pecs. Then run her fingertips over his nipples, watching his eyes to see how he reacted. Instead, she kept her stance loose, her legs spread as wide as her shoulders and her hands at her side. Kerrigan stepped forward and wrapped his arm around her waist.

“Some might consider that an assault against a superior officer,
Lieutenant.”

Kerrigan didn't hold rank any more but they had played at the rank game for years. It made them comfortable, kept boundaries in p
lace. “Assault against an inferior officer is alright though.”

She felt like she’d been punched. He knew she had lied.

She widened her green eyes at him, smiled, stepped behind his leg, and pushed, hard. Had she been any other woman that wouldn’t have worked, her strength wouldn’t have generated enough force considering how close they were together. But she had Sammy. Kerrigan started to fall backwards. Samantha stepped away as Kerrigan’s arm dragged at her waist. Her arm driving his hand away. Sammy’s bell-like chime disappeared as it flowed up the general’s arm and became body shielding hidden under her uniform.

Kerrigan moved, one leg balancing his fall, and then he was right there, in her face, faster than he had any right to be, his fist rushing toward her head. She swept his right arm towards the wall and slammed a fist into his ribs.

“Ugh.”

His grunt was a reward for her
; her punch should have broken ribs. Kerrigan recovered with a shift of his feet and a breath, his right fist coming off the wall to slam into her jaw. She flowed with the punch, evading the force of the blow with her inertia and Sammy’s shifting skin. She danced away.

“That’s impressive,
General.” Kerrigan swayed, back and forth, shifting his weight and stance so that it was harder to judge his next action.

“You couldn’t have done that before.”

“Oh, I think I could have,” he said.

Samantha raised her eyebrow in exclamation. “You’ve never been this arrogant, Zach.”

“I’ve been watching you for two years, ma’am. Your enhancements, how long will they last?” He grinned.

Samantha didn’t. No one was aware of Sammy
, or the gifts she endowed. Or they hadn’t been. “Not as long as yours.”

She stepped in and feinted a punch to his face, dropped the ruse at the last second and threw a body punch to
Zach’s abs. He blocked the punch and grabbed her left wrist. She sent a palm towards his nose, trying to break it. He snagged that wrist too. Samantha grinned back at him. He wasn’t tall enough to hold her arms spread back and prevent her from her next move.

Her head slammed into his, and
then her knee came up to his chin. Zach Kerrigan fell back. Samantha watched him flow through the motion, twisting, his body recovering like a cat’s might look in slow motion photography. He was on his feet in moments, too fast, possibly, for even a camera to catch the motion. She drove a punch into his solar plexus. He swept it aside and stepped into her, his chest pushing at her, his leg stepping in behind hers. She fell to the ground, his weight atop her, one of his legs thrust between hers. His hands held hers in a grip that was velvet warm and as tight as manacles. His erection was pressed into her hips, too close to the spot that had been plaguing her reactions of late. She noticed how tight her nipples were, pressed into his chest, his breath ragged from more than the exertion of the last few minutes. Her hips wanted to push up into his member, driving it as far into her body as possible. She relaxed instead, settling under his weight.

“You didn’t answer my question.” His breath whispered in her ear, warm and silky, the husky masculine quality enhanced by the reactions induced by Sammy.

“I won’t either, Lieutenant.”

“I can smell your lust, Samantha.”

“You can smell my lust,
General
.”

“Very well
. . . General,” he said. It didn’t sound like he believed her; she would have to change that.

Kerrigan let loose one hand and ran it down Samantha’s side, paused at her breast, for a moment, watching the flesh shift as his hand passed over it, the nipple erect, then moved his hand down to her hip and then the back of her thigh, cupping her leg and pulling it towards him. Samantha let her leg ride up on his hip, curving her calve over his buttocks, pressing him tighter against her pelvis. She let out an exhale of breath, warming his cheek.

“Now, we were dealing with your behaviour,” he said.

“Actually, we’re dealing with Michael Scott’s.”

“How . . . ?” His voice broke at the thought.

His hand gripped her thigh tighter. Almost painful
ly. The rage that had been expelling itself over the last few days—she had tried to kill him.

He kissed her, the rough scrape of his stubble like sandpaper against the smooth skin of her face
. Something she liked normally, or had the last time she'd been with a man. And when she had a choice. She kissed him back. After all, he was handsome, intelligent, and very physical, especially now. But Lieutenant Kerrigan hadn’t learned what every man should. She drove her knee into his testicles. He tensed up, his muscles going taut. Zach hadn’t been quite fast enough to close his legs on her thigh. Samantha could feel the flesh between his legs give, a sound under his grunt that could have been a kiwi being squished. She drove her free hand into his jaw and heard it break. She rolled him off of her, the emerald of her eyes flaring hot and furious, never leaving the pain-filled blue of his orbs.