Betrayal's Shadow Read Online Free PDF

sidled by. “Reprogram needed for the guard dog on level four.”
    A solid yank from the hybrid’s tentacle pulled Turen abruptly down the stairs the second they were out of range. The threat of the guard’s retaliation hadn’t proved a long-lasting deterrent for violence.
    These creatures had tried to break through the Sanctum’s defense barriers years ago. The teeth could rip apart his people as easily as the hybrid had killed the drug trafficker. The Guardians had been fortunate not to lose anyone in the attacks. The hybrids hunted in packs yet held no allegiance to a hierarchy or each other. The strongest control mechanism was their regular feeding schedule.
    Luckily for Turen, there seemed to be computerized commands that initiated painful consequences if those teeth touched him. He’d tested their reactions. They had injured him but never seriously. Attack against him resulted in a shrill noise and violent electrical charges emitted from their computer panels, always stopping them short of eating him.
    If Rasheer and Xavier wanted him dead, Turen would be more concerned about his lethal guards. For now, someone wanted him alive.
    The hybrid batted him into his cell. The locks turned with a clang. Turen broke his fall with his hands and rolled onto his back. In the light from the narrow slats at the top of his cell’s door, he lifted his prize.
    The small bit of diamond and gold glittered in the light. He rolled the item between his thumb and forefinger, brought it to his face, and breathed in the scent.
    Sweet.
     
    ***
     
    Mia blinked. A second night of dreams? Stark fluorescent lights, strung in small wire cages and suspended from the hallway’s rock ceiling, illuminated an intersection twenty feet from her position. The light and technology clashed with the vision several feet away.
    Massive gray tentacles slithered across the stone floor. The textured pads along the underside of the tentacles scraped across the stone and inched their way along. They continued in a blind search along the floor and walls. Four tentacles swayed to support an opaque bulbous head wider around than the rain barrel outside her garage. Through the mucous-colored head, circular rows of teeth were sickeningly visible at the base. The teeth appeared to roll in a rhythm farther into the head, a paper shredder to feed its belly. Burrowed deep within the gelatinous head, sat a metallic plate with tiny lights that flickered.
    Mia swallowed hard but it didn’t wipe away her current nightmare.
    The two creatures surrounded a man. Tall and bare-chested, the prisoner stood rigid. His hair hung in dark strands above his broad shoulders. Chains secured to manacles tethered his wrists and ankles, the end links wrapped in the grip of a gray limb. Long, bloody stripes marred the bare, muscular flesh along his arms and chest, but the man held his shoulders back, his fists before him. Defiance radiated in every sinuous movement of muscle over bone.
    She pressed farther back into the darkness of her corridor.
    Minutes before, she had been in the safety of her own bed and confident she was free of the previous night’s terror. Now, she tensed every muscle in her body to force down the bile and squelch the sounds that threatened to escape from her throat.
    One of the creatures stirred and spun, obviously searching as it slithered closer to her tunnel. The colored lights flashed faster across the head’s metallic plate.
    Please, no. Even breathing created too much to risk. Something was wrong with her psyche if she produced these creatures in her dreams. With a hard squeeze, she dug her fingers into her nightgown for a hold on sanity. Or to wake up, whatever worked. She forced herself to watch because the risk of not knowing would be worse.
    The man changed direction and planted a shoulder into the creature that turned toward her. Muscles bunched with the effort to lift the entire length of chain, he shifted position.
    His actions appeared purposeful,