Page 1 of Bound By Pain
CHAPTER 1
Pain throbsthrough my skull in dizzying waves. What happened last night? I don’t remember drinking enough to have a hangover from hell. And why is it freezing in this hotel room?
Blinking my eyes open, searing pain spikes through my temple. A whimper slips through my lips as I shift my body, startling when I feel the cold, solid floor beneath me. When I force my eyes open long enough to see the stained concrete beneath me, panic builds in my chest.
Where am I?
After the show last night, I joined Orbital Somatic and Shattered Horizons at the nightclub, Knotty Nature, for celebratory drinks. I left early, not feeling up to partying with the lingering pain from my mystery mate. So what happened after I left the club? Surely, I went back to my hotel-
Oh.
Oh shit!
Jolting upright, I almost hit my head on the top of the cage I’m in. A quick glance around confirms my being kidnapped was not a twisted, pain-induced nightmare. The breeding ring really caught me outside of the hotel and has dragged me to who knows where. I’m naked and trapped, like the dozens of other Alphas and Omegas I can see in cages around me.
I really, really should have listened to Shiloh and stayed with someone from the label the entire night.
A huge Alpha crammed behind the bars two cages over captures my attention. He’s way too big to be stuck in such a small space, with thick muscles packed beneath cool, brown skin. The dark mottling of deeply colored bruises along his side and back is a testament to the torment he’s experienced here.
Tears well in my eyes the longer I study him. It has to be a coincidence, right? That all of his injuries align with the pain I’ve felt from my mystery mate for the past few weeks? Yet I can’t seem to look away from him. My soul confirms what my heart and mind are trying to deny.
If he feels the pull between us, he doesn’t acknowledge it. He just stares at the wall across the room. A slight tick of his jaw is the only bit of emotion in his blank expression.
Of course, Fate would pair me with yet another mate who is reluctant to accept me. Why did I ever expect anything else?
Voices carry into the room through the large wooden doors across from us. Tension spreads through the cages, filling the space with the scent of decay and distress.
“Don’t fight.”
Shocked, I glance at the woman next to me. She’s watching the door, her entire body pressed to the back corner of the small space. Bright brown eyes turn to me, filled with sorrow. “Whenthey come to take you, don’t fight. You’ll only make things worse.”
Fear pulses in time with the beat of my heart. They’re coming for me? My instinct is to deny her words, but my mind knows she is right. Breeding is what they brought us here for, so why would they wait? Why choose an Omega they have already subjected to their crimes when they have a fresh body available?
My breath comes quicker as the door clicks open. Instinctively, I look at the mystery Alpha, who still hasn’t turned to look at me. His fists clench tighter, his muscles straining, but he won’t stop them. He can’t save me when he’s as trapped as I am.
Two men jeer and joke as they cross the room and unlock my cage. Their hands grab at me, pawing at my naked body as they drag me away. I try to listen, to not fight, but it isn’t in my nature to submit. Especially not to men who haven’t earned the right to touch me.
A fist connects with my cheek, filling my mouth with the coppery taste of blood. I spit it back out, hitting one man in the cheek. His grip on my arm tightens to the point I’m afraid he may break it, but he just tosses me through an open doorway. I crash to the floor, head banging against the concrete and clouding my vision.
“If Marcus hadn’t promised you to the quack, we’d teach you a lesson on the proper behavior of Omegas,” he says, hauling me off the floor and dropping me onto a metal table. I scramble to slip off the other side, but his friend steps up and holds my torso down long enough for him to place a thick leather strap across my waist.
If they think this table is going to hold me when I’m fighting off an Alpha in rut, they’re dumber than they look. Rutting Alphas can tear through a binding like this in seconds.
When one of them tries to grab my leg, I kick out, catching him in the shoulder and knocking him against the wall. “Fucking bitch,” he growls, crushing my ankle in a tight grip and pulling hard enough that something pops.
A scream tears from my throat, the pain whiting out my vision long enough for them to strap my legs to the stirrups at the bottom of the table. I’m vulnerable like this. Naked and exposed, unable to move to escape if someone tries to force their way inside of me.
Tears stream down my cheeks as the reality of what is going to happen to me sinks in. I’ve never wished for Fate to intervene harder than I do now. There has to be some way out.
One of my captors grabs himself, pulling at the buttons of his jeans, and amplifying my fear. The other slaps him on the chest and steers him toward the door. “You heard Marcus. We’ll have our fun later. Unless you want to wind up on that nutcase’s radar…”
Both men exchange disgusted looks on their way out, making me wonder who they’re so afraid of.
It isn’t long before I find out. Minutes later, the door opens again. Terror flashes through my body, renewing my struggle to escape when Doctor Harrison steps through the gap. My worst nightmare just twisted into something more horrifying than I ever could have imagined.
There is no way this madman is here. I’m dreaming, right? I have to be. The stories Omen has shared from her childhood in New Hampshire make me keenly aware of what this man is capable of. The atrocities he committed in the name of science with Omen’s father’s money.
“Patient 2892. Omega. Unbonded.”
