Page 23 of His Mate

I clenched my fists, the restraints digging in harder, and felt the hot flare of anger that pulsed beneath my skin. I was no stranger to being studied, to being hunted, but the thought of them using me like some kind of breeding machine, reducing me to nothing more than a means to an end—it sickened me.

“I’ll rip your throat out before I let that happen,” I growled, baring my teeth, even though I could barely lift my head.

“Prepare the blood samples,” the man with the scar said, and he sounded almost bored, like this was just another day at work for him. “You know the council wants this done quickly. They’re getting impatient.”

“The serum worked to an extent,” the woman replied, drawing a syringe and sliding it into the vein at the crook of my elbow, thecold steel biting into my flesh. “It suppressed his instincts long enough for us to restrain him. But any more of it, and we risk rendering him impotent. And then he’d be useless for breeding.”

“That’s a risk they’re not willing to take,” the man agreed, leaning closer to look me in the eye, his lips curling into a sneer.

I let out a low, rumbling growl, glaring up at him with as much vitriol as I could muster. “You’ll never get what you want,” I spat. “I’ll tear this whole place apart before I give you a single thing.”

The woman leaned in, close enough that I could see the faint lines etched into her skin, the way her eyes shone with something cold, something ruthless. “You’ll try,” she said softly, almost pityingly, “but in the end, you’re just a means to an end, Rowan. A relic of a time long past.”

“Fuck you,” I snarled.

“Give him another dose,” she ordered, turning away, already losing interest in me. “We’ll keep him sedated until we figure out how to proceed. Make sure the girl is monitored closely to see if the breeding took.”

Her words faded into the background, swallowed by the roar of my own fury. And as they pressed another needle into my arm, as the darkness began to creep in around the edges of my vision, I made a promise to myself.

I would get out of here. I would find my mate.

And I would tear apart anyone who stood in my way.

CHAPTER 8

Kendra

The days blurred together, one bleeding into the next until time lost all meaning. I woke up that next morning to find myself bathed and dressed in a simple black wrap dress, my skin scrubbed raw, every trace of him washed away. It was as if they’d stripped me of any claim he’d tried to make, as if they were determined to erase the mark that he’d left on me and remind me that, to them, I was nothing more than another body in their endless cycle of breeding and control.

The room they kept me in was a far cry from the padded cell that the wolf had fucked me in. It was bigger, with cold, concrete walls and a single barred window high up that allowed a sliver of light to seep in, painting the floor with a pale, ghostly glow. A narrow cot sat against one wall, its thin mattress barely softer than the floor itself, and in the opposite corner, there was a toilet hidden behind a half wall, the only nod to privacy that I was allowed. There were no mirrors, no sharp edges, nothing I could use to hurt myself—or anyone else.

I hated it.

They fed me three times a day, the meals sliding through a slot in the door like I was some kind of prisoner or stray dog. The first morning, I ignored the tray, letting the smell of cinnamon apple oatmeal and warm bread turn my stomach. It felt like another form of control, another way to remind me that I was at their mercy. I thought, maybe, if I refused to eat, if I showed them that I still had some small sliver of power left, it would make a difference.

It didn’t.

By the second day, hunger gnawed at my insides, and I couldn’t afford to be proud anymore. I forced down every spoonful, hating myself for how eagerly I scraped the bowl clean, licking the remnants of every bit of food from my fingers. There was no savoring each bite, just the cold, practical need to survive.

After that day, I ate what I was served when I was served it.

The wolves that guarded me weren’t interested in me. Not really. They came and went, their faces blurring together into one indistinguishable mask of boredom, irritation, and indifference. Sometimes, they would speak to each other, exchanging gruff words or tired jokes, but they never spoke to me. I wasn’t important enough for that. I was just another chore to be dealt with, another task to be completed before they moved on to whatever came next.

I tested them, of course. Every time they opened the door, I would stand, my spine straight, my eyes locked on theirs, daring them to react. Sometimes I refused to answer their questions, staring back in silence until they grunted in frustration and left.

Once, I tried to slip past one of them as he brought in fresh clothes, a burst of adrenaline pushing me forward, but he caught me easily, his hand closing around my wrist with bone-crushing force, and he shoved me back against the wall with such little effort, it was like he was swatting away a fly.

“You’re not going anywhere,” he’d growled, his voice thick with irritation, like I was nothing more than an annoyance that had interrupted his day.

And that was it. No punishment, no spanking, no drawn-out lecture to remind me of my place. He’d just left me there, my wrist throbbing where he’d grabbed me, my body trembling.

Days passed like this—me testing the boundaries, and them brushing me off with all the care of someone swatting at an overly persistent mosquito.

The worst part of this whole experience, though, was the waiting. The endless, mind-numbing hours stretched out before me, each one heavier than the last. I would lie on that narrow cot, staring up at the ceiling, tracing the cracks with my eyes over and over until they blurred together, and wondering if this was how it would always be—if I would spend the rest of my life in this room, slowly unraveling until there was nothing left.

Maybe that was the point. To grind me down, piece by piece, until I forgot what it felt like to fight back.

I hated them for it. I hated how easy it would be to let myself slip into that numbness, to let them take everything from me without even lifting a finger. I hated how the days passed in this endless cycle, and how each one left me feeling a little hollower, a little more like a ghost haunting my own skin.

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