Page 75 of Robb

She shook her head. “I know we put that story out there, but I would have thought that you wouldn’t have believed it.”

Robb was mildly stunned. They had always operated under the understanding that Hargreaves had captive wyvern shifters, turning their blood and venom into all sorts of toxic substances. And it wasn’t like it was just the Agency that had thought so – most of the world’s wyvern shifters had gone to ground, hiding themselves away from shifter society so as to not risk being captured.

“That means…” he said slowly.

“He can be taught,” the wyvern sighed. “Yes, Mr. Lockwood. I have been providing wyvern venom and wyvern blood to Hargreaves for all these years. After all, what is freely given is so much more easily controlled. And this way, all the other wyverns remove themselves from the equation. This means that they cannot work for you – or anyone else. Thus ensuring a monopoly on the product for Hargreaves.”

It was pretty smart, Robb had to give her that – if nothing else. And it explained both how she’d managed to rise so high in the ranks, and why Hargreaves relied so heavily on wyvern venom as its main weapon. She’d basically built Hargreaves’s entire structure around something that only she could provide, and made herself indispensable in the process. And she used it to pursue greed and power in their purest forms.

“Would you like a little demonstration?” she asked, exhaling ever so gently. “Just a small one to start off with. A mere taste.”

Robb gasped and wheezed as the vaporized venom washed over him, setting his skin aflame. His eyes went blurry once more, and it was an effort just to pull air into his lungs.

Okay, I fucked up, he thought through the pain. Things were better when I couldn’t talk.

But at least as long as Anne’s attention was focused on him, it wasn’t focused on anyone else. And maybe that was the most helpful thing he could do right now.

“I can do quite a bit more than this, let me assure you,” she said lazily, her voice sounding a very long way away. “There is a lot of damage that a shifter can sustain, which can then be undone with the antivenom. I could continue to do this indefinitely – at least until I reach the point where the antivenom won’t work. Wherever that might be.”

Just hold on, Robb told himself, trying to force his jaw to unclench. Give the others time to regroup and work things out.

Resigning himself to his day becoming significantly more unpleasant, Robb barely noticed the sound of the door opening. He turned his head painfully to try and see who it was, but his eyes wouldn’t focus.

“We’ve brought her here as you ordered, ma’am,” said a voice that Robb didn’t recognize.

And then there was a voice that he did recognize – and his heart stopped beating, as it clenched in horror and fear.

“Robb! Oh my God. Robb.”

Chapter 13

“Robb! Are you okay?”

Tahnee suddenly found her arms being twisted painfully behind her back… but she barely noticed.

Because Robb was alive, and she was more relieved than she’d ever felt in her life.

But he also looked like hell. Tahnee couldn’t hold back her horrified gasp as she stared at him.

Oh my God. Robb…

He was heaving for breath, his skin red and peeling, and his eyes were swollen half shut. He was obviously in a world of pain, and Tahnee felt almost as if she was right there along with him – her heart clenched painfully in her chest as she stared at him, struggling against the men who were holding her arms in her desperation to run to him.

She was so frantic about trying to tear her way free to take Robb in her arms that it took her a moment to notice the giant wyvern in the room. It wasn’t exactly her brightest moment – but, to be fair, she’d been so relieved to see Robb alive – and so terrified at the amount of pain he seemed to be in – that everything in the world had narrowed down to that one piece of visual input.

“Fucking hell!” she exclaimed without meaning to, as the full reality of the wyvern’s presence registered in her brain.

The next thing that registered was the horrible, chemical-y smell that seemed to permeate the room. Even just its lingering presence was enough to make her throat burn.

She knew exactly what it was.

Wyvern venom.

No wonder Robb was in such a bad way.

She’d only ever smelt it once before – and then only faintly, when a wyvern shifter had visited her sanctuary under cover of darkness, terrified of being captured and used as a source of poison for Hargreaves’s enemies.

The shifter had explained to her that he hadn’t shifted in over five years due to his fear of capture. When he had shifted into his wyvern form at the sanctuary, Tahnee had caught the slightest hint of the chemical smell that was now flooding the room Robb was being held prisoner in.