Blood would spray, he thought as he contemplated his victim. It would stain the shirt and jeans, but stealing more clothes wouldn’t be a problem.
“Gideon, please,” Scott wheezed from his position, flat on his back, naked to the chill of the air conditioning that Gideon had set at its lowest setting.
Any sensation that touched the flesh or the organs would be amplified because of the drug. Reactions to each sensation would be purer, stronger, allowing the scientists to better predict how each wound affected the body.
The bastard couldn’t even shiver, though his teeth did chatter on occasion. That sound was another sign of success, of hard-won vengeance, and helped to restrain the animal prowling beneath the flesh.
“Please what?” Gideon rasped.
The sound of his own voice never failed to enrage him.
How many times had it been broken from his screams of pain?
How many times had he begged, pleaded, and cried for mercy?
He was a Prime, a primal male Breed. His pride was as intense as his natural strength and inborn animalistic abilities. To be driven by such agony, such horrific torture to beg, to shed tears and plead for death, had broken that pride to its core and all but destroyed it.
Even in the labs he had been created within there hadn’t been such horrific pain that the Breeds were driven to beg unless the scientists intended death to be the final conclusion to that experiment.
The scientists that had created the Breeds in the Denali Labs in Alaska had prided themselves on the strength and power that filled their creations. They’d had no desire to bow the shoulders of their Breeds by damaging them to such an extent.
The scientists, research assistants and techs, the soldiers to the janitors in the lower depths of Brandenmore Research, had found great pleasure in doing just that. In turning their Breed victims into whimpering animals that begged for mercy.
And Scott had taken more pleasure than most in torturing the two Breeds held in what Gideon suspected was the pits of hell.
“Beg me,” Gideon whispered to the research assistant. “Shed tears, Scott, and plead for mercy from the monster you helped to create.”
The horror intensified in the man’s eyes as his lips trembled with the knowledge of what was coming. His gaze centered on the scalpel and Gideon couldn’t help but smile.
“Shall I tell you what it feels like?” he asked, lowering his voice until it sounded gentle, reassuring. It was nothing less than horrifying to his victim.
Because he remembered. Sweet God, he remembered the agony, every day, every second of his life.
His abdomen tightened with the scalding sensations of the scalpel slicing into it as the remembrance tore through his senses.
He snarled in fury, causing Connelly to cry out in horror. His eyes widened, the certainty of death flashing in his gaze.
“Please, Gideon . . .” Scott choked on his own tears, gagging for a second as he fought for breath. “Please don’t do this. Just kill me. Just kill me now.”
Gideon knew what Scott felt in that moment. The way the stomach clenched and spasmed, recoiling in terror as he fought not to vomit. The struggle not to beg, because begging didn’t help.
Yet the terror had a mind of its own after a certain point, and the words spilled from the lips anyway.
“It feels like hell has descended to your guts,” Gideon told him with relish. “The agony begins with the first cut, and you believe it can get no worse.” He leaned close, reaching out with the scalpel to draw the tip along the graying curls that covered his victim’s chest. “But it can get worse, Scott. So much worse. And when the cold air meets the warmth of your insides, then you’ll swear a hundred scalpels are biting into your organs, tearing them apart with jagged steel and ripping your mind out along with it.”
“Please, Gideon!” Scott screamed hoarsely, the tears beginning to fall, the fear rising inside him with an acrid scent Gideon inhaled with heady satisfaction.
That scent was becoming addictive. Like a drug he couldn’t resist. Now he knew, he knew why Coyotes thirsted for blood. For its coppery sweet scent and the feel of it gliding like wet silk over the hands.
“Please,” Gideon repeated the plea. “Please, Scott. Scream for me in mindless pain. Please feel what I felt. Please beg as I begged. God, please, let me watch you die as you watched me each time you stopped my heart.”
Then Gideon chuckled and glanced down at the stream of wetness flowing from the man’s flaccid cock.
Scott was pissing himself.
The poor little coward.
It was something Gideon hadn’t done during the experiments until the chill of the air actually hit his guts. Until the pain had been worse than hell on earth, and his body had fought to die amid it.
And there was nothing he wanted more than to slice into the monster at that moment and allow him to feel that same agony. To watch his blood seep from his flesh as it parted. To see it run in bloodred streams along his chest and abdomen to pool into the creamy carpet beneath him.
But first, first, he needed information. He needed information more than he needed to smell his victim’s death.
At least, for the moment.
He could wait to kill him. He could wait until Scott gave the truths Gideon knew he held. The truths the man had so far hidden from his friends, coworkers and priest. The truth of the location of the one person Scott had shown any gentleness to in those labs. But he wouldn’t be able to wait for long.
“Unlike you and your scientist masters, I can be merciful. I don’t want to be, but I can be. If you cooperate.”