Page 9 of Despair

“Yes. W-we can’t let that happen. You don’t know what they’d do to a baby here. Please.”

The alpha above me moved a hand between our bodies, placing it over my stomach in a protective gesture that made an odd sensation of warmth hum in the bond hooked in my chest.

When he looked at me again, the darkness in his eyes was gone. “Don’t fight. Submit.”

“I am, “I whispered.

“No.” It was a small growl. “I… need… you. You fight, I need. Pregnant. Submit. I need you… less.”

Oh. I stared at him wide-eyed when it dawned on me what he was trying to say. Flashes of my stepdad and how only cowering and begging forgiveness would pull him out of his rages filled my mind. My mother had called it hisalpha moodwhen she’d dabbed witch hazel on my bruises after he’d left to cool off at the nearest bar.

It would seem that for 351, challenging his dominance brought out other kinds of urges.

So that was why he’d been so rough last night. I’d fought him.

“How?” I croaked.

Instead of answering, he bent his mouth to my throat, forcing my head back so he could close his teeth around it.

I lay still, heart pounding in my chest as he growled low, showing me his dominance over my existence.

I closed my eyes and thought of how I’d promised myself to never let an alpha dominate me the way my mother had let my stepdad dominate her. He’d ruled her life, and mine along with it.

I kept my eyes squeezed shut while the alpha who’d claimed me as his mate brought his hand to his cock and stroked himself to release, his teeth remaining clamped around my throat while I tried not to cry.

4

351

The weekends when his captors only showed up with food and the lab outside his cell was otherwise abandoned had been their own form of torture up until now.

While he was allowed rest and not injected with whatever the fuck they used to suppress his mind during the week, it was also the time when there was nothing to do. Nothing but to wait for them to return and resume their twisted experiments.

He rubbed the stubble on his skull with both hands as he paced back and forth in front of the bars of his prison, trying to force the fog around his mind to lift completely. It was useless, of course. It had only worked for his first few weeks on the drugs—these days, coming back from them was getting harder and harder.

He glanced at the female curled up at the far end of the cell. She’d dragged the mattress over so she could lean against the wall, and was now watching him warily as she sat with her arms wrapped around her knees.

Animal urges stirred at the base of his spine and transferred to his cock, and he grunted as he forced his gaze from her again. She was the reason hehadto come back this time. Every instinct in his body was roaring to flip her over and fuck her raw again, the memory of her sweet cunt clamping and milking him through the night enough for the fog to thicken over his mind.

If they’d been anywhere else, he wouldn’t have bothered to fight against his natural urge to solidify their bond until it was ironclad. He was alpha—the prospect of a mate heavy with child only meant he was doing what nature had intended. And with time, she would become used to taking him. She had complained of it hurting when he rutted her, but he knew the truth in the way her body sang under his. She enjoyed their matings as much as he did.

But they weren’t free, and he was incapable of protecting her from their captors already. He’d understood the full terror of his inability to save her in those precious seconds before the scent of her heat hit his nostrils when he saw her tied to the breeding post like so many females before her. If she werepregnant…

The bond hooked in his chest squeezed painfully, and he brought a hand from his head to rub at it, rolling his shoulders in an attempt to ease the animal instincts threatening to overtake his mind again.

“W-Why are you growling? I-Is someone there?”

351 paused and looked at the now trembling female clutching herself tighter.

Only then did he realize he was snarling, the anger roiling in his gut spilling out through his throat.

“No one,” he rasped.“Calm.”

Despite being coated in his semen, the smell of her fear still permeated the air in the cell, wreaking havoc on his nervous system. Everything in him roared tofightandprotect,but their enemy was out of reach.

351 went back to pacing, staring at the bars as he searched for a weakness in them he knew wasn’t there.

His mate wasquiet until one of the guards brought their evening meal.

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