Chapter Fourteen

A flush of heat rushed across the skin of Vivi’s face and neck as shock transformed into anger. Dom opened her mind to everything she couldn’t remember.

Once his part in the process was over, she yanked her hand away from Dom and bent at the waist, cradling her head. Memories rushed in. All the things they forced her to ingest. All the experiments conducted to find what poisons worked, whether they made her ill for hours to days, or sedated her, or merely made her disoriented. Then there was the training in fighting and weapons. She couldn’t remember it all clearly, but somehow, her body participated while her mind rebelled. Over and over, they pronounced the same assessment, “She’s not ready.” Or, “The prompts aren’t taking fast enough. Can’t trust her on her own, even though we’ll have to.”

There’d been no baby. No sex. Thank God. Little comfort to her, though, given the number of lycans they threw her way—at least four, possibly five. And, they’d messed with her head. For control. They’d tried to force her to accept other lycans. She’d refused. Somehow, she fought them despite all their efforts to manipulate her mind. Except Ky. Him she didn’t reject. If Ky hadn’t been so strong-willed, they’d have been naked on day one.

The world spun around her.

The damned painting kept screaming verses of an old Celtic song her mother used to sing about the invulnerability of the soul. She had sung it in the moments before they’d hauled her outside and executed her..

No spear shall rive thee,

No sea shall drown thee,

None shall wile thee,

None shall wound thee.

From the crown of thy head

To the soles of thy feet…

You shall go forth

To the God of life you now belong wholly.

Vivi muttered the words as the painting’s high voice started back at the beginning. It wasn’t just a song. It was a protective prayer or lorica. Not only had it kept her safe from the Lycan Council who’d come to kill them, but also from those in the prison who sought to change her. It had done what it could, preserved her from death, and protected her mind, but her loss of faith in magic diminished the lorica’s strength.

Why hadn’t it saved Nova?

She pointed to the painting. “Stop. I got it.”

It quieted.

She needed grounding, and her only lifeline was Ky. A steady rock in the face of an earthquake. She stumbled to sit next to him. She wanted to wrap her hand around his or ask that he hold her, but it seemed too much for someone who’d held out against their captors for so long. Their thighs touched, though. The sensation of his power, his strength, grounded her, soothed her. Brought her back to the now.

“Is she triggered to do something?” Roman asked.

“I don’t think so, but I don’t know. That’s not something I can read,” Dom said. “She was resistant to the training, but they were able to implant a lot in there. There are tons of land mines that could be activated.” He scrutinized her. “I’m sorry. You’re dangerous, even with the lorica in place. You can be activated to do something at any time if the right sequence of words is spoken. Your consciousness will turn off, and you’ll do what you were ordered.”

“I don’t understand,” she said. “I resisted them.”

“To some extent but not fully.” Dom’s eyebrows drew together.

Ky took her hand tight in his.

She glanced up, grateful for the connection.

Ky said, “You might’ve been ordered to do something already and don’t remember it. I think they used pain and brainwashing to implant those orders. It was Mad Sigge’s life work to make this kind of thing happen.”

She stared where their hands were linked. This is what she’d wanted. His touch. His assurance. Yet, the concept her mind wasn’t fully under her control smothered her to the point she felt as if she couldn’t suck in enough oxygen. “How do I deactivate it?”

Dom compressed his lips and stared at Roman.

“There’s a way,” Roman said. “We can talk about that later.”

“Isn’t there someone I can go to or some magic that can undo this?” she asked. “Can you fix this, Dom?”

Dom shook his head. “There’s no Marvel movie character who can fly here in a space-age jet and conduct a magical session around a campfire to cure you.”

“I don’t watch Marvel.”

“You should try them sometime. They’re entertaining,” Dom said. “Those triggers, or prompts as they called them, are wedged in your head from a combination of hypnosis, brainwashing, and drugs. My magic won’t fix it.”

“I’m a ticking time bomb?”

“Interpol just offered me a rather hefty contract to kill you, my dear girl,” announced a lycan lady from the doorway.