Subject 351 didn’t leave my thoughts the entire weekend. I couldn’t get his haunting eyes out of my mind, and, at night when I tossed and turned in my bed, I dreamt of him. They were disturbing dreams, filled with darkness and feral snarls, but despite the terror I felt as I slept, come morning I’d be aching and wet between the legs.

The shame from that particular bit was the worst part.

I’d never had this strong a reaction to an alpha before. Sure, I could appreciate them on screen as attractive on that primal level that spoke solely to the most primitive instincts in my body, but as soon as a male switched on the alpha aggression in person, all I felt was fear. I wasn’t like the women who flung themselves at any alpha who sniffed in their direction—I’d never seen the attraction of their dominance. They just scared me.

Sure, I could work with an alpha fine, as long as he was perfectly well-behaved—like Dr. Axell. But anything more than that?

I shuddered as memories I’d long ago repressed threatened to spill into my conscious mind. My step-dad had been an alpha, and he hadn’t liked taking care of another man’s child. I’d learned from an early age that it was best to give the aggressive ones a wide berth, and the well-mannered a cautious eye.

So why the hell did 351 make me toss and turn all nights with… with yearning, like a damn cat in heat?

These thoughts were still tumbling around in my head when I made it to work Monday morning, tired and disheveled from yet another bad night to finish up the report I hadn’t managed to complete on Friday.

My colleagues chatted quietly about a new female test subject they'd secured, while I stared blankly at 351's test results. My coffee sat next to me untouched despite my fatigue. Perhaps that was why I blurted out, "What do you do to them? During the tests?"

“Beg your pardon?” Dr. Axell looked at me over his shoulder, eyebrows raised in question.

“It’s just, it would be useful for me to know exactly what these figures are referring to,” I quickly added. Which was true, I sternly told myself. It was purely to help me do my job better. Not because the echo of the feral alpha’s voice growling out, “Always hurts,” had been playing on a loop all weekend.

“That’s a fair point.” Dr. Axell turned back to Dr. Urwin. “I guess it wouldn’t hurt to let her oversee today’s tests?”

The other doctor smiled—I was pretty sure for the first time since I’d worked there. He looked genuinely excited. “Yes, I think it would be brilliant to have a fresh pair of eyes on today’s proceedings. We have procured a very interesting female candidate. I’m expecting great results today. You’re very welcome to shadow, Lillian.”

---

The test took place in the circular room placed in the center of the lab.

Inside was a donut-shaped room with glass panes facing the central room. Dr. Axell flicked the lights on behind the glass and revealed a sterile-white floor and ceiling, and what looked like a padded bench or narrow table. It was roughly hip-height, with four legs and a flat surface.

Nothing else was inside the room except a heavy steel door with a grid on the far side.

I sat down in the chair Dr. Axell indicated for me, frowning at the empty room. “What’s that piece of equipment for?”

He glanced at me, a little surprised. “You do know how alphas claim their mates, right?”

My frown deepened. “They give them a claiming mark. But why—?” My voice died when I recalled the circumstances in which such a mark was usually placed. “Oh.” Really wish I’d thought of that before I’d accepted the offer to shadow their work!

Flushed, I looked back at the room. This was for science—it was no more awkward than mixing bacteria in a test tube. “Ah, why not… give them a bed?”

Dr. Axell snorted. “We tried that. Once. It got destroyed during the first test. This is much more practical. And sturdy.”

The steel door inside the test room clanked and was pulled open, and I frowned again at the state of the woman Dr. Urwin dragged in with him.

She was naked, which wasn’t particularly shocking after being reminded of what was going to happen—but everything else about her, from her wild look to her unkempt appearance, made my breath catch.

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.