by Nora Ash
“Oh, but that’s the thing… they will.” I motioned to Jarl, and the big alpha ripped the lab coat off Dr. Urwin, handing me the garment—and the attached access card. I wrapped the white coat around my naked body. They’d used lack of clothing as one of their measures of control—had separated their test subjects from humanity by denying them the ability to shield their bodies in any way. Even though it was only a lab coat, it still felt good to reclaim a small measure of my dignity in front of my torturers.
“We’re going to erase every file ever created for me and Zach, every test, every measurement. There will not be a single reminder left of our existence—and no one to tell SilverCorp who to chase down.
“And sure, SilverCorp might start the abhorrent experiment again, but they will have to start from scratch. And at that point, we will be far, far away. And no one will know we ever were here.”
Dr. Axell growled contemptuously, but Dr. Urwin drew in a sharp breath, his anger replaced by fear. “Please. Don’t kill me. I—I can be useful. I can help you delete everything. Just please—don’t shoot me.”
Dr. Axell regarded him with disgust, but remained quiet.
I tilted my head and looked at the beta who’d derived so much pleasure from my suffering. I remembered every insult, every lecherous touch as he’d tied me down and watched me and Zach get tortured. And I didn’t feel a single ounce of sympathy as he shook with the knowledge that he was going to die. Only cold, grim revenge.
“Oh, we won’t shoot you,” I said, crossing the rough concrete to the door without sparing the two doctors another look. “Your death will be much, much more unpleasant than that. Jerome, please sweep the building. Kill every staff member on sight. Zach and I will meet you with these two in the lab upstairs.”
“Whatever you’re going to do to us, it won’t change the fact that you’re stuck with a beast for a mate.” Dr. Axell’s sneer was a stark contrast to Dr. Urwin’s quiet sniffling as Zach tied his wrists to the bars of one of the empty cells. Despite having a gun aimed at his chest, he seemed incapable of dropping the haughty alpha attitude. “Every time he mounts you, every time he shoves his knot into your twat, you’ll think of me and everything I took from you.”
“You still don’t get it, do you?” I said. “You didn’t make him claim me. You didn’t create our bond in your lab. You took nothing from me, Axell. Our connection was there before your sick experiments. That’s why I tried to free him. I felt it, even if I didn’t know what it was. How empty your life must have been, if you as an alpha never understood that.
“Those poor souls you’ve forced into bonds—what they have is nothing but an ugly shadow of the real thing. So no, doctor. When we leave this compound, I will not think of you ever again. I will be with my mate, and I will be at peace. You may have damaged his mind, but you have not touched his soul. You cannot—because it always belonged to me.”
There was a glint Dr. Axell’s eyes that Zach must not have liked, because he was on the doctor immediately, smacking him up against the cell so hard his head bounced off the bars.
“No.” It was all Zach said, but the menacing tone made his intent crystal-clear: No, the doctor did not get to threaten me ever again.
He bound Axell’s hands like he had Urwin’s, then roughly pulled both their pants down, letting the fabric pool around their ankles and trap their legs.
“What the hell are you doing?” Dr. Axell asked, his voice finally betraying a sliver of unease.
“Well, doctor… do you remember how you both enjoyed watching all those women get raped? I do. And I remember every voltage you tortured us with, and the glee in your eyes when you told me exactly what you’d do to find Zach’s limits. Do you? Because I think there’s a poetic justice in how you’re going to die—fucked to death by the same men you’ve tortured for so long.”
The whimper of fear from Urwin and Axell’s defiant snarl gave me nothing but icy satisfaction. Once upon a time, I would have taken pity on them. I wouldn’t have been able to order their deaths, let alone orchestrate such a gruesome method. But that part of me, the Lillian who could have shown mercy to my torturers… she’d died in their hands.
The door to the lab swung open and Jerome entered, followed by the other ex-SEALs.
“All clear,” he said. “We all set in here?”
“Yes.” I turned away from the tied-up doctors and walked to Zach’s old cell. It was still empty. My mate followed me in and closed the door behind us. “Let them out.”
“Please!” Dr. Urwin shrieked. “Please, at least give us the oil!”
I arched an eyebrow at the wild-eyed doctor. He’d twisted his neck in my direction, much quicker to accept who was in charge now than his boss.
“The oil?”
“I did for you—for all the females,” he babbled. “”Please, just that one mercy, I beg you!”
“You did,” I said, the memory of the lecherous words he’d said as he prepared me for my first mating with Zach echoing in my head. “Fine. Jarl, the lubricant’s in the cupboard with the other basic supplies.”
Jarl grunted a confirmation and crossed the lab to retrieve the bottle.
“T-Thank you,” Dr. Urwin whispered.
“And you, Dr. Axell?” I asked, arching my eyebrows at the tied-up alpha.
He glared daggers at me, but finally nodded.
“So be it.” I didn’t care if they bled to death or not—all I cared about was that they died after experiencing the same helplessness and humiliation they had subjected so many women to. So if they wanted to lessen the pain, but increase the time it took? That was fine by me.
The SEALs applied the lubricant, any reluctance they might have had in executing such a cruel punishment dead in the wake of what the two doctors had tried to have them do to me. And then they went around to every cage still containing a lone, feral alpha, opening the doors to their cells with Dr. Axell’s access card.
Out of the many who’d tried to escape the last time Zach let them all out, just over thirty remained. The rest were gone—gunned down like animals.
I glanced down at Zach’s scarred hand, grabbing onto it when images of his twisted face as a soldier shot him in the stomach flashed before my mind’s eye. These two men’s promise to force him to watch me get gang-raped was the reason he’d made that desperate attempt at securing our freedom.
I looked back up at the two doctors as snarls erupted in the lab. The ferals were encroaching on them, cautious of traps, and Dr. Axell couldn’t hold his nature back any longer. Tied with his back to them, he twisted in his bonds, growling a savage warning at the nearing alphas.
The tension in the room snapped as if someone cut a cord. The ferals attacked as if with one mind, launching themselves at the Dr. Axell, ripping at his clothes, his hair, punching, snarling, tearing.
I had a moment’s disappointment thinking they would be beaten to death, that their end would be with more dignity than they deserved, but then one of the ferals noticed Dr. Urwin whimpering, trying to curl as far away from the violence as he could. His submissive position must have finally registered in the feral’s brain, because the next second, he pulled the beta up by his hips. Ass out.
Dr. Urwin managed to choke out a plea for mercy before the alpha pressed his cock in between the beta’s cheeks. I couldn’t see the moment of penetration from my cell, but I heard it. As did every other soul in that accursed lab.
Dr. Urwin’s scream rang through the room and echoed off the walls, and in it was the agony of every woman who’d been forced to bend over his breeding bench. Eyes wild with desperation, he tried to climb the bars he was tied to, but the alpha behind him gave him no quarter. He pulled Dr. Urwin down with a rough jerk, the smack of flesh hitting flesh ringing through the air, announcing the moment he was taken to the hilt.
The alphas tearing at Dr. Axell stilled, every pair of eyes on the beta doctor and the alpha making him his bitch.
A vicious snarl tore from one of the ferals by Dr. Ax
ell. He grabbed the alpha doctor by the hips, jerking him into position. Dr. Axell howled and tried to kick out, but his legs were trapped in the fabric around his ankles. He fought as best he could, but it was no use. The feral gripping him by the waist pushed forward, forcing his hips flush with the doctor’s, and his furious growls turned into high-pitched whimpers.
Zach looked down at me, and in his gaze I saw the same cruel satisfaction flooding my own veins. How fitting that the doctor who had gotten off on forcing every test subject he came across into submission was finally made to surrender himself.
We hadn’t discussed this, hadn’t planned for it to happen—but deep down, we’d both known how we were going to make our tormentors pay for what they did.
“Come,” Zach said, nodding at the frenzy in the lab. Every single feral was focused on the two doctors, waiting their turns to finally extract their own revenge. “Free now.”
I squeezed his scarred hand and smacked Dr. Urwin’s access card over the lock. “Let’s end this.”
It took a long time to search through every electronic nook and cranny for any and all mentions of mine and Zach’s stay in the compound—everything from my employment file with HR and the contract in which they forced me to sign over my life, to Zach’s daily physicals and the many reports of our successful mating and the others it had led to.
For the first time since our friends had overpowered the guards, I hesitated, the file of my neighboring female and her alpha hovering over the shredder. Images of Lea, the woman, covered several of the pages, including close-ups of the bruises her alpha had given her alongside descriptions of her depressed state.
“What are we gonna do with the mated couples?” I asked.
Zach didn’t respond immediately. The grim expression on his handsome features made me shake my head. “We can’t. It’s not like the staff here—we can’t kill them. They’ve… They’ve been through enough.”
“They… not like…us,” he said, taking care to form each word. “They claimed… because desperate.”
“So we can break the bond?”
“No.” He shook his heads. “Only death.”
“Can we bring the women, at least? If their bond isn’t like ours, maybe they’ll be able to—” My voice died when he shook his head again. “Zach, there has to be another way.”
“Ask… her.” He nodded at the file I was holding.
I frowned, remembering Lea’s pleas to free her when I came for Zach. I’d been numb to her distress then, but now… she was a broken husk of a woman. And I’d left her to that fate.
The thought of killing her made an uncomfortable ache rise despite the icy satisfaction of extracting revenge over the doctors.
I didn’t deserve what they did to me.
But she hadn’t, either.
* * *
The sounds of sex were still unmistakable when we entered the lab, but there were no more grunts and cries from either doctor. When I glanced over to the cell where they were tied, I could only see their bound wrists through the throng of feral alphas waiting for another go at their tormentors.
“The beta passed out about an hour and a half ago,” Jerome said as he crossed the lab to meet up with us, gun still in hand. He nodded toward Jarl, who was stood off to the side of the violent orgy, keeping an eye on things. “Alpha doc clocked out about thirty, forty minutes ago.”
“We’ll check for a pulse before we leave,” I said, drawing in a deep breath. “But first, we need to decide what to do with the mated couples.”
Jerome arched an eyebrow. “I assumed we’d give them a swift death. Can’t leave them here for SilverCorp officials to find, can’t bring them—and to be honest… it’s gonna be a mercy.”
“A mercy?” I snapped. “Killing innocent women who got mated against their will is a mercy?”
“Trust me.” He placed a hand on my shoulder, ignoring Zach’s narrowed eyes at the contact, and nodded to a cell nearby. “Even if we pretend we could free them, that’s what they have to look forward to.”
I followed his gaze and swallowed thickly at the sight. The snarling ferals gathered around the doctors had blocked out the sounds from the cell housing an alpha and his claimed female. She was on her hands and knees on the concrete floor, tears streaming down her dirty face. And behind her, her mate was pounding away at her pussy. Judging from the tight grimaces she pulled, she wasn’t experiencing much of the pleasure I did when I was underneath Zach like that.
“Third time he’s on her since you left,” Jerome grunted. “The excitement’s getting them all riled—all the mated alphas are like this.”
“We could treat them with di-hydroperalimitus, like we did Zach,” I whispered, unable to look away from the woman. Her face broke into a pained wail, bleeding fingers scraping against the floor as she tried to escape. It was in vain—her alpha grabbed her by the hair and pulled her back, forcing his knot into her.
“We could,” Jerome said. “And if that’s truly what you want to do, if you think it’s worth the risk to you and Zach, we’ll try to bring them with us. But I need you to understand that not every bond is like yours and Zach’s. Not every claim ends happily. You’ve seen their files—if you think these fuckers can be redeemed, if you think they’ll stop raping their mates if they regain some humanity… we’ll bring them.”
I opened my mouth to say something, anything, but I couldn’t. As much as I wanted to believe that there was a chance for these couples, that if Zach had been wrongfully convicted so could the others… I knew that wasn’t the case.
Even in the depths of his feral state, Zach had never mistreated me like these alphas did their mates. Sure, he’d been rough and forceful… but not like this.
“Ask,” Zach said, voice gruff but also gentle.
I swallowed thickly and made my way to the cage where the mated pair were tied together.
The male looked up with a growl at my approach, but his features softened when he saw I wasn’t another alpha.
“Hey,” I whispered at the woman.
She’d collapsed on the floor, her mate stuck inside of her but not caring for her like Zach always did for me, after. She rolled her eyes up to meet mine, slowly as if she even opening her eyelids cost more energy than she had.
“Do you know who I am?”
“Lillian… Dorne,” she rasped. “The one who got away. Yeah. We all know.”
“We’re breaking out. Again. For good this time. And I’m going to give you a choice: You can come with us, alone or with… with him. Or… we can… end your suffering.” I bit my lip, forcing strength into my voice. “But what we can’t do is leave you here. We can’t leave any trace of their experiment succeeding.”
“Can you… break the bond?” she asked.
I shook my head, and she squeezed her eyes shut and drew in a deep breath. “Then… then my life is over anyway.”
“There is a drug… We can reverse some of what they did to him,” I said, wrapping my hand around the bars, wishing I didn’t already know her answer—but it was written all over her face.
“He’s vile,” she whispered. “It’s not the drugs—I can feel him, inside of me, all the time. Before, he was… he killed babies while their mothers watched. And then he raped them. And I can feel it inside of me, the sickness in him. In me. Please, if you can’t break the bond… please, just kill me.”
She reached out a hand and placed it around mine still wrapped around the bars. “Please.”
I breathed in deeply and nodded. “Okay.”
Jerome came over to my side, gun in hand. “I’m sorry,” he murmured.
The feral in the cage didn’t take his appearance as easily as he did mine—he growled again, rising up off his mate. Their tie tugged harshly on her, and she winced.
“Just tell me one thing first,” she said, not taking her eyes off me. “Tell me you’ll let the doctors suffer until their last breath.”
“They will,” I said, placing my free hand over hers. “The
y did.”
She nodded once and closed her eyes.
Jerome fired a single shot, and the woman’s hand went slack between mine as a spray of red bloomed from the exit wound in her temple.
Her alpha let out a furious howl laced with pain so intense I almost felt bad for the baby-killer—but another shot ended his misery before he could move from his dead mate. He slumped down on top of her, his big body shielding hers from view.
* * *
I gave every woman there the same choice, and every single one chose the same. Some with bitter tears, some with relief—but every one chose death. When we got to Lea and her mate, I clung to Zach to keep from crumpling to the floor. It had been easy to order the death of the staff in the compound, but this—this wasn’t easy. Because there was no justice.
“Lea,” I called as I crouched by our neighboring cell.
Only her alpha moved within, emitting a low rumble that wasn’t quite a threat.
She was lying on the floor, eyes open but unresponsive.
“Lea, I need to talk to you. It’s important.” I remembered her desperation for freedom when I’d liberated Zach, and I pushed down the wave of guilt at seeing the empty husk she was now. Could I have saved her then?
Her alpha approached, but he didn’t growl at me. Instead he wrapped both hands around the bars and stared, and on his face I saw the naked plea as clearly as if he’d been able to speak.
He was scared for his mate.
I remembered him from when Zach had helped me escape—he’d clutched her to his side, protecting her. Terrified she’d get hurt. What had these two been through in the scientists’ hands?
I knew the answer too well.
And this man—I didn’t know what he’d been before. I didn’t know if he was a serial killer, a rapist, an arsonist… or falsely accused. But he hadn’t mounted his mate in the excitement like the others.
He’d been too worried for her.