Page 94 of Radiant Shadows

“Once inside, we’ll seal this harpy in. Your job is to command the water to drain through the tiny holes in the lid.”

“And if I fail?” I asked, unable to take my eyes off Leya as the guards managed to shove her inside.

The general’s eyes narrowed. “Let’s hope you don’t.”

Leya sent me a pleading look before one of the soldiers pushed her head below the surface so the other could slide the lid across. She obviously wasn’t much of a fighter—none of the harpies were, preferring to stick more to their healing abilities.

I couldn’t believe the general was willing to go to such an extreme. And yet, yes, I did. He was a cruel, heartless bastard who would sacrifice anything and everything to get the power he sought.

Anger simmered through my bloodstream, and I closed my hands into fists.

He smirked at my reaction. “Good. Use that. Time is ticking.”

I glared at the water, practically screaming at it mentally. The water paid little heed to me, bubbling out of the holes of the lid in spurts and glugs. Leya’s eyes bulged as she struggled to hold her breath, bubbles escaping from her nostrils faster than I could make the water move.

Leya grabbed for her throat as her mouth fell open, then clawed at the top of the tank in desperation for air. But it was no use. The girl wasn’t getting out, and I wasn’t emptying the water fast enough.

I couldn’t take the stress any longer. In a burst of furr and shredded clothing, my ursa ripped through me, creating muscles where there were none, turning every appendage into a deadly weapon—tooth, nail, and claw. The breaking and fusing and lengthening of my bones was an agony that only satisfied the rabid beast within me and that took only seconds to complete.

I barely registered the shouts around me, hardly recognized the panic in Leya’s eyes as I charged toward the tank. With a mighty slash of my massive paw, the tempered glass shattered, water crashing onto the floor in an angry torrent.

Leya spilled out, the wave that carried her gripping under the legs of one of the soldiers and tripping him onto his ass. A deep chuckle echoed up my ursine throat as I watched him flapping against the water like a beached tuna.

A gagging cough pulled my attention back to Leya. Judging by the red that tinted the water around her, she had been sliced by broken glass as she fell free. But at least she was alive.

I turned my snarling maw on the source of my ire. General Dracul’s smug face now wore an expression of wide-eyed terror. My lips curled into a beastly smile over my enlarged fangs as I charged toward him.

A sudden sting in my side immediately threw off my coordination, and I tripped over my bulky feet, sliding right past the dragon shifter.

General Dracul was no longer human either, wearing black scales that made him seem more shadow than dragon. His toothy dragon grin was every bit as arrogant as his human one—maybe more so.

“You’ll regret that, little cub,” his dragon voice boomed. “Iwillturn you into the siren of prophecy.”

I snarled once more before the tingle spreading from the tranquilizer in my back stole the rest of my will, dragging me to the edge of blackness without taking me fully under. The sim room shifted again, and Leya and the tank of water pixelated out of existence.

My foggy vision roamed the room in horrified realization. The general had programmed that whole scenario? I had thought it was all real, but it had only been another simulation. Another head game by my sadistic master.

“That’s right,” he said as he returned to human form and stalked toward me. “I’m not the monster you think I am.”

“You’re…worse,” I slurred in a grizzly grumble. “No wonder…your son…hates you.”

His eyes darkened, the smile wiped from his face. “You know nothing of hate.”

I vaguely felt my body shift back to human form, the transformation much slower this time, but thankfully, the sedating effect of the tranquilizer made me numb to the popping of my bones. Hands grabbed my arms and legs and carried me to the wall, then propped me up like some toy.

No, like a weapon. Caesar was right. That’s all I am to these people.

***

An unearthly scream sliced through the twilight oblivion that had held me for who knew how long. I struggled against the grog that still clung to the edges of my mind, trying to figure out what was going on.

A second scream pierced the air, sending chills down my spine. For a moment, I almost thought the scream was mine, the pain it carried felt so much like my own.

When I was finally able to pry my eyelids open, what I saw turned my blood cold. The pale woman tied to a chair in front of me twisted and wriggled against the orange-tinted wires binding her wrists and ankles.

I made to move, but my limbs were securely anchored to my own chair. I growled as I began thrashing. The chair rocked, but the chains binding me bit into my skin, sending a searing pain through my wrists. I gasped and tried to pull away, but there was nowhere to go. Every movement only dug the metal deeper into my flesh.

“Ah, you’re up,” General Dracul said as he approached the right side of the woman, his hands clasped behind his back. “I’m sorry for the extreme measures, but we can’t have you hurting your own people, now can we?”

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