Only know aliases. Snow & Stinger.
Jabir cocks his head, committing the intel to memory. It’s a small lead, but it’s enough for him to start scouring the dark web.
I’m about to follow him out the door when the sound of scribbling snags my attention. The male has the fucking audacity to smirk at me when he turns the paper around.
Don’t you wanna know the price on your Luna’s head?
Fury rushes into my veins, so hot that I can’t see straight. With a roar, I ram his chair into the wall. The prisoner raises his forearms to block, but it’s no use. He’s exhausted. So much that he’ll do anything for this to end. Crackling rage is the only sensation I feel as I throw punch after punch into his battered face and stomach, obliterating ribs. But it’s not enough. I need to split this asshole open.Needribbons of his flesh in my jaws.Needto bruise my knuckles along the sharp edges of his spine.
The blood of Kismet’s clan is on his hands,my wolf sneers.He must pay for what he’s done.
Jabir rips me back just as two more pearly teeth clatter onto the floor.
“Let me finish,” I bark. My back hits the wall as the Beta stares me down, red droplets splattered on his own face.
“You already did,” he rasps.
I blink through the remnants of my bloodlust. There is nothing left of the man’s chest. Or the chair we bound him to. In my hand, I clutch his drooping lung.
Vessa
One of the younger guards has no choice but to escort me to the shower. He doesn’t look at me as he fights the urge to gag, seeing as I am covered in my own vomit.
Blood collects beneath my feet, swirling and vanishing down the drain. As the piping hot water pelts my face, I begin to wonder if this body even belongs to me. If I will ever be the same.
I tear my face away from the overhead light, the fluorescence overwhelming me. A sob tears through me as I bring my fingers to my neck, resulting in an agonizing sting that sends my knees buckling. Vomit heaves out of me again, scorching my throat. My elbows wobble.
What I would give to wake from this dream. Only it isn’t one. No matter how many times I pinch myself, my skin still bruises. This nightmare is very real.
After toweling off, I am given a change of clothes—a pale yellow slip with stringy undergarments. Taking a passing glance in the mirror, I startle at Axe’s bite. The puncture wounds are swollen and aggravated from the burns, starting to seal over with red-black scabs. A shiver creeps down my back. Does Levi think it’s possible to nullify it?
As I apply a fresh bandage, the guard presents a sandwich and a cup of water to me. I am told that I will not leave the room until they are consumed. I scarf it down immediately. Under nocircumstance am I going to be alone with another hostile male if I have a say in the matter.
The guard is young, perhaps the same age as Tripp. Porcelain skin is offset by ash brown hair, combed neatly over his damp forehead. He leads me down a hallway of grey tiles, passing what appears to be a reception desk area, a laboratory wing, and a fully functioning cafeteria.
Latching onto my arm, he tugs me around the corner, where a slender, middle-aged woman greets us. On the other side of the door is a massive laundry room. Two dozen women wearing garments identical to mine are hard at work. My eyes widen as I note the ages of them—from early forties to as young as nine or ten. Just as striking is their varying ethnicities. Three to a table, some are scrubbing at blood stains, some operating the machinery, others folding clean clothes.
The woman, who I take to be the manager, escorts me to the right wall, where another guard supervises the operations from a large wooden desk. She says nothing to me as I take a seat. As the guard gives me a lustful look over, she coils my hair into a bun and drapes a net over it.
At another table in the very back, three girls grind up bowls of yellow powder. I follow the manager in that direction. She has me stand in between a young girl and another in her late teens, instructing me to watch as they peel apart baskets of yellow flowers with triangular leaves that closely resemble dandelions.
Could this be where they are producing the Ludone?
“Emilia, you have five more minutes until break. When the timer sounds, have our new helper stand in for you.”
“Yes, ma’am.” She nods to the supervisor.
When she slips away, I clear my throat. “How long have you guys been at this?”
The dark-haired teen to my right glances over her shoulder before responding. “Four hours.”
Holy shit.
Glancing down at Emilia’s hands, I can’t help but shudder. Her fingertips are ragged with hangnails, stained a mustard hue.
“This is the biallow flower. They grow plentifully in these lands. This is all that remains of last year’s harvest,” the indigenous girl says, pinching off another stem.
The child, Emilia, passes her partner another basket full of stems and debris. She places it under our table.
