Dr Jasper POV

"Water," I beg for the millionth time today.

And again, I get no response.

"Please, if you want me to be able to do anything, I need water."

No answer. I'm not sure why I'm bothering.

How long have I been here now? Days? Weeks? A month? I don't even know. I don't even really care. I gave up many years ago, really. Existing like this is only helping to make me wallow in my self pity. Pity about the situation I have put myself in. Yes, my father started all this, but I finished it. Well, I hope I have. I have no clue if Amalie and Aida are even still alive at this point.

I suspect, of course, that things have not gone quite to plan, as I haven't seen or heard Lukah's crew bring anyone but me here.

I only see them twice a day, when they deliver a food tray and a new set of books or notes. Continuous problems they expect me to solve, questions they want me to answer. Once they have what they want, I don't see them for a day or so.

I hear the inevitable clang of the chains and door opening again. I haven't been able to solve this latest riddle, so I don't expect dinner, only a beating and a threat. I had been saving the ice I scrape form the window seal and drinking it to stay hydrated, but even that has run out.

This latest problem, I just can't do it. It's not a matter of ability, as a potential answer occurred to me after a few hours of having the question given to me. It's the morality. After all these years, the morality is killing me. Who knew?

Their desire is rather petrifying. Lukah wants to breed a superior race. We have done this in theory with Amalie. We used the venom from the bite to fuel a transfusion of true-born hybrid blood to theoretically keep her half vampire and half werewolf. Usually a bite would kill her, or she would need to be turned, but then she would be just a vampire. Seeing as though she was transfused with the combination of vampire and werewolf blood and not formally turned, she is now, in theory, a hybrid.

In theory. I haven't seen the result.

Lukah now wants to take this madness one step further. He wants the race to continue, to be bred and become a purer race all of its own. He wants pure vampiric mothers to have hybrid babies. A new race all together.

Insanity at its best.

They have tried and failed over the last year, it seems, but with whom and how? I suspect perhaps mothers who are turned and are made pregnant with werewolf babies. But the notes say that the babies do not survive. The mothers once turned are not able to support life. This is why they had wanted Amalie as a starting point. He had wanted Amalie to start the next generation by having a child.

Lukah had wanted Aida to bear his child. As the daughter of the only known survivor of a vampire bite during pregnancy, Aida was an anomaly. She was born special. Her potential would be untapped.

Would have been. Or maybe could be? I don't even know if either of them is alive. I hope that they are not, for all our sakes. This thought sends an involuntary shiver down my spine and as I look up and see the lurching figure approach the cell I call home, the shiver turns to an ice-cold feeling in my very core.

Lukah.

His unmistakable bone-white hair and piercing red eyes. His skin is so pale it seems translucent in the light. He comes to a halt in front of my cell, and I feel my breath catch in my chest. He has a formidable presence, and he knows it.

"Well, Doctor? Do you have something for me?" His voice is a hiss, his tone flat and unfaltering.

I take as deep a breath as I can muster and look at him face on. "No, my lord Lukah, I do not as yet have a solution for this problem. Perhaps it's just not meant to be?"

He makes a low hissing sound, beginning in his throat and seeping out onto the top of his tongue. His mouth opens ever so slightly, revealing his fangs. " I grow tired of waiting for you, Doctor. I've had enough of your stalling. You leave me no choice. Plans have changed, and it is your doing. Remember I have said this."

Without another word, he stalks away and leaves me more confused than before.

What is he on about? What does he know that I do not?

Before I get a chance to continue my internal investigation, I hear the chains and door to the entrance move once more. What now? Torture, I suppose?

I see a figure coming towards me from the distant door. I have not seen her before. But when I catch her scent, it smells vaguely familiar, like something I've known long before but not quite.

A distant memory comes flooding back to me. That smell. It reminds me of ... is almost the same as ...

"Hello, Jasper." Her voice hits me like a dagger to my heart. I feel immediately nauseated and elated at the same time.

It cannot be. My heart rate speeds up.

"Do you not recognise me?" That voice. It is her voice, but it isn't. I cannot see her face clearly, but I know in my heart that it's her.

"Hello, Marina."

She steps into the light, and I see her face for the first time in seventeen years. She hasn't aged at all. She is still hauntingly beautiful, save for the red eyes that have replaced her mesmerising brown ones. Aida's eyes.

"You must have many questions. Come, let us reminisce and catch up on the last, what has it been, seventeen years? Won't you?" She looks at me, unyielding. The face that once held such kindness and warmth now seems bitter and heartless.

"When did they turn you?"

She laughs a short, monotone laugh. More of a mock amusement than actual laughter. "I have been this way for many years now. I have served Lukah and our people for a long time. I am something of a novelty, you might say. The first prototype of many to come, so we hope."

"Then you're a hybrid?" I question.

Marina shakes her head. She takes the seat to her left and swings it like it weighs little more than a feather to stand it in front of me. She sits and sweeps her long legs onto each side of the seat, placing her face just inches from mine, only the small slim bars between us.

"Not in the sense that you know that word. They had hoped but alas, no. I am more vampire than wolf now, that much is true. I cannot shift. I cannot link. But I am not affected by sunlight light like my fellow bitten comrades that are not of pure blood. I retained some of my wolf strengths but not what he wanted. He wants them to be able to shift, to link. Think of the possibilities."

My brow furrows. "Can you not see what a tragedy that would be, Marina? How dangerous that could be?"

"Ha! Still a weak fool, aren't you? It is you that does not see. How strong, limitless, and powerful the new race could be. Wolves are pathetic, one-dimensional creatures. The power is in the shifted form alone. But what Lukah truly craves is the link. The power of the mind. The connection. The control of the Alpha. That is his desire. The shift is just a bonus, if that is possible at all."

Her words are careless. Heartless. She is no longer the woman I knew. My mate is gone. The realisation of this makes my wolf howl, and my heart feels more broken than it already was.

She senses my internal struggle. She leans closer still, licking her lips.

"Come, Jasper. I know you. You have a brilliant mind. You must have some idea how to assist. Lukah had wanted me to bear children, but those who are made into vampiric form cannot bear life. The pure-blooded can. But those who we have fertilised have not been successful in live hybrid birth. The different vampire process of blood circulation in pregnancy does not sustain the half-wolf forms."

I feel like my head just exploded. "You've already begun this work? I thought it was still theory. Where? With who?"

But then the answer is in my head before I can even speak.

He did not die. He has been here this whole time. Orchestrating from behind the scenes. He is still working on his disgusting and inhumane tests.

The smile that curves her lips is sickening. She knows I've worked it out.

"Yes, your father is quite brilliant. Mad, but brilliant. It was him that delivered me here all those years ago. Him who assisted in my transformation once things did not work as planned. He, however, does not have the resources that you do. The contacts. And he does not have your level of intelligence. Your modern medical mind is the key to this, Jasper, and your access to youth. You will be rewarded, for certain. Now, plans have changed, and you will do as we say. Or ... we will return for her instead."

I freeze at the word her. Aida is alive. My plan didn't work. She is in more danger now than ever before. His plan is even more deranged than I thought. I cannot stand to hear anymore. I have to help them—even just to save anyone else from any of this unthinkable mess. I can't stand it.

I stagger to my feet, defeated. What choice do I have? I nod, closing my eyes. I sigh a deep, desperate sigh. My wolf moans in response.

The evil smirk forms across her lips once more. "Wise choice, my love. Now, firstly, we need you to get some, ah, male werewolf ingredient."

The lift of her brow was enough for me to get the hint.

"And where do you expect me to get that from?"

"You are returning home, Jasper. I hear you are being hunted as we speak."

I shake my head.

"NO. You cannot expect me to put this on the pack. Not again. Regardless, they would likely kill me on sight for what I have done. And just how the hell do you crazy beings expect me to get ... samples?"

"You doubt your worth, my mate." She purrs the last word into my face, and it feels like ice penetrating my very being. "They need you, don't they? To help fix the mess you caused? It's all worked out exactly as we didn't plan, but who would have thought? It's better than we could have ever hoped. The other part we will leave up to you to work out. Then, you will return here and continue our work. Your father is quite excited to have your help."

I sink to the floor burying my face in my hands. I look up at her once more, her face twisted into the shape of one of them ... her fangs evident in the dim light as she snickers. I look at her closely, trying to see any part of the woman I once knew.

I have only one request. I need to ask now before it's too late.

"If I do this, Aida is not a part of it. James too. They will be safe?"

She shrugs. "For now. If you assist us in doing this without her and you're successful, they will be unharmed."

What can I do? I need to think of a plan. The right plan. I need time.

She stands up. The chill she makes as she moves whips me in the face. She is more terrifying to me than Lukah ever has been. Marina says, "You leave tonight."

I look at her one last time. I used to see endless affection in her face, in her eyes. Now I see nothing but hatred for her own people. For me. This is all his fault. And mine.

She turns to leave but stops, coming close to the bars again and hissing in my face, "Before you get any ideas about concocting some grand rescue plan with those Mornington idiots, be aware. We have our own scouts, ones who are loyal to us and our cause. Wolf scouts. They're everywhere. Some are tailing our darling son as we speak. You make one move against us? We will know, and he will be dead."

Traitors. I'm not sure why I'm surprised. I am one. But more? And working against their own Beta? Our son. Our daughter. Both our daughters . Doomed because of me and my father. What a family we are.

I nod slowly and move to the back of the cell as she leaves into the outside world.

My life could not possibly get any worse.