Chapter Six
Miles
There was no way to mark the passage of time. The room was always cold and dark, no hint of light seeping through. There was a hole in one corner for a toilet and every few hours a stream of water came down from the ceiling to wash that corner. Except it wasn’t water. I’d tried to drink it but it was some kind of scent neutral disinfectant.
No water, no food, no light, no heat. Was I going to die in here?
When the door did eventually open, I almost missed it, dozing in my corner, my body curled as tight as I could make it.
The door closing again was what woke me and I could see the slightest glow around the room from lights high up on the walls. There was a figure standing there and I watched it. An Alpha, I was almost certain.
He came closer until he was standing right over me. Then he simply reached out and dragged me out of my corner, setting me down on the floor in the center of the room. I was ice-cold, my muscles so stiff and sore that I could barely move. He flipped me onto my stomach and knelt next to me. I tried to speak, to get some words out, but then he leaned close to me and I felt his body heat. He was so warm, he felt almost hot against my chilled skin. I craved that heat.
When he rested his hands on me, I pushed into them. Warmth. Yes, please.
He moved closer and I had no objection, even as I felt him scent me. Alphas did that, there was nothing to worry about. Until I caught his scent. That… that wasn’t right.
He smelled acrid, sour almost. Not like my body expected. The warmth was suddenly not so comforting and I tried to escape his hands. But he pressed down harder, holding me against the floor with ease, scenting me again, dragging his skin over mine. There was no escape to be had, and the feelings of wrongness grew until I was fighting to break his hold. But I was cold, tired, and weak. No match for the strong Alpha. I gave in, submitted to his hands, and lay there fighting that feeling of wrongness that threatened to overwhelm me.
When the Alpha left, the lights faded to nothing, and I crawled back to my corner. I wished there was some way to wash the scent of him off of me. More time passed in the dark before the door opened again.
Alpha. A different Alpha. But the routine was the same. He left and, after another reprieve, a third one took his place. Then a fourth, then a fifth. Each one did the same, scented me and held me down.
By the time the sixth one dragged me across the floor, I was nearly out of my mind with all the scents on me. Their wrongness, their strangeness, haunting me. I fought this time, harder than I had before, finding strength from somewhere deep inside me. He tried to turn me face down on the floor and I resisted, kicking at him as I pushed myself up onto my hands. There was a sharp crack and pain blossomed across my right cheek as I slammed into the floor. Winded, I couldn’t do anything as the Alpha’s hands shoved me over onto my stomach. It was a relief when he left me to the darkness.
Each day was the same. Were they days? I wasn’t even sure. The Alphas kept coming, the same six, with their scents that were so abhorrent to me. The second time they came, they each brought water, just a mouthful for me. I was parched, my mouth dry and sore, so I was grateful for even the smallest of drops.
I started to notice the room was warmer when the Alphas were there, quickly growing colder once they’d left. The third time around, they brought food. Little pieces of fruit, sweet and juicy. I ate from their fingers, faint with the hunger and desperate for anything that would take the taste of their scents from my mouth.
The fourth time they came, I was almost looking forward to their visits. What would they bring with them this time to make my nightmare just that little bit bearable? They’d brought me heat, water, food. All things I now lacked when they weren’t there.
This time I went willingly to the center of the room, laying down at the press of the Alpha’s palms on my shoulders.
He ran his hands down my body before focusing on my Omega mark. It was like we were back to square one as he laid his dark mark over mine, that sense of wrongness leaping to life inside me followed by an intense pain that wracked my whole body. He shifted, straddling me, his knees either side of my hips, and I reacted.
The next few minutes were a blur. My body was bucking and fighting to get this monster off of me. It was all wrong; the scent, the feel, the taste. This wasn’t my Alpha. He pinned my hands to the floor but still I twisted and turned, kicking out at him. I could hear him snarling above me, shouting, cursing at me.
And then the room was flooded with lights so bright I couldn’t see. Voices were everywhere, yelling loud enough to hurt my ears.
“It’s too soon, Paul. He’s not ready. You’ll send him into bond shock.”
The weight pinning me down was gone and the door slammed shut, silence falling as the lights flicked off, plunging the room into darkness.
It was a while before I could move again, my body sore and aching as I crawled back to my corner and curled up as tightly as I could. Cold air flowed into the room and I shivered.
“Why are you doing this to me?” I whispered aloud. “Please. What have I done to deserve this?”
There was no answer, only the whistle of cold air in the silence.
There followed a long stretch of dark and nothingness. So long that I was beginning to think they’d forgotten about me.
Then the door opened and a figure stepped inside. I knew without needing to see that it was another Alpha. I couldn’t do that again. Not more wrongness, not more pain.
The lights turned on, flooding the room with a brightness that hurt my eyes. I curled tighter and hid my face. Whatever was happening, I didn’t want any part of it.
The Alpha said my name. No, that couldn’t be right. No one had called me by name since I walked through the Center’s doors. Except there it was again and now the Alpha was right next to me. I anticipated being dragged across the room as his hand found my arm but all he did was hold it out straight, side-by-side with his own. I looked down at it, at his urging. They were almost the same, our marks, with their matching bright glows.
I asked him who he was, getting the strangest answer. And then he implored me to leave with him. But I couldn’t. This was my duty, to my country, to our Alphas. This was who I was.
And then he said four words that changed everything.
“You can be more.”