As the tree drew near and the current picked up speed again, she braced for impact. Her feet hit first, sending shockwaves through her ankles and shins. Instead of being caught by the trunk, her body was dragged underneath it. She thrashed her arms, reaching out for any limbs she could grasp before the current swept her away, and clutched a sapling vine. She pulled on the vine until she surfaced again, then flipped onto her stomach and dragged her body halfway out of the water and onto a tangle of branches still clinging to the trunk.
She turned her head just in time to see Alex coming toward her. “Grab anything you can!” she screamed over the roaring sound of the rapids.
Lily’s stomach flipped when she realized Alex hadn’t swum far enough over to catch the tree. She scrambled as fast as she could up onto the trunk itself and shimmied toward the jagged edge sticking out into the river.
Alex managed to grab a single branch hanging from the tip of the tree, but the current was dragging her back toward the middle of the river. Lily crawled up the trunk as fast as she could; the broken nubs of lost branches cut into her inner thighs, but she barely felt the sting. All she could think about was the despair and sheer terror in Alex’s eyes. When Lily reached the edge of the trunk, she stretched her arm toward Alex as far as it would go. Alex kicked and thrashed against the current, trying to get closer, but it was no use.
The branch cracked near the base. Lily stretched, cantilevering herself over the rushing water toward the branch, just out of reach. She saw the moment Alex understood. Her eyes hardened like they had on the first night at the edge of the forest. Just before the branch broke off completely, she rolled onto her back.
“No!” Lily’s scream rose above the roar of the river as Alex’s dark brown hair disappeared under a swell.
Chapter 2
One Week Later
Verakko’s gaze raced over the multitude of screens in front of him, unbelieving. He knew of the Insurgents and their plan to abduct and experiment on humans. He’d even heard first-person accounts of their treachery from the humans themselves, but a small part of him had clung to the unreasonable hope that no member of their supposedly advanced society would stoop so low as to cage sentient beings in such a vile way.
Here, in front of his very eyes, was irrefutable evidence that his people were no better than any other. Feeds of miserable human females and a solitary male were being broadcast to his screen from over five different facilities across Clecania.
“Fuck,” Luka croaked from behind him.
Verakko shot a sympathetic wince over his shoulder at the glaring male and saw his face had paled and his eyes were searching the screen with an undercurrent of rage.
Was the anger glimmering in his eyes for himself or his mate, Alice? Both Luka and Alice had been held captive in a different facility identical to the ones covering the screen. They, and a small group of females—two of whom were still missing—had escaped a little over two weeks ago.
Arguably, Luka had received the worse treatment while prisoner. He’d been beaten and drugged, but as Verakko studied Luka, he felt as though this male didn’t care about his own experience at all. Bright blue mating marks, only the second to be seen on a Clecanian in centuries, ran over the large male’s wrists and hands, and as Luka’s gaze darted from the facility feeds to the exit of the small cabin they were currently in, he continued to absently run his fingers over the marks.
Verakko returned his attention to the task at hand and attempted to clear his mind of the unwanted pangs of curiosity nibbling at his senses. It wouldn’t do to start daydreaming about someday finding a mate for himself.
His nimble fingers flew over the holographic control panel to his right. Almost ready.
To his relief, there were only about two or three guards manning each facility. For the past few minutes, Verakko had been trapping them as quietly as he could. Most had been easy to lock up as they sat in their facility’s control room and didn’t notice the sound of their door locking. But others had been wandering the halls. He’d lured them into vacant cells by broadcasting the sound of static. When the guards had investigated the faulty equipment, he’d sealed the door behind them. Only one guard remained.
Verakko felt his fangs pulse in anger. The last of the guards was currently in a room with a female. She was strapped to a chair, facing away from the camera, and he was seated on a stool next to her. At present, they were only speaking, but Goddess knew what the abhorrent male had planned.
The idea the Queen had devised to free the captured humans was imperfect, to say the least. Remotely opening the facility exits and releasing humans into the wild with no idea of how to survive seemed idiotic at first glance. But the alternatives were worse. The Insurgents, otherwise known as PRIC, were not yet aware they’d been found out.
If the Queen and her army spent resources attempting to find each secret facility, word might get back to the Insurgents, and they may decide to discard the evidence—namely the humans themselves—before being revealed as the traitors they were.
The strategy they’d settled on to free these humans had been more disheartening than hopeful, but they
