Page 60 of Free Beast Mate

“He’ll fight him. Maybe die. Father is still strong, and Mayhem would want revenge. If Mayhem won, he’d take Tineya.”

“Hell no,” Jamie said. “Tineya is ours. Mayhem’s happy where I put him, and he got his mate pregnant. He ain’t gonna wanna do shit, and if he’s got something to say, he can come to me.”

Vice scrubbed his jaw. “If you challenge Nie, you’ll kill him.”

Jamie banged his fist on the table. “Damn straight.”

Rey tapped the table, and Jamie found her hand again. It was the sweetest thing I’d seen, and coming from this…this monstrous-looking beast, that much sweeter. His mate was blind. She was as imperfect as me, and yet, here we sat, feeling none of it mattered. Had I stayed in Community X, had I not ended Tom’s era of deceit and terror, I’d have grown an old woman mopping the sanctuary.

“If Jamie challenges him,” Vice said to Amoris, “he moves back home.”

Rey gasped in surprise, then tried to cover it up. She cleared her throat. Jamie gave her a look, narrowing his eyes. “Peach, don’t you worry about this shit.”

“I have to worry about it,” Rey said.

“Not going,” Jamie said and rolled his shoulders.

“That’s it?” Dewlyn asked.

“That’s it,” he confirmed.

“But if you challenge him…” Vice left that hanging. He eyed Jamie, and Jamie chewed on his lip.

“Excuse me? You who?” I asked.

“Amoris,” Vice said.

Amoris said nothing. He too watched Jamie for a response.

“Well, you go and challenge him,” I told Vice. “This guy is huge. Like the size of a door. He can’t fit into any of our huts.”

Jamie chuckled.

Amoris winked at him. Amoris appeared as if he didn’t have a care in the world, as if he were laid-back, but this was only on the outside. Inside, he was careful, calculating, and caring. He wore his handsome looks as a mask. Didn’t they know this? “I don’t want him to challenge anyone.”

Dewlyn locked her eyes with mine. “Vice is not an option.”

“Why not?”

“Because…”

Next to me, Amoris tensed. Vice frowned, and Jamie lifted his hand, tilting his head. Their alien senses at work.

“All hands to battle stations!” blared through the speakers.

Jamie was a blur. He picked up Rey and sprinted out the door. Dewlyn leapt off her chair and grabbed my hand. “Come on!” She pulled me with her. I parked my heels where I was. I didn’t know any of these people. I didn’t even know where I was. I’d never even stepped on the ground. I wrenched my hand back.

Laser fire pierced the windows. The red lines crisscrossed the room. Amoris tackled me to the ground as the glass shuddered all around us. Terrified, I screamed.

“Emma with Dewlyn,” Vice shouted. “Now! Get her up, bro, she has to go.”

The laser broke the glass. The windows shattered, tiny pieces raining down on us.

Amoris put his palms around my face. “Do you trust me?”

“I love you.”

He smiled. “I need you to go with Dewlyn. She is Vice’s mate, and I trust Vice with my life. He would never risk her or you, because you’re mine. Do what she does, no questions. Let me hear it,” he said.

“Oh God, I can’t leave you.”

“Let me hear it,” he commanded.

“Yes, my lord.”

“Okay, baby, go.”

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