by Lizzy Bequin
Assuming, of course, that I can figure out how the hell to do that.
Dog walks alongside me, barefoot and unclothed except for his usual form-fitting black shorts and the dog tags jangling on his chest.
Kane and Truk, meanwhile, have taken up position behind us. They are both in disguise, dressed in security guard uniforms. The outfits are way too small for them, and the fabric is pulled so taut around their oversized Alpha physiques that little ovals of skin are showing through between buttons that are hanging on for dear life.
In Kane’s case, the seams along his shoulders have even begun to split, and he has to walk with stiff, awkward movements to keep from completely shredding his uniform. Truk’s long hair is piled up beneath his black uniform cap. Neither one of them is wearing boots.
In short, they look frigging ridiculous.
Should we happen upon any actual guards or scientists in this corridor, they would see through the flimsy disguises in an instant.
But that’s not what we’re going for.
All we need is enough of a disguise to throw off the idiots watching the security cameras lining the hallways, and that shouldn’t be too tough. I’ve been inside the security room before, and I know how the slackers in there operate.
It’s a joke. A multi-million dollar security setup rendered basically pointless because the dopes who are supposed to be watching the screens are barely paying attention, dozing in and out of a carb-induced coma from all of the donuts they’ve been stuffing into their faces.
So far, the plan has worked.
It seems nobody has taken notice, and we’ve managed to avoid running into any other squads of real security.
Just a few more yards, and we’ll be at the central communication hub. We may not make it out of here alive, but at least we’ll be able to transmit Lily’s message. Just a few more yards…
The fine hairs on the back of my neck are prickling. Something is up. This has been way too easy.
Beside me, Dog pauses. He can sense it too. His nostrils flare as he catches a scent.
Something is wrong.
A split second later, I catch a whiff of it too—the pungent stench of cigar smoke.
“Run!” Dog growls under his breath.
But before we have a chance to react, a hidden door emerges from the ceiling and floor and crashes shut like a pair of metal jaws, blocking off the entire corridor ahead of us.
All four of us spin around to retreat the other way, but immediately, an identical door clamps shut on the other side as well, trapping us inside this section of corridor.
Kane bellows with rage, and flings himself into the door, pounding it with his fists and ramming it with his shoulder.
It doesn’t budge.
Truk and Dog, meanwhile, take a more methodical approach, searching along the walls and the edges of the doors for a panel, a crevice, anything that might allow us to escape, but of course, there is nothing.
We’re fucked.
After another minute of calamitous roaring and battering of the door to no avail, Kane drops back on the floor defeated, huffing and growling with exhaustion.
“You all done there, wild man?”
There is a small barred window set into the door, and a voice like crushed gravel drifts through on a wave of curling cigar smoke.
“Sloane,” the voice calls through the grate. “I expressly ordered you not to fuck your mission up. Do you remember that?”
Colonel Fulgore. That bastard.
“But what did you go and do?” The Colonel continues. “Just as expected, you fucked everything up beyond all comprehension. Not only did you fail to get your hands on the target, but you got yourself captured too. And now look at you, turned traitor against your own kind. I knew we never should have sent a woman to do a man’s job.”
“Fuck you,” I hiss.
The Alphas growl like caged beasts.
Fulgore chuckles and puffs another plume of smoke through the grate.
“Well, at least you brought some nice Alpha specimens back with you. Dr. Frostgrave will be happy about that. Maybe we’ll be able to salvage something of worth from this whole shitshow.” Then to somebody else outside, he says. “Give ‘em the gas.”
Pale tendrils of vapor begin pouring out of several small grates positioned around the ceiling. Once more, Kane flings himself at the heavy, steel doors with renewed furor, but again it has no effect.
Fulgore laughs again.
“Your persistence is admirable, Alpha. No surrender. We can work with that.”
Kane’s exertion is making him breathe heavily, drawing more and more of the gas into his lungs.
“Kane,” I call out, “Stop, it’s—“
But it’s already too late. The chamber is filling up with the fumes. Already, I can feel myself growing light headed. I start to collapse. Truk catches me and eases me to the floor one moment before his own legs give out. He hits the ground behind me with a heavy thump, followed by two more thumps that are Dog and Kane going down.
“Sweet dreams.” The colonel’s voice now sounds like it’s a million miles away. “Catch you animals on the flip side.”
I take one last helpless gulp of air, and the noxious gases fill my lungs completely. The heavy, sleepy feeling overcomes me, and as I drop off into unconsciousness, there is only one thought that occupies my mind.
We have failed.
I have failed.
CHAPTER 34: SLOANE
I wake up feeling like I’ve got the worst hangover in the history of humanity.
My head is throbbing with a dull ache, and my mouth is so dry that my tongue feels like masking tape on the roof of my mouth. Sharp pangs of hunger are gnawing at my empty stomach.
I ate before we set out from the Zone. How long have I been unconscious?
And more important, where the hell am I?
I crack my eyes open to find myself in a painfully bright room. It looks to be roughly twenty feet by twenty feet. I’m curled up against one wall, and the cold steel paneling is leeching the heat from my completely naked body.
The far wall is mostly taken up by a large window with a control room on the other side. As my burning eyes finally adjust, I realize that a familiar face is giving me a placid smile from the other side.
“Lance Corporal Sloane,” Dr. Frostgrave intones as pleasantly as his cold voice can manage. “I hope you don’t mind that I’ve been watching you sleep.”
“Yeah, that’s totally not creepy at all.”
Frostgrave’s eyes glide over my naked body, and I shiver.
“The body piercings are a particularly intriguing touch,” he says. “From a purely anthropological perspective that is. But I’m glad to see you are awake now, Sloane. How are you feeling?”
I feel like somebody sawed off the top of my skull, scooped out my brains, and took a massive shit inside my head before welding the lid back on. But I keep that to myself. I don’t want to give this jerk the satisfaction of knowing how crappy I feel.
I groan as I push my body into a seated position.
“I imagine,” Frostgrave says from behind his array of monitors, “that you feel rather unpleasant. My understanding is that the aftereffects of hypnoxin gas are comparable to a rather intense hangover. At any rate, that’s what I’ve been told. Personally, I’ve never experienced the effects of hypnoxin, nor have I ever had a hangover.”
Smug bastard.
I try to swallow, but my mouth and throat are as dry as a desert.
Frostgrave gestures toward one corner of the room.
“You may find that some food and water help to alleviate your discomfort.”
I glance where he’s pointing and realize there is a paper cup and a small styrofoam bowl. At first, I attempt to ignore the offer, but the clenching hunger in my gut gets the better of me. I’m still too weak to stand, so instead I crawl on my hands and knees across the room. I can feel Frostgrave’s eyes on my body the whole time.
It’s totally degrad
ing.
The cup is filled with plain water. I take a sip to loosen my dry throat, and then I turn my attention to the bowl. It contains a quantity of lukewarm, half-congealed gruel. I can’t imagine a less appetizing meal, but right now I’m hungry enough to eat just about anything.
There’s no utensil of any kind, so I just sit down and start scooping the slimy porridge into my mouth with my fingers, devouring it greedily.
Frostgrave stares at me creepily as I stuff my face. A broad grin spreads across his face, and he nods with approval.
“Yes. Eat, eat. You’ll need your strength, omega.”
The way he says that last word suddenly brings everything crashing back, and I immediately realize I don’t know what has happened to my Alpha mates.
In a sudden surge of anger, I fling what’s left of my bowl at the window, sending a splatter of gruel across the glass in front of Frostgrave’s face.
“Tsk, tsk. You’re a bad little omega, aren’t you? We’ll have to see about getting you housebroken.”
“What have you done with my Alphas?” I shout, raising myself up on unsteady legs.
Frostgrave grins behind the dripping gruel and plucks at his white goatee.
“My, my, you’re nearly as protective of them as they are of you.”
I take a few wobbly steps toward the window, doing my best to appear as threatening as possible under the circumstances. I ball my fingers into fists, but my hands feel weak.
“What have you done with them?” I repeat.
“Patience, my dear. You’ll find out soon enough.”
I swing my fist at the window in a hammering motion, but it bounces off uselessly. Weak and unsteady, I stumble backward from the impact and fall on my naked butt on the cold floor, defeated. Hot tears are brimming at the corners of my eyes.
All I want is to see my Alphas. To know that they are okay.
“Careful,” Frostgrave hisses. He rises and stands closer to the window, looking down on my naked body. “We don’t want you injuring yourself unnecessarily, omega. You are much too valuable.”
“Fuck you,” I spit.
Frostgrave clucks his tongue again, chiding me.
“Oh come now, Sloane. Why are you being so spiteful, after everything I’ve done for you?” He makes a sweeping gesture with his open hand. “I’ve provided you these spacious living quarters. A nutritious meal.”
He taps his finger at the window where the splattered gruel is still slowly crawling down the glass toward the floor.
“For starters, you lied to me,” I snarl. “You said we were going into the Zone for a rescue mission, but it was an assassination all along. You just wanted me to get in striking distance of Lily so you could take control of me like your little puppet.” I glare at him through the window. “You just wanted me to get rid of a whistleblower for you.”
Frostgrave folds his thin, skeletal fingers and sighs.
“Yes, I confess, I lied to you, Sloane. I lied to you about a great many things.”
He returns to his seat where he reclines and tents his fingers thoughtfully.
“For example, there was that unfortunate but necessary little ruse about the advanced protective gear that would allow you and the other marines to venture into the very heart of the Zone. The truth is, despite pumping obscene amounts of cash into R&D, we still don’t have shielding that will work that far into the Zone. But we couldn’t very well tell that to you stupid little grunts, now could we? Of course not. You would have refused to embark on what was essentially a suicide mission. So, we just had to take our chances. All of the team members, yourself included, were selected specifically for your genetic profiles. We chose those troopers who showed the highest likelihood of surviving the mutation process as Alphas. Of course, as you witnessed, it is hardly an exact science, and it is extraordinarily difficult, indeed, nearly impossible, to foresee what transformation a person will undergo when exposed to the contamination of the Zone.”
A cold, evil light glints in Frostgrave’s eye.
“But I can’t tell you how pleased I was when I discovered that you had survived, Sloane. An omega warrior and an unwitting assassin. It was perfect. It would be so much easier for you to get close to Lily so that we could silence her for good.”
I draw my arm across my mouth, wiping away the residue of the disgusting gruel which is now sitting uncomfortably in my stomach.
“Yeah, but Dog really fucked that one up for you, didn’t he?”
Dr. Frostgrave’s brow furrows. He folds his fingers together.
“Indeed, that was quite the fiasco. Entirely my fault, I admit. I mis-calibrated and miscalculated Dog’s training and his deeply ingrained directive to protect you at all costs. It never occurred to me that he would intercede in order to keep you from killing Miss O’Neal.”
He lets out a wistful sigh.
“Oh well, live and learn. Our overly obedient Dog is being dealt with appropriately.”
Anger courses through my body as I think about what they are doing to my Alphas.
“Where is Dog?” I ask, raising my voice. “What are you doing to him?”
Frostgrave chuckles.
“Oh don’t worry, my dear. He hasn’t been harmed. At least not physically. He will simply be put through another round of intensive reconditioning to make sure that we can trust him to follow orders. The other one, however—the blond one with the long hair—he is proving to be most intractable. So far he is totally resistant to our conditioning methods. But he will break eventually, I have no doubt about that.”
Poor Truk. I can only imagine what kind of awful things they are putting him through.
I notice that he hasn’t mentioned Kane. I’m afraid to even ask.
“Anyway,” Frostgrave continues casually, “The mission may have been a failure, but there’s a silver lining. My late protege Dr. Lucian had dreams of breeding captive Alphas. He felt they could provide a very effective method of population control. Now, with you and your Alphas, I think it may be time to revive that program.”
“Screw you,” I shout at him. “If you think I’m going to willingly—“
Before I can finish, a sudden, sharp pang deep inside my core doubles me over. This is followed by a hot surge of goosebumps over my skin. My nipples and clitoris instantly stiffen until they are almost painfully erect.
In the background, I hear Frostgrave chuckle.
“Oh I don’t think willingness is going to be a problem, my dear.”
As the first wave of whatever that was passes, I cut a hateful glare at the doctor. My eyes catche the dripping gruel, which is still streaking down the glass. I notice a chalky aftertaste on my tongue.
There was something in the food.
“That’s right,” Frostgrave says, reading my thoughts. “An aphrodisiac, and an extremely massive dose at that.”
I cry out as another painful spasm wracks my body, collapsing me to the cold floor, where I writhe and moan.
This is like the heat that I experienced in the Zone, only ten times worse. My nipples are now so hard and swollen, they feel as if they might rupture. Between my legs, my throbbing sex is flowing with hot slick which is dripping down my butt and puddling on the floor.
Inside, the channel of my vagina clenches convulsively with need. I reach between my legs, hoping to give my own body the release it so desperately wants, but my fingers are weak, numb, and lifeless.
I’m lost in a fever of lust so overwhelming and intense that it fucking hurts.
“Please,” I groan through gritted teeth.
Frostgrave sneers.
“That’s right. You’re going to beg, omega. Every day you’re going to plead to be fucked and bred until you provide me with a nice litter of Alphas.”
There is a light knock at the door in the back of the doctor’s control room. As I lie sprawled out naked and squirming on the floor, watching him upside down, he rises and answers the door.
It is a small, dark-haired woman with glasses. T
he same assistant that I saw in the briefing room when they first introduced Dog.
“Ah, Miss Hines,” Frostgrave says happily. “Perfect timing. Please, do come in.”
The woman steps into the control room and the mechanical door sighs shut behind her. She notices me lying naked on the floor, and her eyes widen with shock behind her glasses.
“Oh my,” she exhales, raising one hand to her mouth.
Just then, another wave of painfully intense arousal crashes over me. This is the worst one yet. A ragged sob rips from my mouth as my body shudders and convulses. My legs fall open, exposing my drenched and puffy sex. The air in the chamber is redolent with the scent of my excruciating need.
“Is she…Is she in pain, Doctor?”
“Oh yes,” Frostgrave says nonchalantly, strolling back to his computer station. “A great deal of pain, in fact. But don’t worry Miss Hines, we are going to alleviate that momentarily.”
“We are?” Hines says in a voice that sounds both relieved and apprehensive at the same time.
She is staring at my writhing, moaning body with a look of intense pity. Her eyes meet mine for a moment, and I sense a wave of sympathy. She quickly darts her eyes away.
A feeling of shame fills me, but it is quickly forgotten as an even greater spasm of agony hits me and I scream, a hoarse, plaintive sound.
I’m totally helpless. If I don’t get relief soon, I feel like I might actually die from arousal.
Frostgrave chuckles.
“Well, we’re not going to do it personally Miss Hines. Is the Alpha prepped for the procedure.”
“Yes but—“
“No buts, Miss Hines. Can’t you see that the omega is deep in estrus? Bring in the Alpha right away.”
The woman nods and rushes to a control panel, and there is a clatter of typing as she punches in a code.
A door that I didn’t even notice before whooshes open at the side of the chamber, sending in a rush of air that carries with it a warm and familiar scent.
It’s him. It’s Kane. He’s here.
His smell instantly sets my mind at ease.
