The heat hit me like stepping into a blast furnace. Fifty degrees Celsius turned Zane's cell into hell itself, air thick with desperation and the metallic tang of spilled blood. His pheromones had gone nuclear—crimson mist that made my vision swim and my knees threaten to buckle.
But the temperature wasn't the worst part.
Something invisible and slick wrapped around my ankles like silk rope, sliding up my calves with possessive intent. More tendrils coiled around my waist, my wrists, ghosting across my throat with the intimacy of a lover's touch. His pheromones had taken physical form, and they were *claiming* me.
*This is definitely not covered in any medical textbook I've ever read.*
**[LIVESTREAM - VIEWERS: 1,347,892]**
→ @BloodRose_666: THOSE PHEROMONE TENTACLES ARE EVERYTHING 🔥🔥🔥
→ @ChaosQueen: Is anyone else having impure thoughts or is it just me?
→ @ShadowLord donated 50,000 credits: "THE SEXUAL TENSION IS SUFFOCATING ME"
→ @OmegaLover: How is he still standing? Those pheromones would drop a normal person
I forced myself deeper into the suffocating heat, medical bag clutched like a shield. Zane sprawled across his reinforced cot like a fallen angel, silver hair plastered to his skull with sweat that caught the harsh light like liquid mercury. His massive frame—all scarred muscle and lethal grace—shook with violent tremors, skin flushed fever-bright and slick with perspiration.
When his crimson eyes snapped open at my approach, the sound that escaped his throat was pure, undiluted sin—half whimper, half growl, all desperate need.
The chat exploded with donations and increasingly explicit commentary.
"Don't move," I warned as he tried to sit up, muscles bunching under sweat-slicked skin. "Body temperature 102.2 degrees. You need medication, not whatever your heat-addled brain thinks you need."
He moved faster than physics should allow for someone in his condition. One second I was reaching for his neck with the syringe, the next his face was buried against my palm, cheek rubbing against my skin like some massive, deadly cat seeking comfort and marking territory simultaneously.
The vulnerability of the gesture hit me like a physical blow. This killer—this monster who'd torn apart three doctors with his bare hands—was exposing his throat to me. The most fragile, vital part of himself, offered up like a sacrifice to whatever twisted god had brought us together.
My breath caught in my throat. The pheromone tendrils tightened around me, pulling me closer to his furnace-hot skin.
"Stop moving," I ordered, fighting every instinct that screamed at me to either run or surrender completely. "This will help with the fever, but I need you to stay still."
The needle slid home with practiced precision. Zane's entire body went rigid for a heartbeat, then melted against me with a sound that definitely violated several medical ethics codes and possibly a few laws of nature.
**[CHAT EXPLOSION]**
→ @OmegaLover: HE'S SCENTING HIM! PURE ALPHA INSTINCT IN ACTION!
→ @DarkPrince: The way he's looking at him... I'M ACTUALLY DECEASED
→ @Anonymous_7749 donated 100,000 credits: "KISS HIM YOU ABSOLUTE COWARD"
→ @BloodRose_666: This is better than any romance novel I've ever read
---
The purification energy built in my chest like molten gold, pressure mounting until I thought my ribs might crack. Light spilled from my skin in waves, washing over Zane's fevered form with ethereal radiance. His violent pheromones began to settle, the oppressive heat in the room dropping degree by precious degree.
But power always came with a price, and mine was steeper than most.
The backlash hit the moment his fever broke, pain exploding behind my eyes like shattered glass mixed with liquid fire. My vision blurred instantly, tears streaming down my face as every nerve ending in my body decided to stage a revolt. My legs forgot how to support my weight, and I collapsed to my knees beside his cot, gasping for air that felt like breathing through molten honey.
*Fantastic. Nothing says 'professional medical care' like having a complete breakdown all over your patient.*
The contrast wasn't lost on the livestream audience, who were having collective heart attacks in the chat.
**[CHAT GOING WILD]**
→ @BloodRose_666: NO! The pretty doctor is hurt! SOMEONE HELP HIM!
→ @ChaosQueen: THE CONTRAST! Ice cold professional to broken angel in seconds!
→ @ShadowLord: This is the most beautiful devastation I've ever witnessed
→ @OmegaLover: The way he's crying... my heart literally cannot handle this
Through my blurred vision, I saw Zane struggling back to consciousness, his fever finally broken but something else flickering in those crimson depths—recognition, pain, and a guilt so profound it made my chest ache in sympathy.
"Sorry," he whispered, voice cracked and raw like he'd been screaming for hours. "Little brother... the chip... I shouldn't have listened to him... shouldn't have let them do it..."
*Little brother? Chip? What the hell is he talking about? And who is 'him'?*
I tried to process this new information, but my body had other priorities. Like not passing out on a serial killer's floor.
Zane's eyes focused on my face with laser precision, taking in the tears still streaming down my cheeks, the blood I could taste at the corner of my mouth from biting my tongue during the backlash. His pupils contracted to pinpricks, and something predatory and protective flickered across his features.
Then he moved with that inhuman speed again.
Before I could protest or pull away, his tongue flicked out, catching the drop of blood at my lip with a gentleness that seemed impossible from someone with his reputation. The contact was electric, intimate in ways that made my brain short-circuit and my heart forget how to beat properly.
"Dirty," I managed to gasp, though whether I was talking about the blood or the gesture, I wasn't entirely sure.
His eyes never left mine, crimson depths burning with something that made my stomach flip dangerously. "Sweet."
*Oh no. This is bad. This is very, very bad in ways I don't have words for.*
---
The cell door clanged open with the finality of a coffin lid, shattering the moment like glass against concrete. Nurse Susan Wan stepped inside, her expression cold as winter steel and twice as sharp. She was definitely the eye from my door crack—I was absolutely certain now.
"How touching," she said, surveying the scene with clinical detachment that would have impressed me if it weren't so obviously malicious. "Quite literally."
I struggled to my feet on legs that felt like overcooked pasta, wiping blood from my mouth with the back of my hand. "The patient is stable. Fever's broken, pheromone levels returning to baseline."
"For now." Susan handed me a thick file, her smile sharp enough to perform surgery. "New orders from Warden Adam. Seven days. Five more inmates. You'll purify them all using whatever methods you deem necessary, or your secret goes very, very public."
She pointed at the security camera mounted in the corner, its red light blinking like a malevolent eye.
"The military research division is always looking for new test subjects. I'm sure they'd find your unique abilities absolutely fascinating."
The file felt like a death sentence wrapped in bureaucratic efficiency. I opened it with hands that definitely weren't trembling, and my blood slowly turned to ice water.
**[SUBJECT 02 - DR. WEISS]**
**Classification: S-Class**
**Real Name: [REDACTED]**
**Ability: Parasitic Integration**
**Preferred Method: Surgical Precision**
**Hobby: Vivisection of Living Subjects**
**Status: Extremely Dangerous - Approach with Extreme Caution**
The photograph showed perfection incarnate—platinum blonde hair that caught light like spun gold, eyes the color of winter sky, features so symmetrical they seemed almost artificial. He was beautiful in the way poisonous things often were, with a smile that belonged in medical journals under "textbook psychopath."
**[LIVESTREAM CHAT]**
→ @ShadowWatcher: Oh shit, doctor vs doctor showdown incoming
→ @BloodRose_666: He looks like an angel of death had a baby with a supermodel
→ @ChaosQueen: Why do all the dangerous ones have to be so devastatingly pretty?
→ @DarkPrince donated 75,000 credits: "This keeps escalating and I'm here for it"
"Dr. Weiss specifically requested that you dress appropriately for tomorrow's session," Susan said, heels clicking toward the door like a countdown timer. "Something easy to remove, he said. His scalpels work so much faster that way."
The door slammed shut with finality. Almost immediately, the intercom crackled to life.
"Dr. Shen." The voice was silk poured over steel, cultured and refined in a way that belonged in opera houses, not maximum security prisons. "I've been so looking forward to our consultation tomorrow. I do hope you're prepared for a thorough examination. My instruments are quite sharp, and I promise to be very, very meticulous in my assessment."
Static cut the transmission, but the threat lingered like poison gas.
**[CHAT GOING NUCLEAR]**
→ @OmegaLover: NOPE NOPE NOPE I'M OFFICIALLY OUT
→ @BloodRose_666: That voice just gave me full-body chills
→ @ShadowLord: He's definitely planning something surgical and horrifying
→ @Anonymous_0001 donated 200,000 credits: "RUN WHILE YOU STILL HAVE ALL YOUR ORGANS"
I stared at Dr. Weiss's photograph, memorizing every detail of that perfect, predatory face. Tomorrow, I'd have to walk into another monster's lair. But this one wouldn't be driven by heat or instinct or any biological imperative I could understand.
This one would be cold, calculated, and very interested in what made me tick.
Literally.
Behind me, Zane stirred on his cot, fever finally broken but eyes still tracking my every movement with the kind of possessive intensity that should have been terrifying but somehow felt almost protective.
*One down. Five to go. And the next one wants to dissect me like a lab specimen.*
I closed the file and tried not to think about how sharp surgical instruments could be in the right hands.
Or how much damage they could do in the wrong ones.