Chapter 54

Iopen my mouth to demand that she let me go, but only a pitiful moan manages to escape. I’m terribly weak and dehydrated; each of my limbs feels like weights of lead.

“Are you hungry? Thirsty?” Alyssa giggles, the noise distinctly childlike. A moment later, a bottle is placed in my hand.

At first, I want to refuse her offering. I want to be strong enough to throw it in her face. Instead, I desperately fumble with the cap and down the bottle in less than a second. The water is warm, a little hotter than room temperature, but it feels like heaven in my dry mouth. Only when every last drop is gone do I put the bottle down.

“Damn, you really were thirsty,” she muses, her voice coming closer. This time, she places a fluffy block in my hand. Bread, if the texture is any indication.

I know I need to eat slowly, but I’m positively famished. My stomach churns in protest as I shove the entire piece of moldy bread into my mouth.

“Why are you doing this to me?” I manage to stutter out. My voice is raspy and hoarse from lack of use.

“It’s nothing personal,” she says immediately, jubilantly almost. “I’m just tying up some loose ends.”

“You work for the Compound,” I whisper. It’s not a question. There’s no doubt in my mind that this councilwoman has played a part in my lifelong torture.

“No, silly girl.” She laughs, the sound deceptively lighthearted, before petting my sweat-soaked, greasy hair. “I run the Compound.”

Ice-cold terror skids down my spine as I process her words. She isn’t just a pawn to the Compound; she is the Compound. There are thousands of questions clamoring for my attention, but I settle on the easiest one.

“Back at the prison, how did you know I was in your head?” For all I’m aware of, no one has ever sensed me lurking in their mind. The fact that Alyssa had…

She chuckles again, and I hear the springs on my bed creak as she sits. “I’m an angel. We’re gifted in evading mind control. It’s like an alarm system in our brain. Of course, not all angels are as old or as skilled as me. I’m sure that anyone else wouldn’t have noticed your annoying presence where it doesn’t belong.” Her conversational tone transitions into rage. Even with no sight, I can feel her eyes spewing fire on my back. “Or it could be because you’re my daughter.” This last statement is said nonchalantly, as if she is merely discussing the weather, but it causes all my organs to stutter and stop. I’m not even sure I’m breathing.

“What?” I gasp. Surely, I heard her wrong. Surely, she didn’t just confess to being my biological parent.

For years, I have lived with no identity. No true name. I thought that was all I would ever be: a nameless, faceless female. Surprisingly, that thought provided me with a great deal of comfort. I didn’t want to know if I had family out there, crying for me. Missing me.

Laughing at me.

“I fucked a human male,” Alyssa says dismissively, as if she didn’t just drop a life-changing bomb on my lap and hit the detonate button.

“I’m part angel and part human?” My voice cracks. “I’m a hybrid?”

Alyssa releases another undignified snort. “No, silly girl. You’re a tribrid.” She moves to her feet once more before dropping another water bottle on my head. I wince at the initial stab of pain before eagerly devouring the water. I try to sip this one slower, my stomach already protesting how quickly I drank the first. “Raphael and I had a plan,” she says, stroking my hair back. I wonder if she means for the touch to be motherly. Instead, it causes disgust to run rampant through my veins. “We wanted to create a world where supernatural creatures could love freely. Could procreate freely. We realized quickly that the best supernaturals embodied the characteristics of more than one species.”

My plan to drink the water slowly backfires. In only a second, the bottle is empty. My stomach howls and gurgles in protest.

“We had the Compound open for years, since the twenties,” Alyssa continues, and I realize blankly that she’s telling me all this now because she has no intention of letting me go…or keeping me alive. “At first, we would just find compatible supernatural creatures and force them to mate.”

Force them to mate. That sounds an awful lot like rape.

Disgust churns like acid in my lower stomach. I feel queasy, but I can’t be certain if it’s because of Alyssa’s words or my gnawing hunger.

“As technology advanced, so did our techniques. We learned how to inject supernatural blood into our subjects. How to alter their DNA.” She sighs dreamily.

“You experimented on them? On me?” I croak out, stumbling to my hands and knees. Even that movement pulls at muscles I didn’t know existed.

“Of course.” She doesn’t sound at all apologetic. “There was an issue when we tried adding the demon DNA to you. I’ll give you one hint. Well, two.” She pokes at both of my eyes, and I let out a scream at the immediate, burning pain.

Alyssa isn’t just evil. She’s positively deranged. That makes her dangerous and unpredictable.

I fall onto my back, sobbing.

“Why now?” I cry. “Why are you doing this now?”

She sighs heavily, as if I’m an imbecile for asking such a ridiculous question. “I didn’t want to kill you, Nina. It’s why I put you in Nightmare Penitentiary. However, one of your boy toys received classified information the other day. Information that he shouldn’t have.” Her words send my mind in a tailspin, but before I can ask, she continues. “Enough about that.” She blows out a breath. “I really don’t want to kill you, Nina, just like I didn’t want to kill Rafe. But sometimes, you have to do things for the greater good.”

“You killed Raphael Turner?” I squeak as horror washes over me like a tsunami. “I thought you loved him!”

“I did. I mean, I do.” The ire in Alyssa’s voice makes goose bumps dust across my skin. “But he was getting too power hungry. He wanted to tell the council about our experiments. You see, over time, we have made over one thousand hybrids and tribrids. Hell, during the time you were in the Compound, we made at least fifty, if not more. An army’s worth. Raphael wanted the world to know.”

“So, you killed him?” I conclude, heart hammering in my chest. If she can do that to the person she loves, what will she do to me? Daughter or not, I’m under no illusion I’m getting out of this mess alive.

“It had to be done. Besides, he let you escape.” Her tone darkens considerably. “I needed to contain you somehow, but I knew returning you to the Compound would draw too much attention. You already had his blood under your nails, so it was the perfect idea. You go to prison—I get to keep an eye on you.”

“What about Kai? Is he like me? A hybrid or whatever?”

Alyssa scoffs. “The dragon? No. He was meant for you, actually. What would be better than a quarter angel, quarter demon, quarter human, and quarter dragon baby? We intended for you to mate when the time was right.” She cuts off abruptly when I begin laughing. Not just tiny peals of laughter, but full-on, grab-your-belly-and-rock-back-and-forth laughter. “What the hell is so funny?” she hisses.

“The flaw in your plan.” I wipe at the tears that have escaped my eyes, attempting to regain some semblance of control. “I haven’t had my period yet. You guys did something to me. I don’t think I can get pregnant.”

I expect her to get angry, get annoyed, heck, maybe even get somber. Instead, she begins to laugh. The jovial noise knots my insides.

“Stupid, stupid girl. You don’t think that was intentional? I had a mage put a spell on your dumb ass, so you couldn’t conceive until I was ready for you to.”

The laughter dies in my throat as horror swamps me.

“Of course, my plan changed when Kai showed signs of being your fated mate,” she says with a huff. “Dragons are normally dangerous, but when their mates are threatened, they become volatile. I knew I couldn’t keep him around, so I ordered his imprisonment at Nightmare Penitentiary.”

Poor Kai. Ripped away from his family to satisfy the twisted obsession of this power-hungry bitch.

“Are you going to kill me now?” I question tersely. I always suspected my death was inevitable. You don’t live the life I did and expect to come out unscathed. I suppose I have accepted this chapter of my story—my death. I can only pray that my males will survive it too.

Alyssa releases a twinkling laugh. It reminds me eerily of the wind chimes I always heard in the Compound.

“Who said anything about killing you?” she asks, cupping my cheek. I try to twist away, but her hand only tightens, nails digging into my flesh. “You’re my daughter, Nina, but you’re also a powerful weapon. I have plans for you and plans for my future grandchildren.”

Grandchildren?

The bread I just ate threatens to come back up.

With one more condescending pat to my cheek, Alyssa exits my cell.