Forbidden Honor (Dragon Royals #1)(105)

“Oh, come on. No mercy for a dying man?” I asked.

Arren gave me his usual withering look and went to convince the dying priest he wanted to spend his last moments in peace, not pain.

Talisyn and Lynx stood at one of the beds. I glanced around at the carnage and realized every other hybrid was dead.

I followed Jaik to the last survivor. Lynx held his hand and my heart melted just a little bit at the obvious concern that Lynx had even for a dying monster.

As Jaik studied the man, compassion flickered in his amber eyes, though his face was stony as ever. “Who brought you here?”

“I sold myself,” the man said, “to protect my family from the Scourge.”

“How would that protect your family?” Lynx asked.

The man’s face blurred, his face deforming, his nose and mouth blurring into a muzzle. The sight made bile rise in my throat. He let out a desperate groan before the muzzle faded back into his face, and his voice was a rasp when he managed, “It was the only way they’d heal my little girl, my wife.”

“The priests were able to heal your little girl from, the Scourge?” Jaik’s skepticism leaked through.

No one was supposed to be able to stop the Scourge once it spread to a person. Once they were infected, they became a part of the hive.

It seemed likely this man had sold himself into this House of Horrors for nothing. “Did it work?” I blurted out.

“She’s alive and well.” There was a rattling sound in his chest as he tried to breathe.

“Where is she?” Lynx demanded, but the man didn’t answer.

I looked around and wondered if some of the hybrids had been dead before we even got here. Shifters had transformed into monsters here—and not all of them had survived. The room was half makeshift hospital, half dark temple.

“Hang in there,” Lynx said. “Gods, what I would do for a healer right now.”

“It’s almost as if we’d be better off if there were other shifters with us and not just the superior dragons,” I suggested with a sunny smile that no one returned. No one seemed to like my good ideas.

We tried to get as much information from the man as possible. The people who had taken him told him he could serve the kingdom by being a part of their experimentation.

“They said we would fight the Scourge, that no one else would get sick like my daughter.” His desperate gaze met Jaik’s.

Jaik patted his shoulder. “We’ll beat the Scourge.”

He sounded far too confident, as if he knew the man wouldn’t live to see if Jaik kept his promise.

“We should probably bring him with us and get out of here,” Branok said urgently. “We don’t know how many more are in these tunnels. We don’t know how far the tunnels extend. And we don’t know if we’ll soon find ourselves under attack.”

“Agreed,” Jaik said although he didn’t seem to like the idea. He glanced around the chaos we’d caused, then said, “It’s going to be hard to cover our tracks.”

I studied the carnage. “What if we make it look as if one of the hybrids lost his mind and attacked the priests?”

“Worth trying,” Jaik said.

I was glad that at least for once, someone seemed to think I had a decent idea.

The six of us went to work staging the room, moving the bodies around. Then Jaik shouldered our new shifter burden and we prepared to head out back through the tunnels the way we’d come.

All the while I kept expecting that we were going to be attacked again.

But the tunnels seemed long and empty.

We finally climbed out the other side. But just as we left the tunnel, our hybrid friend began to jerk, trying to speak.

“What is it?” Lynx asked. “How do we help you?”

But he clutched his throat in pain, making desperate hitching sounds but not able to speak.

Lynx said grimly, “There’s another enchantment on him. I don’t think that we can take him past the tunnel boundaries.”

Jaik glanced back down the dark tunnel. “We can’t leave him down here.”

We’d bury him instead.

He knelt next to the man. “Thank you for all your service to your kingdom. Your daughter would be so proud of you.”

He caught the man’s wrist in a warrior’s greeting, and the man weakly clung to him. He tried to say something, but the words were unintelligible, as if the enchantment had dug into his lungs. But he looked at Jaik as if he were thankful—even as the prince was the one killing him.

Grimly, Jaik handed him up to Lynx and Branok, who leaned back over the tunnel. They caught his arms and hauled him up.

By the time I scrambled out of the tunnel, the man was still.

“Branok, weld the tunnel shut again,” Jaik ordered. He grabbed a shovel and stalked off into the forest.

I picked up one of the shovels and started after him, but Talisyn grabbed my shoulder. He gave a quick shake of his head, warning me off. Instead, I waited with the others as Branok’s flames sealed the tunnel back up. Lynx offered Branok his arm, and Branok used his leverage to haul himself back up out of the ditch.

“I didn’t see signs of anyone coming after us,” Branok said. “Not yet.”

That yet seemed to hang in the air as we shoveled load after load of dirt back into the hole.