Page 69 of Bound

Felia whirls around and shoves a hypo-syringe into my chest, emptying the contents into me. I go to brush her away as my vision fills with delightful colors.

“Arm or leg?” I growl, grabbing hold of her before she gets away.

“You won’t be able to do anything soon, Gryn. This was one of your favorite narcotics.”

“Arm or leg?” I repeat, towing her with me as I stumble back from Chrissie and the specimen table.

I know the Drahon,thisDrahon, had me before I was in the facility. I know she took me from somewhere. But other than that, the pain in my head, dulled by what she’s injected into me—there is nothing.

I recall what Sylas told us all, not to go poking about for memories, and right now, they mean nothing. Chrissie is everything.

“Arm or leg?” I snap.

“You wouldn’t,” she retorts. “You want me to save your mate. You need me.”

“But you don’t need all your limbs, so pick one.” My head spins.

“Gak you, Gryn. The gakking narcotic usually has you on the floor by now.”

“You sent me to the dome. I got stronger. I got better,” I snarl. “I got wiser. So, pick, Drahon. Most creatures I face in the dome don’t get a choice. You don’t deserve one either, but I want you to save my mate.”

Her movements are blurry, but I see her hand dart under a console. I fire, but the bolt goes wild and instead, pain sears through my leg, causing me to fall back, all the breath expelling from my body as I hit the floor.

Felia stands over me, looking down with an expression of disgust.

“I never understood why my mother put such time and effort into Gryn. Not only are you all the same, you’re all uncontrollable, feral things which should be put down at?—”

Her words are cut off as a thin wire wraps itself around her body multiple times, right up to her neck, and she’s jerked upwards, away from me, with a strangled cry of pain.

I stare upwards, wondering what’s going on until my heart pounds, and I know I have to get to my mate. As I struggle to sit up, there’s a bot next to my leg, peeling back my pants where there is a wound. I go to bat it away.

“No, Rych!” The beautiful voice has me looking up, my vision blurring with the sudden movement.

I’m not sure I can trust my eyes.

Chrissie is there. She’s standing upright. She looks better than ever, stunning, delicious, in need of being mated over and over. She needs a nest, and she needs to be in it. If only this vrexing bot would leave me alone.

“It’s a healer bot. Let it do its work,” Chrissie says, crouching down next to me.

“Are you real?” I reach out to touch her face.

“I’m real. I’m alive.” She cocks her head on one side, looking up at a squirming Felia. “No thanks to her, or maybe it is thanks to her.”

“But the virus?” I’m slurring my words now, sobriety deserting me.

“It’s become part of me.” Chrissie looks at her hands. “And I can control tech.”

CHRISSIE

Rych looks at me unsteadily, one wing folded unnaturally under him as the bot cleans up the laser wound on his leg.

The clarity I see things with is incredible. After so much time not knowing what was going on inside me, to finally understand is like waking from a long sleep.

I know what I want. I know how to get it, and I’m linked into anything I want to be.

Except one. Rych. Somehow, I’m linked to him in another way, a way which means I see through his narcotic addled brain as he thinks about nesting and…

“Oh!” I feel my core pulse at his thought.

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