Page 68 of Dissection of Immortal Hearts (Hospital for Immortal Creatures #3)

Kathrine

Kathrine’s lungs expanded with each breath, her weary muscles propelling her forward across the sea. She found herself beneath the stars of a strange sky. In the distance, a fire burned, casting light on the people gathered on the beach.

The sea really was a gateway to Antambazi. Few believed it. Most who dared to test it returned as corpses – or not at all. But she’d made it. Alive, breathing, and somewhere entirely unfamiliar. Her urgency increased as she neared the shore.

Sevar had tried to kill her…

Her feet touched the seabed. She’d long since discarded her shoes, but the Chosen’s attire still clung to her reptilian form. When the crash of the waves blended with beachside music, she transformed into her human shape.

A few metres from shore, the moonlight illuminated her figure as she emerged from the water, yet no one noticed. She brushed back her wet, short hair. She was alive and intended to live long enough to witness the demise of those who had failed to end her.

Her feet found firm ground on the shore, and she surveyed the cove where she’d landed. On one side, a low hill rose, its summit gleaming with lights. Her gaze traced the wooden staircase leading up to them.

She approached two young men by the fire and raised her voice over the music. “Where are we?” The two exchanged glances. “What’s this beach?”

“Coral?” one of them answered, raising an eyebrow.

“Is this a campsite?” She nodded at the lights on the hill.

Now the men looked at her as if she were drunk. “Yes, ‘South Camp’… Want a beer?”

“No, thank you.” She turned towards the stairs. Her clothes weighed a ton as she trudged through the sand. Suddenly, she could no longer bear the mark of the Chosen on her body. She unzipped and unbuttoned the suit, then peeled it off over her legs, standing naked in the middle of the beach.

Someone whistled. Kathrine didn’t give a damn. She was a reptilian in a foreign realm, and she had just lost everything.

She stole clothes from a laundry line and slipped on discarded flip-flops, which she would make do with until she found more comfortable footwear. Then she set off between the caravans, assuming that sooner or later, she would come out onto the main road.

When the headlights of a car driving through the campsite illuminated her, she raised her thumb.

The car’s slow speed allowed Kathrine to see that the driver was alone.

From inside the luxury Mercedes, he eyed her thighs beneath the stolen shorts.

Then, he seemed to decide she was worth pulling over for.

Before he’d fully lowered the window, she reached through it and grabbed his head with both hands.

She slammed his skull into the steering wheel, avoiding the horn, and as soon as the man lost consciousness, Kathrine unlocked the car from the inside and opened the door, dragging the body out.

She hid it off the side of the road and settled into the driver’s seat.

She had no plan, but she had a goal.

It would start with something small.

And then, one by one, she would uncover Sevar’s secrets.

***

Zacharia

Zacharia wasn’t the type to analyse his feelings. Instead, he was the type who felt very little, apart from a genuine indifference to the world around him. Well, he could get excited by certain stimuli, though the usual life dramas were as distant to him as the desire to settle down for good.

But a thousand fucking devils , the fate of the witch from Byala Voda had left a bitter taste in his mouth.

The guilt of not having done more to save her continued to gnaw at him.

At least he could have taken care of her cat and the daughter instead of literally fulfilling the girl’s words – ‘get lost.’

Still, if it had been necessary to steal the necklace from the witch, Zacharia wouldn’t have hesitated to rip her head off. Sentimentality was one thing; loyalty to Mikhail and Amelia was another.

He wrinkled his nose. The past was over.

Paths always part for a reason. If there was a single person on this Earth who could accept separation with nothing more than a shrug, it was Zacharia.

Ever since his parents had thrown him away as a baby, he’d learned not to expect anything from anyone.

Expectations led to disappointments; therefore, he had none.

What he did have was the speed and agility of a vampire, combined with the strength and sharp senses of a lycanthrope. Especially the sense of smell…

He pressed his body against the nearest tree and searched for the source of the sea salt scent flooding his nostrils. They were close to the sea, but not close enough for it to be that pronounced. Yet suddenly there were other aromas – floral, feminine scents.

He spotted her in a heartbeat. She strode through the grass as though she were the greatest predator in the forest, the determination on her face suggesting she would kill anyone who dared to challenge that.

Zacharia hadn’t had much interaction with her species before, yet he recognised she was a reptilian.

Should he capture her or wait for the others on her team to appear?

She wouldn’t dare attack the cabin alone, would she?

On the other hand, she didn’t give the impression of someone trying to sneak by unnoticed.

And her torn T-shirt and shorts, paired with flip-flops and a complete lack of weapons… Was it cover, or…?

He stepped into her path. “Hello. Are you lost?”

She froze in place, as if snapped out of her thoughts mid-step. “Fuck off!”

“Quite rude, don’t you think?”

“I’m not in the mood for encounters with suspicious guys in the woods.” She waved her hand and tried to skirt around him.

Was this just a random woman passing by their hideout?

He blocked her path again. “You’re entering my territory.”

She wrinkled her nose, glancing in both directions. “I don’t see a sign that says this is your territory.”

“I was here first.”

The reptilian took a deep breath and fixed her unusual eyes on his. “I don’t care who you are or what you want, but I’m having the worst day of my life, and if you don’t get out of my way in three seconds, I’ll snap your neck, then gut you and throw your intestines to the vultures.”

His eyebrows shot up. Not that he doubted her ability to follow through – if any other man had stood in her path, no question – but that wasn’t why her words didn’t land.

He’d just received one of the most elaborately crafted threats in a century, and all he could feel was…

aroused. Should that concern him? He took in her oval face, framed by short dark chestnut hair.

He’d met this woman before, though he couldn’t remember when. “Who are you?”

The wind carried sounds of conversation, and Zacharia recognised the voices of Mikhail and Amelia. The reptilian turned her head towards them, then her eyes scanned Zacharia’s features. Her pupils dilated. “Aren’t you…?”

Zacharia’s hand shot to his belt holster, drawing his weapon and aiming it at her.

She raised her palms in surrender. “I’m Kathrine, and until recently, I was one of the Chosen of the Queen of Reptilians.

I helped the former Oracle escape from Antambazi, and I gave you the journal of C.

so you could learn more about the reptilians.

Last night, my fiancé, Sevar, tried to kill me, but I escaped.

And from now on, the only goal in my life is to destroy those who betrayed me. ”

Without lowering his weapon, Zacharia studied her. This was the woman from the video at the Righteous’ club.

“And you must be Zacharia,” she said. “I’ve seen photos of you. At first, I didn’t recognise you, because I didn’t expect to meet you here. At least not until I heard the Oracle’s voice.”

He was about to play the surprised fool and lie that there was no Oracle close by, but she said, “On my former fiancé’s desk in Antambazi, there was a note with directions on how to reach this place.

I followed them, thinking it was yet another of his secrets.

If I’m reading this right and your hideout is nearby, you need to get out of here as fast as possible. ”