Page 17 of Despair

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 andangry,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 usslept 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 areyoudoing here?” I spat.

His smile didn’t wither. “Why, I’m here to assist, of course. As we both know, there are certainproceduresDr. 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.

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