Blaze of Secrets (Asylums for Magical Threats) (3 page)

would simply send enforcers to retrieve her rather than try to negotiate for her return.

Her only real concern was that the men might hurt her. Especially now that she didn’t have any special

protections like she’d had inside the AMT, and there was nothing to stop them from beating—let alone

raping—her.

Fear started to grip her belly again, so Kiarra inhaled deeply and willed her mind to push aside the fear and approach the situation rationally. After years of waking up in strange examination rooms, and being

poked and prodded for days on end, finding herself in restraints was no big deal. While she knew almost

nothing about the men who’d broken into the AMT, freaking out about what they’d do to her would serve

no purpose.

She needed to take advantage of the time she had now, alone in this room, to try and plan escape routes.

Especially since the longer she stayed here, the greater the chance that the AMT enforcers would find her.

Just as Kiarra started to calculate how far off the ground she was based on the height of the trees outside her window, someone knocked and opened the door, revealing the tall, lean frame of the green-eyed man who had broken into her cell. He was dressed in a new set of black clothes, with a nude-colored bandage wrapped around his left bicep.

She was going to pay for that.

The man noticed her gaze, looked down at his arm, and then back up again. “Take a good look at your

handiwork, because I assure you it won’t happen again.”

His voice was deep and slightly lilting. She wanted to know what country he was from, but that was low

on her list of priorities. If she were going to chance asking a question, she would think of something more useful.

The man continued to stare at her as if he was waiting for her to say something.
Fine.
He hadn’t been rough with her back inside her cell, but she wondered if he would smack or verbally abuse her as the AMT

staff had done in the past, when she hadn’t follow the rules or been complacent.

There was only one way to find out.

Kiarra gathered her courage and tried to keep her voice even. “You aren’t the first to underestimate me.”

She waited for him to strike her, like the AMT guards would’ve done, but he kept his distance and said,

“What’s your name?’

It looked like he wasn’t going to hit her, at least for now. She answered, “F-839.”

“Not your bloody serial number,” he growled. “What’s your name?”

Kiarra blinked and looked away. Each AMT prisoner was given a serial number and learned to respond

to it. She couldn’t remember the last time someone had used her actual name, and after so long, she wasn’t sure if she wanted this stranger to be the first one to call her by it. The act seemed intimate, as if the use of her name would transform her from a prisoner to a person with rights and opinions, and she wasn’t sure if that were a good idea. She didn’t know what the man wanted with her, and hope was a dangerous emotion

for any AMT prisoner.

Kiarra had learned that lesson the hard way.

She looked back at the man, his eyes trained on her face, and resisted a shiver. He wasn’t looking at her with cool disinterest, as if she were nothing more than an experiment subject to be discarded when things went wrong. No, it was almost as if he acknowledged that she was a person, not something to be cataloged with a serial number.

The man maintained eye contact as he took a step toward her. Kiarra’s heart raced as she battled her

nerves to stay calm. Inside the AMT, people had only come near her to punish her or to experiment on her, which had conditioned her to hate it, and she didn’t have adrenaline or a life-and-death situation to override her fear.

And her commitment to logic only went so far.

The man was now only a few feet away and Kiarra clenched her jaw to keep from tugging at her

restraints, determined not to let the man see how his closeness affected her. If she could keep herself calm during her experiment sessions, she could force herself stay calm now too.

Jaxton saw a brief flash of fear in the woman’s eyes and stopped moving. He didn’t want to trigger

panic in the woman and repeat the last hour he’d just spent with his brother. While this woman might be

afraid, at least she wasn’t screaming and thrashing about like Garrett had done when he’d first woken up.

No matter what Jaxton had tried, Garrett hadn’t calmed down until Jaxton had drugged him unconscious.

Between this woman’s attempted suicide and his brother’s behavior, Jaxton was starting to believe the

rumors he’d heard of late. Something was going on inside the AMT, something they desperately wanted to

keep secret from the
Feiru
public.

Taka had suggested that Jaxton question the first-born female and see what he could learn. Especially since Jaxton had, in effect, rescued the woman, which gave him a slight edge over someone like Taka, or

even Darius, since they were complete strangers.

However, he wouldn’t learn anything as long as the woman continued to fear him. She wouldn’t even

disclose something as simple as her bloody name. He needed to fix that.

He took a step back and leaned against the dresser, waiting to see how the woman would respond.

When she relaxed a little, the increased space having a positive effect, Jaxton jumped on the change and decided to give a little tit-for-tat to get the woman talking. “Let’s try this again. My name’s Jaxton. Care to tell me yours, pet?”

The woman stared at him a minute before nodding to herself and asking, “Why do you call me ‘pet’?”

“Would you prefer ducky? Or princess? Until you tell me your name, I’ll have to get creative.” She

didn’t so much as smile. He would have to try a different approach. “How about this: I remove your

restraints and then you tell me your name.”

She raised her chin a notch and nodded. Jaxton uncrossed his arms and took a step toward her, but this

time, the woman didn’t flinch.

He made it to her bedside, turned down the duvet, and reached for the ankle restraints. But the instant

his fingers brushed her cool skin, her muscles tensed. Just like with his brother, this woman didn’t like being touched.

The question was: why? While the most likely answer was that the AMT staff had abused them, Jaxton

secretly hoped that wasn’t the case. The last thing he needed was the woman constantly afraid that he was going to hurt her.

Not wanting to scare the poor chick any more than necessary, Jaxton managed to keep his anger at the

AMT from showing on his face, just barely.

As he unbuckled the straps, he decided to distract her and encourage her to open up to him.

“Considering your stature, you packed one hell of a headbutt earlier. Where’d you learn to do that?”

He glanced up at her face, but her expression remained blank. Where had the tigress from the AMT

gone? He needed to find a way to draw her out again.

After pulling the blanket back over her feet, Jaxton moved up to her arm restraints and stopped just

short of frowning at the frailty of her wrists. Clearly the AMT bastards hadn’t fed her enough.

He undid the last buckle, took a few steps back, and waited. The dampers in the room would prevent

the use of elemental magic, but judging from the woman’s current emotional state, Jaxton didn’t think he had anything to worry about.

The woman had her eyes closed and was doing some sort of rhythmic breathing, probably trying to

fight some kind of meltdown. While he was afraid that she might close in on herself and be unable to

answer any of his questions, he needed to follow his own rule of successful interrogation: give a person time.

Once she finally stopped her deep breathing, she stretched her arms up over her head and opened her

eyes. She rubbed her freed wrists and touched the bandage on her arm before she said, “Kiarra. My name is Kiarra.”

Kiarra. The name suited her. While her accent was American, she defied the blond-haired, blue-eyed

stereotype with her short black hair, dark eyes, and olive skin. Most
Feiru
in America were a hotchpotch of ethnicities, and Kiarra looked to be no exception.

“Well, Kiarra, now the question is, if I leave you unrestrained, will you promise not to try offing

yourself again? Blood is a bugger to clean out of the carpet.”

Kiarra sat up slowly, wincing once or twice in the process. He remained silent, wanting to give her a

chance to adjust, and watched as she pulled the blanket around her shoulders and wrapped it tight around her body before she whispered, “I don’t want to die.”

Well now, that statement only birthed more questions.

But before he could ask her to clarify, there was a knock on the door and Darius peeked into the room.

“Jax, someone’s here to see you.”

“Unless someone is dying or the world’s about to end, tell them to sod off.”

Darius opened the door a few inches more and said, “But
she
wants to see you.” He waved in Kiarra’s direction. “And talk to her.”

Bloody hell.
There was only one woman who earned both an emphasized “she” and had the ability to locate an undisclosed safe house.

They were about to receive an unsolicited visit from his boss, Neena Chatterjee.

Right on cue, her voice echoed up the stairs. “Jaxy darling, I’m tired of waiting. Ready or not, here I

come.”

Kiarra drew the blanket tighter around her body and wished that the soft fabric would shield her from

the world and give her a few minutes of privacy. Between the pounding in her head and the flitting caresses of Jaxton’s fingers against her skin, Kiarra was close to a meltdown; she wasn’t sure if she could handle meeting or touching another person.

As it was, Jaxton merely touching her feet and wrists had brought back memories of one of the AMT

researchers and what he’d done to her. Luckily, one of her coping techniques—deep breathing with her

eyes closed—had allowed her to focus back on the present.

She watched as the tall man with dark skin and warm brown eyes moved aside to let in a small woman

with barely restrained curly black hair and golden brown skin. The woman strutted into the room like she owned it, with a dark red duffel bag slung over her shoulder.

The woman stopped next to Jaxton and started to speak, her accent more singsong than Jaxton’s. “Jaxy,

I’m a bit disappointed in your welcoming party.” She gave a fake pout. “No cakes, no balloons, not even

any gifts? Poor Kiarra deserves all of that and more.”

Kiarra did a double take at the sound of her name and looked at the mirror above the dresser. It looked

like a regular mirror, not like the two-way ones used in the AMT examination rooms.
How does this woman
know my name?

She wanted to ask, but hesitated. Jaxton hadn’t struck her when she’d refused to answer him earlier, so

maybe this woman would allow her to ask questions too.

Gripping the inside of the blanket, she looked at the curly-haired woman and forced herself to ask,

“How do you know my name? Were you listening in?”

The woman tossed the duffel bag at Jaxton without looking and turned with a warm smile on her face.

“Do you really want to waste two of your three allotted questions on such silly things?”

Kiarra frowned, her curiosity stronger than her caution. “Three questions? I don’t understand.”

The woman winked. “I’ll give you a few freebies, since you’re new around here.” The woman took a

step toward her and Kiarra gripped the blanket tighter, still uneasy but wanting to know what the hell the woman was talking about.

The woman continued, “I only grant three answers to a person at any given time. Because of my secret

—and brilliant—abilities, too many people want to know trivial things, such as who will win a singing

contest or what sports team will earn a championship title.” She waved a hand in dismissal. “The three-

question limit saves my sanity.”

Jaxton muttered something in the corner, but the woman just blew him a kiss and said, “Jaxy loves me

despite his attitude. He believes that my three question rule is childish.”

Kiarra glanced over at Jaxton. “Love” was the last word she would use to describe his expression.

She wondered at the relationship between the woman and Jaxton. The best she could tell, Jaxton was in

charge of the men in black from the AMT. Yet Jaxton let this woman say and do as she pleased with barely a word in protest.

The woman took another step toward Kiarra, but just in case she really only had three questions, Kiarra looked in Jaxton’s direction and asked, “Why do people seek out this woman for answers?”

The woman laughed. “Clever girl.” She waved a hand at Jaxton, but never took her eyes from Kiarra’s.

“I’ll handle this, Jaxy.”

Jaxton started tapping his fingers against his arm. Kiarra nearly smiled at his irritation, but caught

herself just in time; she hadn’t felt the urge to smile in years.

As she met the woman’s brown-eyed gaze, Kiarra wished she could unsettle people like this woman,

using nothing but her words and attitude. But for now, all she had going for her was the threat of elemental fire—at least until someone called her bluff.

The woman touched her arm, but rather than tensing or bolting at the touch, a sense of calm came over

her. It made no sense. She looked up with a frown. “Who exactly are you?”

“I’m Neena.” The woman held out a hand. “And we need to have a little chat. How about we go

downstairs, for some girl time?”

She eyed the hand, but didn’t take it. “Girl time” as a child had meant sleepovers and gossip. Kiarra

wasn’t interested in either. She wanted to know what these people were going to do with her.

“Neena, leave her be,” Jaxton said. “She clearly isn’t ready for a one-on-one with you yet.”