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“Don’t let your waffles go cold,” Thane advised with a warm smile.
She narrowed her eyes. There was indeed a plate of waffles on the coffee table, along with a glass bottle of maple syrup. They looked tempting, smelled even better, and her stomach almost led her by the nose to the couch until she engaged her brain again.
Had Saul told them her favorite food was waffles, or had they guessed? Did they have insider knowledge from another source? No, that was ridiculous. She had no connections to anyone other than Saul—and Jasper, but that relationship was sparklingly new—so the logical conclusion had to be that Thane was a damn good guesser.
“I’m not hungry,” she repeated, putting emphasis on not. “But thank you.”
Jasper laughed and tapped his finger to his chin. “Might want to wipe that drool away, Caera, before it makes a liar out of you.”
Reflexively, she slapped her hand over her mouth for the second time, horrified to think she could be so uncouth. She scowled at him when she found her chin dry.
“I did warn her about the perils of lying.” Thane grinned at her. “I’m waiting for you to uphold your end of the bargain, sweetheart. Breakfast in exchange for silence, remember?”
Shit. She calculated the distance from the door to the couch, how long it would take to eat the waffles as fast as possible, and make a hasty retreat. Distance and time combined did not offer a pleasant answer—there was far too much testosterone in the room for her liking.
But the waffles…
Saul got mad when she didn’t eat, she reminded herself as she gnawed on her thumbnail. He’d probably take a step up into angry if Thane told him there’d been food on the table, smelling all delicious and filling her head with cinnamon…fuck.
Pushing her hair away from her face, Caera took the first step inside, waiting for the two men to pounce, but they just sat in their chairs, amusement written all over their smug faces. Neither of them moved as she made it to the couch, perching on the very edge in case she needed a fast exit.
“They’re all yours, Caera,” Jasper told her when she stared hungrily at the four waffles. “Thane and I aren’t a threat, I promise. I’m here to answer any questions you have about…back then. Our timelines are different, but I can’t imagine Dominic and Rita altered their operation too drastically over the years.”
She picked up a warm waffle, nibbling on it without syrup. “Who are they?”
“Assholes,” Thane muttered.
“My friend here summed that up correctly. Dominic is the father to us all—every child who was trained under that roof was sired by him, for one purpose. He impregnated women—through fair means or foul—in bulk. Once the mothers gave birth, the babies were…appropriated. We found evidence that some babies were bought, others were stolen, and a few were either handed over willingly or have bizarre stories that would take me forever to explain.”
Caera blinked. “How many?”
“We originally found fifteen from my era. Half of those killed themselves, mainly as adults, leaving a handful out in the world doing what we were trained to do. Two were killed earlier this year.” Jasper ran his tongue around his teeth. “I’m assuming their record-keeping changed, because I’ve never been able to find any more children. Part of me hoped something happened to make them close down the fucking place, but the logical side was always adamant they were still in business.”
Chewing slowly, she mulled that over. “The business of training kids to do what?”
Blue eyes pinned her to the couch. “Whatever they damn well pleased.”
“Like sex?”
Something haunting ignited the blue for a moment, illuminating his vulnerabilities. He took a deep breath, leaning forward in the armchair, bracing his forearms on his thighs. “Sex is a large part of their training program, mainly how to use it to manipulate, deceive, and ultimately kill. Dominic thinks he’s the grand master of producing world-class assassins, ready to be bought or hired by any number of villainous assholes. He and Rita came up with the idea of breeding their own stable of killers to hire, with Dominic as the stallion servicing every female they could find.”
Caera swallowed and glanced down at her hands. Setting the waffle down, she wiggled her fingers, wondering if there was blood on them. “So that’s what I am? A…a killer?”
Jasper laughed and shook his head. “Darling, you’re no more a killer than I am Santa Claus. Trust me, I am neither fat nor jolly. They deemed you a failure, a reject, because you didn’t pass one or more of their fucking tests. I’d like to think you were too young for the sexual elements of the regime, so my guess is you wouldn’t kill something they put in front of you, something that—to the likes of me or one of the others—would be considered an effortless task.”
The waffle plopped back onto the plate. “The bunny.”
“Fell at the first hurdle, did you? That’s good, Caera, believe me. After the rabbit, the demands come thick and fast, and what they’d have put in front of you wouldn’t have been fluffy and sweet. Whatever they bred us for, you didn’t have it, and that’s a goddamn blessing.”
“You have to face it, Dominic. Years of perfecting the process haven’t been wasted simply because she hasn’t made the grade, but if we continue to stall, her presence is going to skew our data. She has had seven years of intense physical and mental education, and she still hugs her pillow and believes in fairytales, thanks to that ridiculous book she found in the library.”
“You know I hate disposing of faulty stock.”
“That’s what you have me for, isn’t it? You handle the rigorous training and punishments, while I concentrate on my experiments and clean up the trash afterwards. If you don’t want her death to be under this roof, there are other options available—I know someone who can be here an hour after I call him, cash in hand. The girl will be gone, and she’ll die elsewhere, after she’s passed her expiration date.”
“No. Gustav is not getting his hands on her. There wouldn’t be anything left.”
“That is precisely the point, Dom! We don’t need her body turning up and pointing back at us, even if you’re daydreaming about hiding her away and keeping her as your next goddamn broodmare.”
