by Nora Ash
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.
He needed to find a way out for her.
* * *
The idea didn’t form until the beta assistant brought them their dinner.
351’s hackles raised at the sight of him, a snarl forming in his throat as every instance of the pathetic man holding down his mate and helping the sick doctor torture her flashed through his mind.
But the look the beta shot his mate when he shoved the tray of food through made him pause. There was guilt in it.
“Wait.” 351 got to his feet and made it to the bars before the smaller man had turned around, eyes wide with shock.
“Please. She… needs help.”
The beta looked past him to his mate, a worried frown making its way to his forehead. “Did you hurt her?”
351 growled, as irritated with the accusation as with the beta not understanding him. “No. He hurts her.”
There was no need to explain who he was—the pale expression on the assistant’s face made it clear he knew who.
The beta looked away. “There’s nothing I can do about that. Just be happy I don’t report that your dose is too low.”
351 bared his teeth. “You can. You won’t. Difference.”
“It’s not that simple,” the beta hissed. “Not that I’d expect a criminal to understand.” And then he walked away, toward the neighboring cage.
351 roared, smacking his hand against the bars so hard they shuddered and a satisfying pain vibrated through his palm.
The cell door in the neighboring cage rolled open, the beta calling to the woman to come out as he delivered the alpha’s meal.
From the short glimpse he caught of her, she seemed vaguely familiar. Perhaps she was one of the females he had been made to mount, but it was impossible to tell. They all flowed into one in his memory.
“It’s no use.” His mate’s voice was quiet as she came to stand by his side, hands wrapped around the bars as she stared after the other woman. “Even if he dropped his card, we’d never make it out of the compound. There are too many guards on the upper levels. And he isn’t going to risk his own skin by escorting us.”
351 glanced down at her, resisting the urge to rub his chest as their bond twanged unpleasantly at the defeated look on her face.
Instincts pulled on him to comfort her, and he grunted when his cock spasmed with eagerness to replace her sadness with pleasure. They hadn’t mated in days because she’d been unwilling. His nearness had made her reek of fear, and since that first time in the cell, he’d had enough control of his mind to not ignore it.
Had they been free, he would have taken her anyway, because he’d know that deep down, she wanted it too.
But here, in their shared prison… He wasn’t the only man to force her into submission. The alpha doctor forced her. Maybe not with his cock, but he brought her pain and unwilling submission every day.
The thought that she would see his dominance the same as she saw the doctor’s was what kept him from following his instincts to subdue her and take her up against the bars until her sadness gave way to bliss.
7
Lillian
“What can I call you?”
It was early morning the day after Dr. Axell had tortured 351 with electricity until he passed out. Twice.
At least, I thought it was early—it was impossible to tell for certain in the underground lab, but it had been many hours since our evening meal, and the silence from the other cells suggested most of the test subjects were asleep.
351 wasn’t. I could tell from his breathing. I didn’t know if he’d slept at all, or if he’d woken up when I did. He seemed so attuned to me, always aware of my every move. I wouldn’t have been surprised if just the change in my heart rate could bring him out of a dead sleep too.
“Alpha,” he grunted after a moment’s silence.
I lowered my lashes, letting my gaze rest on where his strong arm was wrapped around my midriff, pulling my back flush against his chest. It was better than when he was drug-addled and insisted on sleeping on top of me, but his possessive grip left no doubt as to his claim on me. In his mind, I was his mate, and he was my alpha.
My stepdad had insisted my mom call him that too.
“No. Your name,” I said, fighting the conflicting emotions in my gut. The fear that had seized from the moment I woke up in his cell was still there, still tearing at my painful memories and the horror of what had been done to us. But there was also something else—some instinctive comfort in the big alpha’s nearness, of his unquestioning protectiveness. He’d gone through hell to keep Dr. Axell from hurting me, and hadn’t forced himself on me since that first day. Not since the drugs had filtered out of his system enough to afford him some control. They gave him more every morning, but so far the physical strain they put him through seemed to burn them out of his system much faster than before.
If I had met him outside of this compound, I wouldn’t have allowed myself to fall into the biological lull of instincts murmuring that he was my alpha. That I should surrender to the pull of our bond hooked in my chest. But we weren’t out in the real world—I wasn’t free. I didn’t get a choice of whether I wanted to be mated to an alpha or not, but neither did he. And right now—in this shared nightmare—the only thing that kept me from losing the last shreds of my own humanity was the comfort of his embrace. The low hum in our bond when I accepted his nearness. The scent of his pheromones in my nostrils and the warmth of his skin against mine.
There was no point fighting him when he was the only source of comfort I would ever find in this cell. And the only one who cared if I lived or died.
351 didn’t answer, and I rested my hand against the back of his to urge him to speak. “Please. I can’t keep calling you 351 in my head.”
“Alpha,” he said again, voice gravelly and rough.
“I don’t want to call you Alpha. I know you are, but… I don’t even know your name, and God knows how long we’ll be locked up together in here. Please.”
He growled in response, but it wasn’t a threatening sound. Then, after another long pause, he said, “Zach. Barnes.”
It came haltingly, as if it’d been a long time since his lips had formed those words.
“Zach,” I repeated, tasting the name. I wasn’t prepared for the rush of emotion saying it out loud filled me with. There was something profound about having a name for the man I’d only known as a test subject. “Zach.”
He shivered as I whispered his name into the emptiness of the cell, clutching me tighter.
“Don’t… let them hear. They will… hurt you.” It was a soft murmur, somehow more human than his usual rough voice. Or perhaps I was just imagining it, because he suddenly seemed so much more human to me, now that I knew his name.
Zach.
“I won’t,” I whispered. And then, before I could change my mind, I rolled around in his embrace so I was facing him, that place in my chest where our bond was rooted pressed tightly to his. The link between us hummed, sending pleasant shivers through me as I looked up into his eyes. Though his face was shrouded in darkness, but I knew he was watching me too.
Slowly, unsure of how he’d react, I reached up to brush my hand against the side of his face. He didn’t move, but his breath came out low and hoarse.
“Zach,” I murmured again. How long had it been since anyone called him by his name? Or touched him with gentleness? How much humanity would I have left if I’d been treated like he had, for as long as he had, even without the drugs that stole his mind away?
Our bond hummed more insistently, pulling on me. My gaze flickered from the darkness to where I could just make out the outline of his lips from what little light was available in our cell.
The bond shuddered within, urging me onward, promising that everything would be better if I gave myself to him willingly
. His hot breath gusted against my mouth, shooting tingles of anticipation through my body as I grabbed onto his shoulders.
Before I could lean in, something hard and huge rose between us, pressing insistently into my stomach.
Zach growled, a rich rumble that sent tendrils of want straight to my pelvis, making slickness pool between my thighs. He leant in, but instead of pressing his lips to mine, he sniffed at my throat, scenting me for readiness to mate like his animal urges told him to.
I jerked back, my heart hammering in my chest both from the sudden onset of biologically forced desire—and from realization that despite the fact that I now knew his name and that the drugs weren’t as prominent in his system, he was still just a feral alpha.
Whatever desperation-induced fantasies I had about this alpha being capable of something more than just base desire, it wasn’t my reality.
351—Zach—grunted at my sudden unwillingness, hands dropping to grab my hips to pull me back in close.
“No,” I croaked, shoving at his bulging body to put distance between us. “Please. Not that.”
“You want,” he growled, frustration and desire thick in his voice as he forced me back to his chest with a rough jerk on my hips. His cock, thick and hard and scary, pulsed against my stomach. “I smell you.”
“I don’t! Stop!” I fought against him, bringing my knees up to push against his too-strong bulge. All it did was anger him.
With a snarl, he got to his knees and pulled me with him, flipping me over onto my front. I tried to kick, but he just yanked on my hips, turning my ass up while my face was still buried in the mattress.
I was so much weaker than him, so much smaller. There was nothing I could do to prevent this. Despite my sex shivering with anticipation of the not entirely unpleasant kind, I choked back the tears pooling in my eyes and thickening in my throat. For one unguarded moment, I’d let myself pretend everything was okay—that if I gave in to our damned bond, I would be rewarded with blissful unity. A partner in this dark hell.
What I received instead was the only thing I’d ever find in this compound:
Forced submission.
The alpha growled behind me, sending a shiver of fear and unwanted need up my spine—and then pressed his mouth to my already dampened folds.
I gasped at the unexpected touch, of the gentleness of it—and then at the shock of electric pleasure as he found my clit and sucked it into his mouth with more force than finesse.
I cried and clawed at the mattress while he sucked on me, the lewd sounds of my increasing wetness and his appreciation of my flavor a constant reverberation around us. The other alphas were waking up at the sounds of my unwilling pleasure, low growls echoing through the lab.
I clenched my eyes and shut them out, not wanting to hear their excitement, and focused on the orgasm building between my legs.
Zach was rough with my clit, firm lips pulling and plucking at it as his tongue lapped up my slick, but my body responded as if he were playing it like a violin. Despite myself, despite my tears, heat burned in my blood and, at the final moments, I pushed back against him, grinding on his tongue and howling as I orgasmed.
He kept licking me as I slumped on the mattress, still on my knees. I panted as I came down from my high, twitching when he caught my now over-sensitive clit with flicks of his tongue, but otherwise keeping still. Hoping I could stay in my cocoon of pleasure and not have to deal with what came next.
It was a useless hope, of course. It didn’t take long until the alpha was done lapping up the liquids I’d spilled in my climax, and I bit my lip as he straightened and got into position behind me.
The heated, pulsing head of his cock nestled in between my splayed lower lips, testing my body’s resistance with a firm push.
I groaned, my slick tunnel eager to accept him, but still not used to gaping wide enough for an easy entry.
“Please, Zach. Please don’t.” I don’t know why I begged him again—I’d long since given up on reaching his frayed humanity through the haze of his rut—but the ache of him as he breached my opening stoked my desperation anew. “Don’t force me.”
He growled in response, deep and angry, and I closed my eyes tight and waited for the pain of his thrust.
But it didn’t come.
He clutched at my hips, digging his fingers into my flesh, but at my gasp of pain he let go with another snarl, pushing me away hard enough that I landed flat on my stomach with a grunt.
When I looked at him over my shoulder, too stunned to speak, he shot me a look I couldn’t decipher in the dark and got to his feet. Shoulders tight and muscles flexing, he went to the bars, leaning against them.
I could make out his profile in the low light. He was staring into the lab, eyes fixed on God knows what. The tension rolled off him in near tangible waves, making me huddle on the mattress.
But he’d stopped.
Even in the depths of his rut, he’d stopped.
Neither of us slept anymore that night. Zach stayed leaned against the bars, glaring into the lab, and I huddled on the mattress, missing his body heat, but unwilling to ask him to hold me. I wasn’t dumb—whatever it’d taken the feral alpha to restrain himself, I wasn’t about to push it with requests for warmth.
When our breakfast arrived, we ate in silence with as much space between us as the cell would allow, and after, Zach went back to staring out into the lab.
He growled at Kenneth when he injected him with the usual serum, but didn’t put up a fight. Not until the guards came to lead us back to the test room we hated so much.
Then he fought, throwing his massive body at our captors, snarling and howling as Kenneth pulled me from the cell to follow him. It didn’t help. It never did.
“Is it going to be bad today?” I asked quietly as I walked by my former colleague’s side. It wasn’t that every instinct in my body didn’t scream at me to fight and run, but I knew better. There was no point in adding to the pain.
Kenneth didn’t answer, but his jaw tightened.
I swallowed thickly as he refused to look at me, keeping my eyes locked straight ahead on the guards forcing Zach forward. Whatever was ahead, I held on to the gratitude that the alpha hadn’t forced himself inside of me last night. Whatever torture lay ahead, at least I had been spared that one indignity.
I was led into the larger room of the test chamber while Zach was shoved into the smaller area closer to the observational room.
Kenneth guided me to the back wall farthest from where Zack was snarling and pacing behind the bars, and I paled at the sight of a pair of cuffs chained to a thick metal hook drilled into the concrete. They were made of steel-reinforced leather, and the chain was reasonably long, so they weren’t too uncomfortable as he strapped me in. However, standing with my back turned to the large room made a sense of foreboding set in as the lab assistant left without ever speaking a word to me.
I looked over my shoulder, catching a glimpse of Zach’s pacing form, but then Dr. Urwin’s face slipped into my field of vision. He closed the door and walked the length of the room, a deceitfully pleasant expression on his features.
“What are you doing here?” I spat.
His smile didn’t wither. “Why, I’m here to assist, of course. As we both know, there are certain procedures Dr. Axell cannot perform, and I am only too happy to help.”
Sick dread nestled in my gut at the memory of what he’d said when he tied me down and gave me the heat-inducing drugs that first, horrible night. How Dr. Axell wasn’t capable of preparing me for the mating because he would risk entering a rut himself.
They were going to induce another heat.
“You are a disgusting pervert,” I growled as he held up a syringe, inspecting the liquid in it. “He already claimed me—this is just for your own sick amusement, isn’t it?”
The beta doctor chuckled and, without pause, jabbed the needle into my thigh. I cussed and jerked, but he’d emptied the syringe into my flesh before I could move awa
y.
“Now, now, sweet Lillian. As much as your pretty pussy is a delightful sight when it’s gaping around a fat knot, we’re here for science. Today’s dose is not like the last one we gave you. It will give you some symptoms of heat, true, but nothing as severe as last time. Just enough to get your hormones flowing. And, you’ll be happy to know, it will be much swifter-acting. No suffering for hours as you wait for your heat to break.”
I frowned at him. “Why? What are you going to test me for?”
He chuckled again. “Oh, this isn’t to test you, Lillian. I thought we’d made it perfectly clear: you are not our main interest. Your mate is. And, as you may have been able to guess from the last two days, we’re currently determining how far we can push him to keep you safe. We already know the drugs keeping him feral have greatly increased his strength and endurance—but how much more will he be able to give us when failure means pain for you?”
“And the torture yesterday wasn’t enough?” I ground out through gritted teeth.
“Oh, yesterday was excellent,” Dr. Urwin said. He gave me a long, lecherous once-over that had Zach snarling furiously from behind the bars. “But we need to determine what sort of methods will yield the best results. Exactly what threats to your safety will give us the most dedicated super-soldier? After today, we’ll be one step closer to finding out.”
He left, shooting me a smirk that turned my stomach. The heavy clang of the door closing behind him left me with an ominous sense that whatever came next, the electrocution I’d endured was likely going to seem mild in comparison.
But for the longest time, nothing happened.
I remained alone in my section of the room, chained to the wall while the feral alpha paced, agitated growls rumbling from his throat at uneven intervals. But no one tased us. No one even spoke.
I knew Dr. Axell was behind the glass, watching us, along with probably Kenneth and Dr. Urwin, but they didn’t do anything. They just observed.