“Well, there’s no going back now.” He shrugs as he starts removing my left ankle cuff. “You’re stuck with it.”
“Well, it would seem I’m going to be here a while, so maybe we can come up with a new one.” I want to laugh, but talking is painful enough. I lift my head when I feel the cuff fall off my ankle. “How are you able to remove these if they’re magically bound.”
“I’ve still got some tricks up my sleeve.” He winks at me before moving to work on my arms next.
“Can demons use magic?” I ask. “I honestly just learned about all this supernatural craziness, so I don’t know anything about demons.” Margot said they were assholes and to avoid them at all costs. But Jax doesn’t seem that bad. And yes, I know he just tortured me, but I don’t think he really had any choice.
“Demons have their own set of skills, but they can’t do magic.” The second the cuff is off my right wrist. I pull my hand away from his grasp and stretch out my arm. My muscles groan in protest as I move.
“Then how can you?”
Jax stops working on the last cuff, and his eyes meet mine. He stays quiet for a moment before finally answering me. “I’m not just a demon.”
“What? How is that possible? I heard cross-breeding is impossible.”
“They—”
Jax is interrupted when Nicolai saunters into the room. “You’re right, Pruitt, it was impossible to crossbreed species, but we’ve been working very hard to rectify that.” Nicolai looms over me, scanning my body head to toe. “What a shame, the hellfire didn’t bring out your stubborn little wolf. Oh well, we’ll just have to try later tonight.”
“Sir, I don’t know if she’ll be able to survive another round so soon,” Jax interjects. I feel the last cuff fall from my wrist, and I pull my other arm to my chest.
“Yes, she will. She’s a strong one.” Nicolai caresses my cheek, and I jerk back from his touch. No longer tied to the table, I push his hand away and sit up for the first time since I’ve been here. “Run along and go to the bathroom,” he says. “When you’re finished, we’ll go on a little tour of my facility.”
I watch the way Jax’s face tightens when Nicolai speaks, and it becomes even clearer to me—Jax doesn’t want to be here any more than I do. And maybe I do have an ally here, after all.
Nicolai puts another pair of magically enhanced handcuffs on me when I exit the bathroom connected to the room I was held in. Once he’s sure the cuffs are secure, he pushes me out the door.
The hallway is all white just like the room I am in. Floor to ceiling, nothing but white. I notice multiple doors with small windows as we walk down the hallway. I have no idea what we are walking toward, but the way Jax stiffens as we draw near, I know it’s not good.
“What is this place?” I ask them. I don’t care who answers at this point. I just want answers.
“It’s one of our many medical facilities,” Nicolai says with pride in his voice, “originally created to find the reason behind the poor wolf shifter fertility, although it’s grown quite a bit from there. We figured why stop with only solving the fertility issue? We’re currently on stage three of our breeding program.”
“Breeding program?” I gulp, and my stomach drops. As we near a set of heavy metal double doors, my wolf starts to freak out in my head. She’s screaming at me not to go in there.
Nicolai stops by a keypad and punches in a code. I can’t stop myself from trying to see, but he blocks it just well enough I’m only able to make out the last two numbers.
Seven…Nine…
The door buzzes and Nicolai walks through the automatic doors, dragging me behind him. “My partner is fascinated with crossbreeding species,” Nicolai begins. “He wants to take the strong traits from each species and put them into one being. There has been a lot of trial and error, but we think we are getting closer to figuring it all out,” he explains as we walk toward a sliding frosted-glass door. “This is just one of the wings of this facility. I believe this is the witch wing…” He glances over at a plaque on the wall and nods. “Yes, witches. We have eight subjects in here, four of which are pregnant.”
The sliding door opens, and I almost fall to my knees when I see what’s on the other side. It’s a large half-moon shaped space with ten different rooms—more like jail cells. The walls are made of glass, giving no privacy. In each room is a hospital bed, and I notice most of them have an occupant.
“Holy shit,” I breathe. This is a scene from a psychological horror movie.
This can’t be real life…
“Don’t worry about the ones who are unconscious. They aren’t in any pain,” Nicolai assures me before walking further into the room.
My feet stumble when Nicolai pulls me behind him, and Jax catches me before I face plant on the cold tile floor. I nod at him in thanks before pulling away. My bare feet pad across the floor as I’m tugged along behind Nicolai. When we near one of the cells, I see the poor woman who lies on the bed has a ventilator in her mouth, and her swollen pregnant belly has all kinds of monitors on it. Her skin is ashen, and her body looks frail.
“What happened to her?” I turn to face Nicolai, not wanting to look at the poor woman anymore.
“She tried to escape.” Nicolai looks at Jax for confirmation. “We don’t tolerate insubordination here. She knew the risk when she tried to leave.”
“So, she’s here against her will?”
Nicolai smirks at me. “Do you know many women who would willingly be impregnated with an experimental
