10. Simon
It isn’t long after Quin blows our minds with his revelation that one of the doors to the room opens and the sound of compressed air expelling from a chamber startles us all. Four guards, four shots, four darts. Nick collapses almost immediately, Luc only holding out until he crawls over to the unconscious shifter and covers him protectively with his own body. Quin fights to stay awake, but even I can see he is fighting a losing battle.
Tál riots inside of me, the drugs having no real impact on us except for pissing us off. I quickly figure they’ve given me the same sedatives as the others, and it’s in my best interests to play along. So, when Quin collapses to the ground, I blink sleepily before slumping over, pretending to be out of it. However, I do my best to memorize everything I can see and hear, just in case it comes in handy later.
The guards are joined by another four, and they each pair off to carry the four of us back to our rooms. Except the rooms they return us to are different from where Quin and I had woken.
I watch through slitted eyelids as we’re hauled through a common area scattered with ten or so shifters wearing scrubs, then down a fairly long corridor, which ends with a single door to one side. We enter a small room, a shared dormitory-like space, but I don’t get a good look at it before we’re all separated, and I’m dragged through another doorway.
I’m unceremoniously dumped on a cot along one side of the room, neither of the guards paying me any attention as they exit. I listen carefully to the echo of footsteps as the contingent of guards leave us, the slam of the outer door and clanking of the lock telling me we’re now alone.
Still peering through my lashes, I scan my new cell. I’m lying on a metal cot with a firm, but not uncomfortable mattress. This one also has sheets, a blanket, and a pillow. On the other side of the room sits a white dresser, all the drawers removed and replaced with open shelving. The shelves hold the same types of items the hose-room had offered, although instead of industrial soap there are small, individually wrapped bars. There’s another open door next to the converted dresser, and through it I can see white tiled walls and floor. A bathroom, perhaps?
The room is otherwise barren, no decorations or extraneous objects to be seen. I check each of the corners of the room, but I can’t see a camera anywhere. I poke Tál, and he comes forward just enough to boost my senses. I can’t hear the electric buzz of a camera, and I hope that we’ve escaped constant monitoring while we’re locked in here.
After another minute or two listening for any other possible surveillance equipment, I sit up on my bed. The door to the small sitting room is ajar, so I quietly get up and walk over to it. As I pass the other open door, I see that it is, indeed, a bathroom, and that there’s another open door on the other side. A shared one, then, and if the directions the others had been taken is anything to go by, I’m sharing it with Quin.
I walk out of my cell and into the smaller living room. I take my time investigating it now that I’m not pretending to be unconscious. Four bean bag chairs are in a pile in the center of the room, and bolted to the wall opposite the main door is a television behind a protective Perspex case. Four other doors bracket the room, two on each wall, and I know they lead to our individual cells. I don’t care that they’re made to look like dorm rooms; none of us are here voluntarily. Attached to the wall next to the main exit are metal shelving units, and I’m surprised to see that they’re stocked with provisions. Granted, it’s mostly electrolyte drinks, dried jerky, popcorn, and trail mix, but it’s more than I expected after hearing Quin talk. There’s also a remote for the television, but I leave it for now and head over to where Luc’s and Nick’s doors sit open. I check on each of them, seeing they too have been left splayed out on their respective beds.
That just feels wrong to me and Tál, so I quietly enter Luc’s room and maneuver him under the covers, positioning him up against the wall. I then make my way back to Nick and gently pick him up, carry him over to Luc, then tuck him into the bigger man’s embrace before covering them both with Luc’s blanket.
Satisfied I’ve done what I can to make them both comfortable and to ease their bond, I head back to check on Quin. To my surprise he’s conscious, although not overly coherent. I help him to sit up, propping him against the wall, and then dash into the bathroom. Miracle of miracles, there are paper cups tucked under the sink, so I grab one and fill it with water.
Once I’m back with Quin I help him to sip the tepid liquid, and it seems to revive him a bit. He’s still dazed, but the relief in his eyes as he sees me upright and unaffected is clear as day.
“We’ve been moved to another area,” I tell him softly, doing my best to reassure him. “You, me, Nick, and Luc are all sharing a small common area, and we each have our own rooms. You and me, we’re on one side, and Nick and Luc are on the other. There are also two bathrooms. I can’t see any monitoring equipment in here, so fingers crossed they’re gonna leave us alone for a while.”
Quin slowly finishes his water, then tiredly pats my hand and smiles sadly up at me.
“They’re fuckin’ wiff us,” he slurs, his speech struggling to overcome the drugs in his system. “They wanna make us care ‘bout each other, an’ then they’re gonna make us watch ‘em cut us open an’ tear our issides out.”
Tál roars to the forefront, his protective instincts riled up to the nth degree. As tempting as it is to let him out to rampage, the fact that our guards seem unaware that their sedatives don’t work on us is a secret worth keeping. We’ll learn more if we comply for now, and when the moment is right, I can unleash Tálstrom and tear this hellhole to the ground.
After all, there’s never been a lion like Tálstrom before.
***
It’s easy to lose track of time when you have no watch, clock, or even a window to the outside. It could’ve been an hour or five since we’d been dumped in our new quarters before we heard Nick and Luc stirring.
We’re lounging in the bean bag chairs in the smaller room chatting about inconsequential topics to pass the time, but at the first signs that the others are waking we scramble to our feet and race to Luc’s room.
Luc seems to have woken first, his expression still dazed and groggy as he stares down in confusion at where Nick is snuggled into his chest. It’s actually kind of cute, and Quin must agree as he quietly chuckles at the sight.
“Hey, man. It’s okay, I put him there after the guards left. I figured it would help relieve the tension in your bond, having him so close to you. Was I wrong to do that?”
I’d never really considered that my actions could be construed as inappropriate or invasive, but then again, I barely know the other two men. I don’t even know what their animals are. I wince internally at my potential faux pas, but Luc swiftly alleviates my fears.
“No… it’s okay. I just wasn’t expecting him to be here. It feels… right.”
Luc looks a little lost as he struggles to sit upright, trying not to dislodge or disturb the still-sleeping Nick with his attempts. I step forward to help but hesitate as I reach the bed. I don’t feel right just scooping Nick up, not now that Luc is conscious.
“Can… do you want me to pick Nick up? I can put him back down once you’re upright, or I can give him to you if you want to join us in the other room?” I inquire, hovering at Nick’s side, my arms partly outstretched in anticipation of lifting him.
“Um, yes? I mean, I think I’d like to join you guys, but I need to take a piss first, so maybe if you wrap him up to keep him warm? He tends to get cold easily, and while his animal is warm-blooded, he has very little body fat to insulate him in his human form.”
Quin joins me beside the bed, pulling the blanket away as I gingerly shuffle Nick into my arms. Free from his clinging constraints, Luc bolts for the bathroom, his groan of relief accompanied by the sound of a steady stream hitting the toilet bowl. I grin at Quin as he shakes his head, a bemused smirk quirking at the corners of his mouth. Between the two of us we manage to wrap Nick up like a shifter burrito and take him into the other room. Luc rejoins us moments later, settling into one of the beanbags then holds his arms out for his mate. The sigh he makes once he has Nick back beside him makes me a little sad—it’s like he’s finally complete, and it hurts to know I could have had that once upon a time.
I shake off the sudden bout of melancholy and settle into my vacated beanbag, Quin already having flopped down into his own. None of us speak for a while, but the silence is contemplative rather than awkward.
“You know, it’s strange,” Luc suddenly announces. “Nick and I have been best friends for as long as I can remember. We were both brought here as small children, and although I remember my parents and family, Nick doesn’t. He grew up in a care home, and that’s how the Bassatnes got their hands on him. It was different for me, though. I remember what it was like to have a home and a loving family.” Luc’s voice trembles with suppressed emotion as his gaze goes distant, lost in the threads of his past.
“I remember the blood and the screams as they were torn apart while I huddled under my bed. Mum sobbing as Dad begged for mercy. The wet gurgle as Dad’s throat was slit, and the distraught wailing of Mum as she watched her mate drown in his own blood. The breathless gasps after every squelching thud as she was stabbed to death. Stumbling across the dismembered body of my baby sister afterward. That was the night my quoll died. The police caught the dingo shifter responsible, they claimed he was a serial killer. He was supposed to be executed for his crimes. I was so traumatized, and none of the other quolls in my Colony would take me in. They didn’t want the constant reminder of such brutality in their world, I guess. I ended up being fostered with a Batch of Tassie devils for a while, almost a year I think, before an adoption request came through. You can imagine my horror when I turned up here to find the dingo responsible for the slaughter of my family acting as one of the guards. It was a set-up. I was an experiment. He was paid to murder my family.”
Gorge rises in my throat. Luc’s voice remains steady as he recounts the loss of his family, but his eyes… they can’t hide the agony he endured as a child, and all so that the monsters running this place could torture a different type of beast into existence.
“So, you see, it was almost automatic for us, our friendship. We woke up in a strange place and immediately latched onto the only other person stuck in the same shitty situation. We kept each other sane and became each other’s rock. For so long, we’ve been the other half needed to complete the other person’s whole. Platonic soulmates, I think it’s called.” He looks down adoringly at the man in his arms, his voice soft as he exposes his innermost thoughts to us.
“I’ve never been attracted to Nick sexually, never thought of him as anything other than a brother. I know he’s gay, it’s never been an issue for me. I mean, even at a young age, he never prescribed to the more masculine traits or attitudes. Me, though? I’m not sure where I fit. I’ve found all sorts attractive in here—male, female, and even one human scientist who was sorta androgynous. They didn’t last long down here; they actually had morals. It’s part of the reason why we’ve been kept away from all the others. We’ve never hidden how we feel about our preferences, even though for most of our lives we’ve had it literally beaten into us that anything other than heterosexuality is an abomination. The things they’ve done to us in here, the experiments, the torture, all of it. They told us it was for our own good, to ‘fix’ us. That what they were doing was in the name of science, so they could find a ‘cure’ for us.”
Luc looks at me then, tears shining in his eyes.
“After my quoll died, something else formed inside me. He’d ‘speak’ to me, sometimes, sending me comfort and promising he’d never leave me. He was a thylacine, a Tasmanian tiger. He was the one thing that kept me steady until Nick came along, and they destroyed him. What took my thylacine’s place, I don’t even know what he is. He’s a monster compared to my other animals. He’s big, angry, and fiercely protective over those I count as my family. The scariest part though? His name. He calls himself ‘Void’. I mean, for fuck’s sake, I have a creature inside me that for so long felt empty and lost, but now? With this bond with Nick? He’s happy. He’s whole. For the first time ever, he’s content. He doesn’t feel like a void anymore.”
Luc glances back down at Nick, but not before I see a flash of gold in his blue eyes. Void is there, gazing adoringly at his mate. “I don’t know if I can hate what O’Hare did to us, because now I have a mate, and Void has a reason for being.”
***
The fucking television has a clock on it.
We get fed up with sitting in silence pretty quickly, and Quin ends up prowling around, poking his nose into everything he can to double check there aren’t any bugs or hidden cameras spying on us. When he spots the remote on the shelf, he pounces on it with alacrity, and the first thing that comes up on the screen when he powers it on is a clock.
I’m not sure which of the two of us feels more stupid for not realizing it before now, but Luc’s bellows of laughter at our dumbfounded expressions jerks Nick awake so abruptly he smacks Luc in the face as he flails around in panic. That sets Quin and I off, and we spend the next several minutes crying with laughter as Luc tries to soothe Nick’s ruffled feathers while also trying to stem the blood gushing from his nose.
We eventually settle back down, and Luc goes to clean himself up. He returns wearing a new shirt, as the other one is soaked red with his blood.
“So, Simon, you mentioned before that you’re a lion. Now, correct me if I’m wrong, but your lion smells all sorts of fucked up. Are… are you like us?” Luc’s side-eye is on point, and there’s no escaping the expectation saturating the air.
“You know how I told you when I rejected Sila, I broke her? Well, the trauma of my rejection and Catherine’s challenge changed her. She’s an Altered shifter now, but she’s not like other Altered shifters. Her snow leopard, Pounce, is still relatively small physically, but her strength, endurance, and dominance are off the scale. So, when I told you that almost all my bonds were destroyed? Well, I joined the ranks of Altered shifters that day. Luc, you told me that after you lost your quoll, O’Hare destroyed your thylacine and gave you a different monster… that was when you were still a child, right? You’d shared your mind with him and your quoll but never got to meet either of them before you first shifted?”
Luc nods slowly, awareness creeping into his eyes.
“I had my lion for nine years. Nine perfect, like-minded years before we were ruined. I first shifted at twelve, and up until I rejected Sila, we were always in accord. The last two years before he was torn from me, we were at constant war with one another because of my arrogance. Then when the swan got hold of me, he was gone, and instead I had a lion that wanted to tear the world apart and me with it.”
I swallow the additional words rising in my throat, as no good can come from sharing that trauma. Tál gently nudges me from inside in camaraderie, and I rub my hand across my eyes, swiping away the tears threatening to fall.
“He tried to kill my father the moment he was born, and then my mother banned me from being around my younger brother and sister without supervision. He was filled with so much rage, so violent, so… so feral. We were diametrically opposed from the get-go. Every day, he’d rip out of me and rampage until he was exhausted, and the only people who could control me were Sila and her three mates, and Jaxon, who has an enormous, fire-breathing dragon inside him.”
I smirk dryly at the memory of Brand scorching Tál’s rump to force him back the first time they met. Tál huffs at me sulkily, giving me his back. He’s never got over having his ass handed to him by the dragon, for all that they’re friends now.
“It took almost two years for him to tell me his name, and another one after that before he was willing to surrender control after a shift. Having my blood bonds helped, but it’s only been since Aodhán came along that Tál has truly settled down in a true partnership with me. He’s extremely powerful and dominant, and he’s an absolute beast when he gets riled up. He doesn’t trust or accept others easily, and I can’t blame him one iota. I betrayed my lion, and he is a direct result of that.”