by Nora Ash
Three burly guards—alphas, by the looks of them—came into view, long metal poles with collars attached in their hands.
351 let out a low snarl, his shoulders hunching as he took up a defensive stance. When they opened the door, he charged, but they hit him with a taser, the voltage just high enough to make him jerk and lose his footing. The collars snapped shut around his neck and biceps before he regained full motor control, and by that point, it was too late. Not that that stopped the feral alpha from fighting against his bonds.
He roared and threw himself around, trying to break the men’s hold on the poles by forcing them against the bars, but it was no use. Through much swearing and banging of metal against metal, they got him dragged out of the cell.
“Come.” Kenneth held an arm out toward me. He had to raise his voice to be heard over 351’s fury. “I think it’s best you stay close. He’s not going to want to have you out of sight.”
I hesitated, eyes darting to the open door. Only the lab assistant blocked it, but there was no way I could make a break for it and make it out of the compound without being apprehended.
“Don’t make me get the restraints,” Kenneth said, voice a smidge softer. “Please. Just come.”
I did. There was nothing else I could do, so I walked out of the cell, bare feet pattering against the cold concrete floor, still trying to keep some illusion of modesty with my hands clasped across my naked body. It didn’t help much, and as Kenneth walked me by the rows of feral alphas at a safe distance from the still-snarling 351, more than one came to the front of their cage, eyes locked on what I couldn’t cover. Growls, rich and indulgent rather than aggressive, filled the lab as I tried to shrink in on myself and somehow cover my nose from the assault of alpha stench without taking my hands off my chest or lower half.
Ahead of me, 351’s aggression shifted from his jailers to the caged alphas. He snapped and snarled at the other ferals. Only the merciless metal bands encircling his arms and neck kept him moving forward.
We were led through a door I hadn’t noticed before and down a long, echoing corridor lit up by fluorescent lights reflecting off white paint. It smelled like disinfectant, but underneath was the faintest lingering odor of alpha aggression.
When we got to three doors more or less side by side, the guards shoved 351 through the farthest one and slammed it shut before Kenneth opened the middle one for me. 351’s furious growls echoed from within, and when I stepped through, I saw that we were in the same room, only he was separated from me by sturdy metal bars.
His side of the room was large and empty, made purely from concrete with video cameras mounted behind mesh casings set high in the ceilings. My side was much smaller, but equally bare. A grid in the center of it sharpened the anxiousness twisting in my gut.
On the opposite side of the bars separating me from 351 was a large glass pane much like the one between the breeding room and any observers. Dr. Axell was on the other side. He had a coffee cup in his hands as he watched us.
I shrank back against the bars before I knew what I was doing, the tightly fluttering bond in my chest pulling me toward 351 as effectively as a rope.
He made a soft noise that fully contradicted his furious and unwavering growls since I’d woken up. He pressed his body up against the bars, offering me what little comfort he could.
Ignoring the doctors, as well as the rational part of my brain, which screamed at me that a feral alpha wasn’t a good source of comfort right about now, I turned around to face him, searching his eyes for something—anything—that would help me get through this. Some promise that things wouldn’t be as bad as I feared.
His grim expression betrayed that he’d been locked in this particular room before. And it did nothing to ease my fears.
“Hello, Lillian. I trust you’ve had a pleasant weekend?” Dr. Axell’s voice blared through the room, making 351 jerk his head up, lip curling in a snarl.
I didn’t turn to look at him.
“Ah, you’re upset with me. I understand.” The smirk in his voice was unmistakable, even through the scratching of the speakers. “But you should take great pride in your contributions to science. Thanks to your sacrifice, we now have a better idea of what bio-markers to look for when matching up our prospective couples. As we speak, Dr. Urwin is preparing a couple of the females for some quality one-on-one time with a few of our alphas. This really couldn’t have happened without your rebellious little attempt at breaking out our prize specimen here.”
I closed my eyes and drew in a deep breath, trying to find some measurement of strength. The only thing I had was the tightness of the bond in my chest, but it was enough.
“What experiments are you going to run on us?” I asked, forcing myself to look at the doctor over my shoulder. “Why are we here?”
“Ah.” He smiled at me from the other side of the glass pane. “I’m sure you recall our talk about the goal for these alphas. We need them to become super-soldiers, if you will. Your role in this is to be… let’s call it a homing beacon for 351. So for the next few weeks, we need to establish how far we can press him, what lengths he will go to and what odds he can overcome to ensure your well-being. I—” His speech was interrupted as his head jerked to the door. Cutting off the microphone, he went over and opened it, saying a few words to the person on the other side. Then he left the room, and I had a moment’s relief—until the door into my section opened, revealing both the doctor and Kenneth.
351 roared a challenge out as they walked to my side, pushing at the bars so hard his muscles bulged in the process, but they didn’t move.
“Calm down, subject 351,” Dr. Axell said, throwing me a smile and a head-shake as if to say “Crazy alpha.” “You need to listen, because I am going to tell you what you need to do to protect your mate. Got it?”
Despite the absolute fury in 351’s eyes, he stopped pushing at the bars to get through, his snarl dying to a low growl.
Something in his quick submission made my stomach clench. Yeah, he’d been to this room before. And whatever was about to happen… it wasn’t good.
“In a moment, guards will put a few objects in the room. If you attack them or try to escape… I will hurt your mate. Got it?”
351 didn’t respond. He just kept his darkened eyes glued on the doctor.
“Once the objects are in place, I will assign you a series of challenges. Complete them quickly enough…” Dr. Axell brushed a finger along the side of my neck, making me flinch and 351 snarl, “…and she won’t be harmed. Fail, and she will suffer the consequences.”
The ominous threat sent a chill down my spine, and 351 roared in fury.
“Hm, I think we need to do a test to ensure our alpha understands the seriousness of the situation. Kenneth, please hold the female,” Dr. Axell said.
Too late, I tried to flinch away, but even though the lab assistant was no alpha, he was still faster and stronger than me. He grabbed hold of my left shoulder and right arm, twisting it up behind me until the pain immobilized me.
“Ow!” I hissed, trying to kick back at him. “Let go of me! You sick pricks!”
On the other side of the bars, 351 went ballistic. He bellowed and threw his full weight against the bars shoulder-first, making them twang. They didn’t yield, but that didn’t stop him from ramming into them again and again, howling with rage the whole time.
“Just get it over with,” Kenneth hissed in my ear. He sounded… less than thrilled about what was about to happen, but that didn’t make him ease his grip. “The less you fight, the less it’ll hurt.”
I knew he was right, but I couldn’t stop myself from fighting him as he spun me around to face Dr. Axell and the taser in his hand.
Electric agony crackled through my abdomen, making my body jerk and twist as my muscles contracted. Without my conscious decision, I curled in on myself as a scream tore from my throat.
351’s wrath took on a desperate note, but I was too focused on the rapid-fire shocks short-
circuiting my nervous system to focus on anything but the pain.
It finally stopped as quickly as it’d begun, and I sagged in Kenneth’s grasp, sobbing.
“Now let’s see if our alpha here isn’t more in the mood to cooperate,” Dr. Axell said, his tone even and smooth like he hadn’t just tortured a woman. “351—walk to the wall opposite the door and kneel. Hands behind your head.”
I dragged my gaze up to meet the feral alpha’s. His was black with rage, but after a moment’s hesitation, he obeyed.
I swallowed thickly as he walked away from the bars and slumped to his knees, locking his fingers behind his neck. There was something about seeing his surrender that knocked whatever strength I’d found out of me. The powerful man brought to his knees by the evil of the doctor whose brilliance I’d once worshipped left no room for doubt about exactly how hopeless our situation was.
I didn’t fight Kenneth as burly guards entered 351’s section of the room, dragging all manner of equipment with them. It struck me, as I watched them set up what looked like training dummies and some sort of gym equipment, that they could have easily done this before 351 and I had been brought to the room. But Dr. Axell chose to wait until we were here to demonstrate how complete his power now was over the feral alpha.
When the guards were done and had exited the room, Dr. Axell addressed 351 once more.
“Let’s start easy today. Please complete your training, 351. The full course. You have… thirty-five minutes. Starting now.”
351 cast one long, lingering look on me still sagging in Kenneth’s grip. Then he got to his feet and approached the first training dummy.
6
351
The second the cell door shut behind them for the night, his mate went to the mattress and sank down, curling in on herself.
She didn’t protest this time when he wrapped himself around her. Instead of stiffening at his touch like she had before, she closed her eyes and buried her face in the arm he offered as a pillow.
The wetness from her lashes made the hollow in his gut expand.
He’d done everything that’d been asked of him. He’d worked through the exercises, multiple times at ever-narrowing time gaps to satisfy their captor’s increasing demands, until his muscles ached so bad he could hardly move. And still, he’d continued because he’d demanded it. But in the end, it wasn’t fast enough—he couldn’t physically press his body any faster, and she’d suffered for his failure.
Her screams of agony still haunted him.
351 had refused to play the doctor’s games since he got there, only ever indulging in the heat-provoked matings. He had taken every beating and sick punishment, refusing to bend to the other alpha. His conviction that he would never submit to the doctor’s will had lasted until he saw his mate writhing in torment.
He could take pain—had been trained to take it for as far back as the fog would let him remember. But nothing had ever felt like the bond hooked in his chest had while the woman he was born to protect cried out for mercy, and there was nothing he could do to stop it.
That… that had broken him. Even in his drugged state, he’d known he’d been beaten. Known his captors truly owned him now. They’d taken the last scrap of him, leaving nothing behind but a void.
And her.
He clutched her tighter to his chest, ignoring the agony in his worn muscles. If they ever took her from him, there would truly be nothing left of what had once been a man, only an empty shell and the broken mind of a tortured beast.
The next day was better.
They strapped them both to a chair, told him if he screamed the pain would be given to his mate instead, and sent electric currents through his body.
He didn’t make a sound—couldn’t, because directly in front of him sat his female with wide, frightened eyes. And he couldn’t fail her again. Couldn’t hear her pained cries and feel the agony in their bond.
So he endured in silence, even as his body twitched and strained while the voltage surged through him, stronger and stronger until finally, blackness took him.
They forced him back to consciousness with a bucket of freezing water and started the electricity again, but he never broke. And his mate was safe.
When they tossed him on the floor of his cell after, he didn’t have the strength to move the few feet to the mattress. But she brought it over to his side and pulled and strained to get him off the concrete, begging him to move, and somehow he managed to climb onto it.
His mate curled up by his side, her slim arms wrapping around his body as she whispered “I’m sorry” over and over.
Her tears wetted his skin again, but this time it felt like rain after a long drought. He fell into darkness, the bond in his chest humming softly as his mate tended to his beaten body.
He was awakened by a female’s hysterical sobs, and jerked upright despite protesting muscles, heart slamming into overdrive as he sought his mate.
But she was sitting on the mattress by his side, eyebrows locked in a frown as she peered out through the bars.
It took him a moment to realize the commotion was coming from out there, but he couldn’t see anyone. Steel shrieked as the door opened and the alpha in the cell on the other side of the concrete wall growling accompanied the panicked female’s sobs.
“What’s happening?” he asked, voice low to not draw attention from their captors.
His mate turned toward him, eyebrows raised. “You can speak?”
He frowned. “…Yes. I… some.” It dawned on him that the fog didn’t seem nearly as thick. It was still there, lingering, cutting him off from the parts of his mind he could barely remember any longer. But… “The strain. My body…”
Her eyes widened. “All the exercise and torture—they burned the drugs out of your system much faster than normal, didn’t they?” Her voice was a low whisper—clearly, she didn’t want to draw attention, either.
He nodded. “I think… yes. What’s… Who’s in there?”
“They’re bringing a woman to him. She thinks they want him to mate her without the heat-drugs, but I think… I think they’re trying to establish some form of connection. Like… like us.” Her gaze dipped, avoiding his eyes.
351 touched his fingers to the back of her hand, pleased when she didn’t jerk away, and focused on what was going on on the other side of the concrete wall.
“Please, don’t leave me in here!”
The woman’s voice was filled with terror, trailing off into a plaintive wail when the cell door slammed shut. “H-He’ll tear me apart!”
“If he shows sexual interest and you can’t avoid it, use the oil.” It was the beta doctor’s voice. Clinical—detached. But 351 knew there was so much hatred under the surface of the man. Had smelled his sense of inferiority and twisted desires on him from the first time he’d brought a female to watch her mounted.
“The purpose of this evening’s session is not mating. Try to talk to him. Pet him.”
“P-Pet him?” The woman sounded incredulous.
“We want you to establish a connection with him. A friendship, if you will. And, to ensure that your goals align with ours, if he does take a liking to you, there will be no more matings with other alphas.”
“But there will be with him?” she asked.
“Naturally.” Just the slightest sliver of smugness was audible in the beta’s voice. “But I’m sure it beats being mounted thrice daily by whichever alpha is pushed into the breeding room. Subject 195 has been selected for you based on your bio-chemistry. There’s every chance you two will hit it off, if you will.”
There was a slight pause. “Okay,” she relented quietly. No doubt she had experienced the kinds of punishment the doctors arranged if they were met with anything but complete obedience. A female wouldn’t have the stamina to withstand them.
“Splendid. We will fetch you at dinner time.” Footsteps retreated from the cell, leaving the prisoners in silence save the general sounds from the lab.
&n
bsp; “H-Hey, big guy,” the woman whispered. “M-Mind if I touch you?”
An angry growl was followed by a screech and the thud of a body hitting metal.
“Are you okay?” 351’s mate called out. To the other female, he realized, frowning.
“Y-Yeah.” The other woman sounded like she was trying not to cry.
“Sit down, make yourself as small as possible. He won’t hurt you if he doesn’t think you’re a threat,” his mate said.
351 narrowed his eyes when her words brought back how she’d hunched and cowered in his cell since she got here. Was that what she’d been doing? Trying to make herself small so he wouldn’t hurt her? Flinching when he touched her because she thought he would?
There was silence from the other cell for a bit. Then the woman squeaked again, but it wasn’t followed by the sound of her body being thrown. Judging from the low grunting making its way through the wall, 195 was scenting her.
“Don’t hurt me, okay?”
The woman’s plea was followed by another growl, but there was more curiosity than aggression in it.
351 understood. He didn’t know how long he’d been in this cell, but before her, it had been unbearably lonely. Even if he’d wanted to, he wasn’t able to communicate with the other alphas in the lab, not after they’d taken his ability to speak. Even the rough matings were lonely—the females nothing but mindless, warm bodies, lost in their own drugged hell.
The woman in there with 195 now was the first contact the alpha had had with another human being that wasn’t marred by pain and violence.
His mate flashed him a nervous look. “Will she be all right?”
351 grunted, unwilling to make promises he couldn’t keep, and she didn’t press him.
But the cell was quiet, save for the alpha’s grunts and growls as he investigated the new presence in his cell, and 351 lost interest.
It was the first time he had some control over his own mind, and the sight of his little female curled up by his side as she stared at the concrete wall reminded him of his duties.