A Taste for Blood (9 page)

Authors: Erin Lark

BOOK: A Taste for Blood

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One of the nurses pulled a needle from her pocket. Krista’s heart rate increased. I shifted my weight from one foot to the other. Malcom didn’t seem to notice. He glanced down at a pad of paper, reading over a set of notes he’d memorised ages ago.

“Putting on the act a little strong, don’t you think?” I asked, crossing my arms over my chest.

No response.

I bit at my bottom lip and looked back through the window. I didn’t need to watch the monitor to know her heart rate was elevated. Her eyes were dilated. Her fingers dug at the arm rests.

“Malcom, stop,” I said, a little sharper than I intended. “This has gone on long enough. I told you, I give in. You got me. Stop this before someone gets hurt!”

He glared at me when I grabbed his arm. “I invited you here to watch. If you can’t take it, the door’s right behind us.”

I’d seen plenty of outsiders—new blood—come in and shift in the past. And now wouldn’t have been any different if Malcom had only picked a different test subject. Hell, I didn’t even know what he needed them for. The virus had been tested and retested. The results were always the same. The virus worked. But that wasn’t enough for Malcom. It never had been.

Perfection. That’s what he wants.

“You do realise the leopards won’t be the only ones feeding on her, right?”

Malcom set down his notes and locked his hands behind his head. “Meaning you? Come now, Brian, I thought you of all people had some self-control.”

It’s not my control I’m worried about.

I sighed and said nothing else. For as long as I could remember, Malcom had always been the more adventurous of the two of us. When asked to jump, it wasn’t a matter of too high for him, but rather if he’d ever come down. For him, theories were only the beginning, soon followed by diagrams, formulas and live experiments. I’d just never expected the subjects to come in human form.

Looking at him now, it was safe to say how unkind time had been to him. While my hair was slowly going from brown to grey, his had gone completely white. Luckily for me, I could explain my greying hair away with my ability to shift, but his? His was purely from stress, sleepless nights spent milling over new ideas, and a lacklustre diet. I didn’t think I’d ever seen him eat a damned thing since I’d got here. Not an actual meal anyway. Grazing.

That’s all he does. Just like in college. It’s a wonder he hasn’t lost his mind
.

Something caught my eye in the other room, and I watched with horror as Krista’s beautiful body was torn apart by the leopard inside fighting to get out. Her mouth opened. Closed. No sound came out. A silent cry, but a cry all the same. It had been so long since my first shift, I couldn’t remember the pain or how long it had taken, but I knew right from the start that hers wasn’t normal.

She strained against the straps that held her to the chair. One of the nurses reinforced them while another hit a few dials on the monitor nearby, activating the sedative before any normal person could possibly finish their shift. Krista clawed at the arm rests, her nails tearing at the fabric there.

I closed my eyes. Opened them. I couldn’t look away. Whoever Malcom had brought in for this prank was good.

She has to be a professional.

By now, I was teetering between paranoia, fear and disbelief at the images going on outside our window. The nurses tending to Krista retreated from the room, leaving her there to fight the virus on her own.

The sedative should’ve worked by now.

Instead, it only seemed to have made her stronger. Superhuman.

Again, I checked Malcom for any change in his expression, but it was exactly the same as before. He pulled a pen from his breast pocket and jotted something down on his pad of paper, never taking his eyes off Krista.

When I looked back at her, the restraints were gone, torn in two.

He gave her a placebo. No one has ever broken out of the restraints before
.
Not this fast.

And certainly not while they had been sedated. I thought for sure this had all been planned, but when I looked back at him, the wide grin I expected to find wasn’t there. He was just as surprised as I was.

“What’s happening?” I growled, my patience for his jokes completely forgotten when I noticed his slack jaw and wide eyes.

“I…” He shook his head, his eyes drifting from Krista’s writhing body to whatever he’d written down. “I don’t know.”

Krista cried from the other room, her voice garbled behind a leopard’s wail. The weight of the shift threw her down onto her hands and knees, and I swallowed around the lump in my throat.
Fuck.
I shoved my hands into my pockets. Dug my nails into my palms.

Any other time, seeing her in that position would’ve been enough to drive me over the edge. I would’ve wanted it. Expected it. Been ready for it. But not now. Not when she was losing herself to the leopard inside. Her hands clenched, and I winced when her nails scraped at the floor.

Krista arched her back. My jeans got a little tighter.

Damn it, Malcom.

He was well aware of my sexual preferences. Even he had practised being a Dom before.

I gave him a sideways glance, but he stood perfectly still, same as always. The longer it took for Krista to finish her shift, the more agonising it became for me to watch. It had never taken anyone this long, not even when a few of the others were partially sedated. I checked the numbers on the monitor. The nurses had taken the opportunity to sedate her a little more than usual. A simple precaution. If she could just finish her shift, the pain…the ache in every inch of her body—my body—would subside.

She turned towards us. Looked right at me. I caught myself before my legs could go out from underneath me. Even at this stage in her transformation, Krista’s eyes told me all I needed to know. She was a sub. She might not have known it yet, but the gaze she held to mine said one thing and one thing only—
I’m yours. Do with me what you will.

I imagined the words ‘Yes, Master’ falling from her lips. Her tongue licking the head of my cock. Her hand stroking…

Damn it, Brian, get a hold of yourself!

She was perfect. Even when the expression on her face was one twisted in pain, she was beautiful. God, how I wanted her. To just go in that room with her, tear off the few clothes that hung from her body and take her right there.

Not now.
Not when the leopard was so close and when her mind was so far gone.

By now, her entire body was shaking. It could’ve easily been compared to a full-body orgasm, but the endorphins that normally pushed such intense pain into bliss weren’t there. And that was when I knew I had to have her. Not for myself, but to help her. To control her. To control the shift. And more importantly, to save her from Malcom and his fucked-up tests.

The muscles along her arms rippled. Shimmered. Tufts of black and white fur slowly replaced her pale skin. She closed her eyes. Her back relaxed, and she used whatever strength she had left not to lie down. To give in. With her body still shaking and a leopard having taken her place, I waited for her to blink. To move.

She didn’t. And if the monitors weren’t still somehow connected to her, I would’ve sworn she wasn’t breathing. Every time the monitor beeped, I counted down to when she would shift again.

One-one-thousand
.

A tremor ran down her spine, causing the fur to bristle and fall back into place.

Two-one-thousand
.

Her claws tapped against the floor as she approached the window.

Three-one-thousand
.

She stared right at me. I took two steps back.

Four-one-thous
—

“That’s a death stare if I ever saw one,” came Malcom’s voice from somewhere outside my subconscious.

I furrowed my brow and shook my head. I’d somehow lost count, and in the little time it had taken me to go from one to whatever number I’d finally reached, Krista’s body had returned to normal—a frail human having taken the leopard’s place.

I forced myself to look away when she fell into a deep sleep, but only to glare at Malcom. He was busy jotting down even more notes while one of the nurses tiptoed into the room.

Malcom handed her his notes, then said, “We’ll have to keep her sedated for the foreseeable future. With a reaction like that, we cannot risk her shifting again. She needs to be controlled, is that understood?”

“Yes, sir,” the nurse replied, glancing at Malcom’s notes before holding them to her chest. “What about the others? Should we tell—?”

“No. You will report this to no one. Not until we do more tests.”

The nurse bobbed her head. Considering how well all of Malcom’s tests had been going, it was no wonder he didn’t want this one to get out. Not only would news of this cause a lack of funding, but the government would get involved as well, and that was the last thing we needed. It was bad enough they’d got involved in the first place.

No one else needs to know. Not for the sake of Malcom’s career, but for Krista. He’s going to turn her into a lab rat.

I tried not to think about it.

“Where should we take her?” the same nurse asked. “Where will she sleep?”

“There is a spare cell on the north-west corner of the confinement. She can stay there.” Malcom nodded in my direction. “Brian will take her there, won’t you?”

“The hell I will!” The last thing I needed was to tend to a feral leopard and play damage control for one of Malcom’s fucking tests. Whether she was submissive or not, now wasn’t the time to play Dom, not when her mind wasn’t her own.

Malcom made his way into the other room, and I followed close behind him. If he thought I was done talking, he—

“Would you rather I kept her down here in a cage?” Malcom asked, a sly grin spreading across his face as he picked Krista up off the floor. “That’s what I thought. Here.” He passed Krista’s limp body over to me, which I handled with more care than he did. “Take her home. We’ll worry about the beast inside her later.”

I took a deep breath. Another. And another. It didn’t matter. No matter how much air I took in, I couldn’t clear my head. Here was this beautiful woman, mostly naked in my arms, and I wasn’t the one who’d put her there. Careful not to hit her head on the doorframe, I slowly carried her from the room.

I knew better than to take her outside in the cold with little to nothing on and opted for one of the open rooms until she woke up. With as much sedative as they’d put into her system, she probably wouldn’t wake until morning, and I hoped to God she didn’t remember any of it.

I’d never seen someone so beautiful shift so violently, and now it was my turn to pick up the pieces. One fucking piece at a time.

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About the Author

Erin loves writing out her deepest fantasies, from sexy wereshifters to strong characters and all things BDSM. But she wasn’t always this way. In fact, up until a few months ago, writing erotica was the furthest thing from her mind. She happily lived in a world of fantasy and science fiction, and the dirtiest scenes she’d ever written were a kiss between a druid and a dryad along with a skydance between two gryphons.

As uncomfortable as it was, Erin accepted a challenge from her husband back in December to write something new. It started with one word. Two words. Three thousand words later, she was hooked.

She currently lives in Pennsylvania with her husband and their small collection of pets.

Email:
[email protected]

Erin loves to hear from readers. You can find her contact information, website and author biography at
http://www.total-e-bound.com
.

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