Chapter 7: Release the Beast
The order came through at 21:15, a terse digital ping on Daniel’s tablet. Conduct routine wellness check on Asset ASH-01. Quarters D7.
His stomach twisted. The cheek where Charlotte had struck him still felt hot, a phantom brand. This was it. The leash. He stood outside his own office for a long minute, staring at the glowing text. He could refuse. He could walk away. The image of her cold eyes stopped him. She would break him, piece by piece, until he complied. Better to get it over with. To see the disgust in Marcus’s eyes when he realized Daniel had become his jailer’s instrument.
He walked the sterile corridors, the rubber soles of his shoes sighing against the polished concrete. The residential block for the assets was quieter, the air thicker. He reached D7, the reinforced door like every other, except the placard beside it read ASHCROFT, M.
At 21:17, inside, Marcus felt it.
He’d been lying on his bunk, staring at the ceiling, trying to ignore the restless energy that thrummed under his skin since the session with Charlotte. His monitoring bracelet, a sleek black band that never left his wrist, emitted a soft, almost inaudible hiss. A cool, tingling vapor sprayed against his skin.
He sat up, frowning. A new sedative? His system metabolized most toxins in seconds. But this wasn’t sedation.
It was a wildfire.
Heat exploded from his core, a searing wave that had nothing to do with his powers. It was a deep, animal burn in his gut, his blood transforming to molten lead. His muscles tensed, cords standing out on his neck. Arousal, but not like any he’d ever known. This was stripped of all psychology, all romance. It was chemical, total, and absolute. It screamed one directive: Claim. Mate. Now.
His senses dialed to a painful sharpness. He could smell the sterile cleaner in the air, the faint metallic tang of the air filtration, and underneath it all, something else. Something sweet. Daniel. He could smell Daniel’s scent from the hallway, the ghost of his shampoo, the unique warmth of his skin. The need zeroed in on it like a missile.
The door hissed open.
Daniel stepped inside, the door starting to swish shut behind him. “Marcus? Routine check. Just need to verify your—”
He froze.
The room was dark, only the faint emergency strip lighting along the floor. Marcus stood by the bunk, a silhouette of immense, quivering tension. Daniel could hear his breathing—ragged, deep, like a bull about to charge. The air was hot, thick with the smell of clean sweat and something else, something musky and aggressively male.
“Marcus?” Daniel’s voice was a whisper.
Marcus’s head turned. His eyes gleamed in the low light, pupils blown wide, black swallowing the blue. They weren’t the eyes of Garrett, or even the weary, controlled Titan. They were pure, feral hunger. They locked onto Daniel and possessed him.
“Mine,” Marcus growled. The word was guttural, dripping with primal certainty.
Panic ignited in Daniel’s chest. He took a step back, his shoulder bumping the door. It was supposed to auto-lock from the outside, but usually released from within. He slapped the exit panel.
Nothing.
He hit it again, frantic. The red “LOCK ENGAGED” light glowed mockingly.
“Open. Open, goddammit!” He pounded on the unyielding metal, then spun, looking up at the dark lens of the security camera in the corner. “Hey! The door’s locked! Let me out! Now! Can you hear me? Charlotte! Someone! Let me the fuck out!”
On the monitor bank in her office, Charlotte watched, a glass of water in her hand. She saw Daniel’s frightened face, the frantic pounding. She saw Marcus, a statue of coiled need, watching him. Yes. Go on. Take him. Break his precious professionalism. Make him yours so I can own you both.
In the room, Daniel’s pleas died in his throat as he heard the heavy footfall.
Marcus crossed the space in three silent strides. Daniel tried to dart sideways, but a massive arm hooked around his waist, yanking him backward off his feet. He was pulled flush against a body that was rigid as iron, burning like a furnace. The air left his lungs in a shocked gasp.
“Mine,” Marcus breathed into his ear, the heat of it scorching. His other hand came up, not striking, but splaying across Daniel’s chest, holding him immobile. Daniel could feel every inch of him—the relentless strength, the hard planes of muscle, and the insistent, terrifying pressure of Marcus’s erection grinding against the base of his spine. It was huge, a rigid length of heat even through two layers of fabric. A visceral tremor of fear and something else, something deeply shameful, shot through Daniel.
“Marcus, you’re not yourself,” Daniel choked out, struggling uselessly. It was like fighting a mountain. “They did something to you. Your bracelet. Fight it.”
Marcus buried his face in the crook of Daniel’s neck, inhaling deeply, a rough, shuddering sound. He nuzzled the skin there, his stubble scratching. He was trembling with the effort of holding still. Daniel could feel the battle inside the man—the monstrous, chemical urge and the cracking dam of his will.
“I know,” Marcus rasped, the words ragged, forced out through the haze. “I can taste it. Chemicals. In my blood. It’s… it’s screaming at me.” His hips gave an involuntary, grinding thrust, drawing a sharp sound from Daniel. “It’s telling me to bend you over this bunk, rip your clothes off, and fuck you until you can’t remember your own name. To fill you up. To make you scream.”
The explicit, filthy words, spoken in that hoarse, aching voice, sent a paralyzing jolt through Daniel. He stopped struggling. On the monitor, Charlotte leaned forward, a smile touching her lips. Now.
But Marcus didn’t move.
His arms tightened, but not to hurt. To hold. He kept his face pressed to Daniel’s neck, his breath coming in hot, ragged gusts.
“I am so sorry, Danny,” he whispered, the nickname from another life a blade to Daniel’s heart. “For all of it. For lying. For being him. For letting you down that day. I don’t deserve to touch you. Not after what I am.”
Daniel’s eyes stung. “Marcus…”
“I love you.” The confession was torn from him, raw and simple, cutting through the chemical miasma. “It’s the only true thing left in me. It’s why this fucking poison isn’t winning. I won’t let it use me to hurt you. Not again.”
The dam broke, but not into violence. Into a flood of aching tenderness. Marcus’s voice was a broken thing. “I understand. Why you have to keep your distance. You’re good. You’re clean. I’m… I’m this. You were right to run. You should run.”
Daniel felt the fight drain out of him, replaced by a devastating wave of empathy. This man, a weapon of mass destruction, was fighting a war inside his own blood for him. The leash Charlotte imagined didn’t exist. This was a tether of his own making, and it was stronger than any chemical.
Tears blurred Daniel’s vision. He let his head fall back against Marcus’s shoulder. “I would be lying,” he said, his voice thick, “if I said I didn’t care about you. That I never think about you. That it doesn’t kill me to see you every day and have to pretend.”
A shuddering sigh racked Marcus’s frame. He turned Daniel gently in his arms, still holding him close, but now face to face. He looked wrecked—eyes black with need, skin sheened with sweat, every muscle vibrating with strain. But his hands, as they came up to cradle Daniel’s face, were impossibly gentle.
“Then that’s enough,” Marcus breathed. “For tonight, that’s enough to keep me human.”
He leaned down, his forehead touching Daniel’s. They stayed like that for a long moment, in the hot, dark, locked room, a silent conversation passing between them.
Then, Marcus straightened. He looked past Daniel at the sealed door. A grim, focused look settled over his features. The love was still there, but now it was flanked by the Titan’s will.
“Stand back,” he said softly.
Daniel stumbled back to the bunk. Marcus stood before the door, a colossus in the dim light. He didn’t growl, didn’t roar. He simply set his feet, placed one gigantic palm flat on the reinforced metal, and pushed.
A deep, metallic groan filled the room. The sound of straining bolts. The door, designed to withstand small explosives, buckled inward around his hand. With a final, wrenching shriek of tearing metal, the locking mechanism sheared clean through. The door slid open a foot, then jammed in its twisted frame.
Cool air from the corridor washed in.
Marcus stood in the opening, backlit, his chest heaving. He looked at Daniel, his expression unreadable. “Go.”
Daniel didn’t hesitate. He slipped through the gap, his body brushing against Marcus’s. The heat coming off him was still intense, the need still a palpable force in the air. He paused, just outside, wanting to say a hundred things.
“Go, Danny. Please. Before I can’t.”
Daniel went. He walked swiftly down the corridor, not looking back, his heart hammering against his ribs. He heard the distant, tortured groan of metal as Marcus forced the broken door mostly shut again from the inside.
Alone in the ruined room, Marcus slumped against the wall. The chemical fire was still raging, unabated. The scent of Daniel clung to his clothes, his skin, a sweet torment. He fumbled with his pants, freeing his aching, thick cock. It was furious, leaking, desperately hard.
He slid down the wall to the floor, his breath sawing. He wrapped a giant, calloused hand around himself, a crude, tight fist. He didn’t imagine faceless bodies or the thrilling chaos of destruction. He thought of Daniel.
Of sun-drenched afternoons in a rented apartment that smelled of coffee and old books. Garrett and Danny. He remembered the first time, the nervous laughter giving way to gasps. The feel of Daniel under him, pliant and eager. The way his back would arch, the sweet, desperate sounds he’d make when Marcus hit just the right spot. “Right there, Garrett, oh god, right there…” He remembered Daniel’s mouth, lush and sinful, taking him deep, his eyes watering but never looking away. The filthy, beautiful things they’d whispered to each other in the dark. The sweat-slick glide of their bodies, moving together, Daniel’s legs locked around his hips, pulling him in deeper, begging for it, for him.
His strokes grew faster, rougher. A low grunt escaped his throat. He pictured Daniel as he’d just been—frightened, beautiful, forgiving. The way his body had softened in his arms. The tear on his cheek. “I would be lying if I said I didn’t care about you.”
With a final, choked-off groan that was equal parts ecstasy and agony, Marcus came. Thick, hot pulses striping the floor between his boots, his body convulsing with the force of it. He slumped forward, forehead against his knee, spent and hollow. The chemical hunger finally, blessedly, began to recede, leaving behind a profound, aching loneliness. The ghost of Daniel’s scent was still there. It always would be.
On the monitors, Charlotte stared, her expression frozen. The water glass in her hand was perfectly still. She had watched the entire pathetic, tender scene. She had seen the door tear open. She had seen the hero walk away untouched.
She watched the feed of Marcus’s room, now showing him curled on the floor by the wrecked door, a spent giant.
Not fury, but a cold, calculating disappointment settled in her gut. The chemical leash had snapped against the strength of a sentimental memory. How dreadfully banal.
She keyed her comms. “R&D. Report on K-77.”
“Director. Subject exhibited all physiological markers of extreme exposure: elevated heart rate, neural hyperactivity, endocrine surge. Empathic inhibitors were fully active. The target pheromone match was successfully isolated and amplified. The subject should have been incapable of higher-reasoning override.”
“But he was,” Charlotte said, her voice quiet and deadly. “He maintained control through an identified emotional attachment. The variable is Doctor Morales. His presence doesn’t just anchor Ashcroft; it fortifies him. A direct assault on that bond is ineffective. It only makes it stronger.”
“Your orders, Director?”
Charlotte’s eyes remained on the screen, on the broken door. “We need to be more creative. We need to get Daniel on board. Not as a reluctant participant. As a willing one. If the attachment is the source of his strength, then we don’t break it.” A thin, icy smile formed. “We corrupt it from the inside. Start running profiles. I want to know every soft spot, every unresolved wound, every secret desire Daniel Morales has ever buried. We’re not prying them apart anymore. We’re going to make him hand his heart over, willingly, and then we’re going to show him exactly what his precious Garrett is capable of when he has nothing left to lose.”
She cut the comms. The chapter was closed. The next one would require a far more delicate, and far more cruel, pen.