Page 59 of Feral

“Everything okay in there, Lillian?” Jerome called, breaking the illusion that it was just Zach and I in the world.

The combination of the masculine voice and my jolt of surprise cut Zach’s pleased noises short. He lifted his face from my neck, lip curling in a warning snarl at the door.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” I managed. “But I think—I think we need to tranq him. They keep some loaded guns in the big room with the other alphas.”

Zach’s snarl rose in volume, as if me talking to what he saw as rival alphas fueled his rage. When I caught a glimpse of his eyes, Isawthe darkness creeping back like encroaching shadows threatening to take away the small respite our coupling had brought him.

“And hurry!”

It didn’t takethe SEALs long to return with a tranquilizer gun, but by that point Zach was nearly unrecognizable. He kept snarling and spitting like a trapped beast at the doorway where he could hear them pacing, jerking on our tie every few seconds in his efforts to get to the men and tear them apart. Apparently he’d forgotten about the chains tying him to the wall, and I had to clench my jaw not to cry out from the constant tugging between my legs. I knew he wouldn’t calm down if he heard my pained cries.

Thankfully, the other alphas didn’t hesitate. The moment Jerome returned with the gun, he took up position at the doorway, aimed, and fired three arrows straight into Zach’s back and neck.

My mate roared, lunging at his attacker and pulling painfully on my dilated opening, and I screamed. But before any real damage could be done, Zach slumped down on top of me, eyelids fluttering shut.

Boots scuffed against the concrete floor just before the others lifted Zach off me. His cock slid out of me easily, his knot deflated, leaving a wet trail of fluids dripping out of my still-open sex.

Jerome looked down at me, assessing my body for damages. He had a hold of Zach’s left armpit while Jarl had the other. “You all right?”

“I’ll be fine.” I winced as I gathered my legs and tested my body. My abdomen was predictably sore, and I was pretty sure I’d be sporting bruises and scrapes on my back. It wasn’t anywhere near as bad as I had expected when I’d first reached for his cock to remind him of who I was. He’d prepared me, rather than just tear into my dry sex, and though he’d been rough… there had been moments of tenderness.

I bit my lip, the ghost of his forceful kiss haunting me. I hadn’t thought he remembered how to, nor that he had any inclination for it. But he had—so deep in the depravity of what they’d done to him, when his humanity was so far gone I wasn’t sure he’d ever regain it, he’d still kissed me.

I got to my feet, taking Eric’s offered hand to steady myself. It wasn’t until I noticed how he studiously avoided looking at my naked lower half that it dawned on me they hadn’t been watching us have sex. Heard it, sure, but not for their own twisted pleasure, like the doctors here.

“We need to get Barnes out of here before the morning shift comes in and finds the soldiers and guards dead,” Jerome said, nodding at Eric. “You make sure she stays on her feet. And find her some pants.”

“Wait. We can’t leave yet. They’ve done something to him—he’s… he’sdifferentthan he was before,” I said.

Jerome frowned. “How do you mean?”

“I think they’ve been given him another drug, perhaps even multiple. I need to find his file and see what they’ve given him—and if there’s an antidote. I don’t think… I don’t think he’ll be able to regain his humanity on his own.” I looked at my passed-out mate hanging limply between the two alphas, and my heart ached at the many scars covering his strong body. They’d done everything to break him, and in my absence they’d finally succeeded.

They hadn’t puthim on another drug.

Eric managed to hack into Dr. Axell’s computer for me, and that’s where I learned exactly what they’d done to him. I scrolled past the pages detailing his systematic torture, unable to stomach the clinical detachment in Dr. Axell’s notes as he described his step-by-step process to dehumanize“Subject 351”until he was nothing but an empty shell, ready to be reprogrammed.

But when I came to his comments on the drugs they’d administered, my gut clenched in horror.

Subject 351 has been injected with 6 milliliters of the X-variant of hexatrepodamine two times a day. His reasoning skills appear to continually decline, limiting his problem-solving and ability to use tools. It is unlikely that he will ever be able to regain these abilities, and we consider the affected brain areas permanently shut down. It is doubtful if even di-hydroperalimitus will be able to reverse this effect. He is, at this point, the very basest of animals.

Twelve milliliters a day.When I’d worked with the alphas, it had been .75 milliliters per man per day, and it had left the alphas unable to access the majority of what made them human. If Zach had been injected withtwelveevery day since I left…

But they were wrong. He’d kissed me. Animals didn’t kiss.

They had to be wrong.

“Find anything?” Eric said, interrupting my spiraling thoughts.

“Di-hydroperalimitus,” I said, wiping the tears I hadn’t been aware of from my cheeks with a shaking hand. “It will be in the refrigerated area where the ferals are kept. We need as much as we can carry.”

He didn’t comment on my tears as I led the way into the lab. The cooling section held most of the drugs used on the facility, and it was a small mercy to see three full rows of glass bottles labeled di-hydroperalimitus. We grabbed all of them and then made our way to the corridor that led to the ground floor and exit. The others were waiting for us there. Zach’s passed-out form was heavy to lug around, and the SEALs were not going to leave Beau’s body behind. With Larry injured, they’d needed the head start while Eric and I found what we needed for Zach.

“Lillian!”

I glanced to my right at the sound of my name and locked eyes with my former neighbor’s frantic gaze.

“Where are you going? You promised to take me with you!”

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