Page 44 of Free Beast Mate

Dolly stepped forward.

I stepped back, my body plastered against the door.

“Tom wants you pregnant. We must make haste. Please, Emma, don’t be difficult. What has the beast told you, hm? Is he filling your little head with lies?”

I needed to leave, not just Dolly’s, this entire place. But somehow I doubted she’d let me leave before injecting me with that thing. I glanced behind her at the jars filled with organs. Dolly would force this on me. “Don’t come any closer,” I said.

Dolly came anyway, her hand poised to jab my belly. I skipped, tripped on a door stopper, and fell to my side. Dolly crouched next to me and slammed her hand down. The syringe hit the side of my belly, and cold liquid gushed inside me.

She withdrew the needle and stood. “There we go. See? That wasn’t so bad. Now hurry along back to the lord’s quarters and take his damn seed.”

I pressed my hand to my belly as if it hurt. It didn’t. I didn’t feel any different. Getting up, I cursed Dolly to hell and left her office in a daze.

I paused to catch my breath in the dark hallway that stank of bleach and mold. This scent used to soothe me. Not anymore. Now I thought about Dolly and what she’d done. I moved along the wall, feeling somewhat dizzy. A single light flickered at the end where I thought I’d seen the beast female. It flickered and blurred. I blinked, trying to adjust my eyes. My hands shook, and I clenched Amoris’s shirt as if I wanted it to hold me.

Soft footsteps sounded, and I gasped in fear that Dolly had called one of the warriors for me. Would they punish me, then send me to Amoris? My knees felt weak, and I limped more than usual, then simply dragged my legs, using the wall for support. I couldn’t walk. I could barely stand. Finally, my knees folded, and I slid down the wall. I heard my heart thumping in my ears, my breaths came labored, and then a sharp pain stabbed my belly. Liquid gushed out of me, I felt it wet my thighs. I whined, fearing the worse, and looked down, touching the liquid between my legs.

My fingers came away coated in clear fluid.

A grunt.

Someone was here with me.

I pressed my lips together so I wouldn’t make a sound.

Hands on the floor showed around the corner. Someone was crawling toward me. No, not someone. Tom. He came around the corner on his elbows and pushed his body, his eyes closed, his face straining. I said nothing, sat there and watched him until he crawled to me and laid his head on my lap. “Get Dolly.”

I stared at the oil stains on the wall in front of me. “What’s wrong?”

“I can’t breathe.”

“That makes two of us.”

“Help…help me.”

I kept staring at the wall. Then I reached into my boot and got the pocketknife I’d never traded for a backpack. I flipped open the blade and buried it in Tom’s side. He gasped, but I covered his mouth until he exhaled through his nose, and then I heard nothing at all. I patted his head.

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