Page 49 of Shattered Fears

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

A bright light shone in his eyes, and Zain tried desperately to move his head away from the unwanted intrusion. His stomach hurt where the doctor had cut away a chunk of his flesh.

“His eyes are perfectly human when in this form. There’s no sign of animal traits at all. Bears have a reflective layer lining the back of the eyeball, but I can’t see it. I wonder what he sees? Bear vision is similar to humans’, but their night vision is better. I’ll have to look at it when we move onto the testing in animal form.” The voice speaking was the doctor, Bridgette. He wanted to lash out, but a flick of his wrists told him he was still held in place. “He’s waking.” A chair scraped back, and he opened his eyes.

“Well, that’s interesting to know. Your body heals faster than a human. That would be groundbreaking if we could figure out how it does it and use it in the human medical field. Kingsley has barely stopped bleeding. Your side is scabbed over, and you're awake already.” Isobel’s father hovered over him looking down. He had a smug grin on his face that Zain couldn’t wait to wipe off.

“I didn’t have some sadist cut off one of my fingers.”

“Not yet, at least.” The senator shrugged off the assault on his character with a nonchalance, which had Zain chomping at the bit to bite down onto the man’s fingers and remove them to see how he liked it.

Isobel’s father turned his back to him and carried on talking with the doctor. Zain looked over at Kingsley. He was almost as white as the sheet that was now covering his body up to his chest. His mutilated hand was bandaged, but a patch of red soaked through the gauze where the injury still bled. It probably needed stitches. He needed to get Kingsley out of here before he bled to death. Losing her brother would devastate Isobel. He knew how close they were and doubted she’d ever be able to recover from it, especially knowing it was her father who caused it.

Zain shut his eyes and allowed the tension in his body to float away. He needed to clear his mind if he had any hope of reaching Jessica. He thought he’d felt her surround him during his phase of unconsciousness, but given she hadn’t come when he’d called before, he wasn’t sure.

“Jessica,” he said under his breath. “Please, I need you to hear me. Kingsley is badly hurt. We have to get him out of here. Please.”

He felt a shiver go over his body. The hairs on his arms stood up. He opened his eyes and looked around. Nothing.

“Jessica?” he whispered again.

He felt his big toe being pulled. There was nobody there, though, when he looked down.

“I’m guessing you’re here but can’t speak to me. You need to get Kas. We have to get Kingsley out of here.”

His toe moved again, twice backward and forward. It was surreal to see his body moving of its own accord. Next, a sense of awareness hit his leg and stroked up it and across his body to his arm where the cuff held him down.

“I can’t break them,” his inner monologue stated.

The touch vanished. He waited for a sign elsewhere, but nothing came. Had he imagined it all?

“Do you have to change all of your body, or is it just one part at a time?” Bridgette asked. He looked at her but kept his mouth shut.

“I thought we weren’t going to have this trouble anymore. Jett, get in here.” The senator called, and the giant of a man appeared with his little guillotine. “Take a toe this time. The big one. That should hurt enough to give this animal a guilty conscience.

Zain growled.

“I think your hopes of winning father of the year have gone completely down the toilet, now.” He stated with a roll of his eyes.

“As long as Isobel still sees me as the loving father I am, then I think we’ll be alright, don’t you?”

“It’ll be over my dead body you’ll ever get near her again.” Zain allowed his sharp canine teeth to sprout in his mouth. A warning sign, which he should probably keep hidden, but was overruled by the idea of this man ever going near the woman he loved again.

“He can do a part at a time!” Bridgette exclaimed with excitement and hurriedly wrote in her notes. “Change your leg into a bear’s,” she demanded.

“Fuck you,” he replied.

“I hope you’re not propositioning other people, Zain Thornton, because the second I get you out of here that’s exactly what I plan to do with you.” Isobel’s voice filled the room. He looked from the doctor to where Isobel, Emma, Teagan, Kas, and Jessica were now standing. Jett grabbed a weapon and held it up ready to fire, but compared to Emma’s, his reflexes were too slow. She pounced on him and disarmed him with relative ease. Jett turned violent at this point and attacked Emma, but despite having had two children only a few months ago, the lioness had him on the floor and incapable of moving in a matter of seconds. Teagan went to the door and locked it from the inside.

“Just in case you decide to call for any more guards. Mind you, the rest of our pack will have them in exactly the same position as this one is in about… probably…” She looked at her watch. “Now.”

“Isobel, are you hurt?” the senator called out, any malevolence in his voice faded as he acted out the role of concerned father. “If these savages have injured you in any way, we’ll make them suffer.”

“They aren’t savages," Isobel spat out and came closer to him. “Father please, what you’re doing is wrong? Zain is the boy you knew from my childhood. He’s not changed in any way just because he came into his bear skin. Kingsley is still your son. Please stop this?” Zain watched as Isobel’s eyes flicked over to her brother and instantly landed on the bloodied bandage. “What did you do?”

The senator stepped forward, took Isobel’s hand, and stroked it.

“What I needed to do to ensure these animals will be eliminated.”

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