She knew he wouldn’t thank her for it or forgive her, but it wouldn’t stop her from doing it. She would cast aside her life with Archangel in order to set things right with Loke. He was more important to her than an organisation that had lied to her.
“Why?” Loke’s deep voice reached through the five-inch-thick glass to her and his eyes bore into her, piercing her and holding her immobile.
That single word held so much power.
It rendered her speechless. Stole the air from her lungs. Shattered her heart.
There was so much pain in it. Anger. She had dealt a mortal blow to him and to herself at the same time. She had known that from the moment her superiors had announced their plans for him. Hell, she had known it from the second she had let Sable and Thorne take him from his cave without standing up and fighting them to protect Loke. She had known it, but she had never felt it as keenly as she did now as he glared at her, the ice in his eyes confirming her worst fears.
He despised her.
He believed that she had betrayed him.
Played him.
She wanted to tell him that she had thought it wouldn’t be like this. She had been convinced that Sable would keep her word and that he wouldn’t be treated as if he was a threat. She had believed he would be a guest. She had gone along with it all because she had wanted to help her friends, not because she had wanted to hurt him.
She wanted to unburden her heart and tell him all of that, but the darkness in his eyes warned he wouldn’t believe her. He felt she had betrayed him and she couldn’t blame him for it.
All she could do was make amends by finding a way to set him free before being in her world killed him.
“I’m sorry.” She resisted the temptation to lower her head and forced herself to hold his gaze, to let him see that she meant those words, even if he refused to believe her.
His handsome face lost all emotion, his eyes turning flat and hard.
He took his hands away from the glass and backed off a step, distancing himself from her.
“I am sorry too.” Those four words cut her as no blade ever had, slicing deep into her heart.
The bitterness in them, the hurt and hatred, spoke of the meaning behind them. He wasn’t sorry about what she had done to him.
He was sorry he had ever met her.
Tears burned her eyes and she lost her nerve as her heart shattered all over again. She couldn’t take it. She couldn’t remain where she was. She had to leave before she made a bigger fool of herself.
Anais turned on her heel and ran along the corridor, aching inside as the distance between her and Loke grew, feeling as if something inside her was about to stretch tight and break and she was going to die. He could hate her all he wanted. It wouldn’t change what she was about to do.
Time was precious and she would need every last second of it if she was going to pull off something as dangerous as setting Loke free.
CHAPTER 19
Loke cursed himself under his breath as Anais fled, leaving him alone and staring at the space where she had been. What he had done had been necessary. He had needed to drive her away from him.
He hadn’t expected it to hurt as much as it had though.
The pain that had flared in her eyes and on his senses, running through him as if it had been his own incredible hurt, had torn down his strength and resolve, and he had been on the verge of taking back his words and comforting her when she had run away from him.
He staggered to the right wall of his cell, pressed his back to it and slid down it again. He stretched his legs out in front of him and looked along the corridor in the direction she had run, aching with a need to make her come back to him. He needed to take her pain away. It was still strong within him and he couldn’t shake it. It mingled with his own hurt and tore at him, stripping away the guards around his heart until it felt exposed and vulnerable, a weak thing that would never be strong again.
Because he had driven away the one divine being who had filled him with strength and power the likes of which he had never felt before.
His little Amazon.
His fated female.
Just being around her, being close to her, had made him stronger, until he had felt invincible. Just a smile from her had made the earth tremble beneath his feet and had set his heart pounding. A look was all it had taken to shake his world to its foundations and leave him burning with a need for more of her.
A kiss from her had ruined him.
Gods, he needed her.
He raked his fingers through his blue hair, tugging it back as he fought that need.
It was better this way. He had seen her pain and her guilt, and her fear. He couldn’t take those things away from her, but he could stop them from growing stronger and destroying her.
If his words had struck a deep enough mark, as he had intended, she would stay away from him while the scientists studied him. He didn’t want her to witness what they did to him. He didn’t want her to have to endure seeing him go through everything they had planned for him and blaming herself for it.
The male in the next cell began chanting about revenge, a mission and escaping. The first and last of those sounded appealing, but escaping took precedence over revenge. He wasn’t even sure who he wanted revenge on. Archangel for containing and studying him? King Thorne of the demons for defeating him? Anais for handing him over?
The darker, angry part of himself whispered to make her suffer for what she had done to him.
The rest of him said he had hurt her enough when she was already hurting over what she had done. There was no need to punish her for it. He had driven her away and now he would wait for an opportunity to escape. Hopefully it would come before he lost too much of his strength or the laws of the banishment killed him.
The male continued to mutter as he started to pace, a clipped edge to it as he moved closer to Loke and then drifted further away.
Loke closed his eyes and settled more heavily against the white wall, resting and conserving his strength as he waited for someone to come to take him to the scientists.
There was a knock on the wall behind him.
“That the woman you were looking for?”
Loke sighed. “Yes.”
“They sent a woman to trick you, too?” Those words stuck a knife in his heart and he tried to ignore the sick feeling that swept through him, chilling him and stirring the darker part of himself that blamed Anais for what had happened.
Had she betrayed him as a hunter from the same clan had clearly betrayed the male in the other cell?
He couldn’t bear the thought that she might have, that what had happened between them might not have been real after all. He shunned that feeling, clinging to his belief in her and her feelings. She felt something for him. She hadn’t betrayed him. She hadn’t used him. Her pain had been real. His grip on that belief began to slip again and he clung more fiercely to it, refusing to listen to the darker part of his nature.
It was difficult when he was weak and hurting, and afraid. He might be a warrior, but he was strong enough to admit when he was scared. He feared what lay ahead for him, what torture the scientists would inflict upon him in their quest for knowledge of his species.
Anais had done this to him.
The male twisted the knife in his heart. “Did she sleep with you and then betray you?”
Loke screwed his eyes shut and scrubbed a hand down his face. He growled, “Yes.”
The male spat out a foul curse. “They did the same thing to me… and then they attacked my pride. They killed my sister and mother.”
Loke’s eyes shot open and his heart raced as the male’s words sank in. His clan were in danger.
The hunters knew where they were.
Anais or the other huntresses would lead Archangel to them and they would all be killed, as this male’s family had been.
He snarled and shoved onto his feet, and began pounding on the glass again, unable to stop himself as his rage burned bey
ond his control, turning his heart to ash in his chest as his mind filled with images of these wretches harming his kin, all because he had dared to save one of them.
Because he had fallen in love with one of them.
The male in the next cell had been tricked in the same manner. Loke had wanted to believe that Anais hadn’t betrayed him, but that belief died again as he ran over what the male had said. A female hunter had seduced and betrayed him.
“What is your name?” Loke pressed his hand to the white wall between his cell and the male’s and breathed hard, struggling to calm himself.
He was wasting his energy and his strength. He needed to conserve them. Weakened as he was, he was still superior in strength to the mortals in the complex. None of them would be a match for him.
“Harbin.” Came the reply.
“My name is Loke. You heard my conversation with the huntress. I cannot be here. I must escape these fiends… and therefore I need your help. I need your knowledge of this facility.”
Harbin began chanting about his mission again and Loke couldn’t help but wonder whether he had lost his mind during his containment. Had they studied him too? Was this madness what awaited Loke if he allowed them to conduct their study?
He needed to escape.
He refused to allow his life to end here.
He roared and hammered his fists against the glass. It shook beneath his furious blows but still refused to break.
“Bad move,” Harbin called through the wall. “They don’t like it when we’re rowdy.”
Loke stopped.
Too late.
Thick white smoke poured into the room from above the barrier and swirled around him. He tried not to breathe it in but he ran out of air and was forced to take a breath. The moment he did, his head turned and his vision wobbled.
The last thing he heard before passing out was the deep vicious growl of Harbin’s voice.
“Two scientists. Bonds are weak. Shatter them. Scalpels are weapons. Four guards. Two observers. Eight throats to cut. Kill the fuckers and come get me. I know a portal back to Hell.”
CHAPTER 20
Anais tried to focus on what Sable was telling her as she explained how she had gathered intelligence on the dragons with Olivia and Thorne’s help. She couldn’t take her eyes off the silver cuff that Sable wore around her right wrist. The black-haired woman kept playing with it, her fingers constantly twisting it around. A nervous trait?
What did Sable have to feel nervous about?
Was it because they were both standing in the black-walled observation room waiting for the guards to bring Loke into the other brighter white room beyond the one-way glass?
Her stomach churned and she had to breathe slowly to stop herself from running out of the low-lit room to intercept the guards who would be bringing Loke to the scientists. She settled her hand on the short sword sheathed at her waist. She would put her plan into action soon enough. All she could do right now was bide her time and somehow find a glimmer of patience.
She focused back on what Sable had said when the huntress looked at her, golden eyes expectant, as if she was waiting for an answer to a question. Anais hadn’t heard one, so she did the only thing she could. She changed the course of the conversation in the hope of finding answers to some questions of her own.
“Isn’t it better to study them in their natural environment?” She swallowed the sudden surge of nerves as Sable stared at her.
Sable remained silent for so long that Anais was close to losing her nerve and halting the conversation altogether by the time she did speak.
“Olivia feels the same way.” Sable returned her golden gaze to the window.
Anais eyed the two men in the next room as they prepared all the tools on the metal trolley next to the gurney.
Sable shook her head and twisted the silver cuff again. “Olivia doesn’t want to see a dragon on the chopping board. She’s changed.”
“Have you changed too?” Anais weathered the cool gaze of her leader and refused to let it silence her. “Does falling for one of them change you?”
Sable’s expression shifted, her golden eyes gaining a knowing but shocked edge, and Anais averted her gaze. She didn’t want Sable to see her feelings for the dragon they were about to place into the other room. Her stomach turned again and a need built within her, an urgency that she couldn’t ignore.
Her time to strike was coming, but she had no escape plan.
She wouldn’t make it out with Loke without help.
Nerves joined her colliding emotions, fear of what she was about to do. Archangel had been her home, her family, for close to a decade, and she was about to turn her back on them. She flexed her fingers at her sides, trying to loosen up her tight muscles and shake the sudden surge of adrenaline.
“It does, and it doesn’t.” Sable’s soft voice filled the quiet room, laced with understanding and a touch of unsteadiness that sounded like nerves. “I have to lie more these days.”
Anais looked across at her, seeing the emotions that had been in Sable’s voice shining in her eyes as she stared into the room beyond the glass, a distant but sharp edge to her expression, as if what was about to happen didn’t sit well with her either.
As if she didn’t want Loke to end up hurt because of what they had done.
Anais had felt the strength in Sable, power that went beyond anything a human was capable of. Sable had mated with a powerful demon, and it must have affected her. If Anais could convince her that what was about to happen was wrong and they had to stop it, she might have a shot at saving Loke.
But in order to convince Sable to help her, she would have to play on Sable’s feelings for her mate by confessing her feelings for Loke.
“This goes no further than this room, Anais.” Sable turned deadly serious eyes on her and Anais nodded. “After the war ended, I filed a report through those returning here, but I didn’t come back. When I returned with you, I was detained and questioned, and I lied through my teeth. I said that I had been looking for you and the other huntresses the whole time.”
“But you hadn’t. You were gathering information on the dragons so you could search for us… but you had been staying at the castle with Thorne.” Anais’s eyes slowly widened as Sable’s reason for weaving a huge lie dawned on her. “Archangel doesn’t know that you bound yourself to him.”
Sable shook her head, causing her sleek black hair to sway across the shoulders of her black t-shirt. “They wouldn’t understand.”
“What are you going to do?” Anais wanted to ask more questions but movement in the next room caught her attention and her heart lurched as two heavily muscled guards dragged Loke into the room and dumped him unceremoniously on the inspection table.
She covered her mouth with her hand and stared at him, unable to breathe as guilt ripped at her and her heart demanded she do something now to help him.
“I’ve seen the way he looks at you… and the way you look at him.” Sable’s voice was distant in her ears as she forced herself to watch the guards strapping Loke down. He tried to resist them, weakly pushing them away and growling at them through sharp teeth.
They had drugged him, but it wasn’t the only reason he didn’t have the strength to fight them. He was pale and gaunt, as if all of the life was leaching from him, draining right before her eyes. It was all her fault.
“Did I do the wrong thing? Did I step in when I should have stepped back?”
Anais did look at Sable now. The guilt in her amber eyes turned to pain as Anais stared into them, searching for something to say. She should have spoken up when Sable had found them. She should have told her, because she knew that Sable of all people would have understood.
Would understand.
She turned her cheek to Sable and fixed her gaze on Loke where he lay strapped to the table, the two scientists hovering around him. She forced herself to stand where she was and see what was happening to him because of her and everything she had once stood for
and held dear.
“I’m in love with him.” The words slipped easily from her lips and some of the weight pressing down on her heart lifted, easing it and restoring a sliver of her strength, enough to boost her resolve and her courage. “I should have spoken up when you came… and now I feel it’s too late but I have to do something. If he stays in this world much longer… he’ll die… because of me. It will be all my fault and I hate myself for it.”
Her hand went to the hilt of the blade strapped to her waist.
Sable’s hand clamped down on it. “It is never too late.”
She looked at her superior.
Sable closed her eyes and rubbed a black and silver band around her left wrist.
“What are you doing?” Anais frowned at her fingers as she kept rubbing the band. It wasn’t a nervous trait this time. Sable was up to something, and whatever it was, there was power behind it.
It charged the air in the room, making the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end.
“Calling in a favour… well… I’m requesting help in exchange for a favour as right now I’m a little low on favours to call in,” Sable whispered as she frowned, her eyes still closed. Anais opened her mouth to ask whether she was calling for Thorne just as Sable added, “The elves will help us.”
Her hope soared.
Elves could teleport, were agile and swift, and had armour that Archangel’s human-made weapons couldn’t penetrate. If anyone was strong enough to help her save Loke, it was that species.
The static charge in the air grew stronger and a spark flickered out of the corner of her eye.
Anais turned her back to the window at the same time as Sable did, coming to face the white-blue arc of light as it flashed again in the middle of the room, brighter this time.
Blinding her.
She flinched away and waited for the light to fade before opening her eyes.
An immense and beautiful man with a thick head of onyx-black hair and incredible silver eyes stood in the room opposite them, his presence sucking the air from it.
But he wasn’t an elf.
Loke had been right.
Taken by a Dragon Page 19
