Page 21 of Protector

“God,”she croaks. “Please!”

God.He doesn’t know if he has ever believed in God, or heaven. He certainly doesn’t now, and hearingheruse that word is startling. But there is no god here, and no salvation. Only him.

His finger twitches on the trigger.

Save her.

The image flashes through his brain on the tail-end of the command—a flimsy, unbidden vision: His lips against the scabbed-over scar on her neck. His teeth digging in. The taste of her blood spilling into his mouth and the sensation of iron hooks burrowing into his heart.

There isoneway to save her.

His gun slips from his hand and clatters to the ground as he jolts back, away from the bed.

No. No, no, no!

But it’s too late. He doesn’t know what nightmare the knowledge comes from—what deeply buried instinct forced its way to the surface before he could take his freedom, or why it has—but he can’t unknow it now.

His ragged breath shudders out of his lungs as he stares down at the monster who has broken him beyond the bounds of humanity.

Thereisa way to save a woman from the loss of her alpha—he must replace her broken bond with another.

TEN

AX2

Save her.

No. Stars above,no!

AX2’s eyes are wide as he stares down at the broken woman before him, his heart thumping fast and unevenly behind his ribs. He can’t wrap his mind around the concept, but it’s there, no matter how hard he tries to make it disappear.

If he mates her—if he claims her as his—she will survive. He knows it in the marrow of his bones.

His chip fires angrily through his brain, the command like a hammer rather than a spike, now that he sees a way to obey both sets of orders. It urges him on, zinging against his nervous system with the demand tosave her. Make her pain stop.

If he does this, she will be a part of him in ways far more horrific, far more intimate, than what she has done to him before. The very last vestiges of his mind will be hers too.

No.Not this. This he can’t do. He won’t.

AX2 bends for his gun, but his fingers slip on the metal and he stumbles forward, only barely catching himself against the bed.

Shit.He tries again, but the shock of the chip turns his vision white.

He can’t kill her now that he knows that doing so isn’t saving her. He missed his chance.

“Fuck!” he snarls, the fury in his voice making the woman whimper and withdraw.

His sight fades back into focus, and he sees her cowering on the bed as far away from him as she can get. Only then does he notice the manacle around her right ankle chaining her to the bed, and the raw, bleeding skin underneath it. She fought for her freedom.

Not all females do. Most will capitulate underneath an alpha. She did not.

She will fight beneath him too.

With mechanical movements, he straightens. Her eyes go round when he reaches for his belt.

“W-What are you doing? Stop!”

His muscles lock up, his fingers twitching against the buckle as his chip sears with another constricting command.Shit.His chip is still calibrated to obey her commands, but the roar of the general’s orders throb through his brain.

---