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Auberi twisted and nodded, his gaze holding concern. “Additional medics are en route. As soon as we secured the labs, I had Landros request all PSI and Para-Regs with medical training in the area. They’re on their way. For now, we’ll use the resources provided here. The lab is fairly well stocked. Blaise is starting a number of IVs for those I feel need it.”

Rurik stepped forward, making his presence known. “Is Blaise qualified to give small children intravenous fluids?”

Landros responded. “There is much about Blaise that he keeps to himself. You can trust that he’s more than qualified to assist. He may act and look like he doesn’t care about anything in the world, but that’s not the truth of it.”

Garth looked around the lab. “I need to reach out to the other teams that are doing raids today. They need to be sure to look for any hidden labs. I’d like to think this is a one-and-done thing, but since PSI is doing a massive sting on linked crime organizations today, it’s best we make sure.”

Landros cleared his throat. “When I phoned for backup medical personal, I was told the other teams have already discovered the same thing at their locations. The operative I spoke with said PSI was in the process of dispatching medics to Team Eight’s location. From my understanding, Corbin Jones and his men uncovered a similar lab as this one at their bust location, too. It sounds as if there are a number of expectant mothers there as well as children. Their condition is as dire as here. Maybe even more so.”

“Other labs?”

asked Hans, his voice catching.

Landros nodded. “Details are scarce. This is all unfolding as we speak, and my guess is that all of the other teams are doing the same as us, trying to make sense of it all and trying to save lives.”

Auberi walked over to Landros and bent slightly to look at the little girl the man was holding. Auberi smiled and did his best to appear non-threatening.

Normally, all Garth wanted to do was hit Auberi. Now, he wanted the vampire to ensure the little girl was well and would live.

She put her arms out to Auberi and he took her gently. She instantly wrapped her frail arms around his neck and held tight for dear life. Auberi turned with her, closed his eyes, and patted her back with great care. It was easy to see he was as emotionally affected as the rest of the operatives over the state of the children. The vampire then began to sing softly in French to the little girl. Garth recognized the song as an old French nursery rhyme.

The little girl closed her eyes as she continued to cling to Auberi. He rocked her in place, singing, his tone low. Strangely, in that moment, Garth could imagine the vampire as a parent as well. As if that was even possible. Vampires couldn’t have children, could they?

Rurik went to the bedside of another little one. He tipped his head and then ripped off the top of the crib’s cage-like dome. He lifted the child from the crib tenderly. “Auberi, this one has a rasp to her as she breathes. It’s faint but there.”

With their sensitive supernatural hearing, they could pick up on things most couldn’t. “I think she labors for air, and she smells of the chemicals.”

Reluctantly, Auberi handed the little girl back to Landros—but not before stunning the hell out of Garth by planting a kiss upon the child’s forehead. Auberi actually seemed reluctant to let her go. As if he too was drawn to her.

Landros took her once more and she settled against his shoulder. Her little hand darted out and caught Auberi’s before he could pull away fully. She held Auberi’s finger and stared up at him, her gaze as blue as the vampire’s.

The Frenchman leaned close, still permitting her to hold his finger. He kissed the top of her head and whispered in his native tongue, telling her that he would not go far and that he needed to see to her friends before returning to her.

Oddly, the child nodded as if she understood everything Auberi had said. Maybe she did. All Garth knew was there was something about her that had three alpha males worrying over her and hovering.

“Mon petit chouchou,”

Auberi said softly to the little girl. “Uncle Landros will watch over you while I help the others.”

That was strange.

“Uncle?”

questioned Garth. “And did you just call her a food product in French?”

Auberi ignored him as he stepped away from the little girl.

Landros gave Garth a hard look.

Tossing his hands in the air, Garth shook his head. “Fine. Uncle. Food product. Got it. Someone tell me if she’s okay or not. I feel a bit like I’m standing in quick-dry cement right now. I need to know she’s going to be fine before I can do anything else. I can’t explain why. It just is.”

He wasn’t lying. He did feel stuck.

Rurik returned and looked Garth up and down. “What is wrong with you?”

“I’m not too sure,”

said Garth, rubbing the center of his chest with his thumb as pain began there. “Do shifters have heart attacks?”

“I wish,”

said Auberi from the sidelines.

Garth nearly gave the vampire a piece of his mind. Little ears were present, so he refrained.

Auberi’s attention was now on the other child. He checked the tiny one over thoroughly and rattled off a list of instructions to Rurik. All Garth caught was “airway”

and “fluids.”

The bear-shifter followed the instructions to the letter.

Gram glanced around as he continued to hold a baby. “I’ve seen a lot in my years. This is…it’s…horrendous.”

The rest of the men nodded.

Garth cleared his throat. “I’ve seen something just like this before.”

The men in the room looked at him.

“Germany. Nazi time. I was present when one of the breeding facilities was discovered.”

They all flinched at his words.

Hans gripped the crib nearest him. It was then Garth noticed the man had not touched any of the children. He too seemed stuck in place.

Auberi looked up. “When the Nazis held me, it was not pleasant, but it was not like this. There were no children in the facility I was in. Just adults. All supernatural.”

He continued to doctor child after child efficiently as if he were on the battlefield dealing with wounded soldiers in need of fast care. “I don’t know what all was done to these children. What I do know is, they aren’t human.”

Taking another deep breath, Garth caught it then. The underlying scent of varying supernatural types on the children. When he realized the mix of supernaturals was coming from each of them, not just as a whole, he faced Auberi. “They are blends of more than one type of supernatural?”

“My head says no. The rest of my senses say yes,”

returned the vampire. “I can run additional tests on them at a later date. And before anyone asks, the tests will not harm them in any way. I’m not a monster. Each time I took the Hippocratic Oath, I meant it.”

The little girl in Landros’s arms stared at Auberi. Garth noticed the vampire watching her from the corner of his eyes as well.

A little girl with matted brown hair came running out of the back with Daniel Townsend, the vampire who headed the team Auberi was part of, running behind her, looking exasperated. The British vampire was usually even-keeled and rarely looked riled. Right now, it looked as if he’d gone ten rounds with a heavyweight champion. Garth strongly suspected the champion in this scenario was the little girl. There was a certain light in her huge green eyes that said she was mischievous. The fact that she was giggling and checking behind her really drove home that Garth was onto something.

She came to a grinding halt and Daniel nearly fell over her. He somehow managed to avoid colliding with her, instead stumbling past her and into an exam table. He stood, did his best to straighten his black shirt, and then cast Garth a look that said he was close to pulling out a white flag of surrender.

Garth nearly laughed.

“She has a lot of energy,”

said Daniel, nodding his head in the direction of the little girl with green eyes.

“So I see,”

returned Garth.

The little girl blinked up at Landros and the other child. For a moment, she merely stood there, staring at Landros. Her tiny expression hardened for a fraction of a second before a large smile broke over her face. She then pivoted, bolting back in the direction she’d come from.

“Bloody hell,”

whispered Daniel as he ran off behind her.

“Townsend will need a nap after this. That one is full of piss and vinegar,”

said Gram with a huff. “That’s guid. Means she’s managed to stay strong during this all. That one is a warrior. Mark my words.”

Landros stared off in the direction the child had gone. “She was worried about this one. While none of the children are easy to read mentally, that little one all but threw her thoughts at me. She wanted me to know she and the one with me now are close. And that if I permitted harm to come to her friend, she would hold me responsible.”

Garth snorted—and then stopped when he realized Landros wasn’t kidding. “You’re serious?”

Landros nodded. “Quite.”

“You were just mentally threatened by someone who is like knee high,”

added Garth, finding the act amusing.

“I believe the threat was not empty. Can you sense it in the air? Fae magik?”

asked Landros.

The operatives each paused in what they were doing.

Gram scrunched his face before a smile burst over him. “Aye, it’s there. Faint but still.”

The girl in Landros’s arms coughed and closed her eyes. Was she sick? Had she been given too much of whatever poison they’d been pushing?

Auberi finished up with another child, but this time the man had the audacity to lift the thing out to Garth. “Take this little one to Blaise. He’s underfed and needs to be cleaned, but he’ll be fine.”

Garth stared at the boy who was around the age of three. Unless the child came with a manual, he wasn’t sure how to proceed. How did one pick up a child without hurting them? They were so small. “I don’t know what to do with a kid.”

Children were not something Garth was used to dealing with. In all his time, he’d never had any of his own—for that, he’d need to be mated—nor had he been around many. He made a point to avoid them.

“Yer embarrassing yerself, Captain,”

said Gram. “Just take him and give him to Blaise. It’s nae hard.”

Garth took the child and held him out at arm’s length.

“Christ, Viking,”

snapped Gram. “He’s a wee babe. He’ll nae bite.”

As the words left Gram, the little boy Garth was holding snapped his mouth, his tiny teeth lengthening quickly. He growled, and his blue eyes swirled to amber. The smell of wolf along with hints of Fae found its way to Garth.

In a split second the boy had his small jaws clamped down onto Garth’s forearm, where he proceeded to bite hard.

Garth grunted but did nothing to make the child stop. He was afraid he’d hurt the boy without meaning to. It was better to just let the kid continue to bite him.

Gram snorted. “I lied. That wee one obviously bites. Is that magik I smell on him?”

Nodding, Garth tried to hand the boy, who was still clamped onto his arm, to Gram.

The Scotsman shook his head. “I’ve already got one. Take him to Blaise. Warn him about the magik part. There is no tellin’ how strong the wee one’s magik may be. His spirit is fierce, just look at the way he’s holding on to yer arm with his mouth. Another warrior.”

“Great, an army of small children,”

said Garth snidely as he carried the little boy awkwardly, in search of Blaise Regnier, a fellow member of the Fang Gang.

A few paces down the hall, Garth found the vampire, who was dressed more like he was about to go clubbing than on a raid. Blaise was tall but looked even more so in his three-inch-soled leather boots with giant silver buckles. The T-shirt he wore had a skull image and the word Misfits across the top. He had a number of piercings and currently had his dark hair back in one long braid.

There were a horde of children in the room with the vampire, who didn’t look the least bit frazzled by them. Blaise actually appeared to be in total control of the situation.

He glanced at the little one Garth was holding, who was still biting him. He snickered. “Auberi cleared him?”

Garth nodded, prying the child’s jaws gently from his arm. It was easier said than done. The kid had the nerve to grin after Garth managed to get him loose. “The boy is a shifter with magik in him—and, oh yeah, he bites.”

Blaise took the boy and smiled down at him, careful to show no fang. “Hello there, buddy. You only bit the mean old nasty man because he’s a Viking, didn’t you? Yes, that’s right. Good boy. Now, what do you say we get you set up over here and get you a cup of juice?”

The little boy blinked up at Blaise. In the next breath, a small cup on the side counter lifted into the air all on its own and began to float in the direction of the little boy. It stopped and then changed route, going instead to the tiny girl with brown hair who had mentally threatened Landros only minutes before. Her arms went up and she took the cup like it was no big deal that it had flown on its own.

Blaise laughed. “Ah, she was thirsty, and you knew that, huh?”

The little boy blinked again before wiping a bit of Garth’s blood from his lip. He then turned his attention to Garth and growled, making Blaise laugh more.

“I like him.”

Blaise grinned.

Garth let out a long breath. “Good. He’s your problem now.”

Blaise nodded to Garth. “Try not to kill Auberi while you’re out there. I know exactly how much the two of you like each other.”

With a curled lip, Garth headed out of the room, refusing to make any promise about keeping Auberi alive.

He was just a few steps into the hall once more when another member of the Fang Gang came past. Searc Macleod walked by Garth carrying a small child with a head of shoulder-length red hair. The little girl was paler than any child should be. The vampire, who could rival Gram with his thick Scottish brogue, inclined his head. “Found this wee one locked in a closet. I do nae think she put herself there.”

A growl started in the back of Garth’s throat.

Searc nodded. “Aye, wolf. I feel the same way.”

“Have Auberi look her over,”

said Garth as he followed Searc back to the main lab.

Something had changed since he’d gone but he couldn’t figure out what. The compulsion to look at Landros was great. The man had set the little girl down and was talking to another operative.

The little girl stared up at Garth—and he froze.

Something was wrong. It felt as if someone reached out and ripped him from behind his belly button in the direction of the child. He was almost to her when he swayed. Buzzing started in his head and ringing sounded all around him, confusing him.

He grabbed his ears, covering them, wondering why no other ops were responding to the deafening volume level of the noise. He didn’t dare look away from the little girl. He couldn’t. The ear-piercing ringing faded away quickly, becoming dull and faint.

The little girl stumbled and then collapsed onto the floor, her gaze still firmly locked on Garth. He reacted faster than he ever had before. He shot forward and snatched her off the floor before Landros could so much as blink. Deep down, he knew the little girl was in critical condition.

Her eyes closed, and her tiny head lolled back. Garth knew without being told that she wasn’t breathing. For a second, he couldn’t take a breath either. His keen hearing picked up on the fact her pulse was weak and fading fast. It was then he noticed blisters on her and something white on her skin. He wiped his hand through it and it came away, taking part of her skin and leaving red, angry tissue behind.

“Auberi!”

Garth rushed the child to a table in the center of the lab. He laid her upon it gingerly. “Something is wrong with her!”

The sight of the small child there, on the table, fighting for life, caused Garth’s wolf to react fiercely. He shook.

Auberi was suddenly there. The vampire thrust him out of the way with a force that sent Garth stumbling backward. Auberi began performing life-saving measures on the child. When he reached the point of CPR, Garth’s wolf roared within him. The wolf understood just how dire the situation was as well.

A line of French shot out of Auberi rapidly. Garth’s French was decent on most days, but Auberi’s state of panic caused him to talk faster than Garth could follow along. Auberi began shouting at Garth, demanding he hunt for items required to help the little girl. The vampire went on and on about her having a lethal dose of the chemicals in her system.

Garth’s brain raced with the list of items Auberi had given, getting stuck on low-molecular-weight polyethylene glycol—whatever the hell that was.

“Look for a three-hundred or four-hundred PEG one!”

shouted the vampire, not that any of the men he was yelling at even knew what PEG meant. “Blaise, is there milk back there?”

Garth, along with Rurik and Gram, ran back into the first lab and began scouring the glass cabinets for the items Auberi required. Garth threw containers aside, desperate to find what was needed.

Rurik came up with a plastic tube of some sort and then went to a cabinet that looked to be refrigerated and grabbed two bags of clear fluid. Garth’s search yielded nothing, but then again, his mind was still racing and muddled. Currently, he couldn’t find his ass with both hands. The normal level of clarity he possessed in stressful situations was totally and completely gone.

Garth’s wolf pulsed at him from within, wanting to be free. It caused the muscles in his neck to strain and he had to step back from the cabinets as he tried to gain control once more. It didn’t work. He felt his shoulders increasing in size, another sign that he was losing the internal battle with his wolf side. But what had triggered it? Why was it trying to take control?

He wasn’t in danger.

The child.

She’s in danger.

The words echoed in his head.

“I found what I think is the low-molecular-weight poly-whatever-the-hell-col! It says PEG 300!”

yelled Rurik, half in Russian, half in English as he came up with a jug of something clear. He too was panicked. He slammed into Garth on his way past and the act helped Garth to gain something close to control once more. The Russian kept going and took the last of the items to Auberi, who also lacked his normal calmness in stressful situations.

In fact, Garth couldn’t recall a time when the vampire had ever seemed so out of sorts when chaos surrounded him. He typically seized every opportunity to make smart-ass remarks, despite the gravity of the situation. No such quips came from him now.

Garth moved quickly to the side of the table once more and reached out, touching the little girl’s head. The need to lift her and protect her forever nearly took him to his knees. “Fix her!”

Auberi’s gaze whipped to him and filled with black instantaneously. That meant his demon had taken the lead.

And that meant he was a threat to the child in the eyes of Garth’s wolf.

“Captain, yer arms!”

shouted Gram.

“He’s going to lose control and shift,”

said Landros, coming at him quickly. “Rurik, get him out of here.”

Garth shook his head, his teeth lengthening and his mouth changing shape. The word “no”

came from him, but it was nearly unrecognizable.

The Russian seized hold of him, lifted him off his feet, and rammed him back against an empty crib. He then held him as Garth fought, needing to get to the child. He had to help her. He had to keep her safe.

Why couldn’t they see that?

He would never hurt the little girl.

Ever.

Auberi lifted his arm and bit his wrist.

As Garth’s mind caught up with why the vampire would be doing such a thing, a red haze of rage came over him.

Auberi was going to give the child his blood.

His very vampire blood.

“No!”

Garth snarled and broke free from Rurik just in time to be struck head-on with a blow of magik. He was no stranger to the source. It was Gram. The power flung Garth backwards and sent him to the floor with a massive, thundering boom, as if Thor’s chariot had run the Viking over.

Unable to move, still pinned by magik, Garth locked gazes with Auberi as the vampire put his bleeding wrist above the child’s mouth. He’d seen what ingesting vampire blood could do to a person.

Sometimes it healed them.

Sometimes it converted them.

And sometimes, it killed them.

Every threat Garth wanted to issue, every promise of death he wanted to say, fell short as his wolf took total control. He knew then he was powerless to the pending shift. He also knew that without the aid of Gram’s magik, he could kill everyone around him without meaning to.

Desperate to protect the others from himself, he looked to his second-in-command, hoping he’d sense the severity of the situation.

Gram’s attention was currently on Auberi, who had lifted the little girl and let out an agonizing cry as she remained limp and unmoving.

Landros charged Auberi, ripping the child from the man’s arms just as Gram sent magik at Auberi.

The magik knocked Auberi over as well, pinning him to the floor just as the man’s demon took the lead.

“S-stop…me,”

managed Garth as his body contorted. He didn’t want any child hurt because of his lack of control.

“Fuck!”

yelled Rurik. “Gram, Captain needs a super dose of that stinky Fae crap you’re throwing around!”