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Hunter concentrated on his panther and shifted easily into the large cat. He rolled his shoulders and stretched out his back legs, waiting for Damian to recover from his latest blow before Hunter pounced.

His eyes focused on Neri, who pulled Zahava to her feet. One hand held the broken wrist while her dominant hand held the gun, Zahava’s gun to her forehead. Her hand was steady.

“How much pain can you take, Zahava?”

“Fuck you!” The woman screamed.

“Well, that’s not very nice, Zahava. So if you want to talk about something else, we’ll list all the fucking crimes you have committed since you met Anzû, shall we?”

A sneer was the answer she received.

“So, you helped Dr. Steven’s turn me into a shifter and then a vampire, taking satisfaction from the pain you put me through. All for the sake of taking over Dark Company, but for a reason we have yet to fathom.

“You were probably behind the torture of Liv, Kane’s mate being killed, and Ara, along with the other immortal’s being kidnapped and used as fucking science experiments. You sent someone to kill Reaper and Ara, twice after she escaped. And then, your mate went after Frost and Xander, threatened Silas, which I should kill you for that alone, and sent Jade and Noah on a wild goose chase after you killed Noah’s best friend. Then, you fucking bitch, planned to kill my mate after you experimented on him. Was there anything else I forgot?”

Neri glanced around the room, but the assassins shook their heads, all of them glaring at the whimpering, yet defiant human standing tall.

“And yet, I don’t understand why you haven’t become an immortal yourself.”

Zahava spit at Neri, who dodged it and jerked her broken wrist. A howl escaped Zahava, and she moved to sink down onto the ground again, but Neri’s hold prevented her action.

“You, you lot are fucking disgusting. Freaks of nature. Why the fuck would I want to be like you?” Zahava jeered.

“You married a shifter. You create shifters in your lab. To what end?”

“Power and money. What else would I fucking do it for? I want that fucking contract from the government.”

Neri’s brows drew down, as though she didn’t understand the reasoning.

Hunter glanced at Damian who looked shocked at the vitriol spewing from his boss’s mouth. The huge immortal sank down against the door and sighed, almost as if he’d given up the fight. But Hunter didn’t relax. Hunter sat back on his haunches and kept an eye on him.

“We already explained why that would never work. But you took him anyway.”

“Because they are the key to a successful shifter. They’re not tainted. They can shift and live forever. But my shifters, well they all dead now, have all been failures. I needed him to see what I was missing. If his blood didn’t hold the answers, I needed him to make a new group of shifters I could control.”

Neri shook her head, disgusted. “That’s not how it works. No matter how you get the venom, the likelihood the human would survive the transition is slim.”

Another scoff. “But you did.”

Kai stepped up. “There is no rhyme or reason to why some humans survive and some don’t.”

“Damian did.”

The grunt from the defeated man had Neri scowling. “You did the same thing with him? Injected him with shifter venom and then vampire venom along with the bioweapon.”

“No, the opposite this time. It’s why he’s stronger, but Anzû hated vampires—”

“Yeah, we got it.” Kai said.

Hunter, we can’t kill him. He’s a pawn, like everyone else in her sick world.

I know, angel. Ara, can you heal Damian?

Hunter made sure everyone had heard his request of Ara, so when they all nodded in agreement, the red wolf shifter stepped toward Damian and knelt beside him. In voices too quiet for Zahava to hear, Ara explained her powers to Damian and asked him if she could heal him. With reluctance, he nodded.

Neri shook her head at Zahava, pulling the human’s attention away from her once loyal lackey as Ara started the healing process.

“You’ve done nothing but fail for years. Why would you keep going?”