The Devil's Due

Barrett O’Sullivan stared at the tiny—too, too tiny—form of the child that his best friend had followed him into hell to save.

So tiny.

A little scrap of flesh and bones that was all of nine years of age, but he swore she could be barely four if she was a day.

Now Jorn Langer, the friend who had uncovered the secret of these labs, the secret of this child, lay on the cement floor next to her, his blood staining the icy stone below.

God, it was so cold.

Barrett could feel the chill surrounding him seeping into his soul, into that place within his heart, within his consciousness, that brought the realization that once again, his life was changing.

Surrounded by that cold, his naked child lay, her skin nearly blue. The wealth of long, Irish red ringlets cascaded on the floor around her to mix with the blood of her rescuer. Irish cream flesh shadowed by the tint of freezing blue glistened beneath the ringlets.

Echoing screams, shouted orders, bestial growls and animalistic snarls were like a hellish symphony invading the lab where Jorn’s greatest battle had been fought. The battle to save the child Barrett hadn’t even known existed until days before.

“Fuck me, Bar,” Jorn whispered weakly, his accent thickened by pain as thick Norse white blond lashes lifted to stare up at Barrett blearily. “I’m gonna die, lad. Helluva way to go.”

“The hell you are.” Kneeling quickly, Barrett checked the wound to his chest and knew his friend wasn’t lying. He was dying.

God help him. This man was as much his brother as any blood could be, and he was dying.

“Don’t you die on me, Jorn,” he whispered, suddenly desperate.

All their lives it had been Jorn who had gotten Barrett’s ass out of trouble, and who had gotten his ass into trouble. This was the man who had watched over him, laughed with him, fought with him.

“Got no choice, boyo,” Jorn wheezed, his ruddy face pale now, the blood spilling too quickly from his chest.

“Your daughter, Bar.” Jorn nodded to the child next to him.

Her breathing was slow and easy, but she was so stiff with cold.

Barrett all but tore his jacket off and quickly wrapped it around the girl’s nude body, wondering why he hadn’t done so the moment he stepped into the room.

She lay against Jorn’s bleeding chest, her weight so slight she couldn’t have increased the rate of blood loss, but still, Barrett moved to lift her from her resting place.

“No!” Jorn’s arm tightened around her slight form. “Not yet. Let me hold this little angel for a moment. She reminds me of Khileen. My sweet, little Khileen.”

His daughter. She was barely five, and she was the light of Jorn’s life.

They both stared at the fall of hair. There was so much hair and so little child.

“Hide her,” Jorn whispered, turning back to Barrett. “Remember the file I found, Bar. Don’t let anyone know. They can’t know she’s yours and Kella’s. Swear it, Bar.”

“I swear it.”

No one could know. It would mean more than just his and his wife, Kella’s, life. It could mean their child’s as well. A child created from the sperm and ova he and his wife had given at a fertility clinic in the hopes of a child that Kella would carry. A child she would nurture within her body and one they would raise from first birth.

Yet, as he stared at the child Jorn held close, Barrett realized no love could be greater than the love he felt for this child, at this moment.

Damn, his hands were shaking, he realized as he reached out to brush her hair back from her face.

Blinking fiercely at the tears that would have fallen, his gaze moved to Jorn’s once again.

“Kella’s lass,” Jorn whispered, his accent thicker now as death neared. “She’s her wee miniature, Bar.”

“How do I hide her child?” Desperation began to fill him. “Fuck you, Bar. Don’t you leave me to protect this child and Khileen alone. Don’t you do this to me.”

Jorn’s rakish smile tugged at his pale lips. “I wish . . .”

“No, God, Jorn, don’t you do this.” How the fuck was he supposed to do what he had to do without Jorn’s help?

“Stick closest to the truth,” Jorn was wheezing now. “Found her here. Contact Lyons in the US. Virginia. Meet. Show him the truth. He’ll give you the care of her.”

The other man struggled for breath as a trail of blood began to seep from his nostrils. “Tell no one but Lyons.”

Jorn suddenly gripped the sleeve of Barrett’s jacket. “Swear it. Not even Kella can know. None but Lyons can know the truth.”

“None but Lyons,” Barrett agreed, knowing it was a secret he would have to break. There were no secrets from Kella, from his heart. What he knew, his Kella always knew.

“What Kella knows, she’ll tell my lovely Jess. Jess will tell her momma—” He began coughing, blood spraying from between his parted lips.

“I’ll hold the secret, Jorn. No one will threaten my child.”

“My Khi,” Jorn wheezed again, his blue eyes desperate and filled with such aching sadness and fury that for a moment, Barrett was certain sheer will would hold his friend to earth.

Then his eyes closed.

“I swear Khileen as well, Jorn. I’ll protect her as I would protect my own. I swear it.”

A tear slipped free—how could it not, now?—this was his dearest friend, the brother he’d never known until Jorn came into his life.

A peaceful expression filled Jorn’s face then. “Aye then, I can go now,” he whispered. “I can go.”

“Jorn, please God, not yet—”

And just that quickly—

Barrett clenched his teeth, baring them in a snarl of naked agony before quickly gathering his daughter to his chest and rising to his feet.

He and Jorn had practiced this escape a million times over the past days. Getting in, getting the child, then getting out. They’d practiced getting out together, and they’d practiced escaping alone.

Had Jorn somehow known they’d never escape together?

Holding his daughter close to the warmth of his body, Barrett ran quickly for the other side of the room and the steel wall. Once there, he quickly pressed his hand against the Genetics Council symbol emblazoned on the wall and waited impatiently for the entire wall to move and reveal the hidden exit.

Sliding through the narrow opening, he pressed his hand against the matching emblem on the other side, waited for the door to close, then rushed through the hidden tunnel.

All the while, the child he carried slept deeply, untouched by the horror that echoed in blood-curdling screams on the other side of the room. Or the snarls and animalistic fury that caused them. All that mattered was getting his child out of there, and hiding her. Hiding her secret.

A recessive Wolf Breed.

Perfect human looks, straight, perfectly human canines, her animal genetics so deeply recessed that even the most advanced genetic testing hadn’t picked up the fact that she was a creature of science rather than of nature.

The files Jorn had found had been stamped TOP SECRET, SINGLE COPY. There were no duplicates. Hopefully, there were truly no other copies, no other information to label her as a Breed rather than a human.

As far as the world would know, she was the daughter of Kella’s cousin. Orphaned, alone in the world, and now adopted by the O’Sullivans.

His child.

His and Kella’s.

Rushing into the dreary rain and fog that surrounded the underground labs, Barrett ran to the ground-hugging all-terrain vehicle he and Jorn had hidden the night before.

The armored Sergeants Dragoon sat low to the ground. It was built for speed and agility, with minimal onboard weapons. It was parked exactly where they had left it, buried beneath the natural hearty evergreen boughs of the Lawson’s Cypress they’d covered it with.

Throwing open the back passenger door and hurriedly lifting the seat to reveal the padded hiding space beneath, Barrett placed his daughter inside before replacing the cover. Closing the door quietly, he moved to the driver’s seat, slid inside and started the vehicle.

Before pulling out, his gaze slid to the hidden back entrance of the labs and for the briefest moment, he could have sworn he saw Jorn.

Just as quickly, the shadow of his friend was gone, the fog parting to reveal the straggled growth of a bare tree instead.

It wasn’t Jorn.

His boyhood friend was gone forever.