Caught Beast Mate(56)

“You gonna take her back to a two-by-two bunker and ration cans.” Vice stood, leaned his palms on the table. “When beasts come for revenge, and they will come, she will be left alone. So you think about your upper hand in this situation and do what you must.”

“She is not for sale,” Daddy said. “One day, she will pick a man to be happy with. And that’s who she’s gonna marry. Someone she chooses, not someone she’s forced to choose.”

“You never asked if I chose,” I whispered before I lost my nerve.

Daddy’s eyes widened. The beasts glared at me. “You didn’t ask. None of you asked,” I said, louder now. “You…you…sit here talking about me as if I were a statue.” Apparently, I’d opened some sort of an internal can that held a whole bunch of things I needed to say. I stood and fisted my hands. “Just because we’re poor, it doesn’t mean we don’t have pride.”

“Wait a minute. I didn’t mean it like that,” Alpha Beast said.

“I’m not Daddy’s property. I’m nobody’s property. I should not be sold. I should not be bought. I’m not a second-class citizen. And most importantly, none of you have any say in matters of love. If you think buying someone gives you rights to their heart, then you don’t know what love is. Love is free and abundant. It’s also patient and kind, and when it makes mistakes, it forgives. It forgives because it’s blind to them.”

“You know I ain’t never gonna sell you,” my dad said. “You know I did everything I can to keep you away from them.”

“But that’s the thing too. I say if I will forgive him, I say if I will mate him, I say if I will reject him, and he should not die because I rejected him. His death will not make me forget him. It will not make any difference.”

“It will, baby. It’s the only way,” Daddy said.

“No, it won’t.”

“He’s not a man,” my dad said. “I will not let you lie with a monster!”

Angry heat rushed to my cheeks. “I already lay with him! He’s not a monster.”

“That’s enough, Sienna.”

“I want to see Torrent.”

I marched to the door and paused, waiting for it to whoosh open.

It didn’t.

Gosh, nothing beat a blocked exit after a speech like that.

I kicked the door, then spun around and lay down on the bed, my back to the men.

“All hear Sienna of Torrent,” Vice said.





Chapter Twenty-Five





Torrent



My Judgment time. I glanced through the high window. The stars covered the moonlit sky. It would be a nice new day. I yawned, surprised my heart still beat. I’d expected Sienna’s dad last night, but perhaps he’d decided my death could wait until the morning after he rested. I hoped he slept well, guarded and safe inside our ship. Oh, the irony.

At least the wall clock didn’t tick off my last minutes. It quietly showed 3:00 a.m. Last night, Jamie and Vice had visited Sienna and her dad. Nobody had to tell me what her dad said when they’d offered him money. He refused every penny, his mind set to take off my head. Down at the community, I saw it in his eyes.

They needed him for a job that would wipe out Men of Earth, return Felicia home, and he’d liberate my mate from her nemesis, as she’d called me. I couldn’t find better reasons to die for. Not on the battlefield, not of old age, but for a mate who wanted to be freed. Jamie would honor the Pairing Program laws and hand me over. He wouldn’t like it. Vice wouldn’t like it, but I knew they would honor it. I accepted my fate, and for a change, I didn’t fight it.

I owned my mistakes. For the millionth time in my life, I regretted my impulse, I regretted how I’d come into her life. Sienna would be free of me. She’d go back with her dad and move on. She wouldn’t fear I’d come and demand her body and soul. If I lived and she left me, as soon as Lers released me, I would get up off this bed and head back to the damn lake with damn cold water and howl her name from sunrise to sunset.

If they moved, I would hunt them. I would hunt them until I found them. If he didn’t want me to have her, he’d have to kill me. There was no other way. He knew that. I closed my eyes and prepared for prayer. I hadn’t prayed in so long, I might’ve forgotten how to do it. Zivot Maka, our great beast mother, receive my prayer. I seek forgiveness.

Ping.

The door announced a visitor. Before leaving, Lers had dimmed the lights and left me with soothing music coming from the speakers. I shut that noise off now. “Come in,” I said.

The door whooshed open.