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The Drone slid his gaze to Michio, who then stepped around the cage and unlocked the padlock. The door swung open.

That was weird. He’d looked at Michio, and Michio opened the cage. I was certain something had passed between them. Something I couldn’t sense beyond the persistent hum. Whatever it was confirmed my suspicion. The Drone was commanding Michio and all the fanged men the way he silently controlled the aphids.

My stomach turned with worry for Michio. But I held onto hope. If the Drone really was using some kind of coercive persuasion, that meant Michio’s mind was still in there, trapped somewhere behind those dead eyes. If I managed to kill the Drone, Michio would be free. Right?

But in a room of fanged men, outnumbered and unarmed, it was difficult to believe the monster, who had survived all my attacks before, would easily fall now. Then again, I stopped subscribing to easy a long time ago.

“Go ahead.” The Drone made a shooing motion. “Come on out.”

Was it a test to see how much strength I had? I could crawl, but could I walk? I shouldn’t be able to, yet I felt hyped-up, bursting with energy. I bet I could run.

I took my time crawling out, deliberately dragging my legs behind me and contorting my face in pain. Some of it was real as joints I hadn’t used in two weeks protested against the effort to support my weight. The rest I drew out, rising to my knees, falling on my ass, and whimpering before trying again.

Had I emerged without an audience, I would’ve staggered to my wobbly feet by now. Instead, I climbed up the outside of the cage and moved to drop again.

Michio’s arm swung out, and the back of his hand crashed against my face.

I slammed against the floor on my back, biting my lip against the impact, my hands flying up to clutch my aching cheekbone. A backhanded hit to the face stung like a son of a bitch, but a hit from Michio struck deep, far beneath the surface of tissue and bone. I felt it like a blade through the heart.

I glared through blurred vision at the Drone. “Why?”

But I knew why. He was displeased with my performance and what better way to hurt me than through the fist of the man I loved?

Crawling to Michio’s boots, I gripped his legs and lifted my gaze. “I know you’re in there, trapped and fighting. You’re not alone, Michio. I won’t give up on you.”

He stared at the wall across the room, still as a statue, his nonresponse constricting my chest.

The Drone circled the cage, hand in the pocket of his black slacks, and stopped beside Michio. “You’ve gone soft, Eveline. And so has Dr. Nealy.” He reached over and palmed Michio’s groin, vile fingers stroking and squeezing. “But Elaine’s been working on his softness. She’s quite smitten.”

He was baiting me, but I couldn’t control the burning sensation in my stomach or the rash decision to jolt to my feet. I shot to my full height, swaying on jelly legs, and smacked the Drone’s hand away from Michio’s cock. He let me, grinning as he stepped back, evidently thrilled I’d proved his theory that I held some sort of inhuman energy.

I stood on shaky yet dependable legs. “Why am I here? What do you want?”

“I want you showered and dressed to my specifications.”

I set my jaw and planted my feet in a wide stance. “I won’t fight you if you release Michio from whatever spell you’ve put him under.”

He tsked. “No, Eveline. You’ll cooperate because you want to know what happened to your Lakota friends in the mountains. You want to know what I’m doing with the women outside of the gates, and what will become of Elaine’s child now that Michio’s bitten her.”

My skin tightened, and my stomach heaved, burning a fiery trail of acid through my throat.

He studied his razor-sharp nails, his tone callously conversational. “You’re going to do as I say, because if you don’t, Dr. Nealy will kill your lovers, after I’ve sucked every drop of power from your veins.”

I rubbed my upper arms, my mouth dry and throat tight. Dammit, the Drone was right about my thirst for answers. By threatening Jesse and Roark, he’d confirmed they were alive and knew where they were or how to find them.

And if Michio had bitten Elaine, where were her fangs? Maybe they were retracted, but why weren’t her eyes glazed over like the others?

Had he given her a seductive bite? I clenched my fists. Did he fuck her while he sank his fangs into her?

At my side, Michio stared off into the distance, his eyes as unmoving and stiff as his posture. For all I knew, he was thrashing and screaming inside his head, perpetually isolated, unable to communicate in any way.