Page 62 of Dark Dragon’s Wolf

He would have been sexy except for that permanent look on his face that said he wanted to bite someone’s head off. Like literally. But he had short tousled chestnut-brown hair and muscles and stuff, and maybe he wouldn’t have to bite anyone’s head to make it come off. He could probably just squeeze it against his bicep and pop it like a grape.

She held her hand up and looked at his head in between the thumb and forefinger. She squeezed them together to squish his head. It was fun so she did it again, and again.

“What the fuck are you doing?” he growled.

“I’m popping your head like a grape.” Mayah giggled.

He tapped the headset he was wearing. “Dr. Lin,” he said. “Your dosage is screwed up. She’s tripping her ass off. And I don’t sense her dragon.”

He waited while someone spoke to him, and then said, “Roger that.”

He sat down cross-legged next to her, and took her hand.

“You’re gonna get sparkled,” she warned.

He ignored her. “Come on,” he murmured. “Your dragon must be in there somewhere.”

“Nope,” she said. “All gone. Because of bad people. Like you. Bad dragon.”

“I’m not bad,” he murmured. “I’m trying to help you. Just relax and let me in.”

Uh-huh. Suuuure, buddy. This guy must have flunked Prisoner Coercion Basic Training if he thought she’d fall for that shit. Ragnor told her the same thing, and look how that worked out.

But she didn’t have Al-Maddeiri magic then. Now she did, because of Kira giving it all back to her. She might not be able to get out of here, but she could teach his evil traitor ass a lesson.

Mayah pretended to open the doors to her mind. When he took the bait and came in, looking cautiously around, she enticed him with a vision of Tristan riding in to rescue her with an army of pink shifter lions, shooting laser beams out of their eyes.

He followed the vision, looking for the truth underneath her hallucinations. Mayah waited for him behind a mental door, with a thought-sword made of laser-light and unicorn sparkles, and when she’d lured him in far enough she stabbed him in the head with it.

“Ow! Fuck!”

He dropped her hand and put both hands to his head, rocking back and forth. His nose was bleeding from her brain-stab. Yesss.

“What the freaking hell was that?”

Mayah gazed up at him, eyes wide. “I told you to watch out for the unicorn sparkles.”

The bad dragon left, wiping his bloody nose and muttering into his headset about dosages and compliance. Mayah stared at the ceiling, trying to conjure up a real picture of Tristan.

To remember every single detail of his face, his hands, his lips. The way it felt when he touched her. How comforting it was to hear his voice in her mind.

But the images kept slipping away, and there was no one to talk to. She couldn’t reach Tristan, or even the other wolves.

And the next person who ever drugged her without her consent was going to get a lightning bolt right up their ass.

Some time later—maybe a long time, maybe not, time was weird here where the drugs were—the door opened again and a man came in.

A human. The most boring-looking human she’d ever seen. He was so nondescript that if she looked away and looked back, she probably wouldn’t be able to remember she’d seen him before.

She tried it. Look away. Look back. Nope, she could tell it was the same guy. Experiment fail.

“I’m sure you remember me,” he said. “I’m Mr. Johnson. We met in your brother’s castle.”

Shit. Experiment not a total fail. Because she had seen him only a few weeks ago, when he and his minions attacked the castle. And she hadn’t recognized him.

Drugs would do that. Or being boring-looking.

“You,” she told him, “are the boringest dude ever. You should try some of these drugs. Maybe they’d make you interesting.”