“Maybe they made her,” the other replied.
“Nah, she’s defending them,” the first guard said. “She’s a filthy lizard fucker. That’s what she is.”
Where the fuck were you when I was flying missions, huh? Down here in this bunker, nice and safe, I bet. You’ve never been within a hundred miles of a lizard, let alone close enough to be fucked by one. You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about. Neither one of you.
She tried to say all that and more. But it all came out in a long, incoherent moan of vaguely word-like sounds that didn’t do anything but make the guards laugh.
* * *
When she came to, Aria ached with the agony of a sadness so deep she could barely stand it. When it was her and her alone, she had been content with death. But that was no longer the case. She had someone else to fight for. Someone infinitely vulnerable. Someone who would be born of her body and Vyktor’s blood—if the doctors did not decide to do their ‘studies’ first.
It had never been so important to fight before, and she had never been so totally incapable of fighting. There was nothing in the cell to use as a tool, and there was no way out. The wallsof the thing were several feet thick, so there was no chance of burrowing.
It was all she could do to slow her breathing and try not to give into panic. There would be a way out. There was always a way out. What she had to do was be calm and quiet and then when that opportunity came, she had to take it no matter what the cost. There was no longer any room for caution in her world.
CHAPTER 19
The days went by, and Aria felt a fluttering begin low in her stomach. It was stronger than she had expected, and it reminded her that she was not alone anymore. They had imprisoned her singly, trying to break her will, but a part of Vyktor was still with her, and it was bringing something new, something she could already feel would not go without a fight.
There was no word on her case. No doubt her pregnancy had changed matters. She knew she would be the last to find out what her fate would be. The days went by and though she had every reason to lose hope, the movement in her belly reminded her that there was someone out there who cared for her more deeply than these people holding her captive could possibly understand.
One all too well lit ‘night,’ Aria was doing her best to sleep in her perpetually lit cell. She had asked for the day/night cycle to be restored in aid of her pregnancy, but there didn’t seem to be any concern for her or her offspring. In spite of their torture by denying her any sense of time, it had become apparent through the semi-frequent monitoring that weeks were passing. Weeksin which her stomach began to grow, and the dragon within her became more powerful.
Click.
Somewhere in the middle of what she thought was probably the night, Aria heard the door of her cell unlock. She knew that soft click that usually heralded some asshole coming to take her somewhere. She sat bolt upright, her hands protectively over her belly and waited for the soldier to come and take her away.
It didn’t happen. Nobody was there. She got up and tiptoed to the door and tried the handle. To her supreme surprise, it opened.
She looked into the hall and saw nobody there. What was going on? Had her cell been unlocked by accident? Someone leaned on something in the control panel? Was that even possible? Was it a trap? She didn’t know. All she knew was that fate, or something else, had given her a possible chance at escape, and she was going to take it.
Aria hugged the wall and sidled toward the guard station. She knew where at least one of them was located—and the likely location of an arsenal. All the guards were armed. She was mystified as to why she was yet to be detected. Every part of the building was under constant surveillance, but somehow she made it to the guard station without being caught. The door there was open too.
“Psst!”
She turned to see a shadowy figure approaching her from the rear. He was a prisoner, a fact made obvious by his pale skin and ugly jumpsuit. She wore the same.
“Everything’s been deactivated,” she whispered. “What’s going on?”
“I don’t know,” he whispered back. “But I’m getting the hell out of here, I was just doing a sweep to make sure we got everybody. There’s five other guys on the unit, holed up above us. The guards are above ground. Some kind of attack. Someone wants someone in here out of here really fucking badly.”
She didn’t know who this man was, but she knew she shared the look in his eyes. They were both ready to do anything to see the light of true day again, and to have the world go dark around them as night fell. They were ready for the wind on their face, the simple luxury of a breeze. He could have done anything, this man Aria suddenly felt a strong kinship with. The worst of the worst found their way to these prisons, but Aria was beyond judging.
Together, they ran up to the next level, where, as he had said, a cluster of prisoners had formed. They all looked pale and desperate, just like her. The six of them were strangers to one another, but they shared a single purpose: escape.
They had armed themselves as best they could. One had a plunger, another a stapler. One particularly brutal-looking mass of a man was holding what looked like the leg of a metal chair. None of their weapons would do a thing against a single man with a gun, but they didn’t let that stop them.
It soon turned out to be that every door in the facility was unlocked. Every electrical system was down. And every soldier was absent.
“EMP,” somebody muttered. “Must have been a massive attack.”
They came out into the light of a bright afternoon—and walked straight into a fierce battle.
“Holy fuck, dragons!”
Aria gasped, her eyes drawn upward to the furious gray storm above the facility. A portal! From it, winged creatures were sweeping to and fro above panicked soldiers with firearms that were far too small to have any real effect. There had to be two dozen of them, swooping back and forth, throwing the place into utter chaos.
“Vyktor!” Aria screamed her lover’s name. “Vyktor!”
