Page 6 of Feral

“What’s the matter with her?” I asked, a little alarmed at the poor woman’s seemingly complete lack of awareness.

“She’s Presenting,” Dr. Axell said, and I frowned at the small smirk on his face. It was gone before I could fully process it. “We treat the females with heat-inducing hormones now. In the beginning we didn’t, and it was surprisingly difficult to get the male subjects to mount. They were too busy trying to break free to care much about whichever female we wanted them to bond with. This particular female has been kept in this state for five days, until she naturally ovulated. It is our hope that the extra allure of her enhanced scent will finally get us a completed mating claim.”

Females.I knew he was simply using scientific terms for his test subjects, but the way that word depersonalized them bothered me. True, we called alphas males, but that woman in there was no different from any other of her gender. No different from me.

The snick of metal as steel cuffs slid out of the mating bench and locked around the woman’s wrists pulled my attention to more pressing matters.

Dr. Urwin bent behind her, ignoring her attempts at enticing him to mount her, and spread her legs so her ankles could be secured in steel cuffs attached to the bench’s sturdy legs. Moments later he joined Dr. Axell and I to observe, offering me a polite nod as if nothing was out of the ordinary here. Which I guess it wasn’t, for them. They did this every day.

Something nagged at me, like a pesky gnat nibbling at the back of my conscience as I watched the hapless woman sob quietly into the bench she was bent over. It seemed so… so wrong. To put a human being through this much distress in the name of science.

I had to remind myself that she’d agreed to this to lower her prison sentence, and that in the end, this entire research study was for the protection of the country.

Loud bangs of flesh against metal and growls drowned out the woman’s sobs. Both Dr. Urwin and Dr. Axell sat up straighter.

“Showtime,” Dr. Axell mumbled just as the steel door burst open and the furious alpha’s growl vibrated off the glass separating us from the two test subjects.

I recognized him the second my eyes landed on him. 351. The man, thealpha,I hadn’t been able to get off my mind all weekend. Three burly guards wearing padded armor and masks to cover their noses shoved him into the room with metal poles attached to steel collars around his neck and arms. Once they’d shoved the naked alpha far enough into the room, they detached the poles with practiced expertise and slammed the door shut behind him.

The feral alpha turned around at the door faster than I’d thought humanly possible, but it was too late. His fist impacted with the door instead of the man who’d been pushing him in via the collar around his neck.

Snarling in fury, he drew his nails down the door as if they were claws. The sound cut through my brain and made me grit my teeth.

“Is it good to have him this agitated before the… the mating?” I gave the poor woman on the bench a pitying glance. If I’d been locked in a room with an alpha of 351’s size and current fury level, I’d have wet myself from fear. I didn’t know what she’d done to land herself in prison, but part of me hoped it had been truly terrible. The thought of someone having to go through what was in store for her due to too many parking tickets made my insides twist—even if she seemed to want it pretty badly.

“It helps—anger is such a primal response, it makes the transition to mating easier. Don’t worry, once he catches a whiff of the female, he’ll funnel all that aggression into something far more useful,” Dr. Axell said. “351 has done this many times before. He knows the routine.”

I don’t know why that statement made my discomfort at the scene unfolding in front of us even greater, but it did. I frowned at the feral alpha as he paced in front of the door, the sound of his angry growl unwavering.

Despite Dr. Axell’s reassurance, for the longest time 351 didn’t seem to even notice the woman moaning pitiful pleas for him to mount her. He only paced and growled without taking his eyes off the door, like a tormented animal in a cage, for the better part of ten minutes.

“Well, this is unusual,” Dr. Urwin finally said. “She’s definitely giving off the right scent—we nearly had an incident with one of the guards on the way here.”

“Maybe we just need to catch his attention by other means,” Dr. Axell murmured. He leaned forward and pressed a button on the panel in front of his chair. A loud beep blared through the room, making me jump nearly a foot out of my chair.

On the other side of the glass, 351 whipped around, all his corded muscles tensing. But it had the desired effect—he finally seemed to notice the tied-up woman on the bench. His growl lessened a little, though it still remained a constant rumble as he circled her with a cautious look. When he walked around the other side of her so his front faced the windows, it was quite obvious his body was beginning to respond to her scent.

I paled at the sheer size of him, too gobsmacked to do the decent thing and avert my gaze. The intimidating pole of flesh between his thighs looked as thick around as a Pringles can, with maybe half the length. Wincing in sympathy with the trapped woman, I instinctively crossed my legs.

She, however, didn’t seem to have any hesitations. Realizing she’d finally gained the alpha’s attention, she lifted up her backside as much as her restraints would allow and emitted a keening sound that made Dr. Axell shift uncomfortably next to me. I glanced at him out of the corner of my eye and noticed the notepad covering his lap. Apparently even esteemed men of science weren’t entirely above the laws of biology—at least not this close to a woman in heat.

But on the other side of the glass, 351 seemed to be hesitating. After circling the breeding stand twice, he pulled away and returned to the door to resume his pacing.

“What the—?” Dr. Axell pressed the button again, sending another blaring beep through the room. The feral alpha swung around and snarled at the window separating us from the room—and then froze, eyes locked on me.

“C-can he see us?” I asked, unable to take my eyes off the alpha on the other side of the glass as he slowly walked across the room, shoulders hunched in a defensive posture and that icy gaze not moving from mine. For some reason, a wave of guilt gnawed at my gut.

“Yes, they can see through the glass, but not hear us,” Dr. Urwin said.

I don’t know why I reached forward and put my hand on the glass—maybe it was an apology, though I didn’t know why I felt so guilty. Maybe it was just to support myself from the woozy feeling rolling through my body from 351’s unwavering stare.

The feral alpha came all the way up to the window—and placed his hand on the glass opposite mine.

“What on Earth is he doing?” Dr. Axell growled, irritation clear in his voice. He reached forward and hit the button again, sending a blaring beep into the air.

I jumped again at the unexpected sound—and 351snapped.

I could see it in his eyes, the second that sound echoed through the room. They went pitch-black like a predator’s, anything remotely human on his otherwise so handsome features disappearing in the blink of an eye. Fury so intense it made the blood freeze in my veins radiated off the huge alpha as he turned his attention toward Dr. Axell. And then he attacked.

---