The Alpha Who Tried to Unmate Me

Chapter 18 – Arlen’s Red Flags

Morning came with the taste of metal in my mouth and not nearly enough coffee.

Clinic lights felt harsher than usual. The waiting room hummed with low‑level pack anxiety: a sprained ankle here, a pup with a cough there, three warriors pretending they weren’t watching every move I made.

Arlen slid a chart onto the nurses’ station in front of me. “You look like you wrestled a banshee and lost.”

“Close,” I said. “Paperwork.”

She snorted. “Liar. Come on.”

“Patients—”

“Covered,” she said. “Dr. Croft’s got the fun cases, interns have the boring ones. You’re scheduled for ‘administrative review’ this hour.” Her fingers made air quotes. “Which is code for ‘digging through forbidden files until someone screams.’”

That tracked.

She tugged me into Croft’s cramped back office. The blinds were half‑closed; the only light came from the twin glow of a desktop and Arlen’s personal tablet. Ishan’s encryption key sat in a small metal box between them, humming faintly.

Arlen shut the door, flipped the lock, and leaned back against it. “Okay. Ground rules. If anyone knocks, we’re talking about sexually transmitted curses, got it?”

“Very funny.”

“I am very funny,” she said. “It’s how I cope with treason.”

Despite everything, my mouth twitched. “Show me.”

She perched on the edge of the desk and tapped her screen. “I pulled everything Ishan flagged as related to ‘experimental severance protocols’ and cross‑referenced with our clinic archives. Some overlaps, some gaps.” She slid the tablet toward me. “Your case, Selyne’s, and a bunch of coded entries from the same period.”

Rows of IDs stared back. L‑01‑VX. V‑02‑VR. A handful of others: M‑03, J‑04, S‑05. Initials all the way down.

“Subjects or victims?” I asked.

“Depends who’s writing,” Arlen said.

I opened the file labeled M‑03. A male wolf from a minor pack, flagged as “aggressive tendencies, unstable pre‑bond markers.” Phases of the protocol marched down the page in the same clipped language as mine and Selyne’s. The last line was short.

Outcome: Subject deceased during Phase II. Data set incomplete. Recommend additional trials.

My stomach lurched. I closed that file and opened another. This one, J‑04, never made it to Phase III. “Psychological decompensation” was the polite term the notes used. The words self‑termination lurked behind the phrasing like a shadow.

“They kept going,” I said. “Even when wolves died in the early phases.”

Arlen’s jaw worked. “Volen’s reports to the city never mention fatalities. Just ‘nonviable candidates’ and ‘terminated trials.’”

“Nonviable,” I repeated. “Like bad crops.”

“Like broken tools,” she said.

I flipped to Selyne’s file. Same structure. Same phases. Some lines we’d already seen, some newly unredacted courtesy of Ishan’s key.

Phase II: Controlled destabilization produced subject hyper‑fixation on initial bond partner. Attempts to redirect attachment unsuccessful. Aggression markers ↑ 217%.

Phase III: Rerouting to alternative partner aborted due to subject noncompliance. Sedation protocols inadequate. Recommend development of stronger restraints.

Under “Outcome,” someone had added, almost as an afterthought:

Remaining aural/olfactory signature ideal for replication cloaking.

I sat back. “They didn’t just break her. They tagged her as a tool while she was still bleeding.”

Arlen’s voice went very soft. “And then labeled her ‘authorized for termination’ when that tool started cutting the wrong throats.”

Silence stretched. The hum of the key, the faint buzz of fluorescent lights, my own pulse in my ears.

“Look at the dates,” Arlen said.

I did. Phase III for me. Phase III for Selyne. The same week. The day difference between “modified severance” and “rerouting attempt aborted” was exactly two days.

“Side‑by‑side,” I murmured. “Same block of time. Same team.”

“Same alpha on the consent forms,” Arlen added quietly.

I already knew that, intellectually. Seeing Corren’s digital signature stamped under Authorization: pack representative hit differently.

“He thought he was signing off on a clean cut,” I said. My voice didn’t sound like mine. “They ran him as a variable too.”

“Doesn’t mean he walks away blameless,” Arlen said, not unkindly. “But it does mean Volen’s pet project had more levers than anyone thought.”

She slid another file to the front. This one was newer. “Here’s the part that really made me want to bite something.”

VOLEN MARQ – INTERNAL MEMO, LEVEL RED

Subject L‑01 and Subject V‑02 demonstrate highest tolerance for bond trauma. Recommend retention of genetic and aural templates for future large‑scale protocols (population‑level bond management).

I stared. “Population‑level.”

“Not just matching pairs anymore,” Arlen said. “Networks. Imagine being able to dampen every wolf’s bond in a city at once. Make them more compliant. Less likely to riot when humans push too far.”

My wolf snarled so hard my vision blurred. “They wanted a master switch.”

“And they needed you and Selyne as proof of concept,” Arlen said. “One ‘stable’ severance. One ‘unstable.’ Build the algorithm around the edges.”

I forced myself to breathe.

“This memo is gold,” I said. “If we leak it with the trial data—”

“It’ll cause a riot,” Arlen finished. “Yes.”

“Good,” I said.

She watched me for a long moment. “You’re sure about this? Once this stuff is out, there’s no stuffing it back into a file cabinet. Packs will panic. Some humans will double down. Some will side with us. It’s not a neat scalpel. It’s a bomb.”

“They already turned me into one,” I said. “At least this time I get to choose where I explode.”

Arlen’s mouth curved in something fierce. “Then we aim carefully.” She tapped the screen again. “There’s more. Cross‑links. Payouts from quiet corporate accounts to certain pack leaders. Even a few city officials.”

“Bribes,” I said.

“Or ‘incentives to cooperate,’ depending on who’s naming the transaction.”

I rubbed my temples. “I need Ishan to map this. Names, dates, amounts. If we show the wolves just how cheap their bonds were sold for, they’ll never trust Volen’s people again.”

Arlen hesitated. “There’s one more thing.”

“Of course there is.”

She pulled up a final file. No subject code. Just a project name.

PROJECT LUCENT: PILOT CITY SUCCESS. PREPARE ROLLOUT BLUEPRINT FOR SITES B–F.

Underneath, five city names. Ours was just the first.

Cold slid down my spine.

“This wasn’t a one‑off,” I said. “We’re the prototype.”

“And unless we stop it here,” Arlen said, “what happened to you and Selyne becomes the standard operating procedure everywhere else.”

The room felt suddenly too small.

“Send everything to Ishan,” I said. “Encrypted. Multiple copies, in case someone gets cute with the servers.”

Arlen’s gaze softened, just a hair. “You okay?”

“No,” I said honestly. “But I’m angry enough to function. That’ll do.”

Outside the office, the clinic buzzed on, oblivious. Patients came and went. Wolves trusted the humans in white coats.

Inside, on a glowing screen, the program’s guts lay exposed.

They’d built their pretty system on our broken bonds. It was time someone cut theirs for a change.