Chapter 16 Rune
rune
. . .
The simulator thrummed around us for Weapons and Subdue’s final assessment.
“No harming fellow operatives, and no permanent damage to your targets.” Jarvins's voice crackled through the space, bouncing off the walls. “You will subdue your assigned target, their photos were given to you last class, and place them in containment. If you did your research and read your specific target’s file, then you shouldn’t have any issues.
The quieter, cleaner, and sharper you work, the higher you score.
Use the weapons you registered with to subdue them.
Break a rule and fail. Fail spectacularly, and…
” He broke the twig he was chewing on between his teeth. “Well. Don’t fail spectacularly.”
Nerves bundled in my gut.
I’d been assigned a firedrake who was responsible for mass murder. Honestly, I’d much rather just kill them, but my wants weren’t considered as an agent. I had a mission, and I would make damn sure to subdue my target instead of dueling out my personal desired punishment.
As Jarvins faded, stone walls rose around us, crooked and blackened with soot.
It looked like the remnants of a ruined mine half-swallowed by moss.
Torches in sconces lined the walls, throwing a sickly yellow light across the uneven stone floors.
The air was humid and heavy with the tang of wet earth.
“Well, this is creepy,” Zara muttered, irritation seeping through her tone.
“Not as creepy as that.” Mara pointed deeper into the tunnel.
“I think it’s rather quaint.” Ominous winked before dissolving into the shadows.
The torches dimmed the further we walked. Several other turns branched off toward different locations. Cora, Zara, Mara, Seth, and Jonas took the first passages out based on the signs marking different areas.
Brynn, Dimitri, and I kept walking in tense silence.
I moved low and quietly, slipping past collapsed walls and a half-collapsed archway. There were signs of fae traps laid toward the side, and Brynn excused herself as she took that one.
Each rune was a trap on her path. One wrong step, and she could’ve been blown to bits. Was I a bad agent to hope that happened?
“What’s your target?” I asked Dimitri, sliding my gaze to him.
He was avoiding me even more than before, but it was different. It was as if my existence pained him. It made my chest agonize.
Every time I tried to get a moment alone with him, fucking Brynn showed up, and he took that as a chance to ditch us both.
“A werewolf. He’s being charged with capital murder,” he muttered.
“Similar to mine,” I mumbled, stepping over an old trap. “I’m subduing a firedrake that ran from prison after mass murder.”
His brow raised. “Subduing that? Huh. You’d think—”
“They would’ve killed him, yeah, I know.” I paused. “Listen, Dimitri, about—”
“Sorry, but I have to go this way,” he blurted, pointing toward a tunnel of bones. “Good luck.”
The air changed as he left.
His cinnamon and nutmeg scent changed to a charred rock smell as I continued down my path.
I shouldn’t have been surprised that he’d dipped.
Our final wasn’t the time or place to talk about matebonds, after all.
My instincts went on high alert. I slowed, fangs prickling against my tongue.
The firedrake had to be close.
I rounded a corner that led into a large clearing, and that was where I found him—my target.
Red scales shimmered with a dull bronze gleam, smoke curling from his nostrils with every exhale. His drake form was massive, with clawed talons and wings folded tight against his back.
He was shifted, and sparks crackled where claws scraped stone.
I shouldn’t have been surprised to see him shifted, but I was.
Killing or subduing a drake was easy for me, but to do it with only my dagger?
That was a challenge.
I crouched low and studied his stance, the way his tail lashed lazily behind him as he walked, and the faint glow beneath his throat where fire brewed.
Drakes were more unpredictable than dragons, and they had extra elemental power to back it up. Elemental power being fire or ice.
I slipped closer, steadying my breath. My dagger was light in my palm, but my palm leaked paralysis venom, coating from the hilt to the blade.
I just had to focus on not excreting venom and figure out a way to subdue with just this weapon.
But then…if my venom was coating the weapon, that would still count as my weapon taking the firedrake down, right?
The air rippled, and a shimmer of light lit under my foot.
Shit.
The rune beneath me bloomed, coughing out a puff of pale-green mist.
I sucked in half a breath before I realized it wasn’t smoke. It was tourmalyke essence. The exposure made my throat seize. My glands burned white-hot, and my fangs dropped on instinct, slicking free streams of venom before I could order them otherwise.
No.
Not here.
Not now.
The firedrake turned, eyes molten like lava, and nostrils flaring as he caught my scent. A ferocious roar erupted from his chest, and he charged at me.
An icy chill zipped down my spine.
I ducked aside, body trembling as venom welled unbidden from my skin and fangs. My jaw clamped shut so hard my fangs cracked. I couldn’t control what venom was seeping out again. If I opened my mouth, if I spit even once, the assessment was over.
The drake would most likely be dead, and I’d fail.
He lunged again, tail whipping, fire blasting from his mouth as he spewed fire at me. I threw myself forward into a roll, slamming my dagger into his leg.
He roared and stumbled, my dagger pulling free as I fell back.
His back claw raked across my arm. Pain burst up my arm as my blood spilled.
The surge of adrenaline forced more venom into my mouth, choking me.
‘Don’t spit. Don’t swallow—your immunity is done for,’ I thought to myself.
The taste shifted as the metal taste faded into sweetness.
A fucking aphrodisiac excreted.
My lower abdomen twisted violently.
He slammed me back against the wall.
Stone cracked where I hit, and where I crumbled below, dust rained down on me. My vision doubled, edges fracturing with a faint hallucination. The tourmalyke essence scrambled my control, pulling shadows into the shape of a human woman with a mask and a needle.
One minute had passed since it started, and the gas was still spraying.
How was the firedrake not affected?
Was it because he was simulated, or was the tourmalyke not supposed to be here?
He reared back, fire swelling in his throat again.
I ducked and scrambled just as fire charred the stone where I was moments ago. My fangs ached, and my jaw locked so tight it burned. I couldn’t touch him until I got control again.
The burn in my veins dimmed suddenly, a minute and thirty seconds into my tourmalyke gas exposure.
My fangs retracted slightly, my glands easing into my control.
Relief washed over me like ice water.
I swallowed the venom that had gathered in my mouth and sucked in a breath of oxygen, along with the tourmalyke gas around me.
“Fates, did I just build up an immunity to tourmalyke?” I muttered, confused.
The drake took my moment of clarity and threw his tail into me.
I went airborne before smashing into the scorching rock. My skin sizzled on contact, but I put my dagger in my holster on my thigh and shifted into my basilisk form.
Slithering forward, I coiled around the drake until he became immobile. I was careful not to excrete any venom through my skin as I bound him.
He shifted back to his regular form, and I followed.
I pulled my dagger out. “That was a hell of a fight.”
“Get away from me!” He turned to run, but the moment his back was to me, I took the hilt of the knife and banged it against the back of his head with all my strength.
He fell forward, out cold.
I sighed, grabbing the tourmalyke collar from my belt and fastening it around the firedrake’s neck.
I barely registered the shadow moving behind me.
It was too fast.
Fangs sank into my neck, tugging the collar of the suit down easily.
I gasped, my vision flaring white as vampire venom surged into me.
It wasn’t like Dimitri’s. It hit like tiny blades coursing through my veins.
It wasn’t the bliss vampire venom should have been.
What should’ve been searing ecstasy was burning me because of the matebond branded into my soul, and whoever was biting me was not my mate.
My knees buckled.
My body wanted to melt and give in to it, but the burn seared through nerve and soul until it felt like I was being flayed alive.
Screams of pain and shock tore from my throat.
Only one supernatural had a vampire target: Brynn.
My head snapped toward the clearing. Sure enough, she stood there, arms crossed, watching me get bitten by her target.
Rage ripped through me.
My fangs ached, fatal venom threatening to spill, but I couldn’t. If I lashed out now, I would kill him.
Jarvins told us explicitly not to kill the targets, but this target wasn’t mine.
He snarled against my skin, biting harder.
My vision went spotty.
Instinct screamed at me to excrete my venom, but this was weapons to subdue, not venom to subdue. Instead, I forced my arm up, dagger reversed in my palm as the blade rested on my fingertips.
My grip shook from the agony ripping through me, but I twisted, slamming the hilt into the junction of his jaw and throat.
The crack echoed, and his body jerked.
He sagged instantly, limbs collapsing, blood-slick mouth opened wide.
I shoved him off with a sharp pivot and let him hit the stone floor with a thud.
I was breathing like I’d just swallowed shards of glass, chest heaving. I was trembling from having to hold back.
Then, my gaze locked back on Brynn.
She was still leaning against the mine wall, oozing casual boredom.
My feet carried me across the floor before my mind caught up. I slammed her against the stone hard enough that her back left an impression.
She gasped in pain.
“Are you out of your Fates-damned mind?” I snarled, fatal venom dripping from my fangs, hissing as it hit the floor inches from her. “He could’ve killed me. You’re my fellow operative! You are supposed to subdue your own target, not leave them to maul your team!”
Her eyes widened for a breath before she rolled them, her voice flat. “I just got here. I was looking for him.”
“You fucking liar,” I spat.
Before I could do something stupid, like actually kill her, the simulation shivered. The mine flickered, breaking into shards of light as the simulation collapsed.
She fell back onto the floor as I let her go and stepped back.
We were back in Apex Simulator 2.0. Eight words floated above every head except for Brynn’s: Passed.
Jarvins stormed over to us, voice cracking like thunder. “Brynn.”
She flinched. “What?”
“You watched another operative take down your assignment after letting it go rogue. You compromised Rune’s mission, compromised containment, and nearly cost Rune her life.” His glare was pure rage. “Every other one of you passed.”
“You’re on probation,” Jarvins told her flatly. “One more move like that and you’ll be taken out.”
She swallowed, voice sharper now. “You mean expelled?”
He didn’t even blink. “No.”
The weight of it sank into her.
For once, Brynn looked afraid.
Dismissal came with a flick of Jarvins's hand.
“She did what?” Dimitri asked darkly.
“You heard Jarvins,” Ominous stated, shadows curling around him. “The bitchy vampire tried to let her target kill Rune.”
“Why does she get another chance to hurt her?” Dimitri stepped toward Brynn, murderous intention clear in his aura.
“No…I really didn’t.” Brynn blurred out of the simulator before he could do or say anything.
We left the simulator, but my knees still felt weak, my neck burning with phantom pain from that damned bite.
“Rune.”
I turned, still trembling, to find Dimitri standing too close, his red eyes focused. His gaze dipped to my neck. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” My voice cracked.
His jaw flexed. “That wasn’t a consensual bite.”
“No.” The word trembled out before I could hide it.
My throat burned.
“I’m sorry. If I had known, I would’ve been there,” he promised.
Finally, I forced a laugh that came out broken. “I much prefer your bite.”
Color flared up his neck, flushing his cheeks red. His lips parted as if he wanted to say something but couldn’t.
He shut his mouth, eyes darting away, then back to me like he wasn’t sure if he could look.
“I—” He stopped himself, swallowing hard. His hands curled at his sides.
“Rune!” Jesper ran to me, grabbing me and looking me over, checking my neck. “I felt your pain, fear, and anxiety. What the Fates happened in that simulation?”
“She was bitten by a rogue vampire,” Dimitri told him in a low tone before turning and forcing himself to walk away.
“Wait, Dimitri!” I called out to him, but he didn’t wait.
He kept going without looking back.
Jesper cupped my face and kissed my forehead. “Are you okay?”
I inhaled his winter woods scent and nodded. “Yeah. I am now.”
“You need to talk to him,” he reminded me softly.
“I’ve been trying,” I told him. “I can’t get even a second alone with him.”
“The Fates know what they’re doing,” he whispered, pulling me against his chest. “The time will come, and he will understand.”
“I hope so.” I blinked back tears that threatened to spill and let my mate comfort me.