by Anna Edwards
“No!” she yelled before slamming back down in the Glacial Blood mansion. She let out a loud scream at Kas and Jessica who stood in front of her. “Send me back,” Isobel demanded. “Now.”
Jessica’s eyes turned white, and she collapsed onto the floor screaming in agony.
“No, no, what’s happening?” Isobel questioned, desperate to return to where she’d been, moments earlier.
“She’s linked to all of us. She can’t perform magic, at the moment, because one of us is hurt.” Kas was on his knees next to her and checking the witch over. “What did they do to Zain?”
He shot to his feet and, grabbing her by the collar, pinned her to the wall. She gasped for air.
“Kas, please. I have to go back.”
“What did they do?” Kas spoke through clenched teeth.
“They shot him.”
Kas dropped her to the floor and held his hand over his heart.
“No,” he growled. “No.” He turned and looked at her. “The war has arrived, and humans and shifters are going to die. Your actions, today, have forever changed the world we know and may have killed one of my best men.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Zain groaned. Man, he must have eaten a lot of honey last night because the sugar rebound headache that he had was a killer. His entire body ached. Seriously, was he sleeping on a park bench? His bed was rock hard. Fuck! Recollection hit him. The darts entering his body with enough tranquilizer to take down a herd of elephants, let alone one black bear. He tried to move his arms to stretch, but he found they were constricted, and on opening his eyes, the stark whiteness of the room hurt.
“Zain,” a voice he recognized called.
“Kingsley,” he grumbled.
“You ok? You’ve been out of it for a while. How did they get you?”
“Isobel.” The woman he loved came immediately into his thoughts, and he tugged on the restraints at his wrists and legs, but they weren’t going to move. Had she escaped? Jessica had come straight to him to tell him where Isobel had insisted on being taken. He couldn’t believe, after everything, she still wanted to reason with her father. The man had no conscience or soul. Jessica had propelled him straight into the middle of the scene, and he’d been hit with the first tranquilizer as he stopped it from going into the woman he loved. It had thrown him off a bit, but he’d still managed to get her out before they unloaded another several rounds into him.
“I’ve not seen her? Was she with you when they took you? Damn, my father has gone mad.”
“Your father?” He was still really groggy and trying to get his head around where he was.
“Yes, this is his office, laboratory, whatever you want to call it. We need to try and get out of here. You don’t happen to have the strength to break the cuffs securing you to the table, do you?” Kingsley asked. “My father had me work here for a few years, so I know the way out. I’m just a little confined, as well.”
Zain’s eyes had adjusted to the brightness of his environment, and he was able to see his surroundings, more clearly. He looked to his left and saw Kingsley, also secured to a table. The man had electrodes stuck all over his body and a cannula going into his arm ready for blood to be taken. He was naked apart from a cloth covering his groin. Humans were always so concerned with modesty. Zain looked harder, and he saw bruises and cuts forming on Kingsley’s skin. A part of one of his tattoos had been cut away, and a scab was building over the inflamed flesh.
“What have they done to you?” he asked.
“Just a few tests, but we need to get you out of here before they try the same on you,” Kingsley explained. Zain looked down at his body. He had the same electrodes, and a machine beeped next to him, capturing his attention. He rotated his head as far as he could to try and see what it displayed. It looked like his heartbeat. Stupid idiots wouldn’t find anything different there. It was just the same as theirs when in human form. He looked to his own arm where a cannula rested. Damn, they’d taken blood. He hated it when people did that. Mind you, it was a mistake if they were searching for information because, as far as he was aware, it was also the same makeup as that of humans. The shifter part came from magic, which existed within them. He’d wished he’d paid more attention when Kas had discussed their genetic and biological makeup. He would’ve known what to fight against and what to let these bastards get away with.
“I’m not going to be able to break these cuffs. They’re strong.” He looked straight ahead and cleared his mind of all thoughts but Jessica. “Jess, babe, I know you can hear me. I need help.” He waited a few moments, but nothing happened. Jessica could speak to them even from afar if she needed to. Her specialty in magic had always been telepathy and teleportation. “Jess. Please. Let me know if you can hear me.”
“That’s not boding well, is it?” Kingsley sighed.
“She could be busy. Don’t worry. She’ll get us out of here. Kas was already planning an attack to get you back.”
“He was?” Kingsley sounded surprised.
“You’re one of us, man.” Zain tried again with the cuffs, but they weren’t going to budge. A noise came from outside the room, and he froze, so he could use his super hearing to listen to what was going on.
“I want my daughter found.” Zain recognized the tone of Isobel’s father. “They’ve captured her. That thing in there has brainwashed her with my son’s help, and until I get her back, I won’t rest.”
“But, Sir, do you really think this is the best way?”
“Are you questioning my judgment?”
“No, Sir, not at all, but for all intents and purposes, he looks like a human.
“Except he’s a wild animal. He was a bear when we brought him in, and he’ll be one again, allowing us to find out how he does it. That thing has violated my daughter, and I won’t rest until it’s destroyed.” The door opened; Isobel’s father and a female, dressed in a white surgical coat, entered the room. A low growl reverberated in Zain’s throat, which caused the female’s eyes to widen in horror.
“Your daughter gave herself to me of her own free will because we love each other,” he snarled at Isobel’s father.
“I see you have superior hearing. Bridgette, make a note of that.”
The woman, who Zain assumed was a doctor, sat at a desk and made a note on a piece of paper.
“When could you hear what we were saying, Mr. Thornton? Is there a specific distance over which you have advanced hearing?” Bridgette asked.
“Fuck you,” he replied with as much grace and decorum as he could, strapped down to a table.
The woman blanched at him, her eyelashes batting up and down in shock. “Well, I don’t think there’s any need for that sort of language. I was assured you’re not a savage. Senator Ross, if he’s not going to answer even the simplest of questions, then I don’t see how I’m supposed to find out anything about these animals.”
“He’ll answer all your questions. Don’t worry. The threat of violence does wonders these days. We’ve all grown up as wimps.”
Zain rolled his eyes.
“Seriously, threaten me with all the violence you want. Your questions will go unanswered.”
Isobel’s father laughed. It wasn’t the chuckle of a sane man, no, it was that of someone high on the power they had.
“I wasn’t threatening the violence on you.” The senator stepped closer to his son, and before Zain had had a chance to say anything, the man punched his own son in the stomach. Kingsley groaned out loud and tried to curl his body up but couldn’t. The cut to his side, where his tattoo had been cut away, started to bleed afresh and dripped on to the floor. “Now, I do believe the doctor asked you a question. I suggest you answer it, or there’ll be more pain for my son.”
“Zain, don’t listen to him,” Kingsley breathlessly moaned, and his father hit him again.
“Come on. We don’t have all the information we need. I want to know what I’m up against when I go to retrieve my daughter and add some shifter h
eads to my trophy collection.”
“What kind of sick individual are you?” Zain couldn’t believe what he was seeing. A father inflicting violence on his own son just to obtain information. “You’ve got no chance of ever getting near Isobel again. Not if I have anything to do with it.”
The senator rolled his eyes.
“I’m getting bored. I want answers, thing. Now, give them to me.”
Zain looked over at Kingsley. He was sturdy and well built; he worked out and looked after himself. He could withstand a few more punches to buy them more time. Kingsley saw him weighing up his options and gave him a nod to say he agreed with keeping quiet.
“Go to hell,” Zain stated and turned his head away.
The senator grumbled loudly and cursed a profanity, which Scott would have been proud to use, even after someone told him that he had a gray hair. He stomped to the door, every footstep filling the clinical room with the sound of the anger that the older man was feeling. He flung the door open and called for someone named Jett. A man, as tall as he was wide, entered the room.
“I think our visitor needs a bit of extra encouragement to tell us more about himself.”
“At once, sir.”
Zain shut his eyes. A sixty-year-old man hitting Kingsley was one thing…but this other guy. It was going to hurt badly.
“What the fuck?” Kingsley exclaimed loudly. “You’ve gone mad.”
Zain opened his eyes and saw the man, who had just entered the room, pull a finger guillotine out of his pocket and push Kingsley’s left index finger through it. Kingsley tried to pull away, but he was bound too tightly. No, no, no. He couldn’t let this happen.
“I can hear up to twice the distance and frequency that you can,” he spluttered out as quickly as he could.
“Thank you.” The senator smiled. “That wasn’t hard, now, was it?”
“Let him go, and I’ll tell you everything you want. He’s not a part of this.” Zain was trying his hardest to bargain, now. The senator obviously meant serious business, and he needed to get Kingsley out of there as soon as possible.
“Not happening.” As he said it, Isobel’s father signaled to Jett to bring the guillotine down. It severed Kingsley’s finger with such ferocity that the digit flew across the room. Isobel’s brother howled out in agony, but when Zain looked at her father, no emotion flickered on his face. From that point, the senator ceased to be a man who demanded any respect from him, whatsoever.
“In future, you will answer my questions straight away.” The words were spoken in a tone laced with ice, causing Zain to shiver. “How do you change?”
Kingsley screamed louder and louder in the background. Zain could only compare it to the pain a shifter experienced on his first few changes. It was often painful because the bones broke, but if you got through it, then it rarely hurt after that.
“We think about it, and it just happens. Our bones break and reform into that of an animal.”
“It’s genetic? No moonlight needed or anything?”
“No.”
“You’re a black bear?”
“Yes.”
“Were your parents?”
“Both of them.”
He was answering the questions like he was on autopilot. His whole mind was shutting down, despite the danger he was in, because of the shock of seeing a man torture his own son to obtain answers about his kind.
“How many humans have you attacked and killed? Do you eat them afterward?”
“What?” That question brought him to his senses. “We don’t kill humans. We eat wild animals. I eat salmon just as any bear would. I’m not the savage in this room.” He looked at Kingsley who had thankfully passed out from the pain. “He’s your son? How can you do that to him?”
“He ceased to be my son the second you got your filthy paws on him. Have you changed him? Have you changed Isobel?” The senator ground his teeth together and brought his face to within inches of Zain’s.
“Let me guess, werewolf movies were your favorite as a child. I’ve changed nobody. Your son and daughter are as human as you are, except they have more compassion and understanding. You can only be a shifter if at least one of your parents is. It’s breeding that makes us what we are. Genetic mutations in our DNA. You should’ve watched those sort of films instead.”
“Is Isobel pregnant?”
“What?”
“You’ve taken her, so you’ve told me. You’re an animal. You breed for procreation and to wipe out the humans, taking our women and filling them with your vile offspring.”
“I love your daughter. We’ve fucked, yes. No, that’s the wrong word. We’ve made love because we want to be together no matter what twisted illusions you have of me. Jesus, I’ve wasted five years of my life for this. I wasted it on a freak like you.”
The senator slapped his hand across Zain’s face, and the bear growled a warning.
“I think an exception can be made in relation to attacking humans in your case. I’ll call for every shifter to show you just what they can do.” He tried at the cuffs again, but they wouldn’t move. Shifting to a bear could break them, but there was no guarantee and doing so while being restrained could pull the limbs from his sockets. He was trapped until someone came for him. He was at the whim of a man who had lost his mind with self-inflated power.
“I’ll ask you one final time, where is my daughter?”
“And I’ll give you the same answer. Safe because she is as far away from you as possible.”
“Bridgette. Did you get the sample from it, yet?” The senator pulled a phone from his pocket, and Zain recognized it as his own. He didn’t use it often, only when he wasn’t within telepathy range of the others. Although it had gotten a lot more use in the last few weeks since he’d rekindled his relationship with Isobel.
“No, sir.”
“I think now would be a good time, don’t you?”
“Of course.” Bridgette got up from the desk, where she’d been writing everything down, and she pulled out a drawer. Inside was a scalpel and some gauze.
“Who’s your alpha?” Senator Ross asked. He didn’t reply.
“Fine, I’ll just send this to Isobel then. Her number is in here.”
“Kas, it’s under Kaskae. That’s his full name.” There was no way Zain wanted Isobel to see anything that was happening in this room. To know he was being tortured was one thing, but for her to see what her father was doing to her brother was something he couldn’t let happen. He watched Isobel’s father FaceTime his alpha.
“Zain.” Kas’ voice came over the phone followed by a rumbling growl. “Where is he?”
“He’s here with me. My name is Senator Ross. I’m part of the shifter task force designated with neutralizing the threat your kind pose to the human race. Zain, as you call the bear I have in my possession, has been helping me with my inquiries. It took a bit of persuasion, but he’s being very helpful now. I guess your type can be trained.”
“Our type?” Kas interrupted.
“Wild animals. What are you?”
“None of your fucking business. I suggest you allow Zain and Kingsley to go without any further delay because you’re not going to like how this goes, otherwise.” The senator moved the camera to face both himself and Zain. On the screen, he could see Kas’ face filled with fury. The vein, which often pulsated in the polar bear’s head, when one of them did something that wound him up, was beating double time. “He’s not an animal. Un-cuff him, immediately, and I’ll come to you, and we can discuss this like gentlemen.”
“He’s a bear, which is an animal, last time I looked anyway. I’ll keep him tied down until I’m sure he no longer poses a threat to humans,” the senator sneered. “However, if you outrank him, you’re always welcome to come and take his place.”
The low rumbling of Kas’ growl echoed through the phone again. It was joined with that of a lion, wolf, and snow leopard. Even though he couldn’t see them, Zain knew his friends were listening in
on this. He just hoped Isobel wasn’t.
“This is my final warning. Un-cuff him,” Kas repeated with no expression, other than resolve, crossing his face.
“No. See, there was another reason I called.”
Zain cocked his head away from the screen when Bridgette appeared at his side with the scalpel. She brought it to the skin of his naked stomach.
“Do you want to tell me what I’m going to find in his genetic makeup, and save me the trouble of doing this?”
“You’ll find nothing different to yourself.” Zain didn’t need to look at the screen of the phone to know Kas was speaking through gritted teeth. The growling in the background intensified, and the scalpel dug into his flesh. Burning ignited his skin at the intrusion. Bridgette carefully cut out a square, which was five centimeters by five centimeters. All the time, he hovered on the verge of human and bear. His bones cracked, but he didn’t change. Flashes of black fur cascaded in flurries over his skin. The overwhelming urge to shift to the form in which he could best protect himself was rampant, but he knew he couldn’t change. Finally, Bridgette lifted the skin from his body and disappeared to a corner of the room set up with medical equipment.
“That’s just the first of many tests. We’ll use this creature to discover the cure to rid the world of you all. We’ll make it safe for humans to walk the earth without fear of attack and death. The end is coming for your breed. Be prepared.”
The senator hung up the phone just as the growls turned to roars and howls. Zain was sure he could still hear them after the call was silenced. Maybe, it was the fact he was drifting into unconsciousness. The hole in his stomach, where part of his flesh had been cut away, throbbed and stung a thousand times worse than his first experience with a beehive. He shut his eyes and allowed the darkness to take him and stop the pain.
