For the Reign Read online

  “There!” I pointed at the screen to our right.

  Jace stopped rewinding and hit play.

  Noah was standing outside a door, his hand braced on the wood, a frown on his face. He had something in his hand … A knife. A big fuck-off knife.

  My hand went to my throat. “What is it? What is he doing?”

  “Jace, what corridor is that?” Logan’s voice was low, almost as if he already knew the answer.

  “That’s level three,” Jace said. “That’s Gina’s room.”

  Silence reigned as we all absorbed this fact, as we watched Noah reach for the door handle, watched him stop suddenly and turn to look straight at the camera. And then his hand was moving toward us, followed by static.

  “He took out the camera,” Jace said softly. “He had a knife.” He pressed his fingers to his temples. “Oh, shit, Noah. What did you do?”

  But something was bugging me. Something I’d seen in Noah’s eyes just before he’d shut off the camera.

  I tapped the screen with an index finger. “Can you rewind that tape, just a little.”

  Jace hit the keys.

  “Stop.” I leaned in. “Look at him, look at his face.”

  Ash’s hand caressed the small of my back, and I glanced over my shoulder at him.

  “Do you see it?”

  He nodded. He saw it.

  “He looks … frightened,” Jace said.

  Logan pinched the bridge of his nose. “We need to find him.”

  “I’ll check the rest of the footage,” Jace said. “He took out this camera, but maybe we can catch him on one of the others.”

  We scanned the many screens that covered the bunker, looking for any shot of Noah, and just when I thought we wouldn’t find anything, something flitted across the periphery of camera five.

  “Wait. I think I saw something.” I pointed at the screen marked LVL 1bB.

  Jace carefully rewound the tape.

  “There!”

  Jace hit freeze.

  It wasn’t much, more a shadow than anything else, with the pale curve of an arm attached to it.

  “Gina?” Logan proposed.

  I squinted at the screen. “It has to be. Noah was wearing a long-sleeved top.”

  My brow had broken out in perspiration, and my heart was beating a little faster. Not now. I couldn’t have one of my episodes. Please, not now.

  Ash pulled me toward him and placed the back of his hand on my cheek. He frowned and touched the nape of my neck.

  “Ash?” Logan was watching us quizzically.

  I gripped Ash’s hand and glared at him. “I’m fine.” I had to be. There was no time to flake out here. “We need to split up and find Noah.”

  Ash pressed his lips together and glared at me intensely.

  “I’m fine, honest.” And just like that I was. My racing heart slowed. “See?”

  Ash exhaled through his nose and nodded.

  “We’ll split up. Eva, you can go with Ash, but if you start to feel rough, or strange in any way, you need to head right back here, do you understand?” Logan said.

  “Yeah. I get it.”

  “Good.” Logan looked to Jace. “Do we have walkies?”

  Jace hurried to a cabinet in the corner of the room and returned with two regular longwave walkies. He handed one to me and one to Logan.

  “Channel three. If you find him, do not approach. Just radio in. It’ll take us all to bring him down.”

  We were headed out blind. The image of Noah with the blade standing outside Gina’s room played through my mind. The fear in his eyes … Had he known he was about to shift? Had he been going to warn Gina and give her a weapon?

  There was no way to know for sure, not until we had Noah in lockdown and could speak to Gina directly.

  If she’s alive, Dad said softly in my head.

  I ignored him and headed for the door after Logan and Jace.

  It was time to do a sweep of the bunker.

  Chapter Seven

  The four of us swept the main floor, splitting up at each intersection to take the various corridors in pairs. The bunker was huge, larger than I’d realized. The lounge was trashed—sofas ripped to shreds, several light bulbs smashed—but even in the red light, the claw marks on the walls were visible. It was as if Noah had walked in a crouch, dragging his talons across the wall. But there was no sign of Noah or Gina on this level.

  We met up at the stairwell leading down.

  “We’ll take level three,” Jace said. “You guys sweep level two.”

  We took the stairs quickly, alert to any new sounds. Logan and Jace took the exit onto level three, but Ash and I continued down an extra floor. Was the air chillier here?

  Shit, the lights were dimmer on level two, and a quick inspection showed why. Several of the bulbs were out of commission, but there was enough light to see by. This was the floor where the gym was, where many of the smaller cabins were. A door to the right was hanging off its hinges. Ash pulled me back and ducked into the room to check it out. He emerged a moment later and shook his head. There was another door marked “Storage” on the left. Ash checked there too, while I stood, tulwar at the ready to stab or maim or whatever.

  Nothing.

  Good.

  My pulse fluttered. Only a matter of time now, though. The hilt of my tulwar was sweaty in my palm. Shit, Noah, where are you?

  We were in a long corridor now, and an arrow on the wall pointed ahead with the word “Gym” marked clearly on it. Ash paused and sniffed the air, and then the lights up ahead went out with a series of pops.

  Pitch black awaited us. I closed my eyes and opened them, focusing on the environment. Focusing on finding the stray elements of light, enough to kick my night vision into gear. I could do this. Elias’s voice filled my head, telling me that I had the abilities, that I had the genes and whatever perks they gave me, and night vision was one of them. I’d used it in the cave. I could do this. As if activated by my acceptance of the fact, my vision bloomed silver and black and the door several meters away was suddenly clear—ajar and waiting.

  The hairs on my arm stood to attention. He was in there. Every fiber of my being told me he was in there. Ash took a step forward, but I grabbed his arm and shook my head.

  Lifting the radio to my mouth, I depressed the button. “Guys, get down here. He’s in the gym.”

  A metallic clatter drifted out of the ajar door, and my body tensed. Shit. He was really in there.

  And then a female scream tore the air.

  Gina!

  We were both in motion, sprinting toward the gym and into the darkness beyond without thinking. Something dashed across the room to our right, vanishing behind some workout equipment.

  The figure was too small to be Noah.

  “Ash …”

  His chest rumbled, and he dropped into a defensive stance as an ominous snarl drifted out of the shadows.

  No, that was definitely not Noah.

  Noah would have attacked by now.

  As if reading my mind, the thing exploded out of the darkness to prove me wrong. I caught the impression of a pale face, dark eyes, and a familiar pixie haircut.

  Gina?

  Ash faltered, waiting a moment too late to defend, and Gina was on him, jaws snapping, eager to take a bite.

  “No!” I grabbed the back of her top and yanked hard enough to pull her off him. “Gina. No!”

  She twisted in my grip, spittle flying. Her talons whizzed past my face, and then Ash had her in a bear hug—his chest to her back, her arms pinned. She thrashed and bucked, but there would be no escaping that hold.

  The door flew open, and Logan and Jace barreled in.

  “Shit. Fucking shit,” Logan said.

  Jace covered his mouth and shook his head. “Gina … God.”

  Gina snarled and growled, her heart-shaped face contorted in fury at being restrained. Hunger danced in her eyes.

  “We have some of the cure,” Logan said. “We can save her.�
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  We had two vials of each cure. We could use one on her, the one for the mutated virus, but … “Not yet. We only have one vial we can use. One dose. We need to find Noah first.”

  “Oh, fuck.” Jace turned away, hands on hips. “You think Noah might be infected?”

  “Yes.”

  His little trip to Gina’s room with a knife made sense now. He must have known she was turning. Known something was off, but the fact she was roaming free didn’t bode well for him.

  “You’d use the dose on Noah rather than Gina?” Jace asked.

  “I think we need to assess the situation fully before making a decision.”

  “We lock her up, and we continue our search,” Logan agreed.

  Ash carried a thrashing Gina out of the gym to the storage room down the corridor. He threw her in and locked the door. The Feral Gina immediately began to bang on the metal.

  “She’ll be fine in there,” Logan said.

  Ash signed at Logan.

  Logan nodded. “Yeah, we managed to complete the sweep of our level. There’s just the basement left now.”

  Jace was staring into the darkness down the corridor. “Noah knew she was turning. He knew, and he shut down the bunker to secure her in, and if … if she did bite him, there’s only one place he would have gone.”

  Only one place … “Containment.”

  Noah, in his beast form, lay in the containment cell. His chest rose and fell erratically. He turned his head as we entered and snarled, but it was a half-hearted attempt that seemed to take too much out of him.

  Jace rushed over to a bank of monitors to our right and began to type stuff in, but my attention was on Noah, on the Fang that was a father to these guys. He was dying. I could see it in his bloodshot eyes. We’d seen what the mutated virus did to humans, but this … this is what it did to supernaturals.

  “Shit,” Jace said. “Vitals are spotty. He must be infected. No way to tell if he was bit while in hairy mode, though, not without a close-up examination.”

  Ash walked up to the containment unit and crouched down to peer at Noah. He reached out and placed his palm on the glass. Noah snapped and snarled again, but then his eyes rolled back in his head and he lay still.

  “It’s killing him,” Logan said softly.

  “It’s a reversal,” Jace said. “The original virus killed humans and made supernatural Feral. The mutated virus turns humans Feral but kills supernaturals.”

  I unzipped the pouch and grabbed the cure for the mutated virus. “Open the door.”

  Jace and Logan exchanged glances.

  “You really would choose Noah over Gina?” Logan asked.

  “Gina isn’t dying. She can wait for us to synthesize more. Noah hasn’t got that kind of time. Now open the door.”

  No one argued, but Ash got to his feet and held out his hand for the cure.

  I shook my head. “No. It has to be me. I have the Vladul gene; he also knows my scent. Hopefully, he’ll pick up on both and not attack.”

  “It didn’t stop him from attacking you before,” Logan reminded me.

  “That was before my various aspects began to manifest.” I walked up to the door. “Open it, Jace.”

  My voice sounded confident and sure, but my insides were quivering with fear, because what if I was wrong?

  Noah was still unmoving inside.

  Ash signed at Jace.

  “Fuck, Ash. If she gets her head ripped off …”

  “I won’t.”

  Ash gave me a look, one that said, you better fucking not.

  God, I loved that he didn’t try and dominate my decisions, that he didn’t go all alpha male on me all the time. Logan, on the other hand, was all bristle and bite.

  “I’m coming in with you,” Logan said. “If he flips, you’re dead.”

  I pressed a hand to his chest to halt him. “And he’s more likely to flip if we go in there in force. Too many scents and he’ll think he’s being attacked and get defensive.”

  “And since when have you been an expert on primal behavior?”

  “Since I fucking have the primal gene.”

  He snapped his mouth closed.

  I took a deep breath and allowed my hand to slide from his chest. “Look, I appreciate your concern. Trust me, I want to live. But I truly believe this is the best way to do this.”

  Logan opened his mouth to speak, to argue, or to agree, not sure which, but Jace cut him off.

  “You’ll need a syringe for the cure. One that will actually pierce his hide.” He smiled at me reassuringly before going to a cabinet and grabbing a black case. He glanced over his shoulder. “The vial?”

  I handed it to him and watched as he carefully filled a syringe with the fluid. The needle was long, thick, and glinted wickedly in the artificial light.

  Logan shook his head, his disapproval written all over his face, but he stepped out of my way.

  I unbuckled the pouch and passed it to Ash. Just in case. He frowned but didn’t question me. The door slid open, and I stepped inside the chamber. It closed with a swish, leaving me trapped with the huge, monstrous figure on the ground. Noah didn’t stir as I approached. Thank goodness, because it felt like my bladder was about to lose control as it was. Even breathing. Keep adrenaline levels steady. He’d smell the spike, and goodness only knew how he’d react to that.

  The space was silent, like being in a vacuum. Noah would only hear what was happening outside if Jace activated the two-way intercom. They wouldn’t hear me scream. No. Don’t think like that. Focus on the task.

  My pulse thudded in my throat as I approached Noah. He was alive, he was breathing. Could he hear me approach? The syringe was gripped tight. All I needed to do was stab, depress, and run.

  Jace was at the controls, ready to open the door for me. I looked up and met Ash’s pale eyes from his position crouched on the other side of Noah beyond the glass. He nodded. Noah was out cold. Good. I got to my knees by his hip, syringe at the ready. His arm was bare … Hairy but bare. Okay. I brought the syringe down, ready to pierce his flesh. He moved so fast, my body froze, uncomprehending, and then I was slammed into the ground and he was on top of me. His clawed hand was at my throat, but it was more a stay-down grip, not an I-want-to-squeeze-the-life-from-you grip. His golden eyes raked my face, and he was there, behind those irises. Noah was there, looking right at me, almost as if the beast was a mask, a costume he’d been forced to wear.

  The swish of the door opening had him turning his head slowly to the entrance. Vanilla … Logan.

  “Noah. Let her go,” Logan said. There was something in his hand. A black baton … A taser?

  Noah’s grip tightened, and he growled low and menacing, but it wasn’t aimed at me. It was aimed at Logan. My gut told me that Noah wouldn’t hurt me, and that Logan’s presence was agitating him.

  “Logan. Go. Get out. Please.”

  “Eva, what the fuck?”

  “Trust me.”

  “Do it, Logan,” Jace said over the intercom. “Vitals are steady. She’s got this.”

  Logan’s jaw flexed, but he backed up slowly, reluctantly, and the door closed, shutting him out and shutting me in with the beast. Noah turned his attention back to me, and his grip loosened.

  I attempted a smile. “Hey, Noah. You don’t look so great.”

  He blinked rapidly and shook his head, and then he leaned in and sniffed me.

  “Yeah. Yeah, that’s right. We’re kinda the same, you and I.”

  He raised his head to showcase eyes way too bright. His pupils had dilated, and the confidence I’d been feeling evaporated. He sniffed me again, and this time when he raised his head all I could see was fang and bloodlust. Noah had slipped under the tide. Noah was gone.

  Sage’s words came back to me, his story of the Vladul and the fey and how fey blood was an aphrodisiac to them. Fey blood that came from fey genes. Genes that were inside me.

  I’d messed up.

  I’d messed up bad.

&nb
sp; His fangs sank into my throat and there was no time to scream. No way to evade him, because even with the infection running through his veins, he was stronger, so much stronger than me. The syringe was still in my hand, and my heart was pumping way too hard as he drained me.

  Someone roared and then my body was being jostled. They were trying to get him off me. Wait. One moment. I brought my hand up and stabbed Noah in the side of his neck. His body convulsed, and then he slid off me, taking his bite with him. Ash hauled me up and into his arms. He made to seal the wound, but I pushed him away.

  “No. The infection.” My voice was reedy and far away.

  His eyes widened in horror.

  The world was woozy for a minute. “It’s okay, I have the … the antibod—” The world went black.

  Chapter Eight

  Male hands skating across taut muscle and pale, velvet skin. Water beating down, delicious and soothing on my face, and my lips parted in ecstasy. Yes … like that. The hard, proud jut of arousal wrapped in my fist, pumping, pumping. Elias. Elias in my head, or was I in his?

  “Eva? Eva, can you hear me?”

  Sage? The dream shattered, and I cracked open my eyes to the bronzed Adonis’s face.

  A gentle frown settled on his forehead. “You gave us quite a scare there.”

  I was on a bed. My bed from before, the one in my cabin. My head felt like I’d gone a few rounds with a wildebeest.

  “What happened?”

  “You passed out after Noah infected you. Jace has been running bloodwork on you for the past twelve hours. The last lot came back clean.” He smiled. “Looks like your body did its thing.”

  I tried to sit up, but the world was still woozy. “Oh, shit. I feel weak.”

  He cleared his throat. “Yeah. That’s because you need to feed.”

  Food? My stomach turned at the thought. I rolled onto my side. “Not hungry.”

  He kneeled by the bed. “Maybe not for food.”

  His scent hit me, the usual cinnamon aroma, but there was something new, something so delicious it had my mouth pooling with saliva. My gums throbbed and then the ache eased.