Primals (Reverse Harem 1)

If they can do it, so can I. I’m just like them.

No, I think as I pour all of my strength, my heart, my will into my efforts.

I’m better.

Suddenly, I feel a rush through my veins, something warm and fast flowing under my skin even as a thick, hard layer forms over it.

I hear the needle snap against my skin and after another pull, the metal cuffs creak then shatter. As the shards scatter, the sound of them crashing against the walls and clattering to the floor filling the air, I jump towards the glass, crashing into it. I catch a fleeting glimpse of my reflection before I break through, breaking the glass into a thousand, tiny fragments, too. I land on all fours, claws on my fingers, fur on my hands.

And yet, somehow, I don’t feel afraid.

“Excellent!”

I look up to hear the same voice from the speaker coming from a man with orange hair, a man who looks like he’s in his fifties but which I’m sure he’s not as he carries that strange ageless feel all of the primals do. He wears eyeglasses with black frames that I’m sure he doesn’t need, and a black turtleneck beneath his white lab coat.

“You’re even better than we thought you’d be,” he says, grinning.

“You bet I am.”

In the next instant, darts rain on me, coming from several guns behind the man. I hear hisses and roars behind me as well, along with high-pitched sounds that are as grating as fingernails across a blackboard.

Crouching on the floor so that the darts bounce off my back, I place my hands over my ears.

Stop!

I open my mouth to shout that very word. Instead, I gape as I see the men with the dart guns on the floor, unconscious. I turn my head, finding the Cats frozen in place.

What the...?

“Amazing.” The guy in the lab coat who was also brought to his knees tries to stand up, his eyes wide with awe. “You are truly the future.”

I stand up as well, thinking of punching him just so he’d shut up but no sooner am I on my feet do I wobble, my knees shaking. As I feel my strength leave me, I fall to the floor.

“Sadly, a part of you is still human,” the guy says, standing over me now. “But who knows? Maybe we can change that.”

I try to get up but my head spins. My vision in a blur, I stare at my hand, which has reverted back to an ordinary, human one.

No. I can’t lose now.

Just as I feel my remaining strength fading, my eyes falling shut, I hear a voice in the distance.

Clarissa!

The corners of my lips turn up into a grin as I hear a familiar voice along with the sound of three pairs of footsteps approaching – one light, one heavy and one in between.

They’re here.

Chapter Twenty-Three

~ Toshi

I FIND CLARISSA ON the floor, lying limp on a bed of broken glass.

Carefully, I scoop her in my arms then jump out of the reach of the mad scientist who is infamous among Cats.

Syllas.

Right now, he has a wide grin on his face. I don’t have time for this. For him. All I care about is her.