Read New Species 02 Slade Online
Authors: Laurann Dohner
stomach and propped her elbows on the sleeping bag
while she continued to catch snatches of the flames.
More time passed and she lay down flatter onto her
stomach. A yawn passed her parted lips, reminding her
of her exhaustion. She drifted to sleep until a single
gunshot jerked her awake.
Trisha scrambled to sit up while frantically aiming
the binoculars toward the campfire. She spent seconds
searching the darkness until she found the flickering
light.
Her attention remained focused on it until it died
out, disappearing in the darkness. No more shots rang
out. It gave her hope that he might have survived if he’d
attacked the camp.
She fought the urge to shed tears over Slade being
out there alone. He could be dead if one of them had
gotten off a lucky shot. She dragged the sleeping bag
away from the edge and huddled into a ball on top of it.
She needed sleep and she had no chance of trying to spot
Slade until the sun rose.
* * * * *
with hatred. He could hear their words and it made his
blood boil. The smell of the deer they’d shot and cooked
faded with the firelight they allowed to slowly burn out.
“Think the animal will beg for his life when we find
him?” The one in the jeans jacket asked the one in the
black shirt.
“I hope so.” He laughed. “I brought along my video
camera to tape it all. We need to show all the decent
folks that they aren’t men.”
Jeans jacket snorted. “Damn two-legged animals. Not
only do we have to protect our country from them but
our women too. First they’ll want to vote, then they’ll
want to get married. If their women look anything
similar to the men they will be after our sisters and
daughters. It’s just sick. I figure they hide how their
women look for a damn reason. They probably mixed
them with mules and they have jackass faces.”
One of the men laughed. “Butt-faced ugly. Forget the
coyotes.”
“They never should have been set free. We don’t go
around freeing monkeys they test makeup on. Hell no.”
The black-shirted man leaned back against the log,
putting his boots closer to the fire. “They are dangerous
and probably nuttier than fruitcakes.”
The blond man who’d kept silent suddenly frowned.
“Does fruitcake actually have nuts in it? I won’t taste that
junk. It looks bad.” He paused. “Do they really use cute
monkeys to test women’s face crap on? Monkeys are
cool. I always wanted one for a pet when I was a kid.”
“Hell if I know.” The guy in the black shirt shrugged
his shoulders. “It’s a damn saying. My point is that they
have to be completely whacked out of their minds. You
don’t set caged animals loose and let them run around
free. It’s dangerous and that’s why they all need taken
out. They sure aren’t cute and I wouldn’t want one for a
pet. It would probably try to hump my wife.”
The blond laughed. “I’ve seen your wife. I doubt it.”
The guy in the black shirt threw his can at his friend,
tagging him in the arm. “Fuck you, Mark.”
“Knock it off,” the guy sitting farthest from the fire
sighed. “We haven’t found our target and every hour
that passes means he could somehow slip out of the area.
The roads are locked down by our teams. They are
trapped in the area, but that woman he’s with is some
kind of doctor. That means she’s smart and is probably
thinking for him. They might have found a hole to hide
in. That’s what I’d do. We need to cover a lot of ground
tomorrow at first light, find them, and kill them. I didn’t
come out here to bullshit and insult each other. I want
the reward.”
“I’m not mounting that head on my hunting wall.”
The blond shuddered. “They look freaky and just plain
ugly. Of course it would be cool just for a conversation
piece. I could charge admission and show it off.”
Slade had heard enough. He wasn’t about to allow
those men to leave the camp. They were too close to
Trisha and they were looking for sheltered places. He
eased around the camp and waited until the men began
preparing to sleep. The blond stood, stretched and
walked into the darkness to take a leak.
The man never heard Slade come up behind him
until his hands were on him. The smaller man only
gasped when a palm slapped over his mouth, he was
jerked off his feet, and the knife on his thigh was yanked
free and pressed to his throat.
“Be quiet,” Slade ordered.
The blond panted but didn’t try to cry out.
“Are there more of you nearby?”
The guy hesitated before he slowly nodded.
“More than the other three at your camp?”
The blond nodded again. The news angered Slade.
He needed to find the other camps, take out the threat to
Trisha, and get hold of their cell phones. Hopefully one
would work. He could call Homeland to help them
locate Trisha faster. She needed to be taken out of this
dangerous mess quickly.
“I’m going to tie you up and go after your friends. If
you don’t fight I won’t kill you. I’ll secure you until my
people come. Do you understand me?”
The blond nodded. Slade wanted the humans dead
but he wasn’t at Homeland. He wasn’t sure where he
stood on the law. Self defense was one thing but the man
he gripped posed no current threat. He hated them but
he wasn’t a cold-blooded killer despite their low opinion
of Species.
He loosened his hold and the blond suddenly struck.
The guy tried to twist out of his hold and twisted his
head. He gasped in air to give the alarm but Slade was
faster. He snapped the man’s neck. The sound of the
bone breaking sickened him as he allowed the body to
slump to the ground. He turned to face the camp but
suddenly spotted movement. Another human came at
him. The guy didn’t seem to see him in the darkness
until the last second.
The human’s shock was apparent as he frantically
grabbed for the handgun strapped to his chest in a
holster. Slade threw the blade in his hand and lunged
forward to grip the man’s arm and throat. The human
went down without putting up too much of a fight. He
lowered the dying body to the ground, staring into his
enemy’s eyes.
“We’re going to kill you and that bitch who owns
you,” the man hissed before he died.
Slade released him, his rage heightened by the stench
of blood and death. His instincts gripped him hard.
Protect Trisha. These men weren’t compassionate. They
weren’t worthy of receiving what they didn’t posses.
They were hunting a helpless woman and a Species in a
death sport for money. He snarled softly, releasing his
human side and embracing the instincts of the predator
that was part of him and came so naturally.
Kill them, make sure they aren’t a threat to my woman, and
show no mercy. Memories of the years he’d been locked
up flashed inside his mind. These men were as bad as
the ones who’d kept Species prisoner. They didn’t see his
people as anything but rabid animals. A soft snarl tore
from his throat as he jerked the knife out of the body, and
rose to his feet. The only way to stop them from reaching
the doc was to kill every one of them. He could do it.
He’d do anything for Trisha.
His gaze drifted toward the camp as he stealthily
moved forward. The humans would die but Trisha
wouldn’t. He’d make certain of that regardless of how
many he had to kill.
* * * * *
inched to the entrance on her stomach, gripping the
binoculars to scan the area. She was careful to go slowly
and tried to use a grid pattern not to miss any sections.
She didn’t see anyone or anything. She finally gave up
after an hour and tried to get some rest on the sleeping
bag again. She drank half a soda, saved the rest, and ate
one more breakfast bar.
She worried that Slade might not return to her,
knowing he could have been killed. She lay there with
her eyes closed, his image haunting her thoughts. She
wasn’t sure what kind of relationship they’d have if they
survived. Did they even have one? He’d called her his.
That has to mean something, she decided. It gave her hope
that they had a future awaiting them if they could avoid
being killed.
A sound jerked her from a light sleep a little while
later. Trisha listened until she heard the noise again. She
sat up, her heart hammered, realizing it sounded similar
to… she wasn’t sure, but it was familiar for some reason.
The noise came again. Crap. It sounded as though rocks
or something equally heavy were falling. She moved and
gripped the handgun since it was a smaller weapon,
easier to hold than the two rifles Slade had left behind.
She crawled toward the opening on her belly to peer
down and jerked back hard when she saw someone
move below her. She moved backward, still on her belly,
and grabbed one of the rifles too. She fought down fear
and inched forward to reach the opening.
She kept on her stomach when she drew closer to the
edge, laying the rifle at her side to keep it within easy
reach. She stayed as low as possible to peer over the
edge again until she saw them. Two men were about
twenty-five feet below her, climbing up the hillside were
she hid. She ducked down.
Both men wore camouflage green clothing and
headed directly toward her hidden spot. She hoped they
hadn’t seen her, assumed not, since they hadn’t called
out. They’d reach the opening soon enough if she didn’t
do something. She wondered how they had found her
and if they were New Species. They usually wore black
uniforms but did they wear them away from Homeland
too? She didn’t know.
She could sit there waiting for them to discover her
or keep them below her. She didn’t know what to do. She
frantically wished Slade hadn’t left her because he’d
know how to handle the situation. At least Slade would
be able to smell them to know if they were his people or
the enemy.
Indecision sawed at her. She uttered a silent curse
and then decided she had to hold them back. If they
reached the opening she wasn’t sure she could shoot
them before they shot her since they outnumbered her.
Slade had told her to hold them off with the weapons
and he’d hear it. She wondered how these men had
gotten past him but it didn’t really matter since they had.
She moved again quickly and grabbed the last weapon.
She wanted all three of them available.
She crawled on her stomach and peeked out over the
edge again but couldn’t see their faces. She gripped the
handgun and waited until one of them looked up. He
appeared to be in his mid-twenties. Trisha leaned out
more to aim the gun right at him. His gaze widened in
surprise when he saw her.
“That’s far enough,” she called out. “Don’t move or I
will shoot. Who are you?”
The man next to him jerked his chin up until she
could see his face too. He was a little older than his
companion, in his early thirties, with facial hair, and a
cold look. Trisha kept glancing back and forth between
them. They climbed in a steep area below her, she
remembered vividly how difficult it had been, and both
of them had to hold on not to fall. It would be a painful
fall if they lost their holds, if not deadly. They were a
good fifty to sixty feet up the incline.
“We’re New Species,” the younger man stated
evenly. “We’ve come to rescue you, Dr. Norbit.”
She bit her lip, studying their features. He looked a
hundred percent human but so did the other man. Most
of the New Species had distinct facial anomalies similar
to Slade’s with his flattened nose and pronounced
cheekbones. Justice North had those feature anomalies
but he had cat eyes. Every New Species man she’d ever
seen had long hair that fell at least to their shoulders but
these men had crew cuts.
“I don’t believe you.” Fear gripped her, knowing