Page 7 of Ruled By The Alpha

“AX6.” He reaches out a hand. The movement is a little stilted, like he’s forgotten how to move his muscles for the gesture. “Dwayne.”

AX2 blinks, hesitating a long second before he puts his palm to AX6’s—Dwayne’s.It’s warm and dry, and the sensation blinds him for a heartbeat.

The others mirror them, murmuring introductions. The young, blond alpha he hugged is AX23. He calls himself Jack.

AX2 blinks as every man offers a name to go along with his serial number. AX9 is Sean. AX21 is Simon.

“Shit, they must have lost a lot of us, eh?” Sean, the man who calledhera whore, says, shaking his head once as he looks them all over. His eyes land on AX2. “I didn’t catch your name, bud.”

His name. The concept seems so ludicrous—the mere thought thatshewould grant him humanity in the form of a name is enough to make him scoff. “The only designation I’ve been given is AX2.”

“No, I mean—your name. You have to have had one before, right?” Sean insists, furrowing his auburn brows.

Before?AX2 opens his mouth, but no words come out. They… They remember what was before?

“They took your memories?” Dwayne murmurs, his voice too quiet to project back to where the doctors stand with clipboards, observing them. “Dr. Green once mentioned… He said I was the first to retain ‘em. Something about not being able to keep us stable without them. But you’re okay?”

Okay.Something bubbles AX2’s his gut—a wild urge to laugh, perhaps. Or cry; he can’t tell which.

In the end, he does neither. “I’m alive.”

“I guess that’s better than it could have been,” Simon says. “I’d have died without this… procedure. Shot in action. I assume it’s the same for the rest of you?”

Murmurs of agreement. AX2 stays silent. He was told he was dying—beyond medical help. That this was the only thing that could have saved his life.

That he should be grateful.

Yet since the day he awoke in this cursed place,gratitudehas been the furthest thing from his mind.

Unbidden, his gaze slips back toher.In those first, confused moments after waking, he’d thought her an angel, her pale face outlined by the fluorescent lights of her lab, her voice soft and pulling on the very fabric of his being.

He’d soon learned the truth.

Hatred churns in his gut as he stares at her, the voices of the others fading to a murmur. They are exchanging stories of their deaths, of their memories from before. But she took his. Evennow, among peers he didn’t know he had, but has yearned for so long, she has ensured he's alone.

The urge to close his hands around her throat makes his fingers twitch. He can almost feel her warm skin under his palms, the frantic jump of her pulse. See her eyes widen and naked fear take the place of haughty disdain. He has killed before—every mission has resulted in the loss of at least one life. None of them gave him any satisfaction, buther…Just the thought of her fragile little neck in his grasp heats his body and makes his skin prickle with pleasure.

As if she senses the intensity in his stare, she looks up from her notes, once more catching his eyes. Anger flares in hers at his second transgression within mere minutes, her knuckles whitening around her clipboard. She parts her lips, and he braces for the pain of his chip responding to whatever order she’s about to bark at him—but instead she hisses something he can’t hear to the other scientist.

Dr. Green looks up, focus narrowing in on AX2 before his mouth hikes up in a lopsided grin. “It’s to be expected, Thompson. Their biological side will be running rampant after being deprived for so long. Maybe it’s best if you skip out, hmm?”

Bright pink splotches color her cheeks, and this time AX2 hears her clearly: “This ismyproject, Green. I am not about to abandon it because of this… folly!”

Dr. Green shrugs and returns his focus to his own clipboard. “Suit yourself. But if the others get the same idea, there’s a good chance this little bonding exercise will turn into a bid for dominance. And if you ruin the Pentagon’s plans for the AX class, I don’t think you’ll get the chance to so much as cry ‘sexism’ before your ass is permanently booted off the project.”

She doesn’t respond, and for the longest moment she just stands there, fingers clenched so tight around her clipboard thestiff plastic bows under the pressure. Then she turns her head and stares again at AX2, and the sheer amount ofhatredin her eyes makes his own flicker away.

When she spins on her heel and stomps out of the room, he can still feel the sear of that hatred, a warm spike all the way down his spine and into his pelvis.

Chapter 4

Addie

I spend three hours pacing the silent halls of the compound, where I have resided for most of my waking hours since finishing my doctorate.

When I arrived here, they had been working on fusing flesh with technology for years without having ever produced a viable soldier.

Thirty-one months after I entered the building, AX1 opened his eyes. Onmytable. The AX class ismine.

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