Page 39 of His Stolen Omega

“You called us monsters?” She nodded. “That isn’t untrue.”

“Do you know what the Leviathan is?” Elm asked. “In mythology, I mean.”

“A giant sea dragon,” Fiora replied without skipping a beat. “Word of advice? No matter how badly you want it, don’t let yourself get eaten.”

* * *

The first three days were bearable. Elm played along and allowed Fiora to run her tests, answering her questions honestly, because she was right and he did also want to know how he worked now.

But then came day four.

He felt off the whole day, bad tempered and easily annoyed. He snapped at her more than once, and couldn’t stop himself even though he knew it wouldn’t get him anywhere. She was sort of his one “friend” in this place, had stopped referring to him as synthetic and started calling him by his name. But he couldn’t help it. Felt less like himself with each passing hour.

By day five, he’d scratched at his own skin hard enough to draw blood. Pheromones flicked off his body whenever she tried to get near, keeping her well on the other side of the cage with the thick bars between them.

She looked concerned—not for him, for her lab rat, but that was still enough to make him nervous too.

Day six he refused to eat. Wasn’t hungry. Wasn’t thirsty. Wasn’t horny either. He just…wanted something. Something he couldn’t put a name to. It felt an awful lot like all the oxygen in the room had been sucked out and he was left gasping for air.

Something vital was missing.

On day seven, he had enough reason left to finally figure out what it was.

He’d been staring at the high back chair for well over six hours when it occurred to him that this sensation was a lot like the one he’d experienced the night of his heat. When he’d locked eyes with the alpha, and begged and pleaded for his touch.

When Levi had refused, remaining just out of reach.

The difference was the alpha had been present then, making it easier for Elm to understand what he craved.

He hadn’t seen Levi once since that night.

It was as though he’d been completely forgotten by everyone except Fiora.

Old insecurities reared their ugly heads. The feeling of inadequacy, of unimportance. Of being forgotten, like what had happened when Kian had found his biological family and all but disappeared for four years.

Did Levi think he could drag Elm all the way here, torture him whenever he felt like it, and then ghost him?

“You aren’t thinking rationally,” Fiora said on day eight, when Elm was still refusing to eat, and his aggressive pheromones prevented her from taking even a single step into the room. She stood in the hallway, holding a tray of food he had no interest in. “Elm, you’re at risk of going feral again. You need to snap out of it.”

“Alpha,” he demanded, knowing she’d understand he wasn’t calling for her. She wasn’t what he needed.

He knew she’d been trying though. Bathing him in her noxious pheromones whenever she was here. He’d tolerated it and kept his mouth shut because he’d wondered if she’d been right and he really would adjust. Being addicted to the Leviathan’s pheromones was not a life, and Elm was willing to do anything he could to break that attachment.

But a week later, she still smelled like garbage, and he still felt unsatisfied.

And he was slowly losing his mind.

It was torture.

Something had to be done.

Fiora made a call, and he could see her standing there, talking in a low tone to someone, but he couldn’t make out the words. Whatever the person on the other end responded with, she didn’t seem pleased.

Which made Elm more upset.

She wasn’t the alpha he needed, but they’d developed a sort of repertoire this past week, and he’d picked up on her moods, could read her micro expressions.

Kian had never thought of him as inadequate. Yeah, maybe Elm hadn’t been raised for the mafia lifestyle, didn’t have fancy trainers, or—at the time—pheromones to use to defend himself, but he’d had something better.