CHAPTER 18
“No dragon can shift in this realm.”
Anais believed Loke when he said that, but she had the feeling the two men with her didn’t and it wasn’t going to stop them from attempting to force him to shift. Her stomach churned and her mind raced, her feelings colliding within her as she tried to think of what to do.
She stared at Loke, weathering the curious gazes of the scientists, feeling as if she was the one they were studying now.
The past day had been a blur. From the moment Thorne had teleported them into the Archangel cafeteria in the London headquarters, she had been separated from Loke and pulled from one office to the next, never given a moment to catch her breath. Everyone she had asked had refused to tell her where Loke was.
Only an hour ago, she had been brought into a meeting of the heads of each department and told by them that she would be their bridge—the one who would speak to Loke first and explain the situation to him and gain his compliance.
Anais had the feeling she was being used and tested.
They wanted to see where her allegiance laid.
That stung. They had no reason to doubt her dedication to their cause. She had given them almost a decade of service, risking her life time and again for them, and this was how they repaid her?
She had told them everything that had happened since Loke had taken her from the battlefield and had explained his reasons to them. Of course, she had omitted that they had been together in an intimate way. Archangel didn’t need to know about her personal life. It had nothing to do with them. Her feelings for Loke wouldn’t change her dedication to protecting the humans and good non-humans from those who meant them harm.
Anais had gone along with what they wanted because she had needed to see Loke again. She had expected to find him in one of the secure rooms they used for questioning non-humans. She hadn’t expected the heads of departments to tell her that she would find him in the cellblock.
She stared into the stark white cell at him, her heart on fire, burning with the agony of seeing him caged and knowing it was her fault. If she had spoken up when Sable had come for her, if she had found her courage in that moment when Thorne had fought Loke, all this could have been avoided.
Loke wouldn’t have been looking at her as if she had driven a knife into his back and straight through his heart.
Her act of indifference had shattered the moment she had heard him say that he couldn’t shift and that he was dying. Hearing that had made her die a little inside too. She needed to find a way to get him out of the cell and out of the hands of Archangel. Now. Before it was too late.
He stared at her, aquamarine eyes incredibly bright under the white lights, his bare chest rising and falling at a steady pace. His hands pressed to the glass on the other side of hers and she wanted to reach through it to him and take hold of them. She wanted to clutch them and explain everything, and ask for his forgiveness. She had made a terrible mistake. She had trusted Sable and Archangel, and she shouldn’t have.
She had spent almost a decade protecting her brother-in-law and niece from Archangel, and now she had let them get their hands on Loke.
On the man that she loved.
The one who meant the world to her.
Her stomach turned again, rebelling at the reality of what she had done.
She had sentenced Loke to death because she had clung to her blind faith in Archangel.
Now the people she had trusted were going to subject him to what amounted to torture. She had never condoned what Archangel did to some species by capturing them for study or the methods they employed during those studies. It was the side of Archangel that she didn’t like and she had passed almost a decade pretending that darker side didn’t exist so she could focus on doing her job of protecting the humans and good non-humans. She had refused to believe Archangel’s propaganda that they fed to their hunters, telling them that the studies were necessary. To fight against their enemies effectively, they needed to know that enemy, and that meant knowing every species inside and out.
But Loke wasn’t their enemy.
He hadn’t harmed her or anyone outside of Hell. He hadn’t gone after a good non-human and terrorised them or attempted to kill them.
He had been living a peaceful life until he had saved her from death.
He was right. He had condemned himself by taking her from the battlefield that day and for the first time since it had happened, she wished with all of her heart that he had left her there.
He should have let her die.
“We’ll prep a room for the study and draw up a plan. See if you can convince him to drop the act and admit he can shift.” The lead scientist, a brunet male with steel-grey eyes, stared at her and she managed to pull her gaze away from Loke and nod, when all she really wanted to do was throw up.
The two men left her alone with Loke and she could feel him watching her, his steady gaze boring into her. She couldn’t bring herself to look at him, because she feared seeing his expression and the anger and hurt she knew would be in his eyes. No. She was stronger than this and he deserved the chance to make his feelings clear to her. He deserved the right to punish her for what she had done.
She sucked down a fortifying breath and pulled her courage up from the pit of despair in her heart, holding on to it this time.
Anais turned to face him and met his cold gaze. It froze her right down to her soul but seared her at the same time, leaving her in no doubt of his feelings. She deserved all of his fury and hatred. She would take every last drop of it, but she wouldn’t let it push her away. She would find a way to make things right between them and set him free.
She knew he wouldn’t thank her for it or forgive her, but it wouldn’t stop her from doing it. She would cast aside her life with Archangel in order to set things right with Loke. He was more important to her than an organisation that had lied to her.
“Why?” Loke’s deep voice reached through the five-inch-thick glass to her and his eyes bore into her, piercing her and holding her immobile.
That single word held so much power.
It rendered her speechless. Stole the air from her lungs. Shattered her heart.
There was so much pain in it. Anger. She had dealt a mortal blow to him and to herself at the same time. She had known that from the moment her superiors had announced their plans for him. Hell, she had known it from the second she had let Sable and Thorne take him from his cave without standing up and fighting them to protect Loke. She had known it, but she had never felt it as keenly as she did now as he glared at her, the ice in his eyes confirming her worst fears.
He despised her.
He believed that she had betrayed him.
Played him.
She wanted to tell him that she had thought it wouldn’t be like this. She had been convinced that Sable would keep her word and that he wouldn’t be treated as if he was a threat. She had believed he would be a guest. She had gone along with it all because she had wanted to help her friends, not because she had wanted to hurt him.
She wanted to unburden her heart and tell him all of that, but the darkness in his eyes warned he wouldn’t believe her. He felt she had betrayed him and she couldn’t blame him for it.
All she could do was make amends by finding a way to set him free before being in her world killed him.
“I’m sorry.” She resisted the temptation to lower her head and forced herself to hold his gaze, to let him see that she meant those words, even if he refused to believe her.
His handsome face lost all emotion, his eyes turning flat and hard.
He took his hands away from the glass and backed off a step, distancing himself from her.
“I am sorry too.” Those four words cut her as no blade ever had, slicing deep into her heart.
The bitterness in them, the hurt and hatred, spoke of the meaning behind them. He wasn’t sorry about what she had done to him.
He was sorry he had ever met her.
Tears burned her eyes and she lost her nerve as her heart shattered all over again. She couldn’t take it. She couldn’t remain where she was. She had to leave before she made a bigger fool of herself.
Anais turned on her heel and ran along the corridor, aching inside as the distance between her and Loke grew, feeling as if something inside her was about to stretch tight and break and she was going to die. He could hate her all he wanted. It wouldn’t change what she was about to do.
Time was precious and she would need every last second of it if she was going to pull off something as dangerous as setting Loke free.