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I saac closed his eyes and let the images wash over him. He stood beside Kyle in the security booth. They were both too anxious to sit. An energy barrier separated Tara from Elias, but the wolf was a vicious murderer. Isaac hated having his mate close to someone with that much blood on their hands.

Tara engaged the wolf’s conscious mind with friendly banter and casual questions. They’d tried distractions before, but her lovely face and vulnerability were surprisingly effective. The wolf leader was usually gruff and argumentative. With Tara, Elias flirted and teased.

Isaac scanned ever deeper, reaching areas that he’d not had access to before.

There was no resistance, so he caused no damage.

At least, no damage yet. Images scrolled through his mind, dizzying flickers of countless scenes.

Tear-streaked faces, women huddled together for warmth and comfort.

Isaac tried to slow down the transfer, to absorb more than a frustrating glimpse.

Stone walls and echoing footfalls, endless twisting tunnels, and light reflected off water.

The women were still in those cursed caves.

Pouring energy into his psychic receptors, he attempted to expand the image, to trace one of the tunnels back to its entrance.

Suddenly, Elias’ mind shifted, his energy intensifying and changing. Kyle surrounded Isaac, shielding his presence while allowing him to maintain his link with the wolf. No one had indicated that Elias was telepathic, but he was clearly attempting to contact someone, likely his beta.

Isaac felt the connection activate, but he couldn’t hear the exchange.

Can you tag the beta? Isaac pushed the thought into Kyle’s mind. Kyle frequently left a small psychic signal inside a person’s mind. It allowed him to locate the target later. It was a tracker skill and Kyle was the best tracker on Rydaria.

I’ll try.

Isaac poured energy into Kyle’s shields while he shifted his focus.

Got it , Kyle informed with a surge of excitement. Let’s disengage. The rest has been a waste of time.

Isaac agreed, so they both eased out of the wolf’s mind.

Pausing to roll his shoulders and clear his mind, Isaac turned and looked at Kyle. “This could be the break we’ve needed. I’m so glad our mate got bored.”

“Claire is unharmed, as are the others,” Elias was saying to Tara.

Isaac hadn’t been able to hear the conversation, so he had no idea if the statement was true or if Elias was simply telling Tara what she wanted to hear.

“My beta is not giving anyone access to the women while the situation is so volatile. Despite what the cats love to claim, we do not abuse women.”

Isaac and Kyle scoffed at the same time.

“What utter bullshit,” Kyle muttered. “What about Akari, or the woman he fucked to death?”

A memory of the human’s continual shifting barged back into Isaac’s mind. He shuddered then said, “Technically Babcock murdered the human, but Elias is still full of shit.”

“Get Tara out of there.” Kyle motioned toward the surveillance display.

Isaac nodded then sent a telepathic message to Tara directing her to end the session.

Tara stepped into the security booth a few moments later looking pensive and unsure. “Do you believe what he said? Is Juan keeping the others away from the captive females?”

Her emotions poured across their empathic link, tearing at Isaac’s heart.

“I don’t know, love.” He didn’t want to give her false hope, yet the need to comfort his mate was impossible to ignore.

He pulled her into his arms as he continued, “He was trying to impress you, but the interaction seemed honest.”

She lingered in his embrace for a moment, her arms wrapped around his back. Then she eased away just far enough to look at his face. “What did you see? Why did you want me to leave?”

“I didn’t see much more than we knew already,” Isaac admitted. “But we used the telepathic connection to tag Juan’s mind. It’s one of Kyle’s tracker tricks.”

She turned her head sharply and looked at Kyle. “You tagged him? Does that mean you can locate him?”

There was that hope again. Isaac sighed. She clearly wanted her friends to escape unscathed, but the longer the wolves had them, the slimmer the chances became that they would.

“Psychic abilities are unpredictable,” Kyle told her. “This increases the chances that we can locate Juan, but all sorts of things can interfere with the connection.”

Isaac stroked the back of her hair, encouraging her to relax. Instead, she eased out of his arms and moved so she could see both Kyle and him.

“Were you scanning too?” she asked Kyle. “Did you see anything helpful?”

Kyle shook his head. “Just longer flashes of what we’ve seen before.

They’re in some sort of cave. I couldn’t see where the cave was or how to get down there, but the emotions I sensed substantiated what Elias said.

It felt like they were waiting for something, dreading whatever that something was, but it hadn’t happened yet. ”

“That’s wonderful, but Juan can’t hold them off forever,” Tara stressed. “We have to find that cave before it’s too late.”

“We know.” Kyle sounded slightly impatient, so he paused to smooth out his tone. “Our best chance of finding him is to use Juan as a conduit.”

Her brow furrowed and her tone grew sharp. “Just follow the tracker signal to wherever the hell he is. This doesn’t need to be complicated.”

Isaac moved forward and put his hands on her shoulders. “We know you’re worried about your friends, but you’re starting to take it out on us.”

She took a deep breath then sighed. “I’m sorry. Please, explain how you’re going to find Juan.”

“The tracker signal is simply a telepathic anchor,” Kyle resumed.

“In a perfect world, we would simply follow the signal to wherever he is. However, an underground location complicates everything. The signal would likely lead us to the ground above where he is without revealing how to get down there.”

“I didn’t think of that,” she admitted. “So, what’s the alternative?”

Kyle moved closer, his expression softening.

He was clearly trying to put her at ease.

“One of the reasons we’re Shadow Team One is because we can network with the senses of others.

It takes all three of us, but we should be able to see through Juan’s eyes, to hear what he says, and even hear some of his thoughts.

If we’re patient, Juan will show us how he’s getting in and out of the underground. ”

“But that could take days, maybe weeks,” she objected. “I’m sure you can’t keep the connection active all the time, so you’d have to keep checking until you’re lucky enough to do it while he’s walking down there or walking out.” She threw up her hands and shook her head. “This is a horrible idea.”

“Do you have a better one?” Isaac snapped. He was exhausted and hungry and the last thing he needed was one of Tara’s tantrums. “We are doing everything possible to find this elusive cave, and we will continue to do so. Your fits of temper are not helping anyone.”

She glared at him, but said nothing.

“It might take a while,” Kyle agreed. “But the strategy could work. It’s the best chance we’ve got right now.”

“That’s not comforting,” she muttered. “Can I go back to our cabin? I’m surrounded by enemies.”

She motioned to the displays of Elias and Babcock, but Isaac was pretty sure he was included in her statement. “Go ahead and escort her,” he told Kyle. “I’m going to take another shot at Babcock and then I’ll join you at home.”

Isaac walked them to the stairs and was about to question Babcock when the door at the top of the stairwell opened again. Zion descended, his movements surprisingly agile considering his size. “Any progress?”

“Maybe.” He explained what had transpired and what they intended to try. “Unfortunately, we need Jon for this and he’s up at the raptor village.”

“Summon him back,” Zion advised. “This is more important.”

“I will.”

“What about Babcock?” Zion nodded toward the door to the left of the security booth.

“He just glares or laughs. He honestly thinks his knowledge will protect him. With the wolves he would have been right. But we don’t need him to reproduce, so I’m about ready to go digging.”

“Do it. Malik looked over his notes and analyzed the injections. Obviously, Malik’s understanding of genetics is not equal to Babcock’s, but his medical background is sufficient to say that we want nothing to do with any of it.

Babcock might have told the wolves that he was helping them reproduce, but the formula was triggering a full metamorphosis. ”

“He was trying to create a female shapeshifter?” Isaac had seen the result in Elias’ mind.

This didn’t really surprise him. Of the sixteen female hybrids, only two of them could shift.

He’d always presumed the Griffin Project was simply more interested in creating male shapeshifters than female.

Apparently, there was more to the anomaly than he knew.

“Malik says that unleashing the ability in females is the only thing that makes sense,” Zion concluded. “Take what you can from his mind and then end him. We’ve wasted resources on that bastard long enough.”

“Understood.” Isaac just stood there for a moment after Zion left.

He’d been waiting for this order since they found out that Babcock was still alive.

There was no doubt that the amoral piece of shit deserved to die.

He was responsible for the altered existence of every hybrid on this planet.

And worse, Babcock had learned nothing from the downfall of Nuevo Biotech.

The first opportunity he got, he was right back to his old tricks, engineering DNA and costing unsuspecting victims their lives.

The suffering ended tonight, but before it did Isaac needed to collect every scrap of pertinent information from Babcock’s mind.