Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. She couldn’t. She couldn’t be the one to kill him. He’d asked her not to. One dose. One shot. Untested. Eyes burning, Riyah eased back and whispered, “Pretend…and then save me.”
The dragon’s pupils constricted, and the rage on Vyr’s face flickered away like a flame being blown out. Confusion took its place. And as she slammed the needle toward his neck, he yelled, “No!”
But Vyr was safe from her. She couldn’t hurt him to save herself. She blocked the guards view as best she could and slammed the needle into her arm, no more than an inch from his neck. “Pretend,” she pleaded.
And as she emptied that vial into herself, Vyr jerked. A long, low rumble emanated from him as his entire body tensed. With a small whimper, Riyah ripped the empty syringe from herself and dropped it on the floor.
“She did it!” Emmitt shouted. “Back off. Give them space, back off!”
“What have you done?” Vyr gritted out.
“You’re mine, and I can’t hurt you. Stop the Change. Please. Hide what I’ve done, or I can’t stay here.”
“Fuck. Fuck. Riyah.” Vyr collapsed to his knees.
Dizzy, she adjusted the sleeve of her white blouse and scrambled away from Vyr as his body shook with power. The air was heavy, full of smoke, and it was getting hard to see, but Vyr looked at her, locked gazes with her, and clenched his teeth. He was on his knees. He blasted his fists against the cement floor as agony roiled in his eyes. His wings stretched the length of the room, his nostrils flared as he heaved breath, and every muscle on his naked torso rippled with tension.
“Sing,” he murmured. He rolled his eyes closed, and she picked up where she left off on “Baby Got Back,” but softly, her lips barely moving, the words hardly scratching up her raw throat. The smoke made her want to cough, but she resisted the urge so she could continue the song.
And slowly, slowly, Vyr furled his wings and drew them back into his body. The look of pain on his face was heartbreaking. The crimson color left his skin, the scales faded, and as he gritted his teeth in pain, they lost their razor sharpness and turned to blunt human teeth once again. His face softened from the harsh angles and, body shaking, he heaved an exhausted sigh, relaxed back on his bent legs, opened his eyes, and looked down his nose at her. “You need to go home. I’m here, Riyah. You’re gonna get sick from those meds. You need to go. Drink as much water as you can. Call my mom. Get some help at your house. I want someone there with you until this is done.”
“Until what’s done?” she whispered.
But the guards rushed Vyr so he couldn’t answer her. They yanked his arms behind his back and dragged him away. And then they took her away, too. Away from the man who made her feel safe. From the man who cared enough about her to stop the Red Dragon mid-Change.
“Until what’s done?” she asked louder.
Vyr’s eyes were haunted as he watched her until she was pulled through the door. He never answered, not even in her head.
And as another dizzy spell took her, she couldn’t feel him in her head at all.
Baffled, she watched the guards running this way and that, guns shouldered, focus on their faces. Her blood was boiling, chilling, boiling then chilling, and she swallowed over and over so she wouldn’t retch. Vyr was right. She needed to go home. Right now.
“Excuse me,” she murmured, attempting to yank her arm out of a guard’s unforgiving grasp.
When she looked up, it was that shifter Vyr had told her to stay away from. Hank Butte. He was staring at her inner bicep with a frown. “Smells like blood,” he said in an empty voice. “Looks like it, too.”
Indeed, there was a single red drop on the sleeve of her white silk blouse where she’d stabbed herself with the syringe. “Let go of me, asshole,” she said as she jerked out of his grasp. She glared over her shoulder as she walked away, just to make sure he wasn’t following her. He stood there in the middle of the mayhem watching her leave with a suspicious frown and his head cocked to the side. His eyes were narrowed to glowing blue slits, and chills rippled up her arms. Oh, he knew.
Forcing herself to watch where she was going, she gave that animal her back and quickened her pace. God, she wished she could rip these shoes off and run. She bolted for a trashcan and got sick. She felt awful, could barely think straight, and her head was pounding, but not because Vyr was in there. But because of the medicine running through her veins. She had spells for this. She hadn’t practiced them in years, but desperate times and measures. She just needed to get home to those spell books.
But with each step she took trying to escape the prison, nodding to the guards, trying to look like she wasn’t in severe pain, it became crystal clear that she wasn’t safe to drive home. She made her way through all the security stations, but the last two stopped her and asked if she was all right, probably because she was swaying and had broken out in a sweat. The medicine was to kill a shifter animal, but she was human, so she had no idea what it was doing to her.
She forced a smile, nodded to the guards in the parking lot, and then scrambled into her SUV and fumbled for the burner phone in her glove compartment. She dialed the phone number and groaned as she sped out of the parking lot.
“Are they there?” Clara asked.
“Wh-who?” Riyah stammered weakly.
“Nox and Torren. Riyah, are you okay?”
“No. No, I’m not. I took this medicine I was supposed to give to Vyr, but I couldn’t hurt him. I couldn’t hurt him, and now I don’t feel… Clara I’m gonna pass out soon.” She wasn’t going to make it much farther. On the long stretch of road outside of the prison grounds, she pulled over in a rush as her skin went clammy and her stomach rolled with another wave of nausea.
“Riyah, put your car in park.”
She fumbled to think clear enough to put it in park, but her hand wasn’t working right. “I can’t.”
“Riyah, yes you can, hon. Put it in park, and then it’s okay to go to sleep. I’m getting help to you right now.” There was static on the phone and in a muffled voice, Clara told someone to, “Send the girls in. Riyah needs help right now. Right now. I don’t give a shit. Send them in right now.” More static and then in a clear voice, Clara said, “Riyah, are you parked?”
“I think I am,” she whispered, melting against the seat. “Tell Vyr I’m sorry. Tell Vyr I’m sorry.”
“You did nothing wrong, and you can tell him anything you want tomorrow. Everything is going to be okay.”
“He left.” Riyah’s shoulders sagged, and a sob worked its way up her throat. “I can’t feel him.”
Clara was still talking, but Riyah couldn’t understand what she was saying. And as the edges of her vision shattered inward, she heaved a long sigh, and then Riyah was in the dark, once again.
Chapter Ten
“She sure is sweating a lot,” an unfamiliar woman’s voice muttered.
“It must be the medicine. I don’t think this crap is made for humans.”
There was a humorless snort. “You really think she’s human? She stinks of magic.”