“I needed a cured woman. After scraping Dr. Nealy’s mind, I chose Elaine over the one you found in Georgia because she was healthier. When I collected her, your friends fought to keep her. I did not wish to kill them, but they were in the way.”
My throat tightened painfully. “You’re a monster.”
“I accepted the path Allah chose for me and am fully prepared to bear the responsibility of it.”
I pulled Michio closer to me, knowing my next question would trouble him. “Why didn’t you just take me the night you found me, instead of Elaine?”
Then the Lakota would still be alive.
“I wasn’t ready for you, Eveline. I didn’t have an army, didn’t have a place to secure you, and I’d only just learned about the venom’s effect on the brain. And Elaine…well, she’s much easier to manipulate than you.”
“Is that why she roams freely around here?” I stroked my thumb in slow circles against Michio’s arm. “What did you do? Promise her Michio in exchange for her obedience?”
He nodded, smiling his lava-licked smile.
“You made Michio follow you that night, didn’t you?”
“Yes. I controlled him through the power of suggestion. He didn’t know it was happening until he found me in the mountains with your dead friends.”
I glared at him with Fuck you eyes. Fuck you for killing the Lakota. Fuck you for forcing Michio and me to come here. Fuck you for putting a thousand miles between us and Jesse and Roark. And fuck you for curing nymphs by hanging women on posts.
“I suppose I should thank you for not killing my dog.”
The skin where his eyebrows should’ve been dug together. “Dog?”
Weird. Darwin must’ve left the mountains for no other reason than because he missed me. My stomach sank as I pictured him with Jesse and Roark. Where were they? How long would it take for them to arrive?
I buried those questions before they consumed me. “Where are all the women you’ve cured? Are they caged beneath the dam in a dirty dungeon? Please tell me you’ve outgrown that nasty habit.”
He laughed, a hellish sound of nightmares. “You and Elaine are the only women behind the gates of the dam. I have breeding facilities all over the country. The women up top were only here long enough to see you arrive. They’ve since been moved back to their nests.”
I stopped breathing. Breeding facilities? Nests? The women weren’t here? Oh my God, they weren’t here. That meant the nymphs would stop coming. Jesse and Roark wouldn’t be coming.
It felt like he’d just broken apart my chest, ripped out my hope, and replaced it with wretched devastation. How would I free Michio? How would I get his mind back? Locked in his paralyzed arms, I struggled to breathe, to hold myself together, as the Drone rambled on.
“Women are the blood of your blood, Eveline. With the exception of a few like Elaine, the majority have your…strong-willed traits. It makes it difficult to manage them. So I pulled a representative from each hive to witness their queen arrive in a cage. To provide a little discouragement for bad behavior.”
I clenched my fists around Michio. “You keep them in cages?”
“I keep them in shackles in rooms like this one. In nondescript buildings in various cities. It’s temporary. Which brings me to my permanent solution. The solution that solves both our problems.”
The door to the hallway swung open, and a black-haired man of Middle-Eastern descent strode in carrying a large black bag. His eyes darted around the room and locked on mine, his lips twitching at the corner as if he were trying to stifle a smirk.
He wasn’t controlled through a bite, but he was here, seemingly voluntarily.
The Drone straightened on the stool. “This is Dr. Jaffer. He’s going to remove your IUD. Then he will have intercourse with you until you conceive.”
My chest heaved as panic gripped my body. “That’s not a solution. It’s fucking rape.”
“I’m giving you a child, Eveline. A child that won’t seek to destroy everything I’ve created. I would inseminate you with my seed, but as you know, infertility is a side-effect of the venom.”
My stomach clenched, and heat swelled through my muscles as my anger exploded. “You can’t do this, you sick fuck. The prophecy said my child would save mankind. You’re fucking yourself if you get me pregnant.”
Technically, a lie. The prophecy stated only Jesse could father a world-saving child.
The Drone cut sharp eyes at Michio, and his melted lips drew back in a vicious snarl. Was he reacting to Michio’s thoughts?
Michio was listening to this shit, living this hell alone in his head, unable to outwardly express himself. But he wasn’t alone, and neither was I.
The chains rattled as I molded my body around him, his frame fitting perfectly against mine. Holding him, comforting him, wanting to protect and save him, I felt all of it reciprocated, not in the physical sense but through the bond we’d shared for so long. If given a choice, I wouldn’t want him anywhere near this place, but fuck, if he hadn’t been here, I would’ve been uselessly tearing my wrists up trying to get out of these chains.