Free Broken Heart 05 Over My Dead Body by Michele Bardsley

chains was a vampire?
    The sun started to rise.
    And the guy started to smoke. And scream. And beg for his life. We stood at attention and watched as the sun fried his ass. He exploded into ash.
    Nobody said anything for a long time. Then the General led us to Building 41. From day one, it had been made clear that B41 was off-limits. Anyone who attempted to enter the facility without clearance would be shot.
    We were taken into a laboratory. Five of us and five upright metal tables. Shit. No way would anyone back out. We’d signed away our lives—so we fit ourselves into the slots and let the lab coats strap us in.
    Nanobytes. That’s what they called the tiny robotic critters they injected into us. The injections burned. It was like they were shooting acid into our veins. The one in the temple hurt the most. I didn’t scream, but holy God, I wanted to.
    The General said this was only the first round. Different nanobytes for different jobs, but there’s a required seventy-two hours between injections. We walked back to the barracks, and I felt like I’d woken up from a three-day drunk in Tijuana.
    It’s too late to change my mind. And it’s damned sure too late to regret. But I think we are in deep shit. Right up to our fucking necks.

Chapter 9
    Everyone stopped talking to one another and stared at me. I couldn’t be bothered with them. My gaze was on the pixie.
    “He wanted immortality,” said the pixie smugly. “He wanted everyone to know that he was a great hunter and virile man. So I gave him all that he asked for.”
    “Only he didn’t phrase the wish quite right, did he?” asked Brady, catching on immediately.
    Flet’s ego had been engaged, and he answered Brady’s question without my prompting. “He wouldn’t make a wish until I’d saved him. An’ I must grant a wish to the one who captures me.”
    “We get it,” I said. “Magic has rules.”
    “And where would we be without rules?” Flet’s glow flickered in irritation. “Chaos! Only one of our kind has magic without rules, and she governs chaos.”
    “How do you govern chaos?” blustered Ivan. “Pah! This little fool lies to us!”
    “Morrigu is the Queen of Chaos,” offered Lorcan, “which you well know, Ivan.” He looked at me. “Go on, Simone.”
    I glared at Flet. “If you keep nattering on, I’ll give you to Zerina,” I warned. “Tell us about the giant’s wish.”
    “I was!” He huffed indignantly. “Dunn was good at hiding, good at hunting, and good at staying alive all on his own. But the villagers wanted to be rid of him, so they poisoned their own sheep and he ate one. I saved him from death, and was free. But I still had to grant his wish.
    “ ‘I want to be immortal, Flet,’ says he, ‘and I want everyone to know that I am a great hunter—of game and of women.’ ” Flet’s attempt to boom in a giant’s voice wasn’t all that effective. Still, the pride vibrating in his tone probably matched the giant’s well enough.
    “Oh, my God,” said Eva.
    “Yeah.” I said, nodding. “The Cerne Abbas giant was once real.”
    “Was Dunn the last giant?” asked Eva. Her gaze was on Patrick.
    He shrugged. “Possibly. We didn’t return to Ireland until the late 1800s. Dad said he once met Fionn mac Cumhaill, who was a giant even among giants. Mostly, they kept to themselves and stayed out of the way of humans.”
    “No more giants?” asked Flet in a bemused voice. “The world is better off, then.” This, from the little snot who’d tried to convince me his life had been grand as a giant’s pet.
    “And no more pixies,” I said. “Did you get that part, too?”
    Flet snorted. “Pixies were part of the world before it was the world.”
    “You said that already.”
    “Bears repeating, I say. Pixies are alive and well, and don’t you forget it.”
    I dropped the subject. It dawned on me that Flet had repaid the giant’s slights, real or imagined, in a clever and cruel way. No way did I want to be on