Ancalagon - 123. Chapter 123

Had this been a set up? The officer had brought me into a trap and delivered me to the Kardoval? I slumped to the floor, my body no longer my own to control but my mind whirred uncontrollably through the many different options of what went wrong.

How was this possible? Had I been duped or had Garjah?

It had to have been me. He was too smart, too well trained to have fallen for such a simple trap that he’d believe he had captured the Kardoval if he hadn’t. Had Timok even been with him, or had all that simply been a name drop to distract me from the story so I wouldn’t question it as much.

Damn it. I strained to move, to do something, anything to save myself. I couldn’t even blink away the tears that were pooling in my eyes and starting to drip down my cheeks, much to my fury.

Another burst of fire, and the officer who had brought me up landed in my line of sight, but his eyes were empty. He’d either been duped alongside me, or he’d been in on their plan but no further use to them.

The Kardoval were clearly not trying to remain the benevolent rulers in the eyes of their people anymore.

“Grab him and let’s go before Garjah finds us.”

Someone grabbed me and hoisted me over their shoulders. I hated the feeling of someone else’s hands on me, and they smelled rancid, sweat and something else bitter making me gag helplessly. My arms dangled, and my head throbbed. The lift dinged.

The roar filled the space. My ears rang, but I knew that sound. Screams and cursing broke out, and I noticed helplessly that there had to be at least five people here. Bouncer’s snarls were somehow louder than their shouts or the thuds of bodies hitting the floor.

Including mine, as I hit the ground in a heap. Sharp pain spiked through one arm, and my head slammed into the floor and bounced. Tears blurred what I could see, and a groan escaped me but I couldn’t make any other sound. Pain throbbed between my arm and head, and someone was shooting, and all I wanted to do was yell at Bouncer to run away.

He yelped, and I strained against whatever they’d put in me to immobilize me. I really, really hated this, and I wanted nothing more than to be able to move, to help Bouncer, to fight back. Focusing all my energy, I was only able to turn my head, scraping it across rough carpet.

Relief flooded me. Bouncer wasn’t laying on the floor dying from a wound from the shots I heard. He was standing over Mereval, one of her arms in his mouth and his claws dug into her upper shoulders. She was screaming, and he was pulling her over, ducking behind her body when someone tried to aim at him.

Then the lift opened again, and more people flooded the room. Cold fear that it was someone coming to help the Kardoval and finish killing us struck me first, but then I recognized one of the officers and one of the rebels.

The last person out of the lift was Garjah, and he went insane when he saw me on the floor. Lifting his weapon, he took out the two males threatening me and Bouncer with lethal efficiency and then he was on his knees next to me.

“Essell, are you okay?”

I couldn’t answer him, and that only made him more frantic.

“Essell!”

Tears flooded my eyes, and I blinked rapidly. Blinking. I stared into Garjah’s eyes, and blinked twice, as hard as I could.

“Essell, can you understand me?” I blinked again, hard. Garjah yanked me against his chest, both our breaths heaving as he realized I was not dying, and I realized I wasn’t about to be taken prisoner somewhere and tortured or something worse.

Bouncer came and pushed his head between us, his muzzle wet with fluids I didn’t want to think about. Then again, he saved me. If I could have, I would have hugged him tight. Garjah did it for me. “You saved him, didn’t you? Wonderful beast that you are, yes.” Garjah stroked him and scratched right behind his ear, and Bouncer closed his eyes and rumbled, leaning hard against us.

The room was chaos around us, but Garjah let his men handle it. Stuck in my body and unable to do anything else, I was glad he wasn’t letting me go. There was nowhere else I wanted to be until the drugs wore off.

“Well, that’s that.” Timok came out of the lift to where we were sitting down on the bottom floor.

I was still cradled against Garjah, feeling and movement slowly coming back to my body. “What?” I slurred.

“Bouncer killed the Kardoval,” he said bluntly. “Every last one of them is either dead from having their throats bit out or are dying from the poison of his claws.”

“That’s painful, isn’t it?” I said. That’s what Garjah had said, and why everyone was so afraid of him.

“It is.” Timok looked grimly satisfied. “They have confessed all their crimes, on record, before their end so we will have that when your outworlders come, though.”

I tilted my head, and it went too far, hitting Garjah on the chest. He grunted. “Why would they do that?” he asked.

“Because I wouldn’t give them any pain relief unless they did.” Timok was ruthless, even more than I even knew.

But it worked.