“By you being my mate, you are also Luna of the Iron Valor pack. You are the perfect woman for the job. I feel your fear and doubt pulsing through our bond. Stop. The best part of the Omega/Alpha bond is we make each other better, stronger. This is just the beginning of what you will become my mate. We’ll need to prepare for your first shift. Which I’d guess will be on the next full moon. That’s only a week away.”
Chapter 12
Harrison Hastings
The twelfth step into my father’s office always required lifting my left heel slightly higher to clear the warped floorboard he’d refused to fix for decades. A test, like everything in this mausoleum of a mansion. I counted the amber light patches thrown by leaded windows—seven across the Persian rug, each precisely avoiding the path to his desk. His Montblanc scratched across bond paper like a scalpel, cutting flesh as I waited the required seven breaths before he acknowledged me.
The pen didn’t pause. I noted the new vein map on his temple, tributaries of mortality undermining his marble complexion.
I settled in the Chesterfield chair, its burgundy leather sighing like a wounded animal. Then, I placed a vial of blood on his desk. “We’ve deployed three additional teams. Facial recognition hits in Denver required… reassessment.” My thumb found the ridge under the armrest where Grandfather had chipped the wood during the ‘78 market crash.
The silence stretched into its eighteenth second when he finally looked up. His eyes mirrored mine, polished gunmetal assessing the kill radius picking up the vial. “Reassessment or failure?”
The air conditioner hummed. I adjusted my cuffs to display 1.5 cm of shirt sleeve. “The shifter gene can complicate tracking.Thermal imaging becomes unreliable when their core temp can drop twenty degrees.”
Her laugh suddenly echoed in my skull, that throaty vibration she’d made when I’d presented the Cartier necklace on her twenty-fourth birthday. I’d recorded the decibel level. 67.3 dB, well within human parameters.
Father’s signet ring clacked against the humidor. “The team reports promising results with the new transfusions.”
I saw the lab then, white coats moving through steam rising from jungle floor grates, the way Subject 14’s claws had torn stainless steel restraints. “We’ve accelerated Phase Three. The longevity serum shows an eighty-three percent viability rate in primate trials.”
His eyebrow twitched - the equivalent of a standing ovation. “And the other seventeen percent?”
“Neurological degeneration. Fascinating, really. The cerebral cortex liquefies within…”
Charles set down the vial with surgical precision. “The Bettencourt girl. It was quite fortunate for us you discovered this DNA phenomenon after Jules made her a part of his infusion of money into the company.”
“It was a very fortuitous stroke of luck,” I said, sliding my Montblanc folio across the table. Lab reports stamped with the Hastings Industries logo fanned out between us. “I knew there was something special within her DNA after several months of her recovering quickly to minor injuries that seemed to,” I cleared my throat so my father understood my meaning, “befall her with frequency.”
His greasy smile told me he understood my meaning fully.
Charles grunted approval. “Clever girl never suspected?”
“Her accelerated healing is something she never questioned. It’s apparently always been a part of her physiological makeup, and so her assumption is that it’s normal for her. Her parents have a private physician who must have knowledge of her specialcircumstances.” A lifted eyebrow and nod from my father told me to continue.
“And that’s what prompted my closer look at her family tree, finding the wolf shifters we now have in our possession in our underground lab in Costa Rica. The deal Jules Bettencourt made for his daughter will be the thing that will win me the Nobel Prize.”
My father seemed to ponder my actions where Juliet was concerned. “I don’t understand why you didn’t just use the girl as your specimen as soon as you realized she had this healing gene. Could have saved you the trouble you’re having currently.”
He was such a damn fool. He did not understand what we were accomplishing here.
“There are a few reasons we are proceeding as we have. Finding the source of Juliet’s DNA was paramount. We needed a baseline. Then, almost as important, our labs were not built when I discovered Juliet’s abilities. There was nowhere for her to be placed where she could thrive in good physical health until we were ready to start working on the serum. She needed to be in an environment that was more conducive to a healthy lifestyle. Her being in good physical condition was paramount in getting the best results for our testing. Keeping her locked up in a cell for two years would not be conducive to that outcome. Married, living in a penthouse in Manhattan with a highly successful man whom her parents approved of seemed like a much better alternative.”
The confession tasted of Scotch and betrayal. I remembered forcefully taking Juliet in our penthouse bathroom; her frightened eyes staring at me as my fingers wrapped around her delicate neck, her breath coming out in small gasps. I’d yanked the skirt of her dress up and ripped off the lace panties she wore. I’d managed to undo my belt and get my pants and boxers off with one hand and spread her legs with my knees. That same free hand reached between us and found her bare pussy dripping wet, despite her fear and loathing.
“Look at you, little slut. You pretend you don’t want me, but your body knows its master.”Deep down, I knew it was only physiology. But I pretended it was more as I slammed my impossibly hard dick into her tight wet heat until she screamed out her pleasure, my hand squeezing her throat hard enough to bruise. I pulled out of her and spilled my cum all over her stomach and dress, rubbing it in with my softening cock. When I released her neck, I noticed the bruises that had started dark black and blue had already started to fade. It made her the perfect canvas for my sadistic torture. I vaguely remembered how she’d stared past me immediately after, looking at the heated towel rack, whispering numbers in French, her childhood trick for dissociating from trauma.
The truth burned tart behind my teeth: how her body betrayed her during those forced couplings under crystal chandeliers—how I told myselfthis was dominance, not some deplorable assault even greed couldn’t purge from my veins.
Shaking off the memory and calming my hardening dick, I continued. “Phase three trials can’t proceed without viable mitochondrial donors.” I clicked open my pen; the sound sharp. “I have her within my grasp.”
Charles pressed; cold calculation steadied me again, numbers slotting into place like bank vault tumblers: extraction costs and contingency plan. His shadow bisected Juliet’s file photo when he stood smiling approval sharp as a scalpel. But when he mentioned mother crying over our failed wedding, it took everything not to snap
“Your mother cried when she heard there would be no wedding, you know.Actualtears.”
(Only thing Catherine Hastings mourned was losing access to belittling Juliet on a weekly basis). “She cried harder when you sold her Matisse.” He laughed his first genuine laugh. I wondered if she’d cry when the old fuck has a stroke. Because one was coming.
My driver materialized curbside with an umbrella raised against nonexistent rain. The ride to the private airfield was quiet. Two and a half hours later, we landed on the private airstrip in Costa Rica where the lab was located. Changing into a lab coat, I entered an observation chamber where our principal scientist was about to try a new protocol on her latest subject. I watched. My mind imagined it was Juliet on the receiving end of the torture.
