Page 91 of Taken

Hargen slumps against the wall, fresh blood soaking through his bandages.

“Hargen!” I gasp as I realize what’s happened. He’s hit again—worse this time. The crimson stain spreads across his stomach, too fast, too much.

“No!” The cry rips from my throat as I rush to him, the Shard still burning in my palm.

“Go,” he gasps as I reach him, his face gray with pain and blood loss. “Get out while you can.”

“Not without you.” I try to lift him, but he’s deadweight, too heavy for my weakened body.

Talon appears at his other side, scales still rippling beneath his skin. With inhuman strength, he lifts Hargen as if he weighs nothing, glowing eyes meeting mine.

“Extraction point, two minutes out. Move!”

We race through wrecked corridors. Alarms shriek around us, the facility in full security lockdown. More guards will come. Maybe already have.

Talon carries Hargen effortlessly, his partially shifted form handling the weight that would have slowed us fatally. I can’t help stealing glances at him—at what he truly is beneath the human facade. At the power he’s kept hidden all this time.

“Don’t…” Hargen’s voice is fading, blood bubbling on his lips. “Don’t slow down for me.”

“Shut up,” I snap, tightening my grip on his arm as Talon carries him. “You’re coming with us.”

We burst through an emergency exit into cold mountain air. The shock of it steals my breath. The first fresh air I’ve breathed in so long. But there’s no time to savor it.

Faint silhouettes move in the tree line ahead: a tactical team in dark gear, weapons raised.

“Aurora advance!” Talon calls into the night, his voice deeper with the partial shift still evident in his gleaming eyes and scaled skin. “Package plus one, need immediate medical!”

“Evac route compromised,” a voice calls back as figures materialize from the shadows. “They’ve got patrols converging on all sides.”

“He needs help,” I gasp, indicating Hargen as we reach the team. “Now!”

A woman steps forward—short, red-haired, eyes clinically assessing Hargen’s wounds. Her gaze flicks to Talon, widening slightly at his partially shifted state before returning to business.

“Not part of the plan. We’re equipped for two, not three, and he’s—”

Critical.She doesn’t say it, but I hear it anyway. “Gutshot. Probably liver. He’ll bleed out before we can get him to help.”

“If he doesn’t come, neither do I.” I straighten to my full height, the Shard still clutched in my bloody hand. Its light bathes us all in crimson, a visible threat. “Your choice.”

The woman’s eyes narrow, lock with Talon’s.

“He comes,” Talon says, voice leaving no room for argument, the dragon in him still evident in both his appearance and the authority that resonates in his tone. “Stabilize him now. We’ll sort the rest at the safe house.”

Hargen tries to speak, but blood chokes his words. His eyes find mine, conveying what his voice cannot—gratitude, fear, something deeper.

“Don’t you dare die on me,” I whisper as they ease him onto a stretcher. “Not when we’re finally getting out.”

His fingers close weakly around mine, our bond pulsing between us—weaker now, strained by his fading life force, but still there. Still fighting.

Like me.

Like us.

Distant shouts echo through the trees as Syndicate search parties close in. The extraction team moves like a well-oiled machine, securing Hargen, forming a protective circle around us.

“Time to go,” Talon says, his hand warm at the small of my back. The scales are receding now, his eyes fading from amber to their human green, but I can’t forget what I’ve seen. What he truly is. And how it calls to something deep inside me. “Can you run?”

I look back at the concrete monstrosity that’s been my prison. Alarms still blare through shattered windows. Smoke rises from the wing where I unleashed the Shard’s power. Where I finally fought back.

---