Wild Beast Mate(10)

Okay so this time around, something had changed. I could see it in his eyes. When my breath hitched, he chuckled and bent to get the towel I’d dropped on my way out the door. He bundled me in it, then picked me up and walked us outside.

Vice didn’t know I’d stolen anything from the office. He thought I was there for a stunt. Just as well, because I wouldn’t tell him about the shelter. I doubted anyone would find the stolen key inside the nightstand between the Bible pages. I didn’t know why this beast had one in his home in the first place. Maybe for his mate because no beast minded our scriptures.





Chapter Three





Vice



Dewlyn snored, her mouth slightly open. In the back of the space car, Jamie at the helm, I relaxed back with my mate’s head on my lap. She hadn’t put it there on purpose. Oh no, she’d fallen asleep all uptight and upright and as far away from me as the backseat allowed, but in sleep, the subconscious worked wonders on her mind. Her body rested near mine because, subconsciously, Dewlyn really didn’t hate me.

Or so I told myself.

In either case, she would learn to unhate me, as I had learned to accept my mate was a flight risk and perhaps slightly more insane than the average human female. I brushed Dewlyn’s long red hair, noticing her natural hair growth at the roots. Naturally, her hair was brown, but she dyed it bright red. All the girls from her community colored their hair. When I asked Dewlyn why, she’d said it distinguished them as prettier than girls from other communities. Their father believed prettier women sold better.

Personally, neither Jamie nor I knew where the community’s leaders received the news that any of us beasts were more prone to buying red-haired girls than brown-haired girls. Or blondes, or any combination of hair color, really. The humans didn’t know about mating or that we bought the girl and not just any girl, but still, we’d never voiced our preference for red hair.

I traced the outline of her collarbone to my leather collar around her neck. Goose bumps rose over her skin—two shades darker than mine—as I tugged the choker. She wore it for protection and because she missed me. Or so I told myself. She must miss me, because I missed her. I smiled down at her and whispered, “Fire. You are my fire.”

“I couldn’t agree more,” Jamie pitched from the front. I lifted my eyes to see him adjusting his mirror so he’d see my face. Clearly, he was prepared to speak while I hoped I’d have a quiet ride home. It would calm me as I readied for mortal combat in our bedroom. But my brother, the unstoppable, continued. “Yeah, keep petting her. If she were mine, I would have spanked her from here to Tineya and back.”

“Dewlyn isn’t into spanking.”

Jamie shrugged. “Rey wasn’t either, but now she turns up her ass as soon as my pants hit the floor.”

“You’re a monster.”

“I recall you put your mate in a cage.”

Good point. Still, fire needed more fire, not ice, and that was what I was gonna do. I wanted to ignite the fire in her eyes. The same fire that fueled her need for adventure. I wanted all that for myself. If I could do that, I’d put babies inside her, she’d love them as mothers did, and she’d stay with me.

Dewlyn risked her life and mine every time she left me, and I had to know where she was at night, if she was hungry, thirsty, safe… I cleared my throat, not willing to think about her nights away from me.

I wished her parents had never trained her. When I met her, she couldn’t wait to go home with me, but when I picked her up later, she looked lifeless. At the time, I wondered if someone had switched her up with her docile twin. When I brought her home from her community, I took it easy, gave her anything she wanted, until I realized Dewlyn wanted nothing. Weeks later, before dinnertime, I told her about the mating, thinking it would make her trust me, but it did just the opposite. Dewlyn called me a “mofo of epic proportions.” and knocked me out in my sleep and by the time I cleared my head, she’d picked up her damn skater and flown out of the closed window.

After I recovered from my mate shattering glass with her body and seeing the blood left on our white carpet, she was long gone.

“You know what I’m wondering,” Jamie said, pulling me out of my reverie.

“Is that a question?”

“No. I wonder why not parachute from one of the mountains instead of a building.”

“Hm,” I mumbled.

“Tell me.”

“Hiding from me in another city. Likes buildings, likes doing stunts. It’s not unheard of. Some humans stunt-dive.”

Jamie’s eyes locked with mine. “You know that’s not it.”