Page 2 of His Beast Mate

“Kitten.” I remembered my real name. Felicia of Wiedeg, the first battle-trained female on Earth. And I would get my revenge. “What’s his name?”

“John.”

“What shall I call him?”

“Whatever he wants to be called.”

“I can’t wait to meet him.”

“Let’s go.” Owner released my throat, spun around, and tugged my leash. I crawled behind him.

My cage clicked closed. Two cages next to mine were empty, but not the third or the fourth. As we passed the third cage, Sonia lifted her gaze from the floor. The seven months she’d spent down here reflected in her brown eyes. They showed a lack of willpower and hope, and matched the chain burns around her neck from when she’d tried to hang herself. Her lifeless eyes also went along with the multiple cuts on the insides of her wrists and thighs from the times she’d tried to bleed herself to death and failed. She kept calling herself a coward for failing. I told her she was brave for enduring and ordered her to shut the fuck up and think about her life outside, five years from now.

Five years from now, I would be mated. I didn’t know that for sure, but it was the second motivation I needed to get through the weekend.

The fourth cage held Alexandra, a kidnapped eighteen-year-old brunette with royal Spanish bloodlines. They would sell her to the highest bidder. Nobody had touched her since she’d been here, and I presumed she would fetch the highest price if she were sold as a virgin.

“Hey, asshole!” she said and rushed at the door. She gripped the bars, knuckles white. “Let me out of here.”

Owner ignored her. I winked. Soon.

We climbed the steps. My knees were scraped and bruised from the many months I’d been walking on all fours. They believed me an animal, a domestic cat without claws and with blunt teeth. Some days, I felt like one. Other days? Not so much. On those days, I feared myself, I feared I’d piss Owner off and he’d beat me to death, so I tried to behave.

I held my instinct to flee this place in check when we emerged into a foyer and his butler spared me a glance. Beside him was a door. A huge one from top to bottom, all decorated glass. The door was my favorite part of the forsaken house. The exit to the outside where a beast ship waited for me somewhere among the stars.

We passed the main living space and headed for the small, dark room. Male voices drifted from behind the closed doors. Owner stepped inside the room and closed the door behind us. The chatter died. I knelt with my bottom touching my heels, my right thigh touching Owner’s pants, and my gaze on the floor.

“There you are, Kitten,” Boris said. He was one of the two Men of Earth guys who’d declawed me, raped me, driven me here blindfolded, and sold me to Owner. “We’ve missed you.”

I winced at the sound of his voice but didn’t lift my head. These two had gotten quite a bit of money for stashing me here with Owner until my transport to Retreat, Texas. So now they had plenty to spend on poker games. They came nearly every weekend, and when either of them won, Owner would give them a cut of winnings from the poker game. Since my heat, the one that had reduced me to begging for Torrent but getting the Men of Earth, they hadn’t touched me in a sexual way. Perhaps the novelty of it had worn off.

There was another man in the room. He would be the one they ripped off tonight. Owner and the other two bet high and cheated in cards, then they’d split the profit. Only once had a stranger won, and he hadn’t collected his winnings. I knew that because Owner fed me the man the same weekend.

“What is this?” the new man asked.

“A gift for the winner. A rare jewel in my collection.”

Huh?Usually I served drinks and food during poker parties, which made the men who came here either nervous or excited. In any case, Owner wanted a distraction while they cheated. This was something else, though. It made me uneasy. I didn’t know what Owner had cooking upstairs.

Owner jerked my chain.

I looked up and squinted, adjusting my eyes to the lamp hanging low from the celling. It lit up the table. Boris was a middle-aged man with a receding hairline, small green eyes, and a small wiener. He wore a brown suit and smiled to show me his buck teeth. His buddy, Alex, wore a gray suit, no tie, and a pink shirt that contrasted with his tanned skin. He had long black hair he kept in a ponytail, and bushy eyebrows that nearly hid his brown eyes. He didn’t comment. A quiet, deadly human, whereas Boris was a loud, stupid human.

Tonight’s victim was a tall, broad-shouldered, dirty-blond man who wore a finely tailored suit and sported a watch from another era when human watchmakers cared enough to make such expensive things and decorate them with tiny golden crowns. With his back turned, I followed the watch on his hand as he grabbed his whiskey glass and sipped. He turned around and leaned on the bar, crossing one ankle over the other.

Our eyes met.

His were cold and gray.

Mine widened instantly. My heart thudded in my ears, and I emitted a soft whine as my mating instincts ignited. I bit my lip, trying to suppress my need to curl up at his feet.

Tonight’s victim was my mate. My human mate.

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