Torture

Days later and I was still on my best behavior. At Xander’s insistence, I started classes, joining my friends in learning all about the evil ways of dragons.

The classes were a joke. History of Dragons was, at best, a propaganda-filled seminar of all the ways dragons had wronged humans throughout history.

I struggled not to laugh at the ridiculous, convoluted ways the lecturer rewrote the narrative so dragons were monstrous, blood-driven beasts hell-bent on eradicating the human race. But when looked at from a slightly different angle, the dragons were protecting their race from the humans who slaughtered young dragons in their sleep.

But I kept up the charade, attending lectures and partaking in dragon-defense classes. Though, honestly, if a dragon wanted you dead, nothing taught in that class would save you.

I was sitting on a beanbag chair in the luxurious dorm room I shared with Zayda and Thea. I took a sip of coffee and spun the mint bracelet on my wrist, my mind on my mates, just like it always was whenever I had a minute of downtime.

“You’re not thinking about them, are you?” Zayda said. I looked up. She was watching me from a window between the stacks of textbooks piled on her desk.

“No,” I said shortly, knowing I needed her to believe me. I couldn’t let word get back to Xander that I was thinking about Loch and Hael. He’d never forgive it, and I feared what he would do to my friends if he found out.

I pretended to look out the window, watching faraway birds soar through the cloudless sky. I wondered if one might be a dragon…

“Madeline,” Zayda said, reading my silence. “Don’t lie to me. You’ve been acting strange since you got here.” She plopped down in a beanbag next to mine.

“It’s the bracelet, isn’t it? That thing’s like…I don’t know…making you too chill. You’re usually so fiery and angry and passionate. You seem so much quieter. It’s weird. I know that the bracelet is for your own protection, but still. It’s okay to think about them a little—”

“I hate them,” I said, cutting her off. But the words came out hollow, and my chest ached as I’d said it.

I didn’t hate Loch and Hael at all. Why else would I have felt like this even with the stupid bracelet on?

“The truth, Maddie. Spill.” Zayda had a determined look on her face.

I hadn’t told anyone the truth. I’d just barely admitted the truth to myself. Would it really hurt to tell her?

I gripped her wrist tight, forcing her to look me in the eye. “You have to promise not to say a word. If any of this gets back to Xander, your life could be at risk.”

Her eyes went wide, almost like a bug’s. “I promise.”

“I don’t hate them,” I admitted. “They have their own, somewhat twisted sense of ownership and pain and pleasure, but I don’t hate them. I couldn’t. They’re my mates.”

I scratched underneath the bracelet.

“I think you should take it off,” Zayda said.

“No. I can’t,” I refused in a weak voice.

“Do it,” she said, her eyes lasering on the bracelet. “It’s full of bad energy. I can tell.”

“How?” I asked. “Wait… What are you doing?”

Zayda grabbed my wrist and concentrated on the bracelet. Her eyes glazed over, trance-like. Her curly brown hair blew around her head, though, oddly, I couldn’t feel a breeze.

“Zayda—”

The bracelet suddenly snapped. Green liquid oozed down my arm. Zayda gasped, covering her mouth with her hand.

“Oh my gosh! I’m so sorry. I don’t know what came over me.”

I stared at the broken bracelet, speechless. What the fuck was that?

“One of my professors thinks I’m some sort of mage,” Zayda mumbled, sensing my thoughts. “I can’t control my powers yet… But I’ve never done anything like this before.”

Her phone buzzed loudly, and she hurried back to her desk. As I stared in wonder at the trailing liquid, I heard her shriek with delight.

“Xythor’s at the gate! Gotta go!”

She took a quick look in the mirror, adjusting her now messy hair.

“Xythor? Who’s that?” I asked.

“I met him last night. Thea and I went into Requiem City after you went to sleep. We have a date,” Zayda said, grabbing her purse. “Don’t wait up, okay?”

She slammed the door behind her, leaving me alone with the broken bracelet.

I went to the bathroom and washed the mint liquid off my skin. It felt like removing shackles. I was whole again.

My brand throbbed gently on my back as I reached out to Loch and Hael in my mind. I had to know if they were okay.

“~Hello?~” I asked, the voice in my mind trying to pinpoint them like radar. I definitely sensed that my mates were alive. And nearby. But they didn’t answer.

Instead, my feet turned on their own and headed for the door. It was like I was possessed. I didn’t try to stop. I knew they were taking me to Loch and Hael.

Free of the mint bracelet, I felt reckless. I didn’t care if Xander saw me or not. I needed to know my mates were okay. I missed them. A lot.

I walked down one hall, then another. Down a set of stairs to another hallway.

Eventually, my feet led me across the courtyard to an old stone building I’d never seen before. Inside, I descended several dark and musty stairwells to a basement level deep beneath the campus. I opened a heavy door to find myself in a sort of medieval dungeon.

I shivered in the cold, subterranean air, listening to the slow drip of water. I heard slow, ragged breathing. My feet led me slowly forward, the throb of my brand growing stronger with each step.

I looked through barred cell doors, but the rooms behind them were empty. I winced with a sudden pain. My brand was burning. I felt it pulling me toward an oversize door at the end of the hallway. I had to stand on tiptoes to look through the tiny window.

I gasped at what I saw.

Loch and Hael were sprawled naked on the wet stone floor. They looked weaker than detoxing drug addicts, their skin nearly translucent in its whiteness. They were both hooked up to IVs infusing their blood with some sort of bright red liquid.

Loch squinted through the window, recognizing my face. Too depleted to muster his usual sneer, he called my name in the withered voice of a dying man…

“M-M-Madeline…”

At one time, I might have taken some joy in seeing them so near death.

But I felt gutted knowing that I was the cause of their pain. If I’d trusted our mating, I wouldn’t have put them to sleep that night.

And now they were splayed on the cell floor, limp and pale like a pair of diseased bodies.

I’d experienced the depth of their powers and understood how truly helpless they’d become.

I squished my face to the bars, tears blurring my vision.

“What did Xander do to you?” I asked in a trembling voice. For a second, I thought the Dobrzyckas were too feeble to answer. Then I heard Hael’s raking whisper…

“It’s Dragon’s Bane,” he gasped, laboriously nodding to the IV in his arm. “You have to save us, Maddie… Or we’re going to die…”

“Please, Maddie…” Loch whimpered.

I was stunned. Their menace was completely erased. My mates were mere husks of their former selves. Shriveled, desperate, and dying.

“You’re trying to trick me,” I said, testing them. I didn’t want to be their fool again.

“Now is not the time…to be a stupid rat…” Loch chuckled, breaking into a coughing fit.

“We’re dying…,” Hael said. “And once we’re dead…you will be too. N-no one…survives…their mate…dying…”

I watched as the light disappeared from their eyes, now faded to the color of dead grass rather than their brilliant emerald. Loch’s head sank closer to the floor as he lost the strength to face me. A cockroach skittered past him. His breaths slowed to a near stop.

My heart almost ripped out of my chest. My brand throbbed, but this time it wasn’t painful. Instead, pure adrenaline pumped through my veins. I grabbed the bars.

“Loch!” I shouted. He didn’t move. I pulled hard on the bars. Nothing happened. I pulled harder, giving it all my strength. To my surprise, the hinges gave with a piercing whine, and I snapped the heavy door from its frame.

I rushed to Loch’s side, freeing his arm from the drip. I shook him hard.

“Loch, wake up… Wake up!” I saw the light flicker back into his eyes as he looked up at me. For the first time ever, they expressed his relief…his thanks…

I turned to Hael, gasping and wheezing across the room. I stood to free him…

When I heard running footsteps behind us.

“Apprehend her!” I heard Xander yell. I turned around to see Nautica running toward me, blocking the empty doorframe. Xander appeared behind him, his face twisted with rage.

“Wait!” I argued as the dragon slayers moved closer. “Loch was dying… You said you wouldn’t kill them…”

I felt a sharp pain as Xander’s hand flew across my face.

“You foolish girl,” he said, seething. “Nautica, take her away while I take care of the Twin Leading Breeds.” He knelt to the floor, picking up Loch’s dripping IV.

“We’ll speak about this soon, Madeline,” he growled. “I’m extremely disappointed.”

Nautica roughly grabbed me, pushing me out the door. I fought him, trying to steal a last look at my mates, but he wrenched my arms in his grasp and marched me down the cell block toward the stairs leading up.

I struggled against his hold on me, shouting curses at both him and Xander. How dare they treat my mates like that. Loch and Hael were beautiful creatures deserving of respect, not the monsters this school thought they were.

I cursed myself for being such a naive fool, for thinking Xander would spare my mates’ lives if I followed his orders.

If Xander killed Loch and Hael, he would be toast. I didn’t care that he was my father. I didn’t care if I had to do it with my last breath. I’d kill him. That was a motherfucking promise.