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“She’s begun biting their heads off, like a feral cat. It’s remarkable to watch.”
“What have you done to her?”
“Nothing that wasn’t in her all along. Think of the repercussions, if she’d have snapped outside of these walls. She might’ve killed someone. We merely gave her violent tendencies an outlet.” He clears his throat and turns to face me. “Come. I’ve more to show you.”
We keep on down the corridor, and come to a stop in front of a door, through which he ushers me inside a room that opens up to a glass dome, around which a number of chairs are set out. In the chairs, sit a number of men with wires attached to helmet-looking contraptions on their heads. Below them, on the lower level, a man is laid out on a table, held down by restraints. Another in a lab coat wears thick gloves, as he lifts a branding stick with a red-hot slab of metal on its end. The man on the table whimpers and squirms in his binds, screaming against the bit caught between his teeth. At the first crackle of burning flesh, something flashes in my periphery, and I turn to see monitors that seem to be capturing waves. Brain waves, I’m guessing.
“We’re trying to measure empathic neural response by using EEG recordings.”
“Empathic? As in, trying to see if these people give a shit that you just branded a man with hot metal?”
“Precisely.”
“Couldn’t you have just played a video of someone getting branded? Why this?”
“Could you not practically taste that burning flesh on your tongue just now? I would venture to say your gamma waves were off the charts watching it.”
Shoving my hands into the pockets of my slacks is all I can do to keep from throttling the motherfucker. This is what my father has been pumping money into all these years? This is what the bastard insisted I keep pumping money into, when he finally died? To make sure these assholes continue to produce bullshit studies.
And they’re one of the bigger reasons I’d never attempt to pursue Isa. If they thought, for one second, that I was serious with her, she’d be stalked and monitored, her whole history dissected in secret. My mother didn’t know a damn thing about Schadenfreude, but they knew everything about her, down to her menstrual cycle.
“In this case, the subject is a known child predator,” Friedrich prattles on.
“We’re offering payment to child predators now?”
“No. We offered payment to the prison that incarcerated him.” He drifts across the room toward the monitors, studying the various waves onscreen. “There is no criminal more despised than the child predator. It’s interesting that this particular segment of our species garners the justification of violent retribution. Even the most empathetic human being can muster the apathy to watch these individuals suffer.” Still wearing a smile, he glances back at me. “We like to use them as a control group. And if it helps your conscience to know, they never leave the Institute.” As he makes his way back toward me, I catch the other lab coat heating up the metal rod for round number two. “This is what your funding has provided. Each room focuses on a particular sadistic behavior. The next room over is sexual sadism. Would you like to see?”
“No. I wouldn’t. I fail to see how this is considered science, at all.”
“These individuals are homozygous for a particular genotype--”
I raise a hand and shake my head. “I don’t need a dissertation. I’ll be honest with you, Friedrich. I don’t give two fucks what you hope to learn from all of this. I’ll keep providing the funding, because my father willed it and, to your advantage, put someone other than me as an executor on it. But I want no part of this shit-show anymore.”
Rand would be puking his guts onto the clean white floors right now, if I’d brought him with me.
Glad I didn’t.
“Who, um … who do you think you’re talking to Lucian?” It’s unca
“Then, why haven’t you yet?” With a smirk, I tip my head. “Oh. That’s right. Because the funding only lasts so long as there is an heir. Meaning, it dies when I die. You have some very powerful co
Clearing his throat, he steps back. “Very well. Quarterly meetings. That’s all I ask. And the occasional medical update. You don’t have to participate in the experimental studies.”
“I’ll think about it.” I pat him on the shoulder, catching his flinch, and exit the room.
There was a time this place weaved nightmares like a spider’s web, always present on the edge of my brain, waiting to wrap me up in its terrifying fibers.
Now, it can’t touch me.
When I finally reach my car, I find two texts from Rand on my phone. At first, I think he’s going to respectfully rail into me for what he’d surely consider another disastrous meeting, but his second text instructs me to check my email. When I open it, I find the remaining report that I requested of him last week. The more extensive research into Isa’s past.
One of the documents is a police report describing the attack at the party, mostly true to what she narrated, but there’s something new.
Something I had my suspicions about.
Something she’s managed to keep hidden away.
I can’t help the smile tugging at my lips as I flip through the other attached documents: therapists notes from her weekly sessions.
My raven beauty is far more dangerous than I imagined.
Darkness settles over the manor as I make my way up the staircase, the anticipation burning through me, even after a three hour flight. The box tucked beneath my arm is a gift, and one I spent far too much time choosing, just before I left Vermont.
The door to Isa’s room is closed, and when I click it open, the lights are off inside. Cracking it open just enough to slip through, I find her sleeping form stretched out on the bed, the sight of her stirring a sinister craving for soft moans, nails, and teeth. Coming to a stand alongside her bed, I set the box aside and lean down to kiss along the smooth curve of her neck.
A twitch of movement, and she startles awake, flipping onto her back. Silvery bands of moonlight shimmer across her face, drawing my attention to full pouty lips I want to bite.
I’m convinced she’s my punishment from God. My curse.
A forbidden touch.
A stolen kiss.
My temptation in the flesh.
As I lean in to kiss her, soft, warm lips greet mine, pulling me into fantasies of keeping her all to myself. My own little doll, just like the clusterfuck collection my mother keeps. Everything inside of me begs to resist, knows too well not to get swept up in the illusion of this, but the enticement is too strong. She’s fast become a weakness, a preoccupation I can’t seem to shake, and a dangerous gamble for a man with as many enemies as my father has amassed in the Blackthorne name over the years.
I push off her, grabbing the box I left at the foot of the bed, and her eyes widen at the sight of it.
“Another gift? Lucian …”
“Open it.”
With a small bit of hesitation, she tears at the thick, red ribbon and lifts the lid of the box to reveal sheer, white lingerie within. I watch her surprise dissolve into a demure sort of smile, and she lifts the skimpy lace panties and matching bralette.