Page 73 of Feral

“Ask… her.” He nodded at the file I was holding.

I frowned, remembering Lea’s pleas to free her when I came for Zach. I’d been numb to her distress then, but now… she was a broken husk of a woman. And I’d left her to that fate.

The thought of killing her made an uncomfortable ache rise despite the icy satisfaction of extracting revenge over the doctors.

I didn’t deserve what they did to me.

But she hadn’t, either.

The soundsof sex were still unmistakable when we entered the lab, but there were no more grunts and cries from either doctor. When I glanced over to the cell where they were tied, I could only see their bound wrists through the throng of feral alphas waiting for another go at their tormentors.

“The beta passed out about an hour and a half ago,” Jerome said as he crossed the lab to meet up with us, gun still in hand. He nodded toward Jarl, who was stood off to the side of the violent orgy, keeping an eye on things. “Alpha doc clocked out about thirty, forty minutes ago.”

“We’ll check for a pulse before we leave,” I said, drawing in a deep breath. “But first, we need to decide what to do with the mated couples.”

Jerome arched an eyebrow. “I assumed we’d give them a swift death. Can’t leave them here for SilverCorp officials to find, can’t bring them—and to be honest… it’s gonna be a mercy.”

“A mercy?” I snapped. “Killing innocent women who got mated against their will is a mercy?”

“Trust me.” He placed a hand on my shoulder, ignoring Zach’s narrowed eyes at the contact, and nodded to a cell nearby. “Even if we pretend we could free them, that’s what they have to look forward to.”

I followed his gaze and swallowed thickly at the sight. The snarling ferals gathered around the doctors had blocked out the sounds from the cell housing an alpha and his claimed female. She was on her hands and knees on the concrete floor, tears streaming down her dirty face. And behind her, her mate was pounding away at her pussy. Judging from the tight grimaces she pulled, she wasn’t experiencing much of the pleasure I did when I was underneath Zach like that.

“Third time he’s on her since you left,” Jerome grunted. “The excitement’s getting them all riled—all the mated alphas are like this.”

“We could treat them with di-hydroperalimitus, like we did Zach,” I whispered, unable to look away from the woman. Her face broke into a pained wail, bleeding fingers scraping against the floor as she tried to escape. It was in vain—her alpha grabbed her by the hair and pulled her back, forcing his knot into her.

“We could,” Jerome said. “And if that’s truly what you want to do, if you think it’s worth the risk to you and Zach, we’ll try to bring them with us. But I need you to understand that not every bond is like yours and Zach’s. Not every claim ends happily. You’ve seen their files—if you think these fuckers can be redeemed, if you think they’ll stop raping their mates if they regain some humanity… we’ll bring them.”

I opened my mouth to say something, anything, but I couldn’t. As much as I wanted to believe that there was a chance for these couples, that if Zach had been wrongfully convicted so could the others… I knew that wasn’t the case.

Even in the depths of his feral state, Zach had never mistreated me like these alphas did their mates. Sure, he’d been rough and forceful… but not like this.

“Ask,” Zach said, voice gruff but also gentle.

I swallowed thickly and made my way to the cage where the mated pair were tied together.

The male looked up with a growl at my approach, but his features softened when he saw I wasn’t another alpha.

“Hey,” I whispered at the woman.

She’d collapsed on the floor, her mate stuck inside of her but not caring for her like Zach always did for me, after. She rolled her eyes up to meet mine, slowly as if she even opening her eyelids cost more energy than she had.

“Do you know who I am?”

“Lillian… Dorne,” she rasped. “The one who got away. Yeah. We all know.”

“We’re breaking out. Again. For good this time. And I’m going to give you a choice: You can come with us, alone or with… with him. Or… we can… end your suffering.” I bit my lip, forcing strength into my voice. “But what we can’t do is leave you here. We can’t leave any trace of their experiment succeeding.”

“Can you… break the bond?” she asked.

I shook my head, and she squeezed her eyes shut and drew in a deep breath. “Then… then my life is over anyway.”

“There is a drug… We can reverse some of what they did to him,” I said, wrapping my hand around the bars, wishing I didn’t already know her answer—but it was written all over her face.

“He’s vile,” she whispered. “It’s not the drugs—I can feel him,insideof me, all the time. Before, he was… he killedbabieswhile their mothers watched. And then he raped them. And I canfeelit inside of me, thesicknessin him. In me. Please, if you can’t break the bond… please, just kill me.”

She reached out a hand and placed it around mine still wrapped around the bars. “Please.”

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