Page 32 of Bad Blood Alpha

“This time I could see them,” she said. “A woman, strapped to a chair. In a lab. Someone was…hurting her. Tubes and wires…”

Rage flared inside Flynn, and it was all he could do to keep his body from tensing up, his clenched hands from inadvertently hurting her. He’d always hated seeing shifters abused and exploited, but ever since his time in Grant’s cells, just the thought of it made him crazy.

“And a caged dragon. Black. He looked like…he looked like an Al-Maddeiri.” Her voice faded off. “They were screaming so loud, I thought my brain was going to explode…”

It almost had, he thought savagely. That nosebleed…he hoped to god whatever damage had been done would heal.

“It must have been a dream, or a vision of the past,” he said, trying to soothe her despite his own anger. “All the Al-Maddeiri dragons are gone.”

All her family; all the Lion Guard. Everyone she’d grown up with. Everyone he’d grown up with. The enormity of that hit him in a way it hadn’t in years. He wondered, suddenly, how it felt to her.

How lonely she must feel.

Her voice grew faint. “What if they’re not?”

That thought chilled him. She was still alive, against all odds. If she’d survived, why not others?

Long ago, he’d taken a magical oath to fight for the House of Al-Maddeiri, to protect and defend them with his life, if necessary. It had permeated every cell of who he was, settled in his bones. He’d told himself he’d left it all behind, that it had no power over him anymore.

But that was when he thought the House of Al-Maddeiri had been wiped out.

Now they were back—and he didn’t know what the hell he was supposed to do.