Read Online Therian Prisoner: 3 (Therian Heat) by Cyndi Friberg Friberg - Free Book Online

raid? The other captives were rescued. Everyone is safe now.” Her hair was smooth and shiny but he continued to comb it, needing something to do with his hands.
    She shook her head and her voice grew stronger. “There are other facilities. The one the Italian took me too looked like it had been deserted, but I know there are others.”
    “How were you able to learn these things if you were kept in isolation?” He hadn’t meant it as a challenge, but he felt her tense. “I’m not questioning the information. I’m just curious how you gathered it.”
    “Most of the guards wouldn’t talk to me, but there was one who felt sorry for me. He’d sneak in books and tell me what was going on around me. That’s how I learned about the other captives and the backers.”
    “Carly hasn’t told us much about the backers. She swears she knows little more than their names.”
    “She knows more than I do. Roberto is the one who moved me, but I never saw the other two.”
    When she didn’t elaborate, he nudged the conversation in a different direction. “We rescued nine captives, all female. How many were you aware of?”
    She nodded and began to fiddle with the edge of the quilt. “At one point there were twelve females and one male. The male was a tiger-shifter, but I don’t think he was part of Jake’s clan. The guard told me he barely spoke English.”
    “Go on.” He hadn’t meant to pressure her, but the more she talked the calmer she became. Besides, her wounds wouldn’t start healing until she purged herself of the pain.
    “They had drugs that forced the other captives to shift, then they’d run all sorts of tests while they were in animal form. That’s how Carly learned I wasn’t defined. She thought I was strong enough to resist the catalyst at first. When she realized my ‘potential was untapped’ I became her obsession. All the drugs did was make me violently ill. At least in the beginning.”
    “Did you ever see Osric at the lab?”
    “I never saw him, but I heard his name often enough to figure out he was working with them.” She glanced over her shoulder. “Was he captured during the raid?”
    “He wasn’t there that night, but I saw him during recon. Needless to say, we’re still searching for him.”
    “It’s hard to imagine what humans could have offered him that would have made it worth betraying his own kind.” She took the comb from him and wiggled away.
    Her talkative mood was obviously fading and he still had so many questions. “What did Carly do once she realized you weren’t able to shift?” When she hesitated, he felt compelled to add, “If you’ve had enough for tonight, I understand.”
    “I think I’d rather tell you everything and be done with it.” She blew out a shaky breath then explained, “After Carly realized the catalyst was useless on me, she dosed me with some sort of gene therapy. And it wasn’t just me. She used the new compound on some of the others too. It was supposed to make us easier to control, more susceptible to suggestions.”
    “Was this the same injection they gave Dhane?”
    “Basically. They made changes to the formula after seeing how it affected us. They tried to make it as potent as possible.”
    He knew where this subject led, so he chose his words carefully. “I know it spiked Dhane’s libido. Did it have that effect on everyone?” He wanted to touch her, turn her around so he could see her face, but he wasn’t sure how she’d react. She held the comb in one hand though she no longer pulled it through her hair.
    “It seemed to work better on the male and on me. I was the only female who was still latent, but they weren’t sure if that explained my reaction or if I was just naturally…aggressive.”
    She’d insisted that Dhane hadn’t touched her. What about the tiger male? “Was Dhane the only male they put in your cell?” She immediately nodded, but he suspected there was more to the story. He’d seen guilt in her eyes