Page 27 of Venomous Lies (Greywood Conservatory for the Arcane #2)
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W hite room with bright lights—that was what I opened my eyes to.
I blinked, trying to clear my vision, but to no avail. Hissing, I tried to cover my face to get away from it, and that was when I realized I couldn’t move.
Material banded across my head, my neck, my wrists, legs, and ankles, each point of contact keeping me in place.
As long as I didn’t shift… something I was sure the white coats were well aware of and prepared for.
“Is it ready?” Instantly recognizing the nasally voice, I grunted. “Getting this was a pain in the ass.”
A woman’s voice joined the conversation. “And you created enough collateral damage to draw too much attention.”
“I’m sure?—”
The woman cut off the nasally man. “Are you? You need to keep your beast on a shorter leash, Thatcher. All you’ve done now is draw more unwanted attention.”
“They were wastes of spots in the program,” the man, Thatcher , stated stubbornly. “Barely any potential?— ”
A loud grunt echoed, soon followed by rough coughs.
“A call that I make,” she replied coolly. “Inject the blood and stay here to monitor how it goes. If it expires, get rid of all evidence related to it.”
The click of her walking away, then she was gone.
A too-familiar face appeared above me. If only my vision had stayed hazy so I couldn’t make him out. He had a long needle, an instrument I’d learned of a long time ago, in his hand.
“Don’t fight it. Just accept it,” he urged me as he brought up the needle and pushed it into my vein.
Black lines appeared in my skin, crawling slowly at first before quickly climbing up my arm and digging into my skin at the same time. It felt as if the lines dug into me, like sharp spikes, as it moved.
I was used to pain, to being uncomfortable. As my body transformed, bones would grind together, parts of me breaking apart and snapping, but nothing compared to whatever this was.
These weren't the painful sensations that I was used to.
It hurt .
A scream clawed its way out of my throat, roaring into the room loudly enough that the man above me began to curse. The sound of shattering glass joined my screams.
I wanted to be free of it.
If I could have moved, I would have tried to claw it out of my body, tearing into myself to get it out.
A familiar ache hit my bones, my body trying to transform as another injection was administered.
No.
No.
The second cry was a cracking whisper, and the voice in my mind changed to a woman’s voice .
Husky.
Raspy.
One that I’d heard before.
She had sung in her glass cage, the one she had chosen.
The lull of her memory and voice had me calming even though my body writhed, still strapped down in place.
Darkness lingered along the edges, but I embraced it.
Stinging erupted along my arms and back.
I wished I had the words to describe how it felt.
Good. Bad. Terrifying.
That last word was how many of the white coats here described me. Hell, that was how some of the others acted when they saw me through their cages.
I hated to be grateful for my glass prison, but their metal ones looked worse.
Smaller, somehow.
This darkness was vast, a containment of a scale I’d never experienced.
Within it, I felt power that I’d never experienced before. It was life and death, twined together as one.
As the darkness continued to fall, the stinging began to fade. Only one word filled my mind.
Mate.
The beautiful snake.
The witch.
My mate.
Reaching out, I brushed against a being that felt more warm and alive than I did. Instead of rejection, I felt a thrumming power that steadied me. There was a soft sigh, then the darkness took over.
What have they done?