Page 32 of Racing the Storm

I didn’t move. “What’s happening?”

Kasher raised a brow as he tipped his coffee to his lips and took a sip. “You’ve made your choice, and I want to make sure the breeding bitch understands.”

My eyes narrowed, but one of the guards took my arm and marched me over to Kasher’s side. I sank down into the chair as a plate was set before me. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

“My dog?” he said, lifting a brow. His trembling fingers picked at a few pieces of fruit, and he flung a few of them, landing at Mari’s knee. “Just because I didn’t stop you doesn’t mean I wasn’t aware of what you were up to.”

I didn’t glance down at the woman, though every instinct told me to drop claws and attack him. “What does that have to do with our agreement?”

“Everything. Your cooperation ensures the comfort of a beast. I didn’t specify dog or breeding bitch, I suppose. You cooperated, it gets fed.”

My face turned white. They were going to starve her for what I’d given to Yasin. “I will kill you.”

Kasher let out a wheezing laugh. “Maybe. But not today. Today, I want you to take tissue samples and find out what the hell I’m missing.”

I heard a muffled cry, and in my periphery, I saw one of the guards dragging Mari into the other room. “I’m not going to find anything you haven’t already.”

“Perhaps, but there’s no harm in trying. It won’t kill the child, you know, or her. A bit of pain is a good reminder of her place.”

Bile rose in my throat, but then Ivan caught my eye as he walked in, and he gave a subtle shake of his head. I didn’t know what it meant, but I had to trust he wasn’t going to let her suffer. Though, perhaps that was foolish of me. It might have made a difference if Mari was human—but Ivan had already confessed she was something else. And I’d seen his comfort with letting these Wolves suffer, so what would he put her through?

I had to make a move soon. I wouldn’t last another day like this.

My stomach didn’t tolerate the food, so eventually I rose from the table and walked into the lab. Mari was still gagged, strapped down to a bed. There were surgical tools laid out that would allow me to take a tissue sample, but nothing to dull the pain. Nothing to put her out.

I glanced to my left and saw Kasher making his way into the room. “I’m not doing this with her awake.”

“She’ll survive it,” Kasher said again, his voice dry. “She’s survived worse.”

I bit the inside of my cheek so hard, I tasted blood. “You want to be a monster, that’s on your head. You want to force my hand with research, you have the power to do it. But you can’t turn me into the same thing you are.”

He laughed, the sound wheezing and weak in his chest. “I don’t need to. You’re already an animal. It would take a simple series of infusions to have you on your hands and knees, ready and willing to do anything I commanded.”

It wasn’t true. I’d seen the fight in Yasin’s eyes. He was under the spell of Kasher’s sadistic work, but he was not gone. When given the chance, Yasin would take his revenge—and I meant to do everything in my power to ensure that it happened.

Turning back to Mari, I bowed my head and closed my eyes. “Give me six hours with the research. You’re already starving her today. Let that be enough.”

“Six hours,” Kasher said after too long a silence. “After that, you do as I say—or I make her feel it.”

I swallowed back another throat full of bile, then nodded before rising and moving to the other room. He left her strapped to the bed, and the day would be long, but there was every chance I could come up with something to pacify this monster and save her from further pain.

I smelled food before I saw Kasher, and he offered me a twisted smile before I pushed away from the computer desk and stretched my back. I’d declined food and drink for the entire day, and my body was not thanking me, but suffering alongside Mari seemed only fitting.

When I glanced through the lab window, I saw she was gone, and I could only hope Ivan had taken care of her. I ignored the old man’s gaze as I walked to the table and helped myself to water, then I turned to him and didn’t wait for him to begin the interrogation.

“She’s a genetic anomaly,” I told him, and he stroked his beard. “It’s obvious that it’s through her line. From what I can tell, it’s maternal.”

He scoffed. “You don’t think I haven’t worked that out on my own?”

I shrugged. “I wasn’t sure. It’s the reason she can carry a Wolf this close to term, if not give birth to a live baby. There’s no guarantee her child will carry on those genes, and there’s no guarantee any of her siblings did. Or even that her mother’s line had many like her.” I stared at the food and debated about filling my stomach, but being this close to Kasher made everything in my body feel sour. “She’s a better candidate for your research than your son.”

Kasher’s eyes glinted. “Brave of you to point that out.”

I shrugged. “I know why you don’t want to. You want to use her and see if you can replicate the mutation in other humans and create a set of breeders.”

He leaned back and stroked his chin again. “Is that so?”

“I don’t know if you’ll live long enough to see it happen, but I know you’re probably closer than any other geneticist in the world,” I told him.

---