A sneaky little snippet from the start of Capturing Sin (Playing with Demons, Book 2) – get your copy from Amazon here. Free in Kindle Unlimited!
Chapter 1
Fire arced down my back.
A scream burst from my lips as I staggered forward, twisting to get away from the source of pain.
Mocking laughter rumbled from the demon, orange eyes glowing bright within a skeletal face. He lifted his claws to his mouth, forked tongue laving over the bloodied tips. “Mmm, tastier than the last hunter.”
I snarled, ignoring the wet heat running down my back and lunging forward with my knife. He dodged the first strike, straight into the second blade waiting. It slid between the bony plates that formed a natural armour across his chest, and I yanked sideways, cutting through the gap in his defences. He screamed as I sliced him open, black blood gushing down his middle. His claws dropped to his wound, and I sliced open his throat, finishing him.
The evil bastard probably deserved to bleed out slowly from the gut wound, but I couldn’t risk that he’d survive it somehow. Who knew how many innocent people he’d devour if I let him escape.
I turned, looking for the next monster.
Gunshots ricocheted through the old factory, sparking off rusted machinery. Moonlight streamed through broken windows, barely illuminating the nightmare inside. Blood and bodies littered the ground. Most were demons, but a few familiar faces had my heart clenching.
My squad—alpha team—wasn’t prepared for an attack on this scale. One crafty demon had led us into a slaughter.
Horned beasts closed in around Tia. Brain matter blew out the back of one, dropping it to the concrete. She swung her pistol to the next, but no bark of gunfire answered. Her hard features slackened in fear.
I was already sprinting towards them.
We’d all used up a fair amount of ammo on the patrol, catching too many demons slipping through the dark streets. I’d run out shortly after we’d been ambushed in the warehouse. Otherwise, I’d have picked off most of the demons currently distracted by Tia.
She yelled, drawing a short-sword from the sheathe at her back and swinging towards the two closest to her. She’d never beat four demons with just a sword.
Leo barrelled in, brandishing only a pair of short-swords. But my fiancé would be lethal with a pencil. He cut down one monster as they lunged for our teammate.
My blade sliced through the arm of another demon as it spun to greet me, getting lodged on a spike protruding from its elbow. I drew back, but his claws grazed my collarbone. Pain flared, but I shoved the sensation down, focusing on the monster and drawing him away from Tia.
Another beast growled beside me. I had a second to duck. Claws sailed overhead, and I swept my leg out, tripping the first demon.
But the second was faster than I expected. He slammed his fist into my ribs. Something cracked, and pain exploded, bursting through my side.
I wheezed at the sharp ache, limping backwards, blades raised.
The pair advanced on me with steady steps and vicious grins, sure in their easy victory.
To my horror, a third appeared from the darkness. The three of them herded me back, away from the other hunters. I swiped out with my knives to hold them off, but I could barely breathe with the agony threatening to pull me under.
“Leo!” I yelled, almost blacking out from the flash of pain.
My fiancé cut down his second demon, gaze finding mine. Familiar navy eyes widened, as if confirming how much trouble I was in. He took a step towards me, but a scream had him whipping around.
Tia cried out again, yanking my attention to her too.
A blood demon pinned her to the wall, fangs in her throat.
“Tia!” my fiancé yelled, panic lacing his tone as he raced towards her.
Leaving me with the three hulking monsters.
I didn’t have time to feel the disbelief at his choice.
The monster in the middle lunged forward. I stepped into his strike instead of away, taking him off-guard. I sliced his throat open as his claws sank into the meat of my other shoulder. My knife fell from my spasming grip.
Pain screamed from the fresh wound, and I hissed as I dropped beneath the other demons’ swiping claws, stumbling. I twisted with the momentum and sliced open the arteries in his thigh with a spray of hot liquid.
Gravity sucked me down as my strength drained out with the blood, leaving me too fast.
The third demon towered over me, grinning maliciously. Hunger burned in glowing purple eyes.
I tried to roll away, but he stomped on my middle.
A scream choked off in my throat as I felt something give in my side with a bright stab of pain. I coughed, agony searing my insides, and wetness spluttered up from my lips.
I urged my body to move, but I barely twitched on the ground.
This was it.
The demon tutted, leaning down until his face eclipsed the room. “Such a fragile thing. Don’t die on me too easily. I’m going to gorge myself on your sweet blood for days.”
I could hardly feel the dread past the torment holding my thoughts captive.
But I knew one thing. I’d never let a demon feed on me.
My strength was failing, but I had enough left for one last strike, and he’d forgotten about the second blade.
His lips peeled back, revealing sharp fangs. Fetid breath washed over me. He tipped my head aside, exposing my neck.
We lunged at the same time.
Fangs grazed my throat as I twisted and swung. My blade bit into his neck, and I yanked it free, causing maximum damage.
Demonic eyes widened in a moment of shock, and I collapsed beside him. The monster gripped his throat, scrambling to stop the bleeding even as his claws raked weakly at the base of my own throat, stopping short at my collarbone. Pain swelled beneath the sharp points, but it didn’t feel much deeper than a scratch.
Glowing eyes faded, and his hand flopped to the concrete.
For a moment, all I could do was stare at the dull purple orbs locked onto me. Reality fuzzed at the edges as I fought for each shallow breath through the agony rebounding in my torso.
“Fall back!” A commanding shout boomed from the far end of the warehouse, underscored by pained groans and the sharp retort of gunfire echoing through the space.
“Liliana’s down!” another voice shouted nearby.
“Leave her.” My fiancé’s smooth voice pierced the din. “She’ll distract the beasts.”
Betrayal sliced through my chest, adding to the misery already lighting me up.
“Leo…,” I choked out, a wet sensation leaking down my lips.
Pain hazed the world around me, but with every laboured breath, it lessened.
Not ideal.
Footsteps thudded as the hunters fled. Growls trailed off as the demons gave chase.
Silence swallowed me.
My team, practically family, were leaving me to die. Led by my fiancé.
I was going to marry him in a few months’ time.
We were going to start a family of our own. Buy a home together here in Riverside. I could semi-retire from hunting in favour of domestic bliss. Even my uncle had given the nod of approval when I’d brought up dropping to part-time.
My hands shook as I tried to press them to the deep gashes in my side beneath the edge of my vest. I couldn’t be sure, but I thought something vital had been pierced. Like a lung.
Which would explain the wheezing, damp sound I couldn’t stop making.
It sounded like a death rattle.
My thoughts drifted for a moment as I stared up at the steel ceiling beams through the gloom, wondering what would happen when I died.
How fast would Leo move on? Would my uncle even bother to hold a funeral for me? Would anyone miss me after I was gone?
I blinked as someone touched my wounds. A biting pain seared my chest, setting my lungs on fire and yanking me from the fluffy cloud of nothingness I’d been suffocating on.
“S-Sstop!” I hissed, my slurring barely audible.
A monster blinked into focus above me.
Sunshine eyes bored into me, glowing blindly bright. “Hold on.”
I tried to bat him away, my hands slapping uselessly at his arms. By some miracle, I narrowly avoided impaling my palms on the bony spikes protruding from his shoulders.
The demon arched a silvery brow at me. “Why don’t you conserve your strength for something useful? Like living,” he drawled, voice warm and smooth.
I tried to bare my teeth but couldn’t summon more than a glare with the dizziness washing over me.
He lifted my hand, my pale skin looking peachy next to his dark-grey shade. The beast ran a forked tongue along a large gash on my forearm, ending just below the oversize watch clinging to my wrist.
Revulsion had me twitching in his grip, but I couldn’t even feel the pain his feeding should have caused.
“C-Can’t you let…m-me die in peace?” I coughed, and my blood speckled his sharp cheekbone.
The love of my life had sacrificed me on the battlefield. Wasn’t I suffering enough?
A small smile twitched the monster’s lips. “This isn’t your end, huntress. Not if I can help it.”
His meaning tried to sink in through the haze, but I couldn’t understand what he was saying.
“This will hurt, but you’ll thank me for it when we both wake up after a little nap together. If I can be brave enough to save my enemy, you can be brave enough to accept what it means.”
Ragged wounds bled freely from gunshots high in his chest. He raised his forearm, claws widening an already deep gash bisecting his grey skin.
Bright blood dripped from the cut, splattering my lips. I coughed, distress seizing my chest at the damage I’d already taken. I tried to spit out the liquid, but it trickled over my nose, making it impossible to breathe.
The golden sunbursts around his eyes seemed to glow even brighter, a fiery corona amid a sea of black pupil and sclera. He gripped my jaw, claws pricking my cheeks as he forced my mouth open.
Blood filled my mouth. It burned like cheap gin as it slid down my throat, oddly heavy. Heat raced through my body, scorching me from the inside.
The hold on my face slipped, and the demon’s eyes rolled back. He crashed down beside me, but I barely felt the impact against my arm.
Fire filled my wounds, and I screamed.
White-hot agony cut the final threads holding me conscious.
***
“I don’t fucking believe it.” A harsh male grunt yanked me from the darkness. Something cool pressed to the pulse in my throat.
I peeled open bleary eyes. Everything ached. Even my eyeballs seemed to throb as I tried to take in the sight before me.
A familiar face hovered over me, steel beams cutting behind him. He removed his fingers from my throat. It took me a moment to place the man through the haze—Jayce. The cocky beta squad hunter who’d been gunning for my position in alpha for years.
Jayce’s eyes narrowed. “She’s asleep. Not fuckin’ dead. There’s barely a scratch on her. You sure she was even injured?”
Everything came rushing back.
I wasn’t dead. But my fiancé and the rest of my team had left me behind to die here.
A different kind of pain lanced through me before I remembered why I could wake up.
The demon.
Clearly, if I was alive, and apparently in one piece, then it was because of whatever his blood did to me.
But why would a monster help me?
Maybe I’d hallucinated the whole thing.
I pushed weakly at Jayce, and he obliged with a snort. “Classic pampered princess, taking a royal doze on the job. Don’t take your irritation out on the poor peasant to wake you too.” He stood, allowing me a better view of my surroundings.
My whole body shook as I half rolled to face the unmoving demon lying right beside me. His blood-smeared chest rose and fell in a deep, even rhythm.
One thought screamed through my head.
He shouldn’t be here.
I reached for him, shaking his shoulder at the base of the spikes protruding from his grey skin. Even that much movement had spots blooming through my vision. Nausea slithered inside my stomach, but I didn’t stop, pushing weakly at the demon.
He’d saved me. But he was about to die.
Panic set in, reducing my attempts to wake him to a frantic pawing.
“The fuck is she doing?” Jayce muttered. “Trying to attack it?”
My fiancé stepped up beside Jayce, a gun in one hand and a bloodied sword in the other. He raised the blade above me, almost in slow motion.
“No!” A hoarse scream burst from my lips, and I fought the weakness in my body to push at the demon harder, trying to shove his bulk out of the way.
I knew what was coming, but I couldn’t stop it.
Sunshine eyes fluttered open, locking onto mine.
A wet crunch sounded.
He jerked, lips slackening to show the tips of fangs.
“No…,” I groaned, the sound breaking to a whisper.
“She must have hit her head on something,” Jayce muttered, toeing me in the ribs with his boot, sending another wave of nausea through me.
From my peripherals, Leo peered down, leaning on the sword embedded in my saviour, face unreadable before he pasted on a fake smile. “How wonderful, my sleeping beauty lives.”
No thanks to him.
“Come on, beta squad’s almost done with the last of the bodies.” Arsen, another alpha hunter, stepped up beside Leo. “Huh, never seen such a spiky grey-and-white one before. Must be a rare beast.”
“All right, we should probably get Dozer here back to medical in case she broke a nail,” Jayce snorted.
I caught the edge of a shrug from Leo but couldn’t look away from the twin dying suns staring back at me.
A demon had saved me. And it had cost him everything.
Jayce leaned down and hauled me roughly into his arms. Dizziness rolled me under, sucking me back into the abyss.
Chapter 2
Three weeks later…
“Oh, you’ll love court. Honestly, you’ll have such a great time if you get to go. It’s so interesting.” My boss smiled wide, leaning his forearms on the desk between us, caramel eyes crinkling at the corners with the edges of his excitement.
I blinked.
Letting his words sink in as I straightened in my chair.
“So, just to be clear, I told you I was almost assaulted by two men, and you think I’ll have fun if I go to court to convict my attackers?” I tried to keep my voice within human hearing range, but the decibels were rising awfully high.
The hellhounds caged in the room next door were probably howling.
He frowned, as if considering my words, and shook his head in clear dismissal. “I didn’t mean it that way. Why do you have to be like that?”
I couldn’t cope.
I was about 3.2 seconds away from a throat-punching spree. But I was no longer the violent maniac I used to be just three weeks ago, before I’d swapped from operational demon hunter to scientist.
So, instead, I took a deep breath. In and out. Nice and slow. Calm. Controlled.
To top off what had been another spectacularly horrifying day in the hunter’s research division, last night, I’d been cornered by two thugs in the car park outside my run-down apartment.
Instead of breaking their bones—like the old psycho hunter me would have done—I’d fled and called the police like a sane, upstanding citizen of Riverside.
Though, if I was being honest with myself, old me would have stabbed the bastards too, somewhere particularly painful, to really put them off ever trying to harass vulnerable-looking women late at night.
It was probably a good thing I no longer carried a weapon. The thought of harming more people that violently turned my stomach, even if they might have deserved it, just a teensy bit.
Now I was being punished by this conversation, though, because I needed a few hours off to give a statement to the police. Even though it was a waste of time. Riverside wasn’t one of the biggest cities in England, but the chances they’d catch these guys based on my description alone was slim to none.
It wasn’t like I could just ask my uncle for the camera footage either.
I knew he’d seen me getting attacked last night, unarmed and still recovering from my injuries.
He hadn’t sent help.
My uncle claimed he’d mounted cameras outside my apartment building for my safety. Yet he’d only installed them after I’d woken up in the medical room and tried to flee the city.
Leo had run me off the road and hauled me back in secret, on my uncle’s orders, no doubt. I regretted ever giving my ex-fiancé a key. Not that he needed one, given the hunter chapter, and therefore my uncle, owned the damned building.
The incident in the warehouse had turned my world upside down, and I wasn’t sure how to process everything that had happened.
And what it meant.
All I knew was that I didn’t want to be a part of the hunters anymore. But I’d have to bide my time while I came up with a way to escape. Lull my uncle into loosening the leash a little first.
“Anyway, enough chit-chat. We’re here to discuss your performance.” Martin cleared his throat, trying to regain the upper hand in this abysmal conversation.
I waited as patiently as I could. The closest thing to professional I could do right now was a blank poker face. This was not what I wanted first thing in the morning, but being a scientist within a hunter chapter apparently meant seven-a.m. meetings and long, blood-filled days.
My boss reclined in his chair. “I am concerned about your future here, given your apparent issues with being able to handle the workload.”
It was all I could do not to launch myself over the table and throttle the idiot. That, or cry.
To my horror, moisture swam across my vision.
I quickly lifted my glasses, rubbing at my eyes as if I were tired, not on the verge of a breakdown.
I was fine.
Everything was fine.
Just a totally normal person with her shit together.
Definitely not crying at work.
See? Fine.
“I can handle it,” I said, keeping my tone even despite the near waterworks.
It wasn’t that I wanted this job, exactly; it was that I couldn’t stomach the alternative.
He shot me a condescending look, one of his all-time favourite expressions. “If that were the case, then we wouldn’t be almost three weeks into you taking this position, and still without a single valid test result. Dr Smythe has seen those same compounds react to the blood and tissue samples she has taken. Might I remind you, Liliana, that you were the one who requested a transfer into the research division.”
He loved to say my name. It was one of those stupid little things that made him feel powerful. Or maybe he’d once read in a self-help book that it made people respect you more.
I nodded repeatedly, trying to project confidence. “Not just a result or two. I’m right around the corner from a breakthrough.”
There was zero chance of that.
Because I’d stopped running most of the tests they wanted after my first day playing scientist.
His flat look called me out for the liar I was. “The hunter prime will be kept appraised of your progress. Or, rather, lack thereof.”
Only years of practise stopped the fear showing on my face. Somehow, I managed a tight smile. “I understand. I’ll try harder.”
Martin smiled back. And it was as vicious as any demon I’d come across. “See that you do.”
Sensing we were done, I stood, leaving Martin to his silent gloating.
I strode from the room with my shoulders thrown back like I had nothing to fear. Closing the door firmly behind me, I let out a small breath, closer to a choked sob than anything, and checked my father’s watch. It was the only thing I had left of him, since my uncle, the hunter prime, had taken the rest of my inheritance for “safekeeping.”
The small crack in the glass aligned with the big hand like it was trying to hide the fact that I was officially late for my next scheduled appointment of the day.
“Shit,” I muttered, hurrying down the narrow corridor and swiping my pass to enter the last room on the right.
This place was a maze of secured rooms, most I didn’t even have access to, even now that I’d changed to the research division.
A thin woman hunched over a microscope, her loose-fitting lab coat splattered with vivid red marks. Greying hair was piled up into a high bun, similar in style to my dark locks. Where hers was neatly slicked into place, mine were a mess of loose wisps, a distraction of strands still falling into my face.
With my half-Thai heritage to thank for my five-foot-three skinny frame and baby face, most people thought I looked younger than my twenty-four years. My freckles and the recent switch from contact lenses to oversize wire-rimmed glasses only seemed to add to that, but I had nothing on Cara. She’d already hit retirement age and looked as unbending and unmarred as steel.
Cara didn’t bother to look up as I entered. The door clicked shut at my back, sealing me into a fresh hell.
“What took you so long?” she asked, not bothering to look up from the microscope she peered down. “Humanity isn’t going to save itself, Dozer.”
“Sorry,” I muttered, ignoring her use of the dumb nickname Jayce had started the whole hunter chapter using, and hurrying over to grab the samples from the fridge that I’d prepared with her yesterday. “My meeting overran.”
I furiously ignored the horror show twitching near the back of the lab.
Cara switched off the microscope and finally faced me, severe features pinching. She held her narrowed stare for another long second, where I fought not to fidget under her scrutiny, clutching the tray of samples.
With a huff, she slid down the cat-eye glasses from her head to glare at me through them instead. “If you don’t want to be here, go back to the other meatheads upstairs.”
A part of me had always wanted to be a scientist but not like this. I wanted to help make the world a better place: cure an incurable disease, uncover a breakthrough that reduced our impact on the planet, help us understand a rare animal species to boost conservation efforts. This bastardised version of long-ago crushed dreams was a cruel joke.
Yet I couldn’t face being an actual hunter anymore.
Not that this was much less horrifying. At least as a hunter, I’d given the demons a quick, clean death if I could. You didn’t blame the wolf for killing the sheep. It was their nature, instinct driving them. Or so I’d thought.
It seemed I’d underestimated their capacity for premeditated evil as much as their ability for good. They were like us in that way. Just people.
I stretched my lips into a brittle approximation of a smile, waving her off. “I’m happy right here.”
“Aren’t we all?” a hissing voice sneered behind me, but I ignored the poor demon currently strapped down to the operating table, slowly bleeding out.
The sharp stench of bleach covered most of the metallic blood, but I’d grown so used to both that neither fazed me as much as I wished it would. Touching the red stuff was a different matter altogether.
“Good.” Her nose lifted with her own self-importance. “You’re meant to be learning from my work and making yourself useful to our team.”
I already knew this, but Cara loved to remind me I was beneath her. She was one of those people that had to tread on others to feel tall.
I nodded, fixing my fake smile in place. “Yep, Cara, I’m super excited to help.”
Her thin brows creased.
I was laying it on too thick, but the quiet whimpers of the wounded demon behind me were burrowing through the thick walls I’d erected around my emotions.
How could anyone stand this? Even three weeks ago, I wouldn’t have been able to stomach this kind of cruelty. I’d stayed out of the research side of things, putting all my focus into making the streets of Riverside safe for humans, while trying to find a way to retire from the violence as much as my uncle would allow.
I’d always thought the research was a necessary evil, but I hoped like hell I would have been deeply unsettled if I’d known what it truly involved.
“Yes, well, let’s go over how to administer the test compound again. This can be the trickiest part, I’ve found.” She waved a hand towards the demon strapped to the table, as if their struggling for escape were such an inconvenience to her.
“No, please! Not again!” he wailed, thrashing on the metal. I swallowed hard, bracing for another day of pretending everything was okay while dreaming of escape. If I was lucky, the screams in my head would drown everything else out.
Chapter 3
Locking down every emotion deep into the pit inside me, I twisted the lever and eased into the office.
The gentle tapping of fingertips on a keyboard reached out. My uncle continued to stare at his laptop screen, ignoring my entrance.
Somehow, it was cooler inside the office than in the climate-controlled lab where I’d watched Cara poke at demons all afternoon. When Martin had slithered in and snidely informed me I could no longer leave early because my uncle wanted a word, I’d panicked. Clearly, my boss had tattled about my lack of results.
I closed the door silently behind me and lingered in front of the solid wood.
Rich mahogany dominated the room, almost as much as the man who owned it.
A plastic chair sat opposite a grand desk of expensive wood, swallowing the middle of the space.
Weapons lined the back wall—half display, half armoury—accented by wooden panelling. It held his favourite guns, from simple pistols to customised Italian double-under shotguns and high-powered assault rifles.
Last week, one of the demons had got loose, and I’d seen my uncle grab a shotgun off the wall and blow their head off.
The bloodstains had been a bitch to clean off the walls, especially while trying my best not to add vomit to the mix of fluids and brain matter. I had a fairly hardened stomach after all the gore I’d seen, and caused, over the years, but I’d come out of that warehouse three weeks ago a different person. Now the sticky feeling of blood drying on my hands was unbearable.
The typing continued, and I turned my attention to the man who ruled my life.
He was in his late forties, the only evidence of ageing the salt-and-pepper shades of his buzz cut and the fine lines between his brows. Probably from all the scowling. He was still in peak physical condition despite the countless injuries he’d picked up over the three decades he’d served as a hunter.
There wasn’t an ounce of fat on him, just stringy muscle and bitterness.
My uncle reminded me of gristle. Unpalatable and tough. He’d always had the look of someone who’d been chewed up by life and spat back out.
I used to wonder whether he’d always been this way, or whether the death of my aunt had played a role. Now I didn’t care. I just wanted to spit him out too.
He closed his laptop and leaned back in his creaking leather chair, steepling his fingers in the ultimate power move of zero fucks to give.
Making me wait was a psychological tactic he employed often.
I bit down on my tongue, forcing myself to wait him out.
I counted the scars on his hands, from the thin slice of blades to the ragged stretch of claws. He had them in abundance. Thick ropes of the white tissue crossed his knuckles from where he’d split them open too many times.
It made sense. Bones were much stronger than skin. Not that a little blood ever made him stop hitting his unlucky target.
I should know.
For a moment, the fantasy of escaping him, and all the violence he represented, made it hard to breathe. The longing burrowed so deep that I knew it had always been there.
He jerked his chin towards the basic seat, purposefully uncomfortable, and I obeyed in an instant, bringing myself below his level, throned in the plush office chair.
“You’re healed now?” he asked, running a critical eye over me like he could see my wounds through the lab coat and clothing beneath.
Fear gripped me, but I had to say the words. “Yes, Uncle.”
It was closer to the truth than it should be. I’d broken my ribs, punctured a lung, been cut and bruised all over, practically bled out, and yet because of a demon, just three weeks later, only dull aches and extra scars remained. Even crashing my car the same night had only reopened the deepest wounds.
He nodded.
Rearing over the desk, he struck.
His palm collided with my face, whipping my head aside. Disorientation swam for a moment, and I blinked hard, staring at the weapons wall. Straightening in my chair, I ignored my throbbing cheek, clinging to my neutral expression.
Of course, his solution to me getting injured was to hit me. At least this time was an open-palm slap.
From him, that was practically a hug.
“You know we must maintain an image of strength to run this chapter. Your theatrics compromised that,” he said.
I wasn’t sure I’d call being almost murdered by demons “theatrics,” but I understood what he was getting at. Me going down in battle made him look bad, especially given how minor my injuries seemed when the team had returned for clean-up with reinforcements.
Now that I was healed, he was expressing his frustrations.
He’d been mercifully ignoring me since my failed escape attempt. Retribution was coming, but it seemed he was letting me stew in the horror of anticipation. For now.
I locked down my instinctive reaction to bite back. Revealing my anger would only incite more pain.
“Apologies, Uncle.” I inclined my head.
His eyes narrowed. It was the neutral acceptance he wanted, yet he hunted for any excuse to unleash more violence. He craved it like a junkie.
“Don’t think I’m not aware that you also broke up with Leo.”
More anger piled onto the bonfire raging inside me, hot enough to eclipse the stinging warmth across my cheek.
“You want to discuss my love life?” I asked, fighting to keep the acid out of my tone.
His expression darkened, telling me I wasn’t quite as neutral as I’d hoped. “He’s a strong match for you.”
“He also left me to die,” I murmured, voice lacking inflection. “Loyalty is important, is it not?”
He fell silent, watching me with a cold calculation I’d been taught to fear.
“What will I do with you, Liliana?” he asked, like he genuinely cared what my response might be.
I sealed my lips shut. If he wanted me to speak, a deep furrow would appear between his brows after a brief stretch of silence.
Expression smooth, he continued on, “Martin tells me you’re being difficult.”
One day, my boss would get what was coming to him. It might not be by my hand, but I had to believe karma would hunt him down and tear him into tiny, insignificant pieces.
Then I hoped one of the hellhounds got loose and pissed all over his remains.
I fought the twitch of my lips at the violent fantasy. One look at my uncle’s flinty grey eyes killed any joy.
“Results take time.” I kept my tone even, firm but respectful. “But they will be worth it. The benefits to our cause will be significant.”
He quirked a brow. “So you claim, but I’m growing impatient. We need to try something more…radical.”
My throat dried up, and I swallowed painfully. “Radical how?”
A cruel smile split his lips. Terror sliced through my middle. Like any predator, it was never a good thing when they showed teeth.
“No more of this sample bullshit.” He waved a hand. “You will switch to live testing.”
“No,” I breathed. The denial fell from my lips without my permission.
The predator stilled, and I tensed on instinct.
“No?” he asked, voice deceptively soft.
“I mean… I’ll have to figure out the best tests to run…” I trailed off, panic scrambling my thoughts.
“Martin says blood demons would be easiest to start on. And your aunt’s notes confirm it was her next theory. You will dose yourself with trial compounds and feed them to your subject.”
I felt like I’d been punched in the chest, my lungs seizing. The thought of letting a demon sink their fangs into me was terrifying, and my uncle knew it.
It was a horror to most hunters, but it held a special place in my nightmares.
It was the retaliation I’d been waiting for. I’d tried to escape him, and now he was dragging me deeper into the darkness, trying to drown any spirit I had left.
“I know this might be…uncomfortable, given your father’s death.” His eyes were unyielding.
It might have been over a decade ago, but even the day after it had happened, he’d been able to talk about his brother’s murder like it meant nothing. I was sure taking over from my father as hunter prime, leader of the Riverside hunter chapter, helped ease the sting.
I’d watched a blood demon drain my father dry when I was eleven years old, and now my uncle wanted me to offer up my veins to the same kind of monster who’d killed him.
I shouldn’t have been surprised, but some naive part of me still clung to the idea that maybe, deep down, there was something redeemable about my uncle. He’d loved his brother in his own way.
They were cut from a similar cloth, after all.
He sighed, like acknowledging that I might have emotions was exhausting. “If you can’t do this, Liliana, I can find you a volunteer.”
He didn’t mean a willing one.
The threat was one he’d held over me before. Some random person would be taken off the street and held “for the greater good.” Other scientists and the operational hunters were too valuable to become lab rats. The work could save thousands of human lives, so as much as my uncle wanted to protect humans, he’d do what he thought needed to be done.
As much as I didn’t want some random person kidnapped to become a guinea pig, I also wasn’t sure I could face the idea of a demon’s fangs sinking into my skin.
There wasn’t enough oxygen in the room. I held my stinging face in a composed mask, through years of discipline alone.
I had to get out of here.
“Let me plan the experiments, and we can go from there,” I said, trying to keep the desperation from leaking into my tone.
My uncle stared me down, trying to assess my façade for any cracks. Any weaknesses that he could exploit. He’d burrow his claws into any hint of vulnerability and keep digging until I shattered.
After an agonising few minutes, where I begged my lungs to operate in a normal rhythm, he finally released me with a sharp jerk of his chin.
I stood, wincing at the scrape of the chair legs against the timber flooring. It took every ounce of my control to walk at a sedate pace to the door, open it gently, and close it softly behind me.
My hand shook as I smoothed a stray hair back that had fallen from my messy bun. I’d made it out, but I was more trapped than ever.
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