“We had another female employee in the early stages of the project,” Dr. Urwin said when I handed him the signed contract allowing SilverCorp full discretion over my body for the next year. It stipulated that I was to allow matings with alphas of the research team’s choosing, and that I agreed to not hold SilverCorp or its agents responsible for any and all bodily harm that may occur under their care.

Despite its content, I didn’t hesitate to sign it. Not even when I read the part where a “successful bonding” meant the contract would be extended indefinitely.

“She also got swept up in her feminine emotions and tried to smuggle pictures of what goes on here out to the press,” Dr. Urwin continued as he looked over my signature. “It was before we had an easy supply of female inmates for our alphas, so we struck a similar bargain with her—her cunt in return for not turning her in to the feds. I must say, it is a disappointment to see an educated mind lose all sense of reasoning to irrational emotions. It makes it hard to argue against the alphas who suggest your gender belongs at home, barefoot and pregnant.

“And then you go and prove them right again, after Dr. Axell hired you against his better judgement not to take on any more females for this project. I guess he was right—no amount of accolades can make up for the softness between your legs. He’s been watching you, you know. The security cameras in 351’s cell captured all your sweet little moments with him. When we saw you tending to him after his failed mating, we knew it was only a matter of time before you betrayed SilverCorp.”

“What happened to her? The other woman?” I asked. Taking his bait wouldn’t help me now.

“Oh, it was very unfortunate.” Dr. Urwin motioned with one arm for me to walk out of his small office. I obeyed, following his directions down the narrow corridor until we came to another locked steel door. “It was before we began forcing heats on our female subjects, or tying them down. So instead of submitting to her first alpha, she tried to fight him off. Stupid woman. He predictably went into a rage and killed her before we could intervene.” He gave me a small smile devoid of emotion as he swiped his access card over the lock and pushed the door open. “But you have nothing to worry about. We have had no fatalities since we implemented the heat treatments.”

I blanched as he stepped aside to allow me into the room, and I finally saw what was inside. It was a small room, clad in tiles and white paint, with a fluorescent light flickering in the ceiling. And by the far wall stood a narrow, padded examination bench with leather restraints attached.

Dr. Urwin scoffed at my obvious horror. “Don’t give me that look. They’re to keep you from hurting yourself once the drugs set in. We’re not barbarians.”

I arched an eyebrow at him, but if he even saw the irony, he ignored it. Apparently, in his mind, violating a tied-down woman yourself versus letting a feral alpha do it was entirely different.

He sat down by a small desk I hadn’t even noticed, seeing how the bench and restraints took up my whole focus, and rummaged through a drawer for some paperwork. “Please take off your lab coat and roll up your right sleeve before you lie down,” he said as he began making notes on the form he’d procured. “I’ll be with you in a moment.”

I took a deep breath, steadying my thudding heartbeat before I walked over to the bench and shrugged out of my lab coat. There was something poetically final about seeing the white fabric pooling on the floor—almost like a metaphor for how I’d thrown away my life to help the alpha who’d made my conscience resurface. I wasn’t a scientist anymore. I was a test subject.

But at least I’d done everything I could to help. No matter what happened to me during the next year, I knew I could live with myself once they finally released me. If I hadn’t tried to save him, I would never have been able to look myself in the mirror again.

Even if he was a war criminal.

At least I knew there was no chance he or any other alpha they’d make me mate with would claim me. It was just one year, and then I’d be free. And who knew, maybe if I was smart enough, I’d somehow be able to gather enough evidence during my time as a test subject to take them down once I was out.

Once I was lying stiffly on the bench, Dr. Urwin rolled on his chair across the concrete floor to my head. In his now gloved hand was a syringe containing a yellow liquid.

“I’m going to inject you with a heat trigger now. Depending on how your body reacts, in one to four hours you will begin to sweat and you will experience vaginal and uterine cramping, as your body begins to prepare for mounting. Most females will continue on to the next stage on their own at this point, but some require further stimulation. If that is the case for you, I will provide you with alpha-scented cloth. The next stage is marked by a flush of slickness from your vaginal opening, and often aggressive behavior if a mounting isn’t imminent.

“This is also the stage when I will restrain you, to keep you from causing harm to yourself or others. You may or may not feel the need to start nesting, but since this is a clinical procedure, we unfortunately cannot allow our subjects to engage in such urges. Needless to say, you will be very aggressively searching for an appropriate mate at this point. Because 351 will be incapacitated for at least the next six to eight hours, regrettably this stage will be prolonged.

“Once he is deemed ready to complete a mating, I will lead you to the breeding room and the trial will commence.” Dr. Urwin reached for my upper arm, quickly wiping it with rubbing alcohol, and then jabbed the needle into my skin.

I gritted my teeth to not flinch away, but he clearly had a lot of practice. He’d pressed the plunger down and removed the needle before I’d even fully processed everything he’d explained.

“Nesting?” I asked. It was the only part of a woman’s biological response to her chosen alpha I wasn’t at least somewhat familiar with. It wasn’t a subject I’d studied in great depth, but there had been a class or two back in my early days of college about what happened if a woman Presented to an alpha. Of course, I certainly hadn’t had any classes about forcing a woman into heat. It wasn’t exactly something polite people discussed.

“Some women get the urge to prepare a space for the offspring her body assumes will be produced after tying with her alpha during a heat. Some don’t. We haven’t seen it much here—the circumstances aren’t exactly ideal, you might say. Mostly it happens for a Presenting woman if she is already in the comfort of her own home, with an alpha she has established an intimate relationship with beforehand.” Dr. Urwin rolled his chair back over to his desk, his gaze already on the papers there. “May I suggest you try to relax until the drugs kick in? You won’t get the opportunity again for a while.”

---

I lay on the padded bench for the better part of two hours, staring at the ceiling with nothing to do but worry about what was in store for me once 351 regained consciousness. All-too-vivid images of the brutal mating I’d seen take place between Gloria and 287 played on repeat before my mind’s eye. The longer I lay there, the more impossible it became to shut them out. Flashes of the thick pole of flesh I’d seen between 351’s thighs in that same room, and his bulging muscle as he pounded on the window separating us, made me shiver. He was so much stronger than me… so much bigger… And that primal fury in his gaze as he’d stared down the other alpha by my side… I shivered again and fidgeted when heat seemed to pour through my veins in thick, languid pulses.

“Ah, I see you’re beginning to take.” Dr. Urwin looked up from his papers, undoubtedly having been alerted by my fidgeting. He rolled his chair over by my bench once more, his expression calm and clinical as he pulled a small penlight from his pocket and shone it into my eyes.

“Pupils are dilating nicely,” he said as I squinted. “And your temperature is rising,” he continued after testing my forehead with the back of his hand. “Once you start to get too hot, do feel free to strip down. You will be much more comfortable.”

“I’m not taking off my clothes!” I protested as I clasped my arms across my chest.

“Suit yourself,” he said, not even bothering to look at me as he rolled back to his desk. “I’ve yet to see a female last through the second stage while still dressed.”

Forty-five minutes later, I was starting to see his point.

It was so goddamn hot. I was sweating buckets as I paced around the small room, trying to fan air down my drenched shirt. It didn’t help matters at all that my abdomen would infrequently make me curl in on myself with deep spasms, and despite the very un-sexy situation, a distinct throbbing from down below was making it harder and harder not to press a hand between my thighs to ease the tension.

I shot an angry glare at the back of Dr. Urwin’s head as I passed him on my sixth-hundredth round. He was still working away as if he didn’t have a care in the world, completely disregarding my mounting levels of discomfort.

“How much longer?” I growled without stopping. I knew if I didn’t keep pacing, it wouldn’t be long before I was forced to acknowledge the insistent throbbing between my thighs. As if on cue, a cramp made me groan and lean forward, supporting my hands on my knees to ride out the tremor.

Dr. Urwin turned then, giving me a long, evaluating look. “It shouldn’t be much longer. Any slick yet?”

If I hadn’t already been so hot, I might have flushed from the intimate question—but right then, I didn’t care about what was proper. All I cared about was that I was so damn hot, and my clothes felt too constrictive as they stuck to my sweat-covered body—and that I wanted this to be over already!

“No,” I said, shooting him an accusatory glare from my bent-over position. “Just buckets and buckets of sweat. This can’t be fucking natural! Are you sure you haven’t messed up the formula of whatever was in that injection? I feel terrible!”

“I did warn you,” he mumbled as he reached for my forehead. I swatted his hand away—just the thought of him touching me made my skin crawl. I frowned when that realization set in—along with the sudden dawning that I wasn’t worried about their plans anymore. I was just really, really… irritated.

“Mhm,” Dr. Urwin hummed. “I think it’s time we move on to the next stage. Last chance if you want to strip before we have to put the restraints on.”

I shot him another glare, but the thought of being tied down and wrapped up in my restricting clothes finally made me give up the last remnants of dignity.

With a demonstrative huff, I turned my back to my—former—colleague and shrugged out of my soaked shirt. It was such an immediate relief to get the clingy fabric off my overheated body, the last of my self-consciousness faded to nothing. Eager to cool down as much as possible, I unclasped my bra and made quick work of my pants zipper and button, kicking off shoes and socks before I could shed them and my panties.

There was a moment’s relief as I stood naked on the cold floor next to the pile of discarded clothes. It felt glorious to no longer have the soaked garments clinging to my hypersensitive skin, and even though I was still much too hot, at least I wasn’t also wrapped up.

“Please lay back on the bench.”

I turned my head toward Dr. Urwin, my upper lip curling in a snarl at him. He wasn’t who I needed, so why the fuck was he here?

Dr. Urwin’s eyebrows shot up in amusement, and I blinked when I realized what I’d done. I’d… snarled? Like an animal. And what the hell was up with the errant thoughts about… about needing someone?

As much as I wanted to deny it, I knew exactly where those thoughts came from. Images of that alpha mounting Gloria played before my mind’s eye and resonated deep in my core. My abdomen twinged with longing.

Fuck.

Without a word, I walked over to the bench and lay down. I didn’t resist when Dr. Urwin placed the leather cuffs around my wrists and ankles, securing me to the padded surface.

I lay there for what felt like forever, sweating and waiting for the mounting pressure in my abdomen to finally break, but no matter how much I writhed on the bench and squeezed my thighs together to alleviate the need to be touched between them, nothing happened. It soon got to a point where, as much as I had dreaded their plans to force me into mating heat, I was desperate for it to finally sweep me away, because this… this was agony.

“How much longer?” I finally whined at Dr. Urwin, who at least hadn’t gone back to his stupid desk this time. He was watching over me as I squirmed in my restraints, eyebrows furrowed.

“It should have broken now,” he said.  “I think it’s time we give you some stimulants to push you over the edge. I’ll be back in a moment.”

I whimpered pitifully when he left the room, not wanting to be left alone. As frustrated and irritated as I was, the moment he closed the door behind him and I was all alone, all I wanted was for him to return.

The flickering fluorescent light reflected off the white walls, somehow enhancing the sterile scent of disinfectant and the rattle of the chains tying my leather cuffs to the bed every time I fidgeted. While Dr. Urwin had been there, it’d been easier to pretend this was just a normal research project—that I was participating for the sake of scientific progress. Not tied up and waiting for a huge alpha murderer to penetrate me like a feral beast.

I breathed in deeply, doing my best to ignore the twinges from my abdomen as I focused on that look in 351’s eyes that’d made me risk all to save him in the first place. That sense of humanity behind his primitive instincts I’d seen when he touched my cheek to thank me for caring for his injuries.

But no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t get his wild eyes and huge cock when he was locked in the breeding room out of my thoughts. He was an alpha through and through, and unless his humanity managed to surface, nothing was going to save me from the monstrous girth between his legs.

Thankfully Dr. Urwin was back within a few minutes, a piece of cloth in his hand, and my increasing panic instantly eased some just from his presence. As much as he’d irritated me earlier, and as much as I should probably have despised him for what he was about to do to me, I only felt relief. At least I wouldn’t be alone in the medical-scented room with only my own anxious thoughts for company. And besides, as much as I was dreading what he was going to let happen to me, at least he’d stopped me from being sent to Ezban.

“All right,” he said, placing the cloth over my nose. “Take a few deep breaths of this. It’s laced with 351’s scent from his last rut—it should push you over the edge.”

I’d heard about such cloths before. Single women sometimes purchased pieces of fabric soaked in alpha sweat to enhance their private pleasure sessions. I’d never been among them, finding the idea of sniffing an alpha’s sweat far more disgusting than erotic, but as I carefully smelled the cloth pressed against my nostrils, something… something weird happened to my body.

The scent of man and musk and sex filled my lungs, and a full-body shudder passed through my limbs before I could even comprehend how intoxicatingly amazing the smell of that cloth was. I sucked in another greedy gulp, and another, intent on inhaling as much of that wonderful scent as I could. My nipples hardened to aching points while I mewled and rubbed my face against the piece of fabric and fought against the restraints because all I wanted, all I needed, was more of that smell. I wanted to roll in it, rub my pussy against it…

The errant thought made me realize the growing heat south of my bellybutton and the powerful throb that had my clit twitching for every one of my heartbeats. God, I needed to be touched!

Aching to feel friction against my aching nub of nerves, any friction, I kicked my legs uselessly against the ankle restraints and tried to rub my spread thighs against each other to sate the increasing desperation growing there.

“Ah, modern women,” Dr. Urwin sighed somewhere above me. I was too preoccupied with sniffing the piece of cloth to pay much attention to where. “You try to pretend like you want independence and a nice beta husband to settle down with, but when it comes right down to it, every one of you would much rather spread your legs for a primitive alpha.” He sounded bitter, but before my brain could fully process his tone, his hand came down between my legs, smacking against my swollen labia and aching clit. I squealed at the sharp sting, and then moaned brokenly when he began rubbing his fingertips against my stiff little bud.

Fuck, it felt so good. Some distant part of my mind railed against his touch—this wasn’t professional, and he wasn’t the man I wanted to touch me there, but… oh, it felt amazing. Every instinct in my body ached for a release—somehow, I knew deep down that that would ease my suffering.

“Please, don’t stop,” I whimpered, not moving my head from the delicious scent of alpha pressed against my nose.

Dr. Urwin snorted, but didn’t pause the firm pressure against my most sensitive spot. “Do you have any idea how you look, spread open and panting like a bitch in heat?” he growled, a mocking tone in his voice, but also an edge of frustration. “You’re a woman of science, and right now, you’d like nothing more than to be shoved into that feral alpha’s cage so you can offer your cunt to him. Isn’t that right? Heck, I bet you’d happily let Dr. Axell mount you. I’ve seen the looks you give him—the big alpha boss. Everyone’s always fawning over him and his brilliance. I bet if he’d offered, you’d have let him tie you to the breeding post after hours even without the drugs.

“Would you like to know why he’s not the one servicing you, instead of the lowly beta doctor you’d never look twice at if you had the choice?” Dr. Urwin paused long enough to push the hood of my clit back, and then grabbed the bared little nub between thumb and index finger, squeezing viciously.

The unprotected touch directly to the cluster of hypersensitive nerves sent me off the bed with a yowl. Only the restraints kept me from falling to the floor. I arched up as high as I could, squirming and screaming incoherently as raw, electric jolts of sensation crackled through my poor clit and made every muscle in my body jerk. It hurt so good, I didn’t know if I wanted to beg him to stop or to do it harder.

“It turns out, Dr. Axell, for all his brilliance and all his derogatory comments about women and their instincts, is as much a slave to his primal self as the poor bastards we have locked up downstairs. Seeing you like this… all tied down with that pretty little cunt winking like crazy, begging for a nice, thick dick? He’d mount you himself, and then probably kill you once he was done. The esteemed doctor doesn’t like to be reminded that, when it comes right down to it, he’s just like the feral beasts we poke and prod all day.”

I probably should have been more concerned with what he was saying, but I didn’t have it in me to focus on anything but the excruciating pleasure being forced into my abused clit. For every pinch, the tension deep inside of my abdomen grew. I writhed mindlessly, blindly searching for relief. And, just as the pressure right behind my pelvic bone became unbearable… it broke.

A flush of sticky liquid rushed out of my frantically spasming core, covering my thighs and the medical bench below me. My body arched as high as the restraints allowed while waves of euphoria rolled through my pelvis, taking me closer and closer to that elusive peak… until the abuse against my pulsing clit abruptly stopped.

I cried out in frustration, thrashing against my restraints. “No! More! Please!”

Dr. Urwin gave me a small smirk as he stepped away from the bench. He sniffed the hand he’d had between my thighs and gave an appreciative hum. “There’s no need. You’re ready for your alpha. But don’t worry—once he’s awake, you’ll get all the sex you can stand.”