Doctor Nettleston

[Madison]

After some time, the door opened again and a man came through. He had a slight build with dirty blond hair and light green eyes. His shirt was rumpled and he wore a lab coat over it. Though his face was friendly, those eyes were cruel.

When he extended his hand, I could smell blood. He’d been doing something to someone before he came and it had gotten everywhere. Particles of blood had seeped into his clothes and skin. There were at least two different people’s scents on his hand.

I leaned away from the offered hand and shook my head. There was no way I was letting that monster touch me. Especially not with the blood of some poor supernatural on his hands.

“I don’t want to touch you. I most certainly, do not want you touching me.” I told him.

“Fair enough.” He smirked and went to sit on the other side of the desk. “What can I do for you, Vasili?”

“My Vasilia wanted to meet you. She has some questions.” He responded.

“A Vasilia!? Amazing! I heard you have horns.” Dr. Nettleston grinned as he looked me up and down.

That fucking bastard. Of course he would say something like that. Now I had to deal with Anders’ bitchiness. I rolled my eyes and prepared for his anger.

“Madison?” Anders looked confused.

I sighed. “Yes. I have horns in my natural form. I don’t like to wear them when going natural because my hair gets tangled around them. I only use them formally.”

“So, when I told you I wanted you in your natural form and there were no horns…” He started turning red with fury.

“I didn’t like you and I didn’t trust you. Very few people know Vasilia have horns. We are rare. More Vasili are born than Vasilia, remember?” I explained.

“Sorry, didn’t mean to start a fight. I just find your species fascinating.” Nettleston said with a, barely concealed, gleeful look in his eye.

He may not have meant to start a fight, but he most certainly didn’t seem sorry about it. I focused on getting my siphons attached. It was important to make sure this man died as soon as possible. I didn’t want him hurting anyone else.

“What were your questions, Vasilia?” He smiled.

“About seven years ago, you were brought the first female concubus reported in the state. What made you decide to cut off her wings and tail?” I managed to ask without my voice cracking.

He got a distant look that came with a quirk to his smile. I could feel his excitement. He liked what he did. I worked to keep control of myself so I didn’t faint… or rip his head off… it really was a toss up.

“We were trying to figure out how to keep her here. She’d ordered the incubus guards to let her out and they did. We didn’t realize that, though succubae are equal, concubi were stronger, like alphas in shapeshifters. That was when we got the concubus guards.

The Vasili ordered them to not obey female concubae when we found they were still having trouble. Not as much as the incubi, but more than a human might. However, the human guards were more susceptible to her pheromone when it came in contact with their skin. So we decided to cut the tail off.

During the process, her wings happened to hit the anesthesiologist. He started trying to attack me, like he needed to protect her even though she was unconscious. That told me there’s a pheromone reaction in any of the demon skin. So we removed the wings, too.” Nettleston explained.

“How long did she live once they were gone?” I asked coolly.

“About two hours. We didn’t realize they were required for her to survive. No one told us that. It was a shame; she was a beautiful lady.” He shrugged.

“No one knew because there was never a reason to try it. Did you ever talk to her? Ask her not to leave?” I pressed.

“We did actually try that. We’d wanted to learn more about her and study her. The incubus group, that demanded the deaths of the females, were fine with a couple being left alive so we could experiment. Let me pull up the notes.” He clicked around on his computer for a moment.

“Ah.” Nettleston continued. “She said her human daughter needed to be protected. She told us humans can’t be without demon pheromones after years of exposure. She had to get home or her husband would do something terrible. She wasn’t happy when we told her, her husband was the source of one of the reports. That made her try harder.” He scoffed. “Guess she planned to kill him or something. It’s a hard lesson, learning humans don’t want to be owned by you.”

I swallowed hard. My stomach twisted. I breathed slowly and worked to calm myself. My poor mother died thinking I wouldn’t be safe from my stepfather. She thought she’d failed to protect me.

“Why didn’t you just have the Vasili order her to stay?” I asked.

Nettleston looked a little shocked. He hadn’t thought of it. I could taste the emotions that came with realizing you’d overlooked something. My mother could have lived if he were as smart as he thought he was. Tears tried to form in my eyes, but I fought them.

“He wasn’t available when we’d thought of it.” He lied.

The only thing I hated more than liars, were people who felt they had the right to harm the innocent. This man was both.

I wanted to gouge his eyes out while he screamed. My fingers itched to be dug into his disgusting flesh. I took a deep breath and got myself back on track.

“Did she say anything about her other daughter?”

“How did you know she had a second daughter?” Nettleston asked.

“You said she had a human daughter. Concubi never have human children. She would have had to have had a twin who was a full concubus. We only have single births of full concubi children, or twin births of a succubus and an incubus. The only time that doesn’t happen is if the concubus’ mate is a more dominant supernatural.” I explained.

“How fascinating. She only said it was on her superhuman daughter to protect the human one now. We asked her how she managed to have a human and a superhuman, but she wasn’t giving it up. They were probably adopted.” He snorted. That made me snap.

“Why are you so happy about killing someone’s mother?! Does it make you feel powerful?! Does taking a parent from a child make you feel like more of a man?!” I growled.

“There’s that concubus anger! Your people feel things so passionately. It’s almost like werewolf tempers.” Nettleston grinned. He’d been trying to make me angry.

My features went cold. I let the Phantom out. That icy, killer who was inside of me. The one who felt nothing as my targets begged for their lives.

A monster, like him. Unlike his victims, though, mine were all guilty of something other than existing. That was the difference.

Nettleston looked put off by my shift. When a concubus loses their temper we tend to not regain it without violence. I wasn’t going to give him the prize he wanted. He leaned forward and pushed a button on his desk.

“We could use some waters in here.” He ordered then leaned back and watched.

I wondered what his game was. If I’d gotten angry and attacked, he would be in his rights to demand I be locked up. It made sense. He wanted another female concubus to play with. The incubi wouldn’t stand for males to be experimented on.