Made By Design (Blood Bound Series Book 2) (45 page)

In a blur, Dorian strung out a long chain and coiled it around the guard until he was tied down to the metal chair. A huge padlock with engraved symbols connected the two opposing ends of the chain. These chains couldn’t easily be broken, and anyone restricted by them would be powerless to escape.

Troy convulsed with an all-over body quake, returning to his own form. He kicked the out-cold guard’s leg. “Now what?”

Dorian eyed the vicious needle pointing out of the print scanner. “If you become Caius again, will your blood work?”

“No. The imprint changes how I look and sound. My insides, blood and DNA make-up, or whatever you want to call it, remains the same. My blood won’t work.”

“What if I zap it?” I said out loud.

Amidst Dorian and Troy’s vote of agreement, Kendrick’s voice rang through my ears.
No! It’ll be alarm wired. Any power break could set it off. It’s probably on a timer, too.

Dammit!
“Scratch that,” I said, pulling at my braid in frustration. “Kendrick says it’ll set off the alarm.”

Then something a council member had exclaimed when Mom announced my Oracle visions rang through my ears.
That’s impossible. She’s not even a Pure Blood.

Suspect excitement rushed through my veins. I stared at my own hands. The answer hand been right in front of me this whole time, way before my power was revealed. Right back when I’d realized that the rarest ability bestowed onto Pure Bloods, coursed through every fiber of my being. It was part of me. Part of my blood. Part of who I really was. If damned blood coursed through my veins and had altered my DNA, then so did Pure Blood.

I removed one glove and extended my index finger as Kendrick screamed internally for me to stop. But this was our only chance. Whether I was right or wrong would all be set in place right after…

The needle pierced my finger with a sharp sting. A crimson drop fell as the needle recessed back into the touch pad. A heart-stopping second later the device beeped and the second red light flashed green. The distinct sound of deadlock bars slid free.

It had worked. More than that, it had answered the question I had sought out since fleeing the Armaya and Caius. Now without any resignation I knew the truth. I knew exactly what I was.
A manufactured Pure Blood.

Beyond the once-bolted, three-inch solid steel door, we found a corridor lined with cells. Ty’s cell was the last on the left. With my glove back on, I channeled the sparks to my fingers and rushed ahead as two chained, dirty arms reached through the bars. Ty took hold of me, wrapping his arms around my waist as mine reached through the bars to encase him.

“You made it,” he said, voice gruff and tinged by surprise.

“Told you we would.” I fought back the tears at having done it, having broken through every obstacle. Though being able to physically touch Ty in a way that I hadn’t been able to since his imprisonment, had a few wet drops sliding free.

Troy clearing his throat had Ty’s arms receding back into the cell. “Enough with the reunion. If I die in this hole, I’m taking you all down with me.”

Dorian stood at the cell’s barred door, slotting the large iron key we’d commandeered from the last guard into the thick lock. “I’d argue, but he’s right. Let’s blow this shit hole before it’s too late.” A loud clank announced the release and the door swung open with a slight push.

I weaved past Dorian and threw myself into Ty’s arms. Though his arms flung around me, he staggered and groaned. I jerked away, pain striking my chest at the unaltered sight of him. Still shackled and through the shredded fabric of what had been his shirt and pants, I could see everything. Elongated welts covered his skin. Each was deep and wide and seeped blood. Bruises of every color stained his once tan flesh. His lip was split too. It was as swollen as his right eye that was completely closed and oozing yellowish muck. Without being able to heal, each injury must have been killing him. And that wasn’t all. His left arm dangled at an entirely awkward angle, the bone broken and jutting through his forearm’s flesh.

My stomach dropped. I’d just rushed into his arms, and he had hugged me back. Doing so must have been pure agony.

With a gentle hand I led Ty back, easing him down onto the rotten cot. Then I reached for the vial. My hand slid into the pocket of my pants, feeling openness as my fingers dipped through a hole in the bottom. “Shit!”

“What’s wrong,” Troy demanded, hovering like the hulk over my shoulder.

I turned to expose the damage of my stolen guard’s pants. The pocket was burnt through and ragged. Now I knew what that stinging pain had been. My skin below the material was mottled and edged white, with darker, uneven patches where fleshy holes had already healed. “When the guard kicked me, it broke the acid vial.”

“What’s…the acid for?” Ty asked in a weary voice. Even sitting his body swayed, bordering on unconsciousness.

“To break your chains.” Dorian moved to my other side. He picked up Ty’s non-broken arm and began pulling at the shackle.

As he tugged and grunted, my thoughts raced. Whispers that we’d failed, that we’d never get out of this alive, struck me. But I couldn’t give up. I wouldn’t. If we failed, I’d at least die trying.

“That won’t work,” Troy said. He stripped the backpack from Dorian’s back and fished through it. His face was set with hard lines and desperation. The expression was unlike any I had ever seen in him before, and it set one thing in black and white. Freeing Ty meant as much to him as it did to either of us.

An idea hit me like a slap to the face.
Kendrick, will my blood give him some strength even with the restraints intact?

What? Oh. I’m not sure,
he answered, sounding distracted.
It’s possible. But that still won’t free…

Kendrick’s response stopped short as my idea registered in his mind. I knelt beside Ty, rolled one glove down to my wrist, and bit down, creating a deep gouge in the flesh. Crimson pooled at the punctures.

Troy’s head whipped up from his bag tampering. With a disgusted snarl he shot forward, pinning me against the far wall. “What the hell are you doing?”

“Troy, please,” I pleaded, coughing at the shock of being slammed against rough stone. “You have to let me go. We don’t have time for this.”

“Get your hands off her!” Dorian shot up behind Troy, fangs out and arms around the guy’s neck.

“Not on your life.” Troy threw a back swing while keeping his other arm pinned across my neck. The hit met Dorian’s chest, sending him flying back into the bars. He raised a closed fist to my face, disgust painting his expression black. “Infect him with your blood?”

Small sparks did nothing to ease the pressure of his arm against my throat. “It’s the only way to get us out of here alive,” I croaked.

Troy pushed harder, his canines like threatening spears poking from his mouth. “By turning him?”

“No.” A raspy voice sounded from the cot. Ty coughed, spluttering on what sounded like blood. With a groan he pushed himself up into a slumped sitting position. “That’s not what Amelia’s trying to do. Let. Her. Go.”

Troy glared, sending a bolt of daggers at me. Then his arm released and he stepped back.

Free, I scrambled forward and reopened the healing punctures before holding out my wrist. Any voltage was redirected down to my other hand. Ty’s eyes met mine for a moment, trusting and hopeful. He took my arm and pressed the bleeding wound to his lips. Scarlet dripped from the corners of his hot lips, sending a current of gooseflesh all the way down to my toes.

Troy paced behind me, clearly fighting the impulse to tear my bleeding flesh from his alpha. Dorian was deceptively leaning against the cell’s back wall, his knee propped up. His unblinking eyes were zoned in on Troy and a dagger was in his hand. He wasn’t about to let Troy get the upper hand again.

After what seemed like minutes but couldn’t have even been thirty seconds, Ty released my wrist and winced. He glanced down, face pinching at his bloody, bone-protruding arm. “It’s not working.” He rattled the chains hanging from his wrists. “Your blood can’t heal me. Not with these.”

“I know. The symbols prevent it.” I straightened and took Ty’s hand. There was no way to know if my idea would work, expect to test it. “But don’t you feel something?” Desperate hope tightened my chest. “Somehow different?”

Ty pressed his free hand against the center of his chest. “Yeah. Like there’s a ball of energy trapped in here.”

This was as close to a sign that my idea could work as we were going to get. I lifted Ty to his feet, staring into his dull honey-glazed eyes. “I need you to try to imprint me.”

“Imprint you? Why? What good…” His words broke off with understanding, eyes shining with the briefest glint of possibility. “You mean…”

“That’s ridiculous,” Troy cut in. “He can barely stand. He can’t even heal. We’re just wasting time we don’t have. We need to consider amputation.”

“You want to mutilate your own alpha?” Dorian’s leg fell off the wall with a look of sheer disbelief.

“With what we have to work with?” Troy sneered over his shoulder at my brother. “It’s our only hope to get out of here alive.”

“No. It’s not,” I said, imagining Ty with gory stumped legs and arms. “It’s torture. And it’s not necessary.”

Troy stalked forward so that his seething face was a breath away from mine. “What if it doesn’t work?”

To that I didn’t have a comeback. What would we do? What could we?

Before I could utter my total blank response, Ty’s hand tightened around mine. A succession of cracks erupted between us. I stared wide-eyed, pain from a cracked bone in my hand shooting up my arm. Ty was doing it. He was actually doing it.

Deep growls reverberated from his throat as his entire shell vibrated, blurring and changing right before our eyes. His head fell and his height slanted with a crack of one leg. The breaking of the second leveled it. His complexion paled, tan turning porcelain. Black as night hair lengthened and streamed down from the roots in a blond wave. The hand still holding so tight to mine became soft as cashmere, no longer broad and marked with callouses from his many years of fighting experience. When Ty’s body had stopped shaking, still draped and scarcely covered by his torn clothes, his head rose.

“It worked.” My hand came up, marveling at the face I had known my entire life. My own silver-blue irises, pale lips, and porcelain skin.

Ty stared down at himself, head shaking as if he couldn’t believe it. His hand released mine then his arms dropped. The shackles slid straight from his wrists, clattering to the ground. He swayed and dropped back onto the chain-strung cot, his back hitting the wall. Watching him and seeing my own likeness, I almost felt the stone wall’s hard connection. It was eerie and surreal, but I couldn’t dwell on it.

I dropped to the ground and began tugging at the shackle around his now slender right ankle. Dorian fell to my other side, and with a little edging and pulling we managed to free both restraints without inflicting too much pain.

As they fell to the floor, a harsh noise tore from Ty’s throat. He fell sideways, hitting the thin, soiled mattress and tucking into a ball. Seconds later and after a torturous cry, Ty had returned to his former self. He rolled to his back, heaving as if the air was thin of oxygen. A glimmer of gold flashed in his glassy eyes. “We did it.”

“He needs more.” I sent a quick glance at Troy. Needing his approval wasn’t the issue. But I wanted to prevent another bust-up.

Fury at my statement blotted his face red. Still he nodded as if to say
do it.

I slashed a nail across my wrist and dropped to my knees, pressing the bloody gash to Ty’s mouth. He coughed then swallowed. After a few seconds he lifted his hands to clutch my arm. Déjà vu washed over me. Ty had tasted my blood this way when he’d needed to heal on the cruise after being wounded by the damned. That time and the one just before, my blood had flowed freely with my pulse. This time Ty’s unbroken suction drew it from me, faster and faster. I gasped at the sensation and Ty broke his hold. His irises rippled for the briefest moment with that glorious gold.

“Are you okay?” Worry that he’d hurt me creased his face. Yet as he said the words, the black and purple bruises maiming his face began to fade. The puffiness to his eye and lip receded.

“You’re healing,” I cried. Total relief brightened what had minutes ago been a dire situation.

In the back corner of my mind I became acutely aware of Marika repeating the sworn oath as the vampires’ recognized their Oracle. The oath that would bind her to deliver the truth of her visions. During the words her ruse held, her voice matching my own, her copycat features determined. She was pulling it off. When she’d completed the oath, Kendrick’s sight slid from my double. He threw a quick look at the blood-filled chalice in his hands. Then his gaze lifted to the ticking clock poised below the second level balcony. The time didn’t matter, but his message was clear.

“The coronation is almost complete.” My vision returned to the dank cell and Ty. “The guards will be sent to retrieve you any minute. We need to leave. Now.”

With a look of determination, Troy reached between us and straightened out Ty’s broken arm. “Ready?”

Ty’s lips thinned and he nodded. Before I could ask
ready for what?
Troy gripped above and below the exposed bone in Ty’s forearm and twisted. A wicked crack broke the air as the bone snapped back into one straight piece. The pain must have been unbearable, but Ty didn’t cry out or even curse. Instead he squeezed his lids shut and clenched his jaw with a screeching grind of his teeth. When it was over, my blood had worked as much of its healing power as it could.

Ty got up with a helping hand from Troy and Dorian. “Let’s blow this dump.”

We all bolted through the cell’s door, making for the first exit we’d need to clear. Figuring our way out of the building and past the army of guards marking the exterior would be a play-by-play.

As we passed the body of the last guard we’d rendered unconscious, an electric current shot into my chest. Panic crippled my soul. I froze, hand bracing against the stone wall. “Wait!”