Gean's POV
The coffee burned my palm, bitter and unnecessary. Leo's absence hit me before I crossed the threshold - no clatter of vials, no muttered curses at malfunctioning equipment. Just cold sheets twisted into knots, still damp with the metallic tang of his sweat. I let the mug steam on the nightstand. Sentimentality wasted caffeine.
The lab's vault door hissed open beneath my fingerprints. Banks of monitors flickered, their screens vomiting equations Leo had scribbled in manic spirals last night. The centrifuge whirred, empty. A single glove floated in a petri dish, skin cells dissolving like sugar in tea. My reflection warped in the machine's chrome surface: a businessman's haircut, a butcher's eyes.
The secret door behind the cryo-chamber yielded to pressure. Dank air rushed up the tunnel, carrying the sweetness of rotting meat. My polished shoes crushed syringes, their contents smeared across stone like neon graffiti. Halfway down, a severed hand clutched a rusted chain - index finger still twitching. I stepped over it. Progress demanded waste. Collateral damage.
Leo'd wedged himself between two containment cells, knees drawn to his chest. Blood crusted his fingernails black. Shivers wracked his frame, the tremors of a starved animal or a faulty engine. I lowered myself onto the filth-streaked floor, silk trousers be damned.
"Dismutase," he rasped, voice shredded. "The dismutase level is all wrong! I need..."
"I'll procure more by dawn."
His laugh cracked into a sob. "You don't understand. They're all wrong. The spinal grafts reject enhanced DNA, the eyes cloud over by day three... look at them!"
I did. A torso hung from the ceiling by its own intestines, jaws unhinged in a silent scream. Another subject had clawed through its sternum, ribs splayed like broken piano keys. Artistry in the carnage, if one squinted.
"Finn expects delivery in nine days," I said in a reserved voice.
He pressed his forehead to the wall. "Why do we do this?! My father's already dead! I'm supposed to be set free instead of trapping in this underground bunker and play house in this tomb! Why do I have to do this?!"
Because you break prettier when caged, I didn't say it out loud. Instead, I said, "Take it easy. I understand your frustration. There's something going on in this lab that you don't like. Problems keep popping up. It's totally okay, because every venture requires risk management. And I'm here for you to manage these risks."
"Am I a venture to you now?!" He stared at me in despair.
His tears gleamed in the biolume's green glare. I cupped his chin, thumb brushing the blood smear on his face. "You're the variable I can't quantify. You're everything to me."
The lie settled between us, warm as a knife between ribs.
I've known Leo for too long. He's in every way like a woman. Only he has his periods every three to five days. So every three to five days, I have to calm him down by stroking his ears and telling him in soft voice that everything will be alright.
"Why are you still here with me?" he cried out. "You're here because Finn has asked you to spy on me, hasn't he?!"
I wrapped my arms around his shoulders.
"Leo, my sweet, sweet prince. I'm here because I chose to stay with you. I'm here because I am in love with you. No one will feel more guilty than me because I had let you down once in the past. I left you alone because your brother Lucian urged me to do so. Now, I will never abandon you again. I'll stay here with you because you need me."
"Oh, Gean..." He melted down in my arms.
I kept telling him bullshit like this and he kept buying it. It's a wonder how many craps like this I can come up with in the blink of an eye and how well he could take it.
He lunged forward, all teeth and desperation, fumbling at my belt with blood-slick hands. I let him. Let his mouth trail apologies down my throat, let him pretend this was passion and not another plea for control. His teeth grazed my collarbone - Lycans always bite when cornered - but the submission was mine. Always mine.
As he worked, I stared at the ceiling's surveillance camera. Finn would review the footage later, chuckle at the beast-prince debasing himself for scraps of mercy. Let him.
Lycans, I mused, fingers tangling in Leo's sweat-drenched hair. Eternal children chasing absolution in flesh and fury. They built kingdoms from teeth, then wondered why the world bit back.
I took out my phone while he was still working on me, moaning and panting like a horny bitch.
"I need another fifty units of dismutase ASAP," I said.
"I need a hundred," Leo mumbled with my dick in his mouth.
"Make it a hundred," I corrected.
Leo's throat tightened. He enjoyed taunting me like this while I'm on the phone.
The metallic female voice in the phone said, "Yes, Sir. A hundred units of dismutase. Shipment will be at the bunker in two hours. Code number 6309."
I hung it up and looked down at him.
He looked so docile and tamed, kneeling on the ground, with sparkling sweat coming out of his forehead.
My pulse skipped a beat.
He sometimes does shit like this to me - unwittingly stealing my breath to heartbeat away, leaving me stranded in the suspended animation between inhalation and exhalation.
Though I've never known the bond of a mate, I imagine this sensation mirrors the primal recognition of mates: that visceral moment when mythic instinct overrides reason. An ancient algorithm in my wrongly written bone-marrow code, demanding synchronization with its missing counterpart.
"Don't ever leave me again, Gean." He licked my balls and whispered. His breath flickered the most sensitive part of my body. "I can't do anything without you being on my side."
"I won't trade you for the world," I said.
After he finished. I left him down there and went upstairs.
The coffee had gone cold on the stand. I drank it anyway.