Page 14 of Kingly Bitten

He knew that sound as well as I did. Which was why he reacted quickly—his lycan genetics aiding in his rapid movements—and slammed the door to my office to lock us inside.

Screams rent the air from the corridor, the agonized sounds making me flinch.

“You let Louis out,” James breathed, his turquoise-colored eyes widened in shock.

I shook my head. “No. I let all of them out.”

Every single rabid vampire and lycan. On every single floor. The Vigils might have guns with serum-laced bullets, but they didn’t stand a chance.

It was a hasty decision, but one that would help us eliminate the immediate threat.

“What now?” James asked, wincing as Louis released a furious roar from the hallway. The beast followed it with a punch to my door. He was a strong alpha lycan.

Fortunately, he wasn’t strong enough to take it down.

“We wait,” I said softly, returning to my chair to pull up the non-looping surveillance feeds.

If anyone could escape this hell, it was a horde of pissed-off lycans and vampires. Once they discovered the exit path, we’d follow.

I just hoped they figured it out before the countdown reached zero.

4

Calina

Blood paintedthe ground and the walls, drowning the bunker in death.

The lycans and vampires had wasted no time in demolishing the small Vigil army, then they’d moved on to the labs to face their former captors. Fortunately, the researchers and technicians were already dead, thanks to the serum-laced bullets.

I shivered, the mass destruction on my screen sending chills down my spine.

I’d observed every minute, waiting for the higher beings to shift focus to finding an escape. It took hours, their need for vengeance palpable on the live feeds. They’d destroyed everything in their paths—humans, tables, vials, medical equipment, observation windows, and even a few corpses of the slain medical workers.

I could only imagine what they would do to me as the head researcher.

Everything we did down here was at the demand of Lilith. Our purpose was to find ways to enhance life expectancy in humans by making them immortal without any emotional or physical ties to our betters. We were also charged with throttling any additional gifts outside immortality.

Essentially, what Lilith wanted were immortal slaves who could endure great pain and death-like experiences but always regenerate with human blood flowing through their veins.

She desired an endless supply of blood. One that couldn’t die. And also couldn’t fight back.

That had been my intended future—for her specifically—but the experiment had failed because I’d inherited certain abilities. Such as my strategic ability and quick reflexes. Of course, that hadn’t stopped her from biting me every time she’d visited. My blood called to her, as it did many other vampires in the lab.

James, another failure, was mostly lycan. He couldn’t complete a full shift but possessed immortalized strength and the literal claws of a wolf.

Meanwhile, Gretchen was one of the most successful cases. Her immortality made her difficult to kill, and she harbored almost no supernatural traits. That was the primary reason Lilith had allowed her to procreate with James.

But their child was a lycan who preferred his wolf form.

While the test was a failure, Lilith had intended for the child to grow and later be used to replace Louis. That part hadn’t been known to Gretchen or James. And now they would never need to know.

Assuming we found a way out of here.

The lycan and vampire subjects had divided into groups, their movements throughout the bunker reminding me of mice trying to find the exit of a maze.

Except these were predators, not prey.

Louis had stopped at my door earlier, his gaze intent as he’d tried to find a way to beat down the barrier. There were no markers or signs in the hallway that indicated this was my office. Which meant he could smell me in here. And the murderous gleams in his glowing irises had told me exactly what he wanted to do to me.