Blood Lands (Savage Lands #5)(18)
“Faszkalap!” Dickhat. “You touch either one of them,” Scorpion bellowed, but I knew Joska nor anyone else in this room would blink an eye.
Only I saw him.
My head jerked to where the real man sat across the room, his eyes widening when they locked on mine, realizing our connection was back. It wasn’t as strong as it once was, fuzzy around the edges, but at the notion my bond with him was still there, relief I didn’t even know I was holding came flooding out. Our connection survived and returned similar to Warwick, and I could feel the same response from him.
How fast we had become dependent on something we barely had time to get used to. It felt wrong when it was gone. Missing.
Now that I could feel the buzz of him, the link finally there, I felt home, but in a completely opposite way than Warwick. Scorpion, though sexy as hell, was more like a brother, while The Wolf was my equal. My lover.
My mate.
“Soldier!” Boyd’s loud voice boomed into the room, jerking Joska’s head over his shoulder. He almost didn’t even look human, his skin sweaty, pallid, and twisted into crude and boorish features. “You can’t touch those who are in the Games.”
Joska snarled, spittle flinging from his mouth.
Boyd spread out his shoulders. “Take a break, soldier, or face me. And as much as you think you’re ready to play at our level, you’re not.”
From the side, Samu stepped out, nudging Joska. “Come on, Jos. Let’s go get some fresh air.”
It took Samu another two tries before Joska’s deadly gaze broke from Boyd, and he nodded, wiping at his nose. A streak of red smeared the back of his hand.
Tracking the threat across the room, my gut squeezed. The memory of being at the palace, seeing the woman at the end, blood leaking from her eyes, nose, and mouth. The sign of the end.
A defect in the formula.
I had a bilious sensation every HDF guard here would have the same fate.
Chapter 5
I hissed, sucking the drop of blood from my fingertip, glaring at the needle like it was another thing in here wanting to torture me. My fingers had been stabbed dozens of times as I handstitched the HDF logo onto the arm of military uniforms. Sweat dripped down my face and back while irritation weaved my hunger, body aches, exhaustion, and dehydration together in a knot.
The heat from the stoves had already caused two to collapse. The guards dragged them away, and I was terrified to think of what punishment they would get for that.
From across the room, I watched Ash and Lukas try to show Tracker the ropes, though Mr. Alpha wasn’t taking to it with the seriousness he should. The human was arrogant and entitled, not understanding he was no longer the big man down here. I could see how frustrated and angry Ash was getting with him, because if he fucked up, it might come back on them too. Lukas wouldn’t leave him, though, probably because he felt he owed him out of guilt. Deserting a comrade was almost a sin for special ops units, even if Lukas himself had been shot and clinging to life.
Kitty and Sloane were on another fire oven, Scorpion and Maddox next to them, while the rest pounded at the metal and worked the machines. I noticed the guards purposely put Killian in a position where he had to work the metal with his hands, the iron drooping his shoulders and blanching out his skin. He struggled to stand, the metal collar around his neck only adding to the torture.
To see them all in pain, every day their spirits dimming a little more, hope and fight leaking out of them, shattered me. It felt worse than any whipping I got in Halálház. Physical pain you could get past; it was the emotional and mental agony that utterly destroyed the will to live.
I had to get us out of here.
A choked cry jolted my head to the side. The human girl next to me, someone I had seen in the lab with Ling, gurgled up blood, her body jerking as red liquid poured down her neck.
The woman on the other side of her cried for help as I tried to understand what was happening. It didn’t take long to realize she had stabbed her own throat over and over with the sewing needle, wanting to take her life.
She fell from the bench onto the ground, her chest instinctually heaving for oxygen, for survival. Her eyes glossed over as she stared up at the ceiling, jerking and twitching in her last throes of death.
On instinct, I scrambled down to her, her blood mingling with the vomit and gruel stains on my pants. The sound of the guards yelling and moving toward us became distant fog when my hands landed on her. I could feel her pain, hopelessness, the desire to no longer experience this much devastation, grief, and misery. Her emotions flooded me. And I felt the moment her soul left her body. The buzz of a spirit made the hair on my arms stand on end. This was the first time I really sensed the moment happen, felt her spirit break from her body.
I shook my head. “Don’t give up.” I acted without thought, a deeply embedded response taking over. Energy swirled inside me similar to a tornado, power dancing down my limbs, and I yanked on her ghost and shoved her back in.
The girl sat up with a swell of air. “Noooooooo!” She snarled at me, trying to claw out of my grip.
Terror forced me back with a gasp. The moment my hands let go, her body fell back to the ground with a thwack. Her mouth and eyes open, her body a shell. Empty.
Commotion moved around me, guards coming toward the dead girl.
Once again, like the ghosts in the church or graveyard, I felt her presence skating past me, and I felt relief come from her.