Chapter 5

The female is gone, the lab space echoingly empty in the wake of her rapidly retreating figure, but the Wrath builds in my chest anyway. My blood pulses and fizzes in my veins, the familiar pain of the toxin building. And I don't understand why.

The female is no more responsible for my circumstances than Aezok and Inde, but while they shock me and suck my blood like creeping fezylin bugs, she's the one who makes me lose control over my instincts. She's the one who makes my tusks burn with the desire to rend flesh. I shudder, my horns scraping the wall as I drop my head. I fight for control for a long moment, anger and frustration simmering, hunger filling my stomach with acid.

Closing my eyes brings no relief. I can still smell her waterdyas scent.

I don't know why I'm being given food now, but I don't trust it. I don't trust her.

I've grown weak, and it maddens me. My muscles are stiff and aching. My head swims when I move. And I'm no closer to an escape plan than I was a week ago. My fingers clench, pressing my claws into the muscles of my thighs.

I should eat the food. Who knows when they'll feed me again. But my chest swells with a perverse sense of satisfaction as I recall the female's trembling chin when I rejected her offering. I'm being foolish. But also, fuck her. Fuck them.

They killed Radeel. They kidnapped me. I will die before I do what they want me to do, even if it"s something as simple as eating a real meal. It's probably poisoned anyway.

Slitting my eyes, I stare at the bowl of noodles. It's no longer steaming in the lab's cool air, but the delicious scent hasn't dissipated. The female took the time to make the presentation artful, the vegetables and meat placed in a pleasing configuration amid the noodles. I don't know why that realization makes my chest feel tight.

The door to my left opens and Inde strolls into sight. In a moment, he takes in my slouched posture and the untouched food. A smirk pulls his blue lips wide, and he swipes the bowl from its slot.

"Not hungry?" he asks at the same moment he maneuvers a noodle into his mouth.

Wrath floods me. My heartbeat is a heavy pulse at my ears, my throat, my eyes, as my skin flushes and heats. My muscles swell and my tusks throb. I clench my fists, feeling my bones creak.

I fight it. For a week, my Wrath has threatened to break free, and I've overpowered it. I'm not a savage Kral, barely removed from the jungle. I'm cold. I'm a professional. I reach for my icy calm, but my fingertips fall short.

Something about Inde eating the food the female prepared for me is the end of my frayed control. I rocket to my feet and roar. The chains at my ankles snap. Lunging forward, I wrap my hands around the bars in front of my face, I yank them, desperate to break them apart so I can rip out the blue throat in front of me.

Through my darkening gaze, I focus on the metal rods under my palms. I stretch them, squeeze them, will them to separate . . . I don't know if it's a delusion, but for a moment in time, they flex under my hands. I roar and shove harder.

My claws blacken, and I watch the dark color move up my forearms as my veins flood with toxin. It doesn't matter. The Wrath can take me. If I don't get out of this cage, I'm dead anyway. Maybe if I surrender to it, I'll take this sociopath with me.

Inde has backed away and dropped my food onto the floor, but he's still smirking. I'm going to break these bars and rip his head off.

I pump my arms back and forth, my every muscle focused on moving the bars wider. In my pain-fogged brain, they bend and snap, I bust through the splintered bars, and . . .

In reality, the bars don't move, and Inde stuns me with a sharp jab of the electric prod.

I drop to my knees, my head suddenly as heavy as a gravity anchor. Black spots swim in my vision, schooling back and forth across the foggy, gray light of the room. I should have eaten the damn noodles. Maybe I'd have controlled the Wrath long enough to break the bars. Instead, I'm as weak as a . . .

Iwake several hours later with a sour taste in my throat and new bandages around my arm. They took more blood from me while I was unconscious. I rip off the gauze; the prickmarks are dark holes in my skin, winking at me. My head lolls back.

I'm surprised there's still enough left in my veins for them to draw out. My body aches too much to move, so I blink at the bars above my head. My mouth is dry, but I can't make myself stand to walk to the tiny sink to drink. There's a strange sensation in my jaw, a burning, tight pain filling my throat with heat. My teeth feel awkward in my mouth, my tongue thick and still.

The sensation sends a spike of worry to pierce my brain, but my thoughts are too sluggish to comprehend it.

The waterdyas scent is back, stronger than ever, and I tilt my chin to see the female watching me just outside of my cell. She's too close. I could reach her if I tried, slam her head to the bars and knock her out.

Her expression is unreadable as she stares. Her face is pale, her eyes dark pools. Her uniform is wrinkled but clean, and her hair is coiled at her nape. I don't like that she's not scared of me at the moment, but I'm too weak to even bare my teeth at her.

She gestures helplessly, her fingers like limp petals, and doesn't speak.

I roll over, giving her my back.

The door to Inde's lab slams open and I hear the female jump to her feet as she muffles a squeak. I roll over again to watch, my curiosity too great, despite my weighted fatigue and the pain in my jaw.

The female backs to my cage and my fingers twitch on my thighs. She's even closer now. She's touching the bars of my cage. I could grab her and snap her neck in a moment.

In the blurry scene past the female's huddled shape, Aezok is excited, his movements quick as he rushes to the sink and rinses a tube.

There's shouting, but for some reason it's not translating through my implant. My brain is so foggy. There's a barrier between my thoughts and my will. I blink slowly, my throat aching.

I lick my lips, then freeze. Lyfia's Blood. What did they do to me? My hand reaches involuntarily for my mouth. I flinch as my fingertips trace the stitches in my gums. My tusks are gone. My tongue probes inside of my mouth along my lower jaw, feeling the empty spaces where my tusks once pressed past my teeth.

The fucking bastards have maimed me, yanked the tusks from my thick skull.

My head spins with warring desires—the need to find my feet and tear this place apart, and the weak sensation that they've taken my blood again, too much for me to find the strength to get off the cot.

I hate that I can't stand, that I'm so weak. I growl, willing my body to move.

There's more shouting. I blink slowly, my gaze horizontal.

Aezok and Inde bend over a needle, the black contents swirling as they shake the syringe. Aezok is bouncing on his feet, his eyes wild and rolling.

If they think they're going to inject that into me . . . I'm going to. . . I blink, staring at the bars over my head. I'd been sitting up, right? Did I pass out?

Something's happening. There's a loud roaring in my ears.

No, in my blood.

My Wrath is simmering, but it's muted, less harsh than it's been over the past week, like something has dampened it. The toxin is there, but my body's ability to track it is faint. I'm too weak.

I try to stand again, but my muscles are slack. The cell swims around me. My mouth throbs, and the absence of my tusks is a hole in my soul. Who am I without my tusks? Am I me?

My thoughts haze more. Things go black again.

Aclatter rouses me, and I blink my eyes to see the female rushing through the dark lab. She's screaming something. Her face is white, her hands stretched in front of her body. Someone's chasing her. The lights flicker. The bars in between us swell and diminish in time with my heartbeat.

My Wrath throbs faintly, a pulse in my blood I can trace but not feel, and I can't move. My skin is hot, so hot. I swallow hard, ignoring the pain in my jaw. My throat is tight, like a tube squeezed by a gravity pulse. My hands clench on my thighs, my claws digging into my skin. My eyelids shutter again.

MINUTESlater, maybe? I wake. My slitted eyes scan the dark lab. A noise is whispering to my senses, faint and yet sparking in intensity. A litany, faint words repeating over and over. My implant kicks in, sending a pierce of agony through my fragile skull as it translates the distant, feminine tones.

"Please, please . . ."

My body shudders, and I realize with surprise I'm trying to get up. But I'm still too weak. Shivers wrack my bones, and I drop to my cot again.

I swallow, and the burning sensation reminds me of what I've lost.

I snarl, my lips curling over teeth where once they would catch on sharp tusks.

My eyes roll back in my head as I shiver again. I've obviously caught some sort of infection from this hellish lab. From my tusk extraction, from my numerous nonconsensual blood draws . . . My lips pull down into a frown. From food poisoning? No, not that, at least.

INDE'S staring at me when I wake once more.

He's muttering something low into his data recorder. "The enzyme was present in the tusk material, however, the fusion process . . . limited . . . effectiveness. The experiment confirmed my belief that fluids are the only viable method of enzyme . . . transfer. Infection has limited the subject's ability to achieve Wrath via . . . I will try to simulate a Kral sexual pheromone to prompt the enzyme in . . . If it fails . . . at least the possibility of a viable second-generation . . ."

The space behind him is hazy and dark, but his blue face dances in my wavering gaze. He licks his lips. A mist drifts between us. He steps back abruptly, his face twisting, and he vanishes from my sight.

I'm alone in the fog. My eyelids flutter. There's a new scent in the air. It fills my lungs with a heavy pressure, pushing the oxygen through my vessels in a heavy pulse. My cock stirs between my thighs.

The sensation is so unexpected, I flail on my bunk, blinking, my brain flickering in and out of awareness.

In the murky darkness, I catch a glimpse of the female lab worker. She's falling into my cage. I should stand up, push her out of the way and flee, but my blood has pooled in my throbbing dick, and I can't do anything but stare. She's nude. Her bare limbs glow in the flickering light, sheened with sweat and mist. I squint, but I can't see her face—the air is too thick.

She crouches, moving into a spot of light, and I read the desperation in her face. She hisses something at me, but my implant doesn't catch it. My hand moves of its own volition, reaching for her, but then she's gone, her fingers scrabbling at the bars as she flees to the far side of the cage.

I sit up fast, the urge to chase her stronger than my body's weakness. Chase her and make her pay. Such a greedy bitch, selling her soul to work here. She deserves any hurt I can deliver her.

Her skin looks soft, like silk.

Her waterdyas scent floods my nostrils until I'm breathing her in like I need her essence to survive. I'm panting. My lungs are thick with her smell, with the haze. My thoughts crackle in my skull, but they're drowned out by the need twisting through my bloodstream.

In a moment, I'm standing, lunging, reaching for her. My cock is so stiff, I could hammer my way out of this cage if I wanted. But I don't want to escape right now. I want to bury my hard length inside of this small female until she's bucking in my arms, calling my name. Until I imprint my soul on hers and make her feel my pain . . .

I squint in the darkness, trying to focus on her face, and realize I've wrapped my hands around her throat. Her fingernails scrape at my wrists. The bones under my thick, clawed fingers are so small, I could snap her neck in a moment. A burst of clarity breaks through the fog in my brain, and I remember my plan. I shake her slight body, watching her head fall back to hit the bars behind her.

I roar, "Let me out or I'll kill her!"

She makes a harsh gurgling sound, but as I scan the thick mist behind her, I can't see anyone else. We're alone in the lab. That doesn't make any sense. Where is Inde? Wasn't he just here? There are gaping holes in my memory.

Why did she enter my cell?

She kicks at me, her little slippered foot scraping past my hip, and the movement brings my hard shaft even with her core. Through my pants, I feel the heat of her. Her eyes widen. Relaxing my grip on her throat, I punch my hips forward, pinning her against the bars.

I bare my teeth. "Is this what you want?"

Shaking her head frantically, she croaks something, but her voice is too raspy for me to hear her. And my blood is too loud in my ears, urging me to take what I want from her, the way she's taken everything from me.

Part of me is aware she doesn't want this, but that part of me is too small to penetrate the lust and anger fogging my brain. Bending my head, I inhale the skin at her nape. She shivers, her frantic movements slowing, and I grind my cock into the damp warmth between her thighs. My Wrath is a low simmer in my chest, faint but still present, and the scent, Lyfia's Blood, the scent of her is stripping me of the vestiges of my control.

I need to get her to open the cage. She must have a keycard on her. In a moment, I will shake her until it falls loose. In a moment, I will make my move. I lick the pillowy seam of her lips.

She gasps. As her lips part, I imagine kissing her. I imagine thrusting my tongue into her mouth, tasting her. My enemy. I will kiss her until she's on fire with desire, until I am her god, greater even than her own greed and ambition. And then I will wring her neck and escape.

Movement in the fog catches my eyes, then something flares against my wrist.

I fall into the darkness again, but this time, I'm not alone. There are hands on my body. A tugging sensation. Someone is touching my thighs, my dick, my . . .

I don't want this. I try to push the hands away, but there's no power to my movements. My blood is pulsing, my lungs laboring. With all of me, I try to hold back. In my head, I'm screaming.

A sharp spark of release shoots down my spine, bowing me back, but I'm cold. I shiver, feeling empty and alone. I wasn't strong enough. My arms are useless at my sides, my eyes wide and unblinking as I stare up into the darkness, my pants at my knees. The bars above waver in the haze.

The female's scent is gone. Icy metal fingers move perfunctorily across my skin. A pinch at my wrist.

I blink and the cell is empty. The misting haze grows thicker until, in the gray clouds I see shapes writhing beyond the bars. More shouting.

My head drops back, too heavy to keep upright, and the memory of cold hands on my skin beats against the unending pain in my jaw.