Blaze of Secrets (Asylums for Magical Threats) (2 page)

man tossed the blade away and pinned her to the bed with his weight. Stunned dumb for a second, Kiarra

didn’t fight back as the man leaned close to her face and whispered, “Keep it up, pet, and you’re going to get yourself killed.”

None of the guards would talk to her like that, in a gentle, soothing tone.

Something was wrong.

Brushing the feeling aside, Kiarra adjusted her hold on the shiv she still had clutched in her right hand.

If she could get free, she might just have one last shot at success.

Channeling all of her anger and frustration from the last twenty-eight years, Kiarra smacked her

forehead against the man’s chin. The split-second distraction gave her enough time to wiggle her hand free and stab her blade into the man’s bicep. He grunted but didn’t move away like she’d planned. Instead, the man used all of his weight to pin her down while he plucked away her blade and tossed it across the room.

As it clattered against the wall, a heavy sense of defeat came over her.

Her only chance to save the other first-borns was gone.

Despite her resolve, despite her best effort, she had failed.

More people were going to die.

Tears prickled her eyes, and without realizing it, she whispered, “You’ve ruined everything.”

He paused a second at her words, his eyes searching hers for answers. His green eyes were curious and

Kiarra almost believed he wanted to hear her story. Then he pulled out a zip tie from one of his pockets, maneuvered her hands together, and secured it around her wrists. She flinched as her cut was pressed

tightly again her other arm, but she ignored it.

Kiarra tried to pull her arms apart, but the plastic ties wouldn’t budge.

She was trapped.

No, no, no.
It wasn’t supposed to be this way. She should be dead by now.

Instead, she was just a gift all tied up and waiting for the guards. Once they found out what she’d done, they would punish her. Just like before.

Pain.

Blood.

Darkness.

Kiarra bucked and twisted, wanting nothing more than to get free. There was no way she could survive

that nightmare all over again. “No, no, no!” she screamed before sobbing, “Please just kill me.”

The man gripped her chin hard and said, “Stop.”

His authoritative tone broke through her hysteria and made her pause. He continued, “We need to get the

fuck out of here, to somewhere safe, but I can’t do that if you fight me every step of the damn way.”

Did he just say “we”?
The strange black clothes, the soothing voice, the reluctance to harm her. It all made sense.

This man wasn’t a new guard; he was an intruder, here to kidnap her.

Kiarra’s heart pounded in her chest. How did an outsider know about the value of her blood? It didn’t

make sense. The AMT researchers kept their work under lock and key, both physically and electronically.

What would this man do with her?

The situation had just gone from bad to worse.

Another man’s voice came from the door, and Kiarra jumped when she heard the new man’s accented

voice say, “Boss, I’ve got him.”

The green-eyed man turned and kept a grip on her hands with one hand while using his knee to keep

her legs pinned to the bed. “The others?”

The new position let her see the doorway, where another man was standing, dressed in the same black

clothes with one major difference—he was all but dragging one of her cell neighbors along with him.

What do they want with him?
Maybe her cell neighbor had his own secrets.

“We’re all ready to bust out of here if you are,” said the man at the door.

“Right,” said the green-eyed man before he stood, lifted her up, and hoisted her over his shoulder.

Kiarra froze as her belly touched his shoulder, and before she could say a word, they were moving down

the hall, her face bouncing against the man’s back.

Chapter Two

Jaxton tightened his grip on the woman tossed over his shoulder and hoped like hell the little tigress

would behave. She seemed determined to die and part of him wondered why.

But as the sound of boots and voices behind them grew louder, he focused back on his mission and

pushed himself to run faster. Everything—including his brother’s life—rested on them making it to the

escape tunnel in one piece.

The woman over his shoulder started to move, and he felt her push her arms against his back and lift

her upper body. He was about to tell her to stay still when two guards appeared from around the corner up ahead, blocking their path.

Fuck.
He had hoped to avoid a confrontation, but with guards both behind and in front of them, he didn’t have a choice—they would have to fight.

He was about to signal his men to take position when the woman on his shoulder shouted, “The guards

have tranquilizer guns.”

The woman’s warning held more than a little bit of panic; Jaxton reckoned she was telling the truth.

He tried to think of his options. The hallways inside this AMT were lined with steel, which meant that

Jaxton and his team couldn’t use guns since the bullets might ricochet. And if the guards were using

tranquilizer guns, they’d take Jaxton and his men out before they could engage them in any sort of hand-to-hand combat.

He had only one option left—if they were to have any chance of escape, Taka, Marco, and Darius were

going to have to use their elemental magic.

“No restrictions!” he yelled to his men, the signal for them to use their magic freely. Jaxton maneuvered to the side and was just about to lower the woman slung over his shoulder to the floor when he heard a gun go off.

The woman sucked in a breath before her body went limp.

Jaxton maneuvered her to the ground and plucked the dart out of her arm. He checked to make sure she

was breathing—she was—but he needed to deal with the guards before he could do anything else for her.

He stood up and counted a total of ten guards surrounding them. His men had eight of them in hand, so

Jaxton focused on the two blocking the corner that would lead them to the tunnel.

One of the two guards had a strange-looking gun pointed at him. Jaxton reckoned that was what the

woman had warned him about. He’d take out the tranquilizer gun first and worry about the second guard

later.

He wouldn’t risk a bullet ricocheting off the steel walls, so Jaxton drew out a pair of bolas from one of the pockets on his chest and swung them around a few times before letting them fly. They hit the mark and wrapped around the gun with enough force to knock it to the floor with a clatter.

With the tranquilizer gun out of the way, Jaxton gave a unique whistle that signaled to the others that he was going to engage. After years of working missions together, he trusted his team to cover his back and protect the two rescued AMT prisoners on the ground.

He charged at the two guards blocking the corner. The first guard threw a punch, but Jaxton ducked the

swing and danced to the right before punching the man in the soft area of the kidney. The man groaned,

and Jaxton took advantage of the opening. He stepped back to the left and smashed his fist into the side of the man’s face.

The man went down with a thud.

When the female guard glanced down at her fallen co-worker, Jaxton rushed toward her.

She noticed the movement and reached for something on her belt, but Jaxton was quicker. He used his weight to topple the woman off balance and they tumbled to the ground, rolling until Jaxton gained the

upper hand and pinned the woman’s shoulders to the ground with one arm.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her hand inch toward her belt. Jaxton leaned more of his weight

onto the woman’s shoulders, took a hold of her wrist, and squeezed. The guard winced and Jaxton plucked

the object that looked like a stun gun from her utility belt and tossed it out of reach.

Marco’s call of attack echoed down the hallway. Jaxton rolled away just in time to see a stream of water encircle the guard’s lower body before freezing around the woman’s legs, trapping her without doing the

woman any lasting harm.

Sometimes having friends with elemental magic came in handy.

With his two targets out of the way, Jaxton jumped to his feet to check on the others.

His men were unharmed, as were the woman and his brother, but while all ten of the AMT guards were

unconscious on the ground, there were at least two hundred guards inside this particular AMT compound

and more could arrive at any minute.

They needed to get the hell out of here.

As if reading his mind, Darius had already tossed Jaxton’s brother over his shoulder, so Jaxton scooped

up the unconscious female inmate into his arms and started running.

A quick check assured him that the woman’s heart rate was a little slow, but not dangerous, and that the wound on her arm had clotted thanks to the pressure of the other one against it. After all the trouble he’d gone through to get her out of the AMT, she had better bloody well not die en route. Neena must have plans for her, and what Neena wanted, she got.

He heard some kind of commotion behind them just as they reached the tunnel entrance, where jagged

rocks bent and twisted with the steel of the AMT walls. Darius ducked inside the tunnel first, and Jaxton followed suit. Marco and Taka would cover their retreat.

Of course, escaping the tunnel was the easy part; getting off the mountain was going to be tricky. After the amount of energy his men had already used confronting the guards, Jaxton hoped Darius would be able

to concentrate long enough for their final trick.

Once they walked out onto the snow-covered mountain ledge, goosebumps rose on the woman’s skin.

Jaxton hugged her close against his chest as he moved to stand next to Darius. He glanced down to check; while cold, the woman was still alive.

Marco emerged from the tunnel and stepped to the side just as Taka slowly backed out of the hole,

moving the earth as he went until the tunnel was sealed.

Since they were standing on a mountain ledge thousands of feet above sea level, the only way the

guards could reach them now was from the sky.

Marco and Taka came over and took positions facing Jaxton and Darius, the four of them making a

tight-knit square. Jaxton nodded at Darius to begin.

Darius kept one hand on Garrett’s back, but raised the other to the east—the direction of elemental wind

—and soon wind began to swirl around them, increasing in speed with each pass.

Jaxton’s stomach did a little flip. He knew what was coming. But no matter how many times they’d

done this before, he would never get used to traveling via elemental wind.

Category Five winds swirled around them, and soon a piece of the rock ledge cracked and the ground

jolted under their feet. Yet because of training and practice, the men maintained their balance even as the section of rock was lifted into the air. The woman in his arms shivered, and Jaxton nearly crushed her

against his body in an attempt to warm her. The trip across the chasm wouldn’t last long, but he just hoped she’d survive the cold.

Chapter Three

Kiarra blinked a few times and tried to ascertain if she was still dreaming, but when the unfamiliar

surroundings stayed constant, she knew that the men in black had managed to escape the AMT.

After fifteen years in prison, she was finally free.

Part of her wanted to laugh at the highly improbable situation, while the other half wanted to cry tears of joy at finally escaping. Her future was far from certain, but, at least for now, no one was going to die simply because she was still alive.

And while she didn’t want to get her hopes up, there was a small chance that she might not have to die.

Tears started to form, but Kiarra took a deep breath to help get her emotions under control. She couldn’t afford to fall apart right now, so she forced herself to rely on her most effective weapon: her logic.

She looked around the room, hoping to find something that would not only help her better understand

her kidnappers, but maybe help her think of a way to escape.

The room was a small, mostly blue bedroom with a plush chair in the corner, two windows off to the

side, and a mirror above a dresser. There were also framed pictures of far-off places scattered across the walls. The room was the opposite of her sterile, cold cell. One could almost call it homey.

But the most important difference from the AMT was that instead of fluorescent lights, sunlight

streamed through the windows. Kiarra stretched her neck until she could see the clear blue sky through the windows, and longed to feel the warmth of the sun on her cheeks.

It’d been fifteen years since she’d last seen the sky or felt the sun on her face. The AMT had stolen

those years from her, and while she’d never get them back, she would make the most of the freedom she

had now.

Of course, how long her freedom would last depended entirely on her kidnappers.

She still wasn’t sure what had prodded her to warn the men about the tranquilizer guns. But when it had

come down to it, her gut had told her that taking her chances with the intruders had been the better of the two options. Time would tell if she’d made the right decision.

She tried to sit up, but material dug into her wrists and ankles, preventing her from moving off the bed.

Considering her attacks on the man in her cell, coupled with her attempts to stab herself, it didn’t surprise her that they’d put restraints on her arms and legs. At least they were material and not metal, like the ones inside the AMT examination rooms.

Thinking of the AMT brought back the researchers’ conversation about using her blood for tests on

other inmates. Were the men here going to do the same thing? To be honest, she had no idea why else they would want her. Ransom was useless since Kiarra’s family had disowned her years ago, and the AMT