Twiceborn Endgame (The Proving Book 3)

by Finlayson, Marina

  That depended, didn’t it? A werewolf would, if you used a silver knife. That was the point—they were mucking around with things they didn’t understand. But he clearly wasn’t in the mood to be persuaded.

  Which left me to decide—did I let them go ahead or not? The collar bomb was no deterrent. Their human reflexes were no match for my dragon ones. I could be out of it before they’d even finished thinking about pressing their damned detonator.

  No, the real deterrent was the threat to Garth. The minute silver broke his skin, he was a dead man walking. Would they really give the order to shoot if I broke free? How long would it take someone to give that order? How quickly would Garth’s guards respond? Maybe they’d hesitate. Maybe Garth could dodge the first bullet. Was I fast enough to find him in time?

  If only I could somehow cut the power, or at least fry the camera system. If it was dark when I slipped my collar, they might suspect it was more than a blackout, but they couldn’t be sure. I could find Garth and break him out while his guards were still wondering what happened to the lights.

  If I found the power board, I could easily cut the power and kill the lights. Then I could lose the collar with no one the wiser. But to kill the lights I first had to get out of the collar and escape this room. It was a Catch-22.

  I swallowed hard, looking at Faith’s face so pale against the clinical white operating table. The surgeon made a clean slice with the scalpel in line with her armpit, just above her left breast. It wasn’t very long, perhaps five centimetres. I had only moments left to reach a decision.

  Who was I kidding? It was no choice. Any stunt I pulled to save her meant almost certain death for Garth. So I gritted my teeth and watched as the surgeon slid a tiny electric cutting blade into the incision in her chest. The whine of the little saw sounded like a dentist’s drill. The beep of the machine monitoring her heart rate was the only other sound in the room.

  The whining cut off abruptly and the surgeon reached for something that looked like a long pair of tweezers, sliding them into the wound.

  Patel leaned forward, his face alight with excitement, as the surgeon withdrew the tweezers and held them up, showing off the prize clenched in their grip: a black stone, smeared with blood. There was so much blood I couldn’t see the delicate silver tracery, almost like veins, that I knew lay underneath, covering the black surface in pretty patterns. The only one of these I’d ever seen before was the one now lodged in my chest.

  “Blood pressure’s spiking,” said one of the nurses.

  The beeping picked up the pace.

  “Heart rate’s climbing too,” said the anaesthetist.

  Patel strode forward and took the bloody stone. “What’s happening?”

  Relieved of the stone, the surgeon began to stitch her up. I glanced at the monitor’s screen, where coloured lines were swooping up and down in great jagged spikes. The beeping became even more frenzied.

  Her head moved, and the anaesthetist grabbed at it before she could dislodge the tube he had in her throat.

  “Christ, she’s waking up.” The surgeon sewed faster. “Keep her under, can’t you?”

  “I’m trying!” The anaesthetist turned to adjust the flow of drugs, and Faith’s head began to thrash from side to side.

  “Hold her!” the surgeon demanded, as her arms began to twitch.

  “Put it back!” I said. “You’re killing her.”

  “Nonsense,” said Patel. He slid the bloody stone into the pocket of his lab coat and left the room without a backward glance at the drama he’d caused.

  A nurse grabbed each arm, and it soon became obvious they were working hard to keep her still. The muscles of her arms strained against them, and her body bucked. The surgeon stepped back in shock, then hurriedly placed the last few stitches. Alarms now blared from the monitor, but no one was looking at it any more. All eyes were focused on the body thrashing wildly on the operating table.

  “What the hell are you doing?” The surgeon glared at the anaesthetist. “She’s going to break the stitches.” He hadn’t had a chance yet to dress the wound; he was too busy, like everyone else, trying to hold her still.

  The anaesthetist reached for a syringe, but before he could get it into her she threw off the two nurses, sat bolt upright on the table and screamed.

  Okay, that was my cue. No one was watching me any more. I was betting even the guys monitoring the camera feed were glued to the spectacle on the operating table.

  Faith shoved the anaesthetist so hard he slammed into the trolley of surgical instruments and they both went down in a metallic crash. One nurse screamed, but the other was made of sterner stuff; she scrabbled on the floor for the syringe, now rolling under the table. But it was too late. Things were about to go from bad to very much worse.

  I reached for my essence and felt a familiar warmth in my chest as the link opened through my channel stone. The two parts of myself yearned to join together in trueshape and I fought the urge to take my rightful dragon form. Instead I focused on pushing mass away as I held the feel of trueshape in my mind, as I’d done the night I’d fought the ala to free Luce from the warehouse. Then I’d struggled with the unnatural feeling, but now it came more easily. Practice makes perfect, as they say.

  Between one heartbeat and the next I shrank to the size of a mouse, every scale and claw a perfect miniature. The collar clanked as it hit the floor, but no one noticed in the pandemonium that raged around the operating table. I scurried away from it and threw the link wide open, and the rest of my self came roaring through. In the blink of an eye the ceiling was brushing against my back, and a momentary panic surged in my veins. The room was too small; I was trapped.

  Deep breath. Dragons aren’t afraid of anything. This could work in my favour.

  The nurse who’d gone for the syringe stood up, the needle clenched in a triumphant fist. Her mouth fell open.

  “Dragon!” The syringe clattered to the floor from her boneless hand.

  Heads had barely begun to turn as I slammed into the ceiling. Dragon scales are better than any armour, and a line of spikes ran down my spine from head to tail. Belatedly the collar bomb exploded, as someone realised what was happening, but the charge was too small to damage me in my present form. In a moment the point was moot anyway: the ceiling groaned, then collapsed. All the lights went out, and broken concrete tumbled down with a noise like thunder. The operating theatre disappeared in a cloud of concrete dust. I was pretty sure Faith could survive that, even in her weakened state, but I wasn’t so certain about the others. I couldn’t find it in myself to care.

  I battered my shoulders against the ceiling, making the hole bigger, being careful to keep my wings folded safely out of the way. It was the work of seconds to make it big enough to climb through. Pieces of furniture rained down on me but I flicked them away. There was no one in the room, which was too small to fit me properly, so I lashed my tail at the wall to make space, exposing the corridor. Alarms began to shrill, but I ignored them and attacked the ceiling and tore another hole. I was counting on Garth being held captive on level three, same as I’d been. I only had seconds left to find him.

  Someone screamed as I half-leapt, half-clambered my way into the new room. It was Corinne, cowering in the corner.

  “Where’s Garth?” I growled.

  Her aura flared bright with fear. My dragon sight was enhanced even further in trueshape, and she blazed like a green fire as I opened a gaping hole in the wall to the corridor with my tail.

  “That way.” She pointed left. “Two doors along.”

  It might already be too late. I could only hope confusion was on my side. I leapt into the corridor and blasted the camera there to melted slag with dragonfire. Perhaps that would give me a few more seconds. A new alarm added itself to the noise and the sprinkler system burst into life.

  Corinne followed me into the corridor, but hung well back as I slammed the door she’d pointed out back against the wall. There were two guards in the room. On
e turned toward the noise. Him I sent flying with a swipe of my clawed foot as I heaved my shoulders through the concrete and into the room. The door, which had swung crazily from one hinge, gave up the fight and subsided onto a heap of concrete rubble.

  The other, after a terrified glance at me, turned and fired at Garth, still trapped in his silver-barred cage. His aim was wild, and Garth was diving to the floor even as he squeezed the trigger, but the bullet whizzed through his hair and shaved a red line across his scalp.

  “No!” I screamed.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  The bottom fell out of my world. All I could see was that thin red line. I incinerated the poor guard, lashing out in a frenzy of agony. He was only doing his job, but there was no compassion left in my dragon heart when I saw the look on Garth’s face. He met my eyes, and the knowledge of the terrible death that was coming for him was there in the bleakness of his gaze.

  I sprang forward and slashed through the bars of his cage like slicing through butter. Without even thinking I lashed out at his head. Not even a second had passed since the bullet grazed him; he still lay where he’d fallen, hands gathered beneath him ready to spring up again. My claw took a deep chunk out of his head, and his eyes, which had already turned the wild yellow of the wolf in his terror, rolled back in his head as blood began to spurt.

  Next thing I was crouched naked at his side. I grabbed his suit jacket from the floor and crumpled it into a ball. I had nothing else to staunch the bleeding.

  “Is he dead?” Corinne asked from the doorway. Her eyes darted nervously from Garth to the blazing body of the gunman on the floor between us.

  “No.” There was a lot of blood, but his chest still rose and fell. Head wounds were always messy. I pressed down hard. Had I cut too deep? He might bleed to death.

  Not that I’d had much choice. He’d have been dead in a minute anyway. I’d had a fraction of a second to act, and no time for finesse. If I’d managed it right—please, God, let it have worked!—I’d cut away the affected flesh in time to stop the silver spreading its deadly poison through his body. I watched anxiously for the telltale spread of blackening veins under his skin, though there was so much blood on his face it was hard to tell.

  “Come on, Garth,” I muttered, willing him to live. He was the most ornery bastard I’d ever met, and I loved him beyond all reason.

  My timing sucked. Now I realised this? When I was about to lose him?

  Water from the sprinklers above pattered down on us and my wet hair straggled across my face. I sniffed and scrubbed at my eyes with the back of my bloodied hand. Not all of the water there was from the sprinklers. As I leaned over him droplets fell from the ends of my hair onto his face, and his eyes flickered open.

  “Kate.” His voice was hoarse. One hand rose to wipe gently at the tears on my cheeks. “Don’t cry, beautiful.”

  “I’m sorry. I tried … I just couldn’t get here fast enough. This is all my fault.”

  “Don’t give me that bullshit. It’s all these Jaeger arseholes’ fault. Don’t blame yourself.” Blood ran out from under my makeshift bandage and mingled with the water trickling across his face. He grimaced. “My head’s on fire.”

  His irises were huge and golden, not a speck of grey left. The wolf was terrified, though the man was trying to stay strong. He’d been there when Jerry died; he knew how terrible the silver death was.

  “What a shitty way to go.” Those golden eyes were mesmerising. I couldn’t look away. He stared at me as if he was trying to memorise every line of my face. “I don’t want to leave you.”

  Cold water rained down on my naked back as I crouched over him. Dragonfire crackled in my ear as it consumed the guard’s body, the bright flames writhing in my peripheral vision. Rain and fire; blood and death: I shivered as I leaned closer. This couldn’t be the end. Our breath mingled, our lips almost close enough to touch.

  “Kiss me,” he whispered.

  I closed the distance between us and tasted blood, and then his mouth opened under mine and I was lost in a desperate, frantic passion. Too late, too late. Why had it taken so long to see what was right before me? The one man who could match me for ferocity, who understood what it was to be human and then irrevocably changed. The man who’d saved my life, as I’d saved his, who’d watched over me and worried for me and who’d always, always been there when I needed him.

  His strong arms crushed me against him and heat roared through me, even as tears slid from my closed eyes. I tasted their salt, mingled with the salt of his blood, and then his arms, so tight around me, loosened suddenly and fear came roaring back, sweeping passion away in an icy gust.

  “Garth?” I reared back and watched his eyelids sag closed. I trembled, terror clawing at my gut. “Garth!”

  I pressed shaking fingers against the pulse point in his neck. His heart beat strongly; he’d only passed out. Dizzy with relief, I checked his wound, probing gently. It wasn’t long, but deep, gouged right into the bone of his skull. I couldn’t see any brain matter, so that was something.

  Had I done enough?

  “Corinne.” I beckoned her closer. She came, bedraggled in her soggy ball gown, her hair plastered to her head. Still, at least she had clothes. I was so cold I couldn’t stop shaking.

  I tapped the link within me, and let a dragon claw spring from my index finger. She jumped, then looked down as if embarrassed.

  “Hold out your hands.”

  She held her cuffed hands steady, and I sliced the handcuffs away. They clanged to the wet floor and she shook her hands with relief.

  “Keep pressing here.”

  I guided her hands to the spot, then stood. Garth’s face was deathly pale under the blood, but there were no black lines. It had been quick when Jerry was shot. She’d swelled up in seconds, her veins turning black as the poison spread its agonising death through her body. Did that mean Garth was safe? But she’d had a silver bullet lodged inside her. Perhaps this would be slower. I hardly dared to hope, but how could I keep going without hope? I had to get him out of here.

  I stripped the first guard of his bloodstained shirt and trousers and dressed quickly. Everything was wet, and the pants were too loose, but I cinched my borrowed belt tight. It would do. I’d probably have to take trueshape again before this was over, but in the meantime I felt better not walking around in my birthday suit. The other guard’s body was already falling into ashes, the dragonfire dwindling away. Just as well there was nothing else in the bare concrete cell to burn, or the whole place might go up.

  “Stay here with him,” I told Corinne. “I won’t be far. Call out if there’s any change.”

  She nodded, her face almost as pale as Garth’s, but determined.

  I took the guard’s gun and slipped out into the corridor. Shouts rose through the hole in the floor, but no one was stirring yet on this floor. Garth had probably been the only one to rate an actual live guard because of his use as leverage against me. A locked door would be enough to contain the others.

  I chose a door at random and extended my claws. Leandra might have shot the lock, but she’d been comfortable with guns and I wasn’t. They made it look simple in the movies, but where exactly were you supposed to aim? Claws were more reliable. I knew what I was doing with them.

  Which was peeling the metal door like an apple, a strip bending back like skin. Luce’s face appeared in the gap.

  “Good. I was hoping it was you.” I handed her the gun. “Do your thing.”

  She immediately took aim and blasted the lock. The noise reverberated in the concrete corridor. Luce could always be relied upon for violence in any flavour. The door swung open at a touch.

  Wordlessly she held out her cuffed hands, and I freed her as I’d freed Corinne.

  “Find the others.”

  She nodded and turned to the next door. I headed back to Garth, hope warring with terror inside me. Would I find the dreaded black lines creeping across his tortured body?

  Corinne looked u
p as I entered. “The bleeding’s stopped.”

  “Let me see.”

  Heart in my mouth, I dropped to the floor next to the still-unconscious werewolf and peeled away the blood-soaked jacket with shaking hands. It was still a nasty wound … but that was all. No black twisting veins, no hideous swelling.

  I sat back on my heels and breathed a silent prayer of thanks, feeling warmth flood my heart like sunshine after a storm. The knot of dread in my gut began to unwind. In this new light his unconsciousness looked like a good sign—he’d fallen into the healing sleep his body needed to repair itself.

  Now all I had to do was get him to safety. I could hear voices in the corridor, but it sounded like shifters calling to each other, voices raised in fear and anger. I thought I recognised Hope’s brittle tones. For a police headquarters, or whatever this place was, there seemed to be a remarkable shortage of policemen.

  Luce appeared in the doorway. “Shit, what happened to Garth?”

  “Silver bullet. But it’s okay,” I added as she drew in a horrified breath. “He’s fine.”

  Well, not fine exactly. He still had a hole in his head. But the fact that he’d stopped bleeding meant that his shifter healing had kicked in. Within twenty-four hours there’d be little to show how close he’d come to a gruesome death.

  “How the hell—? Never mind, you can tell me later. We need to get moving.”

  I dragged Garth out of the cage, being careful not to let the broken silver bars brush against his skin.

  “Did you find everyone?”

  “Nearly. Don’t know where Faith is. Her people said she was taken away a few hours ago. No sign of Blue, either.”

  I sighed. “Keep looking, we need to find Blue. But I don’t think Faith will be coming with us.”

  An angry young man pushed his way past Luce. “Why not? Do you know where she is?”

  He was built like a New Zealand rugby player, dark-skinned and massive. I didn’t even need to see his aura to know that he was a troll. Luce looked like a child standing next to him.