Page 8 of Feral: Part Two
However, I’m not hopeful we’ll find something. After three years, there shouldn’t be anyadditionalconnections or clues we haven’t already exhausted. Every conversation ends the same way—with more questions and zero answers. We knowThe Collectivehas money, we know they have labs, we know they framed us. Beyond that, we're shooting in the dark.
I also know that Kael is trying to distract himself, though. After everything Nathan just dropped on us, I can't blame him for wanting to focus on something he feels like he can control. Even if it's pointless busy work that's not getting us anywhere.
Thane leans back against his chair, watching me with an intense stare as I move around the kitchen. There's something in his gaze that makes my skin prickle, the desire swirling in his expression heating me up from the inside out. My cock is at half-mast and I’m five seconds away from letting out an embarrassing moan. Thank fuck I don’t slick up like an Omega or I’d be a fucking mess right now.
Needing to break the silence, I twist around to look over at Kael. His brows are furrowed as he concentrates, the snarl to his lips more inviting than it should be. At this point, I might just have to blame the fact that we’re going to want to ‘reconnect’ more often because we’re becoming a feral pack. I clear my throat, shoving that thought down as I try to focus.
"We're wasting our time looking through all that shit, Kael," I tell him. “There's nothing new, and without a contact from the outside to get us any new information, we're not getting anywhere."
Kael doesn't look up from the papers immediately, his fingers drumming against the table.
Thane shifts, crossing his arms as he continues to watch me. The movement draws my attention despite my efforts to ignore him. "I honestly think we won't find any of the answers out there anyway. We're locked in here, and while that fucking sucks, we might actually find what we're looking for inside the compound."
Thane's always been good at seeing patterns, at connecting dots that the rest of us miss. When he gets that tone, it usually means he's figured something out that we haven't. Kael finally looks up from the papers, frowning. "What are you talking about?"
"Think about it," Thane says. "We already know they were cooking something up in the labs and most likely trying to recreate aFeral. Success, they've done that. And now the guards are gone? Think about it. Their experiment worked."
I set down the bag of carrots I was holding and really consider what he's saying. No one has really bothered us since a council member watched Thane fully bond Slate. After that, it’s been crickets. We’ve never had this much time alone without at the very least a drop in or a phone call. It’s why we’ve always been on edge, trying to be the perfect little soldiers so we could get out of here.
But after Nathan’s visit a few days ago… it’s been silent. And now with the guards… "Wouldn't that mean more supervision and not less? It makes sense, doesn't it? If we're part of some experiment, if they've been monitoring our progress, then shouldn't they want to watch the results more closely? Why pull back just when things are getting interesting?”
"Would it?" Thane counters, his eyes meeting mine. "Think about why the fuck we're here right now instead of in jail.According to Nathan, we're the right makeup of a pack for a feral Omega. We're just as much part of the experiment."
Which means we’re test subjects. “This has nothing to do with what we got thrown in jail for, did it, then?”
Thane shakes his head as Kael lets out a grunt, agreeing with his cousin. Ho-ly Fuck.
We’re somehow the perfect combination of Alpha, Beta, and Omega to see how a feral bond would affect a pack. They didn't send Slate here to help him—they sent him here to see what would happen to all of us.
I think back to our arrest and how convenient it was that we got caught. How the evidence against us was just solid enough to stick but not so overwhelming that we'd get life sentences. How we ended up at Wolfscorge instead of a maximum-security prison. How Slate arrived so close to the end of our sentence.
Thane drags a hand down his face, his shoulders falling in defeat. "I could be wrong but they created aFeraland they have the right blueprints to make it work, which means they no longer need to monitor shit in here. They just have to create the right conditions to make another one."
Shit.
I hadn’t thought about that.
Kael snorts, pushing back from the table. "I hate that your theory isn't as far-fetched as it seems. And if that's true, there's like six or seven packs here, some without Omegas."
Six or seven packs at Wolfscorge, all serving different sentences for various crimes. Most of them don't have Omegas in their pack structure, which would make them perfect candidates for receiving a feral Omega like Slate. IfThe Collectiveis running some kind of large-scale experiment, then we're just one data point among many.
I shake my head, refusing to accept what they're suggesting. "What you're saying is ludicrous and impossible. There's nofucking way someone is powerful enough to set up an experiment like that."
"Unless everyone is on the same page," Kael says, his voice taking on a more dangerous edge. "Nathan said that no doctor in their right mind would have performed that operation on Slate multiple times, but Veltmoor did. The packs he was sent to went through Veltmoor's protocols, and our sentences were commuted in exchange for being in here. What ifThe Collectiveis in charge and everyone else is just following orders?"
Preston had been at Veltmoor for a short stint, years before us, as most Omegas do. Which meant that the center would have records on both our Omegas, detailed information about their psychology, their triggers, their needs.
IfThe Collectivehas infiltrated or controls Veltmoor, then they would have had access to Preston from the moment he was sentenced. They could have done things to him, changed him, prepared him for what was coming, without any of us knowing.
And the packs that rejected Slate—what if they were supposed to? What if each rejection, each surgical removal of his bond, was part of the process to make him more feral, more desperate, more likely to bond completely with whatever pack finally accepted him?
The systematic nature of it, the careful orchestration, the way every piece has fallen into place exactly as needed… it all points to something much larger and more coordinated than we initially thought.
"Then we're fucked,” I finally push out, meeting my Alphas’ gazes. It’s obvious we’re all on the same wavelength at this point and the outlook isn’t great. “Especially if they're just going to start chucking otherFeralsin here."
If we're just the first successful test case, then they'll want to replicate the results. More packs, more forced bonds, more experiments using humans and shifters as lab rats. The thoughtof other people going through what Slate went through, what we're all going through now, makes rage bubble up in my chest.
The worst part is how helpless we are to stop it. Even if we wanted to expose what's happening, who would we tell? Who would believe us? And what kind of proof do we have beyond our own suspicions and theories?
