Page 28 of Free Beast Mate

Chapter Ten

Amoris

I couldn’t believeany of them. Especially the not-stupid John. That one fucked with my head. Emma fucked with my head too. They wanted me to cave in, to mate her, and they were relentless about it. If they even thought she was mine, nobody would touch her. They’d keep her nice and pretty, probably even feed her better now. My father used these tactics on his prisoners, and I knew them all. So to hell with them.

Wednesday passed. It was Thursday fucking morning, and Emma hadn’t come. John gave me duct tape instead of a hammer and some nails so I could fix the table I’d broken. I sat on the floor trying to put the table back together with the tape, wanting to kill John for giving me the tape. Though the name he’d dropped on me kept ringing in my ears. Felicia. His wife. He’d watched me for a reaction to the name, and from the smell of the beast bitch on his hands a few days before that, I knew it had to be Felicia of Wiedeg.

If she was truly his wife, then it would mean Felicia the Ferocious, as I liked to call her, had mated him. I couldn’t presume John was happily mated, though, but I could keep an eye on that guy. Although I found him hard to read, I hadn’t given him too much thought either. I had to know his purpose. One thing was clear as the sky. He wanted me to mate Emma, and he’d figured out she was mine before anyone else had.

I rubbed my hand on my thigh and brought it to my nose. The scent of her pussy had left me yesterday. I knew it would vanish but tried to sniff it out anyway.

Duct tape between my teeth, I ripped the end and molded it to the table’s leg. I propped up the repaired object and waited. It would hold. I walked to the door and pulled out a tray from the small hole in the door, put the tape inside it, and slid it out to John. “There you go, fucker. All finished.”

“Well done, princess.”

I showed him my middle finger and sat down on the chair. I put my elbows on the table. It wobbled and plopped on my lap. Ah fuck. A tray slid back, duct tape still inside. I rolled my eyes. “I want a new table.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“You broke it. You fix it. And behave. I’m coming inside.”

Fine. I slid the table off my lap and waited. A minute later, John and the blond boy named…Cole walked in. Cole carried Emma’s supply caddy. Instantly, it put me in a shit mood. I snarled. The kid jumped away, his lip curled, and he started crying. I closed my eyes and counted to ten.

“I said behave,” John said.

Okay, ten wouldn’t do. I’d kill this guy. So I counted to thirty-six before I felt like I wouldn’t bite his hand off. “Where is Emma?”

“I don’t know,” the kid wailed.

Oh fucking hell. “Please stop that.”

He sniffed and tucked his unkempt hair behind his ear. His blue eyes were as clear as the Daveko Sea when he locked them with mine. “Tom put the sick in Sector Six and lit them on fire. But there are more sick people, and so he’s filling Sector Seven now. The grown-ups aren’t saying anything. Like it’s normal. This shit ain’t normal.”

“Don’t curse,” John snapped.

Two things. First, John hadn’t ever raised his voice in the time I’d known him. He seemed like a measured guy, reminded me of my brother Vice a little. Vice controlled his temper well. It was one of the reasons Father hated him. Envy. When Vice raised his voice, you knew something was wrong. So now, I knew something was very wrong, and it didn’t have anything to do with a kid who cursed.

Cursing came natural to kids. It was fun. So I said, “Don’t listen to him. Curse all you like. What kind of shit you got going on around here? Tell me everything.”

John looked annoyed. I ignored him and pointed at the chair. “Go ahead, kid, sit down.”

He sat, his lip still turned up as if he’d cry at any second again. “So as I was saying, people are getting sick. A bug, they call it. I know what bugs are, and not the flying ones. My sister died of a bug. “

“I’m sorry to hear that,” I said.

He slid me a look, unsure. “Thanks, man.”

“Welcome. Go on.”

“Yeah and so my brother wouldn’t let me leave our community and get medicine. I fucking hated him for it. So I shot his ass.”

“You shot your brother?”

“Yeah.”

“How old were you when that happened?”

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