#poly pack

The pack alpha paused with his coffee mug halfway to his lips, sighed, and set his drink down.

He peered down at the screen. He really needed his reading glasses, but he was convinced they made him look older than he was, so he refused to wear them outside of his office.

Gaz leaned over. “It’s Laswell. Might wanna answer that.”

“Bugger me,” Price grumbled, standing. He quickly downed his coffee in one swig, stuffed half of his sandwich into his pocket, and stepped out from the bench seating. “I better go outside to take this. Kyle, make sure these two behave while I’m gone.” “Aye, sir,” Gaz replied through a mouthful of sweetcorn.

Once Price had disappeared outside, Millen tilted his head. “Who’s Laswell?”

“CIA Intelligence Officer,” Roach explained. “She helps connect us with assignments. Nice lady, but also really scary when she’s mad.”

“So why is she calling the captain?” Millen asked.

“Probably has a new op for us to deploy on,” Gaz answered, opening his paper carton of milk and chugging it down happily. “Good thing, too. It’s been ages since we’ve seen action. I can feel myself gettin’ fatter and lazier by the day.”

Millen frowned. “But you train all the time. It’s not like you’re sitting on your ass all day.”

“Still, it’s not the same as real combat,” Gaz said, with a note of wistfulness in his voice. “Dummy rounds don’t have the same edge to them, when you know there’s no consequences if you screw up. The only way to really keep yourself sharp is by keepin’ yourself alive out on the field. Go more than a few months without that adrenaline rush, and you’ll lose your edge.”

“And you… like it?” Millen questioned hesitantly. “The shooting, the noise… the fear?”

Gaz thought for a moment, twirling his fork. “I don’t like it, per se. But it… it feels right. Like a… purpose. We’re savin’ the world, y’know? One mission at a time.”

“Dude, that’s literal propaganda,” Roach pipes up, monching on a packet of crisps. “The only reason you joined up was to commit war crimes.”

“Did not! I enlisted to… to…” Gaz struggled for just the right phrasing. “Stop… the… baddies?”

“Mhm, sure,” Roach agreed, his antennae bobbing as he nodded. “And the sick abs and free rent were totally just a bonus.”

“Precisely,” Gaz said, grinning. “Have a six-pack, and have enough money for a six-pack. Of beer, that is.”

Roach rolled his eyes, since he didn’t partake in that particular vice himself. He found the tang of apple juice or the fizzle of pop to be much more satisfying than the bitter wash of alcohol.

Millen swiveled in his seat to try and see if Price would reappear. “You don’t think we’ll have a mission soon, do you?”

“Maybe,” replied Gaz. “Then again, Laswell might have been calling just to check in. She does that sometimes. Her and the captain go way back. Why are you worrying about it?”

“I’m not worried,” lied Millen, feeling a touch of defensiveness. “I just haven’t been here that long. I’ve never been on an op like the ones you’re used to.”

“Well, you have to start somewhere.” Gaz popped a crumb into his mouth. “Besides, you’ve been out in the field before. You’ll do fine.”

“Yeah, but never like you have. I was usually just dropped in as support. Half of the time, the fight was over before my feet ever touched the ground. Most of what I did was as a part of a cleanup crew, doing a broad sweep of the area, picking off any of the other side left loitering around. Even then, they were usually half-dead. It was…” He trailed off for a moment, as if he were remembering something he didn’t quite care to. “Almost too easy.”

Gaz wrinkled his nose in distaste. “You mean you’ve never gotten to really be out there, kickin’ ass in a firefight? That’s sad, brother. Every bloke ought to get to experience once in life. Truly nothing like it.”

“Kyle, that’s fucked up,” Roach laughed, casually stealing half of the dry lump of bread on Gaz’s tray. “And the fact that you think that’s concerning. You should be institutionalized.”

“Jokes on you, I’m into that shit,” Gaz shot back, and Roach made a lewd gesture that had several other men in the mess hall chuckling under their breath as they caught sight of the omega’s behavior. Roach winked at them.

“No, but seriously,” Gaz redirected the conversation. “You don’t have anything to stress over, Mills. Price might keep you benched until you’re a little more settled, or if you do get deployed with the rest of us, he’ll probably have you hang back, maybe double-check that all the loose ends are tied up. No big deal, you’ll see.” Millen shifted uncomfortably. “I genuinely don’t know that I could keep up, Gaz. I’m not exactly… spry. Or fit.”

Gaz glanced the xi up and down, clearly trying to find a supportive way to disagree. “No, you’re just– you need–” “More practice,” Roach chimed in helpfully.

“More practice,” Gaz reaffirmed. “If it’ll make you feel better, I can spot you in the gym later.”

“I hate the gym,” Millen sighed miserably. Gaz gave him a strange look. “Mate… we’re in the military. Being a gym rat is part of the package.”

“I used to like it well enough,” muttered Millen. “Now I can’t do anything but pull-ups.”

“What, because of your back?” Roach leaned forward inquisitively, sniffing at the air to try and pick up any trace of pain in Millen’s scent. “Your knees are busted up, too, right?”

“It’s not important,” Millen said instantly. If he ever wanted to have a chance with Roach, he couldn’t have the omega thinking he was defective, either physically or mentally. An injured alpha was an alpha that couldn’t protect his omega, and that meant if Roach caught wind of just how deep the damage Millen had sustained was, then he could very well shun Millen entirely as a prospective mate. “I’m fine, really,” Millen added. “My back only acts up when the weather gets shitty.”

Roach shrugged. “If you say so. But, I mean, we have free healthcare. You can just go to the infirmary.” “I don’t need the infirmary,” snapped Millen. There was a spike of something between fear aggression and annoyance in his scent, soured at the edges with shame like a chemical spill leeching slowly outwards. “I said I’m fine, and I am.”

“Okay, jeez, you brought it up,” said Gaz, raising a hand in a placating gesture. “Don’t bite Gary’s head off just because you wanna be a jackass. Ghh, are you even wearing your suppressant patches? You reek.”

Millen lowered his head, pulling his shirt collar up to cover his scent glands. “Price said I didn’t have to wear them anymore.”

“I think he smells fine,” Roach defended the xi, ruffling up. “Usually. You’re just making him nervous.” Gaz waved a dismissive hand. “I’m not making him nervous; he’s just that way all the time. You don’t share a room with him, so you don’t know.” Roach gave a little “hmph” and leaned over to whisper in Millen’s ear: “Ignore him, Mills. It’s fine to be nervous for your first big mission. I was. We all were.”

Millen gave a tight, weak little smile, but made no reply. He stared down at his tray of food, but his hunger was dampened by Gaz’s guess at Laswell’s reason for phoning Price. If they indeed would be deployed for an op, there was a likelihood that only one, two, or a trio of them might be required– that was the only thought that kept Millen from succumbing entirely to his fear and confessing that he didn’t think he could handle a mission now, or maybe ever. He had never wanted to be in the SAS, but had been placed with the 141 anyway, yet he was still expected to be held to the highest standard of military performance.

He could barely get through PT, let alone drills. He had been fortunate so far, and the only drills they had been required to stage were a few marches and one grenade safety tutorial that Ghost had oversaw for the rookies. But eventually the team would set up a serious exercise, and there was a high chance that Millen would show his true colors as not being up to scale. It could range from anything to survival training to what was the basic equivalent to capture the flag played in an active war zone.

Millen ran a hand through his hair, exhaling slowly. “I think I’m gonna go get some air. Maybe stop by the range.”

“Want me to come with?” Gaz offered, finishing up his own meal and gathering his silverware and trash to be disposed of. “I probably need to get a few hours in, too.”

Millen shook his head. “No, I… think I’m gonna go by myself, just for a bit? If that’s okay?” “Yeah, sure. I can hit up the gym first instead. Just shoot me a text if you change your mind and wanna come down so I can spot you after I’m done on the treadmill.

Millen gave a small nod, then stood and took up his own tray to be washed and put away by whatever poor sods were on kitchen duty that day. Once he’d dumped his leftover food in the bins and handed off his tray, fork, and spoon, he headed for the door. A blast of summer humidity slammed into him.

Ignoring the oppressively heated, wet air, he shucked off his lightweight jacket and slung it over his shoulder, limping off towards the shooting range. He wasn’t looking forward to the ache of tiredness that would come with holding up a semi-automatic or sidearm for an hour, tensed against the repeated kickback of each shot, but a good aim was one of the few things that he had going for him. He couldn’t slack off and risk losing that.

He turned to walk down the blocky alleyway between the armory and one of the storage buildings, which led out onto the main road coming in from the base’s gates, intent on cutting across to the open parade ground flanking the shooting range. It was a shortcut of sorts, allowing him to not have to go all the way around the long rectangular wall. However, not many used it, because it was too narrow to be mowed, allowing a weedy growup, and because of the jutting gutter-pipes that often dripped AC runoff. It made the entire length smell very metallic and unkempt compared to everything else around it.

When Millen was about halfway down, he heard a scrape of noise from somewhere just behind him and to the left, and paused.

He turned, but saw nothing. His brow furrowed. “Hello?”

There was no reply, nor further sound, so he just shrugged it from his mind, writing it off as perhaps a loose shingle having come undone, or someone having dropped something in the armory, or something else of that sort.

He continued down the shaded route, now almost to where the sunlight cut cleanly through the darker area between the hard-paneled buildings. From behind him came a low scuffling approaching rapidly, and he whirled, yet saw nothing.

His hand reached for where his sidearm should have been buckled at his hip. However, he had never taken to wearing it, and now was sorely regretting that. “Who’s there?” he called out, and then immediately felt silly and foolish.

He was on a military base, there was nothing to fear here. There were guards stationed everywhere, and nobody was allowed in without proper ID and clearance. He was becoming all flustered and on-edge by… He strained to think of what might have been skulking around the area.

“It’s just a squirrel, or a pigeon, or a cat,” he reasoned with himself. He knew that some of the soldiers often fed what few little animals made their way through the walls. Probably, whatever it was hoped that Millen had something on him food-wise.

“Go on, shoo!” Millen called out. “I don’t have anything. G’off!”

As he spoke, Millen caught a whiff of an unknown scent nearby. It was alphan, but not a pack alpha, and unmated. By now, he had familiarized himself with most of the other soldiers’ distinct scents, but this one he could not place. It was heavy and iron, like blood, with a horrible aftershave cologne applied far too liberally.  

“Hello?” he repeated, taking a step towards the scent. He sniffed the air, and the hairs on the back of his neck began to prickle. A low whine built in his throat, and he took another uncertain step, shifting from foot to foot. “Soap? Gaz? Is this some sort of prank? It’s not funny, okay?”

Every instinct was telling him to get out into the open where he had a clear view of what was around him and nobody could creep up on him. He shuffled backwards, chuffing nervously, and then turned to run out towards the road—

Someone clicked their tongue, as if calling a well-trained dog. Millen jerked around to see a bulky figure standing at the end of the breezeway. His heart lurched to his throat, and he gave a thready little growl that would not have scared off even the most skittish of omegas.

“Come with us now, easy-like,” the figure’s voice crackled from behind a black mask. “And nobody gets hurt.”

Millen felt pure fear spike through him, so intensely that his lungs seemed to stall like an old engine. His scent flared with terror.

The figure began to advance, but Millen was rooted to the spot. He began to give small yaps, like a pup would use to try to cow one of their littermates, and the figure paused.

They snapped their fingers, and suddenly two sets of hands clamped down around Millen’s arms, pulling him backwards as a hood was pulled down over his head. He jerked and snarled, kicking out, but his assailants were far larger and stronger, manhandling him into submission.

Millen’s body realized the danger he was in, even if he had no idea what was going on. Scent poured from his neck, wrists, and thighs, so powerful that he heard the two people actively trying to wrangle him actually gag. Pheromones drenched the air like the battering rain of a monsoon, all begging for pack and help.

“Fuck, stop it!” One of the attackers choked out, their eyes streaming from the pungent release of hormones. They grabbed at his neck, trying to cover up his glands with one big hand, but Millen was still wriggling wildly, giving high, yawp-like noises. It was an instinctual call for aid, almost exclusively used by betas or omegas, since most alphas could take care of themselves. Millen, however, could not, and at the moment, his lizard brain was not worrying too much about what his secondary gender was.

“Shut him up!” the crackling voice snarled.

Millen had time for one last yelp before a fist slammed against the side of his head and his world went silent.

*  *  *

Millen was forced back to reality abruptly as someone shoved him down into a cold metal chair.

Disoriented, he tried to pull away, but his arms were already being cruelly bound behind the chair, forcing him to lean back to ease the strain on his shoulder joints. “Wha—“

Someone slammed his head back, a hand gripping Millen’s still-hooded jaw. “You speak when spoken to, bitch. You fuckin’ get that, or is your fag brain too scrambled from takin’ dick that you can’t understand me?”

Millen whimpered, trying in vain to hunker down. His breathing came rapid and harsh, the air under the hood having been recycled too many times already.

“I said, did you fuckin’ understand me?” The person cuffed him across the face, making him stifle a grunt of pain. “Answer me!”

Millen’s thoughts were racing, trying to recall every scrap of information on what to do if he was kidnapped… or captured? Were these hostiles? How had they gotten into the base? And why would they target him, of all people, a no-name staff sergeant who was just a xi.

There was another hard cuff, and it nearly broke his nose. “I understand!” The words jolted out of Millen before he could stop them, his heart pattering like a drumbeat against his ribs.

There was silence for a moment. Millen ducked his head, trembling violently, every nerve primed for electric reaction.

Slow footsteps made their way around him, like a predator circling its prey. Millen tried to follow them, angling his head this way and that, but the hood was of a thick weave and prevented him from seeing so much as a single blot of light.

The footsteps stopped directly behind him. Millen was stock-still, scarcely daring to breathe what little oxygen he had left. He felt dizzy and sick, like he was seconds away from losing what little he had eaten for lunch.

“Tell me your name,” the voice growled out. “Full rank and serial number.”

Millen swallowed hard. So he had been captured, not kidnapped. Which meant that it would be treason to give this person any information. If he was rescued, and had broken, he could be given the death penalty at the hands of his own government. But wasn’t there something in the Geneva Convention that specified what he could tell without consequence? He wasn’t sure.

He stayed silent.

“Tell me your name,” repeated the voice, anger and impatience creeping in. “Speak, or I’ll cut out your tongue and make sure you can’t answer a question ever again.”

Millen screwed his eyes shut and willed himself not to whimper. There was a very low likelihood that the person would actually make good on their threat— like they said, if Millen had no tongue, he wouldn’t be able to answer any questions at all, and then they’d get no information out of him, and it would all be a waste of time. If his captor actually got fed up with him, they’d just kill him.

Something nagged in the back of his mind. He was wearing his dog tags when they took him, he always wore his tags. So why didn’t they just look at them to get his name? It would be much easier than trying to bully it out of him.

This train of thought was cut off as the interrogator suddenly pushed Millen’s chair forcibly backwards. There was a brief moment as the seat balanced on two legs before it crashed to the concrete floor. Millen cried out as his arms were pinned beneath his own weight. Admittedly, it wasn’t very much, but it wasn’t comfortable, and the position now put all of the stress on the middle of his back, sending a low, throbbing pressure to build at the base of his spine, where most of his previously injured discs were.

“Useless slag,” spat the interrogator. “You think you’re a tough sonna-bitch? I’ve snapped men twice your size in half. You fuckin’ hear me, rat?”

Millen’s arms were quickly going numb. He was squirming to try and shift positions as best he could. He was shaking uncontrollably, the blood rushing to his head as the vitriolic smell of his distress began to seep out from his scent glands, which were now inflamed and itchy from the excess amounts of hormonal oil that had been produced. It was still oozing down his neck, like an ant creeping across his flesh, and he reflectively rolled his shoulder, trying to swipe the congealing fluid away.

The interrogator was dragging the chair upright again. Millen gave a soft gasp as his back was bent again.

“What unit are you in?” snapped the interrogator. They rattled the chair, causing Millen to be flopped forward and backwards helplessly. “Who’s your commanding officer?”

Millen couldn’t breathe. He was sucking in desperate mouthfuls of air, the cloth hood tight against his lips, his neck thrashing back and forth to try and dislodge the unwanted article.

The interrogator gave a nasty laugh. “Hyperventilating, are you? Go ahead and squirm. Won’t get you anywhere. Come on, bender, can’t catch your breath? Stupid, knot-lickin’ cunt.”

Millen was choking on his own panic. If he had just leaned his head forward to make a larger gap between the hem of the hood and his neck, and calmed his breathing, then more fresh air could have gotten to him, but as he was— blinded, in completely unknown surroundings, and being shouted at and tossed around, he was frightened out of his wits.

He was effectively smothering himself, flailing in the chair, pulling uselessly at the ropes that kept his arms tied. The room was saturated with cortisol and adrenaline.

“Answer me!” The interrogator barked out, again kicking the chair to the ground. “Who is your commanding officer? What unit do you serve under?”

Hot tears streamed down Millen’s face as his chest seemed to seize and pain jolted up his back from the impact. His legs hung limply to the side and his forearms were already blooming with purple bruises where the floor had jammed them between it and the chair.

The interrogator’s steel-toed boot made contact with his shoulder, then his arm, his side, his hip. He howled out at the impact.

He was going to die. They were going to kill him, he knew it. He wished he’d answered the question now.

The interrogator was still cursing him out. “I can make you fall apart. I’ll cut you up so good that the police will be findin’ bits of your body for six months. And you’ll be alive for four of them—“

He didn’t catch the rest of the threat, feeling himself beginning to part from his physical presence in a way that he hadn’t since his parachuting accident, when he would lay in the hospital bed losing hours at a time between blinks. His thoughts emptied, like an old box television turned to an off-the-air channel, grey and cracking with static. He let his mind sever itself from its prison of bones.

*  *  *

His limbs were cold and stiff.

He flexed his fingers, his hands, his toes, but they were slow to move, as if he was trying to slog through molasses. His legs were trembling fiercely, the muscles of his calves on fire, his knees locked. His back was arched, and he only vaguely processed the bone-deep agony in his back and hips.

They had him in a stress position, and yet he could not remember being untied or moved. Judging by the way he was wobbling on the pads of his feet, he had been like that quite awhile.

He felt faint and sickly. The dull thump-thump-thump of his heartbeat whumped steadily in his ears, which were covered with stout headphones blaring urgent noises. His panic was gone, replaced by a heavy detachment from the world around him. The distorted audio feed was just on the closer side of familiar, but he couldn’t decipher the garbling shrieks as speech, though he knew it must be saying something.

His vision was a curtain of darkness. Was the hood still covering his face, or were his eyes closed? He couldn’t make sense of anything, and he was sinking again, losing his brief moment of clarity in a fog of white noise.

*  *  *

Millen gasped for breath as icy water drenched him like a rat fallen into a wintery stream.

His eyes snapped open, LED lights searing into his brain. His pupils constricted into inky pinpricks as he tried to turn his face away from the brightness, only to have gloved hands force him to look straight up and ahead.

His eyes watered and reddened, his narrow chest heaving. There was a coppery taste in his mouth, and he didn’t know if it was blood or if he had vomited. His ears were ringing like church bells tolling out the death knell for a man condemned to swing.

Chaos assaulted his previously offline senses. Someone was screaming at him, then two someones, three, four! Was he seeing doubles, or were they all just wearing the same masks?

He felt like he was a newborn, having been wrenched from the warm darkness and safety of the womb into a noisome world of strangers touching and pulling and all talking over one another. He opened his mouth to speak, but only a hoarse croak escaped him.

His throat was dry with thirst, his tongue feeling swollen and thick in his mouth, as if he had swallowed many spoonfuls of honey. His stomach cramped with fear and hunger. Usually, he could go seven or eight hours between meals without needing more, so had he been trapped in this living hell for that long, or was his functions burning through the calories from lunch faster because of the intense stress his body was being subjected to?

He licked his lips, managing to swipe up some of the water his interrogators had thrown over him. His lips were cracked— he’d bitten them in his struggles, or else worried at them so much as he drifted in a daze that the skin had been split open by his teeth.

His bloodshot eyes darted this way and that, but he could see nothing besides sheer black walls with no windows or decorations. It was a small room, the foundation sitting heavily in a way that suggested it was an old building, more than twenty or thirty years. There were scrapes on the floor, and stains that made Millen’s gut twist to think about what they might be.

His world was spinning. It was the same sensation he had experienced when he was still a young paratrooper, only about six months out of basic training, and had hit his head quite hard during a drill. He had gotten a full week off-duty in case of concussion, and the nurse at the infirmary had felt so sorry for him — because back then, he hadn’t been all that bad-looking, and with a certain sense of duty and confident chivalry that had been rather appealing — that she had offered for them to go out on a date during his next weekend pass. Nothing had ever come of it, but she had been kind and pretty, and it was recalled by Millen as a good, wholesome evening.

Another bucketful of water splashed atop his already soaked head, letting him know that he had again allowed the clutching hands of the clock to scuttle past his awareness to run freely. His curls dripped wetly onto his face and he was beginning to shiver, his skin chilled like that of a hooked fish tossed directly into a cooler from the lake without it having bothered to be clubbed to a merciful death.

He felt something unyielding against his back and realized he had been placed back into a chair. He wasn’t strapped down, likely because he had been completely unreactive for most of his time in the hands of his captors, and they thought it was improbable that he would attempt aggression by that point. He had the sudden, ridiculous urge to ask why he had been released from the stress position. Probably, he had collapsed, fallen over, his legs given out.

He could imagine it. Him, forced into a hybridization of kneeling and squatting, thighs torturously made to bear him fully, his center of balance precariously pivoted onto the front of his feet, and then suddenly just toppling over like he had been nudged by an invisible finger.

He barked out a startled laugh.

The interrogators stopped abruptly. One glanced to the other. There appeared to be some uncertainty.

Millen’s laughter slowly built into a wretched, high-pitched sort of creaking. Tears welled in the corners of his eyes. Was he mad?

The barrel of a gun was jabbed against the crown of his temples. “Stop laughing! Stop laughing, or I’ll fucking blow your brains out!”

There was a click as the safety was flicked off, but Millen couldn’t stop himself. He was sobbing in mirth, and it was a response of a pure, unfiltered stress that had gone on for too long.

A gunshot cracked right next to his ear, but he still didn’t quiet. One of the interrogators lifted him by the lapels of his shirt and slammed him against the wall. “You think this is funny, you little punk? You think you can just laugh it off, like you’re some kind of big, bad hero? Well, I’ll tell you what, faggot—“ The interrogator towered over him, grinding his face against the hard surface, one hand gripping at his hair. “—you’ve got another goddamn thing coming. You wanna see how tough you are when me and my men are rapin’ your mingin’ hole? Turn you into a proper whore, bet you’d like every second of it, too. Bet you wank off at night thinkin’ of some real man taking you like you’re nothin’ more than a glory hole. That’s all you are, though, innit?”

The interrogator’s hand groped downwards, snagging at the waistband of Millen’s trousers, palm flattened against the xi’s crotch.

Something inside of Millen snapped.

He was on the other person in seconds, teeth trying to find their throat, his fingers scrabbling for the pistol they still held in their hand.

The interrogator yelped, stumbling backwards and then crashing to the ground. Millen went with him, two small, blunt fangs catching against the side of their masked face, tearing through the fabric to sink into the soft cheek-flesh below.

The interrogated cried out, one fist beating against Millen’s side to try and dislodge him and the other keeping the gun as far away as possible from his reach. “Get him off me! Stop the session!”

Millen was too far gone to comprehend what their last sentence’s implications were as his nails scratched at the interrogator’s clothes, finding purchase so that even as the other three scrambled over to try to grab him, he couldn’t be pried off. He bit and bucked like a feral creature, like a fox trapped in its den by the hunter and the dog, and his scent was of things over-ripened, of worm-eaten apples left rotting below the tree or grain fermenting in waterlogged fields when the farmer cannot yield his crop for the rain.

Something sharp and pronged was jammed into his ribs, and Millen’s entire body locked up, electricity coursing through his overtaxed muscles. For several terrible seconds, he was spasming, every part of his body tensed and his nerves alight with white fire. Then the taser was switched off, and he went limp, still clutching the interrogator’s shirt, his legs twitching sporadically and eyes glazed over.

In a last-ditch effort before what he assumed would be his horrific death, he buried his teeth into the arm of one of the interrogator’s arms and clung on with the strength of a snapping turtle.

Hot iron flooded his mouth, smeared over his nose, splattered down his chin, and the interrogator screamed. The taser bit into Millen’s flesh again, this time against his chest, and it felt like his bones were being filled with liquid silver, sparks exploding in front of his eyes.

“Millen! Millen, let go, stop!”

Millen was pulled away from all four ‘interrogators’ and against a lean chest, warm brown hands running up and down his biceps, checking for any injuries. Another set joined in, hefting him to the xi to his feet as he swayed, his legs buckling.

“Fook, get ‘im sitting down,” ordered a distinct Manchester gruff. Millen was looking around in complete bewilderment, whimpering softly, shrinking from the gentle touches, which were a far cry from the rest of the meanness showed to him in that dank, bleak room.

“Millen? Mills, can you hear us?” That was Gaz, his polished London accent achingly familiar. The beta was already unbuttoning Millen’s shirt, exposing bruises flowering like purple allium up his pale olive skin, and twin puncture wounds from where the barbs of the taser had been fired into him. “Come on, love, you’re alright. Breathe, just breathe.”

Millen was still trapped in a state of fight-or-flight, beginning to struggle against Gaz’s hold. “S-stay away from me! Get away!”

Gaz tried to grab Millen’s hands, but the xi was more than terrified, his mind painting Gaz as a trick, an illusion – a threat. It was all still very real, and Millen’s chest and side burned from the shock, his thoughts jumbled into a cacophony of buzzing noise and flashing images that came too fast, as if each frame of what he was experiencing was cranked to extreme high-definition and the contrast was at one hundred percent.

Millen tried to free himself from Gaz’s hold, but a firm palm clasped the xi’s scruff, and he went limp instantly.

Alpha.

The heavy flush of pheromones washed across Millen’s tongue, his mouth open and panting. The familiarity of aged cigars and whiskey, played over the natural heat and salt of a pack alpha’s dominance that reminded Millen of a cedar forest on a hot July day.

Millen whined softly, his own scent opening up in invitation, like the petals of a torch ginger unfurling for the vibrant sunrise over the hills of Princípe. Strong, calloused hands cupped his face and thumbed over the bruises painting his cheekbone and nose where he had been struck.

“Settle, son. It’s over.”

“Captain?” Millen managed to ask, his voice cracking in the middle. “I don’t— I don’t understand—“

Gaz came into focus, with Ghost standing behind him like a second shadow. “RTI, mate. Resistance to Interrogation. It was a staged exercise.”

Millen was starting to quiver again. His brain felt like it was melting as he fought to make sense of the information he was being given. “But the— they just showed up, and I was— I was going to the range—“

“That’s what Laswell was phoning Price about,” Gaz explained, his expression sympathetic. “To confirm that you were ready. When Price told her yes, I texted him that you were heading down to the shooting range, and then he got back to Laswell so she could tell the guys pretending to be hostiles where to nab you. You put up a pretty good fight for being outnumbered three to one and unarmed.”

“He could have done better,” Ghost disagreed. He was frowning behind his balaclava. “Don’t give him credit just for being able to send out a scent-based distress call. It doesn’t work worth a dime if the pack’s not nearby.”

Gaz shot the lieutenant a glare, as if reminding him just how psychologically taxing RTI training could be. Ghost, however, just grunted, rolled his shoulders, and lumbered out of the room along with the rest of the actors. One of the ‘interrogators’ was still clutching his arm where Millen had bitten him.

“Seriously, are you okay?” Gaz turned back to Millen, turning his face this way and that, inspecting the mild damage. “I know it’s a lot to take in, man, but you’ll feel a lot better after a hot shower and some sleep. You’ve been in here for about fifty-six hours.”

Even in the state he was in, math remained one of Millen’s few strong suits, and he repeated the information, his voice faint. He could remember all of less than thirty or forty minutes. “Two and a half days?”

“Almost, yeah,” confirmed Gaz, as Price slowly helped Millen to stand again, supporting some of his weight so the xi didn’t fall again.

“Let’s get you back to base, see if the infirmary won’t check you out,” the captain said, urging Millen forward on jellied legs. “Bet you could use a paracetamol right about now. Stress positions are hell on the joints.”

Millen allowed himself to be numbly led down a short hallway and out into a yard of dead grass confined in by a chain-link fence topped with razor wire. There was a guard stationed at a small gate, though they quickly allowed the quartet — because Ghost had joined them again now — to pass through to the gravel road beyond, where a mud-splashed Jeep was waiting.

Price claimed the driver’s seat, with Ghost in shotgun beside him. Gaz loaded Millen into the back, where there was a bottle of vitamin water and a protein bar waiting, both of which the beta slid into Millen’s noodle-strengthed fingers. “Here, you need to eat and drink something. I know you probably don’t feel like eating right now, but try for at least a few bites, okay?”

Millen just stared down at the plastic bottle. There was a picture of a happy stick-person on the label. He didn’t feel very happy himself.

Something wet dripped down onto his wrist. For a moment, he thought that maybe the bottle had sprung a leak, until he registered the tears slipping down his face. He hadn’t realized he’d began to cry.

Gaz’s gaze softened. He reached out to brush the tears from Millen’s cheeks. “Hey, no, don’t. It’s okay. It was all just… pretend. It was a test. You did good!”

Millen just shook his head, pulling away from Gaz’s touch. He’d thought he was going to be killed. He’d been put in a situation where he was made to believes he’d been kidnapped by people who would harm him, would torture him, and left there for almost three days without food, water, or sleep. Even in disassociation, those vital needs being ignored, even denied, took a tremendous toll.

How was it legal? It wasn’t ethical. It was manipulation, it was fear factoring, like placing a rabbit in a cage and having a hawk be allowed to swoop back and forth overhead, so that the poor trapped creature has no choice but to feel the shadow of its greatest predator wash over it again and again. The rabbit knows it must run when the skies darken under the beat of the hawk’s wings, but the wire mesh prevents its instincts from being fulfilled.

Millen never agreed to that, never wanted that. He was shaking and sweating, the space behind his eyes aching with the promise of a migraine.

Shame curdled in his belly. He had been such a coward, cringing away from reality to hide in his own head. He hadn’t been brave or defiant like he should have been.

He didn’t deserve to be called an alpha. He was no more courageous than a pup. He would never be anything more than the miserable thing he was now, weeping over a danger that had never existed in the first place. He could bet that Ghost hadn’t cried, and certainly not Price. Soap would have laughed in the face of the interrogators and told them to go fuck themselves. Gaz would have followed protocol down to the letter and stared into space, preserving his own dignity in a way that Millen hadn’t even attempted to.

It had taken the xi up to the point of gross sexual groping to finally try and fight back. How much further would he have allowed the actor to go if he’d been just a little deeper into his head? How far would the actors themselves have went if Millen had continued to take the abuse meekly?

The fact that he didn’t know scared him.