Page 19 of The Lycans: Vol Four

“We have a surprise for you, one I think you’ll like.” He cocked his head to the side. “Well, maybe ‘like’ isn’t the best word for what we have planned.”

D stepped forward and unlocked the cell, and I tried to move back, but my vision had gone wavy, my body heavy.

And then he was on me, dragging me out as if I were a dirty rag in his hold.

8

Odhran

It was the assault of scents that roused me, but still I couldn’t wade through my thoughts, couldn’t grasp my full consciousness.

The fuckers had drugged me again.

My body ached, my limbs feeling as if they weighed too much, were far too heavy for me to move them. My wolf was trying to shake off the discombobulation, but my strength was returning little by little. Yet I wouldn’t fight the ones who held me. I wanted this. I’d needed to get out of my cell so I had the best chance of finding her and killing them.

I felt my body lurch forward as we entered a room. My arms were jerked upward, cold and hard metal wrapping around them. My legs were kicked apart, the same bonds going around my ankles. I felt cool air brush along my battered body, and as much as I tried to open my eyes, they felt sealed shut from whatever drugs they’d been pumping into me.

I could hear the growls coming from me, my wolf trying in vain to gain control. But I was far too weakened in my state to do much more than make hoarse noises. I heard the humans laughing, their voices muffled, garbled. Then I felt pain when someone slammed their fist into my side, next to the center of my chest, finally ending when they punched me in my jaw. My head kicked back, colliding with the stone.

“He’ll be fully awake soon. Let’s get everything situated. They’re all waiting.”

With each passing second, I was coming back online. I lifted my head and shook it to clear my mind and spit out a mouthful of blood, finally peeling my eyes open and taking note of the scene before me.

I was in some kind of room barren of most things except an examination-style table in the center and a metal rolling tray off to the side. The flooring was white tiled with a massive drain in the center.

The room smelled of antiseptic and something else.

Pain. Death.

There was an entire wall made of glass directly across from me, but it was too dark to see what was on the other side. I knew I was being watched, not just because I noticed a security camera mounted in the corner at the top of the ceiling, but because I felt eyes on me that were coming from the other side of that glass partition.

And as I grew stronger with each passing moment, I tested my bonds. But there was little give, the metal digging into the skin of my wrists and ankles, tearing the flesh. These too were mystically enforced in order to keep a Lycan bound.

I bared my teeth and snarled as I pulled as hard as I could, trying to rip the chains out of the walls.

I felt this tightening of my skin, the hairs on my arms standing on end. Something big was coming, happening, the precipice of an epiphany. I strained even more until I froze at the sight of the lights flaring just behind the glass wall. I heard a feral sound leave me at the sight of all the sets of eyes locked on me.

There were sixteen chairs broken up into rows of four, each one slightly more elevated than the row before. They were humans, that much I could tell, and I snarled.

Aged males wearing pressed suits. Women doused in jewelry. Some had wide eyes, others showing excited expressions. And then there were the ones who grinned in malicious eagerness.

Some of the viewers leaned forward in their chairs, their grins widening, and I realized why when I heard the heavy sound of multiple feet coming my way. Thump-thump, thump-thump, their steps were sure and heavy.

The door was pushed open, and I was already snarling as one, then two big fucking males walked in. The first, I recognized instantly. Tore. I snarled at him even more.

I pulled at my cuffs again and growled, letting my wolf rise, allowing them to see how feral I was, how I had nothing else to lose in going after them.

Everything that I was, that meant the most to me, had been taken away, ripped from my heart and soul. And it was all because of them.

The next male who stepped through, I also recognized. I’d heard him called “D.” He grinned as his gaze latched on to me, but it was what he held that had my entire body freezing.

For the first time in far too fucking long, the meaning of my life was in front of me once more.

And then that happiness, that elation, vanished as I took in the state of her. Her slight body was limp, the scent of drugs surrounding her nauseating in the air. Her long black hair was tangled and knotted and hung around her face, so I couldn’t see her features well. But I didn’t have to see her face to know she was mine.

Larkin.

I growled with more aggression as she was laid out on the stainless steel table, as they strapped her legs and arms down, and then finally they pushed her hair out of her face.

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