Page 55 of Feral

I ignored Jerome’s frown as I passed through the door into the empty hallway. Once upon a time, I would have done everything to save the other women in here. They might not have been willing to become fugitives before being mated, but no one could sustain the brutality the research team subjected their mated test subjects to.

But now…

All that mattered was stopping the clawing behind my ribs from tearing me apart. The women trapped in cages with alphas they’d not chosen? They meant nothing.

The floorbelow where the ferals were kept was much starker than the rest of the compound. Instead of white walls and fluorescent lights, bare concrete covered every surface, and only sparse orange bulbs lit up the corridor every few yards, leaving big patches of shadow between them. It didn’t smell like disinfectant down here—it smelled like mold and wet metal. Like rusting iron, or dried blood.

“Fucking hell,” Jarl murmured as we walked down the narrow pathway. “Who the hell thought to install a goddamn dungeon?”

“Looks like it’s meant to be a bunker,” Jerome said, keeping his voice low. “In case of a nuclear attack.”

“I think they planned on keeping the alphas here permanently,” I said. “Once they’ve been trained as super soldiers. It’s probably supposed to function as a military base.”

“Fucking grotesque,” Eric muttered.

We followed the corridor for a long while, going down each branch as it separated into other sections. We tested every room we passed. They were all empty or filled with rusty barrels and general storage from the lab upstairs. But I couldfeelhim. My bond hummed and twisted like a living worm burrowing in my chest, urging me onward, whispering thathewas near.

Then, after searching dozens of rooms and multiple corridors, we finally stopped outside a heavy wooden door with a metal grate at the top, too high to see through but open enough to let some air into the room beyond.

And Iknew.

“He’s in there,” I whispered, grabbing Jerome by the arm.

The large alpha stared at the door, assessing its strength. “We’ll need something to break it down with. Jarl, Eric—go back to that room with the metal poles and get us something heavy.”

Energy crackled in my blood as my heart forced it through my too-tight veins, spreading a sensation of pins and needles from my toes to my scalp as I waited, palm pressed against the damp wood.

“Zach,” I whispered, the name tasting so strange on my tongue. I’d used it so many times these past weeks, but now it somehow seemed wrong, like I was attempting to personify the yearning inside of me and turn it into a person, a man.

It wasn’t.Hewasn’t. He hadn’t been for a long time now.

He’d told me his name was Zach after he’d claimed me, and that was what I’d called him in my head when I lay awake at night, wishing for an end to the terrible pull behind my ribs. But he hadn’t been Zach since we were separated. He’d been… something else.

They’ve broken something in him,the woman who’d been my neighbor in hell had said.

And I knew she was right.

“Step aside, Lillian,” Jerome ordered when Eric and Jarl returned with what looked like a steel four-by-four.

The door was thick, and it took five heavy thuds of the steel battering ram before it finally splintered and fell apart.

The scent that curled in our nostrils made me shudder, but not from revulsion.

It washisscent. Deep and potent, filled with rage and pain—but it was his. I hadn’t realized how much I’d missed it until it wrapped around me like a tight embrace, filling my lungs with every breath.

A deep warning snarl rolled out from the room, underlined by a rattling of chains.

“No, let us investigate first,” Jerome said when I made to step over the broken door. He put a hand on my chest, holding me back when I tried to slip past him.

Eric and Jarl slipped into the cell, using the lights on their weapons as torches.

“Holy shit,” Eric gasped.

“Is he okay?” I pushed at Jerome’s arm, needing to see for myself, but the big alpha kept me in place.

“Hey, buddy, it’s okay. It’s us. We’re gonna get you out now,” Eric said. His voice was controlled, strained in an effort to sound soothing, but the horror in it was unmistakable.

A roar, and a clanking of chains rang through the cell, followed by the heavythudof flesh hitting flesh.

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