Page 56 of Eternally Yours

Ilaid on the cold floor of a cage-like cell. Hands still shackled, I felt the heaviness of the electrical collar around my neck, that unnerving hum vibrating through me.

“Wakey-wakey, my little pet,” a voice boomed into the cell.

I blinked and moved my head, trying to figure out where the sound came from.

“Look up, Loren. Yes, yes. Up here.”

Mounted on the stone backside of the cell was a large TV monitor where a man’s face smiled down at me. “Time to get started,” he went on. “I can’t wait to see what little secrets we’ll discover.”

“Where am I?” I croaked out.

“In my lab, of course.”

Narrowing my eyes, I scrutinized the screen, trying to place the man’s face. A light-skinned, bald man with black-rimmed glasses and a pointy chin stared down at me. His arctic blue eyes were as cold as his demeanor.

Probably the doctor Yellow-teeth kept mentioning.

“What do you want from me?” I asked, squinting at the monitor as I managed to pull myself up to a sitting position despite the heavy chains still wrapped around my torso.

“Try to get comfortable, Loren. This is your new home.”

He’d ignored the question but answered another. At least they weren’t planning to kill me just yet. But that didn’t mean they wouldn’t at some point. For the first time since I opened my eyes, I took a good look around. Appeared like I was in a warehouse. Big conveyor belt machines sat in rows across the long space, but from the dust and rust, it seemed they hadn’t been used in quite a while.

Pallets of stacked boxes wrapped in heavy plastic lined the perimeter. As I continued to scan the space, my gaze dropped. There was nothing that hinted to a precise location. Not that it mattered. I was in a cage, like an animal, with an explosive collar around my neck. I wasn’t going anywhere right now.

“Why am I here?” I asked the man on the screen, hoping this time he’d give me more information.

He smiled at me in the manner one would look upon a pitiful creature prepped for slaughter. “We’re simply taking back what’s ours. We created you after all.”

I hadn’t asked for any of this. Never meant to run into Nic in that alley. Didn’t mean to get mauled by a wolf. Bile rose up my throat as my beast howled from the inside. I might have been caught in the middle of their war with the vampires, but that didn’t mean I belonged to them.

Claws tried to rip through my flesh, but it was like whatever frequency the damn collar was giving off, it was telling my body to close-up, to deny my beast exit.

“I’m not one of your lab experiments,” I gritted.

“You carry a DNA compound in your new genetic makeup that was created in this lab. By me. You may not have volunteered as a subject, but you are in possession of proprietary information, which unfortunately for you, makes you our property as well.”

Sitting straighter, I said, “One of your dogs attacked me. If it hadn’t been for Nic—”

“Oh right. Your precious Guerra saved you from death by turning you into one of his kind. In reality, he did what I haven’t been able to do in decades.”

“What are you talking about?”

Hi eyes shimmered as if he’d been waiting for this moment. “We’ve been experimenting for years, trying to find the perfect formula and recipient who could hold both the beast’s DNA and that of vampires. To make a super creature, one stronger than a vampire and more efficient than my wolves. One who could heal at an accelerated pace, yet be able to walk in daylight. An intelligent being able to track and kill on command.”

The acid in my stomach churned. “You’ve been experimenting on humans?”

He shrugged, dismissing his vile actions. “The sacrifice of a few is often necessary for the greater good of our species. Unfortunately, no one ever survived the transformation. I knew I was missing a key piece. Needing fresh subjects, I sent my pack to hunt for a leech the night of your attack, but I never imagined they’d track down the Guerra coven prince.”

“Your wolves nearly killed him,” I gritted.

A shit-eating grin carved across his lips. “Nicholas had been on the Order’s radar for centuries but had gone radio-silent in decades. To think I’d been the one to find him!”

My beast growled, wishing to tear his smug face to shreds.

“What a prize!” he went on with this bile-inducing speech. “Royal bloodlines are more powerful, with special gifts passed down through their bonds. He would’ve been the perfect specimen, but then you showed up and things got even more interesting.”

“You saw your wolf attack an innocent human and didn’t do anything to stop it?” I gritted out. “You have this shit around my neck, clearly you can control your beasts.”

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