Page 19 of His Human to Chase

“Which one is your mate’s bed?”

Deja points at the one across the room from me that’s made up perfectly like no one has slept in it for a while. “I don’t think we’ll be staying in here together when the males come back, but I don’t like being alone. Especially when I know what Dath is doing out there.”

“So he left too?” I ask.

I watched Toron and Yril both leave earlier, but Dath was still talking with Ralleth when I last saw him. I thought maybe one of them would be left to watch over all of us, but we have a full tribe of males all watching over us like we’re their family.

“All three of them gone, out in the forest.” Deja looks toward the boarded-up window. “I didn’t realize how much it would hurt for him not to be here.”

She rubs at her chest like it’s empty. The same motion I’ve made plenty of times tonight to ease some of the hollowness I feel. It’s surprising to me the familiarity of the empty feeling in my chest when Yril’s further away from me. It was the same emptiness I felt lying in my bed at night after the Hands started their experiments on us using the demons’ pheromones.

I roll onto my stomach and kick my legs into the air, trying to find some lightness so we aren’t moping the entire time our mates are gone. “Is yours pulling on your heart incessantly?”

Deja cracks a smile and then flops down on the bed next to me. “They’re so needy.” She laughs. “I swear, he started yanking on the tether as soon as he stepped out of the gates.”

“Glad I’m not the only one feeling the force of a giant alien trying to yank me through the woods,” I reply. The mood lightens enough that we’re able to smile and laugh even though the tugging is constant and a reminder that our mates are out in the danger of the woods because they want to keep us safe.

“Do you care if I say your mate’s name?” Deja asks. “Not in front of anyone, but just when it’s us. I hate how confusing it gets when I have to say my mate’s youngest blood or some nonsense like that.”

My lips peel back a bit when she asks because as much as the warrior gene changes Yril, something’s been changing in me, too. It must have changed Deja too because her eyes have hardened even thinking about saying another male’s name. It’s like their customs became our customs as soon as we mated them, and now we’re both territorial asses over our mates. Thankfully, I’m still somewhat rational, and I know saying Dath is a lot easier than using about five other words to describe him when I talk about him.

“Yeah, do you care if I say Dath’s name?” I watch her hands curl into a fist for a moment, and her eyes narrow on me. Yep, we’re both way too possessive over our aliens, but at least we’re not alone in how intense our feelings are.

“Never in front of them,” She says slowly as she releases a pent-up breath. “I might actually try to fight you if you say it in front of him.”

I throw my head back in a laugh. “If either of us says their names in front of them, they’ll probably kill each other before we get a chance to fight.” It’s true, too. Saying the name of a male is meant to alert them that we’re willing to sleep with them, and if I ever showed any interest in any other demon, Yril would make sure that demon was gone as soon as possible. I can’t have the hots for anyone else if everyone else is dead.

“True,” She smiles, and the tension leaves her hands. We laugh a bit more at our idiocy in getting so worked up over another woman saying our mates’ names. Deja sits up a bit straighter, picks at her nails, and finally asks me. “How did you know to mate Yril so quickly?”

My eyebrows rise when she says his name, and it takes me a moment to calm myself. “There’s a Hand on Earth. Do you remember the doctor we all had to see?” Deja gives me a short nod. “Well, he kind of steamrolled a lab technician one day while they were running tests on me and told me everything. Or as much as he could since he had to finish up my testing still. He told me about the warrior gene some of them have, how the Hands triggered it in two of the males when using our pheromones on them to see who they respond to, and which one responded to my pheromones.”

“Wait,” Deja holds up a hand to stop me. “They’ve been running even more experiments?”

“On them, on us. Yeah, they do it while we’re asleep somehow.” I shrug. I don’t really care that much, but Deja looks a bit betrayed. “They just use our pheromones on the males and their pheromones on us and get us all worked up and high on them so they can tell us which of us goes to which demon.”

“Yeah, Simone told me that much. I just wasn’t sure what else they’ve been doing. There’s no way they ended the experiments there. How long do you think they’ve been doing it for?”

“I don’t know.” I shrug again. “I don’t think they’ve got it perfected yet, considering they weren’t totally sure I’d respond to Yril’s scent until they did a final test. Plus, what if like a human doesn’t have a demon that her pheromones call to or vice versa.”

“I’m still hung up on the part where we were being experimented on more than I knew about,” Deja’s eyes are hard like she’s pissed off. It takes everything in me not to laugh. Of course, they’re experimenting on us. We’re an alien species to them that they’ve never worked with, according to what they told me. They want to be able to get us to breed with Yril’s species of alien. I’d be more surprised if they were doing it without experimenting on us.

“This whole thing is an experiment,” I throw my hands wide. “They’ve never worked with these creatures or with humans before. We’re the guinea pigs in all of this. So much so that they’ve already broken their promise of only sending one of us a month, and they’ve gone completely out of order since I’m A12-22 and Alice is A12-14. Who knows when or if they’ll send the next woman or even which one it will be.”

There’s a soft murmuring at the door that has us both stopping our conversation and listening. I narrow my eyes at the door, willing it to just magically fly open. Of course, that’s never going to happen, so I hold a finger up to my lips and tell Deja to be quiet as I sneak over. Sure, whoever’s talking out there is probably having a conversation that has nothing to do with us, but I’m curious about who it is and what they’re saying.

I lift my ear to the door just in time to hear someone sniffling softly and then a soft knock on the door. I jump and squeal at the same time, which sends Deja into a fit of giggles. The door slams open due to a concerned Simone barrelling in with her hands up like she’s ready to fight someone because I screamed.

“What are you two doing?” I ask as I try not to laugh after just screaming.

“She doesn’t know where her mate is.” Simone rubs her eyes like she’s been having to deal with Alice for a while now. She probably has, considering they share a room, “He usually sits at the end of the hall and watches our door while we sleep. He hasn’t been there all day, and she’s concerned even though she’s about to tell you that she’s not.”

Alice opens her mouth, probably about to deny everything Simone is saying but then closes it and just sighs. “Do you know if he’s with yours?”

I usher Alice and Simone into the room that is definitely way too warm since the fire is burning nice and bright. None of them say anything about it, though. It’s like we all know just how alone we are right now. Sure, Simone doesn’t feel the same as us since she isn’t tethered to one of the warriors, but she hasn’t been having an easy time of it here either since she has no idea who her mate is, and she wants nothing to do with any of the males anyways.

Deja’s hinted that Simone might’ve had something going on with one of the Hands, but I definitely try to push that idea out of my mind since it’s too ridiculous. I’m probably being hypocritical since I’m banging a giant lizard man, but the Hands have always just seemed too odd.

“Let me just tell you everything that I know, and then we can fill each other in on the rest, okay?” I ask, looking at each woman and waiting for a nod before I start. I tell them about what happened to me, the males we saw from another tribe, and I skip over that Yril may have completely ripped out all of their throats with his bare hands. As hot as it was for me, they may not feel the same way. Then I explain where the three warriors went and why.

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