Obsession: Feral, Book 1 Read online

  Aside from her knotted hair and wild eyes, she was a pretty woman in her late twenties. She wailed hollowly as Dr. Urwin pulled her through the door and placed her face-down on the bench, but instead of struggling against him she arched her back and pushed her backside up and out, moaning pitifully.

  “What’s the matter with her?” I asked, a little alarmed at the poor woman’s seemingly complete lack of awareness.

  “She’s Presenting,” Dr. Axell said, and I frowned at the small smirk on his face. It was gone before I could fully process it. “We treat the females with heat-inducing hormones now. In the beginning we didn’t, and it was surprisingly difficult to get the male subjects to mount. They were too busy trying to break free to care much about whichever female we wanted them to bond with. This particular female has been kept in this state for five days, until she naturally ovulated. It is our hope that the extra allure of her enhanced scent will finally get us a completed mating claim.”

  Females. I knew he was simply using scientific terms for his test subjects, but the way that word depersonalized them bothered me. True, we called alphas males, but that woman in there was no different from any other of her gender. No different from me.

  The snick of metal as steel cuffs slid out of the mating bench and locked around the woman’s wrists pulled my attention to more pressing matters.

  Dr. Urwin bent behind her, ignoring her attempts at enticing him to mount her, and spread her legs so her ankles could be secured in steel cuffs attached to the bench’s sturdy legs. Moments later he joined Dr. Axell and I to observe, offering me a polite nod as if nothing was out of the ordinary here. Which I guess it wasn’t, for them. They did this every day.

  Something nagged at me, like a pesky gnat nibbling at the back of my conscience as I watched the hapless woman sob quietly into the bench she was bent over. It seemed so… so wrong. To put a human being through this much distress in the name of science.

  I had to remind myself that she’d agreed to this to lower her prison sentence, and that in the end, this entire research study was for the protection of the country.

  Loud bangs of flesh against metal and growls drowned out the woman’s sobs. Both Dr. Urwin and Dr. Axell sat up straighter.

  “Showtime,” Dr. Axell mumbled just as the steel door burst open and the furious alpha’s growl vibrated off the glass separating us from the two test subjects.

  I recognized him the second my eyes landed on him. 351. The man, the alpha, I hadn’t been able to get off my mind all weekend. Three burly guards wearing padded armor and masks to cover their noses shoved him into the room with metal poles attached to steel collars around his neck and arms. Once they’d shoved the naked alpha far enough into the room, they detached the poles with practiced expertise and slammed the door shut behind him.

  The feral alpha turned around at the door faster than I’d thought humanly possible, but it was too late. His fist impacted with the door instead of the man who’d been pushing him in via the collar around his neck.

  Snarling in fury, he drew his nails down the door as if they were claws. The sound cut through my brain and made me grit my teeth.

  “Is it good to have him this agitated before the… the mating?” I gave the poor woman on the bench a pitying glance. If I’d been locked in a room with an alpha of 351’s size and current fury level, I’d have wet myself from fear. I didn’t know what she’d done to land herself in prison, but part of me hoped it had been truly terrible. The thought of someone having to go through what was in store for her due to too many parking tickets made my insides twist—even if she seemed to want it pretty badly.

  “It helps—anger is such a primal response, it makes the transition to mating easier. Don’t worry, once he catches a whiff of the female, he’ll funnel all that aggression into something far more useful,” Dr. Axell said. “351 has done this many times before. He knows the routine.”

  I don’t know why that statement made my discomfort at the scene unfolding in front of us even greater, but it did. I frowned at the feral alpha as he paced in front of the door, the sound of his angry growl unwavering.

  Despite Dr. Axell’s reassurance, for the longest time 351 didn’t seem to even notice the woman moaning pitiful pleas for him to mount her. He only paced and growled without taking his eyes off the door, like a tormented animal in a cage, for the better part of ten minutes.

  “Well, this is unusual,” Dr. Urwin finally said. “She’s definitely giving off the right scent—we nearly had an incident with one of the guards on the way here.”

  “Maybe we just need to catch his attention by other means,” Dr. Axell murmured. He leaned forward and pressed a button on the panel in front of his chair. A loud beep blared through the room, making me jump nearly a foot out of my chair.

  On the other side of the glass, 351 whipped around, all his corded muscles tensing. But it had the desired effect—he finally seemed to notice the tied-up woman on the bench. His growl lessened a little, though it still remained a constant rumble as he circled her with a cautious look. When he walked around the other side of her so his front faced the windows, it was quite obvious his body was beginning to respond to her scent.

  I paled at the sheer size of him, too gobsmacked to do the decent thing and avert my gaze. The intimidating pole of flesh between his thighs looked as thick around as a Pringles can, with maybe half the length. Wincing in sympathy with the trapped woman, I instinctively crossed my legs.

  She, however, didn’t seem to have any hesitations. Realizing she’d finally gained the alpha’s attention, she lifted up her backside as much as her restraints would allow and emitted a keening sound that made Dr. Axell shift uncomfortably next to me. I glanced at him out of the corner of my eye and noticed the notepad covering his lap. Apparently even esteemed men of science weren’t entirely above the laws of biology—at least not this close to a woman in heat.

  But on the other side of the glass, 351 seemed to be hesitating. After circling the breeding stand twice, he pulled away and returned to the door to resume his pacing.

  “What the—?” Dr. Axell pressed the button again, sending another blaring beep through the room. The feral alpha swung around and snarled at the window separating us from the room—and then froze, eyes locked on me.

  “C-can he see us?” I asked, unable to take my eyes off the alpha on the other side of the glass as he slowly walked across the room, shoulders hunched in a defensive posture and that icy gaze not moving from mine. For some reason, a wave of guilt gnawed at my gut.

  “Yes, they can see through the glass, but not hear us,” Dr. Urwin said.

  I don’t know why I reached forward and put my hand on the glass—maybe it was an apology, though I didn’t know why I felt so guilty. Maybe it was just to support myself from the woozy feeling rolling through my body from 351’s unwavering stare.

  The feral alpha came all the way up to the window—and placed his hand on the glass opposite mine.

  “What on Earth is he doing?” Dr. Axell growled, irritation clear in his voice. He reached forward and hit the button again, sending a blaring beep into the air.

  I jumped again at the unexpected sound—and 351 snapped.

  I could see it in his eyes, the second that sound echoed through the room. They went pitch-black like a predator’s, anything remotely human on his otherwise so handsome features disappearing in the blink of an eye. Fury so intense it made the blood freeze in my veins radiated off the huge alpha as he turned his attention toward Dr. Axell. And then he attacked.

  The window vibrated as the wild alpha pounded on the glass with both fists, the strength in his coiled muscles unleashing blow after blow on the only barrier separating us from the feral beast.

  The first crack in what I was sure was meant to be unbreakable glass made me shriek, and even Dr. Urwin began to look pretty worried.

  “Dr. Axell, maybe we should…”

  Dr. Axell nodded, irritation still clear on his features as he glared at the attacking alpha. The scent of alpha aggression rolled off him in waves, which didn’t exactly help calm down my wildly beating heart. He leaned forward and pressed another button—a microphone. “We need the heaviest dose of tranquilizer. And bring stun guns, just in case.”

  Only a few seconds later, the door behind 351 burst open. He turned around, ready to launch himself through the opening, but the newcomers were prepared. Two darts pierced his flesh before he could take a step toward them, one in his chest and one in his thigh. He wobbled, growling furiously as he fought against the tranquilizer, but it was no use. With a small whine he turned halfway, catching my eyes once more. In his gaze I saw fear and a sorrow so deep it made my heart clench.

  Then his sea-colored eyes closed and he slid to the floor with a thud. Out cold.

  I shook as I watched the armed men drag his unconscious body out of the room, fighting against the tears stinging my eyes.

  As frightening as I’d found his fury, that look haunted me long after the heavy steel door closed, leaving only the sobbing woman tied to the breeding post behind.

  5

  “Here, I think we could all use a cup of coffee right about now.”

  I gave Dr. Urwin a grateful smile as he offered me a steaming mug. “Thank you.”

  The low sobbing from the woman still tied up on the other side of the windows made me look back at him and Dr. Axell. “Shouldn’t she be untied?”

  “That would be cruel.” Dr. Axell clicked a couple of buttons on the control panel, but what they were supposed to do I couldn’t tell—as far as I could see, nothing happened. “Her heat won’t break before she’s taken a knot, not at this stage. We will have to use another alpha subject to complete the test. A pity—we were hoping to have 351 pair-bonded by the end of the day.”

  “The experiment can still be repeated with a different female, if proven successful with another male,” Dr. Urwin pointed out. “May I suggest subject 287?”

  “My thoughts exactly,” Dr. Axell said as he leaned back in his chair. “He should be with us in a moment.”

  He was right. It hadn’t been a minute before the steel door flew open and another snarling alpha was shoved into the room by long poles attached to metal rings around his neck and biceps. But instead of turning around to attack the men as soon as the poles were detached, like 351 had done, his wild gaze immediately zeroed in on the woman on the breeding bench. His nostrils flared as he scented the air, and a deep, rich growl sounding nothing like the fury he’d initially displayed emanated from his chest.

  The woman on the bench keened loud and shrilly in response, bucking her hips what little she could.

  The alpha was by her in a second, scenting her as he bent between her spread thighs.

  I did my best to fight back the furious blush I could feel spreading over my entire face at the intimate display. A sentiment that was only strengthened when he—finding her more than ready—without delay mounted her and shoved his brutal cock up inside her dripping opening in one, smooth movement. All the way to the hilt.

  The woman screamed and tried to both escape the invasion and spear herself deeper on his girth at the same time. Her hands locked in steel manacles clawed and clenched at air, but there was nothing she could do one way or the other.

  I’d never seen sex like that. I knew video clips and images of alpha matings could be found on the internet, but I’d never had the nerve to search for them. And this… this was so much worse than seeing it on a screen. Even though the thick glass panel separated us from the pair, knowing that they knew we were watching them made the heat in my cheeks flame all the hotter. Every thrust made me clench my hands around the edge of my seat, wishing I was anywhere but here. The woman’s cries and screams rang loud and shrill, and I winced in sympathy at the way her brutalized sex clung to the alpha’s impossible girth. He wasn’t as huge as 351, but plenty big enough to make my pelvis clench for every wet thwack of his flesh against hers.

  It lasted for nearly twenty agonizing minutes.

  I’d somehow managed to almost regain my professional composure when the poor woman’s hoarse cries suddenly took on a different tone. She’d long-since given up struggling, but without warning she let out a strangled yelp and tried to lurch forward. The restraints and the alpha’s hands on her hips kept her securely locked in place, but that didn’t stop her frantic struggling nor her desperate whimpers.

  “What’s happening?” I asked, my worry for the woman strapped into the breeding post returning with renewed vigor. “Is he hurting her?”

  “He’s about to knot her. A female will always struggle a bit, especially with a new alpha. Once he’s popped it inside is when he’ll hopefully put a claiming mark on her.” Dr. Axell didn’t look to my side, so I couldn’t decipher his expression, but I very much hoped the unmistakable excitement in his voice was purely from a scientific standpoint.

  Of course. The knot. I don’t know why I hadn’t been expecting it—it was an unavoidable fact of alpha matings—the fist-sized swelling at the bottom of an alpha’s member that inflated at the end of a mating to increase the chance of fertilization. It was an entirely different thing to learn about such matters from a textbook than it was to see it in person. Part of me wanted to look away, but morbid curiosity kept me staring at the pair as the alpha’s knot finally swelled enough to make a tie.

  The final, brutal thrust into the woman’s body was marked by a bloodcurdling howl from her, and a deep groan of pleasure from him. They both stilled—the woman still panting and sobbing while her body twitched as if in cramps, the alpha moaning in release.

  We all stared at him with bated breaths, waiting for the moment he’d lay claim to the woman he’d just fucked for all she was worth, but apart from occasionally rocking his pelvis a little and making her jerk and whimper, he didn’t move. In fact, for someone who was still intimately connected to said woman, he seemed remarkably uninterested in her, now he’d spilled his seed.

  “Sonuvabitch,” Dr. Axell growled next to me. “How is he not claiming her? She’s fucking ripe as a peach!”

  I blinked, not expecting that kind of language from a man with Dr. Axell’s academic achievements. He seemed to remember himself and cleared his throat. “Right. Well, I must apologize that we didn’t manage to show you the next step of the research. Clearly we’re still missing a key factor in making these alphas bond with the females we offer them. We will have to run some tests on her pheromone levels and perhaps look for more precise chemical markers.

  “But before we get that far, I’d be interested in your observations of this experiment. Your analytical skills are without question.”

  I bit the inside of my cheek. It was what I’d always wanted—to be asked to contribute to the scientific method of a significant research study, but… the fact that they’d missed something that seemed so obvious to me made me kind of hesitant. “Well… I mean, aren’t pair bonds meant to be… very special? I’ve always heard how an alpha simply knows when his intended mate is near. It seems to me you’re trying to force a bond without taking into consideration what the subjects might want. Perhaps this is one thing nature never intended for us to replicate in a lab.”

  Dr. Urwin scoffed. “My dear girl, an alpha’s urge to claim a mate is a purely biological response, nothing more. As such, all we need to reach our goal is to find the right triggers.”

  I blinked, taken aback by the patronizing tone. But when I looked at Dr. Axell, expecting him to put his colleague in place, all I got from him was a small head shake and a wry smile. “I do think you’ve watched one too many romantic movies, Miss Dorne. Trust me—alpha instincts have nothing to do with love. They’re about possession, desire… procreation. A feral alpha will not be able to even play pretend when it comes to claiming a female.”

  I dug my nails into my palms to force myself to return his gaze. There was something… different in it. As if there was just a glimmer of someone else behind his professional mask—someone who spoke about alpha instincts so confidently because perhaps, deep down, he also felt them. The thought made my stomach lurch, and I gave in to the instincts at the back of my consciousness murmuring about the dangers of provoking an alpha. I dropped my eyes and felt my shoulders slump forward without my conscious choice, displaying subservient body language even as my mind still seethed with the rude dismissal.

  Dr. Axell patted my knee with a large hand, lingering for just a second before he pulled it back—but it was long enough for every muscle in my body to freeze.

  He’d reacted to my body language like an alpha would—giving me silent praise for falling in line with a touch. It was so inappropriate and so far from anything I could ever have expected from a man with Dr. Axell’s reputation. I stared mutely at my now hand-free knee, halfway expecting an apology. Hoping for it with all I was.

  It never came.

  Seemingly happy with my submission, Dr. Axell turned to Dr. Urwin and began discussing parameters for a new line of tests as if I wasn’t even there.

  I sat for a moment longer until the stinging in my eyes became too much to bear. Silently, I left the room and walked back to my empty work station.

  It was silly to cry, I knew that, but no matter how many times I told myself that, I couldn’t will the tears away. Dr. Axell had been my idol for so many years. Working for him had been a lifelong dream of mine, and yet in the end…. In the end, he was just like the rest of them. An alpha. A ruthless man who sought to bend anyone who disagreed with him to his will.

  And in my eagerness to please him, I’d pushed my own ethical objections to his methods aside, trusting that he knew best. I’d been so damn stupid. How had I, of all people, let an alpha’s charm and dominance pull the wool over my eyes?

  Christ, I’d… I’d watched a woman get violated right in front of me, and I’d done nothing to stop it.

  * * *

  I’d not been down in the section of the underground lab where the female subjects were kept. Most of my analysis was of the males’ data, and so there hadn’t been any reason to venture into that area.

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