Page 4 of Feral: Part One

I don’t even truly knowwhy.

A ragged sigh tears from my throat as tears fill my eyes, the nightmare of being offered to yet another pack only to be rejected. My gaze drifts to the little bedroom clock on the nightstand, discomfort lodging in my chest.Five minutes.Five minutes until I’m dragged away to the pit of hell. I can only hope to survive.

Or maybe death would be a sweeter poison.

Slowly, I sit up, groaning at the pulsing in my head and the sudden tunneling of my vision. It’s just one of a million symptoms that have shown up in the last few years, getting worse with every bite removed from my shoulders. Each surgery stripped away a piece of me. I can’t scent anymore, don’t react to the biological hierarchy like I should. I don’t react to their pheromones, don’t bend to their commands and it’s lonely as fuck. The world’s muted, like I’m underwater, cut off from everyone. I’m a ghost in my own skin, and it’s tearing me apart, little by little.

You’ve got this,I tell myself, knowing that it’s a full on lie. Rolling off the bed, I search for something to wear out of this place. The floor is a mess of discarded clothes and what little I have to my name in this place, none of which is going with me.

I barely make it across the room before the mirror catches my reflection and my mood sours further. Scars litter my neck and shoulders but it’s the rest of my body that pains me. The nicks and cuts and bruises along my torso and arms that I keep hidden. Marks that remind me of how useless I am.

Marks I gave to myself to keep me from hoping, from believing that there could possibly be a happy ending. The surgery woundon my neck might be fresh but the stripes along my chest and the ones littering my left arm hurt me so much worse.

I absentmindedly run my fingers along the scars, reliving the relinquish of pain as I sliced into my own flesh. The tears I was holding back finally fall, words I spoke to myself coming back.

Failure. Useless. Discarded. Unwanted. Trash.

The last Alpha stopped even wanting me in his bed. Was I too damaged? Not enough? Not submissive? I don’t know and I can’t ask. I’m forbidden from reaching out, not that it’ll matter after I’m dropped off at Wolfscorge.

Heat blooms through me, that feral aspect added to my biology flaring up as I grit my teeth. I haven’t had an incident in a few weeks which means I’m due for one and what better time to have it when at the compound?

I huff out a laugh and start searching the floor for clothes, finding a burnt orange turtleneck and a pair of jeans that doesn’t smell too bad. I’m just barely into my shoes when there’s a soft knock on the door and then it opens. Clara is standing there, her hands clasped in front of her, a tight smile on her lips.

“Morning, Slate. It’s time to go.” She speaks to me like she’s talking to a wounded animal.

I step up to her, my eyes dropping to the M-Cuff in her hands, a specialized bracelet that injects a numbing agent while it’s attached. It’s a routine I’ve hated in this place—ever since they classified me as ‘feral’ in my file. Separated from everyone else, stuck in this room by myself, and a M-Cuff every time I leave and return unless I behave myself.

I guess they expected me to fight.

“Clara, seriously? I had surgeryyesterday. Even if I wanted to act out, I can’t physically do much.”

She just holds the cuff up and I offer her my good wrist. She clasps the device onto me, an instant calming effect washing over me. I feel like a zombie with this thing on but it’s better thanthe alternative of having to process everything going on around me.

“I really hope this works for you, Slate,” she says, her round face soft with that pity I hate. “You deserve a little happiness.”

A sharp ugly laugh falls from my lips. “If you think this is happiness, you must think hell is paradise.”

***

The drive is silent up until we’re pulling into the large metal gates, the eeriness of the compound seeping into my bones. The numbness from the cuff makes it easy not to react but I know that the terror will follow soon after I leave the comfort of this device.

The silence is deafening, the small winding road to a small mansion putting me on edge, sweat gathering along the back of my neck. My breathing kicks up a little bit at the lavish structures on either side of the walkway, marble lions and tigers leading up a structure that doesn’t seem like it belongs in this place.

Clara softly taps my thigh, drawing my attention back to her. Reality sets in as I remember the two guards in the front, Clara at my side with her trusty little clipboard, her eyes bright with hope for me. “It’s not as harsh as everyone says. Wolfscorge is a good place to find a pack, or at least find some reasoning where you couldn’t before.”

There’s no way we saw the same pamphlet. Anyone could see the fake smiles in those pictures and feel the tension in the air here. Just up the hill, several houses similar to the one in front of us placed along the green lawns, a luxury I’ve never known.

None of thisfeelslike a prison but I know better. “Clara, your reassurance isn’t helping. I’m a feral Omega. Unless my Omega accepts the Alphas that take me, my body will reject me. I’lldie. They would have sent me to an actual rehabilitation center if they cared. But no, it was either here or a mental institution. Clara, Veltmoor doesn’t want tohelpme.”

The nurse doesn’t argue because she knows I’m right. When the car finally comes to a stop, Clara stays put, waiting for the two guards to slip out and undo my cuff. She doesn’t even manage a goodbye as I’m guided up the walkway. There’s no knocking, no keys used—the guards just push open the front door and sit me into a seat in the foyer across from a desk and one of the largest Alphas I’ve ever seen.

His salt-and-pepper hair is cropped close to his head, a thick beard making his head seem even bigger, his cold blue eyes cutting right through me. He’s dressed in a pressed black suit, nodding his head to the guards before they turn around and leave me in this place, the door slamming shut behind them.

With the cuff gone, I merely shiver—something that seems to set him off seeing as most Omegas would probably cower in his presence.

The Alpha just smirks and leans forward, clasping his hands together. “Welcome, Slate Wolfscorge,” he muses, offering me a wild smile.

“That’s not my name,” I snap back. Everything should be in my file, although, to be honest, I have no idea what my last name really is anymore. It could be any of the six packs or the one I was born with. Not that any of that matters. I’m not his to rename.

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