Fury Read online

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  Ellie woke confused at first, until memories returned with a rush. Her throat felt a little sore. She reached for it but her arms caught on something. Her eyes opened to stare at a white ceiling inside a dimly lit, unfamiliar room. She lifted her head to peer around.

  The large bedroom contained dark furniture and a fire blazed in the hearth inside a corner fireplace, the source of the light. A toilet flushed, startling her. With a few tugs she discovered that her arms were stretched wide apart above her head, tied at the wrist with soft, black material that connected to the sides of the headboard.

  After a brief blast of running water sounded, a door opened at the side of the room. Fury stepped out of the bathroom. She glanced at his naked chest and the black sweatpants he wore. Ellie’s fear increased, seeing his half undressed state. She warily studied his muscular build. He flipped the light off behind him, causing the room to darken again, hiding all the tiny details of his body.

  “You’re awake.” His tone softened. He sounded deceptively calm under the circumstances. He moved toward the bed. “Good.”

  He’d covered Ellie with a thick, soft blanket. She looked down and realized the top portion of her chest was bare and exposed. She moved her leg, feeling sheets against…bare skin. Her stunned gaze returned to Fury.

  He stopped at the edge of the bed. “I removed your clothes.” He paused. “All of them.”

  “Why?” Her voice came out raspy from her dry throat. Her fear level notched higher. Why would he bring her to his home and tie her naked to his bed? She had a really bad feeling and she didn’t want to know his answer, positive it would terrify her more.

  “You know why.” He moved toward the nightstand. “Are you thirsty?”

  She nodded. The bed dipped when he sat on the edge, grabbed the bottled water obviously placed there for her, and then twisted to face her. He reached out with one hand to gently slide it under her neck and lift as he brought the mouth of the bottle to her lips. She swallowed as much as she could without choking. He pulled back from her, his touch leaving her as he replaced the water on the nightstand.

  “I thought long and hard about what to do to you,” he informed her softly. “I once wanted to kill you outright but that was before I knew you were a spy. I didn’t understand you were inside that hellish place to save my people.” He paused while he adjusted his position to sit sideways to stare at Ellie. “Now I’ve decided you can live.”

  Her heart rate slowed and some of the terror eased. “Why am I here? Why did you take me from the park?”

  Fury’s eyes narrowed. “You said you’d do anything to make it up to me. I decided you deserve some punishment.” He paused. “I also don’t know if I believe what you say. You are a spy, used to dealing in lies, and telling people what you think they want to hear to avoid danger. You injured my pride, betrayed my trust, and you need to pay for that. Do you know how they made me suffer for killing the technician?”

  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