Page 23 of Racing the Storm

Nine

DANYAL

Iwasn’t foolish enough to think they were bluffing. Or, at the very least, I wasn’t foolish enough to think they didn’t have an actual plan to force me into action. But when I woke up the following morning to a strange, human scent, panic hit me before I fully came to.

I was prepared for an attack, but instead I found A-7324 sleeping on a cot near the foot of my bed. She was curled protectively around herself, and it didn’t take long for me to realize she was awake.

Clearing my throat, I shuffled to the end of the bed and stared down at her. Her eyes were closed, but her entire body was tense with anticipation.

“How long has it been since you’ve had a proper meal?” I asked her.

One eye opened, and she stared at me. “They aren’t starving me.” She stopped, then closed her eye again. “They weren’t starving me.”

It was obvious she was just as aware of her position as I was. “I’m not going to let them hurt you.”

She scoffed. “What more can they do?” Her voice was low and raspy, her English perfect but her accent thick and Spanish. I wondered where they’d found her—how they’d found her. How they had managed to find a human woman with the perfect set of genes to host this baby and carry it to full term.

“If I ran, would you come with me?” I asked her.

She laughed and put her hand over her face as she rolled onto her back. Her belly was even more obvious that way, and I tried not to think of the life inside as Kor’s child, but it was impossible. Gods, what he’d do right now if he knew.

This place would be rubble in minutes.

Before I could ask her again, there was a soft knock at the door, and Ivan appeared. He looked just as apologetic as he had the night before, but he said nothing as he eased the woman up from the cot and steadied her as she stood.

“My father’s waiting in the lab,” he said.

For a moment, I wanted to tell him to go fuck himself, but his hand on her arm squeezed a fraction tighter, and I realized what he wasn’t saying. Cooperate or she suffers.

“What’s your name?” I asked her, taking a step toward the small wardrobe that held a change of clothes.

She didn’t look at me when she answered. “I don’t have one.”

At that, I spun, a shirt in my hands that I nearly tore with my frustrated strength. “Yes, you do. What’s your name?”

She looked up at Ivan, then at me. “Mari.” She said it with the slight roll of her ‘r’. “My name is Mari.”

I dragged my tongue over my lower lip, then nodded. “And the baby?”

At that, her eyes widened, and I saw Ivan open his mouth like he wanted to argue, but I held a hand up and waited. After a beat, she spoke again—though her voice was so low I wasn’t sure even Ivan picked up on her words. “Delilah.”

It was fitting. Her instincts were strong—almost Wolf-like.

“I’ll see you this evening,” I told her, then I fixed my gaze on Ivan. “Not a hair on her head, do you understand. I’ll cooperate, but believe me when I say there will be no mercy for anyone if anything happens to her or that baby.”

“I know,” he said, nodding once.

They were gone by the time I was finished getting dressed, and then I was led to the far end of the château by an armed human guard. Every so often, I caught the scent of Wolf or heard a heart beating at our speed. I knew they were all feral, and all in the service of Kasher, but just leaving them there felt wrong. Bile rose in my throat, but I managed to swallow it down by the time I reached the lab.

It wasn’t like I had been expecting. It was makeshift and badly put together with a couple of archaic computers. I was expecting Wolves there—tied to beds, unconscious, maybe tortured. Instead, there was just Kasher sitting in front of his computer looking defeated.

He spared me a passing glance, then waved his hand at a table laden with breakfast. “Eat. Sometimes I forget to order lunch. I haven’t been very hungry these days.”

Right. Because he was dying. He looked thin and sallow, and I could see a port attached to his arm under his long sleeve that I had missed the night before.

I wasn’t hungry either, and I didn’t bother pointing out that I could survive without food far longer than he could. But the coffee smelled both good and safe, so I helped myself while trying to get a look at what he had on his screen.

“I’m not trying to hide this from you,” he said wryly. “I need to know where I’ve gone wrong.”

---