“The experiment can still be repeated with a different female, if proven successful with another male,” Dr. Urwin pointed out. “May I suggest subject 287?”

“My thoughts exactly,” Dr. Axell said as he leaned back in his chair. “He should be with us in a moment.”

He was right. It hadn’t been a minute before the steel door flew open and another snarling alpha was shoved into the room by long poles attached to metal rings around his neck and biceps. But instead of turning around to attack the men as soon as the poles were detached, like 351 had done, his wild gaze immediately zeroed in on the woman on the breeding bench. His nostrils flared as he scented the air, and a deep, rich growl sounding nothing like the fury he’d initially displayed emanated from his chest.

The woman on the bench keened loud and shrilly in response, bucking her hips what little she could.

The alpha was by her in a second, scenting her as he bent between her spread thighs.

I did my best to fight back the furious blush I could feel spreading over my entire face at the intimate display. A sentiment that was only strengthened when he—finding her more than ready—without delay mounted her and shoved his brutal cock up inside her dripping opening in one, smooth movement. All the way to the hilt.

The woman screamed and tried to both escape the invasion and spear herself deeper on his girth at the same time. Her hands locked in steel manacles clawed and clenched at air, but there was nothing she could do one way or the other.

I’d never seen sex like that. I knew video clips and images of alpha matings could be found on the internet, but I’d never had the nerve to search for them. And this… this was so much worse than seeing it on a screen. Even though the thick glass panel separated us from the pair, knowing that they knew we were watching them made the heat in my cheeks flame all the hotter. Every thrust made me clench my hands around the edge of my seat, wishing I was anywhere but here. The woman’s cries and screams rang loud and shrill, and I winced in sympathy at the way her brutalized sex clung to the alpha’s impossible girth. He wasn’t as huge as 351, but plenty big enough to make my pelvis clench for every wet thwack of his flesh against hers.

It lasted for nearly twenty agonizing minutes.

I’d somehow managed to almost regain my professional composure when the poor woman’s hoarse cries suddenly took on a different tone. She’d long-since given up struggling, but without warning she let out a strangled yelp and tried to lurch forward. The restraints and the alpha’s hands on her hips kept her securely locked in place, but that didn’t stop her frantic struggling nor her desperate whimpers.

“What’s happening?” I asked, my worry for the woman strapped into the breeding post returning with renewed vigor. “Is he hurting her?”

“He’s about to knot her. A female will always struggle a bit, especially with a new alpha. Once he’s popped it inside is when he’ll hopefully put a claiming mark on her.” Dr. Axell didn’t look to my side, so I couldn’t decipher his expression, but I very much hoped the unmistakable excitement in his voice was purely from a scientific standpoint.

Of course. The knot. I don’t know why I hadn’t been expecting it—it was an unavoidable fact of alpha matings—the fist-sized swelling at the bottom of an alpha’s member that inflated at the end of a mating to increase the chance of fertilization. It was an entirely different thing to learn about such matters from a textbook than it was to see it in person. Part of me wanted to look away, but morbid curiosity kept me staring at the pair as the alpha’s knot finally swelled enough to make a tie.

The final, brutal thrust into the woman’s body was marked by a bloodcurdling howl from her, and a deep groan of pleasure from him. They both stilled—the woman still panting and sobbing while her body twitched as if in cramps, the alpha moaning in release.

We all stared at him with bated breaths, waiting for the moment he’d lay claim to the woman he’d just fucked for all she was worth, but apart from occasionally rocking his pelvis a little and making her jerk and whimper, he didn’t move. In fact, for someone who was still intimately connected to said woman, he seemed remarkably uninterested in her, now he’d spilled his seed.

“Sonuvabitch,” Dr. Axell growled next to me. “How is he not claiming her? She’s fucking ripe as a peach!”

I blinked, not expecting that kind of language from a man with Dr. Axell’s academic achievements. He seemed to remember himself and cleared his throat. “Right. Well, I must apologize that we didn’t manage to show you the next step of the research. Clearly we’re still missing a key factor in making these alphas bond with the females we offer them. We will have to run some tests on her pheromone levels and perhaps look for more precise chemical markers.

“But before we get that far, I’d be interested in your observations of this experiment. Your analytical skills are without question.”

I bit the inside of my cheek. It was what I’d always wanted—to be asked to contribute to the scientific method of a significant research study, but… the fact that they’d missed something that seemed so obvious to me made me kind of hesitant. “Well… I mean, aren’t pair bonds meant to be… very special? I’ve always heard how an alpha simply knows when his intended mate is near. It seems to me you’re trying to force a bond without taking into consideration what the subjects might want. Perhaps this is one thing nature never intended for us to replicate in a lab.”

Dr. Urwin scoffed. “My dear girl, an alpha’s urge to claim a mate is a purely biological response, nothing more. As such, all we need to reach our goal is to find the right triggers.”

I blinked, taken aback by the patronizing tone. But when I looked at Dr. Axell, expecting him to put his colleague in place, all I got from him was a small head shake and a wry smile. “I do think you’ve watched one too many romantic movies, Miss Dorne. Trust me—alpha instincts have nothing to do with love. They’re about possession, desire… procreation. A feral alpha will not be able to even play pretend when it comes to claiming a female.”

I dug my nails into my palms to force myself to return his gaze. There was something… different in it. As if there was just a glimmer of someone else behind his professional mask—someone who spoke about alpha instincts so confidently because perhaps, deep down, he also felt them. The thought made my stomach lurch, and I gave in to the instincts at the back of my consciousness murmuring about the dangers of provoking an alpha. I dropped my eyes and felt my shoulders slump forward without my conscious choice, displaying subservient body language even as my mind still seethed with the rude dismissal.

Dr. Axell patted my knee with a large hand, lingering for just a second before he pulled it back—but it was long enough for every muscle in my body to freeze.

He’d reacted to my body language like an alpha would—giving me silent praise for falling in line with a touch. It was so inappropriate and so far from anything I could ever have expected from a man with Dr. Axell’s reputation. I stared mutely at my now hand-free knee, halfway expecting an apology. Hoping for it with all I was.

It never came.

Seemingly happy with my submission, Dr. Axell turned to Dr. Urwin and began discussing parameters for a new line of tests as if I wasn’t even there.

I sat for a moment longer until the stinging in my eyes became too much to bear. Silently, I left the room and walked back to my empty work station.

It was silly to cry, I knew that, but no matter how many times I told myself that, I couldn’t will the tears away. Dr. Axell had been my idol for so many years. Working for him had been a lifelong dream of mine, and yet in the end…. In the end, he was just like the rest of them. An alpha. A ruthless man who sought to bend anyone who disagreed with him to his will.