20. Nikolai
The anger burning through my body was making me do irrational things; as soon as I felt the loss of River, I left and headed to the school. Shifting in broad daylight wasn’t what I had planned for the day, but I stuck high above the clouds in hopes of not being spotted.
I started a blizzard to conceal myself. Hiding my blue dragon in the whiteout I spread over Willow Hollow. Thank fuck it was winter. A blizzard in the middle of summer would be a bit harder to explain.
I didn”t give a shit, though; my mate was in trouble. Humans spotting me be damned. Nothing would stop me from getting to her. Not even the threat of humans, I will wipe their whole race from this planet if I needed to.
When I took the needle from Ryder I headed back to Dr. Kayortie. I was with him before I left, we were looking through the new influx of patients Moonbeam was moving into the hospital. Moonbeam may be a terrible place, but Dr. Kayortie was one of the good ones. He was helping me find my sister Caterina, she was taken when I was ten, she was only three.
The good doctor was trying to save as many supernaturals as he could, and I was helping him. He brought me in as his assistant four years ago, and so far, we were able to get hundreds of people out; none of them had been my sister, though.
I wouldn’t give up hope, she was out there somewhere and we would find her. Before I left, doc told me to bring the syringe back with me so he could test it. Now that I knew River was safe at home I could spend a few extra minutes away from her.
I was tearing myself apart for shielding her out, if I didn’t I could have gotten to her sooner. I would never block her out again.
I still couldn’t feel our bond. It was like there was a wall blocking her. No matter how much I banged against the mental block, it wouldn’t budge.
I landed behind the hospital and shifted back into my human body, spitting the syringe into my hand. I would need some serious mouthwash to clean my mouth out after having it in there for so long.
I walked to the back entrance that was propped open for me, grabbing the pants and shirt Doc left out for me. Before closing the door behind me, I waved the snow away. It immediately stopped falling with a flick of my wrist.
I pulled on the clothes and grimaced, scrubs. Serves me right for shredding my clothes in my uncontrollable shift, I was just lucky I made it out of the building before my dragon took over.
The doc was sitting behind his computer, typing away ferociously and pushing his glasses up on his nose. His white hair stuck up all over his head, like he was tugging on it in frustration. That was never a good sign.
“What’s up, Doc?” I asked, walking around to stand beside him. His computer was filled with images of kids. There were so many, all under different classifications and what Moonbeam had planned for them. They were building an army.
The end goal was to change the humans or extinguish them. There was no in-between. Either the humans went through the awful change put on them, turning them into a supernatural, or they died.
Some humans volunteered for the program, lured in by the promise of power. What Moonbeam didn’t tell them was less than half would survive the change, and the ones that do are never the same. In most cases, they are feral and uncontrollable. Only a rare few humans are successful in taking on whatever DNA Moonbeam injected them with. The successful ones are then kept and experimented on, Moonbeam was using them to try and perfect their serum.
They were also using supernaturals, turning them into chimeras, injecting them with different DNAs until one sticks. The eight people who escaped out of Nevada a few weeks ago were all successful chimeras. Moonbeam was not happy with the escape and doubled security all over their facilities.
I investigated the outbreak and found out it was Ryker, Tate’s twin that caused it. I still couldn’t find the guy but I had a sneaking suspicion Ryder wasn’t exactly who he was claiming to be. When River told me she was drawn to him I started turning over stones, running all the possibilities through my mind. The craziest one, but most possible, was that Ryder was actually Ryker.
It wouldn’t be a far stretch to assume a witch performed a glamor on him, he looked too similar to Tate for there to be any other explanation. If River was drawn to him also, it just makes sense he’s Tate’s twin. Her mate bond started with Tate so I’d assume his twin would also be a mate of hers.
My girl is definitely going to have her hands full with all these guys around. I watched the screen as the doc continued to flip through patient profiles.
“Wait, go back one,” I told him. He flipped back to the last girl. Patient six hundred and thirty-three, she had long black hair and navy-blue eyes that mirrored my own. She was older than the last picture I saw of her, but there wasn’t a doubt in my mind, that was her.
“That’s her, Caterina. Is she coming here?” I asked, hope swirling in my chest. Was I finally going to get a shot at getting my sister out?
“She”s in the group scheduled to come next month. It says here she was acquired when she was three, her name and origin is unknown.” Doc told me, digging into my sister”s file.
He flipped through her chart, and my vision turned red. There were numerous broken bones, blood transfusions, test trials, and countless reports.
“Here, she emerged three weeks ago as a dragon, but further up in her file, she was listed as a panther shifter,” Doc said, going back to reread her file.
“Yupp, right here, she was injected with twenty-eight shifter DNAs. After two months of tests and sickness, she shifted into a black panther, then two weeks later, her dragon emerged. She’s a blizzard dragon, isn’t that your dragon species, Kai?” Doc asked, finally turning away from his computer to look at me.
“Yeah, that”s Caterina. I’m positive,” I told him. He nodded and saved her file.
He would help me get her out, I was sure of it.
“Now, let’s take a look at this drug your mate was injected with.” Dr. Kayortie said, getting up and grabbing the syringe.
He walked over to a machine, dropping the remnants of the drug into a vial. He placed it in the holder and closed the acrylic lid. Then, hit a few buttons starting it up. I honestly don’t know how he got away with calling me his assistant because I really didn’t do anything. The only thing I did was help him get the kids out.
“How’s your mate?” he asked, hitting a few more buttons on the machine.
It looked like a spinning top behind a glass box.
“She’s fine, at home with Tate. I still can’t feel her, though. She has to be up by now, and my dragon is getting anxious waiting,” I told him, watching as the wheel stopped and started back up again.
“They are working on a mate-blocking drug; so far, it has been successful in severing the connection so mates cannot reach out in their link for help. I’m testing to see if that drug is present in the concoction they injected River with,” he told me, looking at the digital display and jotting something down on a notepad.
My dragon roared inside me, it wanted to make everyone pay. The thought of my connection to River being broken sent a rage through me I wasn’t sure I could control. The shift started, turning my nails into talons. My blood boiled, I wasn’t sure I could stop the change, doc looked over at me. His eyes widening at the battle for control I was dealing with.
“If it is present, it will wear off in a few hours, Kai. You need to control your beast, or our whole cover will be blown.” He hissed at me.
I barely heard him over the ringing in my ears, but he said the right thing to get through to me. I couldn’t risk him getting caught. I needed to control myself, if not for River, then for Caterina. She was coming here in a month, and I was her only hope at getting her out.
I closed my eyes and counted to ten, slowing my breathing, taking deep controlled breaths. I reeled in my beast, locking him away again. I felt my talons retract and my anger reside.
When I opened my eyes, I was met with Doc’s deep green ones. He nodded to me, still a little weary before turning back to the machine.
After what felt like an hour, but couldn’t have been more than a few minutes, the machine finally stopped spinning and spit out a long slip of paper. I watched as Dr. Kayortie studied it intently, noting some stuff down on the pad next to it.
“Just as I suspected, propofol and prexadal. Propofol is the sedative they used to knock her out and prexadal is the mate-blocker,” Doc said, taking the vial out of the machine and throwing it in the trash. I watched as he walked back over to his computer, his fingers flew across the keyboard before he gestured me over to look at the screen.
“It says here the prexadal wears off in about thirty-two hours. They give daily shots to the ones in Moonbeam that are mated to keep the block intact. So, as long as your mate doesn’t come in contact with another dose, she should be back to normal tomorrow.”
“Thank fuck for that. I’ll die before I let them give her another dose of that fucking drug.” I growled. How dare they make a drug that blocks the mate bond. It went against our entire nature, we thrived on the connection to our mates. Some completed mate bonds are so strong they are able to heal one another. To be cut off from such a connection is outrageous.
“Moonbeam will pay for this.”
“Let’s get your sister out first. We don’t need her hurt in the crossfire,” Doc said, laying a hand on my arm to calm me down.
I nodded, my sister has been here for far too long. It was about damn time she came home.
“Hey Doc, before I leave. Do you know anything about that guy Ryker Stonewell? The one that broke out of Nevada.”
“Let me see…” He trailed off, pushing his glasses up on his nose and typing insanely fast on his keyboard. I watched as so many folders and articles popped up on the screen. Different tests Ryker was put through, and training, patient six thousand seven hundred and eighty-two, he was labeled as a spy.
“Ahh, here we go. He was acquired three years ago and successfully turned into a chameleon chimera. He was in training to be a spy for Moonbeam until he broke out of Nevada, allowing seven others to escape with him. All chimeras, according to the records, the hunters were only able to recapture two of them, so Ryker and five more are still on the run,” Doc said, pulling up the pictures of the eight people who escaped from Nevada.
Two had ‘obtained’ stamped in red across their picture. Ryker’s picture looked altered a bit; something was off about it. “Hey Doc, was that one altered?”
He enlarged the picture, typing away again at his computer. “Good eye, kid. It was. Here’s the original. It looks like they changed his eye color.”
As soon as he pulled up the original picture, I knew my suspicion about Ryder was correct. A set of mismatched gold-green eyes stared at me from the screen. He was hiding the fact that he was Tate’s twin. Now I just needed to find out why.