Read A Seacat's Love (Oceanan Trilogy Book 1) for Free Online Page B

before their faces came into focus.
    The lab!
her mind cried.
Dear Onssa no, I do not want to be here again. Rick, help me!
    Leonora knew it was a dream. She tried to wake up. Alas, the nightmare would not release her. From where she lay, she saw the cage that was her prison for nearly two months. Two of her colleagues stood by the bars. She watched them try to bend the bars apart to escape to aid her.
    Tigif growled. “This cannot be happening.” His unsheathed claws tightened around the silver bars. “This
cannot
be happening.”
    “Have mercy, great Onssa.”
    Leonora heard the tearful, low voice beg her god. She glanced to her right. The sight of her young companion, writhing in the throes of death on the table beside hers, filled her with a gut twisting agony. She was helpless to do anything but watch Pandor suffer.
    Pandor lay flat on his back on the icy cold table. Foam poured from his mouth. He turned his face to Leonora. She glimpsed his delirium through his glazed eyes. He gurgled and gasped for breath. His eyes cried out to her. Pain. Excruciating pain thatreached new heights before the last plateau faded. Longing. No longer could he endure the unbelievable torture that racked his body. Death was his only reprieve. His blue eyes rolled back until nothing could be seen but white. Time stood still for all involved.
    Mercy, Onssa, mercy
, begged Leonora before Pandor finally received some. His straining body moved no more. Tears fell from her eyes. Her heart felt heavy at the loss of another friend.
    How could she have allowed such a thing to occur? The fate of her friends would remain with her until the death. She blamed no one but her own fear and weakness. Had she stood her ground and not yielded to their joint, male arrogance, then perhaps their paths would have taken a different course. Never again would she make the same mistake. What could she do to put an end to what was taking place before someone else was unmercifully killed?
    A man in his middle twenties, dressed in a white overcoat, rushed past her to a computer terminal. The sound of growling brought her attention to the two locked in the cage. Their thinner bodies strained against the unyielding bars. She noticed they were glaring at something beyond her head. She angled her neck and looked behind her. An older man in a white overcoat headed in her direction.
    The human paid no attention to the growls or hisses that flooded the room. He flipped the small bottle he held in his hand upside down. The clear amber liquid was steadily withdrawn into a syringe.
    Leonora pulled on her wrist and ankle restraints. The corner of his lips curved at her futile attempts to escape. With a light tap on the cylinder, the bubbles made their way to the top. He inched closer to her with eyes that were a pair of bottomless pits, void of any compassion. The evil behind the glasses darkened at her words.
    “Please, do not do this. This is wrong. I…we have done nothing wrong. I beg of you…please stop.” Sadly, her pleas fell on deaf ears.
    He was having too much fun. How often does the government pay someone to play Dr. Frankenstein? It was a scientist’s dreamcome true. If his experiments went wrong and his test subjects died, they simply scratched it off as benefiting the human race. After all, that is what science research and lab experiments conducted on animals are all about, correct?
    The protests shouted from the cage were ignored. He held Leonora’s arm still. Not bothering to cleanse the area, he overlooked bedside manners and jabbed the needle into her skinny arm. Forcing the liquid into her system placed a smile on his face.
    Excitement and anticipation surged through him. He was positively pleased with all the data collected these past few weeks. Because she was the only female in the group, it was difficult not to rush through the preliminaries. However, if accurate results were to be collected, then every step must be heeded—every painful step, which