Page 18 of Racing the Storm

“Please don’t pretend like I have a choice,” I told him. I stared at the empty plate in front of me, then at the wine in the glass, which I wouldn’t be drinking, and I touched the base with the tips of my finger.

Kasher hummed softly, then shrugged and sat back in his chair. He looked small, like he was wasting away, and from where I was sitting, I could smell the rot inside him. “There’s no reason we can’t be civilized. Most of your kind is perfectly capable of it.”

My jaw clenched. “It’s only when we’re backed into a corner that…”

“Come!” Kasher’s voice was more powerful than I expected, and it startled me into silence. There was a single second where I swore the world stopped spinning, then the rattle of chains.

My heart threatened to beat out of my chest because I knew what was coming, and I knew it was a test. He wanted to see how far he could push me. A Wolf entered the room, naked, head tipped down, locked in a half-shift, crawling toward Kasher’s chair.

Bile rose in my throat as Kasher ran his fingers through the unkept, shaggy hair, and I saw the scars of his mutilation.

“As I said,” Kasher went on, staring directly at me, “most of you.”

I bit the inside of my cheek until I tasted blood, and I didn’t give him the satisfaction of a response. Beside me, I could feel Ivan’s tension rising though, and after a beat, he lost control.

“Why are you doing this? Just let him sleep.”

Kasher’s gaze moved to his son, full of contempt. “Don’t make me threaten you in front of the animals, Ivan.”

It took all of my self-control not to release my claws, and after a beat, I turned to him. “What is it you want from me?”

Kasher didn’t answer. A second later, several people in uniform walked through the set of swinging doors, carrying trays of food. The experience was surreal—like I was lost in some period film about a poor Wolf pauper who stumbled into the world of rich humans.

The food smelled amazing, but the last thing I wanted to do was drop my guard. All the same, I took a deep breath, trying to scent anything he might have put in the roast or potatoes, but it smelled like animals and earth and spice, and a faint hint of the gas from the ovens.

I jumped in my seat when Kasher snapped his fingers, and I deliberately didn’t look as the Wolf at his side crawled out of the room after the servants exited. Kasher was watching me though, taking in every subtle shift in my expression, and it would take a miracle to hide from him.

He was too sharp for a dying human.

“I’m not going to sit here and try to sell my vision to you, Dr. Bereket. I won’t pretend that I think you’re any different from any other Wolf that’s come across my path.”

“The animals, you mean,” I said.

“Sometimes nature gets things beautifully right, and sometimes she gets things tragically wrong. I still haven’t been able to trace the origins of your species, though my son—before he abandoned all things rational—had been working on it.”

Misha. He meant Misha.

“And don’t get me wrong. Humans are still—every now and again—subject to what’s left of their lingering animal nature. Misha always thought I was mad, but I fully believe that humans were once capable of shifting before we evolved into something higher.” He paused and took a drink, and I couldn’t stop staring at him. He was weak in his body, but his mind wasn’t. And that made him more dangerous than any human any of the Wolves faced on the front lines. “My experiments so far have been a failure because I haven’t found a way to tap into that locked genetic code that would allow us to retrieve what was once lost.”

I set my fork down and raised my brows at him. “You want to be able to shift?”

He laughed, the sound wheezing and soft, rattling around in his chest. His lungs struggled for breath, but his face remained amused. “I want what evolution stole from us. Not the ability to become our animal, but to regain the things that nature owes us.”

“Long life,” I said, making the short leap of logic. “The ability to heal. To survive.”

He nodded and speared a piece of the meat cut into tiny bits for him. He chewed like it took the effort of running a marathon, then chased it down with wine. “Those things belong to the species with the right to survive. Who gained a higher consciousness than the beasts.”

“Or perhaps those things are a gift from the gods given to those who accepted who they were and attempted to live in peace with our dual nature,” I countered.

His smile faded, but he didn’t argue. He continued to eat, and I managed to force myself to take a few bites just to keep up my strength. I didn’t touch the alcohol, but the water was cool and sharp with minerals. I didn’t dare look at Ivan, but I could feel his tension beside me.

He was petrified of this man, but his scent told me he was willing to fight him. Maybe even to die, and I was almost desperately curious about the Wolf he’d set free. I wasn’t sure he’d get the chance to tell me—or if he’d be brave enough—but it might be something I could use.

All the same, I had time. It was clear that Kasher had no plans to release me, and if he did manage to get work out of me, he wasn’t going to let me go alive. My fate would either be mindless beast at his command or buried in the woods where my siblings would never find me.

There was no question about it: I had to get out.

I dug my fork into the meat, then took another bite before I gave the old man another flat stare. “What is it that’s killing you? I want to say cancer because you smell like rot, but it’s not quite the same thing.”

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