The Scars of Her Dragon (Dragon Guard Series Book 14) (12 page)

Looking at her watch, Olive noted the time. One glance over her shoulder showed Gabby standing watch at the mouth of the corridor while Tilly and Karleigh disappeared towards the first bank of cages. Next were Ettie and Delilah, then Rory and Claire, and finally Olive followed Kayne towards the dark dankness of what could only be described as death.

Step by step, the gloom and despair thickened. Their senses were assaulted by the stench of rancid flesh and fetid blood. Moving farther into the gloom with her hand on Kayne’s back, Olive almost ran right into the demi god when he stopped and turned, grabbing her by the shoulders and trying to push her back.

“What? What’s wrong?” Olive demanded, digging in her heels and refusing to be moved.

“The plans were wrong. There are no cells back there. It’s...” Kayne’s words trailed off just as the dove noticed the horror in his eyes.

“Kayne,” she grabbed his forearms where he still held her shoulders and shook the demi god. “Tell me or let me pass.”

Shaking his head, he once again tried to move her back, this time using mindspeak to communicate with Rory,
“Are you finding survivors?”

“A few, but many more that didn’t make it.”

“Us too,”
Ettie’s vehemence was palpable as she answered.

Karleigh’s response was little more than a murmur,
“There are a few who just arrived but the few still with us will need to be carried.”

Using Kayne’s distress at her cousin’s answers as a diversion, Olive jerked out of his grasp, ducked under his arm, and immediately wished she’d stayed where she was, for what she saw could only be described as terrifying. Piled as high as the ceiling, stuffed from one wall to the next and as far as her enhanced vision would allow her to see were the dead and broken bodies of hundreds upon hundreds of dead shifters.

The stupid son of a bitch hadn’t even taken the time to bury them or at the very least, burn their remains. He’d simply ordered his scientists, his grim reapers, his minions, to use them up and throw them out like trash. Not only were they robbed of their lives, they were dishonored and left to be forgotten...dead and alone.

Olive vowed to go through every record and computer file Max and his werepanthers had been able to recover to make sure these brave shifters were remembered for their sacrifice. Her heart simply shattered at the thought that all they had suffered had been in vain. There was no way they would be forgotten.

Unable to move, unable to breathe, only able to silently weep, Olive left her mind open to share the heinous sight before her with Kellan. His voice floated through her mind, reminding her the fight was not over, “
Olive
, mo chroi’,
get out of there
.
Kayne will lead you out and then come back and help the others.”

Swiping at the tears on her cheeks, rage filled both woman and dove as Olive spun around and speared Kayne with a look she hoped let him know that if he dared to try to make her leave the bunker, she would maim him where he stood. Taking a deep breath, she answered her mate with a sharp retort.
“I will not leave until these people are out of here and don’t you try to make me, Kellan Aherne or I swear...”

“Okay, no offense intended. It’s just...”

Marching past the demi god, she tried to calm herself while answering her mate.
“I know. You’re worried, but don’t be. I’ve got this. Do what you have to do and so will I. See you on the other side.”

“Damn, woman, I love you.”

Feeling a little bit better, Olive sighed,
“I love you, too. Now, find that bastard and make him pay.”

She could hear the smile in Kellan’s voice when he answered,
“Yes, ma’am.”

Turning the corner, Olive stopped just short of running headlong into Claire, who had a badly burned and extremely emaciated young woman under each arm as she slowly walked them towards the hallway. In one look, the little dove realized neither would be able to climb the stairs, let alone make the fifty-yard dash into the woods where the werepanthers were waiting to transform and help get them to the vehicles. This was so much worse than anyone had expected.

Claire’s words echoed Olive’s thoughts.
“We’re gonna need help getting them out. This lot is in bad shape.”

“I’m on it. Max is sending in some of his cats. They should be here in two minutes,”
Rory answered, having been listening to the ladies’ conversation.

“Good, we need them,”
Olive responded, then to the mad bomber she asked,
“How we doin’ on time, Lenn?”

“Twelve minutes and counting. Pearce and I are on the way to help, too. Be there in thirty seconds.”

“How can you do that and blow the charges when it’s time?”
Olive asked, helping the two survivors sit down next to the other ladies her cousins had liberated from their shackles before turning to head back to the cages.

She almost laughed despite the situation when the mad bomber answered,
“The wonders of modern technology, milady. All I have to do is press the magic button and the world goes boom.”

“Stop flirting with my mate, Lenn,”
Kellan growled
.

“Aye, aye, Captain,”
Lennox teased a half a second before he and Pearce appeared around the corner.

Pointing over his shoulder, he asked, “Are the six in the hall ready to go? The werepanthers are right behind us.”

Olive looked at the poor shifters and nodded. She watched as the dragons and panthers gently lifted their battered and beaten bodies into their arms. They were nothing but skin and bones. There wasn’t a square inch on their bodies that wasn’t a weeping sore or cuts and slashes so deep she could see their muscles and bone. Even the skin on the bottom of their feet and the palms of their hands had been peeled away or sliced off in some maniacal experiment Olive couldn’t begin to imagine.

It broke her heart to look into their sunken, hollow eyes. Olive had to turn away as they swallowed and struggled against their abused and abraded throats to squeak out the tiniest of raspy ‘thank yous’ to the men who were carrying them to safety. She knew time was running out but prayed Kellan had at least a few seconds to make Tariq suffer...if anyone deserved it, he was the man.

The process of bringing the survivors out of the cells continued until all who still could draw breath were sitting against the wall of the passageway leading out of the complex. Lennox gave the four-minute warning as he, Pearce, Juan Carlos, Matías, and two panthers whose names she didn’t know left the darkness of the cells with the last of those lucky enough to have hung onto life through hell on earth.

Looking back at the empty cells, Olive shuddered. It was the only time other than when she and Kayne discovered the mass grave that she’d allowed herself a moment to focus on anything other than the refugees. There were heavy iron shackles with large silver spikes coated in the blood of the prisoners, torn blankets and rags, ratty mattresses, and puddles of stale water that had leaked in during the rains then left to draw mold, mildew, and insects. It was absolutely deplorable what those poor people had been made to live in after and in-between their bouts of torture and experimentation. Turning to leave, she caught sight of the buckets of slop that had been left for those who could crawl to them to eat and nearly threw up when she realized that they stunk just as much as the buckets the shifters had been forced to use as their bathroom.

Raising a prayer to the Universe and Lugh, she asked that each soul sent to the Heavens before their time be granted an eternity of peace and that special blessings be placed on all the Guardsmen, panthers, and feathered shifters who’d helped to liberate the survivors. Stepping into the main passageway at the same time that Lennox called out the three-minute warning, Olive stopped dead in her tracks as Kellan’s bellow blasted through her thoughts.

“Son of a bitch, he’s got a...”
And their connection was severed.

A
fter ten minutes of winding through the labyrinth of tunnels Kellen had an even clearer picture of the monster Tariq O’Baoill truly was. He and Maddox opened door after door during their search, each revealing the true horrors hundreds and hundreds of paranormal beings had been subjected to. The scarred dragon had been in constant contact with his mate and knew the serious condition of the poor wretches she and the others had liberated from the locked cages in the bottom level.

Several times during their pursuit a strange, unnerving sensation had descended upon both Guardsmen. Maddox swore he heard someone calling his name in a low, barely audible tone the farther into the bunker they ran. Unfortunately, the sensation
and
the voice had been gone as soon as they had been recognized and neither dragon could track its origin.

Lennox gave the four-minute warning at the precise moment Kellan and Maddox reached the main arena and slipped behind a large pallet of supplies. Using the boxes for cover, the scarred dragon searched the faces of the men wearing fatigues for Tariq, cursing under his breath when the leader of the hunters was nowhere to be seen.

“
You got anything, old man?”
he asked.

“Only two dozen or so people that look like the medical personnel in scrubs and lab coats being led by four soldier boys. What about you?”
The mad dragon sounded just as frustrated and angry as Kellan felt.

Time was running out. He knew they were dangerously close to the three-minute warning. Kellan was just about to call off the hunt and pray O’Baoill got caught in the blast when Maddox shouted,
“Got him. My three o’clock.”

With an intuition and speed that came only from years of fighting together, Kellan and Maddox switched places. One glance at the face of the man responsible for such unspeakable atrocities against so many made Kellan’s dragon roar in his head, claw and scrape to be released, and seethe with the need to seek vengeance for all the innocent lives Tariq had ordered taken in the name of his bigotry and hate.

Taking a deep breath, Kellen quickly assessed his options. Tariq was off to the side talking with two of the doctors he remembered from Max’s photographs and another man Kellan immediately recognized as one of the Generals he’d served with in the desert. Rage, hot and fiery, filled his mind; his vision turned red. He had always suspected the enemy had someone on the inside but had never been able to prove it. It was a bitter pill to swallow with the confirmation of his suspicions standing not thirty feet from him.

Maddox’s thick brogue in his head asked,
“Whatcha wanna do? Are we taking ‘em or leaving them to the flames?”

The clock ticking in his head made it painfully obvious that it was now or never. Looking over his shoulder, he knew there was no way the soldiers in the offices behind him could reach them before Kellan killed Tariq. Looking back at the arena, he saw that only O’Baoill and the three men remained on the floor. The scientists and their armed escorts had disappeared behind an electronically locked thick, metal emergency door.

Sure of his decision, he growled,
“We take ‘em.”

“That’s my boy,”
Maddox agreed and on the count of three, the two Guardsmen flew around the perimeter of the arena using whatever they could for cover, speeding closer and closer to their objective.  

Coming up behind Tariq, Kellan burst into view while roaring, “O’Baoill!”

The leader of the hunters spun around with a glint in his eye and eerie lack of surprise on his face, while his three comrades ran for cover only to be caught and subdued by Maddox. With an evil grin spreading across his face, he ripped open the front of his fatigue jacket and said, “Did you really think I wouldn’t be prepared?”

Kellen couldn’t believe his eyes. Tariq O’Baoill was wearing a suicide vest armed with enough C-4 to bring the center of the complex crashing down around them.

Lennox called the three-minute warning at the precise moment Kellan screamed,”
“Son of a bitch, he’s got a bomb,”
to Maddox and shut down his mindspeak with Olive. He knew she would kick his ass if by some quirky stroke of luck he actually made it out of the hole in the ground alive, but it was a chance he was willing to take. There was no way he could concentrate on what had to be done if he felt her fear on top of his own chaotic emotions. 

Sending mental images of what he saw to Lennox with the hopes the mad bomber knew some way to disarm the device, Kellan decided it best to keep his psychotic foe talking until he came up with a better plan. “You’re willing to blow yourself up just to kill me?”

“Not just you but all if your
kind
,” Tariq growled the last word and pointed to a glowing green light on the front of his vest. “My sacrifice will be worth the cost. I will be seen as a martyr to the world. I will have done what no other could do. I will have taken down a pack of dragons.”

Running through every possible scenario while warning Maddox to stay back and let him handle it, the same weird feeling he’d been battling all day settled over Kellan, but this time remaining like a slow boil in the back of his psyche. Looking back at the mad dragon, it was apparent he felt it too and was trying to zero in on its location.

The sound of O’Baoill’s voice drew Kellan’s full attention. “When I touch this button, it will activate the thirty-second timer on my device and thirteen others placed throughout this bunker and the grounds surrounding us.” The hunter pointed to the ceiling as he took a step towards Kellan. “I will eliminate not only you, but everyone you brought with you on this foolish rescue attempt and all those who, for a few fleeting moments, thought they had escaped my wrath.” His maniacal cackle echoed off the glass and metal walls of the bunker as the sound of the fifty or so soldiers who’d been pressed against the windows watching the standoff began to scatter like rats off a sinking ship.

Focusing on Tariq and leaving Maddox to find whatever it was that continued to prick at their enhanced senses, Kellan asked, “So you want me to believe that you knew we would come? That it was all part of your master plan?”