Sent Beast Mate(Beast Mates, #3)(33)

My canines elongated, but I kept my body in check. I closed my eyes and concentrated, remembering the mouse had a peculiar scent and I might be able to tell her apart from the others of her kind. I lifted my nose. Coffee, pigeon crap from the outside brought in on the soles of their shoes, tobacco smoke, cheese, and, behind me, aged cheese. A little girl sucking on a lollipop. Strawberry flavor. I liked lemon-flavored lollipops.

I concentrated harder, looking for her particular scent. When she’d come to me, she’d smelled of lavender oils. There weren’t any lavender oils or lavender in here, but I caught something else. Evergreen. My soap, my oils. I followed the scent to the table in front of me and bent down as if to sniff a chair.

“Can I help you?” a man interrupted.

Ignoring the guy, I picked up the chair and sniffed. Evergreen and pussy. I smiled, thinking eating her pussy was the second-best decision I’d made in a decade. She had been here.

“Can I help you?” he repeated.

I nodded and turned to the young human wearing brown overalls. “I’m looking for a girl. Long straight black hair, gray eyes, about yay tall.” I raised my hand from the ground, showing him how tall. His eyes widened, and he opened his mouth, but nothing came out. “Anyone home?” I asked. “A girl. Yay tall. Came here on a pink sky bike.” There couldn’t be that many girls descending from the sky, though I had circled the parking lot and the bike wasn’t there.

The kid kept staring.

Had she left the city? What if they pulled her back from her assignment? Found her unfit and intended to replace her with another. Did they think they could best me in a day? Rage consumed me. Every muscle in my body expanded, and my kilt snapped and fell at my feet.

A stream of urine ran down the guy’s pants.

I hopped on the table.

Under my weight, it cracked.

“Mouse!” I bellowed.

The place went silent; not a whisper could be heard. The girl with the lollipop sniffed. Ah, there we go. Got some fucking quiet. I nodded, satisfied. “I’m looking for my mouse,” I said. “Anyone seen her?”

Nobody moved. Nobody spoke.

Two stalls down from the door, a woman found her voice. She screamed, “Hunters!”

Chaos erupted. Other women screamed and threw eggs at me, and a table flew in my direction.

I ducked and rushed outside before my food killed me with their food. Unbelievable!

Outside, humans ran around like chickens with their heads cut off.

I stomped out the gates and sprinted back to my court, where I barged into my office intent on showering, then preparing for a hunt. On the way to the bathroom, I paused.

Vice sat in my chair, Dewlyn in his lap, his hand over her eyes. A big grin split her face. “Didn’t think anyone would see you at the market, did ya?”

I’d never live this down. “Gonna clean up. Make yourselves at home.”



After I cleaned up and got my rage under control, I sat back in my office chair, my guests on a single chair across from me. Vice and Dewlyn had been practicing flying a pod, and since they were in the vicinity, Jamie had asked Vice to stop by. They’d flown over the market just as the people started screaming. Naturally, they paused to witness one nude beast terrorizing the poor humans. Yet again.

“You’ve changed tactics,” Vice said and snickered.

“Shut up.”

He and Dewlyn burst out laughing.

I flipped the knife in my hand, thinking about throwing it at him, when the screen on my wall lit up. Lore popped up and greeted them, then turned to me. “Maurice left his job. Went to the Fresh Market.”

“Did he meet her there?”

“Maybe. Got hunters on him. We didn’t go inside the market.” He cleared his throat. “For obvious reasons.” He meant we didn’t mingle well with humans, and if we were seen in the market, Maurice would take off, which would work against us. Lore hadn’t witnessed my market debut.

“Don’t worry about the market,” I said and eyed Vice, who kept smiling. Ass. “Where’s the girl?”

“Nothing on her yet,” Lore said.

“That’s fine,” I said. “I’ll look for her.”

“What do we do with Maurice?”

“I’m not interested in him.”

Vice interrupted. “He’s our only lead.”

“The girl is a lead.”

Vice smirked. “How do you lose prey, oh Mayhem, the famous hunter?”

I gritted my teeth, but they elongated anyway. “Fair enough,” I told him, having remembered I’d asked him the same thing about his mate. The mouse wasn’t my mate, but she was my prey, and I shouldn’t have lost her. I rested my elbows on my knees. “Lore, what did she do before she left?”