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As if summoned by those words, Deimos entered the room, his return announced by the discreet swishing sound of the doors opening.
“Time to go, Dawn,” Deimos said in a cheerful voice. “I hope you enjoyed your visit.”
“I certainly did,” I said in all sincerity, before turning back to smile at Jaek. “Bye.”
“See you in the morning,” he replied.
“In the morning?” Deimos asked with a frown.
“I asked Dawn to have breakfast with me tomorrow morning. As I understand she always eats in her quarters, I offered to join her there before she resumes her studies and I get back to the lab,” Jaek said in a casual tone.
Deimos’s icy blue eyes flicked towards me, questioningly.
“I’m looking forward to it,” I said, annoyed by the nervousness in my voice.
“Is that a problem?” Jaek asked, his voice neutral when Deimos didn’t respond right away.
“No, of course not,” Deimos said with forced enthusiasm. “I’m sure you’ll both have a great time. Come, Dawn. Let’s go.”
Baffled by what appeared to be a shift in power, I turned to look at Jaek with surprise. Smiling smugly, he merely winked at me. More confused than ever, I gave him an uncertain smile and followed Deimos out of the room.
What the fuck just happened?
Chapter 20
Keran
Seething with rage and helplessness, I once more stop pulling against my restraints. My wrists were raw from all of my previous—and just as ineffective—attempts. Despite knowing I didn’t have the strength to break them, I stubbornly kept trying. What other choice did I have?
Deimos had kept us trapped in this lab for five days now. If not for the clock on the wall, I would have no sense of time. Then again, the first wave of larvae piercing out of Orin’s chest two days ago would have cued me in as to the fact we’d been here for at least three days.
He had made his clan proud—he had donemeproud—grinding his teeth through the pain, and never uttering a single shout or pleading for mercy through what had to have been agony. Despite my reluctance to give our captors what they wanted, I went into Berserker mode to dampen Orin’s pain during that last phase, stopping immediately after. A different Sarenian than Deimos had entered the room once what I believed to be the last larvae had come out of my man. Completely ignoring me, the Sarenian had tended to Orin’s wounds, injected him with what I hoped to be healing nanobots, and taken the bags of fluids collected from my medical officer.
Two hours later, Deimos and that other Sarenian—who seemed to be their medical expert or scientist—returned. Using their compulsion, they forced me to remain still as they implanted Kranax Beetle eggs inside me. Normally, people using these bugs as torture devices simply placed the beetles near a deliberately carved incision in the limbs or abdomen. Using natural openings in the body, such as the ears, the mouth, the nose usually led to a quick death or extreme disfigurement. But if you wanted a slow and horrible agony, you placed them near the anus or vagina.
The Sarenian doctor did none of the above. With the type of long syringe used for spinal taps—although with a noticeably thicker needle—they poked through my navel to insert the already harvested eggs directly where they wanted. Unlike my men, I didn’t receive any sedative or painkiller. Instead, they ordered me to go into Berserker mode. Having no choice in the matter, I had complied at first, but fought it every step of the way. It wasn’t until much later that evening that the effects of the compulsion wore off—or rather of the serum that enabled the compulsion.
This morning, those eggs began to hatch. Pointlessly pulling on my restraints initially helped shift the pain. Now, it only added a new source of discomfort.
On top of the larvae, guilt ate away at me as my gaze landed on Baldur, still bound to his own gridded stretcher across the room from me. Like Orin, his naturally greige skin—the typical Braxian complexion—had taken a dull hue. Even now, I could see a larva poking out from his stomach and others wiggling under his skin. Thankfully, although his face was strained from pain, he was either sedated or enjoying the effects of painkillers. Whichever they had given him, it didn’t suffice to fully numb his pain, but it helped make it tolerable.
I didn’t want to imagine what I’d go through once all the eggs had hatched inside me. For now, I could distinctly feel two of them carving themselves a way out. The most painful—and frightening one—was moving north towards my heart and lungs. Images of me drowning in my own blood kept flashing before my eyes.
A deep grunt from Baldur interrupted my gruesome thoughts. Another wave of helpless anger crashed over me as a second larva pierced through his skin, right above his clavicle. I contemplated using my Berserker powers again to alleviate some of his pain, but that was exactly what they wanted. The last times I’d done it, they’d implanted my men with even more eggs since my aura allowed them to withstand more pain. I wanted to scream and rage, to get my hands on those Sarenians and make them pay a thousandfold for all of this. In my entire life, I had never felt so defeated.
Even with them healing us between rounds, our bodies would only be able to sustain this level of trauma for so long. No one knew where we were, and reasonably, my father wouldn’t send a rescue for at least another week. Only once I failed to return by the deadline I had set and didn’t check in with him to let him know the reason for the delay would he intervene. And at the fastest speed, it would take a rescue team at least two more days to reach Haven. By then, Orin would likely be dead.
My head jerked right when I heard the swishing sound of the door opening.
“Jaek!” I breathed out, my heart soaring.
Our eyes connected. For the briefest instant, a strange expression flitted over his features before his face hardened. Without a word, he kept walking past me and headed towards Orin.
“Jaek?” I called out again in confusion. But he ignored me.
My heart sank as a million thoughts collided in my head. Even now, seeing him examine in turn Orin then Baldur, I refused to accept he could be a willing participant to this. Deimos had hinted as much, but surely Jaek was acting under compulsion. Right?
He cleaned my men’s open wounds, replaced Baldur’s almost empty drip, then collected their fluid bags, hooking new empty ones to their respective ports. After placing the full ones in a temperature-controlled container marked biohazard, Jaek at long last turned his attention towards me.
