More Than Life (Arcane Crossbreeds) (10 page)

“What are you doing out here?”

Katya turned drunkenly around. Four men in black BDUs were coming quickly down the hall, carrying rifles. One lifted his rifle, and she shimmered farther down the hall, the tranq sailing harmlessly past her shoulder. The dizziness and weakness were getting worse, not better. Nausea churned in her belly.

“How did you get loose, little piggy?”

That voice whipped against her, and she spun around, the fear crawling over her skin. It was the one called Lobo. He was the worst. The cruelest of all the guards here. Even the sound of his voice chilled her flesh. He called them all pigs for the slaughter. She hated him almost as much she did that freak Rupple.

Guards were advancing on both sides, and she could barely stay on her feet. She couldn’t go back. She wouldn’t. The thought of facing Raife again sliced cleanly through her, and the pain that welled up in its wake was far worse than anything she’d experienced thus far. No. She had to get out of here.
Now
.

Shouldering off the wall, she swayed on her feet as they advanced. Heat boiled up in her throat, and she parted her lips and let it pour from her mouth in a soundless scream. The two closest guards burst into flames with a strangled roar, falling to the ground. Spasming. The smell of burning flesh had the nausea churning into her throat. Fuck, her head was beginning to pound. Two more fired off tranqs from the opposite direction, and she barely managed to avoid them by shimmering to the other side of the hall. The cement began to blur and spin around her, high-pitched ringing filling her ears.

Katya shook her head to clear it, and Lobo filled her vision. He had a finger pressed to his ear and his lips were moving, but she couldn’t make out the words. But the cruelty in that smile was unmistakable.

“We’ve been given permission to use live rounds. Extremity shots only, boys. The doc wants something left to test on.”

Cold fear formed around the growing nausea as the six other guards still standing pulled the dull black weapons they kept holstered at their hips. There was a pop and then another. A burn slashed across her outer thigh as she shimmered behind the group in front of her. The group led by Lobo would have to shoot through their comrades to get to her. It gave her a moment of respite but left her disoriented.

A sickening
thud
echoed in her ears, and she staggered back with a cry as the bullet blazed through her shoulder. Fury curled over her, eating away at what was left of her composure, the heat of it mixing with the excruciating burn of where she’d been shot. Her chest tingled, the icy sensation working its way down her arm and into her palm. With a scream, she swung her arm out in front of her, and the guards flew back, lifted off their feet.

A red haze ringed her vision. Little tongues of flame licked up her legs, encasing her in an inferno that blanketed her, separating her from the sounds around her. She tried to shimmer farther away, but agony speared through her – grounded her. Silver bullets? Son of a bitch.

She stumbled back, gathering strength to roar at them again, the heat of the sound burning up her throat. Lobo advanced, weapon up, when the sound waves roiled over him. He cursed and leaned down to vomit on the floor. The bastard didn’t even have the decency to go down.

“You’re gonna pay for that, bitch,” he snarled and dragged his sleeve across his lips.

As though that was news. She wasn’t a fool; there was no way she could take him head-on. She could feel her strength draining, each step a lesson in endurance, but she pushed herself, funneling what was left into escaping. Another bullet whizzed by and cut a burning path over her calf. She cried out, and her bare feet slid in her blood. She slammed into the wall but righted herself, afraid to look behind her, and continued to run.

Her heart was a heavy but slow beat in her chest, every pulse a drain on her diminishing reserve of strength. She couldn’t focus her eyes enough to see where she was going. Was there a turn at the end of this hall? She tried to remember, tried to focus on the map she’d drawn in her mind. She could barely hear the shouts of the men behind her. The popping of their guns was dulled, as though she were under water. Bullets streaked around her, brushing past her arms and legs with little scorching kisses. She couldn’t even isolate one specific area. Everything burned; every inch of her flesh was on fire. She would make them kill her, or she would escape. There were no other options. She was never returning. No more humiliation. No more torturous experiments. No more helplessness.

A bitter sense of freedom filled her. No more of this place. No matter what.

Her vision blurred, and her feet slipped over the floor as she slowed to make a sharp turn in the hall. She put up her good arm to brace herself against the wall. It met solid warm flesh.

With a drunken wrench of her head, she looked up to see the rest of the man manifest from the solid wall, a menacing tower of a man. So dark…dark eyes, dark hair, dark skin. Her knees gave out, and she blinked her eyes to clear them. He easily tucked her against his side with one arm and raised his free hand, palm out. Had she just seen him walk through a wall?

His voice was whisper soft. “It’s okay,
achoti
. I’ve got you. You’re safe.”

His gaze was intense, focused ahead of him, and she reflexively followed his gaze, fearful of what she would see. The guards were frozen in place, several bullets suspended in air before her.
Holy shit!

Growls vibrated through the thick air, emanating from the stiff figures of the guards. Their eyes had gone totally black. Serrated teeth peeked out just beneath their lips, and long claws slid from their fingers with a sickening hiss. Guardians. She’d suspected it. They’d always been so strong—too strong for humans—and she’d never been able to get a read on their emotions or thoughts.

They turned their heads slowly, shoulders shifting, and their glittering black eyes fixed on her. The man holding her trembled. He was holding them back. An Elemental? She stiffened in his arms.

“I’m going to let you go, achoti. I need you to stay put. Can you do that?”

Katya stared up at him. She couldn’t trust anyone. Even someone with the most soothing voice she’d ever heard who could walk through walls.

“Ah, you do not trust me. Fair enough. Then read me, achoti. Quickly.”

With a start, Katya felt his mind open before her. She tentatively reached out. There was darkness rippling at the edges. Sorrow. So much it nearly pulled her beneath the weight of it. Her chest clenched. There was hovering darkness in him that mirrored his looks. She pulled back. She didn’t want to venture further. His pain rivaled hers, but she saw no purpose in him besides to protect her.

She wasn’t going to escape this alive. Despite her determination that she would die before she was captured again, she truly wanted to live. It was funny how she had to face the ugly countenance of death to understand the depth of her will to live.

Katya swallowed hard against the burning in her throat and nodded. “Thank you.”

He gently lowered her to the floor, his stare never straying from the Guardians struggling to be free from whatever he was doing to hold them. He slid a large messenger bag from his shoulder and lowered it to her lap.

“It is a gift to my friend. I do not want to leave it behind.”

Clutching the heavy bag with her good arm, she scrambled awkwardly across the floor until her back met the wall. Her entire body throbbed, each beat of her heart draining her. Blackness hovered at the edges of her mind, and she fought it viciously. She needed to stay conscious. She’d lost so much blood; hunger shredded at her until she felt just as raw on the inside as she did on the outside. Dropping her head back, she rolled her eyes up and tried to focus on the coming fight. The energy of it built in the hall, bombarding her as her shields weakened along with her body.

He pushed his hand forward, and the guards were propelled back. They rolled agilely and jumped to their feet, inhuman growls rolling ominously from their chests. They’d grown noticeably larger. God, Guardians were terrifying beings. Not exactly her favorite species.

How was this single man going to protect her against all of them? She glanced up at his back and noticed it was now pushing the bounds of his black shirt. Muscles roped his dusky arms, veins writhed beneath his skin, and long claws slid from his fingers. A crossbreed.

A roar rumbled through the complex, crashing over her body, and she gasped as it rippled beneath her flesh, intensifying the agonizing throbbing. Something inside her wanted to answer it, to call back, but she was too weak to do more than feel the heavy beat of her heart beneath her breast.

The man turned his head, and those inky black eyes lowered to hers. A smile split his full lips, revealing rows of razor-sharp teeth.

“Sounds like your boyfriend is coming.”

Chapter Seven

“That bastard is resourceful. I’ll give him that. He’s pulled the server blades. The fucker’s security system is down.”
Tag’s voice echoed through Raife’s mind.
“He’s en route to assist your mate. It’s a damn cluster fuck out there. You might want to shake it off and get moving.”
Tag’s words were flippant, but the tone that resonated through their mental pathway was anything but.

The frigid air had stopped blowing through the vents a while ago, and the temperature in the room was increasing. The lethargy wasn’t pressing down so hard on him. Blood was pumping faster through his veins, fueled by the fury of his dragon. Their mate was in trouble. He could feel it even if he couldn’t reach out to her to confirm it. She’d shut him out.

“Tell me what the fuck is going on? Is she hurt?”

“Not sure, bro. With their security system down, I managed to hack into their com frequency. I hear what they do. There was an altercation, and she disappeared. She’s been spotted in a west wing of the compound. I just sent that intel to Gideon.”

He mentally reached for her, slowing his breathing, trying to control the near-desperate need to feel her in even the smallest way. Was that the bonding? “
Katya.”

An abyss of silence met his call. Ice formed in his gut. Fiery urgency bled through his veins, and he tried to slide his feet off the bed. His limbs weighed a ton.

“Get your ass up.”
Anger and concern washed over him from the other Drachon.

Raife’s heart thudded hard against his ribs and his mating mark. He swung his body over the edge of the bed and landed in a heap of bedding on the floor. Lowering his face into the stiff cotton, he inhaled. Her scent filled him, infusing him with her essence.
“Tell me.”

“
Your little mate took down two of the bastards. Set their asses on fire.”
There was respect in his voice as he continued to relate the trouble Katya was in.

“No
.
”
Fire seared through him; his dragon expanded until his humanity was little more than a fragile vestige in his mind. The dragon sought his mate. Absorbed her pain, her terror. Her barriers against him were crumbling, and he surged hard against them to connect with her. She was weak. Bleeding.

He climbed to his knees, his entire body prickling as it came awake after years of hibernation. Strength poured into him. It burned like acid moving through his veins, roiling through him, filling his throat and flooding his skull until he felt like he was going to ignite.

His hands fisted in the bedding as he became so acutely aware of her every emotion – they ripped into him with the force of bullets, rocking his body.

Hunted. Bleeding. Betrayed.

Dying.

His life was in her. His future.
Their
future, fragile and new, nestled deep in her body. Depended on them…on him. She depended on him, whether she accepted it or not, and he was not letting her down again. Throwing back his head, he roared his fury.

Raife growled low in his throat as he turned and streaked to the gleaming metal doors. Blood pumped hard through his body. His mind reached out and wrapped around hers, pulling her into him despite her weak resistance, absorbing her fear. It stoked the fire of his fury.

“I’m coming to you, baby.”

His mate had been abused by these Frankenstein fucks for the last time. Now he was going to show them what happened to assholes who screwed with a Drachon mate.

Raife slammed into the doors with a shoulder, buckling the steel like it was no more than tin. Wrapping two hands around the crumpled edges, he ripped them back. He startled the two guards who kept watch outside his room, enough that he could grab one by his neck to throw him into the adjacent wall. The man hit it with hands and feet, flipping into a crouch next to his partner before slowly gaining his feet with a smile.

Guardians.

Power coursed through his veins, flowing into muscle fibers long left dormant. He slammed his shoulder into the bootlicker on the left with a burst of speed, feeling the satisfying crunch and wheeze of broken ribs and punctured lungs before backing away. The injured Guardian gasped frantically for air as he slid to the floor, and Raife turned to face the other one. He needed to get rid of them quick and get moving. The assholes could heal too damn fast.

Fury and reckless aggression undulated from the other Guardian, and Raife wouldn’t have needed to be telepathic to guess the dumb-ass’s next move. Damn rogue Guardians had no control when they existed outside a clan. No rational thought – just mindless slaughter. When the other man charged him, Raife shifted on the balls of his feet and went into a crouch, using the other man’s momentum to send him flying over his head. The Guardian rolled and came agilely back to his feet, lunging at him again.

“Stay the fuck down,” Raife muttered through a growl as he redirected the razor claws coming at his throat with a twist of his own body, snapping the Guardian’s arm at the elbow. Reaching back, he locked the man’s head under his arm, crushing his neck before he flipped him over his shoulder to land next to his unconscious buddy.