Chapter 92 Observed Reactions
Lyra sucked in a breath between her teeth. “Okay,” she croaked. “So that’s a ‘no’ on not.”
“We’ll start simple,” Havel said. “External magical stimulus.”
A panel in the wall slid open. A containment unit rolled forward — glass and steel, with a faint greenish glow inside. Lyra’s skin prickled despite the collar.
The guards shifted their stance.
A creature lay in the cylinder. At first she thought it was a wolf. Then she saw the horns and the barbed tail curled protectively around its body.
A chimera. Young. Its flanks rose and fell shallowly. Its fur was matted with blood and some dark residue that crawled on her nerves just to look at it.
“Seriously?” she whispered.
“Recently acquired,” Havel said. “Injured during transport.”
Vale watched her carefully. “You heal,” he said. “That’s what you do. You did it in the hospital. You did it in the villages they found you in. You did it for the dragon.”
Lyra clenched her jaw.
“You will do it here,” he said.
“And if I don’t?” she asked, voice flat.
He nodded toward the creature. “It dies. Slower than it has to.”
She stared at the chimera, at the way its paws flexed weakly against the glass. It was terrified. She could feel that even through the collar’s numbness. Animals didn’t lie. They just hurt.
She hated them for using it. Hated them for knowing she’d care.
“I thought you didn’t want me wasting my energy,” she said, stalling for half a second.
“We want you using it in controlled conditions,” Havel said. “Begin.”
Lyra swallowed hard and reached for the only part of herself they hadn’t caged: her mind.
She focused on the mark under her skin. On the burned-in pattern that had pulsed silver in caves and gold in Maverick’s hands. She imagined it glowing now, not for them, not for their data, but for the terrified creature in front of her.
Nothing.
The collar hummed, tightening like an invisible hand.
Lyra hissed. “You’re going to have to pick one,” she grated. “You can’t choke me and ask me to sing at the same time.”
Havel’s eyes flicked to her tablet. “Readings show low-level activation. The collar is limiting output, not blocking entirely.”
Vale looked unimpressed. “I don’t see anything.”
“It’s there,” Havel said. “Increase frequency by five percent.”
The hum at Lyra’s throat spiked.
Her vision blurred for a second. She swallowed bile.
“Okay,” she said through clenched teeth. “Fine. You want a show? Let’s see what happens when you stop strangling me.”
She reached again, this time not pushing against the collar but around it. The same way she’d slipped past dampening fields before, finding cracks in the patterns.
She found a sliver. Tiny. Narrow. Barely wider than a thread.
She shoved her power through it.
The mark on her arm flickered, just once. A weak, sickly silver, like the memory of moonlight instead of the real thing.
The chimera jerked. Its breathing hitched, then steadied marginally.
Lyra sagged against the restraints, sweat beading on her forehead. The collar burned cold.
Havel’s stylus moved fast. “Partial transfer. Efficiency compromised by seventy percent.” She frowned. “Interesting.”
“What about the mark’s color?” Vale asked.
“Silver,” Havel said. “No gold. No mate-bond response.”
Lyra’s heart squeezed at the word. She kept her face blank. “Sorry to disappoint,” she said. “Looks like I’m still single.”
Vale’s gaze sharpened. “The records from your last containment mentioned unusual activity when you were in close proximity to a dragon subject. Anomalous readings. Spikes in output.”
“Dragons are flashy,” Lyra said. “Maybe your machines are just dazzled.”
Vale stepped closer to the table, so his shadow fell over her. “We know the dragon was with you in the forest. We know he came when we took you. Your mark flared.”
“Maybe it likes drama,” Lyra said. “Ever think of that?”
“We’ll confirm anyway,” Vale said calmly. “He’ll come here.”
Lyra went still. “You sound awfully sure of that.”
“He’s disobeyed orders, destroyed assets, and attacked a retrieval team,” Vale said. “All for you. The bond may not be fully formed, but it’s clearly functional enough. He won’t leave you here.”
Havel nodded, making a note. “The subject’s pupils dilated when you mentioned the dragon.”
“Wow,” Lyra said weakly. “You really missed your calling as a therapist.”
Vale’s mouth curved slightly. Not a smile. Something colder. “When he gets here,” he said, “we’ll have everything we need. A Lumenmark subject in full mate-bond resonance with a dragon. Imagine what we’ll be able to do with that kind of power stabilized and contained.”
Lyra swallowed down the spike of panic. “You won’t get that far.”
He raised a brow. “Confident.”
“Stubborn,” she said. “Big difference.”
Havel adjusted a setting. The collar’s hum dropped back to a low murmur. The worst of the pressure eased, leaving Lyra trembling and exhausted.
The chimera in the cylinder breathed more evenly now. Its eyes met hers through the glass. It blinked once, slow, then laid its head down.
“You’re done for today,” Havel said. “Return her to her cell. Make sure the collar stays on maximum suppression.”
Lyra lifted her chin as the guards moved to unclip her from the table. “Hey, Commandant?”
Vale looked at her.
“You’re underestimating him,” she said quietly. “The dragon.”
He studied her for a long beat. “I was the one who trained him.”
“Exactly,” Lyra said.
🔥🔥🔥
By the time the canyon came into full view, Maverick’s hands had stopped shaking.
The van bounced over the last stretch of rough road and rolled to a stop behind a cluster of rocks. Ahead, the land dropped off into a deep, jagged cleft. The facility sat carved into the left-hand wall, almost invisible unless you knew what to look for — a seam here, a ventilation shaft there, the faint glint of reinforced glass.
At the base of the left wall, a wide barrier of steel and stone sealed the main entry. A gate large enough for transport trucks, guarded by a tower on each side. The towers bristled with weaponry.
“Tell me you’ve got a subtle plan,” Jonah said, peering over the rocks.
“I did,” Maverick said. “They took Lyra. I’m revising.”
Jonah made a strangled sound. “Just checking, have you considered the possibility that dying in the first thirty seconds might make rescue efforts less effective?”
Maverick scanned the structure, eyes tracing old memory onto new detail. He knew how these facilities worked. Knew the blind spots they assumed didn’t matter because nobody lived long enough to use them.
“There,” he said, pointing to a line of scrub and rock along the right side of the canyon. “There’s a service tunnel halfway up. Vent access. Too small for me in dragon form but not for you.”
Jonah squinted. “Might be crawling with security.”
“It might be empty.” Maverick glanced at him. “Either way, if you can get inside and trigger a systems fault, it’ll pull some of the pressure off the front gate.”
“You want a distraction,” Jonah said slowly. “Inside the place that will kill me if I sneeze wrong.”
“Yes.”
Jonah blew out a breath, then nodded once. “Okay then.”