Lance’s attention locks onto Zara. ‘Now, shall we start with the failed soldier?’
Milo and I immediately step in front of her, blocking her from view. ‘I don’t think so,’ Milo signs with sharp movements.
‘Don’t even think about touching her,’ I sign just as fiercely, my gut tightening.
She puts her hand on my shoulder and squeezes hard, so I step to the left enough that she can see.
‘Such a disappointment,’ Lance signs with careless hand movements, watching her. She flips him off, a fiery hatred in her eyes. He smirks and turns his attention to me. ‘In that case, let’s use you.’
The handcuffs he pulls from his pocket are the same style of supernatural-grade restraints used in Wargate. They’re one of several layers of confinement in place in addition to the ward.
Since getting out of this cell is the first step in destroying their prototype weapon and escaping, I stepforward.
Milo blocks me, his expression fierce. ‘No. I’ll go.’
‘There’s no point,’ I sign with a firm shake of my head. ‘He has no personal issue with you. You could go with him, come back in the same state as the others, and he’ll still take me and do the same next. Try to find a way out instead, okay?’
I move towards the cell door but Milo shoves me back, eyes blazing. ‘He’ll hurt you worse than anyone else; you know that. Whatever these fucking experiments are, he’ll repeat them until your dragon is gone forever or you’redead, and then what? I don’t want to be without my brother again!’
My heart breaks at the fear hiding in his furious eyes. I understand why he’s scared for me, but there really isn’t another choice. ‘Please, Milo. I’ll need you when they bring me back.’
If they bring me back, that is. He’s right to fear my death, because unlike all the other earth shifter species, who are born in the same way as human babies, we hatch in our winged form. There’s a very real chance I won’t survive having my dragon permanently ripped from me.
I just have to stop Lance before that happens. I refuse to accept that I might never see my treasure or my siblings again.
Milo steps aside, his glare sharp on Lance, tension in his frame like he’s gearing up for a fight.
Lance just looks amused as he reaches through the bars to fit the handcuffs to my wrists. His wings begin to shimmer as he readies his magic, then he unlocks the cell door with his hand outstretched towards Zara while he says something.
It’s a familiar tactic, one the prison guards used whenever they had to be in the same space as us. Fae magic isn’t affected by the ward, so they’d hit us with a spell if we stepped out of line. Without our supernatural abilities, the spells impacted us as severely as if we were human.
I shake my head at Milo, urging him not to try anything. He steps in front of Zara, body quivering, but stays where he is as Lance relocks the cell behind me.
Lance immediately unleashes his magic on me, trapping my arms against my torso with ugly black vines, their sharp thorns piercing my skin viciously. I suck in a sharp breath but make sure to not react to the pain in any other way, despite the blood trickling down my chest. I refuse to give Lance the satisfaction, and shake my head at Milo and Zara who are now at the front of the cell, their hands moving wildly as they threaten all sorts of things they’ll do to Lance for hurting me.
Lance smirks but otherwise ignores them.
Every step along the corridor sends a painful vibration through the ragged edges of where my dragon should be. I’ve had a lot of practice at never showing weakness though, so I walk calmly in front of my captor, turning down another corridor when he pushes me in that direction. There’s nothing but concrete walls broken by the occasional plain white door until we reach a doorway to a heavily warded room, Lance’s muddy brown magic in evidence in the ward layers. He shoves me through the open door.
I stop dead at the sight that greets me. It’s a lab setup, including a stretcher complete with leather straps etched with runes, a steel trolley covered in syringes full of a translucent yellowish liquid, and an array of screens hooked up to three different computers. There are thick cables on a table with sticky pads on one end, the other ends disappearing into the nearest wall.
But the thing that steals the breath from my lungs is the man standing next to the syringes. Nyoka Muroyi, the former head of the task force and notorious serial killer. There’s a crazed gleam in his eyes, his greying hair forms a huge afro, and he has a white lab coat on over the grey joggers and jumper that make up standard BSG prison-issue clothing.
His presence lends a whole new perspective. Raj was always concerned that Nyoka was working with Far Out Freight, but it was past tense. It didn’t occur to us that they could still becollaborating with the mage after his conviction and the subsequent stripping of his magic. We naively assumed he was in the prison he was sent to.
Lance shoves me towards the stretcher. I stumble and take the opportunity to catch the trolley with my foot, sending the syringes flying. He tightens the vines around me, squeezing until the razor-sharp thorns have my back arching with the pain, blood now running freely from the puncture wounds.
I gasp and barely keep my feet. Shit, I have to stop them, but I can’t do that when I’m restrained like this. I’m already weakening from the blood loss, and without my dragon side my supernatural healing won’t kick in.
I need my dragon more than I ever have in my life. I search internally, finding the edges of the jagged void and tracing them with my mind. I always shied away from it when I was in Wargate, unable to bear examining it too closely, but my dragon is the original me. I refuse to believe that I can’t reach him.
I search, sending my mind deeper as Lance manoeuvres me onto the stretcher. He unlocks the handcuffs and uses additional vines to move my wrists where he wants them. It doesn’t matter how much I try to fight against them, he’s still able to shackle my wrists and ankles using the runed leather straps before connecting the cables to my bare chest with the sticky pads.
I should have spent more time reconnecting with my dragon. If I had, maybe I’d be able to find him now, but as the cables start to wrench something vital from my body—a part of me that I immediately know I won’t survive without—I realise I might not reach him before it’s too late.
I ignore the searing agony. Deep inside my mind I picture Raj, the one person my dragon has never failed to respond to. My tiger, my treasure, the man I love, with his attempts to hide his amusement at my terrible kitchen skills, his frustration every time he goes to run his fingers through his hair only for it to be too short, and his intense determination to never let people down.
I can’t let Lance and Nyoka kill me. I have to get back to my treasure. I want to bond with him and spend the rest of our lives together.
