She gaped at him. “What?” Her mind reeled at his words. Oh no. Pain squeezed her heart.

“They were angry that I’d killed that male. They punished me for what you’d done.”

Chapter Four

Ellie saw the truth in his grim expression. She’d hoped they wouldn’t punish Fury for Jacob’s death. The technician had assaulted him, had planned to rape, and would have killed him. Tears filled her eyes and she had to blink them back.

“I didn’t know.” She hated to ask but needed to know. “What did they do to you?”

A soft growl passed his parted lips. “Do you want to hear the details to enjoy the suffering you caused me?”

“No!” It horrified her that he’d accuse her of that. “I didn’t think they’d do anything to really harm you. I swear, Fury. They thought you were too valuable to kill, they put so much money into you, and it honestly never crossed my mind that anyone would care about Jacob’s death after what that son of a bitch tried to do to you.”

“They did.” He leaned forward a little, glaring down at her. “They tortured me in retaliation for his death. They caused me great pain. You had to know that. You were a skilled spy and avoided the penalty of his death.”

“I just wanted to save you. My handler promised it could be a matter of only days before they attempted to rescue you if I could smuggle out those computer files. I risked it all to rush into that room to stop Jacob from killing you. I lied to everyone at the testing facility but I’m not lying to you. I’m not really a spy either. I was a nurse, Fury.” She paused. “I worked at Mercile Industries at their corporate offices handing out aspirins until someone approached me to go undercover. This agent shared the rumors circulating about a secret testing facility with live subjects, human ones, and it outraged me that a company could do that.”

“Why?” His tone roughened.

“It’s one thing for someone to volunteer to allow a research company to test experimental drugs on them. They know what they are signing up for and I figure some people have nothing to lose if they are sick enough to take those risks. It’s entirely something else when people are forced against their will to take whatever is forced upon them. The rumors said they’d locked people up. I worked for them and that meant I had accidentally become a part of what they did. I just wanted to make it right.”

“Why would you care what happened to me or my people? Why would you risk your life to save me?”

Ellie carefully debated her words. “I watched you from an observation room I accidentally discovered days after I started working there. All the doors were so similar that I thought it was a supply room. That mirror in your room was two-way. I sometimes sneaked in there to check on you.” She didn’t mention it had been daily, not wanting him to know she’d been nearly obsessed with making sure he was fine. “I respected your courage and you wouldn’t allow them to break your spirit. What they did was a crime. I happened to be in there taking a break when Jacob entered your cell and I overheard him say he planned to kill you. I just couldn’t stand by without doing something.”

Fury seemed to ponder her explanation. “You never stopped any of the other things they did to me. Did you watch when they forced females into my cell and beat them to make us have sex together? Did you enjoy watching that?”

Horror kept Ellie silent. She’d had no idea the doctors had been doing those kinds of things. Perhaps because she was a recent transfer they had purposely kept her in the dark. Jacob hadn’t been the only one to sexually assault Fury. It made her sick inside. She wondered if they would have tried to force her to try to have sex with any of the male Species if she hadn’t helped bust the testing facility.

“They made you have sex with women? I didn’t know. I never saw any women inside your cell when I came in. Was it the other nurses and technicians? I never heard anything about it, Fury. I swear.”

“They were New Species females. They tried for years to breed us. They needed to make more of us but couldn’t successfully replicate the procedures they’d used to create us in the first place. I heard enough to know the doctor who had successfully spliced our genetics with animals had left them when we were young, took her research, destroyed what they had, and they wanted more of us. We were growing older and they feared we’d die.” Anger changed his voice to a growl. “An infant or a puppy? That was what one of those doctors joked. He laughed over the concept of finding out if our women were impregnated.” Fury’s voice deepened into a growl. “Did you ever try to save any of them from being forced to have sex?”

He had so many reasons to hate. His rage, directed at her, was even more understandable. “I didn’t know about any of that. I never even saw one of your women. I was the lowest-level technician with very limited movement within the facility. It came as a shock later when I heard there were females rescued. I only saw males, Fury.”

“You didn’t ask. The females were sometimes raped by the technicians. It angers me that you intervened for me but not them.”

“I asked plenty of questions but they told me it wasn’t any of my business. I had been ordered not to push too hard for answers for fear Mercile would grow suspicious of me. My handler thought they’d kill me if they had any inkling why I wanted to know exactly what they were doing down there and he was right.”

Ellie blinked hard to hold back tears. She knew horrors had been committed in the name of science but the things done to Fury and his kind staggered her. They had been treated as though they were guinea pigs, tools, and nothing more. Taking blood samples, forcing drugs into their systems, and keeping them locked up had been horrible but hearing they’d been forced to have sex, used as breeders, sickened her.