Page 38

Julius

The scrape of the lock sounded in the dark, and my ears pricked up. A slow, heavy step resounded. I scrambled up onto all four paws from where I’d been lying on the cold ground. As the circular light in the center emitted its dim glow over my cell, my wolf eyes instantly adjusted to the light.

The compact footstep belonged to one of the researchers.

It was the scientist I called Lanky. He wore his ordinary white coat over black trousers and black shoes.

I’d nicknamed him Lanky because of his wiry frame.

His tread was weightier this evening because his arms were full.

With a sinking feeling in my stomach, my eyes laid upon the woman he carried.

She was motionless. Like all the others, the researchers had brought.

A flash of the last woman’s face flashed in my mind, her shriek slicing through my memories.

In the opposite corner of the room, Lanky laid the woman down on my cot.

The researcher turned toward me, brushing his thinning hair from his eyes. “Maybe this one will take your fancy, eh, boy?”

I growled at him, and he laughed, holding up his hands in a mocking way. I bared my teeth, imagining how he and the other researchers would respond if I didn’t have this collar around my neck.

But the collar was almost always on, and there was always another researcher watching in the observation room whenever one of their numbers ventured into my cell.

I pictured the scientist watching from behind the screen, an ever-present malevolence armed with the remote control and ready to shock me if I made any attempt to go for Lanky.

As the researcher made his way out the door, my attention reluctantly moved to the woman on the bed.

My stomach knotted again as the harsh screams plagued my mind.

The researchers kept bringing these female humans into my cell.

A grumble escaped me as I circled the floor, my claws and the pads of my paws brushing the concrete of the cell as I tried to center myself.

It didn’t take a genius to figure out what the researchers wanted: for me to mate.

I started to pace the edge of the room, the side farthest from the cot. Each time the scientists had brought a woman in, I’d refused to go near them. Instead, I’d taken to shifting into my wolf form as frequently as possible.

I stalked along the edge of the cell, enjoying stretching out my limbs after lying for so long.

The good thing about my wolf form was that it had been easy to use it to scare the women senseless.

One look at me, and they were usually out cold within minutes.

All it took was some growling, snarling, and barking, and the woman would faint.

And best of all, the researchers always did exactly what I wanted them to afterwards: removed the woman from my cell.

My ears swiveled. I glanced at the woman on my bed again, checking that she was still asleep. I listened to her breath. It rolled deep and evenly. As soon as she woke, I’d show her my ferocious side. The quicker I got her out of here, the better.

Not because I was actually vicious. Sure, I had to take part in fights here at the facility. A huge dusty arena sat at the heart of the lab’s complex, where I and the other research subjects were taken to fight. But I didn’t have a choice in that. In the arena, it was fight and survive… or die.

But that was the point. Existence in this environment was brutal, and I’d do everything I could to prevent anyone else from becoming an experiment subject here.

The fearful screams of the last woman rippled through my head, and hollowness ate at me.

I’d felt like a brute, snarling and barking at the defenseless woman, who had already been crying when she woke, terrified of the unknown place she found herself in.

A sickening feeling snuck through me as I contemplated how I’d have to do the same thing again soon.

But I focused on the rough feel of the concrete beneath my pads again as I reminded myself that I would be doing this woman a favor. She must not be allowed to become entangled in this messed-up place. Not like me .

I’d been here all of my life. A soft whine escaped my throat as I thought of my childhood here, raised as an experimental subject by human researchers.

Bitterness stirred. I’d shown them more consideration in the nicknames I’d given them, like Lanky, than they’d ever shown me.

I had no name. They only ever addressed me by number: 006. That’s who I was. 006.

As for my family, I was ignorant of my origins completely.

I never knew who my parents were. I only learned that I was a werewolf by overhearing the scientists’ technical reports about me.

I learned my age from them, too. I remembered being seven years old, at my annual checkup, and the gradual dawning comprehension of what a year meant.

I’d only ever measured the passing of time through the changing temperatures while exercising in the arena.

By myself, I’d become aware of the weather patterns.

For six months of the year, even in my wolf form, I felt the cold of the air, and for the other half, the outside was milder, and I enjoyed my time in the arena exercising even more.

After I understood what a year was, I remembered getting curious about the researchers.

I wanted to know how old they were. I tried to quiz them about their ages, but they remained as detached and aloof as they always were.

In all my years here, not once had I received any personal information about them.

Anger swelled through me. I hated them. Once more, I focused on growing my aggression because that was all I had.

That was what had kept me alive in here.

Other than the scientists, the only other social interactions I had were with the other shifters in the arena.

There were a wide range of shifters in the facility: bears, wolves, and even some vampires.

But it’s not like any of us ever got to know one another.

Given that every time we met, we were trying to tear each other’s flesh, making friends wasn’t high on the agenda.

So, what little education I had about life and the world had been attained in this way, accidentally and by myself.

My gaze strayed to the woman once again as I contemplated with anger what the researchers wanted from me.

Of course, I’d had to learn about sexual urges alone, too.

When I was thirteen, there were a pair of researchers that spent a lot of time together.

It was the little things that I noticed over the months I observed them together.

Their gazes kept straying to each other whenever they were in the lab.

Then, with my wolf senses, I observed how their scents changed.

I learned much later from other scientists talking about other test subjects that what I was smelling were their pheromones in the air, making their sexual attraction to each other known.

After that, a strange hollowness had rung through me whenever I observed that pair of researchers. I knew that that closeness, which I had longed for too, could never be mine. After all, I wasn’t like the researchers. I was a test subject. I was 006. And that portion of life wasn’t for me.

A gentle rumble escaped my throat as I reminded myself of that fact.

I quickened my stride, trying to walk off the restlessness that had come over me.

I couldn’t be close to anyone when the main events of my week consisted of injections, blood tests, and fights in the arena.

This human woman on the bed didn’t belong here.

Sadness surged through me as I thought about how, just earlier today, she’d likely been outside of this facility, free and living her life.

With an ache, I thought of the outside world she belonged to.

Not that I could picture it. I knew nothing except the walls of this facility.

But again, I resolved to do everything I could to get her safely out of here.

I slunk up and down the cell, enjoying the feel of my muscles tensing and relaxing and getting my movements in while I could.

The last time I was terrified, the woman left me in my cell, and the researchers punished me with shocks from the collar.

My body had been in a riot of pain from the electric shocks alone.

But one of the guards entered while I was still incapacitated and made it clear that my not cooperating as they wished was going to cost me.

A few well-aimed kicks and stamps on my chest broke my ribs, and for hours afterward, every time I breathed, a searing pain fired through me.

But in my wolf form, I healed faster from injuries, and after a few hours, my broken ribs were healed.

With a steely resolve, I reminded myself that I’d endured far worse injuries in the arena.

If the scientists thought that the threat of violence could get me to do something against my better judgment, then they were going to be sorely disappointed.

Satisfaction flared in my chest as I anticipated their displeasure.

There was so little freedom within the lab that being able to defy the smug bastards in some small way was always gratifying.

My ears pricked up, noticing the change in the woman’s breathing. She was stirring. I stilled, sitting down on the farthest side of the room from her but focusing my attention wholly on her.

Alright, it was almost showtime.

As the woman pressed up onto her elbows, I kept every inch of me frozen in place. Her bleary-eyed stare swung to the left until it found me. I took in her heart-shaped face growing paler as she pushed herself slowly up the wall.

Quashing my hesitation, I let out a deep growl, feeling the fur on my hackles rise and letting the fur along my back stand on end. My eyes locked on to her with the rage I ordinarily reserved for my opponents in the arena. I showed her my fangs as I snarled and let my ears fall back defensively.

For a moment, she sat very still, then, impossibly , she smiled.

My stomach dipped. She had two little dips in her cheeks when she smiled. Her deep blue eyes penetrated me.

I froze. My snout fell shut. No one had ever looked at me like that, as if… I was a person. Disorientation spun through me. My wolf instincts raged, urging me to snarl and bark, but something about her sweet smile held me back.

The woman sat up straighter on the cot, brushing her hands down the fabric of her T-shirt. There was a tear in the bottom of it. The fur along my back bristled again, but this time at the thought of Lanky handling her roughly. Had he done that to her?

My bright eyes took in her straight brown hair that fell halfway down her chest, then tracked over the writing on her T-shirt.

I’d never been taught to read, but I knew those were letters on her top: the things the researchers scrawled in their medical records.

Curiosity prickled over me. I’d often wished that I could read so I could decipher things from the reports that the medical personnel left lying around me while I was in the lab, but now I wished I could read more than ever.

A burning curiosity flared through me as I wished to know more about this mysterious woman whose smile still hadn’t vanished.

It was as if she saw past my beastly exterior and right to me.