The image disturbed her on a deeper level, and her heart plummeted when she realized he’d given up. “I’m nearby. My blood can stabilize you.”
His bitter chuckle echoed in the room. “I’ll kill you.”
The smell of his fear was sour and sharp. Despite the dire situation, Raven forced herself to chuckle, too. “You said something similar to me the first time we met. Do you remember what I said then?”
Rylan stilled, scowling down at the floor, but he remained stubbornly silent.
“I trust you. I did then, and I still do.”
“Then you’re a fool.” Rylan whirled and slammed his hand against the wall. Stone crumbled under the impact, but what broke her heart was the way he bowed his head in exhaustion, pressing his forehead against the bitterly cold wall as if he couldn’t hold himself up any longer.
Raven wished with all her might that she could gather him in her arms and give him the strength to hold on. “My dragon is stronger than you can imagine. You’re stronger than you give yourself credit. I saved you once—”
“And you nearly died. I won’t risk it.” The vow was torn from him, and he began pacing the small, confined space, his movements violent and agitated. He no longer pretended to be human.
No matter how hard she tried to hold onto him, he began to pull away. His words felt so much like a good-bye that tears filled her eyes. “Damned you, Rylan. If you’re giving up, then you condemned us all.”
Rylan stilled as only his kind could, not even bothering to breathe. “Where are you?”
“If I had to guess—a few levels above you. I’m housed in the asylum.” Raven paused, then swallowed hard. “They took Durant.”
A curse erupted from him, and a tortured roar echoed in the room, the sound so tormented and desolate, her throat ached at his pain. For the first time since entering his cell, she felt his heart beat, and a terrible hope took root.
He’d been starving himself, systematically shutting himself down. Once his body reached the tipping point of no return, the wild beast inside him had two choices—either his human self would completely shut down, and he would become a feral creature of nightmares or, in cases of older vampires, he would, by sheer force of will, shut himself down and drop into a coma-like sleep.
Her mouth went dry…Rylan didn’t have much time left.
“What are you planning?” Rylan tugged at his jacket, the familiar gesture warming the bitter chill that had invaded her bones ever since she first found him in that cell.
“Tell me what you’ve learned.”
“This place isn’t the same as the last lab, they’re not as advanced.” His fangs cut into his lip when he spoke, and he licked the wound, his hunger so fierce, he couldn’t stop himself from seeking more. His eyes flashed entirely black, and he lifted his head and sniffed the air, the creature in him searching for prey. When he found none, he blinked and seemed to come back to himself. “I’m the only vampire here. I think I was taken by mistake. I interrupted those creatures while they were playing with Nicholas. My best guess is they followed some of the rogues who have been flooding the area. Nicholas found them first, but there were too many of them to fight. They overwhelmed him. It was his screams that drew me.”
Raven swallowed hard when he fell silent. “What creatures?”
A sneer curled his lips. “Abominations, no doubt something they cooked up in the labs. They were half beast, half human animals with no soul.”
Horror tightened her gut. “Shifters caught in transition. The pain alone would cause anyone to go insane.”
“You’re not listening. They weren’t tortured creatures driven insane, they were created, and very much enjoyed tormenting others. It excited them.” Rylan tipped his head to the side, his neck cracking. He repeated the gesture on the other side.
“How were you taken?”
He snorted, running his fingers through his hair. “I got distracted beating the crap out of them, and missed the humans crawling through the woods some fifty yards away. They didn’t even have the courtesy to leave their vehicle before they shot me full of darts.” He shook his head. “What kind of shifter willingly works with humans to capture their own kind?” He reached under his jacket, scratched his ribs, and her attention sharpened.
“What’s wrong with your side?”
Rylan froze, then pulled his jacket tighter around him. “It’s nothing.”
Raven didn’t believe him. The energy allowing her to see in the room was fading, her vision growing dark. She reached for more, but the strain on her body was too much. It just slipped through her fingers. She only had minutes remaining, but she had to know. “What did they do?”
Even though he didn’t need air, he heaved a sigh of exasperation. “The usual. Sour blood to keep me weak. They’ve been draining me almost dry every day.” Very slowly, he shrugged out of his jacket and lifted up his shirt. Every inch of him was covered with cuts. “They’re testing my healing like a piece of meat, to see if I’m close to being done.”
Half of the wounds were already scabbed over, but he had so little blood remaining in him, the rest remained open. His ribs stood out in stark relief, while the bones of his spine practically poked through his skin.
“Rylan.” Despite her best intentions, her voice broke. He was in no condition to help them escape. It would be up to her and Durant to get him out, and they needed to move quickly.
Rylan stiffened, quickly dropping his shirt. “Leave here before it’s too late, and you’re caught. Durant wouldn’t want you to risk your life for him. Neither do I. If they find out you’re a female alpha, they’ll do much worse to you.”
Though she knew he spoke the truth, she couldn’t leave them behind.
She wouldn’t.
There was only a little bit of energy left in the room, and she could barely see Rylan anymore. Knowing she couldn’t do anything else for him right now, she moved closer, then wrapped her arms around him, using the remaining charge to heal the worst of his injuries…unfortunately, there were just too many of them.
As if he felt her touch, Rylan inhaled deeply, his shoulders relaxing.
Then the world around her vanished.
She snapped back into her body with a groan, feeling like a bug that just went splat against a windshield. Sleep beckoned, but she refused to succumb to unconsciousness. She wouldn’t be able to rest until she knew Durant was safe.
Reaching for the connection between them, she sighed with relief when she found the cord healthy and vibrant. His luscious leather scent wrapped around her, easing some of her body aches.
He was alive.
She began to pull away when Durant’s scream of pain echoed in her head. Raven bolted upright, her shirt soaked in sweat. A searing fire rippled along her back, like someone tore the flesh from her spine, and the connection between them snapped.
The pain gradually faded, leaving her panting.
Desperate to know what they were doing to him, she tried to re-establish the connection, only to find herself blocked. “Durant, don’t do this.”
She rushed toward the door, reached for the seams when Durant’s voice in her head stopped her cold.
“Don’t do anything foolish. You can’t risk anyone discovering your secret.”
“They’re torturing you.” The metal door was cold under her palms, her fingertips curled around the edges, ready to pry them up.
“They’re taking me back to my cell. I’ll be fine.”
There was a breathlessness to the rich tone of his voice, and Raven wasn’t sure she believed him. “Promise?”
“You have my word.”
Raven dropped her head forward, pressing it against the door, welcoming the cold sting of metal. Her stomach churned with acid, knowing his pain was her fault. “Why didn’t you run?”
He didn’t answer.
Raven gingerly made her way back to her bed, collapsing in an exhausted heap, when she heard just a whisper of his voice. “I would rather be here with you
then out there and free.”
Then he was gone, severing their connection, and taking the soothing leather scent with him.
Her heart turned over, the warm glow chasing away the bitter chill that had saturated her since waking in this godforsaken hellhole. She pushed away her anxiety, comforted to know she likely would see him tomorrow, and allowed the soothing sound of thunder to lull her to sleep.
Chapter Sixteen
DAY SEVEN: DAYBREAK
The clank of metal jolted Raven awake the next morning. Heart thudding painfully against her ribs, she leapt out of bed, expecting to be slammed against the wall and beaten.
She blinked a few times and searched the room.
And found nothing but a cold food tray on the floor. She crept forward and nudged it with her foot.
Well, not food exactly, more like a pasty blob of congealed slime.
And no utensils.
Her stomach rolled at the thought of eating, her throat closing as she imagined the slime oozing down her throat. Shifters needed to eat twice the number of calories as humans just to function throughout the day. If they didn’t eat, their animals surfaced. If she didn’t eat, she lost control of the current flowing through her body, and she started to cannibalize those around her.
She gave another hesitant sniff at the food, then decided she would rather starve. If she killed a few guards in the process, not her problem.
As the adrenaline rush wore off, the aches of her body complained. She was stiff and sore, but able to function. When she turned to crawl back into bed, she nearly walked clean through a shape right in front of her. She leapt backward, her elbow cracking into the wall, while her head thunked heavily against the door.
“Casper.” She cradled her elbow, scowling at him. “You sure know how to make an entrance.”
The ghost smiled shyly. “Call me Grady.”
The voice sounded like an echo in her head, as if coming from a great distance. He appeared whole, glowing slightly from within, his wounds gone. The energy from the storm turned his phantom shape vibrant, and so alive she would never have guessed he was dead.
When he moved, the old image of him flashed for a few brief seconds, the one where he resembled a corpse, his jaw broken, his hair spotty where it had been ripped from his scalp. His shoulder hung limp, clearly yanked out of its socket. Then the image shimmered again, showing the pristine image of what the boy must have looked like before he was taken.
“I need to show you something.”
He stretched out his arm, his body flickering again, his fingers alternating from a skeleton to flesh as it neared. Raven gulped, her legs trembling with the instinctual need to run. Claws pressed against her fingertips, her brain shutting down against the fear flooding her system.
“Please.”
The boy stopped moving, his face solemn as he gazed at her with pleading blue eyes.
With her heart thudding like a drum, Raven stiffened her spine and gave a small nod. It was the best she could manage.
Before she could change her mind, his hand touched her forehead, and the world around her dissolved. They were on the front steps of the monastery, surrounded by two dozen other kids. A hand squeezed hers. When she glanced down, she discovered she wasn’t in her own body anymore. She was in Grady’s memories. The hand in hers belonged to a boy a year younger than Grady, terror and uncertainty turning his blue eyes almost silvery.
The monastery appeared older and more run down, the recent updates stripped away, timber hanging down from the ceiling in many rooms, the place practically tumbling down around them. The windows were boarded up, the wind howling through the old hallways, and Grady shivered, swearing he heard death calling for him.
Soldiers brandished weapons, shoving more kids into the foray, all of them between the ages of eight and sixteen. They were herded toward the back of the mansion, then crammed into the cursed, rickety elevator, packed in until Grady could barely breathe, someone’s elbow jamming into his spine. He clutched his brother Gavin tightly to him, shoving his own elbow at anyone who tried to trample them.
Time sped up, and the next images were of the boys being strapped down, Grady and Gavin were both older, both looking rough. They’d grown nearly a foot, their clothes nothing more than rags, with bruises and wounds scattered all over their bodies.
There were a half dozen more children in the room, all boys, and none of them in much better shape. Everyone was strapped down.
One by one they were hooked up to machines, needles inserted in their arms. At first, nothing happened, then one of the older boys began to scream and thrash, nearly tipping over the gurney as he fought to escape the bindings and the maddening pain.
Raven tried to rip out the needles in her arm, but it was like she was stuck in cement, helpless to do anything but watch. Three more kids had the same reaction, foam spilling out of their mouths as they began to seize. Doctors in lab coats came and went, taking notes before they began pulling up sheets to cover the corpses of those who didn’t survive. Grady’s spine arched, until the only things keeping him on the table were the straps holding him down. Fire burned through his body from the inside out, and she knew he was going through transition fever.
His brother called and screamed for him, but Grady was beyond hearing. Doctors came and went, unfeeling as they took their notes. “Batch 12, Serum 314 is a success.”
The doctor studying the glassy-eyed corpse in the bed next to hers looked up from behind his mask, and Raven instantly recognized him—Frankenstein. “He hasn’t survived yet. We must wait. If we can’t find a way to control the beast, then they’re worthless. Did any of the females selected for the transfusions survive?”
“None.”
Frankenstein’s eyes narrowed in frustration. “Any viable pregnancies from the fertilized eggs we’ve planted?”
The other lab coat shook his head. “Within six weeks, ninety percent have rejected the fetus.”
Excitement gleamed in his eyes as he straightened. “And the other ten percent?”
“It’s the same as the last batch. They never woke from the coma, dying within two months of implantation, much too soon to safe the fetuses.”
They left, and another day passed with no change. Others lab coats came, cracking open the motionless bodies, trying to discover why the transition failed.
The next time Grady woke, Gavin had vanished.
Time sped up again. When Raven saw Grady, she knew he would die soon. Frankenstein stood outside, watching dispassionately as the healthiest shifters were loaded in military trucks. “You’re making a mistake.”
A soldier in full military gear flipped shut the clipboard he was using. “You were given a chance, and you failed to create even one viable soldier. These breeds are useless. You and your team will be more suited to figuring out how we can best make use of the witches, possibly find a way to make their magic into a viable weapon…if you think you’re capable of it.”
Frankenstein scowled at the insult while the soldier turned and walked away. “And the other shifters?”
“Your experiments?” He gave a dismissive shrug. “Keep them. I have no use for your freaks.”
The vehicles roared to life and began to pull away when Grady rushed out of the monastery, leaping down the ten steps in a single bound, sprinting after the departing trucks. “Gavin!”
The name was torn from him, his voice cracking as he pushed his body harder, gradually catching up to the vehicle.
Frankenstein watched with narrowed eyes, then gave a sharp whistle.
An orderly shouldered his rifle and shot Grady in the back, sending him flying head over heels. Pain speared her between her shoulder blades, and she watched the boy land in a puff of dust. He didn’t move.
The sound of the lock sliding on the door snapped her back to the present, and she blinked away the tears in her eyes, disoriented to find herself back in her gray cell. Grady stood before her, a pale imitation of his former self. “Find him.”
The door screeched open, revealing the same starchy nurse from yesterday. She perused Raven from head to foot, nodding in approval to see her standing and waiting, and her sour expression turned almost cheerful. “Come. It’s time to start work.”
Without waiting to see if she followed, the nurse marched away. When Raven didn’t move fast enough, Igor licked his lips and reached for her. She quickly dodged his groping hands, scooting around Quasimodo and sprinting down the hall.
Josie and three other witches were waiting for her at the elevator. Despite the early hour, they already looked haggard, and Raven feared she didn’t looked much better. As the elevator lurched lower and lower, her anxiety increased.
Durant would be waiting.
She unconsciously tugged on her stained shirt, then fussed with her hair, nervous about seeing him again.
As the rattletrap jolted to a stop, everyone exited. The heavy air filled her lungs, stealing the last illusion of freedom. The instant her foot hit the ground, she knew Durant wasn’t there, and her spirits plummeted. Worry began to worm its way into her subconscious, and she wondered if he lied to her about how badly he was hurt.
Much to her surprise, Frankenstein was waiting for them, having a heated discussion with two other lab coats. Raven’s feet slowed as hatred for the man began to fester and grow, the remnants of Grady’s emotions still riding her hard.
It would be so easy to leap over there and rip out his throat.
“I sure hope you know what you’re doing.” Josie trailed at her side, her attention locked on the doctor. “This is the first time he’s stirred himself to come to the labs. If you don’t follow through, he will take it out on your beast’s hide.”
Claws pressed against her fingertips, the delicious ache welcoming. As if sensing her intent, Josie’s eyes widened. She darted forward, grabbed Raven’s arm in a surprisingly strong grip, and frog-marched her over to her little cubicle. “Are you trying to get yourself killed?”
Electric series- Raven Investigations BoxSet Page 44
