Page 60 of Nocturn

And being chained to a bed.

“You are not afraid to get your hands dirty?” He peered at me over the rim of the spectacles.

“No, my lord.”

“Pah, no need for the formality. Al is fine. Besides, my only claim to being an Elite is a distant relation to the Earl of the North.” Al smoothed his hands down his apron. “You may be helpful,” he mused. “I will arrange it with Vaner.” His bushy brows wiggled, and he lunged for the jar half-filled with scarlet.

That is why my surroundings are spinning.

“Any more and you will be useless.” He tsked to himself, withdrawing the needle from the inner crevice of my arm. A dot welled where it had been. He pressed a small bit of cotton over it and slapped an adhesive strip over the top. “Come, young woman,” he ordered, grabbing my arm.

I stumbled off the chair, gritting my teeth to keep balanced. As we neared the other side of the vast chamber, my gaze continued to trail to a wall of shelves hosting glass and books of all shapes and sizes. My gaze kept trailing back and forth with an incessant pull to look. The sensation resembled the urge to look at the Creation Scripture Lord Draven had me translating.

Something was behind that wall, something I must see.

He guided me around the edge of another table and pulled back a curtain. “Sit, sit.”

But not at this moment when I was being watched.

Despite my reservations, I sat, steadying myself with a few breaths. Cold seeped through the layer of my dress from the metal seat.

Al grabbed a strap attached to the arm, and the flap fell over the top of my forearm. He reached under and secured it tightly. I squeezed my hand into a fist. He reached across to bind my other arm in a similar fashion. My panic began when he crouched and fastened my shins to the legs of the chair.

“Al?”

“This is for your own good.” He patted my knee as he stood and reached for the fastener around my waist. “Will protect you from wanting to slice your veins out.”

Al was already walking away, leaving me to stew in my worry. He strode back to his main workspace, and he selected the jar with the thick black liquid that bubbled as if alive.

I tugged at my arms, but I was locked in place. Even with panic crawling up my throat, my gaze kept trailing to the shelves. There was an odd burning sensation in my belly.

“Here we have the first dosage,” he mused, having approached while I’d been reeling. He held a long, thick needle connected to the tube full of the bubbling liquid. Without allowing me to brace myself, he jammed the needle straight into the side of my arm.

The sting ripped my breath from my lungs in a sharp gasp. He pressed the top of the syringe, injecting the thick liquid sluggishly until it was flush and there was no longer anything left.

Well, that wasn’t too bad . . .

A searing agony pulsated at the injection site. Then another. A dull, terrible pain that only bloomed worse and worse.

I struggled to draw in a breath, my sight becoming blurry.

With each of my heartbeats, it seemed to expand, my veins taking the liquid throughout every part of my body. A scream ripped from my throat. My arms jerked as if possessed, straining and yanking for freedom. I ended up writhing in the chair, the sting so searing I could not form a proper thought.

All that spilled from my mouth were high-pitched screams. Tears blinded my vision, and I blinked to clear my view. At least I wanted to know what surrounded me.

Al watched me, scribbling in a journal. He tucked the book under his arm and approached, pressing his fingertips to the inner side of my wrists. His lips moved as he counted, then he scribbled across the parchment.

“Try to breathe through the pain. It will help,” Al informed me.

Another throb pulsed through my veins, and I whimpered as I slumped in the seat.

“You strained for three hundred and forty beats,” he mused. “You will continue to feel the spasms. Catch your breath before the second dose.”

A second dose?

My lips moved, but nothing came out but a whimper.

The straps made sense now.