Page 15

Every time Vasilis spiraled, it hurt me, not a physical pain, but a vibrational throb in the back and frontal parts of my head. Each time he opened a wound of a memory, I seemed to know it before he did. I wasn’t going to admit to being glad for the bond because I’d always refuted the idea that I would ever connect or owe my life to someone else, and that’s exactly how I saw an Alpha and omega bond.

We ate the rice and vegetables as I told him how little I trusted the food from this place once again. I had wished the food I’d thrown yesterday had actually made it past my lips so I would know what I was in for. It was seasoned heavily with lots of salt and pepper, as if the only two seasonings that existed in the world.

“Rice is a safe food when you’re sick,” I reminded Vasilis. “You’re gonna want to line your stomach with enough of it. It’ll help balance all the stress going on in that area.”

With a spoonful of rice he’d had for the last couple of minutes, floating by his lips and then moving away pretending to eat from. “You feel it too?”

“Of course, I’ve been feeling it,” I said. “You’re one of the most—actually, that’s a lie. I was going to say you’re one of the most emotional Alphas I’ve ever met, but it’s not true. Alphas in general are emotional.”

“How so?”

“Well, you go through periods of anger and destruction,” I laughed, beating on my chest like I was a gorilla. “You call it a rut, leaving your mark, or whatever it is you’re trying to achieve from it. I’m not gonna say it’s not entertaining, but I feel like you’re all a bit diva-ish. I guess we’re all one-step away from the next big reality TV sensation where they just house Alphas from all different groups, and see what happens.”

Vasilis puffed out his cheeks and stared at me. “Only half of what you said actually went in,” he said. “I don’t watch TV, so I don’t know if would be a good idea, I mean, that, and from all different groups, meaning tribes, clans, and shit. That would be fucking chaos. Everyone would be killing each other.”

“Only when the plot twist of the season happens, the introduction of one omega, like one that wears those short tiny pants and gets all the big aggressive Alphas sprung,” I said, presenting it to him like he was a TV executive. Trashy reality TV was a pleasure, sometimes guilty, other times it was worth telling everyone I met about, assuming they weren’t talking about something serious. But everyone watched those shows. “The real house Alphas of, whenever. New Eden.”

“Again, I am not the audience for that,” he said. “But if that’s something you like, then I’ll support you with it.”

He really wanted to pay attention, I could see it in his eyes. It was more of an entertaining idea for myself at that point, trying to get my mind off everything happening here. The world was going to shit, and like roaches, trashy TV would be the only thing to survive it.

Vasilis chuckled anyway as I continued to go on and on about how predictable Alpha and omega behaviors were. An Alpha would always spring to action around their mate and spiral into uncontrollable rages, while the omega would bat their lashes as the show of their Alpha’s force would send them into heat. I assumed that’s what happened to me after Vasilis found me and protect me from being caught in the never-ending tunnel system.

“Don’t eat too much rice though,” I said. “Your body will not thank you if you do.”

“Ok, what is it? Should I eat the rice or not?”

“Ys, finish that spoonful, and then we can think about going to the doctors, hopefully they’re out of their lab, and I can get a closer look at everything going on in there because—as much as I know you’re coming to terms with everything again in your life, I don’t think you know what’s going on in a research lab.”

He nodded. “I definitely don’t,” he said. “And I am actually feeling a lot more free in my thoughts now. Like, there’s no funnel there, forcing me into single ideas of giving my venom and feeding on omegas.”

“You fed on them as well?”

His smile faded. “That’s one of the ways it spreads in the soldiers,” he said. “I just—I forgot—or I—”

At this point, he didn’t even need to tell me what his thoughts were because, he didn’t know. He was a giant ball of Jell-O that had been thrown against a wall so many times, I was just glad it had kept its shape all these years. I reached out to him, my hand caressing his face. “Finish that spoonful of rice, and then we go to the lab. You know the way, right?”

“Of course, I know the way.”

“Good. And I’m going to wear your clothes again. As much as I trust you to keep me on your chest. They’ve already seen me. I think it’ll be good if we can solidify that I am part of the—” I pretended to vomit. “Syndicate. Ugh.”

Surprisingly, Vasilis also agreed to that. I thought I’d have to do much more pushing on the idea than I actually did. I was ready to see what they were doing in the lab, and to figure out what they were using on Vasilis to control him. It had to be something strong.

It was nice to wear Vasilis’s clothes. I often played a part when I had to dress a certain way to investigate, so this felt just like that. I got into character as we went over the plan together in the bedroom.

“I’m going to have like a big frown,” I said. “That way they know I mean business.”

“Yeah, you keep that up. I’ll do the speaking. If they speak to you, just nod.”

I agreed on that, even though I didn’t want to be caught taking instruction from an Alpha who wasn’t directly related to me. And even then, I’d disobeyed my family in many aspects of my life. It’s one of the reasons I was in this situation in the first place, knowing I needed to have a hands-on job to change the world instead of donating to charities that paid more to their CEOs than the people they were helping.

“You’re gonna have to tell them you want to see all the room, and hope they leave,” I reminded him. “Unless you can get them to run the test on the blood. But, you know, they could always show your brother the results, and he might see what you’ve been up to.”

“We’ll figure it out,” he said. “Let’s just get out and hope you smell enough like me. And less like an omega in heat.”

“Since we mated last night, my heat was all concentrated in that moment,” I told him. “I know some omegas who go into heat for weeks at a time, even with all the sex, they’re still stuck in that until it goes, or they get pregnant.”

The way Vasilis looked at me, I knew he had no concept of omega reproduction, and since there was still very little written about it, it wasn’t a surprise. The human doctors eager and excited about offspring had a good idea to be curious, but not in the way they were curious, this wasn’t for a textbook or manual. This was to start a small armed forces, and hope they were all genetically similar to Vasilis.

The moment the bedroom door open and we walked out into the hallway, we were greeted by moving soldiers, two at a time. They didn’t bat an eye as we walked together. I had been dressed in his clothes, so his smell was imprinted on the fabric.

We were quiet as we walked. Vasilis a step ahead of me, leading the way. His nerves, all bundled in his belly were clear through the way I had nerves bundling in my belly. I was nerves, but maybe not for the same things he was nervous about.

After nodding and greeting several more soldiers, we reached a green door with a white plus symbol, or cross painted on the front of it. Vasilis gave me a nod before he opened the door and we were greeted by both doctors at different stations. The room was long, filled with computers, machinery, glassware, and microscopes.

“Doctor Rathe, Doctor Payne,” Vasilis said. “I’m here to show my assistant your work station, and also because I was looking under the weather earlier. I want to make sure everything is ok. I don’t want to get sick this close to everything happening.”

Doctor Payne stood, nearly falling over his feet as he approached me. “We spoke when she came in. I have been curious about getting a sperm sample from you. I want to know if it’s at all possible for you to fill up a little cup for me. It would help us to see what count you’re dealing with.”

Doctor Rathe took up a spot beside him. Neither one of them acknowledging me. I walked on ahead as they spoke about Vasilis’s sperm count and my eyes perking up as they were trying to catch a glimpse of his cocks. A natural phenomenon in all of the animal world. I had wondered about it myself, considering snakes were said to have two dicks, Vasilis was an anomaly to keep that trait as human.

“Do they both ejaculate from the same place?” I overheard them ask. “Does it mean double the testes, or prostate. Maybe if we could give you a physical examination, we’d be able to anticipate potential mutations.”

As I kept focus, as well as anyone could when flashing images of Vasilis’s hard cocks were present in my mind, and the idea that they were a mutation. I didn’t know if they were his thoughts or mine, but they were eating away at my attention, trying to find out what it meant.

The doctors had been busy in here. They had a lot of high-tech equipment at their disposal, including a centrifugal machine that could spin and separate blood. It would definitely help find out what was in the drink Vasilis had been helping himself to for the last ten years.

He caught up to me on a mental wave. “Is there a way you could see what’s in this?” he asked, presenting them with the blood. It wasn’t the plan. It was far from the plan. We’d already discussed how that was a bad idea. “Without letting anyone know what you’re doing. And in return, I’ll let you see my body and examine me as you wish.”

I didn’t support that type of trade deal. I didn’t want anyone else getting their hands on Vasilis’s body, let alone inspecting it. That was now mine to have, to hold, and to stare at whenever I pleased. And yet, I couldn’t say anything.

“Of course,” they said in unison. “The centrifuge can take thirty minutes depending on the state of the blood,” Doctor Rathe said as I approached them. “If you know which machine you’re using, you can. As long as you don’t make a mess, and you’re not going to cut into an active vein in here. Please, don’t.”

“Maybe,” I said to Vasilis. “You have the sample. And I think another sample would be good. It would help see what’s in your system.”

“Well, there’s more to it than that,” Doctor Payne said, unable to take his eyes off Vasilis. “But sure, and please, we like to keep a clean work station.”

“If you want to examine me, we’ll try and be as clean as possible.”

They were magnetized by him. I didn’t quite understand it, but at the same time, I knew exactly what it was they saw in him. It was like tasting a fresh strawberry plucked straight from the vine. You know tasting it is going to be a flavor explosion, but you also know it might leave you in a chokehold, quite literally choke you.

Vasilis handed me the vile from his pocket and with a spare vial they provided, he bit into his wrist and carefully extracted the blood into the vial. He didn’t flinch or wince at the pain, even if I knew it hurt, because it tingled my wrist in the same position.

When he turned again to the doctors, they were pulling together a blue partition wall and snapping powder blue latex gloves over their hands. It was nice to see them distracted, but it wasn’t the plan we’d gone into this with.

The machine was easy to use. Insert the samples into the slot, making sure the rubber stoppers were secure, and then double checking the settings which were all preprogrammed. I knew from my time as a nurse that fresher blood took a shorter period of time to separate than the blood from the cup that had slightly clotted.

Once the machine whirred up, making a small racket of sound and draining the conversation of admiration for Vasilis’s cocks, I looked around the lab a little further. The blue partition had kept them completely hidden from me, almost like they were doing it to respect Vasilis, when they were just helping me get more privacy as I rummaged through their things.

All of their work data was readily available through notebooks which they kept in meticulous order. And I realized this had been going on for years in all different states. Now, I wasn’t so sure this was going to be as easy as I’d thought. These people had been helping the Syndicate one way or another for seven years according to the files.

Taking one of the notebooks, I flicked through it until I spotted the map layout of the compound, inside it, there were maps for each of the omega bays. I read through a small passage.

‘ Vasilis has been following his duties and keeps coming back to us for top ups. There has been significant changes in his behavioral swings right after injections. He is quick to anger, which we believe increased the sperm count. His count is already high, but with more dosing, we believe he could be the key to helping the Syndicate create a super species of serpents.’ My finger following along the line as I read it.

This was a trap.

A thwack collided with the back of my head, and like a sack of rice, I dropped, my vision blurring until darkness took over.