Page 50 of Feral

When he bent his head and drew in a deep breath of my scent, I closed my eyes and tried not to think about the time Dr. Axell had let five feral alphas at me.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” the blond murmured. When he pulled back, his brows were furrowed. “Barnes really claimed a mate.”

“Told ya,” Jerome said. “She’s telling the truth. He’s fucking locked up in a research facility like a damn rat.”

Beau shook his head, anger flashing in his eyes. “That’s not right.”

“So you’re in?” Jerome arched an eyebrow at his friend.

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m in.” The stranger flexed his hands, his anger seeping into his scent as he rolled his shoulders to ease it.

I swallowed thickly, the smell of angry alpha setting every instinct in my body on high alert. “I don’t understand… What’s this about? Who are you?”

“Beau’s from our squad,” Jerome said, a grim look on his features. “Barnes is our brother, and we ain’t about to leave him behind to be a government lab rat for the rest of his miserable life.”

“But he…” I frowned, trying to process his words over the steadily increasing hum in my ears. “He killed your captain… didn’t he? That’s why he was on death row? He’s a war criminal?”

Jerome exchanged a look with Beau. “Yeah, he killed our captain.”

“Then why…?” The hum vibrated through my eardrums and into my skull, making my teeth tingle. These men… they were talking aboutfreeinghim.

My heart pounded, but I fought against the tendrils of hope trying to spread from the dimly throbbing chord there.

“Because things aren’t always what they seem, girl,” Jerome sighed. He was going to continue, but Beau cleared his throat and shot his friend a warning glare.

“We made a promise, Willis,” the blond said. “She doesn’t need to know.”

“Tell me!” I demanded, my voice sharper than I’d intended. “He’s my mate. If he—if he isn’t a criminal, I have a right to know.”

I couldn’t stop the tendrils this time. For the first time since my escape, my bond didn’t hurt. Warmth spread in its wake and I pressed my free hand to my chest, desperate hope flaring against my better judgment. If I could see him again… if I could look into his eyes and know he wasn’t a bad man…

Then perhaps death wouldn’t be the only way out.

“We swore an oath,” Beau said. “But if we get him out, maybe he’ll tell you himself.”

“How?” Where there had been nothing but dead flesh and pain before, a fire now burned. One last, desperate light. A chance at life not tainted by misery and darkness. And I clung to it with all my might like a drowning woman offered one final chance to breathe.

“We are not the only ones who owe our lives to your mate,” Jerome said, pushing the mug away as he looked at the blond alpha. “We will contact our old team. They will come. And then you’ll lead us to where they hold him. No SEAL ends his days as a lab rat. Not on our watch.”

CHAPTER 22

351

It had been a long time since light touched his eyes. Maybe weeks. Months. Years. He wasn’t sure. Time hadn’t made sense since he’d woken up in hell.

The bulb above him tore at his eyes and he hid his face in his hands to escape its burn. But the screech of metal pushed over concrete made every aching muscle in his body tense with memories of pain.

“Get up!”

He rose at the sound of that hated voice, blind but acutely aware of the cold draft against his naked skin from the open space behind his tormentor. He no longer saw that opening as freedom. He had, in the beginning, he vaguely remembered. But he knew better now. It wasn’t the cool air he charged for.

His world was pain. Pain, and the tormentor here to extract yet another ounce of it from his flesh. No matter how many times they showed him there was no point, he couldn’t hold back the roar in his blood tokill.Every time the metal gave way for cool air, he lunged at it to maim and break apart every living thing that entered his dark hell, his instincts the only thing left in him that still resembled life.

Sharp, electric agony tore through his neck and lanced through his body. He fell to the floor with a thud, seizing as the metal collar squeezed his throat. It didn’t stop until he lay limp, unable to move, save for the involuntary jerks as the electricity short-circuited his nerves.

“You’d think you’d learn,” that hated voice sneered somewhere above him. “Even animals can be trained. And that’s all you are, isn’t it? An animal.”

The words made no sense to him. They were nothing but noise. The tone he knew, though. Anger. Anger that led to more pain.

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