Chapter 8
Chapter
Eight
“Wake up.”
A sting zapped through my nerves like a thunderbolt, light crackling across my dark world. Recoiling, instinct told me to bury myself deeper into the blackness. The light was a trick. A sparkling lure dangling in the deep depths, and if I grabbed on, it would only lead me to death.
Wait. Wasn’t I already dead?
Another surge of pain lit up the space around me, no longer letting me hide.
“I said wake up,” someone ordered. The voice was sultry and alluring, but the intention was not. Weakly, I followed the order, not able to fight the demand.
Flinching at the glaring light in the room, I scrunched my lids back together, allowing one eye to partially open.
A woman who appeared to be in her twenties stared down at me.
She was dressed in purple scrubs, which complemented her lavender eyes and long white-blonde hair.
With high cheekbones and full lips, her expression resembled the bored, pouting models on the covers of magazines in the Unified Nations.
A fairy, or fay, was the “highest” breed of fae if you still went by the old ideals, and one stood over me.
Fae was the umbrella term for all those with magic. But there were hundreds if not thousands of species, races, and types under that umbrella.
Fae weren’t the sweet, tiny, winged creatures you saw in books from long past. Not even close.
Full of lust, greed, wrath, and pride, some used their looks for hunting humans—a buffet the fae could feed on.
They didn’t even need to use their glamour because most fae were humanlike and so stunning you got caught in their web.
“Sit up.” Her perfect upturned nose wrinkled, pushing down the railing that kept me in the bed.
“Where am I?” My voice barely came out a whisper, my brain swimming in confusion, groggy and slow. My gaze danced around the space. It was some kind of “healing” room with a handful of medical beds spaced evenly around the room. “What happened?”
“You were shot,” she responded, her bluntness stirring a few memories of brown eyes staring into mine—pleading and heartbroken.
Fuck. Caden . . .
My head jerked up, lids squinted, trying to make out the forms in the beds across from me. Only two of them were filled. What looked like a troll and a human woman were chained to the beds, sound asleep. No Caden.
A gust of relief sighed from my lungs. Please say he made it home. He’s safe.
My gaze drifted over the rest of the room, noticing some Western human medical equipment on the far wall and another wall full of shelves—magical serums and antidotes.
The potions and healing techniques were a few of the fae things humans accepted without a problem.
Funny, if it benefited us, we were fine with it, but if it didn’t, then it was from the “vile fae” set out to destroy humankind.
“Get up.” She grabbed my legs, swinging them over the side and sitting me up abruptly. I tried to move my arms, but they were yanked back with a metallic sound. My gaze shifted down to my hands, my brain slowly acknowledging the pair of handcuffs chaining me to the bed.
“Against all logic, you lived, healing faster than us healers thought.” She picked up a needle, filling it with liquid. “That gunshot should have killed you in an instant.” Her sculpted eyebrows curved up. “Too bad.”
I looked down at my torso and touched my sternum, feeling the bandage under the gown’s thin fabric. The memory of the bullet going through me dotted sweat along my brow. I had been fatally shot. How was I alive?
“How long have I been here?” I croaked, my throat dry and wobbly.
“Six days.”
“What?” Six days? Since I had been shot in the back? Shouldn’t it take months to heal? “How?”
Fae magic was good, but I didn’t think it was that fast, not for wounds like mine.
“You seemed very determined to live. The fae bullet barely missed your spine. Hit your lungs.” The healer stepped back to me, her voice clipped and unfriendly.
“A large amount of blood filled them, which should’ve drowned you.
” Bedside manner she did not have. “You really should have died. I would have let you. One less human in this world.”
My black eyes lifted to hers, but not one emotion showed in my expression. I’d been taught to keep my emotions in check, lock up any weakness behind a steel exterior.
“Thought that went against a healer’s code of ethics?” My voice came out raspy and low.
“Are you dead?” She smirked, then stabbed my arm with the needle, injecting a serum into my system. “But let me say . . . you will wish you were. Where you are headed, death would have been a blessing.”
My mouth parted to respond, but a jolt of adrenaline lurched through my body, swallowing the hazy sensation in a gulp. My eyes bolted open, air slamming into my lungs.
Alert.
Sound. Sight. Taste. My senses flamed to life, turned up so high I could hear the flames lick the glass in the bulbs above my head, footsteps squeaking down the hallway, the smell of floor cleaner, the chalky-stale taste coating my tongue.
My brain seemed at full charge, and my limbs twitched and squirmed as though needing to be let off a leash.
“It will fade in a few hours, but they want you awake and fully aware of what’s happening to you.” A menacing smile ghosted her mouth.
“What do you mean fully aware? What’s going to happen?
Where am I?” Just as the final words spurted off my tongue, the door burst open.
Three huge men stormed into the room dressed in all black, armed with swords and rifles, wearing fae bulletproof vests over their shirts.
The fae leader’s insignia was emblazoned on their chests: two intertwined, detailed circles with a sword cutting through the middle, the blade and handle engraved with Celtic symbols and blazing with light.
It symbolized the Sword of Nuada, an old-world treasure of theirs, which was said to have been destroyed in the Fae War.
But some conspirators believed it made it out and was hidden.
To me, the crest represented fear and death.
Terror gripped my throat, my instincts kicking in. Leaping off the bed in defense, my wrist restraint yanking me back to the bed.
“Hey, Sloane.” The healer tilted her head, smiling at the largest guard, her eyes glistening with lust, not really looking at the other two guys.
Sloane had a patch on his arm signifying him as the highest-ranking soldier in the room.
His caramel-colored hair was brushed back from his face, revealing eyes even more purple than the healer’s.
He was from a noble fairy line, at least at one time.
In the new world, lineage didn’t matter as much.
The fae ruler here only cared if you were pureblood and could fight.
I guess the human side wasn’t much different in our prerequisites.
Half-breeds weren’t accepted on either side, living in the shadows of the Savage Lands with the rest of the degenerates.
“The captive ready for pick up?” He didn’t even look at her, his attention falling on me. He was solidly built. Tall, wide, and ripped like he was carved from stone.
“Yes. Seems pointless to have the elite team on her.” Her gaze drifted over to me, running down my barely dressed figure. “A human. I could snap her in half without blinking.”
“It’s our job. Pick up and transfer safely.” A blond guard peered at me, a snarl of disgust hitching his lip. Another pretty guy who looked similar to all the rest to me. “Though she looks like a bunny-shifter could handle her.”
Looks could be deceiving, asshole. I kept my mouth shut. We were taught to say nothing, even under torture.
“Let’s just get this last transfer done.” Sloane stepped forward, pulling a set of cuffs off his belt, his buddies moving in around me. Weaponless, wounded, and chained to a bed, the odds were against me.
“No,” I growled, shoving back into the bed away from their reach, the frame squealing over the tiled floor.
The blond guard on my left snorted, laughing at my attempt to resist. My brain told me logically I had no chance, to save my energy. But I knew in my gut where we were going. They wouldn’t have gone to all the trouble to save my life to kill me. No. Where I was going was far worse.
The drug she pumped in my system gave me the strength to bounce on my toes, my back curling in defense.
“Save your energy and breath, human.” The third guard on my right, a striking male with black hair, dark skin, and amber eyes, pulled out a handgun from his belt. “This is only going one way.”
Baring my teeth, I glared at them, widening my stance.
The third guard shook his head. “All right. We warned you.” He lurched for me.
A grunt tore from my lips as I yanked at my cuffed arm, skating and twisting the bed across the floor, blocking them from me.
I shoved at the bed, the heels of my feet digging into the floor, and rammed into the two guards with all the force I could muster.
Their large bodies stumbled back, falling like boulders and crashing to the ground.
Cries of protest and surprise bubbled out of them.
I leaped back over the bed feet first, my heels slamming into the healer’s stomach, knocking her over.
Ignoring the throbbing pain from my body and the tug at my wrist, I jumped down on one of the guards, reaching for his gun, my brain clicking into survival mode.
Four shots to the heart or brain, and I could have a chance to get out of here. Escape.
I had killed only once before. It was part of our evaluation last year in class. To see if we could move up in training. Had what it took to be put in the field. They didn’t want us to hesitate or not be able to handle death out in the world.