Page 105 of If I Were Wind

“She isn’t here for your experiments,” Lukas said in a tone that was more of a growl. “She’s my guest.”

Guest. Prisoner was more like it, but call it a hunch, pointing that out would be counterproductive.

“What are you going to do with her, then?” Traube asked, slapping his gloves against his palm.

Lukas straightened. Admittedly, the SS uniform added a new layer of menace to his already impressive build. “It’s none of your business.”

It was the first time in my life that I was happy that two people talked about me as if I weren’t there. Shock was still rampaging through me. I couldn’t speak.

“None of my business?” The slapping noise intensified. “She’s part of my racial program. Like Nathan. And you.”

“Say that again, and I’ll rip your eyes out of your sockets and send them to the Führer in a box.” Lukas’s fangs elongated. “I’m not your experiment. Nor is Kristin.”

The doctor shot to his feet, a hand twitching over the gun at his side. “I can shoot her here and now and claim her body for dissection.”

That got my attention, but his plan had left me numb enough to simply make me peer at him.

“Why don’t you try that?” Lukas’s shoulders grew in size, tearing the fabric of his leather jacket.

“Doctor,” Nathan warned, shaking his head. “Leave it.”

My beast raised her head as Lukas’s beast rose. Traube must have never seen a condottiero enraged because, in a show of obvious stupidity, he took out his gun and pointed it at me. Or tried to. Without transforming, Lukas pounced on him. The movement was a blur of fluttering coattails and black hair. All menacing elegance. Not even Roy could move so quickly. Perhaps evil gave Lukas an extra boost. Traube let out a pathetic gurgle when he hit the floor hard with a six-foot-tall angry male over him. If Lukas ripped him apart on the Persian carpet, right under Hitler’s portrait, I wouldn’t shed a tear.

The two SS officers tried to stop Lukas, but he dispatched them to the other side of the room with one arm. They hit the wall and slumped to the floor, heads shaking in confusion. The gun slipped out of Traube’s hand as Lukas dragged him out of the room by the neck, as if the doctor were a naughty boy who had broken a window. Nathan stomped out of the room after them, and the two officers followed on wobbly legs, probably worried that Lukas might kill the doctor. Heavy footsteps and loud voices reverberated from the corridor. My mind was still trying to understand what Traube had revealed. Race. Pure blood. Killing innocents. He’d already started the process. How many had he killed? I clenched my glass of water and focused on it, as if it were the centre of my world, the centre of my sanity, because I couldn’t possibly live in a world where people were exterminated for no reason except some pseudoscience.

I jolted when the door slammed shut behind me and Lukas stepped in front of me. His beast was under control. No fangs or claws erupted from him.

He discarded his torn jacket and tossed it on the sofa. “Traube has left for now, but he’ll be back—”

With a sudden wave of sheer wrath, I stood up and punched his chest. Once. Twice. Thrice. Using my beast’s strength. “How can you support the killing of innocent people? They’re killing everyone they don’t like for no reason.” I cuffed him harder, but he didn’t flinch. “He’s murdering innocents for what he believes is science? And you’re helping him. How can you do that? What if he kills Shosh?”

Pure menace flashed across his face. “I’ll kill him before he can even try.”

“Then you do know better.” I punched him over and over.

He let me hit him even when my claws popped out and sliced his jacket. He stood there, like a sodding punching bag, taking every blow. It only enraged me more. Exhaustion and horror drained the energy out of me. My punches became pathetic slaps. I collapsed onto the armchair when my knees threatened to buckle.

He walked over to the sideboard and offered me another glass. Brandy this time. I accepted it without gazing up. When I gulped down half of the drink, he sat on the sofa in front of me.

“Have you ever met an old beast?” he asked.

“What does that—”

“Yes or no?”

Taking another sip, I mulled the question over. At Raven Park, there were a few people well over sixty, but not beasts. The beasts I knew were all in their prime, twenty, thirty years old, and of course, some teenagers. “No.”

“A beast’s life is rather short. We die at forty, forty-five.” He stood up and produced a book from a shelf. It was thick with yellowed pages, and the leather cover was worn and discoloured in places. “These are da Vinci’s pictures of the first beasts he created. A copy, of course.” He showed me the tome.

The letters on the cover readIl Cantico. I traced them. “What does it mean?” I rolled the words over my tongue.

“The song. It’s ancient, written in the fifteenth century. The story says that an apprentice of da Vinci partially copied the originalCanticoand sneaked it out of da Vinci’s laboratory.”

Beautiful, elegant drawings filled the ancient pages. The bodies of half-naked beasts were sketched in a perfect chiaroscuro that enhanced the muscles and the elegance of those frozen movements. There were young beasts, half beasts, and old beasts, and drawings showing the full process of the merging, how two beasts became one. Aidan the Baptised. He’d died when he was one hundred years. He’d grown old.

“We can grow old,” Lukas said.

“Why do we die so young then?” I asked, trailing a finger over the pictures.

“The Eros.”

I whipped my head towards him. “Excuse me?”

“We can grow old and have children, you know.” He showed me the drawing of a pregnant beast. A half sad, half proud smile stretched his lips. “There’s nothing wrong with our reproductive organs. But the Eros damages them. Makes us barren.” That was what Peggy had discovered, but not that the Eros killed us. “After years of taking it, the Eros triggers an illness that corrodes the heart, the kidneys, and the brain. The Ministry of Defence knows that. The officers know that. They don’t care. Seriously ill beasts are removed from their posts and sent somewhere to die to not spread rumours. We’re weapons. We aren’t supposed to live long or have children. They slowly kill us. For no reason. For what they believe is science. For control. And there’s more. Despite Raven Park’s attempts at burying the truth, homosexuality is a regular occurrence among the beasts. We’re more human than they want us to believe.”

I released a shuddered breath. I wanted to tell him that what Raven Park did to us was different. The Nazis were killing humans, while we…we were humans as well. “This is horrible.” My voice cracked. It was as if my world had shifted.

Lukas put a hand on my shoulder and gave it a comforting squeeze. “Don’t trust what they tell you.” He stared at me, as if he wanted to add something else, before leaving the room without saying a word.

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