Born in Blood (The Sentinels #1)(91)

Instead she discovered she was in a high-tech lab.

Somehow, the sight wasn’t remotely reassuring.

With all the gleaming metal and clinical white it made her think of a morgue for a creepy modern day Frankenstein.

Climbing off the stainless steel gurney she’d been lying on, Callie forced herself to take slow steady breaths as her gaze skimmed around the large room.

Steel cabinets. A long counter with a sink. White tiled floor and a high ceiling with fluorescent lights. Along the far wall were a line of walk-in coolers that she had no intention of investigating.

No windows.

One door that she swiftly discovered was locked.

Which severely limited her avenues of escape.

Accepting she was stuck for now, Callie turned her search to finding a weapon.

She didn’t truly believe there would be something just lying around that could destroy a powerful necromancer. That only happened in B-rated movies.

But pulling open the cabinets and rifling through the drawers kept her from giving in to the panic that pounded through her.

What good did it do to agonize over whether Duncan had been hurt? Or worse?

Or to dwell on her hideous fate if she didn’t manage to escape?

She was rummaging through the last drawer when a faint scent of perfume had her whirling around to discover a woman standing in the middle of the room.

“Holy crap,” she muttered.

She hadn’t heard a sound. Not the sound of a door opening or closing. Or the tap of four-inch heels on the tiled floor.

Had she just appeared from thin air?

Unnerved, Callie studied the woman. She was beautiful with her long red hair and emerald green eyes. And expensive. The designer silver Dior gown and the Christian Louboutin shoes cost more than Callie’s entire wardrobe and no doubt had been purchased at the chichi dress salon on the Plaza.

Then her gaze lifted back to the delicate face and her breath was wrenched from her lungs.

The sketch of the Russian mystic she’d seen in the secret monastery vault had been faded, but there was no mistaking the resemblance to this woman.

Which meant she was Lord Zakhar’s accomplice. The witch who was willing to sacrifice children for power.

The female stepped forward, her gaze trained on Callie with a strange fascination.

Not that her fascination was the only thing strange about the woman.

There was something ... off.

Callie couldn’t put her finger on it.

It wasn’t anything tangible.

Just a sensation that the woman was blurred around the edges, as if she were slightly out of focus.

It was weird as hell and only intensified Callie’s terror.

“Hello, Callie,” the female purred, her lips curving in a smile that didn’t reach her eyes.

Callie grimaced. It skeeved her out that the woman knew her name.

“Who are you?”

The woman lifted her brows, as if surprised by the question. “Do you really have to ask?”

Callie frowned, wrapping her arms around her shivering body. Why was it suddenly so cold?

“Have we met?”

“Long, long ago. I’m Anya,” the woman answered, her voice laced with a faint accent. “Your mother.”

Callie stumbled back, painfully smacking a shoulder on a steel cabinet as a shocked horror sliced through her heart.

It was stupid.

She was being held prisoner by a crazed necromancer, she didn’t know if Duncan was alive or dead, and the future of the world might very well be going to hell.

Literally.

But in this moment, nothing was more disturbing than the thought that she might actually be the daughter of this... this woman.

A witch who would make humans ill just for profit. And sacrifice the innocent for power.

It made her stomach turn.

“No.” Callie shook her head in repudiation. “You’re lying.”

“You aren’t blind, Callie. You have to see the resemblance,” Anya ruthlessly pressed, taking a step toward Callie to grasp her chin. “The hair. The lips.” There was a pause as the emerald eyes inspected Callie’s features. “The cheekbones and eyes are your father’s.”

Callie nearly shrieked at the feel of icy fingers against her skin.

It felt so wrong.

Evil.

“Please, don’t touch me,” she rasped.

Anya dropped her hand, but she remained standing way too close. “I’ve thought about you over the years. Wondering what you were like.”

With a sense of idiotic relief, Callie pounced on the outrageous claim. “If you were truly my mother then you would know that I was abandoned in a Dumpster,” she hissed. “If my mother thought about me at all over the years, it would have been with the belief I was dead.”

The woman smiled.

Well, her lips stretched into what Callie assumed was supposed to be a smile.

Christ.

“You think you were intended to die?” she asked.

“That’s the usual reason you toss a baby in the trash.”

“If I wanted you dead, you would be dead,” Anya stated, the sheer lack of apology undermining Callie’s certainty that she couldn’t possibly be her mother.

Wouldn’t the woman be pretending regret if she was trying to convince Callie she was telling the truth?

Oh... god.