Fade To Midnight. Shannon McKenna

outside the box. Isn’t that what Dr. O trained us for?” She licked her glossy red lips, a move calculated to make him hard, and strolled to the chaise. “Break the chains that bind your brains, hmm? Like Dr. O said. Think about it. Complete control of the Parrish Foundation. Parrish’s personal fortune, too. All his billions, invested in X-Cog, giving us a thousand percent return. Wouldn’t that be just…perfect?”

      His smile showed off his perfect teeth. Desmond Marr, future president of Helix. Harvard man. Pampered prince. Her personal slave.

      Des had been one of Dr. O’s pets, too, but the Haven had been a very different place for the son of Raymond Marr, cofounder of Helix. Des had been a rich pet, a Persian cat with a diamond collar. Desmond had never experienced a slave crown interface in his life.

      Ava had been in the other category of pets. The parentless, penniless, alley cat kind. Ava had worked for her keep, like the rest of the runaways, prostitutes, junkies, and punks. The ones Dr. O could fuck with and get measurable results. Helix was built upon their backs.

      Or their bones, rather. They were all dead. All but her. And maybe Kev McCloud. Somewhere, out there.

      Des had been her lover for years, ever since they’d met as teenagers at Dr. O’s oasis of depravity, the Haven. The spark was immediate. They had so much in common. But certain things Dessie could never understand. If you’d never been a slave, how could you truly know what it meant to dominate? A privileged boy with billions behind him could never get that. It was a gulf between them. Sad.

      But look at her now. She hadn’t croaked from brain bleed like the rest of the lab rats. She was special, and Dr. O had realized it. From slave crowned zombie whore, she’d become Dr. O’s crowning achievement. She’d undergone the most intense and rigorous of Dr. O’s cognitive enhancement techniques. He’d trained her in X-Cog master-crowning technique. He’d arranged for her advanced studies, multiple degrees in neuroscience and bioengineering. With Dr. O’s mentoring, she’d developed nearly as many products for Helix’s bioscience and nanotechnology branch as Dr. O himself, over the years. He’d used her hard, but he had groomed her into something extraordinary.

      Sometimes, she even missed that depraved, sadistic psychopathic prick. It was nice, to have someone be proud of you. To own you.

      Even when it broke your bones, and hacked off your limbs and sucked your blood. Crushed you to dust. Burned you to fucking ashes.

      Des caressed his erection, staring at her taut, curvy body, her nipples. He cast an uncertain glance at the girl moaning on the floor.

      “Ignore her,” Ava commanded. “I’ll give her an injection after, and put her in the fridge, since you can’t soil your lily-white hands.”

      His face reddened. Scolding him sharpened his lust, but going too far made the situation unmanageable. He was large, physically strong, extremely quick, and had a cruel streak that ran very deep and wide.

      “No more cracks about the wet work,” he growled.

      “Oh, Dessie.” Her voice was throaty. “I love it when you’re stern.”

      “Do you? Turn around. I’ll show you stern.”

      She hesitated, feeling the heavy pulse in the air. The timing had to be right. She turned, with deliberate slowness, positioning herself on the chaise. Her micro-mini barely shadowed the parts she kept shaved, perfumed, and pantiless. Ready for immediate use on demand. Old training died hard. She swayed, watching herself reflected in the shiny silver file cabinets opposite. Black hair swinging, red lips parted. She looked good, she concluded, pleased. Dangerous, unstable. Red hot.

      Des undid his belt as he approached, jerked open his pants. Yanked out that horselike member of which he was so proud.

      He shoved her skirt up over her ass, and parted her buttocks, fingering her pussy. She writhed and gasped with theatrical enthusiasm around his delving fingers. His ego was so big, he always bought her act, no matter how extravagantly she overplayed it. Men.

      He thrust his hand deeper, growling. “You’re sopping wet.”

      Actually, it was hitting Mandy that had excited her, but Ava saw no reason to deny him the credit. Besides, she could lube on command. She knew what nasty things to think about to get that hot rush.

      “It’s you who does it to me.” She let her voice quaver, to hint at hidden vulnerability, calculated to puff him up, make him feel like the king of her world. Thinking he ruled her, with his throbbing scepter.

      He grasped her ass cheeks, and drove inside. Ava whimpered as he started pumping. This was the tedious part. All that bucking and moaning. Des was relatively skilled, too, so the thrusting went on for a tiresomely long time before he allowed himself to squirt. Ironic, how personal politics dictated that she praise him for that quality when she would infinitely prefer it to be quick.

      But she managed, defaulting to the familiar state of floating detachment where she always went to endure sex. Leaving just enough of herself there to keep the show convincing. The rest of her highly functioning mind was at work. Preparing the next X-Cog test.

      Too bad the test subject couldn’t be Edie Parrish herself.

      The thought triggered a rush of genuine sexual heat that took her by surprise. Wow. She’d gotten Des on her side, using his weakest point, and it turned her on, too. Bonus points. “Is she cute?” she asked.

      “Who?” Des grunted, his hips thudding against her backside. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

      “Edie Parrish. I haven’t seen her in years. Is she cute?”

      His thrusting slowed. “I don’t know. All right, I guess. Tall, long hair, bad glasses. She hides. Nice tits, though. Why do you care?”

      Ava twisted, to fix him with a hot, wild stare. “When we take her, I want to crown her. And fuck you. Through her.”

      He was so taken aback, he stopped moving. “Huh?”

      “She’ll be the best interface ever.” She rocked back, enveloping his cock once again. “Much better than all the others. I’ll make her into a red-hot nymphet. I’ll make her do things that you’ve never imagined.”

      “I can imagine a whole hell of a lot,” he warned.

      She turned her head, smiled. “Things I’d never do myself, with my own body,” she explained sweetly. “Wild, nasty, dirty things.”

      Desmond rammed into her, so hard, she stifled a gasp of discomfort. “You are one depraved bitch,” he said, his voice admiring.

      “Why, thank you.” She turned, bracing herself against each jolt, making keening, catlike wails. She’d gotten him. He’d do anything to make it happen now. But she realized, shocked, as the ride thundered to its roaring finish, that this fantasy of the X-Cog threesome compelling Edie Parrish was…oh, God…it was making her come.

      Explosively.

      He dripped blood as he ran. Shocked faces, their mouths horrified ‘O’s, stumbling back. No one stopped him on his desperate race toward the guy’s office. He had to tell them the truth. Make the killing stop.

      But the man didn’t listen. He was disgusted, terrified. Kev had thought that the blood, the burns, would be a proof too strong to dispute.

      Wrong. He’d scared them to death. His gore had blinded them. He was living proof that hell on earth existed. Something to deny, forget.

      He fought, but he was weak from drugs, torture. He threw one of the guys through the window, but there were too many of them. They brought him down. Dragged him out. Then he saw the little angel.

      So strange, to see an angel in hell. Small, perfect, clad in blazing white like a sunlit cloud. A halo of white crowned her hair. She saw him with her fearless, fathomless eyes. Not a monster from collective human nightmares. Just him. She retreated into the distance as they dragged him away. Her compassionate eyes followed as he craned desperately to keep her in his