Page 60 of Bad Blood Alpha

She couldn’t even scream. No wonder she was screaming so loud in her head Kira could hear her in another world.

At that moment, the pretty fucker with the blond hair officially became a dead man.

He was talking again, but Flynn couldn’t hear him over the screaming. They needed to hear him.

He turned to Kira, but she was just standing there, hands pressed to either side of her head. It had to be so much worse for her…

He turned and put his hand on her shoulder. Immediately the screams quieted—not gone, but muted to the background.

She took a deep breath. “Flynn?”

“I’m here.”

“You came with me.”

“Fucking A. Wherever ‘here’ is.”

“They’re screaming…” Her voice was faint.

“I hear them.” She nodded. He said, “Can you block it out? I need to hear what this fucker is saying.”

She concentrated, and the screaming dimmed.

The man was smiling now—that kindly, sympathetic smile that the worst sadists used. “Shh, shh,” he said to the woman, stroking her arm. Flynn wanted to cut his fucking hand off. “You’re just upsetting yourself, screaming like that. Even if anyone could hear you, there’s nothing they can do.” He stroked her again. “And it will all be over soon.”

Flynn heard Kira suck in her breath. He put a hand on her arm.

“You’re fulfilling your destiny,” the man crooned. “You’re fulfilling my destiny. Your blood is special…so special. Did you know that it’s toxic to the rest of your kind? At least, it is if you know what to do with it. And I do.”

He ran his hand down her cheek. Kira growled.

“You, my pretty, are going to put an end to your kind. And then, the only dragons in the world will be the ones who belong to me. The ones who do my bidding.”

He adjusted the valve, and Flynn saw her face contort in pain. “Shh, shh,” the man said again. “You should be proud. You’re going to make me the most powerful man in all the worlds.”

He paused.

“And then they’ll burn, and I’ll remake them.”

He moved from the woman to a table where a thick black liquid was heating over a Bunsen burner. The vapors transferred through tubing to a collection beaker, where they condensed back to liquid while some kind of chemical dripped into them from another source. The mixture was a noxious green.

He opened a spigot on the collection tube and dripped a few drops into a small vial. He walked over to the dragon’s cage. The creature tried to move away, but the cage was too small; it was pressed against the bars.

Flynn saw that there was a raw place on the dragon’s flank, where its scales had been ripped away. The skin underneath was swollen and purple, as if it were infected.

The man slowly injected the poison into the dragon, watching as if something delicious were happening.

The dragon roared.

Or, it tried. But it was muzzled, and it could only make a muffled keening sound. Its whole body seized, and its mental screams shot through Flynn’s and Kira’s brains, almost bursting their eardrums.

The noise died down, and Flynn looked up to see the sorcerer staring right at them. “It’s too late,” he said. “There’s nothing you can do.”

He gestured at them with both hands, and black fire surged toward them.

Flynn threw his arms around Kira, invoking his territory magic to protect them. There was a strange sucking feeling, like being pulled by a giant vacuum. And then they were back in Flynn’s bed, still clinging together, panting, the sorcerer’s laughter ringing in their ears.

“Fucking hell,” Flynn said. Kira’s eyes were dark and shadowed. At least there was no blood, and she wasn’t seizing. But she was shaking.