That close, Logan saw something else, four cutsacross Ian’s forearm, all festered to different degrees.“And what the hell is this!” Logan demanded between gritted teeth, not caring for the look on the general’s face and in his eyes even though he answered him.

“To answer the last question, those are experiments, cuts made with the knife dipped in different substances to find one that poisons them. My revenge is also an experiment, to see how fast the animals heal.”

“Are you trying to fucking poison me? You know I have to have his blood. You poison it,you poison me. Leave him alone until you find a substitute.”

“Since when do you give orders, Corporal?”

“Since my life depends on it. Leave him the fuck alone.”

His father’s lips thinned and he barked at the guards,“Take the wolf down. Put my son up there in his place.”

The guards hurried over to unlock the cuffs holding Ian’s ankles, leaving him hanging, using his arms to keep from choking, for the few seconds it took them to release the collar and the wrist cuffs. Ian staggered, but he stayed on his feet and stood straight, staring straight ahead.

“Strip off your shirt, soldier.This is the second time you’ve talked to me this way and countermanded my orders. You need a reminder of what happens for insubordination. Neither you, nor anyone else is going to talk to me that way.”

Logan narrowed his eyes, but he ripped at his shirt, filled with rage. He pulled it off and shrugged off the hands of Dawson and another guard.“I don’t need to be tied.” He stalked over to the cross, and as he did, he passed Ian as they pulled him back to his cell. At least he had saved Ian from more torture from his psychotic father. He had spared him that much. As Ian passed him, he gave Logan a significant look, oneLogan couldn’t read. What was he thinking? Was he happy Logan was about to suffer torture too?

Stepping up to the cross he vowedhe wouldn’t give them the satisfaction of hearing him cry out or plead for mercy.Don’t react in any way to the sadistic bastards. He spread his arms across the X frame and spread his legs wide, waiting.

He heard the door close behind him as they took Ian back to his cell. Feeling instantly alone with Ian no longer near him, even considering the way Ian felt about him, Logan gripped the chains, held on tightly and waited.

The first crack of the whip across his back, he did nearly scream, unprepared for the degree of pain. Hissing through his teeth, he asked, “Since when did you start using the whip on your own men?”

Dawson answered, “Since they were stupid enough to give the general orders.”

Logan looked over his shoulder. His father was gone.“That bastard.” Nothing had ever brought home the fact of his father’s cold indifference to him more clearly. His hatred for the man grew with each of the next four cuts of the cat o’ nine tails across his back. How had Ian ever stood it and walked out of the room on his own two feet?

Logan, alone in his room, paced up and down. He kept seeing Ian hanging from that cross the week before. It tore Logan apart to have seen him in that condition. His eyes were the worst. They were cold, frozen, and defeated.

Logan was being guarded too. More subtly, but carefully nonetheless. He knew there were security cameras all over the compound, and he strongly suspected one had been placed outside his door. He’d tried desperately to convince his father he hated Ian and the wolves and he’d wanted nothing more than to escape the pack. He’d lied through his teeth, telling him he led Ian into the compound after giving them false information on the guard routine. What had really happened to expose them, he had no idea, and no one was talking. He couldn’t very well press for details, not while taking credit for the successful capture. His father let him, and Logan suspected they both knew it was a lie.

So far, they’d kept Ian alive to feed Logan but his father loathed Ianfor what he’d done to his son even worse than he hated all wolves. Even though Eliashadn’t mentioned it, Logan knew his father was aware of Ian asthe pack’s beta. As far as he knew, in the past week, they hadn’t returned Ian to the torture chamber and tomorrow he was due for another feeding. He was sorry he told his father he only needed the blood every two weeks. The last week, without seeing Ian at all had been his own brand of torture.

The tips of his fingers were raw from the stabs of a needle to take blood samples, but his back had pretty much healed in that time.Ian’s would have healed even quicker. He worried about those cuts, though,and what kind of poison they’d infected them with, not for his own sake the way he’d shouted, but for Ian’s.

If they could synthesize the blood, Ian would be expendable, and his father would have him questioned, punished, experimented on, fully intending to kill him in slow agony. From the look of loathing Logan had caught in his father’s eyes more than once, he didn’t know why either one of them was still alive. His father had something up his sleeve and, knowing how brutal and savagehe’d gotten in his obsession to kill all the wolves, he feared what was in store for him as well as Ian before it was over.

From the looks of Ian, time was running out. What was it he said? Wolves don’t live long in captivity. The words sent a shiver down Logan’s spine. They sure as hell wouldn’t while being tortured and experimented on, and Logan had no idea how much longer his father would play the cat and mouse game with him. If only he could get word to Ian somehow that he was still loyal to him and wanted to free him. The few times they’d been together, Logan had been too closely watched. He’d tried to send Ian a message with his eyes, but most of the time, Ian refused to look at him. He had no idea how he could get to him. He was about desperate enough to try to slip him a written message during his next feeding to hang on just a little longer. He even sat down and wrote one out, slipping it quickly into his pocket when someone knocked on his door.

A knock on his door at that time of night made his gut clutch. He answered, fearing the worst. Had something happened to Ian? Two guards stood in the hallway. He didn’t place either of them at first though they looked familiar. Before he could recall where he knew them from, the guard standing closest to him pushed him backward into the room and followed him inside, clapping a hand over his mouth and spinning him to lock tight against his chest with the other arm. The other guard shut the door, poured some kind of liquid on a cloth and pressed it to Logan’s nose. He had no choice but to breathe it in. The fumes were strong and pungent, and nomatter how hard he twisted his head, he couldn’t break away from the one holding him. He knew what held him if not who and a bright slash of hope filled him. The wolves had come for Ian! As the edges of the room grew dim, he sagged to the floor, and they followed him down, stretching him out. He gazed up at his attackers and right into the eyes of the one holding the cloth so tightly over his nose. The eyes were a striking shade of blue, and his eyebrows were blond. The last time he’d seen eyes of those color was at Mountainwood on Nicky, the alpha’s mate. He tried to call out, but the sound came out a muffled moan, and the cloth was pressed more firmly down. All the lights went out.

Logan struggled to the surface and slowly opened his eyes. He was on his belly, his hands tied behind his back. Standing over him were the two guards—no, that wasn’t right. It was Nicky and someone else in guard uniforms. He tried to focus his eyes on the other guard. Rory. That was his name, Casey’s wolf mate. He knew ithadn’t been a human holding him down. The two of them whispered furiously together when Nicky noticed he was awake. They had obviously come to the same conclusion Ian had. He was a traitor in their eyes. Logan could imagine the accusations being shouted by Casey. He’d never trusted him anyway.

“He’s back. Ask him, Rory, before he makes a noise or something.” Rory leaned down until his face was inches from Logan’s. “Where is Ian? I’m going to lower this gag and let you tell me, but if you yell, I’ll shut you up again. Understand?”

Logan nodded. Rory slipped the cloth gag down over his bottom lip.

“In the basement. Third door on the left.”

“Do you believe him?” Nicky whispered behind him.

“I guess so. How do I know?”

“What if he’s sending us straight to the guards’ lounge or something?”

“I doubt the guards have a lounge, Nicky.”

“You know what I mean! What if it’s a trap?”

“We’re taking him with us. We can use him as a shield if it becomes necessary.” “Good idea. Get him on his feet.”

Rory pulled him up to stand between them. “If you make a sound, I’ll break your neck. Understand?”

Logan nodded again, saying nothing. The young wolf was the same height as Logan and, though not nearly as muscle-bound as the other wolves, Logan knew he could do it in a heartbeat. Logan’s own heart raced at the thought of releasing Ian, but he wondered if these two had thought of everything. He had to ask. He cleared his throat. “Do you have the keys?”

They looked at each other blankly. “Keys?”

“The guards carry all the keys. Look on your belt there. I assume you got that outfit from a guard you…uh…dispatched. There should be a set of keys.”

Rory twisted and sure enough there was a ring with about a dozen keys, none of them marked. “One of these must be it . Let’s go.”

“Wait a minute. There are security cameras in the halls. Usually there are men in the guardhouse who monitor them. Are they the ones you got these uniforms from?” They glanced at each other before Nicky nodded. “Better move quickly then. Someone will be relieving them at four.”

Rory slipped the gag over Logan’s mouth again and pushed him ahead of them, out the door and down the corridor to the stairwell. It must be well after midnight, safe enough in these corridors, with no one out in the middle of the night. Logan quickly led the way into the basement and the third door on the left. Rory went to work, trying one key after another until one of them clicked, and the door swung open.

They went inside and flicked on the light, closing the door behind them. There, on a kind of straw pallet in the corner, lay Ian naked and without so much as the blanket Logan had ordered for him earlier. They made sure he lived like the animal they thought he was, sleeping naked and bare on straw like a dog. He sat up, blinking against the sudden light, his chains rattling.