Electric series- Raven Investigations BoxSet

by Stacey Brutger

  The cats were evenly matched as they continued to beat the crap out of each other. Vicious wounds marred the tom’s body, his fur matted with blood, and as she watched, she noted he was not healing as fast as Durant.

  Nor was he as well trained.

  But Durant was already weakened by the repeat drugging, not to mention a brutal sword wound he received a few weeks ago. The dragon gave a quiet grumble, then hunkered down, waiting for a chance to intervene.

  Raven edged closer, then halted, knowing she would be a distraction and likely get him killed. When she straightened, she nearly tripped over lizard man’s body.

  Staggering for balance, she peered down, her attention drawn to the spikes he so prided, and an idea took hold.

  Neither man was going to give up until one of them killed the other.

  She couldn’t risk Durant being hurt again.

  She needed him in top condition if they were to escape.

  Bending down, she gripped one of the stone-like spikes at the base and snapped it off, the bitter liquid that seeped out tacky on her fingers. Raven paced restlessly, waiting for her moment. Getting close to the fight would be a mistake, but if she waited much longer, it would be too late. She stilled, her grip tightening on the spike. “Down!”

  Raven drew back her arm and let go.

  At the sound of her voice, Durant dropped flat to the ground. The dart sailed over his head, missing him by inches, lodging in the big cat’s shoulder.

  The tom hissed and pulled out the dart, carelessly tossing it away. He advanced on her, then staggered, his eyes widening in surprise as he pitched forward and collapsed.

  The poison must be some sort of paralytic.

  Raven glanced down at her hand, noting the tiny drops had stained her fingers black. Despite the tiny scales protecting her, the venom had soaked into her skin, the chemicals potent enough to leave her fingers numb. Thankfully, without an open wound, the poison wasn’t able to enter her bloodstream, giving her time to burn it off without harming her.

  She leaned down, wiping her fingers against lizard man’s shirt.

  As Durant slowly climbed to his feet, he began to stalk toward her. Her heart ricocheted against her ribs when she noted the scattered wounds covering his body. When he drew near, she lifted her hand in warning. “Stop. I still have the poison on my fingers. We can’t risk it seeping into any one of your wounds.”

  Durant scowled, disgruntled at not being able to touch her, but thankfully listened.

  “How badly are you injured?” She scanned his body again, wincing at the long slashes down his right thigh that left his flesh a torn mess. An alarming amount of blood soaked his pants. With the poison covering her skin, she couldn’t risk touching him, she couldn’t risk healing him, not if there was a chance she could infect him.

  “I’ll live.” Durant relaxed, then after a moment of studying her, looked up at the edges of the pit. Everyone was silent as they peered down at them, the Delta Team looking hopeful for the first time.

  Reed reached over the railing, offering his hand to help lift them out, when the door behind them buzzed and slid open with a click of locks.

  The Alpha Team waited on the other side.

  Mack stood to the side, his face impassive, while Tara was all attitude, a pair of cuffs in one hand, and the damned controller for Durant’s collar in the other.

  She shot a glare at Raven, making it clear she was downright pissed that she had managed to survive. Again. “Out.”

  The words were a barked command. Raven had no doubt that if she didn’t obey, Tara would fry Durant, and relish doing it, too.

  The Delta Team blanched, ready to leap to her defense, aggression ramping up in the confined space. If they had been full shifters, she had no doubt they would’ve spilled out of their skin. She quickly shook her head. “Don’t.”

  They subsided, but none of them were happy about the decision.

  If she wanted to find Rylan, she needed to leave the den.

  Unfortunately, Raven made a fatal mistake…she drew attention to herself.

  They’d be watching her closer than ever.

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Durant limped to her side, angling his body protectively in front of her, giving her an unobstructed view of his back for the first time, and her breath caught painfully in her throat.

  The damage was appalling. Bruises were already darkening his skin, vicious wounds were slashed across his shoulders from the tom’s claws, slicing down to the bone in places. Another injury looked as if claws had ripped into his side and tried to remove a chunk of flesh. He’d torn free from the brutal grip, but it left his side a mangled mess.

  She curled her fingers into fists, trembling with the ache to touch him.

  Even as she watched, fresh blood trickled down his spine, soaking into an ever-widening stain on his pants.

  “Durant…don’t.” She refused to risk having him injured further. She wasn’t sure her heart could take it. She circled him, then lifted her hands up in surrender.

  Her boots clanked against metal as she stepped out into the hall, the place resembling an industrial underground bunker. The air was crisp, the bitter cold from the stone reaching through the metal, trying to sink its claws into her soul. Instead of smelling dirt and sweat and desperation from the den, she tasted the tin of recycled air that haunted her dreams for years.

  Tara clamped the manacles around Durant’s wrists none to gently, and Raven barely resisted snarling at the bitch. As if reading her thoughts, Mack stepped between them, cutting off her view. He held out his own set of cuffs, scowling when he noticed the black spots of poison staining her skin.

  Her legs shook with the need to run, but the subtle shake of his head gave her pause, pulling her out of the panic threatening to suck her under. She shuddered when the cold cuffs were snapped around her wrists, his touch surprisingly gentle.

  At the weight of the manacles, dark memories clawed their way out from her past, threatening to consume her.

  A brush of fingers against the underside of her wrists startled her out of her rampant thoughts, and she jerked away, feeling violated by the stolen touch. The door slid shut with a whoosh, and Tara none-too-gently prodded them forward. “Follow me.”

  Raven obeyed, conscious of Durant crowding close behind her. The poison in her system was fading, leaving her hot, then cold, while her body burned through the last of the drug. As they neared the labs, the dragon hunkered down, eliminating almost all her heightened senses, and she grunted, the loss nearly staggering her.

  The creature was hiding, buying her time to find Rylan.

  While grateful for its understanding, she couldn’t keep from tensing, her footsteps lagging, knowing that they were heading into the heart of danger. The dim, infrequent lights grew brighter, and her breathing became labored as she struggled against the impulse to kill everyone in her path.

  As if sensing her loss of control, Durant picked up his pace, brushing against her with every step. The passageway widened, opening up into a large maze of glass observation rooms. People in white lab coats roamed the corridors, checking patients and jotting down notes. They appeared to be the epitome of a concerned doctor…until you noticed the patients were strapped down and rendered helpless.

  The people in those lab coats were vicious, treating shifters as animals instead of humans.

  “Move!”

  Tara stood at the bottom of a short staircase and lifted the device that controlled the collars. Before she could press the button, Raven grabbed the railing and began her descent. When her hand met metal, electricity cracked at contact, and her body greedily began to absorb the current like a starved child.

  The sudden influx of energy left her woozy, but it had the added benefit of burning away the last of the toxins.

  “What is this place?” Durant’s voice was grim. Apparently he hadn’t seen their whole operation until now.

  Raven licked her dry lips as she struggled to find the words
to describe the horror. “Shifters are the ideal test subjects. Thanks to their healing properties, they can take a lot of abuse and survive. If a study fails, it’s simple enough to begin all over again the next week. Their genetics helps them adapt to stimuli and testing, offering results in a matter of days or weeks where it would take humans generations to evolve the same way. Some think we can be used to advance human evolution to the next stage.”

  As they entered the maze of observation rooms, she saw many of the tables had chains and manacles dangling from them, and dark memories began to brew in the back of her mind, bubbling to the surface.

  Some rooms were dingy, obviously used as a habitat for a single occupant, while others were sterile. They passed a section of observation bays with bodies cut open in various stages of dissection. Worse, some of the shifters were still alive. Rage vibrated off Durant, and she could hear a near silent oath escape him.

  As Raven watched, a doctor meticulously made an incision from neck to groin without a hint of hesitation when his patient screamed. Images from her past flickered in her head over and over, faster and faster, until she was no longer seeing the rooms.

  Phantom pain slashed down her sternum, as if the blade was slicing into her flesh, the knife cutting deeper with each stroke. Cold metal burned against her back as she lay strapped, naked and helpless, while they tested and measured again and again how much abuse she could handle, versus how long it took her to heal the grievous wounds.

  Acid burned through her veins when they injected her, time and again, with different types of paranormal blood and poisons to observe their effects. Some poisons would dissolve her flesh before, her body would gradually begin to stitch itself back together, one agonizing second at a time, until it felt like an eternity had passed.

  The people in the lab coats calmly took notes during each experiment, indifferent as they slowly, meticulously murdered her over and over, only to revive her again and again, plunging her back into hell that had no escape or end.

  The pain of returning back to consciousness after their tests shriveled her soul every time, her body’s ability to heal so swiftly made her feel as if she was being turned inside out, then burned with a blowtorch. After a while, she was afraid she would be driven insane by the pain…and maybe she had been.

  Lights began to flicker around her, snapping Raven back to the present. She must be sucking energy down like a sieve. Tara and Mack stood ten feet away, and the dragon gave a warning growl. She took a step toward them, her beast surging forward, stretching under her skin, her body growing uncomfortably tight. Energy began to gather in the cramped space, the air crackling and swirling around her, when she finally heard Durant call her name, as if from a distance.

  Sounds returned in a rush, her ears ringing at the noise.

  “Raven.” She turned, instinctively following the soothing sound of his voice, his concerned face going in and out of focus. “Come back to me.”

  The voltage slammed back into her with the force that could crush bones, her body so heavy it was all she could do to stay on her feet. It wasn’t enough. The temperature around her began to rise, and she could feel her hair begin to move and swirl around her shoulders.

  “You’re doing great.” Durant smiled, and her heart hiccupped. “You mustn’t let your magic escape. Understand?”

  Raven swayed at his question.

  Not magic.

  He meant her dragon.

  She went lightheaded at the near miss.

  The last time the dragon broke loose, innocent people perished. She couldn’t live through that kind of guilt again.

  Goosebumps rippled over her skin when she recalled they were being observed, and she slowly turned. Tara’s brown eyes were wild, her animal fighting her as it sensed a bigger predator even if the human in her didn’t recognize it. Mack, on the other hand, calmly watched her with knowing eyes. He had his hand clamped around Tara’s wrists, grinding her bones together until she dropped the controller, tucking it quickly into his shirt pocket.

  Almost as though he was protecting them.

  A shifter in the lab to her right broke free of his restraints and ran straight toward her, slamming into the barrier so hard the glass warbled in protest. He snapped his teeth, and her throat tightened when she saw they’d pulled his fangs. Blood dripped from multiple wounds where he had torn himself free of the straps binding him to the table.

  Foam was crusted around his mouth, the whites of his eyes were yellow, and so bloodshot, she was surprised he could see at all. Raven put her hand to the glass, and the wolf stilled, his head tipping to the side, before he slowly raised his hand and copied her move. The madness eased from his eyes for a few seconds. “They infected him with rabies.”

  Even with a shifter’s amazing healing abilities, there were some diseases that couldn’t be stopped once they progressed past a certain point.

  “They’re testing how long it will take for the virus to reach its peak.” Mack edged closer to the glass so he could watch her.

  “A devilish weapon. It slowly drives them insane, forcing them to infect others, before it ultimately kills them.” Raven speared him with a glare, gratified to see him flinch under her merciless regard. “Only they made a slight miscalculation. Another shifter would sense the sickness and kill him on the spot.”

  “Unless they set him loose among the humans.” He gave a shrug, then looked at the wolf behind the glass as if he were a specimen and not a person. “Panic would spread if humans thought shifters were infected with diseases.”

  “But it’s not true.” Raven stared at the wolf, saw the madness slowly take him again, and hopelessness began to dim the spark in his eyes. Never once taking his gaze from hers, he lifted his claws to his neck. Raven frantically shook her head, but the wolf only smiled and ripped out his own throat, the wounds so deep, a glimmer of bone shimmered in the gore. He dropped to his knees, still smiling, as blood began to gather beneath him in an ever-expanding pool.

  Tears burned her eyes, and she cursed her helplessness.

  “He escaped. It’s more than what most of them manage.” Mack shook his head, watching the scene impassively before he pinned her under his gaze. “We both know the truth won’t matter. Once fear spreads, it’s like the tide—there can be no stopping it.”

  Raven shook out her fists, conscious for the first time of claws piercing her flesh, unable to look away from the too-still body at her feet, the bloody remnants of a man who had been alive just moments before.

  “Don’t look.” Durant pulled her away, tucking her against him. “There was nothing you could do to save him.”

  That didn’t stop the ache in her gut that seemed to have grown fangs.

  “They are expecting us.” Tara scowled, her fear subsiding, more pissed than ever at having her weakness exposed.

  Raven reluctantly pulled away and followed Tara farther into the house of horrors. Durant stiffened, growing quieter as he witnessed the atrocities being performed.

  Raven wanted to avert her eyes, but refused the take the coward’s way out. She released a shaky breath, reminding herself Durant has been spared…so far.

  Durant was incredibly strong, the labs wouldn’t destroy him physically, but the torture would leave his soul shattered, and she wasn’t sure she would ever be able to put him back together again.

  She would do whatever it took to keep him safe.

  As if reading her thoughts, Tara laughed. “You’re next.” Then her eyes went hard, unable to resist taunting her. “Or maybe it will be your boy, while you’re forced to watch.”

  Raven stiffened and opened her mouth to respond when she felt Durant tug at the end of her hair, the affectionate gesture instantly calming her.

  Mack spoke softly. “You won’t be able to protect him. Friendship here is considered a weakness.”

  Her gut clenched, and she swallowed hard. They were both right…up to a point.

  After a few more twists and turns, they came to a stop outside one
of the main control rooms. All that separated them from the activity inside was a single pane of glass. She scanned the room and took everything in at a glance, registering the people and their threat levels, amused to see the lab techs scrambling around the room like mice in a cage.

  Computer equipment lined one wall, the monitors covering every inch of space. A flickering screen caught her attention, and she watched, transfixed as the screen jumped from one room to another, each showing a different types of creature prowling the confined space.

  Then Raven recognized one of them.

  “Rylan.”

  Rylan was so still he appeared dead.

  Denial roared through her, a scream building in her throat.

  It wasn’t possible.

  She would know otherwise.

  The screen flickered to another cell.

  “No.” Denial burned through her, and the dragon responded to her distress. Unaware of lunging forward, Raven reached toward the window—and Rylan—when Durant slipped his cuffed arms over her head and hauled her against him.

  She jumped at the contact, having forgotten he was there.

  He pressed his cheek to the top of her head, and she heard him speak in her mind. “We’re being watched. Don’t draw attention to yourself, or give them any reason to separate us.”

  He was silent for two heartbeats. When he spoke again, he was so quiet, she barely caught his words. “I don’t think my tiger could accept knowing you were in danger without me being there to protect you.”

  Even though she knew he was right, she resented his calm acceptance. They were so close. If she could just locate Rylan, they could leave and she could spare both men more suffering.

  Spare them the nightmares that would haunt them for the rest of their lives.

  Chapter Twenty-two

  DAY EIGHT: DARKNESS HAS FALLEN

  Tara yanked out the metal rod she loved so much, cracking the bar across Raven’s thigh. “Move.”

  Raven caught the baton reflexively. The force should’ve thrown her across the room, or at the very least, broken bones. Her palm did sting at the impact, but the scales under her skin had slotted together without conscious thought, shielding her from the worst of the damage.