“A cleverly crafted one,” Oberon didn’t deny it. “If you’re honest with me, it’ll end with us both satisfied. How does that sound?”
“Like a lie.”
“I’ve never lied to you, Wolf. Can you say the same?”
Of course he couldn’t.
Fenrir didn’t like to think about his past. There was nothing good there. He hadn’t known his parents. They’d died shortly after he was born, and his grandparents had taken him in. Both of them had been very set in the old ways, their beliefs that alphas were superior to omegas, and that betas shouldn’t be allowed citizenship on the planet, made it hard for him to make friends.
Whenever he got close to forming any sort of connection with a classmate, they’d discover his connection to the town’s mayor in the news and distance themselves. The world had been progressing forward, but his grandfather, an alpha who lorded his second sex over the rest, had been opposed to progress, and he’d continuously done everything in his power to block laws that he didn’t agree with.
As the mayor, he should have been trustworthy, if nothing else, but upon his death, it’d been revealed that he’d also had a drug problem. When his pheromones had begun to lose their potency, and younger, more viral alphas had entered into politics, his desperation had led him straight to the Wardrobe’s door.
“The first four years I was with them,” Fenrir found himself saying, voice quiet, tension easing from his muscles as the alpha continued to massage him, “the Wardrobe treated me as free labor. I didn’t mind. It meant I had a roof over my head, and the meals were always warm, which was better than cold or picked from a dumpster. My grandparents' savings went to the government when they died, and it was revealed my grandfather had been skimming funds off the top in order to afford his steroid addiction.”
“Steroids?”
“Boosters.”
“He was old when he passed. His pheromones were fading?”
“Yes.”
“Happens to the best of us.”
“Trust me,” Fenrir drawled. “He was the worst of us.”
“So that’s why you were already used to shitty treatment and didn’t see the Wardrobe for what it was until it was too late.”
It was crazy how perceptive Oberon was.
“It made sense to test out the new product on the grunts,” he continued. “They didn’t tell us about it at first. Slipped it into our food. There were twenty other alphas I used to share an open space in one of the Wardrobe’s warehouses with. Within three days, half were dead. The rest of us got sick. I remember passing out in front of the bathroom door one night shortly after dinner and waking the next day tied to a chair.”
He’d been eighteen and terrified. Confused.
“I was stupid and used my ability to break free. They sedated me in the hallway. That’s when Michelle took an interest. I’d never even seen her up until that point, but she’d already been the leader of the Wardrobe for a couple of years. She had the doctors convince me that there was a virus going around and they were trying to find a cure.”
“You believed that?”
“Not right away. But she took me down the hall to another room where one of her top associates was. His name was Rowan. I was familiar with him. He was sick just like us.”
“Rowan was the face of the Wardrobe before he attempted to start a coup,” Oberon said. “He gathered the board and got as far as the voting process with claims that Michelle was too young and inexperienced to be left in charge. He lost and no one heard from him after that. There were rumors he’d fled the city, but—”
“Michelle killed him,” Fenrir stated. “Two days after I saw him lying there, they gave him the next round of the drug, and he died within minutes.”
Convinced there was no other way but to stick around, Fenrir had allowed himself to be placed with the rest of the trial subjects. He’d been under heavy guard by that point, so even if he’d had a change of heart, there’d been little chance of him escaping.
“Would you believe the only collar I’ve ever worn is a shock collar?” If his energy levels fluctuated too high, it zapped him. “Cold resistant. They must have invested a lot of coin in it.”
“I’ll get you a real one,” Oberon promised, palms smoothing across Fen’s upper back.
“Don’t say stuff like that.”
“Why not?”
“Because you don’t have to. I’m already telling you what you want to know.” There was no reason for the alpha to becruel. “Teasing me won’t make me talk any faster.” He exhaled and then picked up where he left off, not wanting to give Oberon the chance to speak first. “A year passed in a blur. I was sick all the time. People kept dying around me, alphas and omegas alike. Then Rebirth .25 was created. After the first dose, I started showing improvements. After the fourth…my body started to change without my knowledge. I wasn’t sick anymore, but I was feverish and always horny. It didn’t matter how many times I rubbed one out, I was never satisfied.
“Then came the slick. I panicked the first time my body produced it. Alphas aren’t supposed to lubricate that way. For some reason, I remember thinking about my grandfather. I couldn’t get his disapproving face out of my head. Couldn’t help thinking about how disgusted he’d be to discover his only alpha grandchild was leaking like a—”