Chapter 7

CHAPTER 7

R owan

When I came to, I tried to move, but my arms were pinned down to either side of me. In an instant, I knew that I was strapped to a cold, metal table, the restraints digging into my wrists hard enough to leave bruises. I flexed my fingers, testing the leather that bound me, but it was too tight, too unforgiving. They’d made sure I wouldn’t be able to break free.

Pity.

It would certainly make my day to tear out a few throats on my way out of here.

I opened my eyes, blinking against the harsh fluorescent light that buzzed above me, and the dim outlines of several faces came into focus, circling me like vultures. I recognized a few of them—scientists, doctors, the ones who thought they could cage me and study me, like I was nothing more than an animal. One of them, a tall woman with wiry glasses and hair pulled into a severe bun, hovered over me, scribbling something on a clipboard with a grim, focused expression.

I could tell she was a wolf by her scent alone—sharp, musky, tinged with a hint of wildness that no human could ever possess. But there was something off about it. And I knew then that she was one of the many female wolves who couldn’t bear children.

Infertile, like most of them.

It wasn’t uncommon. In fact, it was the curse of our kind—the price we paid for the power, the strength that surged through our veins. The virus that had created us, that had twisted us into something more, something other, had robbed the natural born female wolves of their ability to conceive. They could transform, hunt, and fight with the best of us, but when it came to bringing new life into this world, they were barren.

It was why the council needed human women. Why they scoured the ruins of cities and villages, dragging human girls from their homes and thrusting them into breeding centers, forcing them to carry the next generation. They needed human blood to keep the population growing, to sustain the wolf packs, because without it, we would die out within a few generations.

I’d seen it before, the desperation in their eyes as they gathered the girls, the cold, clinical way they treated them, like cattle being brought to slaughter. To them, human women were nothing more than vessels, tools to be used to ensure the survival of the pack. And the female wolves hated them for it—hated them because they were something they could never be. Because they had what was denied them.

That hatred simmered in the woman’s gaze as she watched me now, as if she resented me for knowing her secret. She was pretty in a cold, distant way, but there was something brittle about her, something that spoke of years of bitterness and envy.

I almost felt sorry for her. Almost.

“Subject is conscious,” she noted, barely sparing me a glance before returning to her notes. Her voice was cold, clinical. Detached. “Proceed with blood sampling.”

I gritted my teeth, fighting the urge to snarl.

“You think you can control me,” I rasped, my throat raw and dry, still thick with whatever tranquilizer they’d used to bring me down. “You can’t. I’m going to break free and disappear somewhere you’ll never find me.”

She ignored me, of course. To them, I was just a specimen—something to be studied, dissected, until they could unravel the mystery that set me apart from the others.

“The serum failed,” one of the men said, his voice cutting through the haze in my head. He was older, his hair streaked with gray, and he glanced toward me with a cutting glare. “He completed the bond process despite the dosage we administered. He even marked her as his mate.”

The woman’s pen paused, her brow furrowing as she adjusted her glasses. “That’s impossible,” she muttered. “The serum was designed to inhibit the bonding hormones, to block the pheromone exchange that triggers the process. There’s no way he should have been able to form a connection with her.”

“And yet, he did,” the man replied, irritation threading through his voice. “The girl has his mark. The bond is complete.”

I forced myself to breathe, to push past the haze and let their words sink in.

I’d taken a mate.

Despite everything, despite the drugs they’d pumped into my veins to keep me docile, to strip me of my animal instincts, I had claimed her anyway. Marked her as mine. The thought stirred something fierce inside me, a primal satisfaction that surged through my blood, even as I lay there, helpless and strapped to this table.

“The early wolves,” another voice spoke, softer, but with an air of authority that demanded attention. “Their resistance to aging is still beyond our comprehension. We need his genes if we’re going to stabilize the next generation’s lifespan. The serum wasn’t designed for him. It was never tested on one of the original strains.”

“That’s what makes him valuable,” the woman said, her tone tinged with annoyance. “If we can extract the specific markers that slow his aging process, we can accelerate the program. His offspring could be the key to everything.”

I clenched my fists, the restraints digging in harder, and felt the hot flare of anger that pulsed beneath my skin. I was no stranger to being studied, to being hunted, but the thought of them using me like some kind of breeding machine, reducing me to nothing more than a means to an end—it sickened me.

“I’ll rip your throat out before I let that happen,” I growled, baring my teeth, even though I could barely lift my head.

“Prepare the blood samples,” the man with the scar said, and he sounded almost bored, like this was just another day at work for him. “You know the council wants this done quickly. They’re getting impatient.”

“The serum worked to an extent,” the woman replied, drawing a syringe and sliding it into the vein at the crook of my elbow, the cold steel biting into my flesh. “It suppressed his instincts long enough for us to restrain him. But any more of it, and we risk rendering him impotent. And then he’d be useless for breeding.”

“That’s a risk they’re not willing to take,” the man agreed, leaning closer to look me in the eye, his lips curling into a sneer.

I let out a low, rumbling growl, glaring up at him with as much vitriol as I could muster. “You’ll never get what you want,” I spat. “I’ll tear this whole place apart before I give you a single thing.”

The woman leaned in, close enough that I could see the faint lines etched into her skin, the way her eyes shone with something cold, something ruthless. “You’ll try,” she said softly, almost pityingly, “but in the end, you’re just a means to an end, Rowan. A relic of a time long past.”

“Fuck you,” I snarled.

“Give him another dose,” she ordered, turning away, already losing interest in me. “We’ll keep him sedated until we figure out how to proceed. Make sure the girl is monitored closely to see if the breeding took.”

Her words faded into the background, swallowed by the roar of my own fury. And as they pressed another needle into my arm, as the darkness began to creep in around the edges of my vision, I made a promise to myself.

I would get out of here. I would find my mate.

And I would tear apart anyone who stood in my way.