Page 48 of Free Beast Mate

John shrugged. “I thought you’d hurt the girl. Keep that in mind.”

The cage was built solid. I kicked the steel, then pounded my fist against the exit door and the wall next to it. Not hollow. Solid steel. “I need to know where I am, what’s around me, and how far is Beast City.”

Felicia informed me they kept me in Community X, an underground bunker in a city called Retreat, Texas, a long way from Beast City. John worked alone, so no backup was coming besides a skeleton-crew beast patrol that kept away from this place so as not to scare the humans away.

“How did you get down here?” I glanced at Felicia while I walked around, trying to take advantage of the unrest and find my way out of here. I couldn’t put Emma’s life at risk and walk out with her in my arms. If I were alone, it would be different. I would simply open the door, assume my battle form, and consume everyone in my path to freedom. Or die trying.

“Great question,” John said. “I’d like to know that too, since I precisely remember telling you not to come after me. And I also remember you saying, Yes, Mate,several times.”

Felicia winked at him. “You’re so sexy.” She waggled her eyebrows at me. “I came down in a box. It’s a long story, but suffice to say I recognized the scent of one beast. Nie’s beast. We had a particularly disturbing past, so I followed the scent inside a house, where I killed him and sealed myself into one of the boxes ready for shipping. More of Nie’s beasts came, carried me, and dropped me right inside the infamous Community X. I did all this because my mate is here, and when I saw Nie’s males closing in, I didn’t know what to think. Better to do than to sit back and regret I’d done nothing. I had to get in here.” She paused. “Saw Emma in the hallway. Bumped into her, in fact. Beast Mother must’ve sent me here.”

“Right,” John said. “Always the Father or the Mother. Christ help us all.”

“Allah,” Cole said.

Everyone looked at the kid. He shrugged.

“John, how far underground are we now?”

“This sector is lower than the others. A coupla hundred feet.”

“Three hundred feet,” Emma said.

“Baby, don’t talk. Rest.”

She licked her dry lips and moved her hair away from her face. “Amoris, I’m gonna rest forever if I don’t talk.”

“What do you mean?” I sat on the desk.

“I know how to leave.”

“You do?”

“Of course I do. I’ve lived here all my life. I remember when they dropped your cage.”

I tilted my head. “Dropped?”

“Mm-hm.” She pointed up. “From the sky, and it plopped into a hole right here.”

Weird. “Okay and how do we climb out?”

“We fly the ship.”

I put my palm over her forehead and checked her for fever. Emma still burned. She might be delusional. “What ship?”

“This one.” She waved her hand about us. “The one they dropped in here.”

Delusions had started. My mate would die in my arms. “Oh Mother, please, don’t take her from me.”

“Amoris?” Felicia asked from inside my cage, then walked out, holding the vacuum cleaner. “How is it that this thing works here?”

“Nie’s tech.”

“Holy pussy.” She rushed to John’s monitors, nearly knocking him on his ass again. Her fingers flew over the virtual keyboard on the desk. A hologram popped up. “Yes! She’s right. It’s an old ship.” She frowned. “Wait a minute. It looks familiar.”

I spun around. The hologram showed a blueprint of my cage built inside a round structure. Apart from the cage, indeed, it looked familiar. Behind us, right where we gathered, was the control room. Hm. I commanded a retinal scan. The blue laser scanned my eyes and cleared me for access. The wall behind us cracked. “Clear out!”

We moved to the opposite side to watch the wall crash. Dust rose, and I squinted to clear my vision. The control room appeared before me. “Isn’t this…” Felicia started.

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