“Warlocks,” he corrected, as though it was a perfectly normal, everyday concept. “They find feral shifters, bind them. Harness their power for the good of all.”
“It’s not good for the shifters!”
“It’s better for them than the alternative,” he said, though he looked a little sickened, as though he didn’t really believe what he was saying. “At least here, when they go mad, they don’t hurt anyone.”
“The warlocks are the ones driving them mad. Can’t you see that?”
His throat worked. He took a step forward, and another, hesitantly approaching the window. He put his hand flat on the glass, precisely over her own.
“I’ve never spoken with another shifter before,” he whispered.
He couldn’t see her, yet their fingers perfectly aligned. She could feel his heat even through the thick double glass.
“Well, now you have,” she said. “I’m a shifter. I’m your mate. And I’m not mad, or dangerous, or a wild beast to be locked up in a cage. Everything they’ve taught you here is a lie, Blaze.”
He closed his eyes, leaning his forehead against the glass. Across the width of the window, frost curled into steam.
“I don’t even know your name,” he said.
She pressed her hand harder against the glass, willing it to melt away like the frost. “Rose. Rose Swanmay.”
“Rose,” he repeated softly. Longing shot through her at the way his mouth caressed her name. “You have to go. Now. This isn’t safe.”
“I’m not leaving you here. Please, just trust me—”
“It’s you who cannot trust me.” His hand fisted. Some of the red, angry-looking scabs edging the black tattoo on his forearm broke open, fresh droplets of blood welling up. “You may claim that other shifters are not mad, but I am mad. From the moment we met, my human will has been burning up. I am more dangerous now than I have ever been.“
“You won’t ever hurt me. We’re mates.”
“Mates,” he repeated, as though it meant nothing to him. “Why do you keep saying that word?”
She stared at him through the glass. “You really don’t know anything about mates?”
His eyebrows drew together. “Do you mean the sickness? Corbin told me about that. A breeding madness that afflicted some shifters, allowing animal instincts to overcome human reason.”
Rose was beginning to think that whoever this ‘Corbin’ was, he’d better pray that she never caught up with him.
“It’s not a sickness.” She opened her soul wide to him as she spoke, hoping that he would be able to sense the truth in her words. “That’s another lie, Blaze. What you feel is right, and natural. A mate is—”
A siren drowned out her words. She leaped back from the glass as a flashing red light turned the white room the color of blood.
“They know I’m here!” she shouted over the alarm.
“No,” Blaze gritted out through clenched teeth.
His left hand gripped his right forearm, as though his tattoo was burning him. “Temperature alarm. Too hot. Out of control—go!”
Rose rushed instead to the cell door, her hands searching for some gap or crack in the fused metal. “Not without you! How does this open?”
“It doesn’t, Corbin portals in!” Blaze’s fist slammed against the window, leaving a bloody smear on the glass. “Rose, they’re coming, hide!”
Booted feet clattered down the stairs. Too late, Rose bolted for the empty cell.
“Freeze!”
Rose whirled, and found herself staring down the business end of a gun. Not one of the harmless, nonlethal tranquillizers carried by the entrance guards, but a semi-automatic assault rifle.
“Hands on your head,” barked the soldier training the weapon on her. “No sudden movements.”