Page 47 of Burdened Bonds

But it fades much quicker now. Someone is shouting at me, pulling me to my feet, the pain so vivid I can no longerescape it.

I feel for the beast inside me. But he’s silent. I can’t find him. Is he out cold too?

What the hell happened?

“Spencer Moreau?”

My good eyelid flutters. I strain to see.

A hand slaps me around the face. My eye pulls into focus.

It’s a soldier holding me up. One dressed in the republic’s uniform. A man I don’t recognize. He’s not the man shouting.

I swivel my eyeball, even that movement sending pain spiraling through my head. My gaze is hazy, perhaps untrustworthy, because I swear the man standing next to him is Tristan’s father, Christopher Kennedy.

“For goodness’ sake,” he tuts, “give him some pain relief or we’ll never get any straight answers out of him.”

“And his injuries, Sir,” the soldier says, peering at me with clear disgust. “Should we heal those?”

“He’s a mutt. A curseded. Leave him as he is.”

“F-f-f-f-fuck you,” I stutter, my lips bruised, my tongue heavy.

The soldier scowls at me, draws back his hand and I’m plunged straight down into the abyss.

Next timeI emerge from the gloom, I’m alone again and the pain isn’t intense. It’s still there, hovering in the background, but it isn’t as bad. I can breathe. I can think.

The swelling on my face must have subsided slightly because I can open my wounded eye a little.

The room I find myself in is dark and dank, no windows to the outside world, the walls stone and damp, the airfreezing cold. A dungeon, I’m guessing, or a cellar. Am I still at the academy, down in the basement of the ruined mansion? Or am I somewhere else entirely?

I shift my head, even though it has pain shooting down my neck. There’s one heavy door on the far side of the room. Shut. There’s no one else here. The soldier and Christopher Kennedy – was that really him? – gone.

I assess the damage to my body. The rest of me is just as busted up as it was. A broken leg. A dislocated arm. Fuck knows what to my face.

I search for my magic, determining if there’s any chance I could fix this damage. But I’m low, the tank almost empty, barely enough to light a bulb. I also find metal cuffs wrapped around my wrists, my arms chained to the cold wall I’m slumped against, and as I swallow I realize, there’s another metal cuff, around my neck.

A collar.

The beast stirs angrily inside me. He’s awake now too. I consider shifting our forms. He’d have the strength to bust through these chains, I’m sure. But even as I think it, I sense he’s as weak, as bruised and battered as I am. He was the one that endured this beating after all.

I pull feebly on the chain with my good arm. It’s not only my magic that’s weak. I am too.

Why the hell am I here? Who the hell has chained me to this wall? And what the hell do they want?

I try to think of some way out, some way to escape. I doubt very much that remaining here is going to end well for me. But my head aches and it’s hard to assemble the thoughts in my mind; any glimmer of an idea quickly flickering away, my efforts to grab it and make it stay too slow.

I close my eyes. I’m so damn tired and though the pain is weaker, it still has my stomach turning and my jaw tight.

What’s the point in remaining awake? There’s nothing I can do but wait. Wait for them to return.

It’s the sound of heavy boots that wakes me next, followed by the drawing back of heavy locks and the creaking open of the door. A soldier peers through the gap, then swivels his head to talk to the person behind him.

“He’s awake.”

“Be careful then. He’s fucking strong.”

“And chained to the wall,” the soldier in the doorway says. He swings the door back and they both walk through. The second man lingers by the far wall as if he doesn’t trust these chains to keep me bound. I doubt they would usually, but in my current state he has nothing to worry about.