3

She opened the metal pin cemented into the floor to release the arm chains that held him flat to the floor and grunted as she pushed the large male onto his back. He was very tall and had to weigh at least two hundred sixty pounds or so. She tried hard not to gawk at his wide chest or the fact that he didn’t have on any clothes.

Ellie took note of how tan he appeared and determined it had to be his natural skin tone since they kept him below ground. His coloring never changed. With his dark-brown hair and deep-chocolate eye color she thought he had to be a good portion Native American. Of course she couldn’t miss the fact that he was a great deal bigger than any Native Americans she’d ever seen. She guessed he had German or some other husky, tall ancestry too.

He wasn’t handsome in any conventional sense, his cheekbones so pronounced they made him appear too harsh. Some might not consider him good-looking but he was quite exotically beautiful. She guessed the bone structure might be caused by whatever genetic altering had been done to him. He looked human but not quite fully so. With his hate-filled glare and the tense jaw, it gave him a snarling appearance, which he actually did the moment Ellie inched closer. The deep growl made her pause, heart pounding, and fear shot through her. He looked intensely masculine and rough, projecting how dangerous he could be. It disturbed her that she found him extremely attractive. She couldn’t deny how his muscular body and pure masculine magnetism drew her to him.

If he regained movement she’d die. She knew that and he probably wished he could get his hands on her. She glanced across the room to stare at the cracked and peeling white paint that ran the length of the room on the floor by the door. The staff called it the kill line. All test subjects were shackled by each limb. Though they were strong enough to break chains occasionally, none had ever broken all four at once. They only needed one free limb to kill. She sat inside the kill zone with an enraged, huge male whose two arms were chained but they weren’t connected to anything anymore. That realization made her want to crawl away from him but she resisted the urge.

He’s worth saving. She nodded. He needs help. Check him over, do what you can for him, and pray no one walks in here. Yeah. She could just hope the drugs didn’t wear off immediately. He’d probably snap her neck before she could beg for her life. He had to hate everyone who worked for Mercile and he had a damn good reason. Her gaze landed on Jacob’s dead body, her teeth clenched, and she forced her gaze to return to 416. See how hurt he is.

Red marks marred his stomach. Her fingers traced the proof that Jacob had punched him there. She felt his rib cage, where more marks showed. She didn’t feel any broken bones. His belly had firm, hard muscles even while he lay lax, but she didn’t feel anything that would suggest internal bleeding. She tried to stay professional but her fingertips lingered a little too long as she traced an intricate pattern of muscle groups. She couldn’t deny touching him affected her as a woman. He was forbidden, dangerous, and sexy.

Her gaze lowered to his pelvic area, unable not to look at the male she found so appealing, and she gasped. She moved before she thought, gripped his slightly engorged cock, and worked the painful looking bands down the shaft. She tried to be gentle but Jacob had tightly wrapped a thick piece of rubber around the man’s penis a few times. She managed to work it loose and threw the offensive thing away as soon as she got it off. Her fingers gently massaged the reddened skin before she realized how inappropriate the action was. Her gaze lingered there, realized that, even mostly soft, he was impressive. Blood flow had been painfully constricted and prevented from reaching the shaft.

“That son of a bitch,” she muttered, cursing Jacob for doing such a horrible, vicious thing. Her cheeks warmed when she realized what she’d done. More embarrassment slammed her when she realized how her body responded to touching him, even just to remove the offensive implement of torture. She’d been handling his cock.

416 growled. Her gaze flicked up to his face. He watched her with dark, furious eyes. She realized she cradled him still inside her palm and released his cock quickly. “Sorry! I had to remove it.” She glanced down at his appendage and saw the line where the rubber band had injured him was still red and angry looking. “I’m sure it will be okay.”

She hoped so anyway. Jacob had obviously done it to hurt 416. If left that way too long, lack of blood supply to his cock would have done severe damage, but of course that bastard had planned to kill him. It would be a horrible crime to disfigure such a sexy guy. That thought made her want to groan and made her more aware that her body responded to the naked male sprawled in front of her. She mentally shook that line of thought away, couldn’t afford to go there, and needed to stop looking at his bare body.

She bit her lip, thinking hard about how to get them out of the mess they were in. She needed to be free to leave work after her shift and get the data she’d stolen to her handler. Her gaze flicked to the dead guy once more. He lay there, bloody, on the concrete where she’d left him, the cause of his death obviously the blunt-force trauma from pounding his nose with the kit. She’d experienced pure rage to do so much damage. It could be mistaken for damage from a fist. Her gut twisted.

“Shit. I can only see one way out of this.” She met 416’s angry gaze. “I’m sorry about this. I have no choice.” She hesitated, wanted to tell him who she really was, why she had to do something horrific to him, but didn’t dare. What if he tells them? He could. He has no reason to trust anyone who works here. I’m safer if I just have him assume the worst.

416 had been certain Ellie would never harm him. Panic jolted through him from head to toe when she apologized to him for her intent. He tried to move but his body refused to budge. He could move his eyes, blink, and swallow. A few growls had come forth but he couldn’t talk. Does she plan to kill me now? Then why did she take out the technician who attacked me?

Anyone but her, 416 thought frantically, worried he may die helpless, on the floor of his cell. He inhaled the clean scent of the woman who never failed to stir his body. Ellie always came to him sweetly, her touch gentle, and her gaze kind when she’d taken samples from him. She’d been the only human he’d ever met who gave him warm, honest smiles, and he’d even looked forward to the times she entered his domain. He’d trusted her not to hurt him. She was the only person who could walk inside his cell without him tensing up in anticipation of dread, pain, or humiliation.

He saw fear lurking in her beautiful blue gaze as she stared at him and it wrenched his heart just a little. He’d purposely never threatened her or snarled as he did the other technicians who approached him. Until today. The idea of terrifying her had made him feel regret. It would have ended the smiles that he’d grown to appreciate when she’d begun working there. It hadn’t been long. He had no concept of time but she hadn’t been a part of his life until recently.

His body started to respond to her presence when his cock twitched. It made him suffer pain, throb from whatever the male had done to him, but the movement he felt made him hope that the rest of his body would recover soon as well. Ellie did things to him, made him long to touch her blonde hair and press his nose against her throat to inhale her wonderful scent. He sometimes dreamed about her under him, naked, with him free from his chains. He longed to touch and taste every inch of her body, to hear her voice and learn everything about the woman who fascinated him on every level.

The sound of her voice had always been music to his ears. He wanted to see her smile, learn her laugh and a hundred questions filled his head that he wanted to ask her to know more about the woman who had captured his soul. Her skin appeared unbelievably soft and smelled so good, too good. But now she had stated that she planned to harm him.

It was the worst kind of cruelty and painful betrayal roared through him. He also felt shame at what she’d witnessed. She’d saved him from being raped by the dead male but knew of the suffering he’d taken, the indignity of the human’s cruelty. It pained him to know she’d never look at him again without that image lurking inside her memories. It hurt him on many levels and enraged him. They’d even managed to take away his fantasy of her ever regarding him as a sexual male.

He snarled again in an attempt to scare her, to prevent her from doing whatever she planned. His body refused to work, his limbs unresponsive, but he knew he wouldn’t kill her even if he did manage to break free. He’d just throw her away to a safe distance past the line to prevent the temptation of following what his instincts demanded. He wanted her in ways he knew weren’t possible for a prisoner and his captor.

He watched her rise to her feet and move out of his line of view. When she’d turned him onto his back, it blocked his view of the dead man. He tried to turn his head but couldn’t. He heard her though, smelled her, and heard strange noises. What is she doing?

He had no clue but he dreaded it. All the humans were cruel. They showed no mercy. It still stunned him that she’d killed his attacker—for two reasons. First, she had done it to stop his assault and second, she wasn’t a big woman. She’d taken down a male. He may have misjudged the female. He’d believed her soft, delicate, but she’d attacked a fully grown male in a wild and brutal assault. His heart raced. He tried desperately to move his limbs but they remained unresponsive.

“You’re a worthless bastard. I hate you. I want you to know that,” Ellie hissed.

His mind accepted her words, pain gripped him, but he wasn’t stunned by it. He’d known everyone who worked inside the testing facility considered them nothing more than breathing flesh to abuse. Why he’d thought she’d be any different had been a mistake on his part.

Stupid and unforgivable. Fury gripped him and his finger twitched. He moved his mouth, a silent snarl trapped inside his throat, and promised he’d get even with the woman for fooling him into believing she was different.