Chapter Seven

Lyrie

 

 

A s I scurried from the bed, the door opened, and Hartlin stomped inside.

Prick. I hated him. Hated the situation he’d put me—us—in. But I kept my face impassive, not giving him even a shred of distress to grab onto.

Guards hovered behind him in the hall, though a few crowded inside and leered around.

“You two were given a task, but you’ve chosen not to do it in a timely manner—” Hartlin’s gaze took in the cameras that should’ve been blocked, “—We’re taking control.”

Shit. He’d been watching us? I wasn’t thinking clearly. Khal told me they’d agreed to my demands, and I’d assumed…

Never assume anything about the Regime.

Stupid me for believing they’d been shut off. I should’ve thrown something at them or asked Khal to boost me up so I could destroy them. Still should.

Some women would’ve felt embarrassed for taking pleasure in a moment that could be her last, especially when she knew it had been witnessed.

But I’d welcomed Khal’s touch. Savored it. If we were alone, I’d let him do it again.

If Hartlin thought I’d cower in shame, he was wrong.

I stood as tall as my wrecked body would allow and glared at him.

“Fuck you, Hartlin,” Khal said. He stormed over to stand beside me and took my hand.

I didn’t need his support. Why, then, did I squeeze his fingers back, as if I implied we were in this together?

I needed to think about escape. Think only of how I could protect myself. Not flounder in my growing feelings for this shifter-man.

If they realized I cared, they’d use him against me. I could not let that happen.

With more reluctance than I should be feeling, I released Khal’s hand.

Hartlin waved toward the guards, urging the rest to scurry into the room. They panted. Sweated. Reeked of overcooked meat.

“Take her,” Hartlin said.

Khal wrapped his arms around me, as if he could keep me here with him by his strength alone.

He should know by now that the Regime always won.

A thump, too quick to avoid, filled the quiet, and the tip of a dart buried itself in Khal’s shoulder. He wrenched it out and tossed it against the wall.

“Hells,” he said, his body tensing. His arms tightened around me again, and, as he wavered on his feet, he kissed my cheek.

I remained still, aching to hold him, but knowing I couldn’t.

“Lyrie,” he said in a low growl, as if he really cared.

But, he couldn’t. No one did, now.

When he staggered, the medicine in the dart taking rapid effect, I urged him over to his bunk. He lay down, and I covered him with the threadbare blanket. I wished I could do something—anything—to make him more comfortable. Gods, they were darting him so often, would the poison have a cumulative effect?

There wasn’t anything I hated more than feeling this helpless.

Sitting beside him, I cupped his face. “I—”

What could I say? That I’d come back to him soon? Finish what we’d started?

We both knew I could walk from this room and never see him again.

I was too broken and we…Well, maybe in another life. Assuming the gods granted us a second chance…

Don’t even go there. This wasn’t about a possible us. Hells, he’d seemed pretty reluctant to fuck me when I asked. I needed to focus on me. On escaping.

Straightening, I turned and strode over to the guards. I held my hands forward so they could secure their nasty nylonium ties.

As I left the room, I did not look back.

But I flinched when Khal groaned out my name.

For whatever reason, they’d left my ankles free. They must’ve thought I could do nothing if I was unable to use my hands.

If they got too close, they’d discover their mistake.

“We’ve got something…entertaining planned for you,” Hartlin said.

Entertaining, huh?

“What is it? A night on the town?” I asked cheerfully, falling into step with him as I was directed down the hall and around the corner. “Are we going to a show?” Or was this another shower? “I don’t think I’m lacking decent hygiene at the moment.” I tilted my head to stare up at his harsh face. “Do you?”

His lips thinned, but he ignored my taunt. His eyes flashed annoyance, however.

For whatever reason, something inside urged me to push him. To take him to the edge of his self-control.

Watch him snap.

At least I generated emotion in one man.

Not Khal. Who’d turned me down. Sure, he’d given me pity sex, but he’d kept himself uninvolved. I couldn’t say that I blamed him for holding himself back. Starved and beaten, I was a mangy thing. Not worthy of fucking.

Not worth loving.

Love. Where had that thought come from?

I did not love Khal.

We’d barely had time to know each other. Loving someone took time.

At the end of a very long hall, we came to a steel door. Locked, if the badge reader on the side was any indication.

The unknown of all this made me jittery, but I forced myself to hold still.

A thread of fear sparked inside me, but I tamped down the flames. Even when they’d beaten me over and over again, until I was nearly unconscious, shouting all the while, “Who are you?” and “Tell us everything you know about the Resistance,” I’d kept quiet. I’d bit through my lower lip to keep from telling them a damn thing about myself and the people I loved.

I’d been tempted. Talking would mean an end. The hurt would stop. I’d be able to breathe, wallow in my pain.

Until they killed me.

One of the guards swiped his badge on the reader.

Nothing.

He grunted and Hartlin shuffled forward, his black military boots scraping along the tile floor. Reaching into his coat pocket, he pulled out his badge.

Perhaps he was the only one who had access.

What waited for me behind this door?

Thankfully, they’d forgotten to give me the other barrage of shots. The ones that made me fertile. Cooperative.

Gods willing, I’d be able to show them the error of their ways.

Hartlin held his badge near the reader, and a jarring sound rang inside the wall, as if gears long since rusted in place shifted for the first time in years. The door slowly slid open.

“Inside,” Hartlin said.

I stepped forward but froze before passing fully through the doorway. Staring inside.

Darkness. Endless darkness.

And rough-cut stone stairs.

Hartlin planted his fist in my back, and my breath ground to a halt. “Go.”

Did they plan to lock me inside?

I clenched my fingers together, before their trembling betrayed me, and turned. “My hands.” I lifted them, reminding them of the tight bounds. “Please free my hands.” There was nothing I hated more than to beg, but I was scared. How could I protect myself—assuming I’d need to protect myself—if my wrists were tied?

This was the Regime. Hartlin. Of course, I’d need to protect myself.

Hartlin stared at me for a long tick, saying nothing, his mask-like face only cracking slightly. Surely, he did not feel sympathy for me?

If so, why?

My heart flipped in my chest. Peering through the doorway, my gaze pierced the dark, but I found nothing to grab onto.

“Cut them,” Hartlin said.

A guard leaned forward and did so.

I rubbed my sore wrists. I’d been restrained often, and my skin had grooves. Callouses, actually, built up to protect me from repeated nylonium tears. The material was sharp. It cut as easily as it tied.

“I gave you a chance to do this on your own terms,” Hartlin said. “I even obeyed your rules.”

One brow lifted, I stared him down. “The cameras?”

He shrugged, and his lips twitched. “Just looking after my investment.”

“Bastard.” I lunged for his throat, my fingers curled into claws, but he stepped behind a wall of guards who closed around him. They laughed and shoved me backward.

Stumbling into the wall by the door, I hit my shoulder, but held in my wince.

One guard walked forward, zapper extended. One touch, and a searing pain would jolt through my bones and drop me to my knees.

No, thanks.

I stepped backward, onto the landing inside.

“Downstairs,” Hartlin said, speaking from behind his burly guard fortress. His chuckle raked down my spine. “I suppose, if you prefer, you can wait where you are for…” The grin he delivered could only be called nasty. “What comes next.”

Waiting didn’t sound like a good plan.

Tightening my spine, I thrust my chin forward. “What’s going on here? Tell me the truth.”

Hartlin stepped forward and took the zapper from the guard. He gripped it tightly, lifted it, as if testing its weight. His thumb hovered over the button that delivered a charge. Wise man. If I got a hold of it, I’d use it on him and his friends. “As I said earlier, I need a fetus.”

“A baby, you mean. My baby. Why?” The clues weren’t adding up. Starvation made it hard to think. And pain from the beatings kept me awake at night.

Awareness shot through me like laser fire, and my breath caught.

Hartlin nodded, and a sly smile rose on his face. “Surprised you haven’t figured it out already. I’d thought you were smarter than that.”

“What are you going to do to my child?” I shrieked, my anger a swarm of hungry vipers writhing inside me.

“Our data’s gone. Destroyed by…The Resistance.” His head tilted, and his gaze flicked to my belly. “We need new samples.”

“Why not take them from Khal? You’ve kept him drugged. You could do whatever you want with his body.”

“Khal can’t give me cord blood,” he snarled. “A fetus will be valuable. A child more so. Maybe.”

Said as if a child handed over dead or alive would suit his purpose.

Horror washed over me, and my knees buckled. I clung to the stone wall, fearing I’d fall backward, down the stairs.

Into my doom.

“You monster,” I spat out, my insides spasming as if Hartlin had shoved his fist through my chest wall, grabbed onto my heart, and crushed it.

He chuckled as the door swept closed.

Leaving me alone with nothing but my frantic breathing.

I slumped against the wall. Ages of cold sunk through my skin, seeking my bones, as if the harsh stone wall would freeze me solid.

My eyes slowly adjusted to the dark, and I could eventually see a bit in front of me.

I crept down the stairs, my fingers sliding along the rough, damp wall. No rail. Just a drop-off to my right leading who knew where.

Ahead, I heard dripping. And soft scurrying in the distance that wasn’t loud enough to imply something huge.

Not for now, anyway.

Teromotans or armatotes, maybe. Something smaller than a knee-high narlol.

Hopefully no armor spiders, though they could be an easier challenge than whatever Hartlin planned for me inside this cave.

Who would’ve thought the Regime had built their compound over an ancient cave system much like the one the Resistance had lived in after fleeing the cities?

Sixty stairs later, I reached the bottom made up of dirt-covered stone. It was too dark here to make out much ahead of me, let alone tracks on the ground.

Why put me here?

My eyes adjusted further, and I made out a tunnel stretching ahead of me.

With nothing keeping me here—and worry about Hartlin’s comment eating me alive—I walked forward, my footfalls soft. Hesitant. And, if I was willing to admit it, scared.

The thought that they’d pen me here forever was creating a wild beast inside me that threatened to rip its way through my skin. I suppressed the urge, like I’d done for weeks. Gods only knew what this feeling meant.

I could be going crazy. Most people would’ve cracked by now. But not me. This imprisonment wasn’t the worst thing I’d faced in my life.

Behind me, at the top of the stairs, a low groaning-shoosh sounded. Light dove toward me, seeking me, and I spun to face it.

Footsteps rang out in the silence. Followed by the rustle of clothing.

Then the door closed again. Leaving me again in darkness.

But no longer alone.

A deep, rumbling snarl was followed by pads on the stairs. The sound of a large cat. A predator.

I wasn’t sure how I knew this fact—smelled this fact—but it was as certain to me as the death of my own mother.

A great cat was coming closer. Stalking me.

I could not let him catch me.

Panic erupted through me, and I gave it—her—free rein. I stumbled forward, my eyes wide to let in any scrap of light.

I needed to escape him. Hide.

My feet drummed the ground as I half-ran, half-hobbled through the tunnel. I came to an intersection, and the crunch beneath my shoes told me I stepped on tiny bones. Dead armatotes? Or something this cat had hunted in the past?

My breathing raging in my throat, I peered around. I needed to get away! Anxiety ripped through my limbs, and I darted a look over my shoulder, but saw nothing.

But I heard him. Still coming. Gaining ground.

Gathering myself together, I ran, my feet smacking the ground. My throat tightened, making my lungs wheeze.

If I didn’t escape, he’d find me. Haul me down.

Another snarl. Close enough, the sound scraped down my spine like claws.

My heart pounded in my chest. I whirled and stumbled into a wall, slamming my side.

Silence filled the air, the world around me. Except…soft pads. Coming nearer.

Dread took over, but I couldn’t see where to go. I’d reached a dead end.

I was trapped.

Lifting my fists, I squared my feet. This cat would not take me easy. The day I allowed someone to push me around again was the day I died.

When he got within a short distance, he stopped. A soft sound—quieter than a whisper—was followed by muted groans. Footsteps came closer. Two feet, now, not four.

For some reason, my vision got…better. Until I could see him striding my way.

Completely naked. His body eager, his engorged cock straining forward.

I’d never seen this man in my life. But he was a shifter, like Khal. I’d stake my life on it.

Stopping a few feet away, he ran his gaze down my body. His lips tilted up on one side.

“If you don’t tell them,” he said in a scratchy voice, like he’d been recently choked. “I’ll fuck you as I am.” He swept his hand down his front, presenting me with a banquet he must think I’d be eager to devour.

“Leave me alone.” I didn’t like how my voice shook, my body shook.

His cock bobbed against his belly. Eager, despite the fact I was unwilling.

It wouldn’t be the first time someone had taken me against my will, but I’d promised myself that my dead husband would be the last.

“Or,” he added with a laugh. Hand held up between us, his fingers shifted into lethal claws. “I’ll fuck you as this. My cat would enjoy that even more.”

My hands grew clammy, but I held my shoulders tight. I backed against the wall. Ground myself against it, as if I could melt inside. “Why are you doing this?” The crack in my voice gave me away, and I swallowed. I’d fight him, ’till the death if I had to.

Pinning me, he shoved his cock—rigid and probing—between my thighs. “Like that?” he asked in a gravelly voice. “This is going to be fun.”

Fun?

My body was not a thing for men to take. Not any longer.

If I ever had sex again, it would be under My. Own. Terms. And it sure as all seven hells would not be with this shifter.

Anger grabbed ahold of my fear and tossed it to the side. It surged inside me like a wild beast.

I shoved him, and he stumbled backward before catching his footing. His grin sunk through me like acid.

Wait.

How could I see him now? See everything around him, from the cave system stretching to my left and right and behind him, to the tiny wints dangling from the ceiling, their inky, paper-thin wings fluttering. I stared around in amazement at the tiny armor spiders scurrying along the walls, the centrians making their way across the floor on their multiple, hairy legs.

“Don’t be like that,” the man said, coming up to me again. “I’ll make it good for you, if you cooperate.” Lowering his head, he scraped his teeth along my neck, tugging at the skin. He bit down on my earlobe

I gasped and shoved him away, growling. The heavy sound ripped from my throat.

Pain shot through me. Searing agony in my ear.

And in my fingertips that elongated. I held them up in awe.

My bones ached. They crunched. Twisted.

And my back…Something was happening to my back. Something horrifying and wondrous and amazing.

I thrust away from the wall and hunched forward, groaning. I cried out as spasms consumed my every thought.

Gods, it hurt. Mama. Please…

A stinging between my shoulder blades turned into outright ripping. Pulling and tugging and…growing.

Curling over, I extended my arms.

My body lengthened. On my back, my wings unfurled.

As the man stumbled away, his mouth ajar, I tipped my head back and roared.