Chapter 34 Arya

"Again," Lord Dracul said for the millionth time.

A grizzly growl rumbled up my throat. My ursa nature still seemed to have the reins, despite me having made it through my first shift.

I hated this man. Even more than I hated Tobias, if that was possible. He had wasted no time turning the school into a military boot camp, with me as the star pupil.

Except I wasn't. Even after all the training I'd done at the school, I still wasn't the siren everyone wanted. The last twenty-four hours or so had been pure torture at the oversight of the new director. No rest for me last night and no classes this morning, just personal training with him and his constant agains . The only thing I wanted to do again was tear something apart in ursa form.

Instead, I was being forced to train my water manipulation abilities.

I concentrated on the ocean in front of me, willing even a portion of its lapping waves to become like an extra limb. It bubbled and gurgled but was otherwise unresponsive.

Like every other time.

Today, the simulation had taken me to the beach. I could almost feel the warmth of the sun on my skin and the sand slipping into my shoes. A soft breeze carried a briny scent, lifting my hair. I was standing far enough away from the water not to trigger my tail—yet another failure that the general was determined to beat out of me.

The setting might actually have been relaxing if it weren't for the men accompanying me. General Dracul was the only vocal one, but he always had at least two others with him. Which was probably smart, considering what I'd done to the greenhouse—which, okay, I still felt bad about. Given the opportunity, I wouldn't hesitate to show him a little of the courtesy he'd shown me.

The general scowled at my failed efforts, again —a look that nicked at my heart every time as it reminded me so much of Tobias. Tobias, the traitor. Tobias, the good little soldier. Tobias, the worst mistake I'd ever made.

"It would appear that you need something a little more motivating ." General Dracul tapped on his watch, issuing some sort of command, and the beach scene faded away, leaving the white walls of the simulation room behind.

The door opened, and a large cylindrical tank full of water was brought into the room, carried on some sort of levitation device. Another one of Mr. Inari's inventions, I was sure. His absence was yet another blow to the school.

My mind whirled as I considered what exactly the general considered more motivating . The tank was odd, but nothing I couldn't handle.

Moments later, a harpy was dragged in by two more soldiers, begging to know what was happening. Leya . It was hard to forget the girl after her boisterous family had pretty much taken over the avian common room for Christmas.

Christmas. It had only been a couple of weeks since then, but it seemed a lifetime ago. I never thought, when flying with Tobias, that he'd betray me or that Caesar would ever be forced to leave the school.

Or that I'd be so dehumanized by the new director in order to force me to hone my powers.

The general snapped his fingers, and the guards guided Leya up the small set of steps that had been pushed up against the side of the tank.

Dread curdled in my stomach. "What are they doing?"

"Providing adequate motivation for you to use your abilities. This young woman has volunteered to be submerged in the water."

By the way Leya was kicking and looking around wildly as the guards tried to put her in, she was clearly not a willing volunteer.

"Once inside, we'll seal this harpy in. Your job is to command the water to drain through the tiny holes in the lid."

"And if I fail?" I asked, unable to take my eyes off Leya as the guards managed to shove her inside.

The general's eyes narrowed. "Let's hope you don't."

Leya sent me a pleading look before one of the soldiers pushed her head below the surface so the other could slide the lid across. She obviously wasn't much of a fighter—none of the harpies were, preferring to stick more to their healing abilities.

I couldn't believe the general was willing to go to such an extreme. And yet, yes, I did. He was a cruel, heartless bastard who would sacrifice anything and everything to get the power he sought.

Anger simmered through my bloodstream, and I closed my hands into fists.

He smirked at my reaction. "Good. Use that. Time is ticking."

I glared at the water, practically screaming at it mentally. The water paid little heed to me, bubbling out of the holes of the lid in spurts and glugs. Leya's eyes bulged as she struggled to hold her breath, bubbles escaping from her nostrils faster than I could make the water move.

Leya grabbed for her throat as her mouth fell open, then clawed at the top of the tank in desperation for air. But it was no use. The girl wasn't getting out, and I wasn't emptying the water fast enough.

I couldn't take the stress any longer. In a burst of furr and shredded clothing, my ursa ripped through me, creating muscles where there were none, turning every appendage into a deadly weapon—tooth, nail, and claw. The breaking and fusing and lengthening of my bones was an agony that only satisfied the rabid beast within me and that took only seconds to complete.

I barely registered the shouts around me, hardly recognized the panic in Leya's eyes as I charged toward the tank. With a mighty slash of my massive paw, the tempered glass shattered, water crashing onto the floor in an angry torrent.

Leya spilled out, the wave that carried her gripping under the legs of one of the soldiers and tripping him onto his ass. A deep chuckle echoed up my ursine throat as I watched him flapping against the water like a beached tuna.

A gagging cough pulled my attention back to Leya. Judging by the red that tinted the water around her, she had been sliced by broken glass as she fell free. But at least she was alive.

I turned my snarling maw on the source of my ire. General Dracul's smug face now wore an expression of wide-eyed terror. My lips curled into a beastly smile over my enlarged fangs as I charged toward him.

A sudden sting in my side immediately threw off my coordination, and I tripped over my bulky feet, sliding right past the dragon shifter.

General Dracul was no longer human either, wearing black scales that made him seem more shadow than dragon. His toothy dragon grin was every bit as arrogant as his human one—maybe more so.

"You'll regret that, little cub," his dragon voice boomed. "I will turn you into the siren of prophecy."

I snarled once more before the tingle spreading from the tranquilizer in my back stole the rest of my will, dragging me to the edge of blackness without taking me fully under. The sim room shifted again, and Leya and the tank of water pixelated out of existence.

My foggy vision roamed the room in horrified realization. The general had programmed that whole scenario? I had thought it was all real, but it had only been another simulation. Another head game by my sadistic master.

"That's right," he said as he returned to human form and stalked toward me. "I'm not the monster you think I am."

"You're…worse," I slurred in a grizzly grumble. "No wonder…your son…hates you."

His eyes darkened, the smile wiped from his face. "You know nothing of hate."

I vaguely felt my body shift back to human form, the transformation much slower this time, but thankfully, the sedating effect of the tranquilizer made me numb to the popping of my bones. Hands grabbed my arms and legs and carried me to the wall, then propped me up like some toy.

No, like a weapon. Caesar was right. That's all I am to these people.

* * *

An unearthly scream sliced through the twilight oblivion that had held me for who knew how long. I struggled against the grog that still clung to the edges of my mind, trying to figure out what was going on.

A second scream pierced the air, sending chills down my spine. For a moment, I almost thought the scream was mine, the pain it carried felt so much like my own.

When I was finally able to pry my eyelids open, what I saw turned my blood cold. The pale woman tied to a chair in front of me twisted and wriggled against the orange-tinted wires binding her wrists and ankles.

I made to move, but my limbs were securely anchored to my own chair. I growled as I began thrashing. The chair rocked, but the chains binding me bit into my skin, sending a searing pain through my wrists. I gasped and tried to pull away, but there was nowhere to go. Every movement only dug the metal deeper into my flesh.

"Ah, you're up," General Dracul said as he approached the right side of the woman, his hands clasped behind his back. "I'm sorry for the extreme measures, but we can't have you hurting your own people, now can we?"

"I'm not the one hurting them," I spat, hissing and wincing as the chains sliced my wrists further with my fidgeting.

"And yet, you refuse to embrace your destiny," he said with a patronizing sigh. "If you'd done as you were told, that wouldn't be necessary."

"I can't! I can't be what you want me to be." A sob choked my throat, but I swallowed it. I refused to cry in front of him . I refused to give him that kind of power over me.

"Now, if we can get on with this." He stepped behind the woman sitting opposite me.

She bared her teeth to reveal two rows of perfect fangs, and I realized with a gasp that she was no ordinary woman—she was a vampire. She snarled and snapped at him, then cried out again in pain.

"As you can see, this vampire is restrained with copper-infused wire. Whenever she moves, she gets a dose of her own personal brand of poison. Much like you, though your wires have silver in them to keep your ursa under control."

I examined the metal confining my wrists, now understanding why they burned me so uniquely.

"What is it you expect me to do?" I ground out.

He waved his hands before him in a displaying gesture."Use your siren voice to convince this creature to kill herself."

My jaw dropped as I stared at him in horror. "Is this another one of your twisted simulations?"

General Dracul's expression didn't change, and he didn't offer any answer.

"I—I won't do it."

Simulation or not, I wasn't a killer. Destroying simulated vampires in self-defense was one thing, and I knew that if I were battling vampires in real life to protect my friends, I wouldn't bat an eye. But this… The vampire across from me was bound and rendered essentially harmless. She wasn't endangering anyone. And he wasn't just asking me to kill her; he was asking me to force her to kill herself.

"You can't make me!"

His eyebrow twitched as he locked eyes with me. "Can't I? You, Miss Walker, belong to the military. You will fulfill your destiny. The fate of all shifters depends on it."

I glared at him. Fine. I'll use my siren voice.

"You will release me from my bonds," I sang, directing all my will and anger at the monstrous man before me.

His expression went blank, and victorious hope rang in my heart as he stepped toward me. He bent beside me, and I prepared myself to bolt as soon as my wrists were free.

"Nice try, Miss Walker," he whispered in my ear, shattering every once of my building anticipation.

"What?" I gasped, turning my head to look at his face.

He was wearing the most wicked smile I'd ever seen, all the more so for its charm. "My men and I are equipped with earpieces capable of blocking your siren voice. You're not getting out of this without doing as you're told."

I shook my head, not understanding how this could be. "B–but I'm the first siren in generations. How could you possibly—"

"Did you know that all the professors' tablets have recording devices?" he cut me off. "We've been monitoring their activity as it relates to you. We have a handful of samples of your siren voice from Celeste's account, and with that, my team of kitsunes was able to develop a prototype. Thank you for demonstrating how effective it actually is."

No.

This man was truly diabolical. He really would stop at nothing to bend everyone to his will.

He put a hand on my shoulder, and my instinctual reproach only inflicted more pain from the silver binding my wrists. "We can do this all day. Days, in fact. How long do you think you can go without food or water?"

My eyes widened in horror at his threat, my knuckles wrapping around the edges of the armrests. "You can't do that. Celeste wouldn't allow you to starve a student. The other teachers—"

"The teachers of this school work for me now. And you are not merely a student but a soldier. As general of the shifter military, I can discipline a soldier however I see fit."

Rage exploded in my chest like a box of lit firecrackers. But my ursa was nowhere to be found. My siren voice was useless. I had no weapons in my arsenal—nothing except my will.

I shrugged, turning my face to a mask of stone. "Fine. Good luck winning your war after I've died of starvation, though I'm guessing the dehydration will get me first."

He grinned cruelly. "I thought you might say that, and if that's the route you choose to take, we have a feeding tube and IV on standby."

My pulse skittered at his implication. The image of him forcing a tube down my throat after days of not eating or drinking… The meager food I had left in my belly threatened to surge upward. He was going to keep me here, come hell or high water, until I finally did what he said.

The powerlessness of my situation hit me, draining me of hope and defiance. There was nothing I could do. And for all my threats, I didn't think my spirit or my mind would last very long without food. I would break completely.

"Look, Arya," he said, kneeling so that he was eye level with me, his expression showcasing a sympathy that didn't touch his eyes. "We can avoid all that unpleasantness. It is not my desire to hurt you. Only to make you strong."

He shifted sideways so that he could stretch his arm behind him and point at the struggling vampire.

"That creature wants you dead. Vampires killed your mother, and if given the chance, they will kill everyone you love. They are not worth your empathy or your suffering. They are leeches that need to be eradicated, every last one of them."

Though some part of me knew this nice-guy act was a ploy, I couldn't deny the truth of his words. I would never forget finding my mother drained of blood in our kitchen. I would never forget Tobias lying half-dead in my arms. And though it wasn't real, I would never forget how helpless and weak I felt as the simulated vampire nearly ended me my first time in a simulation.

The vampire sitting across from me sent me a pleading look. "I'm scared to die," she whimpered. "But maybe it's better this way. Please, just get it over with. I'm in so much pain."

She shot a wild glance General Dracul's way, and I got the distinct impression that she'd been in the military's custody for some time. Who knew what manners of torture she'd already been through.

If she was even real. Would a real vampire beg to die? The tank and Leya had been a simulation. What if this was, too? What if I was putting my health, sanity, and pride on the line for an illusion? My head felt dizzy trying to determine what was real and what was not.

I dropped my shoulders in accepted defeat, and the general smiled and patted my knee. I looked back to the vampire, who nodded sadly at me, a resolute look in the young woman's eyes. Or whatever age she was.

This was wrong. I felt that on so many levels, but I couldn't see any other way out.

I closed my eyes as tears welled in them. I didn't know this woman or what she'd done, assuming she was really even here. Maybe she was a horrible person deserving of death. Maybe she'd killed hundreds without a second thought.

Maybe she had been one of the vampires that killed my mother.

Holding onto those tiny kernels, I called on my siren voice.

"As soon as you are free, you will end your own life," I said, the musical timbre vibrating through my bones.

The command landed, her body going stiff and her eyes empty of conscious emotion. A pair of soldiers came out from behind me and went about removing the restraints from her arms and legs, and all I could do was watch with a nauseating frost hardening in my gut.

The vampire stood free of her bonds and placed her hands on either side of her head. Then she pulled.

At the last second, I squeezed my eyes shut, unwilling to see the act I'd ordered being carried out to its conclusion. There was a sickening pop, and then two thuds and a soft rolling sound.

Tears streamed down my cheeks, but I couldn't open my eyes. I didn't want to see what I knew was in front of me.

General Dracul laughed. "Very good, Arya. Very good. Guards, take her back to her room and keep watch on her at all times. I want everyone caring for her to wear their earpieces. No exceptions. Understood?"

"Yes sir," came two male voices.

The swish of fabric and clack of heels met my ears, and then I was being untied from the chair and tugged up to stand. I tried to keep my eyes closed as my escorts began to lead me away, but I had to know if it was real.

I glanced over my shoulder as I was taken out of the simulation room. The body and head were still there, the vacant eyes staring at me in accusation.

It had been real.

Bile rose in my throat once more, but I swallowed against it.

Someone had died by my doing. A stranger who, good or bad, probably had people who cared about her, people who would mourn her. A stranger who'd had a future, and now was nothing but a memory. The death hadn't even been quick and merciful but gruesome and undoubtedly painful beyond measure. I'd done that, just as sure as if I'd been the one to pull off that vampire's head myself.

I was officially a murderer. No better than the vampires who'd killed my mom. No better than the general himself. Some hero I was turning out to be.

I seethed as I caught sight of General Dracul standing over the body as if inspecting a new car.

He was the real murderer. I had just been the tool he used. I had to remember that.

It hadn't been my will to kill that woman, vampire or not. And I would never execute another person again. That was not how this war was going to be won. I'd play along and bide my time. And then, I'd escape. Fuck prophecy.