Page 6 of Milk & Malice: Vadik (The Caged Hearts Pet Play #6)

Lena

I wasn’t crying anymore. I couldn’t. My body had wrung the last of it out like a sponge. Now there was only… nothing. A raw kind of quiet. A ringing hush in my ears that no longer belonged to panic—just space. Blank, thick space where thoughts should be.

I stared at the ceiling. I didn’t blink. I couldn’t blink. My lids were too swollen.

The beams above looked like ribs. The kind you see in old barns. Or in diagrams of butchered animals.

His words had carved themselves into my skull.

Your hooves.

Your horns.

You’ll stand eventually.

I cleaned your stumps.

My greatest achievement.

My cow.

I’d screamed until my throat went hoarse.

Now I couldn’t even open my mouth.

Not with the gag soaked in spit. Not with the shame choking me harder than the cloth ever could.

I tried to move again. Reflex. Stupid.

I couldn’t bend my arms.

Because I didn’t have arms.

Not really.

Not anymore.

I turned my head just enough to see the white curve of it—my…hoof.

A real fucking hoof.

It glinted dully under the surgical light.

Wide. Cloven. Black.

It twitched when I flinched.

It was attached to me.

I wanted to be sick but there was nothing left in my stomach.

Not after seven weeks under. Seven weeks of slicing.

Seven weeks of being “cared for.”

I remembered the smell. The sterile stink of antiseptic and the meat-sweet scent of blood.

My blood.

My limbs.

My chest rose in shallow, sharp bursts. It wasn’t a panic attack. It wasn’t fear.

It was worse.

Realisation.

This wasn’t a nightmare.

This wasn’t shock.

This was the part after. The cruel, cold after.

When the monster sits beside your bed, drinking coffee, and tells you you’re beautiful.

Because he made you that way.

I felt the tears come again but they didn’t fall right.

The skin on my face was too tight.

Something tugged near my temples—tight stitches, fresh skin.

The grafts.

Anchors.

Fucking horns.

I wanted to scream but I had no energy left. Just a throat full of acid and a body that no longer felt mine.

It belonged to him.

Stitched, sculpted, and sealed by his hands.

Vadik Novikov. Doctor. Butcher.

Owner.

My thoughts began to split, scatter.

They drifted away from the panic, curled into something small, numb, and still.

I imagined grass.

A field.

Sunlight.

My mother brushing my hair.

I clung to that memory—held it tighter than the ache in my stumps, tighter than the sob lodged behind my gag.

He said the real fun was about to begin.

And I knew, deep down,

this wasn’t the worst.

Not yet.

But it was close.

So fucking close.

I was so lost in my desolate thoughts that when he stroked strands of my hair away, I flinched.

What did I do if I needed to scratch my nose?

Clean myself after the bathroom?

Eat?

Drink?

“Shhhh,”

he said and music played.

Classical music from my dreams.

He put his phone down and pulled the cloth out of my mouth.

“Do you have any questions, my sweet?”

I have half my limbs left, horns in my skull and whatever else he said. Did I have questions?

“Why me?”

I croaked out.

I stared at him.

Really stared at him.

He was well-spoken and he had surgeon’s hands—well taken care of. He was middle aged maybe thirty-nine to forty-two. His dark hair had a little grey through it. A sharp nose, slim lips, medium build. I was confused.

He looked so—normal.

I stared at his eyes.

They were the problem.

He observed. Calm all the time.

Walking away when I was crying and came back as if what he did to me was an everyday occurrence.

Fear bloomed in the pit of my belly, quickly stifling me.

He suddenly smiled widely.

“That’s easy. Your bone dimensions and your breasts. Well, your hair as well. You were the ideal candidate for my project.”

Project?

He sipped his coffee. I could smell it.

I was scared to look at my legs because I couldn’t feel my feet. My ankles. Only a heaviness in my thighs.

He chose me because I fit his project.

It could have been anyone.

No. It was me. A real life Frankenstein.

Part human and part cow.

I wanted to die.

I closed my eyes.

No longer able to look at his excitement or contented glee.

Bastard.

My tears resumed.