Dark Wrath Read online

  DARK WRATH

  Celeste Anwar

  © copyright Celeste Anwar (original publication Jan. 2006)

  Cover art by Eliza Black, © copyright February 2016

  www.celesteanwar.com

  This is a work of fiction. All characters, events, and places are of the author’s imagination and not to be confused with fact. Any resemblance to living persons or events is merely coincidence.

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter One

  Subject one has resisted all attempts at harvesting, Doctor Wagner,” Doctor Freda Dallas said, crossing her arms beneath her breasts as she leaned against the door jamb of Wagner’s office and carefully assumed a neutral expression. She didn’t feel neutral about it. She was angry and frustrated as she studied her superior.

  Wagner looked up distractedly from the file on his desk, his faded blue eyes magnified by the thick glasses perched on his nose. It was a shame, Freda thought, that the man was so totally unattractive besides being an exceptional scientist. He was ordinary enough that he might have been flattered by an attempt on her part to manipulate him by seduction except that he was too intelligent not to be suspicious of her motives and too thick skinned to notice anything the least bit subtle. “Have you tried milking the prostate?”

  Freda nodded. Her pose of professional indifference slipped a notch at the reminder, a frown drawing her brows together over the bridge of her nose. The tight expression made her head hurt. “Yes. It’s not working. Nothing has.”

  Wagner steepled his hands beneath his chin musingly. “It amazes me the control he has over his body, but I suspect it’s a given with what he is. He is a magnificent specimen. He’s next to useless without viable sperm, however.” He sat back in his chair, his features drawn into an expression of disgust and disappointment. “We’ll have to have him destroyed.”

  She’d expected as much and the coolly issued death penalty still sent a jolt of regret through her. Wagner was right. He was a magnificent specimen, too marvelous in her considered opinion to just arbitrarily destroy him.

  Besides, it went against the grain to just give up on him.

  “There’s another possibility, Wagner, one we considered before but didn’t want to get in to until all options had been exhausted. I hadn’t expected it to be necessary. I know none of us expected entrapment and extraction to be so difficult.”

  She had his attention. He looked at her expectantly, more than a little hopeful, and she knew she had him. He wanted the specimen as much as she did, not entirely for the same reason, but that hardly mattered.

  “Well?”

  “Natural extraction of spermatozoa through sexual intercourse.” It was a reach. She didn’t especially like what she was going to have to do to keep him alive, but she felt Dr. Wagner was desperate enough to consider it.

  He leaned forward in his chair again trying to hide his eagerness. As she’d hoped, his eyes gleamed with scientific avarice. “Go on.”

  “As you say, he has amazing self-control, but I believe he’s near the breaking point. If we give him someone he’s attracted to, it could be the impetus we’ve needed all this time.”

  “You have someone in mind, don’t you?”

  Freda restrained the malicious smile that threatened her composure. “Erin Maddox. I’ve seen the way he looks at her when she delivers his food. He’s attracted to her, I know.”

  Wagner was silent a long moment, lacing and unlacing his fingers as he thought it over. Finally, he said, “She’ll never agree. She thinks they’re nothing but animals.”

  “I know, but her contract clearly states her obligations to the project. Which is to say she’s under our complete control. She can’t object, and there’s always formula 9 if she does.”

  Wagner digested that with just a trace of uneasiness. “You realize this takes it to the next level. There’ll be no turning back.”

  “I assumed we’d crossed into uncharted territory when we took live specimens.”

  He didn’t consider nearly as long this time. Clearly, he was far too excited at the possibility of finally making a break through that he’d overcome his brief battle with ethics. “Agreed. If this works, I think you just may get that clearance for level five you’ve been so eager for.”

  Freda allowed herself a smile. A bump up the ladder and she hadn’t even had to screw the old geezer to get it. Who would’ve thought? “Thank you, sir.”

  Wagner smiled suddenly, rising from his seat, possibilities whirling in his eyes. “Have a syringe of F9 prepared for its first human subject. I suspect we’ll need it. I’ll call her in.”

  * * * *

  “Ms. Maddox, come to my office,” Doctor Wagner’s voice compelled her over the intercom, startling her with its abruptness.

  What the hell did he want now? Coffee? Tea? For me to come in there and kiss his ass? She thought.

  Erin Maddox curbed the impulse to glare at the unit. He could be watching, after all, and she’d never get off drudge duty if he knew how much she despised leaping to his commands. There was nothing for it, though. If she wanted her job, and she did, and she wanted a chance to move up from lab drudge to something of significance, she had to do whatever he wanted her to do.

  She stood and answered the com unit, then headed out to the hall, following it down to his office.

  The facility was deceptively quiet save for the hollow echo of her heels through the barren, concrete corridor. She could almost believe she was the only person in the building. There were no televisions, no murmuring conversations between colleagues to be heard. Nothing but herself and whatever noises she chose to make--which was almost enough to make her want to run through the halls whooping and hollering just for the hell of it. She wouldn’t, of course, but it didn’t mean she wasn’t tempted. There were just too many cameras watching for her to act up.

  Beyond these empty corridors, however, was a different story. She knew the grounds teemed with guards patrolling twenty-four hours a day, just itching for a security breach. She’d seen them the few times she’d dared to leave the facilities for fresh air. It felt like the prison that it was--that it had become for her.

  Thoughts of furthering her career in the government had all but been erased from her mind. She’d been treated as an interloper from the onset of coming here and wasn’t allowed access to anything of importance until she could be thoroughly trusted--which she suspected would be never at this rate. She wasn’t a team player according to her supervisor, Doctor Freda Dallas. And she couldn’t leave and apply for another position until the term of this contract had expired, which left her completely at the project head’s mercy.

  She blew out a frustrated breath thinking about it, which only served to increase her annoyance over her situation.

  Erin reached Wagner’s office and knocked, mentally composing herself for whatever ordeal he had planned for her today. His muffled “come in” penetrated the door, and she opened it and went inside, closing it behind her.

  Freda Dallas was sitting inside in a chair in the far corner of Wagner’s office. Their gazes locked as she entered. Erin paused for a heartbeat--surprised to see her in there--before she remembered herself and reluctantly crossed the room and sat beside Freda in the only other available chair.

  If Wagner made her feel under rule, Freda made her feel positively
like a slave. The woman had had it in for her from the moment she’d arrived. She didn’t know why. She never knew why some people just decided to hate her.

  Erin returned her cold smile, wondering what the bitch was up to now. Whatever it was, she knew she wouldn’t like it. Freda had a smug look on her face that set Erin’s teeth on edge.

  “Are you prepared to devote yourself fully to this project, Maddox?” Wagner asked as he settled into his chair, clasping his hands on his desktop and giving her the condescending look he always reserved for her.

  Was she finally going to be given the chance she’d been waiting for? It was too much to hope for. Carefully, she answered, “Of course, sir. I’ve been ready to assist in any way you deem appropriate.”

  “Good. Good. You may or may not know of the troubles we’ve had extracting viable spermatozoa from the specimen we’ve collected?”

  “I’ve not been granted access to that information, sir. No.” She didn’t find the information particularly surprising though. Freda was in charge of that department. The woman emanated cold. She wouldn’t respond to that chilly bitch either if she could help it.

  “Yes, well, here’s where you come in. We need your assistance in a natural extraction.”

  Erin frowned. “What methods, precisely, have you been using if not natural?” The process was basically the same for any male animal. She didn’t see why it would be different in this case.

  Doctor Wagner stood and moved around his desk, sitting on the edge and entirely too close to her space for comfort. He looked down at her. “Freda has proposed a radical solution that we’ve not considered before. You’ll perform sexual intercourse with subject one and then return to us for swabbing once you’ve collected the specimen.”

  Erin stared at him in shocked disbelief, feeling a cold chill run up her spine. She couldn’t speak for several heartbeats, and when she could work her throat, her voice came out like a croak. “Are you serious?”

  He held her gaze, his face blank, impassive as ever. “Perfectly. I know it sounds radical, but this is no ordinary situation, you’ll agree, and unfortunately it looks like we’ve run out of other options. Are you agreeable?”

  The shock hadn’t really worn off, but it didn’t have to. Her gut reaction to his suggestion was enough to send a surge of outrage through her. “No. No, I am not agreeable! They’re … he’s an animal! I can’t believe you would even suggest such a thing!”

  Freda rolled her eyes. “Please. Do we have to put up with these hysterics?”

  Her attention caught by the snide comment, Erin’s head whipped toward the woman she’d begun to think of as her nemesis. She glared at Freda, forcing herself to calm down, realizing, as badly as she would’ve hated to admit it that Freda was right in a sense. She wasn’t behaving rationally and certainly not with professional, scientific detachment. She’d reacted emotionally. They were just asking her, after all. It wasn’t like she was being forced to agree with them. They were rational doctors, not mad scientists. “I’m not hysterical.” She turned to look at Wagner again, still seething at the outrageous suggestion and now irritated, as well, that they were trying to make it seem as if she was being unreasonable. “I just don’t see why you need me. He’s Freda’s little pet. Why doesn’t she do it?”

  “Because he tries to kill me every chance he gets and he practically comes all over himself when you enter the room,” Freda answered sarcastically.

  “You are disgusting.” Erin got to her feet, preparing to leave, for good this time. These people were nuts. “I’m a scientist, not a … Geisha girl. I don’t have to put up with this, and I won’t. Consider this my resignation.”

  “I’m afraid you don’t have a choice, Erin,” Wagner said, studying his hands.

  The calm way he made the statement made it difficult to absorb given what it alluded to. It took several moments to sink into her that he seemed to think that all he had to do was tell her she had to and she would just cave in. Well, cleaning up after them was one thing. Spreading her legs for that … thing they had chained in one of the holding cells was another matter entirely. Even if she was insane enough to consider the order reasonable, what guarantee would she have that he wouldn’t try to rip her throat out? As the bitch had pointed out, he was dangerous. “What? You’re crazy. You’re both crazy,” Erin said, recognizing the hysteria seeping into her voice as it grew louder.

  “I’m prepared to do whatever it takes for Nemesis to succeed,” Wagner said quietly, standing and seizing both of her wrists in an iron grip before she could think to try and evade him.

  He was strong. Stronger than she’d supposed an old man would be, but then, he outweighed her by a good fifty pounds. Adrenaline kicked into overdrive, making her blood pound frantically as she tried to pull away.

  With all her attention focused on him, she didn’t notice Freda come up beside her until she’d pulled Erin’s hair back and jammed a needle in her neck, plunging the depressor and sending some drug flooding through her veins.

  Erin screamed, jerking away when they released her. Almost immediately, the room began swimming before her eyes.

  “What did you do to me?” she said with a gasp, clutching her neck, waving her other hand around to find support or balance, anything to keep her from falling over before she could get to the door. If she could reach it, she could escape.

  “Formula 9,” Freda said tauntingly behind her. “You’ll find it makes the process much more pleasurable. By the time it kicks in fully, you won’t care what’s between your legs. Of course, we haven’t tested it on humans yet.”

  “Doctor Dallas, please. Let’s try to remain professional here,” Wagner said, sounding far away.

  Formula 9. The words echoed in her mind, bringing horrific images with it. Oh god! She was totally at their mercy. There was no one here who would help her. She felt sick to her stomach. Bile burned the back of her throat as the room wavered. The overhead lights blinked like a strobe and then winked out entirely.

  * * * *

  The mechanism holding the chains stretched tight churned in the ceiling above, unreeling until the soles of Jesse Stone’s feet touched the ice cold concrete floor. Relief flooded him, but it was short lived. The churning continued, the chain lengthened until his arms dropped limply to his sides for the first time in days.

  Wariness invaded him then, a mere flicker of doubt, but enough to make him suspicious of their motives. They weren’t interested in his comfort.

  Without the restriction, and support, of the chains after so long, Jesse swayed on his feet, stumbling back and hitting the wall. His shoulder joints felt like they would dislocate from the weight of his arms. Blood rushed into his hands, making them throb with renewed feeling and the release of tension and taut muscles.

  Focusing his mind away from the pain, he looked down at his manacles for some sign of a weakness in the restraints that he might have missed, but he had yet to find any way of breaking them. They were coated with silver, black now from the reaction to his skin, but as strong as it was, the metal beneath had to be titanium. No amount of struggle had caused even the slightest bend or warping in the chains or manacles, and they hugged his wrists as though designed specifically for him.

  Within seconds of his respite, a jet of water shot from above, blasting him with frigid water as it bathed his body and sluiced away the refuse on the floor. Jesse turned his face up and opened his mouth wide, drinking the water as he rubbed his body to cleanse himself. It was the first time he’d touched himself in weeks, and the first water he’d had in days--since they’d stopped giving him food and water to weaken his willpower.

  His skin rippled with goose bumps as the flow abruptly stopped, and the conditioned air shivered over his flesh. He slicked his hair back off his forehead, sluicing water off his arms and chest in an attempt to quicken drying.

  The water at least filled his belly, somewhat, and his mouth was no longer so dry he couldn’t swallow. His throat still felt raw, however.
<
br />   His comfort was not their concern, therefore it followed that this had to be the prelude of yet another of their attempts to get him to lower his guard.

  Almost on the thought, the bolt on the door shifted as it was unlocked and the door was pushed open.

  She stumbled through.

  His gut clenched at the sight of her, at having her in the room again. He’d waited so long to see her, just a glimpse, anything. More than the promise of food that she always delivered when he wasn’t being punished, the sight of her was enough to make his body thrum with awareness, cause his blood to soar.

  She was the only thing, the only person in this hell hole that made it bearable.

  Her hair was in her face, but he knew what she looked like. He’d had ample time to catch glimpses of her trim, athletic figure; arched eyebrows and slanted blue eyes that were huge in her face, like cat eyes, and compelling, captivating and intense. She had a mouth that was made for kissing, with her fully, pouty bottom lip. And he knew from watching her that she had a habit of rubbing the edges of her top teeth with her tongue when she was nervous, almost like she could sense he wanted to kiss her.

  Her white shirt was rumpled and twisted at the waistband of her skirt. She leaned on the door, rubbing one bare foot on the floor.

  He was so busy looking his fill of her, unobstructed by swollen eyes or tangled hair, that it took him several minutes to realize she hadn’t brought food, which was the only reason she’d ever come into his cell before.