Chapter 3 #2
For some reason, the thought of being left alone was terrifying, and the alpha, whoever he was, must have picked up on that fact because after only a moment, he turned back around. His expression was enigmatic when he set it on Elm, but there was a glimmer of something in those eerie eyes.
“You should sleep more,” he suggested. “You were severely dehydrated from the heat. You only just finished an IV. Rest.”
“I don’t need sleep. I need answers.”
“I don’t owe you anything, omega.”
“Stop.” Elm shuddered, revolted.
The alpha latched onto it like a bloodhound. “Do you find your new presentation distasteful?”
“It’s unnatural,” he growled. Elm was a beta. He was meant to be a beta. This… “This is wrong.”
“Alas, the world is rarely black and white.” The alpha inspected him. “Accept the soothing pheromones, sleep. Behave, and perhaps you can be a freed little test subject in the future.”
Elm grimaced. “Glyphian testing is illegal.”
“This is Synastry.”
“Pretty sure it’s illegal to pull people off the streets and subject them to testing here as well.”
“You were a gift, actually.”
“Yeah? A gift from who, to who?”
The alpha stared. “You don’t know?”
“I don’t want to know you. I just want—”
“Do you think not learning my name will make it more likely you’re released once I’m finished with the trials?” He grunted. “Wishful thinking. I’m curious, is that an Erskine trait? Kian is like that too. It’s annoying.”
“You know my brother?” Considering the circumstances…that was not a good thing. “I don’t have anything to do with the mafia. Please—”
“You aren’t being held because of your brother,” he stated.
“Perhaps in spite of the fact he’s your brother, actually.
No, you have those idiots who kidnapped you to thank.
You see, the drug they gave you is rare.
Altering a person’s genetics is still, as you put it, highly illegal business.
I have questions. Your body has answers. It’s simple when you break it down.”
One thing was simple.
“You’re insane.” Elm had wound up locked in a cage, being held by a psychopathic…whatever the fuck he was. “Are you a doctor? A scientist?”
“I’m a Dominus.”
He snorted before he could help it. “Yeah, right. Like I’m going to buy…” there was a faded memory just on the outskirts of consciousness that caught his attention. Hadn’t he overheard a conversation? Something about a Butcher and…?
“You were crying,” the alpha said then. “Why? Are you in pain?”
“I was dreaming,” he divulged without thinking.
“A nightmare?”
“I was reliving the moment I was given the drug.”
The alpha took a step closer to the bars. “Tell me. What was it like?”
“Why, want to give it a go?” Elm snapped.
“I’m a dominant alpha. What do you think?”
“I think you’re a monster.”
“Because I fucked your ass with a machine?” he clicked his tongue.
“You were in heat. You needed knotting. Ah.” The corner of his mouth twisted up almost viciously, a stark contrast to the enigmatic expression he’d been wearing this whole time.
“I get it. You would have preferred if I bred you with my knot. If I gave you warm, hard cock instead of the sterile machine.”
“No.” Elm shook his head. “That’s not…no.”
“Too bad for you, I don’t stick my dick into just anyone. I have standards.”
“I’m not omega enough for you?” Wow. Elm really wished he could shut himself the fuck up. Why was he goading the alpha? What the hell was he hoping to gain?
Had the drugs that changed his presentation also messed with his brain?
“It isn’t your secondary gender that’s the problem,” he corrected.
Elm thought back to what had been said thus far. “You called me a test subject,” he realized. “You don’t think of me as a person at all, do you?”
“Don’t take it personally.”
“Not possible.”
The alpha shrugged a single shoulder, making it clear he’d only said the words out of some fucked up sense of decorum.
It was so ridiculous that Elm laughed, a loud, obnoxious sound that cracked against the stone walls and echoed back at him tauntingly.
Another wave of soothing pheromones overcame him, and when he glared at the alpha, the man merely settled back into the chair and pulled out a cigarette case from his pocket. He lit one casually, keeping the flow of pheromones steady, like it was nothing and took no effort at all.
“Leviathan.” Elm recalled the name. “Right?”
“So you know me after all.” He didn’t sound like he was pleased or displeased by that. Didn’t sound like he cared either way.
“Everyone says you’re scary.”
“Oh? And what’s your take, omega?” The Leviathan, the Dominus of the White Frost mafia, stuck the end of the cigarette between his lips and stared Elm down through a trail of thick smoke.
Nope.
Not an angel.
Not even close.
“Everyone,” Elm sighed, “is correct.”
The smile the alpha gave him was sharp enough to cut skin and ten million times more terrifying than the nightmare sex machine.
“Tell me what it was like,” Levi insisted, and seeing no escape from this madness, and frankly too exhausted to keep verbally sparring with him, Elm relented.
“It was confusing at first,” he began, thinking back to that moment, vivid since he’d only just dreamed of it. “Like…when you’re on one of those theme park rides, moving against gravity, and your body is out of sorts and struggling to figure out what’s going on.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Come on.” He turned and looked at Levi, and realized he was telling the truth. “Seriously?”
“Does it look like I’m the type of person who enjoys theme park rides?”
“I don’t know,” Elm said. “I can see you putting someone on the tracks of a roller coaster and having them run over.”
Levi tipped his head, clearly considering, and Elm felt sick.
“No, stop. I was kidding.” He tried to think of some other way to explain the feeling, but opted to move on instead. “My skin felt too tight pretty quickly, and like it was tearing, even though I kept looking and it was fine.”
“Nerve endings false firing,” Levi surmised.
“The abdominal cramping didn’t come right away. Neither did…”
“The erection?”
“My ass was abnormally wet first,” he stated.
“Don’t be embarrassed. It’s a waste of energy. I’ve already seen all of you.”
“Don’t remind me, you pervert.”
“What was it like?” Levi continued, ignoring the jab. “Producing slick when you never have before?”
“Wrong.” He licked his cracked lips. “Horrifying.”
Enlightening.
Elm kept that part to himself.
“Ruts are like a complete and total loss of control,” Levi didn’t sound pleased by that fact at all, “Was it similar with your heat? You appeared rather out of it.”
“I can’t remember most of it,” he answered. “Just pieces. And the feeling. Yeah, it was like that too. Like my mind was floating above my body, and I could sometimes comprehend what was happening and what I needed, but I didn’t fully understand it. I couldn’t stop it.”
“And as a beta?”
“Nothing like that.”
“Explain.”
“Betas are like most people in the universe. We get horny randomly, have sex when we can find someone who wants to do it with us, and that’s that. We don’t have to worry about heats or ruts or inhibitors. Pheromones aren’t a thing on our radar.” Elm sighed. “We’re nothing special.”
The alpha was quiet for a long moment, to the point Elm thought maybe he’d gotten bored and wanted to end the conversation, but then he surprised him by speaking.
“You aren’t beta anymore, Elm Erskine.” Levi flashed another one of those absolutely terrifying smiles. “Welcome to the life of exceptionalism.”