“But?” Jules prompted.
“I heard them talk.”
Jules made an encouraging noise.
“They’re looking for some kind of cure,” the Xeus said.
Jules frowned. His uncle was looking for some medical cure? He was literally using the Xeus as a lab rat?
“I need to go,” he said when the file transfer was complete. He turned off the computer and said, without looking at the alpha, “I’m going to look through these files and then maybe I’ll find out what’s going on here. Please don’t tell anyone that I was here or I wouldn’t be able to help you—”
“Come here.”
Jules wet his lips. “Why?”
“Come here,” the Xeus repeated, his voice so low it was nearly a growl.
Was it Jules’s imagination or had the alpha’s scent become stronger? Jules could still smell him all the way from there, and it really wasn’t helping the situation in his pants.
He was pretty sure the Xeus wasn’t using an alpha’s Voice—Xeus alphas didn’t possess that ability—and yet Jules still found himself doing as he was told.
He put the flash drive into his pocket and walked back to the Xeus, his heart pounding.
The glowing green eyes watched him intently.
The closer Jules got to him, the harder Jules’s cock got and the wetter his hole became. Gods, it was horrible. What kind of slut was he? He was leaking. He could feel slick running down his leg already.
When he stopped by the Xeus, the alpha’s hands flexed, his sharp claws scraping over the metal table he was shackled to. “You smell good,” the alpha said, his nostrils flaring. He licked his lips. “Let me taste you.”
Jules was speechless, his face flushing scarlet. There was little doubt what he meant. “You—” he managed. “I’m not—” Glowering at the alpha, he grabbed his stuff and all but ran away.
Jules had to stop at the top of the stairs and text Liam that he wanted to leave. Leaning against the wall, he waited for his brother’s “all clear” message, his thighs squeezed tightly and his teeth sunk into his bottom lip. How dare that brute—that animal—!
When he finally got back to his room, Jules flopped down onto his bed and glared at the ceiling. That was what he got for being a nice person—treated like a slut by a Xeus! Ugh. Had that animal really thought Jules would let him taste him? Lick him between his thighs, lap at his hole with his tongue—
Jules wrenched his fly open and stroked his cock hard and fast, imagining sitting on the Xeus’s face, riding it hard, the Xeus’s tongue soft and wet against his aching hole.
He came with a weak groan, embarrassed and freaked out.
Fucking hell, what was wrong with him?
Chapter 3
Jules was angry and embarrassed enough to push the Xeus to the back of his mind for a few days.
But on the third day his curiosity—and his conscience—finally outweighed his other feelings and he decided to check out the files he’d copied to the flash drive.
Two hours later, Jules closed the files, feeling a little sick to his stomach. And a little scared, if he were honest.
The files were a log apparently maintained by a Dr. Umberto Navarra: his observations of the experiments done on the Xeus. The log was absolutely disgusting in its lack of compassion. Dr. Navarra treated the Xeus like a thing, dispassionately describing the drugs and toxic chemicals used on him and the effect they had on the “subject.”
If Jules understood the log correctly, the doctor’s main goal was to reverse the kerosvarin’s work and give the feral Xeus his rationality back. Judging by the Xeus’s newfound ability to speak, the experiments were clearly successful, at least partly. What Jules didn’t understand was why they were doing it—why his uncle was conducting these illegal experiments. It made no sense.
Although the logs were dry and matter-of-fact, Navarra’s growing frustration was obvious. It seemed he wasn’t happy with their progress, frustrated by their inability to reverse the Xeus’s beastly appearance and instincts.
And then there was the other part of the “research”: their physical experiments to test the Xeus’s healing ability. It seemed every time they tried a new drug on the alpha, they had to make sure that the Xeus’s superior healing factor wasn’t affected—it seemed to be their priority. There was a log stating that they had tried a new drug that showed great potential for reversing the alpha’s beastly appearance, but apparently it affected his healing factor negatively, so they had to stop administering it.
It was bizarre. On one hand, trying to reverse the effects of kerosvarin seemed like a good deed. Except it seemed the research was being done for some other, less than altruistic reason. Not to mention that the Xeus clearly hadn’t given his consent for these experiments, and he sure as hell hadn’t given his permission to be physically tortured for the sake of science.