Chapter 62 Access Denied!

Chapter 62 Access Denied!
Sable POV

Drazen doesn’t wait for the yellow gas to clear.

He steps over the shattered glass of the containment room, his cracked left arm hanging rigidly at his side. He bends down and hoists Nera’s lifeless body over his right shoulder, his clothes immediately soaked with black blood. He turns and scoops Sera up with his injured arm, tucking the girl tightly against his chest.

Sera doesn't make a sound although her eyes are open and staring blankly, her face pale and streaked with tears.

I grab the dropped pneumatic bolt gun from the floor, checking the chamber, and fall in behind him. We walk out of the lab, leaving the unconscious guards behind.

We push through the exit doors and emerge into the afternoon. The damp air of the industrial yard hits my lungs, clearing the sharp
burn of the chemical aerosol.

Thankfully, Jonah is still there and the second he sees us, his eyes drop to the blood coating my hands, then up to the body slung over Drazen’s shoulder.

The passenger door opens and Chloe steps out.

She takes one look at Nera’s blood dripping onto the dirt and claps both hands over her mouth shrinking back against the car, her eyes wide with absolute, terror. She looks like she is going to be sick.

"Oh my god," she chokes out, her voice trembling. "Jonah, is she dead?"

A wave of self-disgust hits me. I had suspected this terrified woman of being a mastermind just because my Hearthblood was looking for an excuse to hate Jonah's new girlfriend.

"Jonah," I say, moving forward to intercept him before he gets too close. "Do not ask questions. Get back in the car. Take her home and lock your doors."

"Sable, what happened? You need a trauma bay." he points at Drazen’s mangled arm.

"We can't go to a human hospital. Sera has scales exposed." I block his line of sight to the little girl. "I can patch him up, but Sera needs Vira. I have to get them back to the Undercourt"

Jonah looks at Drazen's expressionless face and decides not to argue. He grabs Chloe’s arm, guides her back into the passenger seat, and reverses out of the gravel lot.

I pop the trunk of my car as Drazen slides into the back seat, laying Nera’s body carefully on the floor before pulling Sera onto his lap.

I get behind the wheel. Without using the siren, I drive like a ghost, breaking every speed limit down the back alleys until we reach the parking
garage beneath the Ashfall tower.

Drazen kicks his door open before I even put the car in park. He lifts Nera and Sera again, moving with a stiff focus.

We bypass the private penthouse elevator and head straight for the reinforced lift that connects to the deepest sub-levels. The ride down takes three agonizing minutes. And in that time, Sera hasn't blinked not even once.

When the doors open, Drazen walks up to the bars. He shifts Sera's weight to free his good hand and presses his palm against the biometric scanner panel set into the stone.

The panel flashes a hard, flat red. Access Denied.

He frowns before wiping his bloody hand on his slacks and presses it to the glass again.

Red.

"Open the gates," he orders, his voice echoing off the damp rock.

Nobody answers. The glowing moss lining the corridor on the other side of the bars is dim. There are no perimeter guards stationed at their posts.

Drazen slams his fist against the thick iron bars. The metal rings sharply. "I said, open the gates! I have a wounded child and our elder requires rites. Open the damn doors!"

Footsteps echo from the shadows inside the corridor.

And Carvek steps into the dim light stopping three feet away from the iron bars, crossing his arms over his chest. Maret steps out of the darkness a second later, standing directly by his shoulder.

His eyes drop to the body slung over Drazen’s shoulder and doesn't show an ounce of grief. Instead a cold, calculating satisfaction settles over his features.

"Nera is dead," he states almost joyfully.

"She took a bullet to the chest," Drazen says, his voice tight with suppressed rage. "Open the gate. Sera needs the healer."

"Vira is currently tending to the commoners," he replies smoothly. He doesn't reach for the manual override switch. "The Undercourt is on strict lockdown. By order of the council."

I step up to the bars, gripping the cold iron. "She is in catatonic shock. If she doesn't get treated, her heart rate is going to drop to fatal levels. Let us in."

Maret looks at me with pure disdain. "The human speaks. How fitting that you are
the one demanding entry, considering you are the reason the elder is dead."

Drazen’s jaw flexes. "Maret, step away from the controls. Carvek, let us pass. Now."

"No," he says.

The single word hangs in the stagnant air.

"You left the perimeter," he continues, his voice rising so the unseen dragons deeper in the tunnels can hear him. "You brought a human into our sanctum. You allowed your judgment to be compromised by a biological malfunction. Because of your obsession with her, our perimeter was breached, a child was tortured, and the keeper of our history was slaughtered."

"I am your King," Drazen snarls, the gold finally bleeding back into his irises. "If you do not open this gate, I will tear it out of the bedrock."

"If you break this gate, you will be met with the fire of two hundred dragons," Carvek counters, stepping closer to the iron bars. "The council took a vote an hour ago. You failed to protect the pureblood line. You failed to protect the
elders. Your reign is a liability."

He points a thick, scaled finger at Drazen’s chest. "You are officially compromised and thereby exiled from this court. If you or your human step foot inside these tunnels, it will be considered an act of war against your own
people."

"You are sentencing a child to suffer!" I yell, slamming my hands against the gate.

"We are preserving what is left of our race," Maret replies coldly.

Drazen stares through the iron bars. His muscles bunch, his shoulders rising as the primal urge to shift and slaughter takes hold of him. There's no doubt that he could break the gate and kill Carvek.

But he looks down at Sera.

The little girl is clutching his torn shirt. She is bleeding, fragile, and utterly broken. Drazen cannot fight an army of high-bloods with a
dying child in his arms. And Carvek knows.

Drazen absorbs the defeat. The gold in his eyes recedes, leaving behind an emptiness that is far more terrifying than his anger.

"You have claimed a tomb, Carvek," Drazen says softly. "When the humans come for you with drills and sonic emitters, do not look to the surface for a savior."

He turns his back on the iron gates and doesn't look at the traitors again.

"Sable," he says, his voice completely devoid of emotion. "Press the button for the penthouse. We are going up."