Page 7 of Free Beast Mate

I sighed. Breeders ensured a prosperous future, and since Tom had a vision that a beast mate was perfect, it couldn’t be me, a genetically imperfect offspring. “But what if—”

Tom pierced me with his cold gray eyes. “Emma, you are not a breeder.”

I shrank back. “Please, hear me out. I’ve been thinking about this mating thing and your vision. What if the perfect girl for him is the beast’s versions of perfect, not perfect as we think of it? Like, a beauty-is-in-the-eye-of-the-beholder-type thing.”

“I know you would give your heart for this community. It is something I have always admired about you. But a mate to the lord is not crippled. I have seen their offspring. She will breed him healthy beasts.”

“That’s the thing, Tom. I am healthy. I have good immunity. Didn’t even get the flu, remember?”

“Emma, I wouldn’t wish you to become a beast whore, and that’s all you’d be to him. His whore, a distraction from unloading his seed into his mate.”

A beast whore? “Ouch.”

Tom chuckled. “Sooner or later, we’d find his true mate and he’d discard you, maybe even consume you.”

“So is that a no?” I teased.

He patted my head. “It’s a no. We’ll find more breeders from the new people and carry on.”

“I still think there’s no harm in bringing him every woman, whether a breeder or not. The Beast Father will send supplies within a day of finding his mate. Fresh potatoes, Tom. I don’t remember what fresh food tastes like.”

“Silence,” Tom said, not loudly but sternly, and with a note of finality. “It’s not you. It can’t be you. I’ll take care of the food.” He stood and whistled. Adam paused his lashing, and the crowd grew quiet, all eyes on Tom. He pointed at Whitney. “She’s dead,” he said.

What? I stood on my toes to see up front. A knife stuck out of Whitney’s kidney. Her family slowly pushed through the crowds, making their way home. Her dad must’ve thrown it. She’d shamed him for not breeding as she should.

“I think that’s enough,” Tom said, loud enough for all to hear. “From today onward, until a mate to the beast is found, every breeder of child-bearing age will see him. Two per day until we find his mate. And when we have gone through every girl in our community”—he glanced at his warriors and pointed—“you will do God’s work!”

“At ready!” they answered.

“Because,” Tom said, “if we follow God’s word, we will exterminate the unholy beasts from our lands. The Beast Father will bring them disease and suffering, and when they all die up Above, we shall emerge as victors.” He lifted a finger. “But first, I need a beast mate! Not today, not tomorrow, but yesterday. Breeders and fathers of breeders, hear me now. If I don’t get a mate in one week, you will bring him your small children. You will bring him any female in the community no matter her age. Understood?”

People mumbled, cursing the breeders for the first time I could remember. They blamed them for failing Tom and failing to provide for all of us. As I snuck out of the square, I watched Whitney’s family walk away while her dead body, bathed in blood, hung by its hands from the pole.

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