NOT MY ALPHA {+18}

34. Mackenzie

Mackenzie

The Doctor was missing. Since she let us into her computer, The Vampire had taken over her lab duties.

It was suspicious but also expected after the way Arlo had behaved.

It had been a week since then and we weren't any closer to figuring things out.

The Therapist, no matter how much I grilled him, said nothing more about the mating or the reason he had rushed out.

Instead, everything went on as normal. Infuriatingly normal.

The bell went off, we fucked.

Every day, The Brain gave us new experiments that tested our willingness to survive versus the drug.

We had bloods, vitals, tests, and sex.

Over and over.

And we had heard nothing from Cerberus.

Even after we sent him all that information.

I sat up in bed, the dark of the room suffocating me. I couldn't keep sitting around doing nothing. Not while the creatures were downstairs. Not when The Doctor was missing.

I got out of bed and paced.

It had been a while since we were meant to have gone to sleep, the bell long gone.

Usually, that knocked me right out but not tonight. I had too much on my mind tonight.

I paced, thinking over everything we knew and everything we didn't.

I still had no idea how Ryken's mother fit into all this. Or even really, Cerberus. I just knew that he was but what had he done?

How had he just made a mating link disappear from Ryken's mind?

My brain moved sluggishly like it wanted to turn off but I wouldn't let it.

Ryken sighed and sat up, leaning against the wall.

"Mackenzie, your footsteps are making it impossible to sleep. Why are you pacing?" he asked, folding his arms across his naked chest.

"Because I have a thought. It's right there. It's a link but I don't know if it's crazy or not."

"What kind of thought?" He asked, frowning as I kept moving from one side of the small room to the other at the foot of the bed.

"That mates can't hurt each other," I whispered, the idea piecing together fast the more I focused on it.

"I know," he said warily.

"And Cerberus hurt his mate," I thought out loud.

"Mackenzie-" Ryken warned. He was always touchy when it came to the subject of his mother but it was important.

"What if he could hurt his mate because he tricked his mind into thinking he wasn't mated?" I asked, turning to look at Ryken who had gone idea, his brain coming to the same conclusion as I had.

"Which he knew how to do because he had already done the same to me." It wasn't a question. Ryken had already accepted it as fact. And hearing it out loud made me sure it was truth too.

"So whatever he did to you, he did the same thing to himself," I said quietly.

Ryken's jaw clenched and he shook his head.

"Which is why he thinks I will be able to kill you," Ryken ran a hand over his braid.

I shrugged at that one, "I don't think he cares who kills me, Ryken, as long as I end up dead, which makes more sense now. Of course, he wants me dead. If I'm your mate, he'd have to let a hybrid in the pack."