And I’d broken through chains once before.

  My head throbbed, my body shaking as though fighting off what he’d injected me with. I might not be an expert on dragon shifters, but I knew we were strong enough to fight off most infections. Fight it, dragon.

  My claws came out, shattering the cuffs, and I lunged at the dragon’s chains. This time, his eye slid open, but didn’t focus on me. He was drugged, too.

  Hang on. I’m gonna set you free.

  My claw clenched around the nearest chain, as voice shouted for Malkin. I ignored the voices and snapped the chain, yanking it away from the dragon. The guards trained their guns on me, moving to open the cage.

  “Don’t open the door!” warned the guard closest to us. “That girl, the dragon, she just snapped his chains.”

  “Malkin said to leave her. That old creature’s on his last legs anyway.”

  The dragon growled, a rumbling noise that made the floor tremble underneath our feet. His eyes slid properly open, and while his body remained hunched on the table, there was an intelligence in his gaze that took my breath away.

  His feet shook as he adjusted his position, clawed feet moving slowly. Too slowly. He was hurt, and he’d been chained up for a long time. I tugged at the dragon’s scaled arm, but barely had the strength to keep myself upright, let alone a full-grown male dragon. Panting with the exertion, I stopped to catch my breath.

  “Malkin!” shouted an Elite. “The dragon—”

  All the guards pointed their guns at us, but none had made a move to open the cage. I glimpsed my reflection in the glass. My claws were at my sides, stained with blood from whoever I’d last killed. The dragon beside me radiated hate and anger. My own eyes began to glow.

  But the dragon didn’t move. My heart sank. He’d suffered too much damage. Maybe he’d forgotten how to turn back into a human.

  “Malkin!” yelled the guard again.

  “He’s not coming.” I stood, glancing at the dragon. How in hell are we meant to get him out of here? Only the glass was keeping them from shooting all of us, and I had the sinking feeling the business Malkin wanted to take care of involved finding Becks and Astor and throwing them into cages, too. Just to make sure nobody crossed him again.

  I’d been so damned stupid

  Yet as I looked at my sister, I couldn’t bring myself to regret coming here for her. I’d have come if there was a zero percent chance of saving her. Shifters are like that, even dragons.

  I let the chains drop, and ran to cover Cori. If they did shoot, I’d do what I’d almost done the first time I faced Astor, and prepared to take a bullet for her. The nearest hunter’s gun was close enough that if he fired, if the glass shattered, I’d die instantly.

  My eyes met the man behind the mask’s, and disbelief coursed through my mind. Astor? What the hell? I’d thought he was with Becks. But where—?

  I couldn’t help it. My gaze drifted across the other guards, looking for one a head shorter than the others. And… there she was. Becks, what are you doing? You could have run. Or not. Astor would need to have a hell of an explanation for me if we ever got out of this alive.

  “Stop,” commanded Malkin’s voice. He walked through the rest of the Elites and surveyed me, then the dragon. “It’s time. There’s too much damage to the labs. Our operation goes ahead as planned.”

  Damage? Had Astor and the others done worse than I’d seen?

  “Care to fill me in?” I asked. “What operation?”

  He gave me a cold look. “You leave me with a dilemma, Ember. I should have suspected you’d need a higher dosage of the drug—which is easily taken care of. Elites, you are all to leave immediately for the elevators. You have five minutes. Go.” He pulled his own mask down, covering his face.

  “What? What is it this time?”

  “Tell us,” said Will, who’d managed to push to his knees. The guards began to file out, though Becks and Astor lagged behind. If they moved quickly enough, they might be able to hit him from behind.

  “What bullshit are you pulling this time?” I looked Malkin in the eyes through the mask, trying to keep his attention on me.

  “There’s no trickery involved, Ember.” His voice rang out clearly from behind the mask. “I need a dragon, and the other two are too weak to serve my purposes. Therefore, I require your cooperation… at least, for now.”

  “Over my dead body.”

  “Or your sister’s?”

  Fury blazed through my limbs. “I’ll kill you. We’ll all—”

  Bang. The room’s doors slammed, without warning, stranding several guards on the wrong side. Including Becks and Astor. Malkin whirled on them. “Did you think I wouldn’t notice?”

  “What do you want with me?” I yelled desperately.

  He didn’t turn around. Claws out, I jumped for the glass door to the cage.

  I never made it. Light flared across the glass and I fell to my knees, rage and pain alternating so sharply, it took a full minute to comprehend that Malkin had grabbed me and hauled me out of the cage. My throat was hoarse like I’d been screaming. Astor and Becks stood beside the door, surrounded by guards, their faces uncovered.

  “Really, Ember,” said Malkin. “I’m offering to spare your life. Walk with me to the elevator.”

  I didn’t move. “Why?”

  “Because you have something I wish for, and I can’t get it from you while in a lab.”

  “You want me to make dragonfire.”

  “I’d like that very much, Ember, but this isn’t the place. Your sister is weak, and I doubt she can give me what I desire. She’s pliable, but she wouldn’t last in war. You, however…”

  “I’m not being anyone’s soldier but my own.”

  I wrenched my arm free, biting back a scream. His grip was freakishly strong. More so than any human’s had the right to be. What the hell?

  “You’ve given me no choice, Ember.”

  “You—you’re not…” Only a shifter could be this strong. I should have known there was something more than human about him.

  “I suppose it’s worth explaining, Ember, that I saw fit to give my Elites advantages which would enable them to take down shifters. It’s taken some adjustment, and not everyone was initiated, but the enhancements have enabled us to continue taking in shifters and other unnaturals when our human blood might otherwise cause weakness.”

  “How?” The word tore from my dry throat. No wonder the Elites moved so quickly and silently. They couldn’t outrace a regular shifter, but…

  Oh no. My horrified gaze left his, as though pulled by a magnet, and met Astor’s. Shock and disbelief shone clearly from his eyes. He didn’t know…

  Then he moved in a blur, and snatched a gun from the Elite who held him and turned it on its owner. The bullet’s sound was muffled as it met its mark. I stifled a gasp as a second bullet clipped over my head, narrowly missing Malkin—and me.

  But I took my chance. My leg snapped up, catching Malkin in the fork of his legs, and then I elbowed him in the face. His head smacked off the glass, and then I was running for the cage, for my sister.

  An Elite tackled me from behind. I whirled on him, my claws gashing his face, cutting deep to the bone. He continued to attack, catching my arm and twisting it behind my back. I yelled, kicking frantically. They don’t feel pain… shit. Was that a supernatural thing, too?

  As I twisted my arm free, Malkin moved across the room and grabbed Becks by the throat.

  “Bastard!” I froze, not willing to risk him hurting her.

  The smell of burning filled the air from behind me. That was all the warning we got before glass shattered and a plume of fire narrowly missed Malkin.

  Holy shit. The dragon.

  Astor moved, pulling Becks free of Malkin’s arms, while Will moved Cori out of the line of—literal—fire. I had just the presence of mind to throw myself flat on the ground, and then the air was ablaze in dragonfire.

  Malkin shouted something that was lost in the roar of flame, and everything went orange and crimson. There ought to have been more smoke than there was, but dragonfire wasn’t like regular fire.

  It smelled familiar. Like home.

  Then—it stopped. I raised my hands from where they’d shielded my head. Broken glass littered the floor. The Elites who’d been left behind lay in a heap, burns lacerating their armoured uniform. The dragon hadn’t hit my friends. But where was—?

  Bang.

  Malkin himself was bleeding from one hand where he’d fallen into the shattered glass, but it was too late to stop him from pointing his gun at the dragon, who’d raised his head defiantly to stare his torturer in the face.

  “No!” I cried, lunging at him—

  Bang.

  The dragon disappeared. An emaciated old man with white hair crouched in his place.

  “Find… the moonbeam,” he croaked. Blood blossomed on his chest, and I cried out. He gasped, his head lolling back, and then fell to his front.

  “Very well,” said Malkin, from beneath his mask. “You leave me no choice.”

  Dizzy with shock, I barely felt his hands dig into my arm. Have I been drugged again? It surely wasn’t the fire. The unconscious faerie hadn’t even responded to the explosion of fire and shattered glass around him. Becks and Will both shouted my name, as did the others, but Malkin’s grip was like iron.

  “Ember, walk with me. I wanted to give you the chance to prove yourself. Your friends, and that faerie, are expendable. They’re dying. You’re going to come with me.”

  “No.”

  A familiar smell fogged my mind. My legs gave out, and he lifted me up. No… I won’t leave them behind.

  I blacked out. The next second, we were in the corridor by the elevator. He saw I was awake and set me on my feet. My vision was blurred, and my hearing had gone weird, too.

  “They’re going to die. All of them.”

  “You drugged them?”

  “Something a little more effective than that. This floor has been filling with a slow poison for a while now.”

  Poison. He was poisoning everyone left behind. He only needed one dragon.

  “It only affects this floor,” he explained. “My Elites have sealed all the emergency exits, too.”

  He shoved me into the lift and pressed the button. I wrenched my arm free, shaking off the fog as the doors closed. Leaving my friends behind.

  Malkin was still bleeding. The smell anchored me, and I lashed out, my claws bouncing off his armoured chest. Again. He let me, a bored expression on his face. The lift began to climb, and panic sliced through my mind.

  This time, I aimed for his mask. There was the smallest gap between the chin and the neck. If I could pry it off—

  His hand latched around my claw, pinning my arm to my side with a strength that shouldn’t be possible.

  “What the hell did you do to yourself? You have some nerve calling us unnaturals.” I twisted, fighting against his grip. His sleeve lifted to show the band of a tattoo, like Astor’s—even the Elites’ leader wore the markings.

  His gaze momentarily followed my line of sight. “It’s a temporary measure intended for my Elites. It’s a fair way to reward their loyalty. Your friend Astor might have gone right to the top, had he not betrayed us.”

  The tattoos. The ink must be made out of something supernatural. Like witch ingredients. Even the bullets were. That’s how he’d made them. “Betrayed you?” I spat. “I’ll show you betrayal.”

  Fire bloomed in my chest, and my arm fought his grip. I pulled back in time to strike the door with my other hand, scraping a hole in the metal. My legs twisted as the fire fought to escape—and suddenly they weren’t feet anymore, but claws.

  My clawed foot slammed down on his, and he roared in anger as his toes were crushed beneath my claw. I whirled around, slashing him across the face. If I gave into the fire and fully shifted, I could melt his skin from his bones. But my friends moved further away by the second

  I wouldn’t leave them to die alone.

  My claws bit into metal, tearing through the wall. He shouted, grabbing at me, but too late. For all his enhancements, I was stronger than he was. A pure shifter.

  I kicked back, and blood splattered the wall. Malkin crumpled, and my other claw wrenched free of the door, leaving a gap big enough to jump through.

  Without hesitating, I leaped out into darkness.

  21

  My claw snagged against the wall. I halted, gasping, opposite the place where the elevator had stopped. My legs remained human, but the dragon scales had spread all the way up my arms. I’d partially shifted, further than I’d ever gone before. The elevator shaft was easily big enough to fit a dragon into it, surprisingly—in fact, it was as though a separate tunnel had been dug deep into the earth to set up the mechanisms. Which was all very well, but how to get down to the fifth basement floor from here?

  Above, the ascending lift caught my eyes. It had stopped. Had Malkin survived? I hoped not, but he was the least of my problems now. The lift had gone, taking any chance of us getting out along with it.

  From our movement, we’d climbed two floors. I took in a breath and let myself drop, using my claws to dig dents into the packed earth that gave way to iron underneath. I must be climbing down the building’s exterior. Which meant the poison couldn’t reach me out here. I dropped several feet, my claws striking against the metal doors of the fourth floor. One more level. My claws bit into the wall, digging handholds. I didn’t dare look down to see how far the drop went. The core of the earth, for all I knew. As I reached the next set of doors, I hung in mid-air, ready to strike the doors open. The poisonous gas might hit me full in the face when I tore open the way through.

  I sucked in a deep breath, hoping I’d make it through the corridor without passing out, and then wrenched open the doors, using my claws. I have to find my friends. I have to.

  Yells and the sound of a scuffle came from my left. I ran that way without hesitation—as far as I was aware, there hadn’t been any Elites left alive when Malkin had dragged me out of there. I picked up speed and ran smack into Astor, so hard I nearly went flying.

  “What are you doing here?” said Astor. “You could have escaped.” His gaze landed on my feet—or claws. I’d never shifted so far without going full-out dragon before.

  “No. Not without her.”

  “We’ll be dead in five minutes. I’ve seen them use this gas before, and they sealed every exit.”

  “Who were you fighting?”

  “Him.” He pointed at the limp body of an Elite sprawled against the wall. “One less scumbag in the world. He showed me what they did to the other elevator—they used it to get out, then cut the wires, and the stairs are completely caved in. The other floors already evacuated ages ago.”

  “It was all planned,” I said, my mind whirling. “Okay. I need to get my friends. I—thought of a way out, but it’s risky as all hell.”

  “We don’t have time. I only found three masks. Your friends have them, and Cori. But they only last an hour. This place will be completely flooded with the poison in minutes.”

  “What? Really?” Dizziness made my head spin. “I think…”

  “Try not to breathe too much.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Sure, I’ll go ahead and do that.”

  I turned and ran back down the corridor, heart thumping, short breaths making my head fog even faster. I’d die first, then Astor. I needed to find a way to get my friends out of here. Maybe it was the poison talking, but the image of the open elevator shaft kept coming into my head. It was big enough for a shifter…

  “Now would be a great time to tell me your plan,” said Astor, as I halted in the corridor near the cage.

  “The elevator shaft,” I said. “I climbed down using my claws.”

  His expression turned incredulous. “We can’t all climb out that way. Cori’s unconscious, and your other two friends aren’t in great shape either. There are five floors between us and the surface and the poison’s spreading fast.”

  “Better get a move on, then. If the other ways out are closed, it’s all we can do.”

  Will had climbed out of the cage, with Becks at his side, both wearing masks. They exclaimed when they saw me. Cori was curled up in Will’s arms.

  “This way!” I called to them. “I know a way out.”

  “You shouldn’t have come back for us!” shouted Becks.

  “Hurry,” I said. “I have a plan, but we need to move fast. Hand Cori over to me, and one of you pick up that guy.”

  “The faerie?” Astor shook his head. “It’s too risky. I can climb out alone, but I wouldn’t be able to help your friends if anyone fell.”

  Will gave me a disbelieving look. “Did you say climb?”

  “No time!” I called over my shoulder. “There’s no other way out.”

  Will swore loudly, helping Becks after him. I shifted Cori onto my back and moved as fast as I could, retracing my steps towards the elevator. My head swam, and I gripped Cori tighter. Not now. Don’t pass out now, Ember. You’ll die.

  Astor reached the elevator first, where I’d clawed the doors open. He held the limp form of the faerie in his arms and leaned against the wall, a glazed look in his eyes. The poison. From his expression, he didn’t at all agree with my plan, but what choice did I have at this point?

  “I’ll climb out first,” I said. “My claws can leave handholds. Just don’t look down.”

  “Tell that to your friends,” he said. Becks and Will caught up behind me.

  “There’s room to shift in there, Will. You can fly in gargoyle form. Becks can ride on your back.”

  “But what if the lift’s blocking the way?” he said.

  “That’s my job.” I flexed my clawed hands. “I don’t know about you guys, but I’d rather die trying to escape than trapped in a cage.”

  “You and me both,” Astor muttered behind me.

  “All right,” said Will. “But if we die, I’ll make sure my ghost follows yours around making beeping noises forever.”

  “Better hope it doesn’t come to that. Will, you fly. Keep hold of Becks. Astor, you come up behind me and try not to drop that faerie.”

 

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