Land of Monsters (Savage Lands #8)

Chapter 22

Raven

Firebulbs flickered on in the tunnel, sensing our presence, the light giving way to what the darkness was hiding. My boots came to a halt, the air stuck in my lungs. Ice cold heat burned through me like blue fire, and bile rose up to my throat like a tidal wave as my eyes took in what my brain was slow to process.

A string of vertical tanks lined the wall. Light exposed floating figures inside, their bodies hooked up to tubes, while gurneys sat at the base of them. Each one filled with a fae, wires and cords attached to their brains and bodies, connecting them to the machines.

I could smell death, traces of magic limping in the air. Agony and sorrow hummed in the emptiness, like their souls had been shredded and ripped out, leaving nothing but particles of what was once there.

“Ash?” My voice barely made it out of my throat. He had explained to us what was down here, but my mind had no understanding of the truth. The reality of seeing it. The horrors.

When I was brought in here before, I had been so drugged that I only remembered bits and pieces of the lair below, a kaleidoscope of monsters made-up from nightmares. This was even scarier.

A flame stoked in my belly at the idea my brother might be used like this. Becoming a desiccated shell. His humor, his cheekiness, his laughter and kindness… hollowed out and destroyed to make Sonya another compliant soldier.

Some of my shock wore off, allowing me to make out individuals among the victims. “Oh gods…” My gaze landed on the faces inside, a cry coming from my lips. “Iacob.” My hand flew to my mouth, vomit stinging the back of my throat.

Codrin lay below Iacob, cords connecting them. Codrin’s eyes were wide open, his carcass drained of his magic, his life sucked from him. Life Iacob now held.

My eyes stung with tears. Vlad, the older woman I gardened with, the hot guy who asked to sleep with me… they were all dead. Used up and shucked away.

“Gods…” Tears blurred my vision, vomit moving up to my tongue.

“I know.” Ash cupped the side of my face, his green eyes locking on mine. “This is not going to be easy, but we can’t think about the ones we lost. We can only try to save those who still live.” The sounds of battle leaked through the foundation. “Focus on getting your brother.”

He was right, it was not the time to mourn them. We had to save who we could.

The possibility of anything like this happening to Rook drove down my spine like a rod. I nodded in agreement, my chin rising.

“Can you sense him?”

My brows furrowed. I had always been able to reach out for my twin, but now we were surrounded by too much magic to pinpoint just his, though something in my gut pulled me forward.

“Down there.” I flicked my chin.

He turned around, rushing us down the long row of tubes. I purposely didn’t look, keeping my focus ahead, feeling as if each one was reaching out for me, crying for my help.

Ash curved us around a corner and behind an outdated elevator, the smooth edges of stone giving way to crude rock and dirt. The stench of newly soiled earth stung my nose, though something else already wafted in. It coiled over my tongue the further we descended, whisking my lungs in and out at a faster rate. My pulse beat against my neck, the grip on my gun cracking my knuckles. Memories flickered so quickly in my mind I couldn’t grab onto anything but the sensation.

The dread and horror.

Black fur sprouted over my arms, and a rumble formed in my chest.

Dziubu?. I felt him speak straight into my body, his calming tone hushing my beating heart, like his hands were stroking through my soul. Ash kept his attention forward, but I sensed him inside me, invading my space, taking over and soothing the beast, shushing the obscurer. And they allowed him in, kneeling to him. It was comforting and frightening at once.

Because if anything happened to him, neither would find serenity again. And what I did to Alexsei Kozlov would be trivial to the chaos I would cause. There was no becoming a better person because I was loved by him. I would cover myself in blood until I was hunted down and destroyed.

The pull I felt gripped me harder, pointing me down another tunnel, when the hums of noise separated and became clearer. Muttering voices, metal clanking, and deep grunts.

Acid dripped down my throat, perspiration dampening my forehead as if I knew what was coming, yet still wrapped myself in the blurred darkness of those triggers.

The cave opened, the dirt path switching to a steel walkway, bridging the open space and inclining into stairs toward the lair below.

I stilled, my lungs attacking oxygen as if it were the enemy. My nightmare had come to life in rich, vivid colors and details, instead of hazy tendrils I couldn’t quite grasp. This time, instead of being in my body, I was watching from above, taking in the true hideousness of what was happening.

Rattling from the snake-man filled the cavern as he bred a human woman. I recalled her serving me coffee at the camp. She had a child and a husband, who were probably upstairs being used as research.

Her eyes were barely open, her body moving up and down, but she was not inside, the drugs taking her far away. Thankfully.

But the loudest was coming from a warped looking man with a scorpion tail, on the other side of the room rutting so hard the bed slid across the floor, his final hissing moans scraping my ears like thousands of bugs.

My insides went cold. The flash of his body over mine, his grotesque sneer, his stench still haunting my nostrils. Immobilizing fear crashed over me.

Z.

I knew his name and that he was the leader, but most of all, I recalled his hot breath on my face and the feel of his scaley hands on my skin.

He immediately got up afterward, tucking himself back into his pants, and moved away. The girl underneath lay there as he left her, her darker blonde hair matted, her skin covered in marks and bruises.

This time bile made it all the way up my throat and filled my mouth.

Celeste.

Z zipped up his pants, strolling to a tied-up figure on a bed against the wall.

“You better hope that worked.” The arachnid kicked at the figure. “Or maybe I’ll try you next with this.” Z’s stinger scraped over the bed, his laugh sounding like chirping hisses.

My attention lowered to the person he was talking to.

Everything fell away. My body wrenched up, reacting purely on instinct.

My brother was gagged, blindfolded, and cuffed to a bed leg, his face bruised, yet I could still make out an expression of disgust and devastation.

“Rook.” His name stuck in my throat, my need to get to him, save him, tingled the daggers in my back.

“No,” Ash barked without actually speaking out loud. He grabbed my arm, pulling me back down behind the wall, his head shaking.

I felt the retort on my lips, the Fuck you, I’m getting my brother response, but I knew Ash was right. We couldn’t run down there with no strategy.

“If it does. I’m next.” A man with boar tusks and rough, brown skin stood at the entrance like he was on guard.

“No,” Z snarled. “You breed with the humans. I get the fae women.” He nodded from Celeste to two other figures near her.

My eyes widened seeing Viorica and her cousin, Brandu?a, in beds next to Celeste.

Why was he mating with them? They couldn’t produce unless somehow they could get around the protective birth control potion almost all faes took around puberty, which was impossible unless you were a Druid…

My thought tapered off, my gaze darting back to my brother, an awareness slithering over me like slime.

Oh. Fuck.

Druid magic could screw with the potion messing with its performance, as my mother found out. Some might think this a weakness, while others might use this to their advantage.

My eyes squeezed for a moment, and I fought to regain my breath. “They’re using my brother’s magic to undo the spell.”

“Undo what spell?” Ash swallowed, though he already knew.

“Reversing any birth protection the fae women have. Making it far easier for them to get pregnant.”

“ Szar ,” Ash muttered, his head dropping in understanding. These offspring would be even more powerful, shedding the part that might have come out human.

“I will bet you she is carrying my kin now. She took me so deep.” Z’s voice hissed against the walls, and he nodded to Celeste with a leer. “I’ll make sure again later.”

“After you’ve helped Sonya with her little problem upstairs?” The snake-man had finished, moving over to the others.

“Fuck her,” Z snarled.

“Yeah, we heard. You did. Several times.” The rhino guy who stood at the wall chuckled. “And sounded like you really enjoyed it.”

“She may be the first fae impregnated with my child.” A sneer moved over his lips. “But she will soon learn her place. I am the king.”

What. The. Fuck.

Sonya might be pregnant? She had sex with Z? I might actually throw up.

Now every time she touched her belly earlier, a smugness riding her lips, I understood.

This was her way of striving for even more power and control. With her necklace, she was safe from Z’s retaliation if he dared, at the same time making her bloodline the most feared in the world. She wasn’t keeping the monsters in the basement; she was adding them to the throne. To become her heirs, her legacy. Making herself the queen of the Primul as well. Who would go against her if she could unleash these things into the world? She would encroach on every land, declaring herself and her family the rulers.

This woman really played the long game.

“Why not keep her happy while putting more seed in her belly?” Beetle added. “Only makes us stronger. Until she learns she birthed her own worst nightmares.”

Z nodded his head, motioning for his men to follow. “Won’t hurt to blow off a little steam. Kill a few people for her.”

All of them grunted with agreement at his comment, following him up the passage towards the castle level.

My pulse beat like a drum in my ears, my legs itching to move. Ash kept a tight hold on my arm until silence surrounded us for several minutes, their footsteps long gone.

“Let’s go,” he whispered in my ear. Keeping low, we moved silently down the steps, my eyes sharp, straining to hear anyone coming. Ash couldn’t, but I could hear the guns firing and screaming from far above, the castle property alight with battle.

I just hoped everyone we loved was all right.

When our boots hit the ground, my brother’s spine went straight, his nose flaring. He smelled me. Sensed me nearby.

The goblin metal blocked us from communicating between our link, but we didn’t need one. Our bond was tight, my twin knowing me as well as he knew himself.

“Raven,” he muffled out my name. I squatted down next to him, ripping his blindfold off. His crystal green eyes flinched at the dim light, blinking as I yanked down his gag, exposing his badly bruised face. “What the hell are you doing here?” Worry and fear jerked his head around, like he expected the Primul to jump out.

“What do you think I’m doing here, little brother?” I replied as Ash came down on his other side. “I’m here to rescue your ass.”

“But th-those things.” He searched the room for them. “She is with them… Sonya… she forced me to unspell the women here.”

“I know.” I nodded.

He shook his head as if he couldn’t get the bad thoughts from his mind, what he silently had to listen to, hearing the women around and he couldn’t do a thing. It went against everything my brother stood for.

“Rav.” He licked his dry lips. “There is another Druid here. I can feel his magic.”

“Dubthach,” I said. I didn’t think she could get pregnant in the time Rook had been here, so it made sense Dubthach is how she was able to conceive prior. How did they figure out fae women could carry these monsters?

“These things…” Rook’s eyes met mine, his voice wobbly. “They’re Aunt Zoey’s, aren’t they? Her offspring?” He was raised with the same stories, the same terrifying legends of these creatures.

“Yes.” I dipped my head. “It’s why we need to get you out of here.”

“How?” He jerked at his cuffs against the bedframe, the goblin metal trapping him not just physically, but magically too.

Ash made a noise, taking off the pack from his back and opening the top.

“You’re up, utrapienie .” Pain in ass . Ash nudged the bag.

Silence.

“Hey?” Ash prodded the bag harder. “Now!”

Two middle fingers pushed out of the top of the bag, sticking up at him.

“Very mature,” Ash countered.

Chirp!

“We don’t have time for this.” Ash dumped the bag over on the bed. Two creatures and some extra bullets and knives came tumbling out.

“What the fuck?” My brother retorted as a string of noises came from the tiniest one dressed in what looked like the wrist band of a black glove around his middle.

“Someone’s coming down from her high.”

Chirpchirrrpchirppppchirpchirpchiiiiiirrrrpppchirpchirp! Bitzy didn’t even take a breath, her fingers high in the air, whirring her sentiment at Ash, her lids narrowed.

“Oh, tree fairy.” Opie stood up, brushing down his outfit, which was the rest of the fingered glove. He used the fabric fingers for his legs and arms, the middle finger used to hold his other appendage, but it was knotted up in a bow. “You are going to be on her naughty list for a very long time.”

“I’ll get her a bucket of mushrooms,” Ash huffed.

Chirp! Bitzy replied.

“Fine, two buckets!” Ash countered.

Chirp! Chirp!

“Three. That is my final offer.” He sensed me and Rook staring at him. “What?”

I grinned, looking between him and the minuscule imp. She had all these huge alpha guys wrapped around her long, prongy fingers.

“Oh, she gets whatever she wants?” Opie waved his arms.

“You are already destroying history—”

“ Boring history,” Opie huffed. “Doing everyone a favor.”

“Can you guys release him?” Ash stood up, grabbing one of the knives that fell on the bed. “I’m gonna go help them.” Ash moved to a bed nearby. Many of the human women were only tied to the beds with rope, so drugged up and weak they didn’t have the strength to fight. Though fae, like Celeste and the cousins, were cuffed.

“Easy peasy.” Opie wiggled his fingers, strolling up to my brother’s arms. “Watch out, sir, the power of these things makes grown men fall to their knees in reverence.”

Chirp!

“Lies!”

Chirp!

“Don’t listen to her.” Opie shook his head.

Chirp!

“That was a misunderstanding!”

“What is going on?” My brother’s expression was pure confusion. “Why is there a brownie dressed in a glove and… I don’t know what the fuck that is?”

“This is not just a glove! It’s top fashion, sir.” Opie frowned. “Okay, I didn’t have much to work with!”

Chirp! Bitzy flipped him off.

“This is Opie, and the imp is Bitzy.” I nodded to them. “Don’t piss her off,” I whispered, flicking my chin at the imp. “And tell him his outfits are amazing.”

My brother stared at me like I had gone insane.

“My gods, these hands are so talented!” Opie sang after a few moments, the cuff falling from my brother’s wrists.

“Fuck, Ravy.” Rook’s arms instantly went around me, hugging me so hard to his chest. “Thank you.”

“Like I could ever leave you.” I stuck out my pinky. He hooked his over mine with a smile. Our gesture that we were always there for each other. No matter what. “Now let’s get the fuck out of here.”

I helped him up as Ash called Opie and Bitzy over to Celeste’s bed to uncuff her.

“I heard him with her.” Pain flickered over Rook’s face as he gazed at Celeste, like putting her face to her cries broke something in him. “She tried to fight. Even after they drugged her.” He couldn’t break his eyes from her face.

“Ta-da!” Opie threw up his hands when the cuffs dropped away from Celeste’s arms. Ash scooped her up the moment she was free.

“Go do Viorica nex—”

BOOOOM!

An explosion shook the ground, dropping debris on us like raindrops.

Ash’s form went stiff, his attention toward the passage out. Then I smelled it too.

The burning wick of dynamite.

“Ash!”

“Raven—” My name barely made it out of his lips before another explosion detonated through the room, crumpling the ceiling like a dry pastry, the crust folding on itself. “Raven!”

I heard him before I was hit with force, and everything around me went dark.

?

Hacking, my lungs filled with soot, my body was curled up on its side. A heavy weight lay over my legs and torso like a giant dog guarding its owner.

A giant deadly dog.

“Rook.” I coughed, the ceiling showering down chunks of dirt, thickening the air. “Rook?” I nudged at the dweller, my fingers running over the familiar fur caked with dirt. His body could instantly shift, fully becoming a dark dweller, while mine strained to be anything more than a twisted version. Like a child drawing a picture from a vague memory of a monster.

A rumble broke from my brother’s throat, his eyes opening. Red fire glowed before they turned back to green. Inching off me, he shook his back, the metal blades clinking, tossing more tiny debris off him.

“Ash?” I scrambled up, looking in the direction I last saw him, my eyes adjusting to the pitch darkness. “Ash!” I screamed, clambering over to where I could make out his form.

“ Dziubu? …” His voice was barely audible before he started coughing. He blindly reached for me, his vision not as adept as mine.

“You okay?” I guided his hand to my face, letting him feel me next to him.

“Yeah.” He groaned as I helped him sit up. “That wasn’t a Warwick distraction.”

“What?”

“Nothing.” He shook his head.

Both Rook and I heard the tear; our heads jerked up as the ceiling ripped away from itself, dropping clumps of dirt down harder.

Rook snarled, ramming me with his head to move.

“Ash!” Desperation bled from my voice. I yanked him to his feet, the earth above us groaning with the weight, having nothing to keep it up. “Move!” I pulled him with me toward the exit.

“Wait! Celeste!” Ash yanked from my grip, turning back around.

“No!” My heart stopped beating, and time stopped moving as Ash darted back, feeling around until he found her.

More of the ceiling tore away, plunging down.

“Ash!” His name was a siren song, calling him home, like my voice could shield him from harm, protect him from death. The obscurer ripped from my throat, spouting words of threat to anything wanting to harm my mate. Except there was no mind to control, nobody to bend to my will.

And then Ash tripped, Celeste tumbling from his hold.

Horror and agony exploded in my chest, my own body twisting and warping into the dweller, about to run to Ash. Movement flickered in the corner of my eye, a dark shape zipping out, leaping out for the pair.

“Rook!”

Using his body as a shield, my brother shoved Ash forward to me, where I was shielded by the doorjamb. He moved over Celeste, cocooning her under his bulk, taking the brunt of the downpour. His blades tinged as rocks bounced off, his roars singing along with the earth, his legs bowing, but he didn’t move.

“Rook!” I cried out as it tapered off.

Rook heaved out a heavy sigh, his coat slick with blood, his eyes burning red. As he slowly unrolled his body, I could see Celeste perfectly protected under him. Her eyes opened, peering up at the raging beast over her. I was ready for her to scream, to panic at the sight, but she just blinked, staring up at him. He rumbled, shaking off the dirt as she got to her feet.

“Everyone okay?” Ash asked, then turned to me. “Are you okay?”

“You’re asking me? Are you kidding me?” I growled, the dweller pacing my skin. “You almost died!”

“ But I didn’t.” He pulled me in close, a smirk on his face.

“I’m gonna kill you myself.”

“That I don’t doubt.” He kissed me hard, then stepped back, his cheekiness quickly dying off. “Now lead us out of here. I really hate being underground. Especially in the dark.” He took my hand while I escorted us up the tunnel, dodging the fallen boulders. Rook allowed Celeste to thread her fingers into his fur, guiding her forward. She was shell-shocked and heavily drugged, leaning fully into him, using him as a crutch.

Rook’s body was tense, and I knew it was partially due to the intimacy of her gripping onto his fur like she was, but also because the dweller was ready to attack and kill if anything came at us.

I didn’t want to think about the horrors in that room, what had happened, and who we left behind.

A torture chamber was now a graveyard.

We had no time to mourn or think. We had to keep going.

We were only four to make it out of there alive.