Karey returned a little while later with some food, only to scurry off again quickly. Utopia sighed at her only friend’s timidity but tried to put that aside. Right now, she had a rare chance to just be with her son, and she didn’t want distractions. They talked quietly about what Aiden’s day had been like, and Utopia was unsurprised to find that the ‘trouble’ he’d caused was merely saying that he missed her.
Then all the lights turned red, and a siren started blaring.
Utopia jumped, a hand resting protectively on Aiden’s shoulder. He sat frozen where he was, his eyes wide, a cookie clutched in his hand. What sounded like gunfire made Utopia’s stomach churn. Adrenaline coursed through her as she scrambled to remember the protocols in case of an attack. She’d been through this a few times now, but usually she was already halfway gone before the sirens started.
“Hide under the desk,” she ordered Aiden, then moved to the door. The magnetic locks would automatically engage but she had to throw the manual ones. Quickly, she locked the door tightly, then moved to the computer. Her fingers flew over the keyboard, setting everything on the hard drives to erase themselves.
If only they weren’t automatically backed up to the central system. But there were notes she hadn’t put in yet. If she could destroy them now, then maybe…
But if she lost this work, she would have to redo those experiments. Her hands hesitated over the papers, while Aiden crouched beneath the desk, his eyes wide, utterly silent as he watched her.
Just as she grabbed the papers, intending on shoving them into the incinerator shaft, the door burst open. Utopia inhaled sharply, biting back a scream while her snow leopard played under the surface of her skin, ready to burst forth and protect her son.
The man who entered was taller than anybody she’d seen before. His massive frame was intimidating enough, even without the handgun he held in one hand, stabilizing it with the other, and pointed at her. His lips were pulled back, and flames flickered in his mouth. The hatred in his eyes made her stumble backward. The papers floated to the ground as she rose her hands.
Not in front of my son, please.
Utopia’s mouth fell open, wanting to plead, wanting to beg for her life. But no sound came out as the man slammed the door shut behind himself, the broken locks clanking. How had he gotten in so easily?
“Utopia Tennet,” he rumbled, his voice like thunder, making her shrink back even more. “Sit down at that computer and erase all your data.”
Utopia blinked in surprise. She kept her hands up, hoping to stop him from shooting right away. The Alpha wouldn’t take this. He would be here shortly. She was the only one who could continue the research he wanted. If she wasn’t, then he would have told her that long ago. She swallowed dryly and stayed where she was.
“I already have erased everything on this computer. In the case of these sorts of emergencies, though, every terminal is cut off from the central server. That’s where it’s already been backed up. I can’t do anything about that.”
The man strode forward, the gun pointed unwaveringly at her head. “In that case, you’re going to lead me to this central server and delete it there.”
He started to round the desk. She didn’t want Aiden to see this and so quickly stepped to one side. He tensed, she gasped, and for a split second, she was certain he was going to kill her. She froze. The man snarled at her and stepped forward again. He grabbed her wrist and turned her into the wall.
“Don’t move unless I tell you to.”
Utopia nodded, blinking back tears. Her heart pounded, and her throat kept trying to close up. She didn’t know what to do! If she told this man her son was in the room, would Aiden then become a target? The man started to pull her wrist back, as though he was going to tie her.
Then behind them came a terrified squeak. That was all it took. The man turned, gun starting to point at the desk. A rush of adrenaline poured through her, and with a scream, she threw her head back. It connected with the man’s face, making him let out a curse. She shifted, tearing her claws into his body even as he stumbled. The gun was still in his hand, and she bit hard into his wrist, dragging it away from the desk as it fired.
Aiden screamed.
Utopia twisted her body, kicking at the man’s stomach. It was protected by armor, but she succeeded in wrenching his arm far enough around that the gun slammed into the wall. He finally released it and it clattered to the floor. His other hand grabbed her long tail and yanked hard while a burst of fire singed the fur along her back.
It was not a fair fight.
Within a minute, the man had pinned Utopia to the floor. He was bleeding from where her teeth and claws had reached naked skin. His knee dug into her ribcage while he pressed an elbow into her throat. Her tail flicked this way and that as she clawed at him. The hatred in his eyes stole her breath even more than the pressure he was putting on her.
His mouth opened, flames flickering inside. Fear rang through Utopia’s body and she tensed, preparing for death.
“I have no problem putting a monster like you down,” he snarled. “And if you don’t do as I say—”
The door burst open again. The man flinched but didn’t even turn. Flames shot from his mouth. Utopia twisted, screaming desperately. But something heavy slammed into the man. He toppled over, the flames punching a hole into the floor rather than her face. A half-dozen wolves wrestled the dragon down, as Utopia scrambled away. She skirted the fight and dashed beneath the desk.
Aiden had his hands pressed over his ears, his eyes tightly screwed shut. Utopia shifted back into her human form. She put her arms around him, holding him tight as he silently sobbed. Curses, cries of pain, and then a solid thud came from the other side of the desk. Then the wolves started laughing.
“Well, well.” The Alpha’s voice came from the doorway, amused.
Utopia peered over the top of the desk, finding him looking down at the intruder with a satisfied smile.
“It looks like we’ve got the dragon I’ve been wanting. And he came right to us, instead of us having to find him. How fortuitous.” He crossed the room and shoved the desk aside, so he could smile down at her and Aiden, huddled and terrified. “It is unfortunate we almost lost you, though. Come,” he held out a hand. “We’ll get those burns treated and then you can have the rest of the day off.”
Utopia took the hand, picking Aiden up with one arm. She tried not to look at the unconscious dragon—her new test subject.
Chapter Three
As far as being tied up and held prisoner, this wasn’t so uncomfortable. The table they’d strapped him to had a thin cushion, which provided some comfort instead of steel against bone. The cuffs around his wrists, ankles and over his waist were padded, too. So even though he yanked hard on them, they didn’t bruise. They didn’t give, either, though.
If it wasn’t for the fact that he was bound like this, he would be trying to find a way out of the room they’d put him in. It was stark white, with squares on all four walls. There was no telling from that where the door was. No way to get out from the inside, either. A couple of black domes were security cameras, but other than that, there was only the fluorescent light stabbing into his eyes.
Liam sucked in a deep breath, forcing himself to calm. He was a Captain, a man who had seen plenty of battle before. He’d been taken prisoner before, too. True, it had never been because he had attempted to go in and take out an enemy by himself. But he always got through it.
The Alpha wanted him alive, though. Whether to torture for more information on the Magnus Academy, to hold for ransom, or for Utopia’s twisted experiments, or all three, it didn’t matter.
Liam might have been caught, but that didn’t mean he was going to stay caught. He was going to break out of this place, and he was going to take Utopia with him.
His fires roared as he remembered the way she’d looked when he burst into her room. Terrified. It’d been a shock. For some reason, he had expected that Utopia would be some sort of e
motionless drone. The way she’d acted, like she wanted to plead for mercy but knew it would do her no good… It almost made him feel sorry for her.
Almost.
Until he saw the kid. A boy who couldn’t be any older than eight years old. There was only one reason that he’d be in her lab like that. He saw the instruments, the drugs, the examination table. His blood boiled with fury as he tried to yank himself free again.
What sort of monster experimented on kids? Those teenagers they rescued a while back were bad enough. But a little boy? Utopia didn’t deserve any mercy. When he got his hands on her again, he wasn’t going to show her any. He wouldn’t hesitate.
He was just debating whether to try to melt off the mask covering his mouth when one wall of his white prison swung open. Three men wearing blue scrubs strutted in. They all leered at him as though they had gained a great victory over him as one of them stuck a needle into his upper arm. The needle stung and Liam growled.
“I’ve never seen a dragon before,” one of them said, looking Liam up and down with awe. “He really is big, isn’t he? I thought the lions were big, but this guy… How much time does he spend at the gym?”
“A dragon?” one of the others snickered. “They’re like this naturally. They don’t need to work out.”
Liam rolled his eyes. Dragons were fairly rare in the shifter community, but some of the things people thought about them completely lacked common sense. Of course he had to work out! Dragons weren’t born shredded. Of course, stereotypes were the least of his problems now.
The men wheeled his table from the white room, going down disorienting white corridors to another white room. This one had some equipment set up in it. A heart monitor, an IV drip. Some other stuff Liam didn’t catch. What he did see was Utopia standing there. Looking as calm and emotionless as he had expected.
“Thank you,” she said to the men. “Karey, please hook the heart monitor up.”
A timid, mousy looking girl nodded and opened the shirt he’d been given. As she stuck the electrodes onto his chest, Liam glared at Utopia. She didn’t look at him. The room was chill. Liam tried to bring his fires forward. He didn’t care if the melted metal disfigured him. He’d get Utopia and then—
Panic seized his throat.
His fires were gone. That was why he was so cold. He scrambled to fight them, twitching against his bonds.
Utopia stepped up beside him and reached under his head. She removed the metal mask and set it aside.
“What the fuck did you do to me?” Liam gasped.
“We gave you an injection that stops the chemical process that allows dragons to produce fire. I need you to be able to talk for this assessment, and I can’t have you blasting my head off.” She leaned over him, her warm fingers probing at the scratches she’d left in his neck. “Thank you, Karey. You may leave.”
Liam watched the girl leave before turning his glare back on Utopia. Her expression was so smooth, he didn’t think that she was even capable of feeling emotion. Except fear when her life is in danger. She certainly feels nothing about the people she experiments on.
“I’m going to ask you some rather personal questions,” Utopia continued as though this was a regular doctor’s appointment. “I’d appreciate it if you were completely honest with me. I can understand if you’d rather not, though. It’ll just be much easier on you if you’re truthful.”
“Planning on torturing me, then?”
Utopia’s hand hesitated as she checked the monitor hookups. Then she folded his shirt back over his chest and turned to the monitor. “Have you had any illness or major injuries in the past two months?”
Liam glared at her silently.
She continued her work, unphased.
“You do know that my team will be coming for me, right?” Liam couldn’t help himself. He wanted to break that perfect mask she had on her face. He wanted her to feel some of the fear that was pounding against his ribs. If she could stop his fires with an injection, what did it mean for his dragon? It was different for dragons than other shifters. They didn’t have a physical presence in their chest. Their ability to shift was linked to their fires.
If his fires were out, did it mean that his dragon was dead?
“I imagine they’ll try, yes.”
“They’ll find me. They are going to find this place and when they do, I am going to make sure that you see justice for your crimes.”
Utopia let out a breath that was almost shaky. She turned back to him, her eyes blank of anything. Looking into those eyes, he wasn’t even sure she had a soul. “I’m sure they’ll try. We’re already on the move, though. The Alpha has been wanting a dragon for so long, he’s not going to take the chance that the Academy will be able to save you, Captain Young.”
Liam fought to keep the shock from his face. “So you know who I am.”
“I do.”
So what did he do now? Liam lapsed back into silence as she continued moving around, messing with the equipment until she was on his other side. With a sigh, she picked up a clipboard and a pen.
“Have you had any illness or major injuries in the past two months?”
“What does it matter?”
“Because I have to establish your health baseline before I can start… anything else.”
For the first time, her neutral exterior cracked. Her chin sank to her chest and her shoulders slumped. She turned her face, her long hair forming a veil between him and her. Liam found himself drawn in despite himself. Was that regret that he’d caught in her voice? It seemed impossible, but what if it wasn’t? What if she really did feel something…?
But if she did, why would she continue doing this?
Liam hardened his heart again. “In that case, yeah. I got my head cut off last week.”
Utopia turned back to him with an unimpressed stare.
“What does it matter?” he pressed. “You can’t trust anything I’m saying, anyway. You’ll have to run your tests to verify my statement anyway. So what does it matter if I answer and what I answer?”
Her hand clenched around the clipboard and she leaned in, a fire coming to her eyes that he wasn’t expecting.
“It matters,” she hissed like the cat she could turn into, “because the longer you’re talking, the longer I can delay. Do you want to be experimented on? With a dragon, the Alpha will have everything he wants and—”
The door opened and she jerked back, a look of fear crossing her face. A tall, muscular man strode in. He smiled at Liam, looking at him like a man who’d just caught a real prize. It made Liam’s skin crawl.
Utopia swallowed hard and tapped the tattoo of a flame on his wrist. “When did you get your last tattoo?”
“Go to hell,” he spat back. He wasn’t going to be drawn into this. He wasn’t going to let her trick him into relaxing around her.
“Is there a problem, Dr. Tennet?” the man who came in arched a brow at her.
“No, Alpha. We have to delay phase one anyway. I have to run a few tests. I have reason to believe that this subject had firepox as a child. If he did, then it would skew our results a great deal unless it’s taken into consideration. After all, firepox leaves a protein marker in the DNA of—”
“I don’t need your babbling,” the Alpha said, waving a hand. “Just do what you have to do. I’ve waited long enough for a dragon, I can wait a few more days.”
Liam swallowed heavily, not able to come back against that.
Utopia spoke again, her voice containing a tremble of fear. “It’ll be more than a few days. It will take at least a week for the results—"
“You can start taking samples while you wait for the results.” The Alpha turned to her with a sharp-toothed smile. “Then you won’t have to delay once you have those results. Correct?”
“I… I don’t think that it will—”
“Dr. Tennet.” The Alpha loomed over her, a smile on his face that looked much more terrifying than reassuring. “I trust that you will complete this p
roject in a timely manner.”
The Alpha walked out of the room without another word, leaving Liam and Utopia alone. Liam watched her as she got back to work, surprised that her hands were still trembling. Did the Alpha really frighten her so much? He wasn’t expecting that… or was this all a ploy? They were trying to get him to lower his guard around her, to reveal something.
For a moment, Utopia was silent as she messed with the machines. Finally, though, she turned back to him. Once more, her face was an impassive mask. Her eyes were hard, soulless, as she picked up the chart again. “When did you get your last tattoo?”
“Yesterday.”
Utopia closed her eyes briefly. Then she slammed the clipboard down. “Fine. If you don’t want to cooperate. That’s fine. See if I care. The Alpha wants his dragon ready in a few days. Fine. Then you can just damn well be ready in a few days!”
She stormed from the room, slamming the door behind her. Liam let his head drop back to the table. All the emotion he’d been fighting came rushing back. His heart pounded and his mouth felt dry. His whole body was so cold. Was this how everybody else always felt? What was he without his fires?
What experiments did Utopia Tennet have in store for him? What did the Alpha want a dragon for…? And was his team going to find him in time? Or would they realize he was missing too late?
Chapter Four
Utopia poked at the largest tattoo on Liam’s neck, where she had ripped him open pretty good. There wasn’t so much as a scar left. She wanted to scream. She’d been delaying as much as possible, all without Liam’s help, and now there was nothing left she could do. She’d even come up with some extra, bogus tests. Using an ultrasound to check his kidneys. Doing extra bloodwork to make sure his iron levels were good.
There was literally nothing else she could do to delay. The Alpha had insisted on prioritizing his tests and she had definitive proof he never had firepox as a child. As it was basically the only disease that a dragon could get, she couldn’t make up any more excuses.
Dragon's Frenemy (Dragon Blaze Ops Book 2) Page 2
