Page 18 of Feral Alphas

“It’s yours,” I encourage softly, pushing the bowl closer in case he’s not sure. His hand reaches through the bars, the knuckles big and covered in scars. The paper whispers across the concrete as he pushes it back in my direction with one finger.

“No.” I slide it back toward him, careful not to put my arm across the line. “I already have mine.” I point to my bed twelve feet away. Would he really try to strangle me through the bars if I went any closer? Maybe his close attention is a ruse to lure me into range.

Petrov’s shoes squeak on the concrete behind me and I flinch. Mufasa jerks back, leaving the bowl. “Want to see where they exercise?” Petrov asks, setting down another bowl on the outer edge of Scar’s danger line and toeing it closer with his boot. The silent alpha doesn’t move from the back of his cell.

“Sure.” I stand up, then hesitate as I glance back at Mufasa. “Will he eat it?”

“Yeah, once we’ve moved away. He’s fussier than the rest.”

The alpha under discussion meets my gaze, his gray eyes glinting. I hold my breath as he slowly reaches forward and drags the bowl into his living space. Somehow, I don’t think fussy is the correct word to describe Mufasa at all.

As we step away, Scar races to the front bars and his bowl vanishes into the shadows.

I follow Petrov down a corridor lit by dull green lights, our feet slapping on the concrete. Dark stains splatter across the floor, and I pin my gaze into the kennel manager’s back so I don’t have to think about how those marks got there.

“Where do the alphas come from?” I ask.

He shrugs. “Off the streets or orphanages. We take them in about five or six years old so they don’t remember much. Some we acquire through staged accidents and give them a memory wipe.” He shrugs as if he’s not talking about destroying human lives.

Maybe it’s not only alphas that get stolen like that. I should have paid more attention to the little scarred omega’s story, since she said she had memories missing.

Petrov stretches out his hands, cracking his knuckles noisily in the narrow space. “Ten years of training hardens them up enough forthe junior matches, and those with real fighting spirit rise to the top. Boss Groman has an eye for good fighters.”

I lick my dry lips. “And the ones that don’t rise to the top?”

Petrov snorts and wags one finger at me. “You don’t want to know the answer to that.”

I blink and squirm away from what he means. They go to the same place the fighting alphas who don’t walk themselves out of the ring go—the grave.

He stops and bars my way, crowding me. “You’re getting an awful lot of secret information, Rose. Want to know why I’m telling you?”

“Not really,” I murmur, trying not to breathe in his sour beta and smoke-ladened scent.

He laughs, blasting me with another hot breath. “You belong to us now, Rose, and you’ll take our secrets to the grave same as I will.” He taps my nose roughly. “So don’t go getting any fancy ideas.”

I step back out of his reach and turn my face away, trying but failing to guard my heart from his insidious threat. The tunnel’s concrete walls seem to press in darker than ever, just like my future. I’ll end up as insane as the fighting alphas. “So where are we?”

He glances over his shoulder. “Chatty, are we? It’s a shared underground kennel. Three of us put in to set it up and manage the running costs. And we rent out pens for fight nights.”

I wrap one arm across my body, remembering the sounds playing a backdrop to my terrifying heat. “How often are those?”

“Every four weeks.”

I stop walking. “They put their lives on the line every twenty-eight days?”

He chuckles darkly and throws open a thick concrete door. A cold shiver runs down my spine at the sight of scratches marking thedoorway. “Not exactly. We usually only have a couple of dogs out per match night. Last week was different because it was the grand finals.”

Petrov reaches out and tugs on the short plait hanging over my shoulder. “And thanks to you, we’re headed to the finals next week.”

I bare my teeth and try to slap his hand away, but he’s too quick and pulls out of reach. “So feisty. No wonder the dogs like you.”

Hearing him call them animals makes my heart squeeze. The men don’t deserve that, and by his reasoning, I’m nothing more than a dog too—a bitch sitting around to dispense heat scent.

The room we enter has a mezzanine floor up high that overlooks the area. A caged raceway comes out of a tunnel in the wall, trapping anyone inside over a treadmill floor. A huge climbing frame monopolizes the center of the room, and the other side has a lap pool. I move to investigate a pit at the far end which has a springy mat, but whirl around as I hear the heavy thump of a door closing.

The way I came in is blocked, and Petrov’s nowhere in sight. My throat restricts as I spin, looking in every direction.

“Should I let one of those crazy mutts in here right now?” Petrov asks, his voice falling from the sky.

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