Page 32 of Burn for the Dragon
“Everything okay at her place?” Kohl asked.
Hawke lifted one shoulder. “Far as I can tell.” He made his way around the desk to stand over Devon’s other shoulder. “How are things going here?”
Devon’s fingers flew over the keyboard. “I’ve managed to hack into the camera system where her brother is being held and I’ve been watching all afternoon.”
“What about the sound? Can you hear what they’re saying?”
She shook her head. “Not yet. I’m working on it now.” She glanced over her shoulder at Hawke. “But I don’t know that we really need it to see what’s going on there.”
“What do you mean?”
Kohl answered for her. “We think they’re experimenting on him.”
“Every couple of hours they do something that affects his muscles or his nerves. He becomes completely immobile while the lab techs go in there and either shoot him up with something or take his vitals. Then they leave, and about an hour later, whatever they did to immobilize him wears off. Once that happens and they’re safely out of the cell, they use different methods to rile him up then—hurt him in different ways—until he starts to shift into his dragon form.” She hit a key and turned her chair a little to face him. “I think they’re trying to find a way to overpower his shifter side, so he can’t shift.”
A red-hot poker went through this stomach. “Have they succeeded?”
“Not yet.” Kohl met his eyes.
Hawke held his stare. They both knew what this meant. Earlier, Devon had told him she’d discovered via some intercepted emails that Parasupe was starting to catch shit from the people who funded them for the brutal way they’ve been “handling” the supernatural community. Namely, taking them out. Normally, they wouldn’t have a problem with it, however, humans have been getting caught in the crossfire lately, so they now needed a better way to control them. And they were starting with who they considered the most dangerous—dragon shifters.
Which put the two people he cared about most in this world smack in the middle of their radar.
“What about him?” Hawke pointed at the screen, where Everly’s brother was pacing back and forth in all his naked glory, scratching at his face with dirty nails until rivulets of blood dripped to the floor. “Can he be saved?”
Kohl and Devon shared a look, and then Kohl paced away, rubbing the back of his neck. “I don’t think so. I don’t know what they’re doing to him, but I’ve been watching with Dev for a couple of hours now. I don’t think he’s…sane anymore. If he ever was.”
“According to Everly he was. She said she’d just found him a few months ago, and they’d been talking.” He crossed his arms over his chest and chewed the inside of his cheek as he contemplated the computer monitor with the camera feed on it. “At least, she didn’t say anything about him having any sort of mental illness.”
“I think we need to ask her,” Devon said. “Why don’t you bring her up?”
Hawke exchanged glances with Kohl. “Do you think it’s safe? I don’t want to upset her. There are people here,” he added when Kohl raised an eyebrow at him.
Kohl rubbed the back of his neck, looking off in the distance as though he expected to find the answer in the dusty corner. Finally, he sighed. “I don’t know.”
Devon looked back and forth between the two of them. “Are you kidding me, you guys?” She shoved her chair back and stood up. “What the hell are you going to do? Keep her locked away underground until you decide otherwise? She’s not a prisoner here.”
Hawke met her eyes and quickly looked away.
She turned to Kohl. “Is she?”
He stared at her for long moments. Hawke waited for what he would say. Kohl was the coven master, after all. If he told him he thought it was safe to let her roam free, then that’s what would happen.
Even if Hawke thought it was a really bad fucking idea for reasons he didn’t care to explore right now.
Kohl turned to Hawke with obvious reluctance. “Go get Everly and bring her up here.”
Hawke gave him a nod and went to pick up her things to take them down to her. He had one hand on the doorknob when Kohl stopped him.
“And Hawke?”
He glanced back at his friend and leader.
“Keep your fucking hands off her. I’m trusting you. Everly is not yours.”
The vampire inside of him hissed a warning, but Hawke managed to keep his voice level as he said, “Threatening me is not fucking necessary.” Nor would they deter him, as he’d proven just a couple of hours ago.
“Guys.” Devon put her hands up, as if to ward off the sudden tension in the room.
