Chapter 26
His eyelids flickered hesitantly, taking a couple of trial runs before opening to stare unfocusedly at a clinically white ceiling. With a groan escaping through gritted teeth Dyson tried to push himself up into a sitting position but a dull pain in his chest and reinforced leather straps pushed him down.
"So, you are back," a cold female voice floated from somewhere out of his range of vision, "Good, I don't like administering the injection to unconscious subjects."
A blotch of white came into view and Dyson didn't need all his slowly awakening smarts to recognize the voice and the woman.
"Lauren," he whispered groggily, "Why are you doing this?"
He couldn't hear her shrug her shoulders, didn't see her face twitch, the reply that came half a minute later was not intended to answer his question.
"I would say be still, but that's, in fact, the only thing you can do right now, after being stunned by a rubber bullet and kicked around by my overzealous servants, that is," the doctor put a cool hand onto his bared forearm. "And sorry, can't promise to be gentle, for once I can afford to be honest with a fae, after years of simpering and cowering and pretending to serve the mighty race's best interest out of the sheer paltriness of mine," a small satisfied smile played on her thin lips, her expression hardening as she plunged the needle roughly into the vein, "Truth be told, I am really enjoying it."
Dyson jerked, not from the pain of the jab as much as from the realization of what was about to happen to him. A madly tangled mass of thoughts unraveled in his mind, Kenzi's face, the softness of her lips, the horror of losing her, of losing himself, of betraying those he cared for. The last but not the least came the memory of Tamsin with another unanswered why attached and the light dimmed again on the wolf. The last thing he heard through the fog enveloping him was Vex's screechy voice informing doctor Lewis that she was finally back, had just passed the guards at the gates. "She is back? Kenzi? Whatever gods there are around, just don't her let do anything rash, keep her safe," he begged in what he knew was his last free-will thought.
"She's home?" Lauren was smiling broadly now, "Isn't it my good-hair day? My excellent hair day?"
"Your hair is always excellent, my Queen," Vex returned smoothly, bowing and looking up at the woman slyly from under his disorderly dark bangs, "It's just me, your most humble servant, who managed to finally please you."
"Yes, yes, you're pardoned, as long as you manage not to annoy me," Lauren waved a hand at him and tore her white coat off hurrying out of the back room of the infirmary-slash-laboratory that she seemed to spend most of her time in, "Wait for the wolf to come round and go tell my sister I want to see her and don't buy into the excuses not to come she will understandably come up."
Her order, however, turned out wasted as she stepped into the front room and found herself face to face with the girl who seemed to have made a point of defying her older sister's attempt to anticipate her actions.
"Hi, Lori, I am back," the girl chirped in an Oscar-winning nonchalant delivery, her tone light and carefree after all the psyching up she had been doing on her way inside, her mind running at top speed assessing the chances, searching for an opening. Her hand gripped the handle of the gun inside her jacket, ready to put it to the desperate use she saw as the only chance the wolf had. Taking her only living family hostage, leaving what had been her life behind to save the man she barely knew felt too right, too much of the only option she was ready to live with to seem foolhardy or extreme. The hardest part was to convince Lauren she was prepared to pull the trigger if her demands were not met.
Kenzi swept her eyes around the empty lab, relieved at finding Lauren alone but certain a guard or two were lurking somewhere in close proximity, and immediately zeroed in on the door of the back room that was open an inch and where she was sure she had heard Lauren speaking to someone. Another thing she registered just as soon and that troubled her more than the guards was the triumph lighting up the deep brown of Lauren's beautiful eyes. She knew her sister too well to misinterpret the look and her insides clenched at the thought of what caused the glee.
"So, young lady, you'd better have a damn good explanation on how you managed to find yourself in a strange guy's car and to suck Bo into your escape plan," the blonde took on a stern tone but the victorious joy bubbled to the surface detracting from the severity.
"It's actually Bo who does most of the sucking around here," Kenzi snorted, "And as far as I am concerned, you won't earn your right to ask me for explanations until you stop playing the jailor."
"Jailor or not, I am pretty much the one standing between you and a summary execution at the hands of any rebellious fae with a grudge," a little menace crept back into the doctor's tone, but the fresh sense of triumph and, if she was honest with herself, Bo's words about smothering Kenzi still a resounding echo in her mind were eating into her previous determination to give her sister a good blasting and take all measures necessary to prevent a further AWOL on her part.
"Then let me have as much fun as I can squeeze out of my pitiful existence until such a gruesome moment," the younger girl said bitterly, peering at her sister defiantly from under her dark eyelashes, her hands tucked defensively into her pockets.
"Were you out having fun?" Lauren asked more mildly, recognizing the look and knowing Kenzi was about to dig her heels in and start being truly oppositional. After her victory of the day the doctor felt decisively inclined to rely on gentleness rather than forcefulness, "And I am asking because I care not just because I am being obsessively controlling and overprotective."
Kenzi, whose resentful clamming up her sister was fully prepared for, suddenly broke into a wide grin as she rocked back on her heels and let a dreamy expression flit across her features. "Well, if we could kick the Queen of all enthralled fae out of this room for a little while, if I could just talk to my older sister instead and share all the juicy details I am bursting to tell …," she started tentatively and the naughty cajoling look she gave made Lauren's heart skip a bit – that was almost the Kenzi she remembered – the young adventurous Kenzi open to the world, eager to live and experience, almost the Kenzi before the shattering grief and the bitter disappointments took their toll.
"How about," the doctor said slowly, "I close those doors, tell Vex to get lost, grab a bottle of something liver-unfriendly and settle in to listen to your escapades that I hope involve a tall, dark and handsome…"
"All of that, except for the dark part, and some more," the younger girl did a giggle pushing it past the gnawing concern and forcing her fingers to relax on the handle of the gun. "Will you really do that? No important fae business to attend to? Just the little old Kenz and a bottle? And you'll send away the hovering guards?" she studied her sister's face with a sliver of hope. Stalling for time, getting the good doctor occupied and thus not dealing with the wolf was the primary purpose, actually getting some of her sister back was a bonus.
"Absolutely, but the story'd better be worth it," Lauren's smile almost melted the permafrost in her eyes and was reflected, like in a mirror, on Kenz's taut face, a rare warm vibe enveloping the sisters.
"And all fae business is done for today and a celebration is in order," Lauren added, unable to resist boasting, "I have finally managed to get rid of one more dangerous, long-standing enemy by turning him into a well-trained puppy. I should really get a pair of slippers as far as I have someone to bring them to me now. "
The mood snapped as the younger woman suddenly stiffened, "Are you talking about the wolf? The one you've been carrying an un-PETA grudge against and who managed to escape last time?"
"He won't be so lucky this time," Lauren nodded proudly, "No inside help even if he was still willing to escape. Which he's not, right now he should be all about serving his Queen…"
Kenzi felt suddenly numb as her fingers uncurled and let go of the now useless gun and she let her arms drop down along her sides. No matter how many reservations she had had about the desperate plan of getting Dyson out of the mansion by threatening Lauren with the gun, at least it had been a plan. "You've injected him?" she asked weekly, the fight going out of her, a listlessness setting in.
"He's regained consciousness, my Queen," Vex cut in beating the doctor to the answer as he poked his head out of the inner room, "Would you like a little demonstration?"
Lauren hesitated for no longer than a brief moment before the burning desire to see her long-term enemy humiliated won over her sisterly consideration.
"Bring him in," she commanded curtly and turned to Kenzi, failing to notice the deathly pallor spreading over the usual porcelain paleness of her face, "It will only take a minute."
In abject horror Kenzi saw the tall figure shuffle into the lab, propelled by the Mesmer prodding him in the back.
"Bow to the Queen," Vex crowed and gave the shifter another push that made the dazed man stumble, "genuflect before your mistress."
Even Lauren winced at the high-pitched absurdity and she flicked a wrist at the Mesmer dismissively, "Make yourself useful and shut up, Vex. It's me who's giving the orders here." She approached the wolf who was gazing at her with a glazed look of someone trying to shake off the mind-addling affects of a knock-out drug and ran an appraising eye over him.
"I'm sure I'll find a good use for you beside the bowing and the genuflecting part," she said contentedly, "For instance, we can start a punitive operation against the rebels which you will spearhead, with your claws and superhuman strength and your intimate knowledge of where they are hiding. You'll bring me the valkyrie's head and you'll bring me the Blood King alive. Will you, wolf?"
For a second Kenzi thought she saw Dyson's eyes sparkle in fury and she almost expected him to rip the blonde's heart out but the tall shifter's head dropped down in an exhausted but respectful nod as he muttered gutturally, "At my Queen's command."
"Excellent! Now kneel!" the doctor exclaimed and barely restrained herself from clapping her hands as she saw the haughty tormentor who had for years snubbed her humanity and who had presumed to take away her Bo go down awkwardly on one knee before her.
"And if you get maimed or killed in this most dangerous bust or in the next one, Dyson, that will make me the happiest Queen in the world," Lauren beamed like a child unwrapping Christmas presents and caught his eye, "Do you understand me?"
As another soulless nod signaled Dyson's servility, she turned to her sister feeling content and generous.
"The punitive operation can wait till tomorrow, today my sister's my priority," she announced nobly but the undisguised horror in Kenzi's already brimming eyes made her choke on her words. "What's wrong, darling?" the blonde rushed to the girl, grabbing her cold hands into hers, searching her face for clues.
Her brain kicked into highest gear by fear and despair, Kenzi rushed through considering and discarding the option of still using the gunpower at her disposal to get Dyson out. Enthralled and clueless, vulnerable and caught in the cross-fire, where did he have to go? How long would he survive the world outside the Lewis mansion where his own comrades would most likely want him eliminated as a traitor and a threat? What chance did she have to protect him once they were out of Lauren's jurisdiction? Snowmen in hell could last longer in winter periods.
No, inside was the safest place for him at the moment but not with Lauren clearly eager to use him for kamikaze missions until her vengeance was fully exacted. Kenzi knew she had to keep him in the doctor's stronghold but on her own terms, whatever the cost, whatever the humiliation, even if she had to plead, to lie, to blackmail, to lose her sister's respect.
"That's him," the girl hiccupped through the tears that finally spilled down her cheeks and, her chin shaking, pointed towards the shifter, "That's the man I escaped with."