Page 51 of Feral

A swift kick in his already bruised ribs proved him right yet again. He groaned, unable to move, let alone defend himself.

But no more beatings followed that first kick. He lay still, waiting for it to continue, but there was nothing. Only the sound of inhaling and exhaling somewhere above him told him he wasn’t alone.

“I know you’re waiting for me to kill you. But I won’t. You’re still valuable. Only a broken man can truly be rebuilt, and that’s what I’ll do with you. Youwillbe my soldier, inmate. Even without her, your bond is still there. I’ll find a way to use it, to leash you like the dog you are. You’ll never escape. I’ll never let you die.”

This time, one of the words made it through to his fogged mind.

Bond.

He groaned, shutting his eyes tighter at the pull in his chest. He tried to force his body to curl in on itself, to protect the soft place, that single part of him that was something other than agony.

“You understood that, didn’t you?” The voice was taunting now. Smug. “Even now, all you care about is that cunt. If only you’d known how easy you’d be to control once you took her, maybe you’d have kept fighting me. Would you even have orchestrated her escape if you’d known how much worse being separated would be?”

The rise in tone indicated a question, but his tormenter didn’t wait for his answer. His footfalls moved away toward the cool air. He shouted something, and then several more people entered the small cell.

351 snarled, expecting the beating he’d been waiting for, but they grabbed him under his arms instead and dragged him toward the open space.

Endless corridors of too-bright light followed. His heels dragged on the floor, skin breaking against the rough concrete. Metal shrieked and slid as they maneuvered him into new, tight spaces. On and on.

A host of scents assaulted his senses, his instincts fighting to place them all through the fog. He hadn’t smelled anything but his own filth and blood for a long time, along with the scent of his tormenter and occasionally other males. Now his nose forced images through his brain of bright white rooms with equipment and needles, vague memories of being clean, and something else. Something that made the thread in his chest hum out of tune.

Female.The word cut through just as a desperate howl rang through his ears. A female’s scream.

He jerked violently, the thread turning sharp and urgent, and fought despite his leaden limbs, instincts urging him on. That sound… Thatsmell!He had to protect—

“Hold him!” his tormenter snarled. “If I shock him again, he’s gonna be out for the rest of the day, and I want him to see this. He’s ready for the next step and we’ve wasted enough time.”

Strong arms constricted around his limbs, so much more powerful than his own broken body, propping him upright while still containing his struggle to free himself. The sound, thefemale, still whimpered and screamed, closer now, along with wet, smacking sounds that resonated in the core of his being. He knew those sounds. Hisbodyknew them…

“Dim the lights.”

The burn against his closed eyelids eased and he forced them open. The light still hurt, still made his eyes water, but it was soft enough now that he could fight against it.

Slowly, the world came into focus. He shuddered as a sense of recognition set in, though he couldn’t remember from where. On the other side of a glass pane a rounded concrete space opened up, and in the middle of it, bent over a raised platform, a huge male hunkered down. It took 351 a second to see the female underneath—the male’s body was so big it nearly blocked her out—but he heard her.

The male thrust his hips rhythmically back and forth, and 351’s body remembered. Every muscle burned as he roared and fought against the men holding him back, fought as the bond in his chest flared painfully.

Protect! Protect the female!

It was the only coherent thought he’d had since he’d entered hell, but it burned like hot iron behind his ribs as his mind was assaulted with memories he couldn’t quite seem to reach.

He’d failed her, he’d failed—

Just then, as if alerted by his roars, the female turned her head and he saw her face. It was pale, eyes wide with fear and flooding with tears, mouth open around a pained wail. But it wasn’ther.

Relief flooded his body as his bond twanged, out of tune but no longer in pain.

There was something he was supposed to remember. Something important, something connected to the softness in his chest.

He stared mutely at the screaming female, every thrust of the male into her nudging at that place in his mind that was only darkness.

“Do you remember what it means to be mated, inmate?” his tormenter asked. “Do you remember how tightly that bond binds you? Maybe one day, you’ll be able to remember that it is all thanks to you that we now know the parameters needed to make another feral claim a mate.”

His tormentor’s words made no sense. Not until the male forced his swollen knot deep into the sobbing female and buried his teeth in her neck.

Only then, and with an agony so fierce a scream tore from his chest, did he remember.

The bond was tied to his mate.

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