Page 11 of Rage

“Oooh!” My cry starts sharp, but turns to a soft croon by the end as the tightness below my navel becomes molten and my sex… softens.

I stop abruptly, naked realization finally making it through the haze as I stare in mounting horror into AX2’s eyes. No. This isn’t possible. He’s a fucking machine!

But my body doesn’t care. Heat thrums through my veins, hardening my nipples and erasing everything that elevates me above base biology.

Heat.

With the last vestiges of my willpower, I stagger away from the kneeling alpha and out the door. And I flee.

Five

AX2

Dr. Green finds him still kneeling on the concrete some long hours later. Morning, AX2 surmises, from the coffee-scented Styrofoam cup in the beta’s hand.

Dr. Green stops in his tracks when he spots the alpha on the floor, his eyebrows high on his forehead. “Don’t tell me Adelaide is playing hooky because of some sex game gone wrong.”

Sex. The word pounds through his brain, shadowy talons raking his marrow. If he could, he’d shudder in response. He has gotten used to his body responding on someone else’s command, but last night… Last night was different. And nothing like the times his flesh has reacted against his will to the gentle touch of her examinations, or the smell of her shampoo.

He could have killed her.

It would have killed him too, and what sweet relief that would have been. Yet when his fingers constricted around her throat, his body refused to complete the command. His body. Not his brain.

Not the chip.

The betrayal is still hot at the back of his throat. He had a chance to finally be free of this nightmare, free of her. And he didn’t take it.

“AX2? Did Dr. Thompson get you to sleep with her last night?” Dr. Green asks.

“No, sir.” The words come out monotone, the chip ensuring immediate compliance.

The beta eyes him as he takes a sip of his cup. “Did she try to?”

“No, sir.”

“Hmm.” Dr Green tilts his head, the corner of his mouth quirking up a couple of millimeters. “Did you want to fuck her?”

“Yes, sir.” And there it is, the truth still making his insides tight with horror. Her throat under his fingers, the taste of her tears on his tongue, and the smell of her… His body had yearned for her, and not because he was starved for touch and so lonely he couldn’t bear it. No. It’d been something far more primal, far more… intimate.

The beta male huffs a small laugh before he sips another mouthful of coffee. “Guess the general is right about you lot being more men than machines. Lock an alpha up for long enough, and he’ll fuck anything with tits, eh? All right, let’s get you sorted out, AX2. Dr. Thompson called in sick, so you’re with me for the day. Engage autonomy mode.”

AX2’s muscles relax out of his artificially controlled posture the instant the chip releases its hold. Slowly, stretching organic flesh stiff from the many hours forced to hold still, he gets to his feet.

“Grab a shower. Jerk off, if you need to. Then get into some fresh trousers and come back to me,” Dr. Green says, setting the Styrofoam cup down next to a computer as he begins clacking away at the attached keyboard. “No need for a shirt; I’ll just have to remove it again for the electrodes. We’re gonna run some tests, see if your wiring’s still in balance after the socializing yesterday. And if I were you, I’d cross everything that it is. Seems you’re way overdue for what the general’s got planned next.”

It’s three days before AX2 learns what those plans are. Three days without her—the most she’s ever been absent, outside of her five scheduled days every month—and no missions to offer his mind anything else to focus on.

He never thought he’d wish for those cursed assignments, but in between solitary meals and his five hours of daily exercise, there is nothing for him to do but think. And all his brain seems capable of focusing on is her.

When will she return to hurt him for what he did? Why didn’t she complete his punishment that night? He knows all too well that she is capable of far more torment than she inflicted on him then. Why did she run?

Dr. Green comes to collect him an hour after breakfast, and he assumes he is to perform his daily exercises until they turn left at the branch of corridors leading away from where his training room is located.

The beta takes him to the same room where he met the others of the AX class earlier in the week. His pulse picks up speed as the doctor swipes his access card.

The others.

He hasn’t thought much about them these past days. Every time he tries to recall the relief of knowing he isn’t alone, his memories take him straight back to what happened later that night. To her.

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