Page 64 of Red Demon (Oria #1)

Prisoner

M y world blurred at the edges of the dark, my head pulsing.

Pain lanced through my chest with each ragged breath.

I forced my head to clear and hauled myself up from the floor, only to feel cold steel chains binding my wrists and ankles.

A dank chill wove through the fabric of my undershirt and pants.

I’d been unconscious long enough to lose my sense of time.

I pushed through the haze, realizing my wound would be a clue.

No arrow pierced my ragged shirt, but my chest burned with each breath.

I couldn’t feel a bandage against my skin; it felt like my shirt clung to me with dried blood.

A day? Hours, I decided—not days—but the darkness here was so thick I could practically choke on it.

Even my eyes couldn’t see with no light at all.

Long, fearful hours passed before footsteps echoed through the stone. The light from the door blinded me as an outline solidified. My eyes adjusted to the electric brightness overhead. Major Mahakal, wearing his glimmering raven-wing armor, smiled down at me, patronizing and hungry.

I knew then—with a hollow drop in my gut—that Plan A had failed. Although we’d planned for my capture, the Disciples of Reic were supposed to attack Mahakal en route to collect me, or attack on the road after he took me prisoner.

“It brings me pleasure to see you humbled, friend,” he drawled, cold as the room.

I brought my head up, nodding at his pants before his face. “I’m sure it does.” My voice sounded dry and weak to my ears, but I forced a smile. “How have you been, friend?”

His black eyes, devoid of any warmth, met mine, and I could not hide my shiver.

He crossed his arms, the silence heavy with malice. “The deal I offered you was yourself and the Red Demon in exchange for amnesty for your friends. Why didn’t she turn herself in?”

“Ask her yourself.”

He gave a feral grin at that, black eyes glittering. “Did she think she could track you here? How would she do that? We checked you for both tech and Asri magic, and found nothing.” He stared a minute more. “Her ghost, I imagine.”

I clenched my jaw. I steeled myself to remain silent as he unclipped his sword.

“Or maybe it’s that nose of hers, sniffing you out like the mutt she is,” he said, lowering himself down to get a good look at me.

He gripped my chin, assessing, then ran his fingers through my hair.

“But you’re no mutt, are you, friend?” His low voice tickled my ear. “You just lack proper training.”

He ripped my shirt away from the wound, reopening the scab that healed against the fabric. I closed my eyes tight through the pain, hating that hand under my chin most of all—his shushing tone, the gentle way he drew a finger down over my throat.

When I opened my eyes, I saw a predator savoring a meal. “Kane, get in here, please.”

The door creaked open. Fuck, it was that Kane. When we’d sparred behind the forge, I’d thought his seastorm and gold Asri eyes captivating, his smirk something I couldn’t wait to kiss away. I wanted to vomit as he studied me with that same smile.

“Kane, you have some history with our friend here,” Mahakal said. “Does he strike you as someone who breaks under pain? He’s too proud for what we have in store for him. He’ll need breaking in.”

Kane licked his lips, staring down at me. “I’ll break him in however you want.”

I tried to laugh in his face, but my lungs burned, wheezing out a stutter.

“That wasn’t what I asked, Kane,” Mahakal said. He slammed his knee into my ribs, and I let out a guttural sound, falling with a shudder over the area of impact.

“Fuck you,” I spat.

“Yeah, that just sounds time-consuming to me. You want a turn?” Mahakal asked Kane.

I didn’t expect him to go through with it. But Kane landed a stinging blow across my back with the flat of his blade. I kept my knees under me, my head trained on him.

“Fuck you too, Kane,” I said.

“I see what you mean.” Kane leaned against the wall. “But he deserves the pain.”

“True. This is justice. He and the mutt killed good men, powerful, loyal soldiers,” Mahakal said, his black eyes twinkling down at me. “Please gather the equipment for him, Kane.”

My heart stuttered. When he left, Mahakal just stared down at me, with an expression I once mistook for caring.

“Does Kane know what you are really doing?” I wheezed out.

Mahakal moved closer. “Everyone in my squad is intelligent enough to understand how complex and fragile our world is, that difficult things must be done for the sake of our future. Kane appreciates my efficiency in releasing SBO to cull the herd, and make room for the best of us.”

Asher thought no one would follow Mahakal if they knew.

“Why?” I asked. “Why hurt your own people?”

Mahakal scrutinized my labored breathing through lidded eyes. “My people are the ones that survive: the ones who deserve to survive, men like Kane. I gave you and yours chances to get out before the judgment came.” He stared at me like a disappointed father.

Mahakal dropped to his knees beside me. “It pains me how wrong I was about you,” he said, before trailing a wet kiss down where Kane’s blade had struck. I rose against the bindings with everything I had, unable to do anything besides shrink away a hand's breadth—swearing.

Mahakal only laughed. “I suppose we know where to start breaking you in, but I’m afraid not all of this is pleasurable. I want you to understand your punishment, to know that what I offer you is justice after everything you’ve done.”

The world tilted as Mahakal loomed over me, his voice a low whisper. “Friend, do you know why I offered you a place in my battalion?”

“I would have never been who you wanted,” I said through my teeth.

“In some ways, you’ve yet to disappoint.

You’ve survived, Jesse. You cheated death in Crofton, then Nunbiren.

Do you even understand your uniqueness?” He leaned closer, his obsidian eyes glinting with a predatory hunger.

“You have impeccable breeding, like all the men I choose.” His words were a sickening caress.

I shrank inward.

“I first looked into your code when you told me you survived Crofton,” he said, his voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. “That was my mission, and I made sure the death was quick, painless, ethical. To find a resistant survivor, well … a fortunate surprise.”

“I … I don’t understand.”

His hands trailed my body. “There were some unregistered mods being used by the people in that town, choices that would build the wrong future. It had to be done. I didn’t expect survivors.”

I made myself stop feeling his hand trailing my back, focusing on his smiling face. “What do you mean?”

“I built the next round of SBO based on Crofton anomalies, you know. We had scientists rework some things for the next variant. Now the infected survive longer, to infect others. We can herd these ghosts from more populated areas into lands like Noé, guide away the useful citizens before attacks, and when it is over, replace the lost population with the loyal and strong, just like we did in the Bend.” He kissed my fingers.

My mind raced, blanked. But I would not give him the satisfaction of cringing at his hand circling low on my chest.

“I’m fascinated by what I found in your code. You have no idea what lengths I went to protect you.”

I tried to focus on his words, not his roving hands, to pull my consciousness away.

Kane returned, taking in the sight. “I’d expect you’d have the ungrateful traitor screaming by now, Major.”

“Patience, Kane,” Mahakal said. “Shall we show him who he truly is? Give me your knife.”

Kane stepped forward, producing a sleek dagger from his belt, handing it to Mahakal.

Mahakal gestured toward me, the knife glinting in the electric light before he seared a shallow cut down my arm.

“Have you ever heard of microchimerism?” He leaned closer.

“It’s nothing new, in its simplest form.

A woman can absorb stem cells from her fetus.

That foreign code can alter her body in both subtle and miraculous ways.

She may find herself with curlier hair, or her cancer cured. Rarely harmful, but rarely meaningful.”

He trailed his finger across my chest, his voice a chilling whisper.

“Directed Microchimerism, that’s the technical term of what the Crofton lab continued to produce after the queen outlawed the mod.

You, Jesse, can quickly transmute foreign code into stem cells from almost any cell in your body.

And it models the replication, trying out a change before it commits to a wide-scale change. ”

He brought the knife closer to Kane, the tip a hair’s breadth from his skin. “I’ll show you. A simple nick, that’s all it takes.”

Kane winced, but held still. A single crimson bead welled up on his arm before Mahakal collected it on the dagger, then kissed Kane’s arm. When Kane groaned at that, I knew I’d never be horny again.

I watched in horror as Mahakal spread that blade across the wound on my arm, mixing Kane’s blood with mine.

“There,” Mahakal’s voice was a low purr. “I’m curious to see if blood contact yields different results to more intimate forms of DNA exchange. After all, Kane tells me you absorbed code from him in a much more pleasurable manner.”

My head throbbed, swimming with nausea.

“How’d you get the Red Demon’s code, Jesse, when you were in our camp?” Kane asked. “You saw those scars and still fucked her?”

My eyes widened. Her blood met mine the first time we fought. The healing, the stamina, all of it, from her. I added that to the tally of how many times she’d saved my life. A fragile smile survived the wreckage of my shuddering breath.

Mahakal grasped my smile in the talons of his gaze. “It was nice of the mutt to leave some blood behind to test. Our first sample from her. The Red Demon’s code is also—fascinating.”

I growled, the sound echoing off the stone walls.

“He definitely fucked the mutt,” Mahakal laughed to Kane, giving my cheek a patronizing pat. “But we won’t be wasting your code anymore. Even an untrained dog can be bred.”