The Last Avian Soldier (The Nine Realms Universe)

three: the supernatural alliance

CHAPTER THREE

—————

THE SUPERNATURAL ALLIANCE

| zephyr |

My throat is on fire. Burning with vicious, merciless intent. It's hard to breathe, each intake of air agonizingly painful. I reached up, expecting my fingers to brush against the cool metal of the collar that had been around my neck but instead I touched warm skin. Overly warm, in a way. It hurt, but the pain wasn't as strong as the shock at finding that I had been freed from the horrible contraption.

I took notice of my new situation. Instead of the familiar bars of a cage I was greeted with pristine white walls, and a lit up ceiling. There was a door to my left, but it was closed tightly. I was laying in a bed, my body covered by a thin blanket.

I hissed in pain, trying to swallow but finding that it was incredibly difficult to do so. At the sight of my surroundings my mind immediately thought of a lab, and thinking that I was back there caused a small panic attack that paralyzed me in fear. But I wasn't, this was different. I wasn't tied down. An IV was inserted in my arm, and wires were connected to my chest. I didn't know if they posed much danger but I wanted them gone nonetheless.

Unfortunately it was very hard to move. My wrists hurt, the skin rubbed off from the chains that had been wrapped around my arms, and my shoulders hurt from holding most of my weight.

How did I get here though? I was at the auction and then... And then I was being pulled from my cage by a young man with pale hair and the bluest eyes in the world... I was on the floor, Lycarus was there, then everything was dark.

I have to get out of here.

With all the strength I could muster, I pushed myself up into a sitting position with a groan, the sheet fell off my torso, revealing the wounds I sustained in the hands of horrible people. Though now they weren't left torn open and untreated, and were substantially less painful than before. I winced when my hand made contact with the large cut across my side, which was now stitched up.

"Oh? You're awake already?" A voice chimed, startling me to the point where I jumped in fright and scrambled to escape.

But I was slow, my movements sluggish and with the amount of injuries I sustained already I didn't have time to even crawl out of the bed before the owner of the voice had placed their hands on me, trying to push me back down with gentle force.

"No—" I choked out, my voice broken, making the burn in my throat accelerate.

My eyes were tightly shut, and I waited for more pain, waited for somebody to strike me across the face for even thinking about running... but it never came.

A soothing voice, husky, but sweet like honey, met my ears. "Shh... you're okay here. I'm not going to hurt you."

Chest heaving with each ragged breath, I slowly blinked my eyes open, meeting the kind gaze of an older woman. Her grey hair was pulled into a loose braid, falling over her shoulder. She had the softest brown eyes and a face crinkled with lines of age. A kind smile graced her face.

I forced back a sob, wishing to hide and run, but at the same time I didn't want to hurt her. She wasn't like the cold, horrible people who usually held me down with so much force it hurt. I could tell very quickly because her hold was gentle, as though she were only doing it to make sure I didn't harm myself in the process of running.

"You're okay, sweetie." She said softly, "I'm Nadine, a healer, I'm not going to hurt you." My body trembled, I looked down at her hands, pinning me to the mattress. My heart beat wildly in my chest and I noticed her glance at a nearby machine and wince. "You need to calm down, okay? No one's going to harm you here."