He pressed a button on his lapel, then said, "No sign of them yet. I'll head up to the breeding labs and see if Max is there."
"He was supposed to have reported in half an hour ago."
"Won't be the first time he's slacked off."
"Might be his last, though. The boss ain't gonna like this."
The guard grunted. "I'll give you a call in ten."
Ten minutes wasn't much time, but it was better than the two it would take him to walk up the road and discover the knocked-out beasties.
"Do that."
I waited until the guard came close, then clenched my fist and let rip with a blow to his chin. The force of it sent a shockwave up my arm, but he was out long before he hit the ground. I rolled him into the shadows of the fake shop's doorway, then scanned the road ahead.
With the main gate guarded, I'd have to try and climb the wire fence. The best place to do that was in the shadows created by the stable.
I ran down a side road into a slightly larger street. More mock shopfronts and houses met me, but the night air carried a hint of hay and horse. It was stables. What in hell would a testing ground want with horses?
As I raced down the road, a strident alarm cut through the silence. I slithered to a halt, my heart back to sitting somewhere in my throat and my stomach battling to join it.
Either they'd discovered the bodies, or someone had finally realized I wasn't where I was supposed to be. Either way, that alarm meant I was in deep shit.
With the alarm came lights, the sudden brightness stinging my eyes. I swore and ran off the road, keeping to what little shadows the shopfronts offered. The perimeter fence was lit up like a Christmas tree. There wasn't a hope of getting over it unseen.
Footsteps pounded through the night. I stopped, pressing back into a doorway. Five half-dressed guards went past, running as if the hounds of hell were after them.
When they'd gone, I edged out of my hidey-hole and ran down the lane they'd come out of. The stable loomed above me, the smell of horse and hay and shit so strong I wrinkled my nose in disgust. The many snorts and stomps indicated more than one animal was housed inside. If I released them, they might just provide enough confusion to help me escape.
The stable doors loomed. From the night behind me came the sound of more footsteps. I quickly pushed through the smaller of the two doors, then closed it behind me and looked around.
There were ten stalls in all, nine of them occupied. A single globe hung off a wire halfway down the center walkway, its pale light sparking off the hay bales lining the edge of the floor above.
Heads swung my way, dark eyes gleaming intently in the muted light. They were all tall and strong looking, most of them chestnut, gray, or bay. The stallion closest to me was a truly stunning mahogany bay, though with his ears pinned back and teeth bared, he looked anything but friendly.
No surprise there. Horses and wolves were rarely the best of buddies.
"Hey," I muttered, swatting his nose as he lunged at me. "I'm just as pissed off at being here as you, buddy boy, but if you promise to behave, I'll let you and your friends go."
The horse snorted, glaring at me for a moment before nodding its head, as if in agreement. Chain clinked as he moved. I frowned and stepped closer. I wasn't hearing things. And it wasn't ordinary chains that held the stallion. Having been shot with silver a couple of times, my skin was now oversensitive to its presence.
And there could only be one reason to use such restraints on a horse.
I looked up sharply. "You're a shifter?" And if so, why hadn't I sensed it? Shifters might not be weres, and they certainly weren't forced through the change every full moon like we were, but they were from the same family tree as us rather than the human side of things. I couldn't sense humans, but I should have known what he was straightaway. Should have smelled it in his scent.
The stallion nodded again.
"And them?" I waved a hand at the other horses.
A third nod.
Fuck. Looks like I wasn't the only one caught in this web. Whatever this goddamn web was.
"You promise not to stomp on me if I come into the stall?"
The stallion snorted again, and somehow it sounded disdainful. I opened the door carefully. I might not have had a whole lot to do with shifters in the past, but the few I had dealt with tended to treat us weres with as little respect as humans did. Why, I had no idea, especially considering our "animal" tendencies were the same as theirs.
Well, except for the moon heat - and they could hardly look down their nose at us for that when a good percentage of them enjoyed the week of the moon heat just as much as any were.