Page 83 of Property of Crypt Keeper

My hands flexed against the restraints. Warded silver burned my flesh, but I welcomed it. Better pain than the fury trying to tear me apart. “You sick son of a bitch.”

Rafael tilted his head. “Careful now. After all, I didn’t begin the program.”

“No. You just found a way to profit from it,” I interjected.

That landed. Not visibly, but enough that I could tell his eyes cooled. Then another voice spoke.

“Profit is such a vulgar word.”

The door opened behind him. A man stepped inside wearing a white lab coat.

Plain. Human-looking. Older, maybe late fifties, early sixties, with heavily silver hair neatly combed back and pale, intelligent eyes that held no warmth whatsoever. He carried a tablet in one hand and a syringe in the other. Everything about him was unsettling… uncanny.

Not because he looked evil, but because he didn’t. He looked merely curious. Terribly, calmly curious. Like nothing in this room was suffering. Like suffering was simply data on a page. Black and white symbols on bright white paper.

Rafael turned slightly. “Doctor,” he greeted with a nod.

No name. Just that. The Doctor.

The man’s gaze landed on me and stayed.

“Well,” he began softly. “You are simply beautiful.”

My wolf tried to rip out of my skin. The restraints screamed. The walls flared with ward light. The Doctor smiled.

Not pleased. Not excited. Worse.

Fascinated.

“Yes,” he murmured. “I see it now.”

Rafael watched him carefully. “Explain.”

The Doctor approached with the easy confidence of a man who believed every monster in the room had already been accounted for and contained. He stopped in front of me, studying my face. Then my shoulders. Then the places where the restraints bit into my skin.

“You are not merely a Rougarou,” he stated.

I bared my teeth. “What gave it away? The cage?”

He ignored that.

“Rougarous are already rule-breakers. Wolf shifter lines altered by cursed magic. The full moon does not simply pull the beast forward—it mutates the very expression of it.” His gaze sharpened. “But you…”

He looked genuinely delighted. “You are something better.”

Rafael’s attention sharpened as the Doctor moved around me in no apparent hurry.

“Do you know what an amplifier bloodline is?” he finally asked.

I went cold. My mother. The thought struck fast and hard. I didn’t know why. Only that it did.

The Doctor saw something on my face. His smile widened. “Ah,” he gleefully purred. “You’ve heard the term.”

“Keep talking,” I quietly encouraged. “I like imagining exactly how much of you I’m going to rip apart.”

Rafael stepped closer. The Doctor only lifted a hand, unconcerned.

“Amplifiers are not powerful in the traditional sense,” he continued. “They do not create power. They magnify what already exists.”