“Tim just told me.”

Jaded hesitated, glanced at Beauty and cleared his throat. “Perhaps we should speak in the hall.”

Shadow didn’t budge. “What is it? Do you no longer trust the team? I know those males. It would be rare for one to betray the others. My faith isn’t shaken.”

“That’s not it.” Jaded lifted a hand and ran tan fingers through his short black hair. “We have a problem. Moon was hit by a sniper with a tranquilizer dart.”

“Torrent informed me. I was with him when he got the call.”

“We believed it was just a distraction to draw our officers toward the front gates so they could gain access to the Wild Zone. But he woke feral. It wasn’t a sleeping drug he was exposed to. I’m certain they shot him for that purpose but the result is much worse.”

Beauty didn’t like the uncomfortable silence that suddenly blanketed the room. “What does that mean?”

Jaded actually looked at her for more than a few seconds before glancing at Shadow. “Are you sure you don’t want to take this away from her? It might be upsetting.”

“I’m not leaving her alone.” Shadow crossed his arms over his chest. “She’s stronger than you know. She was almost killed yet she’s calm.”

“Understood.” Jaded stepped closer, lowering his voice. “Moon is completely feral. He doesn’t know us, won’t or can’t speak and is exhibiting violent behavior to the extreme. The older Dr. Harris ran blood tests after six of our males had to restrain Moon when he attempted to kill them. It will take time to get official results but some of our males sniffed the dart to compare against known drugs. Our senses are faster than running them through machines to identify. The drug is unknown to any of us.” His gaze drifted to Beauty, then back. “There’s a connection between Douglas Miller and Mercile. They may be working together on this. Who else could come up with a drug that could do something that would send one of ours into a murderous rage? Mercile is the only one who could pull this off with their knowledge of our biology. Moon is one of our most easygoing males. I know him well but that’s a stranger I faced inside his room. Complete and total personality reversal.”

Shadow’s fists clenched at his side. “That would mean this was planned far in advance. They must have been working on a drug that would harm us.”

“Or they already possessed it but none of our surviving people ever experienced it.”

“There is a Mercile doctor involved in this.”

“That’s what we’re assuming at this point. Douglas Miller may have been waiting for an opportunity. He has the money to support the employees still running from us. I pulled the file on Miller and while we were able to have his accounts frozen in this country, he had vast holdings outside the reach of the US justice department. The bastard even had a human working for him inside the task force headquarters to monitor all movement. Some humans are vindictive. He may have set this into motion as soon as he realized we’d taken back what he held. He finally saw his chance to retrieve…what he wants.”

“Who is Douglas Miller?” Beauty was trying to follow their conversation. “What does he want? Is he one of the owners of Mercile?”

Shadow turned and stepped closer, peering into her eyes. His hand was warm when he gently cupped her cheek on the side that wasn’t bruised. “Douglas Miller is the human who imprisoned you.”

Master. It was an emotional slap but she kept her chin up, resisting curling into a ball to protect herself from the pain washing through her system. Not once had she asked to learn more about the human who’d reared and kept her. Getting beyond what had been done to her seemed more important than focusing on the details of who and why.

The conversation between Shadow and the council member suddenly made horrifying sense. She was glad to be sitting down. Shadow softly growled, his thumb stroking her skin in comfort.

“This isn’t your fault.”

“It is in a way. He is after me. He wants me returned.” She pulled away from his touch to lean to the side enough to see Jaded behind him. “You think this…” she had to pause and swallow down the bile that rose. She couldn’t get his real name past her lips. “Bastard is working with Mercile to hurt Species in revenge for my rescue?”

Jaded hesitated, glancing at Shadow.

Shadow stepped to her side. “Tell her the truth. She deserves that.”

Beauty was grateful for his support and almost reached over to take the hand he’d lowered to his side. She resisted, afraid to look weaker in the eyes of the council member than he surely assumed she was. “Please tell me.”

“Mercile is broke and the employees who fled are too. We cut off their money and seized everything they owned with the help of the president. Douglas Miller had a lot of money in foreign countries that we couldn’t touch. He’s a wanted man who can’t return to the States or any country that would extradite him.” Sympathy softened Jaded’s features. “We know he hired the humans to come after you and we do believe he’s responsible for Moon’s unstable condition.”

Jaded took a deep breath, exhaling slowly. “In no way is this your fault. It’s just tied together. Miller and some of the Mercile doctors must be working together to achieve similar goals. He’s got the money to hide and help them if he wishes. Mercile made a previous attempt against one of our males with a drug they hoped would make him commit murder. It would have backed their stance that we’re dangerous and don’t deserve human rights if Fury had murdered his human mate. It would have been a major victory to sway world opinion that they were justified in using Species as laboratory rats for their experiments.”