Page 30 of Silver & Gold

Sedate him.

Get him on the table.

Put him in the Box.

The Box. Somehow, he’d forgotten the Box. Oh, he’d felt it every time he’d panicked in a tight space, every time walls had seemed to shrink around him.

Strange, though, how he’d forgotten the Box itself.

But right now he wasn’t in the Box. He was on the table. Strapped down, of course. He was always strapped down, just in case he came out of the drugs during surgery. That happened sometimes.

The bite of a scalpel was so different from the bite of a sword. So precise and cold. So much worse. And the eyes of Kahzir, so emotionless, were far more terrifying than any warrior’s anger could be.

Anger did not frighten Raider. Anger was human. Anger was hot, like life.

But the scalpel was cold and ruthless and so damn intrusive. It revealed all of Raider, every secret of his body. His blood and bones. The branching network of arteries and veins. Then, later, the quicksilver threading through it all.

But no moment of horror or confusion or pain compared to the moment when Kahzir had taken his eye.

It was the first time that Raider had seen Kahzir nervous.

I can’t be sure, Kahzir had said to someone, if it will function as intended. Can you imagine if it doesn’t? All my work. So many months of planning, of crafting, of perfecting. It must work. It must.

Raider had woken in pain unlike any he’d known before. He had screamed unlike ever before. And Kahzir had said, Be still. You will damage it. And he’d lowered a small sphere of impossible intricacy—of quicksilver and crystal, of amber and gold and a thousand things that Raider would never understand. He had set it into the raw, gaping socket of Raider’s left eye.

So when Raider felt again a table under his back and bindings at his wrists and ankles and forehead, he wasn’t sure where he was. He wasn’t sure when he was. Nightmares all ran together.

He didn’t fight the restraints. There was never any point in that. It was best to wait it out. The moment always ended eventually. So he didn’t move at all, except that he was shaking. He couldn’t help that.

Distantly, he heard a shout. He heard a thump. He heard a gate screech on its hinges.

Somewhere, bare feet slapped across a hard floor, halting every now and then before running on. They drew near. Halted again. There was a wordless cry. Metal jangled and scraped. Then he heard, “I’m coming, baby, I’m coming.”

That was when Raider’s chest started heaving. That was when too wholly separate realities collided and burst and nothing made any sense.

The gate screeched open. Footsteps pounded his way. Then Seth was there. Seth.

Raider heard an agonized cry break from his own throat. Then his right eye blurred and even his left eye glitched and he couldn’t see Seth. He panicked and started making terrible sounds. Then Seth’s hands were on his face and Seth’s lips were on his own. But Raider still couldn’t breathe.

“It’s okay, baby, it’s okay,” Seth murmured. There was a brief pressure on the strap across Raider’s forehead, then it broke.

Even then, Raider was terrified, too terrified to lift his head, too terrified to find that, maybe, this was just another nightmare, one where Seth would morph into Kahzir and there would be darkness and a scalpel and the Box.

But, one by one, the straps were cut away. Then Seth was pulling him up off the table, and it was real. Because Raider could never dream anything as perfect as Seth’s arms around him and Seth’s cheek pressing against his and Seth murmuring, “I’m here. I love you.”

Raider broke. Utterly. He sobbed against Seth. He clung to Seth like he would die without him.

“Baby, I’m sorry, but we have to go. We have to go now. Can you get up?”

No, Raider tried say. I can’t. Just stay. Don’t leave me—gods, please don’t leave me.

“Baby, I’m gonna carry you, okay? Because we have to go right now.”

“I’m afraid I can’t let you do that,” said a strong female voice.

CHAPTER 11

SETH’S INSTINCTS TOOK OVER, and thank the gods—because his heart was in fucking shreds and all he wanted to do was hold onto Raider. But his instincts made him spin toward the cell door and sequence the multi tool’s harpoon. It fired across the cell, whooshing out its strong, thin line.