Feral (The Wrong Alpha 2)

Swallowing, Jules pushed the thought away. This wasn’t the time for moping.

He studied the alpha curiously.

The Xeus was… large. He was pure muscle everywhere, powerfully built, with a dark trail of hair leading downward to a—

Flushing, Jules tore his eyes away. He felt a mix of embarrassed, flustered, and painfully curious. He’d never been so close to a naked man. But was a transformed Xeus a “man”? Most of him looked like one, but the long, scary-looking claws at the tips of the Xeus’s fingers seemed to point toward the answer being “no.” The alpha’s face was very ugly, his features vaguely male but distorted into something predatory and beastly. Dark, fur-like facial hair obscured his features. And those eyes… those glowing green eyes that were tracking Jules’s every movement didn’t seem entirely sentient, though they were oddly attentive for a simpleminded beast.

The Xeus emanated strength and virility, which was probably why it took Jules a while to realize that he was hurt. There were bruises and cuts all over the alpha, and there was a wound on his left arm, long and jagged, still bleeding sluggishly. It looked like… like someone had literally peeled the skin off his bicep. No one had even bothered to bandage the wound, probably expecting the Xeus’s superior healing to do the job—eventually.

Nausea rose to Jules’s throat. Was his uncle responsible for this? Why would Uncle Wayne even keep the Xeus here? Chained, obviously against his will? Even if his uncle was right and Xeus alphas were more animals than men, even animals didn’t deserve being hurt and experimented on—and this lab was clearly used for some kind of experiments on the Xeus. There were a lot of blood samples in the containers around the table.

“Hello?” Jules said, hesitantly. “Do you understand me?”

The alpha just stared at him, his glowing eyes narrowed, his nostrils flaring.

Jules was a little unnerved, to be honest, and he was kind of glad that the chains would stop the Xeus from attacking him. Immediately, he felt terrible for thinking it. No one deserved to be treated like that. No one.

Jules took another step closer. “You don’t understand me, do you?” He sighed. This was so confusing. Xeus—the moon—wasn’t in its full phase. This alpha shouldn’t have been in this state. To Jules’s knowledge, Xeus alphas weren’t supposed to be able to shift into their beastly forms when their moon wasn’t full. Some Xeus alphas could supposedly use their claws outside the full moon, but they shouldn’t have been able to transform their faces like this. This was just bizarre.

Frowning, Jules eyed the alpha curiously. “Well, you’re clearly in no state to tell me why you’re like this.” He wondered if the Xeus could smell how confused and nervous he was. Probably. Jules had heard that Xeus alphas’ senses were very heightened compared to non-shifter alphas and omegas.

Jules smiled ruefully, meeting the Xeus’s eyes. “Fuck, I’m really out of my depth here, to be honest. I didn’t expect—I didn’t expect you at all. I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do now.” Just leaving and pretending that he hadn’t seen the Xeus in their basement seemed… wrong. Cruel. But what was he supposed to do? He couldn’t exactly confront his uncle about it. He couldn’t tell him to release the Xeus. Just imagining it made Jules cringe. He liked to think he wasn’t a coward, but there was bravery and then there was stupidity.

Uncle Wayne wasn’t one to tolerate questions. Strictly speaking, he wasn’t the master of the house yet, but with their parents dead and their eldest brother gone, Uncle Wayne was their legal guardian and the de facto alpha of their family. And the thing was, at this point, they weren’t even sure Anthony was alive. He’d been gone for so long Jules could barely remember his eldest brother’s face. He’d been only four when Anthony had left for the war. Well, the war had been over for a few months now, but they still had no news about Anthony. If he didn’t return soon, he was likely dead—and their uncle would become the master of the house. The Blake estate was entailed to alphas. With the three younger Blake siblings being omegas, they couldn’t inherit it and would be completely at their uncle’s mercy if Anthony was declared dead.

A growl snapped Jules out of his thoughts.

He flinched, looking at the Xeus warily. The alpha had his teeth bared, his muscles straining and pulling at the manacles.

“Shit, stop—” Jules winced as the alpha’s wrists started bleeding. “You’re only hurting yourself!” He grabbed his arm.

The alpha went rigid, his glowing green eyes fixing on Jules again.

His heart hammering, Jules swallowed. Despite the Xeus being restrained, Jules suddenly felt like prey. But he didn’t let go of the alpha’s arm, just gentled his touch a little. “You’re hurting yourself,” he repeated, softer. “I doubt they’ll break, no matter how strong you are. Look, I promise I’ll try to help you.”