Page 9 of Capturing Sin

Then I hoped one of the hellhounds got loose and pissed all over his remains.

I fought the twitch of my lips at the violent fantasy. One look at my uncle’s flinty grey eyes killed any joy.

“Results take time.” I kept my tone even, firm but respectful. “But they will be worth it. The benefits to our cause will be significant.”

He quirked a brow. “So you claim, but I’m growing impatient. We need to try something more…radical.”

My throat dried up, and I swallowed painfully. “Radical how?”

A cruel smile split his lips. Terror sliced through my middle. Like any predator, it was never a good thing when they showed teeth.

“No more of this sample bullshit.” He waved a hand. “You will switch to live testing.”

“No,” I breathed. The denial fell from my lips without my permission.

The predator stilled, and I tensed on instinct.

“No?” he asked, voice deceptively soft.

“I mean… I’ll have to figure out the best tests to run…” I trailed off, panic scrambling my thoughts.

“Martin says blood demons would be easiest to start on. And your aunt’s notes confirm it was her next theory. You will dose yourself with trial compounds and feed them to your subject.”

I felt like I’d been punched in the chest, my lungs seizing. The thought of letting a demon sink their fangs into me was terrifying, and my uncle knew it.

It was a horror to most hunters, but it held a special place in my nightmares.

It was the retaliation I’d been waiting for. I’d tried to escape him, and now he was dragging me deeper into the darkness, trying to drown any spirit I had left.

“I know this might be…uncomfortable, given your father’s death.” His eyes were unyielding.

It might have been over a decade ago, but even the day after it had happened, he’d been able to talk about his brother’s murder like it meant nothing. I was sure taking over from my father as hunter prime, leader of the Riverside hunter chapter, helped ease the sting.

I’d watched a blood demon drain my father dry when I was eleven years old, and now my uncle wanted me to offer up my veins to the same kind of monster who’d killed him.

I shouldn’t have been surprised, but some naive part of me still clung to the idea that maybe, deep down, there was something redeemable about my uncle. He’d loved his brother in his own way.

They were cut from a similar cloth, after all.

He sighed, like acknowledging that I might have emotions was exhausting. “If you can’t do this, Liliana, I can find you a volunteer.”

He didn’t mean a willing one.

The threat was one he’d held over me before. Some random person would be taken off the street and held “for the greater good.” Other scientists and the operational hunters were too valuable to become lab rats. The work could save thousands of human lives, so as much as my uncle wanted to protect humans, he’d do what he thought needed to be done.

As much as I didn’t want some random person kidnapped to become a guinea pig, I also wasn’t sure I could face the idea of a demon’s fangs sinking into my skin.

There wasn’t enough oxygen in the room. I held my stinging face in a composed mask, through years of discipline alone.

I had to get out of here.

“Let me plan the experiments, and we can go from there,” I said, trying to keep the desperation from leaking into my tone.

My uncle stared me down, trying to assess my façade for any cracks. Any weaknesses that he could exploit. He’d burrow his claws into any hint of vulnerability and keep digging until I shattered.

After an agonising few minutes, where I begged my lungs to operate in a normal rhythm, he finally released me with a sharp jerk of his chin.

I stood, wincing at the scrape of the chair legs against the timber flooring. It took every ounce of my control to walk at a sedate pace to the door, open it gently, and close it softly behind me.

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