More Than Life (Arcane Crossbreeds)

by Vyne, Amanda

  Then she wanted to burn this place down.

  The grind of metal against metal pierced the silence. Katya knew that sound. Immediately her body tensed, and she rolled to her side, curling down away from the coming light. She clenched her eyes shut as it speared into the room. It was almost as heavy as the blackness. After days of darkness, the light had texture, weight.

  The dull thud of footsteps echoed in the room as they advanced. Two sets. They sounded loud after the complete silence she’d endured for so long. Whoever they were paused next to her cot. The air in the room shifted with their movements, raising the fine hairs on her skin as it wafted over her. She tested it, drew it in, looking for any information she could use. Her mind jerked back, faltered. Her body clenched in a violent response to that scent.

  A full array of emotions punched into her with the force of a physical blow as her mind caught up with her body’s innate recognition. Deep inside, a shadow shifted, uncloaking a place in her mind she’d kept apart from her. Pain. Betrayal. Hatred. Desire.

  Raife.

  With a cry of fury, she came to her feet and shot across the room, her back slamming into the gleaming silver wall. The light stabbed into her eyes in agony, making them water, but she forced herself to focus on the two men who stood in the middle of the room.

  Neither of them was Raife.

  Calm down. Don’t give them a reason to restrain you.

  “Take it easy, Ms. Schaffer.”

  Ms. Schaffer? They’d never used her name before. She’d never seen them before either. Suspicion unfurled in her chest. Were they new? They wore the standard black BDUs, but they felt different from the others. Easing her senses open, she attempted a deeper study. She didn’t sense any psychic reciprocation or evidence that they noticed her telepathic probe at all, but their minds were closed to her. That meant they weren’t human.

  “We need you to come with us.”

  She studied them, having become adept at reading people, instinctively determining their level of threat like the trapped animal she’d become. These men didn’t claim they weren’t going to hurt her, and that lack of reassurance resonated between them. One of the men’s lips thinned. The other’s jaw tightened. She could feel they wanted to offer her some reassurance but didn’t believe it. She didn’t need access to their minds to know they found the situation distasteful. It radiated from them, yet she sensed their determination.

  One of the men advanced a step, and a draft of air curled around her bare legs. She turned her head to the side and drew it deeply into her lungs.

  That familiar spicy musk rolled over her tongue. It made her body heat and her blood run cold. It both repelled and attracted her at the same time. Darkness roiled up from her belly, threatening the edges of her vision, and her hands started to shake. He was here? There had been no sign of Raife in all the time she’d been here; her last contact with him was that night in his apartment. So many times she’d gone over those last hours with him, those last months. He’d seemed colder, distant, as though he was slowly removing himself from her life. She didn’t want to believe he was responsible for her being here, but she didn’t know what else to believe. The last thing she remembered was those amber eyes glowing down at her as he rendered her unconscious. Then she woke up strapped to a cold metal table.

  Now he was back. Had he returned to try to control her? To get her to cooperate? She’d once thought the sun rose and set on his approval, but that girl no longer existed. She had been innocent and trusting, and those qualities didn’t last in here. Katya could barely remember that stupid girl. She couldn’t recall what her face looked like in the mirror. All she could see now was what reflected back at her in the silver walls of her cells, a hideous distortion of what she’d once thought herself to be. A true reflection of what she was now.

  Distorted.

  Katya would like to believe that he had no hold on her anymore. She wanted to hate him. Hate was an emotion that could make her strong against him; one that would work nicely as a scapegoat for the true feelings that twisted her insides – feelings she was afraid to examine too closely. Fear… That little bitch of an emotion only made things miserable because it made her accept reality, and reality was Raife Merrick would be a weakness.

  A too tall, too broad, too potent type of weakness that had fear rising bitter and sharp in her mouth, because something else had happened that night. Even before Raife had knocked her out cold and carted her off to this hellhole, she’d tasted something on his lips, heard it calling from his blood pounding through his veins. It was a ravenous blackness that threatened to roil over her head, consuming her. Even now, the memory drew a fierce hunger to the surface. One she wasn’t sure she could resist.

  Raife could break her, and she feared being broken more than anything else.

  A hiss emanated from her chest, sliding past her dry, cracked lips as the men advanced another step. It sounded unnatural, even to her ears. Her vision flickered into shades of indigo, the contrast unsettling. Katya shook her head and blinked it away. Her vision cleared, but her heart was still beating too fast.

  “What the fuck – ”

  Swallowing hard to control the sudden surge of adrenaline, she drew one burning breath deep into her chest and pushed it out. One by one, she had to force her muscles to unclench and carry her body away from the wall. Dropping her head, she let the long tendrils of hair conceal her.

  One of the men closed the remaining distance and wrapped a polished strip of thin metal over her wrist. She dropped her gaze to it. Silver.

  They took her up by her arms and almost gently maneuvered her from the room. The panels of lights that lined the ceiling of the hall cast a harsh glare over her, making the cement walls and floor gleam. Blinking against that sudden brightness, she curled her chin closer to her chest and stumbled.

  The men didn’t slow; they just supported her weight between them, careful to keep distance between their bodies. As though she were diseased. If they only knew a couple of inches distance wouldn’t protect them if she wished them harm. It couldn’t. She was a dangerous anomaly. Even she was unsure of the damage she could wreak.

  As they moved through the maze of halls and security doors, she tried to slow the frantic beat of her heart. What if she couldn’t control her reaction to him? What if she begged? Cried?

  She didn’t want to become that destroyed little girl.

  Nausea churned in her belly as they led her into a plain room that boasted a narrow gurney right in the center. Gleaming restraints dangled from the sides.

  A chill settled over her skin, and she balked, pulling back a little at the sight. She’d been restrained before. She was almost always restrained. Yet the knowledge that Raife was near made the thought of being strapped down intolerable. Unease crawled over her flesh, raising the fine hairs on her arms. Her breath was coming faster, hissing in and out of her lungs with increasing panic.

  Oh God, she couldn’t do this.

  The two men tightened their grips and pulled her forward. They were strong. They easily lifted her and held her down to the black vinyl of the gurney as they secured her with the thick restraints. They worked up her body until the final strap was tightened across her forehead.

  They stepped away from her, hovering just beyond her sight, but they weren’t the ones that held her attention. She scented Dr. Rupple, his decaying morality a heavy, repugnant odor that permeated the room, and she tensed against the restraints, her eyes finding and following his lab-coat-draped form as he moved closer.

  “How was your trip to the hole, little one? Have you reconsidered your behavior? Feel more like cooperating?”

  His thin, nasal voice grated on her nerves, and she chose not to respond. Instead she just stared at him, letting the promise of retaliation fill her gaze.

  Those tiny black eyes appraised her. A little smile tilted his thin lips. “I can see it hasn’t. Well, no matter, we have something special planned for you. A new direction.”

 
Dr. Rupple slapped his hands together as one of his assistants arrived in the room. She ripped open a plastic bag that held a long clear tube. Katya flicked a glance to it before she returned her eyes to those ratlike black ones. He watched her closely as he pulled his rubber gloves on with a snap.

  The good doctor loved a response.

  Katya clenched her teeth against the urge to give him one he would never forget, forced herself to relax her head back against the thin padding, and focused her attention on the ceiling. Her leg jerked once when he laid that icy hand over her bare ankle.

  “This will go much easier, my dear, if you don’t fight it.”

  She heard the rattle of the tray cart being drawn closer to her side, the assistant’s soft exhale when she leaned in closer. Katya would survive this. When they fed the tube through her nose and down her throat to her stomach, she managed to control her reaction. When they mounted the huge syringe to the end and flooded her stomach with a cold fluid, she didn’t as much as twitch against her restraints.

  Even when the feel of Dr. Rupple’s perverse anticipation brushed against her flesh, she continued to stare passively at the ceiling. The low pop of a syringe being uncapped was loud in the room, and she inhaled slowly. The gurney fell away from beneath her; the room retreated. Hunger clawed at her gut, and a dull throb started in her gums, igniting a thirst that raged through her entire body.

  Blood.

  Katya rolled her head sharply to the side and fixed her gaze on the huge syringe Dr. Rupple held aloft, filled with crimson liquid.

  “I have your attention now, don’t I, little one?” His voice pitched high with excitement as she drew in another draught of air, helpless to resist.

  The strong scent of it infused the room, overpowering the doctor’s noxious presence. She’d smelled the metallic essence of blood before, but it hadn’t been like this. This smelled of life, heady and seductive and so heavy in the room she felt as though it coated her lips. She ran her tongue over them, hoping to gather the taste. Every part of her body was trembling, poised on the edge of violent discovery.

  It smelled… Oh God, it smelled like…Raife.

  Katya pulled hard against the restraints with an ear-piercing cry. She was unable to look away as he attached the syringe to the end of her tube and began to depress the plunger. The blood coated her stomach, and the empty organ gurgled ravenously. Heat pooled in the pit of her belly and crept through her. Her flesh began to tingle as though just now coming alive after being numb for so long. It was excruciating and yet wondrous.

  Eyes shut, teeth clenched, she fisted her hands as every nerve in her body came online. An awareness slowly built as each cell transferred it to the next until it burst over her, and she arched her body against the restraints. Pain exploded in her mouth as her fangs descended for the second time in her life, and she parted her lips in a cry of denial.

  Her body was betraying her again. Like that night so many months ago, yet worse. The infusion of his blood into her system would only hone her hunger for him until it was razor sharp, and then every minute she went without him would slice into her.

  She’d feared he would break her with a look, but one taste of his blood had shattered her.

  Why were they doing this? Why Raife? Why now?

  Lying limp and trembling on the cot, she barely registered the fact that they were unfastening her restraints or pulling her off the gurney. Her legs felt boneless as unseen hands lifted her and carried her. Her flesh was ablaze, and her head was throbbing, keeping her distant from her surroundings until she felt the jarring sensation of warm water striking her body.

  When she started, there were low voices murmuring to her. Nonthreatening. What were they saying? It sounded like a buzz in her head, and she could pick up only a word or two. Had she heard covered in blood? She tried to open her eyes, but they burned and teared, so she just let them wash her.

  She wasn’t beaten, she told herself. She just needed time to regroup. Consider what this meant for her. Control the burn and the hunger.

  Gentle hands carried her for an indeterminate time. She usually logged the twists and turns of the halls in her mind, adding to the map she was creating in her head of the facility, but right now she wouldn’t be able to tell where she was if they handed her a real map. She was carefully lowered to the ground.

  The door behind her clicked into place, a sound that resonated with finality. On her hands and knees, she didn’t bother with checking out her new surroundings. With Raife’s blood running rivulets of hot and cold through her entire body, she was more fucked than she’d ever been. Geography couldn’t possibly make it any worse or better.

  Long, damp tendrils of her hair fell around her face, and she heard the drops of water splashing against the cement floor. Beneath her hands it felt smooth, and she watched with a sense of the surreal as a drop of bright color hit the waxed surface, followed by another.

  Blood.

  Her throat felt raw and swollen, and she winced when she swallowed. It coated her stomach, sang through her veins, giving her body strength but weakening her resolve. She was Sanguen. Sanguen females drank the blood only of their mates, and Raife had made it clear he wasn’t interested in her. She wasn’t pure Drachon. Hell, Katya thought derisively as she pushed to her knees, I don’t even know what species I am anymore. Purity had been driven from her veins at the point of a needle. Katya pushed her hair back from her face and wiped at her nose, the crimson a bright splash against her hand. What was their game now? Why give her Raife’s blood? Tipping her head back, she blinked up at the ceiling; that curious heat vision coated the ceiling in varying shades of indigo, obscuring any details.

  To her right, there was a mechanical humming and the sound of another door sliding open. Anxiety surged as she searched the darkness, disoriented and hypersensitive from her limited vision. She could make out the basic shapes of what she thought might be furniture. A bed?

  Hesitant footsteps sounded, and she focused on the center of the wall where the colors turned to almost midnight. A door? Someone was in this new cell with her. Inhaling, she recognized that spicy musk. She felt her heartbeat race, and she clenched her teeth as the most glorious pain rolled up through her body in a destructive wave. Lighter blues blended into yellows and deep reds as the cobalt darkness streamed off the heat signature of a man.

  And not just any man – Raife.

  Chapter Three

  Raife Merrick felt cold dread wash over him at the sight of her.

  She was on her knees, blood trickling from her nose. That once-glossy pale mane of curls hung in thick, wet strands around her shoulders. Gone was the soft, beautiful, almost sweet scent. In its place was a heavy, earthy one that called to him.

  It reverberated through his body, sending arousal skittering over his skin.

  Her head was cocked to the side, gaze fixed intently on him, and those eyes caught him, sending a shudder up his back, his scalp tightening in reaction. Her pupils were wide, elongated, and surrounded in a bloodred ring. His dragon shifted beneath his flesh with interest.

  What the fuck?

  “Katya?” He knew he sounded hoarse – disbelieving. Her uncle had sworn she was married into a reputable House in Wales. What the hell had happened? Had they taken her from her new House? Was there a bloodmate missing her? Looking for her?

  “Don’t tell me you’re surprised.” Her lips twisted in a wicked little smile that had his dragon bucking against his control again as she came to her feet.

  Raife frowned and moved in closer to her, but within one blink of his eyes, she was gone. The muffled sound of cloth rubbing together was the only evidence that she’d moved. With a ripple of unease, he glanced to his right. She stood with her hands hanging by her sides, poised, watchful. He’d never seen her move that fast before. Had she shimmered?

  His gaze roved over her. She’d lost weight. She’d been petite before, but she’d been an adorable, soft, and curvy petite. Now she was slim and lithe. The white lab
coat she wore came to midthigh and was buttoned up to her chest, the sleeves falling over her hands. When she lifted a hand to push her hair over her shoulder, he saw the silver cuff that ringed her wrist. Nix shimmering. She wouldn’t be able to do it with a silver cuff on. That meant she’d moved really fast.

  What had they done to her? Raife stepped closer.

  With another muted rustle of her lab coat, she moved farther to the side, making a wide circle around him. She was being defensive, keeping her distance from him. He stayed with her, watching her, but drew no closer. For now.

  Her face had lost that roundness; now it was all angles with wide, slightly tilted eyes. She looked almost exotic and definitely dangerous. He was afraid to guess what had given her that slightly feral edge, but the thought of it had fury expanding in him, making the unpredictable spirit of his dragon shift closer to the surface.

  Flaring his senses, he tried to pick up something—anything—from her that might help him navigate this. She was a strange cacophony of emotion and thoughts that produced a shrill sound in his head. With a wince, he eased his senses back some and attempted to separate the mangled layers of her emotions. Her fear and anger lashed against him; the pain and despair gouged into him.

  “Katya, why are you here?”

  She flinched, that ring of flame contracting around her pupils as her nostrils flared. The Sanguen blood aurora. It either meant hunger or high emotion, and the pale tips of her fangs peeking from just beyond her parted lips made him wonder which it was for her.

  “You tell me.” With a quick pivot on her heel, she marched back to the steel door she’d just come through and hit it once before splaying her hand over its smooth surface. She tilted her head to the side and went absolutely still, giving him the impression she was feeling for something. Or listening. She looked up and peered intently at the ceiling.

  “You think I’m responsible for this?” he murmured as he followed her gaze up to dark bubbles that housed the cameras. He’d have died first.