Page 1 of Their Beast Mate

Chapter 1

Shayma

An elevator—a place where strangers got stuck together and never knew if they should say something to each other or just ride in silence. Maybe smile a little? I couldn't figure out what to do in an elevator, the weirdest small space on Earth.

On my first day at work, I rode it upstairs to the beast quarters with their female, named Betrile. The awkward silence stretched as I counted the floors. We exited and pushed our housekeeping carts down the carpeted hallway. Doors slammed, and bare-chested beasts walked past us. They whistled and hooted.

The beast female ignored them and shook her head. "You'd think they'd never seen a woman before. Boys."

None of them looked like boys, but to her they probably were, since she seemed about my late gran’s age. We paused at the last door, and she turned to face me. Looked me up and down. I wore a leather skirt and a leather drape which could snap at any moment and reveal my breasts. My stomach was nude. I hadn't been this comfortable walking around since I was seven and my mother forced me into a cave woman costume for Halloween trick-or-treating. The other kids laughed, but I worked the skimpy jungle clothes and my smile until late in the night, so I could go home with the biggest bag of candy.

"You're a small human," she concluded.

Did these beasts have no sense of etiquette? I didn't need people reminding me of my size. My family drilled that shit into my head my entire life and locked me in my room when the beasts came scouting for pairs. They believed my size and baby face would get me paired with a beast right on top of their hierarchy and wouldn’t show me to everyone. After both the Alpha Beast and his brother, Vice, had paired, Leader Hanz's disappointment drove him to take up smoking the marijuana we grew in our community. He'd thought my sister, Shanice, would be a hard sell because of her big size, so he figured he'd make up the money on me.

Not.

Dressed to impress on Shanice's wedding day, I'd stood next to her when Hunters of Mayhem busted inside. Everyone in attendance screamed bloody murder. It really was a bloody murder, as Mayhem the Barbarian walked in and found our community leader had been preaching to us about a new prophet, Tom. Shanice had mated Medrix that day, and the beasts in kilts brought me back to New City.

They asked if I wanted to serve them. You bet I agreed. Momma didn’t raise a dummy. My best chance of meeting a beast mate would be mingling with the beasts downstairs. Secretly, I hoped Mayhem would pair with me. That bombed, but there were many others hotter than him and definitely nicer.

And why wouldn't I want them? These beasts knew how to treat a girl. And the sex? Oh dear Lord. Before the beasts, once, I had sex with Chris, a boy who visited the community with his family on weekends. Now, if he sported claws and bulky, defined, hard muscles, grew ten more inches, and knew how to use the thing between his legs, and if he could work me up with the crop he wielded on his horse, then my first experience at sex would've been amazeballs. No amazeballs happened. I ended up riding him while he lay in the field, moaning.

The magnificent event lasted all of thirty seconds, while Shanice stood on the lookout. To say I'd had better since that day in the backfield would be an understatement. So I actively looked for my beast pair or mate, actually. Shanice had shared their secrets with me.

"I'm here to work," I said to the female. "Big or small, I'll do the work all the same."

"Who put those clothes on you?"

"I dressed myself. Why?"

Betrile grunted, said something in her alien language. "I'll give you some of my clothes tomorrow. These are tight. Made for basement girls."

She meant auctioned or otherwise acquired girls who served the hunters. "I am a basement girl."

She mumbled. Maybe cursed. "All right," she said, before I gave her a piece of my mind. She folded a white towel. "Have you ever worked a day in your short life?" She picked up another from the bottom of her cart and folded that too.

"No."

"It's simple. Work and get paid. No messing around up here. Messing around with boys will get you fired. Understood?"

"Yes, Ma'am." I wanted to salute but thought better of it.

She shook her head and dumped a white rag into a bucket full of blue solution. She took it out, twisted it, and slapped it on my cart. "That's for cleaning floors." Another stack of rags followed. "For dusting. Separate one for the bathrooms." From under her cart, she pulled out a machete.

I stepped back. "What the hell is that for?"

She dumped the thing on my cart. "That's for the horny boys. If you say no and they start begging, have at it."

"You mean like slash them?"

"Mm-hm. Cut, run, then report to Lore, so he can get the healer."

"No, no. Thank you. I'm not gonna cut anyone." I passed her the weapon, touching the handle with the tips of my two fingers. "Keep it. I'm scared I'll cut myself."

She looked at me as if I'd grown two heads.

"I'm a lover, Betrile, not a fighter. That thing looks mean," I said.

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