by Emma Cole
***
I came to in a half-conscious state. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t wake up further or feel my alter. What I could feel was something in my arm and over my face.
“She’s as awake as I can get her with her abilities still dormant. It will have to do.” I didn’t recognize the voice, but in this place that didn’t mean much; I didn’t know too many people here.
“What about her bondmate? I want him to remember not to screw with me.” Cora. Of course she would be present, her and her disgusting fetishes.
“It’s what originally woke her up; we stopped until you got here. He’s healed enough now that we’ll have to start over.” The same voice came again.
“Perfect. Well, get started, I have a buyer for those future royals in her womb.” Wait, what?
I didn’t have long to wonder. It was hard to keep track as whatever they were giving me increased in dosage, and things got fuzzier. What was clear was that I was restrained and in stirrups. And something was probing into where Lorca had, deep inside. That was bad enough, but then the real pain came— and wasn’t mine.
Lorca’s screams came a split second before it felt like my insides were being ripped out. The agony came in wave after wave until he quieted. I feared he was dead except for the mate bond letting me feel his residual pain.
“I think I got them all. Four to be precise. They were indeed quite busy.” The voice came again as the probing stopped and my legs were let down. “Are you really dosing her again? Her mate won’t be able to help her this time.”
Cora’s reply came swiftly, full of malice. “That’s the point. The little bitch will burn up and die while her poor impotent mate watches.”
The fiery liquid hit my veins, and a moment later, another rush of liquid entered my arm, and that one lulled me back into full unconsciousness.
Chapter Fifteen
I groggily came to again to arguing males. “You know we can’t do a damned thing. We agreed to let it play out. I know it’s hard, brother, but it’s almost over.” Vaughn’s voice was welcome as was Bane’s— but what the heck were they talking about?
“Hey, she’s waking up. Arimina, open your eyes, doll. Come on now.” I tried for Bane. Poor guy sounded pretty freaked out. “There you go. Iliam, how’s Lorca’s junk doing?”
“Lorca’s junk? What have you guys been up to? What the hell happened?” My throat hurt, and my voice was raspy. From screaming. I’d been screaming with Lorca. All thoughts of what they'd been discussing when they thought I was still out fled as my eyes flew open, adrenaline giving me the boost I needed to wake up and remember. “Lorca!”
I started to jump from the bed only to realize he was next to me with a sheet tented over his lower half and his chest bare. I leaned over his pale, sweating face and placed my palms to his chest, pushing energy into him, willing him to heal.
"What's wrong with him? What did they do?" Tears clogged my throat, and I was afraid to look under the sheet.
Iliam answered, disgust lacing his voice. “They filleted his dick, that’s what they did.”
Horror-stricken at his revelation, I dared to peer under the sheet. “That fucking bitch. I’m going to kill her.” His penis was swollen and weeping blood, the edges trying to knit together. “I felt it,” I whispered, remembering. “The mate bond, it tried to pull energy for him, but they had me sedated, and all I could feel was his pain while they…” My own violation came back to me, and my hand went to my empty womb. I hadn’t been ready, but they’d been mine whether they’d implanted or not. Now they were for sale on the black market. “They took my eggs! They talked about them being fertilized, and that they already had a buyer set up. I couldn't do a damned thing to stop them, and then Cora gave me another dose of whatever drug she used before. I’m not going to survive it this time. I need to find Steve; he’ll know who helped. Little bastard, he probably took a job here.” I could at least get revenge and get my eggs back or destroy them. And maybe Lorca would survive the bond breaking.
The guys couldn’t tell me anything, but it was enough to confirm where I needed to start. “Can you guys keep everyone out of here? I don’t want to leave him unprotected.”
Vaughn answered, “That we can do. Technically, you’re in heat again, and we were given permission to guard the room. Loophole.” With a wan smile, Vaughn blew me a kiss. “We’ll protect him. Go do what you need to.”
***
It took me hours to track Steve down. Only to find him drowned in the fountain. Of, fucking, course. Someone was cleaning up their mess. Ghosting, I went straight back to the behavior modification center. I had to tune out the screams to navigate the sanitorium-type building with fucked up supes dubbed "Harvesters" torturing the poor souls that had managed to land themselves there. ‘Harvesting' being anything short of death, it was a clinical horror show inside. With what was happening and had just happened to me and Lorca, someone must be running a supply chain to the black market, and I was fairly certain I knew who the ringleader was. Under normal circumstances, the problem would be proving it with the corruption that ran rampant in the school's hierarchy— but I wasn't on a path to follow the proper channels; I was out for my pound of flesh and then some.
It was too bad for Cora and Dr. Wilson that they were too busy crowing over their souvenir, Lorca’s bone, to notice me. My claws extended as I materialized, and Dr. Wilson tried to run.
“You can’t be in here!” The voice, it was her. Somehow she’d changed it, and I eyed the charms around her neck— she must have used one of them to do it. Not trusting that she wouldn’t use another one offensively, I went incorporeal, only releasing my hand long enough to tear out her throat as she spun and fumbled with the charms. She was dead before she hit the floor, but Cora was gone.
I collected Lorca's body part from the witch's limp hand and jerked the chains off her neck in case one would resurrect her before I went to hunt what had been stolen from me. It took terrifying another of the medical staff, some chick that had been spraying down a bloodied room, to look at the logs and take me to where they were. Not trusting she wouldn't lock me in or run for help, I shredded her shirt to use as a gag and tied her to an office chair half-naked.
"Nice tits, hope you don't sneeze too hard and lose one to the deviant fucks you work for." I just shook my head when she tried to respond. "You condoned it. You condoned torture when you should have reported it. You could have at least tried." I paused to take a breath, getting a hold of my emotions. "You're not worth the time— and I mean that literally. Because of people like you, I have very little left."
My alter urged me to hurt the woman; lost in rage and artificially-induced hormones, she wanted to kill to protect. I reminded her we still had to find the eggs before they were moved elsewhere and that Cora would have alerted others of my presence. She relented, and I was able to stop fighting her and concentrate on my mission.
When I opened the cold storage, I found they'd taken more of my eggs and Lorca's sperm besides what was already fertilized. At least it was all neatly labeled, but to be sure, I took it all out and started smashing the vials and test tubes, leaving a multi-colored puddle on the floor. As for mine and Lorca's, I put it all in a microwave-looking thing and turned it on after throwing several pieces of printer paper in with it for good measure.
Once the tubes burst and the plastic melted, I scooped the whole mess into a trash can and ghosted with it. On the way to Cora's, I threw it in the lake, even as I doubted any of it was viable, knowing they probably wouldn't look for it in there anyway. I made a beeline for Cora's, but she wasn't home, and my heat was starting— I was already into the stomach cramping and cold sweats. Not to mention my energy was flagging after using my ability so much. Deciding I wanted to spend whatever time I had left with my mates, I raced back to the shifter house.
When I arrived, Lorca was in much the same condition, and I placed his bone on the foot of the bed, before going to shower. The guys had looked ill, but I was su
re one of them would handle its safekeeping. I didn't know if it was something that would grow back and left them to figure it out.
After showering, I packed my trunk, adding Lorca's belongings to it, and left it unlocked for him. It wouldn't be long before my destruction at the center was discovered, and I wanted to hold my mate while I could. Not in the mood to talk I flashed a wan half-smile at the guys slumped on the floor and just climbed into bed next to a still slumbering Lorca.
Chapter Sixteen
The guards came for me before the heat cycle got too bad. I'd known they would. They dragged me off to the Trials Field, better known as the Culling Field. They even roused Lorca to come witness it, though he was barely awake despite the epinephrine they’d pumped him with. They guys stood off to the side— invisible to everyone else as far as I was aware.
Who I hadn’t expected was the Commander of the Enforcers, one of the Therian Council members, and my uncle. “You’re all fucking traitors, I hope you know that. Retribution will come for you.”
I spat at them as I passed, earning a shove from the guard escorting me. If I ghosted out, they’d only kill Lorca, and I wasn’t sure I had the energy to get us both out of here.
The dean began his spiel once I was up on the block with my head in the noose. “For failure to reform and the murder of students and staff, you are sentenced to hang until your death…” I tuned the rest out, more interested in what was going on with my uncle. He was shushing someone behind him. Concentrating, I heard the soft, whiny voice.
“You promised me when we mated I’d have the heirs, but she’s destroyed them. Stop this before we can’t get any more.” Tildy. It seemed I had one last string to snip.
“Lorca!” I called, and my mate jolted awake. It took a few tries, silently mouthing the word, but he finally got what I wanted.
He smiled sadly at me before his voice rang out strong and true. “I invoke my right to the Order of the Wraith.” He was gone in a swirl of magic.
The crowd became uneasy and parted, showing me something unexpected but too late to matter. I gave him my own sad smile— and then I ghosted.
***
Blake
I’d followed my father, the Enforcer Commander, on a hunch. Things hadn’t been adding up for years. When the assessments had been done at the Enforcer academy, I’d been sure I’d be placed with a group, but he'd said there wasn't a group for me. I’d believed him...up until my eyes met those of my mate— with a hangman’s noose around her neck. All the solo missions ran through my head and the fact that one of the Enforcers' best Quads had never been around for me to meet.
Even though I'd never met them, I recognized the man she'd urged to Invoke from the memorial pictures, he was part of the same Quad that had supposedly perished on a mission. If the white-haired woman with the purple eyes was his mate and mine— then that group should have been a Quint.
I advanced on the group standing around my father, intent on making him own up to, and pay for his lies, but what happened next turned my need for retribution, murderous. The crowd around the field jostled as the woman disappeared, leaving an empty noose dangling in the wind. They turned this way and that, looking for her, and that’s when my father spotted me. My glare stopped him from moving toward me as our matching pale green eyes met and fear registered on his face. He looked like a slightly older version of me other than his hair being a darker shade of blond.
And then a mousy-looking girl screamed, drawing everyone's attention. Her body stiffened and then seemed to bulge in places before she exploded into a shower of blood and bone, pelting those nearest her. Some of the onlookers screamed and ran, shaking off the grisly mess, while others stared slack-jawed at the form left behind. My mate, covered in gore as if she'd been dipped in a vat of blood, stood directly in front of the Regent who wallowed on the ground in agony.
“Well, Uncle, now you know how fun it is to lose your mate. I warned you.” She flipped off the council member as she Invoked. “I invoke my right to the Order of the Wraith.” And just like that I found, and lost, my mate in moments.
Determined to seek my own retribution, I unsheathed my sword from my waist, putting the Regent out of his misery. After cleanly taking off the council member’s and my father’s heads, I, too, Invoked. My mate wasn't getting away that easily. I'd chase her well into the afterlife to make her mine.
THE END
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The next book will take place in the Order of the Wraith Series!
About the Author
Emma Cole is an indie author that writes across the genre board. Nothing is off limits, so that means mature audiences only. From light and fluffy to down and dirty—if it strikes her fancy and has a story to tell she’s on it.
Want to stalk the author? You can catch her on most platforms here: Stalk Emma
Other Works by Emma Cole
Remington Carter Series
Echoes and Entanglements
Requiem
Clarity
(coming July 2020)
The Dark Duet
Lark
Nightingale
Death Dealers- Serial
Episode One
Episode Two
Episode Three
(coming soon)
Wicked Reform School Series
Untamed: House of Berserkers
Narcotize: House of Mermaids
Avarice: House of Mustelid
Reborn: House of Phoenix
Bloodlust: House of Vampires
Revenge: House of Nephilim
Rebel: House of Fae
Purr-fect Portrait: A Pet Play Short Story
The Order: Hit and Run- A Dark Paranormal Bully Romance
(coming June 4th 2020)