Broken Mate: Project Rebellion, #4

By Mina Carter

She needed the story. She didn't expect to run for her life in a world where vampires and werewolves are real...

The homeless are going missing, and reporter Max Harvey can just smell the story. None of her usual contacts will talk to her. They're scared, which sets her reportery senses tingling. Deciding to go undercover is a stroke of genius...

Until she's snatched with the others and thrown into a world she never expected. A world of government conspiracies and genetic experiments where supernatural creatures exist and the real monsters are the humans trying to kill her. 

In a desperate race through the forest, she must trust a dangerous man who is more than he seems. A broken hero who isn't strictly human but who makes her heart sing like no other...

No one walks away from the Project. They run...

Major Dean Steele didn't run quick enough and now he's in a cage. Again. Only instead of expecting him to fight and kill like the monster they turned him into, now they expect him to run and die in a hunt with the odds stacked against him. But there's one thing they don't know... the beautiful little human woman they've put him with is his mate. And that changes everything. 

In a hunt with everything on the line, there's no monster more dangerous than a man fighting for redemption... and love.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Mina Carter
• Release date: Feb 25, 2020
• ISBN: 9781393555117

Mina Carter

Mina Carter was born and raised in Middle Earth (otherwise known as the Midlands, England). After a slew of careers ranging from logistics to land-surveying she can now be found in the wilds of Leicestershire with her husband, daughter and a cat who moved in and never left. Suffering the curse of eternal curiosity, Mina never tires of learning new skills which has led to Aromatherapy, Corsetry, Chain-maille making, Welding, Canoeing, Shooting, and pole-dancing to name but a few. A full-time author and cover artist, Mina can usually be found hunched over a keyboard or graphics tablet, frantically trying to get the images and words in her head out and onto the screen before they drive her mad. She's addicted to coffee and Dairy-lea cheese triangles.

Book preview

PROLOGUE

G o, go, go! Steele yelled, looking over his shoulder to see armed soldiers racing after them. Silhouetted by the burning hangar behind them, they ran as a pack and then scattered to take cover. Muzzles flashed and bullets sang through the air, slamming into the side of the armored vehicles in front of them.

Steele swore, using his bigger body to protect those ahead of him—two lycans, werewolves for all intents and purposes, and a female aide from the Project staff. She squeaked a small, breathless sound of terror and the scent of her fear hit his nostrils, sharp and acrid.

He fought back the need to sneeze, snarling over his shoulder as though his anger could stop bullets, and shoved the smaller lycans toward the vehicle.

More rounds flew past him, turning the air around them into a lethal net. He hissed and ducked his head. They were outnumbered, and if they didn’t get out of here fast, they would be cut to ribbons.

In the truck! a deep voice yelled behind him. Something, a note in rich timbres, caused Steele’s hackles to rise, and he whipped around to see the driver’s door open. A big guy jumped down with a heavy machine gun in his hands like it weighed little more than a paperweight.

Re-animate.

Steele’s lips curled back from his teeth, the snarl starting deep in the center of his chest. The dead part of him recognized something that was fully dead and more dangerous than either him or the werewolves around him. Re-animates were the most lethal of the Project’s attempts to create the ultimate super-soldier. After all, what could stop the dead?

I’ll cover you, the re-animate yelled over the noise of the firefight. As Steele watched, bullets hit the guy’s thigh and shoulder, but he didn’t so much as flinch as the machine gun in his hands spat in answer. Get them out of here.

Steele didn’t need to be told twice, nodding as he raced with the others toward the heavy truck.

In, he ordered, bundling Sanders in ahead of him and bodily lifting the smaller man out of the driver’s seat. Sliding into it, he yanked the door shut behind him and slammed the accelerator down. The cold metal bit into his bare foot as he floored it, the big vehicle roaring into life as they escaped into the darkness.

1

Look, homeless people go missing all the time. Why don’t you stick to what you’re good at… recipes, perhaps?

It had been hours since the meeting with her boss, the editor of the Milford Daily Chronicle, but the words and the raking look down her ample figure that had accompanied them still stung and brought tears to Max Harvey’s eyes. Not tears of upset—she wasn’t that much of a special snowflake. She couldn’t be, no reporter with such a delicate personality would have lasted long even in a small town like Milford. No, they were tears of anger and frustration. Anger at her editor for dismissing her out of hand and frustration at herself for letting him get to her.

What had made things worse, though, was the presence of Penny Perkins, the Chronicle’s star reporter. It was bad enough that her leads had been dismissed out of hand… bad enough that the pick of the assignments had gone to Penny, leaving Max the dregs… but the worst thing was the high, tinkling laughter from the other woman that had followed her out of the room. What had happened to female solidarity and sisters sticking up for each other?

Hoisting her battered pack higher on one shoulder, Max snorted to herself bitterly. Like Penny-fucking-perfect Perkins knew the meaning of the word supportive without a dictionary. The woman would probably need a road map too. Flown in from the big city, she’d only been at the Chronicle for four months, but it might as well have been a lifetime. Everything Max had worked for—her position as lead reporter, the respect of her boss—had disappeared into the ether as soon as the other woman had arrived.

She’s got city experience, Dan had said, awe shining from his features. Used to dealing with the big stories. Got a nose for investigation.

Max snorted again. Yeah, Penny had a nose alright. Like the rest of her perfect features, she’d probably picked it from a catalog. The snide thought made Max shake her head at herself. No way would she say anything like that where someone could hear her. It would only lead to accusations that she was jealous, and perhaps she should look at it as a learning opportunity…

That brought a growl from the back of her throat as she stomped down the road. Yeah, right. Learn from Penny? Sure, she got results… but only by flashing her tits when interviewing people. And by people, Max meant men. As soon as they got an eyeful of the balloons Penny called a bust, they were putty in her hands. She’d like to see the woman really investigate. Get down and dirty to nail a story.

Swearing to herself, Max continued walking, taking the underpass to the more rundown area of the town. Milford used to be a small town, but urban expansion meant sprawl. Small towns merged into each other, sometimes successfully, but at other convergences they created derelict areas where the dregs of society and the unwanted tried to eke out an existence.

Dressed in the oldest, scruffiest clothes she could find, she was posing as the latter. A ratty backpack on her back with a thin sleeping bag strapped to the bottom, she wore a coat that had seen better days, its torn elbows mended with silver tape. She’d gotten it from a young homeless girl a few weeks ago in exchange for a hot meal, Max’s new winter coat and money for a bus ticket home. At least… Max hoped the girl had gone home and not simply spent the money on drugs or alcohol. She’d been too young to disappear down that rabbit hole.

A bitter wind sliced through the underpass, making Max shiver as she emerged. Turning left, she slid through a gap in the chain-link fence and disappeared into the darkness beyond. The rumble of traffic got louder, pillars of concrete supporting the roads above rising up like sentinels in the shadows as she walked. Life passed by at speed overhead, but down here, under the roads, was the twilight world of the forgotten.

Mounds in the darkness caught her eye but she knew better than to look closely. They weren’t the piles of trash they appeared, dumped haphazardly, but homeless people hunkered down for the night. Some had managed to find nooks and crannies to try and shelter from the elements while others had covered themselves in cardboard in a vain attempt to conserve heat. The more fortunate had plastic sheeting or waterproof sleeping bags.

She walked a little further, eyes sharp in the gloom for somewhere she could settle down. A few minutes later, she found a spot between a pillar and a large pile of plastic bags and cardboard. Dropping her pack, she pulled her sleeping bag free and unzipped it. The dirt was cold and hard against her ass as she pulled her pack close, tucking it under her legs as she wrapped the sleeping bag around her.

Another shiver hit, the extra layer doing little against the biting cold, as she thought longingly of her warm bed and Diablo, the devil alley cat she’d adopted last year. A psycho ball of barbed wire from hell with anyone else, he was a complete softy with her, insisting on his snuggles every evening. She often fell asleep with his broken-engine purr rattling in her ear.

Then the pile to her left moved and guilt washed over her. This was just one night for her, but it was reality for all those around her trying to get comfortable on the cold, hard ground. She watched as the plastic parted and a pair of suspicious eyes glinted from the darkness underneath. She didn’t blame them… she could have been anyone…but the atmosphere in the air had definitely changed from the last time she’d been down here a few months ago.

Then, there had been tension until darkness fell. Up to that point there was always the possibility that the cops would show up and either arrest people for vagrancy or simply move them on. They’d have to find somewhere else to sleep…not easy in a small town. But after dark, the cops preferred to stay in their nice warm patrol cars, leaving the rough-sleepers to their own devices.

Now, a still tension hung in the air, even though it was long after dark, and it was joined by something with a harder edge. Fear. Rather than getting the sense that everyone around her was asleep or dozing, Max felt the expectation in the air. The wariness. As if, at any moment, they were all ready to jump up and scatter. It wasn’t fear of the cops. Even if they had ventured out into the darkness, they’d only lock everyone up in a nice warm cell for the night. No, this was fear of something worse…

People were disappearing.

It had only been a few at first. One a month and then a couple at a time. The disappearances could be attributed to people skipping town or moving on to get into one of the neighboring towns’ housing programs. Occasionally, a body would be found months down the line, hidden away in some abandoned building or storm drain.

When more and more people started going missing though, one of Max’s contacts at the homeless shelters had tipped her off. Sensing a story, she’d gone into analytical mode, but none of the info her contact had on numbers made any sense. There was no pattern to the disappearances. They were male and female, young and old, from all ethnic backgrounds… it just didn’t make sense.

But she still couldn’t shake the feeling there was a story here, a big story, which was why she was sitting in the cold, freezing her ass off to see if she could spot whatever was taking these people in action. Which was freaking grand in principal, but the practice sucked donkey balls. Big, freaking hairy ones.

Wrapping her sleeping bag tighter around her, she tried to stop all the drafts and stay warm. Heaven knew how these people did this night after night. Her teeth chattered together so violently she was sure they’d shatter. There must be something more the town council could do to help them, some sort of funding that could be applied for… she’d have to look into it when she got back into the office. Despite the cold, she started to warm through, her eyelids getting heavier and drifting down…

The roar of an engine and the squeal of tires brought her awake with a jerk. Bright lights shining in her eyes blinded her as rough hands grabbed her and hauled her to her feet. She screamed, kicking out and fighting as she was dragged away from her resting place.

Oi! Enough of that, a rough male voice snapped. A fist flashed as it was lifted in the air and pain exploded across the side of her face, the force of the blow spinning her around. She dropped to the ground, blood filling her mouth as she tried to scramble away. Her attacker didn’t let her get far, though. Before she could escape, a hard hand slammed down on the back of her neck and dragged her upright again.

Shitshitshit. She was in so much trouble. She needed to get out of this. Now.

Her heart pounded in her chest and blood roared in her ears as she was shoved toward the lights of the van that had stopped in the middle of the area between the pillars. She tried to get a look at the plates but all she managed to get was a brief glimpse of hard faces as she was shoved and pushed toward the back of the vehicle.

In, another man growled, and the sight of the machine gun in his hands turned her knees to water. There was no way out. For a moment she considered running. Then someone behind her did just that, screaming as they tried to make their escape into the darkness. The sharp retort of a gun sliced through the air, the runner jerking as bullets slammed into his body. He dropped, motionless in the dirt.

Max froze in fear, bile rushing up to burn her throat. Oh god, why had she thought this was a good idea? Clambering in, she tried to get to the clear space at the back near the bulkhead, but her movements were uncoordinated and jerky. Dragging her phone out of her pocket, she flicked it on, thumbing speed-dial for Zander, the Chronicles’ photographer. She had to let someone know, get the police here…

"We got a cell!" The bellow came before she could hit dial, and within seconds, armed men were in the truck with her. She screamed, lashing out as she tried to keep hold of her cell, but cruel hands locked her down as it was twisted from her grasp. One of them grabbed the front of her jacket and thrust his face into hers.

Be-fucking-have, or you’ll get the same as the runner. Understand? he hissed.

She nodded, her heart stuttering in her chest as the muzzle of his gun pressed against her ribs. If he pulled the trigger, she was done for. The bullets would rip right through her and kill her instantly.

Good.

He threw her against the side of the van and her head struck the metal. More pain blazed through her as she slid down to the floor, whimpering softly as welcomed darkness washed up to claim her.

He woke in a cage. Again. Well, fuck it, that escape had gone to hell in a hand basket. Hadn’t it?

Dean Steele groaned as he opened his eyes, blinking until they cooperated and focused on the scene above him. Sure enough, bars stood between him and the ceiling high above. Yeah. He could smell the rust and metal. Once you’d been in one cage, smelled one, it was unmistakable. With a sigh, he shut his eyes again, not making an effort to move from where he was sprawled