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His mate glanced over at the only other female who had been a mother at the table.

“Yes. Days before I escaped, one of the lab guards came to get me from my room in what I assume by the darkness and quiet of the corridors, it was the middle of the night. I was strapped down in a bed in the lab and wheeled to this room. One I had never been to before, but I couldn’t see much.

Most of the room was shrouded in pitch black, except for the area where the scientist stood.

The bed was set under a bright light, making it hard for me to see anything, but I saw a table with instruments, clamps, and a syringe filled with some colorless substance.

But whatever plan they had for me they didn’t start right away. ”

Michaela began to shake again, this time more violently. It amazed Amaros that she was able to keep her seat. When he started to reach for her and pull her into his arms, she held up a hand.

I’m okay. I need to get this out so it can stop living in my head. She pressed the fingers of one hand to her temple.

He nodded, but kept his hand on her leg.

At first glance, because Michaela was a human, most of his kind would assume she was weak, but as he sat and listened to all the things she had gone through alone, even though there had been twelve others imprisoned with her, it was proof she was a fighter and strong.

“I knew something was wrong while I lay in that room. That something wasn’t right.

There was a chill in the air, but it was always cold in the lab spaces.

But...but I felt something. As if there was someone, or something in the dark corners watching me.

” Michaela exhaled forcefully. “Then I saw it.”

“‘It’...not ‘him?’” Marceline asked, sitting forward in her seat, intrigued like all the others at Michaela’s recounting.

“ It ,” Michaela growled. “The first thing I heard was it snorting and grunting before I heard it moving, like it was dragging something.” Her wide, bright eyes looked at him.

“It was wrong...broken and vile. Half man and dog.

..scales in all the wrong places and covered in thick patches of fur, had fangs thick and long like a walrus.

This mangled beast moved into the arc of the light, and leaned toward me sniffing while the fucking scientists just stood there watching and panting like they were excited.

I screamed. Pleaded with them to get it away from me.

I was sure it would devour me whole. When it lunged at me and tried to grab me, there was a loud buzzing sound, and a collar around the beast’s neck lit up.

Then, it fell to the floor and crawled back into the darkness.

” She shoved her short hair back away from her face, mussing it.

“When I asked them to let me go and told them I didn’t want to be there anymore, they just said everything would be fine and covered my mouth and nose with a mask.

I woke in my bed days later with a gnawing pain in my stomach. I knew they had put something in me.”

Right then, Amaros wanted to teleport inside the Wall, hunt down every scientist and rip every limb from their bodies one by one so they understood pain, before he carved out their miserable degenerate hearts.

Kenia launched to her feet. “That is heinous. They have the nerve to call us monsters.”

“Humans do more vile things to each other than we ever could.” Ciaran picked up his goblet and slammed back the blood inside as if he needed to cleanse his palate after hearing the horrors that happened to Michaela.

“What is your plan, Amaros? We can’t let this type of behavior stand.” Marceline leaned back in her chair looking exhausted and vexed.

Amaros rose. He walked to the narrow, stained-glass window in the room. He needed space, not from Michaela but to contain his rage. “It is clear that the humans have decided to use the serum not only to mark some but to attempt to create some sort of super humans.”

“They are playing the Great Spirit, and failing at it, by Michaela’s description,” Velorina spoke from behind him.

The sun was shining bright on the lawn, and the sky's off-color hue was an example of humans affecting the natural order of things.

Now mutants.

“For now, " he said, facing the room. Others had gotten up and were pacing the office or standing and gripping the backs of their chairs. Only D’Arcy, Jezebel, and Amdis remained seated.

Michaela. She sat with her head leaned back in her chair, her eyes closed, as if the story's telling had drained her.

“It’s possible Michaela wasn’t the only one of the twelve they surgically implanted.”

“With three. The humans are impatient and overzealous,” Marceline snarked.

“Leporidae,” he said.

The room of vamps frowned and glanced around at each other.

“What do rabbits have to do with this?” D’Arcy stared at him.

“It’s the DNA the scientists mixed with Michaela’s and probably all the women, during their supposed blood cleaning. I tasted it when I bit her in the cave. I’d forgotten about it until now.”

Everyone looked at him, but he gazed into his mate's eyes.

Michaela opened her eyes and held his gaze, aghast. “I’m part rabbit?”

“Were.” He nodded down at her plate. “You didn’t even like your carrots,” he teased and winked at her, trying to lighten the mood in the room, but she was his only concern.

“Any blood they put in I drank out. If and when we conceive after this, you most likely will bear the standard single birth of most Vampire women.”

“Let her get through these three first, Amaros, before you start adding more branches to your family tree,” Kenia ribbed.

A few others chuckled.

“So, tomorrow, we take this information to the council?” Marceline stepped around the table toward him.

“It is our duty. If a war with the humans is on the horizon, we should gather all the armies.”

Marceline gave a short nod. “I agree, Sire.”

“We’ll need to leave shortly after midnight to ensure we can pace the transport intervals while Michaela travels with us.”

Marceline knew that even with him transporting Michaela, moving her through space at any distance would make the new Vampire ill, so they would sometimes have to walk.

“I will be ready—”

They all heard it, the squeak of wheels and the soft padding of thick-soled shoes.

Then all hell broke loose.

“Blood!” Michaela was out of her chair and launching toward the young girl foolishly about to enter the room with a dish cart. Zita.

Amaros thanked the Great Spirit he could move faster than his mate.

No, little angel, not her. Amaros brushed his lips along Michaela’s soft cheek. Slipping an arm around her waist, he locked Michaela in place. He gripped her hip tight with his other hand, holding her pressed against him, and she reached through the open doorway, struggling to grab the young lady.

“What the hell are you doing here?” he demanded. Servants not following orders could lead to disasters, such as this.

Zita kept her wide eyes downcast. “Forgive me, my Prince...Sire. I thought meal was done—”

“I’m hungrrry,” Michaela whined and attempted to fight against his hold. “She’s so good. Pleeease...”

He’d drunk the fresh, pure blood from the young woman and knew that Michaela’s acute Vampire scent could distinguish that she’d tasted Zita before, and wanted more.

He knew Michaela was not only in need of blood, something he hadn’t allowed her to consume since they awakened, but her desire had more to do with filling the pit in her soul that revealing the terror that happened to her had caused. She needed to be soothed.

“You promised,” she argued.

To the young woman’s credit, even though Michaela had most likely frightened her coming for her the way she had, Zita had backed up to the wall, stood there with her chin turned to the side, and bared her neck.

“Go!” he snapped to Zita.

Zita wasted no time gripping her cart and scurrying away.

I remember my promise. But not her , he commanded in a sharp tone to remind his mate that the leader of the Coven stood before her.

If he let Michaela at the girl, his mate would rip out her throat in her haste or drain Zita dry. Zita was not Prime, and it would kill her.

Amaros could not allow such an incident to happen.

“Everyone out!” he ordered. Sherman, come to me and bring another Prime; my mate needs to be fed.

He dragged Michaela back from the door to allow the others to exit without a word.

Michaela’s thirst was not a shock to them. They’d all seen bloodlust before and experienced it at one point as a new or young vampire.

Sherman, his personal Prime, who had been with Amaros for almost a century, responded quickly. Yes, Sire, as you command .