Daemon’s Mark by Caitlin Kittredge (web ebook reader .TXT) 📕

and leave you as an experimental subject for Gorshkov. He’s not only a bioengineer, you know. He has … other hobbies. We met when he was my customer in Moscow, before I moved to more tolerant climes.”

All of my instincts shouted for me to fight, because that’s my training—you take control of a situation and if the other person won’t give control, you fight for it, make a fuss, cause a scene until you’re out of danger. But I’d tried with Grigorii, and he’d almost stopped my heart with a few hundred magick volts. The were paced at the edges of my mind and I let it creep in.

I was only going to get one chance here.

“Can I talk while we do this?” I asked, putting one knee up on the bed and exposing a generous length of thigh. Grigorii’s smirk curled to life.

“Go right ahead, my dear. Although I must ask you to please refrain from attacking me again. I’m not into that sort of kink.”

“What sort are you into?” I purred. Grigorii’s mouth pulled down. I pasted a dopey smile on my face in return. Easy, Wilder. Don’t lay it on too thick.

“I don’t believe in discussing my laundry list of perversions before the actual perversion begins,” he said, running his fingers up my leg, grazing against the junction of my thigh.

“So,” I said, tugging at the collar of my hospital gown, exposing the top curve of my breasts, “let me see if I’m getting all of this. This is a bioengineering lab. Gorshkov is doing gene therapy on Masha and on more before her. Masha is a were. So I’m thinking that you’re doing some evil little experiment to manipulate Masha’s were DNA.”

I stood back from Grigorii and undid the ties on my gown, letting it pool around my ankles. “How right am I?”

He gave me an admiring nod. “The Soviet regime left behind many interesting projects that someone with vision could use to their benefit. My family has political ties, and a certain ambitious program came to my attention. I hired Gorshkov to implement it.” Taking my hand, he drew me close enough to feel his body heat and reached out his free hand for my waist. “Now enough talk. Come to me, Luna,” he purred, his tongue flicking out to caress his pale lips.

“You know,” I said, running my hand down his jaw in return. His skin felt like wax, stiff and dead. “This is a very perverse way to make me earn my freedom.”

“We’ll see how you perform,” Grigorii said. “And then I’ll decide what gets done with you. To you.” He guided my hand to his fly. “Get on your knees and take me with your mouth.”

I gave him a wink and sank into a crouch. Grigorii’s ego was really something—he honestly thought he was completely safe letting a pissy were female at the most sensitive part of his anatomy after I’d already fought him off once.

Idiot.

“Good woman.” Grigorii stroked my hair. “They all come in with fire in their eyes, that entitled Western spark in their gaze, and they all break sooner or later and realize that submission is what’s best.”

I pulled my gown closer with my foot, dropped my hand to feel for the scissors in my sleeve.

“Submission is the only road to survival for people in your situation, my dear,” Grigorii continued. “Don’t you think I’m right?” He tugged at my scalp. “Tell me you think I’m right.”

I looked up at his eyes and drew my lips back to show my fangs. “You know what I think?” I gripped the scissors, the cool metal slipping in the sweat of my palms. “I think you talk too gods-damned much.”

Grigorii’s face twisted. “I’ll teach you to speak to me that way, whore…”

He stopped, just froze, letting out a small strangled sound as I buried the scissors in his groin with all of my strength, blood flowing fast, staining the wool of his obscenely expensive suit.

There were no screams, no words, just an expression of pure shock in Grigorii’s eyes. I stood up, careful to keep myself away from the blood.

“Good news and bad news, Grigorii,” I said, pulling the gown back on. “Good news is, I missed all your major arteries, so you probably won’t bleed to death.” Itugged the gown’s strings tight, up to my throat. I couldn’t stand being naked under his paralyzed, accusing gaze for another second. “Bad news is that unlike your buddy Rasputin, I doubt you’ll bounce back from this.”

Grigorii let out a hiss, a rasping screech of pain, his hands trying to stanch the bleeding, but it was too late. I saw his pupils dilate, black with shock, and his already white skin go cadaver-colored.

I could put a compress on the wound, stop the bleeding long enough for Grigorii to stumble downstairs to Dr. Gorshkov. I could elevate his feet, cover him in a heavy blanket to stave off shock and roll him there myself on one of these beds.

“Please…” Grigorii managed. He was on the floor now, a slow dark crimson pool spreading from his wound. I could get him up in a fireman’s carry, because he was a small guy and I was strong, and run him back to the lab.

“Please…”

I didn’t do any of the things I could have, except turn my back and walk out of the hospital ward, my bare feet not making a sound on the linoleum.

And I didn’t feel anything when I did.

Once I’d cleared the ward I broke into a run. I had to make a break for it before the doctor figured out what was going on and burned the place to the ground to cover his tracks.

Masha. She was my first priority. Retracing my steps to the holding cells, I came upon the switchboard operator, who stared at me gape-jawed.

I slammed his forehead once into the controls for the cell doors, hard, and he slid out of his chair and curled on the floor with a