Blaze of Secrets (Asylums for Magical Threats)
Contents
Title Page
Dedication
The Feiru
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Epilogue
Thank you for reading!
Frozen Desires Excerpt
Other Works
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Copyright
Blaze of Secrets
by Jessie Donovan
To my dad
For surviving all of my crazy adventures over the years and never doubting me whenever I think of new ones.
And to Michelle Cuadros
Best friend, sister, and my first reader.
Someday we’ll find you new hamsters, I promise.
The Feiru
The Feiru (FEY-roo) are a race similar in appearance to humans, but with slight genetic differences…First-born children of Feiru mothers have the ability to manipulate elemental energy particles, which, until recently, had been undetectable to human scientists. What type of element they can control—fire, earth, water, or wind—and whether their ability is aggressive or healing in nature is determined by genetics. These Feiru-specific abilities are commonly referred to as “elemental magic” amongst their kind.
…As long as the Feiru continue to uphold the rules and regulations set forth in The Agreement, and hide their unique abilities and existence from humans, they will be allowed to govern over their own kind. If they violate The Agreement, the Feiru liaison offices of the various world governments will meet and devise a plan on how to handle the Feiru failures…The primary function of the Feiru liaison office is to prevent worldwide paranoia, no matter the cost.
—Excerpt from the Feiru Liaison Training Guide, US Edition
Chapter One
First-born Feiru children are dangerous. At the age of magical maturity they will permanently move into compounds established for both their and the public’s protection. These compounds will be known as the Asylums for Magical Threats (hereafter abbreviated as “AMT”).
—Addendum, Article III of the Feiru Five Laws, July 1953
Present Day
After five long years of searching, Jaxton Ward was finally going to see his brother again.
Or, at least, that was the plan.
His brother Garrett was being kept inside the mountain under his feet, inside one of the most secure AMT compounds in the world. Getting in was going to be difficult, but getting out was going to take a bloody miracle. Especially since he’d had to barter with his boss for the location of his brother. In exchange, he had promised to rescue not just Garrett, but one other unknown first-born as well.
Taka—one of the three men that made up Jaxton’s team—signaled that he was ready, and Jaxton gave their mission his full attention. He’d let his brother down once, and he wasn’t about to do it again.
Jaxton nodded for Taka to begin.
Taka reached a hand to the north and drew on the elemental earth particles in the air. Within seconds, the earth of the mountain started to move. As a tunnel opened in the side of the mountain, Jaxton took out his Glock and flicked off the safety. He was the only one on the team without elemental magic, but he didn’t see that as a disadvantage.
He could take care of himself.
Kiarra Melini stared at the small homemade shiv in her hand and wondered for the thousandth time if she could go through with it.
She had spent the last few weeks trying to come up with an alternative plan, a way that could save the other prisoners without having to harm anyone. But despite her best efforts, she’d come up empty-handed.
To protect the lives of the other first-borns inside the AMT, Kiarra would kill for the first and last time today.
Not that she wanted to do it, given the choice. But after overhearing a conversation between two AMT researchers a few weeks ago, she knew that the AMT would never again be safe for any of the first-borns while she remained alive.
The outside world might have forgotten about them, but that didn’t make them any less important. Kiarra was the only one who cared, and she would go down fighting to try and protect them.
Even if it meant killing herself to do so.
She took a deep breath and gripped the handle of her blade tighter. But before she could raise her arm to strike, her body started to shake. Kiarra closed her eyes and breathed in and out until she calmed down enough to stop shaking. Ending her life—noble as her reasons may be—was turning out to be a lot harder than she’d imagined.
Mostly because she was afraid to die.
But her window of opportunity was closing fast—the AMT-wide meeting would end in less than an hour. After that, she would have to wait a whole other month before she could try again, and who knew how many more first-borns would suffer because of her cowardice.
Maybe if she recalled the conversation between the two researchers—the one that forebode the future harsh realities of the other AMT prisoners—she’d get enough nerve to do what needed to be done.
It was worth a shot, so Kiarra closed her eyes and recalled the conversation that had changed the course of her life forever.
Strapped to a cold metal examination table, Kiarra kept her eyes closed and forced herself to stay preternaturally still. The slightest movement would alert the researchers in the room that she was conscious again, and she couldn’t let that happen. Not if she wanted to find out the reason why the researchers had increased her examination visits and blood draws over the last two weeks.
Most AMT prisoners wouldn’t think twice about it, since they’d been conditioned to not ask questions. But Kiarra had gone through something similar before.
The last time her visits had increased with the same frequency, the AMT researchers had stolen her elemental magic.
Since then, no matter how many times she reached to the south—the direction of elemental fire—she felt nothing. No tingling warmth, no comforting flame. She was no different than a non-first-born, yet she was still a prisoner, unable to see the sky or feel a breeze, and forced to live in constant fear of what the guards or researchers might do to her.
Of how they might punish her.
Dark memories started to fill her mind, but then the female researcher in the room started to speak again, which snapped Kiarra back to the present. She listened with every cell in her body and steeled herself not to react.
“Interesting,” the female researcher said. “Out of the ten teenagers, nine of them still can’t use their elemental magic, just like F-839. Dr. Adams was right—her blood was the key to getting the Null Formula to work.”
It took all of Kiarra’s control not to draw in a breath. Her serial number was F-839, and all of the extra blood draws now made sense—the AMT was using her blood to try and eradicate elemental magic.
The
male researcher spoke up. “They’re going to start a new, larger test group in a few weeks and see if they can stop the first-borns from going insane and/or committing suicide. If we don’t get the insanity rate below ten percent, then we’ll never be able to implement this planet-wide.”
“Don’t worry, we’ll get there. We have a few million first-borns to burn through to get it right.”
Kiarra opened her eyes and embraced the guilt she felt every time she thought about what had happened to those poor first-born teenagers.
Because of her blood, not only had five teenagers already gone insane, but their insanity was driving an untold number of them to suicide—and the researchers wanted to repeat the process with a larger group.
She couldn’t let that happen.
They needed her blood, drawn and injected within hours, as a type of catalyst for the Null Formula to work. If they didn’t have her blood available, they wouldn’t be able to conduct any more tests.
There was a chance that the researchers might find another catalyst within a few weeks or months, but it was a risk she was willing to take. Stopping the tests, even for a few months, would prevent more people from going insane or committing suicide.
Kiarra needed to die.
I can do this. Think of the others. She took a deep breath, tightened her grip around the shiv’s handle, and whispered, “Please let this work,” before raising the blade with a steady hand and plunging it into the top half of her forearm.
Kiarra sucked in a breath as the pain shot up her arm. She bit her lip to keep from making any more noise, aware that despite the AMT-wide staff meeting, a guard would come to investigate if she screamed.
She pulled the blade a fraction more down toward her wrist, this time biting her lip so hard she could taste iron on her tongue. While her brain was telling her to stop, she fought the instinct and gripped the handle of the blade until it bit into her palm.
Only when her heart stopped beating would the other first-borns be safe—at least from her.
An image of a little girl crying, reaching out her arms and screaming Kiarra’s name, came unbidden into her mind, but she forced it aside. Her sister had abandoned her just like the rest of her family. Her death wouldn’t cause anyone sadness or pain. Rather, through death, she would finally have a purpose.
This was it. On the next inhale she started to cut down her arm again, but then the door of her cell slid open.
Kiarra looked up and saw a tall man—dressed head to toe in black—standing in her doorway and pointing a gun straight at her.
Shit. She’d been discovered.
She wondered where she’d gone wrong. None of the guards should be wandering the halls. Everyone from the head warden to the maintenance staff was required to attend the monthly AMT meetings.
Of course, she had never seen any of the staff wearing black uniforms before. Maybe the AMT had increased security and the man was a new type of guard.
Whatever the slip-up, it would cost her if she didn’t act before they could restrain her or drug her unconscious.
She swung the shiv upward, toward her throat. But between one heartbeat and the next, the man had pinned her arm, holding the shiv to the bed with his knee. He now held a knife against her throat, the metal still warm from his body heat.
He leaned close enough that his breath tickled her cheek. “Toss away the blade, pet.”
He increased the pressure against her throat, but not enough to draw blood. The blade was meant to be a threat, but to Kiarra, it might just be the solution.
She arched up toward the blade and felt it nick her throat. But before it could do any real damage, the man tossed the blade away and pinned her to the bed with his weight. Stunned dumb for a second, Kiarra didn’t fight back as the man leaned close to her face and whispered, “Keep it up, pet, and you’re going to get yourself killed.”
None of the guards would talk to her like that, in a gentle, soothing tone.
Something was wrong.
Brushing the feeling aside, Kiarra adjusted her hold on the shiv she still had clutched in her right hand. If she could get free, she might just have one last shot at success.
Channeling all of her anger and frustration from the last twenty-eight years, Kiarra smacked her forehead against the man’s chin. The split-second distraction gave her enough time to wiggle her hand free and stab her blade into the man’s bicep. He grunted but didn’t move away like she’d planned. Instead, the man used all of his weight to pin her down while he plucked away her blade and tossed it across the room. As it clattered against the wall, a heavy sense of defeat came over her.
Her only chance to save the other first-borns was gone.
Despite her resolve, despite her best effort, she had failed.
More people were going to die.
Tears prickled her eyes, and without realizing it, she whispered, “You’ve ruined everything.”
He paused a second at her words, his eyes searching hers for answers. His green eyes were curious and Kiarra almost believed he wanted to hear her story. Then he pulled out a zip tie from one of his pockets, maneuvered her hands together, and secured it around her wrists. She flinched as her cut was pressed tightly again her other arm, but she ignored it.
Kiarra tried to pull her arms apart, but the plastic ties wouldn’t budge.
She was trapped.
No, no, no. It wasn’t supposed to be this way. She should be dead by now.
Instead, she was just a gift all tied up and waiting for the guards. Once they found out what she’d done, they would punish her. Just like before.
Pain.
Blood.
Darkness.
Kiarra bucked and twisted, wanting nothing more than to get free. There was no way she could survive that nightmare all over again. “No, no, no!” she screamed before sobbing, “Please just kill me.”
The man gripped her chin hard and said, “Stop.”
His authoritative tone broke through her hysteria and made her pause. He continued, “We need to get the fuck out of here, to somewhere safe, but I can’t do that if you fight me every step of the damn way.”
Did he just say “we”? The strange black clothes, the soothing voice, the reluctance to harm her. It all made sense.
This man wasn’t a new guard; he was an intruder, here to kidnap her.
Kiarra’s heart pounded in her chest. How did an outsider know about the value of her blood? It didn’t make sense. The AMT researchers kept their work under lock and key, both physically and electronically. What would this man do with her?
The situation had just gone from bad to worse.
Another man’s voice came from the door, and Kiarra jumped when she heard the new man’s accented voice say, “Boss, I’ve got him.”
The green-eyed man turned and kept a grip on her hands with one hand while using his knee to keep her legs pinned to the bed. “The others?”
The new position let her see the doorway, where another man was standing, dressed in the same black clothes with one major difference—he was all but dragging one of her cell neighbors along with him.
What do they want with him? Maybe her cell neighbor had his own secrets.
“We’re all ready to bust out of here if you are,” said the man at the door.
“Right,” said the green-eyed man before he stood, lifted her up, and hoisted her over his shoulder. Kiarra froze as her belly touched his shoulder, and before she could say a word, they were moving down the hall, her face bouncing against the man’s back.
Chapter Two
Jaxton tightened his grip on the woman tossed over his shoulder and hoped like hell the little tigress would behave. She seemed determined to die and part of him wondered why.
But as the sound of boots and voices behind them grew louder, he focused back on his mission and pushed himself to run faster. Everything—including his brother’s life—rested on them making it to the escape tunnel in one piece.
The woman over his shoulder st
arted to move, and he felt her push her arms against his back and lift her upper body. He was about to tell her to stay still when two guards appeared from around the corner up ahead, blocking their path.
Fuck. He had hoped to avoid a confrontation, but with guards both behind and in front of them, he didn’t have a choice—they would have to fight.
He was about to signal his men to take position when the woman on his shoulder shouted, “The guards have tranquilizer guns.”
The woman’s warning held more than a little bit of panic; Jaxton reckoned she was telling the truth.
He tried to think of his options. The hallways inside this AMT were lined with steel, which meant that Jaxton and his team couldn’t use guns since the bullets might ricochet. And if the guards were using tranquilizer guns, they’d take Jaxton and his men out before they could engage them in any sort of hand-to-hand combat.
He had only one option left—if they were to have any chance of escape, Taka, Marco, and Darius were going to have to use their elemental magic.
“No restrictions!” he yelled to his men, the signal for them to use their magic freely. Jaxton maneuvered to the side and was just about to lower the woman slung over his shoulder to the floor when he heard a gun go off.
The woman sucked in a breath before her body went limp.
Jaxton maneuvered her to the ground and plucked the dart out of her arm. He checked to make sure she was breathing—she was—but he needed to deal with the guards before he could do anything else for her.
He stood up and counted a total of ten guards surrounding them. His men had eight of them in hand, so Jaxton focused on the two blocking the corner that would lead them to the tunnel.
One of the two guards had a strange-looking gun pointed at him. Jaxton reckoned that was what the woman had warned him about. He’d take out the tranquilizer gun first and worry about the second guard later.