Page 127 of Dark Lover

Because she was his friend.

And she had his back.

He didn’t want her to trade the page for him, but she was going to do it, because of who and what she was to him now.

And if he were freed, he’d have her back, too.

Through the throbbing pain, a feeling he’d never had before surfaced. It was faint and weak and so unfamiliar, it was hard to identify. He wondered if it was joy.

“Shall we wake him up for the doc? Hey, Maclean, Doc’s gonna check on you so we can have some more fun.”

“Is he smiling?” The other guard was incredulous.

He tensed, careful to contain his smile. His mind had never been as clear as it was now. He could feel his otherworldly power inside him, seething and ready to be let out. Their drugs weren’t as effective as they’d first been. It was time.

“I’d rather tend him while he’s unconscious,” the doctor said, sounding nervous. “Can you carry him to the examining table, please?”

Ian kept still as he was roughly lifted and carried across the room to where a small examination area had been set up, but he moaned.

The broken bones hurt. His insides hurt. Hell, his skin hurt, too.

He bit back a cruel, cold smile. His fingers itched to inflict pain, to kill.

The doctor laid his stethoscope on his bare chest and began to listen to his heartbeat. Ian felt his surprise at the strength of his pulse.

He opened his eyes and smiled at the doctor.

The doctor’s eyes went wide in alarm.

Ian seized the stethoscope and twisted it around his throat so tightly and swiftly that the doctor’s eyes bulged as he began to choke. The guards ran for him. Ian sat and snapped his neck in half with his bare hands. As he did so, his power blazed.

The guards were possessed. That meant that they could withstand more than the average mortal. They staggered under the impact of Ian’s energy but kept coming, hands raised to seize him and subdue him.

Ian reached for a scalpel, one of the instruments they’d used on him. He dug it deep into the first guard’s heart. As the second guard caught his arm, beginning to wrestle him off the table, he blasted him again and again. He reeled over, finally dying.

Ian stood to face the third guard, who had a six millimeter pointed at him. Guard number one lay half on the table, and he pulled the scalpel from his chest. “Come an’ get it,” he snarled.

The guard smiled savagely at him, making no move to approach.

“Oh, I forgot. Yer orders are to let me live,” he said, starting forward. “I guess I’ll come an’ get ye, then.”

The guard fired.

Even as the bullet entered his side, he was launching himself onto the guard. They went down together. All Ian recalled was the poking and prodding, the cords and electric shocks, the misery and terror of the nine-year-old boy. Roaring, he plunged the scalpel, deep.

When he stopped, he was on his hands and knees, astride the dead guard, breathing hard, and still seeing red. He realized he’d hacked the guard a dozen times.

He rolled away and sat down hard on the floor, panting.

He was free.

And Carlisle was very much alive.

He looked down. He’d been shot. He hoped it was a graze. The burning sensation was nothing compared to what he’d just been though. He decided to ignore it.

He gave himself a moment and took some deep breaths, ignoring the carnage around him. His body really hurt, but he had his power and he could leap.

His next thought was Sam.