Chapter 24
NIKOLAI
My phone buzzes against my chest as I lean against the observation window overlooking Jenna’s cell. She’s curled on the cot, still naked, her dark hair spilling across the pillow. Even unconscious, her body maintains that coiled tension—ready to spring into violence at the first sign of threat.
“Vex,” I answer.
“Should we expect you back tonight?” Ezra’s voice carries that familiar analytical detachment, but underneath lurks curiosity. “We have the Hendricks execution scheduled for tomorrow. Marcus confirmed the location.”
Dr. Sarah Hendricks. Another architect of our conditioning.
The one who wrote the protocols for the youngest intake—the breaking of children too small to understand what was being done to them.
I learned her work from the inside years before I ever saw her name in a file.
Another name I should be eager to cross off my list.
“Don’t expect me back for a month.”
Silence stretches across the line before Ezra’s laugh crackles through the speaker. “A month? What the hell are you—oh. You found her.”
“Found who?” Darius’s voice joins the call.
Fucking speakerphone.
“Our boy finally caught his runaway pet,” Ezra announces.
“No shit?” That’s Damon. “You actually tracked down the little assassin?”
Heat crawls up my neck. “She’s at the compound. I’m handling her conditioning personally.”
“Conditioning?” Raphael’s voice carries dark amusement. “So what you’re doing to her what they did to us?”
“Fuck off.”
“Come on, Nik.” Theon joins the chorus. “We all know you’re not actually going to sell her. Just admit you want to keep her around to make your dick wet.”
“Yeah,” Marcus chimes in. “Three months of brooding. Just put a collar on her and call it a day.”
My grip tightens on the phone. “It’s not like that.”
“Sure it isn’t.” Darius laughs. “That’s why you went off piste and kidnapped a woman completely innocent, brought her to the Nexus like a pet. That’s why you are disappearing for a month to personally handle her conditioning.”
“She’s important.” The words come out sharp. “She killed five collectors after escaping me. She became a predator.”
“So you’re going to what—train her to be your hunting partner?” Lucien’s voice carries curiosity beneath the mockery. “Domesticate the feral cat?”
“I’m going to condition her.” My eyes move to Jenna’s sleeping form. “I made mistakes before. Got distracted. This time I’m doing it right.”
“Right,” Ezra drawls. “And what exactly does doing it right entail?”
The image of Jenna’s unconscious body responding to my touch flashes through my mind. The way she moaned when I threatened to rape her while drugged. How her back arched even in sedation when I claimed her.
“Full conditioning protocol. Systematic psychological restructuring. She’ll learn to rely on me like oxygen.”
“Rely on you?” Damon’s laugh is sharp. “Brother, that woman burned down half of Chinatown’s trafficking network. You think a little dominance play is going to break her?”
“She wants it.” The admission scrapes out of my throat. “When I told her what I was going to do to her unconscious body, she fucking moaned. She asked me to fuck her while she was helpless.”
Silence falls across the line. Then Raphael speaks, his voice thoughtful.
“Consensual non consent. Interesting psychological dynamic.”
“It’s not a fucking case study,” I snap. “She responds to being claimed. Owned. I’m going to exploit that.”
“And then what?” Ezra’s question cuts through my defensive anger. “You condition her into the perfect submissive and then… sell her to someone even though she isn’t one of the architects? After all this obsession?”
My throat tightens. The thought of another man touching Jenna makes violence crawl up my spine like venom.
“I haven’t decided.”
“Haven’t decided my ass,” Darius laughs. “You’re going to keep her. Just admit it.”
“Maybe.” The word tastes strange in my mouth. “Maybe I condition her to be mine.”
“There it is,” Marcus says with satisfaction. “Finally, some honesty.”
“You realize you’re basically admitting you want a pet,” Theon points out. “A very dangerous, very lethal pet who’s already proven she can kill efficiently.”
“She won’t hurt me.” The certainty surprises me. “Whatever twisted connection we have, she won’t try to kill me. She had opportunities before. She chose seduction over violence.”
“Because she wanted to escape,” Raphael counters. “Not because she’s loyal.”
“She stayed in Chicago.” The words come out quiet. “For three months, she stayed in my territory. She could have run anywhere in the world, but she stayed close enough for me to find her.”
Understanding ripples across the line.
“She wanted to be caught,” Lucien says slowly.
“Part of her did.” I watch Jenna shift on the cot, her legs drawing up defensively even in sleep. “The part that responded to being owned and claimed. I’m going to feed that part until it consumes the rest.”
“And how exactly do you plan to do that?” Darius asks.
Heat pools in my gut as I consider the possibilities. The compound offers isolation, privacy, and unlimited time. No distractions. No operational demands are pulling me away from her conditioning.
“Hunt and capture scenarios. Primal play in the woods. I let her run, then I take her down and claim her where she falls.” My voice drops as the fantasy unfolds. “Breeding games. I keep her naked, keep her wanting, make her beg for the privilege of carrying my child.”
“Jesus Christ,” Marcus breathes. “You’re really going full caveman on this.”
“She responds to being hunted and claimed. I’m going to give her exactly what her body craves until her mind follows.”
“What if she doesn’t break?” Ezra asks. “What if she maintains psychological resistance despite physical submission?”
“Then I keep going until she does.” My hand presses against the glass as I watch Jenna’s breathing deepen. “I have unlimited time, unlimited resources, and intimate knowledge of her psychological triggers. She’ll break eventually.”
“And if she doesn’t?”
The question hangs in the air. If Jenna maintains her core resistance, if she never truly submits…
“Then I keep her anyway.” The admission feels like stepping off a cliff. “Broken or whole, submissive or defiant. I keep her.”
Silence stretches across the line before Damon speaks.
“Well, shit. Nik’s officially lost his mind over pussy, must be golden.”
“Fuck all of you.” But there’s no real heat in the words.
“Have fun with your month-long sexcation,” Darius says cheerfully. “Try not to actually break her brain. Crazy women are fun; vegetative women are boring.”
“I’ll handle the Hendricks execution,” Raphael offers. “You focus on your… project.”
“Appreciate it.”
“Send pictures,” Theon calls out.
“Fuck off.”
I end the call and pocket the phone, my attention returning to Jenna. She’s awake now, those pale gray-green eyes shift to the observation window. Even through the one-way glass, she seems to sense me.
A month. Thirty days to dismantle her psychological defenses and rebuild her as someone who belongs entirely to me.
My cock hardens as I imagine her naked in the forest, running desperately through the trees while I hunt her down. The moment I tackle her to the ground, pin her beneath me, and claim her in the dirt with nothing but moonlight as witness.
She’ll fight at first. Her body will struggle even as it responds. But I’ll take her again and again in the wilderness until she associates being hunted with being filled. Until the sound of my footsteps tracking her makes her wet with anticipation rather than terror.
And when I finally plant my child inside her, when her belly swells with proof of my ownership, she’ll understand that she was always meant to be mine.
I press my palm flat against the glass and imagine her naked and pregnant, begging me to hunt her through the woods one more time.
One month to make that fantasy reality.
I push off from the window and head toward her door to her cell. Time to begin her real education.