Page 48 of Feral

“I’ll purr for you now,” he murmured, pressing a light kiss to her scalp. “I’ll ease the pain. I promise.”

The change in her happened quickly this time, as if someone had flicked a switch. She went rigid in his grasp and her small hands flew up to his chest, pushing for a distance he wouldn’t allow.

“Let go of me!”

“It’s the only way to save your life.” He held onto her frail body, tempering her resistance with the bulk of his muscle. “You’re dying—think he’d want that?” There was no point in arguing with a claimed woman facing sexual submission by another alpha’s hand, but he couldn’t help it. Even if she didn’t hear him, he needed to say the words.

She only screamed and bucked harder when he let his hands slide down to her hips, anchoring his resolve in the feminine swell of them.Fuck,he hadn’t knotted a woman in ages. The feel of her writhing against him had him hard as a rock, even if her desperate screeching made him sick to his gut.

“Dammit, woman! If I don’t do this, you’ll die like he did! You can’t survive a broken mate bond! He sent you here because he wants—ow!”He jerked his shoulder back from where she’d bitten into his flesh.

She glared up at him, the deadened look in her eyes replaced by burning fury. “He’s not dead!”

CHAPTER 21

LILLIAN

“What do you mean he’s not dead?” The grizzled alpha let me drop to the floor. I took the opportunity to back away, putting as much distance between us as I dared. I knew on an instinctive level that he’d chase me down if I moved too far.

“He’s not—he’s not dead,” I repeated, pressing a hand to my bandaged chest when the barbed wire that was my bond twisted inside. “I feel him.”

God, how I felt him. All the time. I’d thought I knew pain before, thought my experiences at the compound had been excruciating.

I’d been wrong.

Jerome stared at me, confusion and disbelief mixing with relief. Despite his big cock still tenting his pants, he hadn’t wanted to mount me. And for some reason, knowing Zach was still alive stopped him from trying. “You’re sure?”

I laughed, a hollow sound. Was I sure? How did I explain the string covered in broken glass tying me to reality? I knew, without a doubt in my soul, that should it ever snap, I’d float away into an abyss of nothingness. It was the only reason I could still breathe, even if it made every expansion of my lungs hurt so much I wished I couldn’t. “If he were dead, I would be too.”

“You look halfway there, girl,” he said, frowning down at me.

“He’shalfway there,” I whispered. “They’ve… they’ve done something to him. He’s…” I didn’t know how to finish that sentence, so I didn’t try.

“What do you mean they’vedonesomething to him? He’s on death row, right?”

“No, he…” I paused when I realized this man had no idea. No one did. “He’s part of an experiment. The government… they contracted SilverCorp to run tests on alphas waiting for the death penalty. They’re trying to turn them into super soldiers.”

Jerome’s frown deepened. “Barnes would just as likely sign up to be a fuckingsuper soldieras he would fuck a roll of barbed wire. He’s got zero trust in our military leaders after everything that went down.”

I shook my head. “He wasn’t given a choice. None of them were. SilverCorp developed a drug that makes them incapable of rational thought. It amplifies the alpha instincts until—”

I didn’t have to finish. Jerome’s dark eyes widened as they flew to the scar on my neck. “Sonuvabitch! That’s why he claimed you, ain’t it? Fuckers drugged him!”

“Yeah,” I said, unable to fight the painful jab in my chest at the vocalization of what I already knew. Zach would never have claimed me if he’d been in his right mind, and I sure as fuck hadn’t wanted him to in the first place. But that didn’t change the fact that knowing I was only his mate because he’d been driven by a desperation to no longer be alone in that hellhole still hurt like someone stabbing a finger into an open wound.

“And you? Were you an inmate?” He gave me a once-over, and I couldn’t really fault him for his assumption. I’d been on the road for more than a week—an inmate was probably not the worst thing someone could have mistaken me for.

“No. I was… I was a scientist there. I didn’t know what was happening before I saw… They did such terrible things to them. Awful. And Zach, he…” I remembered the deep lash marks on my alpha’s back after he’d refused to mate that woman, and my heart clenched. They were doing much worse to him now. I could feel it in the marrow of my bones.

I clawed at my chest as our bond wrenched again, but before I could do more than scratch at the bandages there, Jerome closed his hand around my wrists.

“And Zach?”

I shuddered, trying to focus on something other than the pain. “They tortured him. I couldn’t stand it, so I… I tried to free him. But they caught me. And they… they made him…” I flinched at the urge to rub my mating mark, but Jerome’s grip kept me from touching it.

“They made him claim me,” I finally choked out. “And then they used me to… control him.”

“God above,” Jerome murmured, finally releasing me. In his face I saw the horror I’d felt too. Back when I could feel anything but pain.

---