Justus Read online

  This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, locations, and incidents depicted in this work are of the author’s imagination or have been used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, locations, or events is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved.

  Copyright © 2015 Madison Stevens

  No portion of this book may be transmitted or reproduced in any form, or by any means, without the prior written permission of the author.

  Cover designed by Najla Qamber Designs

  Justus (Luna Lodge #7)

  by

  Madison Stevens

  Dedicated nurse Paige is having a hell of a week.

  First, she gets suspended from the hospital for working with the hybrids at Luna Lodge. She sees it as a medical professional simply doing her duty, but her superiors see a woman involved with a trouble-making group of genetically engineered super-soldiers.

  Her only hope of keeping her job is convincing her bosses she has nothing to do with the lodge anymore. Soon, her hope of staying out of the hybrids’ world is crushed when a handsome rogue hybrid shows up half-dead on her doorstep.

  Hybrid Justus suffered as a prisoner of both the Horatius Group and Luna Lodge. Now on the run, he’s determined to keep his freedom at all costs, but cut off from the familiar, he becomes desperate and confused. Freedom can be overwhelming to those who have never had it.

  When a chance encounter in the forest leaves Justus wounded, he’s forced to flee until encountering a woman that calls on the most primal side of him: Paige.

  The two can’t deny their attraction to each other, but first they have to do deal with paranoid locals who aren’t about to let a hybrid wander outside of Luna Lodge, even if it means bloodshed.

  Chapter One

  Paige paced the worn hardwood floor of her living room wanting nothing more than to reach through the phone and wring the neck of the stuffed-shirt bastard trying to push her out of a job. She’d worked hard to get her position at the hospital, and there was no way she’d let him get away with this.

  “The committee just thinks that some of your recent outside work has put the hospital in a bad light,” he said. “The situation is very precarious. I’m sure you can see how everything looks from our perspective.”

  She stopped and rubbed her hand along the bridge of her nose. Her light brown hair fell in front of her face as she looked down. She swept back the wavy locks quickly and shook her head.

  “I had nothing to do with any of that though,” she said. “All I did was treat patients. I can’t believe you’d penalize me for doing my job as a nurse.”

  She could almost hear the man’s sphincter cinch up at her words. This man had a stick so far up his ass, it had broken off years ago. Maybe all her protests were pointless.

  “That’s not the way we see it I’m afraid,” he said sharply, likely tired of the conversation that might be the last one she had as an employed nurse. “There was, after all, some sort of business with people at the gate being burned.”

  “The people who were burned got hurt as they tried to set said gate on fire,” she said dryly.

  He sighed. “This isn’t about those…men at Luna Lodge. This is about the trouble around them. We’re a reputable hospital. We need the people in the area to trust us. We can’t even be remotely associated with that sort of thing.”

  “The only time the hybrids have hurt people is when they’ve been defending themselves. And again, I had nothing to do with any of that.”

  “And the nurse that was killed there?”

  Anger shot through her at the mention of the other nurse who had turned against them all at Luna Lodge. She’d only even learned the strange woman’s name after she had tried to kill a hybrid.

  “Kelly killed herself,” she said through gritted teeth. “I don’t see how you can blame them or me for a woman’s suicide.”

  The man scoffed loudly. “How convenient,” he said. “And this recent episode? What, did they install exploding doors?”

  “They were attacked,” she said. “No one could have predicted that it would have happened.”

  “No one? How many incidents has it been now? I’ve honestly lost count. It would seem to me that their track record pointed to this, and yet you continued to work there. Why is that? I think most reasonable people would find such a job too dangerous or complicated.”

  She knew the question was coming at some point. Why had she decided to stay with a group of genetically engineered super-soldiers after another nurse killed herself, and they were under serious attack from the deadly and elusive Horatius Group?

  Paige wasn’t sure she really had much of a reason other than she was intrigued by the hybrids. Their way of life was just so different from her own.

  And as much as she didn’t want to admit it, she liked the hybrids and their women. Despite what many in the town seemed to think, the people of Luna Lodge had done everything they could to not cause trouble. It was the Horatius Group and the insane cult of Reverend John generating all the chaos.

  As far as she was concerned, it’d be insane to punish people for not lying down to die at the hands of maniacs. Still, in the end, it had become too much for even her, so it was difficult to think of a good defense.

  Not that any of this would matter to the prick on the phone. For her, there was no right answer, but she had to try. Losing her job wasn’t an option, especially losing her job at the hospital. No one else in the county would hire her if they blacklisted her.

  “The money was good,” she said.

  It wasn’t a lie. The hybrids had paid her well for the time she put in, more than the money she made at the hospital. It may not have been the reason she stayed, but there wasn’t going to be a chance that she could actually win against him. The best thing she had was to stay within the bounds of the truth but still give him the answer that he wanted. Maybe it’d satisfy him enough to let her off with a slap on the wrist.

  The man seemed to stumble at her answer. It wasn’t what he had thought she would say. Paige smiled. Maybe there was still a chance.

  “If the money was so good, then why didn’t you stay in their employ?”

  She went silent. If she was being truthful, she was afraid. She had sought a life including her little sleepy two-story farm house for a reason. Unlike her adventure-seeking sister, she kept her excitement confined to her work and liked her home time to be a bit more restful.

  Even though she respected the hybrids’ right to defend themselves, she had a hard time calming herself after being so close to such violence and danger. She didn’t find it exciting. She found it terrifying.

  She considered her answer carefully. “They needed a full-time nurse, and I didn’t want more than a part-time position,” she said after a moment. “I just couldn’t do everything that needed to be done under the circumstances.”

  The line fell silent, and she wondered if he was even there for a moment.

  “The committee will take under consideration your comments and get back to you once we’ve reached our decision,” he said. “For the time being, you should clear out your belongings from your locker and turn in your deactivated badge. Until further notice you will be placed on paid leave.”

  She shook with rage. Seven years she’d put in with these people, and they were willing to toss her out like she was nothing.

  “But—”

  “I know this is as difficult to hear as it is to say, but there are many factors to be considered,” he said curtly. “Thank you, Miss Blake.”

  The line went dead in her ear, and she pulled her cell phone back to stare at it, a deep frown forming on her face.

  “Didn’t seem all that difficult for you to say,” she snorted and switched the phone off.

/>   Paige set it on the end table next to the comfortable pale blue sitting chair she liked to use on her day off and walked into the kitchen.

  She had been in the middle of making dinner before her whole world came crashing in around her. The savory scent of the roast in the oven made her stomach rumble, and despite the shit news, she was still planning on enjoying the meal she made.

  Her hand went to the fridge, and she stopped. Reaching in, she pulled out a bottle of wine she’d been saving. It seemed like the perfect day to chase down her sorrows with a little red wine before the roast was done.

  From the sound of Mr. Asshat, she’d guess he’d frown on drinking as well. Anything that wasn’t normal in his little narrow view of things.

  Paige snorted as she set the bottle down on the counter and pulled down a glass.

  What was normal? She sure as hell didn’t know. Most parents didn’t drop their kids off at an old aunt’s house while they went to Vegas. They likely also tended to return from trips. When her sister called her at college crying, she had known even then how not normal she was.

  The world had hammered Paige into a practical hole. So when her aunt passed, her first instinct wasn’t to cry, but to act. By that afternoon she’d packed up her car and driven home. She’d made sure her sister finished school and drove the hour each way to college.

  She shook her head and poured the wine.

  If she could handle a teen, Paige figured she could handle some stiff shirt pricks.

  She took a long drink of the wine and sighed.

  After all, she’d dealt with a whole group of hybrids. The similarities were uncanny.

  Chapter Two

  Justus shivered a little and tried to keep his mind off the cold working its way to his bones. No way was he setting a fire. He had too many people looking for him, and none of them wanted to help him.

  Though his hair had started to grow back in, he regretted keeping his head so close shaven as he had little to protect it from the biting cold. Even during his confinement, he’d kept up his shaving ritual, perhaps out of a false sense of control.

  If it wasn’t the Horatius Group, it was those Luna Lodge bastards. He’d be damned if he let either of them catch him again. He’d spent more than his share of time a prisoner of both. If being free meant he had to freeze his ass off, so be it. That he could handle.

  He stared at the dead rabbit at his feet, and his stomach churned. The last time he’d eaten raw meat, his stomach had been sour for days.

  He almost wanted to laugh. He was supposed to be a super-soldier with wolf-like qualities, and he couldn’t eat a damned raw rabbit.

  The meat had to be cooked. No question on that.

  He looked to his other side and sighed at the nuts and mushrooms he’d foraged. These ones were safe at least and contained protein. He’d had to practice a little trial and error experimentation. For all his training, the Horatius Group never bothered with anything that’d allow him to operate for a long time without their supplies.

  Given how they threw Glycons, their degenerate bestial hybrids, at Luna Lodge without blinking and how they’d treated Justus, it was obvious the Horatius Group didn’t remotely care about the hybrids other than as a disposable tool for immediate use.

  Unfortunately for him, his food experimentation had led to a lot of misses, leading to many bathroom breaks. But today he was in luck. His most recently gathered batch consisted only of safe nuts and mushrooms he’d tried before.

  Starving and needing the nourishment, Justus shoved the mushrooms and pine nuts in his mouth. They still tasted like dirt, but they were better than the idea of the bloody rabbit.

  Killing had never been something he excelled at. In the end, the Horatius Group found a better purpose for him: scouting and recon. He excelled at sneaking around in the dark, silent to all around him, including other hybrids, his dark skin only helping him blend into the shadows. The hybrid hunter they called him. He hated the name.

  It was a skill the Group longed to replicate, especially with an entire compound full of rogue hybrids known to the world.

  Too bad for them that Vanessa hadn’t cared what his use might have been. To her, he was just another hybrid that might give her the child she wanted.

  Just the thought of the dead woman made him shrivel up inside.

  Still, she had freed him in a manner. There was no way the Group would have ever let him go. But it still seemed strange to think of the insane woman as his savior.

  Something crunched in the woods nearby. He could hear men talking. After he finished chewing his mushrooms, he moved in for a closer look.

  “I’m telling you something is out here,” one man said and pointed to another. “I found some bones picked clean. Too clean. It ain’t like I’ve never seen an animal chewed by something bigger before.”

  Justus winced. They were likely talking about the rabbit he’d eaten the other day.

  “You think those Luna freaks are behind it?” A little guy carrying a rifle stepped up to the other two.

  The largest of the three men shrugged. “Maybe.”

  The Luna hybrids weren’t behind it, but these men hated them about as much as he did.

  Justus weighed the options. Maybe if he just spoke to them, he’d be able to get himself off the streets and away from Luna Lodge.

  “They are up to no good over there,” he said.

  Justus had to agree. They claimed to be the good guys, but that didn’t really explain why he’d been locked up before he’d even done anything, all but accused of being some sort of Horatius Group spy without proof. No good was exactly what they seemed to be up to.

  Maybe it was the fault of that damned Remus. The playboy hybrid liked to think he had everything under control, but given Luna’s contact with the Group, there was no way they weren’t going to overreact when they realize who they’d captured.

  “Brother John said not to spend much time on this,” the smallest man said. “We got other things to work on.”

  He’d heard the name John mentioned before. He didn’t know much other than the fact the Luna Lodge hybrids thought him an enemy. But their enemies weren’t his enemies.

  Being locked up just meant that he had all the time in the world to listen and pick up such information. Not all of it was useful, but he picked up what he could while he waited to make his move. When the Group attacked the lodge, Justus ran. As far as he was concerned, he’d let his enemies kill each other.

  A part of him wanted to reveal himself, to let the men know he was on their side, but uncertainty ate at him. Strangers were still strangers.

  A wave of hunger struck, and he teetered a little. His foot moved to the left and snapped a loud twig.

  The men froze.

  “Who the fuck is out there?” one of the men shouted.

  Justus debated his options and decided to just do it. He stepped out into the clearing.

  “I agree with you on the lodge men,” Justus said and raised his hands above his head. “They held me prisoner there.”

  “Shit,” the little one said and aimed his gun at Justus. “Look at the size of that bastard. He’s one of them.”

  “We got to be sure,” one of the other man said, his voice unsteady.

  Justus tensed. This conversation was definitely not unfolding as he had hoped.

  “They can be all sorts,” the other man said. “Our brothers have seen it. All rotten in the inside, no matter what human skin they wear as a disguise. See those yellow eyes. He’s one of them for sure. The Devil marks his own in the eyes. They say they glow when the Devil’s commanding ‘em.”

  Justus frowned, confused. He wasn’t a Luna Lodge hybrid, and though his eyes did glow when he experienced extreme emotion, it certainly didn’t have anything to do with the Devil.

  “You’re an abomination under God,” the largest of the men said, raising a gun. “I condemn you to hell, seed of Satan.”

  He jerked to the side as the man pulled a trigger. Slow, too s
low.

  The loud report of the gun rang out in the twilight. Pain lanced through him.

  “Got ‘em,” the man laughed loudly.

  He sprinted off, the man shouting behind him.

  Another crack of gunfire rang out. Pain poured through his leg, but he gritted his teeth, doing his best to ignore it, and continued to run. If he didn’t put some distance between himself and the men, he’d be dead before morning.

  Chapter Three

  Paige frowned as she looked out the window at the jeep driving up her path. There was only one group of people in town she knew who drove vehicles like that, and today was not the day she wanted to deal with them.

  She looked longingly over her shoulder at the roast cooling on the stove. After two glasses of wine, all she wanted to do was eat dinner, put her feet up and enjoy a show or two. Maybe she’d try to forget all the crap from the day if possible.

  A minute or so later, a loud knock came at the door, and she sighed. The roast would have to wait, so she could deal with the ultimate cause of her current employment problem.

  She opened the door and sighed at the sight of a huge man.

  Unsurprisingly, Titus stood on the other side of her old screen door with Rachel, the doctor at the lodge. Even though she was a normal human, she’d ended up with a hybrid, Marius. Just another one of the women who’d succumbed to the charms of the admittedly impressive men there.

  “I told you she’d be pissed,” Rachel said and raised a brow to Titus.

  The leader of the Luna Lodge hybrids looked slightly flustered despite his suave and dark Native appearance.

  Paige gave a smile to the doctor she’d come to both like and respect during her time at the lodge.