Wolf Marked (Magic Side: Wolf Bound Book 1)

Savannah

Buzzing. The oven timer.

I turned my head and groaned. “Alma, shut the buzzer off.”

But the relentless noise continued. Why wouldn’t she shut it off?

My head throbbed, and my throat burned. I tried to move my arms, but they stopped short. Opening my eyes, I squinted against blinding fluorescent light. Wooziness took hold. I tried to turn away but couldn’t move.

My wrists were secured.

I blinked over and over until my eyes adjusted. Finally, I could take in my surroundings. A bare concrete room. An IV stand to my right with a blood bag attached to it. A tube connected to my arm. The buzzing was coming from the overhead light. Judging by my dizziness, I was being drained.

Panic flashed through me. A human juice box for blood demons.

I tried to sit up, but my wrists and ankles were secured to the hospital bed with Velcro straps. I struggled against the bindings, but they were sturdy and wouldn’t budge.

This couldn’t be happening. I searched my groggy mind, attempting to recall how I’d gotten here.

I’d shot two wolves in the forest. Then Billy had appeared…

Billy.

My head throbbed where he had punched me. I knew that bastard was a hateful son of a bitch, but this…he was Jaxson’s brother-in-law, part of the pack.

I poured my anger into straining against my bonds. Then a woman’s voice echoed outside, and I froze. A lock clicked, and the door behind me opened. I closed my eyes and laid completely motionless, trying to calm my thudding heart.

“She’s still asleep,” the woman said.

“Are we draining her dry?” a man asked. I didn’t recognize either of their voices.

“No,” the woman snapped. “Billy wants her alive. The sorcerer needs her blood.”

The sorcerer? Was he here?

My stomach flipped, and I fought back the rising bile in my throat. Why would Billy be working with a sorcerer? I knew he hated the LaSalles, and I’d assumed he hated all magic and sorcerers, but clearly, that assumption was wrong.

One of my abductors tugged on the needle that was secured to my arm, and I battled the urge to flinch. I peeked open an eye. The woman frowned as she removed the blood bag from the IV stand and replaced it with an empty one. A gold ring pierced her lip, and her eyes were smudged with what looked like day-old shadow. She secured the tube to the needle that was stuck in my vein, and then the two of them left.

Fear pulsed through me, and the room spun. I glanced at the empty IV bag and strained against my bindings. How much blood could they take? The average human body had ten pints.

Fight, Savannah. Before it’s too late.

Tears welled in my eyes. I leaned over and tried to grab the tube that was draining my blood with my mouth, but it was too far. A wave of dizziness and drowsiness settled over me, and I closed my eyes and drifted as I tried to fight it off.

Minutes—or hours—later, a hand slapped my cheek. “Wake up!”

I forced my heavy lids open and blinked several times. I must have passed out. How long had I been down here?

“Where the hell am I?” I mumbled.

“Eat.” The woman with the lip ring and smudgy eye shadow shoved a peanut butter and jelly sandwich at me. I turned my head away, but she grabbed my hair and forced my head back. I took a bite and chewed.

Tears rolled down my face, and I swallowed the rising lump of sorrow.

A brawny man with a scar under his left eye appeared by my side. “I’d love to have a few moments alone with her. Make her pay for what she did to the others.”

He grinned and brushed my cheek with his knuckles. My skin crawled, and I jerked against my bindings.

“Hands off. You can use the look-alike for your twisted fantasies. This one’s too important.” The woman’s voice was filled with malice, and she shoved the sandwich into my mouth.

The man leaned forward and sniffed me. I strained as revulsion overcame me, but he held me down. “I wonder if her blood tastes like his?”

If my blood tasted like whose? Billy’s? The sorcerer’s? Why in the hell were they tasting anyone’s blood?

Confusion clouded my mind as he detached the tube from the needle in my arm and smeared a few drops of my blood on his finger. He tasted it and jerked, closing his eyes. When he opened them, they were a deep crimson and manic.

Holy smokes.

“She’s like him,” he growled. “Not as potent, but sweeter.”

The man looked like a drug addict who needed another fix. His nostrils flared, and a crazed grin cut his face. “I need another taste.”

Crap.

He lifted the dripping tube to his mouth, but the woman snatched it from his hand. “No! Billy will kill us both. Her blood belongs to the sorcerer.”

I watched in a daze as the woman secured the tube to the needle in my arm. What the fuck was going on?

The woman picked up a needle and jabbed it into a vial, filling it with something. She stepped over and lifted my sleeve. I struggled, but the man pinned my arms while she jabbed me and injected the fluid.

She flicked the needle into a metal trashcan and opened the door. “Come on. This dose of magic inhibitor should keep her down for a few more hours. I wish they’d just spring for magicuffs. Let’s finish draining the others. We don’t need them anymore.”

As soon as they left, I glanced around the room, searching for anything I might use to get out of these bindings. There was a scalpel on the counter, but it was too far away to reach.

I grunted and thrashed uselessly against the bonds, but then an idea drifted through my sluggish mind.

Use your magic, Savy.

She’d mentioned she’d given me a magic inhibitor. Maybe it hadn’t kicked in yet.

I closed my eyes and focused, searching for that feeling of cold water trickling over my skin—but it was like it had never been there.

Deep fatigue overwhelmed me, but I fought it back as my panic rose. I had to get out of here. My mounting desperation strained against my chest, and it felt like my heart was going to rip free. I arched my back and pulled against my bindings with all my strength.

“Please,” I begged in a whisper.

Searing pain exploded through my arms, like my very flesh was being torn from my body. I gasped, too shocked to even scream, and felt something ripping. Was it my skin or the straps? I tried to look down, but the blood rushed to my head, and darkness swirled at the corner of my eyes.

For a second, I saw my arm as it ripped free. Something was wrong with it…

But then darkness took me.

When I came to, my head was throbbing. The buzzing of the overhead fluorescents didn’t help matters. My body ached everywhere, and my cheek was pressed against something cold and hard.

Get up, Savy.

I was so tired, but I forced my eyes open. My fingers ached. I was on the floor, my arms and legs no longer bound.

Confusion washed over me. I climbed onto my hands and knees, wincing at the soreness in my muscles and joints. It felt like I’d been run over by a train.

The IV stand was on the floor, and drops of blood—my blood—were splattered everywhere. The needle was still stuck in my arm, but the tube looked like it had been ripped out and was lying on the floor, still connected to the partially full blood bag.

What had happened?

I used the bed to pull myself to my feet. My legs were weak, probably from blood loss. The bindings that had secured my wrists and ankles to the bed were shredded.

For a second, a vision of my hands tearing through the straps swum in my eyes, and then dizziness overcame me, and I swayed. None of this made sense. But I had to get out of there. Escape.

I listed right and stumbled. Well, this was going to be interesting.

The door was unlocked. I cracked it and listened outside, but all was quiet. Thank goodness I hadn’t made too much noise.

I opened the door and slipped into a long, concrete hall that was lined with half a dozen closed doors. The place was dirty and looked derelict, and a few of the overhead lights flickered. There was no indication of which way led out, so I went with my gut and headed left.

The floor was cold and clammy, and I really wished I had my boots. God knows what was lying around to step on. At least the muscles in my legs had warmed up and were beginning to work again. I sneaked to the end of the hall and paused. Voices carried around the corner, coming my way.

Panic streaked through me. I lunged toward the nearest door, unlocked the deadbolt, and slipped inside. The room was almost identical to the one I’d been in, except there were two monitors hooked up to wires that connected to a large bed that had been adjusted upright.

“Who’s there?” a woman asked, fear evident in her voice.

I rounded the bed and froze. It was like looking in a mirror—a red-haired girl in her twenties, strapped to the bed with tubes and wires stuck into her arms. Madison Lee, the girl I’d seen on TV. She was gaunt with sunken cheeks, like she’d been drained dry.

This could have been me. A wave of emotions slammed into my chest. Relief that I wasn’t alone, and rage. These people were fucking monsters.

She strained against her straps in fear as I approached.

“It’s okay. I’m Savannah. I’m going to get you out of here,” I whispered as I undid the heavy straps binding her ankles and wrists.

The woman’s body slammed into my chest, and her arms wrapped around me. “Thank you,” she sobbed. “What day is it?”

I shook my head and began unhooking the wires that attached to her chest. “I’m not sure. You were taken a week before I was captured. I saw you on the news.”

“It’s only been a week?” She pulled out the IV in her arm. “It felt like longer. They’ve done awful things to me. And those creatures…”

She choked up, and I bit my lip. “Are there others down here? I’m looking for a friend, a shifter, she would have been brought in a few hours before I was. Her name is Sam.”

“There were others. But I haven’t seen anyone for days.” The girl shuddered.

My stomach sank, but I squeezed her hand and forced a smile. “We’re going to get out of here. Do you know your way around this place?”

She started to speak, but at that moment, the door behind us swung open as man in a stained lab coat stepped in. “No one is supposed to check on—”

His eyes widened with shock. I lunged forward and slammed him into the corner wall a couple times before he could react. He crumpled to the floor, crawling in a daze.

Madison kicked him in the jaw, and he flipped over.

“That’s for jabbing me with all those needles,” she hissed, then kicked him in the balls. “And that’s for injecting me with that shit.”

Crap. I hoped that magic inhibitor was the only thing they’d injected me with.

I nodded to Madison. “Let’s tie him down and get some answers.”

She was so drained that she wasn’t much help heaving him up on the table, but for some reason, I felt like I was surging with strength.

“Fates, you’re fast. What are you?” she whispered.

“A sorceress, I think. You?”

“A witch.” Madison secured the arm bands while I ripped off a piece of the man’s shirt and stuffed it in his mouth.

His eyes widened as I sunk my nails into the side of his face. “If you scream, I’ll rip your eyes out. So be quiet and answer our questions. Got it?”

He squirmed, and when he saw it was useless, he nodded.

I slowly removed the gag, ready to shove it back in and knock his lights out if he made a peep. “Who is the asshole running the show?”

“Billy.”

“No. Who’s the sorcerer?”

“I don’t know his name! He just sends us the blood, and I keep people alive for his pets. He doesn’t make them here.”

I growled. “I can smell lies.”

“Then you know I’m telling the truth.” He squeaked as I dug my nails in.

“What are you? Some kind of freaky doctor?”

“I just make the inhibitor. I’m not into the blood sorcery, I swear.”

“Is there an antidote for the inhibitor?”

“Ah…”

I slammed his head against the table.

He groaned. “Check my pocket. Red for inhibitor. Green for stimulant.”

Madison dug around in the pockets of his coat and pulled out five syringes wrapped with a rubber band, three red and two green. “Also, he’s got keys.”

“How do the drugs work?” I asked.

“Just inject it in your arm.”

Truth. I could smell it, along with his abject terror.

“Do you trust him?” Madison asked. “They used the red ones like that on me.”

I nodded. “I don’t think he’s lying.”

She popped open the top of the green syringe, rolled up her sleeve, and jabbed it in her arm. “Here goes nothing. I want my magic back.”

She offered me the other, but I shook my head. I was suddenly feeling pretty damn good, all things considered. Actually, great. Had the inhibitor they’d given me boosted my magic, somehow? Or maybe they’d given me the wrong one.

“Why do they want me?” I asked.

The man writhed against the bonds, and I started to slip a finger into his eye socket.

“Stop! Your blood is special. I think it’s like his. Maybe he’ll use it to make more, but I think it’s something else. We’re not supposed to let the demons feed on you.” The man reeked of fear and piss, and I didn’t think it was me he was afraid of.

Madison touched my arm. “We need to go. We’re making a lot of noise.”

I pushed my face close to the man’s. “Where is my friend, the she-wolf you just brought in?”

“There’s a werewolf woman in 5B. We were told not to drain her, just sedate.”

My heart leapt. Sam was here.

“How do we find her and get out of here?”

He gave us directions to a lab, which had a door that opened to the main compound—our ticket out. If we could get to that door, we might have a chance.

I ripped his key card off his neck and shoved my shirt back in the man’s mouth as he squirmed. “Let’s go.”

Madison nodded. “They’ve moved me a lot. I think I can find the way.”

I shadowed her down the hall, glancing behind us to make sure nobody rounded the other corner. We reached the end and turned right onto another hall lined with rooms.

Halfway down, I stopped and grabbed Madison’s arm.

“What?” she hissed, alarmed.

I put my finger to my lips and inhaled slowly through my nose. The place reeked of mold, refuse, and neglect. But for just a second, I’d sworn I caught a familiar scent or signature. I concentrated as hard as I could, trying to ignore the sickly odors of blood and despair.

There. Recognition stirred in my chest, and I quickly moved down the hall to one of the doors. 5B. Sam.

I unlocked the deadbolt.

“Savannah?” a voice croaked. “What are you doing here?”

My heart froze.

Sam was lying strapped down to a bed. Her eyes were glassy. I crossed the room, undid her straps, and pulled her into a hug. Her body tensed, then slowly relaxed.

I scanned her quickly. She looked pissed as all hell but wasn’t visibly injured. “We’re busting out of here. You good to run?”

“I’m fine,” she growled, and grabbed my wrist as her eyes narrowed. “Billy is behind this,” she spat, her words laced with venom.

I placed my hand on her shoulder. “I know. We’ll get the bastard.”

Her fists were clenched, and she was visibly shaking with rage. “Let’s go.”

Sam jumped off the bed, and I noticed that she was limping. “You’re hurt.”

“I fought back. Fuckers gave me something that blocks my healing.”

Magic inhibitor. Madison pulled out the other green syringe. “This might help. It’s a stimulant. I already feel my magic coming back.”

Sam nodded, and Madison injected her with the stuff, then tossed the needle.

We slipped out of the room and wound our way through the halls until we reached a large door with an electronic lock. “I think this is the lab,” I whispered, then tapped the quack’s keycard. The door slid open, but the room beyond looked nothing like a laboratory. There were a few derelict computers on the benches, but they hadn’t seen use in ages. The walls were the same pocked concrete, and a layer of dirt coated the floor—everywhere except in the center, which was covered with arcane symbols. Bloodstains were everywhere.

Different kind of laboratory.

Two confused faces turned to us—a couple of shifters, judging by their amber-tinged eyes. One was the bastard who’d tasted my blood earlier, while the other had long hair and looked rough.

Before I could react, Sam lunged for the long-haired guy, claws extended from her fingers. She slashed his face, and streaks of blood rose across his ashen cheek. He hurled her aside, but Madison charged into the room, picked up a monitor, and threw it into his chest. “Experiment on this!” she cried, and he crashed backward into the table.

The blood-licker growled and stepped toward me. The creepy look on his face had my skin crawling, but I loosened my body and raised my fists, remembering what Jaxson had taught me. When he charged, I ducked to the side, but he managed to get a grip on my bicep. I brought my other fist down onto his wrist with more force than I’d ever had, breaking his hold. He turned and faced me, his hand twitching. “Why don’t you give me a taste, little pup?”

Anger flooded my senses, and oddly, the beds of my nails itched. I sprang forward, tackling his torso. A surprised look crossed his face as we hurtled into a table with several keyboards and monitors, sending them to the floor with a crash.

He clawed at me, and pain shot through my arm.

A frenzy took over me. It was like an out-of-body experience—I could watch what was happening, but I wasn’t in the driver’s seat. I punched him square in the face, feeling a crunch, either from his nose or my knuckles, but I just kept punching until he slumped back and slid off the desk. I’d never felt like I had this much strength.

I staggered back from the unconscious man, wincing at the deep throbbing in my hand. There was way more blood than there should have been. His shirt and skin were shredded. I glanced down at my blood-covered hands, stunned.

Holy shit. What had they injected me with?

I turned in a daze. On the other side of the lab bench, Sam climbed off the shifter she’d attacked. His neck was twisted at an odd angle, his eyes staring blankly.

Madison was already at the service door, fumbling with a set of keys she must have found in the room or on the dead shifter. She turned to us with a wide grin on her face. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”