Circe's Recruits 1: Roane Read Online Free PDF Page A

threatening to do for weeks.
    “Hale?” he said into the phone, recognizing the number. “Fill me in.”
    “Sorry, had a bit of a…distraction here.”
    “I heard.”
    Hale sighed. “I’m not sure what happened. We spotted her with two of the PPA’s assholes, Hoff and Dunn. They tranq’d her, but she managed to escape. We caught her and brought her in, but not before she ripped Roane a new one.” Hale chuckled. “We were halfway here when she lit up the vehicle with the sweetest perfume you’ve ever smelled. She went into heat in a split second.”
    “I have nothing on file that she’d changed before.”
    “I got the impression it was new to her, too. She looked panicked when we took her, and we overheard her complaining about being sick when Dunn and Hoff found her.”
    “Where is she now?”
    “In the shower with Roane.” A wealth of meaning filled that small statement. “We’ll be bringing her in shortly. I don’t think she’s rogue, just confused and afraid.”
    “And?”
    Hale paused. “Nothing. We’ll be there in an hour.” Hale disconnected.
    Evan stared at the phone as he hung up. In the shower with Roane? Since when had Roane ever personally cared for anyone outside of his squad? Then again, Caitlyn was the first female Circ -- hell, the first Circ period -- they’d encountered who hadn’t been feral.
    Evan could only imagine what the squad went through when the mating heat overcame them. Seven years to the day after they’d been given their injections, they’d experienced their first heat. Since then, every few weeks the men were flooded with hormones that made it virtually impossible to resist the call to procreate. Unfortunately, they could only go to another mature Circ. And Circe’s Recruits were all male.
    He shifted uncomfortably, frowning at his lack of professionalism. The men didn’t need his lurid interest, though he blamed most of it on scientific curiosity. Instead, Evan concentrated on the girl. Caitlyn Chase. She’d been under Pearson Labs’ care for more than half her life. Then three years ago, they’d told her to leave, without reason. He could only guess that Elliot had lost his patience. The owner and head scientist at Pearson Labs, Elliot Pearl had a reputation as brutal and coldly efficient. Whatever the man’s motivations, he had every intent of making them real.
    Eight years ago, when the military had okayed Project Dawn, Evan had been as excited as anyone about being on the team. They’d actually created a formula to build super soldiers, men able to carry out tasks for Uncle Sam with an almost certain degree of success, thanks to manufactured preternatural abilities. Using his own idea to carry the serum to their subjects on the backs of a genetically altered virus, Pearson Labs had successfully outfitted two platoons of super soldiers.
    Circe’s Recruits -- seventy-eight men who were stronger, faster, and more intuitive than their fellow soldiers, airmen, Marines, and sailors. For five years, they’d carried out dangerous missions with resounding success. They manifested their abilities by changing, physically transforming into hulking beasts with slashing claws, fangs, and hardened skin.
    And then the virus inside them, thought dormant, mutated the Circe serum, eroding their mental processes.
    Many Circs suffered from psychotic breakdowns and became savages, with no thought other than to satiate their base desires.
    Of the seventy-eight men, fifty had fallen into psychotic breakdowns, death their only means of control. Of the remaining twenty-eight, they’d lost twenty-three while tracking down and combating their out-of-control brethren. Only Roane, Hale, Derrick, Zack, and Ace had survived.
    Elliot Pearl had conveniently ignored his failures and concentrated on all the good they’d done. The government hadn’t seen it that way. Project Dawn had been disbanded.
    Pearson Labs moved once again into the private sector. And Evan -- “Doc” to his