by Nora Ash
Five ex-SEALs in total, all big and gruff and insisting on sniffing my neck when they first met me. But that’s all they did. Not a single one so much as touched me, except for Jerome when he changed my bandages, which I suspected was mainly to ensure I hadn’t harmed myself further.
But I was too absorbed to get lost in the sweeping waves of agony from my bond and try and claw it out now. It still hurt, still knocked the breath from my lungs—but I clung to the single ray of hope Zach’s SEAL brothers had stirred in me. It was the only thing I thought about when I lay awake at night, the only thing I focused on when the barbed wire sliced through me during his waking hours.
There was a chance, however small, that they would succeed. That he would be free.
And if that failed… if the six alphas couldn’t break into the heavily guarded compound…
Well, then I knew I would die while trying to rescue the man who’d risked everything to save me.
“I’d feel better if you stayed behind, girl.” Jerome looked over the hand-drawn map of the area that housed the compound, circles drawn in from where I remembered guard towers being stationed. “I’ve got a duty to keep you safe. You know that.”
“And you know I can’t,” I said. “It’s a maze underground. You’ll need my bond to locate him.”
“I know,” he sighed. “But if we manage to break him free, but lose you in the process…”
“We won’t.” Beau walked up to the wood block that served as our strategy table, casually slicing an apple with his hunting knife. “Give the girl some credit, Willis. She escaped a federally secured facility and made it all the way to Georgia on her own. We’ve had much more difficult assignments.”
“And with a lot less at stake,” Eric murmured as he trailed up behind him. He nodded in the direction of the nearest tent where Jarl and Larry were packing their few belongings up. “We’re all set.”
Larry had only arrived yesterday, and Eric the week before, but these guys were used to moving out with little warning.
“All right.” Jerome shot me another unhappy look. “Then it’s time to go.”
The floodlights from the four towers surrounding the compound lit up, slicing through the darkness as we crept close to the perimeter.
During the trip here, my bond had been throbbing with increasing intensity, but the closer we got, the less it hurt. It was as if it knew I was here to save my mate.
I rubbed at my chest as I stared at the fence I’d scaled what seemed like a lifetime ago. The sick memory of staring through the chain link as Zach took a bullet, knowing I’d lose him and that there was nothing I could do, assaulted my mind. It took all the focus I had not to start hyperventilating. My bond might have been calmer this close to the compound, but every other part of me was balancing on a razor’s edge, panic and despair waiting for a weak moment to swallow me up.
I’d never thought I’d voluntarily walk back into this hell… but I hadn’t known that being separated from the man who claimed me would be so much worse.
By my side, Jerome pointed toward the single guard patrolling the fence a good thirty feet from our hiding spot. Beau and Jarl nodded, sliding out and toward him like two silent shadows.
“Stay here. Stay hidden. We’ll get you when it’s done,” Jerome murmured before he, Eric, and Larry headed toward the nearest guard tower.
I didn’t hear any disturbances in the night, but I saw the patrolling guard fall to the ground. There was no sound of alarms being raised, no shots fired as I waited for the SEALs to dispatch the perimeter guards.
Some twenty minutes later, movement caught my eye, and my heart slammed into my throat when I spotted a soldier’s uniform on the man rapidly approaching my hiding spot. But when he got closer, I recognized Beau’s clean-cut face. He waved me over, touching his lips with a finger when I stumbled out of the bushes toward him.
He led me through the gates to where the others were waiting for us by an unlit section inside the chainlink, not fifty yards from the glass doors leading into the reception area. They’d cleaned up and replaced the windows since our escape attempt, I noted. It was as if it’d never happened.
“You hang back while we gain entry,” Jerome said. He, like the rest of them, was dressed in the same uniform the soldiers here wore. A few of them had blood splatters staining the dark gray camouflage fabric.
I nodded, aware I wasn’t here for the violent aspect of the rescue mission. It wasn’t until we descended into the bowels of the compound that I’d be useful.
The five alphas made their way toward the entry area, one of them waving a greeting to what I assumed were the guards inside. The glass door opened and Jerome stepped inside, followed by the other alphas.
This time I did hear a shot, but just the one.
Was there only one guard? I frowned, trying to peer through the windows, but all I saw from my hiding spot were moving shadows. Even before the escape attempt, there’d been several guards stationed by the entry point. It didn’t make much sense to decrease their numbers.
But moments later, Beau stuck his head out of the door and waved me forward, and I obeyed.
“There’re supposed to be more guards here,” I whispered as I finally entered the building, my old workplace, and saw a single man lying dead on the floor.
“There were double the amount of guards we expected around the perimeter,” Jerome said, his gaze sliding along the reception area. “They seem to have shifted their focus to shell protection since you left, probably wanting to give their men the higher ground in case of another break-out. Which way from here?”
I hesitated, focusing on the bond. It was pulling at me, but I wasn’t sure where to, except deeper into the compound. “Best bet is where they keep the test subjects.” I tried to step around him to lead the way, but he placed his hand on my shoulder.
“Need I remind you what happens to Barnes if you die?” he growled. “In the middle, at all times.”
I sighed and let Beau take the lead, followed by Larry and Eric. Directly behind me, Jarl closed in with Jerome taking up the rear.
“Through that door, down the hall,” I said. My heart thudded unevenly as the familiar smells of disinfectant and blood assaulted me. It was like returning to a nightmare, every flicker of the fluorescent lights forcing memories of the night of my escape to resurface in my brain. Only the knowledge that somewhere deep in the bowels of this hell was the key to my survival stopped me from turning around to flee.
Beau swiped the access card he’d stolen from the dead guard on the floor over the scanner, and the doors slid open with a hiss.
None of us were expecting the sharp pop-pop-pop that immediately followed.
“Get down!” Jarl roared, throwing his heavy body on top of mine before I could so much as blink. Snarls erupted around us as heavy boots slammed against the concrete floors and more gunfire went off.
I shrieked as Beau fell next to us, glassy eyes wide open and a trickle of blood dripping from the corner of his half-open mouth.
Another thud of a body hitting the ground made me twist underneath Jarl’s protective cover. An unfamiliar man in a dark guard uniform stared back at me, his face contorted in pain and blood spurting from between his lips. He gurgled something and reached for me. Jarl put a bullet in his brain before he could get close.
More gunfire went off above us, accompanied by roars of agony—but it was over quickly. When silence finally fell over the hallway again, five men in guard uniforms lay scattered on the floor.
Jerome knelt by Beau’s side, pressed his fingertips to his neck for a few moments, and then drew his hand over Beau’s face, closing the other man’s eyes. “Anyone else hurt?”
“Just a flesh wound,” Larry grunted. When I looked up, he had a hand pressed against his side. Blood seeped between his fingers.
“Fuckers must’ve seen us enter on security cams,” Eric growled as he tore a piece of fabric off one of the dead guards to bandage Larry’s wound. “Fuck!”
I didn’t say anything as I looked at the blond alpha who’d laid down his life to get me my mate back. I’d known him for a month—planned with him, relied on him. But I’d never really known him. I didn’t know any of these men who were here, risking their lives for me and Zach. And I realized then that to me, they were nothing more than the brawn and power I needed to make my bond stop tormenting me day and night. Staring at the man who’d died to protect me, I felt nothing but indifference.
It horrified me.
Over the past four weeks, I’d thought I’d become less damaged, that the fire of determination and single-minded hope was mending the torn place in my chest where that awful tether hooked in.
I’d been so very wrong.
“Come,” Jerome said as he got to his feet. “We’ll retrieve his body on the way out. But first, we have a mission to complete. Larry?”
“I’m good,” the injured alpha grunted, pushing off the wall he’d been leaning against with a grimace. “Let’s go.”
We continued deeper into the belly of the compound, our footfalls the only sound echoing around us—until we finally entered the lab where the feral alphas were held.
“Lord above,” Jarl murmured as I led them through the large room flanked by cage after cage of naked men. Several were empty, but a few of the alphas had disheveled-looking women by their sides. Seemed they’d gotten more alphas to claim mates while I’d been gone.
I steeled my jaw and kept my gaze on the end of the room where Zach and I had lived together for one miserable week. But when we got there, the cell was empty.
“They kept Barnes in here?” The disbelieving question had come from Larry, but judging by his companions’ tense expressions, they were all trying to come to terms with what had happened to their brother-in-arms.
“Yeah. They must’ve moved him after I… escaped.” I touched a hand to the bars and tried to think where they could have taken him. The infirmary?
“Best hurry up and locate him, girl,” Jerome grunted. “The others are waking up, and they’re not liking our presence.”
Deep growls rolled through the lab behind us, sporadic for now, but more voices were joining in as more alphas became aware of the presence of what they saw as rivals.
I pushed off the bars and went to the neighboring cell. The alpha in there snarled and lunged at the metal bars separating us.
“Get back!” Eric snapped, pushing me behind him as he raised his weapon and leveled it at the feral man.
“No, I need him to calm down. Please, move out of his field of vision. All of you.”
They did, though I sensed their hesitation at leaving me alone with such an aggressive male. Their instincts to protect were clearly flaring, but the caged alpha couldn’t touch me so long as I stayed out of arm’s reach.
“Hey,” I said, keeping my tone soft. I tilted my head back a little, showing the feral alpha my throat. “I’m not going to hurt you. Or her. I just need to speak with her. Can I? Please?”
He growled again, but softer this time. Less threatening. I took it as permission.
“Hey—hello?” I squinted at the dark interior of the cell and spotted what I’d been looking for—a curled-up figure lying completely still on the mattress.
Her alpha growled again at my attention toward his mate, and I dipped my head back further until he quieted.
“Are you awake? Please, I need you to talk to me. I can help you.”
The woman on the mattress finally stirred. She looked sluggishly over her shoulder, but when her gaze locked on mine, her eyes widened. “L-Lillian?”
“Yeah, I’m here. Please, come talk to me. It’s urgent.”
She got up as if someone had pulled her by invisible strings, stumbling toward the bars with a heavy limp. Tangible desperation was painted across her dirty face as she wrapped her hands around the metal separating us. “Can you get me out? Oh please, get me out! Y-You don’t know what they do to us!”
But I did know. I knew exactly what they did to her, and judging by the bruises and scratches on her hips, it was the same fate I’d only narrowly escaped.
“I will. I’ll get you out, but first, I need you to tell me where they’re keeping 351.” I wrapped my hands around hers, trying to force calm on her so she would tell me what I needed to know.
She hesitated, wide eyes searching mine. “Please, Lillian. Promise me.”
“I promise,” I said softly, squeezing her hands. “But without 351, none of us are getting out of here. Please, do you know where he is?”
She swallowed, tongue flicking out to wet her dry lips, and then nodded. “I’ve heard the assistants talking… there’s a floor below this one. He’s down there. But…there’s something you should know.”
“What?” I tried my best to smother my frustration with her. Every cell in my body ached to find Zach, but I couldn’t rush her more than I already was. It was pretty clear from her wide eyes and pale skin that she was clinging on to reality with her fingernails. And I couldn’t blame her—if I’d not made it out when I did, I doubted I’d have been in a much better state.
“They bring him up here sometimes. To watch… He’s not… human anymore.”
I grunted, lifting my shoulder in the direction of her mate. “None of them are.”
“No, it’s… it’s different,” she swallowed again, gaze dipping to avoid mine. “They did something to him. I think… they broke something. Something more than in the others.”
I shook my head and pushed off the bars. I’d felt what they did to him every damned day since my escape, and I was done wasting time. “It doesn’t matter. How do I get to his floor?”
“I think there’s a corridor past Dr. Urwin’s office,” she said softly. When I made to turn around, she called out to me again.
“Lillian—please, don’t leave me.”
“I’ll be back for you,” I said as I made my way across the lab, nodding to my escort to follow me. “Don’t worry.”
“We’re not enough men to evacuate anyone else,” Jerome murmured as he fell in by my side. “Even one extra would jeopardize the mission, especially with Beau gone and Larry injured.”
“I know.” I pointed at the door leading toward the section of the compound that housed Dr. Urwin’s office. Eric and Jarl got into position, one pulling it open as the other aimed his gun at the doorway. But no guards met us, and both men filed through, checking that the hallway was clear.
Quietly, filled with the need to speak my betrayal out loud, I added,“Telling her we would take her with us was the fastest way to guarantee her compliance.”
I ignored Jerome’s frown as I passed through the door into the empty hallway. Once upon a time, I would have done everything to save the other women in here. They might not have been willing to become fugitives before being mated, but no one could sustain the brutality the research team subjected their mated test subjects to.
But now…
All that mattered was stopping the clawing behind my ribs from tearing me apart. The women trapped in cages with alphas they’d not chosen? They meant nothing.
* * *
The floor below where the ferals were kept was much starker than the rest of the compound. Instead of white walls and fluorescent lights, bare concrete covered every surface, and only sparse orange bulbs lit up the corridor every few yards, leaving big patches of shadow between them. It didn’t smell like disinfectant down here—it smelled like mold and wet metal. Like rusting iron, or dried blood.
“Fucking hell,” Jarl murmured as we walked down the narrow pathway. “Who the hell thought to install a goddamn dungeon?”
“Looks like it’s meant to be a bunker,” Jerome said, keeping his voice low. “In cas
e of a nuclear attack.”
“I think they planned on keeping the alphas here permanently,” I said. “Once they’ve been trained as super soldiers. It’s probably supposed to function as a military base.”
“Fucking grotesque,” Eric muttered.
We followed the corridor for a long while, going down each branch as it separated into other sections. We tested every room we passed. They were all empty or filled with rusty barrels and general storage from the lab upstairs. But I could feel him. My bond hummed and twisted like a living worm burrowing in my chest, urging me onward, whispering that he was near.
Then, after searching dozens of rooms and multiple corridors, we finally stopped outside a heavy wooden door with a metal grate at the top, too high to see through but open enough to let some air into the room beyond.
And I knew.
“He’s in there,” I whispered, grabbing Jerome by the arm.
The large alpha stared at the door, assessing its strength. “We’ll need something to break it down with. Jarl, Eric—go back to that room with the metal poles and get us something heavy.”
Energy crackled in my blood as my heart forced it through my too-tight veins, spreading a sensation of pins and needles from my toes to my scalp as I waited, palm pressed against the damp wood.
“Zach,” I whispered, the name tasting so strange on my tongue. I’d used it so many times these past weeks, but now it somehow seemed wrong, like I was attempting to personify the yearning inside of me and turn it into a person, a man.
It wasn’t. He wasn’t. He hadn’t been for a long time now.
He’d told me his name was Zach after he’d claimed me, and that was what I’d called him in my head when I lay awake at night, wishing for an end to the terrible pull behind my ribs. But he hadn’t been Zach since we were separated. He’d been… something else.