Page 3 of Beast

King, very human, made me catch my breath as he wrapped the cloth around my fingers a final time and taped it securely.His head was tilted down as he worked, but when he glanced up, I swear my heart stopped.His incredible crystal-blue eyes heated me from the inside out, making me momentarily forget that my fingers were held together more by sutures than flesh.

“You didn’t complain while I worked on my handy needlepoint,” he teased softly.

I rested my forehead against his, breathing the air he exhaled, absorbing the essence that made him uniquely mine.My voice came out as little more than a whisper.“Because that hurt like crazy, and I was trying to focus on breathing.”

He pulled away slightly, his eyes searching mine with a poignancy that made me ache.Then, he leaned in and took my lips.I fell into the kiss like it was water and I was dying of heatstroke.His taste spread through me, settling into that unsatisfied ache I carried when he was around.We’d been so busy lately, and all we could manage were these short, stolen moments.

A faint squeak from the door, left ajar, warned us we weren’t alone.It was Labyrinth, one of King’s elite guards.His mismatched eyes, one blue, one green, always made me look twice.He was a goliath of a man, and paired with those striking eyes, the combination was oddly disarming.His square jaw, full lips, and lethal presence were typical of Shadow Warriors, but as one of King’s personal guards, he was particularly deadly.Right now, though, he just looked sheepish.

He broke the quiet moment with his deep voice.“Danger, Will Robinson.We can’t find the Hellspawn, and Che’s missing too.”His eyes flicked to mine, and he grimaced before mumbling Ruth’s actual name.Everyone knew I hated it when they called her Hellspawn.The biggest problem was the name fit her all too well.Somehow, some way, the devil or one of his demons had to be responsible for that child, no matter how much her mother denied it.

With a loud groan of frustration, I leapt from the table and bolted for the door, muttering every punishment I could think of for Ruth if anything had happened to Che.King stomped heavily behind me, his footfalls echoing through the hallway.In the forest, he was quiet and deadly but give him tile floors to pound when he was angry, and he became a walking demolition crew.We were both at the end of our patience with Ruth and her endless mischief.Everyone in the Shadow Warrior colony knew she’d be the death of us.Most likely in the most spectacularly unpleasant way possible.

The courtyard provided immediate answers.Ruth’s small motorbike, a gift from Beck, was missing.In its place stood Che’s bicycle.That told me everything I needed to know.Che was riding shotgun.There was no way he’d willingly stay behind.

With a deep growl rumbling in my chest, I left the safety of the citadel, our home away from home, and charged into the unknown.

When I first arrived in Cuba, King had set up the citadel as a cover, giving me an incomplete view of the Shadow Warrior world.It served its purpose back then.Now, it’s our training and medical facility.Axel, our one and only physician, was teaching a select group of humans the essentials of medicine.He helps everyone on the island, but as a Shadow Warrior himself, the warriors alone keep him more than occupied.Add in our human population, and he was completely overextended.Thankfully, with some promising human prospects, he was actively training them in everything from childbirth to setting broken bones.He even traveled the island to attend to those who couldn’t make it into the city.It had turned him into a perpetually tired and cranky man.

He needed a mate, and it was something I intended to fix.

His lack of a love life was what I blamed for the explosion the last time I was injured.A simple dislocated collarbone didn’t deserve his cold, biting condemnation, especially when it felt ten times better after he’d popped it back into place.I was still reeling from the verbal assault, and honestly, he was lucky I didn’t bite his face off.If his mind was on a woman instead of everything else, maybe he wouldn’t be so grouchy.

At least, that’s what I kept telling myself.Between our medical situation, fighting hellhounds, and preparing for war with the US Federation, we were all overextended.King worked nonstop to push my abilities as a Warrior while juggling everything he did as the leader of our people.The man never stopped.

For the first twenty-odd years of my life, I thought I was human, an anxious, fumbling waste of space, if you want to know the truth.I didn’t adapt well to the new world after nuclear bombs and hellhounds annihilated most of humanity, and I was smart enough to know it.My father, through his work with the Federation, kept me alive.That was the only reason I made it.

Today, there was little left of that scared young woman, at least on the outside.I was still learning to control my Warrior body and the full extent of the abilities that came with it.King, my mate, the one stomping and huffing behind me, found it endlessly worrying.

“Where do you think they went?”he asked, his jaws clenched so tightly I half-expected them to crack.

“I’m sure they’re hunting hellhounds, no matter how many times we tell them not to.Che’s mother will kill me when she finds out.”

“Can’t we just put Ruth in front of her and solve all our problems?”

I would have laughed if I thought he was joking, but I wasn’t entirely sure he was.Che’s mother, Maylin, was assisting Axel as his nurse and juggling her six-month-old baby, Boot, while she worked.Che, who had just turned six, was under my care while his mother and little brother were away.“I’ll think of an appropriate punishment for Ruth, but it won’t be turning her over to a death rage even though that might be an exaggeration.”

It still surprised me how much Maylin had stepped up.When she’d asked to help Axel, everyone, including me, had been stunned.She was doing an incredible job, even while toting around a baby.She had become invaluable to the Shadow Warriors.Losing Boot, the baby’s father and one of our warriors, had hit her hard.King brought her into the Warrior family, but she hadn’t truly fit until now.She was finding her place, and while I wasn’t about to mention it, there was a certain Shadow Warrior with his sights set on her.Nokita, another of King’s personal guards, and Maylin would need to figure that out on their own.

For now, King and I had bigger problems.The worry gnawed at me, the fear that both kids could be hurt, or worse, dead.It pushed me onward despite my exhaustion.Over the last six months, hellhound sightings had dropped significantly, but they still roamed the island.And now, two idiotic kids were trying to prove their worth by hunting them.

Ruth was twelve going on forty, with skills that came terrifyingly natural for a human her age.Che, on the other hand, worshiped her and followed her into every harebrained scheme she came up with.Both had lost their fathers to hellhounds, and ever since, they’d been on a reckless mission to kill every last one they could find.The problem was that human children didn’t stand a chance.Hellhounds’ teeth and claws were deadly, and one swipe or bite meant they were dead within an hour.

My hands burned with the need to grab hold of them.They would learn to follow orders, or they’d find themselves assigned to permanent kitchen duty, and not just for the week I punished them last time they pulled a stunt like this.

And what if it was too late?My heart clenched at the thought.

We kept running, our soft breathing blending into the night.King couldn’t resist teasing me about my clumsy footing, even though I’d improved my ability to move quietly, almost matching his skill at avoiding crunching leaves.

“Hellhounds will hear you coming from a mile away,” he said.

I didn’t answer and simply flipped him the finger which still meant the same thing after the apocalypse.

He gave a low chuckle.Despite my progress, King still worried about me.I understood why.I wasn’t fully comfortable with the overwhelming abilities that came with my new form.That’s why I pushed myself to the brink of exhaustion every day.I refused to be the person I used to be, trapped in fear, doing nothing while civilization crumbled around me.

The memories of those wasted years haunted me.I had lived like a robot, too afraid to step outside my cozy little protected box.Now that I was a Shadow Warrior, I was determined to make up for lost time.But self-doubt still crept in, always at the worst moments.Shaking my head to silence thoughts of the old me, I focused my sensitive ears on the sounds around us.

With fewer hellhounds on the island, small rodents like mice were returning in abundance.The hounds had decimated everything they could sink their teeth into, causing a massive decline in our small animal populations.Now the ecosystem was beginning to recover.How long that balance would last, none of us knew, but we were making the most of it.Our food production had doubled, and we were hopeful this year’s harvest would provide more than enough for long-term storage.

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