Primals (Reverse Harem 1)

“If anything bad has happened to her...”

“I can pick up her scent,” Sebastian says, crawling on all fours to the back door, pushing it open. “She went out.”

“Or she was taken,” I suggest grimly.

He starts running off and Toshi and I follow, Toshi eventually sprinting ahead. The trail takes us through the woods, across a field and finally, to a meadow where Toshi comes to an abrupt stop.

“Her scent ends here,” he announces.

I cup my hands around my mouth and shout her name. “Clarissa!”

There’s no reply, nor any sign of her.

Sebastian picks up a strand of pale brown hair from the grass. “She was here but now, she’s not and the fact that her scent’s disappeared, plus the fact that we’re not picking up other scents means only one thing.”

“Cats,” Toshi says, fist clenched. “They camouflaged their scents and then hers after taking her.”

I bury my fist in the ground, the soil cracking around it in ripples.

“How many?” Sebastian asks.

Toshi shrugs. “I don’t know.”

He kneels on the ground between some tall blades of grass and when he stands up again, he has something in his hand – a small piece of red yarn that he rubs between his fingers. “But I think I know where she is.”

Chapter Twenty-Two

~ Clarissa

WHERE AM I?

As I force my heavy eyelids open, a metal ceiling appears above me and turning my head, I see a wall with a glass window but I can’t see anything beyond the glass. I turn my head the other way, finding a long table and on it, a tray with bottles, vials and syringes.

The image takes me back to the facility in Africa and seized with panic, I get up. At least, I try to but my arms are restrained at the elbows and wrists, my waist, knees and elbows bound to the bed as well. I squirm and tug but they won’t budge, my efforts simply causing pain. Even with super strength, I can’t move.

Shit.

“I’d calm down if I were you,” a voice comes from the speaker above the glass window. “Those restraints were specifically designed to hold a full-blooded primal in his, well, prime and you are not one, are you?”

Primal. I’ve been captured by primals.

As my memory clears, I remember lying in the meadow miles from Kyle’s house. I don’t remember the details but I know I was ambushed.

Ambush. Element of surprise.

Cats.

No surprise there. They were the ones behind Project Eden.

Project Eden. Those two words, coupled with the images I saw in that facility in Africa, with all the information I read in the files, cause a lump in my throat. My heart races painfully in my chest. I’ve got to get out of here.

These are the people who possibly killed my father, who kept my mother captive and did horrible things to her. They’re heartless, ruthless.

I force myself to take deep breaths and calm down, though, not because the man behind the glass told me to but because I know there’s no use panicking or lamenting my situation. I have to find a way out of this and to do that, I need a clear mind and a stout heart. Only it’s easier said than done.

Calm down, Clarissa. Breathe. Deep breaths. In and out. Nice and slow.

I can tell when it’s working. My unseen captors let me know. “That’s better,” the voice from the speaker lauds. “Somehow, I knew you’d be sensible.”