Page 48 of Midnight Trials

“Wait. What?” I blurt out, unable to form a more coherent answer. Frankly, I don’t give a shit how I sound, just needing him to tell me what he fucking means with that remark. He must be talking about Nicolai, but how does he know this? Is he just trying to cause me trauma before he tears me apart? I get the awful feeling that’s not the case and he’s somehow much more involved than I thought. It’s common knowledge that Nicolai is in the healers’ complex, and a healer wouldn’t come to the building unless something had happened. I suspect that this goes far deeper than him just watching the movements of people to and from my room and taking advantage of the situation like I first thought.

A satisfied smile curves Bates’s lips. “Why do you think his shifter genes weren’t healing the infection?” He raises a brow, his expression telling me he thinks I’m being dense. “There’s a new project that I’ve been helping with.” He walks past me and casually leans against the door, blocking my exit.

Shit. Now my route to freedom is blocked, so I force myself to pay attention to what he’s saying. Replaying it over in my mind, I frown at the random change of topic, not sure where he’s going with this or why it’s relevant.

“Now, it’s all a little scientific for me,” he continues, waving a hand in dismissal. “But the crux of it is, they have managed to genetically alter several diseases so they only affect werewolves. At the moment, they can only be passed on via the vein, but who knows what we might discover?”

My blood runs cold. This is a hundred times worse than anything I ever thought he’d tell me, and slowly, I put everything together. This is why Nicolai is sick. I don’t know that for sure, but my instincts are telling me I’m right. Does the council have anything to do with this? They must, because Bates practically just admitted that he wasn’t the instigator of this. The council is creating diseases to harm their own people. The implications of this are terrifying. Depending on the potency, they could infect someone with a simple scratch or pinprick, giving them a disease that only the council could heal. It would force everyone to rely on the council or risk dying without the antidote. Right now, though, I can’t think about everyone else, not when Nicolai is dying.

“You gave something to him. That’s why he’s not getting better.” It’s not a question, but I need to hear him say it.

“Bingo.” He grins and looks down at his claws, testing the sharpness of them with his unshifted hand. “We knew that we’d never get you alone unless we upped the stakes, so this got him out of the way, confirmed that the serum works, and drew you away from the protective harem you seem to have formed around yourself.”

As each of his words roll over me, I feel myself retreating to the back of my mind. I realise now that this is when the presence in me would take over, but I can’t feel her right now. However, I find that there’s a vengeful wrath building in me that I can’t blame on her—this is all my own. They hurt Nicolai to get to me. No, they didn’t just hurt him, they experimented on him, and now, as he’s dying, they are trying to kill me. All other thoughts dissolve from my mind as I come to a conclusion—Bates must pay.

He must see the switch in me, because he pushes away from the wall and faces me with a sadistic grin. “You can scream as loudly as you like, no one can hear you.”

He doesn’t give me a chance to reply to his mocking comment as he flings himself at me, his claws slicing through the air. Dancing on my toes, I twist out of the way, only just avoiding being cut as I jump back a few steps to keep us apart. Blocking out everything else, I focus on him, taking in each breath and twitch, trying to pick up on his next move.

To my surprise, I find he’s slower than I expected him to be. I’ve seen him spar in the training room, and he was far faster than this, which means he’s either messing with me or he’s injured. I pay close attention, and it doesn’t take long before I spot it. As he lifts his left arm and swings it towards me, I see him wince. It’s gone in a second, and he tries to hide it, but not quickly enough. Perhaps the trial wasn’t so easy for him today and he was injured. Whatever the reason, I can use that to my advantage.

I duck under his raised arm and elbow him in the ribs. A feeling of vindication fills me as he bends forward with anoomph, the breath knocked from him. Making the most of the opportunity, I spin so I’m facing his back, using his distraction against him. I remember Jackson’s instruction and flatten my hand like he taught me, using it in a karate style chop straight into his injured shoulder.

Crying out in pain, Bates rears up and bellows with rage as he turns on me. He sounds more like a bear shifter than a werewolf, fury making his eyes glow as his wolf pushes for control. His left arm hangs at his side, pain lacing his features.

“Bitch, I’m going to make you pay for that.”

The promise of violence in his eyes terrifies me. He might have wanted to hunt and hurt me before, but now he’s going to find a way to drag out my death for as long as possible. I’ve only succeeded in making him angrier, and I’m sure he’s still just as lethal with one arm.

He quickly follows up on his promise with a volley of blows, making me stumble backwards until I knock into the wall. Glancing around for an escape route, I silently curse as I see he’s backed me into a corner.

The blow to my face comes so quickly that it takes a moment for the pain to register, my head snapping to one side. Stars appear in my vision as my head knocks against the wall, and before I can react, his hand is around my neck, squeezing tightly.

Eyes wide, I automatically try to gasp for air, but my throat is restricted, and a sick, high-pitched wheeze escapes me as I desperately try to get oxygen into my lungs. Panic infiltrates my mind as I struggle to get him off me, my nails cutting bloody lines into his unshifted hand. I can only imagine the look on my face, especially given the happiness that the sight seems to bring Bates. Chuckling, he lifts me up against the wall with just his grip on my neck, and my body screams out in pain, my feet dangling as I hopelessly try to reach the ground. However, all I care about is the fact that my airway is now completely occluded. Gasping like a fish out of water, I feel my strength fading as my vision starts to darken.

Doing the only thing I can think of, I kick out. He doesn’t seem bothered, acting as though he can hardly feel me.Make him feel it, make him pay. The thought is the last coherent thing I think before delusion sets in, and I jerk my knee forward, hoping that I hit something,anything.

It must work, because he lets go of my neck and I fall to the ground as he seems to curl in on himself, groaning with pain. I should feel vindicated, but instead I’m desperately sucking down air like my life depends on it, which right now, it does. My limbs feel weak and my vision is still spotty, but I know I need to put as much distance between me and Bates as possible. He won’t be down for long, and he’ll tear me apart for what I just did.

Get to the door, get to the guys. Repeating it over and over in my mind, I crawl on my hands and knees across the floor, my legs not strong enough to hold me. My throat burns and tears roll down my face, but I know I can’t stop and break down, not if I want to survive.

“Fucking bitch!” Bates roars behind me, his voice followed by a loud groan and grunting noises which seem to get closer.

Terror fills me, and I somehow make it over to the desk, using the solid wooden frame to pull myself up. I’m halfway across the room now. Sure, he can still hurt me outside of this room, but at least Joel will be able to feel me through the bond if only I can get to the door.I can do this. Using the desk to support myself, I take a wobbly step forward, only to be jerked back a second later.

Glancing down to see what’s caught my ankle, I let out a sob when I see Bates’s unshifted hand gripping it tightly. He snarls up at me, his eyes flashing. It won’t be long until he fully shifts, and then he’ll tear me apart.

“You didn’t think it would be that easy, did you?” he spits, his face twisted with rage. “Fucking whore.”

Yanking me, he pulls me off my feet, his claws raised to slice me as I fall. What he didn’t see, however, was me grabbing the heavy ceramic lamp from the desk. Lifting my arm, I use the momentum of the fall to smash it across his head. The sound of the lamp shattering is loud as it becomes a thousand tiny pieces, and his body hits the ground with a heavy thud.

I land beside him and quickly scrabble back, my sense of self-preservation working in full force. I hold my breath as I stare at his still form, ready to jump away if his eyes open. He’s got to be messing with me. Someone as powerful as Bates wouldn’t be taken down by a lamp to the head, would he? Head injuries can be serious, especially if he took a blow earlier in the day during the challenge.

I lean over him, and the slow, rhythmic movements of his chest reassure me that he’s still breathing. He might have just tried to kill me, but I don’t want to be a murderer, even if it were someone sadistic like Bates…

My arm stings, and I find three long scratches down the length of my bicep. The blood feels warm against my skin as it trickles down and onto Bates’s unmoving body.

Kneeling beside him, I wonder what I should do now. I should be up and running to the guys, but something other than pain and exhaustion holds me back. Slowly, as though in a trance, my gaze shifts to the sharp pieces of the ceramic lamp scattered on the floor around us. Spotting a large, jagged piece, I set down the now useless top half of the lamp and pick up the broken ceramic. I test its sharpness against my finger, just like he tested his claws against his fingertips. A bead of blood appears where I press the piece, confirming that it’s as sharp as any blade. Glancing down at his unmoving body, I tilt my head to one side as I consider what to do next, all panic now gone as another emotion fills me—power. It would be so easy to end him. He’s only going to try and kill me again when he wakes, so I’d be doing the world a favour. Mildly, I notice how my thoughts are mirroring that of the presence from earlier on today.

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