Dragon's Frenemy (Dragon Blaze Ops Book 2) Page 3

  “Well, Doc?” Liam’s dry, humorless voice broke through her thoughts. “What do you think? All healed up?”

  “Your tattoo is going to have to be touched up a bit, but yes, all healed.” She sighed as she picked up his chart and slowly checked off everything to indicate that he was ready for phase one. “I guess this means that we can start taking the tests.”

  Liam eyed her warily. She was always surprised when she saw him. Somehow, she always forgot just how big he was. Tall and muscular. The hospital clothes he wore were always open down the chest, too, revealing his tattoos. If the situation was different, she might actually enjoy the sight. As it was, she tried her best not to feel anything toward him. She couldn’t let herself drop into emotions. That led to mistakes, like trying to help him escape.

  “What sort of tests are we talking about, Doc?”

  “Basic ones for now. We’ll be drawing blood and checking how it reacts to various drugs and how easy it is to splice your genes into rats.”

  Liam’s eyes widened. “Rats as in the animal or rats as in the shifter?”

  Utopia flinched. “The animal.”

  “But it won’t be long until you start splicing genes into the shifter, will it?”

  No, it wouldn’t. Not when that was the whole fucking reason for the Alpha to have started this project. Utopia finished signing off on his chart and smoothed her hand over her hair, pulled back into a tight bun today.

  If she tried to delay more, the Alpha would know. And then he’d punish her. He’d hurt Aiden, and that would hurt her more than anything the Alpha could do to her personally.

  The problem was… now that the Alpha had a dragon here, it was going to speed up his plans. If things worked out even half as well as he wanted, it could spell disaster. The Alpha thought that shifters were superior. He thought that mixing humans and shifters, breeding between them, only weakened the shifter race. He was determined to create a new type of shifter, to overpower the world and force them to their knees before him.

  He considered dragons the most powerful of all shifters. Now he’d be able to assume that strength and then what? Create an army of shifter hybrids that he could use for his purposes?

  With the advancements that Utopia had already made, she didn’t expect she’d be able to convince him it wouldn’t work with a dragon. What was she going to do? If she gave him this, she knew what was going to happen next. War.

  What sort of future would Aiden have then?

  What if the Alpha decided to make Aiden one of his test subjects?

  A trickle of moisture on her cheek made her quickly rub it away, hoping that Liam hadn’t seen. When she stole a glance at his face, though, he was staring intently at her. She bit back a curse. He had seen. She was so careful to keep her emotions under wraps, and he had seen.

  “There’s something I’ve been wondering,” he said slowly, with about as much emotion as if he was asking her what type of car she drove, “why are you doing this? What is it you hope to accomplish? From what the people we’ve rescued have told us, it seems like you’re trying to create some sort of super-soldier. Is that true?”

  It’s not me. It’s the Alpha. This isn’t my choice. I don’t want any of this. I just wanted to help bolster humans’ immune systems.

  “To make us all stronger,” she said because for some reason she couldn’t stand for this person at this moment to think she was just about the fighting. To make this about standing in superiority. “I wanted to make people’s lives better.”

  “And this is how you decided to do that? Guess you’re right… having needles stuck in me and my fluids sucked out without my consent does make my life a lot better.”

  “This isn’t the sort of thing I’m in the habit of discussing with my subjects.” She jabbed a needle into his arm, wincing when he flinched. She hadn’t needed to be that rough. “Sorry.”

  “For the needle or experimenting on me?”

  Normally, the alpha gave her strict instructions of what she could and could not say to a subject. With the increasing numbers rescued by the Academy, it made sense.

  The fact that he’d told her nothing about not saying anything to Liam was telling in itself. He didn’t expect Liam to be able to get away. Her hand trembled as she drew the needle out. She wanted more than anything for Liam to just shut up. To not look at her. Not talk to her. That wasn’t going to happen, though.

  “Both,” she whispered. Just once she wanted someone who understood. Not like Karey, who had her own terrified reasons for being involved in this. Utopia let her head drop into her hands. She was just so tired! Why did Liam have to affect her so much? Maybe because he insisted on talking. Maybe because the drugs she tried to knock him out with never worked, so he could talk.

  He let out a snort. “Never expected an immoral eugenicist like you to have any morals.”

  Utopia flinched. That was the question, wasn’t it? How dare she think she have any morals at all? I’m doing this for my son.

  Liam didn’t have to know that.

  But he didn’t stop talking. “So, do you find it hard? When children are in pain and crying? Or do you like that?”

  “What?”

  “When you experiment on them.”

  Utopia couldn’t stop the rush of anger. Yes, what she was doing was horrible. But this? She slammed her hands onto the table, snarling as her snow leopard edged forward, the claws starting to poke through her fingernails. “I might be forced to do a lot of things, but I would never do this to a child! Never!”

  Liam’s eyes widened. At first, she was happy, thinking she’d managed to startle him. But then she realized what she’d said. She drew back, slapping a hand over her mouth as though that could stop the words she had released. Her heart pounded, and her mouth was so dry she could hardly breathe.

  “Forced to do?”

  She turned quickly, panting as she tried to think how to salvage this. If the Alpha found out… he’d be furious. He knew she didn’t want to do this, but he liked to pretend she did. For her to verbally confirm she didn’t want a part of this… it only gave him reason to believe that she was delaying her work.

  “If you don’t experiment on children…”

  Utopia trembled, willing him to shut his mouth and not push this topic any further. If he brought up Aiden, it’d force her to think about what she was doing, what effect it would have on her son to have a mother like this. To have this as his legacy. To be brainwashed by the Alpha’s ‘educational’ practices.

  But Liam’s gaze never left her face. He didn’t stop asking the question on his lips, no matter how much she willed him to stop. “Who was the child with you when I found you?”

  She wanted to lie. Wanted to say it was none of his business. But again, there was something in his eyes. Something that she could not say no to. “My son,” she whispered. Her voice rasped with tears. “Aiden. He’s my son.”

  Liam’s brow furrowed.

  “You need to stop talking,” she mumbled, moving around the table to pick up a needle. It was the wrong one and she put it down, searching for the right one. Why couldn’t she get her brain in order? “You need to just stop talking. You’re only making this harder.”

  “What about those teens that the Blaze Ops rescued?”

  Her hands stilled. “What teens?”

  “Couple of months ago. There were a couple of teenagers who were involved in the experiments. They were bird shifters but had been given sharp teeth, like a cat’s.”

  Utopia whirled on him. He had to be lying. He wasn’t. He had to be.

  He wasn’t.

  “That wasn’t me.”

  Liam studied her, brow furrowed. “I suppose they both said they hadn’t seen you… someone else did their work.”

  “I have to go.”

  Utopia fled the room. Her hands shook and her stomach churned. If there was any truth to what Liam was saying… She hated to think about what it could mean. It’d been something she had been very, very cle
ar with the Alpha about. Doing any sort of experiments on children was out of the question. It was more dangerous for them. It was even worse than adults.

  Oh God! What had she done?

  She didn’t know she was headed for the Alpha’s office until she was brushing past his secretary and slamming her hands onto the top of his desk. The Alpha looked up with an expression of mild shock.

  “Do you have anybody else working on this research?”

  The Alpha waved off his secretary. “Utopia. I thought you were busy with the dragon.”

  “Just answer the question.”

  “Well… I can’t just rely on one person, can I?” The Alpha leaned back and smiled a small, amused smile. “After all, lives are so… fragile.”

  Utopia recoiled. Not from the unspoken threat, that didn’t even sink it. No. It was the knowledge of what this meant. She stared at the Alpha, horrified. Her throat was too dry to speak, but somehow, she managed.

  “Children?”

  “Children? No. No, no, no. We’re not anywhere close to being ready to start on children. Although I have been assured that the effects will be stronger, the sooner we are able to insert genes from one species into another. No. The youngest we’ve gone with is fourteen. Hardly a child anymore.”

  Blood rushed in her ears. Utopia stood there, unable to breathe as the horror crashed down around her. This couldn’t be happening. She had been so careful to make sure that she was the only one able to use her research! She’d been so careful… so careful…

  Not careful enough, it seemed.

  “Of course, we are getting closer every day. I wouldn’t trust anybody but you with my dragon.” The Alpha stood and rounded his desk. He put a hand on the small of her back and the other on her elbow. He guided her from his office with a gentleness that belied his usual harshness. A smile still sat on his face. “Sooner than we know it, we’ll have designer babies. People can choose exactly what they’ll get. Won’t that be exciting? Now get back to work, Utopia. Or perhaps Aiden will be our first child experiment.”

  Utopia nodded. She left, walking swiftly. But she didn’t go back to where Liam was waiting.

  Instead, she went to the bathroom. Where she turned on the water and waved her hand under the drier to create as much noise as possible to drown the sounds of her sobbing. She slid to the floor, her arms wrapped around herself.

  What was she supposed to do now? What could she do that wouldn’t endanger Aiden? She had never felt so trapped, so helpless… so utterly alone.

  Chapter Five

  Liam clenched the IV line tightly in his hand, kinking it so that it would stop putting whatever drug it was into his system. Not that it had been making him groggy or disoriented. No, Utopia didn’t seem to mind if he was fully conscious. Except when he talked. Today was the first day in almost a week that he hadn’t been gagged before she came in. Her nurse, Karey, worked on the opposite side of the room, deliberately keeping her face hidden as though that would stop the shame in her eyes every time she glanced at him.

  Things weren’t entirely what he expected here. The injections and tests didn’t… hurt. Not terribly anyway. They were still in phase one, so he didn’t know if that was just coincidence or not. As he watched Utopia reading the results taken after the last injections, he noted the red puffiness of her eyes, the dark smudges under them. The pallor of her skin. Her curvy figure might even have dropped weight since he had first come here.

  “So, what’s the prognosis, doc?” he asked, trying to keep his voice even.

  Utopia jumped, looking up with wide eyes. She set the chart down and reached for the gag that lay on the table.

  “Please don’t.” Liam couldn’t stop himself. He tried to capture her eye even as she picked up the gag. “I don’t think that’s been washed in a week. It tastes terrible. Come on, can’t you just leave it off today?” Utopia started to fit it over his face and Liam shook his head roughly, pulling free. “Please!”

  She flinched back from him. He didn’t know what the look on her face meant, but she tossed the gag aside and turned back to her work. “Just don’t talk. Karey, I need you to take a memo for the Alpha.”

  Karey winced as she nodded. She pulled out a notebook and hunched over it.

  “Subject has cleared phase one. Results are all within the parameters expected. We will start prepping the subject for phase two upon your approval.”

  Liam couldn’t help but notice that Utopia’s voice seemed dead. Utterly. It was like she was a walking corpse. The dull look in her eyes only served to enhance that image. He couldn’t stop himself. “Why are you even doing this?”

  “That is none of your business,” Utopia spat.

  Karey stepped for the door. “Shall I take the memo?”

  “Yes, I—”

  The door opened. In walked the little boy that had been with Utopia the first day. Both Utopia and Karey jumped at the sight of him. He grinned, looking like he’d managed something very successfully, but the smile fell into a frown when he saw Liam.

  “What’s that man doing?”

  Utopia crossed the room before Liam could do more than chuckle at the naive question. “Aiden! What are you doing? How did you get here?”

  “I was bored at class and wanted to see you. I found the way all by myself.”

  “Oh, Aiden…” Utopia ushered him out, even as Aiden loudly proclaimed how boring school was.

  Liam couldn’t help but chuckle again as he let his head fall backward. “That sounds familiar. I always hated school, too. Turns out that my problems were because I’m dyslexic, though. Once we figured that out, things became a lot easier. What about you, Karey?” he twisted to look at the young woman, who jumped and clutched her notepad to her chest. “Did you like school?”

  Karey opened her mouth and closed it again. She glanced at the door, chewed her lip, and looked at the memo she’d taken.

  “By all means, tell the alpha I’m ready for phase two,” Liam sighed. “What’s that going to entail, anyway? Is that when the torture starts? I’m surprised that nobody’s asked me anything about the Academy.”

  Karey scurried over, eyes wide and still looking terrified. She tapped the fist that the IV was clenched in. “Let go.”

  “Make me.”

  Karey set the notepad aside and struggled uselessly to unclench his hand. Then, suddenly, she leaned in. Her breath tickled his ear. “Don’t judge Utopia too hard. The Alpha is a hard man. I know, he’s my father. She’s only doing what she does in order to keep her son safe.”

  Liam frowned, clenching his hand tighter. “Why tell me?”

  “Because… because if you do manage to escape, then the best thing you can do to stop these experiments is to take Aiden with you. If my father can’t hurt him, then Utopia would destroy her research herself. She’s braver than I am. She’d risk death that way.”

  Karey jammed her thumb into his tendons. With a grunt, Liam released the IV. She pulled it out of his grasp and taped it down, out of his reach. With a growl, Liam lunged against his restraints. Karey jumped back with a squeak. Daughter of the Alpha, was she? She certainly seemed more like a mouse.

  He dropped back without another word, though. It made so much sense. The way she looked, the way she acted. How angry she got when he suggested that she had been experimenting on children. The way she’d lied about him perhaps having firepox as a child. Now that he thought about it, so much of what she did could be taken as delays, purposefully trying to slow progress, rather than the monotonous procedure he’d thought it was.

  But it couldn’t be.

  No, this was something else. Some sort of manipulation. They hadn’t asked him anything about the Academy. They must be trying to get him to feel sorry for Utopia. Feel connected to her. Reveal secrets to her because he was trying to help her escape… That had to be it.

  Anger crashed through him as he figured it out. His hands clenched. Utopia was good. Very good. If he didn’t know better, he would have thought she was
completely ignorant as to what was happening. It made his hands clench even as his stomach burned. His fires flickered in anger—

  His fires.

  Liam’s eyes widened. They were there, warming him again. He tried to pull them higher but couldn’t seem to get a solid grasp on them. He glanced at the IV line connected to his arm. Of course. It wasn’t just one injection that they had given him to stop his fires. This was a continual process…

  His mind churned over the possibilities. He couldn’t reach the IV line again, not now at least. But maybe he could figure something out… maybe pull it out? Something. Then his fires would return, and he would once more be able to shift into his dragon form. If he could just do that, then he could get out of here.

  He wet his lips, turning back to Karey who eyed him warily. She couldn’t know what he figured out. And if she was trying to make him feel sorry for Utopia…

  “How did he manage to get her?” he asked quietly. “Utopia. Did he just kidnap her and Aiden?”

  “I don’t know. They don’t tell me things like that.”

  “And what about you?” Liam pressed, recognizing the uncomfortable look on her face. “Why are you here, working with the Alpha? Helping Utopia? If he’s your father, is he threatening you, too?”

  “No. No, I believe in what we are doing here.” There was doubt or feigned doubt at least. “I just don’t think we should be doing it to people like you. People who don’t want to… but when this works, when we can make ourselves stronger—"

  The door opened again. Karey jumped a foot into the air and grabbed the notepad again. Utopia came back in, her face pale. She opened her mouth, but Karey was already headed for the door.

  “I’m taking the memo right now. Oh…” She hesitated by the door. “He had the IV in his hand, kinking the line. I don’t know how long.”

  Utopia closed her eyes and waved Karey away. After she was gone, Utopia shut the door quietly and returned to Liam’s side. She checked the IV and put some extra tape on it to make sure that it stayed in place. She did something with it and the small flicker of his flames snuffed out. Liam couldn’t stop the small growl of protest.