The Dragon's Heart (Lochguard Highland Dragons #3) (13 page)

He only hoped everything went according to plan.

*~*~*

Kiarra Melini stared at the small homemade shiv in her hand and wondered for the thousandth time if she could go through with it.

She had spent the last few weeks racking her brain, trying to come up with an alternative plan to save the other prisoners of the AMT without having to harm anyone. Yet despite her best efforts, she’d come up empty-handed.
 

To protect the lives of the other first-borns inside the AMT, Kiarra would kill for the first and last time.
 

Not that she wanted to do it, given the choice. But after overhearing a conversation between two AMT researchers a few weeks ago, she knew the AMT would never again be safe for any of the first-borns while she remained alive.

The outside world might have chosen to forget about the existence of the first-born prisoners, but that didn’t make them any less important. Kiarra was the only one who cared, and she would go down fighting trying to protect them.

Even if it meant killing herself to do so.

She took a deep breath and gripped the handle of her blade tighter until the plastic of the old hairbrush dug into her skin. Just as she was about to raise her arm to strike, her body shook. Kiarra closed her eyes and breathed in and out until she calmed down enough to stop shaking. Ending her life, noble as her reasons may be, was a lot harder than she’d imagined.

Mostly because she was afraid to die.

But her window of opportunity was closing fast; the AMT-wide meeting would end in less than an hour. After that, she would have to wait a whole other month before she could try again, and who knew how many more first-borns would suffer because of her cowardice.

Maybe, if she recalled the conversation between the two researchers, the one which forebode the future harsh realities of the other AMT prisoners, she’d muster enough nerve to do what needed to be done.

It was worth a shot, so Kiarra closed her eyes and recalled the conversation that had changed the course of her life forever.

Strapped to a cold metal examination table, Kiarra kept her eyes closed and forced herself to stay preternaturally still. The slightest movement would alert the researchers in the room that she was conscious again. She couldn’t let that happen, not if she wanted to find out the reason why the researchers had increased her examination visits and blood draws over the past two weeks.

Most AMT prisoners wouldn’t think twice about it, since they’d been conditioned not to ask questions, but Kiarra had gone through something similar before. The last time her visits had increased with the same frequency, the AMT researchers had stolen her elemental magic.

Since then, no matter how many times she reached to the south—the direction of elemental fire—she felt nothing. No tingling warmth, no comforting flame. She was no different from a non-first-born, yet she was still a prisoner, unable to see the sky or feel a breeze, and forced to live in constant fear of what the guards or researchers might do to her.

Of how they might punish her.

Dark memories invaded her mind. However, when the female researcher in the room spoke again, it snapped Kiarra back to the present. The woman’s words might tell her more about her future, provided she had one after her treatment.

She listened with every cell in her body and steeled herself not to react.
 

“Interesting,” the female researcher said. “Out of the ten teenagers, nine of them still can’t use their elemental magic, just like F-839. Dr. Adams was right—her blood was the key to getting the Null Formula to work.”

It took all of Kiarra’s control not to draw in a breath. Her serial number was F-839, and all of the extra blood draws finally made sense—the AMT was using her blood to try and eradicate elemental magic.

The male researcher spoke up. “They’re going to start a new, larger test group in a few weeks and see if they can stop the first-borns from going insane and/or committing suicide. If we don’’t get the insanity rate below ten percent, then we’ll never be able to implement this planet-wide.”

“Don’t worry, we’ll get there. We have a few million first-borns to burn through to get it right.”

Kiarra opened her eyes and embraced the guilt she felt every time she thought about what had happened to those poor first-born teenagers.

Because of her blood, not only had five teenagers already gone insane, but their insanity was driving an untold number of them to suicide.

And the researchers wanted to repeat the process with a larger group.

She couldn’t let that happen.

They needed her blood, drawn and injected within hours, as a type of catalyst for the Null Formula to work. If they didn’t have access to her blood, they wouldn’t be able to conduct any more tests.
 

There was a chance the researchers might find another catalyst within a few weeks or months, but it was a risk she was willing to take. Stopping the tests, even for a few months, would prevent more people from going insane or committing suicide.

Kiarra needed to die.

I can do this. Think of the others.
Taking a deep breath, she tightened her grip around the shiv’s handle and whispered, “Please let this work,”” before raising the blade with a steady hand and plunging it into the top half of her forearm.

Kiarra sucked in a breath as a searing pain shot up her arm. To prevent herself from making any more noise, she bit her lip. Despite the AMT-wide staff meeting, a guard would come to investigate her cell if she screamed.

You can do this, Kiarra. Finish it.
With her next inhalation, she pulled the blade a fraction more down toward her wrist. This time she bit her lip hard enough she could taste iron on her tongue.
 

While her brain screamed for her to stop, she ignored it and gripped the handle of the blade until it bit into her palm. Only when her heart stopped beating would the other first-borns be safe—at least from her.

An image of a little girl crying, reaching out her arms and screaming Kiarra’s name, came unbidden into her mind, but she forced it aside. Her sister had abandoned her, just like the rest of her family. Her death wouldn’t cause anyone sadness or pain. Rather, through death, she would finally have a purpose.

This was it.
On the next inhalation, she moved the blade a fraction. But before she could finish the job, the door of her cell slid open.

Kiarra looked up and saw a tall man, dressed head to toe in black, standing in her doorway and pointing a gun straight at her.

Shit.
She’d been discovered.

———————

Blaze of Secrets
is now available on all major online retailers.

Books by Jessie Donovan

Asylums for Magical Threats

Blaze of Secrets
(AMT #1)

Frozen Desires
(AMT #2)

Shadow of Temptation
(AMT #3)

Flare of Promise
(AMT #4)

Cascade Shifters

Convincing the Cougar
(CS #0.5)

Reclaiming the Wolf
(CS #1)

Cougar’s First Christmas
(CS #2)

Resisting the Cougar
(CS #3)

Lochguard Highland Dragons

The Dragon’s Dilemma
(LHD #1)

The Dragon Guardian
(LHD #2)

The Dragon’s Heart
(LHD #3)

The Dragon Warrior
/ Faye and Grant (LHD #4 / Early 2017)

Stonefire Dragons

Sacrificed to the Dragon
(SD #1)

Seducing the Dragon
(SD #2)

Revealing the Dragons
(SD #3)

Healed by the Dragon
(SD #4)

Reawakening the Dragon
(SD #5)

Loved by the Dragon
(SD #6)

Surrendering to the Dragon
(SD #7)

Cured by the Dragon
/ Sid and Gregor (SD #8, October 6, 2016)

Author’s Note

Originally, I hadn’t planned on writing Lorna’s story. But as more and more of my readers asked for her tale, I started to get the idea for this novella. Since writing about an older couple is actually risky in romance, I hope my readers enjoyed this story. In the end, I think Lorna and Ross are a perfect match for each other!

There will be about eight months between the release of this novella and the next Lochguard Highland Dragons story (about Faye and Grant). This is because I slow down a little over the summer and won’t have time to write it. However, there will be a Stonefire Dragons novel released in the interim, which I hope you’ll enjoy.

As ever, I thank not only my readers but also the people who help make this book a reality:

• Clarissa Yeo of Yocla Designs does all of my covers and manages to wow me each and every time!
  
• Becky Johnson of Hot Tree Editing is amazing and I can’t imagine working with someone else. Not only does she get me, she never hesitates to point out when I need to change something.
  
• My beta readers, Donna H., Iliana G., and Alyson S. are also vital to the process. Not only do they catch the lingering typos, they also point out the smaller details only a dedicated fan could spot.
   
  

I hope you enjoyed Ross and Lorna’s story and I look forward to writing many crazy Lochguard stories in the future. Until next time, happy reading!

About the Author

Jessie Donovan wrote her first story at age five, and after discovering
The Dragonriders of Pern
series by Anne McCaffrey in junior high, she realized people actually wanted to read stories like those floating around inside her head.
 
From there on out, she was determined to tap into her over-active imagination and write a book someday.

After living abroad for five years and earning degrees in Japanese, Anthropology, and Secondary Education, she buckled down and finally wrote her first full-length book.
 
While that story will never see the light of day, it laid the world-building groundwork of what would become her debut paranormal romance,
Blaze of Secrets
. In late 2014, she officially became a
New York Times
and
USA Today
bestselling author.

Jessie loves to interact with readers. When not reading a book or traipsing around some foreign country on a shoestring, she can often be found on Facebook either on her
Author Page
or in her
Fan Group
.
 

This book is a work of fiction.
 
Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the writer’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

The Dragon’s Heart

Copyright © 2016 Laura Hoak-Kagey

Mythical Lake Press, LLC

First Digital Edition

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner without the express written permission of the author except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

Cover Art by Clarissa Yeo of
Yocla Designs

ISBN:
978-1942211402