by Nora Ash
His growl was distinctly displeased this time, but thankfully he wasn’t a complete slave to his instincts. He pulled his nose out of my hair and turned toward Jerome, still keeping me wrapped up in the protective shield of his arms. “We leave. Now.”
“We can’t cross the border in cars with more holes than a Swiss cheese,” Jerome muttered, rubbing his scalp with a frustrated grimace. “And it’s only a matter of time before someone comes across the massacre, and then law enforcement will be on the lookout for the perpetrators. Fuck!”
I stared at the broken bodies scattered on the ground all around us, dread settling in my gut despite our victory. Getting across the border without drawing attention wasn’t our only problem. I hadn’t been lying when I told Zach that more could be coming for us. More would be coming—he was too valuable an asset for them to ever let him go. It didn’t matter how far we ran.
“They won’t stop,” I said. “It doesn’t matter if we make it across the border or not—Zach is too important to them. So long as he’s alive, we’ll never be free”
I swallowed my panic and looked up into my mate’s eyes. I’d do anything for this man—absolutely anything.
“There’s only one thing we can do. Zach and I… we have to go back.”
I drove the black Jeep all the way up to the gate shielding the compound my mate and I hated so much. My head pounded the closer we got, sweaty palms clutching at the steering wheel.
The soldier stationed there waved at me to roll down the window. I gave Zach one last glance and found the strength I needed in his gaze. He might not have understood the full scope of what I’d planned—but he trusted me.
“We’re not open for visitors, ma’am,” the soldier said as he looked in the window.
“I’m not a visitor,” I said. “Let Dr. Axell know that Lillian Dorne has returned with test subject 351. Please.”
The soldier’s eyes widened as his gaze landed on Zach and he pulled out his sidearm, aiming it at my mate.
Zach growled low, the warning clear.
“Please, there’s no need for that. Just call Dr. Axell,” I said. “We’re here to surrender.”
* * *
The soldier held us at gunpoint while we waited for the doctor to arrive. Zach spent the entire time shielding me from the weapon with his body, a continuous growl rumbling from his throat. The soldier—a beta—did his best not to let the alpha’s aggression rattle him, but I saw the relief in his eyes when two white-clad figures approached us.
Seemed Dr. Axell had brought Dr. Urwin.
“Well, well,” Dr. Axell drawled when they stopped safely behind the armed soldier. “If it isn’t our wayward analyst. I must say, I am very surprised to see you return voluntarily. Especially since the tactical team sent to procure you went radio silent a few days ago.”
Despite his haughty tone, the sharpness in his eyes was unmistakable.
“I…” I didn’t have to fake the quiver in my voice—being this close to the two men who’d ruined my life made acrid terror burn in my gut. I put a hand on Zach’s broad back, a silent reminder that I would never let them hurt him again, and then dropped to my knees in the dirt, eyes downcast. “I can’t go on. You broke him. I can’t… He’s too wild, I can’t… I’m here… We’re here to surrender. Please, all I ask is that you don’t hurt him again. I’ll cooperate, I’ll try to help with him as much as I can, but please, don’t hurt him again.”
The two doctors stared down at me in silence for a moment.
“Bring them in,” Dr. Axell finally sneered. “He followed her here—he won’t give you any trouble so long as you keep the female in check.”
* * *
I’d been preparing myself for the humiliation of getting stripped upon returning to the lab, but it took everything I had to hold it together as I stood naked in front of both doctors and several lab assistants as they looked me up and down, scribbling on notepads as they went over the state of us both.
Zach caught my eye above the head of the assistant taking his waist measurement, and I managed a brief nod. Since he’d first spoken, he’d been more cognizant, almost human at times, but it was infrequent. I never knew how much he understood, how much of him was there—but right then, I saw the flash of presence in his eyes. He was there with me. Even if he was chained to the wall of the small lab they’d taken us to.
“Where’s Kenneth?” I asked Dr. Urwin, trying to ignore the goosebumps crawling up my skin when he raised his gaze to mine. “Did he… make it through the riot?”
The beta doctor’s lips pinched to a flat line. “He survived, but quit on the spot when we found him. PTSD, I suspect. I hope you’re proud—more than sixty feral alphas lost their lives because of you, along with all our guards and more than a dozen soldiers. There is blood on your hands, Miss Dorne. I hope you didn’t think showing up here and begging for mercy means I won’t personally ensure you pay for everything you’ve done.”
I swallowed at the menace in his voice and forced back a shudder when he let his gaze trail over my body. There was no doubt what sort of penance he had in mind.
“Ah, getting Miss Dorne up to date on everything she’s missed, I hear?” Dr. Axell strolled up to us, clipboard in hand. He smiled at me with all the warmth of a glacier. “You’ll be happy to know that I’ll grant your request—we won’t need to inflict any more unnecessary pain on Subject 351. Tomorrow, we’ll run a few tests to see if any of his cognitive functions have been restored by the drugs you stole. The fact that you managed to bring him here suggests he, even without any remaining humanity, will be usable as some form of weapon.
“And as for you...” The false smile slid off his face, replaced by contempt. “You, Lillian, will make sure he follows every single order he’s given. 351 paid for his mistakes after his first escape attempt. You have yet to do the same. I know you saw where we kept him. What he endured. Do not make the mistake of thinking that I won’t do exactly the same to you, should your usefulness run out. Your only value is in what’s between your legs and how you use it to control my test subject. Tell me you understand.”
“I… I understand,” I whispered.
“Good. Bring them to their old cell—give them the night to become acclimated. Tomorrow, the testing starts.” He gave me one final, burning look before he turned and walked out the door.
There was an eerie familiarity in the metallic slide of the cell door closing behind us. Even the mattress looked the same—I recognized the tears I’d ripped in it the first time Zach had taken me. But something in the lab was different from our last stay. Much different.
Where there’d been maybe a hundred alphas locked in cages, less than forty remained. And some of them were paired with females—none of whom would look our way as we passed their cells.
And the woman in the cell next to ours… I remembered her desperation when we freed Zach only two weeks ago. Now, all she did was lay on the mattress and stare blankly ahead.
“Hey—are you okay?” I called through the wall separating our cells while Zach paced the perimeter of our cage. He was checking our surroundings like an alpha would. They hadn’t injected him with any more of the blasted serum, and I prayed they wouldn’t get a chance to before we could enact our plan. But it was a risk we had to take.
No one answered from the other cell, and I placed a hand on the concrete wall. Guilt gnawed at my gut for how I’d deceived the woman stuck in there, but I hadn’t had a choice. We hadn’t been able to take them with us then.
I hoped with everything I was that she wasn’t beyond saving.
Shouts and the sound of boots against concrete floors jarred me awake in the early morning hours.
I blinked sleep out of my eyes and sat up as far as Zach’s embrace would allow, looking to see what had caused the commotion.
“Stay,” my mate growled before he got up and went to the bars.
I turned around, kneeling up on the mattress to try to see past his massive bulk. What I spotted made
my heart slam into overdrive.
“Well, well, well,” Dr. Urwin said as he strolled up to our cell, ignoring Zach’s bared teeth and warning growl. “It seems you weren’t quite honest when you said you were ready to surrender, huh?”
“What did you do?” I whispered, eyes locked on the four naked alphas held at gunpoint by several soldiers in the middle of the lab, their hands tied behind their backs.
“Did you really think we would buy your ridiculous explanation for why you just happened to show up at our doorstep? That we wouldn’t wonder where the men who helped you break 351 out were?” Dr. Urwin tutted at me, but the smugness was clear in his voice as he stared us down. “Your friends fell right into our trap when they snuck up to the compound—and you know what? We’re going to keep them. We’ve been running short on alphas since you cost us so many.”
“No!” I scrambled to my feet. Zach blocked my attempt at getting to the bars, unwilling to have me too close to the beta doctor, but I could still see the faces of the alphas they’d brought in.
“Jerome!” I cried, trying to capture the attention of the men who’d risked everything for us.
“It’s no use,” Dr. Urwin practically purred. “We’ve given them their first two doses of Hexatrepodamine. The may remember their names for a little while yet—but soon enough they’ll be no more than dumb animals.”
“What are you gonna do to them?” I spat. “Torture them? Test them?”
“Oh, we’ll test them,” Dr. Urwin said, and his smirk turned to a full, cold smile. “Make sure they’re strong and virile. And then, Little Miss Analyst—then they are going to make you regret whatever plan you thought you had. Dr. Axell hoped we could have used you to salvage at least some of 351’s functionality as a weapon for the state—and who knows, you might still… if you survive what’s coming your way just as soon as we’ve ensured our new test subjects are nice and compliant.”
* * *
Zach fought the guards who came for us. He lunged at them, forcing his body up from the many electric jolts they sent through him to stop his assault, and did everything he could to stop them from grabbing me. It was useless—of course it was. Everything about this setup was designed to leave their test subject powerless, and in the end, they dragged both of us out of the cell like we’d both known from the beginning they would.
Zach howled in rage as they forced him through the lab by the poles attached to the metal collars around his neck, arms, and waist. I followed with much less fuss, keeping my head down as I pattered across the cold floor on naked feet. There was no reason to fight them, not now, but I knew Zach was unable to suppress the violent instincts urging him to defend his mate. I’d begged him not to while we waited for the doctors to dole out their punishment, told him all he’d accomplish was hurting himself, but he’d just looked at me with that grim expression of his. He didn’t have many words, but he hadn’t needed them—because I felt the overwhelming protectiveness he had for me in our bond. The only thing I could do to protect him now was stay calm myself.
I recognized the corridor they led us down and fought down the nausea rising in my throat when we stopped by three all-too-familiar doors. They forced Zach through the middle one and took me to the third.
The concrete room that opened up made me shudder in visceral recognition, and I twisted around to look behind me. Zach was getting tied with thick chains behind bars separating his section of the room from mine. Behind him was the empty observation room walled off by thick glass.
Ahead of me, chains hung from the wall exactly like they had when they’d brought five ferals to mount me.
The rape room was probably my least favorite part of the compound.
Despite the cold terror gripping and squeezing my lungs, I still didn’t struggle when the lone guard attending me strapped me in place, shackling my wrists and neck.
“You should’a stayed away, little girl,” he growled in my ear, letting a hand slide over my naked backside to give it a squeeze. “You’re responsible for so many of my buddies’ deaths—even if you survive this, us guards’ve got plans for you, baby. Every single miserable breath you take until the day you finally die is gonna hurt.”
Zach’s snarl at the man’s hand on my body made the guard snort and spit on the floor. “Don’t worry, you sad fuck. No one’s gonna want her once the good doctors are done with her.”
When he left the room, I craned my neck to look over my shoulder as best I could, catching Zach’s eye. “Don’t fight them. Please, please remember. Don’t fight.”
He pulled up his lip in disgust, but gave me a short nod. The chains tying him to the wall rattled with the movement, forcing a growl of frustration from his throat, but despite the animalistic display, I knew he was still in there. I wasn’t alone.
The door leading to my side of the room swung open again, revealing Dr. Axell. He wore that trademark smirk of his, and I wanted nothing more than to slap it off his face.
“I trust you’re comfortable?” he asked as he sauntered over to me. The bottle of lubricant in his hand made me grit my teeth.
“You’re so fucking predictable,” I snarled. “How many is it gonna be this time? All thirty-something?”
He barked a laugh as he stopped behind me, uncapping the bottle. “Maybe next time. Today, we’re just gonna need a warm cunt to teach our newcomers the ropes. Think your mate will get off on watching his former friends knotting what’s his?”
His taunting words were followed by two oiled fingers sliding down my closed lips and, once they reached my entrance, right up inside me. I jerked, his violation making me sick to my stomach.
Behind us, Zach roared, the fury in his voice unmistakable. But he could do nothing to stop the doctor, bound as he was, and thankfully, he didn’t waste any more energy fighting the chains.
Dr. Axell ignored him, finger-fucking me slow and deep, forcing slick sounds from my sheath despite my revulsion. “You’ll be happy to know we’ve improved out methods while you’ve been gone. The artificial heats we induced were messing with our females’ natural hormone production, so we developed an addition to the regular serum we inject the ferals with. Every alpha in here will fuck any hole they’re presented with, no matter if it’s offered willingly or not.
“So today, my dear analyst… today, you get to experience what it’s like to take a knot while your body is screaming for mercy. There won’t be an ounce of pleasure in it for you. Just raw, delicious pain.” His voice was low and rough, thick with perverse excitement. “I can’t wait to hear you scream.”
He finally pulled his fingers from my pussy, wiping the excess oil on my thigh. “There. Can’t have you rip and bleed to death before our new test subjects are sated, now can we?”
I didn’t offer him a reply this time. I just clutched at the chains tying my wrists as I tried to control my shallow breathing. In the distance, an alpha howled.
The unmistakable sounds of snarling, fighting alphas grew closer and closer, only interrupted by the crash of bodies and metal against concrete walls, until finally, the door to my room burst open.
They were here.
I looked up just as all four of the SEALs were shoved into the room, followed by eight guards. Their guns hung over their shoulders while they controlled the feral alphas with metal poles. The ferals immediately zeroed in on me, their fight against the other males withering at the sight of my naked body. Their cocks were hard already, and I swallowed thickly, sending up a silent prayer.
“I think you can release them now,” Dr. Urwin chuckled as he followed into the room after the guards. “Once a feral sets his sights on a pussy, nothing’s gonna distract him from it.”
The guards unsnapped the poles form the metal collars around each alpha’s limbs, a couple of them making crude comments about the slick state of my still-closed lips.
Dr. Axell’s plan for my punishment was so simple, and yet it had all the trappings of revenge. He was going to use the very men who’d risked ever
ything to free us to break us down. I’d long since learned that rape was his favorite weapon, and he wielded it with sick delight.
I’d been right. He was predictable.
“Now!” I yelled.
They didn’t expect it.
The four SEALs reacted as one, their bodies swiveling around faster than anyone could counter. They went for the guards, for the guns hanging off their shoulders, ripping them off and putting bullets in all eight of them within a span of seconds.
Dr. Urwin shrieked and threw himself behind Dr. Axell. Jerome pointed his weapon at the beta’s meat shield.
“Hands up where I can see ‘em. Both of you. Jarl, help our friend out, will you? Larry, free the girl. I know she must be dying to have a little chat with our esteemed researchers here.”
Chapter 10
Lillian
The look of stunned disbelief on Dr. Axell’s and Dr. Urwin’s faces was more satisfying than I could have imagined.
“What the hell is this?” Despite Dr. Axell’s authoritative snarl, his eyes flickered between the four guns trained on him and his hands remained in the air in submission.
Not so fun to be forced to submit, is it, doctor? I gave him a small smile. “This is you losing control of your torture compound. You see, I found your antidote. And it seems it works a lot better than you anticipated—especially as a vaccine. Each of these men were injected before you ‘caught’ them. I must admit, we weren’t entirely sure it would be enough to withstand your drug, but… it seems we were in luck.”
“You’ll never get away with this, you little bitch,” Dr. Urwin spat. “No matter where you hide, we’ll keep coming after you. Even if you kill us today, SilverCorp will never stop coming for you.”