Chapter 110 The Empty Doll
Chapter 110 The Empty Doll
Kane stands behind the two-way glass with his hands pressed flat against the cold metal frame, and everything inside him is humming with this dark, heavy satisfaction.
He just watches her.
She sits on the edge of the narrow bed without moving; she isn't fighting or screaming or throwing that chaotic magic around like some kind of feral animal, she is perfectly still.
Like a doll with the batteries taken out.
The silver liquid worked and it scraped her mind completely clean and washed away all the defiance, rebellion and the scent of that bastard Abel Stone.
Kane breathes in the air in the observation room that smells like bleach and rubbing alcohol and absolute victory.
He pushes the heavy steel door open and it clanks loud enough to make anyone jump but Evelyn doesn't even flinch, she just slowly lifts her head and looks at him with these wide empty green eyes that don't hold a single spark of fire.
She looks so small and fragile and… perfect.
He walks toward her, and he stops right in front of her knees. She just looks up at him like she's waiting for instructions.
"Evelyn," he says, the name tasting sweet on his tongue.
"Hi," she whispers, her voice so thin and hollow like a ghost echoing in an empty hallway.
He reaches out to grab her chin, expecting her to pull away, for a second his muscles tense for that spark of hatred he's gotten so used to seeing but there's nothing, she just lets him tilt her head up easily.
"Do you know who I am?" he asks softly, his thumb tracing the line of her jaw where the old bruises used to be.
She stares at him and her eyes are like broken glass, completely vacant.
"You're my husband," she says. Her voice doesn't shake and she doesn't pull away, making a thrill of pure possessive power shoot straight down Kane's spine.
She doesn't remember the escape, she doesn't remember the warehouse or the explosion or the wolf, she belongs to him again and this time there is no escape because her mind is a blank slate for him to write on.
"That's right darling," he murmurs, leaning down and pressing his lips to her forehead, her skin is like ice but he doesn't care. He owns her, he owns her, he finally owns her.
"You've been very sick but you're safe now. I'm going to take care of you."
She just nods slowly and stares at his chest like she's not really seeing him at all.
It's intoxicating.
He steps back and leaves the room, the heavy metal door locking behind him with a solid thud that makes his wolf purr with satisfaction.
Margaret is standing in the hallway checking her watch and she doesn't even look up when he approaches.
"The integration is holding," Kane says, smoothing his tie and he can't keep the smile off his face, it feels like adrenaline and power pumping through his veins.
"She's completely docile, the silver wipe was absolute."
"of course it was," Margaret says coolly tucking her phone into her pocket. "but we cannot keep her in Sub-Level B indefinitely Kane, the council is asking questions and the wards take too much energy to maintain, we need to move her back to the estate."
"Tomorrow," Kane says, pacing down the sterile hallway and his mind is racing with plans.
How he's going to dress her and keep her locked in the master suite and train her to use her magic only when he commands it.
"Excuse me, sir," a voice stammers and Kane stops and turns to see Dr. Aris hurrying down the corridor holding a medical tablet and a physical manila folder to his chest like a shield.
The doctor looks terrified, his skin is pale and he's sweating and something about the way he won't make eye contact makes the hair on the back of Kane's neck stand up.
"What is it, Aris?" Kane snaps, annoyed that his victory lap is being interrupted. "I thought I told you the procedure was finished."
"It is, sir; the memory suppression was successful, but…" Dr. Aris swallows hard and Adam's apple bobs in his throat like he's choking.
"But we ran the standard admission bloodwork and the toxicology screens, and I thought you should see the results immediately."
He holds out the folder and his hand is shaking so badly the paper rattles.
Kane snatches the folder and flips it open, his eyes scanning the black and white text and the lab numbers and the highlighted red warning at the bottom of the page.
HCG levels elevated.
Estimated gestational age: Four weeks.
The words don't make sense for a second; they just float on the page like a foreign language, and then the meaning hits him, and it hits him like a freight train made of concrete and spikes.
Pregnant.
She's pregnant.
Kane's vision goes completely red, and the roar that rips out of his chest doesn't sound human at all; it's the pure, furious scream of a wolf realising another male has marked its territory.
"You're lying!" Kane roars, and he grabs Dr Aris by the throat and slams him against the cinderblock wall so hard the doctor's glasses fly off his face and shatter on the floor.
"Sir, please!" Aris gasps, clawing at Kane's hand, but Kane's grip is like iron, and he's crushing the man's windpipe, lifting him inches off the floor.
He hates him, he hates him, he hates Abel Stone so much it burns like acid in his veins; that bastard touched her, he put his hands on her, and he planted a pup inside her while Kane was gone.
"Kane, stop it!" Margaret's voice cracks like a whip in the hallway, but Kane can't hear her over the roaring in his ears; all he can see is the white-hot rage and the absolute betrayal.
She was his; she was supposed to be pure and broken and his alone, and now she's carrying the enemy's blood right in her womb.
"I'll kill her," Kane snarls, dropping the gasping doctor to the floor and spinning toward the metal door of Room 4. " I'll rip it out of her right now; I'll tear her apart!"
He takes two steps toward the door and his claws are fully extended, slicing through the fabric of his expensive suit, but Margaret steps in his way and slaps him across the face so hard it echoes in the empty hallway.
"Get control of yourself, you stupid boy!" she hisses, and her mismatched eyes are blazing with fury.
Kane breathes hard, his chest heaving and his fists clenched so tight his own claws are drawing blood from his palms and dripping onto the sterile white floor.
"She's pregnant with Stone's bastard," Kane growls, and his voice is vibrating with the urge to shift and destroy everything in the building. "I'm not letting that thing live."
Margaret bends down and snatches the medical file from the floor where it fell, and she smooths the crumpled paper with her perfectly manicured hands, her eyes scanning the lab results.
For a moment she says nothing.
And then very slowly, a smile spreads across Margaret's face, and it's the most terrifying thing Kane has ever seen; it's cold and hungry and completely merciless.
"You aren't thinking, Kane," she whispers, and she taps a long fingernail against the paper. "You're letting your wounded pride blind you to what we actually have here."
"We have a problem," Kane spits, wiping a drop of blood from his lip.
"We have a miracle," Margaret corrects him, and she looks at the metal door of Room 4 like she's staring at a vault full of gold. "Think about the biology of Kane, think about the bloodlines."
Kane frowns and tries to push the red rage down, trying to follow her twisted logic.
"She is a hybrid," Margaret says, her voice dropping to a harsh whisper that echoes off the tile. "Half witch and half wolf, already humming with chaotic magic that we can barely contain, and now she is incubating a fetus created by an Alpha."
The realisation hits Kane like a bucket of ice water, and the blinding rage suddenly shifts, turning into something cold and sharp and infinitely darker.
"The Sanguis Aeterna," Kane breathes, and his eyes widen as he looks at the door.
"Exactly," Margaret nods, and her smile is razor-sharp. Aa fetus carrying pure Alpha blood mixed with uncorrupted hybrid magic; it's an unlimited battery, Kane, it's a power source so concentrated it makes Evelyn look like a dying flashlight."
Kane's heart starts to pound, but this time it's not with anger; it's with this sick, thrilling ambition that races through his system like a drug.
If they do the ritual, if they use the Sanguis Aeterna spell to extract the life force of that unborn thing and consume it, he wouldn't just be an Alpha anymore.
He would be a god.
He could crush the High Council; he could walk into Stonehaven and level the entire territory with a flick of his wrist and watch Abel Stone burn to ash.
"We need the moon," Kane says, his mind already spinning with the logistics and the spell requirements. "The ritual requires a blood moon to channel the extraction without killing the host body before the magic transfers."
"The lunar eclipse is in exactly three days," Margaret says, checking her phone, her eyes gleaming with dark victory. "Seventy-two hours, Kane, we prep her here, and we move her to the ceremonial chamber under Blackwood on the night of the eclipse."
Three days.
Kane looks through the small reinforced window of the heavy metal door, looking at Evelyn sitting on the cot, perfectly still and entirely blank. She doesn't know she's pregnant, and she doesn't know she's carrying the weapon that's going to make him invincible.
She's just an empty vessel waiting to be used.
"Get her on a fortified IV drip," Kane orders, turning to Dr Aris, who is still coughing on the floor and clutching his bruised throat.
"I want her body strong enough to survive the extraction, pump her full of nutrients and keep the memory suppressants flowing so she doesn't fight back."
"Yes, sir," the doctor wheezes, scrambling to his feet and backing away down the hall.
Kane turns back to the glass, and he places his bleeding palm against the window, smearing red across the reinforced pane.
He feels so powerful it makes him dizzy; it feels like drowning in absolute perfection because Abel Stone thought he was saving her, he thought he was protecting his mate,e but all he really did was hand Kane the key to the universe.
"Seventy-two hours," Kane whispers to the glass, and he watches Evelyn's chest rise and fall with slow, even breaths.
The clock is ticking.