Page 21 of Feral

I drew in a shuddering breath, but the panic in my brain was well and truly gone, washed away in the rush of endorphins his bite had released.

“Please. Let go,” I whispered. “It hurts.”

It did—pangs of tenderness radiated from where his teeth were still locked against my skin. He was aggravating the wound from last night, I dimly realized. Where he’d bitten me after he knotted me.

He’d broken the skin…

He’d… he’d put aclaimingmark on me! I was his…mate!

My brain tried to push another panic attack on me at that particular thought, but the alpha’s bite didn’t allow it to. Thanks to the trigger points he’d clamped, I was forced to accept the grim reality of what had happened to me.

Flashes of the brutal mating, of my forced heat, and Dr. Axell’s lewd delight as he watched us made their way to the forefront of my mind, and I finally became aware of the dull throbbing between my legs, the conclusive proof that this wasn’t all some horrid nightmare.

351, perhaps sensing my horror as everything came back to me in vivid detail, finally released my neck and instead dragged his tongue over the impressions of his teeth in slow, languid licks.

I tensed against the expected pain, but it didn’t agitate my wound. Instead, it felt… oddly soothing.

The tether in my chest hummed pleasantly, as if in agreement. And then the most calming sound I’d ever heard reverberated from him, through my back, and into the length of my body. It penetrated my very bones, liquefying my muscles and shielding my psyche from the trauma creeping in. I had no idea why, but something about that sound blanketed me in bliss, as if… as if it was somehow connected to my very soul. It wasn’t anything like his other growls. It was softer. Gentler. Almost like… like apurr.

I blinked dazedly at the mattress when some faraway part of my mind still capable of analysis put the pieces together. Itwasa purr. An alpha purr. The sound they would produce for their mates and offspring in their most private, intimate moments.

And he was doing it forme.

I lay underneath the feral alpha as he licked my nape and purred for me, letting him soothe me into a state of complete and utter peace. He was so warm and strong on top of me, shielding and protecting me. Some faraway part of my mind understood that the vibrations of his purr were lulling me into accepting my situation, that he was forcing a biological response from my body I had no way of controlling. But right then, I truly didn’t care. He was warm and strong and would care for me, and I’d never felt better or more relaxed in my entire life. So I closed my eyes and let my mind wander, content to pretend everything was okay for as long as I could.

It lasteduntil the pressure in my bladder finally became too great to bear.

I forced my eyelids open again, the fuzzy sensation of true calm making it hard to do, and poked 351’s arm. “You need to move.”

Only a small octave change in his purr let me know he’d even heard me, because he didn’t move so much as a muscle.

“Seriously.” I pushed at his arm again, squirming to get free. “I need to pee. Please, get up.”

His purr cut off with an annoyed huff, but he rolled off me just enough that I could scramble up into a seated position.

The loss of his body heat made me shiver in the comparatively frigid air, but I was too desperate to care much. “Where’s the bathr—”

Which was when I remembered where we were… and what the facilities were like.

I stared at the stainless steel toilet bowl attached to the back wall of 351’s cell. Then I looked at him.

He was resting on his side on the mattress, blue gaze not so much as hinting that he understood—or cared about—my current dilemma.

I glanced back at the toilet. “Uh… Could you… turn around, please?”

351 didn’t respond, and when I looked back at him, he was just staring at me as if I’d not said anything.

Too desperate to wait until the alpha got my intentions through his thick skull, I got up and walked to the toilet, praying he would have enough civility left to do the decent thing and look away when a lady was about to pop a squat in his cell.

One glance back in his direction told me I had no such luck.

“Seriously, turn around!” I hissed, any vestiges of my previous calm dissipating at the prospect of having a captive audience for this.

351 growled, a disapproving frown marring his forehead.

“Ugh, just…” I bit my lip to stop myself from yelling at him—from the look on his face, he was moments away from reasserting his dominance over the disrespectful female making demands of him.

Deciding against testing him, I drew in a deep breath and—studiously avoiding his green-blue gaze—did my business as quickly as I could.

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