Trey tore the gun from the guard’s hand. “No shit. What the hell is going on here?”

“That’s not one of the males who came to Homeland,” Smiley called out from behind them. “I haven’t seen him yet.”

“Where is the male?” Darkness grabbed the guard by his throat with a one-handed grip and lifted him until he gasped for breath. The tip of the assault rifle dug into the side of the man’s face. “You have four seconds before I have to decide to strangle you or blow a hole through your head. One of those things will happen if you don’t answer to my satisfaction.”

“I don’t know,” the guard choked out. “Only one came back. He got their money and left without explaining why he didn’t have the prisoner. We were told to just pay him. He didn’t stay more than five minutes. They were hired to bring the prisoner here. I don’t even know their names and have never seen them before.”

“What the hell?” Trey sounded baffled. “They were subcontractors?”

“Yeah. I think.”

“Here.” Darkness lowered the male and shoved him at one of the task force team members. “Watch him.”

True inched away from the group and opened the doors, staring at the cages in the long room.

Humans were locked inside. He strode forward, looking down the rows, searching for the scent of the male who had been in his home.

“Is that you, 710?” Dean Polanitis yelled from his cell.

True spun and snarled as he stared at the human who had caused him so much pain and misery. He was pushed up against the bars of his cage, glaring at True with a cold smile.

“It is you. I f**king knew it. You’re still alive. Did you finally get your paws on that little bitch who worked at Drackwood? I know you had a soft spot for her,” Polanitis smirked. “You growled and snarled at everybody until she walked into your cell. Then you were as tame as a puppy, making eyes at her.”

True growled. “Polanitis.”

“Why don’t you come a little closer? I want to take a good look at an animal wearing a uniform. The whites looked better on you.”

“You look better locked inside a cage wearing orange,” True responded.

Dean Polanitis hesitated. “Things might have turned out better for you than for me but at least I’m not an animal.” He laughed.

True’s hands clawed and he snarled but he turned his head away and got his anger under control. He looked up and calmly watched Dean Polanitis but didn’t attempt to go after him.

“I’ll tell you the breeding formula we finally settled on if you get me out of here,” Polanitis promised. “I emailed a copy of it to an online account when we sold it to some holy roller with a hard-on. He really wanted access to that drug after he read about it. He was obsessed with a drug that would work on regular women. You can give it to any bitch you’re attracted to and they’ll beg you to f**k them.” He abruptly grew angry. “I planned to use it myself until I ended up here.”

Darkness advanced a little. “You have the exact formula of the breeding drug that targets human females?”

“Human females,” Polanitis mimicked, snorting. “I hate the way you f**kers talk. They are all bitches, aren’t they? I told everyone here I was willing to make a deal to get out but they didn’t give a f**k because they were too stupid to understand what I was offering. You know, though, since you’ve probably taken it. We managed to regulate the formula enough that there’s no pain for the bitch who takes it but she gets so horny she’ll hump your leg while begging to be f**ked.”

His expression changed from angry to something almost jovial. “You want to deal, lion man? Get me out of here and you can have the formula. I want a total pardon and a million dollars sent to the country of my choice. One without extradition, of course. I bet you want proof. And, as part of the deal, once your chemist puts it together, I want to watch your animal friend mount the shit out of some woman because it pisses me off that he didn’t do it when I wanted him to. Give it to that bitch, Shiver. I know you wanted her and I know she’s the cunt who blabbed our location to you ass**les. She’s not here, so you must have her locked up somewhere else. I want to watch you f**k her until she bleeds.”

“Never,” True swore.

“You know you want that bitch.” Polanitis laughed. “You could nail her. Your lion-man friend could too. Hell, all of your buddies with you.” He glanced at the task force team members. “She wouldn’t exactly say no. The drug would take care of that. You should have seen her on the drug. The only reason I didn’t f**k her back then was because Brask said he didn’t want to risk killing her for no good reason. Her heart rate was already too high and he wasn’t sure she would survive a good f**king. He wanted to fix that and he only wanted a Species to f**k her. Once he found the right dosage and made sure it was possible that she could get pregnant, he wanted to do some breeding studies. He asked me to find an animal that would do her willingly, without trying to kill her, when he reached that stage of the project. We finally perfected our formula and started dosing her with drugs to regulate her ovulation cycle so we could inject her but we were shut down before that happened. We were so close.”

Polanitis glared at True and continued to taunt him. “You lied about her, didn’t you? I should have shoved her into your room and let you loose from those chains. You would have f**ked her, right? Just tell me.”