the veins and corded muscles protruding as the serum injected into his veins.
His teeth gritted together as his lips paled. Just as I thought he might collapse from the obvious pain, he thundered, “My name is Valentin Belrov. I have a sister called Inessa Belrova. I have a love called Zoya Kostava. They are being held captive. I have to set them free!”
My heart split in two as he choked out his new mantra, then his head fell forward. I waited with bated breath for him to move. Minutes and minutes passed by, until I saw a flicker of movement. His finger moved from underneath his chains. His body gradually began to wake, the blood running down his chest from the collar beginning to slow down.
My heart beat furiously in my chest when, as he lifted his head, I focused on his closed eyes. I heard my heavy anxious breathing echo in my ears; then it paused completely when Valentin’s eyes snapped open.
My stomach dropped when two dark dilated eyes stared straight ahead. He was alive but not living.
The woman moved in front of him and asked, “What is your name?”
Without any bodily reaction, Valentin responded, “194.”
I saw a victorious smile light up her face; then she asked, “Who do you obey?”
With the same vacant expression, Valentin replied, “Mistress.”
The last of my hope drained out of my body. The Mistress snapped at her men to get Valentin down. Valentin stayed absolutely still, his empty gaze fixed straight ahead.
The heavy chains fell away, yet Valentin didn’t move. The woman stepped back until she was beside my bed, and she ordered, “194, come to me!”
Valentin walked forward, his body obeying the woman’s command. When he halted before her and she looked down at me still strapped on the bed, my body washed with dread. “194,” she said with a smile on her face, “capture Zaal Kostava. Return him to me within the day—dead or alive.”
“Yes, Mistress,” Valentin stated without question.
As I heard the sound of Valentin leaving to capture my brother, I was sure I would never be whole again.
I remained still and turned my head away from the woman in the room. A hand on my arm caused me to turn back. Strangely, I didn’t feel pain. The woman had injected me with a serum that was like liquid fire flowing into my veins. I didn’t react when she injected me with yet another syringe. And I didn’t react as she picked up a third. Only at the fourth and fifth injection did I realize that she was trying to kill me.
The only time I reacted at all,was when the woman bent down to my ear and whispered harshly, “This is for Levan Jakhua, Kostava whore. After tomorrow, there will be no more of your family left to plague the Earth. After tomorrow, the love of my life can finally rest in peace—knowing the last of your poisonous hearts have stopped.”
18
194
Capture and retrieve Kostava.
Capture and retrieve Kostava.
The van rocked from side to side as it took me to my hit. My hands reached out and held on to the bars of the cage, pulling at the metal, trying to release some of the rage deep inside.
Capture and retrieve Kostava rolled around my mind and as it did pictures of his face flashed behind my eyes. Tall, muscled, Georgian. Long hair. Green eyes.
Capture and retrieve Kostava.
I held my head when a bright pain slammed through my brain. It hit again and again, and a pair of brown eyes stuck in my mind. My body shivered when the eyes wouldn’t move. My hands shook when the eyes told me I had to remember something. I tried and tried to remember the brown eyes; then Mistress’s voice in my head screamed, “Capture Kostava!” My blood boiled and the collar around my neck tightened.
Rage built in my veins, until it burned and burned, and I roared out in anger. My feet kicked at the cage, heavy boots the Wraith had made me wear slamming against the metal.
I struck the cage again and again until the van came to a stop.
I crouched in the cage needing to kill, ready to kill, whoever waited past that door. I waited and waited, until the van door opened and a Wraith snapped the lock off the cage.
Pushing on the metal door, I charged from the cage, snapping the neck of the Wraith, hissing at the sound of crunching bones.
Throwing the lifeless body to the ground, I jumped out of