Page 22 of Hunted By the Wraiths
“I know.” He shifted on the cot, settling into something that might be comfort if comfort existed in this place. “Still like them.”
I set an alarm on my datapad. Four hours.
I lay down on my cot. The metal frame pressed into my back. The emergency light flickered overhead. Drip. Drip. Drip.
Thoryn’s breathing evened out. Not sleep. Just rest. His scales had stopped flickering quite so badly. The gray was solid now. Locked in.
But I’d seen the emerald. Seen it flash and hold under my touch.
The Consortium had tried to break him. They’d failed.
His bond was still there. Still fighting. Still reaching for me even though every attempt caused him agony.
Still worth it.
I closed my eyes. Counted the drips. Counted the seconds. Counted the ways this could go wrong.
Four hours.
Then we’d see if spite was enough to survive whatever came after my empire.
THORYN
Iwoke to the sound of dripping water and the realization that I’d actually slept.
Impressive. My body had apparently decided that blood loss and infection warranted unconsciousness, bond pain or not. The scientists would be disappointed. They’d spent years trying to condition that response out of me.
Turns out spite only works when you’re awake.
The safe house looked exactly the same. Raw rock walls. Flickering emergency light. Two metal cots. Maris on one, me on the other.
The wounds throbbed. My shoulder burned. My side felt like someone had filed the edges of the vibro-blade cut with sandpaper and poured acid in for good measure.
But the bond pain was manageable. Ten was manageable. I’d lived at ten for months at a time.
I could handle ten.
Maris sat up. She’d been awake. Watching me.
“How long?” I asked.
“Two hours.”
So I’d slept through half our safe window. Great. My body’s timing was impeccable.
She stood. Crossed to my cot.
The pain climbed to eleven.
“You need to eat,” she said.
She held out another ration bar. The last one from her pack.
I took it. Our fingers brushed. The scales on my hand flashed emerald for a fraction of a second before the gray slammed back.
Twelve.
I ate the ration bar. It tasted like compressed cardboard and chemicals. I’d had worse. Much worse. The Consortium’s idea of adequate nutrition had been “whatever keeps the subject functional enough to continue experiments.”
