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I’m stupidly relieved when Brandon summons me back to the lab. Then I spot his syringe cart, and the air roars between my ears.
This is going to suck.
Knowing the drill way too well, I fake-obediently climb onto the exam table, trying to ignore the sound of clinking vials. “What are you testing now?”
Brandon makes a don’t-distract-me hum. His blunt fingernail pings glass, and I fight to hide my flinch.
“Unzip,” he orders.
I dry heave.
With shaking fingers, I tug my zipper and shrug the track jacket around my shoulders, feeling sick when my throat’s exposed to raw air.
Brandon swipes alcohol over my scars.
I grip the table while he prods my scent glands through the red, ragged skin of what used to be my neck.
The marks tunnel down my throat to the base of my left shoulder.
They’re not from teeth.
They’re from my nails.
From when I clawed out the bites.
I clawed out the bond and the scabs, bleeding and digging for weeks to erase the marks of the dead alphas who thought they could make me theirs.
“Lie flat.” Brandon’s woodsy scent is hidden under his hazmat suit, but my leftover instincts don’t ever want another alpha in my space.
Don’t want anyone seeing, touching, or thinking about my throat.
But if I don’t want to be caged again, all I can do is comply and keep hiding my truth. I lie face-down, controlling my pheromones by a fraying thread.
“Hold still.” He braces the back of my head and hits the plunger.
The needle stings, fire in my tender skin, but the heat only lasts a flash before it flares to ice.
Three seconds, and I’m shaking.
My neck goes numb and starbursts of frost form snowflakes in my veins.
“Hold still,” he barks, pressing until my nose flattens against the hard-padded tabletop.
My flesh crawls—fire ants gnaw my neck and swim the six-legged breaststroke in my blood.
I can’t hold still when he’s touching me, when all I want to do is throw him off and teach him who the hell he’s messing with, but one wrong move and I won’t just be strapped to the table.
I’ll spend the rest of my life captive, a weapon that won’t get to decide when or how to pull my own trigger.
I breathe through my flattened nose.
I’ve faked it this long.
Don’t lose your shit now.
My teeth are chattering when he finally lets me free.
“Any effects?” Brandon steps away, quick to put distance between us.
