Wyvern Protection Unit - Chapter 43: Chapter 43

The room was dank and smelled terrible, but worse was the ringing in Kimberley’s ears. Whatever he’d done to her, Kim was rocking the worst damn migraine ever. She really hated this fucker.
“Bugs? Really? You think you are going to scare me with bugs?”
Kimberley shook her head as the pinched-faced man in the long black tunic ran a pale hand over his head. He’d been alternately threatening and pathetic far as she was concerned.
“Woman, I am telling you. You must translate the tablet or else,” he warned her.
Mustache-face kidnapper man muttered something in another language, pointing his bony hands at the bugs on the floor, and the vermin started screeching and writhing. Their many legs clattered on the cracked stone and Kimberley grimaced. Gross. But hardly the worse thing she’d ever seen.
Hellloooo. Archeologist.
Did he have any idea how many giant, gross, million-legged insects she’d come across on the job? She even had a huge tarantula for a pet in her office.
More annoyed than anything at the moment. She rolled her eyes. The creepy crawly bastards were not even poisonous, just icky. So, at least she knew he was not trying to kill her. Not yet.
He waved his hand, and another screech came from a particularly nasty looking centipede that was unnaturally large. Kimberley raised her sneaker clad leg and stomped on the thing.
“What part of I am an archeologist don’t you understand? I work on sites in countries where that thing would be good eats, for fuck’s sake. Bugs don’t scare me,” she yelled and started stomping her sneaker clad feet all over the now three-inch high pile of crawling nasties.
Her asshole kidnapper had summoned the bugs in hopes of scaring her into obedience. Like she was a little girl, or some shit. Well, too bad for him, she thought and slammed her foot down on one really fat beetle with a satisfying crunch.
Whatever.
She wasn’t one of those people who loved bugs, but she was not afraid either. They were pretty much the one common occurrence on every dig she’d ever been on. She’d simply learned to ignore the little jerks. In her studies, she’d also learned that some bugs were actually quite special, even revered in some cultures.
After all, the ancient Egyptians she so loved to study worshipped the dung beetle. They believed the insects were a representation of the sun god rolling their pile of dung the way the god himself rolled the sun out to shine each and every morning.
Fascinating, really.
Mr. Mustache could summon all the bugs he wanted to, but they would not make her squeal like a scared child. Not when she ran across anywhere from one bug to a thousand in her experience in the field.
“Madam, I assure you, I will discover your weakness and then you will translate this tablet. After all, you don’t need much more than a tongue to talk,” he whispered and lifted a curved athame.
The bastard pointed the tip at her and pressed the cold metal against her skin. The resulting slice burned as he slid the blade down her forearm, making her yelp in pain. He tossed a handkerchief at her, but she ignored it and clutched her bleeding arm with her empty hand.
“You killed my mate. Do what you want to me. I will never help you,” Kimberley said, and turned her head.
She could not believe he was gone. Her mate. Kim thought her heart would break from the sadness alone. But it was the knowledge she was truly alone now that almost broke her.
“It will be easier if you give in,” her kidnapper said, but Kim shook her head.
She would never do what he wanted, just as she would never allow the sonovabitch to see her cry. The image of Larimar’s Wyvern’s body being ripped to shreds by the huge somehow alive sabertooth cats was burned into her mind.
Her heart squeezed in pain. How could she have come to love him so much in just one day?
Fated mates.
The answer came to her in a rumbly voice she did not recognize, and her heart started beating louder. Yes, he’d told her what they were to each other, and from what she knew, it was something Shifters believed happened before even birth.
Kimberley considered herself a realist, but what was archeology, if not the study of history, riddled with mystery and adventure?
Love was the biggest mystery and adventure of all. If she wasn’t willing to risk her heart, it would hardly be worth it.
I love him.
Even as she realized it, his loss struck her keenly for the first time. Dammit, she hugged herself and closed her eyes, wanting to be alone to wallow in her thoughts.
They were hers alone. Not for her bastard kidnapper’s enjoyment. Kimberley steeled herself against the emotional hurt she felt. This asshat had no right to her feelings.
Maybe Larimar’s brothers would investigate and find her. Yes, that was possible. They were all part of the WPU after all and contracted by the Division of Paranormal Creatures & Activity.
If it was her last deed on this earth, Kim would make sure this bastard paid for what he did.
“Your lizard man is not my concern or yours anymore,” he said and pointed the athame at her once more. “You know, Miss Scott, you have such lovely skin. Are you sure you want me to flay it? Wouldn’t it be better to simply translate the text?”
“Come here,” she waved him over and stuck her chin out defiantly. She waited till he was nice and close, then Kimberley spat right in his face.
“You bitch,” he growled, slapping her hard across the cheek before he wiped her saliva away with the corner of his tunic.
“I will give you a moment to reconsider your decision. When I return, we shall see what is under that pretty skin!”
With a dramatic turn of his long coat, the madman exited the room and Kimberley exhaled.
“Shit,” she whispered.
Kimberley didn’t want to trust the man’s assertion that her mate had been killed in battle, but he’d shown her video evidence, and that was pretty hard to ignore. She closed her eyes as the images replayed themselves in her brain.
Two enormous zombie-like prehistoric felines had ripped into her mate’s majestic Wyvern again and again while he fought against an invisible wall to try and get to her. Those vicious undead creatures had clawed him to shreds.
It was so odd, like their own eight-inch claws had been reinforced somehow to do that kind of damage. What hurt the most was how his eyes had been focused on the car that carried her away the entire time those beasts attacked. As if he didn’t care about anything but her.
Foolish, tough, brave man.
She huffed out a breath and kicked some more of the insects away. They’d started to get too close again.
Yuck.
Of course, on the off chance Larimar wasn’t dead, she was going to kill him for letting himself get injured like that.
Stupid, idiotic, dumb dumb dumb mate!
Is that any way to talk about your mate, baby?
“Larimar,” she whimpered aloud.
I’m coming for you, Kim. Hold on.
“What did you say?” her captor asked.
He walked back into the room where she was being held, and Kim steeled herself against discovery.
“I said Larimar. His name was Larimar, you bastard, not lizard.”
“Ha,” he scoffed and moved about, preparing what she thought was a sacrificial altar.
Fuck.
The man held his athame, along with several other menacing looking tools. He placed the copper bowl on the floor beneath the four corners of the table and she noticed little drain spouts dug into the stone.
That was not good. Next, he looped leather straps through metal rungs, probably to hold her down with, and a tendril of fear snaked through her.
Larimar, are you okay?
She pushed the thought at him, but he seemed so far away. When he didn’t answer, she tried again, harder.
Larimar?!
I’m here, Kim. It is so good to hear you, baby, but you don’t have to shout.
Really? You wanna do this now?
Sorry, love, are you okay? Did he hurt you?
I am okay, for now, but he is preparing something.
I have to warn you. The man who has you is not human.
I know.
No, you don’t understand. He’s a Dark Witch, a Necromancer.
Necromancer? He has a dead fetish?
In a way. You see, he brings corpses back to life, controls ghosts, that sort of thing.
That’s why he wants my blood!
What?
I assume you’re mounting a rescue.
Oops. She hadn’t meant to think that out loud. Now she knew Larimar was alive, it was only natural, she supposed. Kim was more than ready to get the hell out of there.
Of course, I am coming for you, baby. Just hold on.
“Last chance, human. Will you translate?”
“Never.”
“Yes, well, no matter.”
“Why do you say that?” she asked hoping to stall him.
“Because the dead have many secrets and if I have to kill you first to get you to obey, I will. Shame though, you see, I can only hold your spirit here for a little while, but your skin is another story. That I can use for many things for years and years,” he said, eyeing her in a way that made her want to puke.
“What do you mean?”
“Use your brain, Miss Scott.”
“Dr. Scott, actually. And the Emerald Tablet isn’t a tablet at all. It’s a tome bound in human skin.”
“Very good, doctor. Now, if it is pain you want, I will give it to you. I will strip your living skin and use it to fuel the tablet. This small spell book was given to me by my predecessors, worshipers of the Dark,” he told her, lifting what looked like a diary.
“Once you are dead, I will command your ghost to translate the Emerald Tablet. Really, it is a win-win. Well, not for you,” he snickered.
Rage filtered through her, a deep, growly, angry emotion she was not all that familiar with. It was animalistic and base, and one thing was certain—Kimberley had never hated a person more than she hated the Necromancer.