Calvin clung to my legs, but his eyes flicked to something above me. Something that blurred through the air and slammed into the side of my head hard enough that the crack I heard was not external. Black lines and dots flooded my vision and I lolled to the side, blood trickling from my nose and mouth.
Voices. Screaming. Someone scooped up my limp body. My head hung backward over his arm as he took me from the room. Ivan and Rachel made a move toward me, but Antonio stopped her.
Stay. I mouthed the word. Stay. Ivan froze, his face a mask of torture. But there was no point in both of us being taken. Stay.
My eyelids fluttered and the motion of the walk made my stomach roll dangerously. I managed to get my head tipped to the side, gagging on nothing, feeling as though my head would split and my body would follow close behind.
“Did you have to hit her with the silver spiked club?” Calvin asked, his voice wavering on the edge of my periphery.
“Did you notice it didn’t kill her? The fact that she’s alive tells me Stravinsky is right. We need her blood for the final tests. We’ll hook her up to the machine and sedate her.”
Well, this sounded lovely. I let my eyes roll. The longer I could play dead, the better.
“She’s playing dead,” Calvin said.
“Really?” A hand touched my face and turned it side to side. “No reflex response. I doubt she’s even aware yet.”
“You don’t know her, Mac.”
Mac was about to get a shock. I snapped my right hand up...or that was the plan. The only thing that actually happened was a twitch of my thumb. Horror flickered through me. In all my years as a vampire, I’d never been this defenseless.
I was hoisted onto a table and strapped down: wrists, waist, ankles, and forehead restrained with thick leather straps. I drew in a deep breath, trying to pinpoint things around me. Antiseptics, blood, vampire, and werewolf rolled through my nose and coated the back of my throat. Ah, so Mac was a werewolf.
Mac chuckled softly. “I never thought I’d see Ivan again. Damned if he didn’t look as stunned as she was.”
“You know him?” Calvin asked, shuffling to one side. I forced my eyes open. The room was sterile, full of sheet metal, surgical tools, bright light and not much else.
Calvin startled, his eyes meeting mine. I glared at him, baring my teeth even as blood dripped down the side of my head. A studded club—it was brilliant really, even if it hurt like a motherfucking son of a bitch. You didn’t have to hit the heart to drop a vamp, and they were incapacitated well enough that a heart shot was like a walk in the park.
Mac turned around, and when he saw my open eyes, he put a hand on my arm as if he hoped to hold me down on his own. “How old is she?”
“Old enough,” I whispered, “to outlive you, Mac.” I weighted his name as heavily as I could, putting the last of my strength into controlling him. He let out a whimper and his eyes glazed over. He’d been compelled before, which worked in my favor. “Kill Calvin.”
Calvin jumped the moment before Mac leapt at him. They tangled on the floor, biting and snarling. I wasn’t sure Mac could take him, but it would buy me the time I needed. With a sharp jerk that took everything I had left in me, I brought my head forward, splitting the leather strap.
The wristbands came next. I bent and undid the waist and ankle straps while Calvin and Mac continued to smash around the room, like a tornado unleashed indoors. There was a yelp and then Calvin stood. Mac whimpered on the floor, his back at an impossible angle. At least, impossible to survive without a reset.
“What the hell is wrong with you, Lea? Do you not trust me?” Calvin yelled.
“No. Get away from him.” Shockingly enough, he did as I asked and moved to the doorway, peering out.
“If we hurry, we can catch up to Rachel and your other friends. We have a few hours left of dark.”
I ignored him, dropping to my knees beside Mac as the world spun and sparkled, the injury to my head anything but healed. I was about to change that right now. “Thanks.”
“Don’t hurt me,” he whispered.
“You betrayed Ivan and his pack—” I brushed his hair back, “—didn’t you?”
“Yes.”
I dropped on him and buried my fangs into his neck hard, grinding them through muscle and tendons, deliberately keeping the pleasure from him. He screamed, but I slapped a hand over his mouth, holding him down while I drank him down, letting his werewolf blood heal my injuries at light speed.
His memories cascaded over me, most of them of his life in the barracks here, of the borderline sadistic things he’d happily done. But then came the memories of his pack life before...of how much he’d resented Ivan and wanted his wife. How he’d been the one to betray them all and how he’d started kidnapping the pack for Stravinsky, then deliberately took the rest while Ivan was gone.