Page 4 of Protector (Alpha Ties)

FOUR

ADDIE

I spend three hours pacing the silent halls of the compound, where I have resided for most of my waking hours since finishing my doctorate.

When I arrived here, they had been working on fusing flesh with technology for years without having ever produced a viable soldier.

Thirty-one months after I entered the building, AX1 opened his eyes. On my table. The AX class is mine.

And yet… I know Dr. Green is right. The Pentagon will kick me off the project without hesitation if they so much as suspect I’ll be a distraction to the alpha nature I have tried, and failed, to extract for precisely this reason.

Disgusting, degrading, base bastards! Three years I have trained AX2 to complete obedience, three-goddamn- years of programming his mind to focus on nothing but the next mission, and all of it is undone within twenty minutes of my father’s harebrained scheme.

An unbidden shudder travels through me as an image of AX2’s green eyes flash through my memory: Want.

Mere minutes after being allowed to access his primitive side, and his alpha brain flicks to sex. It doesn’t matter that I’m his superior, that I fucking created him, because deep down he’s still just a beast, and to him—to every single one of them—I will never be more than female. Nothing but a hole to knot.

I clench my fists until the sting of my nails boring into my palms makes the memory of that dark hunger in AX2’s eyes wither away. I will be damned if I let anyone displace me from my own project. And it will be a cold day in hell before I allow AX2 to so much as think about dominating me in any way, shape, or form.

The lab containing AX2’s stasis chamber lies in shadows, only one overhead light illuminating the sprawling room. I pause when I see movement through the large window displaying the inside of my workplace. No one comes down here, apart from the cleaning crew, and I am diligent to only ever schedule them for when AX2 is out on a mission. I am the only one who enters this lab, except for five days a month when Dr. Green has to fill in for my own safety.

I bite the inside of my cheek until I taste blood.

Another flash of movement draws my attention, and I frown. AX2 paces between equipment and computers, his skin rippling over bulging muscles as he flexes his hands and rolls his head and shoulders. Normally he spends his waking hours within the confines of the stasis chamber, staring silently ahead hours on end. Orders to never touch any of the expensive equipment are embedded in his chip, but they have never been necessary.

Now, though—now the looks he throws at my main computer and the device I use to measure the flow of electricity between his brain and artificial body parts makes me think I’d have lost a few hundred thousand dollars’ worth of equipment without it.

Undoubtedly another side-effect of Dad’s insistence that we allow socialization.

Gritting my teeth, I swipe my access card over the small screen next to the door and push through the opening the second a green light flashes.

AX2 freezes at the sound of the door slamming shut behind me, the dilation of his pupils as he takes me in the only movement of his suddenly still body.

“You are agitated,” I say. An observation, not a question. “You will calm yourself. Immediately.”

He doesn’t respond, but his jaw ticks.

I narrow my eyes. It has been a very, very long time since AX2 has fought me in even the smallest of ways. “Do you need a reminder of who is in charge, AX2?”

There’s a long beat of silence as we stare each other down. Then, finally: “No, ma’am.”

His voice is a deep rumble, the anger in it nearly imperceptible. Nearly.

“Is there something you wish to get off your chest, soldier?” I arc my eyebrow, daring him to speak.

“Why did you take my memories?”

The question comes so immediately, it takes me by surprise. I blink once before I catch myself.

“The others—you let them keep theirs. Why did you take mine?” he presses, green eyes darkening further. Hatred. There is pure, unadulterated hatred in them, and it makes my heart pick up speed.

My body’s involuntary reaction to the unspoken threat of his strength only infuriates me further. But I am not a mere animal; I am better than that, better than him .

I retain my composure. The lie rolls smoothly off my tongue: “The condition you were found in, the circumstances… memories would not have been a boon for you. As it turns out, it has allowed you to focus on your missions far better than the rest of your class. Unfortunately, the survival rate was too low for the soldiers who followed you, so we had to adjust our methods.”

His eyes are still dark, the tension in his shoulders and bared chest speaking of the anger he is holding back. I set my jaw against the tremor in my gut—I may be cursed with the same instincts to surrender as every other woman or beta faced with a furious alpha, but I would rather die than submit.

Not that I will ever have to again, because here, in my lab, I’m the one in control.

“Kneel.”

He stares at me for a long second, this big, muscled brute. I know his stats by heart—he is 6’11” and 411 pounds of pure power, and of the many, many men he has killed in the past three years, 36 of them have been with his bare hands. He dwarfs me in every way. Every way… but one.

I give him a small smile as he lowers himself first on one knee, then the other, surrendering all that strength to me because I am the one with the real power.

I could have forced him to his knees with the chip—just one word, and his body is mine to command—but I don’t have to. Not anymore.

Even with my father’s idiotic interference, even after he’s been reminded of the biology that I have spent so long taming to obedience, AX2 still submits to my commands simply because I will it.

I walk toward him, every step controlled to show him how little impact his anger has on me, and stop right in front of his kneeling figure.

He stares blindly at my midsection, unmoving. His breathing is steady and silent. Uncowed.

Anger fizzes in my gut. I reach out without thought, wrapping my fingers around his chin to force his face up. The warmth of his skin is a shock to my system, but I temper the urge to recoil, gripping tighter instead. “Look at me.”

His green eyes flick up to meet mine, anger still darkening their depths.

“I want you to remember what your time with me was like when you first came here,” I say, my voice a soft counterpoint to the iron grip I keep on his ruggedly handsome face. It is impossible to tell where artificial skin meets biological. I did that. “How many months of pain you endured while you became the formidable weapon you are today. Do you remember, AX2?”

“I remember, ma’am.”

I smile thinly. “Good. Because I do understand how… confusing this new approach must be for you. You have spent years shedding your, ah, social impulses, and then here we are, suddenly encouraging them.

“But I want you to remember those first long, difficult months you endured, and I want you to never, ever forget. Because if you ever again look at me like I’m something you can fuck, I will hurt you like you’ve never imagined possible. Do you understand?”

For the first time since I entered the lab, the anger in AX2’s gaze sways. Not out of fear, nor respect—instead there’s a flicker of confusion. Blankness sweeps it away. “Ma’am. I have no such desires.”

He dares lie to me? I grit my teeth and slip my hand from his chin to his throat, squeezing. His pulse thrums under my fingers, only slightly elevated, the muscles in his neck too thick for me to be able to do any damage, even if I tried. But all I want is the reminder that I can take away his life far more easily than I gave it.

“No? Then tell me, soldier: What went through your mind when you were staring at me in that room? This is a command, AX2.”

He draws in a sharp breath, unhindered by my fingers against his windpipe, his eyes widening ever-so slightly. It’s all the warning I get before he’s on his feet, knocking my arm away with the movement, and wrapping his massive hand around my throat.

I squeak, an undignified noise. It’s the only sound I manage before he squeezes, and my ability to speak dies on a rattle. The next second, he shoves me backwards by his grip on my throat and slams me against the window to the stasis chamber so hard pain bursts through my muscles.

What is happening? Disbelief fades for terror as I stare up at the enormous alpha soldier who has me pinned at arm’s length. He’s not supposed to be able to do this! He can’t hurt me, I made sure?—

His face is still blank, the only sign of emotion that darkness in his haunting eyes, and belatedly I realize that, yes… he can hurt me—as long as his desire to do so outweighs the debilitating pain from his chip. I can see it in his eyes, that terrible agony searing his nervous system as he disregards one of the first, most fundamental orders I gave him. He is in far more pain than any man should be capable of bearing, yet it is nothing compared to the blazing hatred in his gaze as he stares me down.

“I thought about killing you,” he says softly, his gaze flicking from mine down to where his hand is wrapped tight around my throat, making it hard to breathe and impossible to say the words that would resume my control over him. And save my life.

Naked terror pounds in my veins as I wheeze for breath, survival instincts finally kicking into gear at his words. I claw at his arm, my nails drawing superficial lines of red on his skin and revealing the gleaming metal beneath.

This can’t be happening! I can’t die—not like this. Please, not like this.

AX2 watches my pathetic fight for survival impassively, unmoved by my scratching and kicking, his hand warm and unyielding around my throat. Just one little twitch of those inhuman muscles and he’ll break my neck. One flinch and I’ll die at the hand of my own creation.

I whimper at the yawning realization of my own imminent death, the sound gargled and raw. It draws his attention back up from my neck to my eyes, a soft sound leaving his full lips. Surprise.

He reaches forward with his free hand, touching my cheek. When he retrieves his fingers, wetness glistens on their tips.

A small frown pulls his dark brows in as he stares at my anguished tears on his digits as if their presence there is perplexing. An unsolvable mystery.

And then he touches them to his mouth. Tasting my fear.

Another noise leaves his lips, rougher than before, the sound traveling up from the depths of his chest, his eyelids fluttering shut.

“You taste—” He cuts himself off, exhaling shakily. Then slowly he opens his eyes again.

Hunger.

It’s not outrage that grips me by the gut in the face of the alpha’s carnal attention this time.

I scream brokenly against his crushing hold on my neck, clawing and kicking and frantic as the giant beast closes the distance between our bodies, bends his head to my neck, and sniffs me.

He grunts, the sound deep and rich, the exhale of his breath tickling right below my ear, the warmth of his body overwhelming. And… and something low in my abdomen seems to… melt.

I stiffen, my futile attempts at freeing myself stilling entirely. What… What is this?

AX2 grunts again, his breath raising goosebumps along my neck. His grip on my throat eases the tiniest bit, allowing me to suck in a deeper breath, and I get a lungful of his scent.

It’s one of the things I haven’t been able to strip from his biological half: his alpha scent. But it’s never smelled like this before. This… warm.

His nose brushes against the tendon in my neck, a small gasp leaving his lungs as he breathes me in, and that something low in my abdomen… softens.

Readying me.

The thought flashes through my brain the same moment he lifts his head up from my neck and flicks his gaze back to mine.

No, no, no, no! This can’t be happening— this isn’t happening! I strike without thought of anything but the need for this nightmare to end, but he’s close enough for me to finally make impact, and I hit him square in one prominent cheekbone.

Pain explodes through my knuckles, and my vision blurs with a fresh bout of tears.

AX2 grunts, a surprised sound. When I blink my vision clear, he is staring at me with wide eyes slowly filling with horror. Horror that soon morphs into utter disgust.

Baring his teeth, he swings around and shoves me away from him, making me stumble until I collide with a chair and fall smack on my ass on the concrete floor. My tailbone smarts, and AX2 hisses and presses the hand no longer around my throat to the side of his head, undoubtedly in response to his chip’s punishment for hurting me. It’s the first reaction he’s shown since he snatched me by the throat.

“Abort autonomy,” I wheeze, my throat struggling to expand around my voice. “Abort, abort, abort!”

AX2 drops his hand from his head, his body resetting to attention and his face smoothing to the blank mask of nothing. Safe.

Shakily, I force several deep breaths into my lungs. You’re okay. He can’t hurt you now.

Fury ignites deep in my chest and rises like a serpent. He… He thought he could…

He grabbed me!

I stagger to my feet and bare my teeth at the giant beast. “Kneel.”

This time he drops to his knees immediately, his body obeying my command without the delay of free will. He rests his knuckles lightly against the concrete floor and looks up at me impassively, awaiting my next order. There is no more anger in his eyes. No more of anything.

I growl with mounting rage. He thinks he gets to escape into mindless oblivion? After what he did to me? No. No, absolutely not!

“Engage pain receptors,” I spit.

A fine tremor works its way through his strong body. I stare at his face, waiting. Three minutes pass before he begins to breathe heavier, his sides flexing with the expansion of his lungs. Five more, and a light sheen of sweat covers his skin.

Twenty-some minutes later, I finally see the flash of awareness in his eyes, and I smirk with triumph. Can’t hide from me, soldier.

“Disengage pain receptors.”

The only outward sign of the lack of stimulus to his nervous system is a slight easing of his muscles. His breath still comes hard and fast, his skin glistening with perspiration—but his eyes are bright with consciousness as he returns my stare. I see the hatred in them plain as day.

“There you are,” I whisper. I try to say something more—to tell him he can hate me for as long as he can hold out—but my voice dies on a raspy exhale before a single word escapes.

Heat floods my body, languid and deep, making me aware of every hair standing on end across my body. The sensation of the laboratory air against my skin feels… somehow more than normal. Feels too much.

I stare unblinkingly at the kneeling alpha—at his flexing muscles around his still-rapid breaths, his broad jaw, at the sheer power of him. Without my permission, a tremor spreads from my still-bruised tailbone, up my spine and down my arms.

I open my mouth again, but no sound escapes.

His eyes are mesmerizing.

The thought is fleeting and comes unbidden. I sway unsteadily on my feet, pulled by some invisible magnetism in those green depths. I’ve never known a man with eyes like that?—

But he’s not a man.

I force my mind to still. What is this? Never have I had to remind myself of AX2’s true nature, no matter how much he looks like a man. I’ve hardwired the technology within him myself, grown the cells of his artificial skin in my own lab. I know what he is, and man it is not. But why… Why is my mind so foggy? Why can’t I look away from the smoldering hatred in those haunting eyes?

My breathing is as fast as his, panic clawing at the edges of the fog swathing my brain. Something’s wrong with me. Something’s terribly, irrevocably wrong, but all I can do is stare at the kneeling alpha while my body shakes like a leaf.

Is it delayed shock? A panic attack? A freaking seizure? I need help. I need to find someone who can help me!

At that last thought, my body finally moves. But instead of running for the exit, I stumble forward. Toward him.

I only make it three steps before the heat in my body rushes south into my abdomen, and something low inside me tightens so instantaneously, I nearly lose my footing.

“Oooh!” My cry starts sharp, but turns to a soft croon by the end as the tightness below my navel becomes molten and my sex… softens.

I stop abruptly, naked realization finally making it through the haze as I stare in mounting horror into AX2’s eyes. No. This isn’t possible. He’s a fucking machine!

But my body doesn’t care. Heat thrums through my veins, hardening my nipples and erasing everything that elevates me above base biology.

Heat.

With the last vestiges of my willpower, I stagger away from the kneeling alpha and out the door. And I flee.