Shadowborn Royals - G. Bailey Page 0,24
for the emergency button and reactivates the lift again.
“If I didn’t have to keep up this pretense, I’d lay you on this floor and make love to you so passionately that the air will be fucked out of your lungs.”
Heat rushes into my cheeks as I grin up at him. “You know what? I think I’d like that.”
He kisses me again before the doors open, and like the flick of a switch, his soft expression hardens into ice. He’s all business again as he leads me down the hallway and past the guards into the infirmary. My heart picks up its pace and only intensifies when I see Doctor Frank whispering into Eva’s ears.
Her eyes slice through me the instant I enter the room. “Izora. How good of you to join us.”
I roll my eyes and follow Gold over to her side. “Didn’t have much of a choice.”
She ignores me and turns to the doctor. The door at the other end of the room, the one where Sage is being held, opens and my mother walks in. Her feet root to the spot upon seeing me and I meet her gaze, surprised by how ghostly pale she looks. My mother has always had a milky white complexion, but now she looks deathly and it’s made worse by the dark bags framing her eyes.
A hint of smile graces her lips, but it falters when I don’t return it. Turning her attention back to Eva, my mother sweeps across the room.
Doctor Frank pulls out a drawer in one of his many cabinets and slaps on a pair of latex gloves. When he turns back around, he’s holding a tray with a familiar syringe, and my stomach clenches.
Gold stands at my side and watches the doctor approach me. I flinch at the size of the needle again. To my surprise, Gold presses a hand on my shoulder, and while it looks firm to the untrained eye, I know he’s just trying to support me.
While Doctor Frank slides the needle into my wing and extracts blood, I grind my teeth and snap my head toward Eva, more to distract myself from the pain burning through me.
“What are you even doing with my blood? I’m obviously not that important to you”—I glance at my mother pointedly—”otherwise you wouldn’t have me running around your playground trying to survive. So what’s the deal?”
I hiss when the doctor yanks the needle out and Eva smiles at me. Turning to my mother, she says, “Meira, would you care to show Izora what her blood has accomplished?”
My mother hesitates briefly before moving to the computer. I watch her scroll through the touchscreen, type in a series of passwords, then tilt the monitor towards me. Thousands of names chase each other across the screen. I don’t recognise any of them, but something tells me whatever the names mean can’t be good.
“Many have died in preparation of the Age of Light,” Eva says, nodding at the hundreds of names marked in red font. “But with your blood, and the blood of someone like you, we have been able to erase the infestation that is shadowborns by transforming them into light fae.” She turns to me, her smile widening almost manically. “It was thanks to you, Izora. You helped us achieve what I have longed for my entire existence. No more shadowborns.”
“Bullshit.” It’s all I can say as I shake my head in disbelief. “There’s no way you’d be able to do it. In your fucking dreams, more like.”
Eva doesn’t look at me. “Go stand by the door,” she snaps at Gold, making my blood boil. She then looks back at me. “If you don’t believe your own mother’s research has been successful, why don’t you follow me?”
I glance at Gold before following Eva and my mother into the other room. He’s looking right at me, his eyebrows drawn tightly together, and gives a reassuring nod. It helps as I walk into the next room to see what horror awaits me. Or rather, what horror has been done to my friend.
Sage is still trapped inside the water tank, but there’s one major difference this time: she’s fae now. Silver wings float softly behind her along with her pink hair.
Horror twists my stomach in realisation of Eva’s success. She has killed hundreds of innocent shadowborn just to get this. And what for? Because she hates us?
“It has taken me multiple prisons to achieve this,” the princess says, standing beside me with her eyes on