Renegades (Hotbloods #3)

“Shall we begin?” Brisha asked, clasping her hands together. “Alchemists, administer the elixir,” she instructed, sounding oddly like a gameshow host. Unfortunately for me, I’d always found gameshow hosts unbearably creepy, and the sound of her voice ramped up the thunder of my heart. With every fiber of my being, I prayed that the elixir failed.

I held my breath as the alchemists moved forward with a tray of hypodermic needles, each tube filled with a bluish liquid. Deftly, they lifted the needles to the arms of the test subjects and pushed down on the plungers, the blue fluid disappearing beneath their ashen flesh.

One.

Two.

Three.

Four.

Five.

Each injection had been administered, and now all we could do was wait. My pulse was racing, the blood rushing in my ears, my mouth dry as a bone. I couldn’t bear the silence, or the prospect of success. And yet, I knew it was a possibility. That was the worst part about it, that I knew there was a chance this could work.

“The elixir has been administered to our five test subjects. Now, we must draw their blood for analysis,” the female alchemist announced, her voice ringing out across the empty auditorium. It was the moment of truth. Taking out much larger needles, they moved toward the subjects.

But before they could get near, the five individuals spasmed wildly, blue froth gathering at the sides of their mouths, their eyes rolling back into their heads. Beneath their ashen skin, their veins expanded, colored a deep purple that pushed against the underside of their flesh, threatening to burst through.

As the first of their agonized cries ricocheted outward like a gunshot, I realized that their faces were aging at a rapid pace, their skin shriveling up, dark spots splattering across their features, everything collapsing in on itself. It was as though the very bone beneath was decaying, their bodies crumpling with it.

It was horrifying to watch, and yet I was helpless to tear my eyes away. After all, it was my blood that had been used in this experiment—it was my blood that was somehow doing this to them. I didn’t understand it, but then there was no way anyone could wrap their head around what was happening. These people were decomposing in front of us, with no hope of a reprieve. There was no antidote, no anti-elixir, only a painful death.

As Queen Brisha’s gaze locked with mine, it was clear she felt the same. Her fury was written all over her face… And I realized with a sinking feeling that she blamed me for this. My blood had done this.

From the rage in her eyes, I couldn’t help but feel there would be no amnesty this time.





Chapter Twenty-Seven





“Seize them!” Queen Brisha roared into a comm device taken from her hip.

Black-clad soldiers barged in from the side doors of the auditorium, evidently having been there to guard against outsiders trying to enter the building during the event. They surrounded us within seconds, but we were on our feet, ready to fight. It may have been my blood that had caused this reaction, but it wasn’t our fault it hadn’t worked! It seemed that Queen Brisha did have a streak of Gianne in her, after all, when the right buttons were pushed.

“Tell me you didn’t have anything to do with this,” I breathed to Lauren, knowing she’d had access to the alchemists and their findings.

She shook her head, her face a mask of horror. “I didn’t touch the test batch. I didn’t even know it was ready,” she whispered back. Given her calm demeanor throughout the trial, I had wondered if she’d done something to tamper with the elixir, but I could tell when Lauren was lying, and she definitely wasn’t lying now.

The soldiers thundered toward us, their boots pounding on the hardwood floors. The fast percussion matched the beat of my heart, adrenaline pulsing through my veins. We had to try to get out of here before Brisha could punish us for something we didn’t do. Ordinarily, I would’ve tried to talk my way out of it, but the queen no longer seemed in the mood to listen. I had never seen her this furious.

In a way, it was understandable. If I’d thought myself close to cracking immortality, only to have success snatched away, I’d be pretty pissed too. Even so, that didn’t give her the right to punish us for her failure.

“Head for the fire exit!” Angie hissed, gesturing at a narrow side door tucked away in the shadow behind the stage. The path to it was clear, but there were soldiers running down the aisle toward it.

I sprinted for the door, bursting through it to the blare of a siren going off. The others followed close behind, the sound of their footsteps bringing me comfort. Beyond the door was a flat expanse of gravel and underground lighting, with a few saplings reaching skyward, leading up to the slope of the mountainside. My eyes darted around to find an escape route. There were buildings on either side, and slim passageways that cut back through to the city. I headed for the passageway on the right, picking up speed. It was only as I reached the entrance to the alleyway that I turned over my shoulder to make sure my friends were following.

Bashrik and Navan had just launched into flight, while Angie and Lauren were about twenty yards away, running hard in my direction.

“Come on!” I screamed, holding out my hand as though we were in some death-defying relay race. “Help them!” I bellowed up to the brothers, seeing the horde of winged soldiers pursuing my friends, the sky turning black as they filled the outside space. Without hesitation, Bashrik swooped out of the sky, his arms outstretched to grab Angie. He managed to get hold of her arms, pulling her upward. He was almost at the rooftop of the building where I stood, when three soldiers shot forward and took him out, shocking him in the neck with an electric spear. It stunned him for long enough that he lost his grip on Angie, and her body fell from the sky.

I screamed, watching her plummet, but another soldier arced downward, plucking her out of harm’s way. She flailed as he held her fast, her legs kicking wildly, her arms doing everything they could to land a punch, but the soldier was too experienced and too fast.

Meanwhile, Bashrik had circled back around, rubbing his neck, trying to bring his limp arm back to life, while Navan rocketed toward Lauren, who was trying to feint around a group of soldiers that had landed directly in front of her, blocking the path between her and me. She was surprisingly fast, darting this way and that, but she stood no chance.

Navan managed to grab her by the waist and haul her upward, evading the soldiers and heading for the mountains instead of the city. They could lose their assailants in the icy landscape, and I could hide among the buildings and alleyways of Nessun. But if I kept running, what would happen to Angie?