Blood Lands (Savage Lands #5)(17)

“Warwick!” I cried, moving to him. The moment my fingers grazed his skin and laced through his hair; the agony tripled inside me. My teeth gritted together, trying to absorb the harsh punch of it in every muscle, nerve, and bone. The pressure in his head from being upside down, on top of the shrill noises, was the worst. It would break any human, mind, body, and spirit.

I didn’t know how “death proof” Warwick and I were or if we had just been lucky. What neither one of us was immune to was losing ourselves mentally. If they couldn’t break his body or will, they would crumble his mind.

“Warwick...” I leaned my forehead against his swollen, cut mouth. They had him hanging right at eye level—easier for them to beat him without him being able to do a thing.

A light groan came from the back of his throat.

“Stay with me.” My nose rubbed against his, my lips grazing his forehead and cheeks.

Another moan. His lashes flickered; his puffy eyes only able to open into slits. Through the flashes of light, I could see his aqua eyes looking back at me.

And it almost broke me.

He had no fight in him. No will. He was slipping away from me. My heart pounded with terror at the thought of losing him. A world without Warwick Farkas?

No. Fuck. No.

There would be no world left. I would make sure of it.

My hands dug deeper into his hair, grabbing the back of his scalp, absorbing more of his pain. “You don’t get to fucking leave me, Farkas,” I growled, my real body curling into a ball, convulsing. “You don’t get out of this so easy.”

“Easy?” The barest of sounds huffed into my ear, almost lost to the torture around us. But the more I pushed, the more it became further away. A barrier protecting us from the onslaught.

“Yeah, asshole. You’re stuck with me. I didn’t drag your ass back from the dead for you to die here. So, no more getting yourself thrown into the hole. I forbid it.”

He snorted. “Whatever you say, woman.”

“Agreeing with me? Now I know you’re losing your mind. Too much blood going to your brain.” As I cupped his head, his tiny slits of eyes watched me. A spark of life, lust flared in them.

“Get up!” A scream from where my real body lay wavered the link between us.

Grabbing Warwick tighter, reality starting to pull me away from him, my mouth covered his with desperation. Kissing him with everything I had—passion, love, life. My lips conveyed what I didn’t say, what I felt so deep in my bones. I wondered if it had been etched into them from the day I was born.

I opened myself up, and he took, as I had with him many times. There were no polite manners or courteous etiquette with us. We were feral. Raw. Absolute. We cut past the bullshit of what was right and wrong. Black and white. We had no use for either.

“I said get up, 839!” I felt a guard kick me.

“Whatever it takes,” I demanded Warwick. There was no other option. “Whatever you need to do, Farkas. Do it, but you will fucking survive this.”

With a harsh blow to my gut, the link was cut.

Gasping, I curled into myself as a boot kicked me again. The feel of the cold floor, my pants soaked with my breakfast, snapped me fully back to myself. My energy was almost nonexistent, and I struggled to get up.

“Joska, leave her alone,” a girl’s voice yelled out, the familiar tone spearing fright through my ribs.

Hanna.

Joska stopped, his beefy chest moving up and down as he lifted his head, his jaw cracking. “What did you say, traitor?”

My head jerked to Hanna. The only one standing at her table, she swallowed nervously, realizing what she had just done.

It had to be difficult for Hanna. Just yesterday morning, Joska and others here were part of her HDF family. Peers. We all knew each other in some way. We were once on the same side. Now, in a blink, it had flipped.

To someone like Joska, she was the worst of the worst—a traitor to her own kind, the same as me. Even if she did nothing, if Istvan claimed she was, then in Joska’s tiny mind, she was, no question. She not only deserved to be here, but punished severely and killed for it.

“I just asked you a question, 1278,” he barked, glaring at her.

Hanna’s head tipped back just slightly, but it was enough for me to see. She wasn’t a person to Joska anymore. She was a number. Any connection she had hoped to use with a fellow HDF soldier, I watched vanish from her face. Her expression shut down, but her gaze darted to me for a moment. Like, what the fuck do I do?

Her silence, the scent of her fear, riled him up like a savage animal. He scurried to her, and before she could react, he grabbed her by the back of the neck and tossed her with a ferocious grunt. Her frame flew way across the room as if she was a toy ball. Hanna smacked the ground with a pained grunt, sliding across the tile.

I had seen hints of what the pills were doing to them, but to see him throw her as if it was nothing? Even the true fae around the room gaped with awe.

Joska’s face crunched up in fury, fists rolling together, skin reeking with aggression, muscles twitching violently. I could see the deadness in his eyes. He had no off switch right now. He would kill her.

“I said, answer me, you piece of trash,” he roared, striding for her.

I didn’t think. Leaping up, I darted for her, sliding myself between them. At the same time, a yell rang out. Scorpion was suddenly next to me, growling and snarling at Joska.