Chapter 68

Mira

In my dream I was back in the chair.

My arms and legs were strapped down, and I was tilted back so I was mostly looking at the ceiling. I could move my head freely, but there was an oxygen mask covering my nose and mouth. It felt like my head weighed fifty pounds and my neck strained under the effort to lift it.

One spot above my clavicle felt extra tender and throbbed in time with my heart beat.

Everything was bright around me, my eyes unable to differentiate shapes in the surrounding abyss. There was something comforting in the familiarity, even if it was a bad dream.

Except this wasn’t a dream. This was real.

My eyes opened wide as I forced my brain to focus and a jolt of pain ripped across my eyebrows. I checked my breathing while squeezing my eyes shut for a moment.

“What the hell happened?” I slurred aloud to myself.

“Good, you’re awake.”

The voice came from everywhere, filling up the room and echoing in my skull. The mask on my face fogged up as my breath quickened in panic. I fought against my restraints to no avail except to make myself more tired.

“It’s okay, Mira,” the voice said, sounding closer to Earth this time. “We’ll undo those in a moment, they were just for your safety while you were under.”

I brought myself back to a rational place, a breathing exercise centering my mind in my body. I needed my wits about me, even if my body was still sluggish and slightly tingling from whatever sedative she’d been dosed with.

A blur approached from the right and removed the mask from my face. My body reacted by sucking in the fresh air like I’d been underwater for years. I closed my eyes as I stretched my face, forgetting for a moment where I was.

When my eyes opened, a man stood next to me. He had a kind expression on his face, but his eyes were cold and calculated.

“Where am I?”

“Not yet, Doctor,” he responded. “Let us not rush things here. Can I trust you not to lash out if I remove your restraints?”

I nodded, keeping my eyes on him as he unclipped my right arm and leg then moved to the other side. I stayed in the chair an extra moment to roll out my wrists and ankles, glad to see there were any marks left on my skin from straining against the straps.

“I can imagine you’ll want this,” he said, handing me a small paper cup of water.

I drank it down in one gulp, cherishing it like it was the nectar of the gods.

“If you’re feeling up to it, there are some things I’d like to show you.”

I stared at him, searching for something sinister in his voice. He must have practice keeping it even, a classic skill in the medical profession. While I couldn’t trust this stranger, he was able somehow to make me feel comfortable. As he walked away from me, the door to the room came into focus out in front of me.

I figured I was already their captive, so I wasn’t any more or less safe anywhere within these wall. Getting to my feet with only a little shakiness, I followed him.

“The stars really aligned for us all, don’t you think?” he said as we walked into a bright hallway. “We knew we wanted to meet you eventually, but what luck that you would find your way to us without any provocation.”

I felt myself forming an angry response. Had they been watching me? What did that mean for the others? Would they ever find me? I kept my mouth shut for the time being.

“I, personally, have been a fan of your work for some time. Your grasp of the old ways combined with your exceptional medical journey— a woman after my own heart.”

I glanced at him sideways, then kept looking forward. Taking in my surroundings, I was attempting to map the floor I was on in case I needed to make a quick escape. But everything looked the same, the doors we passed all closed tightly and unmarked.

“What we are doing here,” he went on, “could be of great interest to you. And we would certainly benefit from someone like you in our labs. Many of my assistants are eager but untested, a bit too focused on the process without eyes on the results, the thesis or the hypothesis of our experiment.”

Hairs were rising on the back of my neck as I imagined what these experiments could be. All I could think of was the bloodstained chairs at the other facility. I kept my breathing steady, thankful for my meditation practice paired with my long-distance running. If the opportunity arose, I would choose flight over fight.

“This way,” he said, gesturing to double doors.

I followed him through a small vestibule and into another hallway. This smelled slightly different, ammonia and something else stinging my nostrils.

“Our goals are lofty, but I believe they are attainable,” he was saying to me. “A future for our kind unlike any we’ve seen in generations. We are taking back and harnessing the power of the wolf that has been lost to modern society.”

My heart rate spiked, and I brought it back down. All I could hope was that Dominic was somehow already on his way here, to save me.

Please come find me.

I imagined my thoughts traveling across space and time to reach my Mate, wishing we were in a fairy tale where that was possible.

I’m coming for you.

The response in my brain felt so real, I almost laughed at my little delusion.

“Fated Mates,” he said next to me. He had paused in front of the door, and this one actually had a sign on it: “Testing in Progress.”

“A mystery, for many, as to what binds two wolves together,” he said, his voice excited now. “And if two can share so much— thought, energy, power— then it must be possible to manipulate that line of connection. The power of two wolves can be harnessed for one.”

I couldn’t help my head snapping to look directly at him. His eyes were glossy and bright, and I could tell he wasn’t looking at me but through me, into a future of his own imagination.

“Would you like to see?”

My mouth opened slightly, but no words came. I nodded.

He opened a side door to what turned out to be an observation room with a glass window. On the other side was an examination room.

There were two chairs, so similar to the set up I had seen in the other building. But this room had other equipment and devices and monitors where the other was bare.

And the chairs were not empty.

Strapped down, their bodies covered in wires and tubes and with masks on their faces, were two young werewolves. They couldn’t have been older than sixteen.

“These two have been working hard on their own, and now we can begin testing them together. Such luck.”

I looked at him, then back through the window. Where I had before been focused only on my own escape, I now found the drive within to rescue these two. I knew nothing good could be happening in that room.

“What are their names?” I asked, my voice sounding raspy after being silent for so long.

He pulled a chart that was hanging next to the window.

“The young man on the right is Julian,” he said, “and the other, the girl— her name is Rae.”