Protector

Chapter XXII

"What the hell are you talking about?" Christian barked. He frowned and crossed his arms over his chest.

I turned to John with confusion written all over my face. "John, we heard you talking to us through the satellite phone."

John pursed his lips together, running a hand through his shoulder-length hair. "Whoever you heard may have sounded like me, but it wasn't me me."

"Then who the hell was it?" Christian growled, his voice fading into the background as my mind's gears turned.

A scent lingering in the air, cutting through my determined thoughts. "Do you guys smell that?"

"What? I don't smell anything." John asked, his past words forgotten.

Christian hissed behind us. We craned our heads to him in concern.

"Chris?" I asked with furrowed eyebrows. "You okay?"

The Beast frowned, his hand reaching to his nape. In his hands was a syringe. "What the—" Christian's frame staggered and his shoulder slumped. He had deteriorated so fast I didn't have enough time to help him as his eyes rolled into his head and his body plummeted.

"Christian!" I exclaimed. I grimaced when a sharp pain blossomed from the side of my neck. A curse slipped past my lips as I pulled a syringe out from the side of my neck.

"Malen'kiy Volk!" John's cry pounded in my skull, echoing as my vision blurred and blackened. (Little Wolf)

I clenched my jaw, staggering. Turning to look at John, a figure stood behind him, draped in a black hood overshadowing his face. I wanted to scream, to yell, anything, but nothing came out. My thoughts were scattered and my mouth was as dry as the Sahara Desert.

The figure's cold eyes glowed from under his hood. I could only watch as John was struck from behind. My back hit the forest floor. Darkness consumed my vision, the sharp pain in the back of my head fading.

***

". . . up. Jazz, wake up."

I groaned as my head throbbed, my hands moving to press against my temple. Instead, I was greeted with rattling metal.

My eyes snapped open, glancing up to see my wrists bound with heavy shackles. I swallowed hard, blinking as I recalled what happened before this. I whipped my head around to the voice calling me, a breath of relief escaping me when Christian came into view.

Christian's features relaxed when he saw I was conscious, a weary smile pursing his lips. "Hey, Jazz."

My eyes dragged across the Beast's half-naked form. As if realizing I could be in a similar predicament, I lowered my gaze to my own body. My shirt was ripped from the middle, leaving my torso exposed. The scars I once bore on my side were gone, healed when I resurrected.

"Where are we? Where's John?" I coughed. I twisted my head in various directions to get a sense of our environment. A dirty lamp over our heads was the sole light source in the room, the smell of rust and molding wood disgusting my keen nose. No windows were in our view, but the faint howling of a breeze told me there was one nearby. This is a basement in God knows where.

Christian's scent soured with worry. "I thought John was with you."

"Someone knocked him unconscious," I growled, grimacing as my head throbbed with dizzying intensity. "Damn it. What the hell did they drug us with!"

"That would be a mixture of monkshood and mountain ash. While it's not enough to kill a Beast, it's enough to render them human." A voice snickered, low and sinister, and deceiving.