A Seacat's Love (Oceanan Trilogy Book 1) Page 3

  The elevator bell announced his arrival. Rick’s senses came alive, ready for action. The only sound he detected came from his heart banging against his ribs. The further he crept through the facility, the quicker and louder it played.

  He smiled. His chaotic heartbeat, the shallowness of his breathing, the tension in his muscles, and the anticipation of what was yet to come made his insides quiver with excitement. Rick loved the feel of it. This was the reason he had become a secret agent. Nothing fulfilled him in this way, not even sex. Danger was his addiction. His drug. His aphrodisiac. He never intended to quit.

  Around the next corner, two guards posted beside a closed door sparked his interest. He could not tell whether it was the laboratory or not from his location. Peeking at his watch, he counted fifteen minutes were already up. He had to make a choice, fast. Time was running out.

  Taking a calming breath, Rick spun from behind the wall, rifle raised. He took immediate aim, and two small darts zoomed from the base of the rifle with minor sound, hitting their intended targets in the neck. Rick rushed forward, refilling both chambers, as the men simultaneously slid onto their rumps then tilted sideways to the floor.

  Rick tested the door. It was locked. He had suspected as much. He checked each officer for the card key. His mood brightened when he recognized the soldier carrying the key was the annoying Lieutenant McLean.

  Ha! You bastard. It serves you right.

  After a quick look down both sides of the corridor, Rick used the card and entered the lab, dragging the two sleeping officers into the room behind him. Rick positioned the men to one side of the door before he about-faced. The combined smells of harsh chemicals, feces, and decaying flesh instantly assaulted his nose. Yet, it was what he saw that made Rick wonder who the real animals actually were.

  There has to be a logical explanation for all of this, he thought to himself. How can anyone who calls himself human do such a thing? The ghostly image of his wife helped him take his first step.

  Rick move past a couple of cages. Inside were two of Earth’s felines. An attentive mountain lion lay leisurely on his side beside his rotting meal. Across from the lion, a chirping cheetah paced agitatedly in her unkempt prison. Beside the nearest computer terminal, Rick spotted a little house cat trapped in a cell that was one size too small. It stared at him with large, sad eyes.

  Poor cats.

  A short walk from the felines appeared to be four bodies—two on gurneys, two on lab tables. Each was covered with a dried bloody sheet. Rick headed first to the two bodies closest to the larger cats. He paused next to one of the gurneys. His forehead and nose scrunched up at the source of the pungent stench that saturated the room.

  The second hand on the silver clock made its way around the face once, and still, Rick remained motionless. His eyelids closed. His thoughts were on rapid rewind. Rick was back in his car, racing down the streets, hoping to reach his old house and pregnant wife. He forced a deep breath into closed lungs in hopes of controlling his emotions—a bad idea, for the potency of the air caused him to gag and cough.

  Rick’s fearful gaze raced over the covered contours of the body, while he did his best to smother the noises. Was it her? Did he fail again?

  The sound of a single gunshot echoed in his ears. Rick jolted. The memory of his wife’s falling body took a firm hold of him. The bullet hole at her temple oozed blood. Tears gathered. His scar started to sting. The words “wrong choice” and “failure” made him extremely angry. It was this rage that gave Rick the necessary courage to yank back the sheet.

  The corpse was that of a black man with black rosette markings scattered around his body. His torso was sliced from each side of the collarbone, down the center of his trunk to the pubic area. The dried, rotten skin was pulled up and away, exposing cracked and parted ribs. The cavity was excavated. His reproductive organs were exposed and parts were missing. His eyeballs were gone, as well as several of his fingers. Even patches of his flesh and scalp had been taken from him.

  “Dear God!” Rick stumbled back and bumped into an elevated table, toppling over a shiny steel tray that held an oscillating saw, rib cutters, an enterotome, scissors, forceps, a Hagedorn needle, and a scalpel.

  The loud, metallic crash sent the lion retreating to a safer distance with a short roar. The small kitten hissed. The cheetah flinched in her movements, growled, and continued to pace more nervously.

  Rick whirled around and deposited all the contents in his stomach onto the floor. There was not much. As a seasoned warrior, he could not believe what he had just seen, or done.

  With nothing left to retch, Rick wiped his mouth along the sleeve of his shirt. He reached behind him with his right arm to reposition the sheet upon the mutilated body. He took a moment to brace himself on his forearms with his head hung low in between. The coolness of the metal wall helped settle his stomach, along with several deep gulps of air.

  A slight, sudden movement to the right caught his attention. Rick carefully made his way to that side of the room, while pushing to the back of his mind what was left of the alien. This covered body was situated in the center of the room. Rick mentally braced himself before he lifted the material enough to expose only the face. The sight was enough to force the air out of his lungs in a single gush.

  Scattered images of clinging to his dead mother and lifting his wife’s limp body, popped in and out of his head. A picture of Mary in her coffin remained frozen in his mind. She laid motionless with her eyes closed, embracing their tiny baby.

  The ache in Rick’s chest intensified. His gloved fingertips roved across her right temple. I’m so sorry, Mary. The tears fell. I never should’ve left you. I should’ve taken you with me. Time stood still as his wife’s pasty image faded away.

  In her place appeared a pale lioness. Without warning, her eyelids snapped open. Rick yanked his hand away as if he had been burnt. Startled and confused, his mind slowly returned to the present.

  Rick noticed the woman’s swollen, cracked lips; puffy, red-rimmed eyes; and the tearstains down her dirty cheeks. His innards coiled tight. Her haggard appearance pulled at his heartstrings. Rick had thought that part of him was dead—the part he did not want reborn.

  Still, the need to verify she was indeed alive was intense. Rick traced the side of her drawn face before resting his fingers on an artery. He held his breath and concentrated. At the confirmation of a pulse, his tensed muscles relaxed, and his covered head lowered onto her bony chest. The echoing pulsations of her heart flowed through her into him, aiding to calm him further. His lips curved in a smile, while he absorbed the unusual moment with no desire to move.

  {Who are you?}

  Rick had not forgotten her telepathic ability. Hearing her words in his head did not startle him as much this time as it did initially. He raised his head and peered into eyes that had stayed with him since viewing them the night before. “It’s me.”

  She gasped. {Predator!}

  “I’m going to get you out of here.”

  {How?}

  Rick could not answer. Her eyes robbed him of speech. Like a magnet, they pulled him in. So pale. So beautiful.

  {Predator?}

  Rick blinked several times to break their magical spell. “Uh… trust me.”

  “Who in the blazes are you?” someone said.

  Rick’s right hand shot for his gun. This time it was his semiautomatic. The gun was aimed and readied before he realized the voice had come from a man with the markings of a tiger.

  Since when have I been so careless? Rick’s sights fixed on the ragged looking cat locked behind steel bars. “A friend of yours?” he asked the lioness, while he placed his gun away.

  “Yes,” she answered with a shiver.

  Rick glanced at her and noted how flushed her features were becoming. The fact that she was pale a moment before and he was in the center of a research lab, prompted Rick to remove a black glove and touch her forehead.

  “My God, you’re burning up,” Ri
ck said. Replacing his glove, he immediately untied her limbs from the thick leather restraints.

  “What are you doing? Who are you?”

  Rick spared the male alien another look. The cat flashed his teeth menacingly at him. He ignored it.

  “I demand to know who you are!” the tiger hollered.

  Rick’s fingers skirted over the woman’s jaw. “Stay here,” he whispered.

  He went to free the tiger from his captivity but spotted the computer monitor and decided to take a quick peek first. He quickly located the medical logs kept on the aliens. Rick rummaged the desk and found what he needed in one of the smaller drawers. The CD slipped into the drive, and Rick soon had his copy.

  This might come in handy, he thought, placing the silver disk into his shirt pocket.

  On his way to the cage, Rick glanced at the reason he was there. The small lioness wobbled to one of the counters. He was extremely grateful to have reached her in time. He recalled the mutilated jaguar, and bile rose in his throat at thoughts of her meeting the same demise. It made him more determined to secure her safety.

  Positioned directly above the counter, Rick noticed a safe. He saw the woman punch in several numbers. The sealed chamber hissed opened. He wondered what was inside.

  Rick stopped in front of the cage. He did not trust the tiger behind the bars. The way those light green feline eyes regarded him made Rick nervous. Rick wondered why, since no human had the power to do so. He pulled from his shirt pocket a lock pick and knelt before the lock.

  “Who are you?” the man asked, moving away from the bars. “What are you doing?”

  “What does it look like I’m doing?” replied Rick. “I’m getting you out of this place.” The lock was a cinch to pick. Rick opened the door. “Unless, that is, you have a preference for cages and dying.”

  “No, actually, I do not,” the cat replied, but made no move to exit the cell.

  Rick’s head cocked to one side. He resisted the urge to make a sarcastic reply. “So let’s go.”

  Rick saw doubt in the man’s eyes. He did not blame him, but they had no time to waste. When the cat’s gaze stopped at a location behind Rick’s shoulder and widened, Rick whirled about, readied for an attack. He saw no one but the mysterious cat-woman with a large pouch in her hands. She swayed on her feet. Before Rick made a move, the indecisive tiger shoved him to the side and rushed to her aid.

  “Leonora!” exclaimed the tiger.

  Rick quickly regained his balance and got to the woman a second behind the tiger. He reached for her shoulders, but was too late. The tiger had snatched her from the floor and hunched his body protectively over hers.

  “Get your hands off her, human. I will not let you hurt her.” He growled.

  “Don’t be stupid. If I wanted to hurt her, I would’ve killed her when she was on the table.”

  The possessive manner in which the man held the cat-woman caused Rick’s stomach to churn. To keep from commenting, he grinded his teeth. It was best the alien carried her, he reasoned. After all, it would be up to him to get them out of there alive. He certainly could not do it if he had to carry an unconscious woman in his arms.

  Rick glanced at his watch and his lips pulled over his teeth. “Bloody hell. It’s five thirty. We have only thirty minutes before sunlight to get out of here.”

  “Where are we going?”

  Rick’s right brow tilted, but because of the mask, no one saw it. On the other hand, the distrust behind the cat’s lowered lids was crystal clear. “Why? Is there somewhere you need to be?” he asked.

  The cat stonily returned his stare.

  Telling himself to allow this man to carry the woman was a complete different story to actually seeing him lift her into his arms. It looked too much like an intimate embrace that Rick itched to punch the man across the room and lock him up in his cage again.

  Rick suppressed the annoying need, for that part of life was forbidden to his breed—a lesson that had cost him too much to learn. “Don’t hold her so tight; you’re smothering her.” He bumped shoulders with the cat as he headed for the door.

  The feline growled at the clear challenge. “Pick up the sack. We need—”

  “Forget it!”

  “What is inside that sack is critical to our survival.” The man’s voice slowed. “If you care about this woman, then you will do as I say.”

  The sudden jolt in Rick’s midsection stopped him in his tracks. The last man who had spoken those words to him materialized before him. He had a gun pointed at Mary’s head. In his arrogance, Rick had thought he could take him. He was wrong. He could not afford to make another judgment error.

  Grumbling, he returned for the bag. “I don’t know what’s so bloody important in this bag. But if it’s essential to her survival, then I’ll get it.” He slipped the long drawstring over his head and left shoulder and positioned the large bag behind his back. “I have it. Now let’s go.” Rick paused in front of the main door. He first pointed with his digit finger to the man then to himself. “Remember, from now on you will do as I say.”

  Rick could hear the feline growling as they traveled along the corridors. It made him move faster. With two-thirds of the building behind them, victory was too close at hand to care. When he paused at an intersection, the feline intentionally bumped into his back. Rick’s lips pulled over his teeth.

  “The exit is this way.” The male’s striped head pointed in the opposite direction they headed.

  “No, it’s this way,” Rick corrected, pointing with his gloved finger. “Follow me.”

  “No, it is this way. I remember it from when they brought us to this nightmarish place.”

  Rick spared a glance at his watch. His tight hold on his patience was slipping fast. “We have no time to argue, okay. So let’s go!” He continued onward with no signs of stopping, unaware that the tiger had stopped following.

  He was about to explain how they had to be extremely cautious in this portion of the building because of the infrared beams and the motion detectors hidden throughout, when the alarms began to blare.

  What the…? Rick searched for what had triggered the alarms. He spotted the tiger down the hall, frozen in place. His head whipping from side to side looking for unseen attackers.

  “You bloody idiot! You broke the stream!” Rick rudely grabbed the cat by his ripped collar. “You stupid cat! Now look what you’ve done.”

  Wild-eyed and frightened, the cat tried to apologize.

  “Keep your bloody apologies to yourself!” Rick yelled above the alarm, pointing to the stirring lioness. “It won’t be me you will need to apologize to, but to her if we get caught, you stupid idiot!” Rick released the cat, pulled out his Glock 18, and rushed off in the direction he had intended to go from the beginning.

  Utilizing his combat skills and weaponry, Rick lived up to his codename Predator by quickly taking out his prey. He tried desperately not to kill anyone, only crippled the soldiers long enough for them to escape. It was not easy. The entire squad stationed at the facility was after them.

  Christ, you would think the world would come to an end with the disappearance of these aliens, Rick grumbled silently, as he led the way through the wilderness.

  He was grateful the alien at least lived up to his lineage, surefooted and fast. They made it to his car in record time. Rick opened the passenger door and slammed it shut once the two felines were inside. He jumped across the hood, slid off the opposite side, and hurried to his seat behind the wheel. Before the soldiers reached the road, they had screeched out of sight.

  The blue sedan raced along the highway. There were a few cars and trucks on the road. Tigif watched the human remove his mask and rub his face. The tiger’s vision blurred as he regarded each sharp angle of the human’s profile. The male’s long yellow hair, tied in a ponytail, repulsed him.

  He passed the cup of his hand over his mouth. “So…are you Predator?” He made certain the human could read his disgust on his face and hear it
in his voice.

  Rick nodded once. “My actual name is Rick McCall. You’ve heard of me?”

  “I have.” Tigif blinked several times to help focus on the lovely feline in his arms. “Leonora spoke of a human who fought to protect her. She called him Predator.” He bared his teeth and said, “That is as far as my gratitude will go.”

  It pleased Tigif to see Rick clench his jaw. He wanted the human to make no mistake. They were enemies to the end. He overheard Rick softly repeating Leonora’s name. His gaze narrowed. “Excuse me?”

  “You called her Leonora.”

  His face was unreadable, but Tigif was not fooled. “That is correct. I am called Tigif.”

  “Tigif,” repeated Rick.

  “Are you named after the—”

  “No!”

  “Sorry. I was only trying to pass the time with small talk. I’ve never met an alien before, especially one that looked like a tiger or a lioness. I apologize if I’ve insulted you.”

  “Apologize?” Tigif snickered. “Your kind does not know the meaning.” His lip curled. “Your disgraceful race only knows about destruction and misuse.”

  “If you hate humans so much, then why, may I ask, are you here?”

  “We do not hate humans,” answered Leonora in a small voice.

  Tigif looked at her. He did not want her speaking to this human. The last thing he wanted was for the male to get any ideas about her. Leonora was his. She was destined to become his life-mate, whether she liked it or not.

  “Please forgive Tigif, McCall. He is bitter that our friends did not survive. It has nothing to do with you.”

  “Why are you defending him?” snapped Tigif. “And what do you mean it has nothing to do with him? It most certainly does have everything to do with him.”

  Rick remained silent, but his jaw worked overtime.

  “It has nothing to do with McCall but everything to do with those males back at the research lab,” Leonora corrected. “If it were not for Rick, we, too, would have been killed.”