Page 26 of Free Beast Mate

“He came when they brought you here.” God, he asked a lot of questions. It annoyed me. I couldn’t talk about the Beast Father or anything I knew.

“I see. Tell me all about it.”

“Why should I? You’ve spanked me hard. I didn’t like it. If I tell you all about it, I want something in return.”

Amoris moved my hair away from my shoulder, trailed his hand lower, and cupped my breast. He didn’t tweak my nipple, he rubbed it with his calloused palm. Then he did the same with my other nipple. I stirred on his lap.

Silver-white flakes showed in the red of his eyes. A corner of his lips tipped up. “What can I do for you, hm?” He kept rubbing my nipple.

Oh, but it was hard to concentrate on anything other than the feel of his rough palm on my soft breast. “I want…” I cleared my throat. “I want you to take me.”

Amoris leaned back and slammed a hand on the table.

I jumped off his lap.

He slammed it again.

I backed off.

“Easy, now,” John said through the speakers.

Amoris stood, took the table, and bent it. It broke in half. Man, he could break me. I ran to the door. “John! Let me out, John!”

The double doors slid open, and I ran outside. At the exit, I palmed the lock but couldn’t open it. I spun around to see that John had left his station. Oh no. I ran back.

John stood inside, leaning against the wall, with Amoris ready to take on his beast form any second now. John must be insane. Likable guy, done me a great deal when he saved me from Adam, but crazy.

“John, what are you doing?”

He ignored me and spoke with Amoris. “You make me want to take up smoking again. My wife, Felicia, would very much mind. See, she has a sensitive palate, and I don’t want to get in trouble with my wife.”

“Felicia,” Amoris said through clenched teeth.

“Yeah, princess, that’s right. So now I’m gonna tell you a little story. But before I tell a story, I want you to put some pants on. I don’t need to be staring at your underwear. Feel me?”

“These are shorts. And if you want me to dress, fetch my pants.”

John shook his head, then, to my utter surprise, walked into Amoris’s bedroom, got the black jeans I’d washed last week and threw them at the lord.

Amoris slid them on. “I didn’t think you’d do it.” He chuckled.

“Surprise, surprise,” John said. “About the girl, though. Adam would’ve hanged her the other day. Now, I happened to be moving bags of potatoes at the time. It seems, I’m fucking with potatoes at the most crucial moments.” He chuckled, a joke clearly only he understood. “See, if she runs out of here screaming bloody murder or, worse yet, crying because she’d been wrong about the beast, someone will punish her. She is not a breeder. She is not particularly useful around here. And she’s genetically…compromised. When the selection begins, her name will be at the bottom. If she isn’t dead by then.”

“What selection?” I asked.

John spared me a glance, then his attention returned to the beast. “Who gets to eat and who doesn’t.”

Silence enveloped the room. I suffocated in it. Surely Tom wouldn’t let anyone hurt me. I’d known him all my life. He was best friends with my dad. He had hurt your mother, a voice reminded me. But that was different. I was not my mother. Not my father either. I couldn’t live in perpetual fear of someone coming after me. Tom had no reason to come after me, and despite what John said, I was useful. I did everything Tom asked of me, and now, I did something nobody asked of me. I became a beast whore. And I was not ashamed. If more people did what needed to be done, the world wouldn’t have gone to hell, and I would’ve been raised somewhere Above.

John didn’t wait for Amoris’s answer. He went outside and stood before me, then kissed the top of my head. “I’m here for you for as long as I can be. Leave him.” The door slid closed.

I gasped. “I can’t leave him,” I uttered, surprised I’d thought that, let alone said it.

John strolled to the desk. “Don’t worry. Princess will come around. He’s stubborn, this one. Or scared. Probably both.”

“He doesn’t seem very scared.”

“No?” John glanced at me.

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