Chapter 199

KIERAN’S POV The stench of antiseptic clung to the air, as if trying to mask something darker. Fouler. But no amount of bleach or sterile scrub could cover the stink of what had happened here. I stepped further into the gutted lab, boots crunching on broken glass. The overhead fluorescents had been smashed out, but daylight slashed through the boarded windows, harsh and revealing, baring everything. “Anything?” I asked, though I already knew the answer. David, tall and sharp-eyed, stood before an overturned surgical table. His face was grim as he shook his head. “They stripped the place clean, Alpha. If I didn’t know better, I’d think this was a regular warehouse.” It was a lie, of course. Everything about this space reeked of cruelty, even with the equipment gone. The walls were still stained in spots—brown smears and darker splotches they hadn’t quite managed to scrub out. The outlines of chains remained etched into the concrete floor like ghostly shadows. And beneath it all, the sil