She was trapped.
No, no, no. It wasn’t supposed to be this way. She should be dead by now.
Instead, she was just a gift all tied up and waiting for the guards. Once they found out what she’d done, they would punish her. Just like before.
Pain.
Blood.
Darkness.
Kiarra bucked and twisted, wanting nothing more than to get free. There was no way she could survive that nightmare all over again. “No, no, no!” she screamed before sobbing, “Please just kill me.”
The man gripped her chin hard and said, “Stop.”
His authoritative tone broke through her hysteria and made her pause. He continued, “We need to get the fuck out of here, to somewhere safe, but I can’t do that if you fight me every step of the damn way.”
Did he just say “we”? The strange black clothes, the soothing voice, the reluctance to harm her. It all made sense.
This man wasn’t a new guard; he was an intruder, here to kidnap her.
Kiarra’s heart pounded in her chest. How did an outsider know about the value of her blood? It didn’t make sense. The AMT researchers kept their work under lock and key, both physically and electronically. What would this man do with her?
The situation had just gone from bad to worse.
Another man’s voice came from the door, and Kiarra jumped when she heard the new man’s accented voice say, “Boss, I’ve got him.”
The green-eyed man turned and kept a grip on her hands with one hand while using his knee to keep her legs pinned to the bed. “The others?”
The new position let her see the doorway, where another man was standing, dressed in the same black clothes with one major difference—he was all but dragging one of her cell neighbors along with him.
What do they want with him? Maybe her cell neighbor had his own secrets.
“We’re all ready to bust out of here if you are,” said the man at the door.
“Right,” said the green-eyed man before he stood, lifted her up, and hoisted her over his shoulder. Kiarra froze as her belly touched his shoulder, and before she could say a word, they were moving down the hall, her face bouncing against the man’s back.
Chapter Two
Jaxton tightened his grip on the woman tossed over his shoulder and hoped like hell the little tigress would behave. She seemed determined to die and part of him wondered why.
But as the sound of boots and voices behind them grew louder, he focused back on his mission and pushed himself to run faster. Everything—including his brother’s life—rested on them making it to the escape tunnel in one piece.
The woman over his shoulder st
arted to move, and he felt her push her arms against his back and lift her upper body. He was about to tell her to stay still when two guards appeared from around the corner up ahead, blocking their path.
Fuck. He had hoped to avoid a confrontation, but with guards both behind and in front of them, he didn’t have a choice—they would have to fight.
He was about to signal his men to take position when the woman on his shoulder shouted, “The guards have tranquilizer guns.”
The woman’s warning held more than a little bit of panic; Jaxton reckoned she was telling the truth.
He tried to think of his options. The hallways inside this AMT were lined with steel, which meant that Jaxton and his team couldn’t use guns since the bullets might ricochet. And if the guards were using tranquilizer guns, they’d take Jaxton and his men out before they could engage them in any sort of hand-to-hand combat.
He had only one option left—if they were to have any chance of escape, Taka, Marco, and Darius were going to have to use their elemental magic.
“No restrictions!” he yelled to his men, the signal for them to use their magic freely. Jaxton maneuvered to the side and was just about to lower the woman slung over his shoulder to the floor when he heard a gun go off.