LONE WOLF

Sandy Hook, KY

Serin was there, just ahead of him. Talen watched his sister as she moved from tree to tree, her steps careful, her breathing controlled. But not careful enough, not as controlled as she must be if she was going to elude the Genetics Council and the soldiers they would send out for her if they ever learned she was alive.

Serin, like the five others she called family, was a human hybrid. She had been altered in the womb; the DNA of the Cheetah biogenetically fused to the human cell structure to create a species that the Genetics Council had hoped would one day become the perfect killing machine.

More than sixteen years after Talen and his mother's escape from just such a lab, Talen had taken Serin and the others from the similar labs during a fiery explosion that he hoped had concealed their escape. And since that night, their lives had been haunted by the knowledge that any day, the soldiers the Council regularly sent after Talen, would somehow learn of their existence as well.

Talen moved through the woods that bordered his home, his eyes narrowed, his breathing controlled, and his steps silent as he stalked his sister. She was just ahead of him, moving with careful precision over the dead twigs and loose rock that littered the ground. She was quiet and careful. Her wary surveillance of the area still wasn't good enough. He would have her in a matter of minutes.

From the corner of his eye he saw their darker brother, Damen, pause in the hunt as he saw Talen move in on her. The training exercise had been a spur of the moment decision to test Serin's abilities. Abilities Talen was beginning to see that she did not have.

Talen moved from tree to tree, blending with the shadows, careful to keep downwind of that sensitive nose he knew she had. He didn't want her to catch his scent too soon; it could give her a false sense of security, causing her to rely on a trait that any trained soldier could get around. She was going to have to learn that when the threat was downwind, her weakness could get her killed, or worse.

Despite her preparation, and the fact that she knew he was there during this training exercise, there would be no escape for her. Serin was unprepared, untrained, and nowhere close enough to having the abilities to protect herself, or to aid her family should they be found.

Talen stepped behind her, not even a breath disturbing the air at her back, and locked his arms around her, securing them at her side even as he braced his legs wide apart to avoid the sudden thrashing of her feet as a bitter, defeated curse echoed between the tree-sheltered cliff walls.

"Stop. You lost. Now deal with it." His voice was harsh as he released her, watching without sympathy as she fell to the ground.

Serin sat tensely amid the dried leaves and sparse grass of the forest floor, staring up at him in fury as he watched her.

"Dammit Talen, you didn't even give me a chance." The blonde came to her feet, fury reflecting in the eerie light green of her eyes as the long strands of her dark blonde hair fell over her face, and then was brushed back with a furious motion.

Her accusation hung in the air between them now, and Talen's temper sparked with a sudden fury.

"Hell no, I didn't give you a chance. You think the soldiers the Council keeps sending out after me will give you a chance if they ever learn you're alive Serin? What kind of a chance do you think you'll have against them?" He kept his tone even, but anger surged through him. She wasn't learning fast enough, she wasn't hard enough. By time that steel hard core of strength in her could be enforced, it might be too late, just as it had nearly been too late for him when the Council had found him.

Serin hissed in fury, her small body shaking with anger as she faced him.

"You're cheating." He was amazed she didn't stomp her foot as she said the words.

"Cheating?" Talen asked her incredulity spreading through him as he wondered if the seriousness of the situation would ever sink into her head. "You think the big boys are going to play fair? Do you think they're going to give you a head start, a list of rules before they throw a net over your ass and haul you back to the labs, Serin? And once they get you there? Do you think they'll say pretty please before they rape you, breed you the way they intended to? Will they care if they're cheating, Serin?"

As he spoke, fury surged through Talen as her face became more mutinous by the second.

"Cut her some slack, Talen. She's learning; that's what's important." Damen, their brother, stood several feet from them, where he had come to a stop after Talen's move against Serin. His handsome face was creased into a scowl, his dark emerald green eyes watching Talen with an _expression of anger.

"Is it?" Talen turned on him now. "Will it be enough, Damen, if she's captured? What will save her ass then? She can't even find a way to break my hold. What if she's caught unawares? Her training isn't anywhere near good enough, and I'm losing time with her. You should have taken care of this yourself."

It had been Damen's job to train Laney and Serin while Talen drew the Council soldiers and assorted mercenaries on a nationwide goose chase for the past years. Instead of training them as he should have, Damen had let his emotions stay his hand, the result was years of work lost with Serin, and he didn't even know if Laney could be trained at all.

It was as though they had forgotten that they weren't safe. There was always the danger that Talen hadn't covered their escape from the labs all those years ago, as well as he had hoped. If the Council learned the others lived, then they would be doomed if they didn't have the instincts needed to evade capture.

Damen, Dayan, and Webb had learned early. They had been easier to train, their personalities better suited to the solitary lives they were forced to live, the necessity of staying hidden, of watching, waiting. The girls were somehow lacking in those instincts, despite the horrors of their captivity.

"Dammit Damen, how the hell are they going to survive if the Council finds them? If they're somehow separated from us and on their own. They'll be easy targets."

"You're not a stranger, Talen," Serin raged, interrupting his furious tirade. "It won't work. I don't feel threatened by you or Damen. It's different when I'm threatened."

Talen turned back to her, his gaze raking over the long, lean lines of her body, scantily clad in shorts and t-shirt. She was a damned beauty, with full breasts, and long thick dark blonde hair. It would be no hardship for the soldiers the Council employed to breed her. And they would breed her. They needed her and her body to produce the small, specialized army they dreamed of having.

"Then you better start feeling threatened, Serin. They know I'm here; it's just a matter of time before they send out someone with more experience and with fewer scruples than what they've sent so far. I may need you. You may need yourself if they ever find out you're still alive. How will you fight if you have no damned idea how to use your weapons?" Talen moved with a sudden twist of his body, wrapping his arms around her again. "Look at you, little girl. You're helpless, just like you were then. They'll hold you like this, and while they do, the rest of them will rape you. Do you remember it, Serin, the feel of their hands on you?" Disgusted with himself, Talen moved his hand, gripping her breast through her t-shirt, pinching the nipple as he laughed harshly in her ear.

The feral cry that echoed through the forest came a second before lethal claws dug into his arm, surprising him, forcing him to release his grip. When he did, the woman came out of his arms, twisting in the air as she jumped away from him, then around, crouching now on the forest floor, her teeth bared, her face pale as she watched him with betrayed, tear- filled eyes.

Talen knew the memories of those years, held captive at the labs, raped on her fourteenth birthday and informed of her breeding status, could torment her as nothing else could. She had been created and raised with breeding purposes in mind. Even as a small child it had been commonplace for the rough, amoral soldiers there to touch her, jeering as they informed her of the fate awaiting her. A fate Talen had only been partially successful in rescuing her from.

Talen glanced now at the blood that ran in slow rivulets from his wrist and arm.

"Damn, that might need stitches, Damen." He watched Serin now, her harsh breathing, the wildness in her eyes. "Think she's finished? In the time she's been crouched there we could have thrown a net over her and had her stripped. What was it the soldiers promised her there? A whole round until her pretty belly became too large for them mount her properly?"

A second later, she was gone. No points for silence, Talen thought, as he watched her disappear through the forest, but damned if she wasn't fast.

"Do you really think that was necessary?" Damen stood propped against a tree, his arms crossed over his chest, a frown marking his face as he watched Serin run. The need for violence vibrated in the air around him in the way muscles tensed. His voice lowered and grew unemotional. "Using that was wrong Talen."

Damen was poised to go after her, his protective instincts flaring, his need to see to his sister's safety nearly overwhelming. It was the reason Talen had taken the training procedures out of his hands. After ten years, both Laney and Serin were still woefully lacking in the abilities they might need to protect themselves.

Damen had followed Maria, Talen's mother, in her example of cosseting the girls, easing their way through life to make up for the horrors they had faced at the labs. Talen couldn't allow the situation to continue. After Maria's death the past year, he had learned how truly vulnerable all of them were.

"Using that is the only way to make her remember how helpless she was there, Damen." Talen shook his head as he fought his own self-disgust and guilt at what he had done. "She has to learn, if she doesn't she's no use to me or to herself. She'll get over it. When she does, she'll be better."

That didn't help, Talen knew. Serin would have nightmares again. Her screams would echo through the house and he wouldn't be there to console her as he always had been. It had been harder for Serin. At fourteen she had been nearly as beautiful as she was now, and fair game for the men who preyed upon her.

Talen had to teach her now; in case the day came that he or Damen were no longer there to protect her. Being the teacher was harder than being the student, and it ate at him that their lives forced them to relive the horrors and the pain of a life they should have never known.

But before he could teach Serin, he first had to get past the need, the overwhelming desire she had for a normal life. Serin was going to have to realize they weren't normal, and they never would be. Until she realized that, she was a danger to herself.

"The Council believes we're all dead," Damen reminded him. "Serin and Laney aren't in any danger."

Talen could only shake his head as frustration ate at him. They couldn't be certain of that, they could never be certain that the Council wouldn't find them. It was the hardest lesson of all to teach them. The Council was always there, always suspicious, always looking.

"That could change at any time, Damen," he bit out, turning his gaze to the sky that peeked through the thick tops of the trees around them.

When he looked back to Damen, he saw the maturity making its way into the creases along his eyes and mouth. His dark skin was weathered, his green eyes sharp, but shadowed by the horrors of his youth at the labs of the Genetics Council.

"Do you think the Council could learn that we're alive?" Damen asked him with a frown. "Why now, after all these years?"

"I don't believe they know as of yet. But you can't depend on them never knowing. You can't let your guard down, ever. The girls especially must always be wary," Talen warned him, his voice deep, brooding with the seriousness of the situation he knew they were in.

And they weren't prepared, Talen knew. They had made friends, and the day would come when those friends would be trusted with their secrets, and Talen himself knew how deceptive such friends could be.

"You can't train them like we were, Talen." Damen stared at him now, his face hard, and his voice rough. "They can't take it. I tried."

Talen sighed in trepidation of the coming news before he sat down on the ground, using the tree behind him to rest his back on. What he heard in Damen's voice was what he feared the most.

"What happened?" He asked as he stared up at Damen.

"Dayan was training them." Damen finally shrugged with a tight movement of his shoulders, indicating his displeasure with Dayan. "Just like you wanted. I watched out for everything else, and Dayan trained the girls. I put a stop to it about six months ago."

Damen was the head of the group when Talen was away, but Dayan's fighting skills were colder, and often more effective.

"Why?" Talen asked again.

"The girl's couldn't take it. That's what I've tried to explain to you." Damen shook his head his _expression weary as he sat across from Talen. "Laney stopped eating again, and Serin couldn't sleep for the nightmares. I let Dayan push them until it nearly killed them, before I called a stop to it. I won't do it again." In his voice Talen heard the warning that Damen wouldn't let him do it either.

Not that Talen wanted to. He had been hoping that Laney had outgrown whatever instinct forced her to starve herself when she was under pressure. She had nearly died on them in the labs, and again after their escape. There had been months when her life had hung by a thread.

For Serin, the effects came in a way subtler, but just as dangerous. She didn't sleep. Nightmares haunted her until she refused to close her eyes, existing for weeks with little more than a few stolen hours that could be termed as little more than naps. Each day she would grow weaker, paranoid, jumping at shadows and shuddering from the bleak memories of the labs.

"We have to do something," Talen finally told him, his gaze meeting Damen's. "I wasn't able to get to that box Maria sent to her attorney before her death. It was sent to Steven Taylor. He received it last week."

Talen watched as Damen's shoulders drooped and his eyes closed. That box could mean the destruction of all their futures. In it was every copy of every lab experiment done to create Talen, and possibly, the evidence that Damen and the others had survived the explosion Talen set in the labs during their escape.

"Do you know for certain what was in it?" Damen asked after long moments, his voice filled with dread.

"I'm not sure," he admitted. "We agreed she would tell nothing about you and the others, but we also agreed that she would give me the name of the attorney. She never did."

"How long do you think we have before we know?" Damen asked.

"Another week, perhaps longer." Talen shrugged. "I want you to be ready, and I want the other's ready as well. I know Taylor's reputation, but this is a hell of a story. He could run what he knows and to hell with proof if he wants to. If the story hits, we all run."

Damen nodded, rising to his feet.

"And if he looks for proof first?" He asked as he stared down at Talen.

"I'll take the heat, and I'll draw them away," Talen promised. "But until we know, we have to be careful. Whatever he does, it's going to change all our lives, and they need to be prepared for that."

"You should have killed him as I suggested after Maria's death." Dayan stepped from the trees, startling Damen with his appearance.

Talen had sensed his arrival moments before, but had kept silent, wondering if Damen would ever realize his brother was within earshot. Not that Talen could blame him for not sensing Dayan. The other man was nearly as good as Talen was himself.

The DNA used to give Dayan his abilities was unlike that of Talen's lion genetics, just as the others were. He was given the DNA of the Jaguar, and he made the most of his abilities. He was colder, more mercenary, and quicker to kill than any of the other breeds. But Talen didn't blame him for that, his core had been forged in a fight to live or die as he helped Talen bring the others from the labs.

"We don't kill, Dayan," Talen told him once again. It was a reminder Talen was forced to voice often to the other man.

Dayan's dark, amber colored gaze watched him coolly before he shrugged in acceptance.

"You could have let us know you were there, Dayan." Damen seemed uneasy, challenging in the face of the younger male.

"I could have. I decided not to." Dayan smiled as he glanced at his brother, but the air of contempt that he wore like a cloak stayed ever present.

"I'm heading back to town." Damen glanced at Talen, and Talen glimpsed the edge of anger that the other man was hard pressed to hide. "I'll talk to you later, Cal. Whenever you have time."

Talen watched as he turned and left the area, heading back to the clearing where he parked his truck earlier.

"He doesn't like me much anymore." Dayan watched him leave as well, and though his words reflected an air of regret, his voice appeared more sneering than remorseful.

"Your attitude leaves much to be desired, Dayan," Talen informed him, as he remained relaxed against the tree.

Talen saw what Damen did not. Dayan's need to assert himself as a leader was the root of this cold, sarcastic attitude. Talen's return to Sandy Hook had shifted the balance that had been slowly evolving within the group, due to Damen's hesitancy to fight with one of his brothers. Dayan would not have pushed Damen much further, though. Talen was certain the younger man was unaware of the fact that Damen's patience was wearing to a swift end.

Dayan merely shrugged at Talen's observation.

"I saw Serin running off. I guess she doesn't like your training methods," Dayan pointed out.

Talen's eyes narrowed now.

"She'll get used to them, just as you did," Talen reminded the younger man, and he knew the memory of it would reinforce the level of power Talen held. A level that greatly exceeded Dayan's.

This annoyed Dayan. It was an annoyance Talen chose to ignore. There would come a time, Talen knew, when he would have to prove to Dayan that strength was not necessarily attributed to youth, and that experience was much more important. Until then, he would give him just enough rope to test himself before he pulled him back and reminded him of who was boss.

"What about Laney?" Dayan asked him. "I was doing fine with her when Damen jerked her back. Make him send her back to me, and I can complete her training while you work with Serin."

Talen had considered this himself, until he had seen the uneasiness in Laney's eyes when he had suggested it the day before. He would have to wait, see how her training went, and gauge the degree of pressure she could take before he decided on it.

"We'll see," Talen, said noncommittally as he rose to his feet and dusted his jeans. "Right now, I'm heading to town for dinner, then home for sleep. What about yourself?"

Dayan watched him for long seconds, his eyes cold and alert, searching for a weakness. Talen would have laughed at the effort, but he had a feeling he would end up fighting Dayan if he did. He could beat him, but fighting his brother's seemed a waste of his time, and the energy he may need later.

"I have some fences that need fixed." Dayan finally shrugged. "The cattle go to the East pasture for summer, and I haven't finished the repairs yet."

Talen nodded. Summer was on them already, and he wondered what Dayan had been doing that was throwing him behind.

"Give it until tomorrow and I'll round up Webb and Damen and we'll help you," Talen suggested. After all, they all benefited from the beef he provided throughout the year.

"That's okay. Damen and Webb's been pretty busy at the garage, and I finally just hired a few men." Dayan shrugged, though Talen could tell this bothered him in some way. "Come on out if you get bored though. There's always plenty of work needing done."

Talen nodded, wondering at the differences he could see in his brother after being gone nearly a year. They were subtle, things others may not have noticed, but Talen noticed them. The strange anger that seemed to tighten Dayan's shoulders, and made his amber eyes glitter.

"I might do that Dayan." Talen nodded. "If I get lucky, I should have a few weeks at least before any more trouble flares up. I'd like to get some fishing in too if we have time."

Dayan inclined his head in agreement, but Talen had a feeling neither suggestion set well on the other man's shoulders. Dayan had somehow managed to set his life on a course that the others didn't follow, and Talen could sense it was not just due to Dayan problems, but his siblings as well. And problems were something that, Talen for one, did not need more of right now.