“What the fuck are you doing?” Stuart asked, and he must have switched whatever it was off because Jai went instantly limp in my arms.
“Jai…” I smoothed his hair back from his forehead, scanning him rapidly, looking for signs, of life, of injury. When I held shaking fingers before his nose and mouth, I caught it, the whistle of his breath. Um…um… my brain scrambled, trying to pull together advice from past first aid courses. Roll him on his side and check his airways. My muscles shrieked as I did just that, as he was a massive lump of dead weight, but I got my fingers inside his mouth and felt his tongue was where it should be, that no vomit had been forced up.
“They’ve just come out of heavy anaesthetic and he’s her fucking mate! He’s our best opportunity to build the little army Hollingsworth wants so badly. For fuck’s sake, Williams, go and kick puppies if you want to get your sadism on!”
My head whipped around at that.
“I was,” the man, Williams, said.
“Jai,” I said, pushing his hair back from his face. I watched the rise and fall of his chest like it was some kind of flag to follow to freedom, trying to use that to reassure me. “Babe, you’ve got to come back to me. Jai?”
My voice was thready, thin, and pathetic, sounding even more so in this cold, echoey environment.
“He’ll be OK,” one of those disembodied voices said. I glanced around, saw every shifter watching the two of us together. The voice sounded deep, with an American accent.
“Who is that? How are you talking to me?”
A low, unhappy laugh responded to that.
“Nero here, and it's one of the little quirks. They let us talk to each other, like we’re standing in the same room. There’s some kind of PA system, microphones maybe? None of us have been able to figure it out.”
“Hang in there, princess. He’ll come to. Just keep him warm, and he’ll come back online. They calibrate the chips they’ve put inside us pretty well. Enough to knock us out, but not enough to cause any permanent damage. It’s more to scare the fuck out of you than anything.”
“You’re the wolf I spoke to when I ran out of here,” I replied.
“Yep, Caleb. I’m sorry they got you too.” His sigh seemed to say more than his words. “I wish I had something positive to tell you.”
“How long have you been here?” I asked, not wanting to hear the answer but asking it anyway.
“Here? They brought us here when the place opened a month ago, but with that fucker upstairs? It’d be close to a year, I guess,” Caleb said.
“And the rest of you?”
“Longer,” Nero replied.
“Lost count. I’ve been moved to several facilities,” someone else said. “Zane. My name is Zane.”
“Too long,” came another reply, his English more heavily accented, though not an American accent. “Gaden.”
Fuck. I swallowed hard. The snow leopard I’d helped tranquillise.
“Gaden, I’m so sorry about before. I didn’t help them collect sperm. I…couldn’t. I ran outside and threw up when I realised how they were…assaulting you.”
“Assaulting all of us,” another voice said, this time with a Russian accent? “My prostate feels like it's been stung by a bee most days.”
“Introduce yourself,” Nero said.
“Kazimir,” came the short reply.
“I’m Shannon, this is Jai.”
“I want to say welcome, that you’ll be OK,” Caleb said, “but I can’t. I’m sorry, that’s probably the best thing to say. I’m so damn sorry you’re in here.”
“We will endure, Shannon,” Nero said. “Remember that.”
When Jai’s eyes opened, I felt a rush of relief, of happiness. I ran my hands through his hair as he groaned, his eyelids fluttering.
“Jai, are you OK?”
“Just give him a minute. It fucks with your head, what they do to us,” Caleb said.
“Just keep him warm, and get him on the bed when you can,” Nero said.
“Yeah, make him feel great, so they can zap us until we’re unconscious over and over and over,” Zane said. His voice was easier to identify, as there was a strong sarcastic tone to his drawl.
“Shut up, Zane.”
“Babe, I’m just going to go get you a blanket,” I said, laying him gently down on the floor.
“Babe?” His voice was a rasping mess, but he pushed himself to smile for me. “You’ve never called me that before.”
“I’ll call you whatever you like once we get out of here,” I said, and then scurried over to pull one of the thick woollen blankets off the bed. I