Page 12 of Under a Wicked Moon
Her body jerked as she fell to the floor, tremoring.
“Stop,” he shouted. “Please. Just stop.” He gathered her shaking body to him, frantic. The collar hit him with an astounding amount of electricity.
Chapter Five
Ky blinked into darkness, vision blurry. They’d detonated the collar and separated him from Vivi. Why, he had no clue. How long ago had that been?
His skull ached like someone had whacked him in the center of his forehead with a two-by-four. A slight roll to the left revealed him to be back in a cell, lying on a bench. His arms and legs were free, but the neck collar was still in place. The familiar wooziness meant they’d drugged him again.
He glanced down his body. It appeared thinner. How long ago since Vivi left? This weight loss hadn’t happened overnight.
Deep breath. Do it again. Long breath out.His soaring heart rate dropped. But the severe piercing pain mid-forehead didn’t let up.
No skylight. Meant he’d been moved. Maybe within the same facility or perhaps to a new one.
“Vivi?” he whispered.
No answer.
He pushed up to his elbows to squint into the shadows of the small room. No one else was in here. His body felt heavy as he fell back-first onto the hard bench.
He kind of liked her. Okay, he liked her a hell of a lot more thankind of.
Complex women like her were ano wayin his book. The last time he forayed into that territory and got attached to the point the L-word had been bandied about, she’d been executed bythose who’d cursed him. Gianna might’ve been a witch, but she’d only dabbled on the lighter side of magic. She hadn’t been a threat to anyone. After a few weeks, he’d been careless enough to draw the Crown’s attention to her via his handler, who blabbed to the monarch.
Turns out the monarch didn’t like them being “distracted.” The brothers didn’t deserve happiness, according to the royal, simply because of what they were. The Crown considered relationships unacceptable. They didn’t care about one-time hookups. It was repeats that got their attention.
Gianna’s brother had dragged her into a plot to harness dark energy to summon spirits back to life—a form of necromancy—out of desperation to see his daughter who had died too young. Ky held a high level of suspicion her brother had been compelled by someone associated with the Crown to rope her into helping.
They—the Crown’s Wolves—were ordered to assassinate the threats: Gianna and her brother, even though the two of them weren’t terrorists or much of a threat to anyone but themselves. Ky had fought the order. He’d argued her innocence. The curse had hurt him, almost killed him for disobeying. When he and his brothers were at the brink of death from the curse’s torture for Ky’s disobedience and their unwillingness to step in, their handler hired an assassin to finish the job. Ky hadn’t been able to protect her, something he’d regret to his dying breath. Her murder had been wrong, but it had been a warning.
Did this rumination on the past mean he considered Vivi relationship material? He didn’t even know her. But she was lycan…
Vivi could die in here just as easily as outside. Given she’d been stuck here for years made it a lot less likely the humans planned to get rid of her. He, however, might be expendable.
How long had he been in here? The drug left huge blank gaps in his mind. Now he understood how time could disappear. Whathad they done to her over the years?
Hell, what had they done to him?
How long he’d been out remained a hazy mush in his head. He pushed his brain to remember.Come on. Something. Anything.
Flash. Memory of the short German man laughing while Ky was locked onto a medical table. Flash. Intense pain in his side. Flash. Caged into the back of a transport vehicle. Memory of someone saying,“He’s resistant to mind control.”And then Ky laughing as he answered,“I’m cursed to serve only one master.”
What did all that mean? He pressed fingers into the corners of his forehead to alleviate the throbbing. As he tried to remember how someone attempted mind control on him—hypnosis, drugs, or magic—his right eye’s vision became blurry from escalating pain. With a gasp, he gave up and held his head, thankful nausea wasn’t a factor this time.
Take the memory recall slowly.
What had been done to his side? He lifted his scrub top and probed with his fingers. No scar. No pain. Whatever it had been, he’d already healed. The jumble of time in his head suggested a few days, maybe longer.
This was a new room. No skylights here. The cell had different construction, being concrete blocks rather than smooth walls. There was also a potent lemony chemical disinfectant odor that burned his nostrils, which were more sensitive than a human’s.
He buried his face in his hands and rolled to the side opposite the head pain. Manually massaging his temple helped.
A hissing andthunk.
Dinner arrived.
His limbs fought fatigue when he tried to rise to a seated position. How could he feel like total shit after a few days or weeks while she remained in shape after being here for years? He knew she had from that moment her tight body pressed against him. Maybe she recovered from the drug faster than hedid and did push-ups and squats in her cell? Maybe they fed her more than liquid green crap.
