Tamed By The Beast (Interstellar Brides Book 7)

by Grace Goodwin

  This guy had made me hate, truly hate, and I let him see it in my eyes.

  “But now, cousin, I think I should kill you for poisoning him with Rush. He almost died because of you. It only seems fair that you should face the same end.”

  I swallowed, then licked my lips. When had they gone numb?

  Engel smiled at me then, leaning back in his chair and crossing his arms across his chest. “Die? Today? No, dear, I’m afraid that’s not quite what I had in mind.”

  The room started spinning and I squinted at him. “What…?” The thought stopped, half formed as my vision got hazy. I felt the blaster fall from my lax grip. Soon, my body slumped, hitting the side of the chair in which I sat.

  My eyes were open, but my vision was blurry, like trying to see underwater without goggles. Everything was fuzzy and distorted.

  I knew Engel rose from his seat and placed his palm under my chin, lifting my face to look up at him.

  “As you said yourself, stupid Earth girl. Did you really think you could outwit me?” He peeled the gloves off his hands and stuffed them in his pocket. “The gloves weren’t coated with an antidote for Rush, sweet cousin.”

  He lifted the necklace and placed it back around my neck, the brush of his fingers sending an icy chill down my spine. But my horror never showed on the surface. I was like a mannequin. I felt completely detached. Emotionless. I knew, if I really wanted to, I could talk. I could blink. I could spit in his face, but I didn’t have the energy and the rest of my body was dead weight.

  “The necklace really was for you, dear.” His grip on my chin turned painful, and still I could not move. It was as if my entire body was paralyzed from the neck down. “And now, you will tell me where the real one is.”

  “Go fuck yourself.” The words were quiet and slurred, but he couldn’t miss hearing them.

  He lifted me from the chair as if I were a feather, his hands around my throat. “Where is the necklace?”

  I struggled to breathe, but I couldn’t fight him, couldn’t grab his hand and tug it away. “You poisoned Deek,” I coughed out.

  He laughed, and the sound was pure evil.

  I wanted to scratch his eyes out, but I couldn’t. “I hate you.”

  “I don’t need your love, Tiffani.” His gaze raked up and down my body with blatant male interest. “Perhaps I will fuck you before I kill you, see what magic your pussy has that could save an Atlan beast from an overdose of Rush.”

  I couldn’t even shake my head. “No.”

  “Deek may have survived this time, but I can have him sent to the front lines again, to a Hive mission where he’ll be captured and turned. Yes, that’s a fate worse than death, isn’t it?” He tossed me onto the floor like a rag doll and I could not defend myself, could not even tuck my head and roll. “But you’ll die first.”

  Luckily, my body was mostly numb, but my head hit the hard marble floor and felt like an exploding melon.

  A roar sounded from somewhere nearby. Opening my eyes was like shoving hot metal pokers into my mind, the light an explosion of pain. But I knew that roar. I knew that Atlan. That beast. And they were both mine.

  ***

  Deek

  Rygor and Westar escorted me to the back entrance of my home and we sneaked inside like burglars. They’d filled me in on the way, covering everything I’d been missing. The more I heard, the more my beast started to take over. I knew Tiffani was confronting Engel, trying to force a confession from him. I knew she was being monitored by both Atlan guards and Warlord Dax.

  It wasn’t enough. My beast raged and my eyes remained a constant black as I fought to wrestle him down. Tiffani didn’t need my beast in a blind, killing rage. She needed me to think.

  Which was fucking impossible when the only thing my beast could envision was Engel touching her, hurting her.

  I rushed up the back stairwell to a room where Warlord Dax and three armed members of the Atlan guard watched my mate and Engel on a system of monitors. I knew they were recording every word, but I couldn’t hear any of it.

  I watched as Tiffani smiled and sipped her wine, as if she hadn’t a care in the world. Seeing her safe and whole helped calm my beast’s protective rage and I silently nudged Dax, forcing him to hand over his earpiece. I wanted to hear every fucking word.

  Logic demanded that I let her finish what she’d started. If I interfered now, Engel would walk away to threaten us again and again. As long as he was alive and free, he was a lethal threat. As much as I hated this, Tiffani was right about that. We had to stop him, and we would need a confession to do it, something he couldn’t cover up. But if that asshole even looked like he was thinking about threatening my mate, I was going to rip him in half with my bare hands.

  I scowled, stepping closer to the monitors as I heard Engel’s voice first. He held my great-grandmother’s necklace in his hands. Tiffani must have taken it off and handed it to him.

  “No, it is not the same. The clasp is different. My grandmother’s necklace had her initials carved into the clasp.”

  “Oh, no!” Tiffani put her hand on her chest and leaned back. “What magical chemical cocktail is in your gloves? Whatever will you do if you can’t destroy the evidence? Now everyone will know that you drugged your own cousin with Rush, that you are manufacturing the most hated drug on Atlan and selling it like candy.”

  She set down her wine and my heart began to pound. What the fuck was she doing, taunting a cold-blooded killer like that? The room in which they sat was too far away. It would take me at least ten seconds at full speed to reach her. He could kill her by then.

  Her voice poked and prodded him some more, and as much as I wanted to run to her side, I had to admire her courage. She was the bravest, most beautiful mate. And she was doing it all for me. Getting Engel to admit his crimes was the only way for me to be completely and irrevocably exonerated, and for us to live out the rest of our lives in peace.

  “Poor big, bad councilor man, outwitted by a stupid, fat Earth girl. How humiliating.”

  Tiffani pulled a blaster and I turned to Dax, who nodded and whispered, “Don’t worry, Deek. She knows how to use it.”

  “What the fuck were you thinking, giving her a blaster?” I demanded. I didn’t want a weapon anywhere near her, even if it was in her own hands.

  “You’d rather have her in there with him unarmed?” Dax shrugged. “She wasn’t supposed to pull it on him. It was supposed to be a last resort.”

  “Fuck.”

  Engel spoke and I returned my attention to the screen. “What do you think you’re going to do with that, Tiffani?”

  “I’m just the stupid Earth girl, right? What am I going to do? Shoot you.”

  I watched tears slide down Tiffani’s beautiful face. She was in pain. For me.

  And then she threatened to kill him.

  My heart froze, stone-cold ice flooding my veins. I didn’t fucking care if she killed him, he deserved to die. But she’d just threatened a warlord, a battle-hardened warrior who’d survived more than a decade in the Hive wars.

  If she was going to kill him, she better fucking do it and stop talking.

  I rushed for the door but Dax and one of the guards held me back. “Not yet, Deek. He’s about to confess. Don’t take this away from her.”

  “He’ll fucking kill her.” My beast growled and I grew taller, my teeth aching as they burst forward, my gums retracting to reveal the razor-sharp edges.

  Engel’s smug voice caused me to turn back to the monitors. I realized I had nearly rushed from the room with the earpiece still in my ears. “Not quite what I had in mind.”

  “What…?” Tiffani sounded confused. Weak. I watched her go slack, her body slipping from her control and a low rumbling growl filled the room.

  “Stupid Earth girl. Did you really think you could outwit me?” He peeled the gloves off his hands and stuffed them in his pocket. “The gloves weren’t coated with an antidote for Rush, sweet cousin.”

  Poison. He�
�d fucking poisoned my mate. Right before my eyes. And Dax’s. And the guards.

  ”Fuck,” I growled.

  Dax hissed and the guard on my left tightened his grip. “Don’t move, Commander. We need to know what he gave her.”

  Engel put her necklace back around her neck and I had to turn away, unable to bear the sight of him touching her. “The necklace really was for you, dear. And now, you will tell me where the real one is.”

  “Go fuck yourself.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Deek

  There was my beautiful, stubborn mate. Pride filled me at her open defiance, her courage, even as I fought to let her finish this, to make sure Engel had no options, no way out. I had to honor her courage, her desire to help, but I didn’t have to like it. Then rage took over. It took all of Dax’s strength and two guards to hold me back as Engel’s voice grew more demanding.

  “Where is the necklace?”

  “You poisoned Deek.”

  There was nothing sane in his laughter. I raised my gaze to the monitor to find my mate dangling from his huge hands, hands that were wrapped around her soft throat.

  And the beast broke free.

  I barreled down the hallway and into the room where Engel stood over my mate. The growl from my beast shook the walls. It had been crazed when the Rush had hit my system. I’d been enraged when the Hive had hurt my warriors. I’d even been infuriated when I’d learned from Seranda that Tiffani had left me. But this, seeing Tiffani on the floor, under the influence of another fucking drug, indefensible and weak, was when my beast erupted. As an Atlan, I had no control over it, nor did I want any. I wanted it to rip Engel limb from limb. I wanted to destroy him.

  Nothing was going to get in my way. Not Dax, not the guards. Nothing.

  In my periphery, I saw Dax by the doorway with the others, waiting. He would step in, but not now. Now it was time for me to end this once and for all.

  It was me and my beast against the danger to my mate.

  He was going to die.

  “It does not appear you have recovered from the fever, Commander,” Engel taunted me, especially since he remained calm, unaffected by my beast.

  “You die.” Two words, and even that was an effort. My beast simply wanted to fight.

  Engel circled, his own eyes turning black in response to my threat. Still, he shrugged. “Losing a mate is worse than death, isn’t it? Perhaps when your cherished Tiffani is dead, you will see that perhaps you should have made different choices.”

  I stalked forward, my armor tight and my heart pounding. The beast did not charge. He was still too close to our mate. And I knew exactly what he was talking about. His drugs and guns, the shipment I’d denied him. “Xerima.”

  Engel placed himself between me and Tiffani, who remained limp on the floor. My beast could hear her heart beating, but it seemed sluggish. Slow. Soon, I would have no choice, I would have to charge and hope I could get to Engel before he killed her.

  “What’s the point of having family in high places if they can’t help? It was simple, Commander. A signature was all it would have taken to prevent all of this.”

  He was admitting his crime. Perhaps he knew he was going to die. Perhaps he knew that everyone was aware of his crimes. He’d drugged my mate. For that alone, he’d be put away for life. The rest, it was punishable by death. Execution.

  “Greed. No honor.” My beast voice raged at him and I took a step closer.

  Engel’s eyes were completely black, his face elongating as he began to change. “I have money, you idiot. Money and power.”

  And that was true. He was one of the most powerful leaders on our planet. Honored. Revered. Richer even than the most decorated warlords returned from the war. So why would he deal in Rush and illegal weapons? It didn’t make sense to me. “Why do this?” Three words. A complete sentence. Before Tiffani, that would have been impossible.

  “I was bored, Deek. Really. I spent ten years tearing Hive soldiers limb from limb. I came home and wore slippers and sipped wine.” Engel lifted his arms and waved around the rich tapestries, art and elegant furnishing of the sitting room. “This is all nothing, Deek. In time, you will see that. I had a chance to change the outcome of the war on Xerima, to influence the development of an entire civilization.”

  “You play god.”

  “We are gods, you fool. Most are simply cowards, too afraid to rule.”

  I shook my head, slowly, curled my beast-sized hands into fists. He was insane. I saw it then, the maniacal belief in his gaze.

  I lunged for him then. He was expecting it, let me come into his space, allowed me to grab him. The aggression fed his own beast, fueled the inner animal to rage, transforming Engel into his beast form as well. He grew to my size, his graying hair strange to my vision. Not many men of his age or stature transformed, and the sight was strange. But his body was pure muscle, his shoulders and chest equal in size to mine. He was huge, powerful, and he knew how to fight.

  But I was fighting for more than my own ego. I was fighting for Tiffani.

  We struggled, testing one another’s raw strength. Back and forth, neither gaining the upper hand. I heard the guards arrive, but ignored them. Their blasters would simply piss me off in this form and they would do little to stop Engel. Warlords who’d fought on the front lines learned to deal with the pain of a blaster.

  “No, don’t intervene.” I heard Dax’s words, but focused on Engel. He shoved me away and we circled one another as he wiped blood from his mouth with the back of his hand. His beast was breathing hard, sweat dripped from his brow.

  “Never get between warriors in beast mode. Do I have to send you back to basic training? Get a ReGen wand in here. The commander doesn’t need our help, but his mate does.”

  Engel lunged and I deflected his punch, parried with a strike of my own to his kidney, hooked his face and pulled back and down, forcing the bastard’s head up. Using my claws, I ripped across his face, twisting his neck. Unfortunately, he turned his body as I would have snapped his spine, only scarring him with deep gouges of my beast’s nails horizontally across his face. Blood poured from the wounds as a howl emerged, shook the room.

  Panting, I leaned forward, arms out in front, ready for more. Seeing my mark on his face, knowing that he’d go to his death with this shame upon him, had my beast howling in triumph. But we weren’t done yet.

  He charged me this time, his howl of rage like an explosion in the room. I used his momentum against him. Stepping to the side, I threw him down on the floor and thrust my claws into his back.

  Beyond thought, I thrust through flesh to bone, wrapped my hands around his spine and twisted until I felt the bones snap, first one, then two, then more as Engel screamed in agony beneath me.

  I held him there, my hand wrapped around his spine as he flailed with his arms. His legs ceased moving and my beast snarled with satisfaction. We had hurt him, ruined him, destroyed our enemy. Engel would not rise, he would not walk, he would never fight again.

  And still I could not let go. He pushed up with his arms and I pushed my fist deeper, separating the bones and puncturing soft tissue. I knew his lungs filled with blood. His arms collapsed and he slumped to the floor, his body growing cold, in shock. He blinked slowly as blood dribbled from his mouth onto the floor.

  The beast was finished with him. Done. Triumphant. But I would not let go, not until he’d taken his last breath.

  “Deek. Deek!” I felt the hand on my shoulder, heard the voice, but it was difficult to break through the haze of hate. Of rage. Of fury. It wasn’t the beast that wasn’t listening, but the Atlan warrior. I wanted Engel dead. The beast, though, listened to his mate and she was talking now.

  It calmed and nudged me, hard, to feel my mate’s hand on my shoulder, to hear her words.

  “Deek, let go. It’s done,” she said. She squeezed my shoulder and I tore my gaze from the paralyzed Engel to look up at Tiffani.

  “It’s over for him. Leave him for the g
uards.”

  “But he hurt you,” I countered. I could not let this chance go by. I needed to destroy the warrior who’d harmed her.

  “He did. He harmed you, too.” She swallowed then, for it was a fresh wound for her. “But it’s over.”

  “He must die,” I vowed.

  She nodded as she cupped my sweaty cheek, stroked her thumb just below my eye. My beast leaned into the touch and preened. “He will die, but not by your hand. Let Dax get in here and heal him.”

  “No!” The beast and I were in complete agreement, but Dax stepped forward, fucking ReGen wand already glowing blue and ready to help the bastard.

  “Let him face the council, Deek,” Dax told me. “I can’t heal his spine, but he’ll be healed enough for transport to jail. I promise you, he’ll be executed when the council learns what he’s done.”

  Tiffani’s eyes were round, pleading. “Let them do this. Let the guards have him. I don’t want him to taint you. Please.”

  My little mate was trying to protect me from feeling guilt. What she did not understand was that I had no remorse, no regrets. If Engel died here and now, I would never feel a moment’s guilt. But her heart was soft, her worry genuine, and so I would appease her. Not because I would suffer for killing the man who’d hurt her, but because she would suffer and worry about me.

  I was much colder than she knew. I was a killer. A warrior. Only for her did my heart beat. Only for her did I feel pain.

  My grip was stiff as I opened my fingers and released my hold on Engel. But I did it for her.

  Dax stood behind Tiffani, arms crossed, ion blaster in his hand and waited as the ReGen wand worked. Once done, he motioned with his head and the guards bent down and grabbed Engel and half carried, half dragged him from the room, the criminal’s cries of pain receding.

  “Thank you.” Tiffani fell to her knees before me. I could feel the warmth from her skin, her scent swirling between us and I breathed it in deep. “I wanted him dead, too. I did. I should have shot him. I should have protected you.”