Page 55 of Savage Mates
Snorting, I moved to the window, staring out at the others in the pride, uncertain what the hell I was feeling. Since being dumped here, I’d experienced nothing but rage. That wasn’t unlike the beast I’d been prior to my capture, yet I was more restless than before. Was I missing my pride? Yes, but perhaps not like Titus. He’d been in total anguish for weeks, roaring at anyone who came near.
At first, he’d refused to shift into human form under any circumstances. I understood the desire to remain a lion. I’d felt the same way so I couldn’t blame him. Even now, my skin crawled with the realization we weren’t finished with being tested. The bastards from the laboratory had merely sent a beautiful woman in their place. “She could still be our enemy.”
“You saw what happened with the lions. You sensed even Conall’s mate wasn’t concerned at her presence. That’s because she has some strange gift. That’s why she’s here.” Thor was adamant.
“Are you suggesting she had no clue she’s being used, if that’s the truth?” I shook my head. No, I hadn’t read anything in herthoughts in which she’d wanted to hurt or destroy us, but being cautious had kept the pride alive.
“I’m saying you need to keep an open mind, something you’re not very good at.” Thor lifted a single eyebrow.
I snarled in response. “You’re so certain she’s our mate, aren’t you?”
“I feel in my bones,” Thor admitted. “I can’t explain it adequately, but the moment her scent carried, I knew. Maybe something is wrong with your senses, Zeus, from spending too much time being angry.”
Thor was ancient, recreated from ash. Reborn in a laboratory setting. His sense of longing was entirely different. Of all of us, he should feel grateful for the chance to live again. But with the conditions placed on us, we could never return to what we’d once been.
The second I turned toward him, the air in the cabin crackled. We were often at odds, Thor believing himself to be superior just because he’d come from another century. It drove me fucking nuts. “Angry? You mean about being dumped on this island, now hunted like we’re the issue?”
Both felt the same anger, agony not only from being held in limited captivity, but because of what had been done to our bodies, our minds. And our spirits.
We were nothing but creatures. Not men. Not lions. Beasts people feared, and why? Because of the longing for power. None of us within the camp we’d created had all the answers. We only knew what the lifeforms had taken from the humans before they’d entered us. While that had allowed us someunderstanding and certain skills that had been foreign to us, there were hundreds of unanswered questions.
Including why the human female was here. Had I enjoyed fucking her? Yes, but what had occurred wasn’t mating. That was even more primal, a connection made that no human could break.
I’d refused to go that far.
“Fuck you, Thor. There is no proof that she’s our mate.”
“Have it your way,” he growled.
Titus crawled off the bed, glaring from one to the other of us. “Fighting over what our bodies have already accepted isn’t going to provide answers. Only the female can.”
“Lauren,” Thor gritted out. “A scientist.”
“Someone we should hate.” A part of me did hate her. In truth, a fraction wanted to rip her to shreds, but my raging desire and aching cock had stopped me before baring my incisors, plunging them into her carotid artery.
“She has answers,” Titus insisted. “I want them. Plus, she’s as confused as we are.”
“About what? You read her mind,” I said then stopped myself, sighing as I looked away.
My blunder forced Thor to laugh. “You read her mind? You can’t read the minds of humans, Zeus. No matter how powerful you think yourself to be. Unless she’s your mate.”
“Yeah? Well, if she is then why do you two claim her as well? Tell me that.” The question had been swimming in my mind since I’d lain awake watching her sleep.
Even in her slumber, I’d smelled her continued arousal. I’d become drunk off it sometime in the middle of the night. It had been reckless of us to allow her to stay since she’d arrived on the island with others, including a man with training on how to kill. She’d all but ignored the fact she’d been drugged by the man.
She also hadn’t asked any details of what we’d done with him.
Maybe she didn’t want to learn the gory details. Oddly enough, the kill had brought me nothing but another wave of anger.
Then there was the issue with the mercenaries who’d dropped onto the island with cages full of feral lions. Killing them had been and would continue to be our only option. Last night in our carnal free-for-all, we’d all but invited them to attack us in the middle of the night.
However, for a little while even I’d been able to forget about our destiny and the horrors we’d been through. Being able to feel her pulse, to taste her skin when I wanted and studying her in the darkness had calmed the beast inside.
I’d seen human women before, including during our time of incarceration. I’d also had another be kind to me after I’d been caught in a trap. She’d healed me before allowing me to rejoin my pride. Perhaps the single experience was the reason I hadn’t killed and eaten her.
As Lauren’s image flashed across my eyes, I closed them and took a few seconds of personal pleasure. The little human was truly beautiful, her copper hair catching every shimmer of sunlight, her eyes bedazzling the three of us.
And her skin, creamy white, yet even more exquisite when she blushed.
