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THE PRAETORIANS:
DISCOVERY
By
Sherrill Quinn
© copyright May 2006, Sherrill Quinn
Cover art by Kat Richards, © copyright May 2006
ISBN 1-58608-915-3
New Concepts Publishing
Lake Park, GA 31636
www.newconceptspublishing.com
This is a work of fiction. All characters, events, and places are of the author’s imagination and not to be confused with fact. Any resemblance to living persons or events is merely coincidence.
Chapter 1
Catriona Devane crept along the deserted corridor of the scientific wing of The Foundation, a complex deep under the Sonoran Desert. Most people had no idea what lurked under this stretch of starkly beautiful land west of Tucson. They had no idea it housed an ultra-secretive organization that trained people with the powers of telepathy and telekinesis.
The Chosen Ones.
She held her breath and prayed no one would leave their quarters. At two in the morning, most of the staff was asleep, with a lone security guard on duty. Her contact had assured her the man would be distracted from the screens for thirty minutes. Long enough for her to get in and out without being seen.
Glancing at the duty roster as she passed by, she was reminded that today was Friday the thirteenth. Not that she was suspicious or anything. After all, this was twenty-seventy. Science ruled, and there was no room for ancient suspicions.
She tiptoed on, knowing if it weren’t for her latent ability to mask her thoughts, she would’ve never made it past the front door. As a Sensitive, she could block her mind from anything they sent her way. Most people were psychically sensitive to one degree or another, much more so than even fifty years ago.
She swallowed, even though her mouth was dry with the fear of being caught. Were she to be discovered in an area of the complex for which she didn’t have clearance, well.… She’d be in deep doo-doo.
With a capital D.
She could only hope her contact was true to his--or her--word.
She turned the corner and stopped for a moment, trying to calm her breathing. With the Praetorians’ exceptional sense of sound, they were sure to hear her if she went on like this, wheezing down the hallway like a winded racehorse.
Thoughts of the elite security force that guarded the Chosen Ones made her heart thump harder. The Praetorians, hybrid warriors, appeared to be mere humans, but the men’s DNA was spliced with that of various animals. These were men who were naturally tall and strong, but enhanced to be more. Much more.
Hawkmen. Wolfmen. Lionmen. The list of hybrids was astounding. It was rumored that the experiments had begun as much as a hundred years earlier, in a top-secret military installation in Nevada. But, like the Chosen Ones, the Praetorians were kept a secret.
She needed to know why.
A noise from behind made her stop. With a gulp, she turned and surveyed the still empty corridor. When nothing happened, she wiped her sweaty palms on her black jeans and started walking again. Her rubber-soled sneakers made little noise on the floor, but she was so hyped up, the small squeaks she heard seemed to echo loudly.
Her destination was the room at the end, the lab where the biogenetic researchers worked. All other staff was forbidden admittance. From conversations she’d had with other lab assistants, this was the last place Doctor Lexy Harris had been seen, just over a week ago.
If she could prove to the authorities and the public that nefarious scientific experiments--unsanctioned biogenetic experiments--were taking place here, all initially engineered by Doctor Harris, she’d be on the journalistic map. Cat was determined this story would be the one to make her career.
But there was more to it than that. She had a personal agenda, as well, to discover what had happened to her brother. She hadn’t heard from him in nearly five years, but she sensed he still lived. Her contact at The Foundation had hinted that Sean had gotten mixed up in all of this. She needed to find him. She had to know.
This was her first undercover assignment and she was so close to the truth--all the truth--the fine hairs on the back of her neck were standing on end.
Of course, that could have something to do with Max Didion, the captain of the security team here at The Foundation. Every time he was near, her senses went into overload. All she wanted to do was wrap herself around him and drink him in, his smell, the feel of his skin, the heat from his big body.
One kiss. He’d only kissed her one time and she couldn’t get the taste of him out of her mouth. She wasn’t sure she wanted to. It was like holding milk chocolate in your mouth and taking a sip of coffee. A burst of bitter against the sweet.
She wanted more.
She was startled by another noise, this time from behind the door she’d just passed. She stopped and pressed back, palms flat against the wall. Damn. Maybe she wasn’t cut out for this undercover crap. She was about to have a heart attack. The last thing she wanted to do was to get caught and the last person she wanted to catch her was Max.
Uh-huh. You know you want him, a little voice taunted. Any way you can get his big, hard body, you’d take it.
She knew, if he ever found out she was not really a lab assistant but, rather, an undercover reporter, he would be angry. Actually, as she put more thought into it, angry wouldn’t begin to cover it.
Her contact within The Foundation remained anonymous, although she was almost certain it was a member of the elite security team. One of the Praetorians. She was either being used to expose a highly dangerous plot, or set up to be the fall-guy.
Instinct told her it was the former. Her gut twisted at the thought it might be the latter.
She took one last look over her shoulder, then pulled a piece of paper from her pocket. It held the key code for entry to the room. The paper had shown up in her quarters at The Foundation one day, with instructions on how to use the keypad to enter the security combination to the lab. Following the written directions, she punched in the code. When the green-means-go light popped on, she pushed the latch to the door and slipped inside the room. Making sure the door was closed firmly behind her, she pulled a small flashlight from her pants’ pocket and flipped it on.
From what she could see, it looked much like the lab where she worked undercover, but longer, with several examination tables at the far end. She walked down to them, touching one lightly and looking it over. It appeared much like a gynecological table from her doctor’s office, complete with metal stirrups.
The biggest difference was this table also had straps where chest and wrists would be if a person was lying prone. It gave her chills, looking at it. She couldn’t shake the feeling that bad things had happened in this room, that a lot of suffering had occurred here.
Looking around, she spotted a large, metal door to the left. She walked the few steps to reach it. Her fingers went to the latch and she hesitated, pulling her hand back. “Don’t be such a sissy, Cat,” she muttered. Fisting her hand, she rubbed her index finger with her thumb. Before she could lose her nerve, she quickly reached out and opened the door.
Lights automatically clicked on in the small room. There was one table here, with a large metal piece curving over the top. She walked closer and saw the cylindrical piece left room for someone’s head and feet. A portable table with shiny medical implements stood next to another metal door.
This door was about half the width of the others, although just as tall. Cold to the touch, it made her wonder if it was perhaps some type of refrigerator or freezer. With a deep breath, she opened door number three. Frigid air swirled and a woman fell out on top of her. Cat gasped, choking slightly on the inrush of air, and crashed to the floor, flashlight flying out of her hand. Arms and feet flailing as she tried to get out from under the body, she finally managed to push the woman off her. She scrambled to her knees and gingerly turned the body over.
And stared into the dead eyes of Doctor Lexy Harris.
Jumping to her feet, she clapped a hand over her mouth to hold in the scream clawing at her throat. She backed up, unable to take her eyes off the dead woman. When a set of hands landed on her shoulders, she yelled and whirled around.
Max stood there, his tawny eyes dark with anger, his mouth drawn tight. He clamped his hands around her upper arms, tightening his grip when she instinctively fought his hold.
“What the hell are you doing here?” he asked, his voice barely more than a low growl.
Woo-boy. This was the deep doo-doo she’d been afraid of.
Setting her to one side, he barked, “Stay,” and stuffed Doctor Harris back into the small freezer.
“What are you doing?” she asked, grabbing him by one taut bicep. It was rock-hard under the cotton of his t-shirt, and she found her hold turning into a caress. When he turned his head, his eyes darkening to a burnished gold with the stirring of desire, her face heated and she dropped her hand.
“No one can know you’ve discovered the good doctor.” His voice was sarcastic, there at the end, making her wonder just what his relationship had been with Lexy Harris. As captain of the Praetorians, he had been personally responsible for her safety.
Cat studied him for a moment. He was one of the tallest men she’d ever met, easily a full foot taller than her own five-five. He was dressed as he usually was: combat boots on his big feet, camouflage pants and black t-shirt. Several dark brown chest hairs peeked over the edge of the neckline, inviting any red-blooded woman to strip the shirt off and see where all that hair led.
He crossed his arms over his chest. Her breath hitched as the motion pulled the shirt taut across his broad shoulders. His face was expressionless and she realized he didn’t sound too broken up to discover the doctor’s safety was no longer his concern.
Cat’s eyes widened and she backed away from him. Maybe he didn’t sound surprised or upset because he was the killer. Holy crap. She was in a mad scientist’s lab with a murderer.
She turned and sprinted, only to be hauled back after a few feet. When she opened her mouth to scream, Max clamped his hand over her lips and breathed in her ear, “We’re going to my quarters. Quietly, Catriona. I don’t want to knock you out, but I will if you give me trouble. Understand?”
Managing a nod, she kept silent as he slowly removed his hand. She could feel the heat from his big body like a furnace against her backside. And something else, something hard and just as hot as the rest of him, pressing against the small of her back.
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