With the firm grip of his fingers around my throat, my walls grew unintentionally moist as fear combatted my feelings of unbridled lust. He was right. He could snap my neck. He could kill me right now, but he didn’t. When he finally released his grip, I gasped loudly. Taking in the air as if I’d never get the opportunity again, I backed away from him, flushed, confused, and afraid.

“Don’t ever touch me again,” I managed to choke out.

He pushed the sheet off of him and got out of the bed. His thick rusty brown hair fell in front of his face, shielding the intense glare of anger emanating from his eyes. Those luminous, honey-colored eyes bored into me like, like, like I was his prey.

My heart raced as I began to inch my way back toward the door. I didn’t want to give him another opportunity to get a hold of me. I underestimated his ability to function while dosed with the serum. He was nothing like Avery, and I should have known better. She wanted to be here. She never had reason to attack, but him? He had every right in the world to kill me where I stood. Luckily for me, he exerted too much energy choking me and instantly sat back down.

The physicality of his body moving, even as he struggled to keep himself upright, let me know that I’d have to up his dose. I should probably do it again when he falls asleep. Rubbing my neck, I backed out of the room, never letting his eyes leave mine. Once I set foot back in the lab, I slammed my hand down on the button to lock the bars back in their place.

I tried to focus on putting my notes into the computer, but I couldn’t get the image of his bulging muscles, veins pulsing, fingers squeezing my neck tighter and tighter, out of my mind. My nipples were hard. My body began to ache something awful as if I needed a fix to a drug I never had.

When Trevor held me as his pet, we were never intimate. He saved me. He loved me, but he never made love to me. I hadn’t been intimate with any Anthro either. The time I’d spent with Trevor had been spent reading and researching their scaling process in search of a way to stop it. He was obsessed with finding a cure. I wondered why he’d been so adamant about ridding himself of those scales. The answer he always gave me? He wanted to feel normal.

Now I stand in this lab continuing my work with someone who wants nothing more than to feel his own body again. We were crossing a threshold that I never agreed to. Even after he showed me how quickly he could end my life, my heart ached because of what I was putting our prisoner through. It wasn’t kind. I was merely trying to make myself feel better about being able to continue my work.

I let an hour or so pass before I went back toward the door. My specimen slept peacefully with his bulging arms folded across his chest. Even in his sleep, he was protecting himself. With a deep breath, I pushed the button to let myself back inside. I knew he’d need to eat if I were going to give him another dose. The tray I put together had an assortment of meats and even a piece of fruit. Fruit couldn't grow in Black Harbor, but here on The Rock, it was plentiful.

I set the tray down on the bedside table. Turning to him, he held a softness in his face. It was a softness on the far side of the anger I’d witnessed earlier. I couldn’t believe Shaw brought me a soldier. That’s the only way to explain his stature. He was tall. Even under the serum, he was strong. He had to be to cross paths with Shaw.

I stared at him for a long time. His breathing was steady. I don’t know why, no, I knew why I was feeling the things I was. My body was tense with passion begging to burst free because Scaler or not, he was hot. But I couldn’t let these feelings of angst and yearning blind me from what I’m supposed to be doing.

I couldn’t help but want to touch him. I sat down on the edge of the bed feeling his skin. He was near fever temp, but still, his pulse was steady. I rested the back of my hand across his forehead before moving his hair out of his face. When he didn’t move, I raked my fingers through it; across his scalp. A shiver traveled through me. Before I even realized what I was doing, I’d bent down to smell it, him. His entire essence drew me to him in a way I’d never felt before.

Pine, ash, and an indescribable musk that made me want to climb on top of him. I felt like an animal in heat. When I’d gotten my fix, I backed away to see him staring at me. My heart jumped, but heat rushed to my face.

“You certainly like toying with your own life, Addison,” he said to me in a tone much calmer than I cared to admit.

I slid away from him immediately, fumbling with my hair, and wiping my hands against my lab jacket. I began to apologize, “I’m sorry. I was just um, I uh, I brought you food. I knew you’d need something to eat. I wanted to check your vitals, and then I realized I’d never had a Scaler quite like you in my presence. The last time our paths crossed, it was too brief, and-”

He held his hand up, “You’re rambling. How long was I out this time? Have you given me another dose of that bullshit?”

“No,” I shook my head, “I can’t overdose you, or you might have a psychotic break of sorts. I need to monitor how you react physically and mentally if I’m going to offer this solution to Scalers who want to shed.”

He sat up slowly, pushing himself upright against the headboard. A low growl spilled from his lips as he moved. Flashes of him growling in my ear as he took me from behind splashed across my imagination. My breath caught as I inched myself closer to the edge of the bed, but I hadn’t got up yet.

“That’s the second time you mentioned us knowing each other. How? I don’t remember you,” he said with disdain.

“But you know my name,” I was genuinely perplexed.

He motioned toward the door with a nod of his chin, “I heard some guy pissing you off when I first got in here. He called you Addy, and you corrected him, your name is Addison. I don’t know you, but I want to know how you know me.”

“Trevor Gable owned me as a pet,” I told him hoping that I wouldn’t have to go into it.

“Who the hell is that?”

I blew out a long breath as I wrung my fingers in the seat of my lap, “Trevor had to be the smallest Scarlet Wing I’d ever seen.”

“We don’t keep pets,” he stated adamantly, “They cause too much trouble…”

His voice drifted off. I hoped he remembered why they adopted that rule. His eyes grew wide, staring at me; the light bulb in his head turned on.

“You’re her, aren’t you?” he asked leaning forward with those honey-hued eyes squinting at me. “Weren’t you a redhead?”

“Scale dust turned it red,” I said letting a few strands slip between and around my fingers. “But yeah. When he refused to give me up for food rations to that brute…”

“That brute, Chef? He needed to feed about a dozen of us. Times were a bit difficult when it came to finding food back then. And Bart isn’t a fan of keeping pets anyhow. Yeah, I remember now. Trevor wasn’t even fucking you. He was keeping you as a pet-”

I cut him off, “How do you know we weren’t, um, intimate?”

“Because I knew Trevor,” he said, “He wanted to be one before being with one. I told him he was crazy, but once he had his mind made up, that was it. You know we were going to kill you that night? You were thought to be sending secret messages. If Trevor didn’t attack Chef, we probably would have. We thought you fell out of the building. Who would have thought you survived that fall?”

“I didn’t fall,” I told him, “Trevor had built an escape hatch for me. I jumped down to a collapsible platform and slid the rest of the way out of the Scarlet Wing Lair. I wandered around Black Harbor for a few days and then Shaw found me.”

“Shaw? Who’s that?”

Before I could answer, the sound of someone coming into the lab startled me. I jumped up from the bed and shifted the tray of food around. Hurrying out, I was happy that it was only Eric, but then Shaw came in a few steps behind him.

“When can we expect more of those darts?” Shaw asked.

Eric looked to me, “According to the Council, we have to wait for her to give us the okay to extract what we need from the new specimen.”

“Don’t do this,” I told them, “We don’t know what kind of effects making a large batch serum, off of him and his scales, will do to others. We need a universal specimen.”

“Is that even a thing?” Shaw asked. “Aren’t they all the same?”

“Are we all the same?” I asked him with a raised eyebrow.

“I guess not,” Shaw sighed, “So what do you need?”

“It’s a rumor that there’s one hiding in Black Harbor, but we need an Emerald Siren,” I told them. I only knew of one and to be honest, I hadn’t any idea if that’s the kind of Scaler I needed. I just wanted more time with my new specimen.

“A what?” Shaw and Eric asked simultaneously.

“Turquoise and silver Scaler that swims better than it flies. I heard about them when I,” I stopped myself from discussing anything in regards to Trevor with them. “I just need one. They’re special, unique, and very rare.”

“Okay, I’ll get my men on it,” Shaw assured me, “But once we do get this one for you, can you promise us serum potent rounds and ammunition? We need this Addison. The key to Anthros winning this war lies in that concoction of yours.”

“You have my word,” I lied.