Page 23 of Milk & Malice: Vadik

“Soon you’ll walk. And moo. And serve.”

I traced the rim of her ear with my thumb.

“You should be proud of how well you’re healing. I certainly am.”

I was eager to begin work on her tail, but the site—at the base of the coccyx—would remain off-limits until she could tolerate positional shifts independently. Any premature interference could risk pressure necrosis or disrupt spinal nerve integration.

The specimen I’d cultivated was exquisite. Fleshy. Responsive. Once grafted and connected to the sacral nerve roots, it would become fully innervated. Functional. A living extension of her.

I was a fucking genius.

A god.

Chapter 9

Lena

The painkillers helped, but now he insisted I stand on the hooves. I cried, begged, bargained, but he lifted me off the bed anyway. I would have to look at my own leg stumps. Acknowledge what I had lost—that I would never stand upright again. Never use my hands. Never touch anything with my fingers. My body didn’t belong to me anymore.

I sobbed when he tried to make me stand, placing me carefully on the rug. I collapsed onto my belly—pathetic and crumpled.

“Do not make me angry, Lena,” he said calmly, but the threat beneath the words made my blood go cold. I stopped crying. Sniffled instead.

“There you go, my sweet.”

His hands slid under my waist, lifting me again with practised ease.

“Stand tall on your new limbs, moya plemennaya korova,” he murmured as he guided my arms into position. I hesitated. Then obeyed. What else could I do?

My tears returned when I looked down—past my swollen breasts—to the pale white hooves capping the stumps of my arms. Not latex. Not a costume. These were permanent. Attached. Real.

He moved my legs into place, angling my knee stumps where they needed to go. My new height on all fours felt unnatural—higher than before, as if I were wearing invisible heels made of metal and nerve endings. I was trembling. I dipped my head and saw the hind hooves. Sleek black edges. Polished. Beautiful in the way an instrument of torture is beautiful.

A scalpel.

A saw.

What did he do to me?

My calves, ankles, feet—gone. Cut away and discarded like trimmings from a butchered carcass.

The ground tilted. I collapsed sideways, panting, crying again. I couldn’t bear it. Couldn’t bear the weight of what I was.

Dr Novikov sat beside me, calmly pulling my head into his lap. The curve of my horn pressed against his thigh. I tried to shift, but the anchor beneath my scalp tugged—pain blooming sharp and sudden at the base of my skull.

I cried harder, humiliated by the weight of my own head. The horns. The fucking horns.

I was a freak.

His freak.

His creation.

“You will adjust. You’re magnificent. Every single part of you,” the delusional bastard cooed, his fingers stroking my braids like I was something precious.

And I believed him. Not because it was true.

But because what else was left of me?