by Nora Ash
It took everything I had not to glance down his naked body as I placed the bag of clothes in his outstretched hand rather than my own palm. “Here. Put this on.”
He didn’t move, staring at me rather than the bag in his hand.
“It’s clothes,” I explained, trying to fight back the adrenaline threatening to take over my nervous system. “Please, put it on. Quickly. You remember how, right?”
Those piercing green-blue eyes flickered from me to the bag. Slowly, he pulled it in through the bars and opened it.
“We have to hurry,” I said, even though no one would be down here until morning. But I wanted to get out of there as quickly as humanly possible, before my heart exploded from stress. The sooner I had SilverCorp’s facility in my rearview mirror, the sooner I could breathe again.
“Lab coat last,” I said as 351 pulled out the contents of the bag. “Pants first.” I hadn’t bothered with underwear or socks, deeming them unnecessary hindrances to a quick escape. If 351 cared or even noticed, he didn’t show it. Fumbling a bit, he managed to pull the gray pants on, even doing up the zipper and the button, though the shirt seemed to cause him more problems.
“Come here,” I said when it became obvious he had very little care for which button was meant to go in which button hole.
The alpha obeyed, and I reached through the bars to undo the crooked buttons and then slip them through the right holes. My fingers skimmed over his warm chest as I worked, and he made a humming noise deep in his throat in response that had my cheeks flushing again. I was suddenly aware of how near he was, despite the bars separating us. Close enough that I could smell his alpha scent. It wasn’t unpleasant, somewhat to my surprise. I’d always found the smell of alpha unsettling, my biology reacting to the primal notes of dominance without my consent.
But on 351, it was oddly comforting to my frayed nerves. I inhaled a little deeper, breathing in the calming scent of him to steady my racing heart.
The feral alpha’s humming noise turned deeper as he leaned his head closer to the bars until it was right above mine, and then he drew in a deep breath through his nose.
Scenting me.
I flew back from the bars, eyes wide. “Don’t you even think about it!”
He gave me a puzzled look, and I bit the inside of my cheek to force my focus back on what was important. He couldn’t help it—he was a feral alpha, and from his point of view, I was just a female trying to get close to him. It wasn’t odd that he would… scent me.
Even if such behavior was appallingly crude in civilized society.
Scenting a female was basically how alphas used to check if she was ready to mate. No civilized alpha would be so obvious about his instincts these days, though. We were all supposed to respect privacy and verbal consent, but as I looked at the feral alpha who’d only followed his basic instincts, I couldn’t help but wonder how many of the supposed civilized alphas just pretended they didn’t do the same. How good was their control over their instincts, when it came down to it?
With an effort of will, I pushed the thoughts from my mind. Right now was really not the time to contemplate such issues.
“Put your shoes on,” I snapped at the alpha, and got a warning growl in return. Right. He didn’t like getting bossed around. “Please.”
His eyes narrowed as he watched me, without making any attempt at the shoes. Some of the softness in his gaze had disappeared, replaced by caution.
“I’m breaking you out of here,” I said, unable to control the urgency I felt from penetrating my voice. I fumbled in my bag for the key card and held it up. “I got a key that works. But we have to hurry.”
The change that came over him made my breath hitch in my throat. The same alpha who’d pulled me against the bars of his cell hard enough to leave bruises in order to get at my key card was back, and it wasn’t until I saw the cold, hard calculation in his icy gaze that I fully realized how different he’d been around me since that day. All of a sudden, the thought of actually letting this three-hundred-pound feral man out seemed a lot less appealing.
But I’d already committed to this.
Taking a deep breath, I motioned at the shoes once more before I reached out and swiped my new card over the lock.
It beeped, flashing green, and a mechanic clink rung through the air between us.
He pushed the door open in the blink of an eye, and I only barely managed to stumble back and out of harm's way from his huge bulk of muscle as he stepped out of the cell and into the lab, eyes glued to the far exit. Clearly locked on his target, he started toward it.
“Wait!” I grabbed his arm.
The alpha stopped abruptly, and I could feel every muscle in his body tense underneath my palm in response to my touch. He whipped around, and I staggered back and quickly removed my hand from him again, sure I was about to feel the impact of those bulging muscles straining against the cheap shirt I’d bought for him. But he only stared at me.
“Y-you can’t just storm up there. There are guards. Armed guards. Please, put on the shoes and lab coat and just follow me. Quietly.” I pointed back at the discarded shoes and white clothes in his cell, doing my best not to show him the burst of anxiety his nearness caused me. Having solid steel bars between us had been a pretty good safety net. “I’ll help you, but you have to trust me. Okay?”
351 made a low growling noise, but to my relief he returned to his cell, shoved his large feet into the shoes, and pulled the lab coat on.
The transformation from wild alpha to smoking-hot doctor look-alike was pretty damn convincing.
The errant thought made me blink, my cheeks heating slightly, but I forced it away as quickly as it’d reared its disturbing head. Now was definitely not the time for inappropriate fantasies about the man I was trying to save.
“Come. Stay by my side—and keep quiet,” I said, squaring my shoulders as I started toward the exit.
The alpha followed me—or rather, he walked beside me, but just a half-step ahead. Typical alpha—incapable of letting someone else take the lead. I shot his shoulder an annoyed glare, but at least he wasn’t storming ahead like I’d halfway feared.
The other alphas were much more alert this time—they all got to their feet and stared after us, hands wrapped around the bars to their cells, but didn’t make a sound. Instead they formed a silent guard, as if they knew their own fates depended on the outcome of our escape.
They might have been murderers, locked away on death row for their crimes before they were shipped to this facility, but my heart still twanged uncomfortably at leaving them behind. No one, not even the most dangerous of prisoners, deserved to have their voice taken away and their bodies beaten bloody if they stood up to their abusers. And these men… whatever they’d been before, they weren’t that anymore. Dr. Axell and his team had made sure there was nothing left of what had made them human.
But 351’s compliance only lasted until we reached the stairs. With a low grunt, he put a large hand on my shoulder, stopping me from ascending the steps. Then, without a care for my startled protests, he took them two at a time and smacked his hand against the door’s release button.
“No, wait!” I called, flashes of his hulking form leaping through the hallways and bursting out into the reception area like a wild beast playing through my mind in rapid-fire bursts. “You have to wait f—“
My voiced died when the door swung open—and the alpha immediately sunk into a defensive crouch, his lips pulling back in a furious snarl. But before he could leap forward, three thuck thuck thucks whistled through the air. I stared, wide-eyed at the three black-feathered darts sticking out from his chest. My heart pounded in my throat, realization setting in even as my conscious mind tried to deny it. No, no, no!
351 roared in absolute fury and staggered forward, intent on taking down whoever had shot him, but whatever they’d injected him with was obviously fast-working. He only managed two steps before he sunk to the ground in a heap.
"No!"
I cried out. The Goliath of a man twitched once before he went still, his eyelids sliding shut. I sprinted up the stairs, not thinking about the danger, and threw myself down by his side. I frantically pulled the darts from his chest. Oh, God, what did they inject him with?
“Well, well, well,” a familiar voice sneered from the doorway. “I can’t say I’m surprised, but it is still a disappointment.”
I looked up from the unmoving alpha to the doorway. Dr. Axell stood in the middle of it, flanked by armed guards, and behind them I could just make out Dr. Urwin’s features.
“You had such potential,” he continued before he turned to the guards with a dramatic sigh. “Take him away.”
“What did you do to him?” I spat.
“Relax, sweetheart. He’s just knocked out. He’s much too valuable to kill, even though he’s sorely testing my patience these days.” His cool eyes narrowed as they returned to me. “You, however… I can’t say I’m not disappointed I’ll lose such a fine data analyst, but you are replaceable.”
I swallowed thickly and steeled myself as the guards came forward to hoist the passed-out alpha up. He was so big, it took all three of them to carry him off.
As much as my heart ached for the feral alpha and the fate that awaited him, I had to focus on my own situation now. I’d known there was a very real risk involved in trying to break one of Dr. Axell’s test subjects free—and now I had to face it.
“Are you going to kill me, then?” I asked with far more bravery than I felt. On the inside, my heart felt like it was trying to escape through my throat and my stomach was a hollow pit.
Dr. Urwin scoffed. “Hardly. We’ll hand you over to the authorities. You tried to sabotage a project funded by the Ministry of Defense.”
“Of course, death might be preferable to being tried for treason,” Dr. Axell mused. “But maybe they’ll go easier on a dumb female who thinks with her ovaries.”
I blanched. Somehow, while I’d prepared my plan, I’d never thought of what would happen to me if they handed me over to the authorities. I’d thought they might kill me, or—best-case scenario—I’d get turned over to the police and I’d end up with a petty charge and a ruined career. But in between those two extremes, I’d not considered the ties to the Ministry of Defense.
Yes, they would undoubtedly try me for treason.
“Please. Don’t. J-just kill me if you have to. But don’t… They’ll send me to Ezban.” It wasn’t that I wanted to die—not by a long shot. But… there were worse fates than death. Being labeled a traitor to your country was definitely one of them.
“If you didn’t want to go to Ezban, you shouldn’t have let your bleeding heart get in the way of a fucking government-stamped research project, should you?” Dr. Axell snarled. “Fucking women. We let you into the sciences, and this is the reward we get. It’s going to take us weeks to get 351 back in line now, all because of what? He makes your pussy tingle, is that it?”
“You torture them!” I snapped. “He disobeyed you, and you beat him bloody. You’ve taken their voices, their humanity! It’s not right, and you know it.”
“Their humanity,” he sneered. “They were hardly human to begin with. Do you know what 351 did? He murdered his commanding officer while out on assignment in the desert. He’s a war criminal, and you tried to release him into the public. That one?” He pointed at the nearest caged alpha, who bared his teeth at the doctor. “Raped and killed five children below the age of twelve before they caught him. Trust me, they deserve every damn thing coming their way. And so do you. Now get up.”
The world seemed to twist below me, centering on the black pit in my stomach as my indignant anger at what they’d done to these men faded to the background. Imminent fear for my own life set in instead. The few stories that ever made it out of Ezban made it very obvious that any other fate was better than being sent there. The nation had no concern for the wellbeing of traitors and war criminals. Anyone with even a shred of sanity would choose death over what awaited them there. “Please, don’t turn me in. There has to be another way.”
“I don’t think so. You tried to ruin my research after I let you onto my team—I have no pity for you.” Dr. Axell said, disdain clear in his voice. But when he stepped forward to grab me, Dr. Urwin raised his hand.
“Hang on a moment.”
Dr. Axell turned to his colleague, eyebrows raised in question.
“You saw how 351 acted around her on the video surveillance,” the beta male said as he gave me a coldly calculating look. “He seems interested in her. Perhaps, if Miss Dorne is certain she would rather find another solution to this predicament she’s put us in, she would be willing to test out the theory she suggested during the mating trial she overlooked.”
I blinked, my brain taking a few moments to zero in on what he was referring to. Then I remembered my thoughts on them trying to force a mating bond. “You’re kidding? You think he’d claim me?”
Dr. Urwin shrugged. “Perhaps. Perhaps not. I’d be curious enough to test it out to perhaps overlook your transgressions, seeing as no other female has had any non-sexual, positive reaction from 351 yet.”
“Hm, that is a good point,” Dr. Axell conceded. “It would at least be worth a trial, now that the opportunity has presented itself.” He looked down at me. “But of course, if you don’t want to…”
“No, I’ll…” I swallowed thickly and forced the images of Gloria tied to the breeding post out of my mind. Whatever happened in that room, it would be better than going to Ezban. “I’ll do it.”
8
“We had another female employee in the early stages of the project,” Dr. Urwin said when I handed him the signed contract allowing SilverCorp full discretion over my body for the next year. It stipulated that I was to allow matings with alphas of the research team’s choosing, and that I agreed to not hold SilverCorp or its agents responsible for any and all bodily harm that may occur under their care.
Despite its content, I didn’t hesitate to sign it. Not even when I read the part where a “successful bonding” meant the contract would be extended indefinitely.
“She also got swept up in her feminine emotions and tried to smuggle pictures of what goes on here out to the press,” Dr. Urwin continued as he looked over my signature. “It was before we had an easy supply of female inmates for our alphas, so we struck a similar bargain with her—her cunt in return for not turning her in to the feds. I must say, it is a disappointment to see an educated mind lose all sense of reasoning to irrational emotions. It makes it hard to argue against the alphas who suggest your gender belongs at home, barefoot and pregnant.
“And then you go and prove them right again, after Dr. Axell hired you against his better judgement not to take on any more females for this project. I guess he was right—no amount of accolades can make up for the softness between your legs. He’s been watching you, you know. The security cameras in 351’s cell captured all your sweet little moments with him. When we saw you tending to him after his failed mating, we knew it was only a matter of time before you betrayed SilverCorp.”
“What happened to her? The other woman?” I asked. Taking his bait wouldn’t help me now.
“Oh, it was very unfortunate.” Dr. Urwin motioned with one arm for me to walk out of his small office. I obeyed, following his directions down the narrow corridor until we came to another locked steel door. “It was before we began forcing heats on our female subjects, or tying them down. So instead of submitting to her first alpha, she tried to fight him off. Stupid woman. He predictably went into a rage and killed her before we could intervene.” He gave me a small smile devoid of emotion as he swiped his access card over the lock and pushed the door open. “But you have nothing to worry about. We have had no fatalities since we implemented the heat treatments.”
I blanched as he stepped aside to allow me into the room, and I finally saw what was inside. It was a small room, clad in tiles and white paint, with a fluorescent light flickering in
the ceiling. And by the far wall stood a narrow, padded examination bench with leather restraints attached.
Dr. Urwin scoffed at my obvious horror. “Don’t give me that look. They’re to keep you from hurting yourself once the drugs set in. We’re not barbarians.”
I arched an eyebrow at him, but if he even saw the irony, he ignored it. Apparently, in his mind, violating a tied-down woman yourself versus letting a feral alpha do it was entirely different.
He sat down by a small desk I hadn’t even noticed, seeing how the bench and restraints took up my whole focus, and rummaged through a drawer for some paperwork. “Please take off your lab coat and roll up your right sleeve before you lie down,” he said as he began making notes on the form he’d procured. “I’ll be with you in a moment.”
I took a deep breath, steadying my thudding heartbeat before I walked over to the bench and shrugged out of my lab coat. There was something poetically final about seeing the white fabric pooling on the floor—almost like a metaphor for how I’d thrown away my life to help the alpha who’d made my conscience resurface. I wasn’t a scientist anymore. I was a test subject.
But at least I’d done everything I could to help. No matter what happened to me during the next year, I knew I could live with myself once they finally released me. If I hadn’t tried to save him, I would never have been able to look myself in the mirror again.
Even if he was a war criminal.
At least I knew there was no chance he or any other alpha they’d make me mate with would claim me. It was just one year, and then I’d be free. And who knew, maybe if I was smart enough, I’d somehow be able to gather enough evidence during my time as a test subject to take them down once I was out.
Once I was lying stiffly on the bench, Dr. Urwin rolled on his chair across the concrete floor to my head. In his now gloved hand was a syringe containing a yellow liquid.